《𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭》|𝐄𝐫𝐞𝐫𝐢/𝐑𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐧|

ᴄᴀᴘɪᴛᴜʟᴜᴍ ɪ: ɴᴏɴ ʙᴇɴᴇ, sɪ ᴛᴏʟʟᴀs ᴘʀᴏᴇʟɪᴀ, ᴅᴜʀᴀᴛ ᴀᴍᴏʀ.

Hi, so here's that boring and short first chapter that's basically an introduction, I promise it gets a bit better along the way-

I'll leave the translation of the title at the beginning of every chapter.

Hope you enjoy ♡

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📜Chapter 1: untroubled love won't last📜

𝑁𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟'𝑠 𝑃𝑂𝑉

As on time as always, Levi woke up the rooster, by throwing a rock at it, for the animal to crow and wake up the servants at the beginning of that new day, at 6 or 7 am, hora I  as the Romans called it.

📜They started counting time by the sunrise: this said, the 'first hour' or hora I in Latin, would be from 6 to 7 am 📜

That man suffered from insomnia, regular bad moods and genetic shortness.

After he had grabbed some snaccs for breakfast, he wore his red toga that indicated his high status and headed to the market closely followed by Furlan, the servant his father had gifted him and who also had been his childhood friend.

📜The so called toga was the nobles' formal wear: those that were red were particularly expensive, and as so it meant the person wearing it was especially rich 📜

When they got to the forum, the marketplace, Levi ordered Furlan to go get something hard to find just to get rid of his annoying talkativeness.

He was 100% sure the richest man present at that slaves auction, on that early summer day, in that border village located in the Northern province of Gallia, modern France.

He bought at the price of 50 sestertii each two young men who were tall, strong and said to be skilled named Jean and Marco: both from the nearby area.

At another auction, he spent 250 on another boy from there who could speak perfect Latin and had received a good education.
His name started with the letter A and the ravenette kept on repeating it as that name seemed hard for him to remember.

It was now midday and after he had gotten himself something to eat, he trusted Furlan with taking the three boys to their new master's villa.

After that, he grabbed his feet and got close to another auction, not too close so from the stage they wouldn't notice how short he was.

There now we're five women put up for auction, but Levi didn't even pay attention.

He already thought something was terribly wrong about slavery itself, and to be born into that as another slave's child was "fucking messed up", as he had publicly stated.

After he had witnessed how his trusted friend Furlan had been forced to grow up too fast, his parents sold the-gods-know-where, he did not want any child to go through the same shit, not in his home.

As of this, he chose to only buy male slaves and he made sure they were occupied enough so they didn't have time to literally fuck around with some girl nearby.

And now that he was living in that big villa outside that small village that was already in the middle of nowhere, the problem basically didn't exist.

He was very concerned of his servants' sex life, but he didn't have one.
He had understood a long time prior, when he was still a kid, that he was interested in men, not women.

He obviously had to keep it a secret.

Just the thought of having to get married to a woman, to have children with her just to have one of them inherit all his goods made him sick.
Like he'd literally feel like throwing up.

And he knew it was only a matter of time before he was forced to do so.

So he basically bought men to check them out discretely, and just that: he would have never dared to touch them, remembering what slaves, expecially women, had to endure.

He was right about to leave that place with his signature disgusted expression painted on his face, when he saw a kind of skinny, bronze-skinned young man, with the deepest green eyes that reminded him of the sea water from the most beautiful Greek beaches he had visited.

He maybe, or probably, most likely definitely, was taller than the black haired man, but there was no time to determine that for sure.

He was being forced out of a wooden wagon
by a massive man, then on the stage, on his knees.

Levi quickly got the closest possible to the stage, showing off his toga to let those other bitches that were present there know who he was.

He then offered 200 sestertii for the boy, who was probably in his late teens or early twenties, judging from his facial hair.

An old man, drooling over the young man already, offered a bit more.

Getting mad about the boy going with anyone else other than him, Levi offered now 300 sestertii.

He was about to win the 'fight', when another old guy offered 500.

Levi's heart skipped some beats.
He looked at the green eyed boy, who also had brown hair: he looked hungry, thirsty, exhausted and was also sweaty.

'We will do something about that too, later', Levi thought to himself.

Now back to reality, he did something he couldn't even explain to himself just a moment after he had done it: he offered all he had left of what he had taken with him, 845 sestertii.

📜It's kinda hard to determine how much that roman currency would be in modern currencies, but we'll go with 845 sestertii being €5070, or 6084 USD, or £4349 📜

That was way more than he had planned to spend that day.
He didn't even know what that boy could and couldn't do.

The merchant then approached Levi to collect the money.

"I've heard people talking about you, general and consul Levi.
The boy over here doesn't speak Latin and doesn't seem like he's particularly good at anything.
I don't honestly know why you spent this much on him, but you do you"; the man who was indeed a jerk said while counting the money he was receiving.

Levi asked him about his new servant's name: the other man rudely shouted at the boy speaking the local language for the answer.

The brunet, who wasn't even raising head, whispered something in response.

The merchant then kicked him right in his stomach, screaming at him to speak up.

He finally looked up, and almost shouted:
"EREN".

After that, he immediately looked down again.

Looking at Eren in this poor state, Levi felt that pain in his chest again.

He swore to himself that he wasn't going to let that sh*t happen to the boy ever again.

◇Author's note I guess◇

oh boi I'm cringing so bad-

Anyway, the titles of the first three chapters are just random love quotes in Latin and they'll actually stick with the theme of the chapter by the 4th and on-

Hope you enjoyed ♡