nil moralibus ardui est

Salem, Oregon

a.d. viii Kalendas Novembres, 2766 A.U.C

As a habit, Connie didn't lock the door. He always just figured, hey! There're like, five other people in the house who can do that! Why should he be responsible? This flawed sense of logic was probably what had landed him in a wheelchair six years ago. Oops. So, like any other day, when Connie came home to find the door unlocked, he thought nothing of it. He'd left the door unlocked that morning. Even if no one was home, it wasn't all that alarming.

It'd been quiet since his grandfather's funeral. He went patrolling with Sasha, but that was the extent of their heroing. Nothing big had really happened since Marco had died. Connie still wasn't sure what information had exactly been gathered that night. He just kinda felt like they were all sorta stuck in a knot, all tangled in different directions without any way of sorting themselves out. It was kinda infuriating.

Connie was wondering about the giant robots, but he didn't want to say anything. There had to be an explanation for them, but how was Connie to know? He'd fought them. He'd helped kidnapped the president. He'd done some real tough shit! Kinda. Okay, he had not done any tough shit, but he'd tried! Why wasn't anything making sense, anyway?

Not only that, but now Marigold was acting weird!

But that wasn't anything new, really. Mari was always weird.

He assumed from the silence that he was probably home alone. That meant two things. One, the fridge was his. He claimed it. Two, he could sing as loudly and obnoxiously off key as he wanted.

A bowl of leftover pasta was heating in the microwave, and he was in the middle of belting out some Lorde song or another, humming over the words he didn't know, when his cellphone rang. He broke off, and scooped up his phone, still humming under his breath as he answered with a quick, "Bueno?"

"What?" Jean was on the other line, and his voice was flat and incredulous. Connie couldn't help but laugh.

"Hey, Jean," Connie said. He pulled the steaming bowl of pasta from his microwave and winced, tossing it onto the counter and sucking at his mildly burned thumb and forefinger. "'Sup?"

"Uh," Jean said, "well… that's a funny story, actually."

"Is it actually a funny story?" Connie dumped his scalding pasta into a plastic bowl and dumped the other bowl into the sink. Glasswear hurt! "Or are you gonna tell me someone died?"

"No one died," Jean said. "Well, not yet, anyway."

"Encouraging."

"That's wasn't really a joke," Jean sighed. "Things just got really complicated. It's actually really annoying. Why does everyone have to be so cryptic?"

"Dunno," Connie uttered through a mouthful of pasta. A fork wobbled between his teeth as he juggled his phone and his bowl, walking down the hall down to his room. "I didn't really notice? Maybe Sasha did. She notices more shit than I do. Did something happen?"

"Yeah…" Jean sounded exhausted as Connie nudged open his door. "Well… okay, have you talked to your sister about Ymir yet?"

Connie pulled his fork from his mouth, glancing to the side as he grappled with his phone. "Why the hell would I talk to Mari about—?" He cut himself off with a cry of shock as a figure bolted upright on his bed, a silhouette blending into the dark curtains that clung to his bedside window.

"Connie?" Jean asked mildly. Then, after a moment of silence where Connie's breath filled the void between them, sharp and fearful as he thought back to where he kept the stashed weapons in his room, Jean's voice became more insistent. "Connie!"

"Shh!" the silhouette hissed, leaning forward with her finger against her dark lips. Connie stared at Ymir blankly, watching shadows dance about her dark, freckled face.

"Uh," Connie said vacantly, "I'm gonna have to call you back, Jean."

"What?" Jean started, sounding confused. "Wait, no, I need to ask you—!"

Connie hung up. He stuck his phone into his pocket and turned on the lamp. Ymir sat calmly on his bed, one leg dangly off the side, and she looked utterly blameless, as though he were the one intruding on her life. She was fully clothed, Connie realized, which like, thank god, because that would've been a little too awkward for his liking. But her clothes were all soiled and filthy, her muddy boots abandoned at the window near Connie's closet. Her dark feet were blistered, dirt smothered, and cracked open. Dried blood crusted at her heels.

"Are you okay?" Connie blurted. He knew he wasn't supposed to care. He knew that Ymir was kinda a fugitive now. She'd hurt Christa. Historia? Whatever. But still, it was hard not to care just a little bit, seeing the girl's wan skin and dull brown eyes, her muddy clothes and bloody feet. She'd probably collapsed onto his bed out of exhaustion.

"Positively gay, hermano," Ymir stated dryly. Her voice was rough, coarse from disuse. It fell from her lips like rocks grinding against her teeth.

"What?" Connie asked flatly. He glanced at her for a moment, incredulous, and then he barked a laugh. "Okay? If you're so thirsty, then, you picked the wrong room. My older sister is across the hall."

Ymir sat for a moment, puzzling over his words with her face pinching and her head tilting curiously. "I didn't mean homosexual," Ymir said slowly. And then, all at once, her face lit up like a beacon, her brown eyes burning with a strange spark that pulsed somewhere beneath their murky depths. "But, now that you mention it—"

"That was a joke," Connie squeaked. "Don't ask my sister out."

"Ha!" Ymir clapped her hands against her knees, and she grinned broadly. "Why not? Is there a chance she'd say yes?"

"Um, yeah, actually," Connie said, wrinkling his nose as he glanced over Ymir. "She's kinda a narcissist, and you two look alike." He paused, his thoughts running a mile a minute, and it took a moment for his words to catch up. He looked at Ymir, her dark skin and dark eyes and pointed chin and pointed nose, and he stared. "Wow. You two look a lot alike, holy shit."

"Do we?" Ymir's freckles were perhaps the greatest difference between her appearance and Marigold. Marigold's freckles were really faint, and barely noticeable at all. Marigold's hair was lighter, and thicker, and her eyebrows were upturned more, but otherwise…? Ymir and Marigold had a lot of weird similarities. "I'd like to meet her. Is she home?"

"Uh, no," Connie said. He watched her eye his bowl of pasta, her brow furrowing as he spoke. "Um, can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah," she said, "sure. Whatever."

"Why are you here?"

Ymir didn't respond right away. Her feet rested against the carpet, blood stained and blistered, and she hunched. She was not too fazed by the blood, or the grime, but his question had jostled her. Sunlight crept in through the two windows, yellowish and graying with every breath, and the light cast a sallow gloom upon Ymir's dark, freckly face.

"I needed a place to crash," Ymir said smoothly.

"Yes," Connie said weakly, blinking at her incredulously. "On my bed. But why?"

"Christ," Ymir spat, rolling her head and her eyes and her shoulders all in one grand gesture. "What should that matter?"

"Because you look like you've been through some trench warfare, or like, something!" Connie didn't know how else to put it. She looked like she'd been sleeping in a gutter? She looked like she was about to die of exhaustion? She looked like shit? Yeah. All of the above! "Dios mio, get up. Get off my bed. I need to clean up before my mom gets home. You need to be clean before my mom gets home."

Connie's thoughts ran much faster than his mouth did. He was already formulating some kind of excuse for Ymir. His mom didn't know Ymir had ran away from the rest of his team, so it'd be easy to explain why she was here. Why am I even bothering? Connie wondered, shoving his bowl of pasta at Ymir's chest. She was still sitting on Connie's bed, looking a little stunned. They told me she hurt Christa— or, Historia, and she ran away, and she knew stuff.

But still, Connie wasn't cruel. He'd give her food and a shower, and tell Armin that she was here. Connie wasn't smart, but he did know that he could be in danger. He'd text Armin. If he kept Ymir here long enough, maybe some backup would come, and he wouldn't have to deal with Ymir alone.

"Wait," Ymir said, staring down at the pasta, "huh?"

"What?" Connie stared at her blankly. "You've obviously been on the road for a while. Eat, and then shower. You're a lot taller than Mari, but she rolls her sweatpants, so you might be able to fit in them."

Ymir smirked, though Connie wasn't sure if she was actually amused, or if she was just trying to hide her surprise. She dug into the pasta, her cheeks hollowing out as she smiled and spoke through her chewing. "You're awful surprisin'," she said, her dark eyes twinkling. Connie didn't like that look. He didn't trust Ymir, and he didn't want her to think that he was letting her off the hook, but he didn't know what else to do. "Thought for sure you'd kick me out."

"Yeah, well," Connie said, "you don't know me very well."

Ymir couldn't deny that, of course. Connie had only met her… what, twice? And they hadn't exchanged any friendly words. This was all just so freaking weird, and he was confused about what he should do. He didn't want to rat her out, but at the same time he had to. It wasn't even that he liked Ymir! She was a total bitch, honestly! But there was something in her face, the gaunt sunken appearance that clung to her hollow eyes and caving cheeks, the way her dark freckles seemed to explode against her pallid cheekbones and nose and sharply pointed chin. She looked sickly, and tired, and Connie was not cruel.

This is gonna be a real pain in my ass, Connie thought, grabbing Ymir's boots from his window. They were completely caked over with mud. Bits of grass clung to the soles, amongst other things, and Connie figured Eliza might know the best way to get them clean, since she played soccer and she was consistently cleaning off her cleats in the sink in the garage beside the washing machine. Connie didn't know when Eliza would be home, though. Maybe Sasha would know? Or he could just take the risk and scrub at them till they were clean.

"How'd you get from Manhattan to here?" Connie asked curiously. Ymir stared at him with her dull brown eyes, her lips perpetually at a smirk as she chewed and chewed and chewed. Connie regretted giving her the pasta now. "Seriously, did you take a bus? Hitchhike? Steal a car?"

"A motorcycle, actually," she said.

Wow, Connie thought, unable to help his admiration. Hardcore. He watched her scoop up the last bits of pasta, gobbling it up hastily. Did she have somewhere to go? Was there even a reason to her being her? Like, what the fuck?

Ymir burped, pounding on her chest and nodding. "That was swell," she said. "Got any more?"

"Nope," he said, rolling his eyes. "The bathroom is the door all the way at the end of the hall, to the left. The door is open, so you can't miss it. Everything you need is probably in there, but like, don't ask me about like… women-y stuff, because I don't know where they keep that shit."

Her eyes narrowed amusedly, the corners of her lips stretching. "Noted," she said. She pushed off the bed and stretched her arms up, lifting the bowl over her head. "So, hermano. What do I owe you for all this?"

Connie had not been thinking about a reward. He'd been thinking about making the house as pristine as it had been when he'd left this morning so his mother didn't chew him out. So he didn't have a clue what Ymir could do for him. Not burn down his house? That'd be nice. Burn down his school? That'd be even nicer. But, too bad, he didn't really want to mention those things. He was hoping she didn't have the intention of burning anything today.

"Surprise me," he said, whirling away from her. Ymir followed him out of the room, and he felt her eyes on his back, curious and cautious, because she didn't seem to understand anymore than he did about why he was doing this. He just did it. He had no thought about it. It was a reflex to give this kindness, and he could only hope it didn't go terribly wrong.

Connie set the boots down outside Mari and Eliza's room before he entered. It was still as cramped as ever, even more so now that Eliza was getting into fashion and shit. There were clothes everywhere. If I had clothes everywhere, Connie thought darkly, mom'd pitch a fit and whoop my sorry ass. He clambered over some of Mari's shit, plucking up a pair of sweatpants from one of the piles on the floor, and then a baggy tee shirt that Mari had gotten from Youth Group several years ago. There was a prayer written on the back.

As Connie was walking out of Mari and Eliza's room, his furious older sister slid before him, shocking him so badly he squawked. The noise should have amused her, but it didn't. Her eyes were cold and dark and flashing down at his round face. Hers was so slim and pretty by comparison, and fuck, he hated her for it. Mari got the good genes.

"Where'd you come from?" he blurted, holding her clothes awkwardly in the crook of his arm. "When did you get home, I didn't even hear you!"

"Who's taking a shower?" Mari asked. "Eliza has practice, and Mark's with mom. Dad's at work." Her eyes followed his face rapidly for a moment, and her nostrils flared. "Is it Sasha?"

He blinked, understanding her reasoning a little, but not her rage. "Uh—" he started weakly. She cut him off, clapping her hand against her forehead and groaning.

"Oh god, don't tell me you're fucking her, Connie, I don't think I'd be able to handle that."

"What?"

"You heard me!"

He found his face flushing all at once, heating up miserably as her words hit him very hard. "Fucking Sasha?" Connie was amazed how the thought had never passed his mind, actually. Thanks, sis, he thought bitterly. "I am not fucking Sasha. I don't intend on fucking Sasha. Can we not talk about fucking Sasha anymore, oh my God, Mari, ohmygodwhywouldyoueventhinkohmygodwhatthefuckohmy—"

"Oh, shut the fuck up," Mari sighed, rubbing her temples and shooting him a glare. "You're running your mouth again. I caught none of that."

"What," Connie said, his voice a squeak, "the fuck, Mari?"

"Can you blame me for suspecting?" She pursed her thin, dark lips, and lifted her pointed chin toward the ceiling. Her thick brown hair curled around her ears. Connie's hair had been brownish gray. An ugly color. He was glad it was gone. "You're always with her. And you're like, what? Fifteen?"

"Ha ha," he spat at her. "So funny. You're soo funny, Mari. You'll give me heart failure, I'm laughing so hard."

"I mean," she sighed, seeming to relax now that she had confirmation that Connie was not, in fact, fucking Sasha, "you could do a lot worse, I guess. She could probably do better."

"Wow," he said. "Espero que no estás refiriendo a ti misma, puta!"

"Chill," she said coolly. "I didn't mean me. Though, yes. Yes, I'm obviously the superior choice."

"Ew, don't," he groaned. "Anyone but Sasha."

"I said chill. I'm not interested in your girlfriend, I'm not that bad of a sister." Mari snorted, but then her eyes flashed with a sudden wariness. "Wait. So who's in the shower?"

How to explain. Connie was not particularly sore over the girlfriend comment, not after Mari's lewd assumptions, but it hung on his mind as it ran on a course that'd hopefully give him a good excuse for Ymir. It didn't. He had no real excuse for Ymir other than the fact that Connie hadn't known how to turn her away. Because he was stupid.

"Um, well…" Connie bounced on his heels, vibrating in place as he thought through the words he could use to describe his current situation. "One of the, uh, teammates, she showed up here. She looked like she could use a shower, y'know? I mean, I dunno, she was tracking mud everywhere. Oh, can she use your clothes? You're taller than I am, so like, might as well. When did you get home, though, seriously? I should've heard you. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Oh my god, Connie," she hissed, her eyebrows furrowing, "you're so stupid!"

"What?" He knew that fact, of course. He knew it all too well. "What d'you mean?"

Marigold looked absolutely infuriated. Her upturned brows knitted, and her thin lips pursed, and her long, pointed nose wrinkling in distaste. She made a soft groaning sound, her voice rumbling in the back if her throat as she rolled her eyes. "Ymir," she snapped, surprising Connie. "Right? Tell me I'm right."

"How'd you know?" he gasped, peering up at her in awe. She glanced at him, her dark gaze chilly and furious. He didn't understand why. "What's your problem?"

"Connie, do you even have eyes?" She was still making a disgusted face, her dark skin growing taut around her cheeks and forehead. She glanced down the hall, and she shook her head in disbelief. She grabbed his wrist and yanked him down the hall, marching past the bathroom and dragging him with her. Connie tossed the bundle of her clothes he'd collected for Ymir at the door, blinking as she rounded a corner and prevented him from seeing them bounce off the wood.

"What are you doing?" he asked in a hollow voice. "Where are we going?"

She shoved him at the broom closet door, and he tore away from her, shoving her right back. She threw the door open, ignoring him as he shouted her name, angry now at her silence. He watched her kick away a bucket and a tiny broom, standing on her tiptoes to reach the latch on the ceiling. The fold away ladder to the attic came tumbling down, and she stood before it with a somber expression. She whirled to face Connie.

"Do you remember," she said, "the stories abeulito used to tell us?"

"Um," he said, "not particularly?"

She sighed, shaking her head again, and grumbling, "Typical." She began to climb the rungs of the ladder, gesturing for him to follow. He did without hesitation, if only because he was curious and tired of this already. He wanted to know whatever the hell Mari knew.

The attic was a strange sort of cylindrical death trap. A low ceiling crept precariously low to Connie's shaved head, cobwebs dusting the grayish wooden rafters, and bits of floor boards ripped away to reveal fluffy insulation and dark piping. The walls were lined with boxes stacked in careful blocks in order to save space. They circled the room in tightly packed brown squares. Marigold hopped over a gap in the floor and pulled a cardboard box from the mass, ignoring the dust it coughed up as two boxes collapsed upon the empty space.

She plopped the box down, tearing it open and waving him over. He rounded the gap, blinking down at her as she knelt before the dusty box, and the October chill dug at his spine as he listened to the wind whistle against the shingles above them. The air was thick despite the frigid temperature, musky and heavy and stale. Every breath inhaled seemed to be cloaked in a lining of dust, and it made his tongue itch and his nostrils twitch. His lungs were rejecting this icy, musty air, and he coughed and blinked through the tinged shade.

"Maybe you were too young," Mari said, shifting through the box full of old, faded, crinkled photographs. "Maybe you were too stupid. But he used to tell us all about his mom, remember? And how she came to this country penniless, and ended up helping the government out with something."

"Yeah, no," Connie said. "I don't remember that at all."

"He had a sister," she continued, setting aside a pile of photographs. "She died from tuberculosis before he was born. He said that his mom was so heartsick over it that she constantly talked about her, and he just felt like he knew her." She plucked a photograph from the box, peering at it in the dim light, and her shoulders slumped. The air seemed to only grow thicker. Connie felt sick as she handed over the photograph, a little square slip of paper of dull black and white scenery.

A little girl stood somberly on a porch, her dark freckled face turned toward the camera. She did not smile, and she did not glare. She merely stood, startlingly straight and unblinking, eerily calm. She was wearing a pretty black dress with pretty black shoes, and a gleaming necklace stood out starkly against her collarbone. Her dark hair was pinned away from her pointed, fay-like face.

"Ymir," Mari said. "That was her name."

Connie had no words. It made too little sense to him.

The girl in the photograph looked a lot like Ymir. But, on the other hand, it also looked a lot like Mari. Or Ilse.

"It looks like Ilse," he blurted, recalling the angelic woman who had saved his life by killing him. "Kinda."

"Does she?" Mari seemed unfazed by this comment. Perhaps she'd been expecting it. "It's funny you say that. Look on the back."

Connie stared at her blankly, and he found himself turning the photograph over to stare at the strange curling script that looped across the yellowed backside of the photo. Ilse turned nine today. Don't you think she looks positively miserable? Maybe she misses you! Would you like to visit her? The words ended with that. A swirling question mark, a faded inquisition that seemed to be empty in feeling. As though the writer was asking as a formality, because the writer already knew the answer. Connie felt dizzy in the dim, hazy light that breathed through the chilly attic.

"You said her name was Ymir," Connie whispered, his mind a great messy fog.

"It is," a low, carefree voice spoke up softly from the trapdoor. Connie was on his feet before Ymir could so much as poke her head above the floorboards, and he ran through the ways he could get Mari out of harms way. But there were no ways out of the attic. Not unless he punched a hole through the roof. I could do it, he thought, his eyes darting from Ymir's dark face to the rafters. For Mari, I could do it.

Ymir's face was a little flushed from her shower, and her dark hair was sleek and black, dripping wet across her deeply freckled forehead. Her eyes looked a little swampy as she peered through the haze of dust and splintered yellow light. She pulled herself up into the attic, looking around with her chin jutting out and her shoulders pushed back. She wanted to seem bigger than she really was, like giant amongst little squirming men.

And she smirked, her lips twisting and her cheeks caving with the stretch of her smile. "Cool it, Constantino. I'm not gonna burn anything. There's no point now, you've already got a hold of what I wanted."

"Pictures?" Connie blurted, awed by this stupid girl and her stupid mystery. "You came to my house to steal pictures?"

"And burn them," she said, "yeah." She strode up to him and snatched the photograph from his fingers. Mari made a sharp noise of objection, like a cross between a whimper and a snarl. Ymir ignored her promptly. "Christ, I remember that dress. It was itchy, and that day was so damn cold. I never liked dresses like that, all long and frilly. The fashion change that came after the war, now that swung my way. Could've been a flapper proper if I hadn't died."

"What?" he asked weakly, his voice trembling in shock. Mari sat on the ground, looking equally alarmed and terrified. The air was growing warmer just by the heat Ymir exuded, and suddenly Connie felt like he was suffocating inside this dusty, dingy, dimly lit attic.

"What?" Ymir glanced up from the photo, blinking at Connie vacantly. "Oh, my name? Yeah, it's Ymir. Sometimes it's Ilse, but I never liked that one bit. Always felt like that name didn't belong to me. Like I was borrowing it, or somethin'." She studied the photo, and her nostrils flared in disgust. "I was an awful gloomy child."

"So that's you," Mari whispered in disbelief, as if she hadn't been trying to convince Conne just that. "It's really you? How is that possible? How… you couldn't have died, that's not possible!"

"I died," Connie pointed out, his voice flat and empty. "Ilse killed me. Remember?"

"Wait, what?" Ymir glanced at him. Confusion warped her pretty fay face, and it made her look like a grumpy mass of freckles and damp black hair. When Connie opened his mouth to explain, she shook her head furiously. "Never mind! I don't want to know, don't tell me! The less I know about that, the better."

"Uh… okay…?" Connie had never been more confused in his entire life. He felt as though the entire world had decided to tell him a great big gaping lie, and wrap it up in a girl with a freckled face and a strange, vintage drawl. "Can you… can you explain? Please?"

"Why I have two names?" Ymir looked a little underwhelmed, and she tossed the photograph back at Connie. He caught it easily in midair, his breath catching as the confusion turned to paranoia. What if Ymir had been the one who had killed him and given him his legs back? Was that even possible? "My mother, your great-grandma, I suppose, named me Ymir. Sina called me Ilse. I was their first attempt at creating a superhuman. It turned out pretty well, actually, 'til I got TB. Then it didn't go so well. For me, at least."

"And you died," he said. "You died. Wait, are you related to us? How old are you?"

"Like… a hundred?" Ymir leaned her head back, her eyes darting around the rafters about them. "I guess. 1913. So yeah, a hundred." She smiled wanly. "That's just a technicality, though. I'm not mentally or physically a hundred years old, no more than you."

"But you're related to us," Mari clarified vacantly. "Definitely?"

"I suppose so," Ymir said, not sounding all too pleased with this fact. "But only just hardly. I'd be your grandfather's half sister. I realized that at his funeral, and laughed in the middle of the priest's homily. Don't worry your pretty little heads any, I'm not interested in being your long lost relative. I wanted to burn these before you ever figured it out, but it's much too late for that now, hm?"

Connie was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. This was utterly surreal, like no conversation he had ever had with anyone, because Ymir was so utterly candid and without a hint of shame. He wished he could be like her. She was awful, yeah, but she was bold and certain and smart. He was just pathetic in comparison, right? He thought so. It was a nagging itch of a thought that bloomed steadily into a paranoid burning.

"How are you a hundred years old?" Mari whispered. She seemed to be completely in shock. Connie couldn't blame her, because he was shocked as well, but she had to have been expecting this. Right? Right!

"Isn't it obvious?" Connie found himself saying. "She was frozen!"

"Excuse me?" Mari's eyes narrowed at his face, and she slapped down a pile of photographs. "Okay, enlighten me. How would that work?"

"Like Captain America," he said, rolling his eyes, "duh!"

"Are you serious, Connie?" she groaned, burying her face in her hands. "Not everything in our lives is like a comic book!"

"Nah, I was frozen," Ymir said smoothly. He bit back a smile of triumph as Mari sat dumbly on the floor, staring up between him and Ymir. "I never actually died, that was an exaggeration. But I was sick damn near forever."

"Did they freeze you until they had a cure for tuberculosis?" Connie asked. She laughed at that.

"No," she sighed, "they kept me sick and on ice for a lot longer than that. But, I can't complain. I mean, I'm not dead yet. There's always that."

It was endlessly confusing, speaking to Ymir like this. She was only spouting out strange, rapid truths that she spun for them so casually it hurt to listen. Connie didn't know if he wanted this information anymore, not with this blunt narrative pounding into his head with every syllable drawled from Ymir's thin, dark mouth. He felt disconnected from the world, and more importantly, disconnected from himself. What the hell was up with his family?

"I'm so confused," he groaned.

"Imagine living it," Ymir laughed, a strange bark that echoed loftily in the shadowy rafters. "It wasn't so bad, though. I was never treated poorly, if you can imagine. I never hated being there, like all the others complain nowadays. It was different then. I was alone, and they doted on me."

"Must've been nice," Mari stated, sounding a little lost. Her eyes were glazed over, and she sat in defeat upon the floor. They were both a little at Ymir's mercy.

"Nice." Ymir shrugged. "Ha. Ha! Yeah, it was!" Her eyes were dark and glittering madly, a secret on her tongue that Connie knew she would not tell. "Unfortunately, it was still a prison."

"Why are you telling us this?" Connie blurted. Ymir focused her gaze on him, never a hint of her thoughts trailing from her consistently smug expression. She carefully lowered herself to the floor, dragging the box toward her while keeping silent. Connie was left to stand, and feel as though the world had turned on its head.

So, Ymir was his hundred year old half great aunt. Cool?

And Mari thought cryosleep was unrealistic.

"Well," Ymir said, staring into the box full of old photographs, "you're damn near too stupid to use this information in a way that'd hurt me."

"He's not stupid," Marigold said coolly. Connie stared at her, feeling as though he'd missed something crucial. Wasn't she the one always pointing out his unintelligence? "And you're barely making sense. How can you even exist?"

"Do you think I was told every goddamn little thing?" Ymir's eyes narrowed at Mari. "Newsflash, hermana, I was a subject, not an observer. I had no clue what was happening."

"This is ridiculous," Mari scoffed. "Why should we trust you?"

Ymir shifted from photograph to photograph, her lips giving that strange little quirk that Connie knew meant she was amused in the most wicked sort of way. "Oh, I never in a million years expect you to trust me. But, perhaps suffer me for a few hours. I'm awful sleepy." She smiled fondly then, which was a strange sight, and she held up a photo of their dead grandfather. "He looked like a real ass."

"Must be the family resemblance," Connie said dryly. Ymir stared at him, and Mari choked on a laugh.

"You have no idea," Ymir said darkly, her brow furrowing as she turned her face away. Connie bent down and scooted closer to the box. He began to look through the photographs as well, flipping through them individually and finding that they were all very distinct. His grandfather had been an adventurous man. Mari began to sift through the box as well, and suddenly the three of them were quiet, moving through the pictures at an alarming speed. Even for Connie.

"You don't have to believe me," Ymir said, "y'know, that I'm a hundred. Among other things."

Connie was holding a photo of his grandfather and his grandmother, two teenagers laughing in a cemetery. There were marigolds braided into her hair as she stretched her arms out toward the sky, her head thrown back as Connie's grandfather grinned in the foreground. He set the picture down, feeling numb to the entire idea of his ancestry.

"That's pretty easy to believe," he admitted. "What gets me is that we're related somehow."

"That didn't shock me," she said, raising her pointed chin high. "The way I figure it, Constantino, somebody out there feels as though he— or she— owes your family a debt for my existence. You weren't given superpowers 'cause you're a looker."

That didn't sting as much as it should've. In fact, her words came as something of a relief to him. Connie had always wondered why Ilse had appeared to him out of countless children to give him his legs back. He thought that he had been lucky, but knowing the truth? That the institute that had maimed and marred his friends and teammates owed his family? It was much more exciting than he could have hoped for. It made sense. Something finally made sense.

"How long have you known about this?" he asked, twisting to face Ymir in utter awe. He was done being confused, done caring about how strange and unreal his life was. This was it, this was what it was, and he wasn't about to start questioning it now. Ymir didn't respond right away, for she was still flipping through photographs, her dark eyes moving slowly over the antique snapshots and vintage filmstrips.

"Since the funeral," she said, setting the old photographs aside. The air was thick and hot now, dust settling in their hair and in their eyes, perching on their tongues. He could taste ever particle, hot and itching down his throat as he inhaled. He told himself that impossible things happened everyday. That Ymir was just another impossible thing in his impossible life. That he, too, was an impossible boy living in an impossible world.

There could be no disbelief in a world where anything was possible.

"And you weren't gonna tell us?" He felt a little betrayed. This newfound kinship meant nothing, really, in the grand scheme of things, but even so. Connie felt that family was important. Even a distant anomaly such as Ymir Langner. "You were just gonna take the pictures and leave?"

"Yup," she said loftily, "pretty much."

The heat of the attic was her fault. It had been cold, Connie recalled, when they had first climbed the latter. Now it was sweltering hot, and every breath was a chore, and Connie's skin was prickling with sweat despite the howling of the nipping autumn wind beating at the rooftop, whistling through the shingles and looping in through cracks in the foundation. Ymir was warmth incarnate, fire blooming in her eyes, and Connie… Connie felt that strange heat like he felt his own hand moving, bones bending automatically to push through photo after photo after photo. He was amazed, but only because he was relieved. It was nice to have someone else in his house who wasn't normal.

"Why?" Mari asked sharply. "Why didn't you want us to know?"

"I don't care about you," Ymir said matter-of-factly. She leaned back, throwing all of her weight onto her arms as she peered up into the darkened rafters. "Make no mistake… Marigold, right? You two might have some blood of mine in you, but that's it. I don't know you. You don't know me. Family doesn't have the same meaning to me as it does to you, I imagine, so I figured it'd be the best for us all if I nipped it before it grew." Her dark, careful gaze fell upon Connie's face. He wanted to hit her, or scream at her, but he was too scared of her, and he wanted to be her friend too badly. She killed Eren's mom, Connie reminded himself. Why didn't he care about that anymore?

"I have a question," he announced. Ymir rolled her eyes, a wry smile twisting about her lips, and he knew she was either amused by him or annoyed by him. Neither was pleasant to think about.

"Shoot it, Constantino," she said. Amused, he thought. Definitely.

He sat with his legs crossed, his eyes moving from photograph to photograph, and then finally Ymir's face. She looked oddly content. "Why did you kill Eren's mom?" His voice was strangely vacant and curious, as though he were asking her the date. He wondered when things like this had stopped fazing him.

"What?" Mari asked blankly. Horror reflected on her face.

Ymir blinked at Connie curiously, straightening up in a sudden rush of excitement. "Whoa," she gasped, "you know about that? And you still helped me?" She threw her head back and laughed. The sound berated across the rafters and snarled in time with the wailing wind. "I was wrong! You ain't stupid, hermano. Just hopelessly naïve."

"What?" Mari gasped, her eyes darting from Ymir to Connie and back. "Connie, what the hell?"

"It's not like they don't tell me things," he mumbled, feeling foolish and frustrated. "Can you just answer? I want to know."

"Do you wanna know all the gory details?" Ymir's eyes were glistening, glowing bright like two lit coals hissing in the darkness. "Like how she screamed, choking on the fumes of smoke until she was sick and retching and sobbing? How she was crying about Eren, how she thought he was still in the house? Do you wanna know what she smelled like, through all the stinging smoke and spitting ash? It was like charred meat spinning on a spit, like ham bubbling up in an open flame, bloating… and blistering… and blackening…"

Connie sat very still as Mari jumped to her feet, her eyes glistening with horror, and she cried, "You're a monster!"

"No more than him," Ymir retorted, jerking her finger at Connie's terror-stricken face. "Only difference between us two? I've never had the privilege of restraint. I grew up in a place that only ever encouraged me to use my power. Never once did they think I needed to control it. So, yeah. I killed someone. I guess I'm sorry it was Carla Jaeger, but I can't change that it happened. I take responsibility for it. It was my folly." She stared ahead, her eyes vacant and her smirk gone. Connie believed that she truly was sorry for it, even though he was a little unnerved by her. He couldn't imagine being in Eren's shoes, and he was glad for that. It made it easier to accept her.

"You should leave," Marigold said icily. Ymir glanced at Mari with her expression amicable, but her eyes dimming. Connie shot Mari a sharp look of frustration. Did she never learn?

"You can stay," he blurted as Ymir pushed herself to her feet. Her dark hair wisped around her cheeks, drying in brown tufts around her long face. He jumped up as well, finding that he truly wanted Ymir to stay and talk to him. She was a terrible person, but there was so much that Connie didn't know. That he needed to know. "Don't listen to Mari, she doesn't get it."

"She's a murderer," Mari snapped. "What exactly don't I get?"

"Mari, can you like, do me a big favor and leave?" He didn't look at his older sister, and ignored the indignant noise she made in response. "No, seriously, get out."

"You're unbelievable, Connie. She's a total creep! I'm not leaving you alone with her!"

"I'm more than capable of taking care of myself, Mar', okay? Just go!" Connie was so done with dealing with Mari, it wasn't even funny. All his sister did was whine and bitch at him relentlessly about things she couldn't possibly understand. He was sick of it. If he wanted to talk to Ymir alone, it was none of her business! "And don't you dare fucking tell mom."

"Ohh, right," Mari sneered, brushing past him. "Mooom! Connie's in the attic with our murderous fire-starting hundred year old great aunt!" She shot Connie a scathing look, and he knew she probably wouldn't tell anyone about this. "Right."

She climbed down the ladder, glowering at Ymir as she went, and Connie stood for a moment listening to her footsteps retreat. Then he turned to Ymir, finding that he could only glower at her too. This was such a weird situation, and he was angry at her despite wanting to help her.

"Well." Ymir flung her arms out wide, grinning broadly at Connie as she gestured around her. "You've got me! What do you want, Constantino, m'boy?"

"Can you, like…" Connie swallowed thickly, and he rubbed his temples. "Just… cut the crap for two seconds? Please?"

"Mm, two seconds are a bit faster in my time than in your time, hermano." She smiled cheekily.

He sighed. He rubbed the stubble on his scalp thoughtfully, wondering how to proceed. He didn't want to hate Ymir, but she was making it so hard! He looked around at the boxes stacked against the walls, listening to the wind snarl above them, and he leaned into the unnatural heat that plagued the air simply because of Ymir's presence.

"You can stay here," he said quietly. "Not forever, just… for tonight, maybe? You can stay up here. I don't want to tell the team about you, though." He looked at her desperately, looking into her eyes and pleading with her to give him a reason not to. "Did you mean to kill Eren's mom, Ymir?"

Her eyes widened for a moment, and she snorted. "Why the hell should that matter?" she asked. "She's dead. It was my fault."

"Little kids don't murder moms for no reason," Connie said steadily. "You either did it because it was an accident, or you did it because someone made you."

"Not because I'm an awful, murderous bitch?"

Connie shook his head. Yeah, she was a bitch, but so was Connie's sister, Sasha, and Connie himself, so it wasn't exactly a huge deal. "You said something," he said, "back when we blackmailed the president."

"Ah, yes!" Ymir clapped her hands together. "One of my more impressive achievements. What'd I say?"

"Something about turning children into monsters." Connie peered at her, hoping he wasn't wrong about her. "Were you speaking from your own experience?"

Ymir stared at him blankly. He expected her to laugh, and was thankful when she didn't. Instead he was greeted with a heavy silence, and a dark gaze empty of all emotion. Yes. She had spoken from experience. Connie didn't know what to feel, if he should pity her or hate her. So he turned away and dropped to his knees, scooping up the old photos they had taken from the box on the ground.

"Like I said." He tossed them back into the box, shrugging easily. "You're welcome to stay here for a little while, but I can't promise you anything permanent. And I probably should tell the team."

"You're not as stupid as I thought you were," she said thoughtfully. He blinked up at her, a little stunned.

"Was that a compliment?" He found himself grinning. "From you?"

"Ha ha." She rolled her eyes and smiled thinly. "I still think you're a dunce, Constantino."

"You wouldn't be the first, Ymierda," Connie said cheerfully. He picked up the box full of photos and brought it over to the stack Mari had taken it from.

"What did you just call me?"

He laughed, and ducked away from her when she attempted to smack him. He was far too fast for her to land a hit, and she seemed to realize that after the first miss. Her brow was furrowed, and she stared at him confusedly, her body suddenly taut as she shook her head.

"I don't understand you," she declared. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"Not everyone in the world has an ulterior motive," he said, shrugging. "So… you stayin'?"

She looked around at the cramped attic, the boxes and the rafters and the cobwebs. And she nodded, her head bobbing for a few moments, her eyes glowing in the dim light. "Yeah," she said. "Thanks, I guess…"

"Nah. Just don't burn down the house, okay?"

"I'll try."

Connie climbed down the ladder, watching Ymir as he descended. He'd tell the team. Eventually. Sasha would probably know just by walking in the door. He could almost see it now. She'd walk in, look around, move straight to the closet and ask Connie why the fuck Ymir was sleeping in his attic. It'd be a trip and a half trying to explain that one, for sure. But, until then, he figured it'd be okay. So long as Mari didn't tell his parents, and nobody went up into the attic.

This was going to be a disaster.

Connie was gathering up blankets when Mari approached him. She watched him toss a fleece quilt over his shoulder, grabbing a pillow from the linen closet. Her eyes were following his every move furiously.

"I don't trust her, Connie."

"Neither do I," he admitted. He closed the closet door and turned away from his sister.

"Then why the hell are you helping her?"

He shrugged. Why was he helping Ymir? She'd done nothing to deserve it. She was mean, and rude, and kinda annoying. She'd killed Eren's mom, hurt Historia, and was possibly responsible in part for Connie's death six years ago. So why? Why should he even care what happened to her at this point?

"I'm a hero," Connie said quietly. "I want to help people. Even people like Ymir. She deserves a chance to prove she's not as terrible as we think."

She stared at him, and he paused in the middle of the hallway, drinking in this glorious silence happily. It was rare that Marigold was actually quiet, so he was gonna bask in it as long as he could. She stared, and he smiled to himself, because he actually sounded kinda cool when he'd said that, right? Right!

"You're such a dork, Connie."

Or not.

The doorbell rang, and Connie leapt at the opportunity to ditch his annoying elder sister. He shoved the blanket and the pillow at her chest, racing down the hall and shouting back at her, "Take those to the attic!" She had no time to respond as he zoomed to the door, leaving nothing but a gust of wind in his wake. He flung it open, expecting Eliza to be standing there grumpily because she'd forgotten her key, or something.

It wasn't Eliza.

"Um," Connie said weakly, "hi?"

The woman was about Connie's height— basically, small— with pretty tawny eyes and a round face. Her cropped strawberry blonde hair framed her cheeks, her bangs tucked carefully beneath the overlapping strands. She was wearing rain boots with a dress that reminded him a bit of seafoam, an off-green hue hemmed with white lace. She was wearing a beige cardigan, and in her hands was a suitcase.

She smiled weakly back at him, and said, "Connie Springer?"

"Uh…" He was so alarmed, because pretty girls didn't often visit him. Unless Sasha counted? But she was only pretty, like, half the time. "Yeah, I think so."

She laughed at that, and adjusted the strap of her messenger bag, which hung from her shoulder and rested at her hip. "Okay, that's good, I've got the right house!" She sighed in relief, rocking back on her heels. "I'm Petra Ral. Jean told you I was coming, right?"

Special thanks to Angie for the "Ymierda" joke. best joke in the entire story hands down. nothing else comes close. actually special thanks to angie in general for being my official spanish translator for everything ilu bae

connie chaps are really fun bc nothing is seriously but everything is really, really serious it's amazing

hey, hey! I EXPLAINED STUFF! gold star for dani

oh hey petra what up girl haven't seen you in like almost twenty chapters