Chapter 15 – Annie (Arc 2)

As Annie walked out of the underground cellar that she had come to call her existence, she felt the cold rain descend onto her blood coated face. She winced at the brightness of the outside world, dropping the mask that had been gripped in her hand after tearing it from one of those bastard's faces. She didn't truly know who was behind the mask that now lay coated in mud. She knew only that he was dead. She knew only that she was not the same innocent girl that had been dragged down into that pit of hell on earth. She knew who she was.

Annie Leonhardt. The Warrior of the Third Pit. The Frozen Titan.

And she knew that she bore this title. She hated it, but knew that she must bear it. For her enemies must know, on the day that she finds them on the field of battle; that they made the monster before them.

Knowing that they could not fight all of Titania alone, they travelled together on the northern path, eventually finding the great city of Berk. Passing through the gates as refugees, Annie had no choice but to live in the streets, but she didn't really mind it; facing the elements with the same easiness that a cat faces a mouse. Winter could not break her, for when she was reborn in that dark cold pit, she was reborn of pure, silent and deadly ice. Yet whilst winter could not break her, it could still break those around her like fragile spun glass.

They had to leave him there. Cold. Broken. Alone.

Tearing her eyes from her more painful present, she looked to the road before her, deciding that when she reached the legal age of enlistment for training, she would join, without or without her comrade. In the weeks that followed after she took the axes offered to her as she stood to attention in the stone training arena, Annie Leonhardt quickly rose in terms of skill in hand to hand combat, her instincts forged in the pit broiled beneath the surface as she held them back, as whilst those around her knew her name, her title and her past, they did not know her monstrous nature. And she'd be damned if they found out. As a soldier, she was compared to the likes of Mikasa Ackerman in terms of skill, placing her in the highest tier of recorded Berkian History. Yet whilst she felt pride at this, she knew that it was all just to refine her skills. She didn't need connections. She didn't need these people. She didn't need friends.

But she ended up gaining one anyways.

She had always seen people who were weak as disadvantaged. She didn't hate nor judge them for it. Simply felt pity for them. So when she saw a frail young boy, struggling to hold back the barrage of brutish swings being thrown at him, she couldn't help but be overwhelmed with it. Moving swiftly to block the axe swing from hitting the boy's only lightly armoured head and following the arc of the blow, her eyes caught that of the sparring partners, who now stood, frozen in fear as she moved fluidly and swiftly, taking the weapons from the cadet's hand, throwing them to the side.

In a silent bewilderment, the boy stepped to the side to pick up his weapons, but feeling the chill around the girl and decided against returning to his partner. As Annie looked back at the boy, now calmer and observant, she noted his eyes. At the time, there was no connection, simply an observation of the wonder in those eyes. How the hell does someone like that end up in a place like this?

'You did.' A small voice hissed at her in the back of her mind.

She quickly stepped back and looked off trying to centre her thoughts, waiting for him to respond to her action, seeing out of the corner of her eye that he was still observing her. Why, in the name of Death, was he still watching her? As he began to speak, the thought consumed her. 'They're watching me.' The weight of the observing eyes buried in her past, of her parents, of her captors, of her handlers all bear down on her watching. Watching. WATCHING. WHY WON'T THEY STOP WATCHING.

That boy's eyes had done something that not even the harshest of winters nor the sharpest of blades have ever achieved. The Frozen Titan's shell was cracked.

She was never one for crying particularly, but she felt the cord snap in her psyche, quickly taking off to the forest to find her perfection once again.

She shed no tears.

She felt no pain.

She only existed.

She waited until her composure had returned before returning to her barracks to rest, only to find a small huddle of the girls around her bunk, asking in her cold authoritative tone what the hell they were doing, they parted and she saw her axes resting on her bed, which she now realised she had left on the training grounds when she ran off. Like a coward. It was only after she picked them up that she realised it must've been that boy who brought them here, she turned and quickly asked who brought them here, knowing the name but not the face, and she was met by the imposing Mikasa Ackerman, telling her it was her friend, Armin Artlet, before demanding to know if she had hurt him in sparring. She bluntly explained what happened, quietly making a mental note to thank him later on. And thank him she did.

It was a quiet note, left by Armin's plate as she walked by him in the Mess Hall. It would not be the last time she met Armin Artlet. In due time, she began to get sick of saving him constantly from massively unfair sparring partners, making the decision to train him personally as she could tell that she was one of the few who could figure him out and make him an effective soldier. She was justifiably frustrated at the boy's natural weakness, but she had to admire his resolve and most of all his mind. Under her guidance, the boy grew and grew in strengths, using his skill set to survive, passing his combat certification, if only through a miracle she assumed. And it was no surprise to her that he had begun to train in the spear (She knew which was his as he could remove the metal tip of it) as she could always tell that he preferred to refrain from violence and killing when he could.

She personally couldn't tell the difference but had grown enough respect for the boy enough to accept it. Her own had gone with no difficulty whatsoever, shifting to her dual knives which she had kept stored under her mattress of her bed ever since she enlisted, natural instincts flowing through her as she felt the worn familiar grips in her palms, twirling them experimentally.

Dragon Fire Mobility Gear was harder for her to master, as she had come to think of herself as belonging on the ground, no fanciful feats, but unsurprisingly, she had to be proved wrong again by that blond haired runt. He was the first to show her what it was like to fly by making a safety net that could be put up below her whilst she practiced with him. It wasn't a permanent measure and soon Annie had such control over it that she was leaving Armin far behind most days.

She hadn't fully been able to put her finger on why, but she had actually grown quite fond of the boy, to the point that earlier in the year, it would've been on Snoggletog she supposed, when they were outside the Main Mess Hall, avoiding all the excessive drinking and the loud noise. As they sat on the rickety wooden porch, soft snow beginning to drift down from the sky, Annie found herself at ease. Maybe it was the ale she had had, or the soft, excited tones of the tipsy boy next to her, but something that night was different, as she allowed herself to slightly lower the edges of the walls that she had built up around herself so that she could take in the abnormal, and pontetial sole moment of peace she had felt in years properly, without the pessimism that had become second nature to her. Listening to him, she let a small smile appear on her face as he spoke in wonder of the world around him like the stars and the moon. She never thought he had noticed that smile, too preoccupied with the world around him, but he had and had yet to forget it.