As a code he set up for himself throughout his life, Cyan made it a point to try not to hate anybody. Yes, he largely disregarded people and ignored them, even the people that tried to interact with him when he was initially pulled within the confines of wall Rose, he ignored them because he just didn't care, despite their awe at who he was.
Commandant Keith Fucking Shadis however, was a person. A particular human Cyan was internally begging to be a Titan shifter just so Cyan could kill him. The guy reeked of assholeness.
However, he had to show self control, so he could find the Titan shifters and eventually kill them, they were human and most likely targeted by Titans in their human form. Which meant that they needed someplace to stay alive.
Which meant the inside of the walls. Which Cyan himself wasn't a fan of. He hated the inside of the walls, they felt like a prison to the outside world that he was used to. Out there he could survive, he had on his own for an entire year before deciding to finally put his duty as the double branded on the forefront of his mind, it gave him purpose, and it gave him a reason to survive.
He had forgotten a lot of what his grandfather had told him, lost to the trauma's of what happened last year… when he lost everybody in his life.
But we're getting off track…
"Straighten those spines asshats!" The cuntmandant in question shouted. "The 104th booth camp starts now! I am Commandant Keith Shadis, and you sprout lickers will grow to hate me, some of you are already fantasizing about murdering me in my sleep!"
I know I am. Cyan thought.
Shadis continued without missing a beat. "Training is going to be like a white knuckled fist up your ass the entire time you'll be here, If I've done my job, you'll be waking up in a cold sweat with horrible memories of this place for the rest of your miserable lives. Right now, your nothing! Livestock at best. But over the course of the next three soul crushing years you'll learn to take down your own giant beast! Remember this moment when you come face-to-face with them. Am I food? Or a fighter? Are my bones going to be toothpicks in which these creatures clean their teeth with? Or am I the biter?"
Cyan had clocked out at some point during the old mans yelling, but he didn't deny the effect his words would have on some of the fresh faced recruits, his words were simultaneously terrifying and pump up worthy, helping even the most timid cadet grow in confidence.
Problem was it did absolutely nothing for Cyan, who had lived outside the walls for his entire life, it wasn't an unknown fact that he was either, in fact, probably every single human left inside the walls had at least heard his name in passing, and judging by some of the curious looks some of the other cadets were passing to Cyan, they also heard of him, and probably were getting the idea that maybe Cyan had killed the deadliest creatures humanity had to offer himself.
"Hey Mop Top girl!" Shadis suddenly wheeled onto one of the cadets, and said cadet flinched horribly under his gaze.
"Sir! I'm a boy sir!" The boy said, saluting.
"You look like a fuckin' girl boy!" Shadis shouted back. "What's your name?"
Oh, so he's hazing these recruits, must be something he does to pick out the ones with the most potential, smart. But cruel. Pleeaaaseee be a Titan shifter. Cyan thought.
"Armin Arlert from the Shiganshina district, sir." Armin answered.
"Seriously?" The commandant said in fake wonder. "What kinda inbred parents did you have to give you that ridiculous name?"
"It was my grandfather sir." Armin responded, his voice frail.
The drill instructor leaned in, getting right in Armin's personal space. "Cadet Arlert, why is a pathetic runt like you here?"
"To help humanity defeat the Titans sir!" Armin squeaked, his voice cracking, he was terrified if it wasn't obvious, even his eyes were closed.
"That is delightful to hear cadet Arlert." Shadis said, clearly not at all delighted if the blank look on his face had anything to say about It. "Your going to be a great light snack for them, not even a full meal mister skin and bones." Suddenly, he grabbed Armin's face and turned him around.
"Row 3 about face, runt!" Shadis commanded, and the entire row turned around. Cyan himself happened to be in row four, so when the person in front of him turned he was somewhat unsettled by the startlingly tall girl that turned to face him. Well, tall for the female cadets at least, she had to be about 5'6, and she disheveled black hair tied into a pony-tail, a face full of freckles, and the most intimidating grey eyes he had ever seen.
It was impressive, it actually gave Cyan a chill, even if he was taller than her by four inches. She began to analyze him curiously, her eyes scanning his hair and his left eye particularly, which he suddenly felt self-conscious about. After a few moments she smirked at him, and then continued to stare off into space.
What the hell was that about? Cyan wondered, his thought process was cut off by Shadis' voice again.
"Mutton chops! What do they call you?"
"Sir, my name is Thomas Wagner from the Trost district." he responded, remarkably calm in the face of such an imposing figure.
Shadis took a deep breath then screamed into Thomas' ear. "I CANT HEAR YOU CADET!"
"I'm from Trost sir!" Thomas said, much louder this time. "I'm here to-"
"Nobody gives a damn! Next!" Shadis moved on, and Thomas sighed in relief, Shadis' eyes landed on a girl with black hair and grey eyes. "You!"
Said girl quickly and efficiently introduced herself. "Sir, I'm Mina Carolina from Karanes!"
Shadis could not be satisfied today. "Is that the best your backwater district has to offer!?" He roared at her, prompting the girl to close her eyes in fear.
"Yes sir, I'm afraid so sir!" She said.
"Tell your district they can burn in hell for sending you here." Shadis said quietly, but his voice carried the weight of a Titan's bite.
"Yes sir, will do sir." Mina responded meekly. Shadis instantly whirled around and his eyes landed on Cyan's multicolored ones.
"You." He said simply, his eyes didn't flare with any sort of recognition or realization at who Cyan was.
Oh boy here we go. Cyan thought as Shadis stalked up to him. But he doesn't know me, this should be entertaining.
"Who the hell are you?" Shadis demanded, Cyan held back a smirk and saluted.
"Sir, Cyan Morningstar." He said, Shadis narrowed his eyes.
"What type of name is that!? WHERE ARE YOU FROM CADET!?" Shadis screamed into Cyan's face and he couldn't help but turn his own away.
Cyan wanted to murder this man, but instead he bit his anger down savagely and spoke in as strong a voice as he could.
"Outside the walls, sir." Cyan couldn't help but mock. "With the things your scared of."
The air seemed to turn cold suddenly, and Cyan admittedly was a little unnerved by the way Shadis' gaze seemed to suddenly be fixed onto his left eye.
"Branded." He said simply. "Cadet Morningstar, step out of line, and run until you pass out from exhaustion. Your meal privileges are hereby revoked. You get fucking hungry? Go outside the walls mister Scion and eat some Titan. I hear they taste like the REST OF YOUR FUCKING CLAN!"
Cyan's body burst into his bright blue flame for a moment, the cadets nearest to him falling back out of formation in shock, except for Shadis and the tall girl from earlier.
Cyan tamped down his rage, his flames dulling as he breathed heavily. He glared at Shadis with all the hatred he could fix into a single look and stomped over to the running track and began to run, one thought on his mind.
Please be a Titan shifter. Please be a Titan shifter.
Line Break.
Cyan was still running after twilight fell, the suns dying rays beating on him. Even if he was absolutely gassed, he suddenly had never been more thankful for the stamina he'd gained in his life outside the walls, running from Titans when they couldn't fight.
All because of one crucial weakness they had… they sometimes couldn't fight, and had to run instead. Suddenly, he heard the sound of a body hitting the dirt, and he turned around to find that Sasha Braus a girl who had the unfortunate luck of pissing off Shadis enough to make her run forever like Cyan.
Granted, it was her fault, Cyan himself didn't care, but eating while in formation was not high on the 'smart things to do' list, granted, catching attitude with the guy who could make your life a living hell at the drop of a hat wasn't exactly high up their either.
"S-Sasha." Cyan walked over to her slowly, his legs shaking with the effort to keep him standing. He was much more tired than he realized. "Are… you alive?"
"I… I'm sooooo hungryyyy." Sasha growled, or maybe it was her stomach, suddenly however. Shadis strolled up to both of them, and not wanting to argue Cyan opted to continue running.
"Cadet Morningstar, you stop running." Shadis said, and Cyan practically collapsed with relief. Sasha also sighed with relief but Shadis suddenly whirled on her.
"Did I tell you to stop Braus!?" He roared. "GET UP AND KEEP GOING OR IT'S FIVE MORE DAYS WITHOUT FOOD."
Crying, Sasha got up and began to run, or what could be excused as running, the poor girl literally looked ready to die, hell, she might actually be close to dying.
"Morningstar, go to the dining hall and get some food, your dismissed, oh, and here." Shadis threw a bag at his feet. "Your shit's done going through clearance." Shadis grunted and walked away.
Cyan figured that was his way of apologizing. He didn't even want to question it. He picked up his bag and slugged off, the familiar weight of his notebooks and pens and colored pencils a comfort to him.
Eventually, after hearing a last parting cry from Sasha he located the building, standing outside were some faces he recognized from the hazing, such as Armin, Thomas and Mina. Other's flickered in the back of his mind as people he remembered hearing something about, but was too busy running to not draw the ire of Shadis again.
"Well now, look who's here!" A boy with a dumb grin and shaved head. "The guy who shit talked Shadis, I'm Connie by the way."
"Hmm." Cyan responded, too tired to really do much else.
Mina came up to him and looked him over in concern. "I'm surprised he didn't beat the crap out of you for the fire you spewed all over the place."
"I'm surprised you didn't all freak out about it." Cyan managed to mumble.
"Well you made some of the scouts near you shit themselves." Connie snickered. "But the entire worlds heard about you man! Well, not the entire world, just what's left of humanity. Your something of a messiah."
"Then why don't I feel like one..." Cyan was really feeling the after effects of adrenaline loss, and all he wanted to do right now was eat and draw, his gaze however turned to the one boy he didn't know, who had brownish black hair and bright green eyes.
"Cyan. Cyan Morningstar." Cyan held out his hand to the teenager.
"Eren Yeager." Eren shook his hand, a question burning in his eyes.
Armin asked for him. "Living outside the walls… what's that like?" Eren nodded in assent to this, and suddenly everybody was listening to what he had to say.
"Can we take this inside please?" Cyan asked. "I'm really tired of standing." Not waiting for an answer Cyan walked inside, the noise instantly subsided a little as some cadets chose to stare at the teenage Scion.
"So anyway." Cyan began as he grabbed a tray and walked over to the people serving food… which wasn't much, just some bread, an apple and water. Which didn't surprise Cyan, considering wall Maria held most of the livestock for humanity when it fell people began to starve due to all the refugees that retreated.
Cyan shuddered, he remembered him and his clan watching almost 200,000 people plus leave the walls to die. The Titans utterly massacred them.
Realizing he had trailed off, he took a bite of his apple and began, a large crowd had gathered to listen to him tell the tales of being a banished Scion. "Well… it was tough, regular Titans thankfully always completely ignored us-"
Questions began to hurl at him instantly and he couldn't decipher a single one of them. Eren suddenly stood up. "HEY SHUT UP AND LET HIM TALK!"
The questions died down instantly. Cyan cleared his throat. "W-well, regular Titans completely ignored us, however Abnormals seemed to be practically magnetized to us, if we got within two hundred feet of them they'd completely ignore everything else and come straight for us."
"Perhaps it was because of your powers." Armin muttered.
"There was also good times too, granted I can't tell you much about them, I was the grandson of the Scion chieftain, so I wasn't really allowed to do much… But I remember one thing I always did, something I loved so much that my grandfather eventually gave up trying to stop me from doing..." Cyan's eyes seemed to glaze over, lost in those times before shaking out of them.
"Anyway, I always loved to go to this massive, sparkling blue body of water..." Cyan said, the crowd gasped, and Armin and Eren were listening even more raptly now, there was a girl beside Eren wearing a red scarf, who was listening with the same active attention as the two former boys.
"It's called the ocean, the water there is sadly undrinkable, too salty for human consumption, but the creatures there seemed to live in it just fine, it was their own paradise. Their home, and I loved to look at it and draw it."
"You draw?" A cadet asked. Cyan grinned sheepishly.
"Yea, I love too so I can remember all the good times I have had." Cyan began to reach into his pack. "I drew the ocean, and it's animals if anyone is interested..."
The crowd began a chorus of "Me's." especially Armin, Eren and the girl, Cyan pulled out one of his notebooks and handed it to the red scarfed girl.
"This is all my drawings." Cyan said. "Dont judge me on how terrible they are, I'm going for a walk, just return it to me later…." Cyan trailed off.
"Mikasa… Ackerman." the girl said. Cyan nodded, he took his tray and dumped It, and grabbed his loaf of uneaten bread and left the dining hall, while cadets pined over his drawings, oohing and awing.
Can't let them see me do something too nice. Cyan thought, he walked out towards to the track, where a collapsed Sasha was being held up by a short petite blonde haired girl.
Sasha was currently devouring food that the blond haired girl clearly snuck out for her. She heard Cyan's footsteps and tensed up, and turned towards him.
Cyan was struck cold by her. G-goddess? He thought as she looked at him. He suddenly felt very much self-conscious about how he looked, and wished his eyes weren't so strange and his hair wasn't ashen.
"O-oh, Hello! I thought you were Commandant Shadis." the girl said. "S-she was starving. And I thought it was wrong of Shadis to make her suffer like this."
"I understand." Cyan said gently, far more gently than to anything else in his entire life. "In fact…" Cyan walked over to Sasha. Who glared at him with betrayal in her eyes.
"Your upset that Shadis let me go." Cyan guessed, and handed her his bread. "This was mine. It's yours now."
Sasha looked at him, then at the bread, then at him again. Then at the bread again before she literally inhaled it in a single bite. Cyan's eyes widened a fraction at the sight.
"Y-your from outside the walls right?" the girl asked. "I'm Krista Lenz."
"Cyan… Cyan Morningstar." Cyan said, and smiled at her. "Lovely to meet you."
Krista blushed. And they both heard more footsteps behind them. "I knew it, you looked like the goody two shoes type." A feminine voice said, but also no doubt tomboyish.
Cyan stood up slowly and turned, he was surprised to see the tall grey eyed girl from earlier staring at him, her arms crossed, a slow smirk forming on her face.
"Ymir!" Krista said, smiling. Ymir looked at her, that smirk morphing into something more genuine for a brief moment before slinking back to the ashen haired teen.
"What makes you think I'm good?" Cyan rolled his shoulders. "I could just be using her stupidity to my advantage."
Ymir hmphed in amusement. "Then that makes you even more interesting. Because that makes you the same as me."
"How so? I'm branded, and I spew fire. Your… not." Cyan taunted. A certain tension Cyan was unfamiliar with rose between them.
"I have a cool ass name?" Ymir offered. "I'm just joking. I don't care truly."
"That's rude Ymir!" Krista huffed.
"Eh tomato's tomato's." Ymir waved her hand dismissively. "You ready to go?" Krista nodded and with a wave of her hand at Cyan they walked off.
"Alright Sasha, we should..." Cyan trailed off, because Sasha had disappeared.
"Are you about to continue running?" A feminine voice suddenly asked, Cyan's shoulders tensed up for a moment before relaxing, her turned to the sound of the voice and smiled pleasantly.
"Ah no way." Cyan chuckled. "Are you done looking at the drawings Mikasa?"
"Yes." She said simply, handing him his note book back. "Your… an impressive artist."
Cyan's eyes widened momentarily, his heart touched. He couldn't even recall the last time someone had told him he was good at drawing…
"Thanks..." He said sincerely, then he held out his hand. "We haven't properly introduced ourselves, I'm Cyan Morningstar."
Mikasa took his hand in a firm grip and shook it. "Mikasa Ackerman. I'm from… Shiganshina..."
Cyan felt a surge of guilt. He was technically there, but he didn't want to think of that. "So you and Armin… are you friends?"
"Me, my… brother Eren, and Armin." Mikasa said. Cyan caught the hesitation when she called Eren her brother but didn't mention it.
"All from Shiganshina..." Cyan muttered, loud enough for Mikasa to hear. "I'm… so sorry."
"Dont be." Mikasa said immediately. "The Scions were banished. You weren't even there..."
Oh… but I was Mikasa… I just didn't care at the time. Cyan thought. Instead of voicing this, he cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders. "We should probably head back before everyone wonders where we are."
Mikasa nodded. "Agreed." She pivoted on her heel and began the walk back, Cyan following close behind her, suddenly though, she stopped and her gaze shifted over to the right, honing in behind one of the nearby tents.
"What's wrong Mikasa?" Cyan asked, his eyes trailing over to where she was looking.
"I saw somebody… they were alone." She mumbled to him, and Cyan sighed.
"Well we can't expect everybody to be in the dining hall." Cyan said. "I'll check it out though, you go ahead and head back."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm a Scion." Cyan said simply and walked in the direction of the tents. He turned the corner and looked around, other than more tents there wasn't really anything else.
"Mikasa. There's nobody-" Cyan cut himself off when he realized that Mikasa was gone.
"So everybody is just playing disappear from the Scion today huh?" Cyan said to nobody in a deadpan.
"Why are you talking to yourself? Weirdo." Another feminine voice said behind him, he turned around and looked down, standing there was a girl with the coldest Ice blue eyes he'd ever seen, her face was the epitome of lethargy and uncaring. Completely indifferent to the world around her.
"Why are you judging me when you don't know me?" Cyan questioned back. The girl stared blankly at him with that same emotionless stare that unnerved him.
I wasn't aware that there could be people scarier than Titans. Cyan idly thought.
"And now your staring. It's creepy." The blonde girl said, Cyan blinked a couple times then held out his hand.
"Cyan, Cyan Morningstar."
"I know you." She said, in a voice that said she didn't really care if she did or not. "Your that outside the walls boy. The Scion, kinda hard not to when everyone thinks your some messiah."
"A title I'd quickly forget about." Cyan stated, dropping his hand awkwardly. "I told you my name, now… would you tell me yours?"
"Why should I?" The girl seemed to be enjoying Cyan's discomfort, her lips had the ghost of a smile of them.
Hmm, she's rather attractive. Cyan thought objectively.
"Because I asked nicely?" Cyan offered up. Attempting to smile pleasantly.
The girl stared at him coldly.
Cold eyes, tone and personality, a real perpetual winter right here. Cyan thought, The girl suddenly spun on her heal without warning and began to walk away.
"H-hey! Wait!" Cyan called, she kept walking. "Are you going to tell me your name?"
The girl did stop this time, and her shoulders rose and fell as if she was sighing and without looking back: "Annie Leonhart. Now stop talking to me please."
Cyan stared after her as she left, contemplating. I wonder what her smile is like, probably beautiful, if she knows how to that is.
Cyan shrugged his shoulders and walked towards the woods, he didn't have a particular destination, he was just itching for something that he couldn't understand, it was a strange feeling in his stomach that he felt.
As he explored the wooded area, the unknown feeling replaced itself with a sense of comfort and familiarity, eventually he found an area that made his prior sickness come back.
It was a cliffside, high enough to look over the wall, which surprised Cyan, in a place like this the last thing he expected to find was something so beautiful and tranquil. The moon and stars in the night sky cast it's light over the land, illuminating the dark, making a mysterious and beautiful sight to behold for the Scion.
Homesick, he realized. Cyan was terribly homesick, sitting down with his back against a nearby tree, facing out towards the cliff-side. Cyan's desire to leave the walls and go back home grew. Just abandon everything about a mission he barely cared about, only doing so because it was the last wish of his grandfather, damn the consequences of abandoning humanity, since they abandoned him long ago.
Well, not him, but his ancestors. Due to a petty fear they had of the Scions growing too powerful. Despite their terrible weakness.
Cyan called his fire to his fingertips, the illustrious blue brighter in the moonlight itself.
"Cyan..." His grandfather had said. "You must remember the one weakness of a Scion, all of this power, for one major weakness. And you must never reach that weakness."
"What's the weakness grandpa?" Cyan had asked, he wasn't really listening, but still asked out of courtesy, his own fire was currently in his left hand, and he was playing with it like a child would with a toy.
"Cyan, if you use too much of your power within a day, you will die. Instantly. Your body will lose it's immunity and you burn yourself from the inside out, instantly."
Now Cyan was listening, he snuffed his fire out then looked at his grandfather. "How will I know when I'm at my limit?"
"When your nose starts bleeding, stop immediately. Any further pass that will kill you, everyone has different lengths to which they can use their power, Jude, me and Carla are among the strongest here." His grandfather explained.
"My nose has never bled, and I've used my powers for a long time." Cyan said.
"I believe that is because of your double brand, it grants you extra time to use the power, but even still, I doubt you are completely immune to the weakness."
"I see… then I promise to be careful grandpa." Cyan said.
Cyan snuffed out the fire at his fingertips, and leaned his head back against the tree and closed his eyes for a moment.
That day when you all died and left me alone, was the first time my nose bled, I wanted to fight still, because all of you were already at your limits, but Carla forced me to run. I loved her and wanted to protect her, I wanted to protect all of you. But I couldn't… Cyan thought, unbeknownst to him, a tear began to trail down the left side of his face.
It was a bad idea to try to move within the broken wall Maria, there was more Titans than we anticipated… and we payed the price for it…
"I can still hear your screams..." Cyan muttered to the sky. "In my darkest place, I can hear you all crying out in agony as either the fire consumed you or the Titans ate you… Jude…. I'm sorry that Titan ripped you in half, and I could do nothing but watch. I love and miss you. Carla, I'm sorry that your fire burned you to death, and I couldn't do anything to help..."
"Grandfather. I'm sorry… that at heart… I don't want to complete this mission my double brand signifies. I'm sorry that I don't care about humanity truly, that my own selfish desire of living for myself… causes me to be weak."
"How can wanting to live for yourself be a weakness?" A voice asked, Cyan startled, and he stood up as the person who spoke walked out of the shadows.
"Ymir..." Cyan sighed. "How much did you hear..."
Ymir's eyes betrayed no emotion, and she spoke with a simple monotone voice. "All of it, all that crap about how sorry you were. And about how your friends fire consumed her, guessing that's your weakness, and that crap about some mission. And to think I just wanted to walk through the woods."
Cyan looked away from her. "Well, now you know my whole goddamn story. Do with it as you like."
"There's one thing however that does piss me off a little, everything else I don't care about though." She continued, ignoring Cyan's words.
Cyan laughed bitterly. "Do tell, what is that?"
"How your sorry for living for yourself." She said, her voice pinched with frustration.
Cyan's eyes widened and he turned around slowly, Ymir had walked closer to him, and her imposing nature was intensified by her proximity, despite Cyan having a couple inches on her.
"How dare you be 'sorry' for wanting to live for yourself?" She said. "There's nothing wrong with not wanting to live by whatever the hell someone else tells you, if you don't want to complete your mission who gives a damn? Not like the people who could be angry at you are still alive. They're dead, they're going to stay dead, and now it's only you who can make your choices, not someone else."
Cyan had began to shake like a leaf in the wind, Ymir's words were cruel, straightforward and overall disrespectful, but they carried so much truth in them Cyan couldn't physically or mentally react to them.
Ymir scoffed at Cyan's silence, and walked away angrily, his eyes trailed after her retreating form.
Cyan rubbed his eyes even though he wasn't crying. "What am I supposed to do?" He asked to no one in particular.
However, the voice in his mind answered, the same voice that spoke to him angrily a few second ago.
Live for yourself, his mind said.
Do your duty, his heart said.
Cyan felt lost, then his grandfather called out for him in his mind, another memory. An Irrelevant one. But he didn't call him Cyan, he used his real name, the name he only ever heard his grandfather call him, and only one time. A name almost forgotten through time. When he wasn't the chieftain of the village and Cyan was the relative.
The time when they were just grandfather and grandson.
"I love you, as your parents no doubt would have if they were alive, they may be gone… always remember this..."
Lionel.
A/N: Well, that's chapter two down, I decided to reveal Cyan's real name to the readers, but not to the characters of the story… yet. I revealed the critical weakness to the Scions, not only the Abnormal attraction issue, but instant death, cause Dharshan called it right, Cyan is extraordinarily powerful, but power comes at a price.
I gave Cyan this internal conflict and I feel like this fits well with the character i'm trying to portray as, instead of depressed and broken inside and fighting against fate like Samael from my other story, Cyan's more contemplative and unsure, but also somewhat driven to do what his dead grandfather wants because that was his dying wish, currently, other than that, Cyan doesn't really have a purpose and he's aware of this. He doesn't particularly care for the rest of humanity, and he's just there because right now he feels like he has to be.
Well, that's it really. See ya guys.