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𝔦. Unknown / 𝔦𝔦. Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping / 𝔦𝔦𝔦. The Mountain Goats, Soft Targets / 𝔦𝔳. Unknown / 𝔳. Unknown / 𝔳𝔦. Friedrich Nietzsche, Good and Evil

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What an age! Every one is dying, everything is dying, and the earth is dying also, eaten up by the sun and the wind. I don't know where I get the courage to keep on living in the midst of these ruins. Let us love each other to the end. / George Sand in a letter to Gustave Flaubert, June 27th, 1870.

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I. The serpent eating itself, tail-first.

The first time Kore Byrne tastes blood, she is nine years old. The blood is hers and she wishes it wasn't.

She can feel herself slowly slipping away into the same veil of inexistence as her mother before her. Her small, bruised body feels too heavy for her to even attempt to get up, while the agonising pain keeps her down and silent, apart from the occasional whimpers that escape her when she does the slightest of movements. She has heard what the men that brought them there were whispering amongst themselves, she knows of the only two possible outcomes for her. She will either survive the night and end up getting sold like cattle in the darkest depths of the Underground or she will succumb to her injuries and leave her last breath right there, on the wooden floor of this dreadful cabin in the middle of nowhere.

She is cowardly enough to hope for the second. In spite of herself, she wishes her body would just give in a bit faster. She misses her mother, quite terribly. She would like to see her again.

Even after she is saved-

(It is a sight that doesn't leave her mind for years. The figure of that boy plunging his knife into that man again. Again. Again. The drops of blood on his face paired with his guttural screams making him look like a devil, far more than those men ever did. The girl stabbing the last man right into his head, making his immediately lifeless body drop to the ground. The memory follows her like a shadow, whenever she goes, becoming part of her even though she was nothing but a witness.)

-she can't stop thinking about her own cowardice, about the way her body shut down in fear, leaving her to rely on the good will of others to survive. She is weak, frail and vulnerable. She is on the bottom of the chain, she is an afterthought, she is alive on borrowed time.

When Shiganshina is breached, Kore watches as everything she knows gets trampled under the Titans. Parents mourning for their children, children mourning for their parents-Kore has no one to mourn for, so she just runs like it's the only thing she knows what to do. She goes through ruins of a city she once considered home ignoring the pleas of people around her, the screaming, the blood that stains the streets and what's left of the humans that the Titans caught. The only thing in her mind is survival and yet, the desperate hope of living for another day is not enough to save her.

Once again, Kore is saved.
Once again, she hasn't earned it.

By the time she is fourteen, she has created purpose for herself. She wants to be the person on the front, the one who defies their human instincts in the face of duty. For once, she would like to be the one who protects rather than the one who is being protected; fighting for humanity and its survival, no matter the cost. She joins the military with no hesitation, ignoring every cowardly part of her that yearns for a safe, quiet life.

Kore has decided she is going to become someone worthy of survival and yet, the more she fights to survive, the less worthy of it she becomes.

And so the cycle continues.

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II. In the life we have chosen to lead, loss is the only constant.

KORE BYRNE ／ LITTLE FLAME.
XVI. Cadet Corps.

IT BURNS
BECAUSE IT MUST

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LUCA BAUER ／ LITTLE SPARROW.
XVI. Cadet Corps.

EITHER WAY
IT SUFFOCATED

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NESSA SCHÄFER ／ PURE AS SNOW
XVI. Cadet Corps.

GUILT IS
A WOMAN TOO

&

Moira Khan ／ Guardian Angel

Levi Ackerman ／ Humanity's Strongest

Eren Yeager ／ Last Hope

Mikasa Ackerman ／ Blade in Hand

Armin Arlert ／ Dreamer's Heart

Jean Kirstein ／ Silver Tongue

Sasha Braus ／ Brightest Light

Connie Springer ／ Bottled Sunshine

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III. Loss, that eats up everything - like the snake, even itself.

DISCLAIMERS! attack on titan and everything related to it belongs to hajime isayama. i own nothing but my own original characters (kore, luca, nessa & moira) and everything related to them-their plotlines, dialogue etc.

CONTENT WARNINGS! spoilers for the attack on titan anime. this fic will include topics that might be triggering for some readers like; canon typical violence, blood and gore, character deaths, ptsd, depression and depiction of other mental health issues, cannibalism, suicide/suicidal thoughts, references to human trafficking/sexual harrassment, depictions of trauma and other aot-typical triggering topics. please be careful about the content you consume and put your mental health first!

DEDICATIONS! GARDENS0NG lannisports fatalfIaw wxocann rhaenryas and any other unfortunate soul that had their soul ripped out bc of this show.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES! backstreet's back with another fic whose fandom has no cohesion with the rest of the fandoms i've written for. my range truly impactful. i have a lot of thoughts, not enough mutuals who have watched aot, too much free time that i dont know how to properly take advantage of and a mind that wont rest so here's LOSING DOGS <33

aot has very complex lore that makes my head hurt and i decided to make it even harder for me by creating four ocs, each with their own backstories and storylines!! kore is the main main character, but luca, nessa and even moira will get some chapters from their point of view to explore more of their dynamics with other characters! i don't want to spoil too much, but all of them kind of have a love interest/a relationship even if its in the background. kore's love interest(s) won't be revealed yet, but this is not a romance-centric fic anyway. the true love story is between kore and her friends, more specifically, luca !! they're platonic soulmates (platonic in bold bc luca is gay and i dont want to see anyone shipping them) and despite everything, they're each other's person.

you might notice that during the writing of most of s1 will be very character-centric and will mostly focus on building the relationships between the cadets. if you know me, you know im a SLUT for the found family trope, so get ready. we're building things up before ruining them and everything goes to shit <3 (i miss the times when aot was about eren covering up the wall with that goddamn rock)

hope you enjoy reading !!