"Come on, get up. I've got your new harness and jacket, and the new recruits are coming today. Lucky, lucky us, we get to greet them instead of Erwin." Levi's tone was incredibly sarcastic towards the end of his sentence.
Colette rolled over in bed, peeking up at him from under the blanket. "I don't want to."
"Neither do I."
"Fine."
She rolled over again with a huff, and managed to roll right off the bed, taking the entire comforter with her. Levi had to suppress a laugh at the muffled "Meep!" sound she made as she fell.
"Oh my, you're graceful today." He smirked.
"Shut up." She tried to hit him with her pillow, but he was just out of reach so she threw it at him instead.
He caught it with his free hand, then tossed it back in its proper place. "Graceful and snarky, I see."
She gave him a hard stare as she stood, and then turned to make her bed. While she did so, Levi turned to the tank against the wall nearby.
"Have you named him?" He asked curiously, watching the spider.
"Hmm? Eh, no. I'm not sure what to call him, to be honest. I figured Dave would help..." Colette's wings drooped slightly and she looked to the floor, a sad expression on her face.
"Do you still blame yourself?" Levi asked her quietly.
"I guess not." She replied, looking up at him. Her silver eye was glowing very light yellow. "Not after Martin's appearance at the trial."
Levi nodded before deciding to change the subject, and tossed the harness he was holding in his other hand at her. "Here, see if this fits."
Colette caught it, and turned it over in her hands for a minute, examining it. The back of it was specifically changed to accommodate her wings, while still serving its original purpose unhindered. "Hmm, this might work actually."
She started with the leg straps, which were easy, but once she moved on to the rest of it she promptly got herself tangled in it. "Um, help?" She said, giving Levi a sheepish look.
Levi shook his head and moved to help, straightening the back piece and guiding her wings through it before saying "What would you do without me?"
"Hmm... Probably stay in bed. Forever."
"You're hopeless."
Once the harness was situated, Levi handed her a new jacket. She was about to put it on when the emblem on the back of it caught her eye.
"Hey, Levi? Why is the emblem blank?" She asked.
"You'll see." He told her, giving no further explanation.
She didn't, of course. "Seriously, why is it blank?" She asked after putting it on, and turned in circles trying to see her back.
"Eh, you'll figure it out later. Until then, just know it looks neat."
Colette grumbled at him as they left the room, walking down the winding halls toward the front entrance of the castle. "Wait, didn't you say something about new recruits?"
"Yep, there's another group of graduates that chose the Survey Corps coming in today. And since Erwin is busy doing god knows what, we have to meet them instead of him." Levi didn't look too happy about it.
"I remember when I first came here." Colette said.
"You hadn't even been here an hour before you became my apprentice, right?" Levi asked.
"Nope. And you have no idea how shocked I was when you told me that, it was just so unexpected. Especially after you didn't even see me at first." She teased.
"It's not my fault you're the shortest person in the entire Survey Corps." He teased right back.
"Like you have room to talk." She said, just loud enough for him to hear.
"What was that?" He asked with a challenging smirk.
"Nothing." She gave him an innocent look.
They made it out to the courtyard just then, where they could see some new soldiers neither of them recognized, all standing around talking with each other. Levi gave a slight "Tch," before walking up to the group.
"Ahem." They all looked up, and immediately scrambled to line up and stand at attention after seeing the corporal's bored glare trained on them. "Hm, better."
"Sir, it's not nice to terrify them on their first day." Colette said, tone slightly flat.
"I don't care."
"Um, sir..." One of the graduates raised his hand. "Wasn't Commander Erwin supposed to meet us?"
"Normally he does. But today he can't, so you get me instead." Levi growled. "Am I understood?"
He was answered with a resounding "Yes, sir!" as every trainee answered him, and Colette almost rolled her eyes at the fact they all sounded partially terrified.
Instead, she looked at each person standing in front of them, making a mental note to try to meet each one on her own time so she could put names to faces. Once her gaze reached the end of the line, though, she froze.
"Levi." She whispered to him. "That one isn't a graduate."
He glanced at her, and spoke up. "All of you wait here and don't move." before dragging her out of earshot and turning to her expectantly.
"The one on the end there, he's not newly graduated, he's from the military police." Colette told him. "His name is Brice."
"Then why is he here?"
"I don't know. I know he regretted joining there and not here, but they don't allow transfers, do they?" She asked.
"No. Transferring between branches is considered the same as desertion, which is strictly not allowed, as you know." Levi answered, looking back at the group. "So why is he here, posing as a graduate..?"
"Could they have sent him here for some reason?"
"Hm, maybe. Okay, I'm putting you in charge of keeping an eye on him. We'll stay quiet about knowing who he really is for now, and see what he does." He said.
"Right." Colette nodded.
They walked back to where they were originally standing, now met with confused stares. "What are you looking at?" Levi snapped.
She stopped listening after a moment as Levi gave them instructions and explained what they'd be doing every day, instead thinking about Brice. If transfers weren't allowed, there had to be another reason he was there. If the military police had sent him there without telling them, it meant he was supposed to be undercover. Was he supposed to spy for them?
Colette really didn't think he'd agree to spying, he'd seemed like a decent enough person before. She wasn't quite sure what to think about the whole thing, but didn't have to as a question from one of the graduates caught her attention.
"So is she that apprentice we've all been hearing about?" One of the boys asked. He looked like a more annoying version of Eren, but with reddish hair and brown eyes.
"Yes, she's my apprentice." Levi answered, sounding bored.
"Heh, makes sense. She's even shorter than him." One of the taller ones sneered.
He was then immediately flat on the ground, Levi's boot still held above him. "Anyone else want to ask for a beating?" The corporal snapped.
"You should probably keep the short jokes to yourselves if you want to avoid unnecessary injuries." Colette noted, looking at her nails with a bored stare. She was answered with hastily nodded heads from all of the graduates, and almost smirked at their reactions.
After a few minutes of lecturing that she didn't listen to, Levi eventually dismissed them, except the tall one that had mouthed off at their heights. That one he dragged away to yell at and, if she knew Levi, give him a week of cleaning duty. Though once he was out of earshot, some of the graduates walked up to her.
"So you're Colette?" One of the boys asked.
"Yes, but please, I'd prefer if you didn't use my first name." She answered, tail twitching at the foreign voice speaking her name.
"Oh, alright! Well, I'm Marie, and he's my brother Aiden." One of the girls said, and pointed at the boy. Colette looked between the two for a moment. They both had black hair and green eyes, though Marie's hair was longer and tied up in a messy bun. They were probably about fifteen and sixteen. "Isn't being the corporal's apprentice scary?"
"Meh." Colette shrugged. "He's not that bad if you don't make him angry."
"But doesn't everything make him angry?" Aiden squeaked, eyes wide.
Colette was silent for a moment, narrowing her eyes in thought. "Well... Do as he says, don't make short jokes, and don't ever make a mess anywhere. That's the best you can do to keep from making him mad."
"Yes sir!" They both said at once, saluting. She raised an eyebrow at them, but didn't say anything.
"I'm Russel." Another graduate had approached them, the boy from before that looked kind of like Eren. But shorter. And more annoying.
She gave him a deadpan look. "Did I ask?"
"Thought you needed to know." He crossed his arms, nodding.
"No, I don't need to know, I don't care." She didn't like this one.
"Suit yourself." He shrugged. "Won't make a difference to me when I pass you in rank."
"Well until you can manage that, you can go help your buddy with cleaning duty." Colette pointed in the direction Levi had dragged the other graduate. "They'll be in the mess hall. Go."
Russel gave her a shocked look that quickly turned to annoyance, before giving a slight "Hmph!" and marching off toward the castle entrance. Marie and Aiden giggled as they watched him go, and then turned to Colette, their eyes shining.
"It's about time someone yelled at him!" Marie said.
"Yeah, he never got in trouble back during training." Aiden pouted slightly. "He sure got the rest of us in trouble, though."
"Troublemaker, eh?" Colette asked.
"He sure is. Never got disciplined back in camp because our instructor was his dad, so he got kinda out of control. Thinks he's the best guy around, even though he didn't even make the top ten." Marie explained.
"Well, he's going to have to learn some manners, isn't he?" Colette noted.
"Hey, Def!"
She turned, already knowing who it was. Brice walked up happily, dragging a less happy-looking graduate behind him. Now out in real daylight and with her actually paying attention, she could tell he had light brown hair with some blond streaks and teal eyes. The guy he was dragging had vivid red hair and dark orange eyes, and looked like he was ready to murder the dungeon guard.
Colette waved slightly. "Nice to see you. Who's your friend?"
"This is.." Brice paused for a split second, glancing back at the redhead before continuing. "Er, Michael! Yeah this is Michael."
She gave them a suspicious look, but didn't say anything. "Nice to meet you.. Michael." Something told her that wasn't his name, and she decided to mention it to Levi later.
"Eh." Michael replied, looking somewhere between bored and annoyed. "Whatever."
"Don't mind him, he's not great with strangers. Well, we should go and introduce ourselves to everyone else, bye!" And with that, Brice darted off, still dragging the unfriendly redhead.
"That was really weird..." Aiden said, glancing at Colette.
"It was." She nodded, and then turned her full attention to the two siblings. "Hey, do you know either of them?"
"I've never seen them before." Marie shook her head. "They're definitely not from our class."
"That's what I thought." Colette murmured. "Anyway, would you two like to go see Levi yelling at Russel and that other guy?"
"Yes!" The two agreed enthusiastically.
She nodded, and turned to lead them into the castle, though she stopped in her tracks when Marie spoke up again.
"Hey! That's so cool!"
"What is?" Colette turned to look at her.
"Your wings!" She answered, as if it was obvious. "The way you've got them folded across each other on your jacket's emblem, they're like a real version of the Wings of Freedom!"
So that's what Levi had meant. Sneaky bastard.
"Come on." Colette chuckled, and continued on her way, the overexcited siblings following.
After a few minutes, they finally made it to the mess hall. The walk there took longer than normal since the two teens kept getting distracted, and Colette couldn't help but compare them to... Whatever gets distracted by shiny objects. Squirrels, maybe.
"I don't like it. Clean it again." Russel was just staring at Levi in disbelief. "I said, clean it again, and do it properly this time!"
"But I don't want to!" The teen argued.
"I'd do as he says without complaint if I were you." Colette called to him. "Unless you want a bloody face."
"Oh, there you are." Levi looked up at her. "Did the other graduates give you any trouble?"
Colette glanced at Russel, then back to Levi. "I'll tell you later, sir."
He narrowed his eyes, knowing it was probably important if she refused to say anything in front of the other soldiers around them. He looked like he wanted to say something or drag her aside to ask what had happened, but the sudden entrance of the Titan researcher distracted them all instead.
"Hey Levi, can I steal your apprentice for an experiment?"
"Hanji, are you sure this is a good idea?" Colette asked hesitantly, shifting her grip on the blade in her hands.
"I second that." Eren added, glancing down at his own blade.
"Experiments are often unsafe or bad ideas, but we've still got to do them anyway!" Hanji exclaimed, a bit too excitedly in the apprentice's opinion. "Just try not to go too overboard, however... Can't have one of you dying accidentally!"
They both groaned, and Levi spoke up then. "You both understand the rules, right? Repeat them."
"Fight like this is a real battle with a dangerous enemy, and don't let up until the other yields." The two repeated at the same time, well informed from Hanji's explanation a few minutes prior.
"Right!" The researcher confirmed. "Are you two ready?"
Colette shifted her stance, unfolding her wings and raising them slightly to her sides, both for extra balance and a sort of block. Her tail lashed back and forth as she readied her blade, eyes narrowing, and she could hear gasps and murmuring among the gathered crowd of soldiers. It was probably just the new graduates reacting to her wings, so she decided to ignore them. Across from her, Eren had taken up his preferred fighting stance, albeit accented with a sword for once.
Colette barely heard the signal from Hanji before Eren was lunging for her, and she rolled to the side to avoid him. He righted himself immediately and went back after her again, and she found herself stepping backwards, away from his barrage of attacks. After a minute of this, he took a wide, sweeping swing through the air and she only barely managed to duck under it, then while his arms were overextended she used the feathery tip of her tail to smack his face with a faint thwap.
Eren stopped for a moment, blinking and disoriented at the unexpected hit. While he was distracted she jumped forward, using one of her wings to knock his legs from under him before jumping away again as he fell to the hard ground. Colette shuffled her wings while she crouched off to the side and out of reach, waiting for him to recover. Even though Hanji had said to treat this like a real battle and not hold back, doing so hadn't even crossed her mind. Eren was her comrade and she wasn't going to accidentally seriously hurt him, super healing abilities or not. Besides, she was well aware of the death glare from a certain scarf-wearing female in the watching crowd.
Starting to become lost in thought, she didn't notice the Titan shifter had gotten back to his feet or was lunging for her again until an unfamiliar voice called out with a slightly panicked tone.
"Watch out!" The sound snapped Colette back to reality and she stood from her crouch and brought up her blade just in time to block Eren's attack, the edge of his blade colliding with the blunt side of hers with a loud clash.
She started to relax and try to think of the best way to dodge back out of his reach, but he suddenly twisted his blade around, catching hers and wrenching it out of her grip. It was a common move, but she hadn't expected the way he'd executed it and knew he had to have picked up that technique from someone like Annie or Reiner. She cursed her luck and quickly tried to jump to the side and past him, out of reach.
He seemed to expect it this time though, and as she started to pass him, he turned to counter the movement and block her path, blade held ready.
It happened too fast for her to realize what was going on, but before she knew it, she was flat on her back and there was a sharp pain in her shoulder. Looking over, Colette could see that he'd managed to stab her, and now held the blade in place with a slightly shocked look on his face. They both turned their heads to look at Hanji questioningly.
"Stop them now." Levi growled to the researcher, gritting his teeth. "Before I do."
"They agreed to the rules at the beginning. If you stop them, everyone here is going to suspect you care for her a lot more than her trial said, and if we have someone from the military police here like you said, that is the last thing we need." Hanji answered under her breath, before speaking up louder to her two test subjects still awaiting orders. "The fight isn't over until one of you yield."
"Like hell I'm going to yield!" Colette snapped, surprising everyone. She started struggling under the Titan shifter, trying to shove him off.
She hissed slightly as the blade cut more into her shoulder, and she gave an annoyed "Tch," when she realized the blade was wedged into the ground under her. She wasn't going to get loose without help. The apprentice continued struggling anyway, much to the wide-eyed shock of every person watching.
Just a little closer...
Eren fought against her to try and make her still, not wanting her to cut her shoulder more, and eventually managed to pin her wrists against the ground and immobilize her for the most part.
Got it.
She stopped and stared up at him for a minute before smirking, and loudly enough for everyone to hear, said "I win."
That was when her discarded blade was suddenly pressed lightly against the back of Eren's neck, held there by her tail. Her struggling hadn't been an attempt to escape at all, it was to distract him long enough for her to try and reach the lost weapon with her tail so she could pull off a surprise victory.
Eren blinked, before letting go of her wrists and holding his hands up. "I yield."
Colette hissed as Levi removed the blade carefully, releasing her from where she was trapped on the ground, and Hanji immediately pressed something to both sides of the wound in her shoulder to stop its bleeding.
"I'm sorry, I didn't meant to!" Eren apologized, for what felt like the millionth time.
"Oh my god Eren shut up already. You thought I was going to dodge faster, I get it. It was an accident. I don't care." She snapped in response.
"Here, I've got it." Levi took over for Hanji, who immediately stepped away and started scribbling in a notebook. "It didn't get your wing, right?"
"Doesn't feel like it, so it was either out of the way or I have a nicked feather or two instead." Colette answered.
Hanji practically squealed like an excited child. "This was definitely a successful experiment!"
The three all just gave her blank stares, before Levi said "You're still in trouble for this."
"But Levi," The researcher whined. "You agreed."
"I agreed to an experiment." Levi reminded her. "I did not agree to you getting my apprentice stabbed."
"This is true." Colette winced.
"Well, I didn't really expect for that to happen. If anything, I figured he'd get hurt," Hanji said, gesturing to Eren. "But apparently someone likes to hold back..."
"Hey!" Eren protested.
Colette shrugged. "I didn't feel like making today stab-a-teenage-boy-day."
"Come on." Levi said. "We should go bandage this."
With that, he pulled her to her feet and they walked off in the direction of the castle, away from the training area. The walk was slow as Levi continued to hold pressure on both sides of her wound, but neither really minded.
After a little while, they eventually made it back to Colette's room, where she stopped and sat on her bed. Levi looked at her for a moment. "Can you hold both sides of this while I go get some bandages?"
"Yeah, easily." She replied, pressing her hand against the front of it and her white wing against the back.
Levi nodded and left the room, leaving her to her own thoughts. She decided this was definitely one of the more interesting days she's had in the Survey Corps, though it still didn't quite compare to the insane shenanigans her and the others got up to back in training. With a smirk, she remembered once when Desmond was in trouble, he managed to get tangled in his Maneuver Gear cables and they left him there for a few hours. He learned his lesson.
"I swear I'm going to murder Hanji." Levi grumbled as he came back, and sat down next to her.
"Eh, it's not that bad. She didn't really realize it'd turn out like this." Colette shrugged, then grimaced.
"Hmm." Was all Levi said in reply, before working to get her jacket and shirt out of the way. "Oh, that's gonna leave a scar."
"Is it?" She tried to see, but since it was her shoulder it was a slightly awkward angle and she couldn't get a good look. "Well, no matter, it wouldn't be the first."
"True." Levi murmured, tying a bandage tightly around her shoulder.
"Levi." Colette gave him a hard stare, silver eye glowing gold. "Stop plotting Hanji's death."
"I'm not."
"You are and we both know it."
"Tch."
After a moment he stepped away again, inspecting her shoulder, and she almost rolled her eyes. So paranoid.
"Looks like you're good to go." He said finally.
"Good. What's up for the rest of the day's agenda?" She asked, standing up and going to fish a clean shirt out of her wardrobe. She blinked. "Okay, Levi, what's with all the new uniforms?"
"You didn't expect to go around with one outfit, did you?" He stared at her with one eyebrow raised. "Anyway, I have paperwork to do. Lots of it... I highly doubt you want to hang around for that, so go find something more interesting to do."
She did appreciate having a full wardrobe of clothes tailored to fit her wings and tail, she had to admit. Levi was a lot better at planning ahead than she was, apparently, though that was no surprise considering he had to constantly plan around unpredictable Titan attacks. "Oh, fine, don't want me around when you have work to do, I see how it is." She huffed, mockingly indignant.
"Last time you tackled me and wouldn't let go for two hours." Levi shot back flatly.
"But you're warm!" Colette whined and, unsurprisingly, tackled him again. And again, completely ignored his muffled sounds of protest.
After a few minutes he struggled free, and sat them both back down on her bed again. "You're kind of obsessed with anything warm..."
"That's because I'm always cold." She shrugged, wincing as she remembered her shoulder.
"Even with those things? They're fluffy as hell." He poked at her white wing.
"Fluffy?!" She gave him an annoyed look. "I'm not fluffy!"
He snorted, trying not to laugh. "They get fluffier when you're mad."
"Arghh!" She crossed her arms with a huff, and Levi made a mental note that calling her fluffy was funnier than calling her short.
"Alright, well, I really need to go do that paperwork now. As much as I'd rather not, someone has to." Levi grumbled. "Go see if it's possible to annoy Hanji if you get bored."
And with that, he left the room, and she could hear his footsteps echo down the hall as he walked to his office. Colette looked around for a minute, trying to decide what to spend the rest of the day doing. She'd already met with the graduates, or at least some of them. Training kind of sounded fun, but she knew no one was going to let her for a day or two.
She looked over at the spider in his tank, thinking. Maybe she should go to the stables and check on her horse, that would be something to do for a while at least.
Nodding to herself, she stood and went to leave the room, though she stopped for a minute, looking down at her hands. Turning them over, she examined the gloves she wore, having the strangest feeling she should leave them behind. Shrugging, she pulled them off and left, walking down the hall in the opposite direction Levi had taken, instead heading for the front entrance. She didn't meet anyone on the way, which was a bit strange, but she brushed it off. They probably had better things to do than wander aimlessly around the castle.
When she made it out to the stables, the first thing Colette noticed was a girl she didn't recognize fawning over the horses. She was leaning over the gate of one of the stalls, petting the animal behind its ears. The horse looked rather pleased with this attention, actually.
"Are you one of the graduates?" Colette asked as she walked up.
"Huh? Oh, hi!" The girl turned, and Colette couldn't help but notice she was wearing glasses, which wasn't common in the military. Reading glasses were pretty normal, but as for needing them at all times, the only other person she could think of was Hanji. "Yes, I just got here today. Man, you should have seen yourselves, you and the corporal looked so cool standing there together earlier."
"Hm, thanks." The apprentice said. "What's your name?"
"I'm Willow!" She replied cheerfully. Colette couldn't help but compare her to Hanji, she was awfully similar. Aside from being slightly shorter than the researcher, and having curly, strawberry blond hair instead of brunette, she even looked a bit like her.
"You know, not a single one of you has given me last names when introducing yourselves today." Colette grumbled.
"Oh, I'm not sure why no one else did, but I always forget." Willow straightened her back and coughed slightly, before continuing in a deeper voice that Colette decided was probably mocking their stuck-up male commanders or instructors. "Willow Mayumi, sir!"
Colette decided not to question her last name, though it didn't fit the girl at all. She looked German, but the name was oriental.
"Oh, and I can tell you everyone else's full names if you point them out sometime." Willow continued. "I know everyone!"
"I'll keep that in mind." She nodded, walking over to her black and white horse.
"I saw your training experiment thing earlier." Willow admitted, leaning against a wall. "You almost lost it there right in the middle of it."
"That's why you sound familiar." Colette snapped her fingers. "You're the one that told me to watch out."
"Yep! That was me!"
"You know you weren't supposed to interrupt in any way, right?" She said without looking back.
"Er..." Willow looked at the ground. "I know. I've never really been one to follow rules if I believe otherwise..."
"I don't mind, and I doubt Hanji cares. Keep up that mindset, though, and Levi will be on your tail in no time." Colette warned, turning to give her a hard stare. "He always has a good reason, so even if you don't understand, do as he says. Otherwise you'll be stuck cleaning for a year."
"I'll try to remember that." Willow squeaked.
"So what's with the bow?" Colette pointed at the bow on her back, its string crossing over her chest to keep it in place. It looked to be of very fine quality, with intricate patterns burned into the wood, and it was accompanied by an equally decorated quiver. Both were accented with light blue, though the quiver was also empty.
"Oh, this? My dad made it. We used to go hunting all the time, and I never did like any of the bows he kept around, so he made me my own." She replied, reaching over her shoulder and running a finger along the burn lines. "Heh, our instructor wasn't that fond of me keeping a weapon around. The agreement was as long as I didn't carry arrows, I could have it with me."
"Well, you're not in training anymore." Colette informed her, turning back to her horse. "There are arrows in the armory. We're not allowed to use our gear outside of missions, but that doesn't apply to personal weapons, so feel free to keep arrows on you."
"Really? That's awesome! I mean, thanks." Willow nodded gratefully. "I'll probably go do that, then."
"Oh, one more thing." Colette added as the blond turned to leave. "You can keep weapons on you in your own time, but no weapons allowed in the mess hall or kitchen and I wouldn't recommend keeping something as fragile as a bow on you during daily training."
"Thanks for the heads up. See you later, Colette!" And with that, Willow was running off towards the front entrance and out of sight, completely missing the annoyed look on the apprentice's face.
"Tch. I forgot to tell her not to use my name."
She shook her head, turning back to the stall. She wasn't expecting the sudden movement beside her, though, and even less expected the sudden pain in her head. The only thing she saw as she fell to the ground was the color red, before it all went dark.
Levi looked up from his paperwork, grumbling at the headache said paperwork was giving him. These reports were all repetitive and stupid and were turning his brain to mush. He was sure Hanji must have put some of these here, because they were of the most random things he'd ever heard. As much as he cared for cleanliness, he did not care how many estimated bars of soap it would take to wash a Titan, and had to wonder if the researcher was simply trying to annoy him.
He looked up when he heard footsteps heading for his office, fast. He wasn't really in the mood to be bothered by someone who would no doubt make his headache even worse, but he could tell just from the way they were running down the hall that it was something important. This thought was proven even more so when the cause of the footsteps burst into his office, panting and holding up a letter. No one ever entered his office without permission, not even his apprentice, so this had to be important enough for someone to risk extra cleaning duties.
"Sir! Do you know where your apprentice is?" Connie asked in a panicked voice, still trying to catch his breath.
"No, I left her in her room earlier. I figured she'd probably gone to see Hanji." Levi replied, wondering what this could possibly have to do with Colette.
"I think you need to read this." He held the letter out to Levi, who raised an eyebrow but took it and started reading anyway.
You don't know me, but I know you quite well, Springer. My name is Nira Saoirse, and I believe you are well acquainted with my liar of a daughter.
I would like to tell you a story, one that will tell you that you have a lot more in common with this traitor than you would previously have thought.
Twenty years ago I was happily married and had a child, a girl. Her eyes and hair were strange, but we chose to ignore it. That right there was a mistake, we should have done something about her immediately, but we figured that was the only thing wrong with her.
Unfortunately, we were wrong.
Soon she began to grow wings and a tail, and that was when we knew our child could not be human. We had to keep her away from everyone we knew in order to preserve our own reputations, I mean if our friends and neighbors had known our daughter was some sort of inhuman creature, who knows what would have happened to us.
After five years of this, my husband finally caved under the stress and vanished one night, leaving me behind with this freak of a little girl. After much digging around, I finally found him again. The bastard had run off to a village I think you know well, its name was Ragako.
There, he had met up with another woman and planned to start a new life there with her. I was, understandably, not very happy about this, and immediately left to drag him home. He never tried to escape again, but then more problems arose.
I was given word that the woman he'd been with now had a child, and the timing was suspicious enough that I knew it was his. Now, this child turned out perfectly normal, albeit with similar eyes to the girl. For the longest time, my husband pined over going back to Ragako and helping to raise this perfectly normal child, instead of the freak one. Eventually I simply removed his memories of its existence, and life went back to normal for us.
However, I'm still not happy about the whole ordeal, even now, fifteen years later. But I thought I should at least inform you of it all, before it's finally over.
I'm sure you've figured out by now what I'm saying. If you really are that dumb and haven't, let me say it a bit more clearly: My cheating husband is your father, and the mutant freak is your half sister.
From what I've heard, you've all accepted her perfectly fine, so I'm sure you won't care in the least about this new information. In fact, I'm sure you're overjoyed to know you have a sister.
Though, it must be a sad feeling to know that she's your sister, but she'll be dead by the time you read this.
Levi looked up again, face blank as ever to Connie, but inside his head was disorganized chaos. On one hand, he was angry at the way this woman, Colette's own mother, spoke about her. However, on the other, he was incredibly worried. What had she meant by his apprentice being dead? He'd seen her only an hour ago and she'd been fine!
The door to his office opened again, and Jean stumbled into the room, also out of breath. He looked between them both before speaking up urgently.
"We've searched everywhere. She isn't on castle grounds."
I swear 60% of this fic is literally just me talking about Colette's clothes
Anyway, finally, here it is. 6000 words later and I am soooo done with this chapter.
In this we get to find out for sure that Connie and Colette are related woo, and oh my, what's happened to our dear, favorite apparentice? fine out later because I could not resist that cliffhanger and I'm not sorry.
Side note, birds fluff up their feathers to look threatening, so when Colette is mad, her feathers get all fluffed up, making her look fluffier.
I REALLY HATE THE FACT I HAVE TO ADD SO MANY OCS TO THIS I REALLY DO. I hate overabundant ocs. At least I like this batch more than the last ones, but god dammit aot, why do all your characters die so much that I have to add a ton of ocs just for background characters?
Also, I absolutely couldn't resist giving Willow that last name, but she isn't Japanese and the name is. Oh well. Also she was added at the request of one of my friends, so she was originally not gonna be in this... meh.
I'm sorry this jumps about so much, but I had like, zero filler for this... ugh.
Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter, they're what made me decide to go ahead and finish this last night so I could post it tonight. So go review more and I'll post faster yay
oh yeah and I finally just drew some cover art for this so yeh