DISCLAIMER: Attack on Titan belongs to Hajime Isayama.
In this AU: when soulmates meet, they sprout matching wings. (Nothing else is different except some changes in military protocol/equipment when dealing with soulmate pairs/winged people.)
Each chapter in this collection will focus on a single pairing. The chapter titles will be the bird that the main pairing's wings look like. All chapters will take place in the same universe/continuity/timeline, so all pairings will remain consistent throughout all the chapters.
~ Lovebirds ~
(Peregrine)
At nine years old, Eren hasn't given much thought to soulmates. He knows the stories, of course. Everyone does. When a pair of soulmates first meet each other, they will both sprout a pair of wings. In the little slice of the world that he's seen, Eren hasn't come across any winged people. His parents don't have wings, but they love each other anyway.
When Eren thinks of wings, he is much more likely to be thinking about the Wings of Freedom - the symbol of the Survey Corps - than about romance and soulmates.
The day he meets Mikasa, the day they save each other's lives, is the first time Eren is really forced to think about what 'getting your wings' means.
On their way back home, he notices that the girl keeps putting her hand over her shoulder to rub at the center of her back.
"Why do you keep doing that?" Eren asks. "Are you hurt?"
"No," Mikasa answers, blushing slightly. "I'm checking to see if my wings started growing yet."
Having overheard the childrens' conversation, Grisha chuckles.
"Oh, if you'd met your soulmate, you'd know it," the doctor says. "It isn't a slow process. The wings appear almost immediately after either eye contact or physical contact between soulmates. Catching each other's gaze is the most common, but the blind also have soulmates, and there are quite a few tales of people literally running into each other, only to have their wings appear..."
"What if you never find them?" Mikasa asks quietly.
"If you never find your soulmate, you can still fall in love with someone and be happy," Grisha answers.
Mikasa's parents were soulmates, and she had been hoping she would find her own soulmate one day, but now that she has met Eren, she wishes desperately that she will never find the destined mate the universe has picked out for her, so that she will be able to spend her life happily at Eren's side.
Eren is constantly getting in fights with the neighborhood bullies, but Mikasa is always there to protect him now, so he doesn't usually get beaten up too bad. It's been a year since Mikasa came to live with the Jaegers, and she has met pretty much everyone in their town by now. She still doesn't have wings, and neither does Eren.
Today he's slacking off and taking a nap while she gathers all the firewood, but Mikasa doesn't mind. She plans to spend her whole life taking care of Eren.
On their way home, Eren hears that the Survey Corps is returning from an expedition and runs off to watch them before she can stop him.
He waves excitedly at the 'heroes'. The Commander's crystal-blue eyes catch the excited child's gaze before quickly turning away.
The happiness fades from the boy's expression as the procession continues and he sees how few and how injured the returning soldiers really are.
Eren suddenly notices that his back feels strange - itchy and hot. Then Mikasa is grabbing his hand and dragging him away.
Eren flexes his shoulders, trying to make the weird feeling go away, and the firewood goes flying everywhere.
"Huh? What happened...?" he says, nonplussed.
"Eren..." Mikasa makes a frustrated sound and grabs his hand again.
Even though he is normally slow on the uptake, Eren can tell that something strange is going on. Mikasa seems rather intent on taking him back home right now, so much so that she isn't even going to bother to pick up his half of the firewood.
He turns his head to look back over his shoulder, as if the spilled firewood itself will provide some kind of answer. It isn't until he looks back and sees them that he realizes he has wings.
But that would mean his soulmate is-
Some kid from the slums of Shiganshina, really? Erwin directs the thought spitefully toward the Wall Goddesses, or whatever other force of fate decides who a person's soulmate is.
And why did he have to find his soulmate now, of all times, when he had just recently been promoted to Commander of the Survey Corps? He wouldn't be able to go back out in the field again until after he trained with the alternate maneuver gear that had been designed for those with flight-capable wings.
The wings feel heavy against his back. He's already taken off the upper part of his maneuver gear harness to keep the newly-grown appendages from being mangled under it. Even though he still has his cloak on over them, it isn't enough to disguise the fact that he has encountered his soulmate. He dreads flight training almost more than he dreads having to report his soul-mated condition to his superiors.
He doesn't question why his soulmate is male. He has never been physically attracted to anyone of either gender. He supposes it doesn't matter either way, since he doesn't intend to have any type of relationship with his soulmate at all. He hopes he will never see him again.
If he keeps his wings folded tightly against his back, they appear to be a solid dark brown. The feathers on the undersides of the wings are striped with white.
Erwin avoids showing the undersides of his wings whenever flight is not strictly necessary. Those in the Survey Corps who have returned from missions with him are the only living humans who have seen what the inside of his wings look like. It's a distinctive pattern, and he doesn't want anyone to find out who his soulmate is.
More than he fears for the child's safety if their bond were publicly known, he does not want to have another responsibility forced upon him.
The boy is reckless and idealistic, and not fit to be a soldier if Erwin has anything to say about it.
The boy can turn into a Titan. The government sees his value as a weapon, but is also afraid of his powers.
He agrees to let Levi watch over the boy. That will have to be enough, because he has nothing else to offer.
Erwin is a terrible soulmate, but it seems that nothing he does can convince Eren to dislike him. And, he thinks, perhaps that is the reason they were paired together.
~oOo~