ymir/christoria is probably the best attack on titan ship tbh. i mean, it's already canon that ymir is in love with her. anyway, this fic is a big ol' sorta-steampunk-y au with oc's, a little sexual content toward the end, and a sprinkling of character death. also mentions of suicide, past drug use and self harm. and lots of drinking.
i've already put this story on ao3 and tumblr. figured it wouldn't hurt to post it on ffn too. here you go, friends!
beta-reading credits to tumblr users ascensionablaze, earthinmywindow/mirthinmywindow and yuushanoah.
I.
Here at Wings of Freedom Bar and Tavern, no one speaks of what happens within the walls after they leave them. The same goes for most places around this area.
Ymir knows the score. She may not have lived in this particular town all that long, but she is still no stranger to the lifestyle. At Wings of Freedom, she has found a niche as close to perfect as possible: the third stool from the back, between one stained glass hanging light and another. She likes to observe the characters – from Levi the grouchy bartender to Daz the washed-up regular to that guy who comes in on Tuesdays wearing dark glasses and an oversized trench coat (he probably sells stuff, but Ymir's weaned herself off shit like that, thank you very much.)
Today she is able to come in right around opening time, and she sits and knocks back shots and babbles about politics to anyone with enough intelligence to debate with her, until the people flood in. And in they flood, boisterous groups and eager extroverts, a happier hour. They thicken and heat the dusty air. The smell of human bodies mixes with that of old varnish.
At this point she is far beyond coherence – or caring – and it's obvious. She is not alone in this feeling, though, and can blend in with the crowd as seamlessly as she wants.
The clearest thing amidst this fog is the sensation of someone else's lips on hers. They're smooth and needy. She tastes like wine, Ymir finds, when she shoves her tongue down the girl's throat. They hang on each other; Ymir sits the girl on her lap and they moan and touch, breathing in the stench of alcohol that comes off both of them.
Eventually she has her fill and leaves Ymir, who's too delirious to feel disappointed anyway. She stays long after the busy hours until Levi closes up shop. She doesn't know how she's going to get home, and ends up falling asleep in an alleyway a couple blocks east.
Ymir will return the next day too, to drown out the last unspeakable night and absorb another.
II.
People from the other side of town are a little more open, she thinks as she stacks porcelain dishes in the sink with less and less care. A little more open.
A few yards away, Connie and Sasha scrape morsels off plates to feed to the dogs tomorrow. It's a one-person job, but with the two of them it doesn't take as long, and they can blather about nothing in particular for as long as they decide to drag out the task. Ymir tries to tune them out. Unlike them, she has no friends, and would rather be home sooner than later.
Jean shuffles over to the sink beside hers and sets down the wine glasses in his arms. She takes a glance at the heaping pile of dishes she has yet to dry.
"Think you could cover for me?" she confides. "I'm gonna try to sneak out early."
He frowns at her. "No fucking way." He starts the tap running. "I've got enough to do already." He rinses out one glass at a time under the water.
Marco seems to crop up out of nowhere – he does that a lot—, sizing up what Ymir has left to do and leaning a mop against the tile wall. "I can. I'm almost done in the ballroom. Just give me a few minutes and I can take over for you."
"Cool," she says, giving him a glance over her shoulder.
Jean pauses. "Hey, if you want to take over for somebody, do it for me," he complains. Marco laughs, nudges him in the back and walks away. Jean returns to his work, muttering "douche" under his breath as he switches out glasses.
Marco finishes within minutes, and the second she notices him, she throws off her apron and slings it over the coat hook beside the pantry. She changes out of her uniform and into regular clothes without even turning on the dressing room light.
She drags herself out of the building and walks along the inside of the fence toward the gate, noting how different the impeccable landscaping looks in the dark. Admittedly she can't give a good reason for leaving so early, except that she's tired, and she's ready to be rid of the dinner party hustle and bustle. It's so late that even if she were there right now, she would only be able to stay at the bar for half an hour.
Distantly she hears something rustle in the bushes. She glares behind her in the direction of the noise, taking a second to notice the thick rope dangling from the third floor. The window is open. Ymir grits her teeth, turns on her heels and starts for the gate again.
She scoffs and chuckles to herself at the subtlety – to use the term as loosely as possible – of the thing. Working in such proximity to the wealthy, she hasn't been able to help overhearing scuttlebutt about the rising crime rate, even if most of the sources have no idea just how bad it can really be. Personally she would use a different, not-so-stupid method to steal. But it's no loss to her if the Reisses have one less piece of jewelry to never wear or one less painting to let gather dust. She decides she hasn't seen anything, and rounds the corner.
Then she stops. She turns back and watches for the thief to emerge, which they do: heaving themselves over the sill and crawling down the rope. She starts to approach, arms crossed over her chest, and stands many yards away. The thief does not seem to notice her until she speaks, when their feet hit the ground.
"You know," she says aloud – and the thief freezes, "I may not give a flying fuck about what the Reisses lose, but if they have less stuff that means they have less money, and if they have less money that means I get less money – or worse, laid off." She shuffles forward. "I simply cannot have that."
The thief hesitates a minute, letting the chirp of crickets fill the silence. Their long black cloak blends into the night. Hand still on the rope, they pivot toward Ymir and lift their head to expose the face beneath the hood.
She frowns, eyes widening, head pulling backward, and reads the thief's figure. The tiny frame, the bony shoulders, the mouse-like face. She can hardly believe what she sees.
"Historia?"
III.
The Reiss family supposedly settled this town a few hundred-odd years ago, and has since retained the power, status, wealth and influence that come with such a history. Its puppet strings reach far and wide. While leaders of the family have pioneered sometimes-outlandish customs for their class – e.g. engaging in philanthropy, sharing their resources with the common people, hiring mere peasants to work for them and allowing those peasants to rise through the social ranks with time –, its members are no less blue-blooded than those of any other noble family. They love the arts, horses, and nine-course dinner parties.
Historia, the youngest and only female child of Magdalena and current patriarch Simon, has a rather appropriate name for her role, being the epitome of all things for which the Reiss family has stood. She sings soprano, plays the violin, paints, reads, dances ballet, and cares for her horse. She also does those little unconventional things people in her family do, like buy school supplies for peasant children and actually thank wait staff when they bring her food. As if the blond hair, clear blue eyes, small stature and sugary smile were not enough to indicate her Reiss-ness.
To be honest Ymir has never considered her much. Most of her low-level job at the estate involves keeping the stables (though, on nights like tonight, she's on-call for other tasks) and she sees Historia about as often as she sees the other residents and members of the Reiss court. Based on a few months' observation, Ymir thinks of her as kindhearted, but fragile and rather shallow. A glittering, glorified personification of her class, her town, her parents' wishes.
IV.
"Historia?" Ymir cocks one eyebrow and furrows the other, and her arms slacken.
The girl jumps at the mention of her name. Her free arm scrambles out from beneath the cloak, waves around and covers her mouth. Ymir's frown deepens when she shushes her.
"Please don't tell anyone," Historia begs.
Ymir throws her hands in the air and takes half a step backward. "Hey, it ain't my business in the first place."
Historia stands there a short moment to regard Ymir, eyes scanning her to gauge her loyalty or maybe try to remember why she recognizes her. Ymir drops her hands to her sides, eyes fixed on her shapeless black cloak.
"Thank you, Ymir," Historia whispers. She lets go of the rope, gathers herself into the cloak, wades through the landscaping and slinks away.
Relaxing her muscles, Ymir takes a minute to absorb the details. She ducks forward and cranes her neck upward to get a good view of the third-story window. The rope runs through a small hole in the frame and wraps around a pulley wheel hung from the valence on the other side. As she observes, the rope already starts to slide back upward. She can't make out many further details from here, but there looks to be some sort of weight at the other end of the pulley system, and even more strings attached to automatically close the panes and draw the curtains. Somebody's taken the time to set up a pretty extensive rigging system. Between that, the huge tree blocking the view of Historia's bedroom window from outsiders, and the exceptions the security machines make for residents, right now, Ymir is the only possible thing that could go wrong.
She nods at the setup and then squints into the distance. The girl has nearly made her way to the back gate.
"Hey, Historia," she calls.
Historia immediately freezes, and turns around. "Yes?"
"My silence isn't free."
Really, someone as seemingly prepared for this stunt as Historia couldn't have expected to get off this easily. Ymir pulls her lips taut and stares her down, slipping her hands into the wide pockets of her trousers.
Historia hesitates, but finally asks, "What do you want?"
"Convince Keith to give me a raise," Ymir demands.
Of course Ymir has no idea what she would do with the money. She probably shouldn't even take it: most of her pay is wasted on alcohol anyway. But in her experience, having at least a little extra money – even if it holds no particular purpose – is certainly better than not, and she would be a fool to pass up such an opportunity.
Historia gives her a small smile and her hood moves up and down with a nod. "I will be sure to talk with him tomorrow," she says. She makes a move to turn around, a mere couple yards from the exit – but throws a "thank you" over her shoulder at Ymir before slipping out of the gate.
She stands there a minute, wondering about so many hows and whats and whys, shrugs her shoulders and watches the rope fully retreat into the window.
God is she tired. Down the road she gives a cart driver two doubloons to get her a block from her apartment. She gets in and locks the door, sprawls onto her bed, and spends many minutes staring strangely awake at the ceiling before sleep crashes onto her.
V.
The whole block seems to freeze when the train roars by, its rumbling and blowing shaking the ground and drowning out every other noise. People grab their drinks off the tables to keep them from falling off the edge. Even Levi stops and stands frowning behind the counter until the train is far enough away for activity to resume.
"What was that?" he asks, cocking an eyebrow. He spins a beer mug in one hand and drags a rag along the inside of it with another. The din of patrons' conversations slowly fills the background. A man in overalls forces a coin into the music player, and it grinds through pathways and sends the gears cranking, and brass-heavy swing ekes out of the speakers.
She feels a headache push at her temples, and shuts her eyes and grinds her teeth to will it away. "Brandy," she says.
Levi gives her a curt nod, pulls the rag out of the mug and holds the mug under a tap. He gives the dark beer to an elderly man fiddling with a watch.
"Rough day, huh?" The man sitting beside him turns toward Ymir, cocking his head.
She leans, stretching her back. "Not really," she says. "My mind just happened to be in a dark place all day, and I wanna wash it out."
The man nods. "Yeah, my wife just screamed me out of the house a few hours ago," he says. He swipes up his glass of beer, sips from it and sighs.
Ymir makes no effort to be polite, facing forward and resting her cheek in her hand. Yet he remains completely clueless about the fact that she's not listening. Levi slides a glass of golden brandy right to her. She picks it up by the stem and brings the rim to her lips, but does not drink.
"…I'm trying my best, you know, working hard day and night so she and our son and daughter can have a good life – and I do one thing wrong and she screams at me. She doesn't even work, just stays home with the kids all day." He presses his palm to his forehead. "I don't even know what I did…"
She swigs the brandy straight down her throat all at once. The burn of the alcohol hits her hard, and she bites her lip and squeezes her eyes shut until it passes.
The man's wallowing anecdote comes to a stop. "You all right, lady?" he asks. He ducks his head to look at her face.
She grunts, forces open her eyes and burps out a "yeah." She blinks a few times at the honey-colored residue pooled at the bottom of the glass. Gritting her teeth, she stands from the stool – dizzy, whoa – and starts to dig through her pants pocket. "Just bored." She smacks a coin onto the bar counter. Levi seems to teleport to it instantly. He sweeps a hand over it, almost vacuuming it up, his expression still flat as ever.
Ymir bends slightly to look the chatty man in the eyes. "Maybe you could use your 'hard-earned money' to buy flowers or some shit for your fucking wife instead of wasting it on a pint of second-rate beer while you complain to people who don't care."
The man's mouth hangs open, uncomprehending, and the mechanist beside him throws Ymir a glance as she breezes out of the bar. The instant the door closes behind her, the static-y jazz music ceases.
She stands at the edge of the sidewalk for a minute or two and stares down the street at the signs, the window views, the people passing and talking and filing in and out. The post-dusk air has a thick powder blue feeling to it. Most of the gaslights are on. All she knows is that she does not want to go home yet.
She skulks along the block, reading signs when she comes to them. A jerryshop, a pub, a hookah lounge (she tried the lounge once, but the other customers were just so obnoxious), another bar. It gets dark before she even realizes, and slowly feeling more open-minded, she turns the corner to the next block, where most of the buildings stand alone. She's starting to notice a decline in the number of children out and about.
Somewhere partway down Zacklay Road, she finds The Oasis.
It's not quite clear what the place is, but something about the blinking lights around the façade and the fact that she sees somebody walk into the building about every thirty seconds intrigues her. Ymir struts through the front door and into the entry room, where a scantily clad hostess grins at her.
"Hi, there," she says, sounding so cheery this must be rehearsed. "Table for how many?"
Ymir squints beyond the doorway. She sees a huge amount of people – mostly men – packed into a densely furnished dining room. Tables have burgundy cloths down to the floor and little candle centerpieces; the walls are wooden paneling, and brass chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The curtain is closed around a stage at the back.
"One."
She turns back toward the hostess, who holds a menu to her chest and grins wider. "Okey-dokey! Follow me, then." And she follows her around the perimeter of the room, taking in more of the sights.
Nearly naked servers. A band tuning its instruments at a platform beside the stage. Customers laughing, drinking, smoking, eating appetizers. The hostess seats Ymir at a booth at the very edge of the room, since that's one of the only spots left in the house. She sets the one-page menu down in front of her, tells her a waiter will come soon, and scurries back to the entry room.
Ymir's eyes go straight to the list of drinks, and she hedges between ordering more brandy or just some scotch before deciding to wait a while for her current buzz, however slight it is, to wear off a little.
The band begins to play a plucky, bouncy tune that somehow makes her feel embarrassed. The second it ends, the curtain parts, the chandeliers dim and a spotlight shows on a lone woman, standing on the stage and wearing a jacketless pantsuit.
"Gia sas!" she exclaims, flinging her arms open, and everyone cheers.
Ymir leans over the table as if she would gain a better angle on the stage by doing so.
"My name is Hanji Zoe," she says. The noise dies down and her voice carries well. She paces a few steps to the side of the stage. "I am your MC and host—" She stops and looks the audience dead in the center. "—And have we got a show for you tonight, ladies and gents."
The crowd starts to cheer again. Ymir cocks her head, scans the MC up and down, and wonders, Is this a burlesque house?
"We at The Oasis have the best talent in town when the sun goes down," Hanji says, pacing again, "But before we show 'em off, I have just one little rule." She flashes an index finger and smiles. "They are nice to look at, and they're nice to listen to – but you can't touch 'em. And that goes for after the show, too. Got it?"
Her disclaimer is met with an approving din.
She stops and stands firmly at the center of the stage, and claps her hands together. "Now, without further ado, I will introduce tonight's stars."
A shirtless man saunters up to Ymir's table and leans toward her. She whispers that she doesn't want anything for now, but would like to keep the menu, and he nods and scampers away to the next guest.
Six human-sized figures tiptoe onto stage behind the MC, all of them covered head to toe with black cloaks. "Annie!" Hanji jumps to the side and gestures toward the covered person closest to Ymir's side of the room. One cover is shed – its ice blue silk underside flashing to the crowd as it falls – and now standing on top of it is a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman with an intense expression, who strikes a pose in her fur-lined top, skirt and boots. The audience goes wild.
Yup, this is a burlesque house. Ymir lifts her elbows onto the table, lays her jaw in her hands, and smiles a little.
"Mina!" A woman with dark pigtails and a short red dress. "Hannah!" A tall red-haired woman. "Mikasa!" A woman with a scar underneath her right eye and well-developed abdominal muscles. "Petra!" A woman with a big grin on her face. "Christa!"
The final lady to shed her cover and reveal herself is small in frame. Her legs are toned. She wears an ornately jeweled top that ends at the bottom of her ribcage and a mostly sheer skirt draped around her hips. She lifts her arms and the bangles around her wrists fall almost to her elbows. Her face is pretty but childish, heated with a seductive smile; her hair is black and down just past her jawline, and there is a large beauty mark on her left cheekbone.
Ymir's eyes widen. She opens her mouth and lifts her head from her palms, staring at Christa. When the realization hits her, her breath catches in her throat. She shakes her head vigorously and throws her head back to study the ceiling for a moment, sure what she sees cannot be true.
But as the band strikes up and starts the first musical number, Ymir finds herself watching. The ballerina-like movements she passes off as coincidence. Many girls have soprano singing voices – that must be a coincidence, too.
It takes nearly a whole song's worth of doubting for Ymir to get a good enough look at Christa's face. By then, there is no mistake. Either Historia Reiss and Christa the dancer are the same person, or there is some weird doppelganger shit going on around here.
The crowd roars into frenzy at the end of the number, some even standing. The six ladies prance off the stage as an interlude begins. Ymir flags down the waiter from before and tells him to bring her a shot of tequila, because tonight is going to be even more interesting than aiding the escape three nights before.
VI.
There's something deeply satisfying about spending every bit of her bonus on fruity cocktails at The Oasis, Ymir has found, though she's still not sure whether this whole Historia-Christa thing is meaningful or hilarious. Either way, now when she's shoveling horse shit into noxious piles and Historia is out leading her palomino around the corral, sometimes Ymir stops and stares and pictures her in scant pinup. After a minute or two she catches herself, laughs it off and keeps shoveling.
If Historia has at all noticed Ymir's presence at the club nearly every night, Ymir still wouldn't know any better. One Friday night, after spending a little more than her recent pay, Ymir decides to officially make her presence known.
In the chaos that ensues in the dining room right after the final performance, she weaves through the crowd, picking out an exact victim. (That idiot Franz, or whatever his name is, another regular, has been harping on Hannah this whole time and keeps getting rejected; tonight he's brought carnations as if they will help any more than they did in the last attempt, but Ymir figures she can just save him the trouble right now and in the process not let perfectly good flowers go to waste on someone who won't care for them.) She subtly bumps into him and apologizes, yanking the bouquet off the man's table. Judging from the dark pink rims around his eyes, he definitely does not notice.
She sneaks backstage. The floor here is concrete and covered in sand, dust and shed hair. Three of the four walls are totally lined with costumes. The performers are in various stages of undoing: some are hopping into their casual clothes, while others are still dressed up and either chatting with Hanji or taking off the makeup they so meticulously applied a few hours before. Christa is one of the latter. She sits at her own vanity station, leaning close to the mirror, scrubbing the ruby red lipstick off her lips with a kerchief.
Ymir starts to approach as soon as she spots her, careful to not let anyone else see that she has intruded. She stops a few feet behind Christa, out of view of her mirror. And gazes at her a moment. She notices things she had would have never seen at further distances, like the sheen of leftover sweat on the back of Christa's bare shoulders, the tiny snags along the hem of her satin corset, the immaculately realistic look of the wig that completely covers her blond hair, the fact that her earrings are clip-ons.
Christa, unknowing, lowers the cloth from her lips – which are now red with irritation –, looks straight into her own eyes and heaves a deep sigh. Even beneath all the rouge and foundation, she looks washed-out and, in a word, exhausted.
This is when Ymir makes her move. She lays the bouquet sideways on the edge of the vanity surface, at the same time saying, "Great job tonight," in the most sarcastic way she can muster, as she's unable to admit just how much she enjoyed it.
Christa whips her head in Ymir's direction and immediately gasps and tenses. "Ymir—!"
Ymir's lips pull back into a toothy smirk. "Historia," she teases.
Christa shoots to her feet, blue eyes wide, and her arms fly toward Ymir but stop and wave around.
"Not so loud," she whispers hoarsely. "No one here knows who I really am except for Hanji."
Consciously Ymir closes her mouth, joins the tips of her thumb and index finger and drags them across her lips. Christa stands frozen there for another minute, examining Ymir's expression, before easing back down onto the vanity bench.
"You don't have to be so jumpy," Ymir says. Christa holds back a frown.
She regards the red and white carnations, glances at Ymir and then returns to the mirror. She dips her finger in a jar of petroleum jelly and smears it all over the area of her eyes, one eye at a time. The shadow, liner and mascara blend together. She wipes it all off with the kerchief, speaking again: "How did you find me?"
"I didn't follow you or anything creepy, if that's what you're asking," Ymir says. "It was a coincidence."
Christa sucks her lips partway inside her mouth but does not say anything. She switches the kerchief to her other eye, dragging it over the lid. Her tenseness is still palpable from a few feet away.
Another performer – Mikasa, if Ymir remembers right – saunters past, a simple and conservative white dress flowing behind her ankles, and sits at the vanity right beside Christa's. Ymir pivots a bit to get a view of the girl in her peripheral, and at the same time Mikasa glares up at her with cool fire in her nearly solidly black eyes. Their eyes stay locked on one another for a moment.
Christa leans forward to look at Mikasa. "She's with me," she explains.
Mikasa's eyes stay on her for a few more seconds before she turns away, sighs quietly, and begins to scrub the rouge off her cheeks.
"Do you want to take this outside?" Christa suggests. Ymir nods. Christa rises from the bench and the girls snake their way through the room.
Hanji, her face taut with suspicion, stops Christa by touching her hand to her shoulder. The two of them exchange mumbles briefly – Ymir doesn't notice or stop until they're already done, and at that they slink out the back door. The alley behind the building has no light at all.
"How much have you seen?" Christa stammers.
Ymir cocks her head to think of some sort of articulation. "Only as much as you've shown," she lilts.
Christa frowns at the answer. Ymir slides her hands into her trouser pockets, shoulders hunching, and lifts her chin. "Your disguise isn't bad, you know," she says. "Do you just draw that mole on with charcoal?"
Her hand flies to the beauty mark on her cheekbone – "Yes, I do."
"And where did you get that wig?"
"It's made from real human hair," Christa says. "One of my father's associates' wife had her hair cut by our barber, and afterward I asked her for the leftover hair and wove it myself."
"Gross," Ymir mutters, holding back a shudder. Christa bows her head and starts to twiddle her thumbs. "Won't people start to suspect something, though, when they realize that your hair doesn't grow?"
Christa's head perks up, and she blinks into the thick darkness. "They probably will," she says. She collects herself. "No one has said anything so far. Granted, I've been doing this for only about six months." She flexes her knuckles and then meshes and unmeshes her fingers.
Ymir nods. "Six months, wow," she marvels under her breath.
"How long have you been watching me?" Christa's expression hardens, but fear drips from her voice.
A minute passes for Ymir to think on this, contorting her eyebrows and lips. How long has it been – three weeks? Four? – since she discovered this place? The nights seem to run together. She lifts her hands out of her pockets, crosses her arms over her chest, and shifts most of her weight onto one leg, cocking her hips.
"Long enough for you to know that I can keep my mouth shut," she finally responds.
Through the darkness she can tell Christa is grinding her teeth: the movement of her jaw muscles show even with the wig covering her temples. She lifts a hand and covers half her face with it, and her eyes close. The mood between them drops like a rock off the side of a bridge.
"Listen, Christa—" Ymir starts, and Christa lowers her hand and beams her eyes directly up at her.
"Listen," she begins again, "I may not know exactly what your situation is, but I'm a big believer in letting people be themselves. And if you would rather be Christa than Historia Reiss, then so be it. It's your identity."
"Thank you," Christa says. An incredulous smile eases over her lips. "I did not think anyone would understand."
"You're lucky you've got me, then," Ymir jokes.
The two of them stand silent in the dark for another moment, each trying to ignore the gravity of the other.
"I am going to head back inside," Christa says in a mouselike voice. She heads toward the door.
Ymir clears her throat, stopping Christa in her tracks. Christa peers over her shoulder at Ymir, who meets her eyes.
"You still haven't gotten Keith to give me the bonus you said he would the other night," she says.
"I have been lobbying him." Christa turns further. "It will take a little time. Apparently, you are a competent but disrespectful worker."
Ymir frowns. "I ain't that bad," she says defensively.
Christa only replies, "I need to change wardrobe," faces forward and disappears inside.
She reemerges several minutes later with her cloak donned and the bouquet in hand, and Ymir is waiting for her at the base of the steps.
VII.
Keith trudges out of the stable for a bucket but stops in his tracks in the doorway, squinting into the sun, mouth hanging open. "No way," he whispers, and he starts out of the building.
Ymir stands there observing him until he leaves. She starts to sweep again. The sound of a motor grows louder and louder, and she frowns at it, sets the broom against the wall, and ventures outside.
A two-person plane touches down on the strip of grass just outside the corral. The engine shuts off. Keith stands beside the slowing propellers with his hands on his hips. Out of the cockpit comes a short man, and he takes off his cap and goggles as he descends the stairs.
"Well, I'll be damned," Keith says. "Mister Walter."
The man reaches the ground and approaches Keith, extending a hand. Keith grabs it and they shake and smirk at each other in a manly way. "I've told you, call me Walt."
Furrowing her eyebrows at him, Ymir chances a bit closer, and watches them from many yards away. Some other stable workers also notice the plane – they would have been dumb not to –, having gathered in a crowd at a similar distance.
The plane is sturdy and simplistic, a well-built machine. The windshield is tall. The paint job is even. If anything, the front, bottom and propellers of the plane are a little dirty. Albatrocity is written in winding cursive on the side.
"Your family is going to drop dead when they see you," Keith says, letting go of the hand. "Did you tell them you were coming?"
"I'm sure they will. And no, I did not. I figured it would be a pleasant surprise." Walt tugs the thin leather gloves off his hands and then begins to shrug off his jacket as well. Keith quietly offers to take them, but Walt insists it's not necessary.
"Walt!"
He turns and immediately grins and leans low. "Historia!" Opening his arms, he takes a few steps forward before colliding with the sprinting girl, wrapping his arms around her, picking her up off the ground and spinning her. "Darling!" He eases out of the motion and lets her down gently.
Keith glares over his shoulder at the other stable workers, motioning with his chin for them to return to work. Ymir slinks back to the stable as slowly as she can. She keeps her eyes on the two through the opening in the wall.
"My God, I've missed you," Historia says. "What are you doing here?"
He musses her hair. "It's a long story – but I am glad to be back. Out of everyone in our family, I have missed you the most, my dear sister." Her grin only grows wider.
She grabs his wrist and guides it off the top of her head, and then pulls on it and starts to walk toward the manor. "Come in, please! Let us tell Mother, Father and Adair you are here!"
He erupts into laughter as she drags him along.
Ymir has always considered herself a good judge of character, and until recently thought she was able to tell when Historia genuinely meant something and when she was just saving face. Such a thing has become understandably more difficult. She watches Historia barrage her brother with information, scampering by his side into the building, her ornate pink dress moving with her very emotion.
Keith smacks Ymir on the back. "Get to work."
VIII.
As Ymir learns in short order, Walter Reiss, the oldest of the three Reiss children, has hair as blond and eyes as blue as the rest of his family's. But where the others' eccentricities still fall within noble custom, his expand unfathomably beyond. The man is a military veteran and now a perpetually single, world-traveling, crazy-adventure-having pilot; the family jokes that, during his service, the "wandering bug" must have bitten him. He comes home only when he feels tired (and patient) enough to let his parents hound him for being everything he is, while he smiles and makes them empty promises of compliance.
And Historia adores him. (The brother Adair between them, not so much, but he can find his humor elsewhere for all they care.) She feels more comfortable around Walt than she does around anyone else at the Reiss estate. The two of them whisper and giggle and tease as if they see each other every day. Ymir watches them when she can. She notices the brightness in Historia's eyes, the way she laughs from the gut and smiles so purely, something she's never seen Historia – as Historia, at least – do. It's a thrilling sight, and it gives her a strange, hot, bubbly sensation in the stomach that she hasn't yet decided whether she likes or not.
At dinner that night he announces he has gifts for everyone. A hand-painted tea set for his mother, a rifle with an ivory handle for his father, a standing shade for his brother, and beautiful silk dresses for his sister and sister-in-law. He says he could not visit the Orient and come back empty-handed. Ymir is there to witness when he unveils a gift for the entire family, a heavy contraption he picked up from a mechanic friend in Italy.
Magdalena squints at the thing. "What is it?" she asks, her voice harsh.
"He called it a 'typewriter'," Walt explains. He strokes a hand over the top of it. "See, with this you can write down messages to other people, but instead of using a pen, you just press these little buttons." He demonstrates by clicking one of them down with his fingertip. "Each button represents a symbol, and when you press it, that symbol is inked onto the paper that you feed through the top." He goes on to show them, with much enthusiasm, how much faster typing is than hand-writing, how each symbol is uniform, how to work the ink cartridges, how to change the paper's position, and everything else. He leaves them rather dumbfounded, for the most part.
"Does it require steam?" Historia asks.
Walt grins and puts his hands on his hips. "No, it does not." Historia and her mother find the "typewriter" amazing, while Adair says, "That seems rather unnecessary – we already hand-write messages, so isn't that enough?" Historia gives him a frown and a punch in the arm, and Walt laughs and tells Adair he's not allowed to use it, then.
Through the evening he regales them with accounts of his adventures, tales of exotic creatures, disastrous monsoon floods, interesting natives and awe-inspiring landscapes. Historia hangs on his every word.
When the meal finally ends, he pulls her aside and whispers something in her ear. She eases back, staring wide-eyed and incredulous at him, and slowly nods. She barely stops herself from jumping up and down. He grins.
"Meet me tomorrow at the field behind the gardener's shed," Ymir can make out of what he says. He claps her on the side of her shoulder and she responds with an eager nod and scampers away.
Ymir, trying not to be conspicuous in her spying, grits her teeth, brings the bowls stuffed under her arms into the kitchen, and sets them down beside a sink.
IX.
The stables at the Reiss estate can be a place of dangerous secrets, if one has the mind to seek them. The indication that something is going on comes when Ymir sees Wynonna, austere Adair Reiss' equally stiff (and until now Ymir honestly thought to be mute) wife, taking Historia for ride-talks – something she would never have done before. Ymir does not like the look on Historia's face every time they return, but does not really have the opportunity to ask her about it.
At least, not to ask Historia about it.
She's taken up escorting Christa from the club to a place near the Reiss estate every night after the show ends. (Tonight's theme was A Night in Asia, which Christa suggested – and for which she provided a few props – and Hanji couldn't refuse.) She waits for Christa to change clothes and scrub the layers of chemical junk off her face, and then they walk through the dark streets together, discussing politics and philosophy and other things neither of them gets to express often. Things hardly ever get personal, between their mutual no-questions-asked policy toward one another's motives and the vast amount of differences in their backgrounds.
"You want to know about what Wynonna and I talk?" Christa asks for reassurance. Ymir shrugs and nods and says, "Yeah."
Christa sucks on her lips and faces forward. Her hood is pulled up over her black wig. From this angle, Ymir cannot see the exact expression on her face.
"She just tells me about her family and Adair and everything," she answers. "It is rather boring, and sometimes she can be preachy."
Ymir snorts to hold back a laugh. "Really? She seems like the type."
Christa nods. "I had thought, when I first met her and knew she was betrothed to my brother, that she and I could be friends. But…" She lets out a low moaning hum, cocks her head, and fiddles a bit with her cloak. "She is very cold, and fake, and holds no real, unique opinions on anything."
"So, she's basically been brainwashed," Ymir asserts.
"Basically."
They walk a few feet, Christa's short-legged bounds keeping in stride with Ymir's long-legged saunter.
"Well, she may not be interesting, but if nothing else," Ymir suggests, "She can push out some blond-haired, blue-eyed babies to continue the Reiss line."
"It seems as though that is all she was ever groomed to do," Historia says.
Ymir starts to laugh again and agree, but catches the solemnity in Historia's voice and stops herself. Heaviness settles in the air between them.
X.
Again Ymir sees Historia coming, but this time she's alone and has her hair up and is wearing trousers – yes, trousers. Such a sight catches her off-guard. She drops what she's doing and sneaks around the outside of the stables, counting her every step until she turns a corner.
She clenches her fists to counteract the pounding in her chest. She's not supposed to give a shit about what Historia does that doesn't involve her. That's not the Ymir way.
She skulks back into the stables, trying and failing to not wonder too much. Moments pass before she hears the sound of a motor. She pokes her head out the window, and Albatrocity tears across a strip of grass and lifts into the air. With two people inside. Ymir watches it take off, and a wide smile creeps onto her face. The plane loop-de-loops and swings from side to side and leaves a thin trail of cloud in its wake. She cannot look away. It flies so far that she can barely see it by the time the pilot decides to turn around.
The plane lands soundly and the engine shuts off. Ymir is able to make out voices, but not the words they say. At last Historia comes around the corner again – and Ymir ducks behind a doorway and pretends to not have seen everything, until Historia gets reasonably close. She pivots around the wall with her arms crossed over her chest.
Historia's hair, once in a tight bun, now falls loose and frizzy all over. There are red lines on her face from the goggles she wore. She cannot stop beaming, and neither can Ymir.
"Enjoy the ride?" Ymir says. She swears she has to catch her breath a bit.
Historia gives her several small, earnest nods. Her little body quivers from trying to contain so much excitement. "Being in the air is so different from being on a horse or in a car," she says, and she shakes her head in the most meaningful way, her eyes bright and otherworldly.
She walks away, her legs wobbly and arms stiffly bent in front of her. She closes her eyes for just a second and tries to imagine the wind and the cold and how cathartic they must feel.
Walt's darker blond hair is also a mess from the hat he has just removed, and his facial hair is scruffier and perpetual smile is bigger than usual. He gives her an acknowledging nod as he passes.