A/N: Because I haven't found an AoT/SnK fic with an OC as Eren's twin and I wanted to explore the idea of hereditary inheritance of Titan Powers to explain some things in the show so yeah FIGHT ME
Blood in the Air
Prologue:
The Nightingales Song
Rise up, rise up, the day has come!
Rise up, rise up, there's work to be done!
Over a hundred years ago, the Titans appeared, tearing through the countryside and ravaging humanity with unthinking, unfeeling hunger. Humanity, in a desperate bid to survive, built a colossal trio of walls, named for the three goddesses. Wall Sina, the innermost wall. Wall Rose, the centermost wall. And Wall Maria, the outer wall. Three walls holding the last of humanity. A shield, a haven, the last protection against the Titans…
A cage.
The sun is rising and so must you!
Rise up, rise up, there's work to do!
For a majority of the people within the Walls, this life was all they could ever dream of. They were safe, protected from the monsters of their nightmares, guarded by the three military groups that resided amongst them. The Garrison, who guarded the walls and manned the cannons that could kill Titans. The Military Police, who protected the people from themselves and traitors to the Crown. And the Scouts, those brave men and women who risked life and limb to venture out of the Walls to face the enemy head-on, who brought back precious information that had helped develop the weapons and gear and plans that would aide the people should the worse ever come.
Lady Sina smiles upon you!
Lady Rose sings a glorious tune!
Lady Maria, who guards our home!
Rise up, rise up, you're not alone!
Whether or not there was life outside the Walls. Whether or not there was anything but Titans out there. The people of the Walls remained unmoving, uninterested, but for a scarce few who dared to wonder but never act, unless they joined the Scouts. Birds with clipped wings amongst fat, cowardly mice, too afraid of the wandering cat to even dare to glance out the window.
Made more helpless by inactivity. Lambs awaiting their slaughter.
Rise up, rise up, I'm telling you!
Rise up, rise up, you've work to do…
And, amongst these hundreds of thousands of people, these caged mice and crippled birds…
There's her.
Aria Jaeger, a young girl who dreams of a world outside these walls.
A world filled with people, with secrets and schemes.
A world... Where the monsters aren't just the Titans.
Rise up, rise up, the sun is high!
Rise up, rise up, to reach the sky!
These Walls… Stand… Strong…
Rise up, rise up, now move along…
This is her story, and the story of her brother, Eren Jaeger.
Rise up, rise up, there's work to do…
()()()()()()
On March 30th of the year 835, Carla and Grisha Jaeger welcomed their twins into the world. Aria Jaeger was born first, exactly twelve minutes before her brother. Both children were small and weak, malnutrition due to a famine running through the Shiganshina District wearing on both them and their mother. Had only one of them been born, it would have been better, but splitting the nutrients between the two of them meant that neither got quite the amount that they needed to grow healthy.
From the beginning, however, it was clear that Eren was healthier. By the time they were a year old, Aria was prone to high fevers and illness, to the point that her parents worried she wouldn't survive. These fevers continued until a particularly bad one just before the twins turned five. It lasted seven days, high enough that her tiny body fell into seizures, her lips cracked and bled, and her tongue swelled in her mouth. Ice baths melted, water dried too quickly to provide much help, and the Jaegers began to give up, especially Grisha, who, as a Doctor, knew the likelihood of survival as little Aria's temperature rose dwindled faster and faster.
Then, on the seventh day, Grisha, who had passed out in exhaustion at her small side, woke to his wife crying out. The Doctor, fearing the worst, looked at his daughter's face… And found her blinking slowly at him, awake for the first time without delirium. Her fever had broken… She would live.
She just… Wouldn't be the same.
()()()()()()
June 9th, 840
Carla was hanging the laundry with little Eren outside. Grisha could see them both through the window, laughing as their son playfully dodged around the clean sheets. The Doctor smiled, cradling his cup of tea as he watched them. Two of the three lights of his life, laughing in the sunlight, happy and bright and free of the anguish that had plagued their home just months ago. The only thing that would make the view complete would be—
The sound of a door creaking open to his side had Grisha looking over, smile fading slightly with concern as the pale, teary face of his daughter stared at him from the cracked doorway, shivering with fright and green-gold eyes wide.
"Aria, sweetheart?" he asked, concerned, as he pushed his seat away from the table. Aria remained still, her tiny chest heaving as she panted quietly for breath, eyes wide. Ever since that final fever, the usual illnesses that had always plagued his daughter had disappeared… Only for horrific nightmares to take their place. More like night terrors, he once thought, and the descriptor fit still in the here and now, months after that first night they were all woken by her horrified, anguished screams. They left his precious daughter in a constant state of fear, seeing things no one else could, visions of horrors she couldn't understand let alone explain. He'd had to explain to Carla, to other patients, to friends and neighbors and even the Military Police once, that it was a result of that final fever, of her brain being nearly cooked. That she literally had no control over it, no way to explain or comprehend just what she was seeing, and that they may very well plague her for the rest of her life.
…There were some who took this as a sign that she was ruined, simple, broken. But she was still their little girl, their little song. She was just… Different, now, more special than before.
He only wished that she wasn't plagued by this unending terror.
"Did you have another nightmare, sweetheart?" He asked her softly, slowly moving towards her. Sudden movements would startle her, make her cry out as the monsters she sometimes saw while awake overwhelmed her still-developing mind. Those wide eyes stared at him from the cracked doorway, her tiny body shivering harshly as he slowly knelt in front of her, just out of his arms reach, movements precise and steady. Like she was a frightened animal that might bite or flee, unsteady on its feet.
"It's alright now, sweetheart," he murmured, shoulders relaxed and arms slowly spreading. "You're awake and Daddy's here. There are no monsters, nothing to fear, it's alright," he murmured soothingly, arms open, face gentle. Aria stared at him, eyes flicking to-and-fro frightfully, panting breaths slowing. With a shuddering sob, she burst through the door and slammed into his chest.
"D-Daddy," she wept; Grisha wrapped her in a gentle hug, careful not to squeeze too tight so she wouldn't feel like she was being restrained, lest he accidentally trigger another vision. It had happened a lot, in the beginning, after all. He and Carla had learned quickly that restraining their daughter in any way led to thrashing, terrified fits. She couldn't help what she saw in that state.
She never could.
"I, I, I was so s-scared," Aria choked out wetly against his neck, tiny arms clasped tightly around his neck.
"I know, I know you were," Grisha soothed, stroking a hand tentatively through her black hair as she hiccupped wetly. "It's alright now, you're awake, you're okay." Aria shook her head against him in denial, sobbing picking up, and Grisha's heart ached that she still felt unsafe even in his arms.
"W-we're not," she wept, "th-they're gonna come get us, an', an' they're gonna have us all killed," she wept wetly; Grisha blinked, startled.
"What?" He asked her, startled. "No, no honey, no one is coming to kill us," he tried to assure; Aria shook her head sharply, knocking her forehead against his jaw and pulling away, eyes closed tightly as she wept, tiny arms pulling away to rub at her tears with her fists.
"N-no Daddy, they are, they really, really are gonna kill us," she wept heavily.
"Who, honey?" He asked, desperate to try and disprove her fears. "The Titans? They can't get past the wall, dear, I promise they can't—"
"No!" She wailed, hands covering her eyes and shaking her head rapidly. "Not them! Not them! Them!" She wept.
"Who, Aria?" Grisha asked, carefully cupping her heaving shoulders with his hands, her tiny, frail shoulders that bowed like the weight of the world rested on them. "Who, then?" And, sobbing, Aria dropped her hands and looked up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes, and Grisha's heart stopped.
"The Marley's," she whispered, the usually warm green-gold of her eyes glowing inhumanly bright, silvery blue at him. "They're gonna kill us all."
In that moment, as she buried her face once more into his chest, his arms falling limp to the floor as he stared, horrified, at the open doorway behind her.
Sometimes, the visions she saw were just the result of her imagination, he dazedly thought, staring blankly as she wept against him, whimpering in fear.
But sometimes…
Slowly, Grisha lifted his arms and hugged his daughter close, head bowing as he trembled, eyes clenched tightly shut as his own tears began to fall.
Sometimes…
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," he whispered. "I am so, so sorry…"
Sometimes, she saw memories.
()()()()()()
December 18th, 844
Aria quietly helped her mother prepare for dinner, green-gold eyes drifting back and forth nervously even as her face remained calm. She continued to slowly cut the carrots her mother had set before her, small fingers moving steadily.
"You always cut them so neatly, Aria," Mother told her stepping closer slowly. She moved her hand forward, making sure Aria could clearly see it, before gently brushing it through her short, messy hair. A particularly bad vision had seen the young girl chopping her own hair off so close to the scalp she'd cut herself, her parents waking to Eren's voice calling to them worriedly and finding their daughter rocking herself fitfully, blankly staring at the wall and all but bald, clutching a knife in one hand and blood dripping down her cheeks with her tears. Since then, they'd kept her hair short, kept it at ear length at its longest…
And kept all blades and scissors in their room unless they were there to watch them being used.
Carla smiled tenderly and leaned slowly down to press a kiss to Aria's forehead. The nine-year-old's hands spasmed faintly, her green-gold eyes flinching, before they closed and she pressed up against her mother's kiss gently. Carla stroked her head once more, achingly tender, before pulling away and giving her daughter her needed space… And blinking away her own tears as she did.
She's having such a good day today, Carla thought, smiling brightly as she returned to stirring the stew. Quietly, she hummed her daughters favorite tune, the children's song for waking up. It was a cheerful song, though when she sang it herself, Aria often sang it slowly and sadly, Carla couldn't bring herself to do the same. It was a good day and, as soon as Grisha returned from checking in on the Ackermans' with Eren, it would be even better.
"Mama," Aria whispered softly; making Carla immediately look to her, only to find her daughter pushing the now-finished carrots and knife away from her, staring half-lidded out the window. A quick glance showed nothing particular, and Carla worried that one of the frequent visions her daughter had was about to come to be.
"Yes, sweetheart?" she asked tentatively; Aria glanced at her, eyes returning to the window, before she looked down, folding her hands in her lap. At this angle, she looked so much like Eren, like a second boy instead of the daughter Carla had so hoped for and loved so dearly.
"…You're gonna need to set another plate," Aria finally whispered, tiny fingers twitching with nerves even as her expression stayed still. "Eren's bringing Mikasa home."
"Oh?" Carla asked, relaxing, her worried smile turning relieved. "Do you think so? Well, I'd be happy if she came to visit! You and Eren need more friends—"
"No," Aria interrupted quietly, looking away, staring down at the ground beside her now with dark, sad eyes. "He's bringing her home…" Carla blinked, taken aback, and the silence built until Aria carefully pushed away from the table and started shuffling towards her room.
"H-honey?" Carla called, startled. "Where are you going?" Aria paused, tiny shoulders still bowed, one hand resting against the doorframe as she looked over her shoulder. Carla's heart stopped, eyes going wide, at the blank, dead stare her daughter gave her.
"I've got to make Mikasa a bed," she stated quietly. "…And some more blankets," she murmured, turning slowly and beginning to walk away again. "She's gonna be cold…"
Carla watched her daughter walk away, an uneasy chill crawling down her spine. Sometimes, sometimes the things her daughter saw, things she said, scared Carla. Things that made her daughter scream like she was being torn apart, like she was seeing people pulled apart. Sometimes, she wouldn't scream at all, but just rock herself back and forth in fear and whisper about horrors that Carla couldn't understand.
And sometimes, just sometimes…
Carla looked up later that night when Grisha and Eren arrived, little Mikasa Ackerman standing blank-faced and shivering as Grisha met Carla's eyes grimly and stated that the little girl would be staying with them from now on. She looked on, eyes wide, as Eren and Aria took the little girl by her hands and pulled her into their room without hesitation. And she stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom that night as her husband slet beside her restlessly, the story he'd told her of the Ackermans murder, and remembered her daughter's dead, sad eyes looking at her…
Just sometimes…
Sometimes the things she said came true.
Listening to the faint sound of Mikasa crying, of Aria's voice joining in a low, sad hum of the children's Rise Up lullaby, of Eren grumbling and no doubt joining the two girls in Mikasas bed to hug them protectively as he always could, Aria never lashing out at him unless trapped deep in her dreams. And, listening to them, her daughter's words earlier ricocheting around her mind, Carla's hands tightened into fists on the blanket, and the cold chill of fear crept once more down her spine.
And if this time it came true…
What about the next time?
What else could her daughter see?
…What other nightmares could come true?
()()()()()()
The day the Colossal Titan appeared, peering over the Wall like a curious cat staring into a bin of mice, Aria Jaeger, all of ten years old, stood in the street beside Hannes of the Garrison, eyes locked on him and hand pointing at the massive Titan. She never glanced in the direction, her wide, dead eyes locked on the adult as they had been since she appeared, but her pointing finger rested unerringly in the correct direction.
"I told you," she whispered blankly, quietly, the words echoing eerily in the blond mans ears as he pulled his eyes from the horror looking down on him, on all of them, to meet those solemn, sad eyes. "I told you something bad was going to happen today…"
And, as she let her tiny finger drop, her arms hanging limply at her sides, the Colossal Titan kicked a hole in the wall… And, for just a moment, for just a split, horrifying second, Hannes would swear her eyes had been silver…
"I. Told. You…"
()()()()()()
A/N: I wanted to explore the idea that instead of Eren inheriting his Titan abilities JUST because of Grisha, they could be inherited through genetics. And, if an embryo split, where would those powers go? And to whom?
Tell me what you think! I hope I stand true to AoT/SnK's mood!