Word Count: 2,037


"Annie."

Annie sighed and rolled over, not yet ready to let go of the veil of sleep that still fogged her mind.

A hand touched her shoulder and gently shook her. Instantly irritated and a slight bit dysphoric, she rolled over again, out of reach of the hand and cracked open an eye to squint at the one touching her. A shock of bright blond hair blurred into view along with bright blue eyes. Armin. Of course.

She brings her knees up to her chest so that she's lying in the fetal position. Staring up at the other blond with a grumpy frown, she grumbled, "What's going on?"

"Get up and change your clothes. Hange's sending us out with these two men to help them with a Curse," Armin answered.

Annie rolled over a third time and shut her eyes.. "Five more minutes." It was not a request.

"Mmkay, but it Hange comes for you, you're probably going to regret not changing out of your pajamas before stepping outside," Armin replied and, true to her demands, walked out the door, shutting it behind him.

As soon as she was absolutely sure no one was coming for the next few minutes, her eyelids fluttered open once more, and she sat up in bed to stare out the window at the bright, sunny morning the day was shaping up to be.

She ran a hand through her tangled hair, wondering how much longer, how many more times she'd run off with Armin to help solve a problem before… before… well, she wasn't sure of what, but there was an eerie feeling looming over her when she thought about all this adventuring out to help people.

She'd never been the kind of person to get attached to anyone before she fell into a coma. Why did she find it so hard to imagine life without these people she had only met a few days ago?

She leaned over the edge of her bed, grabbed a brush off the vanity, and began to cross her legs when one of them brushed up against something cold and wet.

Glancing down, she saw a significant blotch of reddish brown bleeding through the white linen sheets onto the mattress. She'd have to find some clean rags or something soon. She mentally cursed herself for forgetting, though in all honesty she couldn't really blame herself. It wasn't easy to count down the days to her next cycle when in a semi-conscious coma. Idly, she wondered if it stopped during that century as she quickly brushed out the worst of the snarls in her hair.

She placed the brush back on the vanity and without too much trouble walked over to the wardrobe. She opened it, and it seemed to sense the difference in her body because it only offered her clothes in various shades of red, brown, and black, and there was a set of clean linen trousers and a cotton pad to stem the flow of blood. Strangely enough, she found this amusing, and she cracked a slight smile as she took the trousers and pad and picked a dress.

After changing into the more sanitary trousers with a dress over it, she took her time leaving the room to get to the entrance hall.

"Ah, Annie, you're back sooner than anticipated," commented Hange. She then gestured towards the two men chatting quietly and cordially with Armin. "That's Bertholt–" she pointed at a tall, thin man who didn't seem to be saying much– "And that's Reiner." She pointed at a slightly shorter but far brawnier man. "You'll be helping them."

Annie took one look at them and felt uneasy. One of them (she was unsure of which) felt familiar to her despite never seeing either of them before. The other had no such sense of familiarity, but rather had an air of instability which she wasn't sure she trusted. However, she bit her tongue to swallow any harsh commentary she might say to offend them and simply nodded.

"That being said, I assume you need transportation?" Hange asked.

Annie's mind was jolted back to the present.

As she tried to process the context she had just been told as fast as she could, something clicked in her mind, and she realized that the magician distrusted the two strangers as well and was setting up a trap. If they had horses, then why would it matter to them that their cow had been stolen? If they walked, then it would imply prior knowledge because of how niche the castle was.

Bertholt and Reiner shared an unreadable look that probably lasted a good three seconds.

It was at that moment when Annie questioned whether or not Hange could even provide them with stable transportation: after all, if she could, why didn't she when she and Armin had to visit Marco, and let Mikasa keep the favor from Jean until a later time?

Fortunately, the seemingly shyer Bertholt shook his head and said, "No, we should be fine. We'll get there in due time." Annie heard Hange subtly let out a breath of relief.

"That's just fine!" she brightly said in a way that frankly did not sound the way she usually did. "I'm sure you're all strong and fit young'uns who can walk just fine."

Annie bit the inside of her cheek, put off, as she glanced over at Armin. They exchanged uneasy glances and simultaneously looked to Hange.

"Can we meet you at the gate?" Armin asked, scooting away from the men. "I… uh, need to get something from my bed chambers." He stole a glance at Reiner, who along with Bertholt, had absolutely no negative reaction.

"Yeah, sure, we can wait at the gate," Bertl softly said. "Just don't take too long."

"Yeah, all right," Armin said and immediately darted off.

Bertholt and Reiner looked at Annie, then at Hange, then back at Annie. Reiner looked away a split second sooner than Bertholt, and it made her feel uncomfortable and unnerved.

However, before the moment was even over the two turned heel and left the castle to wait at the gate as they promised. Annie didn't want to follow, since Bertholt frankly creeped her out; she suspected Hange likely wouldn't have let her go anyway because of how off-kilter the two men acted.

"Hange," she whispered, watching them walk away, "You're thinking what I'm thinking about those two strangers, right?"

"Depends on what you're thinking about, darling," Hange absently replied, staring suspiciously at the men as well. "I'm personally thinking that this could be the end of something: you know I know they shouldn't have known about this place. Remember the hypothetical mare or alp nesting on you and serving as a tracking device for the Witch to find you?"

Annie nodded, a little unsure of how Hange knew but too scared to ask at that point.

"The only way you can find this place is through supernatural intervention. That's just how the initial barrier was set up. And it's still up; Petra's death didn't change that because I'm still able to feed it enough magic to stay up. Anyway, that leaves the only logical explanation for them is they are or are involved in supernatural dabblings."

"But Hange, magic is illogical."

"It still has rules, no matter how illogical." She let out a breath just shy of a sigh. "I'd have to check the map just in order to know for sure what they are, but this is just one of those things where we'll have to just take the risk because of time constraints."

Annie understood.

Armin ran through the doors into the castle foyer, panting and clutching the sword now hanging off his belt. "Sorry," he wheezed, "Forgot to put it on this morning, but Hange."

The magician in question raised an eyebrow at him in an invitation to continue.

"I checked the map while I was up there, just in case."

"Oh thank goodness. We were just talking about it. What co–"

"It was still on Cursed mode, Hange; you forgot to change it back," Armin interrupted.

Hange deflated slightly. "Whoops."

"But there's nothing in the vicinity of the castle, so therefore–"

"They're lying," Annie finished.

Hange tapped her chin, deep in thought. "Unfortunately, we won't be able to screen any of our hypotheses before you two leave with them, but now I'd say that the alp-mare theory is our best bet."

The two blonds simultaneously looked up at her. "But what does that make them? There's no records of the Witch ever having henchmen except for perhaps Cinderella, but I don't think that counts," Armin asked.

"I don't know. If all this is part of a fairy tale, it's an unrecorded one, and I can't help you if it is and you kids are its main characters." She crossed her arms and looked at the ceiling for a few seconds to calm down. "I'm sorry," she said. "You'll have to find it all out firsthand for yourselves." She reached out and put a hand on each blond's head. "Take care."

Annie pushed the hand off her head. "We will," she promised for the both of them.

They walked out the door and over to the gate together.


Despite supposedly working together for the common goal of getting Bertholt's cow back, there was a significant divide in the party. Armin and Annie tailed the men several meters back, whispering quietly to each other while still remaining a fair distance apart from each other out of respect for Annie's personal space. Meanwhile, Bertholt and Reiner seemed to practically hang off each other, they were so close.

Sometimes, Reiner would glance back at them. Annie legitimately couldn't tell if they were checking out of suspicion or if they were concerned about the falling behind.

"Armin."

He looked at Annie.

"Do you have a plan in case they are what we think they are?" she asked him in a low voice.

They both slowed down in order to make more distance between themselves and the men leading them.

"Well," he slowly began. "I think our first move, just in case, would be to make sure they can't use their heights to an advantage. We'll have to slip away pretty fast in order to stand any semblance of a chance. But, to be honest, I think we're pretty safe. Considering their base tale, it wouldn't be a deathly shock to think that they have had exposure to magic. For all we know, maybe they're a subversion of the story, and they ate the beans before and absorbed some of the magic in them before the beanstalk grew up out of the outhouse."

"That does not explain how they found Levi's castle."

Armin shrugged and sighed. "I don't know. I may be well-educated, but I'm far from knowing everything."

Annie decided to guide the topic away from Bertholt and Reiner so that they could catch up to the latter and not fall under suspicion for their conversation.

But before she could say anything, something hit her upside the head. She shrieked, stumbling forward as her skull throbbed in pain. Fighting to keep her mind straight, she staggered around for a few seconds before falling to her knees from the sheer overwhelming nature of the last few seconds. Black spots danced before her eyes as her conscious wavered and threatened to give out on her. Scowling, her eyes darted around and saw Armin, lying unconscious on the ground.

He'd been knocked out in just one hit.

She began to struggle to her feet, but a cloth was thrown roughly over her head, filling her lungs with the sharp smell and taste of a foreign air, and at last, Annie's body collapsed beneath her will.

The whole world went black.


Author's Note xxix. i'm back, whoo! ! ! had some computer issues for a while there, hence no update but i'm on a roll now muahahahaha! i wrote this like man two weeks ago i have no memory of what i wanted to make notes of except that annie's period is important story-wise. oh and i did fun research on medieval menstrual coping mechanisms. turns out they just bled everywhere and wore red all the time. who knew. now you. anyway that's been fun. thank you everyone who's supported me through this endeavor so far, and thank you to all of those who just kind of sit there and lurk. i love you all! ! ! feel free to follow/fave if you enjoyed, or leave a review if that's what you're into, and as always, have a greaaaat daaaay~