And, finally, Annie is the easiest and most enjoyable to right.

Though I do like the challenge of Reiner and Bertl.

Disclaimer: I don't own Snk, but he's gonna kill'em all cuz he's Eren Jaeger.

(Danny Phantom op x Eren Jaeger have you hEARD IT oMG)

Three Warriors

xxx. promise .xxx

There are so many lies that she just wants to swing the rifle onto her shoulder and shoot.

But she can't. And she won't.

Instead, she puts the weapon down — what good would it do her, anyway? — and slides the ring onto her finger. She vaguely tries to recall what else she is leaving behind, but at the moment it's not the first thing on her mind. Eren and Mikasa appear around a corner, in matching cloaks, and all she can think of is their eyes. Their eyes give away everything.

They must be fools to think she is one, too.

Armin, however, Armin is sharp. His eyes are so full of pain and fear and anxiety that she almost believes him.

But she knows, despite this pleas, that he already sees her as a bad person.

There's nothing she can do to change that, not now.

He doesn't know it, but she hears him. She hears him say,

"Annie, I still don't think you're a bad person."

There is a pause, briefly, and a slow intake of breath. She wishes she could put her hand out to the wall of crystal, but it is wrapped around her, suffocating her. Armin's hand rests gingerly on the surface of her cage, her own trap.

"We're leaving soon," he continues. "But…"

He's got such blue, blue eyes that she wants to shoot them from his head because she cannot bear to look into them, yet she is forced to. But her rifle lays somewhere in the Stohess District, abandoned in an alley, perhaps picked up by someone to sell on the black market. Perhaps picked up by Hitch or Marlow or somebody she is supposed to have known.

"But I never thought of you as a bad person," he says. "Not even at the very end."

He turns, then, because someone else has entered. It's the short man with the angry eyes, the suppressed love that bears down on his shoulders like the weight of the sky. Armin exits, then, but he glances back — and she wishes he hadn't — with his blue, blue eyes, shining cerulean like nothing else in the world can. He says then, so softly she can hardly hear it within her cage of time and hope and despair:

"It's not the end, Annie. Not yet."

She almost regrets to admit that her heart leaps every time the door opens. She isn't sure what's going on, but she doesn't even care about the fact that it is Reiner in chains and Bertholdt's unmoving body, she just wants company. And she feels horrible, because Reiner hardly ever speaks and she thinks Bertholdt might be dead — her heart hurts, but it is also suspended in the crystal, detached from her soul — and those blue, blue eyes always come in to visit her.

His hair has grown long and he's much, much taller, and much, much wiser. He ties it back with a string and begins his daily ritual, one that involves trading notes with the bespectacled woman and then laying a hand on her glassy enclosure.

It's the end, she wants to say, and even if you deny it, the beginning of the end has already passed.

But every day, without fail, he simply strides up to her and says:

"It's time to begin."

It's time to begin anew, he says sometimes.

Every single moment he is there, her heart creeps closer to her, despite her continued efforts to sever the bonds between her true self and her emotions. She doesn't want her heart back. As soon as it returns to her, the image of a broken Reiner and a dead Bertholdt will kill her, too. It's not what she gambled for, not any of this.

"You're in pain," Armin states rather sadly. "Shall I leave you, today?"

The bespectacled woman sitting aside doesn't question his reasons for talking to a slab of crystallized girl, frozen for all time. She simply annotates her annotated notes, sitting cross-legged on the floor some distance from them.

Leave, Annie wants to scream. But simultaneously, her heart cries for him to stay, and she wants a rifle, a blade, a knife. She wants — not for Armin this time, and not for his eyes — to strangle her heart until it croaks for death to come, because she has lost the bet and the pain slips ever closer to her.

She hasn't realized that it's already inside, consuming her.

"There is someone who wishes for you to have one night of peaceful sleep," Armin says. "He thinks endlessly of you, Annie."

Why do you waste yourself on me? Annie demands silently, furiously. Why do you wish for me to be at peace, why?

"Just this once," Armin says, brushing he long, golden wheat hair from his face. He looks truly as brilliant as he is, with a long coat that nearly sweeps the floor with its end, emblazoned proudly with the Scouting Legion's emblem. Never has he been mocking or condescending; simply, he is Armin.

Armin Arlert.

"Just this once," Armin says, "you will sleep peacefully. Promise me that, Annie?"

Why would I promise you anything?

"But Annie, this promise isn't for me."

I won't promise you anything, Armin. I'm not a good person.

"I will leave you to him, then," Armin says.

You're not making any sense. Aren't you the sensible one? Aren't you—

"Annie, don't sing yourself lullabies." Armin, who has not removed his hand from the crystal, is distractingly close to her. His eyes, those accursed eyes.

Lullabies are horrid, lullabies are vile. She knows this, because as soon as the word leaves his lips and seeps through to her very core, she can only hear voices chanting and voices singing. Berik is dead, Berik is dead, the titan ate Berik and Berik is d—

"I told you not to sing them, Annie. That's hardly a lullaby, anyway."

She just wants Armin to go away.

"I'm simply waiting for you to promise Annie."

I won't promise you anyth—

"Then don't promise for me. I'm not requesting it."

Then—

"He is granting it to you, so please accept it."

She silences her thoughts for a brief moment.

And then you'll leave?

"If that's what you want, Annie."

Her momentary weakness allows her heart to dive back into her soul, and she is suddenly afraid, so afraid of waking up. This is fear, and she has only feared once, and though she vowed never to fear again, it is within her. She doesn't fear death or pain, she doesn't fear fate or destiny.

But still, terror grasps her whole and she cannot possibly escape from a prison created by her own hands.

She promises.

The window is open, despite the chilly wind that is sweeping through the halls like a vengeful spirit. It is hardly midnight, so she settles back down, lying on the luxurious mattress reserved for the Military Police. She doesn't recall any dreams or ideas or fleeting notions, so she dismisses the reason for waking as a simple noise or disturbance. Otherwise, it is a surprisingly peaceful night.

Something jingles in her hand, and her hands enclose around her beloved mother's bracelet. Her memento. She doesn't recall taking it from her bag before going to bed, but she doesn't put it back.

Fading to sleep once more, she feels as if someone's hands are enclosing hers. It's warm, comforting, soothing, almost as if someone is murmuring soft words in her ear as an invisible hand strokes her hair, lulling her to sleep. There is no singing, only the whisper of the dying wind, wrapping its distant arms around her.

She promises, and she receives.

Annie is grateful for the one night of peace she is granted, grateful for the invisible hand wiping away the imaginary tears from her cheeks, a smooth thumb to caress her cheek and guide her to the gates of slumber.

It's only a wish, but she imagines waking up somewhere other than here, other than the Stohess District within these condemning walls.

Hopefully.

/chapter

Partner to "dream".

Also: can you tell? These are Annie's nightmares...and her dreams...but what is real and what is not?

(I guess you can decide ~)