Levi had a ring, a ring made of gold that shined like the sun - one of the few expensive possessions he allowed himself to keep. He couldn't recall just who it had belonged to, but it was a dead man, that was for certain. It was huge, flat at the top and engraved with the insignia of some ancient family that probably died out back in Wall Sina during his stay there.
From that time, there was nothing else that remained. He'd tucked the ring into his boot when he left the capital, let it roll around in his new military issued shoes and ignored the discomfort as he marched into his new life.
And he'd planned on giving it to Petra. He'd planned on slipping it into her palm and pressing her fingers tight against it.
When he saw her, broken and drained and somehow beautiful even in death, he felt stupid for ever considering it.
It was a relic from his past, shrouded in so much pain and blood that it really wouldn't be right to give it to her.
The underworld boiled over with the stink of sewage and bile and dirty money.
Petra, she was everything else. Even bloodied, pale skin smeared with viscera after a kill, he knew her to be clean. Clean in ways he never could be, because she'd never sink to the things he'd done.
She was mountain air and bluebirds and morning kisses. She was the rainstorm that thundered and even frightened, but her heart sang with the openness of a torn sky, cold and fresh and everything he was not. He knew it - he couldn't lie. Worst of all, he couldn't lie to himself.
Levi was tar and knife wounds and ashtrays used as a bludgeoning tool. It still lay there, at the very base of himself, at the very root of his life. He'd kept nothing from that layer save for the ring that sparkled and carried all of him within it.
But that ring, it shined golden in the light, and it felt heavy in his hands and even though Petra was such a simple woman, he knew she would like it. It reeked of him, it was his penance, a reminder of who he'd been and always would be. But he'd give it to her to make her happy.
She still called him Heichou, and he didn't know her mother's name, but he'd give it to her.
A ring of gold didn't change their world, didn't mean their lives would suddenly alter and they'd live safe and happy. It didn't mean he'd meet her father or ask her to leave his squad, leave the Legion, move deep into the Walls. It didn't mean he'd start smiling or kiss her in front of others, or kiss her at all.
But he figured she would want it - would want that symbol of whatever the hell it was they had between them, no matter how gaudy. Yes, she'd smile and blush and take it and feel every one of his secrets thrumming in the jewelry, would know that he stayed up late thinking of her too.
She wouldn't care about having to hide it on a necklace, beneath her blouse. He imagined seeing the bump on her collarbone, that innocuous little lump under her shirt, and knowing. He wanted her to catch him looking, wanted her to feel the cold metal and the weight on her skin and lock eyes with him, their own secret.
And then when he found her, when he couldn't help but halt above her sad, twisted body, he felt stupid. He let himself shut his eyes for just a moment, let the memories simmer in his heart and his head.
And he realized how stupid it was to look for a symbol to give her. He realized that searching the grooves of the ring for some philosophical significance had been a waste of his time, and a terrible waste of hers.
Magical glints didn't exist. The hush of his secrets did not hide under the metal shine. He could go over in his head, again and again, how it meant she'd carry part of him, how it meant she would stain her skin with blood and soot, but it didn't matter now. They didn't have time for that, and they never had.
No, giving her that ring was a stupid idea.
He should have just fucking told her.
That would have been enough.