we all (have a) hunger
A/N: It's been a long time, hasn't it? Between writing for other fandoms and working too many hours, I still wanted to come back to this. Can't have all the world-building and drafts go to waste…
I have a feeling this is going to be longer than I anticipated because I have a lot planned for this universe, in both this time and the past, so I hope you all continue supporting it!
Note that italicized lines in parentheses ("like so") are spoken by a different character than the woman and the Ancient Colossal, who speak in unitalicized parentheses ("like so").
Thank you for reading!
At heart, Zeke Yeager believes he is a hedonist.
"One would think the Beast would be more animal than man."
Alternatively, primal urges and primal encounters.
At heart, the woman believes war is never justified. She has seen this in the Ancient's memories, decades and decades into the past, the vision is as strong and as vivid as the waking hours. No, perhaps even more so. The Ancient's memories have that certain quality about them; smothering and devouring, as if its memories want to consume her, eat her whole just like what it did to her mother.
(At heart, the woman believes her mother was manipulated by the Ancient, that she did not plan to murder the court and crown herself queen to preserve the will of the Founder after Queen Frieda's death–)
Sometimes, the woman wonders what would have happened if she hadn't disobeyed her mother's desire for her to remain within Mitras, if she hadn't decided to return to the Survey Corps after the Fall of Wall Maria, if she hadn't wished for a simpler life of adventure and expeditions outside the walls. She wonders if this was the war they were warned about.
(It was common knowledge back then, that beyond the Walls lies the devil-spawn known as Titans, and beyond that, an endless, eternal war.)
The War. The name is generic and simple, but it's only because they were taught this was the outside world. And according to their religion, it was by the God-Queen Ymir's own merciful power that they were spared from all this grief and strife. The God-Queen had chosen them to be saved from this violence. The God-Queen had chosen them to be spared from this endless fighting. They were, essentially, the chosen ones.
But upon the revelation, the discovery of the truth of the world, people have started to wonder if their religion was merely a convenient belief.
("That's what religion is, isn't it?" An old friend had asked before, "A convenient way of explaining why such things happen.")
The woman recalls one memory, her own and not the Ancient's. A conversation shared in an alcove in one of the many chapels in the interior. It is early in the day. The sun shines through the stained glass. The image of a tree. Flowers on the altar. Marigolds. It is quiet–why is it quiet? Why isn't there anyone here?
("I used to come here as a child, with my father.")
Who was speaking? She can't see it, but the voice is familiar.
("And they always had a fresh vase of flowers each time.")
No. No, it can't be– She panics when she sees him, the color of his eyes and the shape of his face. She wants to hide, she wants to run from this memory. Why did she remember this of all things? Was it the Ancient's doing? What does it hope to gain?
("Marigolds.")
No! Why– Why... She wants to cry at the sight of him.
("I haven't seen marigolds like that before.")
And her voice doesn't sound like her own. It feels distant and unfamiliar. Was it really her speaking?
("They call it the prophetic marigold, which only grows in a nearby field. It's fitting for a place like this, don't you think?"
"Really? I know they call you a genius, but I didn't think you'd know about flowers.")
Then he smiles, bright and hopeful, but it feels... painful.
("Only when it counts."
"And does this count?")
She feels herself smile, feels her mouth tug at the edges. She's smiling so widely, she must be so nervous. Yes, she was nervous in this memory. She was nervous and excited and very, very hopeful–but for what? She doesn't want to remember.
("My father and I spent our Sundays here after my mother died.")
She wants this memory to stop. She wants this dream to end–
Please!
The woman jolts awake and finds herself in a wasteland. The sun is high and blinding in the sky. The air is hot and dry, and the heat is pricking her skin. She is awake, she is alive, and this is the real world. She breathes, mostly out of relief, and feels the stick of the clothes on her back. She moves to stand from the ground, feeling the drag of her limbs and her body.
A gunshot rings and it is only when she sees the soil shoot up that she realizes it was for her.
"On your feet!"
The bullet glints in the sun, mere inches away from her hand.
"Oh."
("Oh"? The Ancient barks a laugh that sounds like several hundred, "You would have died!"
"No," the woman thinks, "because you won't let me."
"You underestimate the gods, foolish mortal!")
Sometimes, the woman converses with the Ancient like this. In the privacy of her mind, the Titan mocks and scolds her openly as if it was her mother. And that is the image the Titan often uses, among its multitude of faces and voices, it uses her own mother. Whether it was to lecture her or merely for its own entertainment, she couldn't care less. The Titan wouldn't simply allow her to die, would it? In such a meager, human way–
("Without me, you would perish just like the rest." The Titan says, "Be grateful I am keeping you alive."
"Then perhaps it is better I am dead." She thinks bitterly as she gazes into her mother's furious face. "Let this curse end with me."
The Titan scowls, and then flashes a smirk. Its face morphs, transforms... She doesn't know whose face it has chosen–)
"Are you deaf?!"
("Live!")
On instinct, she reaches out– No!
The second bullet is what really startles her, jolts her from her mind and into the heat of the desert. Pain shoots across her entire body and her arm burns. She reaches for it, wincing, realizing she'd actually been shot.
("Ha!" the Titan and all its faces laugh, "See how you still bleed!")
"Stand down!"
It's another man's voice, and she remembers this tone, harsh and stern. She turns toward it, and sees the commander of the Warrior Unit approach on horseback. But Commander Magath ignores her completely, choosing to confront the soldier who shot her.
"Commander, I was just–"
"Get out of my sight."
The soldier is quick to scurry away. The woman, even quicker to apologize.
"I apologize, Commander Maga–"
"You will get no thanks from me."
He cuts her off, eyeing the bleeding gash on her upper arm. His gaze is stern and his body is tense. She doesn't know what to do in this situation. Should she ask? Is he waiting for her to ask? She feels her blood seep into her hand, and it isn't healing–
(The Ancient tells her he is afraid, that he wants to flee from her, that she should be proud of it, that she should kill him–)
"Get that looked at." He says, brows furrowed as if in confusion.
"No need, sir." She says, "It will heal on its own."
A beat passes, but the blood continues to flow into her hand.
"Well?" Magath narrows his eyes at it.
"It's just…" She stumbles on the words, unsure of what to explain something she can't, "I don't know what's–"
"If you're planning anything, soldier," he warns her, "you won't live to fulfill it."
She doesn't doubt him, but the Titan does.
("You haven't seen the full might of a Colossal, have you, Commander?" The Ancient taunts. "Haven't seen how quickly I can reduce your base to ash.")
"I have no such intention, Commander," she says, willing her words to carry the plea, "I just don't understand why this isn't–"
"Then fix it." He commands, "Now."
She would force the Titan, if she could, if it respected her the least bit.
("I will not bend to such a weak, weak mind!" The Ancient bellowed.)
But the wound continues to bleed and Magath continues to glare at her. She won't have this, she can't have this, not after they've accomplished so much, not after she's gone through so much–
"I will continue, sir." She says, removing her hand from the wound. "I apologize for the lapse."
(Her blood drips from her hand and onto the desert soil. Essentially, it is her blood being spilled into enemy soil; she thinks there is an appropriate meaning to all this. Maybe.)
"Whenever you're ready."
"Of course." She bows her head slightly, "Thank you, sir."
He narrows his eyes before he leaves.
(The Ancient calls on her to kill him, kill him right now, when he isn't looking, when he's all alone–)
"Stop." She begs aloud, "Just... stop. Please."
She screws her eyes closed, feels the blood drip from her hand and the heat of the desert sun, and wishes she would die right here.
("You are important." The Ancient mocks her with his face.)
"Shut up."
(But it continues, begging with his eyes, "More than anyone here, more than any soldier, more than me.")
"Please."
She hears the sound of wire shooting away from her and gas bursting from behind her.
No–
("So live," the Ancient pleads with his voice.)
She feels the forced pull on her waist and gusts of wind around her; she is flying before she realizes it.
("Live!")
"No!"
And then she is jolted back to the desert, heaving and tired and so heartbroken and so furious at the Ancient for betraying her own memory–
"Are you alright?"
–where she hears the seemingly worried tone of the War Chief. She shakes her hand, flicking the blood onto the ground, but doesn't acknowledge him. She finds no interest in conversation; there is nothing to talk about with him. Despite the wound, she is quick to plant herself firmly on her feet, ready to resume the drill before he can say anything else.
(Inside her, the Ancient is screaming at him not to come any closer, that he is a nuisance, that he should die just like the rest of them–)
She jogs to the track before he can approach, and starts the drill again. From a distance, she knows the commander is watching is narrowed, scrutinizing eyes. She knows he is ready to shoot her dead, he always has, and earlier could have been an opportunity for him.
(The Ancient tells her otherwise, that the proud Commander Magath is a bigger coward than the no-name soldier who had dared to shoot them. Killing him, killing them all, should be easy; it would only take the same kind of explosion she'd summoned when the Marleyan airships dared to close in on them.)
She takes a fall from the climbing exercise on her arm, thinking it had already healed–
"Ah!"
…only to find out that it hadn't, that the Titan hadn't healed it–
("Look at you," the Ancient mocks, "all aware of everything besides yourself. How did you survive being a Scout? Oh, right. You were special, you were a favorite–")
"Silence!" She knows she actually exclaimed it, and saves herself from potential questioning by continuing the drill as the Titan continues in her head.
("Yes, you were special! And you were treated better than everyone else, made to survive and live easier than everyone else because you were–")
She climbs, pushes, crawls, and pulls. The drill is juvenile, she knows, and very reminiscent of those obstacle courses back when she was still a trainee. The drill is simple, easy, and she weaves through it like water in a steady river. And because it is so simple, it's not a good enough distraction, it's not enough to drown out the Titan, it's not enough for her to focus solely on this and nothing else.
("And you believe that he loved you! He loved you and he sacrificed everything just to make sure you reached your mother, that you reached me. Have you thanked him enough? Thanked him properly? Gave him a proper burial–")
She repeats the drill again and again, over and over, trying to finish each round faster. She knows this isn't timed and Commander Magath isn't barking at her, but this is the only way to ignore the Titan and its taunts. She doesn't know why it's suddenly come to this, why the Titan would choose now to mock and taunt her so casually and so openly. She doesn't trust it any more than she trusts the people here in Marley. It can betray her, just like anyone, and if it does…
("Why would you think such a thing? I would never even consider it." The Ancient says with feigned hurt. She forgets that it can hear her, that it can always hear her– "Of course I do! I am in your head, after all." It laughs and laughs and laughs.)
So she runs, jumps, climbs, and crawls. Back and forth. She completes round after round until she's sure she's memorized the course–muscle memory–but she hopes they won't have her do this with one foot and one hand.
"That's it for now, soldier," she hears Magath say mid-way through the course. She stops completely, stands upright and salutes both him and the War Chief.
"Commander Magath," she greets, "War Chief Yeager."
Magath looks at her arm. And almost as if in response, the wound begins to sting and a sharp, stabbing sensation cuts through her arm. Reflexively, she moves her hand to press against it. The pain is sharp and throbbing, but… bearable, almost.
She winces briefly.
"Where's that display from before? You cut off your limbs for show?"
She knows he isn't speaking in jest. He's… miffed by this.
"I don't know, sir. I can't–"
And she is too.
"Get that looked at, then." He huffs, disappointed and suspicious. "Can't have you bleeding over the field later."
("How morbid." The Ancient chuckles.)
"Of course, Comman–"
He ignores her, "Make sure she does, Yeager."
The War Chief smiles at him, "As you say, sir."
"Report to me at 1400. Dismissed."
She salutes him and the War Chief does the same. Magath gives her a one-over, noticing her bloody arm and hand, and the dirt on her, before he leaves.
Neither of them lowers the salute until he's quite a distance away.
("Kill him! Kill him now! All of them!")
She lowers her hand and looks at it. There is dried blood, dirt, and some splotches when she's gripped the ropes too tightly. She's seldom seen her hands like this. And even when she'd been a fresh-faced Scout venturing outside for the first time, the times were and far and few between. The times she does remember, are all embedded in her mind that not even the Titan can corrupt them.
(She remembers even the sounds, however quiet and however mundane, like the sound of birds flying from the tops of trees and the sound of rocks rolling against the roads. She remembers because she has to, they all do, because no one else would remember for them. The memory is only as strong as it is remembered, and she wants to remember everything–damn the Titans and damn the Ancient and damn her own mother–
"Remember, you are only alive because I am here."
Damn, damn, damn it all– She should have died when she went to save him. She should have died instead of him.
"You are important, more than anyone here, more than any soldier, more than me."
She should have died instead of him! Then maybe they'd have already won this war–)
"Are you all right?"
The War Chief's voice pulls her out of her mind.
"You're bleeding."
Still?
She looks at her arm and sees the mark of fresh blood darkening the area. She has no response for him, still has no interest in conversing with him. But the sight of the wound makes her feel light-headed and dizzy. How bad has it become? Has she somehow stripped her skin further and not felt it until now? How had her adrenaline maintained this How much blood had she really lost? Is she going faint? Is she, in front of him?
Please don't.
She believes the Ancient will mend the wound on its own, like it has before, stitching flesh and sinew like a learned seamstress.
(In the back of her mind, she remembers how her mother would spend some of her free nights working on embroidery with pinprick precision and grace. She knows she could never replicate it as well as her.)
The sun is high in Macquarie and there is not a cloud in the sky, as it is every day she wakes in this desert. The air feels thin around her; she is panting when she wants to breathe evenly. She feels the sting reverberate across her arm and sweat drip from her brow–she wants it to rain right now. She wants to take a shower. She wants to lie in cold water and sink to the bottom.
(The Ancient tells her she won't find water so dense here in Marley that will drown her, she will have to do it herself.)
"You should drink."
The War Chief holds a canteen between them. She notices his hands then, clean and not like hers that are dusty from the desert grounds. She finds the gesture... kind and friendly, but she knows the Ancient does not. She knows the Ancient inside her head is screaming at her to refuse, but she is only human isn't she? And the man hasn't made any strange and unwanted advances ever since that day when he'd asked about the Ancient. Every other interaction between them is civil, distant, and impersonal. Just as it should be.
(Because, deep down, she is seething, reeling, furious like a thunderstorm at the sight of him.)
"Here."
The canteen's mouth gapes at her, and the inside reminds her of a deep, dark well.
(Sometimes, the woman thinks the Ancient pulls her memories back and forth, like the waves across a shore, for its own entertainment.)
"Thank you, War Chief."
She takes the canteen and feels what is enough water for one person. She thinks to ask out of courtesy, but decides against it.
("It's easier that way," the Ancient agrees with her, "they're all our enemies, and they should all die.")
Sometimes, the woman thinks the Titan itself will be her own undoing; something will slip past her defenses and curse them all to destruction, guarantee her death before anything else, throw away everything they've planned and everything they've sacrificed… Sometimes the woman thinks this is what happened to her mother after the Fall of Wall Maria, probably longer than she can remember. Perhaps this is what happened to all her ancestors. Perhaps this is what's going to happen to her, what's already happening now–
She drinks from the canteen without thinking anything else. The water is lukewarm and the feeling is quite unpleasant, but water is water, her mouth is dry, and this is the desert–which is very much what she'd pictured it to be when she'd read those books all those years ago, about the world's geography before The End of All Things.
(The books she'd read mostly followed the beliefs according to their scriptures, but only later did she discover this was precisely because her maternal line had full control of the publishing houses and whatever text goes against their scriptures would never see itself in print.)
She empties the canteen before she realizes it.
"You needed it more than I do." He says when she returns the canteen. "Regeneration requires quite a lot of stamina."
He gestures to her arm, and she notices how it's only begun to mend. But of course she knew that, right? Stamina is something she has, but not quite enough, and he doesn't need to tell her what she already knows.
"Of course you'd already know that," he says casually, as if he'd just read her mind, "but it doesn't hurt to be reminded."
What? Was he–
"We're only human, after all." He smiles appears to be friendly, but she and the Titan know better.
"I get carried away too, sometimes." He continues, "Once, I'd returned from a mission with two bullets lodged in my shoulder," he points to the area, "it took days before I noticed. I had a small coughing fit and heard something rattling. You wouldn't believe how I spent an entire morning searching for the sound only to find out it'd been me all along."
He laughs lightly, and she thinks one can find humor in it, but not her.
"The Beast was a little too hasty to close the wounds."
She thinks to ask where it had happened.
"It happened during the initial assault in Paradis."
Now, she regrets even thinking of the question. But he is quick to read her, and shifts the one-sided discussion. It seems he hasn't read her completely.
"It seems the Ancient has stopped the bleeding, at least." He points to her arm, "How are you feeling now?"
("Did you wish to become a doctor, War Chief?" The Ancient questions mockingly, "What happened? I think you'd rather be good at it.")
"Fine, just–" She hesitates, "Does the Beast… talk?"
He's caught off-guard by this.
"Talk?"
("What are you asking him? Why?!" The Ancient bellows, "Of course it does!")
"Does it talk to you?" She continues the question, "Does it tell stories or… anything else?"
("Of course it does, you imbecile!")
He hums in thought.
She finds the sound unnerving.
It takes him a while to answer, but once he does…
"No, not really."
…she's the one caught off-guard.
"Why?" She blurts out, completely muting the Ancient raging within her, "When? What does it tell you?"
"It's more an animal than anything," he replies, "so when it speaks, I have to understand it. Or at least try. But it's never really said anything."
("Lies!" The Ancient yells, "He is lying!")
"But would you believe that it felt you coming ashore?" He smiles, "It did, and it was… afraid."
Huh.
"And maybe rightfully so."
She finds the smile suspicious.
"You can level this entire field, the base, burn Macquarie to the ground..."
She thinks to tell him she hasn't thought of that, but the Ancient has.
"At that time, even I felt afraid."
("And you should!" The Ancient wants to scream at him, "You and everyone here! Scream! Flee!")
"But it's good to know you aren't so brutal or savage. We are glad to have you in Macquarie."
How suddenly civil, she thinks suspiciously, what do you hope to gain, War Chief?
"I'll take my leave, then. And best to have the doctor's approval for that." He gestures to her arm in conclusion, "You know where the clinic is, don't you?"
("Why, War Chief? Suddenly so afraid?" The Ancient laughs.)
"Yes," she checks her arm, finding no sign of fissure or injury, before turning to him, "then I'll report to Commander Magath?"
"Have lunch first." He chuckles, "Stamina, remember?"
"Right." She wants to roll her eyes at the sudden familiarity, "Until then, War Chief Yeager."
She salutes him, but instead of responding the same way, he offers her a handshake.
"Please," he clears his throat, "Zeke."
But her salute remains.
"Sir."
He lowers his hand, "Until then, soldier."
He leaves without another word, and she holds the position while the Titan rages within her.
("Kill him! Kill him now!" The Ancient's wrath burns with her own, "Kill them all and end this foolishness, kill them all and take the throne!")
But deep in her mind, she wants to indulge the Ancient's desires.
("Marley is ours! Crush them beneath our feet like flies, like ants!")
She thinks it would be right, in some twisted manner, if they all perished and forced the Emperor to surrender and accept Historia's will. But she also thinks, if it was possible for her to perish instead, to burn in the Ancient's fire or be crushed beneath the Ancient's own weight, she would. She knows she would, if that meant finally being at peace, if that would reunite them again, if that would allow her to live the rest of the afterlife with him.
(She thinks her afterlife will be filled with marigolds and the sound of his voice, the warmth of his body, the comfort of his presence. She thinks she would like to die knowing this is what she would have.)
But the Titan that refuses to heal her is the same Titan that refuses to let her will be done.
("You will never die until I allow you to.")
She trudges to the clinic, thinking to ask the doctor if they'd have enough arsenic to drown a god.
Grace could not come to the wolf from its own despair, only through some external mediator, so that, sometimes, the beast will look as if he half welcomes the knife that dispatches him.