Sorry I didn't update, I was busy. I'll try and post a new chapter every week if I'm not lazy or busy. :) Oh and for the sake of this fanfic can we all pretend that Rivaille is taller than Mikasa?
Chapter Four
Damn it Mikasa slow down, she's getting tired. Rivaille thought to himself referring to the ebony haired girl's stallion.
He was compelling his horse to continue striding even though it had been several hours that the pair had been trailing after Mikasa. Rivaille knew this would happen, but the foulest part of it all was that he broke it to her in the most awful, conceivable way he could ever envision. To know that Rivaille had told someone else before Mikasa would have been tear-jerking to hear. Rivaille felt a sudden rush of prodigious emotions indulge him. His chest was beginning to ache and his heart thumped a little faster than normal. He wondered if this was what it felt like to have the guilt eat away inside you.
Then as if by unfortunate luck Mikasa's horse faltered and Mikasa was flung a far distance away from her companion. Rivaille watched as she rolled endlessly away from her horse, until she enforced herself to halt before grumbling in agony. The Corporal enlarged his eyes immediately then he pulled his reigns to signal his horse to speedily stride to his inferior.
"Mikasa!" He yelled in a concerned tone, his eyebrows knitting together.
When he reached her wounded stallion he leaped off his own and raced towards Mikasa, who was sluggishly hauling herself off the ground. Rivaille noticed that she was luckily not injured and sighed in relief.
"Are you alright?" He asked her and she pivoted her body so that she wasn't fronting him. He could catch her inaudible snivelling. She took a big bottomless breath before rotating around to face him.
"Eren's not dead, he can't be dead." She told him through her cries.
She struggled to run away but Rivaille managed to clutch her wrist firmly, in time. To which she only wept more before she began to hit his chest with her weak fists, repeatedly in rage. She eventually got weary and stopped her violent gesture. She snuffled and relaxed her head alongside his chest. Rivaille's idle, thumping heart was the only thing that Mikasa needed to hear to make her feel tranquil and serene. Bewildered by Mikasa's affectionate gesture Rivaille flickered an eyelid and unhurriedly encompassed his sturdy, virile arms around his inferior. Never in a long time had he ever enfolded such a dejected person. The only people or thing he ever embraced before he joined the Scouting Legion was his knees, because in those streets, everybody identified who he was except nobody offered to be his friend. They would make him feel so secluded and desolate. As if the whole world was against him in that exact moment.
"He's not dead." Rivaille repeated, trying to bolster Mikasa with his croaky yet lenient voice.
Rivaille's mare whinnied to grasp his attention. He drew away from Mikasa and approached her damaged stallion with a calculating gaze. She was unobtrusive but he knew, just by beholding into those large, petroleum – coloured eyes that she was suffering from a broken leg.
He could hear Mikasa's dainty footsteps approach from behind him. "Is she going to be alright?" She asked apprehensively, kneeling down and caressing her stallion sympathetically. It sounded as if she hadn't even been crying, she was hasty to tweak herself together and return to her standard demeanour. It was patently peculiar but after spending a decade with Mikasa, Rivaille was already used to this.
"A broken leg won't do either of us anything." He answered in a mutter.
Mikasa didn't glance up, she only continued to caress her suffering companion affectionately. "What do we do?"
Rivaille blinked, forcing the answer to withdraw from his mouth. "Eradicating her is the only option we have."
Hearing his reply she stopped caressing brusquely and glanced up at the vista ahead. Even though she was afraid to confess the truth, the only way to put her stallion out of its desolation was to kill it. They weren't going to get anywhere if they brought a stallion with a fragmented leg with them. Mikasa hoisted up, facing the Corporal with an impassive expression and nodded in understanding.
"If it's not too much to ask Corporal, I don't want to do it." Mikasa told him. "It wouldn't feel right if I did it." Rivaille nodded. The raven haired girl knelt down again and planted a soft, gentle kiss on her stallion's muzzle.
The sky was promptly changing and the clouds were travelling away, becoming overcast silhouettes in the melancholy evening sky. The atmosphere became soundless and the wind was humming soundlessly and cordially. The Corporal's mare was scraping against the moist grass, its hooves filling up with dirt. There was a repugnant smell that loitered in the air and the disturbing sound of a stallion's last wail led a tremor down Mikasa's spine. The sun had lost its illumination and the smell of death surrounded her stallion's carcass.
Later on that evening Rivaille and Mikasa were congregated around a miniature fire. The pair hadn't mumbled a word since the incident of earlier. They had witnessed death countless times before, why was this one so diverse? The fire hissed and Mikasa watched the flames dance with flamboyance. Soon enough, one of them was bound to disrupt the stillness. Rivaille's mare whinnied in exhaustion and Mikasa was still wondering about Eren.
"You should stop worrying." Rivaille told her as he prodded the thick branches in the fire with his sword.
Mikasa sighed and hugged her knees, her stomach felt like a quarry of desolation. "I feel so miserable and all I can do is…feel it." She replied to him, her eyes drooping with grief.
Rivaille exchanged his gaze over to her, uncertain of exactly what to say back. "Why is he so special to you?" He asked.
Mikasa dropped her chin onto her knees and frowned. "He saved me." She simply replied. "We have nobody but each other and because he saved me, I feel like I have to repay him the favour."
Rivaille prodded the fire again. "So he never meant anything more than just a brother? Or a bestfriend?" He asked, although he was unsure himself why he was so intrigued to know what Eren meant to her. As long as he could remember, Mikasa was just a partner he had to tolerate for a decade, nothing more.
Mikasa skimmed her eyes over to him with an interested look on her face. "Why do you care?"
He creased his eyebrows. "I've spent 10 years with you. I know that you get irritated easily, you never eat, you are constantly wanting to be alone, whenever you get angry there's a little vein in your forehead that pops up. And yet, I don't know anything about you."
She shrugged her slouched shoulders. "There's nothing to tell." She paused for a brief moment, calculating in her mind what to say next. "Eren's basically the only thing that summarises my entire existence."
"But it's different now. You have to let the past go." He thought out loud by accident.
"Yeah, but it won't let me go."
The fire crackled again but this time the dancing flames had disappeared. The night was creeping around the corner and they had to set off soon. It suddenly began to get cold and Rivaille was debating whether he could hear a large herd of horses from a mile away.
He stood up and reached his hand out to Mikasa. Her eyes followed his skinny fingers and eventually they met with his piercing, argent orbs.
"We better get going." He insisted.
Mikasa grabbed his hand and the aloofness of both their hands kindled something between them. It was like a lightning bolt had crash into them both and they were suddenly confused about who the other was. The skin on Mikasa's neck arose and she couldn't help but feel an unhealthy shade of pink appear on her prominent cheeks.
Rivaille helped her up and he immediately turned his back on her, knotting some of her bags to his mare's saddle.
"I'll take the front so you can rest your head against me if you fall asleep." He told her as he mounted his muscular weight onto the mare. He reached his hand out to her again to help her support herself as she ascended onto the horse. The touch of her bleak skin made Rivaille's body rigid and he was so tangled up about his feelings he almost didn't want to be with Mikasa. Even though it had been several years he was still wordlessly mourning over Petra. He wondered whether he was ever going to move on and start from a new page.
I know it's a bit short but I needed to update. I'm not entirely happy with this chapter because I've had exams and I feel like my head is fried so please bare with me whilst I get my brain functioning properly. :) x
