A / N: Decided to re-upload this here for those of you who don't use Archive of Our Own.

In a time lost to the pages of history, in lands where the recent emergence of science outweighed a centuries' long reign of the enigma of faith, war was the one and only constant; endless and without pause. Once divided groups became united kingdoms, and these united kingdoms swelled into vast nations as they kept vying for more, expanding upon their once gods'-granted rights under new banners and new truths and new powers but the same beliefs, the same rivalries, the same hatreds, the same divisions, and the same accusations and affronts, turning once lush and lively regions to desolate barren wastes where no life would ever grow again; poisoning the land further with the even more destructive seeds of metal and machinery. For those caught in the middle, their citizens, their subjects, were forced to live in fear, forced to flee in terror, and it was when an entire village seemingly vanished overnight without so much as a trace, a faint whisper of dark deeds done on a dark night, leaving one meek, insignificant, but wrathful child as its only survivor, that this changed forever.

Alone and forced to fend for herself, after a lifetime spent in ruined and war-torn lands and much hardship, this child blossomed into a woman who united these lands with a mysterious power and became a mighty ruler. This woman was named Ymir Fritz, and unlike those before her, she ruled benevolently, with her mind close to her heart, ever beating in favor of those less fortunate, of those less able to pull themselves from the tragedy of war; ever bleeding for those who sought to continue the tyranny of the past, the disappearance of hopes and dreams for so much as to fill their chests and stomachs with greed.

She spent a long time rebuilding these lands in her image; thirteen grueling years of using a gift many perceived as a curse, a black murmur of the past back to punish the world that had abandoned it, passed before all was peaceful, all was quiet, all was calm, until she was usurped—murdered in her sleep when her eyes were shut—and her body disemboweled and decapitated and her mysterious power split nine as these lands were plunged into a great war that lasted a lifetime longer than she herself had lived. Its victors rewrote history, the defeated ousted, butchered, and enslaved as these lands came back under the thumb of oppression and savagery until history dared repeat itself again. Another rebellion, another great war, colossal, violent, and more devastating than the last; another beheading, a new victor, the shackling of the old, and, in the midst of this all, the child that was reborn.

But, the world… the world was unforgiving.

Its wounds never healed and the scars tarnishing its surface left it puckered and sore with horrendous, atrocities galore.

The child was taken, growing up beaten and bruised, then sacrificed for the greater good before her rule truly had a chance to begin.

The year is 845, and the world was still cruel. These lands were still recovering, but there were whispers of another, third great war.

Humanity has been beset by monsters known as Titans for a hundred years. A seemingly endless tide of giant, humanoid devourers that managed to wipe out all life save for a lucky few, and nobody knew where they originated from, what their purpose was, and, most important, most dire, how to effectively end them once and for all. So, in desperation, these lucky few shut themselves behind three fifty meter high walls for their own protection, thinking themselves safe. Only, they were being kept in the dark, gathered like cattle in cages for the inevitable until, one day, one red-colored, quiet, unassuming morning after dawn, this all changed when they were given a grim reminder of what it meant to be locked away.

And, in the midst of it, a child is reborn.

All she remembers is the blood, tissue, and bone. All she remembers is the torment of the mindless. All she remembers is the face that haunts, the face that always reminds her of the cruelty of the world. That it always has been and that it always will be; that it should always be held in a certain light, and that she was never meant to be born, molding herself as someone who was nothing, who thought herself worthless. Crimson nightmares, bringing death. The world was her enemy, her string, and her fate. For she was a causality and it resented and cursed her as it always would.

So, the girl ran away from her fate. And the world, in retaliation, in retribution, started its end, but, the child, the girl, she kept running, and running, and...