RivaMika Week 2 Day 5: Four Seasons
Title: Le Quattro Stagioni
Rating: G
Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin, Attack on Titan
Characters: Levi, Mikasa Ackerman, Eren Jaeger, Armin Arlert, RivaMika
Summary: The wheel of time will never stop.
Notes: This is what happens when I try to write after a Shakespeare play. (Coriolanus, in case you're wondering. Try to spot the reference!) W.B. Yeats may have also played a part, as did Vivaldi (duh!). This fic includes a major character death... You have been warned. :)
la primavera
When he first meets her, the first thing that strikes him is how desperately young she is.
Even though she stands tall, shoulders square and legs planted sturdily apart, her youth sticks in his mind. She's fifteen, with everything to lose and nothing to gain by becoming a soldier, but she did it anyway. The delirium of the brave, he supposes, even though he was no such fool at her age. He kept his head down and did what he had to do, none of the heroism or grand feats that are stamped all over Mikasa's queenly movements.
But with youth comes folly; none know this better than Levi himself. He watches her throw herself into danger, time and time and time again, for the cause of her brother, her brother Eren with eyes as green as spring leaves. Although she is not the only one guilty of that vice (even cool, calculated Armin behaves recklessly sometimes), it is her acts that are most egregious.
Perhaps it is because she acts so mature? An old soul, is what Hanji calls her. "Those eyes have seen much harm," they tell him, as they watch the recruits sweep up the cherry blossom petals clogging the drains "and have been blackened by it." They pick a stray petal out of their hair, grumbling. In the far distance, Levi hears a dog bark.
In any case, Levi disregards them.
Perhaps he shouldn't have.
l'estate
Levi hates summer.
The languor caused by the heat is almost intolerable. It is that slow, lazy type of warmth that encumbers all your movements; neither are there any sharp breezes to cut through the haze that smothers them.
He's situated on the deck, watching his team brawl. How have they survived, all these long years? It has only been half a decade, yet it feels like it has been two since Eren first Shifted.
Ackerman emerges from the brawl and pads over to sit down beside him. The silence between them is neither companionable or uncomfortable.
She is a full head taller than him now, and strong of limb and body. It is difficult, however, to think of her as anything but a child, even though she has every appearance of being a woman, albeit a somewhat flat-chested one. As if that matters; any fool with eyes in his head can see that Mikasa is beautiful. Few, however, see beyond that.
"Sir." She glances at him, gaze drifting away from the current combatants.
"What is it?"
"Are you...?" Her eyes flicker down to his ankle
He struggles momentarily to find his words; he has many noble thoughts, but rarely can he articulate them. This time is not an exception. "I am in perfectly good health. Thank you for your concern." It goes without saying that her concern is unneeded.
"I wasn't...!" She pauses, words tangled in her throat as her face reddens. Another thing about youth; it angers easily. "... Sir, you are my captain. I will always have...concern. For you."
Somehow, this renders him mute. He wonders if he should thank her again.
He doesn't. "As long as you keep some consideration for yourself, Ackerman."
She doesn't say another word; as she turns her head, the sun catches her, and Levi finds himself blinded.
l'autunno
Their headquarters in Sina are elegant, built with red brick and fenced in with black iron railings. The door is obnoxiously red, with a half-moon window above and steps below. At the very least, it is warm.
He and Erwin were dragged up to Sina without fanfare. They were at a critical stage down on the fronts of Wall Maria, having just won a huge victory over the Titans, but the head office would not hear of it, and off they went in a musty carriage to face the music.
Except not quite.
Officially the Crown 'does not approve' of Erwin's methods, but none can deny that he gets results. In order to keep up appearances, Erwin is yelled at by some commissioner or another every year; without fail, Erwin faces them down. He'd make a superb politician, if only he would not speak his own mind, something that Levi personally believes his commander is incapable of. His heart's his mouth, indeed.
They have been consigned to paperwork for the foreseeable future. As much as he complains about it when he's stuck in the squalor of the soldiers' tents, Levi is itching to get back down to Maria and fight. He never was a good penman.
In order to distract himself, he glances out the window. One of the redeeming traits of this hole of bureaucracy is that it has a river view. The swans are his main source of amusement; Levi has never had any great love for the natural world, but few can deny the grace of the swans. He has counted them daily and he invariably comes to the same tally of forty nine. Logically there must be one odd one out, and indeed there is; behind the bevy of paired swans, he can make out a lone bird trailing after his companions.
He draws his gaze away from the window and tries to work. The dim autumnal light is making it hard to read the letters, and his slowly fading vision isn't helping. Hanji is trying to get him to wear glasses, but Levi won't. It would be like admitting weakness, and that is not something that will happen while his body still draws breath.
The door creaks open. "Speak of the devil, and the devil shall come," he mutters to himself, as Squad Leader Mikasa Ackerman slips inside.
"Sir." She snaps to attention.
"At ease. Did you ride all this way? For that matter, why on Earth are you here?" He examines her critically. Mikasa's hair has only gotten shorter with age; Armin's is longer than hers at this stage. Levi will not admit that it becomes her.
"Yes, but sir... I believe that would be a matter best discussed privately." The words are fragmented; she is breathing heavily. Did she really ride all the way here?
Grumbling, Levi acquiesces.
There is a tiny park nearby, and it is to a bench in this park that he leads her, through brittle leaves and dry dust and sleeping drunkards sprawled in the shade of oaks and larches. Mikasa collapses into the bench, and Levi seats himself primly beside her.
"What is it, Ackerman?" He can't summon the energy to be sharp with her, not any more.
"Can you and the Commander leave immediately?" Her fingers are restless, tangling together and breaking apart.
"Within an hour. Spit it out, will you?"
"Annie has woken up."
The swans scatter, their great wings clamorous as they climb into the air. Only one remains; it seems like he looks at Levi for a moment before he mounts into the air to join his brethren's broken spirals.
Levi springs up, grabs her by the hand, and drags her away, to find Erwin and to rectify a twenty-year-old problem.
l'inverno
To him, the tranquillity is strange.
It weighs on him like a great stone, conspicuous in its complete wrongness. It is anathema, to him, to think that there are no more titans. There are no battles to be fought, no bodies to bury except those in his dreams. He is useless now, a broken-down old soldier with no place in peacetime.
The consuls speak of concord and tearing down the walls, but Levi has proposed another idea. Let the walls remain, as monument to those who fell, and let their names be inscribed into the stone. He has begun the job; in the ruins of Shiganshina, he has written the names of Isabel and Farlan, of his Commander and his friend, of his first Squad and most of his second.
He must delay his reminiscing for now. He has a task to perform. Once he has donned his coat and scarf, he picks up his cane and sets off.
The journey takes him twice as long as it would have thirty years ago. The snow doesn't help matters; he slips and slides and almost loses his precarious balance. The little cottages he passes are blazing with light, trees decorated with seashells visible through their windows. It is unusually cold this winter; generally out by the sea the snow doesn't stick, but this year is a notable exception.
When he finally reaches the little hill out by the coastline, the breeze is biting, freezing him to the bone. The view of the sea from here is as breath-taking as usual; he remembers the tears in Armin's eyes when they first got here. He was in excruciating pain for the entire journey, yet it was the ocean that finally broke the dam.
Finally, he struggles up the hill to reach its peak. There is a small slab of stone, taken from Wall Maria, and on it are three names, six dates, and one single line of text.
Eren Jaeger, b. March 30 835, d. January 28 875
Armin Arlert, b. November 3 835, d. January 28 875
Mikasa Ackerman, b. February 10 835, d. January 28 875
The world is cruel and unforgiving, yet so beautiful.
He kneels in front of the gravestone, legs creaking, and brushes the snow away from the letters. Mikasa's last request had been to bury her with her brothers, and that he did; her in the centre, and a brother under each arm, like the way they used to huddle up in the cold streets of hard cities, with her scarf knotting them together.
He wonders every day what would have happened, had they survived instead of him. Would Armin rise to leadership of the country? Would Eren marry Mikasa? Would Mikasa cry over his grave, as he does over hers?
She wouldn't. She was always stronger than him.
After a while, his tears begin to freeze on his face. With one final glance at sea and sand and stone, he turns away to begin the long journey home.