Jean

I hadn't meant to follow Armin into the library, but I won't lie—when I saw him slip past the worn wooden doors, when the sunlight from an open window inside caught on the edge of his exposed skin, when the tiniest of smiles sparked across his face, I was a lost cause. We'd hadn't spoken much, outside of the coronation night, flashes of conversation swallowed by crowds and distance, but with ease I could recall the pounding of my heart when I held his hand as we danced together, the rushing of the blood in my ears as he laughed at my terrible jokes, the breathlessness that plagued me when he sought me out, again and again and again, as each dance ended, as our bodies parted, our contact broken. Ask me again, his eyes seemed to say, ask me again, and I won't say no.

Even now, I wasn't sure I was handling the situation with enough tact. Was I coming across too strong? Was that a terrible thing? As my fingers wrapped around the brass of the library doorknob, I considered by objective again, dismissing it without more than a few moments' thought. I felt something real, with Armin, something I hadn't felt in a long time; if I passed it up, I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life.

The library was surprisingly warm when I pushed inside, so much so that I could almost see the heat clinging in dusty streamers across the ground and bookcases. A single window laid propped open against the far wall, glorious in its floor-to-ceiling height, but the tiny panels near the center allowed in only the tail-end of a healthy breeze, shifting dust along ancient spines and little more. I loosened my collar, letting the topmost buttons swell under the pressure of my hand and give out with breathless sighs; the relief was immediate, but only temporary.

Armin wasn't difficult to track, but for the most part, I left him alone. The library was large and expansive, and although I could read only poorly, I found a few of the tombs almost too interesting to completely ignore. There were well-loved geography books in a neat stack near the center aisle, and judging from the small tears in the corners near the spine, the last few readers were hasty in their excitement to flip through the pages as quickly as possible. I hadn't expected to find myself so distracted—not with Armin only a few shelves behind me—but something about the books called out to me, making me kneel down in the dust beside them, spreading them wide across my lap. The colour was astounding, if faded, and each page seemed to scream of an adventure just waiting to be taken; there were mountains and oceans and hillsides and prairies, a glorious kind of beautiful that captivated as much as inspired. I didn't need to have seen him hold them, leaf through them, to know it must have been Armin with these books—there was just something...I can't say, I really don't know.

I replaced the texts as I had found them, trying to make the pile look undisturbed, and for a while I explored the rest of the library, catching only the barest glimpses of Armin as he pushed a rolling ladder across the far wall, leaning out dangerously far from the rungs to reach books that were out of my line of sight. He seemed so at ease here, the comfort and compassion on his face for the sea of words that surrounded him almost forcing me out the door. Maybe I had no right to bother him here, to intrude on whatever he was doing. I would see him again, surely; he deserved a little of his own time.

I was halfway back to the door when I realized Armin wasn't in the stacks any longer, wasn't much of anywhere, in fact, and before I could stop myself I had set off after him, curious where he had tucked himself away. The large window petered out into a line of smaller ones, thin strips of colour and light that filtered lazily through the space like a timeline leading nowhere at all. Near the end, tucked in a corner, I found him nestled between two chairs, the one in front of the one he was sitting in filled high with the books, the other supporting his angled body as he bent low over something he was working on.

I should have known better—really, what in the world was I thinking?—but the sight of him there, alone, wrapped in concentration, drew me helplessly. My boots made hardly a sound as I crossed the hardwood, the only noise the sound of a pencil being dragged with rapid precision back and forth across his page, the shape of something vague and complicated emerging under Armin's hands. I had thought he would look up, notice me from the sound of my breath or the light swish of my jacket tails, but he was too absorbed in the passion that had seized him, the magic in his eyes burning with the a power that bled through his fingers and stained his pages in long lines of black and grey. Blocking his light hadn't been intentional, but suddenly I was so close I could just smell the charcoal on his hands, see the stains underneath his fingernails; he seemed to still, then, as my shadow draped across his paper, but he didn't react noticeably until I spoke.

"Having fun?" I asked.

He looked up, finally, just as the words were leaving my lips, and I watched with mild amusement as his eyes strayed there, fleetingly noting the rest of my face before dropping lower. I raised my eyebrow, smiling with a surge of both courage and paralyzing shyness, loving the way he seemed to slip into a daydream, his lack of focus betraying something I was only too hopeful to guess.

Suddenly his pencil slipped from his grip and clattered onto the floor, rolling across the hardwood until coming to rest gently against the leg of the forward-facing chair. Armin moved immediately to retrieve it, taking his time, seeming to steel himself. When he met my gaze again he was more collected, but clearly still thrown by my unannounced appearance. Shit, did he think I was stalking him? Had I been? Dear god, this was already a disaster.

"Are you alright?" I asked, trying to break the tension. I walked around the chair to better face him, moving closer to the window, letting the light break over my shoulder to bathe his workspace with what I had momentarily stolen. Could I sit? Should I ask him?

"I'm fine," he said at last, stopping my questions in their tracks. "Just a little tired, I guess. Long night."

His shrug was dismissive, so I didn't think to ask him to elaborate. "Long night for all of us," I said with a nod, needing to back away from the apprehension I sensed building in Armin's eyes. When my back struck the wall instead of more space, I decided to stay there, shoving my hands in my pockets, doing all that I could to look more relaxed, less intimidating. There was sunlight everywhere, spluttering in its last few minutes before slipping into darkness. Could Armin see the sunset through the window just behind me? Was that why was he was staring at—

"You're beautiful," he said abruptly, his voice low, his admission soft.

Oh, yeah, okay, that explains everything.

Wait.

Fuck.

His amusement offset my embarrassment only a touch, my fluster moving steadily from the center of my chest to the roots in my hairline. I all but sprang from the window, almost in denial of my earlier train of thought, almost in alarm at the betrayal of my innocent assumption. I mumbled something in response, I know I did, but the words were like kindling beneath the tongue of a starving fire, disappearing in a flash to leave no trace behind but the hint that once there had been something there.

In my ridiculously long moment of madness, my mind sprang frantically from memory to memory in a desperate attempt to remember anything that could save this situation from getting any worse. I couldn't just accept his complement with a nod and a giggle and then pretend like nothing had happened; no, I needed to shift the ball back into my court, level this game out again in my favour. I found my confidence when I fixated on the books I had stumbled onto earlier, the vistas of panoramic wilderness triggering a recall I could not have been more thankful for. "You can't say those kinds of things to me," I said, hoping that sounded just gentle enough to be playful. "The mountain should never compliment the painter."

I realized the wisdom in my choice of quote almost immediately, because despite Armin's best attempt to hide his face beneath his hair, I caught sight of a bloom of redness that touched his cheeks just before he turned away. I should have thrown out a few more, but I couldn't remember where that quote had come from, or even entirely what it meant (something akin to 'calling the kettle black' maybe? shit); instead, I was pushed into silence by his reply. "You're terrible," he said, still not meeting my eyes. "You should save your best lines for Eren."

Eren. Of course. That little shit with his heartless eyes and greedy hands and groundless arrogance. Even playing prince he was the same as he'd always been, the ambition of his father playing out just behind the cracks in his formal persona, his self-confidence a mockery to those who really had any. We had spent little time together as children, sure, but even then I had known we would never be friends; there was a roughness to him I disliked, an aura about his head that smelled of lies and naivety. Even now, only a few years after he had narrowly avoided death, he treated life no differently, so ungrateful for his second chance even in the face of all those the disease had taken. I remember what it was like, being sick; I knew my role as a survivor, to help all those I could, and I hated that Eren did nothing.

Armin got up, just then, and busied himself with moving some of the books on his lap into his arms as if he meant to hurry between the shelves and dash out of sight. I reacted instinctually and reached for him, finding his arm, asking softly if he would wait. He hesitated, allowing our contact even as I started moving books from his unsteady pile onto the floor, and all at once I felt as if I had broached an impasse, an impasse I had the opportunity to now abandon, now and only now, if I truly had no intention of trying to cross.

"Yes?" he asked, his voice a whisper.

I spoke before I knew what to say. "Will you stay awhile? Can I sit with you?"

And there it was, plain and simple. If he told me to leave, I knew I could not bother him again, not today, maybe not even ever again, but he didn't refuse, he didn't reject me, and instead helped me empty his unclaimed chair, settling back into his own, bringing his knees up, tucking his face partially behind his legs. For a while, we talked, and for a while, it was easy; but then it wasn't, it really wasn't.

I can't have said what it was, the sight of his slender knees pressed up against his chest, the absentminded biting of his lower lip, the glint of something almost mischievous in his beautiful, beautiful eyes, but I was hopelessly spellbound, hypnotized by a wild mix of attraction and embarrassment and desire like nothing I'd ever experienced before. My resolve in pieces, my confidence destabilized, my heart rate a mockery of subtly to any degree, I knew it was only a matter of time before I made a mistake; if I hadn't been so desperate not to fuck this up, so insistent to keep my feelings in check, I probably would have just gaped like a fool and spilled by heart across his lap—there's something about you, I would have said, stammering and stumbling like I was drunk. Something magnetic. Let's date.

I don't know what stopped me, I really haven't the faintest clue, but the words drowned in my throat and left me with only fragments. They bled into the conversation, as I questioned Armin about his art, words like "passion" and "love" and "dreams" and "need", words that meant next to nothing on their own but seemed to ignite into a wildfire as they left my tongue. If Armin noticed at all...

"Let me draw something for you," Armin suddenly offered, leaning back in his chair and dropping his legs onto the floor so he could cross them above the knee. "Pick any of the books, any picture, and I'll draw it for you."

It was foolish request, really, because even as I held the first book in my hands I knew exactly what it was that I wanted. But I leafed through them away, pausing on a few with more detail then I could ignore, stalling until the evitable. "I think I know what I want," I said as I closed the fourth book between my hands, trying to make it sound as if the idea had only just struck me. "Draw you."

He gaped openly at me, his lips parted just slightly, until finally he recomposed himself and stammered through an awkward and wordy reason why he had to refuse.

"You don't need a mirror," I told him, leaning forward on my knees and resting my chin on my fist. "I'll be the mirror. Just draw."

I kept my tone professional for as long as I possibly could. After all, it was just a head, just hair, just ears, just eyes. I was careful in my description, staying miles and miles away from anything that could at all be interpreted as suggestive—he was just a model, just an example, and this needn't be anything more than that. Eventually, though, I found myself with most of his face under his hand, his pencil beginning to slow as I failed to add more to my list of instructions. Did he have a nose? Was I finished with his forehead? Sweet mother...

Describing his lips without an ulterior motive was impossible. How many hours had I stared at them while we danced, wishing I could catch them beneath my own, pulling the softest, neediest sounds from his delicate throat? How long had I stayed up last night, staring at the ceiling, too drunk to stop the flood of fantasies that pooled just under my mind's eye? This was crazy, everything was crazy, and yet I wanted him, needed him, like a prepubescent boy with his first crush. Was I allowed to like him this much? Was I allowed to feel this level of attraction for someone I hardly knew?

I made him smile, in the picture, despite his concentration robbing his expression of much beyond impassivity, and that was all I had as an excuse to touch his lips. Had I meant to, as I reached out my hand? Had I meant to trace the ridges of his skin to his cheek, his jaw, his chin? Had I meant to lean forward, greedy, thoughtless?

It was just supposed to be a kiss.

He pulled back, initially, just a little, just enough to make me think he meant to stay, but then he ran, dramatic and sudden, like a hurricane. There was paper all over the floor, abandoned like unloved children's toys, and all at once I was left with only my shame and my grief, pained by a loss I should have known was coming, pained by a loss I knew full well was a result of my own foolishness.

/

I stayed frozen in place for a long time, the minutes almost palpable on my tongue. Armin's seat, empty now, seemed to still hold the signature of his presence, like a room haunted by the ghost of a terrible fight; I stared blankly straight ahead, hating myself, hating everything. Numb to the touch, I fell to my knees in the dust, letting the creeping touch of darkness tangle along my folded body. As feeling slowly returned to me, from my fingers to my toes, I moved stiffly, my hands landing clumsily on the scattered paperwork and pushing them haphazardly into a messy pile. The repetition of the movement was therapeutic, and soon my heart rate slowed and my breathing leveled out. I would be fine. Everything would be fine.

I walked out of the library with Armin's papers pressed tight against my chest, the edges crinkling around the buttons of my waistcoat. I struggled not to keep them so close, not to leave imprints in the midst of the beautiful, hand-drawn illustrations, but something about them seemed to respond when they were near my skin, almost as if I could absorb the love that had gone into every line, every curve. It was selfish, really, and borderline possessive, but it was all I had; by now, I was second guessing everything I had done, everything I had said. Had I mistaken Armin's fluster for anger, flirtation for dismissal? Had I made him uncomfortable? Should I have backed off? Was he only being polite? The questions were a kind of maddening I was unaccustomed to facing, and with my confidence shattered, my hope precarious, I abandoned any attempt I had planned to try and find him, electing to return to my room instead and wait all of this out.

But Armin never came back, not for his artwork and not for me, not that night, not the next day, not even within in the next week, and as the days began to bleed together, the mornings, the afternoons, the times between, I felt my chances shredding before my eyes. God, what had I done? What had I done?

/

Admitting to myself that I had blown my chance was brutal, but refusing to accept the truth of the matter seemed a more terrible alternative. I was a grown man, mature, experienced—I could handle rejection better than this, surely. But I sulked, day after day, in the quiet way that someone too proud to accept failure was bound to. I ate meals in silence, brooding in my isolation, and spoke only when spoken directly to; the other suitors, who liked me well enough, encouraged chatter, but gave me space when they realized the depth of my disposition. "Eren say something to you?" They'd always ask, seeming to believe that there was no other likely reason for my depression. It's not like that, I wanted to say, but when I opened my mouth, nothing rose from my throat. It...it was just easier to shake my head and keep my eyes on my food.

It was harder having to see him, having to face him, because he stared right through me, his eyes glimmering with the tiniest spark of emotion I feared to ever face directly. Was it regret? Bitterness? If I asked, would his words cut through me like his gaze did, baring my bones, burning my wounds? Maybe it was better this way, not knowing; at least, it had to be better, didn't it?

After about two weeks, Eren announced that he was beginning the second rounds of dates. The first half of the month had, of course, been reserved for those with the highest standing, the most wealth, the most importance, and after entertaining them, the rest of us could now have our chance at a courtship. I wasn't sure this was still something I wanted, even if my parents were so insistent I at least try, but when he asked me, first, to step outside with him, I pushed my apprehension aside and agreed.

"You're from Trost?" He asked, his face hard to read. What kind of question was that? Couldn't he just look it up?

"Yes," I said, careful to keep pace with him and not hurry on ahead. "Just a little south-west of Wall Maria."

He nodded at this, a consideration forming along the creases near his lips. I tried again to understand him, his posture, his stance. Why the informality? The privacy? We walked for what felt like miles, winding along the castle grounds until a lush, well-kept garden reared up out of the earth and welcomed us. It was a distraction I appreciated; the flowers and trees were a convincing replacement for my attention, my eyes straying to Eren's face only when he thought to speak, to identity herbs, to make small-talk. His steps were precise now, caution keeping his fancy boots clean, the edges of his dark blue suit snagging on only the gentle breeze. He was...dashing, I suppose, if such a word could be applied to someone who inspired such disapproval from me; it was the way he carried himself—arrogant, yes, but poised, and commanding—it was the way he spoke, like his words were secrets meant only for me, and the way he watched me, with eyes that locked out everything else. The persona flickered, of course, but the man beneath this shell had positive qualities too. He was curious about me, I think, and that curiousity mixed with a mild fascination I had earned from—

But from what? Over the last two weeks I had seen Eren only a handful of times, at the head of the front table at dinner, sometimes in the streets at the market during low traffic hours, but we'd only spoken at the ball, and, if anything, he had seemed agitated with me. I hadn't given that much thought at the time, but now that I was confronted with the opportunity, I wondered why. I assumed it had to be because of Armin, the blond the only reason there was anything besides courtesy between us. They had danced together, yes, but everyone knew Mikasa had disappeared, everyone knew Armin wasn't in the running for the throne, so why the tension?

I almost asked Eren, but Armin's name would not form on my lips. It wasn't my business, if Eren had an older-brother complex with Armin, and bringing him up would probably not end well. After all, I was here for Eren, wasn't I? Maybe I needed to remember that.

"I hope this doesn't count as our date," I said suddenly, brushing a low-hanging tree branch from his path. "Because if you want me to show you a good time, I know a better place than the palace gardens."

Eren raised his eyebrow, the blatant interest in his expression catching me completely off-guard. "I'm sure you do," he said, his tone playful, almost teasing. "But if you're trying to ask me out, you'll need something a little more creative than that."

The realization must have showed in my eyes, because he smiled with just enough devious intent to make my insides twist with humiliation. He'd played me, knowing I'd make a move eventually, expecting it; I'd tell the others, how being forward was the way Eren liked it, and some of them would pass it on, some wouldn't, and that was how he'd weed us out, one by one. How long would everyone have to realize the stakes? A month? Two? Who would be cut for simply ignoring gossip?

"You're not wasting much time, are you?" I asked, forcing back the strength in my voice. "But why me first? Does that count for something?"

He shrugged this time, pulling at a loose thread on his sleeve cuff. "Maybe," he said, fixing me with a stare that hid nothing. "Do you plan to find out?"

Oh, he was a bastard. His expression was as much a challenge as anything else, a dare, a provocation. How far was I going to push this? How far did I want to? How many others had he trapped this way?

I leaned forward, taking his body in my arms. His hands found purchase on my shoulder, my chest, not stopping me, but urging me. Will you? Will you? His shockingly green eyes seemed to ask me. Can you?

The castle wall broke our backwards tumble, his teeth jarring a little at the impact. He was smiling now, pulling at my collar, tugging at my shirt. How many times had he been kissed this way, shoved into the darkness where no one would see, the princes and princesses of bigger cities, richer cities, claiming his lips with their own like a mother the forehead of her newborn?

I laughed, bringing my lips so close to his I could feel his breath slip down my shirt and tickle my skin. I kissed his cheek, fleeting, dangerous, and whispered, "If anyone needs to try harder, it's you."

/

We went on our formal date a week later, to the day, and explored the shadier parts of town. This was my play, my round of the game, and Eren seemed more than eager to try and outsmart me. The cheaper taverns threw shifty characters every which way, the viciousness in their eyes as they beheld the prince something that unhinged him, even if he wouldn't admit it; the reactions were similar in the lower markets, the movement fast paced, the space crowded, and animals smelly—nothing, I knew, like the pristine conditions Eren was more used to when visiting the higher end stalls closer to the castle. Still, Eren smiled at everyone all the same, letting the dirt on his clothing spoil into stains, the grime tangled in his hair harden into globs of muck. It was...actually kind of impressive.

"This was fun," he said with a laugh, taking a long draw from the filthy mug placed before him by a greasy barkeep at one of the taverns we'd passed, "but you're an ass."

"Takes one to know one," I replied, my tone just as pleasant as his own. "Glad we finally addressed that."

To my surprise, Eren laughed again, more genuine this time. "I was wrong about you," he admitted, leaning back on the edge of his stool. "But you're not the first one to try this tactic, and you're far from the best at executing it."

"I find that hard to believe," I replied, but I knew the boast was empty; this had never been about getting Eren to like me, but instead, to intrigue him. That would keep me here for a few more weeks, and in that time, maybe I could—

No.

Forgetting about Armin had become a necessity, but it was difficult, even without being on speaking terms. I just couldn't accept that I had so drastically misread his feelings, and, more than that, I refused to accept that I couldn't fix this, that I couldn't try my hand again at stealing some of his time. But such thoughts served little purpose; we were never alone, and the few times we were, neither of us could get more than a nod out. It had gotten better, the lack of acknowledgement growing into a quiet, fleeting nod, but it wasn't the same, it wasn't like before. There was nothing easy in our relationship, nothing self-evident; we were strangers again, the only thing between us that sense of something more, something special, once existing.

Stepping from my thoughts, shaking my head just a touch, I found Eren's eyes on mine, his elbow on the counter, his chin in his hand. "Thinking looks painful for you," he said, "clearly you don't do it often."

"Only as the situation demands," I retorted, mimicking his posture. "Maybe if you weren't such boring company, I'd have more reason to."

Eren actually looked a little affronted, but he shrugged it off. "Like you're such a delight," he snapped, irritated, but not really. "What kind of company are you more used to?"

I paused a moment, considering the question more seriously than I had almost anything else all day. "Soldiers, I guess," I admitted, "Trost sees a lot of them, traveling back and forth between Wall Maria and Wall Rose. They're hardy conversation, like you pretend to be."

I was toeing the line, I realized a moment too late, but Eren didn't call me out on it. "Have you ever fought a Titan?" He demanded instead, folding his arms across his chest. "Do you even know what they look like, or do you just nod when the soldiers spin lies around your tiny head?"

"Like you've ever seen one, big shot," I said dismissively, "I bet your father hasn't even let you stand on the edge of any of the Walls."

Eren's eyes were steeling with each of my words, hardening with an anger I hadn't expected from him. "I've fought a Castor," he said in a deathly whisper. "I watched one kill my mother. Want to say that again?"

...fuck.

Scrambling to cool Eren's sudden rage was needless, for moments later, all the fire in his eyes gave out. Leaning over the counter, he motioned for another drink, downing it without meeting my gaze. "Sorry," he said, "that was unprofessional. Forgive me."

I wasn't sure what had happened, but the Eren sitting beside me was no longer the Eren I had come to know. His walls were back up, and the princely persona again stood at the forefront of his mannerisms; he was courteous again, poised, gentile, and despite my careful prodding, he said nothing else about his outburst, clarified nothing of the horror he has just inadvertently shared with me. We left the tavern in a feigned amenity so forced it was almost painful.

/

That night, I slept fitfully. Every hour, or every few, I awoke to the terrifying sound of something moving just out of sight, shadows or clouds or darkness or blackness, creeping and creaking with sighs so soft I knew I had imagined them. Each time, I reached for my sword with more and more force, until finally I had drawn it entirely from its sheath only to drop it onto the floor, the steel ringing out loudly in the silence of the night. I squinted at it from my place on the bed, my chest heaving, my heart thundering. What was wrong with me?

The stone was cold where the carpet didn't reach, and although I could have inspected my sword somewhere else, I stayed next to where it had fallen. My reflection was only a slit on the length of the blade, my eyes bloodshot, but over my shoulder, through the window, I could see only calm, the sky a midnight blue that glowed with the fullness of the moon. I sought the freshness of the wind, but the clasp wouldn't give under my fingers, my hand too big, my eyesight too blurry. Eventually, in a quiet admittance of my own uselessness, I simply rested my head against the glass and let the coolness seep through my fear.

I knew no more about Castors than anyone else, I guess, but just imagining a young Eren, before his sickness, maybe after, staring down one of those monsters, it made my legs feel weak. Titans were menacing, of course, eight feet tall, ten, twelve, fifteen, but Castors were something else, something demonic. The stories said they had massive, leathery wings, dark scales that shone like light off spilled blood, eyes that burned with a fire from hell; they were strong, and fast, and powerful, commanders of the elements, of magic greater than anything still known to man. They could make the earth swallow mountains as if the soil had teeth, they could transform oceans into beasts with a hundred thousand claws; they were nightmares, born from death itself, fearsome as nothing else in all the world.

Those were just stories, though, and for the moment that was all I could cling to. The queen's death had hardly seemed shrouded in mystery, but being killed by a Castor? No, that was definitely not in the official version of events that had been spread throughout the country. She had gotten sick, like so many others, and had died. Simple.

But no. I could almost see it, as if it were happening right now, across the room from me. The way the creature would have materialized from the shadows, hungry, violent, tearing through the body of the sleeping queen like it was made of cloth, blood splattering on the walls and draining into the cracks between the stones that lined the floor.

Why was I imagining this? I shook my head, rubbing at the sweat that had beaded along my neck and down my back. That was the violence I had seen in Eren's eyes, the shadow of horror I had seen slithering through his words. Had he walked in? And if he had, how had he survived?

There were too many questions here for me to ever understand, so with a sigh, I tried the window again. This time I managed to unlock the panes and push open the glass, allowing in the caressing breeze with a smile that almost replaced the worry lines that were tugging at my jaw. The sill was thick, so I leaned out, the wind like threads through my hair, pulling me along, as if trying to prompt me into the night sky. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the sensation, the promise of sweeter dreams, but it didn't last.

There was the sound of falling stone, and with a start, I turned my head. There, maybe four or five rooms from my window, maybe one or two floors above me, was Armin, his arm holding a thin column on the edge of a tiny, sloped, and precarious landing.

The dislodged stone, it turned out, had been from under his left foot, and as the limb dangled dangerously over the colossal drop beneath him, he started laughing. It was a musical sound, like it had been at the ball, but higher now, more breathless, less refined. I tried to call out to him, but I was paralyzed by confusion and terror, watching as he threw out his right arm and let it catch in the wind, his other arm following, until there was nothing but his tiny, tiny right leg keeping him on the sloped landing, his body swaying weightlessly in the wind.

I watched him fall, again and again and again, each time he tipped, each time he seemed to lose his balance; my heart dropped every time, my emotions caught in an unforgiving whirlwind. But he didn't fall, didn't even stumble, and instead moved like the sail on a ship, shifting with the breeze, letting it curl around him, keep him up, keep him alive. I couldn't see his expression from here, but I could guess the ease captured there; his body betrayed that, the ecstasy he was feeling, the ecstasy he was craving. When he finally leaned back, taking hold of the pillar with a sudden quickness, he started laughing again; the cheery sound was beautiful, if eerie, despite the situation that had summoned it.

I shut my window moments later, confident Armin was safe (if mentality unstable), and returned to my bed feeling more awake than could even be possible. Eren fighting Castors, Armin flirting with death...just who in the world were these people? What was the truth behind the secrets they were both so clearly keeping? And fuck, fuck, fuck, why did it matter to me that I find out?