"Historia," Ymir's voice invaded her dreams. In fact, the devil herself popped in, floating, and staring at her as Historia stood before her mother's home—the cottage in a lonely village past the hoary forest. "Fighting old battles again?"
"What is it?" Historia stood at the stone steps, intently watching the building burn as the distant screams were tuned out.
"I have a surprise—one you'd find most enticing," Ymir purred.
"If it's a dead rat, I will be most displeased," Historia drawled as everything went black and she was conscious in the real world once more.
"Oh, I promise it won't be that! It was hilarious, though, Historia—truly! I even dressed it in frills of your old dolls—you should've really seen your face! Perhaps you'd've found it just as funny." Ymir continued as she went to the door and phased through it.
Historia took the occupied candle holder on her nightstand and lit its wick, watching as its waning flame illuminated the room. She yawned and swung her feet to her bed's edge and paused, wondering whether she should ignore Ymir's proposition and go back to bed.
"What of the curfew?" Historia asked. "Frieda doesn't like it when I leave my room after an hour, Ymir."
"Ah, yes, yes," Ymir popped her head through the wall, frowning, and rolling her eyes in a most human nature. "Your sister is paranoid. These halls are much safer than the strange deaths outside its walls. Must you be such a sour puss?"
"Humans value their sleep," Historia reminded, "without it, you'll find I'm cranky and, as you say, a sour puss."
Historia got up and took the candleholder with her and unlatched the locks on her door. There were quite a lot due to the failed attempts of assassinations. Not that she had to worry any more with Ymir here—the-would-be's were often found horrendously mutilated. Historia had the better mind to not ask Ymir. The little devil smiled at her, bobbing her head around humorously through the door until Historia shoved it back through. She heard Ymir's chuckle as she opened her door and quietly shut it behind her.
"No worries, my dearest," Ymir wagged a gloved finger at her, "I will ensure we're not found by any pesky patrols tonight."
"Yes, but what is it you want to show me?" Historia didn't really have the patience to play.
"Ah! Sour puss, again! It's a surprise!" Ymir feigned offense. "I've known you since you were a babe. Do you not trust me to know your interests?"
"I trust your knowledge, but I don't trust that you'll separate it from your own. Sometimes, I wonder if you only tote me along to shock me and revel in it." Historia followed Ymir down the hall and Ymir kept floating ahead.
"Too perceptive!" Ymir shushed and suddenly disappeared. Historia knew to stop in her tracks as she heard distant footsteps approaching. She listened in.
The guard was lowly whistling as he went and then it halted altogether.
"Blasted beast," he whispered, "second time this night."
The footsteps began again but started to fade into the distance. Ymir reappeared with a smile. A very cheeky one.
"What did you do?" Historia asked. She tried not to indulge her fiend but sometimes her curiosity was too great.
"I conjured seductive thoughts into his head! Off to a private room to, hm, entertain himself," Ymir wagged her finger in raunchy way. Historia scoffed.
"Continue," she urged Ymir and the woman led her to the personal foyer. From there, she opened the doors to the balcony. The spring breeze animated the dreary room as all the tapestries waved in salute and the silk curtains danced, shrouding Ymir in the romantic light of the moon and its splendor.
"This is where we depart," Ymir coaxed Historia to come closer as her gloved hand extinguished the candle, "I must admit—where we're going might even be hard for me to hide. These folks I've found—the interesting kind, dear—they have insight. There are eyes inside their skulls that can see past mortality."
"They see the dead? Are you dead?" It never occurred to Historia that Ymir might've been a specter of a sort. The woman was so powerful and lively it was hard to even hold the impression.
"Of course not," Ymir assured. "See, these people are like you."
Historia's eyes widened and she felt her heart race. People that were like her—people who wouldn't see her as an outcast but a normal person amongst peers?
"They can see you," it dawned on her.
"Yes. Not as clearly as you, my sweet, but they can if they will it." Ymir warned and took Historia's hand. "Now, hold tight, or else I will be the one who can see the dead."
-x-x-x-
The planetarium was once a place of high regards where the most astute of scholars resided, but the discovery of a greater terror had led many to flock to Byrgenwerth and its zealous studies of the oceans in hopes to find the Truth, or maybe even the home of the Great Ones. Historia hadn't need to be a student of the esteemed college to know this—it was spoken of often in the higher echelons that were seasoned with education.
Yet, this was the place where strange people like her were gathering.
"Why must we be hidden?" Historia dared ask Ymir.
"We are safe from their Eyes," Ymir whispered as she tucked them higher and further into the rafters, hiding amongst forgotten crates and dust and tarp amongst its shelves. "Now be quiet. They draw near."
As Ymir said, cloaked figures came in with torches, lighting the braziers and lanterns nearby, and revealing the gagged and bound man on an operation table in the middle of the room. Historia nearly gasped if it hadn't been for Ymir's gloved hand.
She kept it there as a familiar figure strode in.
"Annie," she breathed. "What is she doing—"
Ymir gave a warning look at Historia.
'Use your head.' The dark woman tapped her own temple.
'Ymir. How did you know of this? Why is Annie here?' Historia thought and asked but Ymir didn't answer as she kept watching below.
"We have an Infected Specimen. He has the class identifications of Beasthood." Leonhardt was instructing as the other cloaked figures stood off to the side, drawing their hoods down. They were all unfamiliar until she saw two faces—Eren and Mikasa.
"Take note of the excess hair—some men and women are hairier than most, but his hair is starting to become wiry and gaining a red tinge. His nails are becoming claws—see how the keratin is forming sharp edges, polished, refined, and blackened. These are details that'll become apparent in earlier cases," she was picking at the shaking man like he was an animal.
'Beasts?' Historia questioned but Ymir did not answer.
"It's best to remove these infected from the populace before they become a Class II." Leonhardt had her hands behind her back, striding back and forth in the room.
Eren took a step forward.
"Miss Leonhardt," he spoke, "this man is past Class I."
Some of the students snickered but Leonhardt didn't.
"Yes, you observe correctly, Jaeger, but, this session will have no questions until the demonstration is over." She gently reminded and he bowed his head, standing back.
"As Jaeger has observed, this man has been in Class II for a while," she went back to the man. He began to grunt profusely and thrash about. The table was creaking and groaning in protest.
"Observe—his eyes are discolored and appears to have jaundice. They're oddly bloodshot. His mouth may be of more interest," she began to unfasten the bindings of the gag and yanked it off no moment less.
"HELP ME! OH, HAVE MERCY!"
Historia felt her heart drop in her chest. She didn't like what this was starting to look like…
Ymir's hand removed itself from her mouth and went to her hand, taking it and squeezing it.
"Ignore his pleas. He's far beyond help as of now. Iosefka wouldn't have use of him either." She quelled any discomfort that there might've been, as if she knew Historia's presence and anxiety. "His last moments of humanity will be far more educational than being slaughtered outright."
Leonhardt went to a counter and retrieved a strange tool that was like the gag, but, instead, it kept his mouth open.
"NO! PLEASE! I BEG OF YOU!" The man's voice was hoarse and his pronunciation was being dragged out like he was struggling to make sense of it all, but Leonhardt paid no attention. She skillfully pried his mouth open with a gloved hand and somehow wrangled the device onto the man.
"Now, allow me to show you through the looking glass," she swiveled the hanging magnify glass down and positioned it so the students would see. From their perch, Ymir and Historia would witness, too.
"View his canines." Leonhardt ordered. The man's teeth were becoming rotten fangs, discolored yellow, orange, and brown. "They're becoming elongated."
The man's cries were becoming more like gurgles with time.
"Step back thrice," Leonhardt instructed her students. "And witness why the adage is sacred."
The man couldn't stop jolting around. It was becoming frenzied as the bolts on the table were being grinded from their rust and the wood splintered at its joints. The man's mouth frothed like a deranged beast with rabies.
With a splash of blood, his bones were snapping outside of his flesh, growing at a dizzying pace as some of the leather straps began to cut off circulation to his new bulging muscles. He howled and convulsed with claws digging and scratching as his feet pushed into the table, denting its metal surface.
"This is Beasthood. No longer is humanity here—his family and his life? Gone. He is no longer. Do not hesitate in this moment of defining men and beast—it is gone. He is gone. And, like any beast, you must hunt." Leonhardt drew out a blade that was behind her back. In a swift motion, the trick weapon released its true form as she decapitated the beast.
Historia couldn't help the gasp that came from her mouth. The students hadn't heard but Leonhardt's ears had. Her gaze shot upwards to the rafters, glaring for the intruder.
"What is our adage?" She spoke but did not remove her searching eyes.
"We are born of the blood," the students repeated in a harmonious tone, lifting like a gothic choir.
"Made men by the blood,
undone by the blood.
Our eyes are yet to open."
Ymir didn't waste a second to cloak them into the higher planes of existence, far from Leonhardt's perception.
"By the Gods," Annie's voice was reverent, "fear it."
-x-x-x-
The night had thoroughly robbed Historia of any desired sleep. She could only sit at her desk, staring at her journals and research papers—she had reread them all night long, recalling how feverishly and desperately she implored to be accepted into Byrgenwerth. How every night and day and hour and second was spent honing her academics and likelihood of becoming a model prospect for the college…
"All for what," she asked herself.
To… chain men… and watch them become monsters?
Was that the true reason?
It wasn't public but it wasn't a secret either to know the Healing Church was tied to the aloof college.
If she had been accepted, she would have been like Leonhardt. She would've killed a man with no remorse. No hesitation.
It all boggled her mind. Why wouldn't they find a cure? Why wouldn't they detain him and let the public know that there was some horrendous disease ravaging the citizens and turning them mindless? Morphing them into terrible beasts?
"Perhaps there's no cure," Ymir answered. She had been quiet all night until now. "The folly of man is often being too curious yet not wise."
"I don't understand," Historia buried her face into her hands, rubbing her hurting eyes. "I truly don't."
"You're kind and sweet," Ymir soothed, "you wish to end torment—you really do—the one who has been tormented all her life—hated even… yet, you cannot picture it done through Death. Your innocence is something to be treasured. I can see the cosmos and intricacies of life, but your purity is something to be cherished. Even for a devil like me."
Ymir was as sincere as she could be.
"What is even causing this," Historia tried to search for similar cases in records or books but found none. She knew it was in vain because she knew very well the answer would be in locked away in Byrgenwerth like all of the world's darkest truths.
"I could tell you it," Ymir felt sorry. Historia could hear it. "If it makes you feel better, I can tell you this isn't the first time, but, you'd have to know the truth, and the truth might drive you mad."
Historia choked.
"Miss Reiss," she nearly jumped out of her seat upon hearing a servant. "Correspondence."
A letter was slipped underneath her door.
Ymir remained grim. She didn't even jest as she picked up the letter for Historia and handed it over.
"You might not lose yourself to insanity if you discover it yourself, though." Ymir suggested. "I would rather not lose you, my love."
Historia was too numb to give a proper response as she took the letter into her shaky hands. She didn't want to think much more on the subject—it was going to drive her insane sooner than the bloody truth Ymir kept hiding.
She cut it open and took the perfumed parchment out. She unfolded it and read it.
Due to circumstances, you've been invited to attend the private classes of Miss Annie Leonhardt on behalf of herself and the Healing Church.
May you find comfort in the pursuit of Insight and the healing properties of Blood. We await your attendance in Court.
Historia cried.