Chapter Text
Chapter 1
I wake from my fitful slumber to the sound of multiple beings yelling. My eyes quickly shake off their blurry sight as I fully awake. I quickly regain my senses and hide deeper into the shrubbery around me.
I wait for a few seconds and pinpoint where the voices are coming from. The voices seem to be coming from the right. Moving swiftly, almost soundlessly, I dance around the forest that I know like the back of my hand until I am close enough to see a group of yelling people. A mix of ‘where are you?’ and ‘Eren!’ being yelled.
From my hiding space I can see an orange light emitting from their torches.
Aside from the yelling, I hear whimpering coming from the tree nearest to me. I quietly sneak up to the trunk of the tree and peer into the hole in the middle of the trunk to find whatever is hiding there.
My gaze immediately falls upon a human child. His large turquoise eyes filled with absolute terror, tears threatening to spill over. His chestnut brown hair matted to his forehead with sweat and clothing covered in filth.
As soon as he realizes that he’s been caught he opens his mouth to scream. I immediately cover his mouth with my hand. “Shh, you’ll get us caught brat!” I hiss out.
Turquoise eyes meet sharp grey eyes. “Calm down. I’m going to take my hand away and you’re not going to scream. Got it?” I whisper in the child’s ear. The young human child nods slowly. I start to remove my hand and look around focusing on the retreating sound of the yelling beings.
“W-what are you?” the kid asks astonished. The kid’s eyes dart all over my figure. My ears and tail blending in with my raven colored hair. I don’t answer, I just place a finger over my mouth, signaling him to shut up.
“Alright kid, we need to get away from here. Follow me.”
I start to turn away from the child expecting him to follow, but before I even take two steps the child whimpers out a small, “W-wait”. I peer behind me raising a brow. “I-I can’t walk.” I walk back to the child and examine his feet.
His right foot seems to have been cut. I cringe at how muddy his feet are, I sigh, “Ok, I’ll just have to carry you.” I go down to my knees and wait for the kid to climb on. “O-ok,” the child squeaks out.
As soon as I feel weight on my back and small arms wrapped around my neck, I shimmy back into the shrubbery and start making my way back home. Following the quickest way back, I reach the river that lead towards home and start hopping from rock to rock, going to the other side. The grip on my neck tightens then loosens once on the other side of the river.
The silent trip back home is broken when the kid suddenly speaks. “Mr. where are we going?” the kid speaks with curiosity. Strangely, there is no trace of the fear that radiated off of the kid before. “We’re gonna get you cleaned up,” I said monotonically.
The kid hummed in response. Only a couple seconds passed before the child spoke again. “Hey, mister what’s your name? Mine is Eren.”
Eren huh? What a strange name. I guess it suits him. I mean if I was a human child who’s being led back to a stranger’s home, I’d be at least a little worried.
“Well kid, I’m Levi.”
“Levi…,” Eren tested it out and giggled. I turned my gaze towards Eren wondering what he thought was so funny and felt my stomach do a summersault.
The smile on the kids face was spread wide, happiness beaming off of him. My breath hitched.
“What’s wrong Levi?”
I coughed and cleared my throat, “Why are you so happy brat?” Wasn’t he just about to piss his pants back there?
“I’m not a brat! I’m 14 and my name is Eren and I’m just happy that you helped me. Well and no one’s ever shown any kindness to me before,” Eren said, but muttered that last part.
I was only able to hear it because of my sharp hearing. I didn’t comment on the remark. “You are a brat. Anyway why were you hiding?” Eren stiffened, his smile turning into a frown, “Umm...Well I was...running away.” I turned to look at Eren with mild curiosity but only showed my usual stoic face.
“So that group back there was looking for you? Why are you running away?”
Eren starts squirming on my back, “He probably noticed I was gone and sent a search party to look for me. I-I couldn’t stay there anymore…” It seemed like that was all I was going to get as an answer as to why.
“Where were you planning on going once you ran away? You were hiding in a tree, so I’m guessing you didn’t plan that far ahead, did you?” Eren awkwardly laughed, “I don’t have anywhere to go, so I just figured it was better to just get out of there than stay living in that hell.”
I looked forward, back onto the path. I kinda feel bad for this kid. If he has nowhere to go then he’ll definitely die within only a few days in this forest. If not by other creatures then by starvation.
Ah, God. I’m gonna regret this. “Hey kid, would you like to stay with me? You have nowhere to go and I highly doubt that you’d survive beyond a day or two. Plus, I could use an extra pair of hands around.”
Eren pondered it for a moment. He didn’t know anything about Levi. He was basically a stranger, considering the only thing he knew about him was his name. He felt the need to know more, though. He was saved by Levi, and, anyways, there wasn’t anywhere else to go, so why not?
“Yeah, I’d like that, thank you Levi.” Again Levi was practically blinded by the happiness radiating off of Eren.
Unbeknownst to the little human child and Levi, this was the start of a brilliant beginning.