(closed)

[usurpers]

Who: eren + people
When: february
Where: aefenglom, dorchacht, respective wildes
What: a catch-all for closed starters! hmu on discord @owlie#3609, liberos or eren’s plotting comment if you’re interest in doing something!
Warnings: n/a, will updated where needed.

“eren let me see what you have” “a knife” “no!!!!!!!!!!”

Comments

@ dany

[usurpers]

[ eren’s chosen a few days before the full moon’s start to better prepare dany. show me, she said, demanding experience and clarity to dominate a wild side that needed not reigns— just understanding. there was no successful attempt in history to ever contain a dragon, he assumes, and it helped to know even when their own hearts were the beasts themselves.

in an open plain seated by the farm’s plantations, eren prepares by removing all articles of clothing he had. poncho first, over his head and in a swing, grateful for the summer air rolling in from the wilde. ]

I have a power similar to this, in my world. [ slacks after, and then, rather neatly, tucks them into near perfect squares to set them aside with the rest of his belongings. you’d think, how could someone so naturally imposing fold fabrics as considerately as they do in hospitals? let us say, he had a stern teacher. now, to the facts: he continues. ] It just wasn’t a dragon, and my body didn’t exactly change. Another would form around it.

[ but it explains, perhaps a little, of why he was okay with it all. ]

[freeing]

[ Daenerys had found herself as a student to many things in life. She learns from teaching as much as she had learned from tragedy. When Eren speaks, she listens intently. It makes little sense to her, how he describes it with minced words and no flowery tone to it. It was as if maybe he wanted to bait her to ask questions – so she finds the answers more personal to her. ]

Another... [ Did he misspeak? ] Armor, you mean? Or protection?

[ A literal titanized body seems so far from her mindset. Daenerys did not undress herself – but... she loses her jacket and he is one of the few who had seen her wounds since. Some of the bandages on her arm and shoulder fall limper and begin to unravel, but she makes no effort to hide them. Not with him. ]

Explain it to me. What you were before... you've heard my stories and I'd like to hear yours.

[usurpers]

[ she’d have the liberty to ask what she desired this way— that, and eren hadn’t always been intricate with his words. explanations were long, and stories would take more than an evening to tell in full. after a moment, eren takes a step back to his clothes, pulling something out of one of his pockets— a curved blade, a karambit, that follows the full contour of his crystalline knuckles with a handle carved from antler. ]

. . . I could show you. [ he says, as a detailed and worded explanation would only deter their time— one answer would only pull in another, as curt as he offered his words. there was nothing private of this anyway, and thus, he extends his hand. perhaps it would even help her in her own transformation curiosities. the blade had been recently enchanted, as not to rely on asura for any sharing, and as a conduction for the mental blocks he puts forth on his own accord.

her wounds were healing, his eyes brief but noticing even as his palm faces up and awaits her’s in his. ] It’s called a titan. Muscle, bone, flesh— it’s all created through wounds and surrounds who summons it until a giant takes their place. Any one of us who could do it freely were called shifters.

[freeing]

[ Such words were always so painted — Eren's talented at that and perhaps that is why she gravitates to him. He gives hope, wonder, and roots her when needed. This is one of the few times he is vulnerable, speaking of a past and self long gone once they were brought through the mirrors.

He offers a hand and she takes it. ]

A titan. [ She thinks of large men, ones who would chase children and feed on them if they misbehaved. Stories, but, she remembers dragons were once stories too. ] Is this how you chose to live or was this... shifting how you were born?

[usurpers]

[ as soon as she takes his hand, eren grips the blade’s handle tight and rubs the pad of his thumb against a runic carving. the farm’s scenery warps into concrete and sky, a woman of black, waving hair chained to a child about half her size with the white in her eyes clearly depicting fright. she looks out from the building’s roof, glimpsing down below where waves of soldiers awaited. eren is far off in the middle of the flat roof, nothing close to draconic— his face is clean, his hair pulled back into a short, rounded tail, and his glare staid.

"where is the enemy?" he asks her as the winds blew from the building’s height and whistled through stone. the woman briskly turns here eyes into a narrow, her smile quickly pulling a grave line and with her finger pointed: straight at him. “there,” she pronounces, right before the structure’s ground rumbles, bursts, and a titan of about five meters with massive crystalline jaws opens wide and snaps shut. it misses eren by a hair— or rather, doesn’t miss him at all. he begins to fall from a height with both his legs missing, snapped clean off— but life still there, a glare that meant death upon those against him as sparks began to snap from his skin. ]

I chose this. [ today, he knew the truth. he was never forced to inherit this power if it was eren, in the first place, who convinced his father to give it to him. a horrible sound strikes the structure’s top, loud and oppressive, and as briefly said once, flesh, bone, muscle, skin; it all weaves together seamlessly around its summoner rather than changing his body, to create a being of fifteen meters and a sight to see, pointed ears and exposed maw that very much resembles his more beastly aefenglom shape. as quickly as the memory began, it vanishes, until the scents of dust, smoke and incoming airship fuel is nothing but an afterthought. ]

We’d need two things for it to happen: an injury and a solid goal, or belief to act on. [ he doesn’t quite use it the way he always does, but . . . ] At least from my experience, it’s not so different here.

[freeing]

[ She's taken aback. A disbeliever of magic caught up in the wonder and power of it. She clutches to his hand tightly, harsh enough for her nails to nearly break skin. The display was all encompassing, it flowed through her like a truth she wasn't ready to see. It shatters her in a sense, a reality that she never believed in nor thought she'd have to see. To know Eren's life consisted of something not too far from the monstrous and magical – two sides of a coin she was learning to believe in. ]

I – I –

[ Words tumble past the pout of her lips and fall short, a scared choke that she swallows down. Not for herself. Not for the ideal of a Queen. But for the comfort of Eren. He was no monster and he needed no pity. ]

You became something to accomplish your goals – here and there, haven't you?

[usurpers]

[ at least, his skin was no longer so thin, and at least— his heart jumps more than watching the past and relive only the horrid rush of adrenaline, or the parching thirst to live, and that’s when he decides to return the gesture: his palm grows tight around her’s, not hurtful, but embracing as he would with his own arms around her frame, if he were to hug her. it’s to encourage her core, and cease the rattling that makes her words quiver.

he swallows tight, subtle and unrecognizable through the dip of his chin, and presses the pad of his thumb against the top of her hand, side to side, that accompanies a nod as he tosses away the blade, to land on top of his folder poncho. ]

I don’t regret it. [ he can never regret it until he knows the full extent of his doing, and that . . . that would only be seen with time. ] A lot of things are more necessary than what we want. I know that by heart.

[ . . . painfully so. ]

That’s why I’m always looking ahead. What’s happening with us passes. What happens after, [ it’s gentle, and not rude meaning, but a finger comes up from his now free hand, to push against the space between her collarbone and the top of her chest— it’s where one’s hand would go above their heart and feel it beat. ] only happens if we can pull through now.

[ and why, whatever outside monster he becomes doesn’t phase him. even if he never did have the attack titan, he’d still be the same. ]

You can do that.

[ if she believed and wanted to— eren did. ]

[freeing]

[ It reminds her of the dreams she's had before. So vivid she feels the air stolen from her lungs as each second passes. Disbelief, wonder, sadness – they swim together in a clouded mind that was lost to the displays so clear. If Eren wasn't holding onto her, she would fear she'd crumble away out of fear. Never had she experienced it this much, as if his words were a portal only she was granted access to. ]

Many... change to be stronger. Some close off those they once loved, some instill fear through iron-grasp rule, some ... do horrible things to achieve their goals... I – [ Her words fumble, when he touches her she feels something swirl inside of her. Heat that feels different than the embers under her breast and collarbone. A lightness that she doesn't know what it really is. Eren makes her feel that. ] No matter what you were or are, you aren't any of those things here.

[ She stands taller, even as his hand grazes her flesh. ]

You are stronger.

my heart is HURTING and YOU are to blame

[usurpers]

[ you are stronger. it was difficult to believe that her words were true— not because dany wasn’t truthful, but because . . . eren was all those things. he closed off his loved ones so they wouldn’t immediately oppose him. he has instilled fear, he’s done horrible, terrible things. the words on his forked tongue are nearly falling: i’m not. he wasn’t the shining, morally just hero who steps up and saves the world. he was . . . only trying to save his world. his eyes seem saddened when he gazes upon her, his hand yet to leave and still there. he wasn’t any of that.

the meaning of her words hits him again. he listens, again, and after the second, third time of repeating it quietly in his head, a different meaning surges. he had either misread or was looking too deep. it had to be, even if it doesn’t matter what you were or are rings harder than he wanted.

was he truly different, here? did she believe it so much? or had she touched upon something that went years unbrushed? something tells eren, like a quiet whisper: you’re better than this. that’s where he doesn’t know how to speak back, only beginning with the same thought: I’m not. ]

I’m, [ his lips are dry, and he presses them together, sets them when the rest of his voice falls flat behind an inhale. you’re wrong. he wants to say that, with the utmost melancholy, but he’s frozen. he can’t and he only watches her grow far taller than him without having to match his actual height. his chest burns and something in his gut felt like it dropped to his feet.

elliot, his bonded, returns with a word of advice as a reminder: this could all be a second chance for you. did he want to do everything he did? no. could he be any different in aefenglom? could he be any different for those he’s attached to here, for the queen that speaks before him?

he had wanted to encourage her, and here she had been— spinning the table in opposite directions. her eyes are piercing him and eren doesn’t know what she sees inside, much less if it’s just an illusion she wants to believe. ]

I’ve always been . . . This way.

[ how could he be better than that if he never was? his curved talon finds a lock of silver blond hair, and it slips from his fingers. it seems he had attempted to reach a little higher, cheek level, but had given up before he passed her neck. ]

hehehehe

[freeing]

[ It was like seeing a wild animal caged. It was like seeing a rare comet soar through the sky. It was like seeing chains that had been latched tight for years finally broken. Seeing Eren react this way was unfitting of who she had found a kinship with, it brings her throat tight and dry.

Their gazes were a dance of fire, swirling and yielding answers they couldn't quite understand. ]

Be the way that allows you to survive. For the people that need you.

[ He can hear how the air leaves her lips, a soft gasp at the touch. Her knees nearly buckle and her face feels hot — warm, even for a dragon. Every nerve in her body feels like coal fostering embers, an underlining threat of pure heat.

She wants to say I need you but the words feel foreign. The mother of dragons arrogantly needs no one, she reminds herself — proven wrong time and time again. No matter her rule or reason, she is still is a young thing in life.

Finally, she can summon the courage and find the words. She speaks a language of vulnerability that weaves itself with her fingers raising to clutch onto the back of his hand, lowering it just right so her cheek finds itself in his grasp. ]

Will you be strong for me, always?

it’s on

[usurpers]

[ it would be only few now, the first in this way, to allow him to be who he must, as well as who he chose when he deemed fit to. the fire in her eyes and the twinge of worry, could it have been fear or loneliness? eren hadn’t known how to differentiate and finds it best not to consider the option. vulnerability was not an easy thing for either of them, and today, for all his grandeur, eren cracks today. he too, was only a young man no more than twenty in life. he had lifestyles, and years worth of living the way a young man was born to taken out of his little grasp at nine.

and still, they wouldn’t allow themselves to show too much weakness. only little fissures that are quickly plugged by one another. it seemed to not matter that he was standing before her bare, caressing her cheek with his knuckles until it pressed into his palm. his chest, effusive with fervor, draws in a breath that expands and holds.

had his strength been her’s? eren would come to the conclusion, that, she has what she asks of without hesitation. he finds that he doesn’t need to think about it. what was it, that they’ve come out here to do—? he’s almost forgotten, with how a warm hand cups his own and leads him. oh— ]

You’ve just given me the freedom to be. [ he’s momentarily glad she’s facilitated the process. eren hadn’t cared much about formalities, even when they spoke of it in on a dreary winter night with tea in front of a hearth— he would’ve kissed her hand, but instead, finds the rush of courage to plant his lips above her brows.

she needn’t to do a single thing more; she was already a precious, precious person to him. the kind he would do the worst for, with the best in mind. ] Always.

[ since they’ve met? that had been a truth, too. ]