Petra Backstory. Because I needed this after the heart break that was Episode 21. Slight spoilers for anime and manga

She is fast and she is smart. Smarter than any Titan should be. The moment her eye opens, that one eye while the other sits empty and hollow, Petra can feel her control - their control of the situation - slipping through her fingers. There are no more orders being given. There is no one left to give orders. She begins to panic. Without an order to follow she doesn't know what to do. Old habits do die hard. Aururo is yelling at her but she can hardly hear him through the panicked blood thrumming in her ears.

In her panic she is too slow and too disorderly. When the female Titan's foot comes slamming down on her, her thoughts have a short millisecond to shift to old memories. Old memories. Old memories that Petra holds in her hands like pennies for wishes. When Petra dies they fall through her fingertips like rain, one by one.

Why exactly Petra was so insistent Eren believe in them is something even she herself was unsure about. Maybe it was because if he believed in them then she would believe in herself. He was the last hope for humanity after all. If he believed in her, trusted in her ability as well as she trusted in he, then she wouldn't feel so useless, that all her sacrifices, all her killings, all her lost comrades and the sweat and the blood and the tears, weren't entirely useless. That they had meant something up to this point.

Maybe because she also felt that putting all the hope and responsibility of the human race on the shoulders of a young teenage boy was really unfair.

Maybe it was also because the night before their mission, he told her. "My mother was eaten by a Titan."

Petra has hardly heard this before. Normally the deceased was a friend they had met in their squad who they have to watch get eaten. It had only been five years since the fall of the wall after all. Most people who had been a part of that blood bath were too old or too young to join the survey corps afterwards. Eren is the first Petra has met who has lost a family member so dearly. Petra's family was safe behind the second wall. The broken wall had hardly effected them at all when it fell five years ago.

"I'm sorry," says Petra.

"I watched it all," says Eren. "We tried to save her but we couldn't."

"I'm sorry," says Petra again. Useless words. Useless words but they're all she has.

"I'm going to kill them all. Every single last one. Every one." His eyes flash and for a moment she sees hate, incriminating bottomless hate and wrath. That part of Eren that made him unstable and deranged, that something Petra had been looking for since she had first met him, that something that had frightened her so much when his arm had transformed without warning. But seeing this this time doesn't frighten her. Because it was the same thing she saw in the eyes of all who were a part of the survey corps.

She's spent so much time around Titans that she expects someone large and crazy. Someone unstable and deranged. Someone with an unparalleled ferocity to turn into the monsters they had been battling for two thousand years and who she had watched eat countless friends time and time again. Eren is not what she is expecting. He is tall but thin, hesitant and unsure. He jumps almost every time someone addresses him and God forbid if Levi even glances his way. Anytime the short commander, who Eren was comically a good foot taller than, got within two feet of him he straightens like a rod. Not that Petra could exactly blame him for it. It was Levi's personality and reputation that cowed people rather than his physical stature.

"This is Eren," says Levi in way of introduction.

Eren salutes them. The others salute back but Petra wants more. She needs him to feel human too. She insists on shaking his hand. His hand is rough. Years of hard work in the field and training. But his flesh is warm, warm against her own, and Petra begins to wonder if taking this assignment was a mistake.

When Levi first approaches her, she isn't sure what to think.

"This assignment is unusual," he says.

"Unusual." She is not used to hearing someone call a mission unusual in the survey corps. Usual wasn't part of their daily vocabulary. When it came to Titans and venturing into their territory, no one ever knew what to expect.

"And dangerous."

That she is used to hearing but hearing it from Levi carries so much more weight. Levi is the type of person who eats dangerous for breakfast and doesn't choke on it. For him to say something was dangerous, it really meant it.

"We're to protect a boy," said Levi. "A really stupid boy who just joined the survey corps and hardly has any combat experience whatsoever."

"Protect a boy." Now that was unusual. "Is that it?"

"No." He straightens his jacket. "You'll also need to be ready to kill him, if need be."

She takes the mission because it comes from Levi. From Levin and not Erwin. It is Levi asking her and because of that, no matter what it is, she will do it.

She writes to her father later, giddy with expectation. She knows they will worry. They always worry. But at the same time she knows they will be proud. Proud of their daughter and how far she has come.

The first time her father met Levi, she wanted to die in her pointed shoes. Fathers are always embarrassing to daughters when it came to them meeting the person they loved. Especially when that person is unaware of said feelings.

"You must be Captain Levi." Her father smiles at the smaller man. Petra's hand twist in her gown. They are two completely different personalities and from completely different backgrounds. She has no idea how they will react to each other. Petra's father is well off, rich, and as smooth and cordial as a well-aged red wine. Levi is an ex-thug turned soldier. He goes down like sour grapes in rubbing alcohol.

"I've heard so much about you. My daughter speaks so highly of you."

The darkness of the night is hardly enough to hide Petra's blush. She is glad when Levi does not turn around to look at her. "We were a little worried when she decided to join the survey corps, of course." Her father continues. "But she seems to have done well enough." He smiles at her over Levi's head, full of pride. Petra's blush deepens. She waits, tense, expecting Levi to comment on her nervousness, how she often would freak out when things did not go well, how she became emotional until an order was given to her to follow. How she needed direction and often fell apart when she did not have that.

"Yes, she has done very well," says Levi in his gravely, bored way. "Better than most. She has become a," he pauses to take a swallow of his wine, "a very good asset to our cause."

Petra wants to die again but this time for an entirely different reason.

Her numbers grew higher with every expedition she went on. How and why she became so good nobody really knew. Her background belied the fact that she would be good at slaughtering Titans and her nervous, high strung personality was not good for slaying anything.

Perhaps it was because she was so good at taking orders. Or maybe it was because she worked so well in a group. She was gaining one of the highest assists after all, though her solo kills were low, unlike Aururo, whose cocksure personality made him a superb solo Titan killer. Or maybe it was because she could put all her faith in her companions without a second thought, which the other soldiers often had a harder time doing. Petra seemed to have an easier time believing in others than she did herself.

When she is in the field, it is she who Levi calls upon. It is never for killing Titans but other things. Trying to heal the wounded he has just saved for instance. She obeys his orders without protest and without remorse. Levi relied on her. No matter what the order, he seemed to have faith that she would carry it out adequately.

And maybe that was why she excelled so well.

Her fourth mission out from the wall and it had become a disaster. Their entire flank is dead save for the two of them. They have been riding – more like fleeing - for hours and despite Levi's best efforts they have yet to reach the wall. Ahead of her he holds the lone torch, guiding them carefully through the darkness. Their progress is slow. Titans still exist in the night and if they should bump into them it would be disastrous. Levi might survive with some luck, but she on the other hand would be done for.

She is secretly glad that Aururo was put in a different section than her. She doesn't want to think of him lying on the ground a broken bloody heap or residing in some Titan's stomach for God knew how long before being puked out.

She is exhausted, terrified. Her limbs shake and her voice is higher than usual. They cannot stop so when she needs to vomit, she simply leans over her poor animal and empties the contents of her empty stomach onto the ground. She talks to relieve her terror. Levi lets her, seeming to understand that she needs it, even though talking is dangerous.

She doesn't ask him to stop. She knows they can't. Instead she asks him if he needs to sleep.

"I do not need sleep," he says. "I cannot sleep. I hardly every do."

"You don't throw up either," she observes.

"No," he says. "I don't. Not anymore."

She blinks in the faint light of the torch. Her limbs shake so bad she can hardly hold onto the reins. "You used to then?" It made her feel better to think that Levi, humanity's strongest soldier, used to be a novice like her, terrified and unsure. It made her feel better to think he wasn't naturally born as skilled as he is, that he had to work for it like she iad.

Levi doesn't answer for a long moment. "When I was younger I used to," he says at last. "I used to throw up a lot but it was never because of Titans. Back then I killed men. Many men. Every time I killed a man I would vomit. Sometimes for three days straight. The very first time, I threw up before I even took a step away." He is silent again. "I'll never forget the stones in that wall," he says quietly.

It is only until later, when they are safely inside the wall, and she has been cleaned and clothed and fed, that she begins to understand. He cannot sleep so his eyes are always shadowed. Bad memories keep him awake at night. He could not keep anything down so his growth was stunted. Bad actions, bad actions he himself had performed, made him throw up. This is the sort of man Levi was.

She wonders why he told her those things and then she thinks maybe it was because he did believe they were going to die that night. Maybe he had wanted her, the last person who would be alive with him, to understand the kind of person he was. Or maybe it was something else altogether. She doesn't know. Regardless of his reasoning for telling her, it's a precious gift. She holds his secret tightly in her heart, winding her feelings around them like a shroud.

That was the day, she thinks forever afterward, that she fell in love with him.

Her first mission after graduating was the worst. She isn't sure what she was expecting. Grand heroics amidst a grand battle. Something like that. Instead she watches as almost her entire training division, the ones that had joined the survey corps along with Aururo and her, get slaughtered.

Michelle and Brandon and Troy. Tristan and Aaliyah. Corey loses a leg and dies several days later.

She watches them get eaten one by one before her eyes. She fights but her hands shake on her blades and she is useless with fear. Just like they said she would be. Her bowels loosen and she can't help it. She pees her pants.

She manages to survive, somehow, someway. Aururo survives as well. The only other one from their training division. She should have expected it, Aururo was incredibly skilled, but still she is glad and relieved to see him. He has pissed his pants too. Confident cocksure Aururo who was always so certain of himself, with his pants full of piss. She can't help it. She laughs likes a sob and he, after a moment of surprised offense, sobs like a laugh with her.

When her training division graduates, she is not in the top ten. She doesn't even place in the top fifteen. She doesn't know what place she's in. They don't bother telling the trainees after the fifteenth ranking. Those that placed close to the top ten were told, so that they would work harder to try and acquire a spot. The trainers didn't bother after that number.

Aururo places in the top five. Of course. He smirks like he has known it all along, which he has.

"What division will you go into?" he asks her once the ceremony has completed.

"The survey corps."

"The survey corps?" He looks at her. "Are you…sure that's a wise decision?"

It isn't a wish decision. That's why she's doing it. The spoiled little rich girl, whose parents provided everything for her. She doesn't want to be that person anymore. She wants to be someone better. She wants to prove the other cadets wrong and she wants to make her parents proud by proving to them she can do it as well.

Aururo joins the survey corps with her. She tells him he's an idiot, that being in the top ten he could have easily joined the Military Police. Aururo smiles at her. "If I joined the Military Police then you wouldn't have the opportunity to work towards becoming my wife anymore would you?"

She throws an old shoe at him, exasperated, but secretly she is glad. Glad to have a friend there with her. Aururo always had been the one who would stand beside her when no one else would.

Nobody liked her. They made fun of her. What could a girl like her, pampered and spoiled, possibly be able to offer to humanity? Pampered little rich girl. She had not struggled like they had. She has never known what it's like to be hungry or scared or so physically exhausted you can't sleep.

She was lucky. She was born to loving parents in a loving well off home. As she stood there, with her hand over her heart, she begins to wonder if she had made a mistake like her family had said she was doing. She can still recall her mother's tears; her father's appalled expression of worry. They didn't understand, couldn't understand, why she had decided to join the military. She was too nervous, too skittish, not aggressive enough. Without direction Petra often became a shaky mess. She couldn't blame them and when the commander yells at her, telling her how useless she is, she has to bite back the sob curling in her throat.

She has made a terrible mistake. Joining the military was a terrible mistake. She thinks this when she sits down to eat alone, forever to be ostracized by those that were less fortunate than her, when another tray slams down next to her. She looks up. It is the boy with blond hair and that cocky smirk. She recognizes him easily. She had found him looking at her several times throughout the day. He is older than she, a boy on the cusp of manhood, and she finds his attention creepy.

"What do you want?" she asks. She doesn't want to be bothered by anyone when her mind is a swirling nimbus of parents and regrets and home sickness.

"I'm going to eat here," he says like it's the most obvious thing.

She scoots further down the bench but he doesn't seem to notice her discomfort. That or he doesn't care.

"What's your name?" he asks her.

She answers automatically. "Penny."

"Penny?" He frowns, pieces of his food dotting around his mouth.

She realizes her error. "No, sorry. It's Petra."

"Petra." He smiles as if he likes the taste of it. "That sounds much better. Much stronger sounding than Penny. You should use that here."

She frowns like he did, minus the food. She doesn't like her name and Penny. Penny meant so much to her. "There's nothing wrong with Penny."

"It's too girly sounding. Trust me." He leans towards her, his sandwich in his hand as he practically waves it in her face. "You'll want to drop the kitty names from here on out, sweetheart."

She leans away from both him and his offending sandwich, resisting the urge to slap it away. "Why?"

"Because it's time to grow up, darling. You're in the army now. We could die any day."

She straightens to try and act tough. "I have no intention of dying."

He smirks at her, leeringly. "Neither do I. But you…I'd die with you any day."

She huffs. She stands up with her tray. "I highly doubt," she says, "that that will ever happen."

She stomps away from him. "My name's Aururo by the way," he calls after her but she pretends not to notice.

When she was young there was an old wishing well in their town square. Throughout the day many would come, throwing their pennies into it. Throwing pennies to make wishes. Making wishes.

It was a routine for her and her father. Whenever they went to the market they would go together. Her father would give her a penny and then he would hold her, balancing her on the lip of the well, and she would throw it in, making her endless wishes into memories. For years they did that, but for as many times as they did her father never made a wish. All his pennies he gave to her.

One day, laughingly, she asked, "Daddy, how come you never throw one in?"

He smiled at her. With his big gentle hand he ruffled her copper colored hair. "Because, Penny," he said, using the pet name he had given her. "You're all the wishes I need."