Give Me back!

The Sunny King

Word count: 1725

A. N.: This chapter contains some French, therefore I put the English translation into brackets behind the French sentences, for all of those who are not so familiar with this beauuuutiful language (Only bc Eren hates it in this story, doesn't mean I do – come on who writes bilingual fanfiction if they're no language fanatic ;))

The first few weeks of school passed rather quickly and with them the last sunny September days that slowly ebbed into colder and darker October mornings.

(sorry for that Eurocentric view, but this story is set into some random place, where winter starts around November/December and is rather cold and sometimes even snowy:))

It was in the last week before Halloween, that Eren woke up with a very bad feeling of having missed something. And then it came to him like a shock. He had forgotten about the speech thing they had to do in French today... He must have pushed that task aside, first of all because he hated French, secondly because it had been his father's birthday on Saturday and the whole family had been staying over until very late at night.

He had spent a lot of time with his younger cousins, had a nice talk to his uncle who used to play a lot of basketball in high school as well and constantly tried to run from his grandma, who either wanted him to help in the kitchen or was bugging him why he hadn't had a relationship with a beautiful girl yet. Eren loved his grandma very much, but she could be very persisting once she had something important on her mind.

His thoughts returned to the French test and his stomach started rumbling. Not due to him being hungry, but being nervous, about having to talk in that silly language in front of his class. He could barely remember the topic. Something about the fourteenth King of France living in a sunny palace or something like that.

Mikasa hadn't been a very big help with some of the vocabulary and sentence structures he had been looking for, so he decided to ask Armin just before the beginning of the class. Everything should be fine, nothing to worry about, he told himself, when he left the house. But Armin and his bike weren't where they were supposed to be – in front of the Jaeger's house.

"Where's Armin?", Eren asked Mikasa.

"He's not coming to the first two lessons, as he participated in that competition for advanced algebra on Saturday. I think he won, that's why he got two hours more sleep today."

"Whaa..." Eren sighed desperately. Damn it, why did Armin have to compete in something called advanced algebra – it sounded like a disease...

They arrived a little bit earlier than usually so that Eren still got some time to look over the notes they had been collecting over the last couples of sessions about Louis XIV. – le roi soleil (the Sun King) and his gigantic castle...

"Ah mon dieu", Eren murmured to himself as the bell rang and Mrs. Howell started the class. (Oh my God)

Half way through the first hour, Eren thought she might have forgotten about his speech, but then she suddenly turned to him and said: "Eh bien, j'espère que Monsieur Jaeger a quelques informations interessantes concernant ce sujet royal qu'il aimerait bien nous présenter maintenant. Viens Eren – c'est ton tour."

(Well, I hope Mr. Jaeger has some interesting information concerning that royal subject, that he would like to present to us now. Come on Eren – it's your turn.)

"Biensûr, Madame", Eren said with his rather strong accent and stumbled in front of the class. Everyone looked at him, Mrs. Howell with anticipation, most of the students with faces covered in sleepiness and some in the last row with pure boredom, like Levi Ackermann.