I've been working on this story since the start of the year, and I'm glad of it. It gave me plenty of time to develop the plot in my head and refine/write the first few chapters.
Anywho, the story is set in the same time and place as the show, but in an alternate universe where Titans don't exist.
Pairings are Farlan x Isabel and Levi x Hanji and slight Eren x Mikasa implications.
I'll post chapter 2 in a few days after I go through it one last time.
Enjoy!
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The sharp click of heels on a marble floor echoed hollowly through the cold castle, and one could assume the owner of said heels was quite possibly irritated. That would be an understatement, Zoë Titania wasn't just irritated, she was furious! Her veins were pulsing with adrenaline, causing her skin to quiver. She had just come from a banquet her father threw.
All the lords her father befriended were - for lack of a better word - jackasses. Being the only lady at the table did not help Zoë's case in the slightest. She shan't have minded being invited to this dinner, were it not for the fact that various disrespectful words, lecherous leers, and even a few gropes had been directed at her from his near-drunk coworkers.
Having had enough, she excused herself and left early. Claiming to be tired. She would later reflect and decide that her discomfort was proving to be a boon, however. After all, tonight was the night her plan went into action.
Opening the double doors to her room, she closed them gently, so as not to alert anyone of her mood. Zoë locked it before turning to face her room, and in that moment, her irritation and anger faded. There were so many fine memories in this room. Memories of a mother, of a family. Of a time when the world was sweet and kind. A world that was no more.
With a sad smile, she skimmed her fingers over the wood of her writing desk, then along the pale blue walls. She made her way to her bed, caressing the sheets and sitting down on them one last time. This would be her last day here, she wasn't even going to spend a final night in this bed. She had determined it nearly a month before, the exact time she had acquired the reason for her escape plan.
As a child, Zoë never knew her father very well, he was never home, and when he was, he hardly spoke to her. She had come to see him as a silent, intimidating figure who lurked in his office or stayed hidden behind a book at dinner. Her mother, having died when Zoë was merely five, was not there to comfort her when she was lonely. She resorted to rag-dolls when she was younger, giving them names and throwing private tea parties in the garden for them.
Maggie, her nursemaid from birth, had also recently passed on, and she was yet to be assigned a new handmaiden. However, that didn't matter anymore. Not now that she was leaving. As for why she had decided to take her leave: her father initiated contact with her for the first time she could remember almost a month ago.
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"Enter."
Zoë nearly jumped at the sound of his voice, even though she had been expecting it. Her father was never one to talk to her, silence was all she ever really heard from him. Nonetheless, she steeled herself and pulled the handle, slipping inside before the heavy door could close again.
She smoothed her green, gossamer skirt down and bowed her head respectfully, despite her father's head being turned.
"Come and sit, Zoë."
She gulped, in honesty she was extremely nervous, her father had always been scary. But she quickly covered up her fear with a soft nod and a graceful walk to the chair beside his desk. She lowered herself onto the plush seat and lay her hands in her lap, awaiting further instructions.
"I have something to tell you." her father turned, finally, and moved to stand beside his desk, just before her feet. She blinked in confusion when he kneeled and covered her hands with his own. "Zoë, you'll be eighteen soon."
"I know, papa." she smiled briefly, a soft giggle accompanying her words. Of course she would know when her birthday was! A little over a month from now. Her father was just as silly as she remembered...from the few times he did talk to her, that is.
"As such-" her father continued, "-I have arranged...Zoë, an old friend of mine..." he stood with a sigh.
"Yes?" she prodded, her curiosity growing by the minute.
"Well, our houses are both reaching that point where we need a union to keep the family running. And as you'll be of age..." her father continued, clearing his throat. And suddenly she knew what he was going to say,
"Papa-"
"I've arranged for you to marry his son."
The chair screeched loudly as she stood, her chest heaving with all the words she wished she could scream at him. However - instead of speaking - she bit her tongue to keep all the obscenities back. She bit down so hard that the sharp tang of copper filled her senses, but she ignored it. He hadn't turned to face her, yet she didn't drop her composure even for a second. Save her shuddering breath and shaking limbs.
"When?" her voice quivered with the force of her restraint.
He shifted, still not looking at her, "Your birthday. That's when he'll arrive."
She drew herself up to her full height, "I see, I understand."
No. She didn't see, she didn't understand. But then again, her father had never been attached to her in the slightest...
"It will be good for the family, and for you. You'll live comfortably at their manor, the houses will benefit on either side-"
She mentally blocked him out, nodding when he turned briefly to her for her agreement. She was seething on the inside. Seething over the fact that she was being traded like cattle. And for what? More wealth? When they already had more than they would ever need?
She could not believe what she was hearing. She didn't want to believe it. She would rather be a poor, shivering beggar in the streets than be forced into a union. Forced to be a smiling, happy little lady during the day, and forced to submit to a husband she wouldn't even know at night. No. She wouldn't live like that. All the jewels and fancy dresses in the world were not worth living in a cage. She wasn't going to stay. She would rather be a poor beggar indeed...
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Now, facing her final day in her bedroom, Zoë gave a sigh and stood, ripping the golden dress she wore from her chest without a care for the expensive fabric. Tearing the cloth was harder than she had anticipated, and the effort strained painfully at her fingers and arms. A gasp erupted from her lips, and she tugged the rest of the dress from her arms with less conviction. "Damn..." she cursed and blushed, wincing as the word echoed off the walls of her room.
She wasn't allowed to curse. Exposure to such vulgar words was highly prohibited, but the library didn't conceal the properties of the commonfolk's tongue. As such, the occasional word slipped out, and it was terribly embarrassing. Despite the fact that she never had company when it happened.
Nonetheless, she bared herself of every thread and moved to her wardrobe, digging diligently to find her quarry. She pulled a burlap bag from the recesses of the closet and took her new clothing out of it, an outfit that had taken a week to accumulate. Some of the servants might miss them, but that was none of her concern right now. She couldn't afford to care about that when her freedom was on the line. She pulled on the pants, albeit a little unfamiliar with the sensation of them. She shifted around, wishing she knew whether or not there were undergarments in peasant clothing.
Undergarments would do her a lot of good right now.
She looked at her torn corset on the ground, and realizing she didn't know whether or not peasant women wore expensive, silken corsets, she turned to the mirror with a frown. Well, she wasn't exactly big...in fact she was small, keeping herself concealed wouldn't be too hard, she supposed.
With a shrug, she took the leather vest she had acquired and buttoned it over the shirt, followed by a simple jacket. She had also acquired a plain, brown cloak with a hood, and affixed it around her neck. In the bottom of the bag she had a small blanket, should she need it, and some of her expensive, one-of-a-kind jewelry to trade for coin and such.
"I suppose that's all I need." she mumbled to herself.
Zoë pulled the hood over her head and shrugged the sack onto her shoulder, giving the room one last look before she left through the servant's entrance. She moved with practiced ease, having grown up galavanting through these very halls. It was a shame she had to leave her home to attain freedom, she mused. But then again, as she had surmised many times during planning the first stages of her escape plan: it wasn't much of a home to begin with.
Making her way out unnoticed was surprisingly easy, as her father and his companions were still at it with the dinner party, and properly smashed, most likely. Zoë made it to the stable, finding the saddlebags she had prepared earlier that very day. She had packed a bedroll to go with the blanket, and some food, along with a few small knives. And her sword - with which she had some, limited skill - was already attached to her saddle.
She couldn't take Therese, her horse since she was but a little girl. She was a prized mare after all, known far and wide with the noblemen. The mare could inadvertently get her caught early on. But at least - with her fame - Zoë knew Therese would be well looked after. So in place of the mare, she opted for a brown gelding, whose status was that of a simple riding horse. Saddling him up, she gave him an apple and handful of oats to keep him quiet.
"Hush, boy." she murmured, affixing the bridle carefully upon his head, "I need you to be quiet for me, okay?" She stuck her hand between his cheek and the bridle to be sure it wasn't too tight, then checked the saddle girth the same way before she attached the saddlebags to the horn of his saddle. "Good boy." she whispered.
After checking his hooves, she led him out of the stable, towards the path that led away from her father's estate. Zoë went on foot for the majority of her initial escape, wanting to save her horse's energy for the first long gallop of her life. If her plan was to work, she needed to be as far away as possible by daybreak. She didn't lead her horse on the path, but rather on the grass, to avoid telling how long she had been gone.
The knowledge one accumulated while reading novels was astounding. If she weren't an avid reader her entire life, she might not have been clever enough for the elaborate details of this escape. She felt awfully pleased with herself to be honest.
She had been walking for twenty minutes before she turned to look back once more. The estate looked small now, sitting on a field far off in the distance, and she gave a sigh of relief at having gotten away clean. Zoë mounted the steed, whom she had named Chance in the minutes she walked. She supposed she named him that because he was her only chance of escape, and he was her only chance of hope. "Come along, boy." she whispered, clicking the heels of her boots into his flanks.
The brown steed nickered at her touch and began to canter, loping at a gentle, yet swift pace. Zoë made herself comfortable in the saddle and moved with his gait, clutching the reins nervously. She felt that she may be overrun by a stampede of horses at any time, men clambering to drag her back to her life. It was paranoid, she knew, but it didn't help her feel better. Her heart only momentarily stopped clenching out of fear when she saw that the sun was coming over the distant mountains. And when she looked over her shoulder she could see that she had put a few miles of distance between her and her old home.
'I'm free...' her mind finally registered, and a grin broke upon her lovely features. It made her want to dance with joy, and she pressed her steed into a victorious gallop. There was only the path ahead now, her destiny was her own.
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Owning your destiny was hard.
Zoë nearly fell out of the saddle, having ridden Chance since midnight, and it was taking its toll. Her legs were cramped, she could feel the bags developing under her eyes from lack of sleep, and her fingers felt like they might fall off, she'd been holding the reins so long.
It was sunset now, and she had broken from the main path an hour before, cantering down a road to the nearest, isolated town she could find on her map. She was staying at an inn: The Bubbling Barrel. She tied Chance to the post in the stable, taking the saddlebags with her, and giving him a soft parting pat on the muzzle. "Be good." she said.
Despite the fact that no one turned her way, she felt as though all eyes were on her when she opened the rickety wooden door to the inn. She gulped, tugging her hood closer. She didn't dare take her hood off in company just yet. She had realized on her journey that her description alone may give her away. She, embarrassingly, forgot about that major detail. And she had also forgotten about her most recognizable feature. One of her most endearing characteristics was that of her long, thick, auburn hair.
She approached the bar, clearing her throat and pulling a few silver coins from her pocket. "I need a room?" she cringed inwardly at how the phrase came out as a question.
The barmaid, whose dress was flattering in all the right ways, and accentuated her heavily exposed body far too well, turned to her with a practiced smile. It made Zoë more self-conscious just being around her. "Aye, one night?"
"Uh, yeah." Zoë smiled awkwardly from under her hood, trying and failing to feel natural in this habitat.
"Alright, that'll be two silver please." the barmaid held out her hand across the counter.
"Alright." she exhaled as she handed over two of the three silver she had produced.
"Here's your key, room number on the parchment, return it in the mornin'." the woman said, her words heavily accented in a way that Zoë was used to hearing from her nursemaid, back when she was alive. It was a northern accent, and unique to the peasantfolk, apparently.
"Thank you." Zoë took the large, silver key and shrugged her heavy saddlebags over her shoulder to join her sack. She climbed the stairs, reaching the top floor and hesitantly moving down the hall. One or two of the rooms she passed obviously had occupants, and she blushed heavily, increasing her pace as she realized what was happening in those rooms.
"Number seven." she sighed in relief, fumbling with the key until it slid into the keyhole and the door clicked open. She slammed it shut behind her, and then smacked herself with her palm. "Keep it together!" she hissed. After all, it was life, and in common livelihoods, it was not at all uncommon to shag a great many people throughout your life. If you were the type who had to stay at inns most nights, that is.
She tossed her hood onto the bed and pulled the pins from her hair. It cascaded over her shoulders in graceful locks, ending just below her waist. Zoë paused and caressed her hair sorrowfully, the sentimental value of it coming to bite her in the butt. She loved her hair, it looked exactly like her mother's: long, thick, shiny, and wavy reddish locks. Yet, after careful consideration, she knew it would only cause her trouble in the long run. So she rummaged through the bag she had brought and pulled out one of the small knives.
She gripped her hair behind her head tightly and put the knife to it, letting out a small whimper when the first of the hairs began to part between her grasp. She hadn't had her hair cut in a very a long time, and as a result the sensation was otherworldly. After the knife had no more hair to slice through, she pulled it down and placed it on the dresser, holding her newly chopped-away locks in her hand. She contemplated selling it to a wig-maker, but in the end decided that in itself could be traced back to her. So she turned to look at the fireplace and felt another lump build in her throat. God, her mother would hate her for this.
With deep regrets and a heavy heart, Zoë tossed the hair into the fire and watched the last remaining piece of her old life burn away. The smell was a bit disturbing, but she simply wrinkled her nose and sighed. She turned to look in the mirror afterwards. Her new, raggedly cut locks barely made it to her shoulders, so she adjusted some of her hair into bangs with the knife. And then she pulled the rest into a messy bundle, barely worthy of being called a ponytail. She scrutinized herself in the mirror, and washed away any rouge or kohl she had forgotten to remove before she left.
The Zoë Titania she saw before her was a whole new person, and she was determined to keep it that way. Her face was no longer perfect and decorated, her hair looked like a rat's nest already, and her clothing looked simple, dirty, unrecognizable. And she was satisfied with it. No one should know who she was now.
With a yawn and a stretch, she pulled her hood, jacket, boots, and vest away, getting into bed. She closed her eyes with a new sense of lightness on her shoulders, the burden of everything she was now gone forever. She could rest in peace, and she did, with a smile on her face, she slipped into the world of dreams, content with her decisions.
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Zoë awoke in the morning with a start, her muscles stiff and protesting when she moved. She sat up with a groan and rubbed at her lower back, attempting to ease the soreness. All that riding was most certainly taking its toll. She blinked when she realized her surroundings and paused, remembering her previous adventure. Another smile out of many since the night before split her face when she thought about how easy it was to slip away. She stood and walked towards the nightstand, splashing the cold water on her face to awaken fully.
After she dried her face she redressed, shrugging all of her clothes back on with a sigh. Despite how saddlesore she was, Zoë knew she needed to get back on the road. She walked to the door with her bag and key in hand, but the loud rumbling of her angry stomach halted her. When confronted with the thought, she realized she hadn't eaten in nearly two days!
Zoë opened the door and closed it behind her, locking it out of courtesy and heading downstairs, lugging her bag and saddlebags with her. "Good mornin' Miss!" the innkeeper exclaimed when she approached the breakfast stand.
Slightly startled, Zoë remembered her hood too late, and her hand came to a near-audible halt in its attempt to mend that mistake. Instead she opted to ruffle her own hair and give a sheepish smile, "G-good morning, sir." she replied politely.
"Not from around here are ye?" the jolly old man asked, polishing a wooden beer mug, "Not with that accent."
Zoë bit her lip, making a mental note to try and adopt the common accents of the areas she passed through, "No, not really, I'm just...passing through." she waved a hand nonchalantly.
The innkeeper nodded in understanding, "Where to, lass?"
Zoë blinked, she honestly had no idea, where had she even been planning to go after she left? Was her plan already so half-baked? "I-I am just, going wherever, I don't really have a destination." she admitted with an inward cringe at her own incompetence. Really, simply running away with no plan as to what to do after she actually managed to escape...
She was starting to doubt her own intelligence.
The old man smiled warmly, "Ahh, bonnie young lass like you, off chasin' the wind of adventure, eh? I tell ya, if it weren't for my age, I'd prolly jump right over this stand, pack me bags and join ye!" he jested, giving a hearty chuckle.
Zoë found herself hesitantly chuckling along with him, she rather liked this jolly man, perhaps she should come back someday? "I just need some breakfast before I go." she prodded, pulling the third silver coin from the night before from her pocket.
The innkeeper waved the coin away, "No need for extra pay, miss. The night's stay comes with a breakfast, ye can tip the barmaid if ya like though." he explained.
Zoë smiled, "Alright, thank you kindly, sir." she turned from the stand and made her way to the nearest table. She barely sat upon the chair when a plate of steaming eggs and roll of fresh bread was placed before her, along with a mug of what she assumed was water. She looked up at the barmaid - a far different woman than the girl from the night before -and thanked her with a smile. She offered her the coin, of which the silvery-haired woman took with gratitude.
Zoë graciously dug into her food, glad for the simplicity of it. Her usual, elaborate breakfasts may not only have been bad for her physical health, but also for her ravenously hungry stomach. The simple meal went down smoothly, and her stomach soon quieted in contentment. She stayed a few more minutes, washing it down with the water.
After a time, she stood and made her way out, hefting her sack over her shoulder and waving goodbye to the friendly innkeeper. She saddled Chance quickly, making sure her saddlebags and sword were buckled correctly. When she was certain she was ready, she mounted him and dug her heels in, sending him into a canter yet again. Today she could go a little slower. There was no need to rush now, so she didn't push her steed. Now, for whatever adventure lay in store, she knew she wasn't fully prepared, but she wasn't going to let that stop her.
She was never going back.
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A.N. Reviews are much appreciated