Aot:The Silent Witness

Chapter 4: The First Titan

The night was cold, and the sky above stretched endlessly, filled with the pale light of distant stars. The wind howled through the darkened forest, carrying the desperate breaths of a lone girl as she ran. Barefoot and wounded, Ymir Fritz sprinted across the uneven earth, her frail body barely keeping pace ahead of the torches behind her.

The men who pursued her were relentless, their voices sharp with anger.

"There she is! Don't let her escape!"

"She's just a slave—she doesn't deserve to run!"

The flickering torchlight cast eerie shadows between the trees, illuminating the fear in Ymir's wide, tear-filled eyes. Her lungs burned, her legs ached, but she didn't dare stop. She knew what would happen if they caught her.

She had been foolish to think she could escape them.

The undergrowth tore at her skin as she stumbled forward, branches snapping in her wake. She forced herself to keep moving, her breath ragged, her mind racing. The sound of hooves pounded against the dirt. They were getting closer.

And then—

A sharp pain lanced through her leg. An arrow had struck the ground beside her, slicing into her calf. Ymir let out a choked gasp, her balance failing her as she tumbled into the mud.

The pursuers laughed.

"She's finished."

They closed in around her, forming a circle, their bows aimed at her frail, trembling form. Ymir tried to crawl backward, her fingers digging into the earth, but there was nowhere left to run.

She shut her eyes.

But as she crawled backwards she stumbles upon a crevice under a large tree's roots and fell. But as she fell she doesn't hit the ground but hit's a lake et the bottom of what seemed to be a chasm.

And then the water trembled.

A deep, ancient presence stirred beneath the lake—something older than the forest, older than the men, older than the very ground itself.

And from beyond the veil of time, two unseen beings watched as she fell deeper into the lake.

---

In the silent depths of the lake beneath the chasm, Oris and Ember drifted weightlessly, their ethereal forms untouched by the water around them. The cavern walls loomed in the dim glow of unseen energy, and the stillness was broken only by the distant tremors of the world above. Here, in this hidden sanctuary, they watched as fate of the world unfolded

"She is pitiful," Oris mused, her voice soft as a mother's whisper. "Hunted, powerless, yet still running. Such resilience."

Ember crossed his arms, floating lazily beside her. "Resilient, sure. But she won't last."

Oris turned to him, her form radiating warmth. "Because she has a spark, Ember. A tiny flicker of something greater."

Ember huffed. "So? There are a lot of 'sparks' in the world. What makes this one special?"

Oris was quiet for a moment. Then she spoke, her voice carrying an ancient certainty.

"She has a wish."

Ember remained skeptical, watching as the girl above fell in the lake's still waters.

Oris slowly extended her feeler, and the space around them shimmered. "We can reach her. We can offer her a choice."

Ember hesitated. He didn't like this. Something about it felt wrong.

"…Fine," he muttered. "But I'll be the one to ask her first."

The glowing roots around them trembled as reality bent to her will.

---

Time seemed to freeze for Ymir. She watched as the surface of the lake gets further away from her as she falls deeper. She thinks wether this was her punishment. Wether it was divine retribution for opening that fence. because she gave livestock the thing that she wanted the most, freedom.

As she wallows in her regrets and dreams, she feels something lurking beneath the beneath the bottom of the lake.

She turned, her heart pounding.

Before her floated two beings. One was immense, its form vast and formless, yet ancient and warm, like the earth itself. The other was smaller, a glowing entity shifting with energy, pulsing like the flicker of a flame.

The smaller one stepped forward.

"Hey, kid." His voice was strange—its like his speaking inside her head.

Ymir is taken back, her entire body tense. "W-Wha…?"

The being tilted his head. "You're dying, you know. Your drowning and the human's on the surface wants you dead."

Ymir flinched. The words hurt more than she expected.

Ember's glow flickered. He studied her, as if searching for something. Then he asked, "If you had power, would that change anything?"

Ymir's breath hitched.

Power?

She thought of the tribe, of the men who hunted her, of the chains she had worn since birth. She thought of the pain, the suffering.

Would power change that?

She hesitated—but only for a moment. Then she clenched her fists and nodded, her resolve burning in her chest.

Ember stared at her. He didn't speak. He just watched.

Then, he turned back to Oris. "Well?"

Oris smiled. "Then let her have it."

Oris swims closer to Ymir, and as she gets closer to her her bldy shrinks to a size proportional to Ymir's. Oris uses her feelers to attach herserlf to Ymir's back, specifically her spine, to give her a gift, a gift for her to use to change her fate.

---

In the real world, the hunters checks the crevice to see how deep it is.

"Thats long fall." a hunter said as he peeks at the crevice

"Tell me about it" another hunter said next to him. "you think she's dead?".

A hunter on horse scoffs at his question

" does it matter? The fun's over anyway. We cant fit in that hole, and even if we did we dont know how far that goes" he says irritated that the hunt was over.

"Hey what do we say to fritz? " another hunter on horseback asks.

"We say she died of blood lost and died, and then fed her to the wolves. No need to over complicate it." the hunters leader says. Clearly not at all worried of a punishment because a slave might have escaped.

"but keep an eye out just in case. If she doesn't surface, she's dead either way - without food or air she'll come out eventually "

The other hunters grunt in acknowledgement.

But the ground trembled violently. The sky cracked with a deafening sound, and then bolts of golden lightning surged from the heavens.

The hunter's barely had time to react before the world was consumed in blinding light.

Ymir felt her body twist, stretch, change. Her skin burned as raw power coursed through her veins. Her bones grew, lengthening, reforming.

She rose.

Her new form was colossal—towering above the trees, her body rippling with sinewy muscle. Her ribs jutted out like an exposed cage, and her face was concealed behind a skeletal mask. Steam poured from her body, her breath heavy, her movements primal.

For the first time in her life, she looked down upon the people who had once towered over her.

And they cowered.

Her hunters, the ones who had called her nothing—now they trembled in her shadow.

A deep, guttural roar tore from her throat, shaking the very earth itself.

She was no longer prey.

She was something more.

And the era of the Titans had begun.

---

Within the Paths,a realm that exists outside of physical space and time. Ember and Oris stood among the glowing branches, watching the strings of fate shift and weave anew.

"She will change the world," Oris murmured.

Ember's glow flickered dimly. He wasn't so sure.

"She just went back to them," he muttered, watching as Ymir returned to the tribe that had enslaved her. "Even after everything, she still chooses them."

Oris did not respond. She simply watched, waiting—letting Ember find his own answer.

And so he continued to observe, unsure whether he had just witnessed the birth of salvation…

Or the beginning of something far worse.

[END OF CHAPTER]