Notes: I knew I was going to write something inspired by an Austra song (considering how much I listened to their music while writing Annie/Eren fanfiction), but I didn't know it would turn out like this.
Inspired by the song Fire, the heat titan bodies seem to have and phoenixes I came up with this weird variation on shifters. The story is Annie-centred but implies Annie/Eren. I hope it makes sense somehow.
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You said
I waged a war
What foe, what for?
— Fire; Austra
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She dreams of fire. The flames which bore her, the ashes which brought her forth. Destruction has always been her destiny. And in that devastation lies rebirth. It is an eternal circle. The way of her people. There is nothing new without something old dying first. There is no gain without sacrifice.
Her father taught her how to fight. He told her the lore of their people and inaugurated her in their history. He showed her how to utilise her body as a weapon. He explained to her the meaning of the fire burning in her veins and how to use it. He revealed to her the goal of her life, the reason for her existence.
She dreams of fire. The flames burning in her system, the cooling ashes at her core. They are consuming her, eating her up inside and turning her into the nothingness of black coal. It's a dream so intense, a vision she knows will come true. One day she will serve her purpose. She will cause the destruction she was destined to bring. Fire will spread across the land and turn this world. And it will not spare her body. So that everything may be renewed.
She fears that day, dreads it with her very being. She doesn't want to die, she wants to live. She doesn't want her body to turn to ashes and someone else to be born from it. But she doesn't know how to break free from the circle which determines the life and death of her people. Her father only taught her how to survive, how to continue until her role is fulfilled. And he made her promise to return to him.
She dreams of fire and that promise. Her father's words dancing in the flames, the guilt burning in her ashes. She knows she cannot keep that promise. Once the world burns there's nowhere to turn. You cannot survive fire. But it gives her a reason to go on. The false hope that she can somehow make it through and see her father again. Because what is the point of achieving something when you cannot witness the outcome.
Her father knew that. He didn't apologise, but he admitted he had been wrong. In a final moment he betrayed all the principles and believes he had taught her all her life with so much passion. Treat the whole world as your enemy, he asked of her instead. She never knew why, but it doesn't matter to her. She doesn't care about the world. She only cares about herself. And her father.
She dreams of fire. The flames which are alien to her, the ashes which don't resemble her. She doesn't want to burn. She wants no part in the inevitable inferno blazing under the dark sky. She never liked the heat in her body. She never felt like it belonged to her, like that's how she's supposed to be. It always seems to dissolve her.
But she needs to be strong. She cannot budge. She is surrounded by ice. Cold and unbroken. Layered thick and resilient. Lasting forever and ever. She wants to freeze the flames inside of her as well. So they will trouble her no more and she herself will become ice. The form that feels actually natural to her. The form that can get her through anything. She needs it to survive.
.: :.
She dreams of him. The fire in his green eyes, the passion in his voice. She knew he was aflame when she heard him share his beliefs during her early training days. At first she thought him to be ridiculous, then radical. Then something entirely different, impossible for her to grasp. Unlike her he has accepted the fire burning in him with vigour. His flames don't consume him, he feeds on them. And that fascinates her.
For two years she watched him from afar. Then they were face to face, then their limbs were entangled. He wasn't the singeing heat she'd expected. He wasn't as stubborn as she'd thought. He was comforting warmth against her body. And he was willing to learn from her. He let her teach him the only thing she's really good at. The only thing that makes her come to life.
She dreams of him. Their endless fights, his inevitable defeat. She enjoyed how he never held back. She liked turning his strength against him. Though he complained about her harshness he would always come back for another round. He doesn't know how to give up. She hopes he will never learn it. His persistence is something about him she admires and values.
The sight of him became more than she'd bargained for. She noted the little things. The dirt on his clothes, the sweat sticking his dark brown hair to his forehead. A twitch of his lip or the furrowing of his brows. She registered those things and filed them away in her mind for later reference. As if she'd prepared for the time she'd encase herself in crystal, in her refuge from the world. As if a part of her knew. And she comes to believe that her father was right when he told her that there were ways for them to see the future, she just hasn't mastered them.
She dreams of him. The touch of his body seeming to draw her in, her lack of resistance against his impossible appeal on her. His lips became temptation and she had to force herself not to linger on the thought. But in the walls of her mind, shielded off from the outside world, she is free to finally give in to her curiosity.
She imagines the surface of his lips to be chapped, just like her own. The first touch is reluctant, they both don't really know what they're doing. She can feel the hunger growing inside her and she is more than willing to let herself be consumed by it – quite contrary to the fire which is burning in her veins. She wants to feel it, his passion, and she imagines it to seep through his lips into her system. She wants it to burn her up and renew her – like it is her fate to go up in flames and have someone new born from her ashes. But the touch of Eren's lips would spark a different fire and it would not claim her very being.
.: :.
She dreams of her father. His words resonating in her mind, the memories filling her with guilt. I want you to treat the whole world as your enemy, he asked of her. But she knows she has failed. Because for an instance – and then several others – at least a part of her didn't consider the passionate boy as her enemy. She knew they were on different sides and still she let him get close, let him get under her skin.
She wonders if her father knew that she would fail to heed his advice. He has seen glimpses of the future though he never told her what they contained. She wonders if he saw her falter because of the boy with the green eyes – if he saw her fail – and his words were meant as a warning to her. And she apologises to him that she didn't listen and now cannot keep her promise to return.
.: :.
She dreams of his voice. His desperate tone, his demanding questions. Why, why did you do all this? She wonders why, she never believed in any of the reasons. She only pretended that it mattered to her. She played the game like she had chosen her role and not like it was thrust upon her. She went after him to claim him as one of her people and introduce him to the circle of fire which comes with the heat sealing their wounds. She pushed aside her feelings of disappointment and shock upon the realisation that he – like her – was all that what she had envied him for not being.
He keeps repeating the question through the crystal shell, in her head. He reminds her of the bloodshed she caused. He speaks of fighting and battles to win. He says that she brought strife to the walls of mankind – and why was she hiding now and not fighting for her cause to the bitter end. Because he doesn't know that like him she doesn't see the point of her deeds. Like him she doesn't know what she's fighting for, because she doesn't believe in her supposed reasons. They are not hers. They were forced upon her. She doesn't want them to determine her and she's tired of pretending. She has no enemy and no cause. She only has herself.
She dreams of his voice. His shouts as he hammers against her prison, his whispers as tears impede his ability to speak. In her mind, she sees him kneeling before her crystallised form, exhausted from reasoning with her frozen figure and overwhelmed by his emotions. He begs her to break free from the thick layers and make sense of everything for him. But she can't. She never found sense in her father's lessons. She never found sense in this world.
She wants to cry. Like him she wants to wail everything she has done for a day she will never witness. She wants to thrust herself in his arms. She wants to embrace him and be held by him. She wants to melt the ice surrounding her which fails to reach her heart where the warmth of his flames lingers. But she remains frozen out of fear. Fear that he might reject her. Fear that the world outside will not let her reach his arms. She wants to burn this world that keeps her from him, so they can make a brand new start.
.: :.
She dreams of fire. The flames which consume the world, the ashes which remain. She sees the cleansed land stretch out in front of her. She can feel him by her side. If she rid this world of everything – all the obstacles in their way – maybe they'd have a chance. A strange sensation spreads inside her, because for the first time she might have use for that fire raging through her system.
She wants to burn for him. It's the only thing that would make sense to her. Because if she can't have him and if she can't have life there is no point in doing something ever again. She imagines herself in his arms, both of them encased by flames which cannot touch them. She could accept the fire licking at her insides if it was for him.
.: :.
But she knows he would never forgive her for that. He wants to preserve the world for mankind. He's fighting for that, he's fighting for his friends. He doesn't crave the destruction in which she sees their chance. And she's through with doing pointless things and walking a path without him.
So she remains. Frozen inside her crystal. Where at least she can hear his voice. And never harm him with her fire.
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