Daisy | Levi Ackerman

Prologue

"This is a dark place, mister." I said, my voice a mere squeak, looking up at the tall man in a long, dark green coat. He told me he was accompanying me to that puppet show my dad put up for me especially, and my heart could not stop jumping in excitement. It was the very first time he would do such a thing for me.

But the menacing aura of this chaperone stunted my happiness. Something was wrong with the way he stared so emptily onto the shadowed stone path, with the way his gruff breathing in unsettling melody with the dripping raindrops from the gutters of buildings that caged our way in, with the way he tightly clutched on my hand as if unfazed of the penalty which might be shoved upon him once I squeal that he hurt me.

He didn't answer. He wasn't as friendly as when he showed up at the front gate of my school to bring me home.

As we were about to turn around the damp corner of the alley, under the fire-colored setting sun, I was beginning to hear a muffled cry, of a voice I was so familiar with, present from my waking moment and until I go to sleep at night.

Then I saw her, kneeling on the brick ground with a bloodied torso and a bruised head, tears embedding their devastating routes down her dirtied cheeks. Two men locked her arms back from running to me.

"No, please. Not my daisy." She pleaded, like a final wish.

[Celine]

I promise. Those words were always very solemn to me, I didn't know exactly for what reason other than the obvious. All I was certain of was that I was indoctrinated by my foster parent to hold those two words of the highest, most sacred value- and to ponder well and hard about it before I sanctioned its tumbling out of my mouth. "It's not something that you should bestow others with so easily." I recall him lecturing me.

For that reason, I was always so careful when I told someone 'I promise'. As I grew older, I realized that it was possibly not just the doctrine that I was raised with which induced me to be very respectful, heedful and fastidious with vows and oaths. There was something about it that was deeply rooted in my obscured past, something that I cannot just detach from myself if I ever chose to rebel.

And of being a rebel, I was already taking baby steps. Today, I told my uncle that I promise I would behave inside our house. But my friends slipped me a secret note through Evan, a friend of mine from the horse doctor's clinic, and I found me an escape out of the stately Smith Manor.

Stohess was sunnier than usual that July day, the edges of the high-society residences glinting against the crisp sunlight. It was the day of the fifteenth, two days before my fifteenth birthday, and two days before the Scout Regiment goes on an expedition again. It had been two years since Wall Maria had been breached, and the citizens of Shiganshina were forced to evacuate to Trost. Our little corner in this world was narrowing by drips.

Of course, that was something Uncle Erwin never discussed with me about. He always decided to dismiss my inquiries about the future of humanity inside the three walls, and told me I should concern myself over nothing now that I am safe and secure in the Interior. He was very supportive and protective, but at times he was distant- and the least understanding person in my life.

I would wager that he was the coldest man I've ever met- if I wasn't heavenly graced with Levi's acquaintance. I would say that man was also the least understanding man on earth, but I never really conversed with him much to judge. I'd rather Levi's presence not collide with the same time and space as mine.

He always seemed to bring me back to the one place I enjoyed the least- my home.

Uncle Erwin and I lived alone, with a few servants to look after me. The house was fancy and spacious, with glossy varnished furnitures and gold-accented painting frames hanging on the intricately-painted walls of simple grandeur. Burgundy drapes lined the large windows that welcomed the sunlight, and warm carpets rolled down the polished wooden floors in the most austere shade of elegance. I would have never placed a bet on my very own stern and preoccupied Commander Uncle being the artistic mind behind this interior design, for it seemed like a woman chose these details meticulously. The very thought perplexed me. My uncle never had a woman in his life. He'll perish an old virgin. Honestly, it was better going on like that for me- I did not want another lady interloping on my rank at Commander Erwin Smith's Top Priorities.