DISCONTINUED - Shapeshifter

1

 From the moment the pain struck, she knew this was to be the final moments of her life.

As her body uncontrollably trembled with agonising pain; disarranged matted strands of hair sticking like sap on her forehead by sweat and tears, and each second an unheard scream of torment suffocated the desolate forest blasted from out of her mouth...She knew it would all be worth it because she was bringing another life into this world however amidst the anguish she began to doubt her own endearment.

Nevertheless, she kept pushing onward, striving to stay calm by puffing rash deep breaths in frustration. Dignity, purpose and everything she formerly possessed all long lost, she fought on even though her story meant no meaning now. Nothing mattered anymore to her but this child she was about to bring in this world in replacement for her own: and in some case, live on in that being.

And her offspring won't be alone in this world. Taking a weak glance to her right she glimpsed the face of her saviour and tyrant: a permanent smile adorn across his deformed- but compassionate and caring- face; soft, unblinking, brown eyes looming over her vulnerable figure, anxiety gleaming through his eyes like a wisp; and brown messy hair cascading down his forehead. She didn't have the strength to smile in such a proprietorial and (for his species) a peculiar caring creature, A Titan. In few ways, she loathed and loved him but with no choice, she had submitted to his affection if it meant protection and love. In this case, it would be the same for her expected child yet the soul-crushing thing was it would grow up without a mother. Neither a real family either but most likely she'll get herself another family, either be dysfunctional, troubled, broken, peculiar and out-the-ordinary family: that was fine too. It would still be family.

And in the dying moments she owned to imagine the endless possibilities of the future, she smiled through the pain, tears gently glissading down her cheeks. Like the wings of a butterfly, her eyelashes fluttered to a close and with the last breath, she whispered her final words like a song. Loud enough for the Titan.

"...God bless my baby girl, (Your Name)...Let her grow and no one change her..."
As the baby rested in the state of nature thighs of a deceased woman, tranquil and undisturbed: the titan went rogue with an aggressive sadness. 

The titan curled his fist, the small woman's hands slipping motionlessly of his finger as he hammered the ground in fury, shaking the earth and roots of trees. Tears leaked from his unflinching eyes, his insides shattered and yet the Chester smile forever across his face failed to show his heart-breaking emotions losing his true love. His jaw hung as he bellowed a roar in anger that shook trees, much like the ground with his fists. The contact of his knuckle onto ground denting small craters, dispersing flecks and chunks of dirt in all directions along with his own blood from the force. 

As his saddened heart began to slowly calm his raging body, he curled up in a ball, bawling coarse and rough sobs. The ember of wrath inside his body not fully disappeared, out of spite and wild emotions, he struck the woman's limp body with his mighty palm. Only retaining seconds later his grave mistake; the baby was still lying in the mother's lap.
And that baby was all he had left of his love and out of emotions, he smacked it away like an insect. Even worse, he had disrespected a corpse of his love.

Scrambling to his knees, he hastily crawled over to the launched body, regret overwhelming his senses at no sounds of life from the body, leaning uncomfortably over a tree trunk motionlessly. No sounds at all, just the harsh breaths that drummed in his ears: nature had fled beforehand in horror of the terrifying noises.

Then there was a baby's cry and a rash exhale of relief through his teeth. Gently, haven't learnt his lessons, he plucked the woman by the waist and lifted her away to reveal the baby leaning on the tree, unharmed but crying in hysteria. 

Cupping the earth beside him, he dug a hole fit for a person and laid the poor woman inside before covering it with the same soil. Then placing a single flower and big stone were over the freshly dug soil.

Driving his attention back to the baby, he questioned how she had survived such a blow unscathed. Effortlessly picking her body up between his thumb and forefinger, he placed her in his left palm and brought the baby an inch away from his nose on closer inspection. With intent he watched the baby tears stream roll around her cheeks and off her face, eyes shut with intense bawling until the harsh breath of the titan before her, made one eyelid open in interest, then both. Almost simultaneously, her cries turned into innocent laughter which made the titan hum in interest. 

A baby, no older than a day, laughed at the most threatening thing to its world yet didn't bat any eye with fear.

Gently, the titan fell onto his behind, getting comfortable as he played with baby yet at the same time think deeply to himself, just like the mother, about the future. He would take the responsibility to raise the child, change himself to a fatherly figure and try his best to prevent his obsessive aggressiveness to harm the small one after minutes ago he had nearly killed his loved one's child. 

Yes, he would be his own sort of father despite the barrier between species, he was clever titan after all. He'd make a farm for food, in the trees to avoid the grabby hands of other titans: he'll snatch wild animals from below and put them in his own makeshift pens, tend vegetables and fruits by raking the soil with his nails and finally spread the canopy of the trees to give light upon the crops he'll nurture for this miracle of a baby. 

If he gets stuck he'll get around the obstacle, either be the logic of his ideas in reality or difficulty creating tools necessary; in the end, he will get it done, for her. He even proposed to himself that he would tame wolves with his intimidating eyes and offer them as extra companionship for his little angel. His life was completely devoted to her now.

It would be perfect: that what he thought anyway and so it was decided, the baby would grow in the hands of an abnormal family. The titans and Mother Nature creatures.
With the end of one story: another begins, this one.