Fic Graveyard: Ereri Edition
time to own up to the reality that I can’t finish everything I start. I’m pretty sure this is my first Ereri one, which makes me sad. but since you guys are new to the game, this is where I post all the oneshots or WIPs I’ve started but don’t have the time/inspiration/motivation to finish. but because I’m a packrat and hate throwing things out, I post them here for posterity’s sake. or something.
but also because I’m nose-deep in my minibang, and since I can’t exactly share that with you quite yet, I’d thought I’d share something (even if it is just incomplete pieces of things).
a part of my Star Wars AU, meant for May the 4th (THAT’S HOW OLD THIS IS)
Eren’s father is a merchant—according to him, at least. Most people in their village think of him, and his son, as scavengers more than anything else.
Not that they’re wrong. Eren is the biggest scavenger Levi knows.
He restored an entire fucking 20-year-old X-wing with parts he found. If anything, the title of scavenger should be heralded, not spoken with a wrinkled nose and a sneer.
(And Levi knows a thing or two about speaking with distaste).
Still, Grisha actually goes off-planet, and the things that he brings back can’t ordinarily be found in the ruins of the Massassi.
That’s how Eren gets his hands on the beginnings of his first astromech droid.
That’s why Levi ends up digging through the crates of useless junk crowded in the Jaeger family home, his blood vibrating as if something, somewhere, is calling to it.
“I’ve been asking my dad for an astromech since I found my X-wing,” Eren prattles, siting at his workbench and dismantling the droid entirely. It’s a process that Levi’s never understood—if he wants to fix it, why the fuck is he breaking it more? “I mean, I was hoping for a newer model—a BB unit, maybe, those are pretty wizard—so of course my dad brings me this hunk of metal.”
There’s a sharp twang sound, and Levi can only guess that Eren kicked the droid’s agrinium body. He doesn’t look to check, pushing aside another box that… It just wasn’t the one. Which is stupid, because Levi doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, he just knows he has to find it.
“I’m pretty sure it’s an R-series. Not an R-2, though, because naturally I’m not that lucky… It looks a little like an R-5, which I might as well just melt down. They’re basically useless.”
It’s this one.
Levi touches the top of the crate and closes his eyes and he knows. When he wrenches the lid off, his fingers are trembling.
“Maybe an R-6… Ugh, I don’t understand why they had to make the R-6 look so much like the R-5. I won’t really know until I open it up either way. If it’s an R-5, we’re screwed though, I wouldn’t trust it to navigate me through the village, much less space.”
There isn’t much in this crate. At least, it appears to be full of random bits and pieces that don’t quite make up much of anything. A literal box of scraps, and Levi’s not sure why he’s digging in with both hands instead of feeling horribly disappointed. There’s nothing here, he tells himself, even as his hands keep pushing aside various odds and ends from across the junkyards of the galaxy.
“I’m not a huge fan of the red, either. I’ll probably paint it. If it’s worth painting. It’ll feel more like mine, ya know?”
Levi’s hand closes around it before his eyes can see it, and they close immediately as his entire body seems to quiet.
He found it.
“What color do you think would look good? I’m thinking maybe green, or orange. Would it be weird to paint my X-wing to match? Yeah, that’d be stupid, never mind.”
It’s cylindrical in Levi’s grasp, the weight and feel of it unlike anything he’s ever encountered. Now that the itch in his blood has dimmed back to its usual muted urgency, Levi hesitates to lift this thing he’d been looking for past all the rubble—to get a good look at it, to even discover what it is.
He should let go.
He should leave it here.
He should forget that there was ever a remedy for the buzzing he’s felt beneath his skin since he was small.
“Or maybe I’ll paint the entire thing in color and then do white accents. What do you think?”
Levi’s hand grasps the object more firmly, and the corners of his mouth turn down.
He can’t.
“Levi?”
He can’t just leave it here. Not without looking at it first.
“Levi?”
He steels himself, and yanks, letting all the useless debris and random parts rush past his arm and fill the void he’s created.
“What are you doing back—oh my god.” Eren’s hand closes over Levi’s shoulder, sudden and warm, and they both stare at the textured and etched tube of metal resting in Levi’s palm. “Is that what I think it is?” Eren’s voice is turning high with his excitement, and it shakes through him so vibrantly that Levi can feel it through the small point of contact Eren has created between them with his fingers.
“Is there a—” Eren starts to question as Levi twists the object around in his hands, and a hush falls over Eren’s workroom as Levi’s thumb goes to push the switch.
Nothing happens.
He tries, a second, a third, and a fourth time, but the result is always the same.
“Let me see it,” Eren mutters, yanking it from Levi’s grasp, and he feels protest rise in his throat. Wants to snatch it back from Eren, and hide it away. Wants to save it from the dismantling that is no doubt in its future, Eren always too curious to see the why and the how of every bit of technology that falls into his hands.
It causes a strange ache in the deep recesses of Levi’s body, and he wraps his arm around his abdomen, like perhaps that will quell it.
“What use is a lightsaber if it doesn’t even work?” Eren laments, flicking the switch incessantly, and Levi watches him with blank eyes, his hand tingling where the lightsaber’s hilt had rested.
*
(“Can I have it?” He asks later, when the sky is nearly black with the darkness of the night and Levi is long overdue at his own home. He gestures towards the lightsaber, but says nothing else.
Worst case, he’ll take it when Eren is no doubt preoccupied with the next exciting thing.
Figures he’ll have to, when Eren bites his lip and hesitates, as if he’s mulling it over. His eyes flick to Levi, and then he huffs out a breath that ruffles his hair.
“But it’s broken,” Eren points out, handing it over, and Levi just shrugs.
It doesn’t matter to him that this relic of a bygone era doesn’t work that way it’s told in stories.
What matters is that he can tuck it under his pillow, and sleep without seeing the entire galaxy twist around itself on the inside of his eyelids.)
*
Levi sits in the shadows of his bedroom well into the night, the only faint light drifting through the gaps in his window trimmings, giving everything the same soft red hue as Yavin Prime.
***
a piano verse interlude about Levi’s first time playing a piano
The Carringtons have a baby grand piano in the formal parlor at the front of the house. Levi spends his first month living under their roof looking at it out of the corner of his eye, and waiting for the moment when somebody plays it.
It doesn’t take long for him to realize that, like most things in the house, it is to be looked at, but not touched. As far as he can tell, no one in the household even knows how to play.
Levi wonders why rich people spend money on things they don’t use.
(He almost calls it stupid, but he still listens to that CD he stole late at night behind his locked door, the soft, soothing sound of the piano the only familiar thing in this strange place. No. He can’t call the piano itself stupid.)
It’s the piano that keeps him around so long. He’s intrigued by it. He finds himself staring at it from just beyond the entryway, wondering if it sounds the same way as the one on his CD. If it would sound better, right in front of him.
His fascination with it becomes frustrating. Since his mom died, Levi has never been tethered to anyone place, and he never has any intention of doing so. True, the Carringtons are potentially the nicest foster family he’s ever had. They have no other children, fostered or of their own, and no need for the monthly stipend they receive for housing him. Maybe there’s some sort of tax write-off? Levi’s heard there’s something like that for donations and charity and shit.
They’re not home very much, and while they attempt to engage Levi, his silence and disinterest usually turns them away after a few solid tries. At least they put in some amount of effort. It’s better than he can say for most of his previous placements. They both, surprisingly, work, and attend things they refer to as “social functions.”
(“Maybe you’ll join us one day, Levi,” Mrs. Carrington suggests in her kind, quiet voice, and Levi simply avoids eye contact and doesn’t answer. By the time they deem him fit for whatever the fuck a social function is, he’ll hopefully be far, far away from this place.)
It gives Levi an abundance of alone time in the overly large house, and while he fully intends to use it to his advantage when he’s finally at the point where he can run away again, it also gives him ample time to break the rules.
It’s the middle of the afternoon when he walks quietly into the front parlor, his feet bare and his back straight, head held high like he’s absolutely allowed to be there. Certainly, if one of three house staff come across him, he’s sure he could come up with a convincing enough lie on the spot if need be.
He wonders what will happen, if the Carringtons find out. Will they send him back? Realize he’s not worth the trouble, like so many others before them?
Levi sits uncertainly on the bench.
Probably, he thinks, and it takes away any and all hesitation as he raises his right hand over the keys. After all, what really makes them different from any other family? Their money?
***
summer vacation au where Levi is a beach hermit (aka my original mini bang idea)
Every summer, Eren reacquaints himself with the give and take of the sand. It’s different from running over packed dirt trails in the hills, or the cement and asphalt of his neighborhood back home, or the polyurethane tracks at school. His feet sink easily, but he struggles every time he lifts a foot, the sand fighting to keep him where he is, to make him stumble, or fall.
Eren loves it.
The marine layer is still dense this early in the morning, thick enough that the mist clings to Eren’s rapidly overheating skin, each drawn breath tasting like the ocean that he knows stretches out to his left even if he can hear it more than he can see it. The entire beach is nearly empty, save a few other early birds who are walking their dogs or taking advantage of the ebbing tide. Eren even ran past a mother and daughter, picking through the wet sand to find whatever the ocean had left behind over night.
Eren’s sure he’ll find plenty treasures later, with his friends. Almost all my accident, when they prick at his bare feet as he chases the waves.
He’s quite a ways up the beach that his parents’ summer house would probably just be a spot on the shoreline if he could see it through all the fog. Eren turns around, willing to try either way, when he sees another early-morning collector closer to the waves. It’s only strange because of how far he’s gone—it’s quite a distance from all the private houses, and even further from the rentals. The stranger is only a vague shape in the distance, pulling something along the sand that makes it hiss even over the sound of the waves, the shape a mound of jagged, ominous lines.
The stranger pauses only once in his trek, and while Eren is sure the goose bumps on his legs are from the clinging mist around him, he still can’t shake the feeling that his own stare is being equally matched.
Figuring he’s gone far enough, he starts his jog back to the house, determined to get back before everyone else wakes up.
He’s hoping he’ll disappear into the fog soon enough, and yet… Eren feels eyes on his back for far longer than he knows he should.
*
The marine layer lifts sometime between the end of Eren’s run and when they all finish breakfast, but it lingers, leaving the sky grey and overcast. Eren observes it from the screen door at the back of the house, mouth set at a disgruntled angle, as everyone discusses the possibility of a storm. The ocean doesn’t look churned up enough to signal any oncoming rain or thunder, but Eren’s been coming to Maria Bay since he was young and he knows how easily that can change.
“I’d feel better if you all just stayed in, just in case,” Eren’s mom says, voice wary as she eyes the beach from just beside Eren. She was raised here, in this house and in this town, and there’s a knowing wariness in her eyes that comes from years of living beside this particular stretch of ocean. As much as Eren’s body craves the touch of the water at his ankles, and the feel of soft, wet sand between his toes, he knows better than to go against that.
(He’s been caught, time and time again, ignoring his mother’s warnings. Most times, he’d just been severely scolded. One time, he had almost drowned in a riptide. If there’s anything that will teach him a lesson, it’s a near death experience.)
Of course, being at the beach and unable to actually enjoy the beach is actual misery, which is what leads to them all sprawled on the living room floor playing board games (an earnest suggestion of Armin’s when both Eren and Jean’s grumbling got loud enough to be mistaken for thunder).
It’s while they’re resetting Connect Four that Eren casually mentions what he saw that morning among the fog, just because it was so out of the ordinary, and Jean almost knocks the entire game board right off the coffee table in the enthusiastic body flail that follows.
“Dude,” Eren scowls, watching black and red plastic coins scatter across the wooden floors. One of them rolls underneath the bookcase at the far side of the room, and Eren is sure they will never see it again now.
“You saw the ghost!” Jean exclaims, and the ridiculousness of his statement actually manages to pull Armin and Mikasa out of their incredibly boring game of chess (a feat that not even Jean and Eren’s arguing had accomplished).
“Ghost?” Eren’s eyebrows pinch in confusion. “What ghost?”
“You know,” Jean urges. “The Ghost of Maria Bay.” He twists his head around, looking from Eren’s blank face to the similar expressions painted over Armin’s and Mikasa’s. “The one that haunts that abandoned house at the other end of the beach?”
Now that’s a visual that strikes with Eren. He’s run the length of this beach hundreds of times, and he’s seen the house before. It’s almost impossible to see from their side of the bay, due to the position of the cliffs and the sand dunes, but he’s come across the knee-high wooden fence staked in the sand that sanctions off the property.
Eren’s been coming to Maria Bay since he was four, and he’s never once seen a person inside that house.
“That house isn’t haunted, Jean,” Armin explains, voice even and reasonable and yet placating, as it usually is when he’s trying to logically dispel one of Jean’s strange superstitions. “It isn’t even abandoned. Mrs. Jaeger has told us that the people who live there just keep to themselves.”
That is what Eren’s mom had said when they’d asked her about it. They broached the subject every few years, their questions becoming more pointed as they grew older, but her answer had always been the same.
(“That house isn’t abandoned. It’s simply that the family that lives there isn’t very sociable. That’s why they built their house so far away from everybody else.” It had been said in that infuriatingly soft tone that adults use when they speak to children, as if such knowledge is readily accepted by adults but not by imaginative children.)
“And she won’t be pleased if you’re inventing ghost stories about the family who lives there,” Armin continues, his tone a gentle scolding.
***
AU where Eren and Levi meet in the line for Hall H at Comic Con
“I’m in line is actually the most unhelpful way to describe where you are right now. I’m in line. This guy next to me is in line. Every fucking—” Levi’s already irritated voice turns decidedly more deadly. “That was not a challenge to be more fucking vague!”
A few of the people crowded near him turn to look. One of them is in a Spider-Man onesie.
“Third tent?” Levi’s shoulders finally sag a bit in relief, and he begins to carefully navigate his way through the throngs of people around him. He wouldn’t be surprised if most, if not all, of the people around him were attempting to do exactly what he’s doing—locating the member in their group who pulled the short straw and had to sleep outside the night before.
For Levi, Hanji always gets the short straw. It was one of the conditions he made when they planned this trip. Like fuck is he sleeping on the ground.
He weaves through the crowds as carefully as he can, not wanting to rub up against someone who potentially hasn’t showered in days while also balancing a tray of Starbucks in one hand. He’d waited nearly an hour for these fucking drinks, and he’s not responsible for what happens to the person who makes him drop them.
“Near the convention center,” Levi repeats into the phone, eyes scanning the crowd as he does so. He’s near the hall already, so he can’t be far. “In the—”
“LEVI!”
The shout comes in surround-sound—echoing through Levi’s phone and piercing through the air around him. It takes less than 20 seconds to locate Hanji where they’re around around and waving in the line, most likely annoying the fuck out of everyone in their immediate vicinity.
Levi would pity them, if most of his life didn’t involve having Hanji in his immediate vicinity.
Wordlessly, Levi hangs up the phone and starts the more tedious journey into the line, carefully maneuvering under ropes and over people still curled up in their sleeping bags. How anyone can manage to sleep with the buzz of noise all around them is beyond him.
“You found me!” Hanji crows, grabbing the tray of coffee out of Levi’s hands eagerly. At least they hadn’t been lying about needing coffee, but why they need three Levi has no fucking idea.
“No thanks to your fucking impeccable directions,” Levi says dryly, adjusting the strap of his backpack now that his hands aren’t otherwise occupied.
“They were impeccable, weren’t they?” Hanji says to… The random stranger standing beside them. Levi thinks nothing of it—Hanji talks to people they don’t know all the time. It’s why the general public tends to give them a wide berth. “What’s this?” Hanji holds up one of the cups, and Levi takes it from them.
“My tea.” Levi rolls his eyes. “Why, are three drinks not enough for you?”
“Three?” The number seems to surprise them. “Oh, only one of these is for me. The other two are for Eren and Armin.”
Levi blinks. Once. Twice.
Three times.
“Who?”
This time, Hanji is the one who rolls their eyes, plucking the drinks from the holder and passing them out to the two young men nearby—one of them is the one she had addressed before.
“Let me get this straight.” Levi fights to speak evenly through his clenched jaw. “You had me wake up early and wait in the longest Starbucks line I have ever seen to get two people we don’t know coffee?”
“We do know them!” Hanji exclaims. “They’re our line bodies. Or, well, they were my line bodies. We all slept right next to each other.” They nod. “And now you know them. Armin, Eren, this is Levi. Levi, this is Armin and Eren.”
Hanji doesn’t so much as gesture, so Levi has no idea who is Armin and who is Eren. One of them has blond hair pulled back into a short ponytail, and is dressed like many of the other people in line; in an outfit that befits one of the panels being hosted today. His shirt proudly states You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry, a clear allusion to Hulk even if the green and purple color scheme wasn’t already telling.
The other has brown hair, although most of it is obscured by the trademark Ash Ketchum hat. He’s even gone far enough to pull off the laziest cosplay Levi has possibly ever seen—he’s pretty sure the blue vest is really just an old, cut-up t-shirt.
“Nice to meet you,” says the blond one.
“Hmm,” Levi responds simply, and then shifts his weight until he’s in a position he’s sure he can hold for the next several hours until they funnel them into Hall H.
“Levi is my roommate,” Hanji continues, and Levi really wishes they wouldn’t. He gets that part of Comic Con is interaction with people who like the same shit as you, but honestly, that’s what the internet is for. In fact, Levi prefers fandom discourse on the internet to the kind that can be had in person, any day.
He’s only here because, well. It’s Comic Con. He’s been going every summer since he was 19. Just because he’s a jaded, reclusive asshole now isn’t going to change that.
Plus he makes around $3000 alone reselling all the merch he manages to snag, and while that money more-or-less pays for the trip, it’s no amount to scoff at.
Even if it does mean four to five days of forced interaction with people.
“He’s not really a people person,” they continue to explain, which he further demonstrates by angling his body away from them and pretending he doesn’t know them.
“He came to the right place then, huh?” It comes from the discount Ash Ketchum, who is grinning as he says it. “It’s not like Comic Con is one of the most highly attended events in the world or anything.”
“Oh, Levi’s been coming to Comic Con for years. It’d take a lot more than his general dislike of most people to keep him away,” Hanji states matter-of-factly, and Levi sends them a look. When did he ask for a spokesperson?
“Years, huh?” Ash Ketchum lifts his hat to scratch at the hair underneath. Levi can’t help but watch the movement. How dirty is the hair beneath that hat, exactly? He’s not close enough to be able to tell. “How old are you guys, anyway?”
Levi figures that enough is enough, and he clips Hanji with his elbow before answering, “Old enough, kid.”
Ash Ketchum doesn’t take too well to that.
***
my first Ereri oneshot actually and the idea that sparked the elf!Levi verse (and will remain canon for its origins even if this never gets finished)
Eren is just a boy the first time he sees an elf.
A troupe of them make camp for a night in the clearing beside his village, but not before passing through the center of town. It is unlike when the king or court comes to visit, parading down the lanes with all their banners waving, their steps matched by the beating of drums and strumming of lutes. The elves come through with no fanfare or splendor, but their presence has crowds lining the streets even without them.
Elves have never come to Shiganshina, Eren’s mother tells him. It is quite the occasion.
That’s how Eren learns the word—elves—and as he watches the procession pass before him with wide eyes, his mother behind him and holding tightly to his shoulder, he is struck by how different they are from him and his mother although is too young to find the words to explain how. He just knows that they are.
They come in all different sizes and colors, just like the townspeople, and they have eyes and noses and mouths just like Eren does. He tips his head to the side and surveys them with all the open curiosity of a child.
His mother and the adults around him talk in hushed voices. Some of the words they speak Eren knows—words like the King, or friend, or journey. But intermixed with these are bigger words, important words, that Eren doesn’t recognize—embassy, peace, alliance. He doesn’t focus on them for too long. He’s always found words far too boring.
Rather, his attention is held rapt by the elves and the way they walk. It’s synchronized, like a march, but is far too graceful to ever be called such. Eren has the urge to mimic the movement, to see if he could do it. If maybe he could slip easily into the mass and dance all the way to the edge of town, where the elves will pitch their tents.
He’s moving before he even fully decides to, and his mother yanks him back.
“Stay here, Eren,” she tells him, her voice quiet but stern. Eren frowns, eyebrows pinched together, but any attempts to yank himself free are thwarted by his mother’s firm grip. He huffs out an annoyed breath, and thinks of maybe crying, or screaming—something to cause a scene while surrounded by all their neighbors.
But something about the presence of the elves stops him from doing just that. Something tells Eren that it would be wrong, somehow, to disturb the gentle calm that follows them with his tantrum.
So he stills, and his mother rubs his shoulder thankfully, and he watches them. They cut through the town like a river carving its way leisurely through rock and earth. Eren has never seen someone move the way they move.
His eyes wash over every elf that passes him—they are all different, but the same. They all have the same strangely blank expression on their face, and they all move fluidly, like water. And then there’s their ears, longer and pointier than Eren’s own. He touches his ears to make sure, face screwed up in concentration, and wonders if he were to touch the tip of an elf’s ear, if it would be sharp like one of his mother’s kitchen knives.
His mother’s attention waivers and shifts to the baker’s wife as they discuss something quietly, and Eren doesn’t wait a single heartbeat when he feels her hold loosen.
He bolts.
“Eren!” She yells, sounding much more upset than she usually does when Eren directly disobeys her. Eren glances back at her as he runs, wondering why, and sends her a reassuring grin as he beelines straight to the center of the elves.
He doesn’t make it.
He collides right into the legs of an elf, and is if Eren had unintentionally set off some sort of signal, the entire procession stops around them as if it had been planned. The crowd is silent—not that Eren notices. He’d latched onto the elf to keep from falling backwards, and is distracted rubbing his nose and frowning. It hurts.
Long fingers curl over his shoulder, and Eren looks up, palm still pressed against the throbbing ache of his nose, eyes growing wide as he stares up at the elf looking back at him.
Its eyes are silver.
That’s when Eren notices how quiet it is, like they’re all waiting for something to happen. Confused, Eren’s eyes turn to find his mother in the crowd. Her hand is pressed over her mouth, the way it always is when she’s trying not to cry. But why would she be crying?
When he looks back at the elf, it—Eren thinks maybe it’s a boy elf, but he doesn’t know because all elves are very beautiful—is also staring at Eren’s mother. Eren tips his head to the side curiously, but suddenly another elf nearby is speaking. Eren doesn’t understand the words, but that doesn’t stop him from being entranced by the sound. The voice is fast and clipped, and reminds Eren of the sound of bees buzzing, or a hummingbird’s wings flapping, or a clock ticking—or somehow all of them, all at once. It’s overwhelming, and makes his head hurt.
He wishes the elf would stop.
The elf holding him, Eren’s elf, doesn’t respond, but then Eren feels the careful shift of fingers from his shoulder to his hair. He blinks in surprise, looking up at his elf again, and their eyes meet as the elf ruffles his hair. It’s more careful than it is playful, and his elf’s eyes widen slightly as if it is as fascinated by the gesture as Eren himself is. Normally, he hates it when people muss his hair, but this time he grins up at the elf, nudging against the touch.
Eren thinks maybe the entire crowd was holding its breath, because they suddenly all release it in a sigh.
He detaches himself from his elf, switching his hold to the hand that was in his hair instead, the grin never leaving his face. His elf says something, and it draws Eren up short—not because he suddenly understands the weird words, but because of his elf’s voice. It’s… Deep and quiet, like a lake Eren could never hope to touch the bottom of, the surface so perfectly unbroken that Eren’s fingers itch to throw a rock and cause a ripple. It’s the light of the stars on a moonless night, and the fading warmth of a fire before the log splits and the embers cool, and it’s—something else. Something crisp and smooth, but bitter, that Eren doesn’t have a word or feeling for.
Again, his elf stares at him, and Eren stares back, grin gone in the wake of hearing his elf speak, but it comes back in full force and Eren starts to tug on his elf’s hand. And, to everyone’s surprise, his elf stumbles forward, and just like that, the procession begins to move forward again as if it never stopped to begin with. The only difference is that, now, a human child (who walks too fast and with not an ounce of grace in his energetic limbs) is tugging along a very disgruntled looking elf, laughing as he does so and breaking the calm quiet the elves had traveled in before.
Eren hears the buzzing again, coming from somewhere behind him, and when he looks back, he can see the elf who had spoken before, its head thrown back.
It looks like it’s laughing.
*
It doesn’t take long for Eren’s energy to plateau and for him to fall into a walk beside his elf, rather than pulling him along every which way. He keeps hold of his elf’s hand, though, and with his other, he tells the elf all about his village. There is the baker’s, and the blacksmith’s, and the school house. There is the large rock that he’d jumped from and hurt his leg, and there is the clinic where his father works as the town doctor and fixed his leg all up.
His elf is a very good listener, but he doesn’t say much. He mumbles responses (Eren assumes) in the words Eren does’t understand, but he doesn’t mind. He likes it when his elf speaks, likes the way his voice sounds, likes the way it makes him feel. And Eren pretends he knows what his elf is saying.
You must be very brave, Eren thinks his elf says after the story about the rock.
It must be a good place for swimming, his elf must say after Eren points out the path to the river.
Is it fun to climb? his elf clearly asks when Eren tells him about the large tree that is the best for climbing (and yes, it is very fun).
Do you have your own room? must be his elf’s response when Eren gestures towards his home down the lane.
He’s not quite sure what his elf means to say when Eren points out the butcher’s—it wrinkles its nose and says something. Maybe that it smells bad? Eren has always thought so, too.
Too busy telling his elf the story about the one time he caught a frog under the bridge they’re currently crossing, Eren doesn’t realize that the elves in front of him have stopped. He would have run straight into another elf’s legs if the hold on his hand didn’t suddenly grow tight and draw up to a standstill. They’ve reached the edge of town, and the already pitched elf encampment. Eren stares in awe at the pavilions—smaller than the King’s company, and lacking any and all banners to state who they are and where they come from. Eren thinks maybe because the fabric that makes up the tents is so remarkably peculiar, unlike any material he’s ever seen come off his mother’s loom.
It looks alive.
Eren has the distinct urge to touch it, and is moving forward and reaching out his hand when his elf yanks him back again. His elf is saying something, and Eren opens his mouth to explain that he just wants to touch them a little, that he’ll be super careful, he promises—but then his elf has untangled their hands and Eren’s words die in his mouth. Instead, his elf grasps his shoulders once more, and begins to steer Eren away from the tents, and the elves, and back across the bridge—
“Hey!”
—and towards where his mother is waiting for him. There isn’t a crowd this far from the center of town. Just his mother, face pinched in worry, and her apron wrinkled from where she’s twisted the fabric up in her hands. Eren is surprised, but happy, to see her. He had figured he’d have to wait until later to run and find her and tell her all about his time with the elves.
He realizes what it means that he’s seeing her now just as they finish crossing the bridge.
“W-wait,” Eren protests, thrashing his head around to try and see his elf. None of the angles work, so he just leans his head back, looking at his elf upside-down. “Does this mean I have to leave?” Eren doesn’t want to leave. There’s still so much he hasn’t told his elf.
There is no response this time. He hears his mother whisper his name, and then feels her hands taking his small ones, but Eren doesn’t look away from the elf as he’s handed back to her.
“Eren,” his mother says again, her voice filled with relief, and her fingers grab her chin until Eren is staring into her eyes. They wash over him, her hands following shortly afterwards, hovering over every inch of him as if searching for places where harm was done. It’s silly. Why would the elves have hurt him? “Do you have any idea—“ His mother shakes her head, eyes closed, banishing the worry from her voice and expression. “You are in so much trouble, young man. I told you to stay, Eren!”
“But Mama—“ Eren protests, scowling, and tries to look behind him again. Did his elf leave, or is it still there? Is it watching Eren be berated by his mother like he’s some baby?
“Don’t but Mama me. You always do this, Eren, you—do you have any idea what you could have done? Stop—what are you trying to—oh.”
Eren’s mother is looking past him, intrigued by Eren’s own thrashing, and Eren finally has the freedom to twist in her hold until he’s turned around completely.
His elf is still there.
“I—“ his mother starts, and her fingers grip into his shoulders so tightly it hurts. She sounds nervous. “Please.” The word is hardly more than a whisper. “Please forgive my son. He meant no ill will. He-he’s just a child, after all.” She goes to muss his hair, and Eren jerks away from the touch. “Just a child.”
“Mama!” He cries indignantly, and she shushes him harshly. He is not just a child. He struggles against her hold again, wanting to stand beside her rather than under her hold, and fusses over him hissing for him to hold still and behave and do you even understand what you’ve done?, until the elf speaks and silences them both with a flurry of words they do not understand.
His mother’s hands tighten around him protectively.
“I’m—“ she stutters, and Eren lets out a small cry of pain as her knuckles whiten with the strength of her hold. He tries to shake her off, to no avail, and then sighs and accepts it. She probably won’t let go of him for a whole week after what happened today.
He has no idea what kind of conversation his mother is trying to have with his elf, but decides that if he’s being forced to get home, he’ll need to get out all the questions he’s been saving for later.
“Are you a boy elf or a girl elf?” Eren asks in the middle of whatever his mother is mumbling.
“Eren.”
He recognizes that voice. It’s the one she uses when she’s horrified with his manners.
She starts to speak again, but the words she uses are funny. They sound like the ones the elves use, only they fall out of her mouth all wrong—too clumsy, too flat.
His elf stares at his mother evenly, but doesn’t respond, and Eren huffs in impatience.
“Boy?” Eren demands with a frown, eyes flitting around until they widen with inspiration. “Boy?” He asks again, and then points at himself. “Or girl?” He pats his mother’s rigid hand where it’s on his shoulder. “You?” He points at his elf, and waits. His mother always told him it’s rude to point, but Eren figures this time is an exception.
His elf tilts its head to the side, mumbling something, and then sighing before pointing to Eren.
“Boy, then,” Eren concludes with a grin. I knew it, he thinks triumphantly.
“I’m Eren.” He tips forward in a stilted bow, his mother’s grasp making it difficult to execute properly. “This is my Mama.” He pats her hand again, and her hold tightens, making him sigh. “Eren.” He points to himself. “Mama.” Pats his mother. He gestures at his elf.
A silence stretches, and Eren is readying to open his mouth and explain it all again when his elf starts to speak. His answer is too long to be a name—right? Eren is pretty sure he says an entire parchment worth of words. He doesn’t now what elves names normally are, but when he tries to imagine his own name being that long, he skews his nose up. If he had to write a name that long on all his school assignments, it would take him all day!
His elf sighs, short and barely audible, and then says the first word that Eren has understood all day.
“Levi.”
Eren stares at him expectantly. His elf sighs again.
“Eren.” His elf points at him, and hearing his own name in the elf’s smooth voice makes Eren’s lips part in wonder. “Mama.” The elf gives a wave of his hand over Eren’s shoulder, where his mother is still huddled over him. It makes Eren grin, and his mother makes a small tsk noise. Then, he presses the tips of his fingers to his own chest and says, “Levi.”
“Levi,” Eren repeats, and then holds out his hand, fingers reaching out. He’s not quite sure what he expects from his elf, from Levi, in return, but when Levi extends his own arm until Eren’s fingertips are brushing Levi’s open palms, it feels like the right response.
Eren smiles.
“LEVI!” It’s the buzzing elf again, bounding over the bridge much more quickly than it had moved in the procession, but still maintaining the grace of an elf as if there is no way around it. It starts speaking very quickly, and Eren’s eyes cross trying to follow the strange blur of language, then switches his attention to the warm pinpricks at the end of his fingers where they’re still pressed against Levi’s hand.
The stream of words die as soon as the elf notices the contact, though, and it stares at the two of them curiously. Eren stares back. This elf might give him a headache, but he’s not afraid. And even if he was, he has Levi. Levi is his friend. That has to mean something, right?
Eren curls his fingers around Levi’s longer one, and gives a gentle tug. He gestures to himself, then to his mother, and then to the new elf. But Levi just shakes his head. Not a boy or a girl. Eren regards it again. How strange.
“If you’re not a boy or a girl, what are you?” Eren asks, and his mother makes a choked off noise behind him that he ignores. The new elf blinks at him, and then smiles.
Eren feels like he can’t breath.
“Neither,” the elf responds in the common tongue, leaving both Eren and his mother still with surprise. There’s still that slight hum of buzzing, but it’s lessened by human’s rough speech. It sounds more like music than sounds of nature. “I am simply me.” The elf presses its fingertips to its chest, the same way Levi had done before. “I am Hanji.”
“Hanji,” Eren echoes, and then he tips his head in greeting. He can’t bow without letting go of Levi’s hand. “I’m Eren.”
“Eren,” Hanji says, nodding definitively. “Levi’s new friend.”
Eren beams at the recognition, his entire body vibrating with the excitement.
“I’ve never had a friend that’s an elf before!” Eren explains. He’s never seen an elf before, either, but that doesn’t make Levi any less special.
“How wonderful. Levi has never had a friend.” Hanji pauses to say something to Levi—Eren finally realizes that the weird words must be the language the elves use, and wishes fiercely he knew it—and he shoots something back quickly, eyebrows furrowed.
“Not ever?” Eren asks, eyes wide, and his grip on Levi’s fingers tighten.
“Maybe.” Hanji shrugs. “Certainly never a human boy. You…” her eyes seem to shine as she steps closer, kneeling down in the same fluid motion, “are very special, indeed.”
No one has ever told Eren that he’s special. He’s been called troublesome, annoying, up to no good. He’s not the best student, and he breaks the rules, and he draws heavy sighs from his parents, neighbors, and general townsfolk alike more often than not. On those rare occasions, he’s clever, or a good son, or determined.
But not special.
Never special.
He is suddenly terrified of letting go of Levi’s hand. If he lets go, he just knows he’ll lose this.
“Mama,” he starts, not looking away from the brilliant sight of Hanji’s eyes. They aren’t silver like Levi’s, but remind Eren of the newly cut trees in the forest and the mysterious circles that ring the fresh stumps. “Can I go with the elves?” He asks.
Hanji’s eyes widen in surprise, and his mother’s body goes rigid behind him.
“I think it’s time to go home, now,” his mother responds, her voice shaking, and Eren frowns.
“But—” he feels his lip wobble, his throat tighten, everything that means he’s going to cry. But looking into Hanji’s eyes, he knows that he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t cry.
“Perhaps,” Hanji begins, and her eyes shift away from Eren, behind him, to his mother. “Eren might take a meal with us,” she suggests. “We would be happy to host him.” Eren looks at his feet, pleased. “Of course, you are happy to accompany him, if it should make you more comfortable.”
***
TOTAL WORD COUNT: 7340
