Dichotomy

by saphira and shruikan

AU. Jean just wants to be better at hunting than that Eren Jaeger kid, and he figures that following a master hunter and picking up some tips will do the trick. But when he follows Ymir, the best his village has got, on a solo trip, he gets a little more than he bargained for. JeanMarco, Naga!Marco.

7. Scar

Scar

"Walls?" my mother repeats.

My dad nods. "Walls. All around Trost."

"Why on earth do we need walls?" she wonders, sitting down at her place at the head of the table. "What could the point possibly be? We're never attacked. We aren't at war."

"Who knows, dear. Pass the corn?"

My mom does so, the look on her face implying she's still confused about why Trost needs something like a wall. "It's just silly to me. I realize we need to protect ourselves, but we haven't experienced anything near enough to warrant a wall. It's almost wintertime, for god's sake! Who's going to build a wall in the cold?"

"I heard if they don't get enough volunteers they'll start drafting us," Thomas intones drolly, taking the corn from my dad and spooning some onto his plate. We're all seated at the table for a nice homely dinner of veal, carrots, corn, and whatever the fuck this other weird-ass yellow-skinned vegetable is on the side. "As early as this month. It's on the notice board."

He hands me the corn and I take it, scooping myself an amount lesser beings would consider ridiculous. This shit is good. It's got little balls of cheese dotted in it. I ask, "What's the age for the draft thing?"

Thomas rolls his eyes skyward. "Seventeen," he sighs, "so you don't have to worry about doing actual work anytime soon."

"I wasn't asking for that," I snarl right back, even though I totally was wondering whether this shit applies to me.

"Boys," my mother says sternly, and we both fall silent, though I shoot Thomas a nasty glare before subsiding. Fucking condescending bastard.

"What else does the board say, Thomas?" Dad inquires quietly between bites of veal. He's a really good cook; he and my mom switch making dinner every night, but I like his nights better. I prefer meat pretty rare, and he always makes sure to broil mine to appropriate redness. Mom just kind of fries it all to equal oblivion.

"The wall's supposed to be forty feet tall when completed," Thomas drones on, sounding exactly like the human personification of the most boring document ever, "with seven watchtowers spaced equally apart. They have a blueprint set up. It's very extensive."

"Are you going to volunteer?" my mother asks.

Thomas shrugs. "I might. If my friends do it."

Mom scoffs. "Pointless project. My tax money is not funding this, no ma'am. They'll have to take it from my cold dead hands." I sympathize. I have a similar disposition toward money; namely, it's got to be invested somewhere useful. I usually spend everything on food like the fatass I am.

"I'm sure it'll die out," Dad sighs, "because no one particularly cares for it to happen."

"Enough about that, then," my mother decides with finality between bites. She glances up at me and I unwillingly meet her gaze. She's a wide, stout woman, shorter than me, and wears her long brown hair in a ponytail most of the time. "What did you do today, Jean?" she wonders aloud, slicing herself a square of meat and sticking it in her mouth.

I shrug, resting my cheek in my hand as I slide my vegetables around my plate with my fork. "I dunno. Worked."

"Nn-huh. How was work?"

"Good."

"Just good? Anything interesting happen?"

"Nah." Now if we were talking about six days ago instead of today . . .

I sit there for a moment and idly wonder out of boredom exactly how long it would take to convince my family I'd exchanged names with the naga. I imagine how I would first say it, and their arguments and dismissals, and then my insistence. Would they feel sympathy for Ymir? Or disgust? Would they want to meet Marco, or turn Ymir in and embark to hunt him once they know exactly where he is? Or would they just call me crazy?

How would I feel about that, exactly? Probably like they had it coming. But it would be a pity to ruin their little arrangement.

"That Reiner is so generous," Dad is saying, and I return my attention to the conversation in case it involves me. "He gives me a discount whenever I stop by." I suppress a shudder; it's embarrassing as fuck when my parents visit when I'm at the bakery, especially because Reiner can maintain a conversation with them for hours. I hum and nod in response.

"Is he seeing that Hoover boy?" Mom wonders aloud. "I don't like how he hangs around that place all the time."

I snort. "They're getting around to it." Slowly. Agonizingly.

"When are you going to bring home a nice boy or girl, Jean?" my dad asks me innocently, just as I take a sip of my water, which was a bad move because I almost spit it right back out.

"Dad!" Not fucking again.

"What? I was just wondering."

I stab the mystery vegetable and throw it into my mouth with grumpy ferocity. It's watery. "Told you I'm not into anybody," I grumble.

He sighs. "No grandchildren for me at this rate." And it's true. Between single me and Thomas who has some boyfriend, it doesn't look like the Kirschteins are progressing biologically further than us two. "I need more babies to play with. The neighbor's kids are-" He wrinkles his nose, waving his hand. "-rude."

I shrug. "Thomas can adopt."

"Let's not make this about me," Thomas sniffs shortly.

Thankfully, my dad focuses his needy attention on Thomas and his whoever-it-is and not on me, so I can wolf down the rest of my meal in peace.

But it doesn't look like I'm going to be escaping anytime soon, because as we're all rising with our plates to stack them on the counter my mother calls, "Jean, help with the dishes."

I groan but don't protest further, because what is this keeping me from, sleeping? I'm not tired. I nod past my mother's admonishment that it's not polite to make such lazy noises and stand beside her at the counter. She hands me the towel, wordlessly indicating I'm drying, and sets to methodically scrubbing the dishes.

I thought she asked me to get me to be useful for once, but it's apparent that's not the case when after a lull she intones, "So tomorrow."

"So tomorrow," I repeat.

"You going out with that Ymir again?"

"Yup."

"And where are you going with her?"

I shrug nonchalantly. "Wherever she whisks me away to."

"To hunt?" she asks as she hands me a glass. Most other families have wooden cutlery, but my dad saw this nice china-and-glass set in a trader's tent once and fell in love. My mom was pissed at first that he wasted money on such a frivolous purchase, but these shiny white plates grew on her.

I refrain from a sarcastic comment, like that we're actually going out there to do fun stuff like pet squirrels and swim and talk to nagas. "Yup."

My mom's mouth twists ever so slightly. "Mh hmm. And you didn't think to tell me before you went out to do something like this?"

"I didn't think it would cause an issue," I reply.

"I don't like you out there with that woman," my mom says.

"It's fine, Mom."

"I really don't like the thought of you alone in the wilderness with that woman. It's just . . ."

"God, mom," I snort, "she's not gonna rape me or anything. Actually I don't even think she's into guys-"

"Don't joke about that sort of thing," my mother cuts in. "Even so, if anything happens, I'll know it was her. I hope you're being careful."

"We haven't been attacked by bears yet, so I think I'm doing pretty good."

"You know what I mean," she says impatiently. "Keep an eye on your things. Don't bring anything valuable. You never know when she's going to try and filch something."

"I don't think-"

"And don't tell her anything personal, Jean. Nothing about your home life. Don't let her think she's welcome in this house, you understand me? Bad enough she even knows where we live."

"I-"

"And watch how she speaks to you. Her type have absolutely no respect for other people. If she says anything even remotely threatening, or inappropriate, or suggestive-"

"All right, I get it," I mumble quietly, not mentioning that I'm pretty sure Ymir's done all of these things, maybe even all at once.

"You let that woman know we'll be watching her. Not one toe out of line."

"I'll let her know," I assure her. Despite how intimidating my mom is, I doubt Ymir will even care about what's being said about her. I wonder if she knows her warning's got to apply to Marco too, but then I remember he doesn't have toes, and suppress an ugly giggle.

v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v

I'm late again.

I went to bed right after dinner and I still oversleep. This time it's the thunderous knocking that rouses me, and I'm fully aware of the fact that I'm still in bed and I completely should not be before Thomas even comes over to shake me awake. I tumble out of bed with a bit less franticness than I did last week, because I know what to expect, and honestly I'm not sure whether to look forward to today or not.

Exercise. Ew.

"JEAN, WALK OFF YOUR DAMN MORNING WOOD AND GET OUT HERE."

Oooh, yeah, that's gonna land some points with my parents.

Ymir is tapping her foot by the time I open the door, eyebrow raised. "Didn't I say not to oversleep?" she wonders dryly.

"Sorry," I grunt, closing my door behind me. A passing glance at the sky tells me the sun has barely risen. "Is it . . . earlier? Even earlier? Than last week- Christ, it is."

"Needs to be," Ymir says shortly, hopping off my porch and striding swiftly down the road. "Let's go."

I had the foresight to bake Marco's chocolate whatevers the day before, so when Ymir hops the counter (how long would it take to just go around, seriously) and grabs the bag it's mine she holds. The walk is brisk and quiet; I'll let her go over whatever it is I'm going to be doing when we get there. It's far too early to initiate anything even vaguely resembling small talk. I never got around to telling Reiner what she said. Eh, I guess I can let it slide.

It's one of those chilly days, the ones that really tell you autumn is here and winter is coming. My spontaneous breakfast is another apple, courtesy of Ymir (which I still find bullshit, by the way; I'm a growing boy and need more sustenance). When we hit the clearing less than an hour later I make for the log, but Ymir clucks her tongue and shakes her head. "Not going there." Her stride has not diminished in speed or purpose; she walks straight to the other end of the glade and continues on through the trees, heading north. I jog to catch up with her, wondering what the hell she's about.

I have no idea what our destination could be right now; the only thing I can think of to the north is the mountain Marco and I climbed, and it's not like I'm agreeing to climb that anytime soon. "So where are we going?"

"You'll see."

"Where are we going? Not everything has to be so friggin' ambiguous, you know."

She sighs. "We're meeting up with Marco."

"Marco? Isn't he supposed to be . . . like, doing that . . . warm-up nap thing?"

"Hasn't gone yet. Start paying attention to the route we're taking, Jimbles, because you're going to walk him up to bask every week. He tells me you were huffing and puffing all the way up and down that path. That true?"

Damn naga betrayed me. Unbelievable. And we were getting along so well. "I was not huffing and puffing."

"You're out of shape. A nice hike once a week should help with that. See, this is why I didn't want to tell you until we got there. You complain about everything."

"I do not!"

". . . Wow."

I clamp my mouth shut, simmering sullenly, letting out my indignation on a rock by my toe. It goes flying a good twenty feet. I wish I could do the same to Ymir. Fuck, I actually am trekking that damn mountain again. It's too early for anything even vaguely resembling physical exertion.

Ymir slows as the ground becomes sandier, transitioning from leafy forest to rocky mountainside, whistling a tune quite loudly. She breaks off to call, "Marco? You here yet?"

Our only answer is a weak, wordless groan, wafting through the air from somewhere to our left. I'm momentarily spooked, but Ymir wanders toward it, leaning and peeking around trees and boulders for the culprit; she circles around a particularly large breed of the latter and looks down. "Ah."

I circle around too to see. Coil upon coil of thick, dark snake tail is clumped up in a shiny, irregular ball in the dirt, pressed up against the rock, and I'm assuming it's Marco because Marco himself is nowhere to be seen. Then the whole twisting arrangement starts shifting slowly, and a loop falls right off the top to thump messily to the ground, revealing Marco embedded within with his head buried in his arms; the tail is curled around and under him like a bird's nest.

He lifts his head in a wobbly fashion, slowly blinking and squinting up at us. His shaggy black hair is a tangled mess, and the bags under his eyes make him look like he hasn't slept in days. "Huh," he grunts groggily, then plunks his head back down into his arms.

Ymir kicks the tail with the side of her foot. "Get up, fatass."

"Uhhhgh."

"That wasn't any language I recognize," Ymir says, kicking him again. "Come on, get up. Jean's going to walk you up to bask, remember?"

"No," comes the sleepy reply, muffled by the fact that Marco's face is smushed against the tail. I know the feeling, dude. I didn't want to get up today and hike either.

"Yes you do," Ymir sighs, twisting and reaching into her satchel. She withdraws from it a metal canteen, which she unstops and tips on its side directly over Marco's head. I almost laugh, because that's fucking mean. A little bit of clear water splashes into Marco's frizzy hair; he starts and recoils with a wordless groan of protest, shaking his head weakly.

"'M up. 'M up." Marco yawns hugely, slowly grabbing the rock he's pressed up against and hauling himself higher into something resembling a standing position. I stare, unnerved. He's obviously tired, and that's fine, because so am I, and it's only weirdos like Ymir that aren't at this hour of the morning. But the way Marco's moving is . . . off. It's way too slow, like he's trying to move through molasses.

Ymir snorts and stows the canteen away. She notices the look on my face. "He's slow in the morning," she explains. "It's the cold. Makes him tired and sluggish."

"Y-You're . . . tired an' . . . sluggish," Marco slurs weakly, rubbing his eyes in slow motion.

"Plus he's just aways been a heavy sleeper. It's almost cute, but it takes forever for him to move," Ymir says, nudging him with her foot yet again. "And no one's going to carry you, baby."

"'M up," he groans again, swatting weakly in her direction, his hand moving sluggishly enough for any snail worth its salt to get out of the way. He drags it down the side of his face, sighing, and his eyes haul themselves up to meet mine. He blinks lethargically a few times, his face blank, before inching toward me - and when I say inching I mean inching, because he's so slow I can probably walk several circles around the whole of him before he relocates significantly. His hand eases its way up through the air; I roll my eyes and quicken the inevitable process, grabbing Marco's hand before it's at optimal chest level and shaking it. His arm wobbles limply. I pause for a second, frowning; his skin isn't really clammy, but it's oddly cool, like he's been holding it against ice for a moment or two. It's like how mine get in the cold.

"Mm-hm," Marco hums thickly, this dopy grin on his sleepy face. Ymir guffaws obnoxiously next to me; I shoot a glare at her before realizing I'm still holding Marco's hand. When I let go it drops like a bag of rocks, swinging heavily against his side, like he can't even bring himself to control it.

Wow. I'm not even this bad in the morning. How the fuck does he climb a mountain like this?

Ymir whacks me on the shoulder. "You know the way. Come back to the glade when he's up there."

Marco weaves from side to side as she turns and strides away into the forest, blinking after her like he still doesn't comprehend what's going on, before slowly rotating northward. He tips forward onto his hands, palms thudding stiffly into the dirt, shoulder blades bunching together toward his spiky spine, and pauses a second to rub his eyes again before slowly trudging across the ground.

I follow him wordlessly, trying not to be unnerved. Every time I think I might be getting familiar with how he acts something new surprises me. The tail barely curves as he walks heavily on his hands, arms stiffly locked straight, head hanging and nodding because it looks like he's trying to keep himself awake. I wonder if he's ever just given in and fallen asleep on the way. Where does he even sleep, anyway? A dark and gloomy cave? Does he just curl up in a random place on the ground at night? That sounds fucking terrifying. We had campouts in Eren's backyard when we were little; I used to lie awake marveling and cursing at how fucking noisy it is outside at night.

I'm kind of grateful he's so tired, because then we're not obligated to speak. It's like herding a sheep. He seems so tired that he's brainless.

The birdsong trails off behind us as the trees thin out and then disappear as we breach the bare terrain of the mountainside. Following the nigh on incoherent Marco apparently, surprisingly, paid off, because we emerge with the same view of the mountainside we saw two weeks ago when we had to go dislodge that tree. I can't believe that was only two weeks ago.

I take a second to admire the view as Marco trudges tiredly out of the brush and shadows, looking on the very verge of collapse, but the second sunlight hits his skin his eyes flutter fully open, and he rears up to a vertical position, sighing. He liquidly curls the rest of his slimy body sideways into the sun-baked grass, quick to get it out of the shade, and pauses to stretch his arms. He's mumbling under his breath, too low for me to hear.

He blinks slowly over at me. "Hello." He looks a little more awake, at least enough to greet me properly.

"Hi."

That done and apparently satisfied, he falls forward on his hands and starts crawling again, yawning widely, headed for the beaten path on the mountain's face that winds its way skyward. The wind is stronger here, rippling through the stiff yellow grass with a steady rush, tossing and tousling my hair, grasping at my sleeves and cuffs. I grab my arms and hug them to my chest, not looking forward to the imminent trek. It's windy and cold, but the sun is still beating down upon my head and shoulders, and I already feel the prickle of the beginnings of a sunburn. I burn like a fucking tomato. It sucks.

Oh goddamn motherfucking shit on a motherfucking goddamn stick, my calves are already burning, and we only just started ascending. How am I this out of shape? I'm not a weak guy! Sure, I'm kind of thin, but that's just my naturally lean and limber physique, sure to win the hearts of guys and girls everywhere. Especially the heart of Mikasa. If she hangs around scrawny Eren all the time, she's got to have a thing for sinewy guys.

Marco crawls ahead of me, puffy eyes shut, walking on his hands up the path. The tail makes minute little turns every once in a while, his spine forming a very shallow zigzag, so he never really walks (slithers?) straight. How hard would that be, honestly? Not very. Just walk. Straight line. Honestly.

"Hello," he says again as he's passing by above my head. We've gotten to the part of the path where it first folds back on itself in its slow ascent.

"You said that already."

"I know," he mumbles, along with a few other things I don't catch, but I can't ask because his elbow wobbles and bends as his hand comes down for a step, and he promptly faceplants in the dirt, one arm crumpled underneath him and the other stretched out behind him. He utters a groan and goes still.

I guffaw loudly, staggering a bit. "Are you okay?" I call up, but he doesn't answer. I keep walking, stepping over and around the motionless scaly tail and rounding the bend to ascend to where Marco is. "Did you die?"

He wobbles his head to and fro a bit. I squat down next to him, gazing down at him. "You alive?"

His ribcage puffs up for a moment as he grunts, "No."

"You're dead?"

"M-hm."

"Well . . . that's not good. Ymir's gonna kill me."

"M-hm."

"Pretty gruesomely."

"M-hm."

"I thought you said you were gonna protect me?" I wonder aloud, poking his shoulder. I frown, then rest my knuckles against his arm curiously. It feels sun-baked and warm to the touch, but still has a slight underlying chill, down deeper under the skin. So odd.

"S' touchi' me," he grumbles into the ground. "'M tire."

"Well, you won't get up, so."

Marco slowly turns his head to the left until it's his cheek smushed against the ground instead of his entire face, squinting open one eye to look up at me. I raise an eyebrow expectantly. "I am, I am," he sighs breathily, dragging his arms up and pressing his hands into the ground, slowly rising.

"All right," I say, rising myself, and I'm about to step to the side to give him room to go on ahead again when the snake tail suddenly springs to life; it pulls forward and bunches up right behind Marco in a big clump of thick dark loops, upturned at the sides so the edges go past Marco's chest, and the movement is so rapid and goddamn slippery that my joints lock and I just wobble there staring like an idiot. I feel a push - a solid something pressing against my heel and it's a lot stronger than it should and- I look down, see a dark coil of the tail pressing against my foot, and the electricity of shock surges up my leg like lightning. I skitter away, nearly tripping, arms flailing a bit. My toes curl, my ankle tensing up.

Marco squints around. "Wherdja go?"

I wiggle my foot around, trying to get rid of the feeling of that thing touching me. "Uh. Here."

Apparently the purpose of that whole . . . bunching thing was to hoist Marco up, because he does so, rising into an upright position and swiping dirt off his face before stretching yet again. He doesn't seem to have noticed my momentary freakout, and I'm not sure how he would react if he knew I almost just fell down the mountain trying to get away from that thing he drags around.

The rest of the walk is quiet, and god fucking damn it I really am fucking out of shape, because by the time we get up to that rocky outcrop we dislodged the tree from I'm dragging my feet and sweating and breathing hard. I pull my shirt away from my chest a bit, shaking it to get some air and relief. My skin's damp. I'm a mess.

I look up at the scratchy black stone column and its grass-waterfall path. "I don't have to go up there again, do I?"

"Nuh-uh," Marco sighs tiredly, plodding past me on stiff arms and hands. "Ymir says you go back down now."

"All right," I mutter, stepping aside to give the sliding tail room. Lots of room. As much room as possible.

Marco approaches the vertical path and rears up again, hands seeking, and slowly starts hauling himself up. His fingers grope and swipe at the wall blindly. I wonder if he's even going to make it up there.

Eventually he heaves himself over the edge and disappears; the length of time it takes that scaly monstrosity to follow him is a lot longer than is comfortable, weaving and smoothly sliding with a limpness that might make me feel a bit more at ease if it isn't for the slow zigzags of its spine, a constant reminder of the fact that it's living and feeling and it moves and it's awfully strong-

I turn my back. Time to go back to Ymir.

v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v

Just kidding. Time to go back to the fucking mountain.

The second I wearily step foot in that fucking clearing again, Ymir lifts that fucking smug-ass condescending simpering grin and tells me I took my sweet time getting back (I FUCKING GOT LOST) and if I start now, I can get back to Marco and his fucking basking spot in time to walk him back here- just FUCK.

After throwing a tantrum worthy of my legendary toddler years, which mostly consisted of me swearing and whining and pouting, and retracing my steps (I GET LOST AGAIN) all the way through the rustling woods and then up the windy winding path, except alone this time, I'm finally back before that waterfall of grass amidst stone and ready for a six-year nap.

The rock is lifeless, and I don't know if Marco's done with his freaky weirdo warmup naptime or not, but the internal debate about whether to call for him or not is decided quickly when I realize there is no way in hell I'm getting up and walking again.

I fucking hate Ymir.

Believe me when I say I throw myself down on the grass, sitting hunched over like a loser in the shade cast by the rock formation. Whatever, I'll wait ten minutes or something and if Marco's not done by then I'll whistle. Or maybe I'll make it a half an hour. I'm so sweaty right now. I want a fucking bath.

I eventually stretch my legs out, leaning back on my hands, trying to air myself out like a sweaty dishtowel. The breeze plays with my hair and clothes, rippling a pattern across my chest and knees. Here in the shadow of the rock it's not too overbearing; actually, it's chilling my sweaty ass and making me shiver a bit, but I'm afraid I'll start rolling if I move somewhere else, so here I stay.

From here I can see the distant smudge that is Trost. Can't believe I walked all the way over here from that little break in the canopy. Ridiculous. There's my exercise for the year. Except, no, wait, it's not, because fucking Ymir is going to be a fucking asshole and make me-

No. Grow up, Kirschtein. It'll be worth it. Think of the rippling muscles you'll obtain. The flow of game. The MP. The life of luxury.

Oh, who am I kidding. That's one hell of a slippery slope, there, Kirschtein. Take it one step at a time. First learn. Learn and the rest might come, if you work hard. You're a lazy fuck, but you've got to step up for once.

I lean back and lie down in the yellowing grass, picking a spot for my head to lay where the proportion of vegetation to dirt is such that I won't need a vicious scrubbing later. The grass is short and sparse, scratchy against my exposed skin, and I wriggle a bit to get comfortable. The sky is cloudless in that blank way cold days are. I sigh heavily, my ribs shaky, lolling my head to the side and watching the grass bob and ripple down the slope from the wind. My skin has dried, the sweat disappeared. Oh great. Now I'm doing that thing where I'm getting so comfortable that getting up is entirely out of the question. I flop my arms down in the grass on either sides of my chest and roll my head pointing skyward again, blinking slowly. I tear out little pieces of grass with my hands, idle and lethargic. Who knew walking took this much out of you. My hands rove a bit to the sides once I've torn up all the long grass in range. If I could reach a bit more I could actually reach that tree root and pick at it too-

That is not a tree root.

I nearly have a heart attack when I look to the side and see thirty feet of slimy tail instead of the empty space that I swear to god was right there before. Marco is lying amidst it all on his stomach, propping himself up with his elbows on a bit of the snake and watching me intently. The second my gaze hits his he looks away. Christ, he's not even five feet away from me. The end of the snake tail is almost right next to my hand. How and when did he sneak up on me so silently?

At least he's remembering not to stare. "Hello, Prin- Jean," he says for the third time today. Before I can ask what it is he almost just called me instead of my name he continues with, "Ymir didn't tell me you walk me down, too."

"Yeah," I grunt, "she didn't tell me either. Prick."

His strange caramel eyes aren't focused on me, but his brow wrinkles with displeasure at the word, and I decide to keep quiet after that. No need to completely make my morning by coaxing out mister berserk snake Marco.

I don't make the first move to rise and begin the descent, and neither does he, and I'm grateful. The great shining curves of the tail are completely still, and so is Marco himself, gazing down the mountain and looking calm. With neither of us moving after a minute or so I let myself relax again, looking drowsily back up at the sky and blinking slowly.

The tail begins to move and I suppress a groan, thinking it's time for the migration. I watch out of the corner of my eye as Marco shifts, slowly straightening up from his stooped over position. I turn my head and catch him looking at me, and his gaze darts away hurriedly. But when I turn my head back I can see out of the corner of my eye that he keeps glancing at me. Sketchy as fuck, as usual. Slowly he reclines backward, the whole collection of scaly tail sliding and writhing to accommodate Marco's movement, until he's lying on his back like I am. I see him fidget a little before growing still.

Great. Happy? Now we're both lying down. Couple of jackasses lying side by side on a mountain slope.

He keeps glancing at me.

Is he copying me?

I slowly move to pillow my left hand upon my stomach, making it comfortable, and wait. Not two seconds later Marco casually mimics the movement.

Oh yeah. He's been copying me.

I almost feel amused.

"You smell like something," Marco pipes up thoughtfully. I loll my head to the side to squint at him. "Something I recognize but cannot place."

"Probably sweat," I grunt.

He slowly rolls his head back and forth, staring up at the clouds. "No, it's . . ." He points the tip of his tongue toward the roof of his mouth, and the flesh under the skin of his throat and neck undulates; I already know the pinkish snake tongue is coming before it even materializes, sticking out of his mouth a good foot and flicking the end limply before it collapses down into his jaws again. Fucking weird. Where does it all go? "Like an animal. Something sweaty and musky. And female."

"The only sweaty musky female animal I've interacted with is my brother's dog. Might be her."

He looks at me in surprise, dark eyes wide. "You have a brother?"

"Yup."

"That's wonderful! Do you have more? Do you have a sister?"

I don't share his enthusiasm. "Nope, just him."

"Is he older or younger?"

"Older."

"What's he like? Is he nice? Is he nice to you? Do you get along? I know Ymir says sometimes siblings hate each other and sometimes they don't care about each other and I can't really fathom that - probably because I adore Ymir and she adores me - but I hope you don't have that kind of thing because it makes me sad to hear and you don't deserve it and if you do have that kind of relationship I think you should talk about it with him."

He didn't even draw breath throughout that whole thing. I blink exactly three times up at the sky, face blank. "Has anyone ever told you you talk a lot?"

"No, because no one is here but you and Ymir," he replies.

"Well you do. And it's a bit much."

"I just want to convey everything I'm thinking."

"And you do it too much."

"But- oh . . . okay." A pause. "People do that in books."

"In what?"

"In books. In books people say long paragraphs."

I shift my head a bit to get more comfortable. There's a pebble or something digging into my scalp. "They don't in real life. You've gotta give your conversational partner some time to respond or something. Besides, where you gonna read a book in the damn woods? Last time you read a book was when you were seven or something."

"No I didn't, I read one last night. You don't make a good conversational partner. Everything you say is short and angry and rude. Except the snakebutt thing, that was kind of funny-"

"Back to the original thing," I interrupt, swinging up my hands to cut him off before letting them fall back to their former positions. "Thomas and I sort of get along when he's not being pissy. We share a room, so we get pretty tired of each other."

"I wish I shared a room with Ymir again," he sighs. "Actually, I think we shared a bed. When I wasn't like this. I'd never get tired of her."

"Shared a bed? You guys poor?"

He doesn't respond. I glance to the side again and see him squinting contemplatively up at the sky, like he's trying to remember. While he goes and does that my eyes slide unbidden down to his waist, then down to the tail his legs turned into. The dark scales are so neatly and snugly and methodically fitted together it's ridiculous, slightly overlapping and crudely ovular in shape. It looks designed. The trunk is milky belly-up for the first few feet before it rotates right side up for the rest of the length, curled in a long, loose, lazy wave down the slope a ways. If it started to slide, would Marco be pulled down too? Or would he be strong enough to lug that monstrosity back up?

There's something going on with the scales at the spot where his thighs would be possessed he legs. There are several thin, winding streaks through the sides where scales are arranged irregularly or just not there, exposing thin swaths of black, leathery skin. The fuck are those? Are those stretch marks? Do snakes even get stretch marks? Why are they there and nowhere else?

"I'm not sure if we were," Marco says eventually, startling me out of my creeping. "I don't remember what other houses look like. Or if they even look different at all. Do all houses look the same?"

"No."

"Oh, it would make more sense if they did, so then the people who make houses can just build the same kind over and over again. That might get boring, though. Ours only had one room in the whole house. I remember papers everywhere, all over the floor and beds and shelves. Probably from my mother, because she was a scholar. She was always sitting at her desk against the wall researching something. And only two beds. One for our parents and one for us. Does that make us poor?"

"Well," I grunt, wiggling a bit to get into a more comfortable position, "it sounds sloppy, and you shared a bed, so yeah, you sound pretty poor."

"Are you poor?"

"Uh . . ." - wow, rude - "We've got four rooms in the house. Five if you count the sitting room and kitchen separate. My mom and brother and I have got a pretty steady income. So nah, we're not. Doin' pretty good."

"What's an income?"

"It's, uh, money you get for having a job."

"For having a job, or for working in a job?"

". . . Working in a job."

"You smell like something else too," Marco says right away, apparently steering us in a completely different direction, "and it baffles me. Like something fresssh, aaand . . . kind of sour? I think?"

I raise my hands for a second before letting them drop back to my stomach with a clap, not particularly in the mood for a guessing game. "You got me." You are so ridiculous, o fearsome naga, I want to add, but I don't want to waste energy explaining exactly how ridiculous I find him, because doubtless he'll ask.

"I got you what?"

"No- never mind."

"All right," he surrenders, and we lapse into silence yet again. Until, of course, I decide to break it again. But on my terms, see, not to feed his insatiable need to monologue. I'm just curious.

"What's with the, uh . . . the whole warming-up thing?" I ask.

"What's with it?" Marco parrots back to me.

"Yeah, like . . . why do you do it?"

"Most reptiles exhibit some form of cold-bloodedness so that they have limited physiological means of keeping the body temperature constant and often rely on external sources of heat."

". . . What."

"Most reptiles exhibit some form of cold-bloodedness so that they have limited physiological means of keeping the body temperature constant and often rely on external sources of heat."

Just what the fuck. "I didn't mean repeat it, I mean explain what the fuck you just said."

". . . Oh." Marco glances at me sheepishly, giving me a glimpse of those dark eyes (are they chocolate, caramel, or honey? I can't decide; they keep changing with the lighting), as though realizing that he just sounded like the living embodiment of some talking tome. "Reptiles can't make their own heat in their bodies. So they get it from the environment."

I squint upwards. "Like the sun?"

"Yes. That's the main one. Warm rocks are nice too. And warm water. People are just warm all the time, but reptiles and other things need to absorb it from somewhere."

I get the vague image of a lizard sucking the sunlight out of the air like some nightmarish shiny ghoul. "And . . . you do that?"

The last five feet or so of the snake tail curve limply skyward before flopping back down to the ground to lie still. "Yes. I can't get warm anymore by myself."

Freaky. Freaky as fuck. But I guess that means he's not dead. Good. Good on him.

"I felt you touch me before," Marco says. "Why did you do that?"

He must be referring to when I felt his chilly skin when he was moping facedown in the dirt. "I dunno," I say, shrugging nonchalantly. "Was curious about the coldness thing." I wonder if he'll get mad that I touched him without consent or anything (or even touched the slimy bastard at all). I mean, he did tell me to stop. Fuck, now I feel bad.

"I'm not cold anymore," Marco tells me, gazing over at me. "I'm warmer than you are now."

"Good to know."

"Here, I'll show you," he says definitively, and there's a great movement; Marco presses his elbows into the ground to brace himself in the same place as the entirety of the thick tail rolls up to the side, toward me; it sweeps smoothly over the grass in a loose arc under my feet and curls around me, the last ten feet or so practically flush against me, a cage of wet, scaled flesh originating at Marco and penning me with him.

I don't know what the purpose of this was but I see movement and I move; snake tail is suddenly shoved up near my side and it's gonna touch me it's gonna fucking touch me-

I scramble up the slope so fast on my elbows and feet, scooting away from that thing, feet kicking clumsily and fingers scrabbling in the grass. "Don't do that," I blurt out, syllables harsh from my tongue, warily eyeing the tail loitering in the spot I'd just previously occupied a second ago.

Marco has risen to an upright position, head tilted like a dog's, staring at me. He doesn't blink. His blown-large eyes bore holes into me.

"I was just going to show you," he says blankly, as if emotion has been robbed of him, not by devastation or guilt, but as if he is thinking very hard. "Just to touch, because I was proving that I was telling the truth, that I'm warm and not cold."

"Well I don't want to be shown," I say forcefully. I am not touching that. Bad enough all it takes is to get near me before I want to jump and run and take a bath to clean the memory of it right off me. I don't care if Ymir tells me to or Marco tells me to or if it's the last thing keeping me tethered to the earth; I will not touch that thing.

"All right," Marco says slowly, and the tail recedes, beginning to gather underneath his body in a loose circle, alive all on its own. "Stop being afraid, Jean. I don't want to hurt you."

But what about that thing? I want to ask. What about that glutinous, dank, constricting slab of twitchy muscle and hardened skin? You think I want to go near that? You think people are afraid of snakes for nothing?

Stop being afraid. Disconnect from that thing and I'll stop being afraid.

"We're going back down to Ymir now," Marco says smoothly, his gaze unwavering from mine.

"Right. Good."

"Right. Good," Marco parrots, in the exact same tone, and I want to snap at him to stop being so damn unnatural, as if it's even fucking possible for him. He turns, exposing his ridged spine; from this angle, with his face and chest obscured and vertebrae sticking out and melding into those dark chunks of slimy flesh, he looks particularly subhuman.

The walk down is a quiet one.

v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v

Our return is not. Ymir has taken up her knitting again in our absence, and only looks up when Marco trots up to her on all fours (all two plus a snake stomach?) and flops across her lap like a dog looking for attention. If they want me to consider him much more complex than a talking animal they're making it pretty damn difficult.

"And how're you, Jimbles?" Ymir drawls, lolling her head over her shoulder to regard me, one hand atop Marco's head and stroking his hair. "Huffing and puffing? Moaning and groaning?"

My breathing calmed in the awkward trek through the brush back to her, so she's not in a position to make fun of me for it. "No, actually," I grouse. "I feel damn perky."

"Oh, good! Then you're gonna like what we're doing next." She stands, hands planted on the small of her back, bending backwards to stretch her spine with an obnoxious groan like she's been sitting there for ages. I didn't take that long, you old hag. Marco crawls like an animal at her feet, the tail curled around her. "Marco's gonna like it too. So'm I."

Oh, I can tell I fucking won't. "What are we doing," I sigh.

Ymir doesn't answer, but swaggers up to me, face smug and smirking and all kinds of intolerable. Marco rears up behind her, watching her with a questioning look on his face. Well. Looks like I'm not the only one who's fucking clueless, though solidarity with a guy attached to a squirmy slimy tail isn't too appealing.

I don't back up or flinch or anything when Ymir leans forward in my face, squinting her mud-colored eyes with the force of a most evil grin. I do my best to keep her gaze as she tilts her head, reaching up to place two fingers on my chest and push me lightly.

"Tag," she says. "You're it."

"Wait what? Wait- no." Ymir trots backwards, arms raised to her ribs and sticking out her tongue. "No, wait- no. No, there is no way I am- no."

Marco's eyes are wide and locked on me. "He knows how to play tag?" he whispers excitedly to Ymir. "We're playing tag?"

"No we're not! We are not playing tag, for god's sake, we're supposed to be doing that- that, uh, knapping shit-"

"Everyone knows how to play tag, baby," Ymir says darkly, her teeth bared in a giddy rictus. She leans forward, hands on her knees. "Jean here is no exception."

I have not moved. I refuse to move. "I thought we were training?"

"This is training. You're weak as shit. You piss and moan about everything I ask you to do, so why not inject a little bit of fun into our day? Have some proper shenanigans."

"Because you asked me to climb a fucking mountain!" I protest indignantly, shaking my spread hands out for emphasis. "Which I did twice just now, up and down, so I am pretty fucking tired-"

"Oh my god, that's not even a mountain, it's a hill-"

"Idon'tfuckingcarewearenotplayingtag."

"Please?" Marco pipes up. "You get to chase us."

Ymir slings her arm around her brother's shoulders and gestures to him, her face screwed up in fake dismay. "Aww, Jean, look at this face," she whimpers pathetically. Marco makes a pouty face. "This face. You don't want to disappoint this cute face, do you?"

Yes I do want to disappoint that face. As if the thought of hurting Marco's feelings can entice me; the withering embarrassment at the thought of watching those idiots disappear into the woods as I flail my feet and attempt to catch up with them takes precedent, I think. I don't run. I really don't. I walk everywhere; there's no need to go any faster, and when I do my ankles start hurting like I pulled something, so really I'm just looking out for myself, right? I think the last time I really ran - not including that piss-pants oh-my-god-I'm-gonna-legitimately-die berserk Marco happening that occurred, like, barely over a month ago - was when I played around with Connie and Sasha a couple years back.

"I don't want to chase you guys. I don't even want to be unnecessarily near you guys. Can we just do what we did last week? Please?"

"All right, fuckface, if you don't start running I'm declaring myself it," Ymir says, releasing Marco to advance on me, "and going after you like I'm on fire and you're the last shitty puddle for miles."

"You're not gonna roll on me, are you?"

"Start frickin' running, Jean!"

"All right! For god's sake!" I whine, surrendering. If I can get those two idiots focused on each other instead of me I can find somewhere to hide. Wouldn't it be funny if I just ran home. Hah. Yeah, it would be. Bye, fuckers. "Can someone else be it first?"

Ymir sighs heavily. "I suppose I will, because I'm so merciful. Marco, tell me I'm merciful."

"You're very merciful, Miri."

"Thank you. All right! Boundaries!" She claps her hands and rubs them together, looking around. "Remember the ones we used to have? Uh . . . there was that copse with the branch that was like a bench, and . . ."

"That way," Marco pipes up, pointing northeast, and then due south, "and that way was the tree with four heads, and there was where the second hill started, and that way was the pine barrens. I remember."

I don't see any of these things as I slowly rotate, looking around at the forest. It is so damn easy to get lost. Every stretch of it looks the same. Trees, brush, leaves, more trees. How these loons get around is beyond my understanding.

And it looks like I'm going after Ymir, fast as she may be; I'm not touching Marco. I try to think of it and find myself incapable. To even get to skin I'd have to step over all that- no. No. Unthinkable. It's not happening.

"The last time we played tag," comes Marco's voice right behind me, and I jump, whirling around, "was when I was ten." While I was looking around he approached me; Ymir is wandering around the edge of the clearing, apparently attempting to look for one of the landmarks Marco had listed off before. "It was boring because it was only two people and tag is fun with three or more. So this will be exciting!"

"Yeah yeah, sure will," I mutter, scooting away a few steps. Exciting, my delicious equine ass. "What's base?"

Marco looks to the side blankly, then back to me. "Are you asking me what a base is?"

"No, I mean, what's the base for tag. The game."

"The . . . ground, Jean. It's the base of where we're running."

"God, you never had a base when you played tag? Christ," I mutter, wandering in a wide arc around him toward Ymir. "Yo! The hell is base?"

"There is no base, my dear darling!" Ymir hollers right back, apparently satisfied in her establishment of bench-trees and strolling back in our direction. "Base is for whiny bitches."

"How're we supposed to play without a base?"

"Like this. GAME ON," she hollers, and breaks into a run.

I'm not afraid to admit the scream that erupts from me would have sounded more appropriate when uttered by someone half my age. Further plummeting my dignity is by contrast the deep, giddy laugh Marco emits as he whirls and nearly whips me in the face with his tail to get on his hands and bound into the trees.

I stare at Ymir charging at me like a bull for a terrifying moment before I swear I turn and run faster than I did when Marco went berserk on me. I get a full four seconds of aching ankles and pounding feet on uneven ground and the thud of pursuing footsteps closing in before she grabs a fistful of the back of my shirt, gives me a shove, proclaims, "JEAN'S IT," and takes off.

Son of a bitch.

It does not go well. If you know me at all you'd know it wouldn't go well. I spend the majority of the game it- scratch that, I spend the entire game it, and I lose track of how long we play. And I use the term "play" subjectively, because Ymir seems to be having a grand old time running circles around me as I flail my arms around in the hopes of brushing her shoulder or shirt or something. Everything from our levels of athletic proficiency to the damn setting is biased toward them; they're clearly well-versed in the environment while I trip every other step. Marco kind of fucks off for a bit, which I'm grateful for, 'cause then I don't have to touch him. But he looks awfully distressed whenever I catch a glimpse of him standing there to the side as I fruitlessly tear off after Ymir. I don't think this was how he imagined this to go down at all.

I end the game on my own terms when I wobble to the log, fall face-first down upon it, and refuse to move until Ymir concedes defeat. She allows me five minutes to recuperate from my ordeal before hauling me to my feet, making me do the dreaded stance, then planting a boot on my ass and ordering me to go knap some more.

v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v

Sacrificing my Wednesdays of comfort, albeit with its fair share of boredom, to spend time with someone who continues to insult me and another who continues to freak me out really sounds like it should deter me, but it doesn't. I stick to it. I do, if only to break the monotony. And I'll admit the invisible weight of keeping the overwhelming secret that is Marco Bodt is a bit of a rush.

Ymir's one for routine, it seems, and she doesn't forget about making me walk Marco up the mountain twice in one single day. I'm required to escort him up, go back down the slope to check in on her knitting or napping or whatever the hell she does while I'm sweating my pasty ass off, and then go back up to walk Marco back down. The sun is unrelenting, as is the wind; my body aches daily from the climb, and I find myself taking constant breaks. I know every bend and twist to that trail now, every section where I need to watch my step, every change in steepness and shallowness. I think about lying and fucking off somewhere instead of doing any actual hiking, but Marco has no qualms about reporting my inattentiveness to Ymir, the fucking tattletale. I don't think he even knows what that is.

And of course there's the fact that this forces me to spend time alone around Marco, with no Ymir around to translate his oddities and my norms. Surprisingly, after that first day, he doesn't really engage me in conversation in any medium. Going up to his basking place he either tiredly trudges ahead of me, where we are separated by thirty feet of ugh, or trails behind me, and never speaks up anymore. When around Ymir he places himself at her side and speaks only to her. I mean, I guess since I'm just "not a very good conversational partner" - prick - he wants to keep silent. But he continues to do that fucking stare. The one where he completely pretends he was not staring but he totally was.

Also unfortunately for me, tag becomes a weekly norm. And by tag I mean a solid thirty minutes of me being it the entire time, with random little breaks interspersed where I miraculously get someone. Someone meaning Marco. Ymir goes after whoever's closest, and when she's charging Marco he's eerily lightning-quick to writhe his way out of her grasp, but for some reason he gets unnaturally winded whenever I'm it and flounders his way away at a speed half of what it should be. More than slow enough for me to march right up to him, poke his shoulder or something, and steer clear as he regains his breath in an instant to hunt down Ymir.

"Wait wait, stop," I plead one day, wheezing, waving my arms weakly at the approaching Ymir. "Give me a rest."

"Will a bobcat give you a rest when you inevitably miss it and it stampedes after your sorry ass?" Ymir fires back at me.

"You're more like a mountain lion than a bobcat," I pant, stumbling away from her, bent over like an old man. "Or like a wolf or something, I don't know; just let me sit down or something-"

Ymir grips the collar of my shirt and hauls me upright, giving me a look. "I know, I know, you don't have to start," I groan. "I'm weak, I'm gross, I don't do my squats in the morning and wrestle a few dragons like you do-"

"Nagas, actually," Ymir says with amusement, releasing me.

"What're you saying about me?" Marco calls over from his restless position across the clearing from us.

"That you're the cutest thing alive, darling!" Trust me, you're not. "Jean's it, so start running."

You'd think we do more actual, you know, archery stuff, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Bullshit exercises are the case. Last time I checked, you pull a string with your arms, not your fucking legs, but you'd be fooled with all the running I've been doing. I'm becoming more and more convinced Ymir is pulling all of this right out of her ass. And she's even trying to get me to start jogging in my spare time; she tells me she wakes up in the wee hours to run a circuit around Trost before beginning her day properly, just to keep herself in shape, and she's trying to convince me this is somehow enjoyable. I have enough torment to deal with from her constant griping and criticizing and ordering around; all I ask is she doesn't intrude on my home life. Jogging is out of the question.

I can probably make a damn arrowhead blindfolded (though I'm becoming pretty bad at independently finding flint, mostly because I've begun to mysteriously find neatly stacked pyramids of high-quality flint set by the edge of the brook Ymir sends me to for materials); I no longer need correction when I practice my stance. On the fourth week - with winter creeping closer every day as the leaves change color at an exponential pace - Ymir, bundled up like I am in thick furs to stave off the windy chill, with Marco draped across her lap for warmth, teaches me the long process of making an entire arrow, from picking the proper shaft to making glue from flour and water to tie on the arrowhead to finding the best feathers for the end. When Ymir is impressed I am pleased to find she doesn't hide it; I actually momentarily forgive her for her previous transgressions when she thumps me on the back and praises my first successful arrow, because god damn, this is a hot-ass arrow! All straight and everything. It looks like my meticulous dad made it.

Of course, my forgiveness is redacted when Ymir then whacks my ass and tells me to shoot again using my pristine new arrow, because while it's not quite as humiliating as the first time due to my knowledge of the correct stance, she doesn't make an effort to stop laughing for a very long time.

The woods are a bitch. There's nowhere to comfortably rest except the convenient log, everything is dirty and oozing and wet, and flies are incessant in their buzzing around my head. I go home every day with muddy boots and dirt streaked on my skin. Burdock burs are a common sight clinging to my clothing. I find at least three ticks somewhere on me every night in the bath. The soreness I wake up with on Thursday, holy shit. I am way out of shape.

I stick to it.

v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v

The day's been slow, it's annoyingly chilly, we found out mice got into a good portion of our grain, and Reiner's threatened to kick me out if I make one more snide comment about his dress. I'm pretty much super done with today and we're not even halfway through.

Autumn creeps across the mountains like a disease, touching down in the forest with orange fingers and spreading from tree to tree. The mountains are discolored and blotchy with what looks like mold spreading across the surface of a piece of bread. Just a visual reputation of the onslaught of winter. I hope it doesn't get too bad this year; some family friends of my dad died from the chill and he still hasn't really gotten over it yet.

Someone's speaking obnoxiously loud at the counter, and I recognize that nasally, jumpy voice. Hanji Zoe's talking up a storm, probably making Levi's ear fall off again. They've been coming by an awful lot lately.

I want to stay in the back, but Reiner's been distracted yet again by the towering apple of his eye and leaves me to tend to our income (hey hey, the word Marco didn't know). "How can I help you?" I ask politely.

"The usual," Levi grunts listlessly, as Hanji refuses to stop to draw breath talking about something involving the scales on a hummingbird feather. I wonder if they look anything like Marco's. Scales all look the same, right? Right.

While I mope about getting that ready, Hanji's chattering drifts through the bakery door.

"-little interlocking plates to form the whole structure, like- like bubbles! And oh, I don't know who found this out or how or why or when but I'd love to shake their hand until it falls off. I made a feeder, Levi, did you see it? The little sponge with the flower heads sticking out? Quite a genius design, if I say so myself. I drenched it in water I mixed with honey and sugar cane- there's an entire hummingbird community buzzing around my window all hours of the day!"

"Just like the buzz I hear right now," I hear Levi sigh, and snort. I bring out their orders and set them down before the two now-regulars; for some reason they actually like this shit Reiner designed, and have been coming by at least once a week, usually more. I swipe the coins slid forward across the counter by Levi's hand in return.

"I named them all! Clyde, Omar, Felicity, Theresa, Reggie, Cosette, Bob, and Maximilian. Oh, and little Phoebe. You can tell the difference from the proportion of red on the throat, you know. You should get a feeder. I should make you one. I'm going to make you one. What color do you want the sponfe? Owenph, gleeh, uh hoo?" for she's continued her incessant monologuing as she stuffs food in her mouth. Amazing. I make a mental note to clean the crumbs spraying out off the counter later as I retreat back inside the shop, thinking I'll go and check the stock or something. See if those damn little bastard mice are back.

Hanji has apparently swallowed, because she says quite clearly, "And once I get my hands on a feather, I'll be that much closer to figuring out what they look like up close! Or how to even look at one that close, for that matter."

Did I just hear a squeak? I just heard a squeak. Watch out, fucker, Jean's on the prowl. I stoop down to my hands and knees, peeking under the table for the culprit. The more grain and flour we waste the more we have to buy come trader time, and I am not about to spend my spare money on Reiner's need to name shit after himself.

I lose track of the conversation outside, but when I catch the word "naga" of course I forget everything else and go still, listening. Looks like someone's back on her favorite topic again. "-how many there exactly are. What if- Levi, listen to me, what if- now hear me out- what if there is an entire society of them? And this one is just an outcast? What do you think of that?"

"I think you need to shut up and eat what I bought for you," is the grumbled reply, but Hanji plows on.

"With customs of their own and everything. And this one got kicked out because he was too small or a runt- nono, I don't like my theory anymore. No, this is all hypothetical. I know it. I just thought of a better one. They're accidents. Ask me how I know."

"Enlighten me, shitty-glasses."

Yeah, enlighten us all, shitty-glasses. I scoff and roll my eyes at her theorizing. Remember that tempestuous urge to enlighten her for once? It returns with a hellacious vengeance. How would she react to knowing some crazy person or persons kidnapped a little kid and fused his legs together to make this slimy tail? Probably with fascination, when I think about it. Hanji seems exactly like the type of person to find that intriguing.

"Because I heard they can be cured."

I go awfully still at this, wondering if I just heard her right. And I did, because she continues with, "It's actually quite well-known. I've read about it. Studies about half-humans and their animal parts. The snake attachment is like a parasite, you know? It lives off of the human host. A true agent of Naga, if you will. If you injure the snake, it retreats and shrinks and doesn't grow back. The more you do it, the less there's left, until it uncovers the legs again and the naga is human."

For some reason this comment lacks the fantasy of the previous ones, and I find myself contemplating it. I'm no scientist, but Hanji is. When she's not being a surgeon, she's experimenting. She's been known to go out and collect flora and fauna, not for food or other practical purposes, but to slice 'em up and see how they tick. I mean, to each their own, and I'm absolutely sure there's scientific benefit in that, but what the fuck, Hanji.

I wonder if Ymir knows that, and resolve to tell her the next time I see her. Shit, maybe she'd want to see if it worked. I mean, if she already knew, she'd jump all over the opportunity to cure her little Marco. It's got to be a hassle to maintain this tenuous lie that Marco's a bloodthirsty monster and gave her her scars.

She doesn't react with the same innocent curiosity I do the next time I see her, on Wednesday on the way north through the woods. She stops short in her tracks, grabs my shoulder, and says tensely, "Did you tell Marco?"

I stall, disarmed by her reaction, discarding the notion that she didn't know this tidbit of information; there's no way she'd react with such immediacy if she hadn't known. "What? No, I only heard it, like, two days ago. Three days ago."

She relaxes only the smallest amount. "Where did you hear it?"

"What, that Marco can get cured? I dunno, I overheard it."

Ymir releases me. "Don't mention it to Marco."

"What? Why?"

"Just pretend you never heard it," she mutters. "It's not true. Don't say a thing to him. It's just a stupid myth."

She begins to walk again, staring at the forest floor, with such force and purpose that I have to jog to catch up to her. "Wait, how do you know? Isn't it worth checking out?"

"That," Ymir replies, not looking at me, "is not an old rumor. People have been spreading that around since they knew what a naga was. It's just a myth. He can't be cured. Forget about it."

I keep pace with her, half-turned to her, knowing there's got to be more to that and silently prompting her to spill. She eventually sighs and rolls her eyes. "I heard it once," she quietly admits. "I don't remember how old we were. I heard it, and I made the mistake of mentioning it in passing to Marco." She pauses again. "After I left for the day he tried the theory out on himself."

It takes a moment for me to get it, and when I do my eyes widen. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh.' Oh wait, now I remember. He was nine. Because his birthday was like a month later."

"Shit."

"Yeah." Ymir's mouth scrunches up, and she shakes her head. "He's not-" She raises a fist to shoulder level. "-able to be cured. The snake half is his-" She releases her fist, jutting her hand forward. "-body. It's just how he is now. You can't magically make the body into legs again by hurting him. He feels it. It's his body, natural or not."

I try to imagine exactly how Marco decided to try this theory out on himself and remember the marks on the tail I noticed before, the ones that look like black, scaleless stretch marks. Well now I know what they are. I wince at the mental image.

"Came back and he tried to hide it," Ymir mutters, almost low enough that I can't hear, "but the- he got an infection. Couldn't exactly hide that."

Shit, I'm not sure how to react to this. Poor Marco, I guess. I wouldn't want to be what he is either. "Yeah."

"So don't fucking mention it to him," Ymir orders sourly. "Forget you ever heard that shit. It makes the rounds every once in a while when people pretend they saw the naga in the woods. Ignore it. He doesn't need to hear it."

"He has a lot of stuff."

"A lot of what?"

I wave my hand. "You know . . . stuff. Uh, like, guidelines?"

"Rules?"

"Yeah, rules. He has a lot of rules and shit. Don't make him go berserk, don't be rude, don't mention that shit just now . . ."

Ymir looks at me with condescending concern. "If you think not being rude to someone has to be stressed to you before you interact with them-"

"Nonono, I was just listing shit! But yeah. He has a lot of stuff you can and can't do, my point is."

Ymir and I take big steps over a termite-riddled tree trunk lying across our path as she says, "Well, how much have you been talking to him? There's other shit you can't say to him, you know."

"W- there's more?" I ask disbelievingly. "Christ!"

"Yes, there is," Ymir growls, "which is why I'm concerned about how much you've been talking to him in case you bring up something taboo. He tells me he doesn't talk to you much. That true?"

"Not really. Wait, I mean, yes, true. He doesn't talk to me."

"Good. But just in case, you need to hear the full list of things you cannot say to him or show him or even acknowledge as existing. Triggers. Bad things happen if you ignore what I am about to tell you."

"One, don't be fucking rude?"

She scoffs. "That shouldn't have to be said, jackass."

The list is long.

Human blood. Snakes. Especially dead snakes. Organs. Cutting things open. Red clothing. Hoods. Needles. Knives. Pinning him in any way, especially at his wrists. Stitching on clothing or dolls. Injury at the hips or thighs. Injury to the eyes and mouth. Charcoal. Meat that's too burned when cooked. Ribcages. Spinal cords. Heartbeats. Long thin things, like rope or vines, especially when coiled up. Beheading (?). Any aspect or name for royalty, for some reason. Don't touch his waist. Don't comment on his eyes. Don't make fun of him for moving or walking and lying down weirdly. Sometimes he doesn't want to be touched. Sometimes he doesn't want to be spoken to. Sometimes he needs to be touched or spoken to or bad things happen.

"Now listen," Ymir says to me seriously, "some of this stuff will just depress him. Some will make him a little jittery. But others will send him into panic attacks. He'll pass out. Worst case scenario, you will drive him berserk, and he won't be able to stop himself from killing you. Optimally I want my brother to be happy all day every day, therefore you're not allowed to instigate any of that. Not even the tiniest bit."

I ask weakly, "How does he ever go outside?"

"From what I can discern, it sounds like all that bullshit is from memories of however he was made," Ymir continues. "Memories of what happened and such. I didn't find this all out by asking him, because he refuses to talk about it. He can't talk about it. He gets too stressed out; I just watch him and notice what makes him uncomfortable. I don't know what the hell happened and I don't know why, but I do know that Marco doesn't need to be reminded of it anymore. Don't bring this up, or I'll behead you."

"That's on the list."

"Good! You're learning."

I scoff, waving a hand at her. "You know what? You don't even have to worry. We don't really talk to each other at all anyway. Me and your brother, I mean."

Ymir turns her head to me, frowning. "Yeah. Why's that?"

I shrug, not expecting to analyze exactly why this is. "I don't know. He just doesn't talk to me, so I don't talk to him. He hasn't talked to me for a while now."

Ymir nods. "Yeah, Marco told me that too. He's been avoiding you because he's scared of pissing you off. He thinks he did something wrong at some point. Made you uncomfortable or something."

I remember the dread weight against the side of my foot from when the tail had touched me, and I grimace and shrug. "I don't know. Sort of."

"Sort of?" When I don't reply she elbows me. "I can't help you with shit if I don't know what's fucking you up."

"There's nothing that needs help," I reply, scooting away from her a bit. "We just don't talk. It's not really necessary."

"What made you uncomfortable?"

I groan, delaying my answer by stepping around a tree. My shoes sink slightly into the mossy earth. "Everything, kind of. The tail thing, and the way he speaks. It's weird, you know? He's older than me, but he acts like a little kid. Sounds like one too. It just gets exhausting listening to him and explaining shit to him that I feel like someone his age should already know. He's got the attention span of a gnat, and he stares at me all the damn time, and the tail is just really, really weird." I fall silent again before tacking onto the end for emphasis, "Like, really weird."

I wonder momentarily if Ymir will get pissed off at me, but instead she looks contemplative, and nods. "It's kind of my fault."

"Huh?"

"A little while ago, uh," she says thoughtfully, looking skyward a bit to remember, "there was maybe a two-month period where I couldn't get out to see him much. Middle of summer. I could only get two or three days free to come visit him and that was it. So, eh . . . he's a bit off because of that."

I scrunch my eyebrows together, not comprehending. "A little off of what?"

Ymir gestures widely to the trees surrounding us. "Look around you, Jimbles. There's no one out here except me, Marco, and now you. You learned everything, about walking and talking and language and all that, from people around you. For the past eight years Marco has only had me, and only sparingly at that. So you can understand why the way he acts is a little wonky, I hope."

"Sort of . . ."

"No one's been around to teach him how to act properly. I mean, I correct him sometimes, but otherwise no one's around to instruct him. Take the handshake thing, for example. No one's walking around shaking his hand, so how the hell is he gonna know what to do when you offer? How does he know when it's acceptable to stop shaking someone's hand?"

"Uh, you know, you can let him know by now he only does it once."

"Yeah, but it's funny watching him do it. Listen, he may act like a little kid, and he might sound like a little kid, but he is not a child. He's more intelligent than you and me combined, and much more mature; he just has trouble conveying it. Stuff that makes sense to him will not to you. Give him time. With two people to copy now he'll start acting more normal, more like himself. When he's alone for a while his social skills deteriorate. They'll get back to what they were in time. He'll never be perfect, like, you can tell he's been isolated for a while, but right now he's, you know, really awkward. Especially around you, now. He doesn't know how to act around you."

I listen in silence, turning over in my head what she's saying. "I'm not sure how to act around him either."

"Treat him like a human being. That's a start."

But he's not, I bite back, and feel a little guilty. "Yeah, I guess."

"Remember what I told you," Ymir says sternly. "I don't want to see a single shade of glum on my baby's face, and if I do I'll know who's responsible."

"I won't glum up your baby. Chill," I grumble. With luck, he'll keep thinking he did something wrong (he kind of did) and avoid me as much as he has (which is a lot).

I glance at Ymir. She looks sobered. "Hey, so . . . in light of this depressing and frankly quite oppressive and- and tragic topic, why don't we, y'know, unwind for today? Take a nice break, relax for a while-"

"We're still playing tag."

"Fuck!"

v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v

As annoying as it is to attempt to catch up to Ymir and Marco's exclusive way of speaking to each other, I'm too proud to ask them to clarify their mutual understandings, and so I find out exactly what the boundaries of tag are through observation. My favorite hangout spot becomes due west, where I haul ass the second I'm not it, because the boundary there is the upward curve of the second of two hills, and between them snakes a ravine where it's convenient to stake out until Ymir grows bored of the game. Neither of them seem to have found me there yet.

The second Ymir calls that the game is on, with her as it, I bolt north, intending to curve left and hole myself up in that gorge. Unfortunately for me, Marco chooses to run in the same direction I do, and Ymir charges after us both.

"Oh fuck," I pant, trying to keep my eyes both on the ground so I don't trip and ahead of me so I don't brain myself on a fucking branch. The thunderous crash of Marco's inconvenient bulk barreling in the same direction somewhere to my left masks wherever Ymir can be; autumn has long since wrapped the valley in its chilly embrace, and the forest is a shaggy, half-shed animal, with leaves in varying stages of crunchy decay carpeting the forest floor. You can't make a move without giving yourself away.

Through bushes and the thin fingers of fanned-out saplings I race, my feet pounding across leaved dirt and mossy patches in the ground dolloped out over roots like earthen pedestals for trees. In this kind of setting even a squirrel makes a cacophony, and my comparatively much larger body sounds like a discordant orchestral beacon, signaling my location. Hey, Ymir, just follow the sounds of intense foliage-ruffling! You'll find me quick.

The chill abates as I run, and warmth gathers in my chest, under my arms, and slowly creeps prickling up and down my body to my calves and wrists and temples. My breath puffs out into air on the verge of frosting, and I realize it's the only thing I hear. I slow, twisting my torso to look around, arms raised to my shoulders. No one in sight. I can hear leaves protesting as something disturbs them in the distance, but everything is disturbing them, so it's not good enough to indicate whether it's Ymir or not.

I put my hands on my knees, regaining my breath, feeling my lungs fill with crisp air. My hands remain frigid and white (as always) and the tips of my toes tingle with numbness, even though it's not that cold. I clench and unclench my fingers, trying to regain some feeling in them, and find the motions awkward and stiff. Just great. I'm gonna have a fun time working meticulously with my hands later when we start tinkering with tools.

I'm about to straighten up and start heading toward my ravine when I hear the hiss of leaves being pressed upon, and the lack of a rhythm should've tipped me off that it wasn't Ymir, but I tense up immediately anyway. I see Marco's long black hair before he bursts onto the scene, but it still makes me jump; he jolts as well at the sight of me, the tail going rigid and the first third of it suddenly bending in a sharp S completely off the ground.

Ignore it. Ignore it. "Did you see Ymir?" I demand.

"No. I lost her toward the north," Marco replies, catching his breath. The tail rests fully once again on the forest floor, its long sides jumping in tandem with Marco's chest. "Did you see her?"

"Fuck if I know. I just ran." I knead my feet into a dais of moss, picking at the bark of the tree it resides under awkwardly.

Marco approaches me, and he approaches me without pause or cease, getting awfully close. I stare at him, uncomprehending and a little panicky. What's he doing? Why's he-

He's not even a couple of feet away from me and his arm reaches forth, aimed for my head; I duck and lean away from him, offering the most scandalized look I can muster and demanding forcefully, "What?"

Marco looks down at me blankly, hand still reaching. "There's a burr in your hair. I was going to get it out, but you moved away. Now I can't."

"Oh." I press my lips together and still myself. Harmless, right? Nothing doing. "Do not pet my hair."

"You said I can't, so I'm not going to," Marco says quietly, tilting his head and watching with his bizarre eyes whatever his hand is doing over my head. I feel a little tug above my temple and cringe a bit, but then the pressure fades, and Marco withdraws his hand with a very ordinary burr in his hand. He holds it up for my inspection. "See? I wasn't lying to pet your hair. That would be pointless."

"Right." I straighten up again.

"You're supposed to thank me. Otherwise it would still be there," Marco whispers, as though giving me a hint.

"Oh. Uh. Thanks."

He beams, and I hear the leaves rustle as something stirs them far behind Marco, and I'm willing to bet my shoes it's the tip of the tail wagging like a dog's. Great, as long as it's on the other side of him. His hands are doing that shaking thing too. "You're welcome! That wasn't so hard!"

I scoff. "Dude, I already know manners. You didn't teach me anything."

"I still prompted you, and you said thank you. Thank you for that thank you. Why didn't you say it in the first place, then?"

I beat my heel into the moss idly. "I dunno, it, like, wasn't that crucial a task for you to do for me, so I didn't think it required a thanking."

Look at us, standing here in the woods debating about whether removing a burr from my hair was important enough to warrant a thank you. Marco looks down, contemplating this with a tiny frown. "I think it was that crucial," he says, "because otherwise it would have stuck there, and might've started scratching your head, and maybe irritated you, and you would've-" Here he looks up, and his face uncharacteristically transforms; his eyes flick up and down the height of my body, gaining focus, and his lip curls on the left side, and his head tilts back a bit. "-been even more of a prick than you already are."

The laugh that erupts out of me startles him. "What?" he demands. "Did I say something funny?"

"No, just- your face," I croak. "You looked so frickin' sassy- you looked like Ymir, that's what."

"Is that a good thing? That's good, isn't it? Ymir's beautiful."

"I meant her expression or whatever. Wait, did you just call me a prick?"

". . . Yes."

"That's kinda rude, man."

"But I called you that because you have been acting like a prick," Marco says, sounding distressed. "And that's not polite at all, so I told you that so you'd stop acting like that."

"If you don't like how someone is acting you . . . uh, well, I guess you just kind of ignore them. Or leave 'em alone. You don't just tell them straight-up that they're being shitty."

"But that's pointless. What if they don't know they're acting like a grouch? So you help them remedy their behavior. Is that . . . not how it works. Isn't it."

"Not really."

"Well, fuck," he says, with such frank, resigned finality that I burst out laughing again. Oh my god, he cursed. "I'm not good at this."

"Good at what?" I ask, wiping my eyes.

"Talking to you." He slumps, looking glum. "I either frighten you or make you laugh at me. I really do want to have a normal conversation, but I keep messing up. I say too much, or I don't get what you say, and I just mess it all up."

I'm glad he acknowledges it, at least. I consider him, and consider what Ymir said to me before, that he's incapable of being on the same socially interactive level as me. "I was only laughing because it's weird hearing you say certain things. That's all. I wasn't really trying to make fun of you or anything."

He nods, brightening up a little bit. "But I still did things wrong."

"I mean, I suppose you did." I'm losing grasp of the conversation here; analyzing the aspects of everything he said isn't a mission I'm about to embark upon. "But hey, for what it's worth, for a guy who's surrounded by squirrels all the time, you talk pretty good."

"Pretty well."

"Pretty well, whatever. See? Ya got me there."

Marco does that intense-stare thing again, then his eyes crinkle up as his face is split by a wide, toothy grin; he looks so damn happy for me to have said something like that that he seems to have forgotten the no-staring rule. In this instance, you know, I don't particularly mind. Replace the tail, give him some clothes and a haircut, and I could be speaking to him on a street in Trost. He looks bafflingly human.

He's so caught up in being frankly a little endearing and I'm so caught up being a little endeared that neither of us hear Ymir until she's nearly upon us, bellowing a war cry, and she is, bursting through the trees and bearing down upon the two of us. Marco and I move near-simultaneously as we look at her, give two little horrified screams in tandem, and turn to bolt. I race west, and I don't know which direction Marco goes, but it's not west.

Ymir happens to follow him, giving me time to slip away until I can't see or hear the two of them, and I slow to a leisurely trot as I see the ground dipping into the ravine. I hunt around for a shallower route down before slowly descending, leaning steeply against the slope and gripping lacy roots for leverage, my knees bent and toes digging into the surface. If I need to take a rest I do so against one of the trees on the way down, all of which have managed to defy gravity enough to grow in this site somehow. The very bases of their trunks point outward perpendicular to the ground before curving skyward. Don't tell anyone, but the first time I tried getting down this thing I fell on my fucking face and almost died, like, three times tumbling down this damn slope.

The bottom may have held a brook at some point, but not anymore. Now it's just a universal landing site for any trees that have succumbed to gravity and fallen down, creating a natural lattice of mushroom-swollen trunks in the belly of the gorge. They're fun to walk on, if I'm careful not to fall and break my damn neck.

I wander a little while down the length of the ravine, hopping over or under or across fallen tree-bridges , before hearing the telltale sound of Marco's length sliding over the ground. I look around and up and down before spotting him a little ways away, gripping roots as he descends into the pit with me. Aww, fuck, my little hideaway's secrecy's been compromised. The tail drapes itself over intact trees and dips of level land, curving just under Marco's body to locate itself somewhere new, followed by the next few feet somewhere else, then the next, like a many-legged creature taking downward steps, until Marco is at the bottom.

Oh crap. If Marco's here, Ymir is somewhere nearby. I trot toward him, looking around for his sister. "Did you lose her? Is she nearby?"

Marco hunches over where he stands, apparently deeply embroiled in regaining his breath. He waves an arm, too winded to supply me with an answer. "Is she coming?" I whine. I stop before him, appreciating safety in numbers, and look behind me again for Ymir. "I am not gonna be it. Is she nearby, at least? Should we go back up there?"

I turn and behold Marco's sunny grin, possessing none of the innocence or breathlessness from earlier; instead, his eyes bear sneaky triumph, and my heart sinks.

He pokes me quickly in the chest. "You're it," he informs me solemnly, then turns and bolts.

"Wait, what the fuck? Wait," I demand dumbly, staring after the loopy retreating tail. "You didn't fucking tell me you were it. You did not tell me you were it!"

Laughter floats back at me, and that is the last straw. "You fucking asshole!" I yell, taking off right after him. "You didn't tell me you were it! I walked right up to you, dammit!"

Marco makes a valiant attempt to escape, but he's held up in his retreat through the gorge by a fallen tree in his way, which he meticulously lifts himself and the long tail over, granting me time to catch up with the devious fucker. I vault over the tree and charge him, refusing to allow him to escape. The cheeky grin on his face never falters as he backs away from me, arms raised as though to defend himself. "Get your ass over here. I'm gonna kill you, you fuckin'- bastard-"

I grab for him and he gambols away, giggling like an idiot. He bobs at the front end of the tail, maneuvering away from my swipes with smooth grace as I grab at him in vain to tag him back, or tackle him, or do something, I don't know. The tail squirms and hops as he dances just out of my reach; I'm running in circles like an idiot trying to get at him and avoid the damn tail at the same time. I manage to hop over a length of the dark snake and grab his wrist (icily cold, just like my fingers) and his other arm but I don't let go, about to show this damn naga a thing or two about fooling me. We grapple, shoving against each other and trying not to fall over and trying to make each other fall over; he's laughing, I'm trying valiantly not to laugh, and it's pointless, it's all pointless.

"I give up; I give up, I'm too tired," he concedes effervescently, lowering himself a bit and ceasing in his shoving, smiling up at me with a flushed face. The tail goes still.

I release his wrists and stumble back a bit. "You're it."

"I am," he agrees, panting; he backs up against a log lying across the leaves, and the tail behind him curls in a circle in anticipation for him to lie stomach-down inside its coils. "I'll tag you in a moment, but I just need to regain my breath."

Well, shit, so do I; especially since I realize I just got so close to him, and therefore that tail. I wobble to the log and plop myself stiffly down against it with a grunt. I sit with my knees up and my arms spread over them, breathing hard after running after and around Marco.

Marco glances at me quickly, and then away, and sits up; the tail flips over on its spine along most of its length, exposing the long flaky, milky belly, as he leans his back against the log like I am mine, stealing cursory looks at me all the while. The pose looks awkward; he doesn't exactly have an ass to sit on, so his spine looks curved and slouched uncomfortably sharply, as the spot where his hips would be lies flat upon the ground.

I snort. "You're copying me, dude."

He pauses, then says, "I'm embarrassed."

"That I caught you? You're not exactly subtle about it."

"My subtlety skills are rusty, Pr- Jean," I gripes, leaning forward to wipe something off the snake stomach before settling against the log again.

What did he almost just call me? I'm about to ask before I catch sight of the scars on the snake tail below his waist. I look away.

"I love this time of the year," Marco sighs. He tilts his head back to gaze up the gorge's sides, devoting attention to the canopy and sky up above. "The colors are gorgeous, especially from an aerial point of view. Where I bask there's a shelf that I can get up on and look down at the valley and it's amazing. All the-" He raises his hand, fingers outstretched. "-red and greens and golds-" He slowly waves his hand back and forth, as though touching the very things he describes. "-and the textures. It's like a giant painting."

I follow his gaze. I can see what he means, from an objective point of view, and not one that considers as well the implication that this means winter. The canopy is dappled apple-red and burnt pumpkin and creeping purple, with bits of golden yellow teasing the tips of the maples. Oaks are colored faded green, like a dusty portrait, and beech trees have layers of carmine and gold, like someone splashed paint upon it from above. Elms devote themselves to one color at a time, in phases, and so they are monochrome sunshine and cherry and bread crust. Dirt isn't visible on the forest floor, instead blanketed by a thick carpet of shed multicolored leaves, interspersed with bits of fallen bark. Some trees appear as full of life as ever while others look like a shaggy, forgotten project.

There's beauty in it, I can see. "Everything changes. Everything's reborn next time around," Marco says quietly beside me. "But before it goes it's like it wants to impress us. I think it's spectacular. Don't you?"

"Yeah," I reply in solemn acknowledgment. I suppress a shiver. "'S cold, though."

Marco nods. "I can feel it. I can't run around that much. I'm too slow by now."

My gaze flits to the tail lying overturned in snaky bundles and curves connected to his waist. None of it is overlapping itself except for the finger-thin tip near the end, and therefore it takes up an absurd amount of space.

"You're staring at me," Marco observes. "That's rude."

"Whoops. I was being a prick again," I snort, and Marco makes a noise like a cross between a giggle and a groan. "Must be annoying, lugging that thing around all the time."

Marco scoots closer to me a tiny bit, within arms' reach, and the tail writhes and presses against the ground a bit to accommodate him. "What do you mean?"

I gesture to the dark mass. "Well, you know," I point out, "you gotta drag it around everywhere, you know? It's all heavy and everything. Or at least it looks heavy. And it takes up a lot of space. It just seems like it sucks to be attached to . . . I guess." I trail off as I struggle to remember whether I'm breaking any of Ymir's rules.

Marco is gazing at me quizzically, steadily. "I don't drag my body around, Jean," he says. "It's how I move at all. I don't drag myself around. Do you drag your legs around?"

"Well, no," I reply, "but that's different. That's a tail, and you can't walk with it, and . . ." I kind of lost where I was going with this. Nice.

"It's not a tail."

"What? Yeah it is."

Marco frowns, confused. "It's not a tail, Jean. It's my body. Did you think it was a giant tail?"

I stare at it, at its uniform sleekness and shape, and then back up at him. "Isn't that what it is?"

His lips quirk up in a smile a bit. "Oh, of course not! It's a whooole body, not just a tail. It has lungs and a stomach and kidneys and everything. And a heart. Tails don't have hearts."

"Huh," I grunt dumbly, only vaguely going along with what he's trying to convey.

He turns to me, saying, "Here, I'll prove it to you," and, before I can even think to move, takes gentle hold of my wrists in both his hands; he places one of my hands upon his chest, directly over his heart, and the other, before I can protest, upon the belly of the snake, a spot roughly the equivalent length from his waist a knee would be.

My limbs lock; my whole body freezes, shock pinning me in place. I'm touching it. My hand is on it. I'm touching the thing. My hand is placed on the snake and it's-

Dry. So dry and smooth my skin sticks to it immediately, catching and dragging across it with every minute movement. I was wrong; the shininess isn't from being wet. It was never from being wet. It's from how utterly dry these scales are, every one. It lacks warmth, but not unpleasantly so; it's more a coolness than a chilliness, and I can tell there's heat in there somewhere. Under my palm I feel the rhythmic, steady beat of a heart, pulsing at the exact same pace as the one under my other hand, pressed against plain old human skin.

Marco's grip withdraws swiftly from my wrists, and I reclaim my hands immediately, pulling them back to my chest. My palms tingle, imprinted upon them the sensation of touching him. "I'm sorry," Marco says quietly. "I forgot you were still afraid of me. I shouldn't have done that."

"Uh- It's-" I try to say what it is but can't really put it into words. It's not okay and it's not not okay, because I thought it would- he would be slimy, but he isn't, and-

"You know," he murmurs, voice soft, "I won't hurt you, Jean. And neither will my body. I know I look like a monster. I know. I look like a freak and I shouldn't be like this. But this is my body, and I control every inch of it. It does only what I want it to. It's not going to attack you; it's not going to come alive on its own somehow and hurt you."

My hands clench and unclench, stiff and white. "Yeah," I say eventually, "I know." And I do.

Marco sidles- no, his human half sidles away from me a bit. "You can touch me again if you want. I won't move."

I swallow, my heart steadily slowing to a calmer pace. The tai- no, Marco hasn't shifted away from me, belly still up, an open invitation I'm free to refuse.

When I first saw and met him he was just naga, a creature in the woods whose animalistic parts were a part of his monstrous nature. Then he became Ymir's little brother, the sad boy with the unfortunate attachment of a tail. But he's largely neither, or mostly both: Marco the naga, with a body made of separate halves but no less possessive of the whole, in a way. There is no getting around the tail to get to Marco; it is Marco.

I don't move at first, but eventually my hand creeps down, fingers curled in trepidation, wrist trembling in anticipation of jerking my arm back. Marco just watches as I poke his snake belly and draw back for a moment, then, emboldened, lay the pads of my fingers on the creamy surface of his scales. Still dry, and still not slimy. They're hard and soft at the same time; the scales themselves are solid as a fingernail, while his flesh as a whole yields under my hand like any other skin would.

His belly scales are wide and rectangular, curved as they wrap around the trunk of his body, and I poke at the edges on his sides before looking interestedly at the differently-shaped scales adorning his back. As though sensing what I want Marco rotates his snake body until it's right side up again. I let my fingers explore the tightly-layered scales on his back; they overlap each other slightly, forming a dense blanket of rounded pebbles, like a suit of armor.

I have to marvel at it. It's impossible not to. His body is dark chocolate brown and shimmering in the sparse sunlight, like a carpet of jewels. With so many scales on his body you'd expect it to be at least a little sloppy, but every single one has its niche in relation with the others; not a single scale is out of place. It looks planned; it looks like a grand design.

Then I kind of realize that since this is literally Marco's body I'm totally feeling him up or something. I sit back and pull my hands back to my lap, satisfied for now. "Are you still scared of me?" Marco wonders aloud.

"Not really," I muse truthfully.

He nods, a gentle smile on his face. His absurdly large eyes are warm. "So."

"So."

"Since I let you touch me, can I touch your hair?"

Oh my god. I snort, "You're still on about that, huh?"

He shrugs his shoulders, looking down at his lap. "It looks really interesting to touch! I've never seen hair looking like that before. I'm curious."

I heave a heavy, exaggeratedly labored sigh, rolling my eyes, before slowly tilting my head a bit in his direction in embarrassed invitation. Marco makes a little delighted noise and wiggles his body around until he's closer and facing me; I jerk out of reflex but otherwise don't move. All right, I'm not gonna tolerate some, like, heavy-handed hair-pulling or something. I have limits.

I'm about to panic that no one has explained the ethics of touching another person to Marco and he might be too forceful or something, but when he reaches up with both hands and brushes my head with his fingertips his touch borders on feather-light. His eyes go wide with fascination as he cautiously runs his fingers first through the ashy long hair on the top of my head, and then moves his hands down to my temples to feel the shaved part. "It feels so fuzzy and soft."

"Well, I hope so," I mumble, staring down at my own lap. "I mean, it'd be weird if hair was hard."

"Hair can't do that, right?"

"Right."

"Just making sure." Marco's hands hover by my ears as his fingertips explore the shaved patch on the back of my head. "Your hair is very pretty."

"Thanks."

"You're generally very pretty," he goes on; he's gently touching the boundary between the roots of my longer hair and my shaved hair in such a manner that manages not to be weird. "Ymir said everyone from Trost was smelly and greasy and ugly, but you're handsome, so maybe she just didn't see you yet when she told me that."

I snort, closing my eyes and shaking my head. "Thanks. I think Ymir's just a bitter old hag." I wince. "Sorry."

"No, no, she is a bitter old hag," Marco agrees quickly, and I laugh. "But she's done everything for me, and I'm very very grateful for her. Please don't tell her I said she's a bitter old hag."

"Promise I won't."

"Good." Marco's hands still, then draw sharply forward to the crown of my head, and he rustles them furiously through my hair, thoroughly messing it up; I yelp in indignation, pulling back and whacking him harshly in the shoulder.

"You fucking bastard!" I holler.

Marco laughs, shielding himself with his arms. "I'm sorry. That was funny."

I run my fingers through my hair, smoothing it back and shooting him glares empty of any real malice. The reluctant grin on my face kind of negates them. "You're dead to me."

Marco lolls his head to the side and crosses his eyes, sticking his tongue out like an exaggerated corpse. I guffaw. "Stop! I'm legitimately angry. You're an asshole."

"You're an asshole."

"I didn't fuck up your hair." That gives me the idea, and I tense up, about to pounce for his head, but he jumps back and rises, his body feeding his ascension to a position resembling a standing one. "Oh, it's getting a little too cold for me. "

"Oh, right."

"No, really! We'll head back to Ymir, right?"

"Right." I sigh and stand, stretching and shivering a bit to work out the kinks of sitting down for so long a time in the cold. Sly bastard won this round.

On the way back Marco's body winds awfully close to my feet, but somehow I don't move away. I make the odd swipe or two for his hair, but he's too quick to dodge for me to catch.