Author's Note: Warnings for foul language (from Ymir).
A day earlier…
~ Armin Arlert ~
"Thomas made me do it!" Armin shouts desperately the minute Sasha kicks down the door to the boys' dormitories.
(useless, all useless; I was stupid and now I'm dead.)
Hungry Sasha is not something you want to mess with. Armin says something and not someone because that's really what she is on an empty stomach: less human and more monster. Especially now in the morning before breakfast when her stomach's been empty all night. Usually, this isn't a problem, because Sasha's a late sleeper, and on the rare occasion that she does wake up before the mess hall opens, she apparently has a secret stash of food somewhere that prevents her from going absolutely insane.
On a dare, Armin had sought out this legendary stash. And lo and behold, he finally triangulated its location by noting which direction Sasha looked first when he told her about forest fires; after all, any human would look towards their most treasured possession in the midst of an emergency situation. Knowing she was a late sleeper, he'd snuck over in the early hours of the morning and taken a small amount of dried meat as proof that the place of whispered legend was truly a full reality.
And he'd been in the middle of showing this proof to Thomas when Sasha exploded in. He sees how she seems to only be wearing an oversized shirt (and maybe panties) but doesn't possess the human emotion of shame about it. He sees the red glint in her eyes and the way her teeth are bared and how her sharpened fingernails leave dents in the wooden door. Still, Armin tries to reason with her in hopes that she still has a scrap of humanity left. "Thomas wanted me to bring him some meat! It was a dare!"
The taller blonde frantically scrabbles away from Armin's accusing finger. "It was a game!" Thomas begs, tossing the rabbit jerky at Armin. "Truth or Dare, and Armin chose Dare!"
The rabbit meat bounces around Armin's hands before he finally closes his fists around it. Though he doesn't want to be the one in possession of the incriminating evidence, he knows it'd be even worse if he was the one to defile it by dropping it on the floor. "I chose Truth!" he screams, lugging the meat back in Thomas' direction.
He purposely throws it just barely off-center, making Thomas have to take a couple steps to the side. This horrible life-or-death game of hot potato occurs simultaneously alongside their rapid-fire argument.
"But you lied!" Thomas roars.
"You asked me if I was a boy or girl and I told you the truth."
"You can't fool me with your moe foolery! Liar."
"What are you talking about?"
"No! Must resist! Liesssss!"
Unfortunately, Sasha is not a woman of words. She is not woman, period. Her jaw seems to unhinge open as she leaps, a la jumping Titan style, for his hands.
Armin screams and chucks the rabbit jerky at Thomas. Impossibly, Sasha changes directions in midair—until Armin's analytical mind picks up on tiny details, like how Sasha twists her torso and brings in her arms towards her body like a figure skater, adding a tight spin to her body's trajectory that brings her wide-open mouth just within reach of the dried meat. With a horrendous crunching noise, Sasha's teeth close violently around the rabbit flesh.
(oh whew she is wearing panties underneath that shirt)
Then she lands on Thomas. The powerful crack of the wooden floorboards underneath Thomas' twisted corpse sounds, to Armin's ears, like the gunshot of a predator finishing off her prey.
Now, while Sasha's distracted with the carcass. While she's busy tearing his clothes apart with her claws and mutilating his face with her mouth.
(...Why? Why can't I move? My friend is being devoured and all I can do is…)
No matter; he already knows that it's too late. The world seems to have slowed to a halt. Sasha turns around slowly, her glowing red eyes leaving burning afterstreaks in the relative darkness. His life flashes in front of his eyes as he gives up all hope and collapses to his hands and knees.
He can't move. He can barely breathe. He can't do anything more than recall the happier times of his life—and today was going to be the perfect day. Jean had promised so this morning, upon viewing Bertolt's latest sleeping position. (Somehow, sleeping on his back with one foot propped up against the wall and the other almost touching his face meant sunny skies with occasional cloud cover and cool winds but no rain.)
He freezes as Sasha's ominous shadow overtakes him. He can hear nothing but the pounding of his heart in his ears, but he senses something warm and thick dripping slowly onto his back. Whether it's blood or drool doesn't matter; he is so stricken with terror that he might just keel over and die now.
(Eren… Mikasa… I'm sorry for being nothing more than a burden…)
Sasha interrupts his pitiful thoughts with a low voice full of sensual desire. "Breakfast time~."
~ Sasha Braus ~
Sasha regains her senses as soon as her stomach figures out that it's filled with meat. She isn't hungry anymore, and that means she can complete what she needs to do efficiently.
Thus it is that she properly disposes of the bodies before breakfast.
Then, when the mess hall opens its front doors, Sasha is, as usual, the first one to stack her tray with three bowls of oatmeal, a small pile of apples, one egg, and one carton of milk. She then busies herself in what she does best: packing as much food as she can into her gullet.
(Don't judge me, I was born this way)
Before she joined the military, she lived three years in the city as an orphan. And before that, she lived in an extremely isolated mountain village. Now, the military (usually) gives her all the food she wants, and if they don't, she just steals more of it. It's that simple. Sasha is a simple girl that way, and because of that, she is perfect happy with her life. Physically fit and very happy.
And… she's also growing. A lot. And in places that, well, she should have known were coming… but she really didn't grow up with a mother or sister or any sort of woman in her life, so seriously. Stop judging.
"Krista," she calls as the blonde passes by with her tray. "May I ask you a question?"
Krista smiles and seats herself next to Sasha. "How can I help?" she says kindly. Sasha feels a warmth spread in her chest at Krista's niceness. Krista's just a nice girl that way, and everybody loves her for it. Boys and girls, it doesn't matter.
Like Ymir. Ymir really likes Krista, and the minute Krista sits down at Sasha's table, Ymir sits across from Krista. "Whaddya want now?" the brunette growls, smashing her egg and peeling off the shell threateningly.
Sasha blushes slightly, but she speaks up at Krista's encouraging smile. "How can I make my chest as small as Ymir's?"
Ymir spews chewed-up bits of egg all over her oatmeal. "The hell you playin' at, girl? Do you want me to punch you in the—fuck that hurts!"
It seems as if Krista has just kicked Ymir under the table, but the face that she turns towards Sasha is just as kind and reassuring as ever. "Do you have a problem with your… chest?"
"Boobs," Ymir corrects loudly. "They're called—bitch I will cut someone else if you don't cut the kicking out!"
"You will not hurt anybody," Krista says firmly. "With words or fists."
Ymir deflates instantly, and she smiles. "Anything for you, babe."
There are a lot of things that Sasha wants to ask. She wants to know how Krista how she laces up her boots with them in the way. She wants to know how Krista exercises, especially when they won't stop moving around every time she takes a step. She wants to know how she can hide them when they're being too loud and proud. But now, with Ymir nursing her bruised shins and occasionally glaring daggers at her when Krista isn't looking, and with her squad mates looking in her direction after Ymir's angry outbursts, Sasha no longer wants to ask Krista these questions.
Not here, at least.
"You want a stupid answer?" snarls Ymir. "Stop eating so damn much! All those calories go straight to your padded places. For normal girls, that's usually the hips, but you just so happen to be special."
Sasha glances down at her empty bowls of oatmeal and her five apple cores. There's no doubt that Ymir is telling the truth; this is just the way she is. She's very blunt and truthful, just like Sasha is simple and Krista is kind.
Krista pounds a tiny fist on the table. "Normal people aren't as inconsiderately mean as you are."
Ymir guffaws. "Are you kidding? That was a compliment! In fact, whatever Sasha's got, I wish you'd catch it." Ymir reaches across the table and pokes at Krista.
Krista slaps Ymir's hand away before she can get a full feel-up. "Hey, stop it."
"What? You alwa—"
"Shh! Not now!"
"Tonight, then?"
"Shut up!"
Ymir does not speak, but she does a strange little action in which she licks the empty space between her two fingers that form the shape of a V. Krista blushes furiously and throws her empty milk carton at Ymir.
Sasha taps Krista on the shoulder. Ymir takes the chance to lob an apple at the blonde as she turns her attention on Sasha, so Sasha covers her by reaching out and grabbing the fruit out of midair (and then, partly of spite and mostly because it's just what she does whenever her hand is holding something edible, she takes a bite out of it.) Ymir glares daggers at her again, but she asks anyways, "Do you think I can bring my question to Annie?"
Annie, who sits behind them at the next table over, has no chest either. There must be something that girl does to keep her chest small, especially since she is one year older than Sasha is. Though she also doesn't talk so much, and there's always the chance that she just might pretend that Sasha doesn't exist, so maybe Sasha will have to ask Mina.
Ymir apparently is not done with her revenge, because she picks up one of Sasha's apple cores and tosses it at Sasha's head. Sasha only sees the flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye
(in the forest hunting with a bow and arrow deer moves to my left act on reflex)
Sasha ducks her head. The apple core flies harmlessly by and hits the back of somebody at Annie's table. The person glances at the apple core on the ground and then jumps to his feet, roaring, "Eren Yeager! Throwing your garbage at me again, huh? Is that really what you think of me?"
Across the room, Eren also explodes to his feet. "Are you trying to trash-talk me again, Jean? I didn't do anything!"
Ah, yes. It was going to happen sooner or later: Eren and Jean's roundabout declarations of love. Sometimes it comes to rolling around on the floor, hitting and hurting each other, but most of the time it's just yelling at each other across the room like an old married couple.
It's really cute.
"This is totally your apple: it has your bite marks all over it! And I'd know, because I still have that bruise on my shoulder from four nights ago!"
Erejean, she likes to call them. (But only in my head. Stop judging, seriously.)
An apple core bounces off Sasha's head this time, bringing her attention over to Ymir. The girl rolls her eyes and spits, "Suck up your slobber. There is no Unresolved Sexual Tension in that exchange, any more than there is secret rivalry hate-love between Mikasa and Annie."
Sasha tilts her head at this new information and immediately settles into observation mode. While Jean and Eren are vocally expressing their extreme dislike for each other, Annie shovels oatmeal into her mouth and Mikasa… her face… is about as expressive as a block of concrete. A tiny cloud of exasperation puffs from her mouth once, but that's it. They're the complete opposite of Eren and Jean.
And maybe that's why…
"Stop teasing Sasha," Krista protests. "She's not—"
"Do you not see that drool? Shit, girl, don't launch your ships all over me. Sasha, look, that was supposed to be a joke. The most you'll be able to conclude from their facial expressions is that Annie doesn't give a fuck—big surprise there."
"Ymir!"
"And Mikasa? Who the hell knows what goes on in that girl's mind? She has the same damn face all the time! I swear, it's probably even her Big O Face." Ymir smiles mischievously as she stretches out her long legs.
"What is a Big O Face?" Sasha asks politely, though most of her attention is still on observing Mikasa's expressions as Eren moves out of his seat and stomps towards Jean angrily.
"This." Ymir stretches her right leg this time.
Krista stiffens very suddenly. "Oh! Ymir, not… now!" she hisses.
Ymir just smiles.
The scream of a goddess in passion brings a certain blonde back to life.
He gasps, momentarily choking on his own spit. His body is still paralyzed in lingering pain, but his blue eyes dart around frantically, assessing the situation. His last memories involve a shadowy monster, one with only a slight resemblance to Sasha, tearing into his body…
His cries for help go unheard for the next two hours, until his savior finally arrives in a glorious exhibition of sweet soap and wet, exposed skin.
Next chapter, in which Mikasa fights to win…
"Have you seen yourself? You're covered in dirt and blood and sweat! And I'm pretty sure none of it is even yours."
"Correct. The green slime is mostly from Dazz's nose."
"Ugh. Go clean yourself up before you catch the ugly."