BIRD OF PREY | a reiner braun spinoff

chapter o n e.

When I was young, my dear mother told me tales of the Warriors.

All that was left of the monstrous but noble giants of Eldia. Sworn to protect the world against all evil. And guard the seven human realms, far and wide, across mountains and oceans, under the banner of a sparkling star on their arm.

She said that the Titans the warrior possessed were gifts to humanity. In the age before war, they were worshipped and honored as savoirs. Guardians. But humanity... mankind... soon became poisoned with greed and fear. And a wild dream sprouted in the darkness within the minds of these frail and weak humans.

Nightmare of when the Titans decide to stop protecting them and instead enslave all of humanity. Seeds of fear were planted from their savage imaginations. And with fear, came the desperation to control. To conquer the power of the Titans. Such is the filthy nature of humankind.

So even when the giants were eventually wiped out, the humans continued to round their descendants, the people of Eldia, as if they were cattle. All because they possess the blood that wielded the power against the darkness. Only Nine Titans survived. Only nine guardians to protect the world against the darkness. Nine against all of humankind. Nine heroes...

Those were the tales of Warriors that my mother told me on the lazy afternoon at the Azumabito Estate in the far east lands of Hizuru. Stories and legends. Of Heros.

Dead heros. False heroes.

And I foolishly ate up every lie of her tales.

So when the ignorant kid I was then met him, the boy with the spark on his arm, the mark I was told was of a hero..

I befriended him, not knowing of the dangers that I would put him under for simply talking to me.

And soon I would come learn that there was a price to pay for my ignorance.. For our friendship. Our bond...

A price that he had to pay even if it had all been my fault.

A cruel curse-

Of only 13 years left to live...

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BATTLEFIELD IN THE FRONTS, BEYOND THE ALLIED BORDERS

For hundreds of millennia, only the birds claimed the skies. The one domain that man had never conquered. Never touched. Never tainted. Where freedom was the only true ruler.

The sky above remained free as the earth fell, bled and was destroyed by humanity.

The sky above stood sovereign while war, hate and greed polluted the ground below.

The sky above was unclaimed, unbounded...

At least before the metal flyers came.

First the airships. And then the planes. And soon even the sky was conquered by the gluttony and venom of man.

But the Dragon of Marley was just barely a man.

Yet, he too fell victim to the consequences of the war as did so many other children. The tide of bloodthirst had dragged him into the depths of war and turned a boy into a soldier.