Despondent Beauty [Ereri/Riren Fanfic] [COMPLETED]

Chapter XVII

AN: POV switch to Eren.

Time Skip

It's been a few months, and surprisingly enough the humans haven't advanced their attack towards the Tao City. We've had no new deaths or injuries in the Taos population, but that could very much change in an instant. The moon of Pavonis had risen and glowed to its brightest, as it usually is risen with the other dwarf planets that serve as moons as well. With this occurrence, the Rudas season was coming to an end, welcoming the Bruma season. The appearance of the moon of Pavonis also meant that the Tree of Hygieia's power would replenish to its maximum capacity. This only happens once every fifteen years, or so my mother tells me.

Through these months, Levi has grown into the Tao customs, so as such, his upbringing ceremony will be held tomorrow. My mother bestowed me the position to mark him and place his feathers upon him, as she has seen that we've grown closer together through these couple of months. Luckily, she doesn't know of what we do in our times of heat. As much as I don't like keeping secrets from her, I like keeping this one subject a complete secret from everyone. It makes our relationship all the more thrilling.

I was pondering these thoughts as I was on the balcony of my room, looking upon the moon of Pavonis, when I heard Levi walk into the room. I turned half my body to see him, and when I did, I felt a slight spark flicker inside of me. Just seeing Levi made my heart pound. Even though we've told each other how we felt for the other, I can't help but not come to terms with my feelings. I think that Levi has already come to terms with his, but I don't know what's holding me back.

Is it because Levi was once human?

If that's the case, I'm already seeing him as something neither human nor Tao. He's something else entirely.

I had forgotten that I was staring at him, as he had called my name, which brought me back to my senses.

" What's wrong, Αγιος?"

" Nothing's wrong."

I guess I wasn't very convincing to him since he came up to me and held me close to him. I could feel his heart beat through my back, and so I closed my eyes gently from the comfort it gave me.

" Something is definitely on your mind, Αγιος. I won't pressure you into telling me, but I'll tell you something that's been gnawing on my mind."

" What is it?"

" ... These couple of months, it's not like my uncle to sit and wait for so long before making a move. It's been worrying me a lot, actually. If I knew what his endgame was then I'd gladly ask for your help and solve it peacefully, but knowing him, he'll want something big to happen. I don't want to see anything happen to the Taos, not like what I saw when I got you guys out of HQ."

" ... Yeah. If at all possible, I'd like to avoid full scale war against the humans."

" I heard stories when I was still a human that one Tao could kill of a small brigade of ten soldiers."

" That's an exaggeration. They say that because they themselves don't want war either. We go out near the base of the humans so we can gather food, as where the base is, that's where we usually hunt and gather. We only protect ourselves from the humans, and sometimes in dire situations, that means killing a few. We don't want to, but we ourselves don't want to die either. So we're forced to kill the humans, which enables your uncle to make us look like monsters."

I felt Levi tighten his embrace around me, and I sank even further into it. While I was going over what we had just talked about, and idea came into my head. One that should have clicked when I mentioned it.

" Levi!"

" Yeah?"

" What if we could convince the humans that we're only protecting ourselves? Remember when you said that they told those stories where only one of us can take on ten of them? Well that got me thinking, what if we could use those exaggerations to our advantage?"

" I see where you're going with it, but it'll take more than frightened men to change Kenny's mind. But we can use that as a stepping stone. Everyone will hesitate in following Kenny's orders, which will give us more time to come up with more plans."

" Alright."

" I'm so glad I was given the chance to meet you, Αγιος. I guess that's one thing I should thank Kenny for."

Just the thought of Levi's uncle was enough to make my blood boil. I hated him so much, after what he did to Levi and my father, he deserves death. However, I can't simply kill him if Levi is nearby. He said so himself, if he saw my trying to kill Kenny, he'd stop me. So if that's the case, I need to make special arrangements for Kenny so I can kill him. Nothing will stop me from killing the man who killed my father, not even Levi.

As I let my anger subside, I felt Levi let go of me and go back into the room.

" We should get some sleep for tomorrow. It's a big day anyway."

I looked at him, hopped off the balcony fencing, and smiled before walking over to Levi. I brought our foreheads together and rubbed our noses.

" Of course. I'm proud to call you my mate, Συνένωση."

With that, we went to bed and slept soundly till the next morning.

AN: Ik Ik Ik, I need to update my stories. I'm trying, I really am. Being a 10th grader is hard, you get so much more work and I have 4 state tests to prepare for when April comes around. Anyway, enough about that. This story will start to escalate very soon, so if you're getting tired of the slow relaxed chapters, keep reading them as I'll deliver you the chapters you'll want to read in the next few updates for this. And don't worry, I will have the chapters start referring to the Tree of Hygieia and other things like that. Also, Piek will come back, eventually. When he does, he'll have some things to say about someone. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you in the next chapter!!!

¥•~To Be Continued~•¥