Just kidding, I'm back! In any case, I know I botched up the order, but from NOW ON it should be Bertl, then Annie, then Reiner.
Disclaimer: Noooooo this series is not mineeeeeee. That wretched yet well-known line is not mine either.
Note 1: I wrote this in a slightly different style for Reiner this time. Meh. It was easier, lol.
Note 2: Listening to "Sail" by Awolnation while mourning the deaths of Levi's squad is not a good idea. *sobs harder*
Note 3: When I mouthed "RADIOACTIVE" to the song Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, my mom thought I was swearing at her.
wow.
Note 4: Today, I put a lettuce leaf down and made a face out of a cucumber and some herbs, and announced - "COLOSSAL CUCUMBER IS HERE".
Note 5: My cat is Colossal Cat. So fat.
/end notes.
I really like tying chapters together, if you haven't noticed :)
Three Warriors
xxx. humanity .xxx
Footsteps.
He taps the pen against his chin, because as he writes poetry in the dark, the only one to notice is Bertholdt, and the habit is so familiar that neither say a word. Only Bertholdt, who has rolled to some peculiar position alongside their bunk, watches him in thoughtful silence. Or, perhaps, the gentle giant as lolled himself to sleep, the telltale patter of rain an obedient follower of his clairvoyant slumber poses.
He crosses out Footsteps, and in exchange, he jots down Strength.
But that doesn't sound quite right, and scratches that out too.
It is the ending to his poem, a poem in which he briefly remembers what he's here for. The gentle wash of rain is cleansing; he easily calls upon the strength that the word warrior lends him as it passes through his lips.
He, of course, doesn't appear like a man for poetry.
Reiner, writing poetry?
He smiles to himself as Bertholdt grumbles in his sleep and procedes to curl over sideways and lean on his shoulder.
Footsteps, he writes again, because in his mind he is running, feet hitting the ground miles and miles apart, the ground quaking and the houses of Shiganshina shattering beneath his toes.
Impact, he put down, in a loopy script that belied his brawny appearance. He decides that his poem won't end there, because there's more to convey than just the steely crash of his entirety against a 50 meter wall.
Bertholdt stirs.
Reiner wonders what his friend would think of the poem. His friend, a boy that tries his hardest to meld into the background, if only his trembling fear did not radiate from him like a light in the dark.
Fear, the ink creates.
Bertholdt, who wants to cry when the sun comes up because all he sees in the reflection of his own face peering over a doomed city.
Reiner tugs the blanket from the bottom bunk, his bed, and tosses it over Bertholdt's shoulders. The taller boy snores into his shoulder.
Duty. It is their duty, their purpose, their goal. In order to return home, Reiner decides that this is their mission. He dreads, however, the moment his mind decides to forget that mission; and the seconds tick by. Reiner writes a little faster, thinks a little harder; his scratchy pen digs a little harder into the strip of paper he's salvaged from who-knows-where.
Soldiers.
But then immediately after,
Warriors.
"Warrior," he murmurs. "Strength."
It is a good combination.
The moon is gentle tonight, and Reiner pauses as he listens to the sounds of living human beings, disregarding his lack of time to spare. It's a race, it always has been, but he supposes that today, the turtle won't catch the hare napping — just a status check, he thinks.
The gentle breathing of Marco on the next bunk over, the snores of Eren across the room — Reiner is glad, because the poor boy hasn't had such a peaceful, dreamless sleep in quite some time.
He snaps back from the compassionate soldier that is gripping his arm.
Reiner looks down, and only sees Bertholdt blindly grab for the blanket. The blond lets the taller boy curl up beside him, wrapping the thin blanket around the both of them, even though it's hardly enough.
Returning to his poem, he reads and rereads. He has written, between the long lines of free verse and sometimes a play on words, Useful and Useless, Important, and Unimportant,.
His one-word stanzas are sharp, like daggers.
His lengthy, in-depth couplets run to the hoof beats of horses, strung at a suspended canter, the tension pulled taught in the moment when the animal leaps into the air between strides.
Emotion, he writes, front waves like screams, leaving nothing but half an essence behind. Trust is not enough, unless you plow through until the end.
And even then…
He allows his pen to trail, because a sharp homesickness permeates him, and he appreciates Bertholdt's steady company beside him. A glance to the door; he wishes that their aloof, unsociable third member would return to the pack, just for once.
Memory, he finishes.
But upon revision, he realizes that it is not the ending he needs to write, but the beginning. Reiner stares at the blank space he'd left for a good beginning, having jumped to the main body of his poem before anything. He is writing a story, perhaps, a tale in the form of alternating points and lines. A person here, a chain there. A titan here, a death there.
He recalls a time when sleep abandoned Marco and Jean, and the two spent most of the night bickering (though it was rather one-sided, consisting mainly of Jean's complaints and Marco's mild chuckles). He remembers Connie's insistence that they raid the supplies room and slather paint over the girls' cabins. Millius's unexpectedly frightening stories, the worst of which he saved for the last night of October (though for what reason, no one really knew), a tradition established since the first year. In the second year, Thomas's nightly jokes that kept everyone awake, a dim thrum of uncontrollable giggles reverberating through the cabin until the ever acute Shadis appeared at the doorway. (Marco hated the jokes about his freckles, but it was mostly Jean's indignant bristling at his nickname — horse face — and Eren's typical anger.)
Eren. Eren Jaeger.
Reiner's memory of a night trek with a few low-lit lanterns surfaces, and he knows that he had been lucid then. He had been a warrior, intent on going home. He had acknowledged Eren's determination, his grit, his emotion.
He acknowledged the trigger.
His introduction is written now, because he has decided. Reiner abandons the perspective from which he has written the rest of his poem — that is, his own. No longer is he outside the walls, listening to the thunderous stampede of titans' footsteps as someone he knows scoops him up into her arms.
No, he is inside the walls.
He is inside the fear, the terror, the blackness of humanity in all its ugliness.
His pen lifts, and the beginning reads:
On that day, mankind received a grim reminder…
/chapter
Actually, I didn't announce "COLOSSAL CUCUMBER IS HERE."
I actually said: "ON THAT DAY, MANKIND RECEIVED A GRIM REMINDER ... THAT HUMANITY LIVED IN FEAR OF THE VEGGIES."