Atlas
" I wish I could carry your world, " Armin thought faithfully, as he guarded the crystal. Annie was enclosed in ice, a shell which was now her armour, and Armin wondered whether she had somebody above her in the food chain, whether she wanted to travel the world and he wondered if he had regrets on how he handled her. Annie & Armin. Implied: Jean x Marco & Petra x Levi.
"It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live."
" I need some volunteers," Hanji burst in the room, in her eccentric manner as they were having dinner. It had been weeks after Annie went into her crystal shell and Eren nearly lost his control over his temper, everyone looked up towards the infamous squad leader, well everyone apart from Sasha who was tucking in to her jacket potato.
" What for?" Eren asked obediently, Hanji was on cloud nine, she was so excited she couldn't barely contain herself. Armin watched on intently, while Mikasa had her eyes firmly on the two.
" I need someone to watch over Annie's crystal while I tend to my new titan - Alexander, for a while - so who is prepared to help?" Hanji was jumping up and down desperately, nobody was brave enough to face the female titan if she woke up and Eren & Mikasa were needed on expeditions.
" I'll help the guards out..." Armin mumbled softly while Hanji grinned, and grabbed his hand pushing him outside and along into the room which Annie was held.
The first thing he noticed was that the crystal was chained up, he peered closer into it and he felt fear, Annie wasn't her fearless self, she didn't look like she was at peace, her eyes were tightly shut and Armin noticed the Military Police were around the edge of the room, all seemed to be stiff scared and Armin knew in that moment how fearful and incompetent the Military Police were. He examined Annie's face, she was frightened and this crystal was her defence mechanism.
He watched her for days, while the Military Police left him to it and he heard them drinking & gambling outside the room, saying that Annie gave them the creeps. Sometimes he saw Squad Leader Levi, he was normally in the room when he got there in the Morning. His eyes were always darkened and full of loss, anger and revenge, a pair of eyes that were similar to Eren's and Mikasa's whether they talked about Carla and the titans. After Levi left, Armin would read his beloved book and a couple of times he read the pages out to Annie and wondered if she could hear him, sometimes he talked about his dreams to her and for a moment Armin thought Annie was smiling.
" I wonder if you have any dreams about getting out of these three walls Annie and to see something new, I want to see the sea... Do you know the sea is made out of saltwater and apparently it covers seventy five percent of this world," Armin claimed while he looked at the fallen form of the female titan. Armin had read the book, many of times but every time he read it again, he always seemed surprised by the new information he could find. He felt the same looking at Annie, every time he saw her within the last couple of months, he had seen her angry happy and even depressed but he had never seen her look curious, thats when Armin realised that Annie's ideals were based on a black and white world, it was a dog eat dog world and Annie always seemed to accepted these walls, accepted the fact that titans ate humans and accepted the fact that humans sometimes killed titans.
Annie always talked about how they should go against the flow, but in reality she knew nobody would because going against was to get on with the titans. That's when Armin realised that maybe she wanted somebody to try and understand her. To a certain extent, Armin could understand Annie but she was slightly hypocritical, as she did accept the flow such as killing loved ones to get Eren but why did she choose to save him? When she so obviously killed many others.
He was so transfixed with his thoughts, he didn't notice Jean come in, unlike the deep stirring hatred that seemed to be in Levi's eyes, Jean was more obvious expressing his fury and sadness. As Armin watched on, Jean yelled his heart out at Annie, yelling at her, then asking why she did this.
Armin absorbed everything, the feelings directed at Annie. He should hate her. No! He needs to hate her. He has to hate her for killing his friends, his comrades and almost killing his family in Mikasa and Eren. But he couldn't understand why he could not hate her, why of all things did he pity her and think she is the most beautiful thing he has seen.
He examined the crystal, it was fitting for Annie to be locked within it as she she was the ice queen, unwilling to let anyone get close to her. In the end though, Annie had won her bet because Armin couldn't go against the flow because he wanted out these three walls, he wanted to go out with Eren and Mikasa and see the world, see the sea, he wanted his own family one day, and he was pretty sure that as soon as Annie got out of her shield, she would go straight after Eren and Mikasa. He wished he was strong enough, to go against the flow and protect both Annie & Eren.
" I wish I could carry your world, I wish I could show you how wonderful the sea, the land and the whole world could be and full it is full of opportunities Annie," Armin thought faithfully. He wish he had all the pieces and the missing puzzle parts, the whole story to why Annie became a shell of herself, he was curious and as he looked at the grand female titan, he was pretty sure she'd give her side of the story one day and he hoped he'd be around to hear it, he thought as he snapped the book shut.
Was that awful and OOC? This is just a practise one shot before I delve into attempting an attack on titan multi chapter fic! So any feedback and flames is greatly recommended and appreciated :)