The end of March was nearing, which meant that Annie hadn't seen Armin in almost two months.
Since she stormed out of Armin's life that day, everything seemed to go wrong. The weather was harsher, the people more ignorant. And what's worse: she couldn't find her mother's wedding ring. She thought she left it behind at Armin's apartment but she wouldn't go back.
There were plenty of ways to hurt herself.
The Female Titan wouldn't stop scowling at her either. Her low, thundering voice echoed around her mind like a waterfall inside a lonely cave. You should've left earlier. You should've never told him about me. You should've killed him when you had the chance.
Annie knew what the Female Titan was also demanding that she hadn't said aloud yet: You should've never run away from your father.
She let the monster inside her guide her feet to the place where her father was most likely to be seen—the Rightful Ruler, the bar that caused Three Walls to shut down.
A strong stench of alcohol and sweat shot up her nostrils as soon as she stepped foot into the bar. Several men either sat at the polished counter/tables with large glasses of foamy beer or played at the pool table with large glasses of foamy beer. A flat screen TV hung upon a wall which must've been showing a lousy football game since no one was paying attention to it. The bartender was cleaning shot glasses and periodically attending to his thirsty customers.
Annie steadily walked through the bar, eyes scanning for the dark slicked-back hair that belonged to her father. Most of the men here were fat and bald, things her father wasn't. As she passed a table full of drunkards, she felt a large hand grab her ass and a low voice murmur, "Well, hello there, girly…"
Without much of a glance at her perpetrator, Annie twisted around and seized the man's meaty thumb and snapped it back to his wrist. He cried out in pain while clutching his injured hand; his equally drunk friends pointed and laughed as Annie went on with her quest.
She explored the small and crowded bar, peeking at every face, waiting outside the men's smelly restroom for a few minutes. She even asked the bartender if he had seen a short, dark haired man with a naturally angry face (he didn't, however). She crossed her arms and glowered in frustration. She was actually surprised that he wasn't at Rightful Ruler—this was his escape, right? Escape from his only offspring? She still remembered where their house was, his house, but no way in hell was she ever going back to that place, even if her father got on his knees and begged her to come back home. Too many bad memories and old wounds.
She was about to spin around and walk out the door (she couldn't stand the horrible smell anymore) when another hand landed on her shoulder. She rolled her eyes and turned to break the finger of another hopeless drunk when she stopped mid-spin at the sight of the owner of the deeply tanned hand.
Ymir.
"Hey, Short Stuff! Long time no see. What's going on? Seriously you've been gone for so long, I thought you were dead." The freckled girl peered down at Annie's tiny structure. "Especially with that walking skeleton look you're sporting."
"Ymir. What are you doing here?"
"Oh you know, getting some drinks, seeing some people…" She quickly and carefully took an oblivious man's wallet from the table beside them. In a lower voice she finished, "…spending some cash."
She narrowed her eyes. She was about to rat her out to the drunk man beside them about his stolen wallet—she never liked Ymir, she was too reckless and reminded her of Reiner too much—when another surprise presented itself to her. A small blonde girl (amazingly shorter than her) ran up behind Ymir and wrapped her hand around Ymir's arm. "Ymir!" she complained in a high pitched voice. "Stop leaving me without telling me first! This place is crowded and you know I can't see anything from down here."
Ymir then slung her long arm around the girl's shoulders and gave her a big and sloppy kiss on her blushing cheek. "Aww, I'm sorry, shortie! I just saw an old friend and wanted to say hi."
"We're not friends," Annie growled under her breath, although no one heard her.
"Oh." The tiny blonde turned to Annie, as if noticing her for the first time. "Hi! What's your name?"
Ugh, that voice. It was so high-pitched and perky. Annie already concluded that she didn't like this newcomer. "Annie."
"Hi, Annie! I'm Historia, nice to meet—"
"Aww! You're not doing the codename with me anymore?" Ymir leaned heavily on the small girl, causing her to topple under her weight.
"Oh, right. I'm 'Christa Lenz'. Sorry about that."
Ymir squished her face against Historia/Christa's. "That name fits you perfectly!"
Annie held in a groan and started to move away from the lesbians but Ymir's hand stopped her again. "Where are you going? Don'cha wanna chat?"
"No."
"Don'cha at least wanna know how Reiner and Berthold are?"
She didn't know why she paused at that question, but she did. She turned her face to meet Ymir's smirking gaze.
"Those two Titans miss you way too much. Berthold, especially. They've been looking for you day and night, but I guess they couldn't find you if you're here now."
"Are they still…" She glanced at Christa, who was paying attention to everything that was exchanged between the two girls. Annie lowered her voice. "Are they still at Three Walls?"
"Nope." Ymir didn't change the octave of her voice—that probably meant that Christa knew their history or Ymir didn't bother to tell her and it was all going over her head. "Three Walls was knocked down by Rose City's mayor about three months ago. I don't know where specifically they are now; probably looking for you still."
"Three Walls was knocked down?"
"Yeah. Luckily all of us were out when it happened. I was on my way back from some grocery shopping…" (Annie knew that 'grocery shopping' meant stealing but of course she wouldn't say anything; she'd done that quite a few times herself) "…when I heard all the bulldozers and shit wrecking up the place. The mayor and this little kitten here—" She patted Christa's head when she said this "—were standing nearby, talking to the construction men. The kitten noticed me and came up to me, offered me a place to stay at a homeless shelter close by that her dear old daddy recently put up. And we've been together ever since."
Annie directed her eyes towards Christa, who was currently receiving a giant bear hug from her freckled girlfriend. "You're the mayor's daughter?"
Historia sighed heavily as if the statement alone brought forth horrible flashbacks. "Yes, but he doesn't like people knowing that. He tries to keep me out of the public's eye but…" She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. "That's kind of hard to do when you're the major's only daughter."
Ymir scowled. "I don't understand why anyone would not wanna show you off." Ymir put her arm back across Christa's shoulders. "I oughta teach that guy a lesson."
Christa frowned up at her. "Ymir, don't you dare. My father never did anything wrong."
My father…
Annie tried yet again to leak through the front door once Ymir's attention was completely focused on Christa. She stuffed her hands inside her hoodie pocket as soon as she felt the familiar harsh wind whip about her. Her feet quickly marched down the sidewalk, attempting to decode the mystery that was Ymir.
Ymir was still active in the criminal role and yet was actually dating Historia (or "Christa Lenz"), who was the mayor's only daughter. How much trouble could she get into? And the codename—what was with that? Why did Ymir insist that Historia should call herself Christa? Was she perhaps leading the goody-little-two-shoes down the path of theft? It was hard to see the small girl doing anything bad; she wouldn't harm a fly it seemed.
But anyone can change she guessed.
"Annie! Wait up!" The lost girl kept walking even as the sound of Ymir's voice traveled down the sidewalk. Then she heard her heavy boots slam down on the icy cement; she would've outrun the giant but didn't want to risk falling on her ass with all the crunchy snow piled up everywhere.
"Yo, Annie!" Before Ymir could grab her arm, Annie whipped around like a tornado and glared dangerously at her.
"What the fuck do you want with me?"
Ymir smirked. "I don't want anything from you. But I know there's something you want from me."
"Your lips ripped off from your face?"
Ymir threw her head back and laughed. "Ha, ha! That was a good one! I see you're learning some sarcasm from me."
"You have ten seconds to finish whatever you have to say or else I will rip off some body part from you."
"Alright, Grumpy Pants." Ymir reached into the back pocket of her black skinny jeans and pulled out something small and silver. "Here."
Annie looked down into her hand and realized what the offering was. A switchblade.
She glanced back up at Ymir's face, who appeared very convinced of something. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Oh, lots of things. Skin animals, stab someone, engrave something on a wall…" She paused, her skinny lips tilting up even more. "Hurt yourself."
Annie's eyes widened.
"I'm not stupid, Annie. I know something's seriously fucked up with you. You talk to yourself when no one's looking, you push people away like they're devils or whatever, you try to cover up every inch of yourself like…like all your secrets are growing every second. And I'm not trying to sound corny here, but I get it. I know what it's like to be a part of something that you don't like. I know what it's like to have demons living inside you."
Annie said nothing, just stared at her. Ymir grinned. "I can see that you don't believe me with that face you have, so I guess I'll have to show you…" And with that, she turned around and lifted her small ponytail to the side, revealing several little cuts across the nape of her neck.
"That's where they live," Ymir explained. "All my demons live, talk, and breathe there. And when I cut there, they stop for a while." She faced Annie again. "But ever since I met Historia, I haven't used this once." She pointed the end of the knife towards Annie's chest. "Now it's your turn to decide if you wanna live with your demons or go down with them."
Annie stared at Ymir's cunning smile before hesitantly taking the switchblade. The brunette stuck her thumbs in her pockets, spun on her heel, and then said, "I'm sure you'll tell me when the lambs stop screaming, right, Clarice?"
Ymir walked away, laughing to herself, as Annie stood there for a moment longer, remembering the scars she and Ymir shared.