Caged No More (Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin AU)

[Historia]

Ymir is a born again, haunted by the memories of the boy she killed and the past life she once lived. In order to put her mind to rest she must uncover the truth behind her past, even if it means reliving it once, twice, three times more. Along the way she meets a girl who craves to be special; something that her father couldn't be and so much more. This girl's name is Historia, and though the two of them are often at odds their fates are intertwined, both inheritors of a legacy that was too much for one goddess alone to bear.

The Year is 845.

This is the year that a girl reawakens, another fights back, and a third, a harsh mistress, is born.

This is the story of those who are caged no more.

Archive of Our Own

Other Characters​

Ada (original character) - survivor outside the Walls
Kelly - leader of the survivors outside the Walls
Amanda - member of the Garrison, West Division (Quinta); Rita's best friend
Klaus - member of the outlaws
Nikki - member of the outlaws
Jörg Kramer - Mathias's father; head of the Kramer Merchant Association
Isolde Lenz (original character) - farmer; Riecka's mother
"Baggy-pants" Leon - member of the Garrison, West Division (Fuerth)
Kenny Ackerman - member of the Military Police Brigade
Doris Iglehaut - Rita's adoptive mother
Henning Iglehaut - Rita's adoptive father
Ducio - member of the Garrison Regiment, West Division (Quinta); Rita's assistant
Wilco - member of the Garrison Regiment, West Division (Quinta)
Bernhardt - leader of the outlaws
Jarratt - member of the outlaws
Erhardt - member of the Military Police Brigade

​

 

[Historia]

0​

The sun has fallen, and with it comes the sky.

The year is 845.

This is the year that a girl reawakens, another fights back, and a third, a harsh mistress, is born.

This is the story of those who are caged no more, in a time lost to the pages of history, in lands where the recent emergence of science outweighed a centuries long reign under the enigma of faith, and holy war was the only successful means in settling numerous disputes of various degree; endless and without pause.

Once divided groups became united kingdoms. These united kingdoms then swelled into vast nations, as they kept vying for more territory, expanding upon their once God-granted rights under new banners and new truths and new powers but the same beliefs, the same rivalries, the same hatreds, the same divisions, the same accusations, the same affronts; disfiguring once lush and lively regions to leave behind desolate wastes where no life would ever grow again; poisoning the land further with the even more destructive seeds of metal and machinery in their place.

For those caught in the middle, their citizens, their subjects, were forced to live in fear, forced to flee in terror, and it was when an entire village seemingly vanished overnight without so much as a trace, a faint whisper of dark deeds done on a dark night, leaving one meek, insignificant, but wrathful child as its only survivor, that this changed forever.

Alone and forced to fend for herself, through a lifetime spent in distant lands strange and unorthodox, this child flowered into a woman, returning to these colorless lands following much hardship with a mysterious power unseen in millennium and became a mighty ruler.

This woman was named Ymir Fritz, and unlike those before her, she ruled benevolently, with her mind close to her heart, ever beating in favor of those less fortunate, of those less able to pull themselves from the tragedy of war; ever bleeding for those who sought to continue the tyranny of the past, the disappearance of hopes and dreams for so much as to fill their chests and stomachs with greed.

She spent a long time rebuilding these lands in her image. Thirteen grueling years of using a gift many perceived as a curse, a black murmur of the past back to punish the world that had abandoned it, before all was peaceful, all was quiet, all was calm, until she was usurped — murdered in her sleep, when her eyes were shut — and her body disemboweled and decapitated and her mysterious power split nine as these lands were plunged into a great war that lasted a lifetime longer than she herself had lived. Its victors rewrote history; the defeated ousted, butchered, and enslaved as these lands came back under the thumb of oppression and savagery until history dared repeat itself again. Another rebellion, another great war, colossal, violent, more devastating than the last; another quartering, another beheading, a new victor, the shackling of the old, and, in the midst of this all, the child that was reborn.

But, the world… the world was unforgiving.

Its wounds never healed and the scars tarnishing its surface left it puckered and sore with horrendous, atrocities galore.

The child was taken, grown up beaten and bruised, then sacrificed for the greater good before her rule truly had a chance to begin.

The year is 845, and the world is still cruel. These lands are still recovering, but there are whispers of another, third great war.

Humanity has been beset by monsters known as Titans for a hundred years. A seemingly endless tide of giant humanoid devourers that managed to wipe out all life save for a lucky few.

Nobody knew where they originated from, what their purpose was, and most important, most dire, how to effectively end them once and for all.

In desperation, these lucky few shut themselves behind three heaven high walls for their own protection, thinking themselves safe. Only, they were being kept in the dark, gathered like cattle in cages for the inevitable. Until, one day, one red-colored, quiet, unassuming morning after dawn, this all changed when they were given a grim reminder of what it meant to be locked away.

And, in the midst of it, a child is reborn.

This child is also named Ymir.

Haunted by the memories of the boy she killed and the past life she once lived, all she remembers is the blood, tissue, and bone. All she remembers is the torment of the mindless. All she remembers is the face that haunts, the face that always reminds her of the cruelty of the world. That it always has been and that it always will be; that it should always be held in a certain light, and that she was never meant to be born, molding herself as someone who was nothing, who thought herself worthless. Crimson nightmares, bringing death. The world was her enemy, her string, and her fate. For she was a causality and it resented and cursed her as it always would.

So, in retaliation, the girl runs away from her fate, and the world, in retribution, starts its end.

But the child, the girl, Ymir, she keeps running, and running, and...

 

[Historia]

1​

Running.

Running, running, and running away.

In her dream, the boy is running.

Running further and further away.

Even when he knows it is futile and questions race through his mind seeking answers he has no time to find as the monster's powerful, clawed feet break apart the earth in its pursuit, not far behind, gaining in its elongated strides.

Questions such as why he failed to anticipate this possibility. That they should have kept their voices low and thrust their personal feelings aside. Should have not brought them up to begin with. What he could have said differently instead of telling the others to fly as fast as they could.

Not that any of this matters now.

Using the last of his strength to keep his head high, watching them go, for all their training, for all their preparations, what could ever have prepared them for something like this? Despite everything, all he can do is listen and wait as they flee and he remains, hoping he might give them more time even if for only a short while longer, as the monster gets closer and closer and closer still. Until its hunched, misshapen form looms over him; a shadow stretching so far and wide he sees only darkness whichever way he looks and so chooses to turn and face his impending demise because again, what does it matter? He has gone as far as his legs need carry him. He stands safe knowing they are far in the distance and still going.

He meets the Titan in its black eyes as it crouches on its hind legs. Its mouth is open only a crack, yet flowing from it is a fetor so foul that he almost faints then and there. Though, somehow, he stays on his feet — still confident he has done the best he could given the situation — while its hot, rotten breath rolls down his body. Its mouth widening, brandishing pointed teeth each as thick and tall as himself, he flinches, yet does not back down. Eyes watering when it chortles then pulls away and there is one moment of respite — one, surreal second of quiet, his fear abates — before something, something sharp, hooks itself around him and cuts into his sides, he does not cry out in pain.

He grimaces as it hoists him high into the air.

Upon there he dangles, able to glimpse a last look at the others as small black dots on a sea of green before the monster's hold tightens and squeezes into his spine and he finally cries out in anguish as that second of quiet becomes an eternity of pain when its teeth sink into his legs and chews up his waist, pulling out his insides.

Indescribable, unthinkable pain, as he vomits and spits and coughs up bile and blood, the juices spilling down his chin while upward still its hunger moves. His ribs are crushed next, then his lungs are skewered, and gasping for air as he tries in vain to suck in more, the whites of his eyes fill red. His head is ready to explode. He lets out a scream that dies in his throat as the world — his world — becomes dark.

His last light and final thought is of his little brother back home.



The girl let that scream out in full, frightened awake, and slammed the back of her head into the tree she had been nodding off against and began to slide, much to her great panic. She frantically grabbed hold of the trunk lest she fall. The branch she had settled on the night before had frozen over. Winter's woes had coated it in a thick icy sheet and, after she found her footing again, she exhaled in relief.

The girl pulled her tattered blanket closer around her shoulders and put one of her trembling, frost-touched hands behind her head. She winced at the black strands of matted, wet hair barely seen when she came away with hot blood on her cold fingertips. Just as they slipped past her sight, she thought what a mistake it had been to climb the highest point she could reach, though she knew the alternative would have been much worse.

Lost in another forest of these giant trees, she had been chased into this one, all the way from the river she had been using as a natural guide, by a pack of wolves who had first caught scent of her in their territory several days before. She had made a foolish decision to linger in an abandoned village, gathering all she could carry rather than only what she could stuff in her mouth and move on. Luckily they had only taken her sack of food and clothes, but over the course of those several days as she kept along the river, the girl became convinced that she was still being stalked by them, and was proved correct when she saw their bright yellow eyes closing in one night. She only just fended them off with rocks and loud noises, but took the hint and fled to safety and had not come down from this tree since. Though she knew she could not stay up here forever, and so outstretched her foot, poked around with her toes until she touched a lower branch, and eased her way down about halfway where she listened closely to the wilderness about her, for sound was the only way to be certain it was safe, and after she waited a time and heard nothing, continued her descent in peace, when, it was she were almost at the bottom that a sudden, sharp jolt of pain split through her skull and she was blinded by flashes of red and next she knew she was flat on the ground, gazing up at the tree she just fallen from. Shivering drops of rain which fell from the great many leaves overhead and the damp, sodden mud beneath her were the only things she felt immediately after that told her she had not, in fact, died, before the pain caught up, reassuring her that she had not broken her back as it flared from her neck down to her buttocks and began to burn fiercely while it settled into her bones and she stayed unmoving in silent solace.

While she laid there, she recognized these scarlet flashes of pain were memories. Recent memories. Of the monster in her mind. Of the boy's own, never ending pain. Ones' she continuously shoved back down, fighting the urge, the hunger, the want for blood that once licked her tongue, and so she clenched her teeth and forced herself upright, swallowing them again, because this boy was dead and she was not.

Not yet.

His name had been Marcel, and she let her thoughts of him fade and there she was again, alone and unashamed if yet swollen and sore upon this forest floor.

Ymir. That was her name.

And she was alive.

Thus, she fully picked herself off the ground though her still aching body tried to protest. Covered in mud, she turned away from the tree because she had to keep moving if she wanted to keep on living and ventured further into this new forest of giant trees, holding those memories at bay until she heaved from the strain. Bent over, knees buckled, she gasped the night's numbly cold air and watched her spit drool out her open mouth and nothing more as with them came the monster and its hunger and those horrors which crept their way back inside her mind despite her fortitude. Like her flight from the wolves, they were roused from their black slumbers and circled her, closing her in, no escape, waiting for her to panic then would devour her, too. Same as she did the boy, but by dragging her down instead. Sink their teeth into her flesh, snapping and biting and tearing. To bring her back into the fold, into the nightmare, and consume her whole. Clawed her body, carved her bones, craved her blood, until gradually naught remained.

She heaved again and collapsed. The cold soaked through her tattered clothing and seeped deeper into her skin. She lost control of her bladder and urinated and curled in a fetal position where those memories began anew. What little warmth her body clung to was wholly taken by forest then, to shreds, and thus the girl died for the second time. But, in the moment her world dimmed for what was to be eternity, the release from a past life of torment and the horrible start of another, something inside of her refused to submit. Something inside of her breathed life into her lungs for the third time and she woke with a gasp as the memories returned in force.

The world would not let her abandon it so easily, and, realizing this, Ymir buried her face in her hands as if doing so would make them go away, but the memories were still there. Fierce and frightening, they colored her mind crimson and she wailed at her own futile naivety, whimpering into the frozen dirt as all she wanted was for them to leave her alone, seared into her brain forever.

Memories of before, of the boy, Marcel, and his companions, as she stared down at them, so small, so fragile, and the terrified looks shadowing their faces. How they fled, scampering for the cover of the field of grass beyond the plains, and she gave chase, catching him alone, then the taste of his blood and crunch of his bones.

Memories of after, when she awoke. When she saw his remains against the smoke billowing toward that crimson sky, and the trail she followed to a scene of even greater carnage: that great wall, sundered, and that town thereafter, as it smoldered, and the utter silence, which awaited beyond.

Memories of these things, these monsters — no, not the wolves, something far worse — that followed her everywhere she went, gave her little time to rest and recuperate or make sense of it all. Monsters not unlike herself and never again.



She was still in her own vomit sometime later, babbling like a babe borne again, eyes upon stars unseen among the tree canopies, when she thought she heard the rustle of the underbrush as something approached and so pushed herself up though her legs screamed no more. They burned, melting below her. Before she could even take more than a few steps she fell face first into the mud; helpless, as she heard it get closer, and closer, and closer still. When it was almost upon her she shut her eyes because this was it, this was the end, only… nothing happened.

Then whatever it was tried to speak.

Infantile attempts at communicating its thoughts into one word. One word chanted over and over and over again until she forced herself to look and came face to face with the boy forever pained: Marcel, whose sacrifice allowed her the mercy of being freed from a very long nightmare, instead.

His body was broken, spine twisted so he held himself upright with his hands, bellying forward. His feet dragged limp across the ground, while his intestines trailed far behind. The back of his shirt was torn, skin shredded and viscera exposed. He leaned further left than right, his right arm not much but loose sinew and bone. His black hair was spread out in patches atop a peeled head, cracked skull visible beneath fleshy red flaps hanging down. His neck was partially ripped open. What remained of his jaw hung low, his mouth snapped wide with a drooping tongue. The only thing wholly intact was the upper half of his face, barring the bottom of his nose.

Relief immediately washed over her because she knew he was guilt personified, molded from memory and nothing else. Though, she also knew that lingering here staring at him any longer would be. So, she took a moment to compose herself; a deep inhale, slap to the face, anything to get her limbs out of their languor, before she kept moving, took short rests whenever she was able, and tried her best to not only ignore the thing following her every step thereafter as she went, but also avoid anywhere the light might touch the forest floor. She stuck to caves and crevasses and the tightest spaces she could find that offered some protection against both the elements and predators, though no matter how far she went, the land seemed endlessly empty. Just like the abandoned village she came across earlier, every subsequent place she chanced upon was deserted. And, again, while there were signs that people once lived in these places until very recently, if not for the fact of her pilfering them for leftover food and clothing, Ymir might have thought herself to truly be alone.

It gave a bit of hope that there were people out there like her, if nothing else.

Most of them, these… villages could be found huddled together not far from the huge river that started somewhere beyond the wall leading into that town and continued on and on for what seemed forever. Others, deeper in the forest, were only accessible by narrow bridges over streams or canyons unless they were further in. In these deepest of villages, of which there were very few, nestled on massive branches and connected by roped walkways, their ladders went so high her head spun and she thought she might find someone up there, surely, but even these had been abandoned, and in her isolation Ymir began talking to Marcel as if he were indeed real, before she happened to find her way out after coming to the start of a mountain. Her ascent was slow and laborious and she would rather not fall again on a loose cropping of slippery rock.



When she reached a knoll well above the forest and was able to see the other side facing away from the decimated town and broken wall, confronted with vast grassy plains spread before her, she forgot the piercing cold in the wake of such a sight as the day was dying and the sun bled across its sky.

Beside it, beyond it, whichever way her eye traveled, the broken wall stretched long and stood high and circled far, dipped out of sight over rolling hills upon the horizon, and made everything feel smaller than they actually were.

And while impressive in its enormity though it was, the sun shone over it all the same as it retreated, its long rays of light visible above like so many red-tipped bayonets withdrawn after the charge, continuing to find places to widen the breaches before night began the next assault.

She suddenly felt nauseous. A chill ran down her spine and she sat down and clutched her stomach as if the sun's bayonets had pierced her. She gaped in horror as her guts spilled and in the ensuing panic she desperately, incredulously tried to push them back in when another flash came and went; this time of a dismal field, stripped of all color but dark browns and harsh yellows, sickly greens, a tinge of purple like the land was the abused victim of rage unfettered, just visible over the lip of a muddy trench. Starved and filthy, she sat next to a dead man, the trench a living beast slowly digesting his remains. She heard someone talking, saw someone standing atop the trench, hazy in the blistering heat. But all she wanted to do was run away, and crawled away on her hands and knees just as she came to the knoll's edge.

One gaze away from a long fall snapped her back into the present where she cried out and drew back. The wind scratched at her face as it howled. She landed on her back, upside down and face to face with another dead man. She stared into the white of his lidless eyes until she rolled over on her side, plugged her ears and closed her eyes, and waited for this latest nightmare to end.



It persisted into the night.

She pulled her blanket closer while it continued its march.

To further keep her mind away from everything unpleasant, Ymir attempted to spot the river and from there a way out this forest of giant trees.

At first she had thought to take the plains there earlier, but then she would be in danger of exposing herself to those monsters roaming without purpose against the setting sun, and so had to wait until night fell completely which it almost had. Only, the longer she waited the colder it became, and this blanket was not enough protection nor were these clothes any longer. She had to find shelter before anything else, lest she freeze to death, and while a few farms and windmills were visible, scattered about the plains, the likelihood she could reach them in time was slim. And, once again, the farther she traveled in the open the riskier it became because there was always something lying in wait, whether it be these monsters or a smaller predator.

Which led to her decision to hug the giant forest she just had trouble leaving as she followed the fall in the mountain, descending it and when she thought she had seen the end, not wanting to linger any nearer than necessary, Ymir was surprised by other giant forests dotting the land in abundance. She sacrificed extra time to navigate around them entirely, as well, whenever she could, that by the time she came to the river it was too dark to see her hands in front of her face and so she had to rely on her ears to find her way from then on, using the calm sound of the river's flowing. She followed it before it began to unnerve her greatly for, instilled in her long ago, it was the quieter moments that were the most disconcerting. It was instinctive for her ears to pick up on certain, acute grunts and groans and earth-stomping feet of those monsters during the day. While, during the night, it was the bloodcurdling howls and growls and struggle of wild animals that prowled around as these monsters slept. That stalked her all the way to that tree, these tenacious beasts which frightened her so that she mistook the boy's walking corpse for one and were scared off by the monsters before they, too, had left her alone in turn, where then her memories crippled her, and so the cycle had gone. To not hear anything at all was a cause for alarm, but, also, after everything thus far, a comfort, and if there were a choice between the silence of the river and the headaches, the accompanying pain that was this boy Marcel's memories trying to tell her something, his last thoughts, his last screams, she would much rather forever dip her feet and endure the odd sensation of wet sand between her toes for eternity than the alternative — not that it was up to her to decide.

She glanced back to the boy. The only way to learn more about him in life opposed to the dream of his death, his final moments, was the same as her own past. Of a certain battlefield she kept being returned to. Those trenches, the dead man, the shouting, and a colorless land, all a piece of a whole, confusingly mixed in with his, and a mysterious voice which guided her through it; everything telling her to keep moving forward in search of something important.

The boy's jaw swayed as he met her eyes. His vocal cords closed and opened like an insect's mandibles. No sound came out except one short higher-pitched, blood spurting wheeze, but she nonetheless still heard his words in her head because his screams would never go away. He was a part of her, and as she replied to him, asked herself the question of "why her?" as she turned on her heels reluctantly, followed him from the river until she was at the precipice of yet another of these forests of giant trees after again foolishly thinking she was free of them with the last.

Why was she given a second chance, spirited away from the nightmare which had consumed all the others like her? That this boy had to die so she may live again?

She felt he was only the beginning in a long, estranged history that she, for now, could not remember anything other than that battlefield, guided by the voice of someone grand.

Of someone caring and kind.

Someone who told her that no matter how terrible things seemed she must keep moving. To follow this boy. This ugly fragment of a bloody death.

But though she stood before this entrance to this giant forest in particular, its trees so enormous they seemed to touch the stars themselves, she hesitated for these trees appeared wicked. Ancient, twisted tawny tower-gates blocking passage to whatever secrets lay therein and when she peered beyond them, saw only blackness.

She felt her chest tighten, a rumble in her heart in anticipation at what might be waiting inside. She dared not risk it, but, again, something, someone, told her otherwise; that her past would only come to light if she plunged into the dark and dragged it out herself, kicking and screaming like a whining child. That she had to go forward, keep moving, ever onward, until the land disappeared beneath her feet and there was nowhere left to be. So, she submitted, for the alternative was death.

And scratching and tearing herself on thorns trying to keep pace with the dead boy's surprisingly lithe form down, she came to something after a time: a structure in ruins within a clearing surprisingly devoid of trees as if time ceased here and allowed no wilds past the ring where the flowers grew. White flowers, with bright yellow centers. Beautiful, shimmering. But even their beauty was overshadowed by this grotesque structure ravaged, raped, and despoiled. Once a solace, it was now just a shell of whatever it used to be.

Yet again, she was afraid of what potentially lay inside, lurking, and would have moved past it out of instinct, ignored the boy — just another hallucination in her mind, after all — and continue her wandering, if not for that voice — oh, that gentle, loving voice — beckoning her from that dark. Oh, how she wanted to!

But it persuaded her otherwise.

Intimidated, pressured, pushed her on, even.

That voice of someone caring and kind, turned vile and cruel, which ordered her forward into that darkness, into that unknown, to brave the peril, swallow her dread, and conquer her own fears, shouting, screaming "keep moving, keep moving, keep moving!" so that soon her body was at its splintered doors. She weakly pushed them open, her arms like two pieces of unfurled rope, while blood rushed through her veins as her heart pounded in her ears. Thump. Thump. Thump. She had to keep moving, and forced her way in, tripped, tumbled on.

Falling in a dusty heap, eyes to an open ceiling above, the moon's light shone brightly, helping her to see.

Around her, nothing stirred. Only silence reigned, like at the river, and she turned to the boy, to Marcel, to ask why here, what was the purpose of leading her to this place, but he was gone. And the voice that spoke to her, remained quiet in kind.

She was alone again.

No, she thought, she had always been alone.

Eventually, she caught her breath and sat up on one of the old and rotten wooden pews lining either side of her, and assessed even in her own awful state a lone podium flanked by two large statues at the front of the room. Behind them, was an altar, and slowly, but surely, she made her way towards it.

She reached it shortly thereafter, its worn and aged plaque, rusted and cracked, was surprisingly warm to the touch as small dark shapes began to appear when her focus narrowed.

She stepped back, knowing them to be letters, and squinted and tried to sound out the word they formed. Only her voice was gone. What came out cracked out notes that were nothing at all, like a broken flute, and she gave up, then simply stared at the statues again. The depiction of what they were. What they were called, long abandoned, long forgotten, only, she could not… She was tired… So very tired.

She doubled over beside the podium.

It was hollow in the back.

She put her knees up against her chest, scrunched herself into the void space, and rested her chin on top of her hands, an infant inside her mother's pregnant womb once more, eyelids heavy for the first time in what felt like ages and it was not long before she was fast asleep and the world, her world, became dark, her last thought and new understanding being that she were led here because her name was Ymir and maybe it was time for her to truly live.

 

[Historia]

2
​

For the first time in a hundred years, Wall Maria, the outermost wall and the first line in humanity's defense against the Titans, fell, a great many people perished, and today, four days after, the sole thought in Historia's mind was that nothing mattered.

That nothing ever had.

That nothing was the one, singular absolute in the world. The end. The book shut. Curtains closed. That being nothing meant everything, and she looked down at her bare feet dangling off the carriage, watched the blood seep between her toes on that night again, where it was for the many a day of absolute tragedy, for her it was the very best in her entire thirteen years of existence.

When, again, she saw those frightened eyes of her mother, with her pathetic attempt to struggle against the knife drawn across her throat that sliced so deep it carved bone.

When, again, she felt that warmth as it sprayed and rushed down her mother's neck and drenched her clothes and soaked the ground beneath in crimson regrets, her final words cut short by her killer's blade.

When, again, those final words, their intent clear, were the single, defining assurance that set her mind at ease every time she recalled them in her mind: she was the bastard child who should never have been born.

It was the moment her life was nothing from the very beginning, and so she was finally freed.

The only surviving daughter of her late father that she knew, an impoverished noble once of great repute born with a weak heart that kept being squeezed with but a drop to spare; one that finally ran dry the day the Wall fell and whose actions were entombed in her memory forever, the same as her mother's death, with his last act being to shield her from harm and send her away with a few parting words, lest his legacy, his secret, die then and there.

It meant while her mother was little more than a whore, she herself who was nothing, meant everything.

Now, Historia gazed out at the farmland stretched out before her in all directions, far as her bright blue eyes could see, divided rows upon rows of stalks between wheat and barley and corn and other grains which swayed briskly in an evening breeze. Territory within the confines of Wall Rose set aside for orphans in the unlikely event of Wall Maria's fall.

Because...

"Goin' to sit there all day?" the man hired to secret her from place to place that same night and at current — asked, after one too many fights, after one too many bitten fingers and after one too many refusals to do what was demanded, what was expected — had brought her to this place in the middle of nowhere. Sweaty and red-faced, he motioned her down. "This your stop. Come on, move it."

She glared at him and didn't budge.

"I said move!" With a raised hand, he slapped her — hard — then lifted her by a tuft of her blonde hair and dragged her to the front of his carriage, behind the horses. "You'll learn one way or another." Taking a last swig of his bottle, he poured the few drops remaining down her throat and tossed it. "You'll learn!"

She spat. The man's rough hand caressed up her thigh. Her father's words came rushing back to her. The man clumsily pawed at her, his large hands awkwardly fumbled about trying to unlace her undergarments, and he let out a curse in frustration when she resisted. She bit his hand and he yelped, then punched her in the stomach. She knelt over, gasping. While he held it, continued to curse and whimper, her eyes went to the bottle not quite far enough away. As he licked the spot, trying to sooth the hurt, her small fingers deftly closed around the bottle. She was thinking of her mother, because she now knew what those words actually meant: that she was more than nothing.

Historia brought the bottle down as hard as she could on the side of the man's head while he was bent down. It shattered into a dozen dazzling shards and she picked one of the larger pieces up and slashed his neck before he had the chance to recover. He made his last sighs in gurgles, the shard buried deep in his throat as his body hit the dirt road a moment later.

Blood ran along the crevices of her palm from a deep gash, yet she felt no pain, and she stared at his body while she then wiped her hand on her dress and straightened her undergarments and turned to the horses, then to the farm. She looked down at the man's body again, back to the farm, then to the horses.

The choice was obvious.

She climbed her way up onto the end of the carriage, crawled to the front and so took the reins of both horses between slippery fingers before she unhooked the harnesses which bound them and let them loose and watched them glance around in confusion, then awkwardly slid onto the nearest one's back and leaned forward. She wrapped her arms around its neck.

"Everything's going to be alright," she told it. "You're free now, so you can do whatever you want. You can go wherever you want." The other horse was already gone. "Your friend left you… you're all alone now…" Tears rolled down her cheeks. They tasted sweet. She tugged at its mane. "You're all alone with nowhere to go, but you're free now so it doesn't matter. So go! Leave!"

The horse simply flung its head forward, then back, and threw her off, but when she raised herself on her elbows, saw its tail swishing this way and that as it moved over to the side of the road and simply began chewing some grass, she laid her head back down, eyes on the drifting clouds and sobbed.

From here on, she had to forget herself. Who, and what, she was. Her father's first, last, and only words to her.

From here on, your name is Krista.

Because she was special, and she knew this wasn't where she was meant to be.



She named the horse Almond, after its color.

Since she left the orphan farm, Historia had traveled what seemed a far distance, retracing the trail the carriage took, reaching the edge of a small village by evening. She held no recollection of them passing it, but her attention had clearly been elsewhere the entire time to ever notice.

As she drew nearer, she heard the villagers up and about while they worked, toiled, and slaved away: the thump and thud of hammers and nails on wood; the plunge and splash of buckets into wells; the flap of clothes left out to dry; the shouts of children as they played and the laughter of the adults watching them — so unlike the stillness of the servant-tended ranch she was raised on. Brimmed with the hard, honest work of everyday folk that was lost on someone like her which altogether seemed to be far removed from the shock that was Maria's fall.

She slid from Almond's back and led him over to a tree in the shade where he plopped down, exhausted. As she stroked his mane, something swelled in her chest that she'd only felt when her mother's blood splattered her cheek: warmth. More importantly, her stomach ached. She was hungry.

So, while she let Almond simmer down, Historia set her sights on one of the houses closest to her and furthest away from any equally curious eyes.

She stooped under one of its back windows, checked the vicinity, and judged it safe, then proceeded to peek inside. There was a table set for evening supper. Her stomach rumbled. Not having eaten anything decent in several days, she could acutely smell the freshly baked bread from where she was hiding. Though, she moved away from the window because, regardless of how hungry she was, how safe she deemed it, lingering any longer was risky; especially if by some unlucky chance that man's body had been found, as the only thing between here and there was the plain, everyday, unassuming countryside. But, just as she was about to slip away, a slumping, groggy-eyed girl with long, rusty hair came into view, and she kept against the window, held her breath as the girl opened it further, yawned, grumbled to herself, then walked away. She waited until her feet pattering across the floor were distant, then started to creep back before something else happened. That was when she saw the girl leave out a door from the house, carrying a bucket.

She gulped.

Her mouth was dry as bone, too.

Historia looked after the girl as she disappeared around a bend. It led into a forest, and though she'd the acute idea of following her, there was already a well not far away with a bucket and rope set up.

She approached it. Glanced around again.

Nobody.

Quickly, quietly, she pulled on the lever. The bucket dropped with a hollow thud and dark crash, and she peered down at it in splinters at the well's bottom whereupon her heart dropped with it. The well was empty! And the noise! One of the villagers — that girl — had probably heard it! She reared back. She had to get out of sight before someone ca—

"Ouahf!"

Too late.

Whoever she collided with cleared their throat. The rim of their hat blocked out not nearly enough of the sun, angled just right to blind her, and it prevented her from seeing clearly and making a fast get-away without stumbling and Historia found herself squinting up at an old woman's wrinkled, sun-kissed face instead.

"That one's no good," the old woman said with a slight hoarseness to her voice. "Better off comin' inside and takin' what I have stored there."

Watching her go, Historia noticed that the old woman was heading straight for the same house the girl had exited and she turned to run, eyes down, the sun behind her, but the old woman was faster — stopped her before she could with a grip strong as iron.

The old woman took her by the wrist and dragged her to the house.

When they stepped inside, Historia glanced back to where Almond was.

"Your horse is gonna be fine. I already gave him some water and an apple after you'd came sneakin' over," the old woman reassured her, as she led her to that same table she'd been eyeing earlier and sat her down. "Don't worry about him right now," she said, while she reached for a pitcher, poured a cup of water, and offered it to her.

Historia accepted it with her good hand, but hid the other under the table, and drank it with less hesitation than she'd thought. The old woman seemed to have no intentions of harming her, or worse, though she could never be too careful, and when she was finished, tensed when the old woman gave a tilt of her chin at the edge of the table and concealed hand.

"Let me see it."

She relaxed and laid it on the table, palm side down, having come to the realization that if the old woman had wanted to hurt her, it would've happened the moment she stopped to rest with Almond under that tree, or even earlier, on her approach to the village, and did as told.

"Flip it over."

She flipped it over and the old woman grabbed a cloth and a bottle of what could only be a strong alcohol because of its smell — Historia knew it well — and firmly held her hand down. Historia flinched when the bottle came near her ugly looking injury, but, for all her strength, her harshness, the old woman went over the smaller cuts and wiped away the dirt and dried blood with extreme care. Rubbed it in with a gentleness that was surprising before she focused on the gash.

"Hold still."

Nonetheless, it still pained her immensely, and Historia bit her lip until she was done.

As she began wrapping the cloth around it, the old woman sighed. "Young girls shouldn't behave so recklessly. I've some leftover bread from yesterday. It's still good to eat. Otherwise, it'll be for the pigs and chickens."

Historia watched her stand up and get some.

"Why are you being so kind to me?" she immediately asked when the old woman brought it over and sat back down.

"My own selfishness." The old woman ruffled her hair gently. "My daughter, you resemble her..."

"Your... daughter...?" Looking down at the table, she now noticed it was actually set for three, and glanced over at the door.

"No, not who you're thinkin' of," the old woman said with a coarse, though sincere chuckle. After a moment, she continued, "My daughter is much older — joined the Scouts before all this." She waved a hand about as if to say "madness". Maria's fall. "Hasn't been home since, the ungrateful child..." She chuckled again. "No, that one's Achi. She's… been through a lot." Ruffling her hair again, the old woman gave her a smile. "And I know that you have, too. I can see it in that face you're makin'. Saw you comin' down earlier, and figured 'ah, here comes another one…' So… naturally, I suppose... "

Eyes to her hand still on the table, Historia had no words. There was nothing to say. Or, rather she'd no notion of what to say, as the atmosphere between them began to part and the silence grew; no knowledge of what it meant to feel that way for another person. Let alone, a stranger she just met. For someone as caring and kind as this old woman appeared to be, she herself was — She felt the old woman's hand on her head fall away, and looked back over.

"My daughter…" There were now tears in the corners of the old woman's eyes. "...they burn the bodies, you know that? Could just be ash by now... and I wouldn't even know." But, through the tears, in those eyes, was nothing except pride. "She's alive," she continued saying, fiercely. "Otherwise, I'd know… ain't any Titans worse than me, after all."

With a quick thought, Historia placed her newly bandaged hand over one of the old woman's. It was covered in calluses. "I believe she is... has to be…" She looked into her eyes; eyes so full of what she never received from her own mother nor her father nor anyone else. "Can I... stay here a bit longer, before I move on...?"

The old woman nodded. "Of course. I wouldn't have let you say no for an answer, anyway." She wiped her tears away, all hints of heartfelt emotion of the past buried down deep again. Locked in a cage only she could open. "My name is Isolde. Isolde Lenz."

Her father's words coming back to her, Historia nuzzled her head into the old woman's shoulder, squeezed her hand tighter, and returned her smile. "Krista."

"Welcome to your new home, Krista."

A smile that was all too fake for her own good.

Because she was better. One of a kind.

 

[Historia]

3
​

Suzanne, head servant to Jörg Kramer of the Kramer Merchant Association within the walls, stood in the doorway to her employer's study, hands clasped in front of her apron, and awaited his response to the words: your son is missing.

Shortly following the fall of Wall Maria, news had come in the form of hungry, hysterical, and desperate fleeing refugees that Quinta, the frontier district to the south of Shiganshina where the Titans had broken through which had also been thought lost, had, in fact, survived the initial onslaught by its people having barricaded themselves behind its gates.

This was both good news and bad news.

Quinta was where the main Kramer estate was located and where the majority of the Kramer Merchant Association's financial records were kept. This was the good news, as with Quinta's gates barred the Titans were unable to tear through the district. But, the bad news, was this also meant that anyone currently trapped within Quinta could possibly ransack the estate — and everything else — in the turmoil, and Suzanne doubted that Jeanne, two guards, and a handful of servants would be able to stop whomever it may be because while Jeanne was no pushover, the guards under Jörg were worth their weight in coin, and Suzanne herself had overseen the training and choosing of those handful of servants, people in panic, in frenzy, were a mob and mobs were a storm of violence. In her experience, once they gained momentum there was little preventing them from the upheaval and ruination of whatever they chanced upon to achieve their haphazard goal of collective, wanton destruction. Two guards, regardless of how well equipped, well disciplined, well paid, paled in comparison to the swirling emotions of impending, inescapable doom, and the spare rifles locked in the armory would be of no use to them, either, for the only one with the key to unlock it other than herself as the head servant was the captain of Jörg's personal guard, who was currently accompanying them along with — and to make matters worse — the entirety of his entourage not counting those spread throughout the territories watching over his various shops, factories, and warehouses.

Wealth abound to afford his own army rivaling the entire Garrison Regiment's numbers, and Suzanne always shook her head at his habit of leaving his main residence so poorly secured for reasons she could only guess. It was as if his ego had swelled in proportion to his girth, which continued to expand alongside his fortune, but she knew it was deeper than that, and the sight broke her heart after she only just finished picking up the shattered pieces from more than twenty years of regrets. At the end of the day, though, she supposed it was for the best. Being met with such little opposition in the mansion, perhaps the mobs would spare them, take what they wanted, and leave. Only the very idea was a fool's thinking because people were cruel and Jeanne wasn't the kind to shrink away when danger harried her door and the armory being locked wouldn't deter her in the slightest. The mansion still housed a fine assortment of decorative and ceremonial pieces on display and while the swords and hammers and axes and spears were indeed somewhat serviceable — if nothing else than to be used as crude bludgeons with their bedazzling jeweled and encrusted gemmed hilts — Suzanne hoped Jeanne and the others in the good woman's care wouldn't get themselves killed.

"Surrender" was a small word for such a big woman, after all.

For while being impressed by human height was laughable in the face of the Titans, it was no insignificant thing to gaff at the giant of a woman that Jeanne was even in her old age.

The longest employed of Jörg's servants and his previous head servant, having served Sara's father and helped raise Sara as well as Suzanne's own late blooming, boisterous and proud, she could still vividly remember being scooped up for lighting one on estate grounds after she first arrived. How this woman carried and scolded her like the child she'd been, and when she tried to punch and kick herself from the woman's arms, it was no skin off Jeanne's back to answer in kind, squeezing her so tight in an embrace the air left her lungs until she stopped resisting and woke up later to find her cigarettes gone, a pail and mop by her bedside, and told she wasn't allowed to leave until the room she was locked in was spotlessly clean. Her last day smoking, her first day serving, pushing back and forth that mop with cracked ribs and a temper that persisted, until Jeanne dealt with that too, and just one of the many lessons that she took to heart in mentoring Mathias albeit to a lesser degree later on. That was to say… not everyone was going to put up with your shit.

Then, once she became head servant after Jeanne stepped down in a show of faith, and one that Suzanne never dreamed of squandering since, she also extended these lessons to every subsequent servant who passed through the estate, further continuing the tradition, and, to her own credit, made some needed additions when she felt comfortable in the role, adding on the skills of basic self-defense and this group under Jeanne's supervision was no exception. As a result they were certainly capable should any dilemmas arise in her friend's much enjoyed "retirement". So the worry then wasn't that the estate would be ravished while they were away, but that Jeanne and the rest, guards included, would incite more unnecessary violence by retaliating. Even as a warning to keep any would-be thieves and ruffians at bay, the spoken thought of, or, worse still, actual news of the estate having been turned into a battlefield prior to his eventual return was not something that would go over well with Jörg Kramer, sire of the Kramer Merchant Association. Nor was it so simple a task to just pack up the operation he planned months in advance and only began conducting the past week in Fuerth to start the journey back, forget attempting to enter the district itself. If Jeanne and the others could even hold out that long… however many months or years further away that would be now, with Wall Maria's fall…

Quinta and Fuerth shared a single village which acted as their central link to one another, being a hub for the boats ferried to and fro on the river which ran through all three. But with the sheer amount of refugees still pouring into Fuerth and the surrounding territories within Wall Rose, no boats would be readily available in the foreseeable future. To cover that distance on horseback and foot was out of the question. The lands between here and there was already rough and rife with dangers uncommon the further inside you traveled, courtesy of the Exterior Garrison's utter incompetence, without having to throw the Titans in. With the Titans, to leave now would be voluntary suicide. Not to go without mentioning their hands were already full dealing with said refugees as they continued to spread out illegally within his holdings in what was previously the cusp of the Interior and, short of shooting them on sight which would cause a whole separate stir of trouble he could doubtless pay off but would rather avoid entirely, nothing could be done about that, either. Though, obviously, he also couldn't afford to sit idly by and let all he accomplished over the decades in building up his legacy be for naught. So, he'd sent upon a favor from the royal capital to see his assets secure everywhere and that was what they'd all been waiting on for the past week, but, disinclined to share exactly what this entailed in private, publicly he pranced about reassuring his clients that the matter would be taken care of before the end of the next year, and whatever it was would be of no benefit to those trapped in Quinta, either, she was certain.

She imagined he also arranged something to be done about his estate in Quinta regarding the scandal if particular items kept in his private collection became public knowledge. Had wondered if the boy was aware of their importance, too, as the silence between son and father elapsed until, Mathias, still too young to sit among his father's inner circle and much too fiery for his own good, was left to twiddle his thumbs while the rosy world he knew crumbled before his sheltered eyes. Against her efforts to the contrary, Suzanne couldn't hinder his growing anxiety for long as he paced around his room in the guest quarters late at night unable to get a wink of sleep because all his thoughts were of Rita. Of the childhood friend not seen in well over a year since her graduation from her training and promotion to the Garrison, and who may very well be in Quinta with, reportedly, half of its remaining population; last seen trying to save a man and his daughter from an overturned wagon in the fields not far from its outer gate or so one eyewitness proclaimed and paraded the gallant tale of "a girl with golden locks who stabbed one of those things right in its stinkin' eye and felled it in one blow, straight through to the other side".

And whereas to Suzanne it could've been anybody with blonde hair, or just nonsense, the ravings of a man mad with grief seeking salvation, in Mathias' concerned mind it was nobody and nothing other than Rita.

Though unfortunately unable to save the man and his daughter, supposing it actually had been Rita, her bravery allowed this eyewitness and several others the chance to escape. As for what happened to her after, he'd shrugged and said "eh, can't really say!".

And despite further reassurance that this meant Rita was alive and safe, having more than likely taken refuge with the others in Quinta, that it should be enough to know she was for the moment unharmed, the scion of the Kramer Merchant Association heard none of it because he'd wanted to see her with his own two eyes. Towards that endeavor as proved by his abrupt absence this morning, his concern for the girl he loved and was like a sister to Suzanne in kind, had finally reached a boiling point and spilled over the edge when he ran off of his own accord just last night and now he was gone; joined the first line of volunteers, soldiers and civilians alike out into the now Titan-infested territory in the hopes to save what and who they could, or at least that was what she gathered thus far, having asked the Military Police officers and spoken with a few of the lesser drunken Garrison soldiers who'd been those signing up these unfortunate men and women per what could only be a result of Jörg's favor.

The grand majority of them were the same refugees who narrowly avoided becoming Titan food with nothing left to lose because they'd already lost everything and of those she questioned, many recalled a stand out among the crowd: the boy in the nice clothes with an air of nobility and the refusal to take "no" for an answer though his application had been denied immediately.

Obviously he'd found a way around it utilizing his status and she'd find out exactly how later, as her hands twisted cloth, but for right now she continued to wait upon his father's reply. This man who'd accomplished little besides unhurriedly dividing his shares and shuffling his stacks of what wealth remained since his son left, and Suzanne having known the answer to her question the moment she knocked on his study's heavy wooden doors, she still couldn't admit to herself that he could've fallen so low.

The "how" Mathias left prevalent in her mind, Suzanne remembered that particular morning where she dealt with that worker and he barged into one of his father's many meetings, both of them unannounced, uninvited, and loathed by their recipients. She, receiving a threat to all she held dear. He, told his concerns were still being looked into, even though everyone knew it was never going to be a topic of discussion for Quinta had been considered abandoned from the onset, left to fend for itself by the Kramer Merchant Association and its peers, the royal government, and perhaps even the King himself.

Jörg and his colleagues saw it as an accountable consequence — or a minor setback at best — though they still funded this expedition that his son sneaked his way on.

The royal government considered them a lost cause, yet they still sent soldiers to recruit and organize this expedition.

The King spoke through his adviser, who from no word had reached Suzanne's ears of what was to be done about Quinta, silent since The Fall began, but, nor had any news of condoning or approving or finding alternatives to this expedition either, which only meant one thing: all eyes were on the refugees and what was to be done with them.

Where to send them.

To… dispose of them.

And it wouldn't surprise her in the least if this expedition was just the first of many, as Jörg still couldn't be bothered to look up well after he was finished, his coins sorted, payments signed, taxes and levies and debts collected, written down in his record book, as always.

Thus she dared inquire again.

"So what're ya gonna do about yer son, hah? Did ya know he knows about the artworks?" she blurted out, accent and arrogance all that she'd been doing so well in biting back on for the past twenty years in her struggle to rise above her roots, slipping from her tongue as easily she might slip a knife between someone's ribs, of which Jörg was her current victim, ignited by Mathias's own passions she resonated with and the lack thereof within his father of the same blood.

Oh! And how everything came trickling back and blinded her better judgment for but a moment like the blood running through the cracks and crevices of the Underground!

The disrespect in her voice that he'd heard for the first time since his days when his wife were still with them brought his eyes from his record book. It was something Jörg had told no one, not even Sara — a loss so devastating that it almost consumed him, body and mind — before she passed, and Suzanne knew it was also the only thing that might coax him into tearing his eyes from the damned record book, a tome of transgressions, its pages dank and rancid from Jörg's ever dripping brow, hunched over it relentlessly each night same time same day, through his midnight fevers, induced by his lack of proper rest, day in, day out, week after week, month after month, of nothing but work — of nothing but worry of all the wrong things — to lift a finger to help his son that she promised never to tell between she and two children ever since the day they first met.

In one of those rare moments where the man, in his delirium, saw and spoke to not the girl he rescued from the slums beneath Mitras but his wife who died too young, mistaking the two, he began softly before regaining his senses with a scowl upon realizing this wasn't Sara but Suzanne, the urchin who stole his wife's heart and was entrusted by her to care for their son in her stead while he worked tirelessly to cope, and, why, his artworks, his most prized possessions that if discovered, if taken, could be worth more than the Kramer Merchant Association and all its wealth combined! How dare she find out about its existence! He'd trusted her! And, yet, trusted nobody! His only remaining solace was that he knew her secret, too, of which he reminded her, and one he was inclined to, if he so wished, and had every right to be rid of her, then and there.

But, then, she told him of the threat she received. That if Mathias was in the company of whom she thought then he was in peril from greater forces than a scolding from her, the wrath of his father, or the Titans themselves, explaining thusly that if he agreed to reveal the location of the artworks in exchange for "safe passage" to Quinta like Suzanne surmised, there was no guarantee said person would keep his word. Mathias would be murdered, and whatever happened after, artworks or not, meant nothing.

If his son died, his legacy died, and then Jörg would lose everything like he always feared but was currently too blind to see it and would become just another refugee with only empty coffers to keep him company, for the rest of his life.

She was not about to allow either to transpire. Even going so far as using that man's teachings again, further explaining how while she was unsuccessful in tracking down the messenger, the man who threatened her posing as a worker, she had found who hired him to deliver it from one of the volunteers he bribed.

While she still needed to know the "how", she at least knew that Bernhardt had been here, in Fuerth. It was enough to go on for the time being because if she was going to convince this stubborn man, then it had to be.

So, uncaring whether or not of the consequence, she told him of this first man who had raised her, as Jörg nor anyone within the walls would know of his existence, let alone his continued survival, if not for one quiet morning in Stohess forty years prior.

Whereupon, clearly recognizing the descriptions she brought forth if not the name, what little color remained drained from Jörg's sickly face as he turned even paler still. Except, as son was to father, his eyes, hidden behind his loose, black strands of hair, lit by the candlelight upon his desk, appeared to blaze. His lip curled back, showing his once fine teeth now yellowed. He rose from his chair, fat fingers reaching out as if to grasp her throat, and, then, he stopped. He slumped back down, and stared for a long time at his precious record book, before he finally heaved a heavy sigh and looked up at her with the eyes of the same man who'd rescued her a lifetime ago. It was the man who loved his family, his wife, his son, and a sliver of hope rushed through her, only to become a shiver of disbelief that settled down her backside as that man vanished again, abruptly as he surfaced, buried by the sorrow weighing upon his heart and thereupon when he spoke she never would've assumed it was the same man for the first time, ever, in her life.

"Then just let the boy die."

It was his final answer, laid bare.

And she began to protest, only for him to raise his hand to silence her.

"I gave explicit instructions to turn him away. It's out of my hands now," he said, sounding defeated. Bitter. Disgusted. Too easily. And it's all because of you, his eyes seemed to say, because now I know why. You rascal. Thief. Murderer! "I'm done trying to spur that boy on the right path."

Her surprise lingered for but a moment more, then she coughed. Loosened her collar. Stood straight. Choose her words carefully, this time. What she wanted, in exchange. The last request of a humble servant; his best. "Then let me accompany the agent you have no doubt sent for." In addition to helping mastermind these "expeditions", though she dared not rile him up any further and give him cause to resent her more that she ever thought him capable, it was clear to her that a man of his standing would have more than just one favor owed to his personage. "He can secure your estate. I can make sure your son is safe. He has been my responsibility, after all."

"And after?"

"I'll leave your service. You'll never see me again."

"Fine, fine," he said with another heavy sigh. "The 'agent' arrives in a week. Two, if he's late. But, know this," he warned, holding up three stubby fingers, "This is the third time."

Forever grateful, she bowed and took her leave with a triumphant smile because the old Jörg was in there, somewhere, after all.

 

[Historia]

4
​

A day and a half after leaving Fuerth with the expedition and their subsequent ill-fated parting, following countless failed bids to get comfortable without a twig or root or something else poking into his side, Mathias found himself hands folded over his stomach as he gazed up at a seemingly endless sky of melting winter greens for yet another night of restless sleep, wondering if Rita was faring any better in Quinta while memories from their youth together faded in then out until, eventually, one stuck.

It was nothing, at first. Just another gold coin in a chest of the same: rather dull and uninteresting. But, upon closer inspection, he found it to be weathered smooth like stone, and took it in his palm, realizing that it was an ancient coin from before the walls were built.

He remembered the day he received it: 836.

The year he first did his father proud.

He'd kept this coin on his person at all times attached to a string around his neck until she appeared with her father and it ceased being the most beautiful thing in the world.

How she stood there smiling wide, gazing up at a statue in a corridor at his home that was his father's estate in Quinta, her already dazzling features lit underneath a thin column of light protruding from a gap in the corridor's ceiling, iluminating her soft, strawberry blonde hair in a halo of brilliant shimmering gold of its own; the shining angelic beauty of innocence.

Then, how the picture in his mind began to change, form a new shape, until he was again seated at the dining table with Rita and her family on the second floor of their apothecary which belonged to Henning, her adoptive father, and his father and his father's father before him, passed down for generations, this faded gold coin on a string given as a gift to wish her well before she was to start her training with the military.

His own father's lessons echoing in his head again — "always consider the popular opinion" — he felt sick because how could such a man like his father, Jörg Kramer, head of the Kramer Merchant Association, possibly begin to know what the common man wanted or understand the popular opinion if he refused to mingle with them besides the rare occasion?

Every day, his father had drilled into him all kinds of knowledge, from stock fulfillment, sales strategies, and managerial techniques to methods of ingratiating oneself with the royal government. However, what was the point if one didn't listen to the people one served? Those who truly mattered? Who cared for more than material possessions and never held an opinion besides what was good for them and theirs? They weren't like those in the Interior. They knew what hardship was, and while he still believed in his father's notion that hardship built character, it served to experience real empathy first in order to even begin putting pain to practical use. Which his father hadn't.

He remembered the look on his face when his mother died… vacant, like she was just another lost asset to sign off in a logbook and forget.

So there he was again, across from Rita dressed in her uniform and her newly gifted pendant, still smiling that sweet, lovely smile, with Doris and Henning, her adoptive parents, beside her; the people who truly mattered, to him. Who didn't care about luxuries or popular opinions and had actually struggled like everyone else that was normal and how he wished to be an actual part of their family for there was no hierarchy, no head at the table in Rita's family because everyone was equal. Everything was shared.

On the table between them were those familiar candles and the lamp and he could feel their light warmth against his face as Doris laughed at something Rita said and he began to drift himself; at last surrendering himself to a sleep he thought would never come again, when, suddenly, the light of the candles waned and lamp dimmed as a chill set in and shadows deep and deeper still and darkest yet filled the place where comfort had once been and Doris and Henning vanished while Rita remained, though her smile was now gone and Suzanne's words occupied the space where his father's had been: "You can't hold onto her forever".

Her innocent youth cracking to reveal the cold, remorseless truth, the scene crumpled, the apothecary collapsed, and she grew in stature, saddled on horseback at the head of a detachment of soldiers, features grim, hair a hastily fashioned mess, gazing up at the face of Wall Maria and its gleaming cannons higher above and its gates down ahead, wearing those same colors of the Garrison proudly upon her shoulder: red ruby roses entangled in white thorns and, freshly stitched above it, a single white stripe, denoting her promotion to a rank of leadership, whereas the pendant was nowhere to be seen.

The distance separating them became a chasm. He could never hope to reach her.

Standing smaller across from her, Mathias hesitated to step forward and call out for fear he may fall in, and was forced to watch her go, disappearing through the gates and into darkness. The unknown. Then, the dream died away as he recalled the cold morning he heard the news of Quinta's fall from Suzanne, of the meeting between his father and his father's colleagues, discussing their most immediate courses of action when he entered, demanding to know what they planned to do about Quinta — about Rita — and his anger at their response, opening his eyes because it infuriated him still.

That response? They were working on it.

Hours, days later, a week later, and they had still been working on it.

So, he'd gone out to do something on his own, succeeding in joining an expedition to look for survivors and salvage anything they could find with the help of this man named Bernhardt and his band of outlaws on the condition he'd lead them to his father's treasures, a significant portion of his fortune, perhaps the most valuable of it all, in Quinta, in exchange for safe passage there.

But, that was before the village.

Before the Titan chased them away.

Scattered them.

Before…

He shuddered and tried not to think about it any longer, not for the second time today, and turned on his side.

After that, they came across Titans four times more, but he'd rather not think about those encounters, either, wanting to lose himself in memories of Rita again despite the fear winning again and he was pulled back to their present circumstances where, since then, Bernhardt forced them to abandon the wagon in favor of cover under the giant trees on horseback, which had marginally improved their chances. Not that the man seemed worried. Riding horses hard was only a few days, a week if slow, and no more than another week on foot, to Quinta, or so Jarratt had said, following a heated argument where they agreed to new final terms due to the abrupt change in situation.

Glancing at Nikki sound asleep, he pursed his lips.

The two of them had shared the same horse and more than once she favored pushing him off to save that smoked meat, leaving him sore and bruised and having to catch up before they could move on. He'd so much wanted to take it from her and throw it somewhere in the forest — but then they would just waste time trying to find her instead. His whole body still aching something horrible from that ordeal, he was in a foul mood before, was back to being in a foul mood now, and, his mind working against him, brought up Klaus's words next to make it worse still: "Maybe you just lack the nerve."

Though, he'd prepared for this. By doing the exercises Suzanne taught him in times of stress, he loosened his jaw and breathed deep, relaxing his muscles. Releasing his tension.

Getting worked up over it did him nor the refugees nor Rita any benefit; just like the day of his mother's funeral, his last memory of her being his head against her breast as she lay in bed, too sickly to move, feeling her fleeting warmth against his, a flicker of life, stroking his hair, until there was nothing at all, and though the word envy had never once crossed his mind something still gnawed at him like an itch. An envy being around that table, with Rita and her family. Doris, energetic and spirited, genuinely welcoming him not as the heir to his father's wealth but independent of his status. Henning, quiet and reserved, never asking anything in return for still being his father's physician.

A longing.

That is, until Suzanne, though he'd said nary a word of it, whom he trusted with his life, his confidence, shared stories of his mother from before he was born as a young girl plucked from her home, forced into a marriage she'd no say in, all chance of a happy life suffocated though being privy to all the comforts of the world, planning her own departure after her only son, he, was born, and how quickly those plans were undone.

That this longing, this hurt, this feeling, this loss was representative of something deeper, something rawer that was only coming to the surface now, like a flower in bloom. That had blossomed when he met Rita, sharing their pain together, their losses, and continued to grow.

"Why, it's love, Mathias. But you can't hold onto her forever; at some point you'll have to let her go."

And lying there, he twisted his shirt where his heart was, remembering that day Rita left.

Suzanne had only offered a thin smile in return, cautioning him to forget about Rita's troubles to focus on his studies. On his own problems. That she could handle herself, she was a strong girl, so he, too, had to be strong if he wanted to see her again. If he wanted to be the new head of the Kramer Merchant Association, someday soon.

"Love can only bring you so far. There will come a time when it won't be enough. I want you to be prepared for that."

"You idiot," he chided to himself in a whisper.

Grabbing a fistful of dry leaves, of course Suzanne knew about his feelings for Rita, and, crunching them in his palm where the ancient coin once was, of course she also knew how impulsive he was, that she wasn't about to simply sit idle and let him go. She'd find a means to stop him, so he'd have to reach Quinta before she did, get Rita, and then… and then…

He turned red in the face and let the leaves fall.

"Can't sleep, lad?"

The voice startled him and he shot up, peering around. It was too dark to see, but, after a moment, his eyes adjusted and he recognized Bernhardt's wide, muscular frame.

The former soldier was on watch duty.

"Worrying about your sweetheart?" he teased. He turned his head partially, mustache peeking out underneath his nose, fixing him with those light blue eyes of his. Though, they were no longer bright and cheerful. Rather they seemed glossy, like a corpse. Snuffed of their eagerness and youth he put on any other time before, he seemed... more somber than usual.

Mathias stayed silent. Like he was seeing, for the first time — perhaps, the only time — a crack in his defenses. The real Bernhardt. If that was even possible. Then the village came back to the forefront of his mind, assaulting him with the horror this man was capable of on a whim.

Instinctively, as before during their argument, Mathias' eyes wandered to the sword at the much older man's waist.

His heart pounded in his chest. He was soaked with sweat. Cold. Shook, at this revelation of who he exactly got himself involved with, finally sinking in.

"Well don't be, she's just fine," Bernhardt said quietly, seemingly oblivious to the look he was giving him. "Far away, safe from harm. Hunkered down, snug and warm. You should be more concerned about those you're currently traveling with."

He gulped, and dared to ask the former member of the Military Police a question dangling there since meeting him and his "glorious outlaws" that night at the bar.

"Have we... met before?"

Bernhardt perked up at the question, going back to his usual self for but a moment. "Why, I thought I told you lad — everyone knows the scion of the renowned Kramer Merchant Association!" He lifted a finger. "And, well, I thought of paying a visit to an old acquaintance of mine. I'm certain you know of her." Then, it lowered, as did his sing-song voice, pointing down at the shotgun Mathias was unaware he was clutching. Deathly so. "After all, she is the one who taught you how to shoot, am I right, lad?"

Mathias went from cold to frozen.

—Suzanne!

He told them it was his father, not Suzanne, so then how could—?

It suddenly dawned on him, then: his father.

Reading his son's thoughts was nothing for the sire of the Kramer Merchant Association. Not a mystery, but a whisper in the dark. It was why his application had been denied outright, and, perhaps, as he looked into Bernhardt's eyes, something far more sinister and just how deeply embedded his father's role in it might be, thinking of their deal.

He'd agreed under the assumption it was just numerous pieces of old, indistinguishable art, stored away in the underground cellar. But that was when he'd been just a child, trying to impress Rita by showing her a bunch of dusty canvases like all the rest adorning the walls throughout the mansion.

What if… What if they were actually something… more?

Countless theories leaped to his mind but when he opened his mouth nothing came out to which Bernhardt answered wholeheartedly now, rejuvenated; his armor repaired.

"All in due time, my lad! Best get some sleep, now. We still have a way to go!"

Their brief conversation done, the only thing Mathias could do after was lie back down, apprehensive of what further lay ahead even more, the repressed memory of those two soldiers, the Titan, and their flight, slicing through his thoughts like Bernhardt's blade through one of those soldiers' necks, coming back to frighten him.

Having stared at Bernhardt the same way he'd done the Titan back at the village as it pawed at its face, pulling its own skin off and exposing the muscle underneath, its expression even more jubilant than before — almost as if it was excited, that the wire still lodged in its eye from Bernhardt's attack was some new game it never played before, its large, dumpy body falling from the stable roof, crawling like a newborn babe ever toward them as they all fled — he remembered how Bernhardt dragged him relentlessly and they rounded the corner of the main building just as the wagon Jarratt stole appeared with Klaus and Nikki in the back, tossing both him and the soldier's equipment alongside, all the while feeling like this were happening in some far-off world, yet knowing in his gut that, no, this was real, and it was a living nightmare.

Tonight, Bernhardt was the monster to be feared.

And having seen it in his eyes, too, Mathias was reminded of the same look in Suzanne once, when he angered her greatly, that silenced him and sent the same shiver down his spine.

Whatever this man truly was terrified him worse than any Titan, as one word came to his lips and his eyes passed over the others, sound asleep: murderer.

To think he only had a man such as this and his gang to rely on from here on until they reached Quinta… He really was an idiot, but… for Rita… he… He was lost, and alone, and angry, and, oh yes, afraid, without her.

"Hold on, Rita," he whispered, her smile putting his mind at ease only a little.

Saying her name aloud in the confidence that he'd save her was all he could do to keep from fleeing like Leon had before him as he stayed awake, with only murderers sleeping soundless beside him.

 

[Historia]

5​

Walking into the district hall after her first visit ended poorly, up to its second floor and down the hall to the district mayor's office, Rita looked around in disappointment. Her shoulders slumped.

Nothing in the room had been touched since she left it the first time and that was what she'd feared and what her parents were once again right about: nobody with any actual authority was left in the district to guide them. Thus, the duty now fell to her officially, as the highest ranking member of the military still alive: precisely what she didn't want.

She sighed, letting out her frustration.

When the gates had closed at the start, before the reality of their dire situation had completely settled, she'd sent soldiers to secure the warehouses, the Garrison barracks, the noble's district, and other key locations whilst taking a small force herself to protect the mayor as planned beforehand, only to find he nor any of the other officials present. All of them had fled the district ahead of the caravans, unbeknown to the commander. The Military Police's posts being abandoned when she had them checked confirmed this further, and they must've slipped out the night before. Where then the question arose as to how, but faced with the resulting turmoil she hadn't the time to figure the answer. That aside, it still came as a punch in the gut to know that the constant complaints of her mother's about the local officials were proved true in the end and her belief that all of them couldn't be so utterly selfish, from her own experiences meeting with them during her time in the commander's company, were a fantasy. That, surely, at least one of them would've stayed behind and stepped up instead of leaving it to the commander and with the commander and every ranking member of the Garrison dead with him, to her.

Her eyes dropped to the floor. How stupid of her, to hope that Mr. Muller wasn't like the rest of them.

And having learned from this, she was now here a second time to make this their new headquarters after spending the better portion of the week agonizing over the mass leap forward it was from watching over four soldiers to presiding over the fate of an entire district — there'd not been one moment where her hands were never not full, her mind never not occupied, since the start.

Her eyes went back up. They traveled from the large, empty desk which would continue to serve as a seat of power starting today, to the obnoxiously larger, fanciful chair that, while quite comfortable, could be broken down and used for necessity and not luxury, replaced with something more practical, across the vacant bookshelves lining either side of the room to be cleared of whatever frivolous vanities not worth saving, until they rested upon the window behind. It overlooked the plaza that served as the district square and offered an unobstructed view of it and half the district as a whole.

She approached it and took a uncomfortable moment to look down the once deserted plaza now occupied by what remained of Quinta's Garrison soldiers and volunteers as they made their preparations for their later duties as assigned by her better: Amanda, her best friend and acting second in command.

She listened to her cool, raised voice as she instructed them and frowned.

During what was supposed to be the evacuation, the commander had rallied those senior members of the Garrison manning the cannons in a suicide charge upon the realization that the Military Police were suspiciously absent from the evacuation, leaving this year's Training Corps, the 103th Division, in charge of the cannons, and she remembered how the volleys that followed missed their targets by wide margins, their operators' accuracy a far-cry from their predecessors immediately before as they'd hit everything except the Titans, and wondered if Amanda was enough to keep them from bawling all over themselves with that temper of hers. The last she wanted were soldiers both inexperienced and even more scared than they already were, but the decision to elect Amanda had ultimately been hers and it was a week too late for regret. There was no time to second guess herself in her current position because she needed to work quickly to retain control of their circumstances. This office would be cleared and ready before tomorrow morning, as she turned to Duccio, one of three soldiers she reassigned to help her make sense of this mess thrown at her, while he stood in the open doorway, clipboard in hand.

"Commander, I have the duties for today," he said.

"Go on," she said, but, not long after her attention was back to looking into the plaza as her thoughts drifted elsewhere and her hand went over her mouth to concealed a much deeper frown.

She dismissed him shortly thereafter, and it was only once she was alone again that she let it show while a familiar feeling of inadequacy took hold of her and refused to loosen its grip; much like how tightly she suffocated the pendant around her neck.

It was awful of her to not have thanked him afterward, for from the onset he was the best of the three above and beyond his duty to prove himself. She'd even go so far to say she would've failed with the district further descended into chaos if not for him constantly her side, encouraging her.

This inadequacy shifted to self-loathing as her thoughts traveled back to younger days in a destructive effort to distract from her own current sorry state.

It was a scene from her youth, seven to eight, of running alongside Mathias as they explored his family's estate while Suzanne accompanied them.

Their fathers had been away, discussing matters in private of his mother's declining health, and she remembered how he'd led her to a secret spot under the massive tree which grew in the estate's inner courtyard and made her promise to seal her lips in promise of his knowing nothing about its location to his father. How adventurous he'd been, and… happy… he seemed, despite his mother's death being all but an inevitability. How she'd mistaken loss — in the years stretching on after the death of his mother with hers already being deceased beyond the walls — as something more than what it'd actually been: circumstance; shared between them solidifying those early days together not because they suited each other but because they were two lonely children whose fathers' were patient and practitioner, respectfully.

Excluding loss, they'd held almost nothing in common.

He, the outgoing son of a rich man.

She, the timid adopted daughter of his mother's physician.

Through this equal loss they had stuck together during those tough times and she rubbed the pendant; a gift from he to her kept fastened high about her neck. Doing so had become a soothing reminder that someone, somewhere out there, would always be there for her, would always share the same pain, the same comfort, and that together be stronger for it, or, at least until she went away for three years. Until she joined the military and saw how miserable the rest of humanity had it by comparison to either of their plights. Where she'd met the one person who'd made even those sorrowful tales seem further insignificant, and whom Rita told herself she could change for the better, because if she could get them past their pain, too, then maybe she could heal the hurt in her heart, too, but…

In the end she'd failed in that endeavor and she was afraid that this would be the same. Only, until it passed to someone better qualified — and soon, she could only hope — she'd have to serve to her utmost, no matter her personal reservations on the subject. For Wilco, for the commander, for that little girl, her parents, the whole lot, if nothing else, she would become the leader they needed in such turbulent times whether she liked it or not. Even if it meant she had to force herself to change. As was her duty as a member of the Garrison Regiment of Quinta.

And she was afraid of the implications of what that entailed, too, wondering if Mathias was safe, well away from this madness, when Amanda swaggered in.

Not turning from the window when she greeted her, the other girl was barely out of breath after all that screaming down below and Rita's gut twisted as her pendant's rounded edges pressed into her skin as the frown deepened still.

In the beginning, everyone figured their roles reversed, and being appointed the acting commander had done little to sooth the civilians' worrisome hearts and minds and it was Amanda, from the moment she strapped her boots on, not Rita, whom everyone had turned to for guidance though Rita held senior rank and Amanda herself cared not for the responsibility.

A week on and, while that sentiment was slowly changing, Rita couldn't not be envious.

Her parents' remarks the night she assumed the position at the dinner table rang heavy in her ears: Doris' show of rolling her eyes and Henning's silent apprehension; how she kept having to point out to her mother that she was only the acting commander, and her father, looking at her as if she'd just finished banging her head on the table like when she was six, reassuring him that it was temporary in time of crisis and without an officer of higher rank present; trying her best to answer their combined barrage of patronizing questions after. They had never trusted the military, had opposed her joining the Garrison, and continued to belittle her and shun her assistance to have soldiers posted outside the apothecary when offered for their protection and only by some miracle they weren't robbed once during the initial riots.

It was one of those time where she seriously contemplated where the loving strangers who had taken her in disappeared to, replaced by these anti-authority grumblers and seeing in a new light how strange it was the commander always came by to check how their business was thriving.

As a young child, Rita assumed it was out of concern because of their professions being so demanding and not their political beliefs being so hostile, but, as with everything else she'd seen now, the world was full of surprises that could turn what she thought she knew upside down in an instant and her parents were not excluded.

Most of all, as Doris' footsteps had fallen away as she slipped in the kitchen and her father slunk back to his work and her thoughts returned to the present, their blatant disapproval combined with the other civilians' woes and Amanda's ever looming presence cast a dark cloud over her that drew darker still for she had not the same cadence in her step, no power in her voice, stumbling over her words as she did her boots, standing shorter than most her age, with even more child-like features than her better…

Amanda was her opposite, her rival, the exemplar anyone in their right mind should follow. Rita was always behind her. Hiding in her shadow. The quiet and meek little girl, tugging at her father's legs too anxious to show her face.

But Amanda had declined on the grounds that she'd only make things worse, trusting her to lead them while she went about sweeping the streets heedless of her injuries.

This known, she should be glad that someone believed in her, but, how could the two of them compare when the only things Rita would fight here in this district hall were the sores on her behind and a lack of sleep from long, restless hours stuck putting ink to paper?

Not that Amanda gave a damn, by her side five years and counting.

And so it was she fully turned to look upon the other girl, fully turned, because all she did with fist over heart was in service to the people of Quinta and at the end of the day if she wanted to take control of the situation at hand she needed to start making tougher decisions — even at the cost of her best friend.

From here on, a precedent had to be set which saw the two of them stayed inside these walls at arm's length and wouldn't distract from their duties as acting commander and captain respectively. But she also knew that Amanda wouldn't take kindly to this news, and Rita braced herself for what came next.

She couldn't continue to be a shadow, flat against the wall while Amanda thrust herself into the light on her behalf even if it burned her and had; severely.

No more letting herself be ignored. No more letting things go. No more hiding. No more being afraid. No more searching for survivors they'd never find. Because, for Quinta's Garrison, the 103th Training Corps, the civilians within the district, loss was the one thing all of them had in common now, too, and it was time to grow up.

"What?" Amanda asked, eying her intently before she plopped down and propped up her boots on the mayor's desk in the mayor's chair behind her. Willfully ignorant to the situation facing them as ever, Amanda swung her head back and addressed her precisely as if nothing had changed in the last week. "Looks like you'll have your hands full today."

Though the lack of protocol made her cringe, Rita ignored it on account of who it was. And she could use her companionship. At least for today. The last time they would, even if the other girl didn't know it yet. Or if she'd even care. Might also do some good to hand over the command of the soldiers to Duccio for a time, besides. A short time, anyway. A few days, at the most, right? They were his fellows, after all. Same as Amanda was to her, and well...

Rita cleared her throat. "About that, I was wondering if you'd like to be my record keeper for today. I could certainly use the help."

"I have teams to organize. Patrols to set. Kids too busy pissing their pants to manage. Besides, you know my handwriting is crap," she replied. She leaned back and scratched the bandage tightly wrapped around her head. One of the several injuries she suffered saving her and the little girl's life during the failed evacuation.

Rita focused on the blood crusted beneath it where it was welcome relief to see it was significantly less than what it'd been previously, when she half-turned away again to look out the window, busying herself with a gray evening and gathering of dark clouds.

A silence settled in.

From the corner of her eye, Rita watched Amanda's long, black hair rope about her shoulders as she tilted her head.

Every soldier in the military under active duty was required to keep the length of their hair above the shoulder. This was a safety precaution due to their regular use of the Vertical Maneuvering Gear they wore. Many accidents had transpired because of longer hair lengths over the course of the Garrison's history, and she'd rather not see her lose her scalp, as well, in addition to the wounds already sustained, but if she thought to address this when she turned back around for the third or fifth time, Rita doubted Amanda would obey it either, even as a command from her superior, and gave up before she began. Instead, she let her hand brush over the hilt of one of the sheathed swords slung around her waist — Amanda had unhooked both of hers and thrown them beside her boots on the mayor's desk — and waited for the feeling in her breast to subside, before speaking up again.

Originally, Rita had it worked out to put her on bodyguard duty. With her head injury she feared this position to be the eventual cause of something graver, thus that honor had gone to Nicholas; a robust boy from their year with a square body and head and smaller, pinched face. During training and still today, he held a soft nature. Lenient in his persistence mentioning why he joined the Garrison in the first place, to stay away from danger, he was acceptable. A cobbler's son, aiming to transfer to the Nedlay District, the next district down from Quinta facing the north, which was his hometown, there was a very slim chance that request would be honored in the foreseeable future. The reason he joined was so his family need not worry about keeping him fed while he'd so many young brothers and sisters, being the oldest, of which, if she recalled correctly, totaled three sisters and four brothers. But, being the oldest, he knew how to deal with confrontation, despite holding a strong aversion to it, the result being him currently guarding the door to the mayor's office and no doubt wondering why it had became so quiet in here and dreading how long it would be until he was called in.

Later, when they were more organized, she wanted to raise that number by one. Also, perhaps, keep him and Amanda separated after this, because he still became visibly upset whenever Amanda called him "Blockhead".

Which was yet another concern: Amanda was very much the bully.

So in light of this information, Rita planned it such that, as her designated record keeper for the day, and maybe a bit longer, it'd do good to have Amanda out of trouble by not opening insulting Nicholas and anyone else she casually harassed for her own half-hearted amusement.

It furthermore went without saying that by being her record keeper she'd have an easier time recovering and thereby be all the better healed come time when she was needed out there on the streets again. It was as good an official justification as any, if challenged.

She just needed things to go smoothly, and for Amanda to first accept.

And her best friend finally conceded after a second round of nagging, on the condition that Rita follow her up to the wall to get some fresh air before they started, yet unaware that this would be the last time.



The two of them now atop the wall overlooking the aftermath of Quinta's failed evacuation, Rita looked across fields black and smoldering from fires unconstrained and the open plains and hills man made that stretched for miles until they rested where sawed down trunks of enormous size marked the beginning of what was the forest of giant trees bordering the district a ways down.

According to Mathias, in his effort to make Quinta less reliant on tourism which had been the main source of revenue for the district due to the mere size of their surrounding forests, his father had gradually cut away at them to reduce its scale and provide resource for the infrastructure of what was to be the beginning of a new neighborhood of buildings that "were to rival those of the marvelous Mitras itself". It was also to discourage open-air vendors not under his employ to pocket a profit as they were all but eventually bought or forced out and, well, it went without needing to be said, but it seemed his efforts would be for naught for many of his buildings were now ash and cinder; destroyed during the riots. With the Titans roaming in want of their next victims throughout the land beyond Quinta's gates, nobody would be visiting for leisure and guided journeys within the forests anytime soon and there were no tents, no vendors, no profits, out there other than abandoned wagons yet to be broken down, dead bodies yet to be cleared, and a potent sense of dread, poisoning the lands further; palpable even from this distance as the first signs of pestilence from the giant sacks of undigested human remains could be seen in what was left of the shantytown that once prospered against Quinta's walls.

A repulsive aroma of scorched wood and rotten meat wafted up from its shell-puckered streets, and it was then Rita couldn't help but think of Mathias and how he nor his father were trapped like they were because their procession — always the grandiose affair — had departed for Fuerth months prior.

Surely news of their situation had reached them by now, and she imagined him not simply sitting idly; probably already organizing some kind of foolhardy foray into the territory between here and there, through miles of already inhospitable lands only inhabited by the hardiest of those honest folk within the walls rendered a hell scape of humanity's worst nightmares come true, that would quickly be dismissed by his father.

A powerful man, if not the most powerful man within Wall Maria, certainly the richest, Mathias' father would do everything to stop his son from getting himself killed as his heir, and the thought set her mind at ease for no matter how defiant her childhood friend, he'd dare not go against his father.

Not bothering to take in the sights herself, Amanda quipped that they were reminiscent of cattle locked in a cage while the wind blew through her hair as she picked at the burn scabs on her arms seated carelessly across the back of one of their cannon emplacements.

"You think?" Rita said. She envisioned them penned on all sides by these Quinta's walls with the Titans as their herders as they calmly awaited their deaths from either starvation or self-ruination once tensions became frayed and tempers flared reached their limits.

It was a somber image on an already sultry evening.

Following her darkening mood in the mayor's office, Rita couldn't not appallingly be in agreement, and her attention then went to the gate itself, to its iron plates covered in dark, dried blood.

Her mind brought her back to those wagons and people being swallowed and spat out one after the other again. Those attempting to foolishly leave the district as they clashed with those who clamored to get back in, on that horrible day, again. A mass of bent noses, busted lips, and bruised faces, black on blue on purple with splashes and splatters of red, all without being attacked by the Titans themselves — the sheer amount of shouting, crying, screaming, and wailing had been enough to make her ears bleed.

She remembered the dozens of wagons rumbling frantically for that outer gate as they fled across those open plains and kicked up clouds of dust behind them while the cannons along the walls rang out, bombarding the advancing, nigh indestructible threat. Whether it was putting massive holes through their bodies, blasting apart their limbs, turning their heads to mush, no injury seemed too great. Steam simply exhausted from their new orifices, forms contorting and conforming and repairing themselves to rise and walk again.

How their front line was slaughtered in the blink of an eye.

The second line, running at the mere sight of the terrors they were about to face.

Herself, in the third, astride her horse just outside this outlying shantytown, her stomach churning and twisting and tightening, turned end over end as she threw up and wiped her sleeve when the commander informed them that they were it; the lives of those in Quinta depended upon them succeeding to protect and escort as many as possible inside as he and what remained of the senior members of Quinta's Garrison still alive dealt with those Titans at their backs.

News of the fall of Shiganshina had just arrived that previous evening, resulting in an immediate decision of the government officials residing within Quinta to abandon the district, being little farther west along Wall Maria than it, and they were supposed to have evacuated to Wall Rose, to Fuerth District, that next morning, only the Titans reached Quinta faster than anticipated. Which meant Shiganshina's inner gate had been breached in less than an hour — and maybe even more unthinkable, less than half an hour — of its outer gate. The evacuation was planned around the calculation that it would take the Titans at least several days to breach the second gate, if at all, but that plan had obviously fallen through, and it was in the midst of the new emergency evacuation that the Titans fell upon them and, shortly thereafter, with a raise of her trembling hand, she'd given the commander's order to charge, riding alongside Amanda, the last howl of a cold winter nipping at her exposed ears as they followed her straight into certain death without any other choice.

Because it had been their duty.

She vividly remembered reaching the overturned wagon, the father pinned underneath the horse and his little girl. Amanda saving her life, and nearly losing her own in return, drenched in steaming blood head to toe. Wilco leading them to safety. The gate as it finally closed shut, keeping them inside and leaving unlucky hundreds outside to the eager mouths of the Titans. Covering the little girl's ears until the screams stopped.

And in the silence that followed save for the clawing of the Titans at the outer gate's iron plates, she and everyone else within Quinta had immediately known that the walls once built to keep them safe, had now become their cage; it was just as Amanda said.

Though Titans still clawed at it, there were fewer of them since the first days; a great number having lost interest and wandered off to who-knows-where within the wider territory in search of, she could only surmise, was easier prey.

Being locked behind these walls was their only solace, but, it was just a matter of time before that changed, too, and with their limited number of soldiers, the task of clearing out these stragglers was going to prove a challenge. With the more experienced members of the Garrison all but having perished in the flight from Quinta, the majority left were raw, including she and her fellow graduates. None of them had battled Titans in such numbers as that day, had rarely seen greater than a few on their patrols along the walls previously, and those of them capable of staring up at a Titan and not soil their pants immediately would be — why, she could count them on her fingers! — the deciding factor between keeping the peace or the instigation of another riot. But, if Amanda was the one cracking the whip, then, maybe, they stood a chance.

Which was why they could no longer close. It muddled their concentration on what was important. After all, they'd only stopped the initial riots and ransacking because they'd set aside their feelings because in the moment there was no where else to go, so what sense did it make to abandon the one place they did have?

Yes, it would be slow going,

Yes, they were cattle, but that didn't mean they had to lie down and die just yet, and she thumbed the hilt of one of her swords, standing there with a peek over at the other girl who'd since quieted. Were it any other the usual indifference she often displayed on her beautiful, mature features, would always appear the same, but to Rita they told whole stories.

The cold touch of an unpleasant memory shared between them years ago tapped her shoulder and she shivered, back in the cabin on that snowy mountain opposite Amanda's blank stare as the latter described a history of blood in the lamplight.

Her silence now: what others might presume as sadness when it was actually restlessness.

Soon as they'd found themselves trapped in Quinta, Amanda had wanted to leave, but she wanted to stay, and in the end while it was obvious who'd won that argument, it wasn't something so easily forgotten. A promise etched unto her best friend's skin of a violence which never slept and only waited for an opportunity to come around again, like a sickness.

Yet another aspect of Amanda she wished to keep contained by appointing her as record keeper, bound to rear its head, hopefully, in the not so near future. At least until things here were stable, and they could act upon those feelings shared.

She just hoped that she would be ready when that time came, as all she could do was delay it as long as humanly possible.

 

[Historia]

6​

Ymir shoveled dirt over the final grave of those unfortunate people she found not far from the ruined church and patted it down. When she was satisfied with the result, she fashioned a marker for it, then collapsed triumphantly on her behind in exhaustion.

Once she caught her breath, she stared at her dirty hands and chipped fingernails and how red they were. How they stung when she pressed them together as she rubbed her face; the proof that she were still alive, tears in her eyes, before she composed herself and made a short trip to the nearby stream.

She cupped her hands along its edge, then washed her face and arms of dirt and no more for the untreated water was unclean and, therefore, unsafe. Back at the ruined church she had stores of previously boiled water kept in jars and vases and pitchers taken from its shelves and stands and storerooms, and it would do her good to drink some, say a few passing prayers to the graves on her way, and rest some more for a job well done, but she could not. She found herself pacing more often, like she had seen countless soldiers in her memories do when the battles ended, never having known its meaning until now. She was anxious and would not sleep until she could stop the jitters.

On her way back to ruined church one day, she had discovered the first body of these people she had just finished burying the last of by that same stream one morning when she was out collecting water. From his face, the man had been in agony and seemed to be reaching out for the water when he died. It had not taken her long to find his camp, along with twenty others with signs of having experienced excruciating pain right up until the moment they died, too. Which lead her to believe there were invasive, brain-eating parasites in the water, too small for naked eye to see, and thus from then on boiled her drinking water. And though it was best to just leave the stream untouched, she could not abandon it for it was her only source of water in the area.

She did not know how long the bodies had been there exactly, but with their faces crumbled inward, terror-stricken in varying degrees of discomfort, hands clutching their stomachs rolled upon their sides, it was at least days after she arrived at the ruined church that much was certain.

She was almost sure there were more, swallowed by the underbrush or dragged away by the wolves, having found since then human bones with bite marks and recently, as well, with meat and flesh still on them and bits of clothing strewn across their hastily prepared campsite not far from the ruined church, either.

The thought of there also being a den of wolves around further stoked her worry, but it was the dead which troubled her. Mostly comprised of the elderly, but also a few children and mothers as they desperately clung to their babies, they had been left to die all the same and, even though she buried them, their half-frozen faces, blue-lipped and glassy eyed, would not leave her; stirred into her already recurring nightmares like one bottomless pot of horrors.

At first she had felt for them, and her heart had ached that their decision to choose this forest of giant trees in particular unknowing or uncaring of its wickedness, so panicked and frightened, resulted in their deaths, but after a time of their ceaseless wails would keep her awake at night, any empathy was lost; replaced by contempt and loathing. How annoyingly stupid these people must have been, she would tell herself, as she went out into the darkness to see if it was not all in her head. How she risked life and limb in an continuously vain search for others to share her sorrows, only to come upon nothing — not a hair — save for the silent swaying of the trees overhead; the dreadful mockery of these infernal woods as it chortled, stealing its way into her dreams and turning her thoughts one restless night closer to insanity as she started yet again to see and hear things not truly there.

Alone, with only herself and her hallucinations, as always.

One morning she had even wondered if she simply just… imagined… the survivors, the bodies, the camp, until she caught her foot on a previously concealed skeletal limb, risen out the earth from earlier rains like an cruel joke by this blasted forest.

Therein, she had resolved herself to uncover every missing body part she could and bury them, too, if only to keep herself sane, until she finally finished today.

She had first used her hands to dig their graves, though that had not taken long to grow tiring so she instead spent most of her energy attempting to break into the rooms hidden behind the altar in her subsequent exploration of it following that initial night and when she succeeded was awed that among its contents were the tools she had been utilizing ever since such as the shovel from the under croft, which had partially collapsed and was too unstable to venture deeper down into, utensils and pots and pans for cooking, books for burning, and clean clothing, to name the most notable. All told it was the charity of those who poured their hearts and souls into helping the less fortunate, and whom she was forever grateful toward though she would never know their names.

And when she at last returned to the ruined church, she thought of how much time had passed since she began with the first body. With no way of knowing exactly how long she had been here nor any idea of how long she should stay, the sun had rose into the sky and sunk beneath the earth many times since and her hair had grown very long, halfway down her back. It must have been at least several weeks. A month, even, where the seasons were in the midst of changing because when she did get sleep she woke to birds singing their songs in the trees, the days of dark lifting, mist dissolving, and flowers beginning to emerge, bulbous and colorful telltales of winter in its final sighs and the yawning of spring in its revivifying waking.

And yet, the voice had not returned.

Without it to guide her she again decided to stay even longer, spending those days gathering enough twigs, branches, and whatever else in between foraging for more food and water and practicing her words and drills from time long past resurfacing to then build a proper fire to keep warm and heal her battered and beaten bones, using her newfound freedom to simply relax and gaze up at the stars through the hole in the ruined church's ceiling at night when not out scouring her surroundings.

Fascinated by those twinkles of white bright against the night, she often found herself looking at the brightest, most brilliant one, reciting and repeating those words once forgotten and now returned. Words she could not yet place, from whom and from where. Much like the rest of her past, once spoken to her by that voice in her head.

But, as with the letters, words, and phrases which slowly came back to her, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, moment upon moment, so too would everything else just like these drills in her dreams, practiced and practiced to exhaustion and had become second nature after she startled herself awake some nights, unable to go back to sleep, if she did not fancy a walk instead. Again, a restlessness brought upon by memories unpleasant, which came crashing together like two armies locked in a ferocious melee, bloody and piercing and gut spilling manias that left her weak and helpless when the cries of the recent dead subsided. Lost and afraid, until she came to her senses and realized she was no longer there but here, somewhere else. Somewhere warm. Somewhere safe.

But it was a temporary reprieve because, for some reason still unknown to her, Ymir knew that she could not stay here forever and would need to continue on. To keep moving still, as the voice inside her head had kept telling her, like those survivors had and knew it, too, despite their many losses and the forest ultimately their demise, while Marcel's walking corpse ever kept her company, a constant silent scream in her ear as replacement.

And tonight was the night it spoke again, she thought. She could feel it as she stared into the fire's heart, watching its flames lick the air and devour the wood, again reciting and repeating those words learned so long ago as wisps of light danced and disappeared and embers fell to the ground: that while words held meaning, names held power.

They were undying labels, etched on the actions of the past, present, and future; a representation of who you are and what you were; your identity to the rest of the world until the end of time.

So, then, what was the significance of hers?

She had asked Marcel once, but that of course had lead nowhere.

Still with no answer, she lumbered back inside the ruined church, glancing up at the beginning of a cloudy, gray morning before settling underneath the podium the same as she had done her first night and every night after.

She closed her eyes and thought of that voice in her head, the one which was cruel, ordering her to get up and march. March eyes straight ahead, facing front, until her feet were sore.

She knew they were different now.

Two separate entities occupying the same space within her fractured mind.

This one was a man's. It shouted at her, at them, she and her fellow soldiers, issuing a warning that if they did not advance then their superiors would do worse things to them than their enemies ever could. No, on the contrary, to be killed by the enemy would be a blessing. She remembered his voice over the hum and drops of the shells, over the bullets whizzing past her head, the screams of the dying all around begging and pleading for rescue never to come and that whistle blowing in her ear. With it came the sight, smell, and feeling of the ground, muddy, blood-drowned, and ridden with holes; the sweat on her brow, rolling down her cheek; the stink of gunpowder, emptied bowels. Of her dirty uniform, the rifle in her small hands grasped tight with knuckles white.

The second was a woman's, and the opposite, though Ymir had given up trying to put a face to either voice — her head still hurt something worse than horrible when she did — and she got out from under the podium yet again, making the decision like those who had left the elderly, the young, the desperate, and the sick behind to walk away from the ruined church and into the wilderness with a clever thought that, by retracing her steps, she might more easily make sense of the things which assaulted her mind; these scarlet flashes of pain, and her past which accompanied them, the boy, the voices, everything.

Not that they had ever much helped before, but nonetheless she had to do something, anything, to cure this affliction.

And, naturally, Marcel followed.



Her journey of self-discovery eventually led her to the entrance of another clearing within the giant forest.

A luminous twilight shone through the canopy of the trees. It cast silver pools of light upon the ground she now trod, highlighting the many shadows surrounding her.

It was under this illumination did she see them clearly: the monsters. That which she never wanted to be again, their eyes shut and bodies still, as they slumbered.

Rarely on these nightly walks she would encounter them in this exact state, balled up with their hands and knees tucked toward their chest, but not once had she dared do anything other than observe them from afar. This time, though, wishing her want to come true, that the voice would speak again, did she approach one of them.

The roar in her heart quieted. She thought then of her own ugliness, of what she had been and still was, deep down, when the voice in her head abruptly changed to that of the other, the woman's, softly telling her to put her hand upon it, but not why; only that anything might happen, or nothing at all. The other option being to stay her hand, leave this place, and never learn what she wanted most. But having not heard it in however long, she held out her hand while she told herself that, as before, as always, there was not much of a choice and muttered aloud just how mad she had actually became with Marcel beside her watching intently.

Ymir touched its skin, leathery and warm, and kept it there, waiting for something to happen. Anything, or nothing at all.

She waited.

And waited.

Until, at last, she saw something: a light. A pale orange light outside her peripheral vision, and her head turned so her eyes could take in the full view: a line of wire at the edge of the grove, half-concealed in the forest's dark and half-revealed in the moon's light. Twisted, haphazard, barbs of razor-sharp, skin-sticking steel wires, and she peered closer, seeing that every single one of them were trampled, their frames flattened against the earth as faint flickering flames smoldered just beyond identified by thin trails of smoke.

She took a hesitant step toward the wires, careful not to remove her hand from the flesh of the monster it was against, when there was a hum in the air which turned the quiet in her heart dead silent, and she stopped, frozen still. The sound had come from the flames, deeper in the forest. Deeper in the dark.

She waited.

For anything, or nothing at all.

The hum became louder, and more intense, and with it, footsteps; sloshing heavy beats upon the ground. Each footstep fell with a distinct purpose, a harrowing, and impetus rhythm, toward her.

Her silent heart sank down into the depths of her gut, her insides swimming around as she fought to keep it down. Her breath caught in her throat, and she drowned in that silence, the hum a roaring pain to her ears, the footsteps so close she could hear the jostle of bodies, side by side, and the rattle of weapons, rifles pressed against their shoulders.

Deathly afraid, she dared pull her hand from the monster though the hum was still there.

The footsteps were still there.

Getting closer, and closer, and closer still, she looked over, but Marcel had vanished along with the forest; she now left staring at not the thick, endlessly high canopy of giant trees but a clear blue sky full of large, round-shaped floating objects peppered by clouds of smoke. And the monsters, yes, they were still there, only they were awake, skinless and steaming crimson towers of muscle and bone and tremendous in their hideousness. They were now rumbling across a vast empty scarred land. Then, she looked down at herself, to the rifle in her small, shaking hands, and her dirty, mud-covered, blood-smeared uniform, again; the bodies all around, ridden with red; broken, puckered children dressed in tattered motley like her own, festering with worms and maggots and torn apart by hungering beasts and all manner of other telling signs of prolonged death and decay. Half-bodies, half-skeletons, limbs and torsos and heads sunk into the earth, sodden and soaking in scarlet muddy swamps and puddles and craters of sickly brown and green.

It was the closing of her terrible first day of combat and start of the next, straight through the night to the dawn after.

And ducking her helmeted head as a hammering of artillery burst above her head, a salvo aimed at the Titans so grand it turned the sky black, she was thrown from their shock wave and found herself sprawled on the ground, pulled back into the mud and the blood and the stench of that battlefield she knew well. Here she sank, the battlefield a muffled quake to her shell-shocked ears, before a hand reached down and saved her, only to push her once more into the fray.

It was the man behind the cruelty, her commanding officer, but before she could get a look at him the shadows beyond the wires became the lines of human shapes, and she was ordered to aim the rifle and instinctively she obeyed. She raised the rifle, a natural extension of her body, expertly, and fired at them, and reloaded, and fired, and reloaded, and fired, until it clicked. Until her rounds were spent and then the smoke cleared and she saw even more bodies littering the ground.

Approaching one, fresh with wounds, face down in the mud, she turned it over with the butt of her rifle, and her eyes widened. Her mouth opened, and she heard something above her, its shadow looming, an enormous hand reaching down, and she screamed, cowering when something hit it, sending it reeling back, steaming. In its place was a woman with a joyous smile and beckoning hand, juxtaposed by fresh corpses torched black and being tossed in with so many others piled high in a mass grave as the scene shifted and strewn all around her were charred bodies, what was left of their rotten, maggot-ridden flesh hanging off their blackened bones, wrapped in decaying uniforms blue or gray or tan now soiled red.

Ymir instinctively backed away.

A dread overtook her because, yes, there was power in a name, and she did not want to even think what this woman's possibly might be. Even as a memory, Ymir knew immediately, instinctively, that she was dangerous. How vile she was, beneath that voice. Only, just the same as she surmised the things previously unknown and questioned by her would be revealed, the words, phrases, and symbols of her past, through these fragmented and fractured memories too would she remember that woman's — and the man's — name, like her own, the boy's, and thus more about her past and put it to rest and her mind at ease. So, she swallowed her fear and stepped forward. She shook like a wet and wounded dog with its tail between its legs.

The woman opened her heart to her, and Ymir fell into her arms and buried her face into her breasts. Caring and kind, the woman stroked her hair and whispered to her, telling her that everything was going to be alright. That there was nothing to be afraid of. Though, that was a lie. No amount of comforting embrace or soothing tone would hide the blood thirst behind the woman's words — that hunger, hidden underneath the mask of an angel skinned alive, of the devil disguised.

She was the battlefield. Yes, this woman was the nightmare. Its source.

But, if Ymir wanted to know her purpose for being reborn, she would have to accept the woman. Brave the nightmare. Traverse the battlefield. Wrestle the beast. Strike down the devil and emerge victorious upon the other side.

She looked up into that face, so very kind.

She smiled, said okay, before like an infant in her mother's womb, now a child vying for her mother's love.

And that was when the façade ended.

The woman's angelic face melted away, taking her left eye along with it, exposing the lidless socket. Her smile became a scowl, the back row of her teeth peeking through the gaping hole of shrapnel-mangled tissue of her upper cheek on that same side. Then, her everything disintegrated and slipped through her fingertips.

It was like sand.

Ymir moved her hands toward her chest, and fell to her knees, and then curled up on the spot where the woman had just been.

At the end of that second day, surrounded by the many fallen from the past forty-eight hours, did the surviving soldiers chant amidst their victory, and it was then that Ymir unwillingly learned the woman's name.

Hail, Helos!

Hail, Helos!

Hail, Helos!



The harsh light of the late morning blinded her when she sat up. Hands resting in her lap, head down, Ymir wiped crimson spittle from her mouth and hastily looked around. Those things, the monsters — no, these Titans — failed to notice her presence and since moved on.

She stood up, yawned, stretched, and then made her way back to the ruined church and to the statues. She stopped to look at them, remembering what they were now.

Angels.

They were called angels.

She spun around to the rest of the place behind her, then let out a tiny laugh and gave none of it a second thought as she walked outside into the waking world, one step closer to her past.

A new world.

A different world.

And it was time to find her place in it.

 

[Historia]

7
​

Thorpe sat near the edge of Wall Sheena, close to the outlying district of Yarckel, though not so close where the journey between them was without difficulty. To remedy this, excluding a reliance on the river which ran through Yarckel — as all of the villages were and would be idiots not to — the people of Thorpe had long ago taken it upon themselves to be almost entirely self-sufficient.

Starting from the forest which bordered Isolde's farm and stretched over a vast distance that Historia was still trying to wrap her head around, everyone not prosperous enough to own a lived in small, single-story wooden homes in a wide circle with their floors lightly covered in hay or grass. Near this ring were longhouses. Kept inside these longhouses were the livestock when not allowed to graze, separated in pens and stalls by size and type. Next to them were tall, cylindrical looking structures with pointed, upside down spinning tops, like the toys. From her reading, they were called silos, and it was in here where all the grains were stored, sectioned off from the rest of the village due to their importance by walls and guarded by members of the Military Police Brigade in short, rotating shifts. By contrast, in long, rotating shifts, the longhouses and the fields the grains were grown were maintained and worked by the villagers of Thorpe in a very efficient system, or at least it seemed, to her eyes; children, including herself, cared for the livestock, adults cultivated the fields, and the elderly insured the formers behaved.

This system resulted in the gradual development of a tight-knit community that kept stress low, production steady, and offered a bit of reprieve from the arduous tasks required by the local official who presided over it. This local official, who lived in Yarckel and primarily stayed there, let the village run itself provided they turned a profit most every season. For this purpose he'd appointed a village council, seated by the three with the most fertile land in vicinity; of which Isolde was one. Her farm and the other two formed a circuit around the village. Fields upon fields of crops. The fields she'd looked out on after leaving the orphanage in fact been owned by one of these three, but which Historia wasn't rushing to find out, just thankful that no news had surfaced of a missing carriage or its driver still. Considering the scope of the village's daily doings, its comings and goings throughout the territories seeing the departure and arrival of hundreds if not thousands of people every week, there wasn't a doubt in Historia's mind that the carriage and the carriage driver's body had been found, but, again, she wasn't about to ask Isolde about it and would rather let sleeping dogs lie as she labored alongside the rest of the children, sunrise to sunset, oblivious.

And of labor, it'd been a real struggle for her to adjust after her time on the ranch where the servants did every task down to the absolutely mundane in the beginning, but, now, she was starting to grow accustomed to it, and was also learning the perspective of the average farmer and just how massive an effort it was to feed the people within the walls that, when she overheard Isolde bemoan a decision by this local official to increase productivity, the severity of their situation came into focus immediately.

Thorpe's sole existence was providing a relatively safe environment for the raising and shipping of pigs, chickens, cows, and goats and the production and provision of grains, stalks of wheat, barley, and others she hadn't been familiar though would in due time, with only the fattest and well harvested hauled off to the Interior, where they were further processed foremost for those citizens within Mitras, the royal capital, then the leftovers distributed to everyone else in Wall Sheena, and last — and certainly the least of the royal government's concern — whatever remained given to the residents in the Underground, all but forgotten by those living above.

Before the fall of Wall Maria, it was one of several villages that served Wall Sheena exclusively. But since its very recent fall, resources — which were already scarce to begin with — were being stretched so thin now with two walls forced to support what survived of the three, and, if you asked around, had already been somewhat before, that with so many "extra" mouths to feed, Isolde said it was an inevitability the royal government would take drastic measures; that they would doubtless send a number of the refugees from Maria's fall somewhere else. Exile them. Throw them to the Titans so as not having to think crucially about their aforementioned limited resources dwindling down to nothing in less than a year forward. Might be they started this ploy already since the news of Quinta became widespread, overshadowing any other gossip. In other words, opposed to formulating a solution beneficial to everyone within the walls, the royal government was once again choosing to sacrifice the impoverished to appease the affluent.

This also meant that Thorpe and these other villages were going to be working twice as fast, and producing twice as much, to meet the needs of the "people". This being on top of trying to keep themselves sustained, it was quite the struggle, and one thing was clear if the dilemma wasn't relieved soon: the village of Thorpe would have to seek outside assistance to save an ample supply before winter came around again. Which meant either the surrounding villages within Wall Rose banding together to create a network by which to communicate more efficiently, petitioning to the royal government, or waiting for the Scouting Legion to help.

The first option was currently being set in motion, with Isolde and the other two farm owners being heavily involved alongside Thorpe's village leader, a stern man by the name of Walter who possessed the biggest arms Historia had ever seen, with an equally impressive mane of hair and beard, while the second was a waste of time for their cries like those of the refugees would irrefutably fall on deaf ears stuffed full of bribes, and the third couldn't spare a single soldier as they'd split themselves between aiding all those other villages within the walls suffering worse than Thorpe and battling the Titans flooding into Maria with less resources and manpower than the other branches combined spread even thinner across the territories. Rumor was that their circumstances were so dire that they were being forced to use their own dead members, even if those soldiers were nothing but ash like Isolde fretted her daughter might be. Every soldier in the Scouting Legion served for life, it was in their vows, and if these rumors were true, ashes were not exempt. They'd be cultivated to help heal wounds and fertilize the earth, if need be. Therefore the Scouts was out of the question. Nor could they call upon the Garrison, their hands being tied dealing with refugees. And the Military Police only cared for those in the Inner Districts and Mitras. Thus it could be surmised they were on their own for the foreseeable future — unless they banded together with the neighboring villages.

Historia, having digested all this information — everything she saw, everyone she encountered — in addition to the plethora of knowledge in the old woman's study and hungering for more, was getting her bandage replaced during a break from one of these strenuous days' normal events in the old woman's kitchen.

"It's healin' well," Isolde said, peeking underneath the grimy bandage on her hand before carefully unwrapping it to fall in the bucket at her feet. There was a visible dark pink and white-edged gash in the center of her palm, and Historia winced when Isolde wet it in alcohol. "But'll leave a scar alright."

Each sting of pain she felt while Isolde meticulously cleaned it was like another slash at his throat until she was staring at his lifeless body on the dirt road, eyes wide and mouth agape, gazing back up in shock and surprise by the time the new bandage was on.

She rubbed her wrist as she brought her scarred hand closer toward her chest, and wondered how long she should continue to stay here.

The fall of Maria was still fresh in many peoples' minds. The day that red, huge, skinless Titan peered over the Wall, where it'd stared down at the residents of Shiganshina right before the outer gate exploded inward and promptly vanished as if were mere illusion — though there were those who swore otherwise. And also on that day, of the one that broke through the inner gate into the territory of Wall Maria itself, which cannons had no effect on, and spewed fire from its mouth. Then, the day after, with the plight of Quinta, sister district to Shiganshina that was surrounded during their evacuation, those within its gates barely managing to close it in time before a similar fate befell them, as well. Subsequent whispers of the aforementioned government plot, a last resort, that villages such as Thorpe were being pushed to prevent by those in royal government, their royal council, the Assembly, with their heads screwed straight. And eventually, they would find her, too. They would silence the truth about her family, about her father, the stories he raved and ranted and died believing were real.

Perhaps they were already on their way. Only just… taking their merry time. Savoring the hunt the same as she satisfied herself in killing the carriage driver and the death of her mother.

Historia looked up from her hand. She'd been so long in her thoughts she hadn't realized the time, watching Isolde prepare their late evening meal.

She was a tough old woman, not as old as she looked, years worth of hardship having taken its toll, and since becoming a part of her world three weeks ago to the day after she first stole her way in, had immediately put her to work around her farm.

Being farther out in the territory than the village, instead of being kept in longhouses in stalls and pens there was an actual stables for the horses, fenced muddy pits for the pigs, fields of grass for the sheep, and so on. As such it was a big responsibility to be on the alert for wolves, the chief predator in the territory — though on occasion bears and badgers and foxes were spotted, too — but also setting down different crops like corn and potatoes, and producing ricks of wood from the bordering forest and stacks from the vast abundance of wheat, barley, and rye in the fields.

The work seemed far too immense for one person alone.

But, according to those in the village, excluding the help she occasionally got from the village children whose families were indebted to her for some reason or another, and those individuals who simply wanted to help, Isolde managed just fine by herself until she or Achi came along. Given the sheer size of the farm, Historia wasn't convinced she believed this, but then again she'd never been on a real farm until recently, and wasn't about to go about asking prying questions, drawing unwanted attention to herself. But, if there was one thing she was certain of, it was when Isolde wanted your help, it was in your best interest to oblige. Nothing going on within the village escaped her eyes, and on more than one occasion Historia had been caught loitering, hidden in some corner of the farm while the others worked. A habit that had its consequences, for while she wasn't beaten, the bruises and sores which regularly covered her body, dirt and sweat her clothing, and tiredness in her eyes from the extra work she received was recompense enough for her never to do it again. Or at least not so blatantly, anyway. Isolde had likely caught on to that, as well, and she wondered why she said nothing of it, but, perhaps, as she loocked back down at her hand, well, in the larger scheme of things it wasn't as important.

And, to think it was already a common thing for her, working and tolling and slaving away like the rest of them in fewer than a month's time…

Except, unlike before, when other people would look at her, they saw a delicate creature taken in by a lonely mother. Their stares, their whispering, their accusations and assumptions. They wouldn't go away. Things had changed, but not for the better, merely exchanging one for the other, and at times it honestly felt like nothing ever truly would.

Historia hated that word: nothing.

She'd never escape it no matter which way she turned.

Catching a glimpse of a mouse as it scurried back into its hole in the wall, she had the profound thought of whether she one of these mice that scurried along the floor, or one of the hawks that circled outside in the skies above, waiting for them out in the open to snatch them up. Or was she the sheep grazing in the fields, or the wolf stalking it? Was she something to be used, like her mother and father before her? Or something to be cherished, like Isolde always reminded her?

While she was learning a great deal in her time here — most notably the significance of herbs and medicine — from Isolde, a relatively peaceful existence mending the locals' various cuts and scrapes was unacceptable.

Her hand closed into a fist. It hurt.

Until she proved her mother's words wrong she was still nothing.

She was still worthless.



Night approached swiftly, and Historia was finishing up in Isolde's study when she chanced upon a book tucked away in a crevice, well-hidden and well-worn.

Isolde's study was one of the first things Historia had been introduced to on the farm.

After her first attempts at lying low failed, in striking a deal with the old woman for the extra work, she had been given free reign of it so long as she also kept it well-maintained, and, as far as rewards went, it was well worth that extra work.

Through the books in the study, she knew better all the things Isolde taught her about medicine, herbs, ointments, and ailments and the mending of those cuts and scrapes. The truth and technique behind them. One only needed pluck one book and read its cover to know this old woman's collection was too erudite for a simple farmer.

While it was suspicious for an old woman who spent the majority of her time instructing others in how to properly rack a field, the fact she'd a serious study that smelled of moldy paper and dry ink was a welcome, if not entirely unexpected, surprise and certainly whatever was contained in this book would offer no difference nor disappointment, but in her excitement Historia yielded any previous suspicions yet again in favor of consuming as much information as her heart desired.

To think there was one she overlooked was a delight because she previously thought she read every single one of them cover to cover at least thrice already and was hungering for something new.

Taking it gently in her hands as others her age might handle a babe, it'd been sitting there for quite some time. She blew on the front and wiped the dust off and opened to its first page, seeing it blank, then began to leaf through the next several pages expecting it to be full of diagrams and instructions related to medicine and bodily functions like the rest.

Upon a first look it seemed exactly that: just another in-depth examination of the body, inside and out, detailing everything from skin to muscle to bone save for one distinct problem: it was in a text she was incapable of reading.

While she could decipher that names were given to each part examined, what appeared to be with a brief description or two of relation to the specimen itself, there were also strange measurements and weights, unorthodox comparisons and differences; a wall of detailed explanations about something that looked like an intricate, connected root with its stem at the head which blocked her progress in even beginning to comprehend what they actually were. It was a size and body of work much more advanced than anyone within the walls excluding what physicians in Mitras might be capable of understanding, let alone using, and only until she attempted to sound out some of what was written on the pages that the realization dawned on her: these were just like her father's ramblings only in written form!

She was sure of it.

These words, these symbols, this… language … Historia had heard it before.

Lost in his stories about how the royal government had done their family wrong, she remembered listening to her father's often incoherent mumblings to himself using words and phrases nobody understood. To most, the whines of a fallen lord, once noble and now a beggar, holding onto the scrapes of the lustrous life he previously lived, but, to a few, to her, he'd been trying to convey something meaningful. Something unspoken, not to be uttered openly. Something damning, and horrible. Something that sent those men to murder him, his wife, and have her taken away, thinking of that man in black with the wide hat who personally carried out the deed.

And if she wanted to know whether his stories were real or ramblings, she'd have to seek them out. Learn more than just the words on a page and uncover the truth behind her father's — her family's — descent in obscurity under the watchful eyes of the royal government and nearly severed forever in the immediate aftermath of Wall Maria's fall.

Historia closed the book and put it back where it lay, knowing better than to ask about it for the old woman seemed like the kind of person to hold many secrets herself and there was no idea how she might react. The fact her father's delirium was a lie was enough. The fact she still lived, was enough. Thus, her next course of action would be to find a way to Mitras. Records, reports, registries, documents, notes; anything that might help her discover more about her family's history. About the Reiss noble bloodline. Only, they knew her face. Showing it in the royal capital would be reckless and her father hadn't died to see the last of his legacy willingly give herself to the wolves. No, she'd have to become that wolf, and claw her enemies to shreds. Cut out their throats like they did her mother's. Sink her teeth into the truth, and not let go. She already had blood on her hands, after all.

But not as she was. Not alone. Much to her dismay.

She dare not rely on the Military Police to help her. They would be on the lookout for her. Not the Garrison either, who this far into the walls were a lax bunch of drunkards, quicker to sell her out for their next mug than help her. But, the soldiers in the Scouting Legion, the ones the village would've first turned to for aid, they were people to be proud of. People worth value; fighting for what they believed and sacrificing themselves for what humanity might accomplish in beating the Titans once and for all.

And it was then she remembered: Isolde's daughter.

Her only daughter.

Her real daughter.

The old woman spoke a lot about her; about her being a soldier in the military and one of the protectors of humanity. A member of the Scouting Legion, the only branch of the military to extend their arms outside the walls and face humanity's greatest threat head-on. Said that, in the end, Riecka and the others were the only thing between them and those things many in the Interior believed as fairytale. Their saviors, who put their lives on the line for a cause greater than themselves, and their martyrs, who died for that very same cause in humanity's struggle to survive against the Titans. Those things, those monsters which breached Wall Maria and its lands within. Two of them, the Colossus Titan and Armored Titan — as they were officially named by the royal government — being the ones personally to blame. Those two, specifically, needed to be dealt with before they breached Wall Rose, too, and Sheena after, and that the military's soldiers would stop them. That the Scouts would stop them. That they would eventually take back Wall Maria and drive the Titans out.

Historia stared at her feet, the book back in its corner, and whispered her father's words beneath her breath, adding to it.

From here on, your name is Krista Lenz, a soldier of humanity.

A savior.

A martyr.

A wolf.

A person worth value.

Special.

Greater than nothing.

And she knew where she needed to go next.

 

[Historia]

8​

Up until these past weeks, Mathias had only ever seen a Titan in person once, many years ago by way of an associate of his father's granting them restricted access to the top of Wall Maria. It was there he'd first laid his eyes upon one in awe, bounding over that vast emptiness, barely visible. Like a dark splotchy stain on a lush green fabric; he still too young and the distance too far to see it for what it truly was and, now, sitting with his knees against his chest, he sorely wanted to go back to that time. A time when his dreams of them were child's imagination instead of being filled with these monstrous faces that weren't unlike his own. Nightmares that kept on, the one moment frozen in his brain of the Titan back at the village peeling the skin from its skull to reveal the ugly truth underneath that they were eerily human, after all.

He barely got enough sleep as it was, and it didn't help that they'd encountered their fifth just mere hours ago after having traveled off course in what Bernhardt had proclaimed was only to be a "short detour" that'd stretched over the past few days and finally reached its end this evening.

They'd gone down a break in the river a ways from the village, following the clearest path that was "supposed" to eventually lead them straight into Quinta with the utmost haste, free of needless sightseeing, when it was actually the pronounced trail of a Titan large enough to flatten these giant forests.

So here he was, sitting on his ass doing nothing but waiting and thinking of Rita and how much he regretted his current company while Bernhardt and Jarratt poked around the skeletal remains of this Titan that'd been so enormous as to have been visible from miles away but interested him less than the tiniest piece of treasure in his family's estate.

First spotted by Klaus keeping lookout atop a ridge lying on its side in the middle of the giant forest, a mountain of rotting flesh and blackening bones rising over the treetops, Mathias had strongly insisted they move past it though if anyone else in the group had shared his sentiments, any sense of urgency or of dread wasn't to be found among them as Bernhardt, with his mustache raised in childish excitement, made a speech about this being a "monumental, once in a lifetime opportunity" and Mathias had seriously wondered after why he bothered.

Even before the expedition had set off, their carefree, nonchalant attitude had been a stand out among the many volunteers and soldiers all pressed together, wagon to wagon, horse to horse, shoulder to shoulder, but, now, especially now, after the village, the argument, this still antagonizing wait when they should be in Quinta already, Mathias finally concluded they were the most bizarre group of criminals he'd ever met — and he hoped would be the only ones, for that matter.

And speaking of criminals, of outlaws and rogues, murderers, if Bernhardt could be believed, then Suzanne was one, too.

He shifted, feeling the weight of the shotgun pressed against his thigh.

It was such a small thing, Bernhardt's words, and yet they revealed so much and the implications were horrible when Suzanne's past life was taken into consideration, from what little she'd spoken of it.

An orphan, like Rita, the majority of her youth had been spent beneath Mitras in the Underground, and, given that Bernhardt was former Military Police, it was highly likely they'd crossed paths down there at some point in time. Hence his knowing of her, but, also, for him to have fallen so low as to be expelled from the best branch in the military he must've been caught doing something particularly heinous no mere slap on the wrist could resolve. Murder, oh yes — Mathias had witnessed that first hand — but what if it was something worse? But could possibly be worse than murder? And though he was a wanted man, the law would never actually catch him because he was once one of them. He was the royal government, he was the people within the walls, and he damn well knew it.

So then, what did that mean about Suzanne?

Mathias shuddered.

"Hey, looks like the Boss found something," Nikki said beside him. "Wonder what it is?"

"Don't care," Klaus replied, not looking up from cleaning his rifle.

Before Mathias could busy himself doing anything else, too, Nikki bent down and hit him on the shoulder.

"Come on, let's go!"

Reluctantly getting to his feet, Mathias rubbed his shoulder and followed after her, trying to stay positive by saying to himself that "at least this was better than getting more sores on his behind".

Pinching his nose as he joined her at what he presumed was the Titan's leg, craning his neck to look at it, it must've been dead for some time because it smelled worse than awful. Blinking tears from his eyes, it'd been covered head to toe in so much muck and debris that it was no wonder it'd fooled everyone but Klaus.

Seeing past its bones, its flesh and organs had all but completely melted away and he touched its slimy remains that were like a bunch of giant, gnarled tree trunks, toppled over during a heavy storm.

He gagged, but Nikki didn't seem ill in the slightest, and turned to face him with a grin, asking if he wanted to race her to the top.

But, once again, she answered for him by punching him in the chest. Hard and precise, right where it hurt the most: on the badge given to all volunteers still pinned to his shirt.

The pin pricked through the skin near his nipple and he winced as she started climbing, but he couldn't turn back lest he admit he was a coward like Klaus had accused him of being. So, with little choice, he continued to follow because if he'd admit to anything, it was that he much preferred her to Klaus, given the option, and hurried to catch up as he could hardly comprehend how they were the same age, careful as he bellied higher, thoughts going back to their first "official" meeting — as Bernhardt had so cheerily put it with a mug of ale raised aloft — in a stuffy, cramped room, closed off from the rest of the bar in the heart of Fuerth where the clamor dropped away.

He remembered being squished awkwardly between Klaus and her and how she'd winked at him behind the rim of her own mug, eying like his father might a profitable business venture.

Out of Bernhardt's outlaws, she was described by Bernhardt as the "rose among the weeds". The only one to share about her previous profession before they'd set off that very next morning as a promising apprentice to a renowned clock builder, watch maker, and occasional locksmith, she'd gotten caught breaking into a nobleman's safe instead of fixing it like she was supposed to; where it was later found that she'd been doing the same to other clients and peddling their valuables off on the black market of which Bernhardt had numerous acquaintances and would've lost her hands if not for his timely intervention. A tale which the old soldier had gladly given his own spin on, adding unneeded embellishment to hers and resisting arrest on top of thievery and exploitation to her record and doubtless just a drop in a bucket in comparison with his nefarious exploits alongside the "little anecdote" that she was unwed and looking to settle down with someone special.

Which made Mathias wonder. Something he was doing a lot more of, lately.

Not about Nikki, oh hell no, and he grew hot in the face at such a thought coming to his mind when he already had Rita, but, Bernhardt.

Nearly five decades worth of cheating the royal government and the people within the walls, with all the Underground connections he could use even after his expulsion, and yet a man of Bernhardt's status chose to enlist the help of Nikki, a mere girl of eighteen, ant to mention Klaus and Jarratt. Odd, to say the least, but, it was a question that could wait and was unimportant until Quinta. Making sure Rita was safe, she and her parents, was his sole priority right now, as his eyes focused on the rods dangling from Nikki's belt.

And, yes, only the rods.

She was already moving from the Titan's pelvis to the bottom of its spine, digging her stolen boots into one of the fins that jutted out and was once a vertebrae, balancing herself steady before she walked across its length and was at the end of the rib cage by the time he managed to reach the same fin.

The two of them standing there, the moon low and first rays of sunlight peeking over the horizon, he imagined Rita in her place, the two of them on that stony bridge two years ago, the day of her graduation celebration and her first bodyguard duty: walking him home. Much to his chagrin. But, having lost three to one on the matter, he'd decided to use the opportunity to convey his feelings for her into words. Or, rather, biting back his tongue in saying that the life of a soldier was a waste for someone as intelligent as her, fumbling on what he actually meant to say, stealing a look at her profile instead as she thumbed the hilt of one of the blades at her hip anxiously, congratulating her for the decision to join their struggle against the Titans while secretly wishing she'd become a herbalist like her father.

Why, it's love, Mathias.

And even though his own father would've greatly disapproved for she lacked the refined looks of girls from the privileged families he often paraded around him there'd been a definite beauty in her rustic features and fresh vitality. More than anyone else Mathias had known then or now. Stridently individual and amazingly strong and furnished with an unshakable sense of right and wrong, that was the Rita he knew. The girl he claimed to love. He'd wanted to marry her; nobody else would do.

Yes, he imagined her, standing here, right here, beside him again on the bridge and smiled, once more wanting to say those words he felt swelling in his heart, for real this time, until he was swiftly brought back to the present by Nikki, whose face materialized above him.

"What're you spacing out for?"

He blinked, staring at her outstretched hand. She was leaning over the side of one of the Titan's rib bones, straddling it as if she were riding a horse.

"N-n-nothing!"

Accepting it hastily, she pulled him up.

She was really close, their bodies nearly touching. Her wintry breath on his face, he flustered upon staring into her eyes as his own wandered down to her chest until he turned away.

"Sorry."

"What for?" She tilted her head in… confusion? Amusement? "Figured you could use a lift."

"T-thank you…" To think he managed to still lack experience on the most basic things, like talking to girls, since then. How could he ever hope to marry Rita if he couldn't even dissuade this girl from teasing him?

"Don't mention it!" she replied, thwacking him upside the head.

Sighing as she wasted no time in hopping across its rib cage in impressive leaps and bounds, Nikki was no Rita, that he was sure of. And, caressing the spot her abuse was undoubted to leave red, her punches were starting to hurt worse.



"Look what we have here, lad and lass!" Bernhardt exclaimed upon their arrival right beneath the head, or skull, in this case, of the dead Titan.

In his large hands was a stick of some sort, and he passed it to Nikki, who made a gesture using it like a toothpick — which looked utterly ridiculous given its size — but earned a jolly laugh from the old soldier, before she tossed it Mathias' way.

Catching it with a loud grunt, he noticed grooves at one end and what looked to have been something fastened to it, like a stone.

In response, as if to confirm his suspicion, Jarratt held up a chipped spearhead and Bernhardt nodded. How long had it taken him to find that?

"It appears we aren't alone out here, lad."

Looking around, but not down, for it made him queasy how close to the edge and a drop into the murk below they all were, Mathias lowered the broken shaft of the spear. "Who could…" his voice trailed off. Who could be crazy enough to be out here? he was about to say, but, well, they was out here, too.

"Whoever it is, they know how to tackle a Titan," Jarratt said, now in possession of it, putting the pieces together in an amateur tinkerer's wonderment. A humble butcher before becoming a part of Bernhardt's gang, they had discovered this back at the village, shortly before their run-in and flight from that horror of a Titan.

"To fell a Titan with nothing but a tool used for skewering deer and boar! A feat unheard of and should be sung throughout the land! Best we not linger here any longer, in any case." For the second time, Bernhardt dropped his usual cadence. "We should hurry on, quickly."



When they were safely away, far away, from the Titan's corpse, only then was it that Bernhardt went back to his usual self again.

They were in yet another forest of giant trees, letting the horses rest. The sun was now low in the sky. Above their heads was many-layered foliage, the highest level of which seemed to extend into the stars themselves, further dimming the sun's already waning light so its reddish glow hardly touched the ground.

"Only a couple hours now, lad!" Bernhardt said, having gotten down from his horse, but with his height and size appeared to still be in the saddle. He finished stretching and turned to admire his horse. "Beautiful, isn't he? Ah! What's that look for, lad! We're almost there! No more sidetracking for all my curiosities are sated!"

Oh, how he hoped so. Mathias gazed up at the trees, convincing himself could see Wall Maria if he squinted hard enough, whereupon Klaus's mocking tone and cold words came back to pester him and so close to his goal that perhaps it was true that he did indeed lack the nerve. That perhaps he'd been naive to turn his back on the royal government, to forgo all dependence on his father, his trust in Suzanne, to try and survive in a world he was kept safe from for all his life, in the company of these villains, relying on them to get him where he desperately wanted despite vowing to rely on his own wit and grit to save Rita instead, what they would do to him if he was lying, if nothing was there, displaced, ransacked, taken away… Perhaps he'd been naive, but, regardless… He…

The matter-of-fact way Bernhardt killed the soldier, then fired the anchor at the Titan. The look on his face, detached somehow from the events taking place… Was that it? Was that the look of someone who had the nerve? Was that how Mathias had to be? The slain soldier had done no wrong, and yet…

His eyes went down to his shoes, searching for an answer he was unable to find. An explanation as to why, even though the soldier had been killed, murdered in cold blood, that he wasn't upset as he should be. His hands curled into fists at his side. His blood began to boil, putting fire in his belly, and almost as if sensing his mounting unrest, the realization he came to, deep down in his heart, Bernhardt strode toward him, stepping over fallen leaves and undergrowth like a bear. He pawed him on the shoulder with a dark nature behind his otherwise unassumingly bright blue eyes.

"We can only care about so many people in our lives, lad! Have faith! We'll make it in time."

Mathias shrugged off his touch. They could've been there by now if not for the old soldier's whims that changed on the drop of a coin and made him uneasy — and another reason why they'd no logical reason to have even stopped — and as soon as they were and their deal was done he wanted nothing more than to part ways.

Lest he only have murderers to talk to.

Or appallingly, somehow become one himself.