#pieck

It was then, in the chaos of a collapsing world, that you saw her for the first time.

She didn't look like a monster. The Cart Titan, thick, scalding steam hissing from its nape, sank to its knees among the ruins. From the Titan's flesh, tearing through muscle fibers, a young woman slowly emerged.

She breathed heavily, leaning on her hands. Her long, disheveled black hair clung to her pale, exhausted face. She wore the standard Marleyan uniform, soaked in sweat. But it was her eyes that struck you most.

You froze on the rooftop of a half-destroyed house, forgetting for a moment that you were on a battlefield. It was a fatal mistake for a soldier, but you couldn't look away. Her eyes, dark and half-lidded with heavy lids, seemed incredibly tired, sleepy, almost melancholic. They didn't hold the fanatical hatred with which other Marleyans looked at you. There was a hypnotic, lingering weariness in them that, for some reason, made your heart skip a beat. You were captivated by this strange, broken beauty of the enemy.

You watched her. And she, slowly raising her head, looked at you.

In that moment, time stopped. The distance between your rooftop and her Titan felt non-existent. You thought you were studying her, trying to understand the enemy.

You didn't know that Pieck Finger had already decided everything in that very second.

Her sleepy gaze, meeting yours, shifted imperceptibly. The tiredness didn't leave, but deep within her pupils flared a spark of absolutely cold, analytical, and frighteningly hungry interest. Pieck was always famed for her intellect; she could assess a situation in a fraction of a second. And in the second you looked at each other, she assessed your posture, your deadly grace, and the fact that you, a soldier of the "Island of Devils," were looking at her not with hatred, but with mesmerized admiration.

To Pieck, you stopped being an enemy. You became a target.

A shell explosion nearby shattered the eye contact. Snapping out of it, you fired your anchors and vanished into the smoke, cursing yourself for losing concentration.

Pieck Finger slowly climbed out of her Titan, her eyes following the spot where you had just stood. A barely noticeable, lazy smile touched her lips. "I’ll find you," she whispered to herself, and there was more threat in that quiet promise than in the roar of any Titan.

The next few months were a living hell for Paradis. The front lines shifted, political intrigues twisted into a tight knot, and the threat of the Rumbling hung over the world like the sword of Damocles.

You tried to survive, following orders. But the image of that girl with the tired eyes haunted your nightmares and brief snatches of sleep. You didn't understand the nature of your obsession. Why, of all the enemies, was it she who stuck in your memory like a splinter?

You didn't know that your obsession was mutual. But while your feeling was akin to a strange, romantic melancholy, Pieck’s feeling was pure, crystallized obsession.

Pieck was not impulsive; she was a tactician. After returning to Marley following the first phase of the operation, she used all her connections and all her access to intelligence to find out everything about you. Your name, your habits, your fighting style, your squad affiliation. She studied the reports as meticulously as if the fate of the empire depended on it.

When Marleyan forces secretly infiltrated Paradis a second time, Pieck had a dual mission. One was official, from command. The second was her own.

The trap snapped shut exactly seven days after her infiltration behind the Walls.

You were patrolling the perimeter of an abandoned district when your ODM gear suddenly jammed. It wasn't an accident—the mechanism had been surgically sabotaged back at the base so that it would fail at just the right moment. You tumbled onto the wooden floor of an old warehouse, your shoulder taking a hard hit.

Before you could draw your blades, a figure stepped silently from the shadows.

Pieck.

She was dressed in simple civilian clothes from Paradis, hiding her enemy affiliation. She walked toward you slowly, her gait relaxed, almost lazy, hands tucked into the pockets of a long coat.

"Hello," her voice was low, with a slight huskiness that sent a shiver down your spine.

You scrambled to your feet, drawing one of your blades. Your heart pounded wildly—a mix of fear and that same, abnormal fascination you felt at your first meeting. "Marleyan! How did you get here?!"

Pieck didn't even flinch at the sight of the drawn weapon. She tilted her head, her dark, half-lidded eyes attentively studying your face as if she were enjoying the view.

"You move so beautifully, Y/N," she said, ignoring your question. Hearing your name from her lips made you freeze. "Like a wild, graceful cat. I’ve reviewed our intel dozens of times, but it’s not as impressive on paper."

"How do you know my name?" You lunged, intending to put the blade to her throat to take her prisoner.

But Pieck was a Titan shifter. Her reflexes surpassed human ones, even if she appeared sleepy and sluggish. She dodged your blade with frightening speed, caught your wrist with her left hand, and with her right—professionally, without a wasted motion—plunged a syringe of a powerful sedative into your neck.

You gasped, dropping your blade. The world before your eyes instantly blurred, losing its shape. Your legs gave way.

The last thing you felt before darkness consumed you was her arms catching your limp body with care, almost tenderness, preventing you from hitting the floor.

"Don't worry," she whispered in your ear, her warm breath brushing your skin. "Your war is over. Now, you belong to me."

You woke up to a smell. It was a strange, sweet smell of fresh peaches, almost out of place in these circumstances.

Your head throbbed with a dull pain. You struggled to open your heavy eyelids. You expected to see a damp torture chamber or a death cell in Marley, but reality turned out to be far stranger.

You were in a small but cleanly furnished room with no windows. The walls were made of thick stone, and oil lamps burned, casting a warm light. You were lying on a wide, soft bed, tucked under a clean blanket.

You tried to sit up but heard a quiet clink. Your right leg was shackled with a metal cuff, from which a long, thick chain stretched, securely mounted into the wall. The chain was long enough for you to move freely around the room and reach a small washstand behind a screen, but no further.

Panic washed over your mind like an icy wave. You were a prisoner.

"Awake?" a calm voice came from the corner of the room.

Pieck was sitting in a chair, her legs tucked under her. An open book was in her hands. On a small table beside her stood a plate with those very sliced peaches whose scent had woken you. She looked absolutely relaxed, as if you weren't in the epicenter of a world war, but at a peaceful tea ceremony.

"What the hell..." You jerked your leg convulsively, making the chain rattle loudly. "What did you do to me?! Where am I?!"

Pieck slowly closed the book, set it aside, and rose from the chair. She approached the bed. You instinctively pressed into the headboard, expecting a blow or an interrogation. But she merely took a piece of peach from the plate and held it out to you.

"Eat. You need to restore your sugar levels after the tranquilizer," her tone was caring. It was so sincerely caring that it was more frightening than any threat.

"I won't take anything from you!" You struck her hand away. The piece of fruit fell to the floor. "Let me out! If you think I’ll give up Paradis’s military secrets, you’re dead wrong! I’d rather die!"

Pieck looked at the fallen fruit, then turned her heavy, melancholic gaze to your enraged face. She didn't get angry. She only sighed heavily.

"Y/N. Calm down," Pieck sat on the edge of your bed. "I don't need military secrets. My command believes you died during your patrol. Your squad is likely already mourning you. For the rest of the world, you no longer exist."

The words hit you like a physical blow. You stopped breathing. "What... what are you talking about? Why? What do you want me for?!"

Pieck leaned closer. Her face was inches from yours. You could see the dark circles under her eyes, every one of her freckles. Your foolish, treacherous heart, which had been charmed by her at the first meeting, started racing again, mixing fear with a toxic, painful attraction.

"Because I wanted to," she answered simply, and in that simplicity lay absolute, psychopathic power. "When I saw you in Shiganshina... something inside me shifted. I am a Warrior of Marley. I am used to following orders, living for others, for my father. I never had anything of my own. Nothing I wanted to keep just for myself. Not until I met you."

Her hand rose slowly, smoothly, and touched your cheek. Her fingers were cool and surprisingly gentle. You wanted to flinch away, but your body felt paralyzed. Her sleepy, hypnotic gaze bound you more securely than any steel chain.

"You didn't look at me like a monster. You looked at me... as if I were something beautiful to you," Pieck's voice dropped to a velvety whisper. "I analyzed it. I realized you feel this attraction too. But you are a soldier of Paradis. You would never have surrendered voluntarily. So, I had to remove you from the equation of war."

The days blurred into an endless, strange routine. You lost track of time in that windowless room.

Pieck came to you every evening. She brought food, clean water, books. She told you stories about Marley unrelated to the war and asked about your life before you joined the Scout Regiment. She never raised her voice, never caused you physical pain.

But her presence was suffocating. She was everywhere. She controlled your life, your diet, your sleep.

Your hatred fought against the painful admiration you had felt for her initially. You were a soldier, you were supposed to resist, but how do you resist someone who treats you like their greatest treasure?

One evening, while Pieck sat in the chair brushing her long black hair, you couldn't take it anymore. The rattling of the chain broke the silence as you approached her as closely as the metal allowed.

"Why are you doing this?" your voice trembled from the built-up tension. "You realize this is madness, right? You keep me on a chain like a dog! This isn't love, Pieck. This is a sickness!"

Pieck stopped brushing her hair. She slowly turned her head. Her eyes seemed like two black pools in the dim light. She set down the comb and walked over to you.

She stood right in front of you. The height difference was small, but her aura was overwhelming.

"A sickness? Perhaps," Pieck raised her hand and ran her fingertips over the metal cuff on your ankle. "I don't deny that my methods are unorthodox. But I didn't have a choice, Y/N. If I had left you there, you would have died in that senseless meat grinder. And I couldn't allow a Titan to tear you apart or a sniper to shoot you."

She straightened up, her hands resting on your shoulders. "I saved you. I created a safe world for you. A world where you no longer have to fight, lose friends, and bleed out. A world where there is only you and me."

"But I didn't choose this world!" Tears of helplessness rolled down your cheeks. You struck her chest with your fists, but she didn't even budge, taking your blows with frightening calm. "I want to go home! I want to see the sky!"

Pieck caught your wrists, easily stopping your weak resistance. She pulled you to her, pressing you tightly against her chest. You could feel her heart beating—steady, measured, without a hint of panic.

"Your home is here now," she whispered, burying her face in your hair, breathing in your scent. Her voice was saturated with such thick, possessive obsession that it took your breath away. "The sky up there is choked with smoke and blood. There is nothing there but death. But here... here I can protect you. Here I can love you as no one ever will."

You sobbed, goings limp in her arms. Your will, eroded by isolation and her hypnotic tenderness, began to break. A part of you still screamed for freedom, but another, darker part craved to stay in those strong, secure arms that had closed you off from the horrors of the outside world.

Several more weeks passed. Stockholm syndrome, mixed with your initial infatuation with her image, finally poisoned your mind. You stopped yanking the chain. You began to wait for her arrivals.

That evening, Pieck came later than usual. Deep exhaustion was etched on her face, and fresh soot stains marked her uniform. She had clearly just returned from a heavy battle on the surface.

She silently locked the door behind her, walked to the bed, and, with an exhausted sigh, sank onto the mattress beside you. She laid her head in your lap, closing her heavy, sleepy eyes.

You froze. Before, you would have pushed her away. But now... now your heart tightened with a strange, painful tenderness. Slowly, hesitantly, you raised your hand and gently touched her tangled black hair.

Pieck let out a quiet, almost cat-like sound of pleasure, pressing her cheek against your thigh.

"Is it... bad up there?" you asked quietly, continuing to stroke her head.

"It’s hell," she answered without opening her eyes. Her voice was muffled. "People are tearing each other apart. Marley, Paradis... soon there will be nothing left of this world but ash."

She rolled onto her back, looking up at you. Her eyes were full of such desperate, naked need for you that your final defenses collapsed. In that moment, she wasn't a brilliant tactician or a ruthless Warrior of Marley. She was just an exhausted girl who had found her only comfort in you.

"Do you know how I survive up there?" Pieck whispered, raising her hand and touching your cheek. "I think about how, deep underground and in safety, you are waiting for me. My own personal piece of paradise, hidden from the whole world."

Your lips trembled. A tear rolled down your cheek, falling right onto her face. "Pieck..."

"I’m obsessed with you, Y/N. I’m sick for you," her words were full of dark, intoxicating passion. "And I will never let you go. Even if the world collapses, I will lock us in here, and we will die together."

She pulled herself up, closing the distance between you. Her face was so close her breath scorched your lips. She waited. She gave you the final seconds to pull away, to show the remnants of your Paradisian pride.

But you didn't pull away. Your resistance was broken. Your wild panther nature had been tamed by the slow, gentle poison of her attention.

You leaned forward and covered her lips with your own.

Pieck let out a quiet moan of triumph. Her arms instantly wound around your waist, pulling you to her, drawing you down onto the rumpled sheets.

The kiss wasn't gentle. It held all the thirst built up over these months, all her possessive nature breaking free. She kissed you authoritatively, deeply, her tongue subordinating yours, leaving you not a single chance for control. Her lips tasted of gunpowder and iron, but for you, it became the sweetest taste in the world.

You responded to her pressure with desperate, painful passion. Your hands buried themselves in her black hair, pulling her to you so tightly as if trying to merge into one. You gave yourself to her completely—your body, your will, your freedom.

Pieck pulled away from your lips, breathing heavily. Her sleepy eyes were now burning with the black, triumphant fire of a predator who had finally secured its most coveted prey. She began to cover your neck and collarbones with hot, wet kisses, leaving red marks on your skin that would prove you belong only to her.

"Mine..." she whispered feverishly, her fingers sliding under your clothes, exploring every curve of your body, making you arch and moan her name in quiet, jagged breaths. "Only mine. Forever."

And as the heavy steel chain clinked softly in rhythm with your movements, you finally realized: you were no longer a soldier of Paradis. You were no longer a free girl. You had become a voluntary prisoner, a precious bird in Pieck Finger’s cage. And the most terrifying part was that you no longer wanted to fly away.