This one is kind of long, and it got away from me...sort of abstract, I think?
As in, where the heck did this title come from (tell me if you know) and what else happened? It's kind of ambiguous, so it's for you to figure out, I guess.
Disclaimer: I don't own SnK, but can you tell who I ship? (well yes, I ship the titan trio, but these two are adorbs.)
Three Warriors
xxx. blue .xxx
It's a quiet night. The moon is half and half, looking as if it cannot decide whether or not to peek farther out or to duck back inside the blanket of stars. The wind is calmer than it has been for a long, long time.
She sits on a porch, an old, creaky porch. The wooden boards have rotted away to her left, and she sits on the only stable patch that has not been soaked by the rain.
Unsurprisingly, she does not flinch when someone practically trips over her in his haste.
No, he is not hasty; he is simply clumsy.
He always has been, and he probably always will be.
But, if anything, when he tries hard enough, he can be as nimble as the cat that is wrapped around her legs, purring a soft hum she thinks might be a song of the times.
Bashfully, he mumbles an apology and sits down, and the cat immediately leaps up into his lap, sniffing at the wrapped bundle in his palms. She notices, without much revelation, that he has long, spindly fingers, just as he has long, gangly limbs, growing far too fast for his height. He's always been tall, but he seems to grow unevenly; it pulls a beguiled little smile to her lips (though she would never let him know).
To her amazement, he unwraps a piece of hard-earned meat, a strip of some unlucky fowl fallen at the tip of his father's unfailing arrow.
The cat laps up the meat almost delicately, primly licking its paws clean when it finishes. The boy says nothing, only glances at here, a sideways glance accompanied by a nervous swallow.
"I won't tell," she says simply.
He looks down at the cat, which purrs gently into his chest.
"Where's Reiner?" he manages to ask, though she knows it's just for the sake of conversation. Obviously, by the stutter in his soft voice and the way his hand fumbles with the oiled kerchief, he wants to say something else.
"Sleeping."
It's late, and their third companion has a tendency to fall asleep the earliest. This one, on the other hand, battles off the waves of fatigue so that he can sneak outside and perhaps sit quietly like this, with her.
Side by side, they are, staring at the moon that is half out and half not. The undecided moon. An indecisive star, awkward and large, standing out from all the minute twinkles of far-away stars beside it.
Like him.
She asks if he has been practicing. He says he has.
She hardly believes him, because if he had practiced, everyone would have known. However, she lets it go and brushes the hair behind her ear. They are hardly ten years old, but it feels like they have lived forever.
He asks the same question in return, and she merely looks over at him. She has, but there's a strange ache within her in saying so.
Because all she does is run away.
He has long since filled out, with lean but broad shoulders and a height to be reckoned with. He who was once even with Reiner now towers over practically everyone. Still a boy to her, but nonetheless grown. He moves swiftly in his gear; he hardly ever stumbles on land. More nervous than before, but with a stoic face learned from her, she is impressed by his guise.
Sometimes, she feels a bubbling sort of urge in her core, and it bothers her because she just wants to run over and ruffle their hair, to call Reiner and idiot and to make Bertholdt laugh.
But Reiner is too immersed among his "friends" and Bertholdt is too quiet.
She, however, does not have too much of a problem with that.
So long as they go home together.
He's sitting outside, without Reiner (who usually perches on the cabin doorsteps with a scratchy pen in his hand and a strip of paper).
Today, Bertholdt is alone, his long legs stretched out and his hands in his lap, contemplative. She walks over and sits beside him, wordlessly — he gives her the sideways glance, the same one.
She asks if he has practiced; he says he has. Top of the class, they are.
He asks the same of her, and she simply lifts her chin because he doesn't need to ask.
"Reiner's inside," he attempts, because if there's one thing he hasn't improved at, it's conversation.
"I know," she replies, and he is genuinely surprised that he has evoked an answer from her.
No one sees them, which surprises them time and time again because Shadis is constantly patrolling and not all the trainees sleep like the dead (like Reiner does).
Regardless, she watches him carefully. He sits cross-legged, folding his long legs beneath himself awkwardly. Staring at his own fingers, long fingers attached to large hands attached to even longer limbs. He has grown into his proportions, she realizes, his characteristic discomfiture is evidently reflected.
He is like the little cat, always waiting for someone.
She can picture the black feline brushing up against him, curling up in his lap. How tiny the cat would be now, compared to him.
They mull over nothing and everything, the sky and the earth, the stars that are not there and the moon that isn't either. But it's simply a cloud, because the moon is actually out, and it's half and half again, even if they can't see it.
Bertholdt stands, like he's going to go back inside, but as soon as he turns he trips.
She watches him catch himself and turn abruptly, and if it weren't for her perfectly trained blankness, she would have laughed. (No, she tells herself, it's not quite perfect.)
He sits back down, and though it's dark and she can't quite see his face clearly, she knows his cheeks are red and ruddy and he's embarrassed past words. They don't need words, though, and he as he pulls his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around himself, she finds him far too endearing to look at.
If she stares too long, it gets harder to turn away.
And she doesn't want to be Bertholdt; constantly staring away with a nervous sweat on his brow.
Inwardly, she smiles.
"Your eyes glow," he says out of the blue. She turns, and he continues, "like the cat."
She sincerely wonders if she should smile — though that would probably terrify him, because she hardly ever smiles — but decides against it.
"Really," she replies flatly. She fondly remembers their hometown, with Reiner the oaf and Bertholdt the awkard.
He nods, before letting his eyes wander back up to the cloudy, ambiguous sky.
"The moon's not out tonight," he says. Since when has Bertholdt spoken so much? She wants to laugh, and perhaps it would be a good thing, because his eyes would widen like saucers and his mouth would form an amusing little gape, and that made it all the better.
"No, it's not." She graces him with a reply, finding it charming that he is so easily pleased.
"I wonder where's it's gone."
And it strikes her then, where the moon has gone.
It's behind the clouds, obviously, but at the same time, it is not.
It is glowing cerulean, down on earth. Bertholdt casts a wary glance her way, and the soft glint in his eyes tells her so many things, yet nothing all at once. There is longing and nostalgia in those eyes, because he remembers the nights on his porch, petting the mysterious black cat from the forest. There is no cat now, only her.
And, Annie realizes, there is no moon.
Only her.
She is the moon, the indecisive moon, half and half, cautious and apprehensive. Unsure of whether to peek out and smile or to slide back into the darkness.
"The moon has gone home," she answers. Just like we will.
He looks at her fully now, curious, intrigued.
She says nothing more after that.
The wind is calmer than it has been for a long, long time.
It is a quiet night.
/chapter
Sorry if there's any out of character-ness in this...haha.
Did you figure anything out?
Tell me! :D