Chapter 32

Sure enough, in the morning, I'm to make my way over to Shadis's office. I go early, opting for the hour when the trainees I know will no doubt still be asleep. The sun is nowhere to be seen, leaving the world darkened like dirt. The air is coarse, scruffy where it rubs up against my exposed cheeks. Winter may be ending, but the only time I truly feel its exit is when the sun crawls up to its peak. Not now, in the depths of its absence.

The man from before is nowhere to be seen this time around. Which is a shame, given his peculiar penchant for helping a stranger who narrowly avoided plowing into him on his way out of the bathroom. Not that I believe Shadis capable of dismissing me after all I've done to stay here.

An officer I vaguely recognize shows me up to the office. The fact that they're up and moving this early makes me sympathetic to their work schedule and impressed with their diligence. Shadis himself sits rigid, hawklike eyes beady and trained onto me from the second I enter the room. I walk slowly, stalking my way inside. He assesses my every motion with the kind of suspicion I've grown used to. It makes me want to smile, almost. I'd bet anything to learn what his face looked like when he found out the girl he kicked out was coming back with a vengeance.

I drag my heels together, clack, salute. The hand punched over my sternum clenches tight. "Sir."

Shadis lets me stand there, in statuesque rigidity, like he expects to see the timorous girl I once was begin to peek through if he makes me squirm for long enough. It's laughable; I did not survive because of nepotism, or favors curried, or even sheer strength and stubbornness. I survived simply because I decided to, because I committed myself to becoming the kind of person that could pull it off. I understand, now, why Shadis never bothered to interfere with Eren's progress after that first incident. He is not an immovable object. He bends. He breaks.

Eren and I do not.

At length, the tension unwinds out of his shoulders. "At ease," he proclaims. I let my body unspool from its posturing and posing. Let it fall into an ease that neither of us likely feel. "I expect a full report from you to make up for your absence."

If I could, I'd double over laughing, with tears in my eyes and pain in my cheeks from grinning for so long. "Of course."

Birds chirp in earnest above us, we surviving members of the eastern division, as the southern division begins their final briefing and the pad of our feet, progressing in a monotonous drumline, draws nearer and nearer to the people I once called home.

"Becker will share my position and oversee the instruction of you all until the final trainee exam. Until then, I expect full cooperation and civil conduct while your peers integrate into our camp. We begin sparring in two days. Until you graduate or flunk out, learn to get along." Even from here, lining up in three stodgy rows facing opposite from the southern division's lines, with Shadis pacing his way around his trainees–truly, nothing at all has changed–the shift in his voice rings loud and clear when it drops. "There will not be further reductions of our ranks from here on out."

The southern division moves as one, salutes as a single solitary unit. "Yes sir!" So well refined have they become it is near-impossible to study one of them without studying them all. The division posed in front of us are people that trained hard to stay here: trainees that earned their spots.

All of it makes me wonder what our division looks like in comparison. Facing off against a piddly group of ragtag survivors–several of which lasted simply because I never bothered to target them (like Hitch, Marlo, and Floch)–how weak and laughable we must seem. How small, how unlikely. Those who are no longer in the east did not earn their tickets out in any genuine sort of manner. Those who stayed, like myself, are not here for their merits either. I'm in the middle row, stuck behind a boulder of a man who does a practically perfect job of obscuring me from my former peers.

I wish I was at the front. I wish I was smack-dab in the center of the row, arms clasped behind my back and chin jerked up in rigid defiance of every force that's ever opposed me. I'd like to look every single former instructor, every single trainee in the eye and dare them to cast me aside now. I'd like to gaze into their souls and see for myself exactly what they think of me.

Becker moves to join Shadis as he emerges from between the southern rows. The two of them pause, scrutinizing the distinct groups of trainees, preparing to fuse them together as one. Becker clears her throat, snaps her words over our heads like whips. "The following trainees will now be relocated into the southern division."

Names fall into our ears one after the other, raindrops sliding down metal tracks during thunderstorms. One by one each droplet casts aside the cloud, trades it for a space wedged in between two blades of grass.

The first row goes.

The world opens up to me, unfurls like a flower in spring. I catch eyes aplenty: a few cursory glances, but most of them don't focus on me until Becker announces my name.

"Aliva Moreau. Seventh row, ninth spot."

Murmurs drift around the southern division. The tension in the air builds, huffing like an oversaturated dam filled near to bursting. The ranks and rigid postures of the trainees seem ready to break at any second. Heads turn as far as they're able without invoking the instructors' ire. I step forward.

The first person I recognize is Eren. He's delightfully bewildered, watching me with a peculiar sort of affronted wonder. I see Mikasa, glancing with that enviously poised, flawlessly neutral expression of hers. Armin, with his brows already touched in contemplation and thought. Let him ponder all he likes; he'll never surmise the full extent of what has transpired in order to bring me back here. I make a mental note to keep my story as vague and simple as possible whenever he's involved, though. The last thing I need is for him to concoct some way to disprove my innocence and have me permanently kicked out for interfering with the authenticity of the eastern division tests.

Not every reaction puts me on guard. Mina's eyes waver, her smile brighter than any sun I've seen this last year and a half. Christa looks at me fondly; I catch Ymir snort under her breath and slowly shake her head. My heart soars, sings. I was lying to myself when I said I had no attachments to this place. These people may not have been ones I would've chosen for myself were it not for the peculiar destiny the previous version of myself felt responsible for. But they have, over the last two and a half years, become mine. My friends.

Jean's gaze tickles something in my throat, making me realize how dry my mouth is. I swallow. He smiles gently. I guess I missed him, too. Marco's smile is more pronounced, friendlier. Which I can't pretend to be all that surprised about; after all, he's not the one I slept with. Connie and Sasha beam my way, triumphant in all they do, twins in all but lineage.

Then, of course, there are the warriors. It takes a peculiarly large amount of self-restraint to resist turning my attention towards the one place I most want it to go. Instead, I study the form of the blonde as I pass her. Annie hasn't changed a bit. If anything, the person standing before me now is a colder version of the one in my memories. She looks at me like she can't quite place me, like I'm a number out of order, a summer day with snow.

Bertholdt, when we lock eyes, only nods his head slightly. Just enough recognition to remain unsuspicious. Just enough to keep drawing that line between us. This time, I won't overexert myself by trying to cross it. Our days spent hunched over flickering candles are behind us. What lies ahead needs not for literary lessons.

And, finally, there is Reiner. I earned his first-look last night: devoured that taste of disbelief, understood the way his body had craved this moment as I slacked myself silly on thick strings of his saliva interwoven with mine, threaded by our tongues, by our husked breath and heated bodies. His expression today is too weird for me to understand in full. It's like he's another man entirely: like he recognizes me, but doesn't; like I am every bit here as I am not. A foot in the present, an entire leg in the past. His lips have calmed down, carrying no traces of our exchange in the dark, have repainted themselves back over in a calm, thin pink.

Mine still burn.

I stake my claim on my new position, not entirely dissimilar to where I used to stand back when I first enlisted. It is like a den, almost, or a nest that I once occupied in my youth. I've been cast out into the world, returned matured, and suddenly the place I once carved out as my own now cannot encompass me in full. I squirm and I writhe, curling into myself, making myself compact to fit the bedding used to me being small. The twigs poke my new growth; the mattress firm where new weight settles. I have outgrown my previous shell.

Oh, but what I wouldn't give to return to it. That is why I'm here, is it not?

And now, as I stand in the midst of the people who shaped me, I realize that it will not be a simple thing to be their version of Aliva again. The girl the southern division lost–the girl the eastern division gained–are too different from each other to ever be considered similar. I am both of them; I am neither. I've all the yearning of the former. The ruthlessness of the latter.

How do I explain to everyone I once knew what I have become, just to return here? How do I explain to everyone I cast aside to return here what I once was, just so that they'll understand? Do I deserve their empathy? Do I deserve time to make an explanation?

I remind myself, as Shadis and Becker finish up the merge, that I could have been crueler. I could have done worse. What I've discarded in terms of morality falls paltry in comparison to the depths that others still are willing to go. I could've been worse. Could have.

"Aliva! It's really you!" Mina crushes me between her arms, thrashing around so that our hug wobbles this way and that. I find myself laughing, reaching behind her head to stroke her hair back.

"As far as I'm aware, it's still me. I'm here."

There's sparkling tears, newborn and iridescent, cradling themselves in the craters of her eyes. "We missed you."

"Yeah? And here I thought you wouldn't recognize me."

To our right, Ymir guffaws. "Did you grow a third tit?"

"Ymir–" Christa protests, laughter betraying the amusement laced into her shock. The woman in question remains entirely unfazed, leaning back fractionally and crossing her arms.

"Well?"

I roll my eyes. "Course not. You can check if you want."

At that, Christa throws a–don't say that–glance my way. I feel my cheeks start to burn as another smile encroaches onto my features. Ymir nudges Christa's shoulder, distracting and diffusing her. It seems that in my absence the little blonde has grown more bold in staking her claim to the freckled brunette. Not that many would vie for her in that sense. "There you have it. You're still the same headache I remember. Nothing's changed."

"What of you all, then, hm? What's to say you're not the ones that changed in my absence?"

Mina huffs, finally pulling back far enough to plop down on the mattress. She pulls me next to her. Only an hour since I've been reintegrated and she's already bullied half a dozen girls into switching the bunk arrangement around to get me closer to her. For old time's sake. For friendship. I can't complain. "We are exactly as you left us," she says.

"Mmm. What a shame," I lament. "I was looking forward to hearing all the antics that occurred in my absence."

Ymir smirks. "No, there were plenty of those."

I let Mina pull me down onto the mattress next to her. How easy it is, to fall back into old rhythms. One of my eyelids droops shut. I throw an arm behind my head, using it like a pillow, my legs draped off the edge of the bed, feet mingling with Christa and Ymir's own boots. I glance over to the right, looking around at the rows and rows of bunks. I catch Hitch's eye for a moment: she's shocked, evidently taken aback by my familiarity here. It's jarring, no doubt, to watch the woman who was coined the Reaper lay relaxed and at ease in the arms of a pigtailed, bright-eyed trainee. Laughing, socializing. More shocking still when Sasha, Mina's bunkmate in my absence, and Mikasa, my new bunkmate (who Mina has sworn to try and persuade into switching bunks) come join our modest reunion.

Hitch sets her bag on her bunk and walks away.

It is easier to listen to the stories told by the girls I care about than it is to decide how to fabricate my own. The late night drinking parties got busted and discontinued. Jean and Eren got in several dozen more fights (I can't say I'm surprised). Mina confesses to a failed crush (the name she whispered in her sleep returns to me. I think, for a moment, that he rejected her; Mina quickly whispers to me that she oversaw a weirdly tender look in Marco's eyes as he watched Jean one day). Armin crawled out of his shell, little by little, with the kind of progress that only Mikasa could have noticed. She makes a point to mention how quickly he earned his blades, despite the odds stacked against him. It's cute, their friendship.

Not all news they bring is kind, though. Christa tells of the time she got kidnapped and held for impromptu ransom during a wasteland excursion. To say I am thankful she–and the rest of them, really–crawled out of that mess safe and sound is an understatement.

The infirmary is, unlike my fellows, exactly as I remember it to be. Johan stands behind the counter. He's grown a bit of facial hair, and I can't say that it suits him. He pauses his work, eyes immediately attracted to the motion of the door opening. Recognition blooms in his face. "Miss Moreau." He straightens up, stepping around the desk. "What can I do for you?"

"I forgot it all."

Johan pauses, gears whirring in his head. "Let me get your chart," he says. "Why don't you sit down?"

The day dims in its fervor, diluting warmth with the shade of the night. Before long, trainees will be flocking to the mess hall for dinner. But until then–I make my way over to the chairs and tuck myself into the one partially facing the window.

Johan returns, paper file in hand. He thrums through it, refreshing himself on my information. Satisfied, he leans back and creases a new page down flat. "The last we have on your file is your respiratory arrest a year and six months ago?"

"Sounds right."

"And how have you been feeling since then?"

"Well," I say, and despite it all, I think I mean it. "I'm out of medicine. Got caught in a fire, and inhaled some smoke. The garrison doctor said it wasn't enough for any detriment."

Johan pauses his notetaking. "The garrison?"

"Mhm. All in all, I'm doing rather well. I'd say I'm healthier than I've been in a long time." After a moment, his head bows back down. The notes continue. That is what I like about Johan: his curiosity takes a backseat to his duty as a man of medicine. Never once did he press me for specifics. Never once did he ask of me more than I, as both patient and person, was willing to provide.

"And your memory. You mentioned developing some further complications?"

I grimace. "Everything that I remember about myself prior to the Fall of Shiganshina is gone. I…wrote it all down, just to have a copy for reference. But I lost that in the fire."

Johan taps his writing instrument against the page. Flips it, creates new creases. "Have you considered rewriting your old accounts?"

I blink. "No. I haven't. I'm less interested in grasping at straws than I am in getting the real thing back."

Again, the pen wavers. He leans back, breathes in deeply. I watch him mull over everything I've provided him with. Wait for the verdict. The floorboards of the infirmary, well-worn wood and sound-softening in the shape of their erosion, stretch between us like measured breaths growing long and limber.

I place the pads of my thumbs together, kissing the fingerprints, melding their grooves and fusing them into a whole. "Give me your honest opinion. Even if it's half-formed."

He scratches his facial scruff. It really doesn't suit him. "Then I'll speak plainly, Miss Moreau. I am curious if your memory loss is a result of a self-imposed block or a true inability to access those memories." He leans forward, setting the file down on the table between us and giving me his full, undivided attention. "Have there ever been any instances where you felt yourself familiarizing with something just beyond your recollection? Any moments where you felt you might recognize something as your own, only to come up just a tad short?"

It bothers me, how quickly my tongue wants to spit out the word yes. There's something else it wants to hum: a tune I've picked up and let rumble out my throat in the wake of every test reading in the eastern division. Every trainee that walked out of that camp due to my interference left with that peculiar song in their ears and an angry, unresolved ache in their hearts. Is that why I hummed? Because something inside of me reverberated with those emotions, empathized with that irresolution?

"...and if I say yes? What then?"

"Then, Miss Moreau, I'm afraid it's very possible that your memory loss may be self-imposed."

I stew on Johan's verdict all the way from the infirmary to the mess hall. Or at least, that's what I'd planned to do, before running smack-dab into Mikasa. She's standing up against the alley cut between the two buildings in a way that's so deeply her I almost fail to describe it. Her posture lacks what I would expect, were it Armin waiting. I'd expect to see him posed up on a crate, or some other natural posturing. Were it Eren, I'd imagine him slouched to the point where it's almost laughable, propped up on the wall like it's actually slanted. Instead Mikasa waits like a sentry, at ease with the unease required of a perfectly tuned physique.

"Waiting for me?"

She pushes off the wall, straightens (I didn't think it was possible for her to get any straighter), and faces me. "Yes."

"Is it about the bunk situation? I apologize if Mina bullied you into moving."

Mikasa's lip twitches. "No, not that. I don't mind switching if the officers clear it." It's a polite way of saying she'll stay where she is for now. Unless there's a disagreement, it's not easy to get switched around officially. I doubt that the officers will let us swap just because Mina misses sharing a bed with me.

I shrug, falling into step with her. She's taller than me, looking forward with the kind of composure that makes me feel leagues away from wherever she is. "What then?"

"Must I have a reason?"

It's my turn to fight a smile. "Were it anyone else, I think I'd be less curious. Even Eren, notorious for the way he detested me, used to approach me when he was itching to let off steam. You, though…" something in me twists. I don't understand why. "You and I never really met alone like this."

Mikasa looks down at me, and yet, she doesn't. There is no superiority in her height; no status in her gaze. She's everything I envy: just, upright, morally fixed, empathetic, stunning, intelligent, strong. I am her shadow: weaseled, warped, dark and jagged and cunning and conniving and gutless. "I was wrong to do so," she tells me, softly.

My boots scuff over a hidden rock in the sparse snow. "Pardon?"

"Armin and I…were wrong. All these years, we watched Eren treat you unkindly. We never stopped him when we should have."

My walk tapers off to a halt. I don't think I'm capable of moving and processing the weight of what Mikasa is giving me. "His anger wasn't entirely unfounded, you know. Hell, you were there. Armin wasn't. I always thought that's why you never said anything–because you saw it and understood Eren."

"No, Aliva," she shakes her head. "I was there. That's exactly why I should have said something."

I can see it, then. That faint weight in her gait. The drag on her expression, the self-imposed guilt. For all the time I've beat myself up for letting Carla die, she's beat herself up for letting Eren process his grief by taking it out on me. We are equally dark, equally corrupt, equally empathetic and strong-hearted. My breath hitches. "I've forgiven you a long time ago. You, Armin, Eren. All of you."

She turns away. Silently, resumes her footsteps. I can't remember if she stopped walking before or after I did. "Were you…well?"

The abrupt, hesitant way she sets the question between us makes me smile in earnest. "Can't say that I was."

"Eren worried for you." I snort. When I glance over at Mikasa, her eyes have creased with faint, lovely, subtle amusement. "In his own way."

"Yeah?"

"You left a lingering impression after we saw you in the market."

I wince. Never in my life do I plan to touch one of those papafer leaf-laced cigars again, let alone mix it with drink. "How funny."

This time, when Mikasa smiles, it feels more genuine than any word we've ever exchanged. "You're walking straighter now than you were back then."

I chuckle. "Perhaps my tolerance just got higher."

"Mmm."

We fall into silence, in a way that's not entirely comfortable because we've yet to have enough exchanges to grow familiar with the quiet. So it shouldn't shock me when my mouth runs traitorous just to escape that awkward nothingness. "I'm sorry you had to watch Eren do that."

The change in Mikasa is near-tangible. I regret speaking immediately. "Watch what." It's not a question.

"Watch him resuscitate me." I feel childish, small and fussy over something embarrassing. But it's not me whose ears flush.

"I should have done it," she says. She doesn't accept the apology. She doesn't cast it aside entirely, either.

The doors to the mess hall creak open. Warm light spills out, explodes onto the darkened patio. The inside smells like body heat and warm food. My stomach grumbles as dinner wafts its way into my nose. I don't see the girls yet, which bums me out a little bit. There'll be plenty of meals to share with them between now and the final trainee exam. I look over my shoulder to find Mikasa halfway across the room already, mingling with Armin. I avoid the pair, instead making my way over to the food line. Tonight's dinner is a vegetable stew paired with a roll. Nabbing my tray and drink, I make it all of four steps before I come up flush with Connie and Marco. "Come sit with us!" Connie encourages, already patting me on the back and guiding me towards their table. "I'm dying to know how you managed to make it back here."

"I second that," Marco chimes in, as I set my tray down and step over the bench to sit.

I scoot in, Connie on my left and Marco across from me. Not even a minute passes before the seat on my other side gets claimed by someone who was tall when I left and taller now that I've returned. "Hello, trouble."

"Hey yourself." Jean eases himself into sitting, exchanging quick greetings with his other friends. "Did I miss the story?"

I dig a spoon into the soup, trying it for myself. It's not as salty as I remember it being. "Hasn't started yet."

Jean grins, rubbing his hands together. "Good. I would've been disappointed if you told everyone how you got that new nickname without me."

"You mean the Reaper title?" I ask, tilting my head. Jean's gotten a little scruffier; his hair longer, more mangy.

Connie answers for him. "What else would we mean? Everyone's been talking about it since we saw you this morning."

I eat another spoonful. "How'd you know it was me?"

"I told them." I turn around. Reiner's got his tray in his hands, looking like he needs a place to sit. Why he's decided to approach the table–why he's decided to approach me after last night–is beyond me. I don't get him. I don't get what happened.

Connie waves him over, grinning. "Good timing! Aliva was about to tell us all about it."

My hand twitches, fingers curled around the spoon. "It's stuff you've already heard," I say, because I don't know what else to say. He's made it clear that we talked–at least that he learned enough to determine that I'm the Reaper. Who else would have told him that if not me?

"Hardly," he insists, taking the spot that Connie clears for him across the table next to Marco. "I just happened to overhear some officers last night talking about it. They never said how the nickname came about."

My brows furrow. I don't understand what he's aiming at, playing things like this. Why spread half-truths? Why approach me like this at all after we drew a line? Jean taps the side of my head. "Must be one hell of a story."

His lopsided, slightly goofy grin feels out of place and exactly what I needed. It makes me want to divulge the full story: to go into detail about how I became the Reaper. Who I hurt and who hurt me. My thumb runs its way over to my ring finger, twisting the wedding band. I sigh. Jean's eyes are soft, patient. I missed him. I missed all of them.

"It's not exactly a nice story," I confess, and surprise myself when I feel lighter at the admonition.

"Like hell it isn't." Floch drops his tray onto the table with a thick clack, stew sloshing out past the rim of his bowl and his roll of bread tumbling all the way towards Marco. Floch narrows his eyes, levels his gaze at me, and sneers. "Go on, Reaper. Tell them how you earned it. Or should I do the honors? All I've got are theories to go on, though."

I ignore him, pick up my roll, and pry my fingers into it to mask the way they shake. Be it of anger or some suppressed fear–what kind of expressions will they make if they know what the eastern division thought of me–I can't decide. Marco, bless him, wastes no time in donning the role of our mediator. "I don't think we've met yet," he says, stalling and smiling at the same time. "I'm Marco Bodt. And you are…?"

This, apparently, was the wrong thing to say. Floch treats Marco's words like an invitation to stay, so he plops down and stretches out as if he intends to engage in a full battle of wits here with me. It's as if he's saying he won't back down until I do. That he was playing defense before, back when I was the invader. But now that it's become clear that this is my home turf–now that it's painfully obvious where I was before I went there–it's his turn to go on the attack.

He grins. His teeth glint in the yellow light. "I'm Floch Forester. I'd introduce you to my sister, but your friend here made sure Heidi couldn't transfer over."

The roll in my hands snaps in two. I was a pushover, back when Eren and Jean fought in the cabin and I stumbled in at exactly the wrong time. I let them think of me what they will. To be fair to my previous self, there is still a large portion of me that feels I had that coming. That I can't reproach Eren for saying what he does because his hatred is justified. A kernel of that mindset has transplanted itself into my ordeal with Floch, by telling me he's not wrong about his sister. That I did have a hand in making sure she wouldn't show at this table tonight. Fair or otherwise, that's how the cards fell. I knocked them over, and now they've landed face up, hands outstretched and pointed in my direction.

"Fuck off, Floch. Haven't you had enough of this?"

He freezes. Even the faces I'm familiar with look caught off guard. It's the kind of venom I never spewed here; the kind of aggrieved hostility that I never displayed when someone bared their teeth at me. The only one who doesn't look entirely taken aback is Reiner. I can't say I'm surprised; his neck no doubt remembers the sharp side of my canines after pissing me off in that cave.

Floch laughs. "There's the Reaper I remember. I didn't think you still had that kind of language in you, after laying down for all kinds of men–"

Several things happen at once. Jean and Reiner are up almost instantaneously. Connie's "Woah–" and Marco's "Hey now–" are entirely drowned out by the sounds of Floch's face smacking into his stew bowl. Reiner was closer, but Jean had the longer reach; his hand has a fistful of Floch's strawberry red hair in its grasp. Reiner's own fist is hunched together. Had Jean not shoved the offending face down, the armored titan's knuckles no doubt would've made their way straight into his nose.

I'm annoyed by all of it. By the scene that we've caused; by the way that the entire table has risen to my defense before I even had a chance to do it myself. Anything I do now will be seen as riding coattails, as hiding behind those more capable than myself. But if I do nothing, I'll be no better than I was before.

Floch yanks his head back up, shouting at Jean, red in the face with anger, embarrassment, or perhaps even both. "What the fuck, dude?"

"Bet with me," I interject. My voice is cold water, smooth and entirely unperturbed by the disturbances caused by my table, by my existence.

Floch spits, wiping squash off his lip, glaring all the while. "No."

"If I win," I carry on, pretending I didn't hear him, "I expect you to let sleeping dogs lie. What happened in the east will stay there."

"Fuck that–"

"–And if you win, I'll tell Shadis and Becker that I screwed with Heidi's scores."

Our table falls still. Hell, the whole hall goes silent. I've got Floch's attention now. His focus slowly sharpens, a knife gradually whetted, wielded in my direction. "What's the game?"

I shake my head. "No game. What you want is something to vent your anger, isn't it? I believe our head instructors have something sufficient planned starting up in the next two days."

Jean steps back from Floch, looking at me with widened eyes. "The fights? But, Aliva…"

Floch laughs. Crosses his arms, smugly, the leftover stew on his face forgotten now that I've managed to dangle such an enticing carrot in front of his face. I never got in his way physically during the tests. Never made an effort to pit my strength against his. Because I worked in the shadows, and because we never clashed, neither of us are really aware of what the other is capable of. It's a gamble, a bet.

"I want the first match. No using other spars as an excuse to sweep a loss under the rug."

"Of course."

"No preparation beforehand."

"Naturally."

"No stand-ins, no funny business. Fair fight."

I nod. Offer my hand out to shake. "Satisfied?"

Floch shoves his hand into mine, gripping hard enough to gnash the bones in my fingers together. He sneers again, leaning in, snarling his parting words straight down my throat. "Not until you get what you deserve."

Duel squared away, score left unsettled, the trainee shoves my hand away from his–as if my proximity alone disgusts him–and storms out, meal untouched, save for the pieces of winter squash sticking out obstinately against the pallor of his hair.

A/N: Updates, updates, updates...

Fencing is literally so much fun! I am having a blast, save for the fact that I am SEVERELY out of shape. Classes are fine for now, but good lord am I dreading how I'm going to figure out my course load for the next semester. I'm going to be busy as fuck. :(
My silly little hand injury, which has healed externally to the point where my fingers have scars on them, is still causing me nothing but trouble where my ability to bend my fingers is concerned. I dread the thought of finding a PT for my hand, but genuinely I thought it would be all healed up by now? Not causing me pain still? People with hand injury experience-is this normal heal time? I genuinely have no idea. Lol.

Until next time!