Slipping Through My Fingers

A Favor

Authors Notes: I hid a Euphoria line in this chapter so comment if you recognize it. I tried to make it obvious but not too obvious. Im also on spring break now so hopefully I'll be updating more often.

Sidenote: Did y'all know that the city where the underground (where Levi is from) is called "Mitras"??? I swear every chapter I learn something new while researching lmfao. -🪷
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That night, as you scrolled endlessly on your computer, you came to realize that there was a lot more to the Jeager's than you had known, and their wealth barely scratched the surface. You started with the family history. From what you had found, Shiganshina had been an empty plot of land on the island until around the late 1800s, which was when Eren's great great grandfather, Louis Jeager, immigrated to there from Marley along with his two friends, bringing with them a few crop seeds and farming tools, trying to make a life for themselves.

While it was difficult at first, they had soon built the town from the ground up, implementing farms and houses. As the town grew, more people from Marley and the surrounding areas in Paradis began to leave their homes insearch of the opportunity that the newly built Shiganshina had promised. It was known as "The Northeastern Expansion", which was vaguely taught in History classes in the country, most of it being heavily filtered or downplayed.

As the town flourished, the founders began creating families of their own, the most powerful of them being the Jeagers. Each of the founders and their families had attained a significant amount of wealth and power, even creating a legal system at which they were leaders at a point. However, in the mid 1900's, as they had started to die off, they surrendered their positions of power to the Reiss family. A family native to Paradis and they had begun running the town fairly well, attaining wealth and popularity of their own.

While there is little known about what became of the other two founders and their descendants after the 1950s; the Jeagers were quite the opposite. Louis had made it a point to invest in multiple of the core businesses in the town, that is, if he hadn't already built them himself. The hospitals, federal institutions, trading companies and even religious places were all owned and run by him and his family and he later on began investing in supermarkets and clothing stores as a way to expand his already massive fortune. He had made sure to secure the wealth by limiting its distribution to family only, giving a completely different meaning to the phrase "keep it in the family".

The positions of power within the family were hereditary and there were no exceptions.

No matter how much time had passed, the Jeager's still held their status with each generation that came, and were a spectacle on an international level, often seen bumping shoulders with Marley and Hizuru's political leaders as well as the rich and famous. They maintained their privacy and diplomacy and that was what made them more interesting to the public. You found pictures of them with other famous families from all around the world and they had maintained their long-standing relationship with the Reiss' as well. You had also seen pictures of weddings, most notably, the marriage between Carla and Grisha, followed by the more recent union of Pieck and Zeke.

In the press pictures you had found from a while back, Eren could be seen with the Reiss heiress at her sweet sixteen along with other families such as the Artlerts and Kirstiens. You had heard of them of course, but had never taken notice, as you had never expected to be working for any of them. More recent pictures had shown glimpses of the family on outings or on vacations, the pictures were obviously taken without their knowledge and you were surprised to see headlines from a year ago talking about Eren and Ella.

"Heir of the Jeager spotted with baby, Could it be his child?" "Who is Eren Jeager's mystery baby mother?" "Civilians take guesses at what could be the name of this mystery baby seen with the Jeagers" However, all the pictures of them were extremely blurry, obviously taken in a rush and once again without their knowledge, and there were no answers to the questions previously asked as the family often declined interviews and press conferences unless it was beneficial to them. So it was up to the public to speculate and allow their imaginations to run unimaginably wild. It was obvious the media showed little respect for their family, but they had little to work with due to how filtered the information about the family was. It was common for families in power to pay journalists to delete articles and pictures they didn't want to reach the public in an effort to maintain their elusiveness and it could be inferred that the Jeagers had done the same.