Mischa helped carve wood with her father. She was a bit on the quieter side, disinterested in the affairs of most, perturbed by customers and irritated by financial disparity. Mischa held blond locks like the epicenter of the sun: dazzling to the eyes, theoretically, if one could manage to stare long enough. That was the issue with her–always so bright, so illustrious, that as painful as it was to draw into her flame it was harder still to turn away.
Of course I fell in love.
Her father held a contract with my mother, an agreement to craft our presses. My mother was exceptionally particular about her production, and insisted on wooden instruments and wooden instruments alone. "The olives know what's pressing against their sides," she told me, back when I was young and malleable. Her nose twitched as she jutted up her chin. "That's why our product is superior. Details matter, Alaina."
I believed her for it, too, until I overheard an argument between her and my father. Apparently she'd lost out on local sales awhile back because she'd been using imported, fancy state-of-the art machinery. He'd insisted she switch over to local artisans in our valley; had been insisting ever since. When she growled at him, saying "You are the reason we're stuck with these profit margins," he'd agreed.
Of course she wanted to switch back to foreign imports after he died.
By then I'd already met Mischa, and the care with which her father handled our sales made me realize how important our business was to him. Mischa, at first, seemed as if she couldn't care less for my being there. I was the daughter of a well-to-do estate. She was the one floating by on my dime. We, as far as she was concerned, did not mix.
Of course we eventually did.
Irritated glances and clipped remarks turned to indifference turned to professionalism turned to curiosity turned to infatuation and…affection. Love. Tender, sweet, stroking the side of a cheek or tucking a stray hair out of sight to warrant physical connections.
When she kissed me, I grew constellations down my spine, shivering at the touch and the etherealness of being hers.
So maybe–maybe I should have known. Maybe, if I had been wholly what I once was (who I once was) I would have recognized it sooner.
But Alaina and Mischa we no longer were. Aliva…and Mina we had become.
Mina could have screamed. She could have turned her head, to realize, to stare down the titan as it rushed to gorge itself upon her cranium. She looked at me. She saw my hand reaching out. And just for one second, for one singular moment, had she whispered with confusion on her face, "Alaina?"
Then she was gone.
I wondered if, when Mischa got shot, I reached out for her the same way. Or was it something else–some wild, vibrant coincidence that let her see through me as only she would? I'd never loved Mina the way Alaina loved Mischa, not in full. Was that why we'd taken so long to see through each other? Was that why, despite it all, we were so drawn to each other?
It didn't matter. None of it did. Yet, as Annie cut the jaw of the titan slack and severed its nape, I found myself incapable of doing anything but wonder. Why had it taken her so long to realize? Why did she seem to act exactly like the Mina I remembered from the show, telling me of a background Mischa would have no recollection of? My throat felt like it was caving in on itself, crushed raw with emotion and an overwhelming amount of loneliness. Why remember, only then, only right when I couldn't do a thing about it–again?
Again. Again. Again.
Mina's headless body clumped to the ground, the protruding top of her spine angled my way. I could see the hollow tube of her esophagus, the gurgling red of the puckered arteries and blood cells, the slabs of muscle and the thin meat of fat circulating around it all. The teeth had shredded away at her collarbone on one side, taking a chunk from her shoulder as well. The bones peeked out, ivory white, glistening up at me like sheets of snow reflecting merciless rays of sunlight. As the titan slumped down, defeated, steam already hissing from its body, I fell along with it. The titan's grip went lax in the throes of its death. I had neither heart nor strength to push, until I saw it.
Curled against the ground, half blue and half red, was Mina's little blue ribbon.
I sucked in a harsh breath involuntarily at the sight. Fog surrounded me. I blinked and without really recalling ever moving, found myself crouched over Mina's body, carefully plucking the ribbon from the ground and holding it fast. I swayed. Someone shouted. Mina was gone.
Annie's legs appeared at my side. She was close. Watching, I assumed. I glanced up at her. She wasn't looking my way at all: instead, she watched the rooftops. I surveyed the area around me, hardly caring what I saw. She'd killed the other titan with the overexaggerated grin. But the bearded one that was still nearby, still focused on the rooftop, shuffling like it was trying to angle its arm farther across the rows and rows of neat shillings–
I realized what Annie was looking at. Two figures blended into one, fused and fluid. Eren had his left arm thrown over Armin's shoulders, so that Armin could try to use his two legs to compensate for Eren's remaining one.
Both of them were alive. Both of them were fine (relatively). There was no Attack Titan. No shell shocked Armin. Just one very much alive, very much hungry, large titan with a gray beard. Something had messed up the timing. For some reason, Armin had more time here and now than he had in the story. Was it–no. Armin was deposited into the mouth of the titan after every single other member of the squad (sans Eren) was killed. Mina…her death was delayed because I intervened.
Hadn't Eren watched me nearly meet my fate before rushing to Armin?
He'd arrived far earlier than he was supposed to. Meaning he saved Armin before it would even become critical to save Armin.
Meaning he could've–
The world around me went dull. Colorless.
And the anger in my gut flared white-hot.
I was in the air before I knew it. I crashed into Armin and Eren like a comet, wrenching them apart, pushing Armin to grabble more firmly with Eren. "Aliva!" Armin cried out, alarmed out of his dazed, dumb look, at the same time that Eren shouted, "What the fuck are you doing?"
"You fucking bastard," I seethed, tumbling with him over the rooftop until a loose shingle smacked us apart. With his left leg missing entirely and mine sorely out of commission, he couldn't stand so much as prop himself up, and I didn't care to stand so much as I cared to pounce on him. I yanked my arm back and punched, nearly hitting him in the jaw. I'd lost the advantage of catching him off guard. He threw his hands up to deter my punch and shield him from the worst of it. But with his leg chopped and the bleeding unstaunched, I could tell he was lagging and quickly losing ground. He was dazed and no amount of desperate fighting spirit could change the fact that for now, I was stronger.
I was stronger.
But it didn't even matter.
I hit him with a solid punch on the third try. I could hear Armin squealing distantly, sounding like he was sobbing between pleas for me to stop pummeling his best friend. That only made me angrier. I didn't care to find out why he wasn't intervening–leave it to a coward to cry and do nothing else–as I suddenly got the wild urge to strangle Eren, to throttle sense into him. "You let her die–you–"
"Fuck off!" he yelled, and the fact that he didn't even seem to care when my world was crashing down around me made me really lose it.
"Fuck your false heroisim"–I geared up to kick him–"you're nothing but a piece of shit hypocrite"–I kicked hard, his hands narrowly diluting the force from his gut over to his side instead–"who calls me a bitch for killing your mother–which I didn't even fucking do, by the way– all while you"–I grabbed fistfuls of his jacket and yanked him up to stand, eye level with me–"let Mina fucking die without giving a single fuck about it."
"Armin was–"
I shook him. Hard. At that point I could feel my face getting hot and stuffy from the shouting but I didn't care. "Don't you even dare. Armin had plenty of time, Mina didn't. You–you–you fucking watched me as she ran over. You knew she was running over to me before I did, but you didn't even shout, you didn't warn her, you didn't stop her–" My voice broke off as I sobbed, suddenly out of breath. My sight wavered as hot tears threatened to burst right out of my eyes. Yet they stayed there, because I was so angry, because my hatred for his shortcomings and my failures ran so deep I couldn't even grant myself the release that shedding pent-up emotions in the form of tears would bring. Instead I only shook Eren harder.
And then I saw it. Lumbering.
I felt calmer, then. Less angry. More resolute. "Her blood is on our hands," I told Eren, finally speaking to him with a more level volume.
He sneered at me. "You think I don't know that?"
"Do you know what it's like to feel what she felt? The fear of being eaten alive?" His brows scrunched up, hostile all over, but I wouldn't let him have a word in edgewise. "Tell me what it's like, later. Or don't. I don't care."
"What the fuck are you going on about–"
I felt my features go cold. All the anger, all the fury. Just…gone. Everything around me was crystal clear again. There were lines drawn into the air around us, scales that weighed the life of one against the lives of many. Mina was dead.
"Make it worth it," I told Eren, as I smoothed out my grip on his bloodied beige jacket. He didn't get a chance to ask. Not before I pushed him, ever so slightly. Eren toppled over and fell back, off the roof…and right down the gullet of the bearded titan.
My features warped instantly, into shock and frozen horror. "I didn't–I just meant to push him, I didn't think we were close to the edge, or that the titan was right there…" I turned my anguished face towards my audience, somewhat dismayed and relieved to find I'd put on such a front for a crowd of one. Technically two. Annie stood relatively near to Armin, watching me with eyes slightly larger than normal and an overcast aura permeating her demeanor. Armin, however…it was like he wasn't even processing. He just stood there, a shell, alive yet the farthest from living as I'd ever seen him. Not even news of his grandfather had rendered him so…catatonic.
"We should cut our losses," Annie finally said. "Too many titans."
"Right." I swallowed, letting the aftermath of my probably too forced reaction made from my face. Now I just felt numb. I'd done the impulsively unthinkable. If Eren had even so much as an ounce of venom in him he'd transform soon enough. If not…
I was in no state to even think about that. Not when I couldn't process, couldn't connect with, the implications of my own actions.
"Do you have enough gas?"
I checked my canisters. Mostly fine, since I'd been balancing my journey out. "Enough to make it back. You?"
"No," Annie said, but I saw where she was looking. Mina's waist was still adorned with perfectly good ODM gear.
I looked away while she looted.
I tried to rouse Armin and failed. By the time Annie had maneuvered back up to the rooftops, I'd all but given up on him. "Think you can carry him?"
Annie's face crinkled up in disgust. "I'm not his mother," she snapped, but she bent her knees and put her hands out behind her anyways. "Get him on my back." Together we pushed Armin around like dough until he'd molded against her and she could secure him with her arms wrapped around her back. Triggers in hand, she experimented with firing and adjusting the wire trajectory. "I can't fight like this. We should go carefully."
I nodded. "Maybe find some other squad we can drop him off with."
Annie grunted her agreement.
By the time we were off, my foot was utterly unfunctional. I limped across rooftops with three times the effort it took me to cross them in the first place. Every part of me ached. Fortunately, it'd only been a few rooftops before we ran into familiar faces. Connie, Ymir and Christa saw us and paused on our rooftop. Annie set Armin down, and he stood up like a plank, staring off into the distance. Connie shoved his face into Armin's while shouting in an attempt to rouse him. If luck was on my side, I'd like to think that Armin's disposition was the reason everyone was too distracted to ask what had even brought Annie, Armin, and I together when the three of us had very different squads and assignments. Ah, well.
"Aliva–your leg!" Christa's brows bent to the clouds with worry.
"It's fine. Just a bit out of sorts."
Ymir raised an eyebrow. "You're paler than Christa's ass, Aliva." Christa immediately turned to Ymir, aghast at the offending metaphor, while I tried and failed to offer them a smile. Someone would have to tell them about Mina. I wasn't ready for it to be me.
"What orders are you working on?" I said, at the same time Armin finally snapped to attention. Slowly but surely, things were falling into place. I heard Connie ask Armin what happened. He didn't even see Annie or me; hadn't even noticed us yet. I nudged the warrior and jerked my chin towards the base. "I'm going to get this patched up," I told her, loud enough for Christa and Ymir to hear. "You should recoup with your group. Armin should be fine with them."
Annie, for perhaps the first time since I'd known her, placed her hand on my shoulder. She looked me square in the eye. "I'm sorry," she said carefully, then ditched out before she could watch me fall apart at her words. I was sorry too.
"I can't fight like this," I said quickly, as I turned to smile at the other girls, drowning out the sounds of my own rising sorrow with forced cheer. "Go on ahead. I'll get patched up and sent back out in no time."
"They should be ringing the bell soon," Christa said. "Stay safe."
I wanted to smile. I really did. "Until then."
Unfortunately, with a heavy heart, this is where the story will end. I've lost something incredibly precious to me and without it I can't in good conscience continue this story. I wish you all love in the utmost. I thank those that have supported me on this journey. I'm disheartened to be leaving a story unfinished. Out of respect to my curious readers, I will include a summary of where I intended to go with this series so that you all may understand the ways in which I wanted to paint this world into being. It will be uploaded into the story as Chapter 44, which will be the final upload before I mark the series completed and include a discontinued note in its description.
Once again I thank you, and I leave you.