Chapter Text
It was dark and warm, a sort of soundlessness pervading her senses. There was no room, no air to breathe, no sense of up or down, left or right. Floating in bliss, completely detached from the mortal coil.
Pain eluded her, as she had not the body to interpret it. There was no ground for her to rest her feet (feet, did she have feet?), no sights for her eyes to take in (she couldn’t feel a thing).
Ah, this is so nice.
Perhaps she was dead? This must be what death felt like.
No God, no Heaven, just the sensation of being engulfed in comfort. As if she had been wrapped in a hundred warm blankets or submerged in a hot bath, and her mind had floated away to paradise.
If this state of consciousness was to be where she spent eternity, well, somehow she didn’t really feel she would mind all that much.
But how did I die?
Had it been an accident? Had she been run over on the way to school? The details were fuzzy, indefinite, the memory refusing to come at her inquest.
She hadn’t exactly lived a dangerous life, right? Never one to take unnecessary risks or skirt the line of safety. God, she had never even broken a bone before. If she had died, really and truly died, it was most likely the result of cosmic randomness. Just unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. A victim of chance.
What was even the last thing she could remember? Her life, everything- it seemed so distant now, like it had happened to a completely different person. Almost as if out of focus, a blurry picture of what was once crystal clear.
Well, she supposed it wasn’t all that important, knowing the exact circumstances of her untimely death. It wouldn’t help her now, if she was really in the afterlife. Maybe bring a sense of closure, but nothing more.
Still though, I wanted to know.
It was her death, right? Something so deeply personal, and she didn’t even have a clue as to how it had occurred. Some people are defined by their deaths, and maybe the memories she was missing contained something of unparalleled importance to her. Maybe she had died in a terrorist attack, one of thousands, or maybe she had taken a bullet for another, and had died having saved a life. Didn’t she deserve to know?
But she didn’t know, and she’d probably never find out.
Oh well.
A tug then jostled her consciousness, causing the notspace around her to shift.
Almost as if a switch had been flipped, the blissful world she had been residing in became discordant, suffocating her. Pain, she could feel pain, and her formless existence desperately tried to shift away from it, but the whole realm seemed to turn against her, squishing and constricting.
Vaguely, she had the notion that she was being transported, carried along by the pulsing channel and she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe-
In all of her existence, even counting this strange state after death, she had never been more terrified. Nothing had filled her with such dread and helplessness as she tried to fight this unopposable force, locked in a battle she knew she couldn’t win.
And suddenly, just like that, she was free.
Her lungs gasped for air, painfully inflating and deflating as oxygen was once more provided to her brain. A body, she now had a body: something to give her form as she desperately tried to struggle, to open her eyes.
The air around her was cold, almost freezing compared to the warm nothing she had been ejected from, and her vision, though present, was incredibly blurry, making it impossible to identify her surroundings.
Noises swam around her head, but her brain was unable to process them. It felt like she was drunk, like she had been so heavily medicated that the world around her had been reduced to nothing but a typhoon of sound and sensation. She wasn’t aware of her body, couldn’t distinguish her toes from her legs from her chest.
Then, red flooded her blurry vision and something warm was wrapped around her, and though she could not see, she was certain she was being lifted.
“Hier sind Sie, Fräulein. Ein gesundes Mädchen!”
Ah, a voice! And a distinguishable one at that. She was almost certain the words were German, having been acquaintances with the language in her previous life, but as to what was being said, she had no clue.
Thin limbs encircled her, large enough to support her entire body, and she was slowly lowered to rest on a flat surface.
What was going on? German words, giants, and the inability to see clearly: certainly this couldn’t be happening.
A small voice in the back of her mind whispered “you know what this is, you know what’s happening,” but it was staunchly ignored.
“Willy, komm und sieh deine neue Schwester.”
A cold appendage tapped her face, and she scrunched up her features in an attempt to ward it off. Oh, how she wished she could see her mysterious attacker!
“Wie heißt sie?”
A much younger voice than the previous two, bright and youthful. It seemed a tad masculine? Perhaps a little boy.
She was losing the war within herself, trying to deny the knowledge of what she was pretty sure was going on. Oh god, please don’t let her be right.
“Lara.”
And yeah, these mystery people were talking about her, weren’t they?
Even with her underdeveloped nose, she couldn’t mistake the scent of antiseptic that pervaded the room. She couldn’t ignore the feeling of her own body, near unresponsive to her commands.
Something had changed, something had happened, and though she desperately didn’t want to acknowledge it, didn’t want to give the unsettling idea form, there was no denying exactly what was going on here.
She was an infant.
She had somehow died and been reborn into the body of an infant.
And her name was Lara.
Well, of all the things to be named, she supposed that she had gotten rather lucky. It even seemed feminine, which hopefully indicated that she had at least retained her gender.
All in all, it could be worse.
She -no, Lara- sighed as much as her feeble body would allow, and relaxed into the fabric swaddling her.
What was she supposed to do? There was very little chance she could mimic the actions of an infant. Hell, she wasn’t even bawling her eyes out after having been born (she really didn’t want to linger on that thought), which was perhaps a constant for every healthy baby on the face of the planet.
Lara had no idea how to behave like a perfectly functioning baby.
If only she had a twin, someone who’s development she could observe and keep pace with. That would have made this new existence much more convenient, at the very least.
But sadly, the room she was situated in seemed completely bereft of the cries of a squalling infant, and was much too calm to indicate the presence of a second baby on the way. All seemed quiet, other than the jabbering of what was probably her parental unit.
Small, much smaller arms than that of the previous person, slowly lifted her form, and Lara was reminded of the young boy’s voice she had noted earlier.
Gold drapings filled her vision, and a sweet voice spoke. “Hallo, Lara. Ich bin Willy, dein neuer Bruder.”
Willy, his name was Willy: that much she could pick up, at least.
A warm feeling began to spread through her chest, and despite herself, despite the maddening circumstances and the dread of having to feign childhood, Lara allowed herself to smile.
She had never had a sibling before. Her previous life, while still something she dearly missed, had been rather lonely. Lara had grown up in solitude, her parents always too busy to entertain her. It hadn’t been bad, as their work permitted her to live in relative comfort, but it hadn’t been ideal.
But maybe it would be different, this time.
A cold finger returned to tap her face, and Lara let out a small coo in response.
Whatever happened, it would be ok. This was a new chance at life, after all, and she would be remiss to waste it worrying about things out of her control. Whatever came, whatever problems she encountered, Lara was sure she could deal with them then. For now, all she had to worry about was being a good baby for her family. Easy.
She would be fine.
Her new family was rather ordinary.
Lara’s room was nice, with an old fashioned cradle in the center and shelves of toys and books lining the pink walls. It looked like a typical nursery, though rather larger than she had first expected.
Her parents, a man and woman whose faces she could still barely focus on, visited her occasionally, but never stayed for long. Each time, they brought the blur of yellow that Lara assumed to be her brother, who always made a beeline for her cradle, standing over her and making strange faces.
Willy was cute, with a healthy pink complexion and a button nose. With soft blond hair lining his face, he truly resembled a cherub. Though he appeared at first a tad too excitable, he always handled her gently, taking care not to squish her in his arms.
If Lara had to guess, she would assume him to be around 10. He had the look of an adolescent, still a few years off from puberty.
Other than Willy’s supervised visits, the only person to frequent Lara’s room was her caretaker, an austere woman who seemed to have the job of handling all her infant needs.
Snack several times a day, a block of time set aside in the afternoon for a visit from her family, and the rest of Lara’s time was spent alone, left for her to lose herself in thought or nap the days away.
Constant chatter from her nanny gave her the opportunity to listen to and try to decipher the new language, which certainly had Germanic inspirations. It wasn’t all too dissimilar from English, making it a bit less difficult than she expected to pick it up, though the process was admittedly slow going.
It was rather likely that her infant brain was helping her learn the language faster than normal, though Lara had no real proof of that fact.
The only thing that struck her as strange was her family’s manner of dress.
Her parents always wore formal clothes when they came to visit her. Even Willy was always dressed in some nice ensemble, as if he was coming home from an extravagant party. She was not spared either from this exercise in formality, her infant body clothed daily in incredibly soft and attractive garments.
Traditional floor length dresses and suits were well enough, but Lara still found them to be a bit odd. It seemed… ill at place with the rest of what she observed.
She figured that, fine, they probably just fixated on appearances and chose to spend a good portion of their money cultivating it.
There was nothing else about her new life that stuck out that much, though Lara supposed she had yet to see any sort of modern technology. Everything about this new environment seemed rather old fashioned, from the solid wood furniture lining the walls of her room, to the fine hand-carved mobile that hung above her head.
It was only during her first birthday party that Lara truly noticed that something was amiss.
Her parents had proved to be rather well-off, as judged from the very fact they could afford a full time nanny, and the level of decor that garnished her room. When the time came for her very first birthday, they seemingly went all out, filling the huge house with decorations.
Lara hadn’t seen much outside of her room till then, but she was still astounded by the size of the manor that her family seemed to call home.
It was something straight out of a fairytale, with a grand entryway and gold-lined furnishings. In her previous life, Lara had once had the good fortune to tour the Palace of Versailles, and though she was stunned to admit it, her new residency certainly had more in common with that opulent structure than it did with her old house.
Every feature of the new space was filled with some finery or another, and Lara found herself a bit disgusted at the gaudy display.
Had she been reborn into some German noble’s family? How else was she to explain her surroundings?
When Lara was brought before a crowd of finely-dressed people, she realized with trepidation that she was being forced to participate in a social event.
Her parents carried her around the room and shook over a hundred hands, guests flocking to her in an attempt to catch her attention. Lara felt as if she was a shiny new toy that her family was showing off, being paraded ‘round for the amusement of others. Willy followed hesitantly behind, trailing in his parent’s footsteps. He looked rather uncomfortable too.
Servers deftly made their way through the crowd, taking care not to disturb the party-goers as they refilled drinks and picked up dishes.
God, her parents had servants, too? A nanny was one thing, but staff was another. Perhaps they had just been hired to manage the party?
These new people were dressed finely as well, looking as if they were attending a gala, rather than a one-year-old’s first birthday party. They were also quite varied in appearance, with guests donning kimonos and wraps on top of the traditional dresses Lara was used to.
When the meet-and-greet was over, her father placed her down in a large enclosed area and left to attend to his guests.
There were, of course, other babies in the pen, squalling beasts that were probably around her age. Lara assumed them to be the offspring of the party guests, of whom she wanted nothing to do with.
One particularly brave infant crawled up to her and made a grab for her hair with its sticky fingers, and Lara decided she had had enough.
She let herself begin to bawl, her face going red with the exertion of an infant throwing a tantrum as her wails echoed off the walls. Lara hadn’t exactly been a noisy baby so far, opting more to use coos and warbles to communicate her intentions to her caregivers, but gentle directions could only go so far, and she desperately wanted out of this farce of a toddler’s birthday party.
Immediately, small arms scooped her up, and Lara was carried out and away from the baby pen.
“There, there… ‘s ok, Lara..”
It was Willy who had come to her rescue, deftly extracting her from the mayhem of the party and settling into a cozy alcove along the walls of the great hall. One of his child-like hands came up to stroke her hair, and Lara allowed herself to be soothed by her brother’s ministrations.
“I don’ like these things either,” he mumbled, adjusting her so that she sat comfortably on his lap.
Out of all the things this new life had blessed her with, Lara was most grateful for her older brother. Willy was attentive, affectionate in a way both her parents were not. His routinely visits were the highlight of her day, and Lara had already given him the honor of his name being her “first” word.
Having a sibling, a brother who cared for her no less, was such a novel thing, and Lara looked forward to the time when she could answer back all his words with words of her own.
A loud crash resounded through the hall, and Lara lifted her head to investigate the source of the noise.
“Filthy Eldian!”
A server was sprawled out on the floor, fine attire stained by the glasses of wine they had been carrying. A fat man, mustache so large that it could very well crawl off his face, loomed over the poor employee with an angry scowl.
“Are you incapable of sight? Do you not see how you’ve bumped into me? Apologize!” the fat man roared. Nearby guests had also stopped, looking on at the scene with disgust.
Lara felt the arms around her tighten, and looked up to see Willy’s face marred with a look of discomfort. He bit his lip, not making a move to join the disagreement.
“I’m so sorry!” the server cried, straightening into a bow from his place on the floor, wine puddling around him. “I wasn’t looking where I was going! I deeply apologize!”
“Not good enough!” the noble yelled, smashing his foot down on the poor servant’s hand. The server let out a whimper of pain. “People like you don’t belong here. Those with filthy blood have no place among the nobles of Marley!”
Lara felt a jolt go through her. Marley, Eldian: where had she heard those words?
“Yes! I’m sorry!” the server was near tears, head bowed to the ground in deep supplication. “Please, forgive me!”
Many eyes were on the pair now, half of the room watching in interest as the fat noble swore and dabbed a handkerchief at his shirt, now slightly stained with wine. The server stayed frozen on the ground, not looking up in fear of agitating the man further.
From her place against the wall, Lara could just make out a white armband wrapped around the person’s upper left arm.
“Tch,” the man glanced around him, taking in the audience that had assembled. “Even the Tybur family isn’t safe from you devils. Don’t let it happen again!” He stalked off, leaving the waiter to quickly clean themselves up and scurry away.
Willy sighed in relief, loosening his grip on her and relaxing against the wall.
Lara felt as if her brain was going to explode.
Tybur. Marley. Eldian. Willy. Lara.
Her eyes widened.
There was no way. Such a thing was ludicrous, not to mention impossible. How could that even be true? Surely, surely there was a rational explanation to all this. Something that actually made sense.
She let her gaze drift up to her brother. Her blond brother, who showed sympathy for “Eldians”, who just so happened to be named Willy. Her brother, who talked to her for hours every day, who watched over her when she slept and protected her from the madness of her birthday party.
She then glanced at the unfortunate server, still attempting to wipe the wine from their now-stained white armband, decorated with a suspicious nine-pointed star.
Such small puzzle pieces, and yet she had come to such an absurd conclusion. She wouldn’t have picked up on it, if she weren’t so familiar with the terms. It was a bit of a stretch, honestly, but something in Lara’s gut told her that she wasn’t lucky enough for it all to be a misunderstanding.
Tybur. Marley. Eldian. Willy. Lara.
Armbands. Xenophobia. No modern technology. Nobility.
She had been reborn into Attack on Titan.
Lara let a giggle escape her throat, then a laugh, as her brother looked down at her in surprise. Of all the things, of all the places, it had to be here? In the body of Lara Tybur? Inheritor of the Warhammer Titan? And, judging from how old Willy was, she had about a decade and a half till the world was destroyed by titans?
Oh god, she was so screwed.