Archive of Our Own

On the battlefield, Eren stood out as a warrior of remarkable eagerness and courage. No one could match his strength or skill, let alone his fearlessness. He was truly one of a kind, earning the title of the God of War.

Being under his command or having his blessing almost always meant being undefeated. It wasn’t at all unusual for him to be invoked in conflicts. As the destructive personification of war, he doesn't hesitate to join in wielding his weapons.

He was cruel; he was bloodthirsty and warlike. He represents all the horrors of war, and he makes that clear every time he walks away, leaving tonnes of rotting corpses and long rivers of blood behind him. 

For belligerence, he lived, and for it, he would die. Of course, no less would be expected from a god with such a destructive nature.

If you don't fight, you die. You can't win if you don't fight. Fight, fight.

However, his warlike nature made him a figure of hatred and disdain on Olympus. His methods were brutal and unorthodox. He often fought for both sides, believing it compensated for everyone's courage, but the gods viewed this as treacherous behavior.

The gods of Olympus didn’t conceive the idea of someone breaking out of the mould that they tried to maintain as correct. Eren wasn’t at all an example for earthly creatures, and every god that crossed his path didn’t hesitate to let him know.

The heartless god they called him. The fanatic of violence, a bloody murderer, a primitive and brutal madman who should never have been born. An error of the destinies, a mockery of the universe, someone who only existed to destroy everything and at some point would be consumed by his ashes until he perished, forever taking his life to the end.

However, this didn’t take away from the fact that the gods on Olympus lived by preaching what they didn’t practice. Life there was massive chaos filled with revelry, trickery, and false monogamy.

Eren had decided long ago to take off the blindfold over his eyes to living as he pleased. After all, he was free. And just doing what he wanted and moving by his ideals made him easily the loneliest of all gods, with few temples built for himself and a limited retinue of followers.

If he had to say who his true war companions were, he would say that they were his spear, his red-crested helmet, and his bronze armour, always present in his clothing.

He swore long ago that if he ever died, then it would be on the cold, hard floor of a battlefield. He didn't need anyone else. The god was fine with his loneliness.

Fuck the gods and their hypocritical lifestyle.

He, the lord of armies always prone to argument, believed that he was destined to be alone until the end of time, so he wandered every corner of the world with his very presence.

No creature in this world could bind him. Or that's what he thought…

Destiny… What was destiny?

Difficult to explain, but something that could simply be summed up as a superior force that surpassed men and even the gods themselves. If fate decreed, then there was no way to escape. It had to happen. It was like a writing in stone that couldn’t be rewritten or changed by any mortal or immortal being.

Mikasa was wondering if fate had decreed what was happening around her right now because she really couldn't find another coherent explanation for what she was about to do.

Marriage, they said. It was her only escape route from the fact that thousands of major and minor gods, also mortals included, will stop persecuting her for their factions.

Her beauty was so glorious between mortals and immortals that she aroused the interest of several, which she didn't enjoy at all. She might be the goddess of love, but that didn't mean she approved of having fights around her just because they wanted to hold her close like some pretty object.

To calm the disputes generated, the god of gods immediately ordered to marry her as soon as possible without even asking her if that’s what she wanted, much less asking her opinion when choosing a suitor.

Then, she wore a white dress tight to the body, a lace veil covering her face, and a bouquet of roses in her hands. Levi, the god of victory and her older brother, led her to the altar before the god of gods and her future husband, who was none other than the god of the forge, also called Jean.

Jean was friendly. He showered her with praise and gifts even before he asked for her hand. However, Mikasa wasn't stupid. Her intelligence and intuition told her that Jean had specifically asked for her as his wife after the god of gods had a dispute with him. She doesn't know the reasons or circumstances, much less the reason for that request. The only thing she knew was that the gods decided for her.

This is how she was now being celebrated with her now-husband, in a divine banquet that she had not asked for. Ambrosia and nectar abounded on the tables. Divinities swarmed in Olympus, while Mikasa thought about how unhappy she felt to be forced into an unwanted union.

Jean could adore her, protect her under her cloak, or even love her, but she didn't feel the same way. She felt forced to do it and with no safe escape route.

Even if it's for a good reason, you can't force love.

The palace of the gods had witnessed a grand celebration. It’s the first thing Eren notices when he quietly sneaks into the holy place of the gods in the middle of the night after returning from a terrific war across the sea.

The excessive decorations of roses and white fabrics made him quickly conclude that it was a wedding. Which of all the gods had fallen before the clutches of marriage? Whoever it is, he hadn't been invited to this celebration. Eren would have liked to give his proper condolences in person. 

Eren advanced without caring about the state of his body in consequence of his most recent battle. He carries with him the smell of metal and salt from rivers of blood that gushed from the warriors who dared to face him.

Just remembering how he single-handedly confronted an entire troop that was easily flayed by his splendid spear, he winces with delight. He needs another fight soon.

Only when he hardly hears a sound coming from the rose bushes in the garden, does he snap out of his reverie and immediately become alert. His expert body tightens like a rope, quickening his senses as he points his spear insistently in anticipation of a surprise attack.

More never receives the attack.

He glimpses a small creature crouching on the ground, staring in terror at the tip of his silver spear. Her expressions are dimly illumed by the moonlight high in the starry sky, and seized with panic. That kind of feeling mesmerizes Eren.

She raises her hands in defence. “Don’t attack!”

She dares to yell at him. As much as he was a hated being, only the gods who dared to raise their voices to him were counted on the fingers of one hand. How interesting, he muses. Somewhat unusual.

“Please don't attack.” She asks now with a broken voice.

Now that Eren can inspect the girl's whitish face, he notices the red spots on her cheeks and the slight gleam of small tears at the corners of her eyes.

The lord of hosts slowly lowers his guard.

When the girl's hands are at her sides, Eren can finally fully see that angelic look, totally exposed to the bath of silver light that illuminates the night.

To say that she is beautiful is an understatement.

Her hair is like long cascades of obsidian-black threads that fall thickly over her small shoulders and back. She has a pair of precious pearls that sparkle with intensity like the stars in the sky. Thick eyelashes that flutter gracefully to the rhythm of her blinking and, of course, he can't ignore those perfect curves that mould to the fine fabric of that nightgown she wears.

She's divine, a goddess. Eren has travelled to many places. He has seen many things; he has been with many beautiful women, and he has a lot of experience, but now he doesn't care about that at all. The most beautiful goddess of all time is before him.

He allows himself to gasp in ecstasy at the beauty of the little creature. His aggressive instinct instantly subsides, completely forgetting about the spear he wielded moments ago.

“It's rare that someone is in a rose garden in the middle of the night on the Olympus.” He speaks with his hoarse voice. “Either you're drowning in wine or fucking.”

The god of war is not chivalrous, much less gentle. However, there he is offering his hand to that girl with sad eyes and full lips as red as cherries. He almost gets goosebumps when she accepts him after a few moments.

The warm touch of the female hand expands up his arm, reaching places he didn't know had a life of their own. His skin bristles and causes him to hold his breath for a few milliseconds.

She finally stands up and Eren realizes that the girl is very small next to him, petite, and looks so vulnerable. He thinks that she's no match for him, not with such a tiny and fragile body. Still… he feels like prostrating himself on his knees to adore her.

“How about running away from your wedding night?” she finally asks in a whisper. “Is that something that happens here often too?”

He studies her with his eyes, trying to understand her words.

“I have no experience with marriage, but it's a universal truth that brides leave their beds when they are forced to marry.” Then, in a raspy voice, he adds. “Or when they don't feel quite satisfied.”

His words come out in warm tones that make her feel comfortable, and she relaxes.

“Which one of those brides are you?” Eren speaks again.

The girl gestures as if she is pondering her answer. For a few moments, Eren thinks he won't get a reply. However, he feels blessed by the grace of hearing her mellifluous voice again.

“They forced me to get married.” She whispers, looking down at the ground. “They said it was the best for me and I want to believe that it is so because they say that Jean is good, but…”

Silence is present between the two figures in that garden of divine rose bushes. The wind runs whispering intelligible words while the sound of crickets seems to numb the senses.

“But?” asks the god patiently.

“It's not what I wanted.” The creature sighs. “I am the goddess of love, after all. I was hoping for a bit of romance and being able to choose how to plot my love story.”

That's when Eren understands a lot of things.

The god gets a lot of news and hears rumours. He knows that the god of victory — one of the few gods who had defeated him in combat — had a protégé in the forests of Hizuru. Seems like he handed her over to the hands of the gods on Olympus to nothing more and nothing less than the idiot Jean, that god who refused to forge weapons for him.

Beyond the fact that both gods were for him like a kick in the teeth, Eren believed that only a cretin would take someone they loved to live on Olympus. That place where hypocrisy and conspiracies reigned.

However, for some unknown reason at the moment, he was further infuriated because she had been forced into it.

“Sounds silly, I know.” She says, suddenly.

“No. It's not.” Eren cuts her off instantly. “It’s normal for you to feel this way. All your freedom was taken away.”

He makes a sound of disgust. Then, he speaks again.

“Every being that lives on the Olympus is like this.” His brow furrows as a thick dark aura seems to surround him. “They want to mould us to their will, tell us how to act and how we should show to the world when we are all a bunch of repressed hypocrites.”

“Looks like you know that well.” The goddess looks at him curiously.

“Yes, it's true. I know it.” He growls under his breath. “They also try to make me follow their absurd rules, but I will never do it. I'm free.”

The god of war has long refused to follow the perfect rules of Olympus just to unleash his innate aggressive nature. He knows better than anyone what it feels like to have all your freedom taken away from you.

“As much as they have told you what to do, that doesn't take away from the fact that you are also free.”

Eren looks at her over those centimetres that make the difference between their heights. The goddess, meanwhile, wishes she could see the being's eyes better. It's so dark.

Just a few seconds later, she just hums, not knowing what to say.

Another silence echoes between them until he hears a start from the girl, who brings her hands up to rub her arms for warmth.

“I have to go. It's freezing out here.” She says, looking up, searching for the face of that unforeseen presence.

Eren nods, gesticulating a goodbye before moving a little to let her pass.

She walks in front of him in the most innocent way possible, leaving a trail of aromas of vanilla and marjoram flowers, which enter through his nostrils, permeating and replacing all the smell of death that he emanated.

Just when the warrior thinks the girl is going to walk silently away, the little creature turns around, dazzling him with her grey gaze. He quickly concludes that her eyes are not like stars. They are like distant galaxies in the universe that shine brightly like sparks produced by the clash of the metal of two swords.

“My name is Mikasa.” She looks up at him with the corners of her lips turned up, her cupid's bow so deep and so… captivating. “The goddess of love and beauty… or so they say.”

“Eren.” He says, introducing himself, after a few seconds that taste like an eternity. “God of War.”

Mikasa makes a sound that caresses Eren's ears. She gets one last glimpse of him on that very unusual night and finally says goodbye.

“See you later, Eren.”

It sounds like a promise, and Eren wants to think that it is.

The goddess of love has dazzled the god of war, and he wonders for a moment if it is because of the magic of her amorous attributes or if what he feels inside him is real.

He smiles with one of his characteristic sly smiles, painting all his manly features. Then, to the stiff wind of dawn, he whispers smugly.

“See you later, Mikasa.”

After all, love can cause war, and they well knew that the lord of armies loved wars.

Weeks have passed since the celebration of her marriage, and what exactly has changed in her life? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Jean is never at home. He spends day and night in the forges working for gods, demigods, and heroes. She knows only that she’s linked to her husband when she receives the thousands of gifts that he sends her as compensation for not being by her side.

That doesn't please her at all.

Mikasa grew up in the high mountain forests with nymphs keeping her company. They left from time to time to see their loves, leaving her alone longing for the God who was her only family, to return from his endless crusades with the legion.

To be repeating all of this now in her married life is not something Mikasa would have wanted to happen. Yet here she was pining for an absent husband and wondering if perhaps her rejection on their wedding night had driven him away.

“You're scattered today,” A woman next to her says while eating an apple.

Mikasa shakes her head, trying to wake up. “Oh, I'm so sorry. What were you saying?”

Sasha, the goddess of the hunt and her newest friend in this frivolous place, laughs heartily at her puzzled face.

“I was asking if you already know the palaces of the other gods.” She pauses, chewing the apple. “Or at least if you already know your palace well.”

“Of course not. It's impossible. Everything here is so big.”

Mikasa looks around the fields of green grass where some gods drink tea and others rest in sunbathing. Meanwhile, she and Sasha walk, admiring the sublime and sacred nature of Mount Olympus.

“Yes, it's true,” The chestnut woman concedes. “I came here when I was a little girl, it took me a long time to get used to it, although I was quite curious.”

“Oh? Weren't you born here?” Mikasa asks curiously. The personal history of each god was so particular that it could arouse anyone's curiosity.

“No actually. Dad impregnated a princess and from there I was born. His wife, Dina, persecuted us for several years until he took us in here on Olympus.” Sasha relates. “The important thing now is that mom is safe from his wife's jealousy and I dedicate myself to hunting, which is what I like.”

The god of gods Grisha, the one who had started this story of gods on Olympus, was Sasha's father and who knows how many more children. He was known for his clandestine love affairs and thousands of infidelities, a fact to which everyone seemed to turn a deaf ear. Perhaps because he was the god who ruled over all others, or perhaps because he was a man, and he wasn't questioned.

“Dad is complicated with his relationships, but he loves all of his children.” Sasha says, finally regaining the black-haired girl's attention. Then, in a whisper, he adds. “Or at least the vast majority.”

Mikasa glances at the hunter's girl profile, wondering what she meant. If Grisha was as good with his children as the chestnut said, why did he only love the vast majority? Was anyone excluded from this equation?

“My brother… well, half brother actually, he doesn't get along with dad at all. His name is Eren.”

The goddess of love is quick enough to hide her growing interest. The name of that god she saw a few weeks ago is still echoing in her head, making a lot of noise.

She hadn't been able to fully appreciate the godlike man in the dim moonlight, but she remembers his athletic appearance looming just inches from her eyes, his hair messy in a messy bun, and blood spattering his gleaming armour. She couldn't ignore the fact that he was quite attractive.

“What happens to him?” Mikasa asks, biting her tongue in the process, so her enthusiasm wouldn't show as much.

Being minimally interested in the life of another man who was not her husband was not what was expected of a woman, much less a woman on Olympus.

“Dad doesn't have much affection for him, but it's because of his… aggressive character.” Sasha comments, frowning. “Eren causes a lot of trouble, unnecessary quarrels over petty things. I wanted to intercede for him several times, but he is just confrontational and gets us all into trouble.”

Sasha sighs, and with a grimace of pain on her features, looks at her companion.

“Hey, Mikasa, if you see Eren around, don't talk to him too much.” Sasha's eyes seem to sting. “He is… unstable. Just avoid getting in trouble because of him, alright?”

Mikasa wants to nod her head, but she can't. Maybe it's because — love — wants the freedom to choose on its own.

Mikasa's love was not only sexual, as several suggested, because of the attractiveness of her beauty. She knew that there were different type of love, and she was interested in each one of them. Although, she was still disappointed because the experience of feeling passionate love on her own was taken away from her.

Seeking to stop thinking about it and giving it so much importance in her life, Mikasa ends the week fulfilling the divine duties expected of her. Only after she is done with them, she allows herself to relax.

With the moon rising in the sky, she walks towards that place that she has named as one of her favourite places since the first day she was on Olympus. Somehow, all kinds of gardens bring her peace.

She jumps a little when she finds someone standing with their back to her, admiring the beauty of the rose gardens. She didn't expect to meet anyone there, not especially at that hour.

“Looks like someone can't sleep either.” It's him with his raspy deep voice again, making Mikasa's skin crawl with the depth of his tenor voice.

Mikasa stands next to him, admiring his profile for just a few seconds.

Eren looks much better compared to their first meeting, even now she can see more clearly his golden skin and a couple of red lines running down his cheeks. 

He wears a simple red robe, tied over one of his muscular shoulders. Her hair is now better combed, tied back into that bun that holds the brown strands tightly. And his posture somehow seems more relaxed.

“I thought you said that on Olympus nights you either drank or fuck.”

Eren laughs slyly. “And you see that neither you nor I am doing either of those two things.”

Mikasa sits quietly on the edge of the steps to the garden. To her surprise, Eren also takes a seat next to her. He keeps his distance so as not to bother her and to respect her personal space.

Eren doesn't even want to ask why she's here. It's more than clear that she's alone. It’s not a secret to the gods that Jean lives in the forge. 

Looking out of the corner of his eye at the girl next to him, he wonders if she deserves such solitude.

“I don't see you much around here.” She says, starting a conversation. “Do you usually have a lot of things to do?”

“I am the protector of Olympus. That entails many things.” He answers.

“Like what?” she asks now with interest.

“Not allowing any attacker to climb the mount, for example. So, the comfy gods, don't lose their glamorous lifestyle.” A tinge of grace creeps into his tone as he says the last.

Mikasa looks at him with a smile as she hugs her legs covered by her long white dress.

“Then we should all thank you for the security of the place, right?”

Eren makes a face of disgust that lowers the girl's spirits.

“That is quite a long way from happening.”

Again, they remain silent, contemplating the twinkling of the stars in the sky. Both Mikasa and Eren feel that the silence that slips between them is quite cosy.

“Why is this?” She asks in a low voice, almost in a sigh that he can hear leaving her lips as if she were asking for permission to speak.

With his eyes being vividly illuminated by the moonlight, Mikasa notices for the first time the green in his gaze. The intensity with which they shine is so powerful that it almost amazes her. If the goddess had to describe the colour of the warrior's eyes, she would say that they are as green as the forests where she lived as a child.

“There was a beautiful goddes…” Eren says, slowly. “The goddess of prosperity. She was gentle and kind, so much so that the god of gods felt in love with her, as to decide that he would make her his first wife if she gave him a son.”

The glow leaves Eren's eyes as he continues his story

“Sadly, she passed away giving birth to her firstborn, so the god of gods was devastated.” He is suddenly silent, looking down at the ground. He frowns and continues. “He accepted his son on the Olympus as a god and gave him a place, but that didn't mean he didn't despise him.”

Eren stops and then speaks with anger. “Grisha hates me enough to have left me alone since childhood and influenced others to do the same.”

And Mikasa understands instantly, understands everything. Eren is a misunderstood being, perhaps due to the negligence of an absent father or perhaps due to the lack of maternal love. Whatever the correct option is, it all led to the fact that his behaviour was due to the influence of not getting recognition from the family.

Poor boy, she thinks.

There, in the dark of night, the goddess of love takes one hand of the god of war hands. Eren has enormous hands compared to hers, a little damaged from wielding his weapons, but Mikasa doesn't care.

When the moon reaches its peak and the stars twinkle discreetly in the sky, she dares to promise out loud.

“As long as I'm here, you won't be alone any more.”

Mikasa smiles genuinely at him. Eren feels something stir in his cold, hard, disregarded heart. 

The god of war ponders with the pure warmth of the goddess of love warm hand on his. It's real, it's real, it's real…

What he feels for her is true, it isn't some magic trick of the goddess or some trick of her amorous attributes. It's genuinely, truly, bloody… real.

The God who has no heart, remember that they call him, but was he like that? Maybe not, because he feels like there is something there, in the middle of his chest, growing and pounding. It's more deafening than even a thousand soldiers in battle, and more comforting than a million bloodthirsty battles.

And at that very moment, Eren goes to another war, but this one is much more interesting and particular. He wishes, and he yearns to go to the loving conquest of that divinity that represents all that together with the beauty of the world.

He doesn't even stop to reflect on her marriage; it’s irrelevant to him. It also doesn't matter if he should abandon his bestial attitudes or if he should win her over as all mortals and immortals do with their love interests. 

If he keeps moving forward until all of his enemies are destroyed , then he will keep moving forward until the path leads to her, to Mikasa.

He smiles back and silently takes her small hand to place a chaste kiss on it, the first of many and the most innocent of them, he promises silently.

A couple of days later, Eren goes down to the world of mortals to fight in the Battle of Lagos, feeling more alive than ever.

In a single day, the army that summoned him seized and plundered the city, almost reducing it to ashes.

Once the siege was over, the generals of those troops made the relevant offerings that he used to look forward to for his efforts. However, on this occasion, he didn't care if they did or not. He wanted to return to Olympus as soon as possible, although he stayed to be the centre of the ceremony only because he could not afford to give up before some mere mortals.

They make a couple of sacrifices. Then, they pour him wine and food and lastly load his chariot pulled by four immortal black horses with thousands of gifts that Eren doesn't need, but thinks over that he's earned them, so he accepts them, anyway.

Amid all those gifts, he finds a couple of things that he decides, for some reason, that they already have an owner. And part of his natural habitat to Olympus, where he hopes to meet the black-haired creature.

Even with what remains of his armour, Eren appears before the goddess in the gardens of her chambers to give her those gifts. However, she is horrified to see his war robe torn and shredded across his torso, exposing his wounds that he didn't even care to heal earlier.

“For the gods! You're bleeding!”

“I'm fine, trust me. I have come back in worse condition.” He speaks, downplaying the seriousness of his injuries. “Come here, I have to give you something.”

Eren wanted to give her the presents quickly, just that he didn't expect Mikasa to be so tenacious as to put it in the background.

He doesn't know how it happened, but after she insisted so much and told him how bad he looked — and even smelled — he sulks in a golden bathtub filled with warm water and rose petals floating around him.

“You weren't even going to bother to heal yourself, were you?” Mikasa asks in a whisper, with her back turned.

Eren whimpers angrily. He feels like a child reprimanded for dirtying the floors of the house with mud on his feet after playing outside.

“I was going to do it. A little later maybe, but I was going to do it.” He unties his man bun and lets his hair fall over his shoulders. “You can go now. I can have a bath on my own.”

“Can I help you?” she asks sheepishly.

The goddess bites her lip when she can hear Eren's sonorous breathing and the noise he makes when he moves in the water, but not an answer to her bold request.

Maybe she crossed the line with him and made him angry, she thinks. She is ready to flee the room when he speaks to her in his raspy voice, causing her to stop immediately.

“Okay, you can do it.”

She walks with short steps towards the bathtub and then ends up kneeling right next to him where she has access to the profile of his face and a certain part of his back. Out of modesty, she decides not to look down beyond his pectorals.

Mikasa takes a soft cloth on which she smears nepenthe oil to heal the open wounds. She sighs in relief as she watches them slowly begin to heal, releasing a bit of steam in the process.

Only when his back, torso, and face are healed, Mikasa changes the cloth for a sponge, with which she gently rubs away the mud and dirt stuck by sweat. The carving is later replaced by the delicacy of her fingers that run from top to bottom, smearing Eren’s hard muscles with scented oils.

Mikasa notices the pretty colour of his skin being illuminated by the afternoon sunlight and his muscles shining bright as if they've somehow been dipped in gold.

Then, she untangles with her hands that brown hair that he wore long as a symbol of his status, gracefully falling in beautiful wet strands on the sides of his face, highlighting his square shape and sharp jaw.

Mikasa feels she loses herself in Eren's very manly features, and it's worse when he tilts his head back, letting her know he is enjoying her touch.

In that position, she can see more clearly how abundant his dark eyebrows and curled eyelashes are, his upturned nose in perfect proportion to his golden face, and finally, those lips that are so masculine and yet so pink.

“Is it alright like this?”, she asks in a whisper. It sounds so intimate that it makes Eren's skin crawl. “Doesn't anything hurt?”

“I'm good,” It's the only thing he can articulate, almost in a whimper.

Unintentionally, the goddess leans a little towards the god. Her breath tickling the tip of his golden nose, and the growing nervousness he can smell causes Eren to open his eyes to find Mikasa just inches from his face.

Green eyes meet a pair of glowing grey eyes and for a moment, the world seems to stand still. The lush, greenish forest looks from below at a sky full of stars and galaxies that illuminate it intensely with their silver lights.

Eren gasps at the sublime sight, his eyes feel blessed.

Mikasa realizes that she has the most beautiful man she has ever seen right there, naked in her bathtub. She gasps involuntarily as well.

Perhaps, if she lowered her face a little more, she could touch those lips and…

“Uh. I… I'm sorry.” She moves away, quickly pushing that thought out of her head. It's not right, it's not. She is married! Bathing another man other than her husband? That's not what is expected of her.

Eren notices her embarrassing reaction, to which he simply says.

“I can finish on my own.”

Meanwhile, destructive thoughts begin to circulate in Mikasa's head and loudly tell her how reckless she is being. So, she runs away from the place, feeling ashamed.

Without looking back, she locks herself in her room. Mikasa throws herself on her bed, wrapping her arms around her body, trying to cover herself from a growing pain that begins to throb in her head. She stays there for several minutes that later turn into hours.

The moon rises above the sky and the pain no longer bothers her. Already recovered, she leaves the room to see what has happened to Eren.

A part of her feels bad for leaving him alone, and another part keeps berating her for being bold. However, that part is immediately silenced when she sees on a table a red silk scarf and a gold bracelet with a green precious stone in the centre.

She can't think of anything else when she decides that this piece of jade in the shape of a butterfly vividly reminds her of Eren's deep eyes looking at her so closely. So close that she even fears that he has seen through her soul.

She doesn't see him for days, a time that painfully feels like an eternity. The goddess finds it somewhat ironic that she suddenly chews over about it when she's practically an immortal being and time for them is insignificant. However, here she was, counting grains of sand and wishing to meet the god of war in any corner of Olympus.

Mikasa sighs, pulling one end of the thin scarf over her neck, arranging it hastily, but she doesn't care. The weight of the silk around her neck is so much lighter than any gold necklace, and it feels nice.

If she could, she would never take it off.

Mikasa recently discovered a field of flowers, so now she spends part of her time there, longing for the life she once had in the mountains. It's almost so similar that it makes her very nostalgic.

In that same field of flowers on the top of the mountain, the god of war appears before her again, walking towards the tree on that hill. His bronze armour is intact this time, and he's holding on his side his red-crested helmet, as red as the scarf around her neck.

“That's not how you're supposed to use it,” Eren says, coming up to where she is sitting. “Though, that way it looks cute on you.”

Mikasa's cheeks turn pink at the compliment as she silently waits for Eren to reach her. It doesn't take him long to do it, then he sits beside her on the grass under the shade of the tree on that hill.

“How did you find me here?” She asks shyly, playing with the grass between her fingers.

“I probably tracked you down,” he says, looking at her seriously.

“You did it?” she questions with stupefaction.

Eren chortles. “Not really.” He leans his head against the bark. “I just considered this place, and it seems that I wasn't wrong at all.”

“It's very quiet here,” Mikasa speaks, seeing how Eren relaxes next to her.

“That's right, hardly anyone comes here,” he mutters. “I usually come here to take a few naps from time to time.”

“The god of war having a nap?” The goddess of love giggles. “It seems impossible to believe.”

“I don't always indulge in such mundane activities, but I usually do to clarify my thoughts.” He pauses and then adds. “I also really like nature, even if you don't believe it.”

She widens her eyes in amazement.

“Huh? Really?” She expresses with encouragement. “I also like it very much. Before I came here, I lived in the Hizuru mountains.”

Eren slightly turns his body towards her, paying her attention. “What happened? Why did you suddenly come to live in this rat's nest?”

Mikasa's eyes darken, remembering the facts. She sighs, releasing the tension, and then speaks. “A group of men tried to kidnap me. They killed several of my companion nymphs, then tied my hands and…” She trails off abruptly, directing her gaze to the ground and whispers. “They tried to take me by force.”

Eren's anger flares. Beasts, he thinks. Animals that should be exterminated. As much as he was sonsidered a monster, he would never take a woman by force. It was unacceptable.

“If I had them in front of me, believe me, that I would kill them, I would kill all of them. ”

She sniffles.

“My older brother arrived in time before they could go any further.” She looks up, meeting Eren's frown. “They are already dead.”

The god snorts under his breath. It doesn't seem like enough to his inner, conflicted warrior.

“Those beasts need a finishing touch.” He spits. “I could go down to the underworld, and find them, so they can have a nice chat with my fist and spear.”

Mikasa moves, grasping Eren's hand. She searches his green eyes again and for a moment, they make eye contact again. Somehow, those two gestures feel so natural to both of them.

“Eren, I'm fine now.” She says, caressing his name between her lips. “You don't have to do anything.”

Her words hypnotize Eren again. He watches her intently until he breaks eye contact with a soft laugh.

“I think that's the second time you've said it.”

“Say what?” Mikasa asks, disoriented.

“My name.” He speaks. “This is the second time you say my name.”

A strong blizzard runs, removing the hair of the goddess and also disarranging the red scarf. Eren moves from his place to accommodate the garment with his expert hands. Mikasa smiles timidly, feeling the warm garment wrap around her porcelain neck again.

“It's better there. It's warm, right ?”

“Yes, it’s warm.”

The god settles back once he sees the garment is well-placed and safe with its owner. Then, he dares to ask for something.

“Can you say it again?” The god speaks secretly embarrassed, nothing more than he doesn't want to show it. “Please.”

Mikasa grabs the edge of the red cloth and looks him straight in the eye as she smiles at him.

“Thank you, Eren.”

Without wanting it, without looking for it, both god of war and goddess of love have started a routine that only the two of them know.

During the morning and mid-afternoon, they go about their divine work unhindered, only to see themselves in their free time right there under the tree on that hill. They sit shoulder to shoulder and watch the sunset on the horizon of Mount Olympus, sometimes in conversation, other times in comfortable silence.

They are just the two of them in that little world they have unconsciously created on the hill of that secret garden, without interruptions, with nothing to think about. That place becomes the place where beauty meets cruelty, two discordant tones that somehow start to mix.

“So, were you born from nothing itself or how was it? I don't understand.” Eren speaks, leaning on his back against the tree. It's his favourite position, from what Mikasa can see.

“Levi says that he found me one day when it was snowing heavily, but I was in a meadow with flowers blooming around me. Like it was spring in the middle of winter. Sounds weird, doesn't it?”

“I have heard that there are gods who were born in much rarer circumstances.” Says the god, yawning. “Yours somehow sounds nicer.”

Mikasa snorts as she smiles at the half-made white flower crown on her lap.

“And it fits you perfectly,” Eren continues saying. “Now I wonder why you are not the goddess of spring.”

“I don't know, maybe that's how fates and the universe wanted it.” Mikasa picks up the flower crown again to finish it off. “Or maybe the position was already filled.”

“Whatever it is, love and beauty are perfect for you.”

“And I think your position suits you well.”

“I’m cruelty, Mikasa, why would you think that of me?”

She is silent for a few moments, with her eyes directed to the ground. Then speak.

“I really don't understand why they despise you so much, Eren. Everyone here has done bad things, everyone has been in wars and has favoured the destruction of cities… even civilizations. Even I may have favoured with the grace of love people who didn't deserve it.” She takes a breath, then continues. “We are all sinners.”

The lord of war remains silent, listening to her words. He had never expected a cataract of sentimental, truly words to hit him hard. Before responding, he takes a moment to reflect.

“I think it's as you say,” he finally says. “Thing of fate or the universe, who knows. Perhaps, everything was already set in stone. Things had to be like this.”

“Maybe,” she whispers. “But that doesn't change the fact that you care about all of us, Eren. I can see it every time something threatens Olympus. Nobody fights like you.”

“You're overreacting.” Eren affirms that trying to sound as serious as possible, although his eyes staring at the sky insistently, the slight tremor in his voice and the demanding drumming of his leg betray him. 

Mikasa, meanwhile, expertly finishes weaving that crown of white flowers. When she has the complete piece, she doesn't ask permission to place it on her companion, she simply does it by taking him by surprise.

The god of war suddenly finds a piece of whitish flowers on his head, which he looks at with a raised eyebrow. However, he does not complain.

“Liar,” is what she whispers very softly, meanwhile he snorts, apparently indignant at her audacity.

The flower crown is then found resting on the side of a bed in a dreary, lonely palace room. This place is purely decorated with symbols of spears and paintings of violent nature, just like is expected of the home of the god of war.

Mikasa's beauty begins to creep into Eren's cruelty.

That night, Mikasa can't sleep.

Anxiety grips her body, stinging her insistently, and her senses catch a feverish state that disgusts her a lot. The storm caused by the god of thunder does nothing more than aggravating her state of nervousness.

She stays glued to the sheets, clinging to the red scarf that now never leaves her. Only when sounds as loud as lightning in the sky echo through her room, Mikasa jump from her bed to run to the main halls where all the gods used to gather.

Some Olympian gods argue loudly, others try to figure out what's going on. Mikasa looks around for answers until she bumps into Sasha, who seems to be just as shaken as she is.

“I'm glad you're well.” It's the first thing Sasha says when she sees her. She carries her bow and quiver with her. “Although you should return to your palace, you will be safe there.”

“What exactly is going on?” Mikasa asks, looking at the slayer's weapons. It's too late for the hunt, she thinks.

“A conflict at the foot of the mountain.” A man responds by joining Sasha. Connie, Sasha's hunting partner and the messenger god.

“Don't worry, they are already controlling the situation.”

Mikasa thinks of Eren immediately. He is the protector of Olympus so, he’s always the first to go to the front line to disarm whoever dares to climb Olympus without permission, but the storm is strong and gives her bad vibes.

“Go rest, Mikasa. We will be patrolling to ensure the safety of those up here,” Sasha points out again, drawing her attention by sounding friendly.

“Jean will be angry if he finds out that his wife was involved in any conflict,” addd the god's messenger. “He won't like to know you weren't home.”

Connie speaks without bad intentions. He only dedicates himself to giving directions to the inhabitants of Olympus, but Mikasa finds those words bitter.

After she leaves the room of the gods, assuring Sasha that she will return to his room, she heads the other way.

It was after midnight when titans attacked the foot of Mount Olympus seeking to exterminate the gods and also take the goddesses as their own, putting a lot of emphasis on the most beautiful of all, Mikasa.

Hearing that they spoke in such a way about his goddess made Eren's blood boil to an uncontrollable point, where his inner beast thirsty for slaughter awoke.

He fought as he had never done before, slashing and punching as he went. Nothing but the titans were too strong enough to make most of the Olympian army abandon the titanic battle, leaving him alone at the end. Still, he wasn't surprised. It wasn't the first time they had left him with his mere presence on the front lines.

Using a lot of brute force and his most primitive instincts, he could hunt down all of them before they could eat him, and before they could climb the mountain to the top.

Then, tired and nearly slipping on his feet, Eren heads straight back to his palace in a worryingly dire state. He doesn't expect anyone to heal his wounds, the gods are too busy seeing their damage to even try to help the divinity that prevented the disaster. Again, it's not something that doesn't happen often, he's used to it.

Shuffling his feet and nearly passing out from blood loss, he doesn't notice when a shadow bursts out from behind the red curtains of his palace, running straight at him.

“Eren?” Mikasa yells, receiving him in her arms, not allowing him to fall completely.

“Mikasa?” He murmurs, unable to believe that she is there.

No one, absolutely no one, cared about him. If he had serious injuries, anyone would let him bleed to death in his solitude. No one would heal him, he would always do it on his own. They didn't pity the lord of armies, no matter how much he protected everyone on Olympus by staying until the last one in battles.

However, there was an angel like her worried about scum like him, dragging him up long stairs to his chambers with difficulty because of how big he was compared to her small body. Suddenly, Mikasa had become his healer.

Something in Eren's heart itches and gets worse due to the growing delirium because of the blood loss. It comes like waves, he closes his eyes holding his breath, but Mikasa doesn't let it bury him. 

“You're not supposed to be here, Mikasa.” Her chest tightens as tears gather at the corner of his eyes. “But now you're safe, if I'm going to die, then at least I'll know that I was able to protect you today.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Those beasts… they said horrible things about taking you, about possessing you…” His breath left him as a pang of pain shot through him from top to bottom, shaking his body. “I ended up fighting alone. I didn't need help… I could protect you.”

“And they could have killed you.” She claims with a frown. “Just look at the state you're in.”

Mikasa finds the strength to wrap one of Eren's arms around his shoulders and support all of his weight on top of her. She awkwardly leads him to his room, where she finally lies him down on the bed.

The goddess had healed Levi several times after he came back in tatters from a campaign with his army called the legion. She could try to heal Eren. So, remembering what few healing skills she has learned, she wraps the god with bandages, Nepenthe, and her divine force.

In the end, she can only hope that Eren reacts to her care.

However, the blood loss begins to ravage the god's psyche, and the pain clouds his senses. Soon, the delusion takes over his body, manifesting itself in words being clumsily revealed in spurts.

“You are so beautiful.” He speaks with a brittle, moaning voice that hurts Mikasa's ears.

“Eren, you need to rest.” She says, caressing the god's pale face.

“I love the way you say my name.” He winces. “I wish… you could say my name until eternity. Only you.”

He sniffs loudly in his frenzy as he tosses and turns on the bed of white sheets now stained with blood.

“I fought with all those titans only thinking of you,” he moans violently while ripping off some bandages. “Fuck all gods, I only care about you.”

“Eren, stop. You're going to get hurt.” She sobs, seeing his deplorable state and how easily he undoes her previous work. “What are you saying?”

“I wish… I wish I was by your side forever.” Tears roll down from downcast green eyes. “I want to be with you, Mikasa.”

“Shut up. Just shut up.” She says, feeling the sting of her tears. “You have no conscience of what you say.”

“You are the beauty in my cruelty.  He affirms, coughing with difficulty. “I'm just afraid that you'll fade away, and you just became a long dream I had.”

The bitter cry replaces his rage, and he finally stops fighting and stops moving around as much. The great god of war is reduced to a small boy deprived of affection before the goddess of love. Something which is highly jarring for someone who choses violence over anything.

“Everyone leaves... each one of them. Starting with the mother I never knew…” He closes his eyes, throwing his head back against the bed and wheezing. “I don't want you to do it too. I don't want to.”

The light of the insistent lightning sneaks into the room, illuminating Eren's sad face. Mikasa reaches down to cup his faded face in her hands.

In the room's silence, only the sobs of war are heard as love traces the red marks on his cheek. And then, in her singsong voice, Mikasa speaks.

“Eren, I'm here,” she whispers, getting closer.

He looks at her with orbs bent on tears of weariness. The goddess, meanwhile, observes how vulnerable that warrior is before her, all his facade of hatred and bellicosity destroyed on the ground as she had never seen it before.

Somehow, somewhere, Mikasa understands that they are both the same. Two lonely souls, two individuals that have been searching for a home to return to for a long time.

Eren looks at her for a moment, still drunk from his madness, while Mikasa understands that everything she ever wanted is right in front of her.

“I'm here.”

And she allows herself to succumb to her eager desire.

Mikasa puts her peachy lips on the masculine ones, in such a delicate way that at first feels like a small pressure that tickles both of them.

Time stood still, the way it did before ─It always does when it comes to them. ─

Eren regains his sanity, and now the euphoria he feels is due to the delicacy of Mikasa's taste slipping between his tongue. The god engraves deep within her, the tenderness of his spongy lips lashing against hers.

After a few moments, she pulls away enough to look into his eyes and shake his world with a few words.

“I will always be there for you, Eren.”

The two of them are opposite forces, passion and war. It seems almost impossible for them to mix, but there they are doing exactly what many believed unlikely.

She lies on his side, taking extreme care of his injuries. And there, in the nefarious palace of the most martial god of all, love takes war in its pure arms and brings it calm as if it were a cry for cessation of arms.

It took a touch, just one of her lips, and she painted colours on a faded heart that always existed, but the world ignored.

“Sleep. I'll be here by your side.” It's the last thing the god hears before closing his eyes and dreaming of the goddess's caresses all the rest of the night.

Later, her voice wakes him up.

“Eren?”

The lord of War moves uncomfortably, feeling hot from the temperature that seems to have gradually risen.

“Eren.”

That little voice resounds again, calling him, sneaking into the shadows of his mind.

The warrior utters in protest, shifting in his bed, refusing to open his eyelids. His anaesthetic state is such that he just wants to take a long nap.

“Eren, it's almost dawn. I have to go.”

He snorts in annoyance, finally opening his eyes, to find himself face to face with the ceiling now being slowly illuminated by the rising early morning sun.

He manages to get up a little until he's supported on his elbows. The almost defeated god can see the mess of the sheets and the girl standing next to him without caring about the state of her dress splashed with crimson red.

“Why do you have to go?” he asks in a sleepy voice.

“The sun is rising.” She says as if it sounds obvious, although seeing Eren's clueless face, she adds. “My Charites hopes that their lady is in bed in her chambers”

Of course, he muses silently. Mikasa has reciprocated, but she still has an imposed obligation that she must fulfil, even though she doesn't want it to be so.

The god just nods in silence without fully understanding what happened at dawn, but something tells him that something has changed.

“See you later, Eren.” She says goodbye.

Before leaving the room completely, Mikasa turns around to ask him a few last questions.

“Are you feeling better now?” She inquires with her caramelized voice.

“Yes.”

“Less anxious?”

“Much less.”

“Any special feeling?”

“I feel…”

He reflects, still lethargic and after a few seconds, he answers.

“I feel like my heart is being touched by you.”

After that day, love and war are inevitably intertwined.

Eren kisses every inch of her face in hidden places where no one else can see them.

Behind thick curtains in the halls of the gods, under the shadows of great rosebushes, in the stables where she waits for him every time he returned from battle, but above all, at night in the goddess's bed.

Eren slips away in the afternoon twilight when Mikasa is supposed to be preparing for sleep. The warrior arrives after midnight to find his lover in her nightgown covered in silk sheets, inviting him to join her and rest from all his warring thoughts.

And so he does.

Feeling Eren's weight sinking into the feather mattress is one thing that makes Mikasa happy now. Although not as much as his thick hands running over her figure through her dress, his careful honey kisses or his ragged breath when he grinds behind her, turning up the temperature in the room and her own body.

They haven't gone far yet, they haven't desecrated the goddess's bed with more illicit activities, but the anticipation stings them both. It's only a matter of time before the combustion of their bodies ignites in a mythical divine fire caused by the union of love and war.

“Eren…”

Mikasa sighs as Eren's kisses turn deep and slippery on her skin.

The god of war is virile and passionate at times even unbridled, however, with her, he behaves like an attentive and gentle lover.

“Are you okay, Mikasa? Can I touch more?”

“Yes... you can.”

And as if he were discovering the greatest treasures, the sight of her milky thighs overshadows him as he slowly lifts the garment. Eren dives between them, thinking that if Mikasa suddenly wants to entangle him with her legs and choke him to death, he won't protest because it sounds like a divine punishment that he's willing to take.

He kisses the sides of her chiselled thighs with slippery sucks that elicit little breathy moans and, Gods! Not even the sound of flesh being pierced by his spear is as pleasurable as that.

Eren wants more, but of course, he's not going to push her. He wants to go at a nice, slow pace, after all, they have all night to taste themselves.

“Where do you want me to kiss you, darling? Just tell me.” The god's voice is hoarse and eager to please his goddess.

“Above,” she says, huffing in frustration. “It feels so hot, it even burns.”

The anxiousness in her words guides him to the place where the goddess's heat pools to a point he knows in other women, but he's dying to know how Mikasa will react.

And just as Eren expected, she is soaked and almost a mess. In any other mortal or immortal, he didn't care about it, however in Mikasa, oh for heaven's sake! That inflates his ego as if it were a battle won.

He explores those unknown lands with the tips of his big, thick fingers, eliciting more pitiful moans from him. Something tightens in him as he pushes aside his underwear and plunges into her nectar-soaked flesh, moving up and down without neglecting the centre of her swollen pleasure.

“Gods, Eren!” She moans loudly, arching her back.

Eren smiles victoriously, increasing the rhythm of his finger dance, enjoying the wonderful sight of Mikasa being a nervous wreck because of him.

The eyes of love tinged with conflict because of war, it even becomes addictive to watch. So ineffable.

For the lord of War, there is nothing like a cry of victory in war, so moments later, when Mikasa comes in a gasping loud moan, Eren does nothing but smile lasciviously, quenched by his victory.

“Satisfied my love?” He asks, looking down at her with his dark-green eyes sparkling and his cheek marks burning bright red.

Mikasa nods with misty eyes, almost sleepy.

“I can give you this and much more,” he murmurs and then leans down to place a chaste kiss on her lips, then down the crook of her neck and up to the shell of her ear, where he makes sure to bite devilish. Then he repeats, “much more.”

After loving her, he leaves before the sun rises, he always does. They cannot be discovered, Mikasa is still married to another — absent — man to whom the vows that have been imposed on her say that she owes fidelity.

A loyalty that no longer exists and perchance never really existed.

Every caress, every whisper and every kiss of the goddess of love now belongs to the god of war… or has always belonged to him, who knows.

Whatever it is, that bed of roses is slowly deconsecrated by the almost wonderful, passionate and incomprehensible union of love and war.

“Jean will return to the Olympus soon.”

It doesn't take long for the god's fists to clench hard at the unfortunate news.

Eren says nothing. He falls silent, thinking about violent things and how much he hates that this god of the forge dares to return to Olympus.

This had to happen just as his relationship with the goddess of love was blossoming like spring flowers. Blooming brilliantly, as it happens every time Persephone returns to the surface after a long time in the underworld's realm. 

“Eren?” she calls out to him with her voice warm as the afternoon sun.

They're in the garden they've claimed as theirs, right under that wisteria tree. Eren has his head resting on Mikasa's lap, and she strokes his hair, admiring his tanned face.

“How long will he stay exactly?” He finally speaks, opening his eyes to look at those silver orbs that take his breath away.

“I don't know.” She says, biting her lip, “Jean is so unpredictable.”

“Jean is an arse,” the god growls, taking a seat next to the girl, then murmurs. “Gods, I hate this.”

“What exactly do you hate?” Mikasa asks, biting her lips.

Eren snorts loudly as he angrily rubs his face.

“The fact that you have to go back to him.” Then he puts his arm around her shoulder and pulls her close to him. “I don't like it, it's a martyrdom, and just thinking that he can make you his own makes my blood boil.”

He is silent for a few moments, inhaling and exhaling loudly, trying to control his inner violence that manifests itself involuntarily when he feels someone will take Mikasa away from him.

“It even makes me want to...”

“Eren,” she says, stopping him from completing his sentence. With a straight face, she looks for his gaze. “I have decided a long time ago that I will not be anyone's if it is by obligation.”

The energetic tyrant that dwells within him is held back by invisible chains made by the goddess herself. The warlord smiles slyly in relief.

“What about me, huh?” He dares to ask, leaving a chaste kiss on the tip of her little nose. “Would you be mine?”

Mikasa smiles sheepishly, hiding in the curve of her golden neck. After a silence, where he showers her with chaste kisses on the crown of her head, making her giggle, she answers.

“I will be yours, only yours.”

Eren jumps on top of her, laying her down on the green grass, and kisses her over and over again and again.

Once again, his mischievous hands play with the hem of her cloud-white dress. This time he adds not only his fingers to explore her, but also his restless tongue to worship her under the branches of that tree that hides them from the gaze of the sky.

And again, she melts through his fingers, screaming his name as she reaches to touch the sky.

If Mikasa is pretty on a day-to-day basis, then that night in her golden ball gown is something Eren really can't describe in words.

The garment's fabric sensually hugs her curves, her wavy hair styled in an elaborate bun exposes her snowy neck, and the plunging neckline that runs down her back leaves him gasping. He almost wants to rip her dress off right there and take her on the table of the gods, but Jean's grip on her side makes him sick enough that his sullenness spills out into his surrounding aura.

“It is not polite to look at other people's wives.” Says a voice next to him.

Eren clicks his tongue in anger. Supporting the weight of his body on one pillar of the hall. He answers. “You should tell that to half the gods in this room, including you and my father.”

Armin, the god of the seas, laughs loudly. “Well, I must admit you have a point.”

The blond stands shoulder to shoulder next to him as they admire the party taking place in front of them.

The main gods of Olympus had met to decide the fate of mortals and to give brief reports on what was happening in the earthly world. However, there they were all in the middle of a big celebration that begins to riot as the hours of the night advanced. 

“But the way you look at the goddess of love and beauty…” Armin pauses for a few moments, reflecting on his words. “Aren't you worried about what Jean might say?”

Eren snickers, crossing his arms. “I'm not the only god watching her.” His eyes wander around the room, seeing how some gods seem to want to eat Mikasa. She simply talks with Sasha, having her hateful husband as a custodian. “Some goddesses even.”

“And that's why it's such a relief that the goddess of beauty is already married,” Armin says, sipping from the wine in his golden cup. “Another potential Titanomachy has been averted.”

The god of war snorts under his breath, managing to abide by the attention of the lord of the seas, who looks at him with a curved eyebrow. The blond doesn't need to ask what is bothering him when Eren speaks for himself.

“A great misfortune has been avoided without even asking her for an opinion,” he spits that out with his characteristic rage swarming from his pores. “They took away her freedom, it's a fact.”

“I don't remember you being so empathic with the other gods, Eren.” Armin expresses with interest. “Why so much empathy all of a sudden? Has anything changed in the warlord?”

Armin looks over his shoulder, seeing that he can't get any reaction from the protector of Olympus, so he dares to add.

“Everyone talks about how you've been less… conflicted lately.”

Eren subtly stirs, stunned only for a few thousandths of a second. Armin notices it but prefers to keep quiet.

Looking back in silence, Eren concludes that he hasn't been involved in much war lately. He hasn't caused any conflict or plague in the world, and hasn't received any complaints in the Olympian assembly for his questionable behaviour.

And he knows why. Mikasa, it was all for Mikasa. The goddess touched his heart and slowly calmed his rage. The goddess who brought beauty to his world of cruelty. His healer, his faithful ally.

“I would like to know what has changed in you, Eren. I see you different.” Armin speaks again. “But whatever you're doing, I hope you don't incur your father's wrath.”

The lord of armies laughs sarcastically, shaking his head, and then answers.

“As if that old man cares what I do.”

Armin simply nods at Eren's confidence, however, the god of war's self-sufficiency is short-lived as he watches the god of the forge retire with the goddess of beauty to their chambers.

That night, he ends up looking for street fights in an old city, just not to think that Jean might be putting his calloused hands on Mikasa. Pulling her gold dress off her and leading her to the bed, where the god of war himself made her cum so many times.

He violently beats up a thug twice his size, reflecting that maybe, just maybe, if he had known of his father's plans to marry the goddess with someone, he would have immediately asked for her hand.

He even reflects that he could have started a war just to have her as his wife.

“I brought many jewels for you, all of them of pure gold with the most precious stones,” Jean says, sitting up in bed. “And thousands of dresses, all the ones you deserve.”

Mikasa doesn't pay much attention to him. Jewellery is frivolous and dresses are too ostentatious. She only needs by her side the modest scarf that Eren has given to her and that small bracelet with a green jade butterfly that he brought her from a battle.

Of course, his touch, too. His hands running over the surface of her skin, up her legs to where she loved to be touched and kissed.

“Mikasa, darling, come to bed.”

Her breath catches in her chest, feeling suddenly caught having sinful thoughts with someone who isn't there.

She turns immediately to find her husband between the sheets of the bed. The sight is not pleasant to her, and it had nothing to do with Jean's physique, who was actually fine, just that she was used to being glimpsed by deep green eyes whose owner had bronze toned muscles.

“Are you going to sleep here?” she asks in a whisper, trying not to let her voice betray her.

“Just for today, tomorrow I must go to the forges again.” Jean says as if it's too obvious.

“I meant if you're going to sleep in my… my bed.”

Jean raises an eyebrow. “Our bed, dear.” He now affirms with a smile.

Sure, their bed. It was customary for Mikasa to have it to herself, so she completely forgot that this was the main room of the forge god's palace. The matrimonial room, in fact.

The same one where Eren sneaked in at night to kiss her and touch her passionately.

“It's fine,” she finally answers, slipping under the silk and making sure to keep a safe distance.

Jean is good, Jean is attentive, but Jean is not what she wanted, and it is not what she wants. The god of the forge is too smart to figure that out for himself when she rejects his embrace and curls into a ball to the side, hugging a scarf he doesn't remember giving her.

The blacksmith sighs in frustration and then speaks, trying as hard as he can to sound sympathetic.

“Listen to me, Mikasa.” He speaks disappointed. He has the most beautiful goddess of all at his side, but at the same time he doesn't have her. “I'm so sorry to leave you alone for so long, but you have to understand that it's part of my job.”

She doesn't answer him. Jean adds. “I really hope you behave yourself in my absence.”

She finally nods for Jean to leave her alone. She stirs a little, closing her eyes, and imagines that her husband is not the god of the forge, but the god of war.

That night, she dreams that she's free to choose whom to marry, and it's this god with tanned skin whom she justly chooses. They later live in a place isolated from the tricks of Olympus in a simple cabin in the mountains.

She also dreams that Eren claims her as his, leaving an indelible mark on her, and together they procreate a middle ground between his unbridled war and her vicious love.

Harmony?

Mikasa is alone again, and this time not only because Jean has already gone to the forges, but also because Eren doesn't appear anywhere in Olympus all day.

She wants to ask where he is; she wants to know what happened to him, but she can't do it openly, or she'll raise suspicions. The goddess can't risk that happening.

When she sees him arrive at her palace bloodied and crying at night, she worries too much. However, when she rushes to him and catches him in her arms, she isn't sure if it is the concern that moves her or the immense desire she had to see him.

Whatever it is, Eren ends up hugging her possessively, crying on her shoulder.

“Eren, I'm here.” She takes his bronze face in her small hands and leaves a pure kiss on his lips. “Come back, come back to me.”

He looks at her through tears, leaning his forehead against hers.

“I'm selfish,” he murmurs. “I want you all to myself, just to myself. It’s so selfish, I know.”

Mikasa smiles through her tears, threatening to spill out to mingle with Eren's. Just a few moments later, she whispers.

“So do I... we are both selfish.”

He comes out of his hiding, looking for the sacred face of the goddess to kiss her between salty drops that penetrate her lips. Suddenly, the kiss tastes not only of glory, but also of a distressing sea of salt.

Mikasa breaks away to get some oxygen. Picking her lower lip, she tells him.

“Let's go home, Eren.”

Now it is Mikasa who is eager to comfort him, eager to give him all her love and bring light to his dark world.

She doesn't care about the blood on her face, or the blood splattered on her armour, or much less the mess he might make in her bed. The goddess of love takes the god of war's hand and leads him to her chambers.

Eren, meanwhile, had never allowed himself to dream of ending up like this, being undressed by an almost heavenly being with black hair, with delicate hands and ready to give in to his feelings. He's about to completely abandon all his bellicosity in bed just because of Mikasa, letting her completely dominate him.

The bronze armour clatters to the ground, making some metallic noise, and then his red-crested helmet follows. Soon he finds himself completely naked in front of his goddess, who then slides her hands down the straps of her white dress so that it falls, revealing the creamy white skin he has dreamed of.

Mikasa gazes directly into his glowing green orbs of temptation as she leans over him until she's above his body, bumping skin to skin and starting a friction dance like stormy waves crashing against a rocky cliff on the shores.

Eren sighs as she leaves shy kisses along the crook of his neck, working their way up from the southeast to his lips. Finally, he relaxes completely as they join in a deep kiss that quickly leaves both of them breathless.

“My goddess, my love.” He says, ecstatic when she moves away just a few millimetres to take a small breath.

“I'm here, Eren,” Mikasa murmurs, smiling against his lips. “Can you feel? Can you feel my heart?”

“Yes, I can.”

Mikasa ends up sitting on top of him. A position Eren had never tried before, but now he decides he loves it. Not only because of the beautiful view of her rounded breasts, but also because he feels he's a front-row spectator of the goddess' pleasure.

With eyes closed, their mouths collide again, and their tongues fight for dominance with ragged breaths.

Eren ventures to lower his hands down her beautiful curves until he reaches her butt, where he squeezes with a gentleness unbecoming of his nature. He lifts her a little, and when he drops her… the female moan echoes in the room, accompanied by the male growl, just as their bodies conjoin like the planets in outer space.

They stop, feeling the connection. The god looks up to find his goddess with dilated eyes, trying to get used to his size. He doesn't care if he has to wait minutes or an eternity, he just wants her to enjoy it as much as he does.

“My love?”

Mikasa opens her eyes as if she were emerging from the depths of the sea, but instead of meeting the sunlight, it's Eren's eyes that receive her and do not let her drown again.

“I need you, Eren… I need you.”

Eren smiles fondly before taking the fragile body of his lover and delicately inverts positions, being prominent on her small figure. Now it's his turn to take care of her, love her and adore her.

“Everything you want, my Love. Everything you want.”

Only when he feels her relaxed between his legs, Eren thrusts into her, fully entering, causing another female sough that sounds like music in his ears. Mikasa's warmth spreads to his body, making him remember the warmth of home he never had.

And he loves that Mikasa is his home now. He loves the sounds she makes, he loves the way she squirms under him, and he loves being inside her causing all those sensations.

Mikasa can only scratch just above the red lines that extend from his cheeks to his back, tracing new marks to draw hieroglyphics that only the two lovers can understand.

And she loves that it's Eren who is taking her, loves that he's the one whispering words of love in her ear, loves his grunts that tickle her skin, and loves that he's now the owner of her body.

“You're the most precious being I've ever seen…” He murmurs with difficulty, his brows clenching tightly with each hard thrust he makes towards her. “And you always will be.”

Again, they look at each other again to merge in a desire, slippery and messy kiss, silently wishing that this union would last forever. An almost miraculous conjunction could be said, considering the force of the war now dominated by love, who placates its evil aspects and its belligerence.

“Come with me, Eren, come with me.” She whimpers, feeling the arousal of her body tingling intensely in her abdomen with each hard and fast thrust of the god.

They won't last much longer; it was evident in their ragged breaths and skin burning from friction. The divine grace of both of them intermingling with their arousal was a unique feeling and stronger than anything they had ever experienced.

And Mikasa screams — Eren, Eren, Eren — completely bursting into bed, feeling like she's blossomed into a flower, as he keeps pushing for his own release.

“Almost… almost al-”

He finally cums with a loud growl that sounds like his war yells, but this one is much more pleasurable, and at the same time disarms him of his weapons until he becomes a bundle of relaxed muscles.

Eren ends up resting his hands on Mikasa's side, being careful not to crush her. He rests his forehead against hers as their heavy, steamy breaths mingle in the air.

“Breathe Mikasa, breathe.”

It doesn't matter if the god's lungs are going to collapse, he puts the goddess first and makes sure that she gradually catches her breath. Even after the conjunction, she is still dominant and placating him, she doesn't need to be on top to do it.

“Eren…”

Hearing his name from the mouth of Mikasa, the goddess of love and beauty, the most divine and precious being he has ever seen in his infinite immortal life, makes Eren want to get into her again.

Over and over again and again… now and forever, as many times as she wants …

“I'm here, my love.” He says, settling his lips on those of his goddess. “I am by your side.”

And the passionate dance begins again, while mirrors whisper and shadows sing. That's just one of the many unions of love and war.

Mikasa is the one who almost always explodes first, Eren accompanies her instantly. Sometimes their bodies even synchronize, and the two end up riding climax together through distant clouds.

The god of war makes sure to leave her bed before the sun rises, always leaving chaste kisses on the red lips of the goddess, promising he will return at night.

The separation hurts both equally, it's not satisfactory. If they could, they would sleep together until noon, and then take a rose bath, and eat ambrosia, embracing each other in the garden.

However, that's far from happening.

They have to settle for nights of unbridled passion with a red-head guard ─ protected by the god of war─ who hides them, just like the Charites, the loyal servants of the goddess of love.

There's no other option, there's no other way. The gods chained her to another god. However, fate was generous and connected them in such an illicit way, and they would take that opportunity at any cost.

There were no consequences, not yet. Or at least they hadn't thought of them.

Deep in a volcano, right where the forge god's forge is located, Jean breathes angrily. A feeling in particular unknown to himself, but it's now eating away at his head as he listens to what Louise, one of Mikasa's Charites, has to say.

“My lady has tangled with the god of war.” She told him bluntly. “He visits her every night, taking advantage of your absence on the Olympus.”

At first, Jean didn't want to believe it, he thought it was impossible. Mikasa was modest and shy. How could someone angelic like her get involved with a war maniac?

Jean machines his mind and thinks as much as he thinks about how to forge the weapons coveted by the other gods. That scarf, he doesn't know where it came from, is the same colour as the crest of the belligerent god's helmet. Even the same colour as his birthmarks. Only a madman like Eren would leave minimal details of his presence to annoy him.

However, he was sceptical until the last moment, and when Louise said something that seemed impossible to consider, he knew that the betrayal was a reality.

“The god hasn't gone out to any war lately, just because he wishes to be in our lady's quarters.”

And that was true, in fact, it had been whispered about at the last big gathering of the Olympians. He had not heard anything lately of any war conflict caused by the whims of the Lord of Armies. It's as if he had suddenly entered a state of ceasefire and pacifism, for which no one knew why.

The god of the forge must have noticed that night when Eren sat in front of his wife, looking at her in a special and surreal way. He wanted to believe that maybe it was the charm of the goddess, part of her attributes, but he was wrong.

“And why are you telling me all this?” Jean asks, setting aside the hammer he was working with. “What do you earn, Louise?”

The maiden shrugs, humming to the air.

“Just to look for someone to stop this atrocity. So, my lady returns to her pure state of godhood.” Louise smiles. “That state in which I met her and which made me admire her so much.”

When Louise retires, Jean works later than usual that day. Then he begins his return to Olympus.

“Is Jean gone yet?” Eren asks, peeking through the door that leads to the garden, after hearing that the god of the forge had already left his palace.

“Genuinely, I have no idea why he came and went so fast.” Mikasa says, coming to where the warrior is.

She stretches out her hand, and he takes it to quickly bring her closer to his body. Then, he hugs her around the waist and kisses her lips.

“The night is beautiful, isn't it?” He whispers, breathing close to her.

“You're right, it's pretty.” She hangs on his neck. “Do you want to see the stars with me? They're shiny today.”

They dance for a few moments under the moonlight and to the beat of a non-existent melody. Eren is the first to speak.

“It may be, but the view of the stars is nothing compared to when I have you naked in bed.” He walks, takes her backwards, and goes into where the bed is. That place, where they have built a kingdom of sheets and blankets, and now has his name engraved as if he were a conqueror. “Let's go to bed, my love.”

His greenish eyes begin to light up as one of his hands lowers one of the straps of the creature's dress until it falls completely to the ground. Mikasa throws her head back, feeling her lover's caresses and honeyed kisses on the surface of her bare skin. Almost drunk with ecstasy, she manages to strip Eren of his red robe.

Going up with his kisses from her collarbones, to almost close to her ear, Eren whispers. “I love you… I love you too much.”

It sounds almost intelligible, like words whispered to the wind, but she can hear it perfectly. And then, Mikasa knows Eren belongs to her, and she belongs to Eren. He's her missing piece, which she never wants to let go of.Eren loves her, and she loves Eren. It's a divine, sacred and precious realisation that she wants to scream with euphoria.

Mikasa will affirm to the four winds that she loves him too, that he's her most loved and dearest. That she wants to escape from Olympus with him and spend the rest of her life with him, just the two of them. 

Until…

A golden net fell on them just as they lay down on the bed to consummate their passion again.

“What is this shit?” Eren roars as he feels trapped, he didn't see it coming at all. “Who the hell did this?”

“Mikasa?”

Jean appears in the doorway with surprise on his face, but above all, pain at the betrayal. The two trapped lovers look at him from under the net, both naked, though Eren instantly moves to cover his goddess with his body.

A bitter sound like sarcastic laughter echoes off the four walls as Jean puts his hands in his head.

“I didn't want to believe it; I didn't want to believe it.” He stops to look at them, just steps from the desecrated bed now covered in a golden trap that shamefully imprisons them. “But here you are… with his hands on you and his scent on my sheets.”

Jean laughs bitterly again, this time with his lower lip trembling. “Is this why you didn't want to consummate the marriage with me?” It sounds like a desperate question. “Was it because of this Olympus outcast that you tainted your purity?”

“Release me, you fucking asshole.” Eren growls, interrupting his wailing. “Release me and fucking with fight me.”

He shakes his head vigorously. “I can't even fight for her honour… it doesn't exist any longer; you took it after all.”

Those words only increase the rage of the god of war. How dare he speak of her like that? How dare he treat her as if she were tainted now? Betrayal or not, he couldn't speak of this heavenly creature as if she were any lesser being.

“Jean,” Mikasa says his name, finally levelling her voice while still hugging Eren. “You and I knew this marriage was a failure.”

The loud breathing of the god of the forge interrupts her for a few moments, but she continues anyway. “I'm not stupid, I know you asked for my hand after a dispute with the god of gods.” She looks at him intently, despite the embarrassing state she is in. “You tried to force a union, you tried to force love. How did you think this was going to end? We were doomed!”

Tears gather at the corner of the forge, god's eyes deep in his heart, know she's right. They were doomed since the beginning, and there wasn't a way back. But Jean is stubborn and hates Eren as much as the other gods on Olympus. “I refuse to release you two. You're traitors, you made fun of me.”

Mikasa can't believe what he hears, and Eren just grits his teeth, feeling humiliated by that crack brained god whose face he had always compared with the horses in the stables.

That insufferable and insignificant being dared to mock him, the feared Lord of War.

Eren eagerly hatches a plan to free himself from this trap and kill the god of the forge once and for all. Only that the gold threads were resistant, and that moron refused to release them. 

In the end, the god of the oceans himself had to intervene, warned by one of the Charites of the goddess.

From then on, Eren doesn't remember exactly what happened. Jean raised the net, and before he could attack head on, Armin swiftly intervened, bringing them both before the god of gods, Grisha.

And Mikasa? He had to leave her without saying anything, all because Jean threatened to make a bigger fuss.

Grisha looks disappointed, nothing new, but he's worried about his look of deep anger and the fact that his dad favours Jean, who is not his son like him.

“Indeed, Eren. I have always said the troublesome things that happen here are all your fault.” The god of gods looks at him with no expression on his face. “If it wasn't for you being Carla's son, I would have already killed you with my own hands.”

And those words hurt him, even though the relationship with his father is non-existent. He always assumed Grisha wanted him dead, it was something he sensed, but now that he heard it from his own mouth, it hurt like hell. It's tearing at that heart that beat thanks to the goddess, now far away from him.

“I can return Mikasa's dowries. She can return gifts even, but you… son,” he says the latter sarcastically. “You deserve a punishment for all this.”

“Lord Grisha,” Armin speaks intervening. “I don't think you should be hard on Eren. He…”

“You don't have to plead for him, god of the seas.” The god of gods strongly imposes his authoritative voice. “If I don't do it now, he'll never understand that I'm serious.”

Whatever Grisha says next, he knows he is being taken away from the goddess, and his heart perishes again.

Jean was able to keep love and war together, to dispose of the end of the bellicose soul that mobilizes men. Grisha could have understood that the marriage he imposed was a mistake, and could have appeased the destructive soul of his son, joining him with the one who mastered that facet with perfection.

But none of that happened.

With those facts, the war in its most violent state returns to take over Eren's heart. His suicidal, violent, tragic state of mind returns to him. He suddenly lost the halo given by his lover, and becomes his own anti-Christ.

The destructive forces return to nurture his warlike nature, as if love had never been in him.

Autumn arrives, painting the leaves in dark and opaque colours, as opaque as Mikasa's orbs no longer shine as they used to do months ago when she dozed between ivory sheets and bronze-tinted iron muscles.

She's still the goddess of love and beauty, but love is not what she feels lately when she remembers that her beloved god of war is missing. There is no news of him, there are no traces, much less a clue to his whereabouts.

Or is it what everyone around her usually says lately. For some reason, she senses they are keeping things from her.

It might be because she is now considered an adulterous goddess. It may even be the work of Levi, who immediately took her to Hizuru after Jean spurned her as his wife —which is actually a way of saying they've completely parted ways. Or maybe it's because of her newly discovered miracle, which has raised the cry of certain gods, especially the god of gods. Which she's been asked to keep a secret while it burns a hole through her heart, and her bones catch a fever. 

Whatever it is, that doesn't take away from the fact that a deep, tortuous hollow has been installed in her chest. She wonders if Eren felt that way when she wasn't with him, because the feeling is really exasperating.

She adjusts her scarf around her neck, sheltering herself from the autumn breeze that begins to hit the island as the days go by. It's the only shelter and comfort she has right now.

She sighs, gently caressing her belly as she lies down on the bark of a tree, which reminds her exactly of that one in Olympus. Where she spent her afternoons with the god of war sleeping on her lap while she played with his hair.

“I couldn't even tell you that you were my most beloved, my dear.” She whispers to the wind, hoping that somehow those words will reach the missing god.

Anyway, she doubts that could happen.

She leans back against the tree, still stroking her slightly swollen belly. She's so tired lately that she wants to close her eyes to take a long nap and have a long dream where she escapes with her lover.

But she must be strong from now on. 

In that central point of her belly, where her hand stops and delicately caresses. There, slowly, the combination of Eren's extreme violence and her unbridled love grows, becoming something that is the exact right balanced point of those two powerful forces.

Harmony.