Tried something different!
Disclaimer: I don't own SnK, nor do I only swim free!
Three Warriors
xxx. reality .xxx
To say the least, she feels something close to fear when they catch her. A thousand and one spears have crossed through her; she feels them, yet she does not. There is pain everywhere, yet she hardly feels a thing. A man stands on her head, yet she feels that if she just simply leaned back, she could see him from behind.
But honestly, it's not quite fear. Not yet.
Not when there are titans bordering the forest and she is simply dinner and a palette cleanser — the latter only if they catch her — and she intends on becoming neither. She has planned this, no, they have planned this, for months in advance. For years, and years, and years. Three years is eternity, but they strike her as important.
Importance.
Failure is unfathomable, and so she runs.
She is kneeling on the bunk she has inhabited for the past three years, listening to Mina's excited rambling drone on past her capacity for bothering to listen. The other girl is perched on the edge of a pulled up stool, incredibly enthused about their recent graduation.
"We're going to kill real titans and become heroes," she claims bravely. "We're going to take down the Colossal Titan."
Annie finds it ironic that the person who knocks on the door is Bertholdt, looking for Reiner (though Annie knows better because their third companion has long since learned to stay away from the girls' lodge).
There's no face on this person, but she has a feeling that it's a person who used to smile, and that it can only be Mina.
She whispers her apology, because Mina was kindhearted.
Mina was "a friend".
She would like to say she felt nothing when she wordlessly drifted with the crowd, the majority of new soldiers that didn't want to risk their lives with the Scouting Legion. No, it was hardly pity for the fools who fought between rooting themselves to the spot and flying away like the cowards they were. It wasn't sympathy for the fearful humans who took the easy way out and found a safety cove in the Military Police or a miserable in-between among the Garrison troops.
Annie would be lying if she said that the helpless look that Bertholdt threw over his shoulder — careless, he was, slapping something so blatantly hurtful in her face — did not affect her.
But she doesn't care.
She doesn't care.
At least, it's the mantra she endlessly chants until she falls asleep in the simple bunks, her few items packed — useless things, really — for her departure into Sina the next day.
But she does care, and her sleep is fitful and far from the peace she assumed would come with "saving her own hide".
Regrettably, Hitch is far from Mina, and will never be Mina. Annie finds that this haughty airhead of a girl is nothing but a doll.
She breaks the necks of dolls like toothpicks; she's never liked playing with dolls, and so the day she mercilessly tosses the doll her aunt gives to her for her birthday, a rather concerned Reiner picks it back up, wipes the soot from its horrendously pink cheeks, and offers it back to her.
The doll is one of the useless items in Annie's bag.
But nonetheless, Annie finds herself irked by Hitch's very voice. When another young soldier, tired of the brunette's constant taunting, exasperatedly begs her to stop, Annie is relieved.
Not that the great Hitch ever stops, of course.
But Annie has seen combat, and that simply puts her above Hitch. She cannot understand, however, why she feels such competitiveness. That is not her purpose, nor is it her desire. Instead, she shows her appreciation for Hitch's arrogance by speaking with silence and ignoring the airhead with all her might.
If it takes a Colossal Titan to knock down that girl's confidence, then so be it. Annie is perfectly capable of obtaining such a weapon, after all.
And, she supposes, Mina would not like Hitch either.
There is a day when another girl caught wind of a rumor about Hitch, one that involved inappropriate conduct with superiors that gained her position as top ten.
Inexplicably, Annie is overwhelmingly pleased.
There is also a day, however, when Hitch catches sight of Annie's precious — though filled with useless items — bag. The brunette grabs the doll and the few other things and triumphantly parades them into the hall.
There are clothes — useless clothes — and a few rations — bread that somehow lasts an eternity, despite eventually becoming petrified and solid — just in case, but what Hitch pulls out are the most important:
The doll and the bracelet.
"Oh, Annie, I didn't know you still played with dolls," shrieks the girl, dancing just out of the blonde's reach. "And who's this bracelet from? It sure is pretty? Does Annie like someone?"
The boys are wise to cower, and the girls know better than to interfere, because Annie's next move sends Hitch to the infirmary unconscious.
Was it a lesson learned?
Hardly.
It's approximately midnight, and Annie fingers the trinket that Hitch so gladly mocked her for. It was a yet another thing of hers that held the brief yet apparent memory of someone, a person that manifested himself in her mind as soon as her fingers touched the clasp of the bracelet.
This one was from her mother. She never took it off, really, when she was younger. The day she lost it was the day the fearless Annie cried, and she would not be soothed by anyone, not even her father. She blamed herself endlessly for losing her precious bracelet, and when Bertholdt pled for her to stop crying, she wanted to smack his ridiculous face so hard that he ended up shorter than her.
That is, until he almost began to cry too, shoving the bracelet into her fingers and quickly exclaiming that she'd dropped it a little while back.
Her aunt's doll — Reiner's kind insistence — and her mother's bracelet — Bertholdt's compassion.
The next time Hitch decides to mess with her valued memories, Annie will make sure that that haughty, blown-up ego of hers will never recover. If she ever needs any form of support, Mina is there. Annie has discovered the recently deceased to be the greatest form of unwavering faith.
That is, because what is left of Mina is Annie's imagination.
Her own illusions won't fall, even to Hitch.
Annie finds it amusing, however, that the day she finds Armin, she had debated whether or not to just eat Hitch and be rid of the filth in one fell swoop.
She regrets, however, leaving her bag under her pillow the day they catch her; she hides within her heart of crystal, hoping that one day she'll get them back.
/chapter
headcanons galore!
and thus the items are never seen.
and
Annie falls.
I NEED TO DO HOMEWORK AND SLEEP GOSH DANG IT.