Beneath the Stars
By Gold Sparrow
Eren and Juliet
They had landed that day in Reim, in a city of pure starlight and street lanterns, one which Eren remembers with a vivid and unusually accurate perspective considering the long list of things he's forgotten through the years.
His companions, the newly eleven Catrina and eight year old Badroulbadour had begged him to take them to the festival that would happen that night, and so Eren, with heavy shoulders and a rolling of eyes, gave into their childlike whims.
"Eri, Eri, look! Masks!" Bad darts into the stand, emerging with a mischievous grin seconds later. She guides them to an alleyway, and from the lumpy sash around her waist produces three glittering masks. Catrina squeals.
"But you had no money...?" She giggles nervously as the child nods. One of the masks is a phantom of the opera sort, and she hands it to the Fanalis-Amala who admires the painted orange wing along the side. Bad herself puts on an full-face mask adorned with fake pink roses, both painted and paper, and leaves the last of the three, a silver eye mask shaped like a cat, to Eren. He slips it on, smiling, and then motions to the two to come enjoy the party with him.
They stroll from stall to stall, gaining food and trinkets with slips of their fingers and laughing with one another at their foolish and dangerous game. The lanterns glow off of blond hair as the people of Reim greet them and slap their backs in welcome, ushering the tourists further into the streets and to the square.
The square, the square! With colored paper illuminated by moonlight and lanternlight, a multi-colored glowing crowd dance and move to the trained musicians, who beat their feet in rhythm to the hearts of each individual, playing faster and faster until the people hollar for no reason and joy springs to the throat. Eren picks Bad up so she isn't trampled, and dances with the girl, spinning in circles as Catrina takes his free hand and mimics their movements, pulling him closer and closer to the center of the fray. The pinkette laughs, throwing her hands up, and Catrina jumps up and down, avoiding the frantic feet of fellow dancers.
The song ends, but another one starts, and the three repeat the actions over and over again, dance after dance, until they are spent and collapsed on a bench for three.
"That was fun!" Bad exclaims, sleepily resting her head on Eren's shoulder. "Eri, can you get me a midnight snack?"
"It's not even nine, brat" Eren chuckles, and Catrina yawns.
"Really? I feel so tired…" Eren smiles, picking his two girls up and feeling a spark of affection as they clutch his clothes and lean their tired heads against him.
"Big brother…?" Bad asks, snuggling into his warmth.
"Mhm?"
"Have you ever been in love?" Eren almost stops walking, but continues on, avoiding the party-goers who still have energy to last for a few more hours.
"I love my family-"
"Not blood relations"
"I love you two-"
"We love you too, big brother" Catrina whispers, blinking up with her tangerine eyes. "But what about with a girl?"
"With a girl…?"
"Or a guy, if that's your style" This time he does stop, spying the half-asleep eight year old in his arms. "Seriously, we don't care"
"Girls" He affirms, getting a better grip on them and starting to walk again. "But no, none. I was only sixteen when I left my mountain, and it was sort of hard to be truly interested in anyone in my compound considering we were all technically related"
"Technically isn't completely" He looks down at them, once more.
"What?"
"Excuses, excuses" The girls giggle, and say nothing more. He goes to the hotel, greeting the innkeeper who smiles at him, and he sets the girls down on their bed. They snuggle into one another, the small pinkette curling into the redhead. He watches them for a moment, and then leaves, shutting the door quietly behind him.
He contemplates returning to the streets, but then smiles ruefully, sitting on the floor with his back against the door.
"A girl, huh?" There was one, actually. Further back in his memory, a girl appears. He was sixteen, a hunter of his compound. She was fourteen, a wonderful chef.
To him, her eyes glittered like the moon, a powerful light green that lit up the world, matched with darker pine colored hair like his that stretched to her hips.
The first time he saw her, a spark of attraction entered his very being, lighting up something he never knew existed.
From then on, he liked to watch from the doorway as she hustled through recipes with ease, filling the kitchens with wonderful smells. His mother Uzza praised her with joyous tilt to her voice, and Eren always wished that she might look up and see him like he always saw her.
And one day, she did.
He was rounding the corner when she was running as to not be late to the kitchens, and they ran into one another. Eren lost his balance, and being the unstoppable pack of muscle he is, fell onto his back.
Eren had groaned, and then opened his eyes.
She fell on me.
Oh yes, she fell on him. And when her own eyes opened, she looked at him. Really, really looked at him.
It was love at first sight, for both.
Eren helped her up, and asked her name.
"Juliet" She replied, a blush climbing it's way up her neck. "And you?"
"Eren" Juliet beamed, and then stopped, and then beamed some more when he asked her if she needed to be escorted anywhere. He thought about Juliet nonstop from then on. From her appearance to her intelligence from her passion of cooking to the sewn cloth she gave him to study.
Night and day, night and day.
Juliet and Eren spent time together and laughed and chatted and he even stole a kiss or two, but then a terrible thought occurred to him
They were related.
As in, cousins. Distant cousins traced back to the same ancestors, but cousins all the same. And it made a bit of him sick to be around her and fall even deeper in love.
(Because to Charlie, it was wrong)
Eren loved her.
(But it was wrong)
And another thing- she was fourteen. Fourteen. What kind of sicko was he that he'd fall in love with a fourteen year old?
(But wasn't his sister, Azusena, fifteen when she married? And it wasn't as though they'd be married right away either-)
He went for a hunt to clear his mind. And as it turns out, it was that day when he met Badroulbadour in a hidden Dungeon.
He hasn't seen Juliet since, but every now and then the eighteen year old thinks about her.
Eren returns to the streets.
He licks his lips, not used to being without companions, and rubs the purple and blue bag around his neck. Eren had no trouble seeing over the crowds being as he is (being 6'5'' will do that for a person) and rolls with the cheering citizens toward the action, slipping the mask back over his head.
As time progresses, he loses all doubts. Wine is poured into his cup, laughs are shared with strangers, and a feeling of freedom settles into his chest. He enters an arm-wrestling match and wins, plays a game of tag with children who tire quickly, and shares flirtatious winks with young ladies.
He's in the middle of heading to the dancing square once again when he spies something and stops in the center of the street.
A rose growing alone in a small pot. He goes over to it and sighs, picking it from the ground without much resistance. The Dungeon Capturer smells it and walks back to where Badroulbadour and Catrina sleep, looking up at the stars.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.
So Juliet would, if Juliet she wasn't, and a Chandlen, neither.
And there's your prescribed dose of bittersweet romantic Starry Skies fluff! Yay!
I'm reading Romeo and Juliet in my English class right now, and I wanted to write a little something based on it. Originally Eren was suppose to go out on the town and fall in love with a Reim lady named Juliet, but I decided to do a little bit of character dwelling instead and have his first love be a girl in his compound named Juliet. Eren has been mentioned to get sidetracked a lot thinking about morality and the differences between this world and the last, but I don't think I've ever really showed it. Then I thought, what if he loved a girl he was related to and had a giant moral problem with it?
But then he met Bad and ran far away from his old home.
So, character development. Yay!
BYE~~~~~~~
(P.S. This sort of fits in with Valentine's day coming up, doesn't it? Love at first sight! I was in a romantic mood~)