#titan! reader

Curiosity sparks within you, urging you to take a closer look. Predator and prey, sinner and executioner, the nature of your relationship makes you hesitate on your approach. This is not the first time you've seen the hooded creatures in the forest, usually opting to stay out of their sight lest you anger them and give them a reason to slay you like the rest of your kind. But this time it's different. This time the creature is alone and injured, judging by the small red puddle under its right side. There is little to no chance that it will lunge at you, and so you make your move.

Heavy steps shake the ground as you approach the fallen figure, your tall frame rustling the trees’ highest branches. You sink to your knees besides the still unmoving figure but now, you notice, it's emitting shuddering breaths. From this close you can see the figure with more detail. Raven bangs peeking out from under the hood, pearly white skin covered in grime, uniform stained with dirt and blood alike, and left hand clutching its side to avoid bleeding out.

It's a shame that these creatures don't share your kind's ability to regenerate, often succumbing to their injuries after an encounter with one of your kind. Though most of the time the injured ones are carried to be taken care of by others of their herd, this one is completely alone, cut off from any creature that could help it. Sympathy floods your chest at the thought, you are alone too, in a world of mindless monsters.

Maybe you could help it, lure its peers to it so they can heal it. Maybe you should stay put and wait for them to find it on their own, to avoid being mistaken for another ravenous beast and getting slain for it. Maybe it was already dead, bled out while you thought of ways to aid a corpse. It's then that you notice that the shuddering breaths stopped a while ago. Your blood runs cold.

You extend your hand towards it, stopping a few feet away from touching it. You’ve seen what these creatures have done to your kind. You’ve seen what they are capable of. Indifferent to your internal debate, the figure remains still and quiet, harmless. Against your better judgment, your hand moves a little closer to the figure, slowly hovering into its space. Before you can make contact with its arm, pain shoots from the tip of your fingers up to your shoulder and steam rises from the clean cut that severed your fingers in half. Your hand recoils in pain and gunmetal eyes glare at you with hatred and disgust.

Not harmless, then.

You clutch your hand to your chest while it slowly regenerates, steam warming the underside of your jaw as you stare at the creature. It looks tired, sickly white skin covered in sweat and eyes that threaten to close shut at any moment, but its eyes still burn with defiance and anger. There’s no way you’ll reach out to it again, knowing that even now, injured and tired, the small creature still has the strength necessary to slay you at any moment. The figure pulls back on itself and clutches its side with a wince, still pinning you with its sharp glare.

A loud bang goes off in the distance and a stripe of blue smoke paints the sky. Smoke. You've seen the creatures use the smoke to convey messages before, grabbing small steel cylinders from a pouch and stabbing them into flat nosed guns. The creature flinches at the sound, its features twisting in dread at the sight of the blue column of smoke in the sky. Retreat, judging by your previous experiences while stalking the flying creatures. They would leave without the broken creature that lay at your side. 

They couldn't leave, not without it. If they did, it would die alone on the forest floor, covered in its own blood and guts from its fallen mates. You had to do something. You couldn't leave it to die in the forest due to its injuries, a consequence of your kind's actions. Surely you could find one of the pouches that contained the smoke cylinders among the gore in the ground. You would need to find it and somehow hand it to the injured creature without losing more fingers in the attempt to aid it. With that goal in mind, you turn to the mangled corpses laying around and commence your search, registering the barely concealed flinch the injured creature gave at your sudden movement.

After rummaging through the red stained forest floor, you manage to find a blood soaked pouch containing several steel cylinders and a small gun tied to a detached waist. Hateful gunmetal eyes follow your every movement as you carefully extract the small purse from the corpse, avoiding reaping it open by sheer luck. Once the object is secured between your index finger and your thumb, you turn your attention back to the creature. Under your attentive gaze it recoils like a snake about to strike while its hand still clutches its side, its hand stained red and a bloody puddle bigger than before on the ground.

You hesitate for a couple of seconds, considering if aiding the creature is worth the struggle, but you have already taken the poison so you might as well lick the plate. Your hand extends towards it slowly, dropping the bloody pouch in its lap and retreating your hand a second too late before the silver blade nicks at your just regenerated fingers. You hiss at the sting of the now healing cut, but notice that this time the blade didn't go all the way through your fingers. 

The creature is dying. It’s slowly losing its strength to the cold embrace of death.

Glancing back at the creature you see its stunned face. It gawks at the bloody pouch in its lap and then looks up at you with suspicious eyes. You still yourself, hoping that the distrustful creature would take the gesture as a signal to relax. It doesn't, but with squared shoulders and a stiff posture it decides to occupy itself with what you have brought to it after getting tired of glaring at you for a while. It rummages through the pouch's contents before loading a small cylinder in the flat nosed gun with shaky hands. It points the gun to the sky and shoots. Purple smoke fills the sky above. It called for help.

The creature lets its arm fall to its lap, still holding the small gun with shaky fingers. It's growing tired as time goes by, a product of the dwindling quantity of red liquid flowing through its veins. With nothing else to occupy itself with, it goes back to glaring at you and you can't help but notice that this time it isn't eyeing you with mistrust, but with thinly veiled curiosity.

You should really go now that you have done what you could for it, but something compels you to stay by its side until its peers find it or the cold embrace of death claims it, whichever comes first. And so you stay by its side, curious gaze washing over you and purple smoke dissipating in the sky above your head. 

__________

Minutes go by and the creature's body relaxes, eyelids drooping, head lolling, slow breaths coming from its mouth. It's as if it's falling asleep, except you know that's not the case. The large puddle of blood underneath it and it's now bloodier hand relaxed on top of its injury confirm your suspicions.

It seems death won the race.

The creature's head falls as the strength leaves its body and your hand darts to catch it by the chin with the tip of your index finger. Its skin is soft, the weight of its head barely a whisper on your finger, reminding you of how fragile this creature really is with its small size and inability to regenerate any damage done to it. You have to control your strength to gently tip its head so you can look into its exhausted eyes without harming it. 

"Don't. Die."

The two words leave your throat in a raspy and guttural mess, evidence of its disuse. A sharp breath is all you hear from the creature as its eyes widen and its body stiffens completely. You stare into its surprised eyes while it rests its head in your finger, your thumb coming to gently smear a blood stain in its right cheek. 

"Levi! Leviiiii!" you hear a voice call in the distance, swishing sounds accompanying it as it grows closer by the second. This is my cue.

You retract your hand, the creature's head falling off your finger and snapping back to look at you when you stand up slowly, its disbelieving eyes following your every movement. Reluctantly you take a step back, watching as the creature tries to mouth something at you.

"Thank you." 

You break into a sprint, sinking deeper into the forest and barely managing to avoid being caught by the blades of one of its peers. You keep running, afraid of the promise of death carried by the swishing sounds that are following you as you run through the forest with your hand covering your nape. Just as the sounds grow nearer, you hear faint shouting in the distance. The swishing noises hesitate behind you and slowly faint into the background as you keep running from what you know would be certain death.

Even when you're sure that the creatures aren't following you anymore, you keep running, afraid of what could happen if they were still bent on hunting you down after seeing you beside their injured peer. Only when you have reached the broken down village that lies at the end of the forest do you stop and turn around. Now, miles away from the place where the brief encounter took place, you can't help but regret your choice of leaving the creature behind. Did it die at the end, in the arms of its peers and away from its home? Or did it survive, clinging to life with all its might?