Four months after leaving the treehouse.


On a map, getting from point A to point B is as simple as drawing a straight line. Quick. Easy.

In a densely wooded forest, with no map and a kinda shit sense of navigation…? Not so simple.

Morrigan's route was zig-zagged and dependent on Titan activity and branch density seeing as she hadn't any tools she could risk losing to chopping any branches that might block her way.

She couldn't fucking believe she was still trapped in this fucking forest. The trees were neverending as she leapt from branch to branch, day after day, days blurring from weeks, weeks into months, until she finally was allowed some variety to her surroundings.

The trees had started to thin, and when it got to that true darkness; the true silence most people could never imagine. That hour before dawn, where nothing aside from her and her thoughts were awake as she walked the forest floor, she could hear the crashing. It sounded like trees falling, but… over, and over, and over again. The sound confused her to the point that her course altered without a conscious decision being made.

But as she changed course, she found herself deeper and deeper into titan territory, and she felt immensely guilty at how much carnage she herself was having to make to avoid them, because eventually the trees stopped, and to be truthful? Morrigan never thought they would. Never thought she'd get this far.

Honestly?
Of course, she knew she was going the wrong way. She knew which way the sun rose and set, but she also knew that whatever she was drawing closer to, was something that she knew no one within those walls would ever be able to say that they have seen….

Because a group of humans most definitely would have died out here.

The blood wasn't foolproof. It was nullified almost instantly by rain, and the Titans most definitely notice her if she's just sprinting headfirst through an empty field, a teen soaked in blood.

But what they didn't question, was a teen wearing the head and pelt of a deer and soaked in said animals' blood sprinting headlong through a field.

Thankfully it was night then, and crashing she had heard was closer, so close she could feel it beneath her now-bare feet, her leather boots having fallen apart months ago. She had been stuck in this godforsaken field for days, no shelter in sight but at least a handful of titans every kilometer, and she hadn't slept since the last grouping of trees she'd seen.

It was in her tired half-trance, she stumbled, sliding to a stop on her hands and face before jumping up and shaking herself off, checking behind herself as though there would be a grouping of titans there pointing and laughing at her embarrassing mishap... But there were none, and being satisfied with that she turned back around, and what was before her caused her heart to leap to her throat.

It was something her mother had told her bedtime stories about, something Flora had read about in books that her lover, Erwin, had shared with her; something that she had read and memorized enough to pass on to her daughter.

Massive, blue, sparkling like nothing she'd ever seen even in the moonlight, she'd been running with her head down, the deer-head hood hiding her face for so long, that she didn't notice the beautiful mass of water approaching in the distance, the sound impossible to miss now that she was focused.

The sea.

It was close now, the field she ran through ending in a cliff maybe fifty meters ahead of her.

'Oh, shit…. I definitely would have run...right over that if I hadn't tripped….' She thought, rubbing the back of her neck worriedly. Maybe her mother was right, she was reckless… She needed to be more careful if she was going to survive through to Wall Rose.

'Oh well.'

"Well.. Haven't died yet." She said with a shrug, beginning along the edge of the cliff and pulling out the last of her rabbit jerky, gnawing on it as she walked in the direction of which the sun would set.

It was along this cliff she spent the next three weeks walking along, entranced by the water, and not seeing a single damn titan. It was also along this cliff, she found an unusual structure past where the field turned to sand and the cliff turned to sharp rocky ledges….

Now, Morrigan didn't know much about man-made structures, but she was willing to bet this was one, and a wall at that.

But...definitely not the one she was looking for.

It curved upon the only stretch of real beach she'd seen for miles, with large wooden docks sticking into the water behind it, while in front stretched dozens of kilometers of sandy desert. She was immediately on edge, ears straining against the crash of the waves to hear any sound that could be human or Titan- though she had no idea what she'd do if she found the former.

The rocks were easy enough to navigate for someone like her- someone used to constantly climbing and jumping across tree limbs and trunks, and they led directly to the top of the wall, which she stepped onto cautiously.

You could see for kilometers, both to the sea and through the land, and from her best guess, if she headed straight ahead, she would hit the walls...eventually. She'd not seen even a trace of her mother, and though her heart ached, she knew that the woman either returned to an empty home, or met a fate she didn't deserve. Morrigan could only hope that Flora was safe, and searching for her as well.

She thought on this as she walked down the wall, scanning it before seeing something that didn't quite fit in and as she walked closer and finally realizes it's something in a small black case, she's right on top of it and able to pick it up; which she does gingerly. It was close to the very other side of the wall, near a set of stairs that led down to the docks on the beach, as though it had been dropped or discarded... forgotten.

She snapped the box open, which caused her to jump, and fumble the item, before securing it with wide eyes.

Inside was something...well, she wasn't quite sure what it was, really.

A vial of silvery purple liquid, a thick, hollow needle, and something with a push-pump that attached to the needle, all nestled within a silky interior she greatly enjoyed the feeling of.

Now, was this probably something that had nothing to do with Morrigan, and should she just set it down and forget all about it?

Probably most definitely

Did she put it in her bag anyway, beneath all of her hides, lyre, and jerky?

Absolutely most definitely.

After searching along the wall and beach for any other signs of life, she took her journey north once more, a rabbit fur hood pulled over her face to block against the sand blown up by the wind.

And she traveled this way for eight more months. Through greenbelts and fields, from and through titans, always heading north.

Always heading for those walls she wasn't even sure were real.