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kriz-fics · 1 year

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The Sword’s Legacy

Series Summary: As the heir of your father's lands, you have grown up knowing that one day you must wed to your House's advantage, and there's no better catch than the younger son of the Magister himself. Meanwhile tensions within the king's court are set to come to a head at any moment - it just needs that spark to send everything ablaze. Now in a court more dangerous than the one you entered, you find distraction and joy in the company of the beautiful boy with the beautiful eyes. You can only hope to weather the storm you can sense brewing in the horizon.

Masterlist

Chapter Sixteen: Lore and Luminaries

Pairing: Eren Jaeger x Female Reader

Genre: Royalty AU, Historical Fantasy AU, Romance, Politics, Warfare, Eventual Smut (future chapters), Slow Burn

Length: 13.8K

CW: Mentions of underage sexual exploration / mention of child abuse (physical)

“Dragon root, dried wasp stings… vervain, lovage. Grind all those up for me, if you would, my lady.”

For a long while, the sound of stone grinding against stone is the only thing to be heard in the Healer’s rooms. It is the most riveting sound, that steady rasp, bewitching in its constancy. The scent wafting from the mortar is yet another component of the enchantment that has fallen upon the space. Each breath you take is more pleasant than the last. Invigorating. It is almost enough to make you forget the purpose of the brew. And to whom you will have it served.

Mother had been taken ill a couple of days past. The sweats, they feared, at its onset. The sweats, thank the gods, it is not. The source of the bug had been confined to her cottage, to sleep away the malady and prevent its spread.

By no means was this to be the last spate of illness within the household, Healer Darya warned. The autumn storms are soon come upon you and with them the dreaded ague. It is not so lethal as the mortal sweats, to be sure, but it is a great deal more catching and takes its fair share of lives when left untreated.

The cooks have been outdoing themselves of late, churning out dish after dish bursting with greens and fish and eggs. Fare to prevent further illness and strengthen the constitution, it is known. The year’s bounty of oranges (bloody and otherwise) find themselves a constant on the household table as well. And lemons. So many lemons. From fowl cooked with lemons to lemon cakes to liqueurs, the cooks find no end to their utility. It is almost enough to put you off them for the next year. Almost. Lemon cakes are altogether too tasty to give up for a full year.

“My lady, perhaps you can enlighten me with the properties of lovage.” Healer Darya gives you the briefest of glances before turning to her work.

An unusual yet not unpleasant mixture of scents trails the priestess’s words. Peppermint, wormwood, silk moss. For the tonic to revitalize Mother. You grind your own ingredients on, as ordered, before eventually answering, “Lovage is most effective as an aid for digestion. If used too much, though, it can leave the patient extremely disoriented. As such, it must be used sparingly, and with a light hand.”

“What of vervain?”

“It is often used for the treatment of feral dog bites. However, it is also generally known as a potent restorative, especially if used in tonics. As we are using it right now.”

“Quite right, and well-put.” The Healer gauges the steadily burning flame beneath the small pewter cauldron on its iron trivet. She holds out her hand. “My lady, the paste, if you please.” The unusually pleasant scent takes on a new note and a different sort of pleasantness. Healer Darya puts aside the black stone mortar and its matching pestle, before taking up a ladle and stirring the concoction. “Perhaps I’ll set you to making the next few batches of these so I might at last move on to restocking the other essentials.”

You will take no issue with that. The past week or so of Healer lessons had been nothing less than stimulating. It began with books. The Lady Alyrya’s priestess was only too happy to oblige her mistress when you requested tuition. Light reading, to start. Greens in Your Garden; Flowers of the South; Physic and Herblore, an interesting treatise on medicinal plants, written by renowned herbalist Prior Flora, which you had started two nights past.

The true work is what you anticipate the most.

“Hang these up to dry and finish the tisane.”

A bundle of herbs changes hands, and you proceed to obey. Pennyroyal and golden parsley, you note, with no small amount of wryness as you walk toward the drying area. Herbs needed for that most infamous of brews. The Healer had been instructing you on all manners of subjects: the drying of herbs, the extracting of vegetal oils, the making of tisanes, potions, pastes. Soon, you will move on to the more difficult tinctures, perhaps even your first poultice. All of these and more you will learn. But for the brewing of that one draught.

It had not been too long ago when Father had called you to his solar, grim and grave and so disappointed. He did not give you long to wonder at his disappointment. “What is this I hear about you and Young Master Meledin?” he had inquired, brisk and uncharacteristically terse.

He changed tack at your honest confusion, which he only doubled with his next query. Young, new-flowered Lady Rhyzkova could not understand nor picture what Father was on about. You had spent a good few moments in silence, puzzling out the details. You could not imagine how you were supposed to fit that hard rod of flesh inside you, or even that you could.

So you had, truthfully, said no, Roman did not put his penis inside your sex. That new insight gave you awe, nevertheless. You might not have taken him in but you had taken him to hand, to his nervous excitement. That felt good, he said; it felt even better when you stroked. And so you did, encouraged by his eager urging, fascinated by the way he swelled and grew harder in your grip. Even the strange fluid that leaked from him in droves (not piss, he had asked Prior Ilya) did not put you off like it had that first time (your disgust did not let you get this far, and he had wilted from the embarrassment). He had climaxed all over your hand soon afterward. The milk-white liquid that came spurting from his cock was not piss, that was for certain.

For all your honesty, Father had his reservations. Healer Darya came to confirm your innocence, sent by Lord Alexander to corroborate his daughter’s claims. You were as intact as you could be, for a highborn girl, announced the priestess. It was not a boy’s cock that caused what tears there were down there. Noble girls are more like to lose their maidenheads to horses than to boys, this is known, and you have been riding since you were six, years and years ago.

Still, it stings, even now, to know Father had not taken you at your word. It is understandable, to a degree, to make absolutely sure - your value in the marriage market would have severely plummeted had you been plucked before your time. That does not lessen the sting, even so. It is some reassurance that he had not made you drink söga, at least.

Söga, the tisane you will never learn to make if Father and Healer Darya can help it. Both know well your capacity for wantonness. Your wanton streak, as Father called it. To your face. “You have a wanton streak in you, my child,” he had said, so very gently. Somehow, that had not stung - he could have worded, and delivered, it worse. He could have called it my whorish streak.

And so you are relegated to keeping your whorish streak to yourself. It is all to the good, anyway. You know well what is expected of a lady, especially one with a standing as high as yours. That does not stop the what-ifs from cropping up every so often; they especially love to crop up in the face of a handsome boy, and the court does not lack for those. You are betrothed to one of those, as it happens. That you will use forbidden knowledge to go ahead and fuck your handsome boy without any consequences, you do not know. But that is certainly something.

You can always brew the tea yourself, you suppose, as you grab a length of knotted twine off the counter and begin to wrap it about the herbs’ stems. Söga is disastrous to get wrong, though. A misstep in the recipe will blast your womb and render you barren, a woman’s worst nightmare realized. You cannot have that; you must have heirs of your own body and continue a line eight thousand years strong.

Mugwort and nettle and goldenglow hang before you in a neat row, joined shortly by your pennyroyal and parsley. Herbal soldiers in line, waiting for their commands. And like true soldiers, they lose their potency beneath too much sun. All herbalists know to keep herbs away from scorching heat, and the Healer is no exception. The sandstone visible through the glass window before you makes for a dismal view.

The views are more cheering where the sun is allowed to shine. The apothecary is aptly stationed right beside the entrance to the sanctum, giving the resident Healer easy access to its wealth of flora. No autumn hues are evident through the wood-and-glass door that leads out into the palace gardens. This far south, the seasons turn more slowly, and so everything keeps its verdant bloom. For the moment.

You leave the apothecary bearing a silver trayful of remedies: ginger and mint tea (sweetened with honey), essence of yarrow, a bowl of hot water and a square of clean linen, marlock salve and the revitalizing tonic, finished at last after half an hour’s worth of labor. You cannot help the irreverent smile that pulls at your lips as you pass a familiar corridor.

Down those halls is a certain sitting room, now scarce used. It was that which made it so enticing to two highborn whelps who were too inquisitive for their own good. You do not know how that servant managed to catch you at it; hardly anyone went down there, as little used as the wing was. Perhaps you were louder than you’d thought. Par for the course for children, who tend to have little thought of their immediate surroundings.

Father had the whole wing’s rooms locked and sealed away afterward. He hardly should have bothered. It had not taken him long to send Roman away, so you were left with no boys to play around with (no boys you were attracted to enough, at any rate). And no boys to learn the way of the bedchamber with, no one to fondle and explore just to see what went where.

The older ladies of the court told you what went where readily enough.

Mother’s rooms are empty of callers and servants but for her handmaid, the Lady Oksana Aliyeva, sister to the Lady of Noyasnoy, Tatyana Aliyeva. “My lady,” she curtseys as you brush past the gossamer hangings to enter your mother’s bedchamber. The older woman proceeds at once to tie back the drapes, her long sheet of silvery blonde hair rippling in her wake.

You set your tray down on the table placed at the foot of the bed and gather the mug of tea in your hands. You wave away the handmaid as she comes over to assist. “Leave us, if you would, my lady.”

Lady Oksana checks, draws herself up and bows before taking her leave.

“Ah, my sweet little Healer,” Lady Theresia says hoarsely from her seat in her large bed, propped up on big silken pillows against her red gossamer-covered headboard and smiling her warm motherly smile. The stuffed peacocks flanking the bed stare haughtily down at you as you walk over to the bedside and sit on the crimson bedclothes. The clay of the teacup is rough and warm beneath your fingers, the tisane not too hot, perfect for drinking.

“How are you feeling?” you ask your lady mother as you hand her the drink. Still a bit peaky, you think, taking in Mother’s drawn complexion with a surge of concern. You mislike the gravel in her voice as well as its thickness. The mint will help the rocks and the obstruction.

Lady Theresia smiles, sardonic. “The cavalry is running a charge through my body, but this old bat is otherwise fine.” Mother and daughter share a laugh. “No leeches?” Lady Theresia queries after a taste of tea.

“Perhaps later. Healer Darya will drop by to check on you.”

“Oh, thank the gods. Such nasty creatures,” Mother shudders and takes another prim sip. “Did you mix this yourself?”

“Yes.” A bowl of water is sitting beside a tiny ornate brazier on the bedside table. A square of linen floats, submerged, in the yarrow-infused liquid. You stand and take the basin, striding back to the other table at the foot of the bed.

“Your lessons are going along swimmingly then.”

The pleasant scent of yarrow drifts through the air from the bottle in your hand. You pour a capful of the essence into the fresh bowl, well-pleased.

“Tell me of your curriculum. I trust that it is a good one. And appropriate.”

You cannot fail to hear the emphatic tone your mother’s voice has adopted. “It is good. And appropriate.” No söga, have no fear, Mother dear. You hang the unused linen over an arm and gather the steaming bowl, the revitalizing tonic, and the salve before returning to the bedside table.

“Eren is a handsome lad - gods, such a handsome lad, and so well-made-” you look askance at your mother’s dreamy expression, which she hastily shakes off, “-but you can afford to wait. Not long now ‘til you can tumble your man to your heart’s content.” Lady Theresia titters as the bottle of tonic near slips from her daughter’s hand at her remark. Her laughter waxes into a hacking cough as you turn to her with abject horror on your face. Never again do you want to hear anything remotely raunchy come out of your mother’s mouth.

“Ah, but he is a sweet lad,” Mother sniffs once her laughter and the coughing subside. She dabs at her nose with a square of linen. “And he makes you happy. That is the most important thing of all.”

You set the revitalizing tonic down beside the salve. He had sent you a tonic once, over a month ago. You had never been more surprised to see Healer Dmitriy outside your rooms in Merrydell, a purple glass bottle in his hands. “Young Master Eren asked me to give you this, my lady. Essence of valerian for your insomnolence.”

As surprised as you had been at this unexpected visit, your astonishment paled in the light of the overwhelming surge of affection that coursed through you at this most thoughtful gesture. Your unrested state had struck a bigger cord in your betrothed than you’d realized. Such a sweet lad indeed.

Lady Theresia finishes her tea at last and hands you her cup. “We are lucky in our men, you and I.” Another set of smiles changes hands. “As I hope your sisters will be. And your brother with his lady wife someday. To be lucky in love is the sweetest thing.”

You putter about the bedside table, fussing at the cup and the bowl and the brazier, cheeks prickling at that most potent of words. Love.

Several moments pass before you can return to your place by Mother’s side. “Speaking of… men and future matches, how is Father taking into account the king’s continued reticence as regards the Crown Prince’s hand?” It has been some time since last you’d spoken of the matter. You hand Mother the small porcelain tub of marlock.

“Yes, well, your father has other options. As he always has in all matters.” A lesson he has been instilling in you most diligently throughout the years. Your mother removes the lid off the tub in her hand, dips her fingers in the ointment, and smears it over her chest, pulling the neck of her nightdress down a little as she does so.

“I don’t think the prince will make Lydia happy anyway.” Not when Lady Gudrun is around to be a paramour on the side.

“They can always grow into it. Such matters are a passing thing.” Lady Theresia hands back the tub, which you set aside on the table, just as a commotion in the form of your baby brother enters the room.

“Mava!”

The swept-back drapes of the bedchamber afford you both a view of little Oliver Rhyzkov tottering down the privy chamber, threading his way past the divans, the armchairs, and the tables in his route to get to Mother’s bedroom. He is carrying an earthenware bowl filled with a glistening golden mass in his little hands.

Behind him drifts his nurse, brown-haired matronly Mother Raisa, in her cerise robes lined with gold. She is carrying her own dish, this one piled high with the harvest’s bounty: pears, peaches, plums, grapes and dates and melons, all manners of berries. “My ladies,” she bows over her bowl once she reaches the threshold of the bedroom, which makes her young ward pause and dip into his own bow.

“No need to bow to your own kin, Olya,” you inform him with a grin, taking the dish from him and ruffling his hair affectionately, making the boy giggle. Your hand shoots out quick as a whip and closes around a pudgy forearm as your brother makes to run to Mother’s bedside. “Sorry, love, but no kisses for Mava just yet. You might get sick, and if you get sick, there’ll be no more playtime. And no more swimming.”

The threat of no more swimming hits hard. Olya slumps down in your hold, pouting a most magnificent pout. “But it’s tomorrow and you said you’d be better tomorrow,” he calls out, sad and plaintive, to Mother, who smiles at him apologetically.

“I’m afraid the bug is stronger than we thought, my love. But I promise I will be better.”

“I told you to let me squish it! I’m not afeared of bugs, I can squish it! So you can be better!”

“That’s why we brought these, your little lordship, to squish the bugs and make your mother stronger,” Mother Raisa intercedes as she places the fruit bowl amidst the physic on the bedroom bench. “Only a good serving of fruit can squish this sort of bug. Of course, a prayer or two will work even more wonders,” she adds piously, clutching at the golden pendant on her chest, that of the Mother Above’s scepter tipped with a tiny pomegranate.

Olya nods vigorously. “Honeycomb makes me feel better, too, so you have to eat them all today so you’ll be better tomorrow. For true.”

Sure enough, the sugary scent emitting from the bowl in your hands belongs to his favorite sweet. You place it beside the fruits, greatly endeared.

“I can’t promise you I’ll be all right tomorrow but I will be in a few days. For true,” Mother says, as endeared as you. “And then we can swim.”

Olya is not quite placated, that is plain to see, but he nods anyway. His hand drifts to his mouth, prompting his nurse to grab hold of the limb. He has been weaned, for the most part, from that most babyish of habits yet still it manifests, especially when he is upset. At five, he is too old for such conduct and needs further work to break the practice for good and all. Lydia had suggested smearing his hand with sun pepper jelly to stop him sucking. Mother had rebuked her most sharply and the issue was dropped.

“I thank you most kindly for the fare. From a harvest well done, indeed,” Lady Theresia remarks, eyeing the overflowing fruit bowl with so much pride. “Not just for us, I am told.”

“Not just for us,” you affirm, proud as the room’s stuffed peacocks. The past week or so had seen the doves coming in from all the Vascalene provinces, all with reports of excellent harvests. You have yet to come down from the heights of your satisfaction.

“A good portent. And good for public perception. Any proof of the gods’ favor of your rule will help ease the way when you come into your own.”

The fact is a most pleasing one. And much-needed, to help chase away the weight of the role.

“Oh, before I forget, you need to drink your tonic,” you exclaim, moving to measure and pour out the potion for your mother’s consumption. “We’ll leave you to it, then,” you put in once the philter has been drunk. You bend to pick up little Olya, who is not so little now, you realize as you feel the weight of him in your arms. Mother Raisa strides forward, voicing out aid, which you wave away. “Say goodbye to Mava,” you prompt the boy, and he obeys, adding a little wave into the bargain. “She needs to sleep so she’ll get better. And then we’ll swim.”

“Swimming! We’ll swim, we’ll swim like Renren,” Olya chirps, bouncing in your hold, to your distress. “Honey!” he demands, reaching for the corresponding bowl. Mother Raisa breaks off a piece of the comb and hands it to him. He sets to at once, happily munching his treat (Mother’s in truth, supposedly), wax and all.

You adjust your grip on him and bid your own farewell to your most beloved mother. You will visit again tonight. A good Healer must needs check on her patients most diligently.

Renren the Newt’s namesake is standing outside the rooms to greet you, to your surprise.

“Hello,” he raises a hand in greeting.

“Hello,” Olya replies, raising his own smaller honey-smeared hand to return the gesture.

Eren smiles that warm, tender smile that has made such a home in his beautiful face. The way he regards you and the boy in your arms is achingly soft.

You shift Olya on your hip, so conscious of Eren’s gaze. “You remember Eren, yes? My betrothed.” Encounters between your betrothed and your brother have been scant. Not least because you are keeping Eren to yourself most every time, and Olya has his own little boy agenda to go through every day. “What are you doing here?” you question Eren, most curious.

He purses his lips and sighs, all tenderness lost. “I heard Lady Theresia was sick and you were tending her. I wanted to know how she was.”

Something in you squirms at the restrained fear of his mien. You know well what frightens him so. It is hard to be confronted with memories of his greatest loss. Mother’s predicament is hitting too close to home. “She’s on the mend,” you assure gently. “A day or two and she’ll be right as rain.”

“You’re a knight, right? Teach me how to joust.” Oblivious Oliver licks at his fingers, exposing Eren to the full brunt of his special stare, that wide-eyed compelling look he loves to use on everyone if he must have his way.

It is working a charm on the most susceptible knight. And does a superb job cutting through the miserable tension in the air neat as a pin. “Do you know how to ride a horse?” Eren asks the boy, who shakes his head. “That won’t do. Before you can joust, you have to know how to ride.”

“Teach me.”

“There’s a thought,” you interpose. “I think that’s a great idea.”

Olya certainly thinks so, too. He bounces in your arms again and again and again, trilling “Teach me,” with each bound. Mother Raisa strides forward to take the little lordling off your hands, and this time you let her. There is no winning against Olya, not when he has begun to work himself into excitement.

Eren chuckles at the spectacle and moves closer to you. “Your master of horse should be the one teaching you, not me. I’m hardly the right authority on that matter.”

“You’ll make a fine teacher, and I speak from experience,” you cut in, noting the frown and the trembling mouth of the little face brought about by Eren’s statement. Nothing good will come from that trembling mouth. You turn to the nursemaid before Olya can work himself up into a tantrum. “We’ll proceed to the stables. Perhaps we can commandeer a suitable pony for Olya.” Crisis averted, you think, relieved to see the excitement return to your baby brother’s face.

“You taught me how to ride and I’m a much better horsewoman for it. Don’t sell yourself so short,” you tell your betrothed, idly fiddling with the braid draped over your left shoulder. Mother Raisa and her charge have already started down the corridor. Your fingers brush against something sticky. Olya’s honey, you grimace, lamenting the stain it made on the pale green cloth of your charovma.

“I can teach you a different sort of riding, if you find me such a fine teacher.”

Your head snaps up. “Pardon?”

Eren gives you a slow, smiling gaze and does not answer, merely reaching out to pinch your cheek. “You make the sweetest faces.” He slips his fingers through yours and tugs you along.

“I have to get changed,” you force out, emerging from one of many spells he has taken to casting on you of late. Your cheek tingles where he had pinched it. “I have been honeyed,” you clarify, plucking at your dress at his inquiring look.

“Oh.”

The comfortable silence that falls between you does not last long. “Are you… sniffing me?”

Embarrassment takes his features over, yet it goes as soon as it comes. “It’s just… you smell sweet. And green. I like it.”

“Oh.”

You play with your braid once more. These Healer’s lessons are proving to be a most valuable asset in your skillset. In more ways than one. You have no choice now but to go about it most diligently. And you do so love the smell of herbs.

Into that wild enchanted wood he strode, the prince of dreams, to take up his seat in this his arcane realm. The birds chirped, and the leaves rustled, and the maid giggled, the maid of the wood, that girl with flowers in her hair.

High up she perched on her hawthorn throne, the true sovereign of this wood, and for her he bent the knee. It was never his wood, never his realm, and this he knew as he had never known before.

“Here you are at last, my lady of the wood,” said he, the prince of dreams. “You have kept me waiting.”

“Here I am at last, my prince of dreams,” said she, the girl with flowers in her hair. “I have kept you waiting, for my person’s sake.”

“I do not mean you harm, and will never. This vow, you will see, shall I keep,” said he, the most earnest of princes.

The mystery of her intrigued him so, and the sennights had been a torment. Food had lost all savor and the sun was dark in his eyes each day spent without her radiance. He had naught of her for she gave him naught, not even a name he could call with yearning lips.

For names have power, you see, said she, the girl with flowers in her hair, and forsworn will I be should I give you power over me.

Dong!

Eren looks round at the sound and instantly leaps to his feet. The time has slipped away from him and he is late. Lore and Luminaries, a Compendium of the Legends of the United Lands is thrown unceremoniously back into the lounge’s cushions as he makes a run for the library’s exit. He spares Prior Ilya a quick nod, who returns it, stiff and disapproving, as Eren speeds past his desk. He hastily straightens out the black and silver vidnon jacket (sans tunic) he is wearing with his black pants, making sure he is presentable as he proceeds down the hallway. The timepiece by the disgruntled dark-haired priest’s elbow shows the hour, that of the lynx.

Whatever seeds of remorse that have sprouted inside Eren wilt as quickly as they grow; he ought to be more careful with books, especially ones not his own, yet he is beyond caring at this point. He can always offer to rearrange the whole library in his idle hours. For now, his lady awaits.

And a true lady you are becoming, more and more each day. Some days, you would spend hours apart, you to your councils and audiences and duty, he to books and sparring and leisure. Much as he mislikes these times, some part of him marvels at them, marvels at you and what you can become. Detestable as she is in your intimacy, Lady Rhyzkova is promising to be a most resplendent woman. The image of you coming into your own excites him more than he realized.

Goldhaven’s sanctum is unrecognizable from the wood that it was two years ago. Then, it was a forest of oak and pine and hawthorn, of cypress and poplar and willow. Now, it is a park, and what oaks and pines and hawthorns there were are now growing in disparate plots across the sward.

He strides down the stone trail that winds its way through the sanctum, eyes peeled for you. The sun is no longer at its zenith and has begun its slow descent into the west. It has dipped below the castle’s towers and so a quarter of the place is in shadow. He walks in dimness for a while until he comes across a choice of paths; he chooses the lefthand one and presses on, emerging at last into the light.

Like the gardens at home in Highridge, Goldhaven’s are elevated, perched high above the city on its leveled edifice. The wind will always blow here. It whips his hair about his face and he considers, for the briefest of moments, having it cut back to its preceding length. He has never grown his hair this long in living memory (it is almost to his shoulders now, hopelessly shaggy), and he is starting to realize why. Your voice echoes in his head, telling him how much you like the look on him, and he desists. For all the trouble it brings on, longer hair has its benefits.

A cluster of gardeners is about, trimming the verges that border one side of the large, circular fountain at the heart of the park. All turn to him and bow with their ‘Sirs’ and ‘Milords’. He acknowledges them with a nod, moving on and on and on, following his stone path.

Still, his lady is absent, yet he knows where he will find her. Past stands of trees he strolls, once again astonished by how far this sanctum goes. The only other garden he knows can match the length of this one is the Bulwark’s. Connie had often claimed that one needed a mount to negotiate the place, as he and the Lady Mikasa were wont to do; it would take them half the day to do so on foot if they so chose to ply the full breadth of it. Eren had tested the veracity of that claim one summer’s day and decided that Connie was full of hot air and made from weak stock. It only took him half an hour to range the whole thing on foot, from the castle to the end of the gardens and back again.

He finds his lady where he knew she would be. High up you perch on the hawthorn tree, right there at the very end of the sanctum, lying latently along a sturdy branch. A fold of white cloth drapes down the bough from your dress, that white dress that exposed a great deal of smooth, shapely leg, split as it is from the thigh down. You are barefoot; your sandals peep out at him on the ground, beside a wicker basket and the godstone of this garden, a smooth, gray monolith with its proud, gray god, standing in front of this proud, tall tree.

His smile comes easily at your beauty’s behest. You have made a servant of his joy, and it comes so eagerly at your presence’s command. You are making a servant of all of him, his bits and parts, and he finds that he can care little and less. You can lead him anywhere and he will come. Unquestioningly. Willingly. Freely.

Your head turns at the sound of his footsteps. You smile your own smile and rest your head on your folded arms beneath you. “You have kept me waiting, Sir.”

Eren stares up at you, utterly charmed. “Here I am at last, my lady of the sanctum. I have kept you waiting only because time slipped away from me.”

“Ah, a flaw at last. The strong and dashing Falcon Knight is a most terrible timekeeper.”

“That is most unfair, my lady. It was only the once, I can assure you it won’t happen again. Look kindly upon me, I implore you.” Wind threads gently through his hair, light as your fingers had been that night in the Sphere. It slips through the edges of his loosely tied vidnon, its touch cool and pleasant on his bare skin. He takes a step forward until he is a handsbreadth away from the godstone. The rounded top of it reaches his waist.

“Why should I look kindly upon someone who calls me unfair to my face?” Wind threads gently through your hair, lifting it from your pretty face to flutter in the breeze. The hem of your dress ripples outward like a pristine banner. Not once did your smile drop.

He rests a hand atop the godstone. “It was the judgement that was unfair, not my lady herself.”

“The Falcon Knight has a silver tongue.” You sit up, lithe and languid, and press closer to the trunk.

“See, I have more to commend me than my timekeeping.” He comes closer, hand sliding off the godstone as he takes a step forward until he is standing by the hawthorn’s roots. His lady is sitting mere feet above him, all smiles still. He need not reach up very far to take one dainty foot into his hand. Yet he does not.

“What else commends you, aside from that tongue that gives you such credit?” You place an elbow on another branch beside you and rest your head upon your arm, playful as Alena of Makan had been with her Prince of Dreams.

Eren places a hand on the trunk, gleaming up at you, his own Alena. Without the flowers in her hair. “Wouldn’t you like to know. My lady.”

You giggle, a sound as sweet as silver bells. “Oh, I would like to know indeed.” You push off the branch and make to clamber down the tree.

At once, he reaches out to assist, taking a small hand into his own and guiding your way down the sloping trunk. The smell of leaves and herbs, that most intoxicating green smell, clings to you like perfume. It smells even better on you than your own perfume. Sweet as apples and winter roses are, they are not so comforting as the scent of fresh plant life.

You bend down to retrieve your basket, and there stands before him a maid of the wood. A vevda you wear, white and sleeveless and girdled with gold, the neck dipping down sharply to bare the shapely curves of your breasts. Your legs are as shapely, peering out from the split skirt of the garment. Your toes dig into the soft, lush grass beneath your still-bare feet.

Eren gazes long and keen at you, committing the image of you as you are now to memory. A living fae maid. You only lack for flowers. A strong desire to crown you with such rises in him, and he glances about the wide, sweeping place. Flower bushes dot the area every few feet. Goldenglow and bronze betties and silver dream-of-morns, crocuses, peonies, even a patch of devil’s bloom with its black-and-scarlet petals, the garden is well-populated and still untouched by autumn’s hand. He will have enough for you.

“May I ask what it was that so engrossed the Falcon Knight that he would forget to keep a solemn promise?” you inquire lightly as you slip on your sandals.

“I was brushing up on my military science in the library. On the most sage recommendation of Sir Grisha.” You make your slow way back to the castle proper, hands clasped.

“Looking to gain more of an upper hand on me at our games, are we? I’ll have the truth of that tonight. I do admire your diligence. I would never think to read sleeping draughts as large as those during my reprieve.” You smile, shy and sweet, as he plucks a goldenglow from a passing bush and tucks it behind your ear. His hand lingers, tracing over the curve of your ear, slow and gentle, before pulling away.

Eren watches you bite your lip at the gesture and look away. He bites his own lip to keep from smiling too widely. “Once you get past his tedious style, Hoover actually had interesting theses. And it wasn’t him that grabbed my attention. Prior Horst and his compendium provided a nice respite from all the philosophy and tactics.”

“Ah, Lore and Luminaries?” You emerge at last from your reserve, eyes alight with interest.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Understandable, then. You are forgiven your lapse.”

Eren chuckles, just as you near the sanctum’s fountain. He has been rereading the old tales of late. His favorite stories ring different, somehow, though no one has changed the words. Perhaps it is he who has changed. Perhaps now he is reading with new eyes, not the eyes of a boy but of a man in l-

Thump, thump, thump.

His hands have gone clammy in yours, though you do not seem to notice as you draw him down next to you onto the stone lip of the fountain. A circular stone colonnade, open to the skies, rings the structure. Queen Yelena Rhyzkova I stands at the heart of the fount carrying jugs, one pouring water down her stone vevda, the other spraying over her regal head. The steady splashing of water blends seamlessly with the rustling of leaves about you.

All those fade to nothing until all he can hear is the beat of his heart. Thumping, thumping inside his chest. Is he truly? He glances sidelong at his betrothed, the only girl he has ever liked this much. He likes you very, very much. But is it truly? Is it truly… love?

“The girl with flowers in her hair.” You reach up to touch the blossom behind your ear. “I only have the one.”

The sweet voice brings him back, as it always can do. “That can easily be remedied.” The gardeners have moved on to other verges. Those they had been trimming are in full bloom about you. Goldenglow, laceflowers, and violets give Yelena’s fount a touch of ornamentation. Eren plucks a golden blossom, and before long, he is plucking more, laceflowers, violets, more goldenglow. Fingers, long unpracticed, begin to remember their old skill. Slowly and surely, the crown takes shape.

“Where did you learn how to make crowns?” You observe his weaving hands, rapt.

“Mother and I used to make these for one another whenever we lounged in the gardens back home.” He smiles, lost in work and in memory. “I was her little Falcon Knight. She was my Queen of Love and Beauty.”

The wreath lies finished in his hands at last, gold and white and violet. “Yours now, my lady, the title and the crown,” he avows, placing the ring of blossoms over your head. “The Queen of Dreams and Love and Beauty. The most beautiful Majesty.” The fae maid has flowered at last. “The girl with flowers in her hair.”

There it is, that look that he loves, the gentle awe of him come to grace your face again. And there it is, that word again. Love.

“The Falcon Knight has turned into the Prince of Dreams.” You brush light fingers over the petals and smile so beautifully. “You miss her so much,” you say, quiet and thoughtful, a statement meant to be a question yet comes out a statement nevertheless.

“Every day. And I always will.” The unceasing wind is the most comforting presence. He turns his face toward it, longing for the smell of salt. The sanctum faces away from the ocean, and so it is faint here, and far away. But it is there. Beneath the scents of the city - dust and woodsmoke and spices and humanity - there the salt breeze blows. Faint but never gone.

“You’re fortunate you can take care of yours,” he finds himself saying. “I could only watch, helpless, as I lost mine.” He takes your hands, marveling at how small they are compared to his, how smooth, and soft, and unscarred. Unmarked by violence. The hands of peace. The hands of a ruler. “The hands of a Healer,” he murmurs to himself, almost absently, caressing the unblemished skin. “You will preserve life, while I will take it away. And I have taken it away from a host of others.”

He stills as he feels the softness of your lips brush the back of his knuckles. You stroke the scarred skin, immersed in thought. “They have taken but they also give.” You hold up his hand and lace your fingers through his. His fingers close tight over yours as you reach with your other hand to cup his face, rubbing a tender thumb across his cheek. “And they can be so gentle. And so kind. And if they take, it’s only to preserve. You take to preserve those who matter.”

“And who are they, the ones who matter?”

You give him a long, considering look before giving answer. “I think… you would know that better than I.”

The ones I love. Those I am sworn to protect. The weak. The innocent. But who are the innocents, exactly?

It is too much to think about. Too much for the time and the place. Eren turns his head, to place a kiss on the cherished palm on his cheek. “Again, you always know what to say.”

You take your time withdrawing your hands, smile as soft as eiderdown. “I’m glad my words can touch you.”

“They do more than touch me, my lady.” He drinks in the sight of you, another one to keep in his memory for all his days. His eyes fall to the pendant that rests beneath the hollow of your throat, the family heirloom that proclaims to the world at large that you are no longer free for the taking, unavailable for marriage to anyone and everyone. But for him.

You will return the jewel to his House, as all brides must, to trade it for a more permanent piece, the scallop-and-pearl of those bound in wedlock.

The black pearl necklace’s chain gleams a bright silver beneath the afternoon light. Black and silver, like his vidnon. Black and silver, to your white and gold. Absolute opposing colors. Yet for all their opposition, a matched pair still.

“Lord Alexander invited me out for a gardening session,” he says, reminded of the fact by the basket that is sitting beside you. It is filled with greens, he now sees, indistinguishable from each other to his untrained eye.

“Oh?” You give him a look, of interest at the news, and of slight puzzlement at the change of subject. Which is just as well. You need to stir this ship to brighter, less troubled waters.

“Mm-hmm. I’m scared to death,” Eren laughs and rubs a hand across the back of his neck. He cannot help recalling one of his recurring nightmares ever since you had been promised, of Lord Alexander chasing him around the halls of Midford Castle, swinging at him with a gigantic bludgeon. His future father by marriage is an amiable man, true enough, yet he is also… big.

You giggle at his expression and take his hand. “Oh, you have nothing to fear. He’s the most lovable pup despite what his size may tell you. Unless… you do mean to make me cry.” You gaze at him beadily as you tug him to his feet.

He scoffs. “I’ll tell him what I told your barkeep. I have no intentions of ‘doing you dirty.’ And if I do make you cry…” he lets his eyes dip down to the luscious curves of your breasts, and smirks, “it won’t be from grief.”

His smirk unfolds into a grin at your disbelieving huff. “That’s quite enough out of you,” you mutter, picking up your basket and pulling him into a walk. The corners of your lips are twitching upward, though. “And here I was thinking I could give you a lesson in herblore to better get you into his good graces. I’ll leave you to Father’s mercy, then.”

“Please, milady, I’m sorry, milady, I won’t say no stupid things again, I do so swear. Teach me the ways of the wood.”

You beam and laugh and wrap an arm about his waist, this girl with flowers in her hair. This girl any man can come to love. “Since you asked so nicely… I am compelled. And perhaps we can scrounge up greens for Renren’s tank.”

No, not any man. Only me. Only me.

Oluo Bossard is a man who plainly loves the sound of his own voice.

“‘-flattered that you care for me so, Lady Petra, but I cannot take you to wife for I am already wed. Duty is the most jealous mistress and she will not suffer any other woman in my life,’” Bossard yammers from his place before the blazing hearth, waving his empty teacup around as he regales… who is he regaling, exactly?

Dorin Serech is sitting before him in a pale purple armchair, yet his nose is buried in a book, apparently deaf to everything but for words writ in ink. Crowded around the window embrasure at the end of the room are the Brotherhood’s youngest. Connie Springer is holding court, entertaining Bertolt Hoover and Marin Tarasav with anecdotes of his own. He at least seems to be having more success with his audience, who are laughing and rejoining with corresponding quips. The forefront of the solar sees Erwin standing behind his desk, dictating a missive to Hange, the only woman (lawfully) allowed in the Hall of the Sentinel.

Perhaps Bossard is under the misguided impression that he is interested in hearing about the paltry niceties of his life. That annoys Levi to no end. He must disabuse the man of that notion at once. He stands from his own armchair by the fire, clutching his cup of tea, and sweeps past the still-rambling knight, who does not seem to notice his lack of an attentive audience.

Prior Hange does not so much as glance up from her work as Levi walks past her seat at the left hand of the Lord Commander’s desk. He does not escape Rolf Wolfsbane’s attention as easily, though. Hard bronze eyes glare at Levi as he leans against the wall beside the fabled princely knight, the most fabled in the Royal Guard’s history. Or so they claim. Levi ignores the glower and takes a sip of his drink. Pardon me, Your Grace, but you are only a bust and I’m free to lounge about wherever I like.

It is not long until he has drained his cup. He stares down at the specks of tea leaves dotting the porcelain and feels that old and familiar feeling once more, the one he can’t quite give a name to. It is one he always has whenever his squires come into their own and he is left to face the prospect of acquainting himself with a new boy yet again. It is part wistfulness, part resignation, he supposes. But that is the lot of the knight. Useless to tell himself never to get too attached. Somehow, some way, no matter how slight, he still does.

All that at the sight of tea leaves. He can almost laugh. He wonders if the new boy will be an exceptional teamaker. Dieter Augenstein is to be the name of the new boy, a younger son of a Lesser House sworn to the Reisses, a lad of some eighteen or nineteen years. Levi will have to teach him the ways of perfect brewing if he proves to be a botch. Eren’s first attempts at brewing had been depressingly unacceptable, yet he learned in the end. It is always a toss-up with the boys. Some will always be better brewers than others. But none have yet surpassed that most consummate of brewers, Farlan Church.

“Finished! At last!” cries the Prior, at the exact moment the Lord Commander speaks.

“Copper for your thoughts?”

Erwin is glancing at him from the corner of his eye. The leaded glass in front of him shows the Hall’s yard and Midford’s main keep right across their smaller holdfast. The day promises to be a good one for rain - the autumn storms are begun at last. If they aren’t, then they will be soon, now that the Month of Storing has started.

Levi looks away from the Lord Commander’s gaze and his right sleeve, empty, armless, and pinned up at the shoulder with an iron brooch in the shape of an anvil. “Keep your coin. My thoughts aren’t worth that much.”

“These ones are, it would seem. What has the cool, imperturbable Levi Ackerman looking so… sentimental?”

“Ah, I am starving,” Hange whines, slumping down on her seat, utterly woebegone. Erwin stares at Levi a few moments more with that piercing stare of his, then turns to sit down before his desk and pick up the letter the Prior has completed, reading over the contents.

Silently, Levi lets out a breath. Relief. Did he truly give himself away like that? I’m losing my touch. Many squires he’s had over the years, and yet the first always comes back to haunt him. It’s always the first that gets you, for everything. His first squire. His first triumph. And his first true failure.

“Where are Mike and my sweet rolls?”

“This is passable,” Erwin announces after a time, and Hange sits up, lips pouted, mind stuck on her stomach. “He’ll be pleased to hear back from me soon.”

Ortwin of Smith Street is a blacksmith of the highest standing. A standing he did not have before his son rose to prominence, some will be quick to whisper. He was one of many smiths in the area, deemed to be neither exceptional nor terrible. But that was hardly fair; his craft is as fine as any smith’s worth his salt, and he is worth his many times over. And if his son’s legend brings on more custom, what of it?

“Will you be delivering by dove or in person?” Hange yawns, rubbing at her stomach.

“In person. It’s been some time since I’ve visited.” Before he lost an arm, the Lord Commander had been known to return home on his free days and take up his old trade again. He was a capable smith in his own right; that storied blade of his, Sunstrike, is a weapon of his own making. It is no truesteel blade such as those forged by the peerless metalworkers of Old Paradis, but the sword had served him well over his years of active duty. Now it sits in his rooms, gathering dust, its vocation ended.

“How is the work coming along?” Hange asks, a little vaguely, seemingly distracted from her stomach at last. Her eyes are trained on the rest of the room’s occupants, thoughtful and ruminative.

“Well enough. Slow but sure, as they say. Fold this for me, would you?” Erwin hands the priestess back his missive and she complies, folding the parchment into a neat rectangle and securing it shut with pale purple wax, which she stamps with the Royal Guard’s seal, a crown ringed with twelve swords. “Although I fear I may never again be as able. Continuous practice is what’s needed and my duties get in the way of that. Being Lord Commander is detrimental to being a smith.”

The Lord Commander’s visits to his family forge are not entirely filial. Still he takes up his craft, trying to hone his remaining limb until it is as dextrous as the vanished one. Levi can empathize, to a point. His dear Uncle Kenny had broken his right wrist when he was a boy, soon after he had mastered the rudiments of swordplay with his dominant hand. To make him a most well-rounded warrior, the man claimed as he proceeded, brutally, severely, ruthlessly, to train his young nephew to fight with his left hand.

Not for the first time, Levi feels that most consternating confusion of anger and gratefulness that rises inside him at the thought of his uncle. Seeing Erwin struggle to recondition his body after such a profound loss only exacerbates the emotions. More than half of Levi is thankful that, should he lose his right, he will still have his left and be as proficient as he ever is in battle. Not even the Lord Commander can claim as much. Perhaps those years of hell were worth it, after all.

“Has this room ever been full?” Hange questions promptly. “With all of you lot, I mean. The Brotherhood of the Twelve instead of the Brotherhood of… Seven,” she adds after a hasty headcount of the solar’s occupants.

“It can’t ever be full,” Levi reminds her, crossing his arms over his chest. “The king is not to be left alone and unguarded under any circumstance.”

“Ah, right.” Something morose descends upon her in a flash. Unusual to the highest degree with this most upbeat of Priors. “Don’t you have three from the North? I see one northman… where are the other two?”

“Sir Julian is on duty, with Sir Keith. Sir Symon is… away,” the Lord Commander answers, careful and circumspect. Things have been uneasy with their northern brothers nowadays. Not so Dorin, not as much, with him being a Trostman (and therefore not one of the aggrieved northern parties, though their sort remains wary all the same).

Renouncing past ties and allegiances to serve one is easier said than done. Hard to keep those vows when the one you devote your life to has done you a great personal wrong. And reducing your line - a line ten thousand years old, one of the oldest in the land - to a mere shadow of what it once was is a great personal wrong, Halkin will not see it as anything but. Worse still is to eradicate your whole House, root and stem, and leave you as the sole successor to its legacy. And a fine successor Skaryn makes, one whose vows prevent him from leaving his own successors to cultivate their tree. His House will die a true death with him, in the end.

Mistrust is a chord that does not strike well with the Lord Commander yet that kingslayer Marius Zackly had given precedent for the sentiment to exist. Never again will Julian Halkin and Symon Skaryn do duty together. The squires are to be kept away from the northmen as well. They cannot risk the boys being overrun should the men act on any impulse of retribution; only the veterans will serve with them now, to keep the closest watch.

A loud whoop of laughter rings out from the other end of the room, from the squires and their cheery japes. No, not squires, no longer squires, Levi has to remind himself. They are knights now, dubbed and anointed as he is, no matter how young. And they will not remain so. Further service and battle will change that. And time. Which is, at present, working further changes on them. Connie, who not too long ago was of his height, now overtops him, to Levi’s displeasure; a large part of him feels betrayed.

“Laughter is always a good thing to hear. Sir Symon should be here to partake of it. Or at least to listen.” Hange smiles sadly. “How terrible it must be, to know you are the last. It’s a hard sentence to bear.”

“The law is the law, no matter how hard.” The Lord Commander hesitates for an instant, before advancing, “No matter his… disposition, and his judgement, it has been hard for His Majesty as well. We’re looking to you, for good measure, to keep him safe down where he will not let us follow.”

Prior Hange nods soberly, and Levi is left to ponder. His Majesty has been visiting the vaults more often these days, and lingering longer than his Guard would like. Levi can trace this change as having come about in the days of the late Lady Mariya’s death. Which had concurred with the late Zheletine priest’s court visit.

The king’s private enterprise has been years long in the making. It started with Dietrich, the most truculent of lords in recent memory. Where it will end is yet to be determined. Rod Reiss, the First of His Name, will not be the first Reiss to start this selfsame enterprise. The end may yet be imminent but it need not be uncertain, if the fates of His Majesty’s enterprising forebears were anything to go by. You would think he, or anyone else, would learn by now.

It is the stuff of the Lord Commander’s worst nightmares, this project, and it tears him between duties - to obey and to protect. He had dared ask the king, once, the nature of this undertaking, only to be coldly rebuffed and warned off of further inquiry, on pain of dishonorable discharge. No man of them has inquired since.

They can put two and two together, nevertheless. His Majesty can make his Priors swear all the oaths he requires and warn off his Guard all he likes, yet that cannot make them ignore the sounds, muffled though they are by thick metal. Levi hears them still, in his nightmares. Disembodied they are in life; at the castle in the air in the gloaming, they take on the most monstrous forms. The Titans were long before his time but he has seen the tapestries, the portraits and the paintings, and those come to life in his head in his worst nights.

It disturbs him to no end to know that the king will see them living once more.

“All this magic in the world and we can’t even wield it. All the potential, all of humanity’s progress wasted. At the least, it would make this whole thing so much easier.” Hange sighs. “It’s an ironic thing, isn’t it, that the thing we are working on is the very reason we lost our divinity in the first place.” Sworn to silence she may be yet this vow she does not keep. Not with them, the Lord Commander and his leal right hand. They proved too sharp to feign ignorance with, so there is little point in upholding the farce.

“For all the death and destruction they brought, though… Titans were a marvel unlike any other. To see even one alive… to know that it was I who brought them about… that it was due to my brilliance that the impossible was made possible… I should die happy,” Hange breathes, and slumps down on her chair, dreamy as a milkmaid mooning over her farm hand.

It is all Levi can do not to shake his head at her. “A misstep and you’ll die before you see your life’s ambition come to pass. There will be no joy in it for you, I promise you.” Doubly so should their studies cause the death of the king. Some days of late, he emerged much the worse for wear, to the Lord Commander’s increasing disquiet. Holding his tongue to obey his king is becoming more of a sore trial, day after day after day.

“The Northern Matter, it’s what’s spurring him on. They won’t stand up to him if he still had the old power,” says Hange, suddenly grim as the grave they had reduced Zheletov to.

Ill-done, it was ill-done, a voice oft suppressed murmurs within. Try as he might to play deaf, something in Levi acknowledges the voice’s truth. Once, his nights would have been spent in the company of the dangling dead. Sleeping like a log makes for a superior shield against the accusing eyes. And time. The dead have lost all the power they held over him. Something in him is appalled by the fact. Death is never supposed to be easy.

“This is not the place or time to discuss this,” Erwin breaks in tersely, a note of warning in his voice.

“Do the lads know?” Hange asks, as though Erwin had not spoken. “When are you going to tell them? Soon or late, they must know if they’re expected to perform their duty to its full.”

The Lord Commander sighs. “Soon.” When their mouths prove as closed as mine, are his words unsaid.

“I’m back.”

Hange gasps and pops up from her seat, dashing toward the solar door with cries of welcome and glee. Mike fends her off at once as best he can from his basket of goods. “Marchpane!” she squeals, grabbing at the crock of it sitting atop his promised sweet rolls. Matthias Ackerman looks on from his place by the door, unimpressed by the tomfoolery occurring beneath his bronze nose. To be sure, there is very little that can impress the bust of the first Lord Commander. Levi wonders if this was true of his ancestor in life; he will know where his own temperament comes from, if so.

“Soon?”

The current Lord Commander gives Levi the briefest of looks before he stands from his desk. The squires-turned-knights are coming over, drawn by the Prior’s capers and the smell of fresh-baked bread. Erwin proceeds to his subordinate to grab a bite of his own. “Soon.”

You tap on the door, the little knock that you and Eren have taken to using for your late-night meetings. You have not used or heard it in quite some time now, now that you think on it. The blowback from the Northern Matter had cut into your nighttime arrangements. That is not to mention the hassle that came with traveling and settling back into the rhythm of being home once more.

But you have grown peckish reading Lore and Luminaries (which you had borrowed from the library at your betrothed’s unknowing influence). Somehow, reading of Gerald and Cressida’s midnight trysts served to make you crave your beloved strawberry cream pie. And your own knight’s company. You had left the lovers of legend in their midnight garden and slipped to the guest wing, by ways only you were privy to.

Almost all castles have their secret passages, byways to cut the time spent ranging from one side of the keep to another. Most serve a more vital purpose. Father had shown you one such some years ago. It is conveniently located in the anteroom of the family privy chambers. The second panel from the tall window to the left of the room, you must always remember. This one leads to an underground cavern, which opens up to the Arsechkalan countryside. Should the worst come to pass and you are besieged by enemies, gods forbid, you are to take here the family and as many of the household as you can and escape for the nearest sanctuary.

It is a grim probability and not one you want to think too deeply on yet you know your duty. A good ruler must save as many of her people as she can in times of peril.

The passage you took to visit your knight had a less bleak purpose. Sir Bacon - may the gods give him rest, the darling thing - had found it for you sometime before you entered court. There it is, in the corridor that leads to the empty chambers connected to yours (your future consort’s, your parents informed you). The brown tabby had tripped a mechanism in one of the hallway’s alcoves and you had both slipped through. This one leads to a hidden garden, an old sanctum, now unused, which in turn leads to the inner palace gardens (this one not a sanctum). From there, it is no trouble slipping through the castle halls to your destinations of choice. It allows you to steer clear from the guards posted by the privy chambers, at least, which makes for the greatest of godsends.

You hope Eren isn’t asleep yet.

His door swings open and a god emerges. The breath leaves your lungs with all speed.

The firelight from the braziers standing either side of the entryway gives this god a bronze cast and throws shadows across his naked skin, accentuating every line, every crest of hard corded muscle. This is a sight not new to you. You saw it then in Zheletov and see it often in your most desirous dreams, yet in this warm gilded light he is even more a glory. His is a stunningly perfect body. And he is; stunning and perfect, broad and lean and muscled, handsome, so handsome, the consummate image of a man at his best. Your eyes roam lower, to the sharp-etched muscles of his flat stomach and the dip of his hip bones, to his dark pants sitting low on his hips, to what lay beneath the concealing cloth, right there in the junction of his thighs…

Your throat has gone dry as dust. You swallow and attempt to drag your eyes up to his face. A fine sheen of sweat brought on by the fuggy air makes him gleam almost golden. Like the Sun. The Creed oft depicts him as such, Lusin, god of sun and flame and youth. The golden god, young and handsome and virile, a deity to rival that comeliest of gods Elios, the male half of Lyias the Lover.

You need not look too far to see Lusin mortal incarnate. The young man before you is fire made flesh, an ethereal being, a golden man.

He has been drinking in your own form, you realize, catching the tail end of the movement of his eyes as they flick up to yours. His eyes are dark.

“Um,” you begin, knitting your fingers together on your stomach and withering a little inside at your discomposure. Bad form, bad form. “D-did I wake you?” The stutter makes you wither some more.

“Uh, no, actually, I was just… headed there. To bed, I mean.” His eyes drop down to your chest, much exposed by your short-sleeved black vevda, and back up again. “To what do I owe this nighttime pleasure?”

“I’m peckish,” you say, your voice coming steadier now, to your relief. You try to ignore the dip in his voice as he said his last two words. “I thought I’d invite you along to have a midnight nibble, just like the old times.”

“The old times of three months ago.”

You laugh lightly as the mists of tension dissipate a little. “Yes.” You pause. “Unless you’d rather head to bed. To sleep,” you hurriedly tack on when his abundant eyebrows vanish above his hairline. “I mean, it’s late and I can understand if you’re tired and would rather rest, I can go by myself-”

There is something in the way he says your name that silences you at once. Eren gives you one of his delightful crooked smiles, full of fond affection. He holds on to his doorframe, carrying on, “I’d love to accompany you. Let me just-” He gestures down his bare torso. You wish he hadn’t.

You purse your lips and merely nod, not trusting yourself to speak. He flashes you another smile, takes another peek at your breasts, and withdraws, closing his door with a soft snap.

A quiet gasp escapes you the instant he disappears. What was it he said about less dangerous hours and less dangerous dresses? “Fuck,” you curse softly, standing still in front of his door. You glance down at your chest. It hadn’t truly occurred to you just how deep this neckline went. Not until he brought attention to it with his, frankly, shameless ogling. You didn’t even mean to tease him with this garb, truly - you hadn’t been lying when you told him of your tastes in homegrown fashions.

You stride over to the opposite wall and sit on the nearby daybed placed between two rounded pillars, a lounge for hosts to mingle with and keep their guests company. Your twined fingers rest primly on your lap. For all that you tease your betrothed, you certainly are not impervious to him. And he knows that well, and takes advantage. From thus comes your ebb and flow.

He had fucked himself to you that night you noted that ebb and flow. It is one of those strange thoughts, surreal in their strangeness; they seem too… much to be true, and yet they are. Up until that night, you had not truly allowed yourself to consider the possibility that he, Eren Jaeger - sweet and kind Eren Jaeger, a boy oftentimes so stiffly awkward in the face of desire and romance - could ever desire you as much as he apparently did. And yet he did. By the gods, he did.

You had set that drying sheet aside, singling it out lest you lose it from the countless identical others in your possession. You do not know how he used it for his pleasure (and ruminating on that brings its own pleasure). You do know that it had known the touch of that glorious body, that it had caressed the most intimate parts of him in ways you could only hope to do someday (and the day is growing closer, so much closer).

The Lady Wanton was most disappointed that he had laundered the thing afterward. Gone was his most alluring essence, lost to you this time. You had so wanted to tell him - to his sweet, sheepish face as he returned the cloth the next day - that you couldn’t give two figs about him sullying what was yours. The Lady would have been thankful for a splash of water off his skin, his sweat… even a hint of his seed.

You squeeze your fingers hard upon your lap, stunned by the turn of your thoughts. Never have you shrunk back from your most wanton musings, but never before has a young man induced so much of them out. And in that capacity, too. You chuckle to yourself. It is the most bizarrely droll thing. There he is, getting dressed for one of your many late-night jaunts; here you are, sitting on the daybed and thinking about his seed…

The creak of wood and iron hinges makes you jump a little in your seat, throwing your mind back to the present and out of the gutters that it had rolled in so happily. Your godly knight comes to you in a dark vidnon, dark as the sky at midnight, black and violet both. Its silver lining at hem and sleeve and edge are bands of stars, elegant against the darkness.

Her ladyship Mistress Wanton rues the loss of the sight of his radiant body. You have not much to rue, in truth, favored as you are by the sight of his broad chest, partially bared by the loosely tied jacket. The light is his most ardent lover, so determined to show him at his finest. You stand from your seat, hands still clasped in front of you.

“My lady. Shall we?” He reaches to take one of your hands in his own.

You recoil at his touch, to both of your bewilderment.

“What’s wrong?” With his concern comes the smallest inkling of hurt.

The sight of it makes your stomach drop. “I-I’m sorry. I’m just… a little wrought up, I don’t know what came over me.” You reach out for him and slide your fingers through his, holding tight. His hand is rough, so warm against yours. As it always is. “Let’s head on, then,” you smile up at him, and are relieved when he returns it.

Perhaps your wanton thoughts and his touch make for a more overwhelming blend than you realize.

The kitchens are empty, the pantry well-stocked. Not that well-stocked, Eren complains, when it fails to yield his favorite cream cakes. “I’ll have them start making them for you, then,” you say, placing your mug of tea and plate of strawberry cream pie on the wooden table and sitting down on the bench.

You have lit the branches of candles atop a couple of the fluted pillars that bound the servants’ dining hall. It is not quite enough to banish the shadows, but it is enough to see by. The room opens up to the castle’s herb garden, so beloved of the palace cooks. The waxing moon shines over the plots; its faint light silvers the greenery and lends the place a dream-like aspect.

“Please. If it’s not too much trouble. I do miss the things.” Eren plants himself next to you, having settled on a lemon cake (Armin’s favorite and a staple of their boyhoods) and his own brew. “Let’s see if they can make them as good as Lisa does.”

“I’m sure they’re more than capable of meeting your ideals.” You take your first forkful of confection. Excellent as always, you think, well-pleased. The pastry is well-baked, the cream smooth, the strawberries sweet. Just the way you like it.

“You’ve set the expectations high, milady. Here’s hoping they can, indeed, meet them,” he raises his forkful of cake at you in a teasing toast, then begins his midnight repast in earnest. “You know, for all their tastiness, these can get really sickening really fast when you have them every bloody day,” he remarks thickly, swallowing and looking reflective. “Stupid thing to fight over, though, now that I look back on it. Boys can be the stupidest creatures in the world sometimes.” He shakes his head, amused yet hangdog. “I really gave Armin hell over loving a bleeding cake, gods… speaking of, have you heard back from him yet?”

“It’s only been a couple of days since our last letter,” you remind him, making him hum in recollection. The both of you have been corresponding with Armin this reprieve, sharing parchment and taking it in turns to write down your sections. So far as you have heard, Armin’s reprieve is proving to be rather mundane. And dutiful.

He had filled his scrolls with accounts of councils and audiences and meetings, with the occasional trifling yarn. His Alyfeis was as festive as ever, he had told you in his last missive. Some fisherman had caught a swordfish fifteen feet long, which he had offered to Lord Hagen for the audience, now they must dine on nothing but swordfish for a month, the Young Master Arlert jested. He sounds well, in any case, and both of you are glad of it.

“Nice to know it’s all rosy on his front, no matter how unremarkable,” Eren says, then snatches a piece of your pie, to your disbelief. He chews and blinks and smiles, cheeks dimpling a little, innocent as Olya after his daily shenanigans.

You pout at him a little, though you can feel your lips trembling. “If you want less unremarkable news, the one from home should serve you more than passing well.”

Eren widens his eyes at you, chewing on his own sweet now, frowning and chewing faster to chastise you as you take the moment to raid his own plate. The tartness of his cake is a pleasant change from the sweetness of your pie. He swallows and gripes, “Oi, no fair.”

“It’s more than fair, thief.”

He snorts yet smiles all the same. “All right, the debt is paid. As to that other thing… I’m to be an uncle twice over now.” His mouth curls in mild revulsion. “Their sheets must be exceptionally dirty these days for that to actually happen.”

“Oh, hush, you,” you reproach, light-hearted, smiling at his little snicker. “Took them five years this time. I suppose Zeke’s hoping for a boy. Your proper Jaeger heir.” You have to scoff at these Paradisian conventions. Ymir can rule just as well as her lord grandfather. Having or not having a cock should never be a consideration in such matters as power. In this is yet another way the Old Way triumphs over the new. You, at least, need never worry about Tibor or Oliver supplanting your rights. Vascalin is yours.

“And I move down the line of succession,” Eren declares, with no hint of envy or regret. This betrothed of yours has never aspired to further power or rule, a fact you find noteworthy. Honor, glory, and renown make his ambition, nothing more.

“Should Elva have a boy, we’ll have the making of little Ymir.” Lord Grisha had broached the matter with Father in the letter he’d sent bearing the monumental news. The birth of a brother will leave her free for wardship.

“Southron-raised, just like her uncle,” Eren mulls, taking a thoughtful sip of his tea. “A fine court to be in. I expect to see a proper lady when she comes back to us in full.”

“Of course, you’ll have nothing less.” Ludicrous to expect anything less. “Too bad she won’t have Olya for company. Still, there are the other wards, she won’t get lonely.”

Eren has finished his cake at last. “Olya’s a good lad. A champion in the making.” It had been such a joy to watch your betrothed instruct your brother in the ways of the horseman. You had acquired a pony for the little lad, a sorrel colt Olya had named… Lad. Lad was a gentle thing, an easy enough mount for a boy of five to manage. Eren had taught Olya the fundamentals, the equipment, the proper stances, and walked the boy around the inner yard to get him used to the motions. Olya had wanted to canter, but Eren put his foot down; he must walk before he could canter.

Seeing Eren handle your baby brother was… enlightening. It is not often you see him around children, yet he handles them more than exceptionally well whenever he chances to be with them. Ymir, Olya, even slightly older children like the miller’s girl Meadow, all of them he treated with an easy warmth. You find yourself pushing your fork around your plate, swirling cream and crumbs and strawberries about. He would make a great father, the smallest of voices whispers within. You smile tremulously down at the remains of your pie.

“Oh, look at this.” You have unearthed that rarest of treasures: a twin strawberry. Such luck. There it sits in the middle of the dish, a delicious red heart half-buried in sweet white cream.

“Luck,” Eren whistles, leaning closer to see. Heat prickles down your skin at his proximity.

“Do you want the other half?” You are cutting it down the middle and spearing the piece with your fork before you can think too much on anything else. You hold the utensil up to him, offering.

He does not move to take the morsel at once and merely stares at it, quite uncomprehending. Blank. There is something incredulous about his blankness, you notice. You suppress your smile. This will hardly be the first time you’ve ever fed him. You wonder what holds him back this time around.

Eren stirs back to life several heartbeats later and opens his mouth for the treat. You give it to him gladly, watching his lips close around the steel to take his half of luck. A pink flush colors his cheeks as he chews, faint in the dimness of the hall yet visible all the same. His eyes never leave yours, though.

You break the stare to tuck in to your own half, very aware of where this fork has been, of whose essence you are now polishing off the ware. Somehow, this piece is the sweetest of them all.

“There’s cream on your cheek.”

You still as a long, slender finger runs gently down the skin of your face, near the righthand corner of your mouth. You turn your head to look at Eren and watch as that finger vanishes into his mouth. He catches your eyes and flushes once more, yet his embarrassment leaves as soon as it comes. “Sweet,” he says, low and simple.

It is some time before you can think to look away, closing your slightly open mouth. You cannot recall parting them. “Let’s head back.” You make to stand from the bench.

“My lady.”

There is something in his voice that strikes. He is earnest as earnest can be when you turn to him once more. “I know I tease you sometimes but I never mean to upset. If such attentions are unwelcome, then tell me and I’ll stop. But,” he reaches up to rub at the back of his neck, looking down at his lap like a scolded boy, “I thought we’d reached a certain understanding of one another the past month or so.”

Guilt blazes up in you at his crestfallen face. “No, it’s all right! I mean,” you shy away some, fiddling with your fingers on the table, “your attentions are very much welcome.” Perhaps you had been more curt than you meant to be, earlier. And you did flinch away from him before that, much earlier by his rooms… All responses easily misconstrued. You resolve to do better moving forward. “We do have an understanding of each other now,” you add quietly. “I’m sorry if I came off so… standoffish.”

Relief overtakes him, so strongly that it brings a smile to your face. “I’m-I’m glad,” he answers softly, taking up your hand in his and kissing it, light and gentle.

You leave the kitchens with the air cleared between you.

“So.” Once again you stand at the threshold of his chambers, about to part ways this time. You give him a parting beam. “Good night, Sir. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Good night, my lady. Dream of me tonight.”

Both of you giggle at that, and your fingers thread through each other upon your stomach as you contemplate your next course of action. Hesitating, hesitating… Oh, hell. You move forward and tilt your head up. Lemon and tea, soap and wood, Eren floods your being as you press your lips to his cheek, right at the edge of his mouth. You move away several heartbeats later, smiling at him one last time. “I hope your dreams will be as sweet as mine.”

And you turn and float away. You look back once you reach the end of the hall. Still he stands outside his door, staring back at you with a hand up his cheek. Like a statue. The most handsome statue. The tale of Kamilla the Kisser comes back to you then, she of the village of Swiftfrost, the girl who could turn men to stone with a kiss.

You giggle, wave, and move on.

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

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A/N:

Disclaimer! Any real-life herbs I mentioned and their properties are heavily played around with and may not reflect their real uses and properties in real life. Fantasy = playing around with these kinds of things, after all.

Added 1 (one) paragraph in Chap. 10 about Eren being quite fluent in the Traders’ Tongue for future purposes hehe. Also reworded a bit of Levi’s Chap. 4 dialogue to reflect the plot here - the old draft made it seem like they had no idea about Rod’s plans in the vaults.

And speaking of, yes, at last, the reveal of what His Majesty’s hobby actually is: he’s trying to bring back the Titans. Major plot point commences. To add on: Lord Commander background! And memories of squires for Sir Levi. Oh, Farlan...

I mentioned Wolfborn before, yes? Literally wrote Eren’s POV with their little theme (5:44 - 6:07) in mind and I just *sighs* *swoons* at last, one of my favorite scenes come to life! Can’t wait for the next ones, hehehe. Ahh, the young couple coming to grips with *love*. Is it love? Is it? 😬😌🤭

Speaking of themes... toying with the idea of publicizing my playlist for the fic... and maybe publishing all the lore details as an extra (most like in AO3)... the playlist is more likely to happen but... I’ll see, I’ll see. I’ll deffo post links if I get around to them.

Again, thanks so much for the support and interest in the fic! Everyone’s been so kind and I’m storing all the love in my little heart <3 Til next time!

Tagging: @princess-okkotsu @lukepattersin @tojis-discord-kitten

#eren jaeger x reader #eren yeager x reader #eren x reader #snk x reader #aot x reader #eren jeager x reader #Eren Jaeger #eren yeager #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan

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heavenzscent · 5 months

Note

what are some of your jeankasa modern au hcs? ☺️ and i’m kind of curious what you think their respective fashion styles r like

I’ll start with Fashion :

As for fashion styles : I’ve made two posts showing how I think they would dress.

Mikasas style : X

As a child she likes girly sort of cottage core clothes and overalls. In HS she goes through a goth phase, more in a 80s/ 90s goth then an early 2000s mall/ hot topic sort of way. But she did enjoy getting accessories at hotopic and twilight sleepy shirts. By the end of HS and Uni she is mostly in aethlesure. She was so many sets. She still wears dark liner as a nod to her old style and she’s back to gravitating to pinks , and blues again. She is a silver girl for sure. She wears a lot of jewelry even if she’s wearing a unitard and a hoodie. She manages to never look messy somehow. Her crazy bed head is her best kept secret only Sasha ,Armin and Eren know about it. Her makeup bag is expensive but kinda bare bones. She wouldn’t be the type to have a makeup room.

Jeans style: X

As a child he would get dressed by his mom like a little dork alot of sweater vests. In HS I think he would dress a bit accurate to bad boy Jean in Isayamas school castes. I think he would try to break free of his mothers styling choices for him.

In Uni he would find himself. Jean loves gold. He is the type to ask for gold for every special occasion. He has a gold Cuban chain that he never takes off. He has some diamond studs but he only wears them to parties and Connie teases him.

He gravitates towards , preppy /sporty sort of clothes with a 80’s and 90s influence. Think Tommy Hilfiger and college sweatshirts / caps. He also wears a lot of work wear and takes alot of inspo from people like James Dean, Paul Newman . And generally old Americana and music videos.

He would actually be surprisingly articulate in fashion.

He loves dressing up but acts really nonchalant when people comment on his clothes. Although He once sliced his food budget in half for 2 months so he could buy a dressy coat. Any vacation he goes on he looks up the shopping first then food places.

HEAD CANONS

Jean and Mikasa are both really involved in university extra curriculars and they make it look easy.

Mikasa finds Jean a little over bearing at first but since she sees him at so many community and Uni events she gets to know him and actually finds him kinda funny when he isn't trying and reliable.

Jean was in a frat for his first semester before he decided it was dumb because someone was rude to Marco.

Mikasa and Marco really get along and that makes Jean jealous at first when then were all just friends.

Marco and Sasha finally get Jean and Mikasa confident enough to ask eachother out

Jean spent a whole day learning how to change car oil because Mikasa complained about the price one time. Then he casually dropped that he had been tired because he been changing his car oil earlier and if anyone needed their oil changed they could hit him up. Unfortunatly that meant everyone else in the firend group now gets free oil changes now.

Mikasa is never on socials and Jean is on them too much

Mikasa has a extremely clean car but the trunk is basically a storage unit

Both spend too much when they go shopping

Jean turns anything and everything into a date. Barnes and noble date ! Study date ! Errand date ! Taco Bell date !

Everyone thinks Jean and Mikasa are just some odd opposites attract fling . When they move in it’s a shock ! When they get engaged it’s a shock!

Have more but those are connected to my neglected Uni AU fic.

#jeankasa #head canons #I rambled too much I think #thanks 💘#ask

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certifiedjaeger · 2 years

Text

What Blossoms Here: Chapter 3

Eren Jaeger x Female Reader (Modern AU)

Series Summary: Paradis is your chance at a fresh start. While running away from the past to a better future, you coincidentally run into a familiar face. Will this be a new start or will you be forced to repeat the mistakes of your past?

Chapter Summary: As you continue to settle in to your new life in Paradis, you attend a party with your charming friend, Eren Jaeger.

Word Count: 10.5K

Warnings: Slight angst, jealous thoughts, mention of masturbation

● Series Masterlist ●

← Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

⋆✦⋆

With a week passing by in this new chapter of your life, you’re beginning to feel more and more grateful to call this place home.

Home.

It’s something you’ve been longing for. Something you’ve been needing. The warmth and comfort that comes with having a place to call your own, a place to finally cherish and be happy in. And luckily for you, you’re slowly getting there.

For the last week or so, Eren’s been helping you a lot with that actually. Much to your surprise, your childhood friend from when you were eleven years old has been helping you to feel at ease in this new city. Well, at least through your phone anyways. For the last several days, it seems that you two are always on your phones with one another; sending funny pictures, reminiscing about old memories, talking about unimportant things, talking about very important things, really just talking about whatever pops into either one of your heads. And it honestly feels really nice.

You know… To have somebody, at least. Somebody other than yourself to talk to, that is. You were actually beginning to get worried that you were slowly becoming an asocial shut-in with how little you talked to people here, even feeling a bit afraid that all of your socializing skills were quickly disappearing.

You suppose that’s the trouble with starting new though. It often means starting alone.

But with Eren suddenly popping into your life with his charming smile and exceptional coffee-making skills, you don’t really feel all that alone anymore. Not only that, but you can feel your old self beginning to make a reappearance. Because now, you have a six-foot man-child to keep you company as you settle in, one that helps to put a smile on your face every day, one that helps to make the idea of starting new not so terrifying anymore.

If you’re being honest though, it scares you a bit with how close you and him have gotten over the last couple of days. After all, it’s only been a week. Just a week and he’s already setting up shop in your mind. Only a week and he’s already settled down into a nice, little cottage in your brain where he goes about his days making himself feel entirely at home, all the while filling your mind with the sweetest thoughts of his little, charming self.

It’s annoying.

(Narrator: She, in fact, did not find it annoying.)

And honestly, it’s not normal to feel this attached to somebody right after meeting them, right? But then again, you suppose this isn’t your first time meeting him, now is it? Well, you suppose that it is and it isn’t.

The boy next door. Mr. Popular at school. Your jumping buddy. Your confidant and your best friend.

All names that applied to the Eren that you had known ten years ago. But this Eren–the one currently sending you a picture of him looking angry while writing a paper–this Eren is different. You suppose you’ll just have to make up new names for him. Like the weird barista who orders simple iced coffees when he goes out. Or the funny strange man with the charming smile that makes your heart behave even more strangely than he does… You’re sure you’ll have to condense those at some point, however.

But it is strange, you think– not just him, but also the current state of things between you two. To have so much history with somebody and yet, to not know them at all. To have to start all over with them again because of the one simple fact that they are now a completely different person, just as you are.

But starting over with Eren doesn’t feel so bad. No, it actually feels… nice. Exhilarating even. Getting to know this new version of the boy you had adored growing up feels a bit like when you see a loved one after spending too much time apart, only to have them pull out a gift for you from behind their back. It feels like the warmth that floods your veins as you stare back at them surprised, present in hand and overwhelmed with affection from not only getting to see this person again, but also from knowing that this person had thought of you and cared enough to bring you a gift in the hopes of putting a smile on your face. Yeah, it feels like that. Not only do you have this amazing person back in your life, but you also get to experience the joy of getting to know him all over again. Two wonderful gifts at one time – you truly feel undeserving.

Wait.

‘Boy you had adored’? Damn, you really have to stop doing that. These little phrases keep slipping from you whenever you think about Eren and it’s definitely beginning to feel like a problem. Boy I adored. Boy I was crazy about. Boy I was hopelessly in love with before I even knew what love was.

Yeah, that needs to stop. He’s your friend now. Nothing more, nothing less. How you felt in the past as a young girl needs to stay in the past. Because this time will be different; you swear it. You will not allow yourself to fall victim to his charming smile or warm affection again like last time. You will not let yourself give in to him so easily and get hurt all over again.

Well… not if it can be helped at least…

But he’s just making it so damn difficult.

~~~

The lecture hall is packed with students.

It’s a frenzied scene of learners talking and lounging around before the start of class and you can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed as you look around, desperately trying to find a chair that isn’t taken but ultimately, much to your annoyance, coming up empty. Your eyes scan the crowd once more and just like the first time, all they find is an ocean of heads.

Great, you think. Just perfect. For a second, you consider turning around and just leaving, skipping class entirely to instead go get some much-needed sleep. It’s either that or forcing your way around the room and trying to look for somewhere to sit when you’re already fairly positive that there is nowhere left to sit. After all, you are pretty tired. So, maybe skipping your lecture just this once would be justified… Just this once…

But then suddenly, something quickly changes your mind.

All thoughts of leaving seem to instantly disappear from your mind as your eyes land on a familiar looking brown-haired boy. The fluttery feeling that fires up inside of your chest causes a bright smile to bloom across your face. But it doesn’t last very long. No, because before you know it, you’re mentally kicking yourself and making your face return back to its neutral expression. After all, you really shouldn’t be this excited to see him. At least not to the point where the mere sight of the back of his head has you beaming from ear-to-ear. It’s as though everything you’ve been telling yourself about not falling for him instantly leaves your mind the second you see him, and that really annoys you.

Just calm down, you think to yourself, relax. You quietly let out a sigh as you tell your heart to behave itself. But your heart, as well as your body, both seem to have other plans on the agenda today. Yes, your heart appears to be in an entirely new rebellious phase as it forces your legs forward, causing you to make your way toward the very man that had been running rampant in your mind as of late.

As you quietly stop behind the two men lost in conversation, your hand–also in its rebellious phase, it seems–reaches out and lightly taps the broad shoulder of the familiar brunette. He quickly turns around and you’re instantly met with the face of somebody who looks to be very bothered by the sudden intrusion; his stern, borderline intimidating face seeming to ask, ‘Who the fuck is touching me?’

With brows knit together and jaw clenched, his green eyes glare at you for half a second before widening. All hostility in his face disappears the moment his eyes lock onto yours, the sight of you standing there behind him making his expression change completely as his eyes soften and a small smile is brought to his lips.

“Oh… you again?”

He’s sarcastic as he addresses you, fake annoyance laced in his voice as his body fully turns around in his seat to face you. You can’t help but feel a bit like a deer caught in headlights when he flashes one of his dazzling smiles at you. Not only that, but you’re sure that you look the part as well by the hint of amusement that suddenly flickers across his face.

“What, are you stalking me?” He questions playfully with a raised brow. The charming smile from before turns into a slight smirk as his eyes warmly gaze into yours, giving you their entire attention as though the person next to him–the person he had just been talking to–now didn’t exist at all. It almost feels like whiplash, you think, to be at the receiving end of his scowl one second and then have his smile thrown at you the next.

“Yeah, I followed you all the way here from your house,” you quip back sarcastically, earning a soft, amused laugh from the man in front of you. As the attractive noise fills the space between you two, that fluttery feeling inside of your chest reappears, making your head feel fuzzy while your skin feels too hot. But you do your best to ignore it, glancing over instead at the blonde boy sitting beside him. You two look at each other and instantly, you feel a bit self-conscious as you wait for Eren to introduce you to one another. But he doesn’t. No, it’s suddenly as though he’s completely forgotten about the boy to his left.

“Damn, you’re good. Didn’t notice a weird girl tailing me that entire time,” he laughs again, the noise almost sounding too inviting. You watch as he lightly pokes his tongue out and swipes it against his bottom lip, wetting his lips just barely. But… you shouldn’t be noticing things like that. And you certainly shouldn’t be staring at him when he does them.

“You’re the weird one,” you reply defensively, kicking his chair with your foot. “Oh, and I’m also in this class,” you nod your head very matter-of-factly, making it known that you do in fact have a reason for being here, one that is entirely unrelated to his stalking claims. “Forgot to mention that…” you add, almost sounding a bit shy when you do.

“Yeah, that would make a lot of sense,” his smile widens, looking as though he was pleased about something. Maybe about how funny he thinks the sudden bashful look on your face is? Or maybe about being able to share a class with you? You hate to admit it but you secretly hope that it’s the latter.

A thought suddenly crosses your mind and you wonder what it would have been like if you hadn't stepped into the campus’ coffee shop last week and instead ran into him here. Today. You try to fight the smile making its way onto your face at the possibility of it being fate. You can’t deny, however, that it does feel a bit satisfying to think that it was possibly meant to be, that maybe you two were meant to be in each other’s lives again.

But no matter how giddy that possibility makes you, you fight your smile that’s begging to reveal itself. You make sure that your delusional thoughts do not win today.

“Sit with me,” he pulls out the surprisingly empty chair next to him, not giving you much choice in the matter.

“Don’t you mean us?” You question, taking your seat beside Eren and glancing over at the other boy to his left, feeling a bit guilty that you two were essentially ignoring him.

“Oh, fuck,” he looks over at his friend and snorts in amusement. “Yeah, sorry, this is Armin.” You lean to the side so you’re able to see the boy behind Eren’s large stature and Armin does the same, the both of you smiling at one another.

“Hi,” you say, sounding a bit shy as you introduce yourself to him. Shy and definitely more quiet than when you had just spoken to Eren. You slightly wince, hoping that he doesn’t mind and that above all else, you don’t only sound shy, but also friendly as well.

“Nice to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you–”

“No, he hasn’t,” Eren immediately interrupts Armin, whipping his head around to the blonde. “He’s just saying that to be an ass,” he comments, his voice sounding somewhat different as Armin exhales a small laugh beside him. Even if what Eren says is true and Armin is just poking fun at him, trying to make it seem as though Eren’s been talking about you to his friends, you can’t help the way that your heart jumps in your chest at that possibility. You take a sip from your water bottle and try to bury that feeling deep down inside of you.

You see Eren relax his body before turning back to face you. “I had just mentioned that I ran into an old friend, that’s all,” he shrugs.

But as he says it, you swear you catch a glimpse of pink scattered across his cheeks.

~~~

The next hour and a half carries on and it becomes very apparent that having Eren in your class might actually be a bad thing.

While you had been trying to focus on the lesson, he had been nothing but relentless with his distractions. Teasing, taunting, and trying to make you laugh as if it were his sole purpose in life; it honestly seemed like some things truly never changed at all. It made you think back to your childhood and the amount of times that he had been forced to move seats from you in class. Or the amount of times that he had been sent outside for being ‘unruly and talkative’. It was actually quite funny, you thought, how this habit of his had stuck around even after all these years.

But today, it seemed that he had been more determined than ever.

Throughout the lecture, you were constantly having to shush him and smack his hand away. The incessant poking (God, was he still a child?) and the never-ending hey, pay attention to me’s were especially ridiculous considering that they were coming from an adult man. But truth be told, you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t enjoyed it. As annoying as he had been, there was no denying the smile that had been plastered on your face the entire time.

He wasn’t stupid either. He knew that you were having fun and that you actually had found his teasing to be amusing, maybe even a little endearing. That little smile of yours had told him everything that he needed to know. And it was because of that little smile of yours that his own had widened and a fiery spark in his eyes had grown.

What a dangerous combination, you remember thinking. That twinkle in his eye and the playful smile that accompanied it. As a kid, you had known that when either one of those were put on display, you were done for, that he would win no matter what the circumstances were. That he would always get what he wanted in the end. Because simply put, when it came to Eren Jaeger, you had always been putty in his hands.

So yes, it appears that some things truly never changed at all.

~~~

“It’s as though you’re still eleven,” you laugh to yourself, shaking your head as the three of you make your way outside.

With class finally being over, you can now properly scold the man beside you, which you both know is well-deserved considering everything that he had just put you through. And yet, the mischief scattered across his face doesn’t disappear. No, it lingers. Worsens even.

“You were the one smiling, don’t act like you weren’t having fun,” he walks beside you, his smile widening as he bumps his shoulder against yours.

“Is he always like this?” You ignore Eren’s comment and instead look over at Armin with an amused smile. Eren pouts beside you almost like how a child would, but of course, you choose to ignore that as well.

“Pretty much,” Armin lets out a boyish laugh. “Although, he does seem to be in a particularly good mood today,” he adds.

“Ignore him,” Eren groans, rolling his eyes as he pushes Armin away with one arm and casually places his other around your shoulder. You hear Armin laugh under his breath and you watch as he begins to veer to the right, turning onto a path going in the opposite direction as you and Eren. “Bye, asshole,” Eren grumbles with faux annoyance, beginning to lead you away from the amused blonde.

“Yeah, yeah– Don’t annoy her too much,” Armin yells back, waving his hand as he walks backwards trying to hide the smile on his face.

“Fuck off,” Eren gives a disingenous smile as he casually holds his middle finger up for his friend to see. You catch Armin let out another laugh right as he turns around and continues on his path toward the other building.

“Bye!” You quickly try to say but Armin is a fast walker and Eren is just as quick in leading you away, so you aren’t entirely sure if he hears you or not.

“Don’t say bye to him,” Eren looks down at you, disapproval written all over his face. “Not after he was being a dick to me.”

“I don’t think he was,” you tease, hearing him make a little ‘tch’ sound before huffing like an annoyed dog.

“Well, what do you know?” He quietly mumbles under his breath.

“Armin seems nice, actually,” you add as you nudge his side, your own smile now carrying a bit of mischief to it.

“Nice? Why are you taking his side?” He looks over at you with narrowed eyes. “Can’t believe you’re betraying me, too.”

“Betraying? Eren Jaeger, you are so dramatic,” you snort, rolling your eyes as you hear another quiet sound of disapproval leave his lips.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he smiles to himself, pulling you in a bit closer as the two of you continue down the path.

~~~

After a while, however, you find that the both of you have grown quiet and that silence has settled in between your bodies.

And yet, it’s comfortable. Much like it had been during your first outing together. With the sky a pretty shade of blue and the breeze warm and gentle, you’re reminded of how it felt to be underneath that cherry blossom tree with Eren a week ago. How it felt to be wrapped up in your own little world with him. However, that day had felt so relaxing and today, well… today, there is electricity in the air.

You can feel it as the campus buzzes with springtime excitement. With birds chirping in the trees above, colorful flowers blowing in the wind, and with your fellow students busily trying to make their way to class, you can’t help but feel excitement course through your veins as you walk beside Eren.

It feels tempting to succumb to the comfortable silence that you two have created, to live there for a while in its warmth. But with his arm draped over your shoulder, it’s hard to ignore that there is something charged in the air, something exhilarating even. Not a second later, however, as if reaching into your mind and reading your thoughts, his warm touch leaves you and instead, his arm falls to his side.

“Did–”

“So–”

Eren laughs softly as you both attempt to initiate conversation first. “Sorry, go ahead,” he apologizes with a smile.

“No, no, it wasn’t anything important… you go ahead,” you offer, laughing almost a bit shyly as that warm feeling inside of your chest comes creeping in again.

“Well, I was just wondering if you maybe wanted to go to a party with me this weekend?”

He slows his pace, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and turning to look at you with his hands stuffed into his pockets, his face looking particularly soft now under the warm glow of the sun. “It’s not gonna be like a huge thing or anything, it’s just at my friend’s house– Which, you can actually meet my other friends! They’re fun, I promise, and plus, it would be more time for us to catch up, and… and it’ll be… fun?” He gives you a crooked smile, seemingly unable to stop himself from rambling as he tries his best to convince you to go. It’s all very amusing, you think. Cute, too.

But you definitely shouldn’t be thinking that.

As you take in his appearance, you note that his face is almost that of someone pleading, the desperation clearly there as he gives you one of his familiar boyish grins. Honestly, a part of you wants to get back at him for the hellish hour he had just put you through in class by poking fun at him. Just a little, anyways. But as much fun as it would be to tease the poor guy, you can’t deny the effectiveness of that smile. With a smile like that thrown your way, how could you ever say no to him? How could you ever think about teasing him when he so casually stops your heart with the smallest, little upward curve of his lips?

“Hmm,” you put on a show of thinking about it, enjoying the way that his gaze lingers on you. “I mean… I am miss popular as you mentioned before, and I am just so incredibly busy, so… I don’t know…”

The corners of his mouth turn up into a bright smile as he catches on to your sarcasm-laced theatrics. “Right, sorry, I forgot,” he plays along, nodding his head, “Miss Popular over here.”

“But, I suppose…” you feign arrogance while exaggerating a shrug. “I suppose I could schedule you in.”

“Oh, thank you, Your Highness. How very kind of you,” his voice, now laced with fake sweetness, fills your ears as he rolls his eyes. “And you call me a menace,” he mumbles under his breath, making another little ‘tch’ sound as he disapprovingly shakes his head.

“Hey, do your other friends know about me, too?” Your inquisitive mind distracts you from his playful insult, making you accidentally change the subject.

“Oh… don’t know,” he shrugs. “Can’t remember if I mentioned anything or not,” he turns from you and begins to walk down the path again.

“Oh… okay,” you sound quiet, a little defeated even, as you resume your slow pace beside him.

It’s official – You’ve come to the conclusion that Eren is really hard to read sometimes.

There are certain times where he’s affectionate–playful and charming even–as he smiles at you and places his arm around your body, making you feel comforted and safe in his warmth. And then there are other times where he’s almost indifferent. As if a lever has suddenly been pulled and he’s been shut off, his familiar warmth turning cold and leaving you to wonder just exactly what had happened.

You don’t like the indifference, you don’t like how easy it is for him to turn off that smile of his and walk beside you as if you’re nothing more than a stranger. As if you’re simply a random person on campus who just so happened to be walking in the same direction as him. You hate it, actually. But to be fair, moments like these hardly ever come and when they do, they pass by rather quickly. But still, they’re never fun and they certainly don’t do much to calm the slight nerves you’re feeling now at the prospect of meeting a new group of people. You don’t want to press him further but you can feel that your inquisitive–and slightly nervous–nature is once again getting the best of you.

“Well… you told Armin about me, didn’t you?” You ask quietly, hoping to be met with a little more warmth this time.

“Yeah, I mean– I mentioned that I ran into an old friend and that we caught up,” he shrugs again. “But he’s my best friend, you know? We tell each other everything… I mean, like he tells me what he has for dinner sometimes,” he snorts. “We just tell each other everything, I guess? But the others, I can’t remember if I said anything.”

“Right. Okay,” you utter almost timidly as you nod your head, your eyes not being able to look anywhere that isn’t directly at the ground.

So… maybe Armin was just teasing him earlier.

Maybe Eren hadn’t really been talking about you to his friends like you had secretly hoped. You know… as though you were someone special, as though your reappearance in his life was something special– something exciting and important, even.

Ouch.

You’re beginning to realize that it’s becoming more and more difficult to not feel like a dejected little eleven-year-old girl in his company. However, you also realize that you want to remain positive. Because you are in fact not a little girl anymore. You’re not a child who is simply going to repeat the mistakes of her past and fall for his charm again. And regardless of Eren and what he did or didn’t say to other people about you, the truth is that you want friends, that you desperately crave some companionship in your life. After all, you came to Paradis for a reason. So you push Eren out of your mind–you push your crushed feelings deep down where you don’t feel them anymore–and instead, you focus on the excitement of making new friends.

“Well, if your other friends are anything like Armin, I’m sure I’ll like them,” you smile and nod your head, feeling a new wave of positivity wash over you as you lightly nudge Eren’s arm.

“Yeah, they’re a good bunch,” he glances your way, his bright eyes catching your attention but not revealing what emotion lay hidden underneath them. A light breeze flows through the courtyard and some strands of his hair blow in the wind, falling gently in front of his eyes. You feel the sudden urge to reach your hand up and move his hair out of his face for him. But you don’t. Because that would be giving your stupid heart exactly what it wants. And besides, he doesn’t give you the chance to anyways, as he quickly moves his hair behind his ear, almost taunting you in your inability to do so.

“I have exceptional taste in friends, you know,” he nudges you back, hitting your arm lightly as a smile spreads across his face, instantly distracting you from your thoughts. Only your mind seems to wander somewhere else. It goes straight back to elementary school, right back to your childhood, where the topic of Eren’s ‘friends’ had been one that brought much heartbreak into your young life.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. Any ‘pretty friends’ here that I should know about?” You put on a fake smile, doing your best to come across as nonchalant as you utter those two familiar words.

Pretty friend.

Such a simple term from your childhood. One that, to any stranger, would have no particularly special meaning. And yet, it is that very term that had cost you countless nights of sleep, those two simple words that had filled your tiny eleven-year-old heart with too much grief for you to bear.

Except now, it feels easier to use. The heartbreak and weight it had carried had apparently eased up with the passage of time and it definitely feels lighter to use now. Even almost entertaining–almost–as you hear Eren let out a lengthy groan beside you.

“You really are a menace!”

“You’re the one that was obsessed with her! Oh, my ‘pretty friend’ is so beautiful, she’s so funny, I can’t stop thinking about her… blah blah blah,” you playfully mimic the younger version of the man walking beside you, watching as he rolls his eyes and lets out another groan. “I still don’t understand why you never just told Miranda how you felt about her,” you look ahead at the path, doing your best to sound unbothered as memories come rushing back; the thoughts roaming around in your head of a younger Eren having feelings for somebody else not feeling very welcome at the moment.

“I never talked like that,” he narrows his eyes at you. “And… leave me alone,” he gives up, not knowing how to respond as he pushes you away.

“Hey,” you protest, lightly pushing him back. “And yes, you did talk like that– I know because I’m the one who had to hear it–”

He cuts you off as he lets out another groan. This one being loud. Almost too loud. Loud enough that the group of freshmen walking past you stop and give him offended, borderline angry stares. You glance at them with a sorry expression, an awkward and apologetic smile now gracing your lips as the man beside you huffs with more feigned annoyance.

“You’re such an idiot, just shut up,” he ignores the scene he’s created and lightly pushes your head, his lips forming into a small smile as he does so.

You try to push him back once again but he’s much too strong. Too strong and also… is that arrogance spreading across his face? You notice the playful spark behind his eyes and the mischief in his smile and immediately, you know that he isn’t affected by your pushing in the slightest. No, it appears that he actually finds your weak attempts amusing.

“You’re the idiot…” you mumble under your breath, your brows furrowing as you give up rather quickly on your failed efforts.

“Maybe– but not about this,” he quietly laughs to himself, placing his arm around your shoulder once again as he lets out a content sigh. “Forget about other friends though, pretty or not. You and I are gonna have a great time on Saturday, you just wait and see…”

~~~

As it turns out, the week goes by rather quickly and Saturday approaches much faster than you thought it would. And now, you can’t help but feel a bit nervous about what the night will bring.

For starters, you’re meeting an entirely new group of people and that’s something that always makes you feel fairly anxious. In your current worried state, you fidget, hoping that they’ll like you and that you won’t come across as standoffish or awkward. Not only that, but you’re also going to be in the company of a certain green-eyed boy again.

And yes, that does make you nervous.

It’s not that you’re trying to fall for him. It’s just that he’s making it so damn difficult not to. Every day, you’re feeling that all-too-familiar pull toward Eren, one that you remember feeling intensely as a young girl. And you think you’ve finally figured out why – why it’s so easy to get sucked into his gravitational pull and why it’s so difficult to resist him… He’s simply too charismatic. Too handsome, too funny, too charming. You realize that must be it. He’s too magnetic and too likable that it’s honestly laughable to think that you ever truly stood a chance. How could you not be pulled in by his charm?

But then again, that’s just how he’s always been.

Well you have to admit, the Eren you’re getting to know now is definitely a more mild version of the energetic, passionate, and slightly (okay, very) angsty boy you had known ten years ago. He actually might be even more likable now, however, which is certainly a problem for you.

A part of you wonders if it’s like this for other people, as well. If there are others who fall victim to his warm smile, if there are others who feel trapped by his captivating looks and endearing personality just like you do. There must be. He had been so popular growing up, always the boy that everyone talked about, always the name written in diaries, it would be hard to believe that that wasn’t the case now. However, with the passage of time and his journey into adulthood, you’re sure that his name shows up less in diaries now and more so on the tips of people’s tongues, especially during the late hours of the night.

That’s something else that you’ve actually been thinking about a lot lately, as well– if he’s a ladies man or not.

He hadn’t given you an answer the other day if there was someone special in his life, or perhaps if there were even several. You suppose, it’s not for you to know. That you need to just mind your business and not be so concerned with his love life – or his sex life, for that matter.

You just can’t help but be curious, however, when you, yourself, have spent many late nights, laying in bed and moaning as you touch yourself, thinking of him. A part of you feels ashamed for getting off to thoughts of him, but what can you say, the usual stuff you used to use just isn’t cutting it anymore. Even if you try to focus on something else while touching yourself, he always somehow creeps his way back into your mind.

You can’t help but wonder if there are others with the same problem. If there are others who speak his name just as passionately as you do, others who touch themselves with just as much excitement while thinking of him. There must be… You also can’t help but wonder if there are others who even have Eren beside them while engaging in such intimate acts. That thought alone makes your heart feel heavy.

Well… to put it simply, your plan isn’t going very well.

You definitely feel yourself giving in to that needy feeling inside of your heart as his little place in your mind grows with each passing day. Your plan to leave your feelings for him in the past feels like a complete and total failure. As the days go by, you’re feeling like the stupid lovesick kid from your past that you swore you wouldn’t turn into again, the same one who hopelessly developed feelings for their friend who never felt the same way.

Of course there were times, both in the present and the past, where you thought… maybe. Maybe he is interested, maybe he does feel the same way. With how often his arm seems to find its way around your shoulders and with how often his gaze seems to linger on you… Maybe. But then again, that’s just who he is. An affectionate guy who’s never had any trouble getting attention from others, a charming man effortlessly making others swoon without so much as lifting a finger. That smile of his, the one that so easily stops you dead in your tracks every time you see it, isn’t only reserved for you, after all. No, it’s given to everybody around him. And that is something that you need to remember – That when it comes to Eren Jaeger, you are just like everybody else. Just another person, just another friend. Just like you had been all those years ago.

But as you sit beside him in his car now, nerves filling your senses over the looming threat of making a good first impression with his friends, it’s difficult to listen to your brain when your heart is racing in your chest from his close proximity to you. But you honestly shouldn’t be thinking about how close his body is to yours and your heart honestly just needs to shut up. At least, just this once.

“You look nice,” Eren’s voice rings out in the car, his calm, casual tone distracting you from your thoughts in an instant. With his eyes on the road and his hand on the steering wheel, he utters the compliment as though it’s simply something he’s supposed to say. Just a formality. And that makes you scoff beside him.

“Gee, thanks… you look okay, I guess,” you joke, immediately hearing him return a scoff right back to you. It honestly is a joke, you think. With how attractive he looks, it’s downright hilarious.

As you glance over at him, you see that Eren has his hair tied back into its normal bun, his trapped locks now looking a bit like dark silk against the warm glow of the setting sun. The silver rings that adorn his fingers all glisten under the same sun and you can’t help but to swallow dryly as your gaze continues up his arms. His familiar tattoos swirl across his sun-kissed arms, his muscles flexing naturally with every turn of the steering wheel in his grasp, and the black t-shirt he wears, with sleeves rolled up and a light scent of cologne attached to it, seems to hug his toned chest perfectly.

So yes, it is a joke. Of course he looks better than okay.

“I look okay? Alright, I take it back, you look horrible,” he reaches over and lightly smacks your arm as an incredulous smile spreads across his face. “You’re lucky we’re here or else” –his car slows down as he pulls up beside a tan house– “or else I would’ve yelled at you about manners the rest of the way.”

“Oh no, I’m scared,” you respond sarcastically, letting out a soft huff. Manners? Was he just being polite when he complimented you a second ago? You try to shake that thought from your mind as you turn your attention instead to the unfamiliar neighborhood and the impressively-sized house that awaits you both. You think you remember him saying that it belonged to somebody named Sean– Or, was it Jean? You can’t remember and now it seems to worsen the nerves that have begun to creep back into your veins.

Nervously, you bite the inside of your cheek–a nervous tic you’ve had since you were little–as Eren helps you out of his car. You want to roll your eyes at him but you don’t since he seems to be completely oblivious of the effect that he has on you. You decide that a small sigh will suffice instead. But honestly, does he always have to be this sweet and charming? If your heart didn’t ache for him so badly, you definitely would have found it annoying.

A thought crosses your mind then: He has to be a ladies man… he just has to. There’s absolutely no way that he isn’t. There’s absolutely no way–

“Tell me I look nice,” Eren suddenly whispers in your ear, distracting you from your thoughts with a light pinch to your side as you two walk up to the daunting house.

“No,” you reply, biting back a smile. “Leave me alone,” you swat his hand away.

Somehow, his playful begging seems to make your nerves dissipate a bit. You wonder if he could tell that you were anxious and was simply teasing you as a distraction, or if he genuinely wanted to hear you compliment him. Either way, you eagerly welcome his childish antics.

“Tell me,” he pinches your side again, making you jump a bit as you two finally reach the front door. But before you can turn to him and respond with a drawled out noooo, a tall man suddenly opens the door, eyes widening a bit as they connect with yours. He tilts his head to the side slightly as his face twists into an expression of approval.

“This is the girl?” The man speaks in a deep, smooth voice as he turns his attention to Eren. Eren doesn’t seem to care for the question though. No, he simply grunts and pushes his way past the other man.

“The girl? What does that mean?” You inquire, the corner of your mouth turning up slightly as you hear Eren huff. Had he been talking about you to the others?

“Forget it, get in here,” Eren replies in an annoyed tone, pulling you inside almost instantly.

“I’m Jean, by the way,” the taller man snorts in amusement at his friend’s behavior, moving slightly out of the way so that you can come inside. You make a mental note– Jean, definitely not Sean.

“Hi,” you offer a small smile as you look back at him and introduce yourself, all the while trying–and failing–to pull against Eren’s persistent hold on you. He’s strong and a bit too quick as he tries to lead you away, but you really don’t want to be rude to Jean, so you quickly turn to Eren with a dangerous expression.

“Stop it,” you whisper threateningly at Eren, smacking his hand away just as you had done a thousand times in your shared class. He doesn’t look as amused as he had that day though. No, you don’t know what to make of his face as you turn your back to him and face Jean once again. “Thanks for having me,” the scowl that you had directed at Eren instantly turns back into a smile as you address the other man.

“Of course, it’s not a problem–” Jean replies.

“Yeah, yeah… okay, bye,” Eren interjects, waving goodbye to Jean–wait no, raising his middle finger at Jean–as he comes up behind you and literally pushes you to walk further inside the house. You hear Jean yell back something about Eren being an asshole as you two get further away. However, he doesn’t sound very serious as he says it. Almost like he and Eren were two brothers bickering with each other… It was actually kind of cute.

You two walk through a dimly lit room, down the hall and past many people lingering throughout the house. It’s loud and it’s dark. And if Eren weren’t right behind you, forcing you to lead the way with his hands on your shoulders to guide you, you would’ve easily gotten lost and overwhelmed.

“Hey! Over here,” your head snaps toward the familiar voice. Your eyes instantly land on Armin, who waves his hand as you and Eren both step into this second, much larger room. He’s sitting with a bunch of other people in the corner, some of which are gathered on the two couches there and others who have found a spot on the floor.

“Coffee girl!” Connie yells excitedly with a huge grin, all the while drawing even more attention to yourself by the finger guns that accompany his outburst. Your eyes widen instinctively from the excited energy being thrown your way, but you can’t seem to help the smile that spreads across your face from how contagious his joy feels.

You have to admit, it feels really nice to be welcomed so enthusiastically, even if your new nickname appears to be coffee girl. Your nerves from before even seem to ease up a bit more as you take in everyone’s friendly demeanor. Your thoughts are disrupted, however, when you feel the sudden warmth of Eren’s body right behind yours. It’s hard to focus on everybody else when your head is swimming with frantic thoughts; your body now feeling almost too hot with his larger frame standing directly behind your smaller one as his hands give your shoulders a light squeeze.

“Don’t scare her away,” Eren warns lightheartedly as he nudges your back with his hard chest, his way of telling you to keep walking toward the source of eager voices.

You suddenly hear a gasp come from a brown-haired girl as she rises in her seat, “You didn’t say she was this pretty!”

“Wait, what?” Your eyes widen at the spontaneous compliment. So he had talked to them about you. That much was clear now.

Eren lets go of your shoulders and steps beside you, scratching at the back of his neck as he mumbles, “Sasha… shut up.”

“Well, am I wrong?” She grows defensive over her original statement. She seems like the lively, fun type who isn’t afraid to speak her mind and it makes you instantly like her.

“God, just leave her alone, you’re gonna embarrass her,” he groans, rolling his eyes as though he’s the one who’s actually embarrassed. You don’t like him deciding for you how to feel about the compliment though. Even if he is slightly correct.

To be honest, you don’t know whether to be flattered or embarrassed. But you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right, so you quickly decide on being flattered. Even if it is accompanied by just a hint of bashfulness.

“Well according to Eren, I actually look horrible, so…” Your voice trails off with soft laughter as Eren whips his head around instantly.

“That’s not true!” He remarks defensively, mouth agape. “I said you looked nice!”

“And then right after that, you said I looked horrible,” you tease, trying to bite back your smile as you meet his eyes, the green in them quickly filling with mischief as that playful little twinkle returns, all thanks to your lighthearted teasing.

“Wow, what an asshole!” Connie says in an overly loud voice, his hands cupping around his mouth to make sure that everyone hears.

“Yeah, honestly, that’s just rude, Eren,” Armin joins in with feigned disappointment and laughter, sounding almost like a father who was disappointed in their son’s behavior.

“Something only a prick would do,” Jean adds, walking over to your group and making a show of pushing Eren’s shoulder as he smirks. Eren lets out a grunt and before you know it, everybody is ganging up on him. Playfully, of course. Nobody seems to actually be out for blood. But it is entertaining, you think. You actually feel almost bad about how funny it is… Almost.

“How dare you, Eren,” Sasha points a finger accusingly at the brunette beside you.

“She’s the one who started it!” He yells back defensively, mouth parted in shock at how easily his friends had turned on him. You put a hand up to your mouth, failing to hide your laughter as you place your other hand on Eren’s arm, instinctively trying to comfort him even though it was just as Eren had said, you really were the one who had started all of this.

Sasha places a hand over her chest and narrows her eyes dangerously at Eren, “No… she would never, she’s an angel.”

“You don’t even know her! Oh my god,” Eren sighs, sounding defeated as he tries to calmly breathe in and ignore the traitors before him.

“Don’t need to. I can just tell she’s a sweet one. Plus, we’re actually going to be really good friends, so don’t ever talk about my friend like that again,” she threatens with feigned anger.

Eren lowers his head and rubs his eyes, shaking his head while mumbling to himself, “This was a mistake, you guys are fucking idiots.” He runs his hand through his hair, pushing some small strands out of his face and breathing in again as he turns to you, “I’m gonna go get us a drink, don’t listen to anything they say. Okay?” He stares straight into your eyes and places his hand on your shoulder as if pleading with you to not betray his simple request.

“Sorry, I can’t promise anything…” You tease with a quiet giggle. However, you say it with a soft smile, letting him know that you’re on his side–that you’re always on his side–even if your words suggest otherwise. You watch the corners of his mouth turn up slightly, his eyes now shining brightly at you as his hand gives your shoulder another light squeeze.

“God, you’re just as bad as the rest of them,” he rolls his eyes slightly with a smile on his face, giving your head a small pat before turning and walking away, leaving you all alone with his lively group of friends.

~~~

As it turns out, you come to find that his friends actually are good people.

Armin’s sweet, Connie’s hilarious, Jean’s kind, and Sasha is beyond welcoming. Knowing what you know now, you don’t know why you had been so nervous to meet them. They’re funny and entertaining and genuinely… nice. Sasha had even invited you out to brunch with her. It feels nice, you think, to not only be around them, but to also be welcomed so easily into their group.

You have to admit, however, that even though you’re really enjoying spending time with Eren’s friends, your mind keeps wandering to him and where he might be.

After all, it’s been a fairly long time since he’s left, right? Yes, it’s definitely been almost ten minutes, you confirm once you glance at your phone. You perk your head up and look around the crowded area, trying to see if you can find the man in question. But no luck. A couple more minutes pass by and you look again. Still no luck. A couple more minutes pass by and still no luck. Connie then–with much appreciation from you–draws you in with a funny story about him and Sasha and your mind actually seems to relax for a minute, easing the curiosity that had been quickly filling it. Until that suddenly doesn’t work anymore and you find yourself glancing around the room again and then– Oh. Oh. Well, there he is.

Except, you aren’t as happy as you thought you’d be to finally find him.

There he stands across the room, accompanied by a blonde girl you had never seen before. She’s pressed right up against his body as she stares up at him with a sweet smile, her hand resting on his arm as though it had been there a thousand times before. With his back turned to you, you aren’t able to see his expression, but you assume that he’s smiling just as sweetly down at her. Probably giving her one of those enticing smirks you’ve grown so accustomed to thinking about in your spare time.

What a pair, you think.

They look so comfortable in their own little world with each other, and then– There it is. That cold, familiar feeling in the pit of your stomach, that uneasy feeling of ice spreading throughout your body. You hate it. You hate how easily your body is able to pick it up again after all of these years, you hate how easy it is for your jealousy to turn your night sour.

But you suppose, that’s what happens when you don’t listen to your brain and turn into a lovestruck kid again. It seems you would always be doomed to repeat the mistakes of your past, that you would always be a fool when it comes to Eren Jaeger.

“French toast and waffles, but they also have these blueberry lemon pancakes that are amazing,” Sasha’s voice suddenly fills your ears. “Wait, are you even listening to me? This is important stuff,” she jokes, snapping you out of your trance. “And mimosas! We are gonna have so many mimosas, I’m so excited,” she offers you a bright smile as she wraps her arms around your body and gives you one of the warmest hugs you think you’ve ever received, turning your mind from Eren and the mysterious blonde in an instant. Her addictive joy actually manages to cheer you up in the midst of the lonely feeling Eren had left you with, and you can’t help but suddenly feel very grateful to have her here with you.

“Me, too,” you smile back warmly. “It sounds like a lot of fun,” you wrap your arms around her, hugging her back tightly.

“What’s this?”

A deep voice suddenly rings out and you open your eyes to find Eren standing in front of you with two drinks in his hands and a perplexed look on his face.

“Why are you hugging her like a maniac?” He raises his brow at Sasha. “Leave her alone, she’s my friend,” he teases with feigned possessiveness, snorting in amusement at Sasha grumbling beside you.

Friend. Ouch.

“Well, too bad. She’s now my friend, too,” she narrows her eyes as Eren rolls his own.

“Move,” he says blankly, pushing himself in between the two of you as he forces Sasha’s body away from yours. “Move, move, move.”

“Fine, god,” she groans, her voice filled with annoyance as she gets up and relinquishes her spot on the couch next to you. “But you can’t keep her to yourself forever,” she threatens with a pointed finger as his face twists at her words.

“Here,” he watches her leave before handing you your drink.

“I like spending time with Sasha, so don’t be mean to her,” you speak in a rather meek voice, your fingers lightly brushing up against his as you take hold of the cup.

He turns his head to you and you can see him frown out of the corner of your eye, “Don’t you like spending time with me, too?”

You send a quick glance his way and offer a small smile. Of course you do.

“You’re okay, I guess.”

He takes a second to study your face, his eyes narrowed right before an overly pleased, all-too-sure-of-himself look slowly starts to spread across his face. “I think you’re a liar,” he smiles, settling his body into the couch a little more. “I think you’re a liar who just spends all of her time lying. Particularly about how much she likes hanging out with her childhood friend, Eren Jaeger.”

“Ugh, whatever,” you grumble to yourself, relaxing against the couch as well. He laughs, looking particularly victorious with the arrogant smile that he adorns. “You were gone a while,” you quietly say after a moment, taking a small sip from your cup and hoping that he’d elaborate on just exactly what–or perhaps who–had kept him away for so long.

“Oh yeah, sorry about that,” he offers an apologetic smile but says no more. “Did they do anything stupid while I was gone?” He nods to the group of friends across from you, annoyingly not offering any other information on his absence or the mysterious blonde that he had been with.

You breathe out a soft laugh, “Nope, they were perfect little angels.”

He raises his brow and looks at you skeptically, “I doubt that.”

~~~

An hour or so passes and you find that the bitter feeling of jealousy inside of you has mostly left. Your efforts of trying to keep the blonde girl from your mind, and instead, have a good time are mostly working, which you’re grateful for. You had decided that you don’t want to ruin what would otherwise be a fun night simply because you had been an idiot and fallen for your charming friend again. But how could you not be an idiot and fall for him when he turned to you with the sweetest of smiles? So bright and so warm, staring at you so softly as if his smile was solely meant for you.

A part of you couldn’t help but wish that it was. But another part of you knew that he had probably looked at her that way, as well.

“Yeah, and then the raccoon scaled the side of the trampoline and she let out this fucking bloodcurdling scream that I swore was gonna get the cops called on us,” Eren continues in the middle of his story.

“I didn’t mean to,” you manage to say through a fit of laughter as the both of you recount the infamous raccoon story to his friends.

“I mean, God, I’m surprised I can still hear,” he narrows his eyes at you. “But–” he tries to stifle his laughter, “But I had managed to scare it away eventually,” he remarks proudly, flexing his muscles slightly which earns him a groan from nearly every person there.

“You were probably scared, too, cut the bullshit,” Jean snorts.

“Oh, he was,” you add, seeing Eren look over at you with betrayal in his eyes. “Although, he’d never admit it.”

“I was not,” he replies defensively, narrowing his eyes at you.

“See?” You turn to him and pinch his cheek, a soft laugh escaping you as he helps to prove your point.

“Was not,” he grumbles to himself as the room fills with laughter and other people’s conversations begin to take over. “I promise I wasn’t,” he leans in close to you, whispering against your ear. You can smell his cologne from how close he is to you and you have to take a second to close your eyes and regain your composure. The heat coming off of his skin in combination with his warm, woodsy scent has your heart beating just a little too fast for your liking.

“Whatever you say,” you let out a slightly shaky laugh. “Plus, it’s okay if you were. You don’t always have to be so brave, you know.”

“I know,” he places his arm around you. “I’ll always be brave for you, though,” he turns his head to you and offers a friendly smile.

“But not in the ways that actually matter?”

The question leaves your mouth before you can even process what it is that you’re saying. Your eyes widen a bit just as his do, the both of you slightly surprised at what had just slipped from your mouth.

You were brave in all the ways that actually mattered.

It was a comment that he had made a week and a half ago during your first outing together and it had stuck with you. You still don’t know what he meant by it and it appears that your mind would betray you this time in trying to figure it out.

“Oh, you remember that?” He laughs quietly, shedding his arm from your body as he rubs the back of his neck.

“Sorry, I just–” you search for something to say but it feels as though your mind is in a frenzy. “I just didn’t really know what you meant by that the other day, I guess? I don’t think I was ever brave back then, so I don’t know why you would think that. And especially, in ‘the ways that mattered’? I don’t really know what that means,” you awkwardly laugh. “You were the only brave one between the both of us.”

“I just don’t like it when you speak poorly of yourself,” he quietly clears his throat. “You were brave back then, too, even if you don’t realize it… I had just wanted you to know that, I guess,” his gaze leaves yours and you see it fall to his lap, watching as his thigh shakes slightly.

“Oh,” you take in his words thoughtfully, trying to understand them but not exactly being able to. Out of all the words to describe yourself, ‘brave’ honestly had never been one of them. Or at least, that’s what you thought. “I still don’t really get what you mean by that, but okay,” you breathe out a laugh.

“It’s okay,” he finds your eyes once more, placing his large hand on the top of your head and smiling as though he knew something you didn’t. “You don’t need to.”

Just as you’re about to question him again, however, your attention quickly gets stolen away.

“Damn, Eren, who’s your friend?”

The strange, yet slightly flirty words come from a man you have never seen before. He’s handsome, you think, with auburn hair and brown eyes. He also seems to be a little inebriated by the looks of it as his half-lidded eyes trail over your body. He places his arm playfully around Eren’s neck and smirks at you as your cheeks begin to feel a bit warm from the unexpected attention.

“Fuck off,” Eren says plainly, making you wonder if he’s bothered by either the way that this man has his arm thrown around him or by how he’s looking at you. It must be the former because Eren suddenly shakes his arm off and puts his elbow up to create some distance between the two. The man doesn’t seem to be offended, though. No, he only laughs. A lighthearted chuckle that you know probably irritates Eren.

“I’m Floch,” he redirects his attention toward you, his eyes sultry and intense as they gaze into yours. The flirty look in his eyes is almost too much bear and you suddenly feel very awkward and self-conscious as you sit there.

“Hi,” you speak quietly, smiling a bit awkwardly as you do so.

“What’s your name, doll?” The corner of his mouth turns up into a small smirk as he takes in your slightly timid appearance.

“That’s none of your fucking business,” Eren suddenly chimes in. You turn your head quickly as you hear the aggressive tone in his voice, and you can see that his jaw is clenched and his eyes have an especially dangerous look to them. “Stop being a fucking creep, Floch.”

“Creep?” The other man bites back, snorting at the insult as he narrows his eyes at Eren, sizing him up. “You’re the one hanging all over her.”

If Eren was mad before, he looks absolutely furious now. Connie seems to take note of what’s transpiring across from him, however, and instantly jumps in to lighten the mood. Within seconds, he’s yelling out to the crowd that he’s going to down three beers at the same time and is ushering Floch over to come and watch.

But by the time Connie begins to put on a show for everyone, Eren has already dragged you outside.

⋆✦⋆

A/N: Sorry, this was a long chapter! But I hope you guys enjoyed it <3 And I hope you guys will enjoy the next chapter, as well! (I'm excited for it heheh) I'm hoping to have it out sooner and stay on a more consistent schedule :)

Taglist: @didiyogo @missyasma @fvckingeetar @starryeyedkoko @erentoes @thatsassyhufflepuff

#eren yeager fic #eren jaeger fic #eren yeager x reader #eren jaeger x reader #eren yeager x y/n #eren jaeger x y/n #eren yeager x you #eren jaeger x you #eren yeager fanfiction #eren jaeger fanfiction #eren yeager fluff #eren jaeger fluff #attack on titan fic #aot fic #attack on titan x reader #aot x reader #eren yeager angst #eren jaeger angst #my writing

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ackerfics · 1 year

Note

for the send a fic title thing : "Opalescent Dreams" !

oooh that title sounds so pretty <3

eren x female reader (canonverse) : this is actually something i thought of for my aot x oc fic on ao3.

you're one of the soldiers planning out what could be your final mission. as the first person to ever grace eren's life by being his friend since he was six years old and still the bright-eyed boy that he was, you finally come to a decision that he should be stopped. although mikasa is reluctant and armin has his doubts, you vow to stop eren if it means giving him a semblance of eternal peace. you are a person with self-established morals — eren's goal in eradicating all of humanity is not something a sane person can do. he is a danger to everyone. and so, you embark on this journey of loss, fighting a war for the innocent people trampled in the middle of it. at first, you were fighting to bring back eren, now, you have much more important figures worth fighting for. but you and everyone else don't anticipate you falling inside a previous colossal titan's mouth.

eren creates this world after you fell inside a titan shifter's mouth. it's a brighter world than the one you lived in — it's almost real. you only dreamt of this cottage and countryside when you were young and now, you're wrapped in it. while everyone is horrified at the advent of the rumbling and the lakes of blood it leaves, you surprisingly find yourself feeling happy in this momentary bubble of domestic bliss eren created just for you. it's made of dreams, yes, but you finally spend it with the one person who never failed to prioritize you among his array of missions. you forget about the real world on your shoulders as eren pampers you in this crafted one, telling you you two married in secret and are now expecting a little one of your own. he also tells you he's chosen to spend the last years of his life with you and your newborn baby. you two dance under the sunset's stream in the kitchen, talk about everything in the nearby meadow, confessing your love again for one another in a sliver of vulnerability ...

and for one tiny guilty moment, you wish this dream of vivid scenes and colors will last for eternity. if it means never waking up for a century to experience this, you'd do it in a heartbeat.

#— rorytalks 🌷#— lovely anons 🌸#— ask games with rory 🎊#this is going to be added to my fic diadems sooooo consider it a spoiler for that one ig jdkendj #i love writing angst omg

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sofijaeger · 5 months

Note

Welcome back Sofia! Please write us some canon stories or royal au🥰

ahh thank you!! this was such a cute request, i got right to it!

AOT canon headcannons

ft. the survey corps Levi squad (the main hoes 😏)

a/n these headcannons will be based off the little cottage that the levi squad stayed in near the beginning of season 3! i need some fluff to get over how traumatic the series finale was for me 😪

like i was actually a wreck, it was stupid sad.

warnings: swearing, boys being boys (idiots)

✧ despite his intimidating facade, levi took such joy in preparing meals for the group. it was his way of keeping himself at bay amidst all the stress of their ongoing mission.

✧ he’s totally a flower arranger too, sand sets a different bouquet for each meal. He won’t admit he’s fond of such decorations but to be safe: never set the table without his stylish approval 👀

✧ it’s possible that erens main solution to impressing his captain was through cleaning, but gradually he became a neat freak to the rest of the squad.

✧ didn’t leave your shoes at the door? he’ll complain

✧ wiped the glass in vertical strokes? he’ll complain

✧ walked outside your room past curfew? immediate complaint… even Levi starts to get ticked off.

✧ living in this kind of aesthetic really bonded armin and historia’s relationship with each other. as she began to show her true colors, armin was first to embrace her thoughts and worries with open arms

✧ i feel like they also grew to share many hobbies together? reading a book of their choice under a tree each afternoon became one of their favorite pastimes.

✧ the cottage was sooo compact to the point where a huge argument erupted between the scouts over not having enough beds for everyone.

✧ ultimately the conclusion that two people needed to share the guest bedroom was agreed upon, but armin and eren were actually so okay with the idea of sleeping together it freaked jean and connie out a bit

✧ so much that they both ended up volunteering to share the bed in their place??

biggest mistake ever.

✧ connie is a sleep puncher, and jean’s a sleep kicker, trying to impress whoever’s in his dreams (i’m sure we can all guess) that he’s a crime fighting badass.

✧ connie does in fact wake up on the floor ://

✧ and no one bothers to question why both boys wake up with the biggest muscles pains the next morning.

let me know if you’d like a part 2!

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meatmechapilot · 1 year

Text

AU August 2022 Day 3 - Countryside

We Can Steal Time Just for One Day

This fic is a prequel to A Ghost Story

The year is 1922, prohibition was the law of the land. Organized crime gained control of the distribution of alcohol in many cities and raked in the big bucks.

A car was driving from one of those cities to the countryside. The driver and passenger are part of the aforementioned organized crime ensuring the continued flow of alcohol. They are armed, dangerous, and on a mission.

Once the car reached its destination, the two men in sharp suits climbed out of their car and looked at the country cottage. One of the men look to be in his thirties while the other one look to be in his twenties. "Levi, how did you manage to get this place?" The younger, but taller of the two asked.

"I inherited it from my uncle, but don't ask me how he got it. Can't be anything legal." The shorter, older one, Levi answered. They begin to unload the car and bring everything into the cottage. Bedrolls, blankets, food, everything that's needed for a weekend excursion.

The cottage has a main room, a bedroom, and a rudimentary kitchen. It is already sparsely furnished with a bed, table and chairs. The most important feature is the fireplace in the main room. After putting everything in the cottage, the men begin preparing for what they really came to the countryside for, a picnic.

"Eren, I have a surprise for you." The shorter of the two said, brandishing a bottle he pulled out from a basket.

"Wait, is that-" Eren's eyes lit up.

"Champagne"

"How?"

"I have my ways"

It's already past noon, so Levi and Eren started to spread out the food they brought, intending on having a good picnic in the nice, crisp Autumn air. Sandwiches, breads, cheese and jams and the aforementioned champagne was consumed with relish.

After lunch, Levi took Eren around the property to explore. Levi noted that there are some nice plots of land near the cottage for a nice vegetable garden. There are also some apple trees around the property that to their relief actually bears fruit fit for human consumption.

Dinner was more of the picnic food and afterwards, Levi and Eren watched the sunset right on the front porch of the cottage. The night was clear, and they are able to gaze up at the stars, so bright without the city lights, it was easy to lose themselves in contentment.

The sun's long down and the Autumn chill began to bite, as much as they would like to cuddle under the stars some more, they packed up their blankets and leftover food and retired to the country cottage.

They came back to the cottage but not to sleep. Levi lit up the fireplace while Eren put away the leftovers and spread the bedroll before the fireplace.

After the cottage became nice and toasty from the fireplace, the two men took off their clothes and got underneath the blankets.

"I've been waiting for this all day," Levi growled, capturing Eren's lips before he can talk.

After a searing kiss, Eren replied, "I know, which is why I've prepared myself beforehand."

"That's a good boy." Levi said, he took out the bottle of oil and coated his cock with it.

"Anything for you, Daddy." Eren said, spreading his legs as Levi got into position and pushed right in.

Both men groaned at the sensation. Even though Eren stretched himself before hand, it still burned when he's being penetrated by his lover, struggling to accommodate his girth. Levi marveled at how tight his boy is, how shy his expression still turns during sex, a play at virginity despite Levi taking it himself years ago. Lust build inside the two men and soon, the cottage is filled with sounds of passion.

They made love all night, as if desperate to stretch this moment out as long as possible.

The next morning, they are reluctant to leave their countryside sanctuary. Society would not accept their relationship. There were way too many stories of men such as themselves being beaten or even killed just for being who they are.

They ate a breakfast of leftovers in silence, intend to enjoy the last of their solitude.

"Are you sure we can't just leave the gang and everything and move here?" Eren asked, sounding wistful.

"Why do you think I brought us here?" Levi said, indulgent.

"Really?"

"It's just in the planning stages, but what do you say, we fix this place up, bring more stuff, then just disappeared from society?"

"I consider this a marriage proposal"

"Cheeky brat" Levi said fondly, they shared one last kiss before climbing into the car to go back to their lives.

This is what Eren and Levi look like in this fic:

#AU August 2022

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sems-diarie · 6 months

Text

cottage boy eren fucking you in your silk nightgown. has you against the window so the warmth of sunlight bleeds into your skin.

#eren <3 #cottage boy!eren

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fandomvariousness · 3 years

Text

horny triggers - aot guys x reader headcanon

warnings: smut

request: "I am surprised no one requested aot guys getting hard over their very sexy female s/I and the very fitting uniform,like you can't tell me that no one ever fell on anyone ,accidentally grinded their dick, accidentally got a eye full of ass or titty?I am gonna go with Zeke and Eren here!Headcanons for how they deal with their s/o bending over or something?Like everyone in this damn anime is fit as fuck!Those uniforms are tight and we are dealing with adolescents!"

eren jaeger

he may be acting aloof when everyone else is around, but when he finally gets you alone... you wouldn't even realize that you did something to make him horny, and you'd only know when he'd slam you against the door after a long day. his sex drive is ridiculously high and frankly he gets turned on by basically anything you do. usually, it's making him jealous by merely laughing at someone else's joke. god forbid.

armin arlert

ooooh boy he'd try so hard to remain calm whenever the strap of your top would slide away and reveal a full lenght of your teasingly protruding collarbone. he'd gulp, his eyes automatically travelling to the supple mounds below. you'd insantly know if he's horny cause his cheeks and the tip of his nose start blushing seemingly out of nowhere.

jean kirstein

he's such a boob man. always staring at your chest, tighly held together by the white uniform shirt. he'd always try to peek the color of your bra through the little rippling slits between the buttons, almost drooling while doing so.

reiner braun

he'd love your legs, especially thighs. one time when you were sitting next to him you accidentally brushed your knee against his. that made him so hard that it actually hurt. he had to grip his forearm to prevent it from wandering to your fleshy thigh and squeezing its plush.

porco galliard

nothing would get porco going like your good performance in a spar. sometimes he'd get so distracted imagining all the things he'd do to you the second you're alone, that you overpower his sturdy frame and win. he doesn't really admit it but that submissive moment goes straight to his dick. whenever he wins, he purposely presses his body to yours, brushing over all the right spots strategically, as if he didn't mean it.

levi ackerman

discipline is levi's second name, but you sure make it complicated for him. he likes to watch your neck whenever you're around and simply chatting with someone, or if you're all training at a cottage safehouse and you're trying to reach something off the high shelf, he likes to see the way the skin enshrouding it strains and reveals one or two prominent veins. he wonders how it would feel under his squeezing fingers.

erwin smith

this man is a big, loving teddy bear. he loves watching the way your hips sway when you're walking away. he actually feels bad about it, but he is simply unable not to look at you. you're so enticing and you don't even realize it, what makes him want to show it to you even more.

zeke jaeger

zeke likes to watch you think. whenever the two of you are plotting something and you're standing over the table strewn over with maps and figurines, making up the best strategies, he sometimes sits beside and watches your entwined brows as the cogs turn in your head. he'd then slyly get behind you and as you tried to shift a map at the other end of the table he'd lean forwards too, trapping you in his bodily cage, immersing his head in the crook of your neck and slowly grinding against you; an invitation.

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archerjyn · 2 years

Text

Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby [part X]

pairing: jean kirstein x f!reader

genre: fluff

summary: despite their strained relationship, the two travel together under the guise of a newly married couple that moved to the countryside of Liberio. Their mission keeps them in Marley for months, and the two keep a close eye on Eren. However, what will they do when they run into an old friend? How will Jean react upon seeing them again, and how will he break the news to y/n? Will he break the news to her?

warning(s): mild cursing, mentions of d3@ath

word count: 0.5 K

mast | aot mast | prev | next

When your ship landed on the familiar shores of Paradis, Marco began to panic. His fears of your old friends seeing him as a traitor, as they did Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie, came to surface. It didn’t help that he could see your mother waiting on the pier either. What was he supposed to say to her? “Sorry, Mom. I went and fought for the enemies.” Sure, he lost his memory and was thus manipulated into believing what he used to, but still, he couldn’t help but feel guilty for the way he treated you and Jean. He couldn’t help but feel like it was his fault that the old Marco died. He wasn’t as kind as he was before. He wasn’t as compassionate nor was he as human. And he hated himself for it. Deep down he knew he would be forgiven. You and Jean had told him countless times that what happened wasn’t his fault and were things that were out of his control. But more than anything, he supposed, he was scared that they wouldn’t love him because of how much he had changed. The Marco they knew and loved was gone and he was never coming back.

You and Jean decided to get off the ship first to give Marco some time to prepare himself mentally. Your friends ran to you, hugging you both tightly (and briefly) before letting your mothers greet you. Jean cried as he held his mother close. She kissed her head and sobbed like a baby. As tough as he tried to act, he was always going to be a baby at heart. Her baby boy. Her Jeanbo. And as you chuckled, tears forming in your eyes at seeing that your mother was doing much better, you took a step back.

“Mom, everyone…,” You looked to Jean who nodded, wrapping his arm around your shoulder, “There’s something we left out in the reports.”

“Oh my…Don’t tell me you’re pregnant,” Connie teased.

“Not yet she isn’t but she will be,” Jean pressed a kiss on your temple.

“No,” you slapped Jean’s chest, “We actually ran into someone. And we’d like for you guys to say hello.” Turning towards the ship, you called for the so-called stranger. Slowly, Marco walked out fiddling his hands like a 5-year-old meeting someone new for the first time. The cheerful atmosphere was replaced with something you couldn’t quite place. Silence filled the air and you could see Marco’s eyes shaking in worry. He looked to you, and you couldn’t help but feel happy. He had never depended on you before. It was nice.

You walked to him, reaching out your hand. “Mom, everyone, it’s a long story but we ran into Marco,” you looked at him and he continued, “I never died.”

As the day waned, Marco began telling everyone what happened, to the best of his ability. You had a welcome-back feast that was filled with laughter and warmth. Everything was calm and for a moment, you had forgotten of the war nearing your shores. You all fell asleep in the cottage next to the open fields that you were to be married in.

lovies : @iloveflowers3 @sabrinakishi @wouldyoudoanything4me @tacobellfreshavocado @usernamehere91 @m00dycr4nkybitc @mshitachin

[author's note: short chapter because I wanted the wedding to be in one chapter :)]

#jean kirschtein x reader #jean x reader #attack on titan jean #jean kirstein #attack on titan #marco bodt #jean x yn #jean kirstein x reader #jean x you #jean kirstein x you

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httpxmattsun · 3 years

Text

—hubby♡︎

Includes: Eren, Levi, Reiner, Jean and Connie

succinct: aot boys as your househusbands♡︎

tw // cw: implied sexual themes, slight ooc

—Eren

does nothing but sit on his ass all day and order takeout for when you get back home from work

always leaves a mess even if all he does is lay in bed all day

picks a sock up and calls it a day

pays other people to clean the house

is needy 24/7

always calls while you’re busy and asking when you’ll be back home

whines like a child whenever you tell him you’re working

asks you to skip every time you wake up

and sometimes you do

will give you head everyday after work

instead of coming home to a nice, warm meal

you’re greeted by him on his knees, desperately trying to burying his face in your crotch as soon as you walk through the door.

asks for money all the time

swears he’ll buy groceries but then when you get home you’re met with 10 different video games

wants to stay in whenever you have a day off

swears he doesn’t speak to the neighbors but he still goes to their house everyday at the same time to listen to them complain, drink wine and eat cheese

although he’s lazy

He always makes sure to wake up before you and give you your morning coffee

very subtly tells you to not overwork yourself while messaging your scalp and rubbing your back lovingly

saves up money to surprise you with gifts

—Levi

Takes the role of househusband very serious

will wake up at the crack of dawn and prepare the both of you breakfast and lunch for work

kisses your cheek when sending you off

always massages your back/feet whenever you come back from work

scolds you for overworking yourself as if you were a child

goes to your work place to drop something off but then distracts himself by cleaning your messy office

he’s friends with all the housewives he meets when grocery shopping

gossips with each and every one of them about their husbands

and he has that signature disgust look on his face when they tell him all the shit their good for nothing husbands have done

tells you everything afterwards

uses the money you give him for cleaning products and decorations to make the house look pretty

also, just because he’s a househusband doesn’t mean he doesn’t work

he has his own little online tea shop that his housewife friends promote for him

uses the money he makes to spoil you

loves being spoiled but he’ll never admit it

he’ll act nonchalant whenever you gift him something but on the inside he’s having a frenzy

loves being your househusband

—Reiner

He tries, he really does :(

wants to be a hubby you’re proud of

but this big himbo wouldn’t even know how to turn the oven on without causing a fire

instead of having dinner prepared for you when you get back

he’s butt naked with just an apron on

horse cock just dangling between his legs

mans is so thick that it can’t even stand up fully cause of the weight

😌

≤))≥

_| \_

and of course you must attend to your pretty househusbands needs

especially for all his hard work

brings you coffee everyday at work

he has a whole garden to himself

he absolutely loves gardening and will always give you different types of flowers everyday

he even plant’s vegetables

but he’ll end up giving them to your neighbors because he can’t cook :(

clings to you like a puppy whenever you leave for work

never asks for money

but you spoil him anyway

and the smile and blush he gives you is all worth it

loves when you show him off to your rich friends

If someone asks him what he does for a living he’ll proudly tell them that he’s a househusband to the most beautiful person he knows

—Jean

He’s a spoiled mf

your fault btw

wants to be a bougie househusband so bad

IS a bougie househusband

spending your money on unnecessary shit is his hobby

demands that you show him off at events

he’s proud when you show him off to other rich ppl

he’s like

“yeah, I’m their baby”

doesnt cook or clean

sorry

he’s just like Eren

not bc he’s lazy

but bc he thinks he’s too good for that

he is

though he secretly loves cleaning and decorating

Goes shopping on your behave bc you’re always busy

gets the most expensive things istfg

buys you a shit ton of lingerie that’s two times smaller than your size

will buy fancy food and set it up prettily on the dinner table for you

is a whore for scented candles

is a pillow princess

sorry I don’t make the rules

—Connie

Is needier than all of them combined

will deadass show up to your work place wanting to spend time with you

but then he’s like

cause he wan’t expecting you to actually be working

will bake instead of cook

he saw a YouTube video on how to make chocolate cake

and after that you lost him

makes you buy him all the materials he needs to make it and will deadass make cake everyday

makes you give your neighbors his cookies

he always invites the other housewives

they bake chocolate cookies while watching cooking shows

will use way to much bleach when cleaning

his nose is burning but he just thinks that it’s part of the process

he isn’t the best at cleaning but he always nags at you for making a mess

drys the clothes outside even though you have a perfectly good drying machine

jumps on you the moment you walk through the doors

he makes you lay on the bed while he buries his face in your tummy, demands you message his scalp.

he has a calandra with important dates behind the door

always texts you throughout the day to remind you to take a break

begs you to move into a cottage house

he absolutely loves the domestic life

2K notes · View notes

kriz-fics · 1 year

Text

The Sword’s Legacy

Masterlist

Chapter Twelve: Blood and Knights

Pairing: Eren Jaeger x Female Reader

Genre: Royalty AU, Historical Fantasy AU, Romance, Politics, Warfare, Eventual Smut (future chapters)

Length: 8.5K

CW: Graphic violence, YN being horny (not graphic, unfortunately. Not yet, at least ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) )

Tut-tut, it looks like rain.

The fact of which does not please the more uppity lords, Eren observes, eyes flickering from one delicate man to the next and trying not to let his disdain bleed into his features. That little mouse of a man, Anton Taran, looks as skittish as the pest he resembles; the Procurator’s small watery eyes dart to the sky above and back to the orating king, hands behind his back and bouncing ever so lightly on his heels, eager to scamper into his nice and dry hole before the sky breaks. Proctor Nick is little better standing next to him. The slight curl of his lip and the way those deep-set eyes sweep out across the grounds and into the gray above gives away his sentiments about the weather. Near the center of the line of councilmen Willy Tybur stands beside Lord Grisha, mouth set in a thin line as he looks upon the proceedings with his best approximation of the courtier’s hollow face stamped upon his highbred visage. Like his fellows, he is showing undue interest in the ether and their environs. It cannot have been any plainer that these men are in a tizzy to make an end of things quickly.

It is not as if they don’t have a bloody canopy above their feeble heads. Even the king and his son seem made of sterner stuff. The Prince of Crownglen Urklyn Reiss is standing upon the covered stage at the center of the newly rebuilt village, grave and regal, as his father Rod Reiss I holds forth at the front of the platform. The royal pair does not give two shits about the weather, which is more than can be said for their prickly underlings.

What is a little rain upon their noble bodies? It is only water.

Eren shifts a little in his place within the squires’ row, the weight of plate and mail upon his person a familiar load, comforting even. He and his peers are standing below the stage to the right, close enough at hand to their masters should they have the unfortunate need to be squired for that day. The masters, barring the Lord Commander, are standing below the stage to the front, a forbidding barrier between the highborn and the low.

The royal pair, the Conclave, the lords Skaryn and Halkin, and the guards - the Royal Guard among them - are the only ones of the court in attendance at the royal pardon. The rest of the nobility are at Merrydell, awaiting their coming so they may feast and celebrate the end of the Northern Matter beneath the Skaryns’ roof in the company of those who have been pardoned.

Mossreach is unrecognizable from the desolation it had been half a year ago. The burnt-out husks and the dead buried beneath snow and crows have been cleared away. Banners of a dozen colors flutter everywhere, green and red, maroon and white, purple, purple most of all from the royal standards flying the royal sigil: the head of the Founding Titan, with its purple eyes large and haunting and flaring, upon a purple field. The cottages that litter the sward are freshly-thatched and new-made, the land green and lush and unburnt. Even its people have been restored.

The king’s speech washes over Eren, something about the Mother’s mercy and the Father’s forgiveness and what other diplomatic tripe his Heralds have taught him to say to appease his malcontent masses.

Which is all well and good, for these ones. The cleared-away dead will beg to differ, their living kin more so. But as they have been banished to their true homes in the Midlands, they can hardly raise a hue and cry. Not that they truly can. Whatever hues and cries they may have raised have fallen on deaf ears, as the grievances of their northern foemen had fallen on deaf ears at the start of all of this.

And thus do the tables turn. So much for the Father’s justice. Rows of northmen face the platform, eyes trained on their king. Some are tall, some are short, some young, some old, some slight and some stout, yet somehow, they all look the same in Eren’s eyes. It is the hardness in their bearing, the hardness of the North, the same hardness he sees in Robert the Lawyer, who is standing beside the Crown Prince with that proud mien blazing like his red robes. Even their elderly, their women, and their children have traces of it, Eren can see as he watches them stand at the fringes of it all, every bit as stony as their men. Hard lands breed a hard folk.

Admiration rises in him, despite all. They may have escaped justice for the lives they took so savagely yet there is something laudable about the way they fought for what is theirs by rights. Had the crown set out to crush them at the very onset of their offensive, Eren knows they would be hard-pressed to smash them down. They are the sort of foe he can enjoy pushing against, a foe strong of will and might.

Willy Tybur turns his head a fraction, to look towards the bordering woods for the hundredth time. Eren follows his gaze and looks upon the fount of his greatest shame. He feels his insides shrivel up at the memory but forces himself to hold and keep his eyes fixed on the green.

Half a year gone and still it will not leave him no matter how much he thinks he has put it behind him. He wonders if he will ever truly be free of it and feels cold. The prospect of carrying that weight for the rest of his life is not an appealing one. I’ll rid myself of it for good and all no matter what it takes. He will know when to stop moving when needs must. Redemption is not beyond him yet.

A shadow stirs within the trees. Eren narrows his eyes, squinting at the treeline. Shades? But shades shine silver…

Ping!

The sky breaks at last, and Eren inwardly scowls as the fat droplets batter his helm, filling his ears to bursting with the endless clangor of ringing steel. He will be deaf by day’s end, like as not, with a splitting headache to boot. He would have removed the helm yet etiquette demands it stays on. This is not the first he’s worn steel in such weather yet he always removes the headpiece when not in active combat; he’d rather suffer the torrent full-on than go mad from that metallic racket.

Dusk seems to fall early today and the loud crashing of the rain upon them all only adds to the din inside his head. The world shrinks to his helm. Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. So when the men come boiling out of the woods, their war cries one with the storm, Eren can only stare, uncomprehending.

Screams join the discordant symphony, and then madness besets them all.

Bodies are flying everywhere, men, women, and children all a-flutter like a flock of startled pigeons in some park, seeking to evade the oncoming attackers. They need not have bothered with that very convincing display; the raiders give them no more heed than Eren would an ant beneath his feet and flow right through them as water flows through rock.

Battle is joined moments later and there is no more thought, only the ancient animal wisdom of the flesh that tells him to move.

To be still is to die.

And he is moving, running, running toward his master with his sword in hand. A man looms out of the wet like a leviathan from the deep but Eren bulls forward with nary a pause. The outlaw bellows and swings down his hammer; Eren dodges aside, and his blade punches through leather, steel, and flesh. He pulls his sword free, feeling the steel scrape bone, and is moving once more before the corpse can hit the ground. He dispatches a second and a third man in like manner, and at last he is beside his master, guarding his back as a good squire should.

There is no end to them, these leviathans from the deep. Hardly has he cut down one than another will take his place, and the world tapers down to action and reaction, kill or be killed.

It is sometime later - a minute, an hour, a day - when Eren realizes his master is nowhere to be found. The tide of battle has parted them and there are only enemies. He hacks down across the face of a northman hard, and his head dissolves into bits of brain and bone and blood. Another falls beneath his steel, blood spurting from his open throat. And still they come, again and again and again, until somehow they are not.

The brief respite allows Eren time to take stock of his surroundings properly. He has been driven back to the canopied platform where the king had made his speech. He sweeps his gaze around, hardly sparing the scattered corpses around him a second thought, and watches the chaos of battling men amidst falling rain. He is utterly confounded by it all. They laid down their arms and swore never to take them up again. A faint whimper resounds from somewhere close by, and he turns, eyes widening in shock at the sight of the king huddling beneath the covered stage. Why is he still here? Where are the guards? Eren runs to him at once.

“Your Majesty, you have to get out of here!” he calls over the pouring rain and heaves at the royal arm to get him moving. The king looks up at him with terror in his wide blue eyes, but recognition soon follows and he is moving, meek and unresisting as the son of his Magister guides him away from the horror and the savagery.

They have hardly gone a couple of yards when something rams into them, knocking the king and squire off their feet and sending them sprawling in the mud. Eren rolls onto his back, stunned, the taste of rain and mud heavy on his tongue. The force of the charge had wrenched his sword from his hand and sent his helm flying off his head, though he is hardly given time to mourn the loss.

A man is atop him all of a sudden and silver steel gleams bright and deadly at him out of the murky gloom. There is no time for thought or fear. Eren grabs his foeman’s arm with both hands as it falls toward his face, and their lethal struggle commences. The man claws uselessly at one of his gloved hands, trying to pry his fingers open, but Eren holds on the tighter and pushes, straining with gritted teeth. The blade is all he can see, it is the only thing that exists in the world, the blade and its tip sharp as any needle, any razor… and it is coming ever closer no matter how much he pushes, closer and closer to the center of his forehead…

The northman pulls back an arm, his hand closing into a fist. Eren sees and catches the blow one-handed but near pays for it with an eye. The enemy’s blade slips and slices him clean just above his eyebrow, and the left half of his world goes black as blood drips down his eye.

There is no pain yet the sensation of steel cutting his flesh sends a shock of clarity through him as though he has been doused with ice-cold water. He manages to get a leg beneath the man’s ribs and knees, hard. That shock of clarity lends strength to his limbs, and the outlaw is tossed aside, wheezing.

Eren does not wait for him to recover. He scrabbles, half-blind, in the mud for his sword, feels relief - sweet, blessed relief - course through him as his fingers brush against something hard and metallic. Footsteps splash behind him and he does not pause to think. He strikes, his sword swinging out in a perfect arc, and his foeman falls back into the mud to rise no more. Eren leaves him there, with half his entrails spilling out onto the watery ground, to search for his king.

He finds him where he first saw him, beneath the wooden scaffolding of the stage. They had not gone very far before the dead man accosted them. “Your Majesty, it’s all right, I can keep you safe,” Eren avows, reaching for his liege. The smell of fear bears toward him and it smells of piss, faint and dampened by the rain yet wholly recognizable, as the king holds onto him with surprising strength. Eren pays it no heed. Piss, shit, blood, and sweat, the soldier learns to tolerate all, even the foulest of stenches. It is the stink of battle, and delicate men with delicate noses do not long survive in the field. The king is well within his rights to piss in terror.

His Majesty and his acting guard once again make for safer ground, though where that is Eren does not know. Still the rain pours down in ceaseless buckets, and it welds his left eye close. There is as yet no pain but he knows that is not a good thing; he is not even sure the bleeding has stopped entirely. They have to get to safety and soon. For loathe though he is to admit it, something deep, deep down inside him recognizes that he is in no good state to be fighting much longer, with half his vision compromised such as it is. The king will not be harmed under his watch, gods help him.

Men dart around them, friend and foe both, their footsteps churning the red-brown mud into a frothing boil. Eren surveys the gray village as best he can with only one eye, looking for the royal congregation, or better yet a temple so they may claim the right of sanctuary…

The gods are with him, and he almost sinks to his knees in relief at the sight of a temple at the borders of the village - ruined, crumbled, blackened with fire but still a temple, and still well-placed to grant them safety by all the laws of the land.

Pain, red pain erupts up his right arm, and he drops his sword to the muddy ground. An arrow, he thinks with mild surprise as he stares down at the shaft protruding from his armored limb. It had punched through the plate as though it is nothing more than silk. Now where had he seen that before? And since when did they start using arrows? He does not have the chance to ruminate.

An outlaw is before him and his liege once more, axe raised to cleave one or the both of them in two. They are endless and everywhere, these outlaws, like fucking roaches. Distantly, Eren hears what sounds like the king bleat out, “Oh, gods be good,” as Eren shoves his royal person behind him to protect him, uselessly, with his body.

A foot of red-tipped steel bursts from the northman’s mouth like some grotesque tongue. His eyes widen and turn glassy in quick succession, and the axe tumbles from his hands. His pointed tongue retreats from his bloodied maw and his corpse falls to reveal Sir Levi Ackerman. The cycle of relief giving way to tension and back again is turning Eren’s head around, yet he is pleased to see his master all the same.

Sir Levi’s eyes flash from his face toward his injured arm and his mouth tightens. “Get the king to the temple, most of our men have taken sanctuary there. Me and the rest will throw the outlaws back. Go!”

For one mad moment, Eren wants to argue. He can still fight, still hold his own, yet the way his master’s eyes blaze up at him gives him pause. His arm is worse than useless now and better still he is half-blind, he will only get in the way. And he has the king to protect, a king who is in very real peril of being savaged if he insists on continuing the way he is now. His pigheadedness will spill royal blood in his hands, a much more dire consequence than a Lord Commander’s missing arm.

The king will not be harmed under his watch.

Eren swallows, bites his tongue, and nods jerkily. He stirs the petrified king onward, favoring his right arm, and lets the others put the outlaws to flight.

“Any luck with Halkin and Skaryn?”

His sire sighs, unendingly weary. “I hardly think this is the right time and place to speak of politics.”

But, Father, the weather and my happy domestic affairs hardly make for scintillating conversation. Zeke turns away from the dark world outside the wrought iron window to glance at Lord Grisha in his seat beside the canopied bed. “Well, since we’ve thoroughly exhausted the topic of our dear youngest here, we had as well talk about matters of import.”

Their dear youngest is lying upon his chartered bed, soused in poppy and utterly dead to the world. Yet he lives to see another day, thank the gods, Zeke thinks, watching his little brother sleep and recover his strength. His fever has broken at last, a very promising sign, assures Healer Dmitriy. The youngest Jaeger is well past danger now, and his wounds are healing cleanly.

There had been a scare of festering and the possible loss of a limb yet the Healers worked their craft and they moved beyond that. Fresh poulticed bandages bind Eren’s arm and cover the left side of his brow, the fall of dark hair over his face stark against the white linen. He looks younger, as innocent as he is like to get at this age, more the boy of six of Zeke’s youth and less the young man of sixteen he has quickly grown to be.

In the end, only the scars should remain. And his knighthood. Scars and near-death for that honor, that is how you come into it. Eren will be well-compensated for his leal service.

He is luckier than some, to be sure. Good men were lost that day. “Any word yet on the new Guardsmen?” Zeke persists when his father keeps his peace. Most times silence comes easy between them; sometimes, Zeke even preferrs it so, yet silence of late is an uncomfortable thing. He has somehow tied it to Eren’s state. If they keep quiet, then surely Eren will weaken and pass away into the Fields. His brother must hear their voices, if only so he can have an anchor to the living. Zeke does not know why he insists when Eren is finally out of the weeds. But it is true what they say about habits.

The quiet snaps and pops of the fire are the only things to be heard as Grisha stares at him a moment through his lenses. The light of the flickering hearthflames reflects off the fine Rhoseine glass, only to give way to the green pools beneath. Eren has inherited those eyes, the Jaeger eyes. Zeke is a Fritz through and through, blue and gold and fair. And yet they insist he is his father in gold.

“Some candidates have been chosen,” Lord Grisha says at length. “The squires of two fallen, Bertolt Hoover and Conrad Springer. They are set to replace their former masters. No word yet for the other two replacements but some names have been put forward.”

“Our younger Eren would have jumped at the chance.” Zeke gazes down fondly at his sleeping brother once more. “I’ve always wondered what made him change his mind.”

His father chuckles, a rare sound these days. “I was surprised he reconsidered at all, not that it was such a terrible thing. There are other ways to win honor for himself and his House. Left him open to the marriage market, at least.”

Speak of the marriage market… His little lady will want to know she can visit him at last. Zeke had caught the poor thing hovering around thereabouts near every day since they brought Eren in. It will enliven the lad to see his betrothed. They seem to be sweeter on each other at present, Zeke is pleased to see.

“As to Skaryn and Halkin…” Lord Grisha sighs and rubs his eyes beneath his spectacles. “I’ll continue to lobby for their families. If execution is in the fates of Valko Skaryn and Yuri Halkin, then so be it, but to extend that punishment to their whole lines?” He rubs at his temples, his horror at the thought well and truly palpable. “To their wives and children and brothers and cousins… it is too much. Too much. I cannot let that stand.”

His Majesty had been sore wroth when he had recovered from the terror of his ordeal. The lords Skaryn and Halkin were arrested, accused of treason and attempted regicide. Both have been attainted, stripped of all lands, titles, and incomes, and sentenced to death by beheading. But that is not to be enough for the king. In his wrath, Rod Reiss has declared, in no uncertain terms, his desire to see both men’s lines ended. Every man, woman, and child who bear the name of Skaryn and Halkin shall be expunged. Even those merely married to the name found no mercy. Rod Reiss wants them gone, gone.

Zheletov, too, felt the flames of royal fury. Hundreds of Zhelevic were arrested, those outlaws who did not manage to flee further North. All have been sentenced to hang. Rumor has it that the king means to hang their families as well, to teach the North a sharp lesson in slaughter. Robert of Feyhill, the head of the northern faction and the mind behind all, is to be hanged, drawn, and quartered - a fate reserved for the vilest of traitors. A charge he still vehemently denies even at the rack.

What should have been a moment of festive reconciliation became naught but dross. The court is silent, reeling in the enormity of it all.

“Eren saved his life, he should grant me a boon, at least,” Lord Grisha murmurs, more to himself than to his eldest, who stares at him then at his brother, who lays oblivious to his burgeoning role as leverage and potential savior of the lines of Skaryn and Halkin.

Zeke supposes it is only fitting for his knightly brother. What are knights for but for the saving of innocent lives?

“His fever broke last night, my lady, you can see him at last.”

You have never heard anything sweeter.

“Oh, thank the gods.” You smooth down your crimson dress, making sure all is in order. He has not laid eyes on you for four days, you had best be presentable. And pretty, you must be pretty, a girlish voice whispers, which you hastily tamp down. As if he’ll care overmuch about such matters, not after his ordeal. A silver shield burnished to a mirror sheen is hanging from the wall opposite you. Surreptitiously, you brush back a stray lock that has escaped from your braids. All in order, you think, pleased, as you stare at your somewhat distorted reflection. Some effort will not be amiss, surely.

Healer Dmitriy knocks upon the wooden door to announce himself before opening it and entering. Aly the Cat slips inside at once; distantly, you hear your betrothed utter a pleased exclamation of the creature’s name. You feel your heart thrum faster. Your fingers twine themselves around each other against your fluttering tummy. He sounds well. That is good.

“My lord, the Lady Rhyzkova is without and wishes to see you,” you hear the young priest say, his voice partly muffled by the half-closed door. The note of excitement in Eren’s voice as he bids the Healer to let you in makes you smile.

It is comfortably warm inside the chamber. A fire crackles merrily in the stone hearth before the canopied bed, inadvisable for a southron summer but perfectly acceptable for a northern one. Two bone-white velvet armchairs are arrayed before the fireplace. A table laden with what looks like the tools of the Healers’ trade - physic, rolls of bandages, and herbs of the medicinal sort - is sitting between the loungers. The brown linen curtains of the tall wrought iron windows are pulled back, illuminating the room with pale, watery sunshine and giving the place an airy countenance.

A green smell, the smell of herbs and plant life, pervades all. You find yourself breathing in deeply as you enter, your first few footsteps tapping lightly on the polished marble floor, yet all vanish as you lay eyes upon your wounded knight. The white hangings on his bed are tied back, revealing his form. He is sitting up, at least, with a wide grin on his bandaged face, his left eye swollen half-shut beneath the poultice. You would not have known he was ailing and lifeless for the better part of four days by his demeanor. Ginger Aly is curled up on his blanketed lap, eyes closed contently as Eren runs languid fingers over his short fur.

Your knight is awake, and smiling at you, and so wonderfully alive.

“How are you feeling?” you murmur as you sit on his bed by his legs. A flash of dark blue cloth sweeps by from the corner of your vision, but you do not pay it heed. Eren and his well-being come first.

He opens his mouth to answer but frowns almost at once. You mirror his expression and are about to ask what is wrong when he speaks. “Everything’s fine, Healer Dima, you may leave us.”

The straw-haired Healer in question freezes in the act of settling himself down upon one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace. Nerves and uncertainty play across his thin features for half a heartbeat before he reaches some sort of resolution and sits down determinedly. “Oh, no, please do not mind me. Someone must needs stay to keep an eye on… your health. Just because your fever has broken doesn’t mean you’re not susceptible to a relapse.”

“Oh, in that case, your presence is a much welcome one indeed, Healer,” you say rapidly, as Eren makes to say something, something undoubtedly rude to judge by the look on his face. He curls his lip at your interruption but subsides once you shake your head at him a little. Let him be.

Healer Dmitriy smiles, relieved. “Very good, my lady. See, you’ll hardly notice I’m here.” He reaches into one voluminous dark blue sleeve and pulls out a small book - a missal of The Light of the Creed, the new faith’s holiest text, you see, catching a glimpse of the twelve-rayed sun of the Creed on the book’s black leather cover. The priest opens the primer and promptly vanishes within its pages.

Of course a godly, dutiful man like him will insist on playing governess, you realize belatedly. It had not occurred to you until you saw him glance from you to Eren with an expression of abject worry. He can hardly leave a young maid alone with a half-naked young man in his chambers.

For the young man is very much half-naked. You feel your mouth go dry as the realization hits you hard. You cannot understand how that detail eluded you. “I see you’ve made a new friend,” you gesture at little Aly on Eren’s lap, a ditch effort to distract yourself, and fail miserably. That only brings further attention to his hard, incredibly ridged stomach. Oh, gods above.

Eren stares down fondly at the cat, oblivious to your ogling. “We only properly met this morning but we’re fast friends now,” he laughs as the ginger tom rises and stretches, then proceeds to rub up against his Healer’s charge, purring loudly. Never have you wanted to trade places with a cat so badly in your entire life.

Suddenly, looking your betrothed in the eye becomes an endeavor of utmost difficulty, not when you want to look elsewhere. You have seen your fair share of half-naked men. Comely men and homely ones, paragons as sculpted as statues and pigs shuffling along like sacks of suet, you have seen them all. You never lack for those in summery Vascalin, where the sight of them is so common as to be unremarkable. But a half-naked Eren is a veritable god to their mere mortal flesh.

You peer up at him from beneath your lashes as Aly occupies his attention for the nonce. He is beautifully well-made. You have always suspected it to be so; some of his tunics show off his shape well, and he oft wears his daily linens with the laces undone, allowing one to get a glimpse of an expansive, defined chest. To see all of that bared before you to prove the truth of your fancies is astounding.

His shoulders, broad and striking, lead down to strong, sinewy arms. The bandage wrapped around the right limb flaunts the roundness of the muscle and stands stark against his tanned skin. A tiny cluster of leech marks speckles the skin beneath his dressings yet they do nothing to diminish the smooth perfection of his limb. His chest is as wide and well-muscled; verily, his torso is a vision, each muscle as sharply etched as though he is cut from stone.

Some other girl is giggling madly deep down inside. You feel like a bitch in heat. The thought near makes the mad laughter bubble up your throat but you quell it quickly. And then you make the singular error of allowing your eyes to follow the sloping trail of chiseled muscle beneath the blankets and almost choke on air. The expected sight of the waist of his pants is nowhere in evidence.

Gods be good, is he naked under there?!

You squirm and press your legs together on your seat. You cannot have asked for better fodder for your fantasies. Suddenly, you can hear him, hear the deep, sultry cadence of his voice asking you if you will let him sate his lusts with you, feel the hard, chiseled torso press close against you as he leaned down to kiss you… Poxy Duty had robbed you of that kiss. More’s the pity. You wonder what it will feel like, to be trapped beneath that god-like body as freed of clothing as he is now, feel his heat and his skin bound you as you lay below him helpless but to take his lust and his amorous attentions…

Gods help you, lass, the lad is injured and just escaped death by the skin of his teeth. It does not do to entertain such unbecoming ideas. You’re worse than a dockside slut, you admonish yourself as heat courses through your whole body at the turn of your thoughts. There are better things to occupy yourself with than his magnificent body. His health is what matters most.

“Hey.”

You start at the sound of his voice and do not immediately meet his gaze. You hope to all the gods, both old and new, that your face is not a mirror of your desire. That is a discussion that can keep; your priestly governess will be shocked to his soul should he have the slightest inkling of what had flounced through your head these past few moments.

“Hey,” Eren says again, reaching out to lay a hand on your forearm. The touch comes lightly, so very lightly, yet the way it burns is anything but. You meet his eyes at last. “Are you all right? You look strange.” His concerned frown gives way to a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, see, healthy as a horse.” He wrinkles his nose at the idiom, making you giggle. “I’m well past danger now. The wound’s not going to fester, there’s no poison in my blood, I’m fine and whole. You don’t need to worry so much.”

“Thank the gods,” you breathe, instantly snatching at that sentiment. It is not as if you aren’t worried about him, but best have him construe your conflicted expression as concern instead of lust. This is not the time for lust. “Speak of the gods,” you smile down at Aly, who has padded over to you, seeking affection, “you are blessed indeed. Lady Alyrya has been with you this whole time.” Cats are sacred to the Gardener, but none more so than the ginger tabby.

“It’s a nice thought, that-”

“Oh!”

There is a great tug, and your hand flies to your chest as the laces of your bodice come undone. It will seem that Aly is feeling a little too neglected. Or desirous of yarn. You hold the tom fast as you unhook his claws from the crimson cords, your face smarting a little in mortification.

“Oh, dear.” Healer Dmitriy flaps over to the bed, the tips of his prominent ears pink. “A thousand pardons, my lady, it seems he’s in his excitable mood again. I’ll see him out.” He scoops his ginger attendant into his arms and bustles away, threatening the cat with a salmon-less dinner as he does so.

You sigh and tighten your laces once more. Aly had not pulled down far enough for your breasts to spill out from your bodice, thankfully, but that was a near thing. You are more comfortable baring skin than most women north of the Greatshield are, being from the sweltering South, yet you draw the line at exposure in front of two men. Well, perhaps one of them can get a pass. You bite the inside of your lip as you fumble briefly and have to redo the knot all over again.

“You know what they say about certain animals being able to channel people’s wills?” Eren lifts his gaze from your chest to your face. His eyes have darkened a little. Your fingers tighten on your cords. “Nobody can say for sure if that still holds true but it’s an interesting thought.” His legs shift beneath the blankets.

The return of the Healer saves you from having to form a reply. He gives you an apologetic smile and another apology before returning to his seat and his book once more.

“Your hair’s grown longer,” you remark arbitrarily, not quite knowing what to say to your betrothed’s earlier statement. Besides… Your face tingles a little. With the way he looked at you then, you cannot guarantee that your conversation won’t lead to… bawdier pastures. You had never truly touched upon the subject before but something about his demeanor then gives you pause. Best to nip that in the bud. Your governess will not stand for anything remotely suggestive. He will throw you out and forbid you from seeing Eren again for the rest of his confinement, and you cannot have that.

Eren tugs at the ends of his hair, looking at it thoughtfully. “Do you think I should cut it? I haven’t been up to calling on the barber lately…”

“It’s your hair, you’re free to do as you like.” You give him a small smile. “I like it, though. It makes you look-” comelier, “-older, more mature.”

He settles back into his pillows, appearing gratified. “Well, then, I suppose I’ll keep it as it is for the time being.” He gazes at you for a good long while, before his concern reduces his smile into something softer. “You look tired.”

The chuckle that escapes you echoes the sentiment, as though his bringing attention to the fact has drawn four days’ worth of weariness out. You rub a finger at the skin beneath your eye. “Between you and Father and this whole affair, I have been getting no lick of sleep.” You cannot count the hours you had spent in Merrydell’s sanctum, praying and praying and praying for him and your lord father, beseeching the old gods to bless and keep them. You had even visited the nearest temple of the Gardener to offer incense, a candle, and yet more prayers for your betrothed. He belongs to the Creed, perhaps his Lady will be better inclined to protect him should the old gods dismiss your pleas.

Lady Alyrya heard them, at any rate, her and the old gods. Father’s fever was only the chills brought on by the rains and not from a corrupted wound; he had taken a glancing blow from an outlaw’s knife but managed to come out of that debacle otherwise unscathed. He was right as rain after a day or so.

Eren had given you more grief. What time you had outside of prayer was spent hovering anxiously outside these very chambers, hoping you could visit him or at least learn of his condition. Still, you will visit the sanctum and the temple tonight, to give thanks to the gods for granting him further life.

“Ask Healer Dima to give you essence of valerian, it helps a lot,” Eren urges, fretful. He can be a rather fretful character, you have come to find. It only makes him sweeter in your eyes.

“I will at that. Although I’ll be sleeping more soundly tonight regardless.” Because you’re awake and all right and alive. A bowl of apples is sitting upon his bedside dresser. His mother’s key lays beside it, nestled amidst the coils of its leather cord. “Are you hungry?” you ask, gesturing at the fruit.

“Will you feed me if I am? I can barely lift my arm for the pain.” Eren blinks at you all innocent-like. The teasing tilt to his lips ruins the effect, however. From the distance comes the tiniest of coughs.

Your own mouth twitches up in amusement. “If you wish it.”

“I do wish it,” he says firmly, sitting up straight again. “I’m hungry, so hungry, famished, starving-”

“All right, your hunger has been well and truly noted.” You reach for an apple and the paring knife and proceed to cut the fruit. Needlessly, you know. He is not so injured that he cannot feed himself (despite his claims to the contrary). In this, you indulge him. The patient must have his way until he recovers.

A cough resounds from the distance once more, louder this time, as you reach forward to put a slice of apple in your betrothed’s waiting mouth. You both freeze and glance over at the Healer, who is staring at you beadily from above his holy missal. A prick of annoyance simmers within you, but you flash him a placating smile as you move to put more distance between you and Eren. You slip the piece of fruit into your betrothed’s mouth, careful not to let your fingers brush against his lips, those luscious, alluring, enticing lips…

You bite back a giggle as he chews the morsel, looking distinctly bad-tempered. Your fingertips still tingle from the warmth of his breath. “I see you still haven’t put on your mother’s key,” you observe, eyeing the forenamed pendant on the bedside table. His betrothal necklace looks rather lonely without its staunch companion around his neck.

His bad-tempered expression deepens. “He’s a priest, he’s as superstitious as they come. His precious sensibilities won’t stand for blasphemy.” Scorn drips from his voice as he says the word, further amusing you. “You’ll make a better Healer,” he adds, his expression softening as he gleams at you. “You don’t nag as much.”

That is an interesting thought, that. The past few days certainly lent further fodder to your long-held fancies of being a Healer. It is a flimsy whim, a glib thought born from a night of girlish diversion when asked that absurdly preposterous question: what would you be had you not been born into nobility? Your fledgling pastime in the gardens led you to answer as you had.

But perhaps that fledgling can grow into something more. Seeing people you care for hurt and ailing woke something in you, the desire to ease their pain if only but a little. You hope Healer Darya is willing to take on a new apprentice this autumn.

“Does it hurt so much?”

Eren chews on his apple, looking artless and very much innocent in truth. He does not stay so for long, though (not that you expect him to, the cheeky sod). “I already told you, didn’t I? I wouldn’t ask you to feed me if it didn’t hurt like blazes.” Something in your expression sobers him, and the smile he flashes you is gentle, tender. “I’m a little sore, but nothing you need concern yourself about too much.” He reaches out to take your free hand in his, lightly caressing your skin with his thumb. “And you have been, haven’t you? So concerned that you lost sleep over me, of all people.” He seems to move farther away, going somewhere beyond this room and beyond you.

You pull away from his hold to cup his face in your hand, as though in doing so you can keep him bound to yourself. You touch him as softly as you can yet still he flinches as your palm presses against the injured side of his face. That spasm of pain makes you pull back but he reaches up quickly to keep your hand on him, smiling up at you reassuringly as he does so. The green sparkling at you beneath his poulticed eyebrow is as vibrant as its twin, swollen and puffy though the skin around it is. He is still so beautiful, your battered knight. So beautiful, and warm, and alive.

The loud clearing of a holy throat reminds you of decency and decorum, and you make to pull away from your betrothed once more. He is not having it, though. His grip on your hand tightens, and his face darkens like thunder. “Bloody prissy priests… As if a simple touch to the face equates to… what exactly? A hot little romp?” His laugh comes out exuding derision and mockery. “I didn’t throw you down on the bed and have my way with you, did I? With the way he’s looking at us, you’d think he caught us fucking,” he grouses, in a voice pitched low so only you would hear him.

A lump rises inside your throat that almost chokes you. You cough to rid yourself of it. How he can say such things so baldly confounds you. “That’s… probably what he's thinking. I suppose he’s here to try and preserve my honor. For all he knows, you could be some sort of perverted lech,” you say, in what you hope is an offhand way.

That puts a thoughtful look on Eren’s face. Suddenly, the darkness in his eyes holds a very different sort of sentiment. He glances at you from beneath his lashes before looking down at his lap. Your fingers twitch a little against his face as he continues to keep your hand captive. Heat once again simmers beneath your skin to match the heat you had caught in his gaze before he averted his eyes. In a quiet voice, he murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like, “He’s not far off, then.”

Your heart almost stops at that. “Pardon?”

He lifts his eyes back to yours and blinks slowly. “Have I not been preserving your honor for the better part of a year already? He has nothing to worry about.” One corner of his mouth kinks up roguishly. “Unless my lady does not care for such things. I’d gladly play the perverted lech if you’d let me.”

Gods save me.

Eren’s smile widens as though he has heard you and he releases your hand, allowing you to pick up the paring knife from where it is sitting on your lap. You take a brief recess to settle yourself and cut another wedge off the rapidly browning apple in your grip. Your hand does not shake, to your credit.

“Good apple, that,” Eren notes conversationally, as though he had not been speaking of perversion and fornication mere moments ago.

“The Skaryns brought in a good harvest.” The discomposure leaves you at once as the name of that doomed family leaves your lips. You stare down at the halved fruit in your hand. A good harvest. And their last. Everything seems to dim then, as though a pall has settled upon the world. The Skaryn pall. It is a cruel edict. Your knight had saved the author of that cruel edict. And that is why you can now call him that. Your knight. “You will be a Sir in truth now.”

“I will be, huh…” Eren looks pleased, excited at the thought. As well he might. It is all he ever wanted and lived for, the culmination of years of training and service.

“What’s his name, your squire?” you query as you feed him another slice. The next slice you eat yourself. It is as good as he claims, browned though it is now; the juice is sweet, refreshing on your tongue.

His eyes widen as he munches his own mouthful, as though he has forgotten that knights need squires to squire for them. “Falco Grice.” He swallows. “I have a squire.” The wonder in his face and voice makes you smile. “How do I go about being a master, though?” He screws up his face in thought, then puffs out his chest. “Falco, muck out the stables. I want to be able to eat off the ground once you’re done,” he says in his best approximation of Sir Levi’s flat tone.

There is a pause as the both of you stare at each other silently before descending into fits of giggles. For a while, you cannot stop. He is strong and thriving, and he is to be a knight at long last. Everything seems good in the world again, and the fate of doomed families fades into the ether. But as the light of day gives way to the gloom of night, his cheer slowly gives way to something more staid, dour, even mournful. Eren looks down at his hands, pensive. “Do I even deserve that honor, though? After…”

Sir Erwin’s lost arm hangs heavy between you. Half a year gone and still it haunts him. His gloom seeps into you like some illness, only to feed your determination to see him rise above his guilt and shame.

“You do,” you state firmly. You will not brook arguments on this matter. “You saved His Majesty, the king’s life, that’s not a small thing. And you learned, didn’t you? You didn’t get those injuries by running pell-mell into danger, did you?” As he shakes his head no, you go on, “Then let it go. Onward and upward and no looking back. It does you no good to dwell on such things. It’ll only eat you up inside.”

“Did I even learn, though? Because I thought about it. Running pell-mell into danger.” He picks at the skin on his forefinger, hunched over and reeking of shame.

Your heart goes out to him, your earnest betrothed. He is a young man, near grown, and yet in many ways he is a boy still. “The only thing that matters is that you didn’t act on it.” You brandish a slice of apple at him. “Sweet to banish the bitter.”

A weight seems to lift off his shoulders as he accepts your proffered piece into his mouth. “You always know what to say.” He gazes at you, soft, contemplative, considering. “And you have to know what to say. In that there is no choice, not for you, my Lady of Rhyzkov.”

You cut yourself a wedge and help yourself to your own sweet. There is nothing to add to the truth that you have always known.

“I grew up wanting to be a Royal Guardsman.”

As most boys do, noble or common.

“But then I served one of them.” Wryness taints Eren’s tone as he continues, “I saw him- them dog every step of this one man every day of their lives and realized that… wasn’t for me. Knights are for serving, yes, but I want the freedom to choose my own liege. If I am to spend a lifetime in thrall to one, I want it to be by my own will and not because tradition says I must.”

And to be a Royal Guardsman is to serve the blood royal for life. “But you didn’t choose me.” As either liege or bride.

Eren looks at you then and subjects you to a long and intense stare. “No, I didn’t.” This intensity is different, something you cannot quite place.

He is such a forceful personality, you reflect as you hold his deep green gaze. Deep enough to drown in. And you are and will continue to do so, you know now, for the rest of your life. But there is joy in trying to keep up with him, something exhilarating about navigating his tides. He is quite unlike anyone you have ever met, and it intrigues you.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t serve you gladly, willingly, and with everything I have.”

Embers of green fire begin to flare up at you and you avert your eyes lest you be burned. His tides you can navigate. You cannot say the same for his flames. “I look forward to your investiture.” You cut the last bit of apple in half.

The reminder of his investiture banks his flames near instantly. “It seems… inappropriate to have it after the executions.”

So his father has told him all. A certain chill appears to cloak you in its folds. It is almost enough for you to wish for his fires back. “The court needs something to celebrate after such unpleasantness.”

“Unpleasantness…” Eren frowns down at the white linen sheets draped over his lap. “The northmen deserve their sentence for that treachery, but to eradicate whole bloodlines strikes me as being too much. Little Yakob Halkin could hardly conspire against the king. Six-year-olds care more for toys than treason.”

You have never thought to see the end of a line, much less two, in your lifetime. But that is the way of the lords. You yourself are descended from the Shrike, Queen Yelena Rhyzkova, the fourth to bear that name and title, who had rid the world of the Moldovans thousands and thousands of years ago. If your royal forebear had any compunctions about killing the children of her enemies in her bid for power, no one will know now. She had taken her sensibilities with her to the grave.

“The commons will go the way of their masters, if the talk is true.” You hand Eren his last morsel and bite into your own.

Eren eats his apple and reclines back on his pillows. “It’s only talk. He will get his blood price and be paid twice over with highborn blood. He’ll leave the innocent commons alone. They’re not worth that much, at the end of the day.”

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A/N:

Horny YN is horny. But, really, who can blame her? Have you seen the guy?

Knight!Eren is here at last, hurrah for him. But the Northern Matter has turned into... another matter entirely.

This’ll be the last update for this year, so it’s my Christmas posting for you, my readers, who I am very thankful to have! I’m glad to be able to share my brainchild to the world and I thank you so much for reading! Always, always <3

This may be my last TSL update but not my last post for the year... at least it depends on how fast I can get around to it. But I’m planning on dabbling in the modern AU and posting a smutty one-shot that will just not leave my brain and so I have no choice but to write it. Hopefully I can get it done before the year ends, if not... I can hail the New Year with good sexy smutty goodness.

Tagging: @princess-okkotsu @lukepattersin @aki-and-saltfish

#eren jaeger x reader #eren yeager x reader #eren x reader #snk x reader #aot x reader #eren jeager x reader #Eren Jaeger #eren yeager #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan

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