Chagara - Chaos in the Darkness (Levi x OC Fanfic / AttackOnTitan)

58. "I didn't have a choice."

The axe glided through the piece of tree. As always, Zeke had only needed one hit to split the wood. He saw the monotonous work as training. But for a few days now it had distracted him. From his thoughts. From the many questions that kept him up at night. He placed the next piece of wood in front of him.

"Zeke." One of the farmers approached. The one addressed swung the axe over his head. "Zeke, take a break," the farmer told him. "You've been working for almost three hours." The axe glided through the wood and the two pieces fell to the ground. Zeke pushed his glasses back to his forehead, picked up the next piece of tree and placed it in front of him. But as he was about to lift the axe, the farmer held his arm. "I said, take a break. I don't feel like explaining the soldiers of the Military Police why my best woodchopper lost a leg," the farmer yelled at him.

Before Zeke could reply, he heard a calm voice behind him say: "Boy, come here!" Zeke's eyes softened when he saw the farmer's father sitting on the bench in front of the barn. The grandfather was smoking his pipe. Slowly Zeke lowered his axe to the ground. When he had put it down, he went to the grandfather and sat down next to him.

The farmer looked after his newest worker, shaking his head. "And you?," he grumbled at the other men. "Why is Zeke's woodpile bigger than your woodpiles put together?," he shouted as he continued his inspection walk.

The grandfather reached for one of the mugs, took the ladle, dipped it into the bucket of water next to him and poured. "Here," he handed Zeke the full mug, "drink."

The young man took the mug gratefully. Why did he always listen to the grandfather? "Because he reminds me of my grandfather? I wonder how he is doing?"

"Work is important," the grey-haired man began, bringing the mouthpiece of the pipe to his lips. "So is being dutiful. But your body needs to rest too. Otherwise you'll ruin your health. And then what will become of you? Mh?" He took a puff. "Didn't your father teach you that?," he asked softly when he had exhaled the smoke.

"My father died when I was young," Zeke answered and drank again. "Or?"

A few days ago, he had experienced for the first time that Pieck was not in control. "Your father is alive. Here. In this area," she had told him nervously. Otherwise she was calm and emotionless. But since she had come back from the city, she seemed ... "More alive?" Zeke frowned. Whether it was true? "Whether mother survived too?" The young man watched as the farmer's wife left the henhouse with one of the roosters in her arms. On the way to the dwelling house she turned his neck in a flash. "No. Then father would not have remarried." He looked at the hanging head of the rooster. "Whether he brainwashed his children here too? Abused them for his own purposes? Whether he knows the Attacking Titan? Or even possesses this Titan? But then why doesn't he attack us? Why does no one seem to know us? Has he told nothing? Why is he silent? All these years."

"I'm sorry to hear that," the grandfather replied. "But now you have us." Smiling, he continued to smoke.

"Us?" Zeke swallowed. The grandfather was old. Whether he die a peaceful death before they found the Founding Titan? "I hope so."

"Grandfather!" His granddaughter stood before him with angry eyes. A red cloth was tied tightly around her head. "We've been looking all over for you. Come with me now!" She held out her hand.

"Where are we going?," the grandfather innocently asked the young girl.

A fleeting smile flitted across the corners of Zeke's mouth.

She pointed to her headscarf. "If I had to shave off my pigtails, you have to do the same. Everybody had to do that. Aunt Frieda says we can't get rid of the vermin otherwise."