The Experiment (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) (Part 1)

That Itch Again...

Zoë's childhood was entirely without warmth. Her father was busy being an important advisor to the King and hardly ever at home, her mother, holed up exclusively at home, was busy being melancholic one day and hysterical the next. Her brothers did not acknowledge their sister's existence until she began to hide their magnificent wooden toys - horses, guns, swords and knives - and they had to chase her around the house to get them back.

At the mercy of her governess' sadistic whims from the age of two, Zoë learned everything about how a girl from a noble family had to sit, speak, eat, move, behave and nothing about the things that really interested her - like why it was sunny on some days and raining on others, why objects fell to the floor when you dropped them and why silver spoons turned black when you ate a soft-boiled egg.

The first time she ran away, she was five years old. She packed a bag with underwear, pajamas, a toothbrush, a few coins and cake, and sneaked out of the huge Hange mansion that occupied the entire side of the biggest square near the royal palace. Her plan was to head towards the gate to the outer city because she had overheard two maids discuss a fair they had gone to - it sounded like a dream to her, stalls where one could buy cotton candy, sweet dough on sticks, and all kinds of toys that were not dolls! Since she had only ever seen Mitras from the window of a carriage, she got lost not ten minutes after leaving the house through a servants' entrance. Instead of being frightened, however, she felt so excited she wanted to sing and shout and punch the air. The houses were so big! The streets so busy! This! This must be what freedom felt like!

Sadly, they apprehended her after way too short a time. A lone girl in a frilly pink frock with silk slippers gaping at everything drew attention. The Military Police patrol that stopped her quickly found out which family she belonged to because lying wasn't her thing. Years after, Zoë still remembered the strangely pleasing scent of the man who had carried her back to her house: leather, tobacco and horses. The scent of adventure.

Gradually, she got better at running away, with more time spent on the streets each time. She also learned to disguise herself as a boy: in contrast to girls, they got away with so much! She even cut her hair off once - her partner in crime was one of the stable boys who had put the clippers to her head with almost religious zeal. She didn't ever confide in a servant again after that though, because her father had him flogged in front of her. The boy's screams of pain haunted her sleep for weeks. She learnt that there were other ways to get the clothes she needed – sewing them in secret at night, for example. Every time she fled the oppression of her life, she got closer and closer to the gate – until one day, she managed to slip through. A full four days of living on the streets, of sleeping under bridges, of running with the street urchins. Four glorious days during which nobody told her to sit straight, to eat slower, to smile prettily because men liked docile women.

The official tale was that it was the crossdressing that made her father publicly disown her, but the truth was, he snapped after she spent the night with a random man who was kind to her. A man who smelled of leather and horses, who treated her like a person, a real person – not a piece of flesh that came with a dowry and ensured political connections. He was a nobody, a commoner – tall, muscular, with a killer smile. A little drunk, a little reckless, but also more gentle than she had imagined men could be. Lying in his arms was warm... so incredibly warm and comfortable, even if it lasted just one night.

With every lover that Zoë accepted into her bed afterwards, she always chased the same feeling. The warmth, the comfort, the feeling of being protected. And not least to be accepted for who she was – a person, not a thing. Naturally, there were many, many disappointments – because however little she expected, it was still too much for most. But she was eternally curious and learned very fast to call disappointments 'an experience'. She began to fill her need for warmth and comforts not with unsatisfactory lovers but with friends. She had never before in her life had any - but in the Corps, she found many. They became her family.