My dream is an omen, in a way.
Annie slinks off the top bunk as I wake up, already darting into the showers. I look around quickly, rubbing sleep out of my eyes, and decide to wait a few breaths before I follow after her. I ignore her as other girls from our cabin file in, stripping bare in the morning light and stepping under the streams of water. It strikes my skin like ice and sleet. I shiver and try to make the shower run by as quickly as possible, wringing out my hair and hastily braiding it as I step to the side.
"Thanks!" Historia smiles at me as I surrender my shower over to her. I give her an amiable smile before shuffling over to my clothes. I toss them on, slipping my mother's wedding ring onto my finger and putting my necklace on too. Both items weigh heavily on me.
I walk to breakfast by myself and begin to think strategically. I need to make a few crucial friendships, and soon. I'll need to be deeply involved with a few of the main characters, just in case, to ensure my survival either by affiliation or direct association. It wouldn't do for me to be assigned somewhere where the plot doesn't go. And in case the plot shifts, I need to be the first to hear about it. I glance at the sky, squinting in the dawn's light. So I need to make friends on both sides, then. At least one of the warriors, and at least one of the Eldians. I purse my lips thoughtfully as I slip into the dining hall, scanning the rows of trainees already claiming seats at the tables.
Three friends, then, I decide. One warrior. One Eldian. And one just in case nothing matters–that one, at least, is an easy choice. I take my serving and sit down, picking a table without anyone yet. I'm curious to know who would deem me approachable.
My head pops up as Historia enters the dining hall, with Ymir trailing behind her. I catch the royal's eyes and smile, and to my great fortune, she heads my way once the two of them have claimed their breakfasts. "I never caught your name," she says, head tilted slightly as if in apology.
"It's Aliva. Aliva Moreau."
"Nice to meet you, then Aliva. I'm Christa, and this is Ymir." The little blond slips into the seat across from me, and her taller, freckled accomplice grunts before doing the same. I make small talk with Historia–no, I need to start thinking like she's Christa, at least while she's still using the fake name–while Ymir silently judges me and I pretend not to notice. I also pretend not to see the way she looks at Christa.
Eren comes into the dining hall a little late. By now, most of the empty seats are full. Armin and Mikasa are seated together, but they haven't managed to save a spot for him. We make eye contact from across the room–him, noticing the open seat next to me and me, silently praying he doesn't take it–and he snorts before shouldering past my bench and picking a different one, sitting next to Connie. I turn my attention back to my food, only to notice that Christa and Ymir are watching me silently.
"Forgive me if I'm being forward…" Christa starts, "But–"
"What's his deal?" Ymir interrupts, waving a spoon in Eren's general direction.
Christa looks at Ymir like she just committed a heinous social atrocity and quickly turns back to me. "Yesterday, you told Shadis that you were from Shiganshina like Eren is. So I guess we were just wondering…why you're not close with any of the others from Shiganshina?"
"Ah." I run a lazy finger over the wood grain of the table, idly comparing the feel with the one my mind remembers but these fingers do not. Are there even olive trees here, in this world? "Our history is complicated. Our mothers were friends. Our fathers were not. Eren and I are still deciding which parents we will take after."
Ymir snorts a little, giving me a look that tells me exactly how petty my dynamic with Eren sounds. She's not wrong, really. I take a spoonful of my breakfast and glance over at where Mikasa and Armin sit. For a second, I envy Eren and the friendship he's fostered. In my previous life, I never had anything that came close to the bond between the three of them. I had friends, sure. But none that knew my soul.
My whole body freezes as it dawns on me that they are all older than me now. That I am dead to them. That I am no more.
That–
The shotgun fires straight into my ears, making me flinch and stand up so abruptly my thighs crash against the lip of the table. Christa and Ymir immediately stare me down, but I smile the sudden movements off. "Not hungry," I say quickly, grabbing my plate and standing up. "I'll see you later?"
"Sure," Christa says after a moment, smiling distantly. "We're supposed to start balancing with the vertical maneuvering belts today."
Great. Splendid.
I look quickly for Sasha, finding her and quickly heading over. Today, Marco sits at her table. His freckled face tilts up as I approach and set my breakfast down in front of her. "Want seconds?" Her eyes widen, fingers twitching.
"Please!" She pulls the offering closer, and then stops, looking up at me with a curious expression. "How'd you know…"
"Just a hunch." I meet Marco's eyes briefly as I turn away. "Enjoy."
The first thing I do, the second I leave the dining hall, is scurry back to my cabin. I dart inside, rifling through my bag and only breathing easy when my fingers slip around the vial. I treat my dosing like a ritual, and somewhere between surviving the fall of Shiganshina and now, taking my daily drops has become a sort of calming process. It soothes me, clears my head. Even if the taste doesn't exactly do the same.
I know exactly what it tastes like, though. Perhaps that is why I crave the drops I measure out into the cap. My hands suffused with cautionary stillness, I tilt the cap back and swallow today's amount. The liquid slips down my throat like sap down bark. Like rocks down a riverbed. Sediment and streams, lava and landfills, ichor and ivory. I close my eyes and remember.
I am nine years old again, perched on the back of the flatbed truck, my legs swinging as the farmers load up the olive barrels. They continue to ignore many of the olives that look the brightest, and I frown. I tell them that they're missing olives. They laugh. One of them plucks one for me, brings it back to the truck and places it in my awaiting palm.
"Eat," he orders, and I take a fat bite, the kind of gorging only the innocent are capable of.
It is unripe. I cough. I sputter. I have never eaten an untreated olive, a raw olive, an unready olive.
I choke.
Tears stream down my face, and the farmers are not smiling: no, they are helping me, one striking between my shoulder blades, the other flicking the cap off a flask–no, no, grab the canteen, she's just a kid–and bring it towards me. But I am laughing. I have been pranked. It is the funniest thing ever. I am alive and I am a child and the sun feels oh so warm on my swinging, suspended legs.
I open my eyes and the medicine's aftertaste trickles away.
Christa was right about the plan for today. The trainees file into their rows, hands clasped behind our backs and the sun glaring down from above. Shadis monologues about the aptitude testing, the finesse of it, the way it weeds out the capable from the destitute. I try not to shudder as he threatens to settle those who can't manage to stay upright to settlements. I eye the belt Eren uses warily. The last thing I want is to get stuck using it, too. I know that between the two of us, Eren has the resolve and the strength to actually fight the broken mechanisms and hold himself aloft. I don't.
Fortunately for me, I get lumped in with a different group of trainees, bound for the belt that Connie is currently hooked up to. He wobbles and wavers, but manages to stay upright. One by one, the trainees get hooked into the belts and hoisted into the air, some graceful as doves and others as doomed as mealworms. I watch Eren step up to his belt and step in, flipping upside down almost immediately. He falls so quickly, that for a second, I do not expect him to stay suspended. I expect to see him tumble and strike the ground fully.
I remember the orchard song, and for some reason, it makes me incredibly sad.
When it is my turn, Eren has already been unhooked. He's already sauntered away, Armin and Mikasa at his heels. I make eye contact with Christa by pure coincidence as I get hooked in, and she offers me an encouraging thumbs up. Ymir at her side does not. When the ropes get hoisted up, and my feet slip off the ground, my first instinct is to freak out. There is an unnatural feeling to the act of being weightless, suspended, and at first I am terrified that I don't have the kind of strength necessary to hold myself up.
I notice a second later that there is no weight. No pressure. It is not full maneuvering gear: just the belts, just the principle of weightlessness. It is not the strength this act requires, but the balance. The ability to thrust oneself onto a breeze and drift upon it. I am a goose, a header in an airborne v, splicing the wind like a beacon. My body wobbles violently at the unnaturalness of it all–clearly, I was not born to cumulus clouds and blistering sunsets–but there is an undeniable thrill, an unmistakeable desire for more. I want to go higher. Farther. Further. My feet are swinging beneath me, the child on the truck bed again, the preteen darting up the side of an olive tree and dangling upside down from a branch by her knees.
The teenager falling when the boughs begin to snap.
But, for now, I am laughing. I am seconds away from crying, too, but I swallow around the thickness in my throat.
I miss my trees. I miss their olives. I miss the birds that knew my face. The ones I trilled at and fed. The ones that greeted me with a lost button and a rusted screw.
Shadis gives me a passing mark. Not failing. But not a fraction higher than passing. For now, that's more than enough for me. It means that I've bought myself a little more time, however much that may be. Eventually it won't be enough to do the posture training. Eventually I'll need to master the actual maneuvering gear, and if I am not strong enough, I'm doomed.
I need to train my frail, frustratingly sickly body to just…be enough. Even if all I ever am is just passing. Just okay. That'll be more than enough for now. Right?
An idea strikes me then, one of reckless resolve. I feel more like me again, less like Aliva, and it is nice to be that girl again. I am beginning to forget her.
Tracking down the person I'm looking for takes me a ridiculous amount of time. I feel almost like a clueless hunter attempting to sneak up on a bear. A clumsy toddler trying to smack a fly. There are a dozen eyes watching me, and a nose that can scent me from a mile away. The creature I seek slinks away long before I even realize I was close. So I do the stubborn thing, the petty thing, and I approach her at dinner. I excuse myself from Christa and Ymir's table, walking down almost the full length of the dining room hall until I get to her corner. Curiously enough, there's more than one warrior at that table today–Reiner is seated across the table and in the farthest seat away from his secret comrade-in-arms, eating his dinner quietly. It's weird for me to imagine that him and Bertholdt ever spent time apart when they were trainees, but here we are.
"Annie," I say, when she makes it clear that she won't look my way. Her eyes flit towards me, in that sharp way that Ymir's always do. The two of them are rather alike in their habits, even if they're polar opposites in their desires to speak their minds. "I want you to train me."
Her hand stills for a second. Reiner glances up at me; I pretend I don't notice. "You'll learn how to fight soon enough," she says, and something in her tone feels deadly. It dawns on me that we haven't actually seen her fight yet–I have; Aliva hasn't. The only thing that can save me at this point is blatant, foolishly blunt honesty. "Not to fight. I need endurance. I need strength."
She frowns, not expecting that. Or perhaps it's only my wishful thinking that makes me see something nonexistent where there is only clear displeasure. The other people at the table are starting to look between the two of us now. Normally, I'd hate the awkward attention, but I'm counting on the fact that I know Annie will, too. She knows she has to keep a low profile while she's a trainee; it's exactly why, later, she spars with Eren. It's exactly why I know I can convince her to help me.
"You won't enjoy it."
"I don't need to." I could practically succumb to the floor with relief, but for now, I force myself to look confident, look calm. Reiner's spoon scrapes the bottom of his bowl. For a second, all I do is watch the motion, watch the spoon circle and point its way around the lipped edge.
Annie drops her own spoon suddenly and stands up. She grips her utensil and bowl, turning to me. "Fine. We start now."
I follow Annie out of the dining hall, avoiding every single stare we earn. Only a few days into trainee life and people are already beginning to get a sense of who affiliates with who, enough so that it becomes rather apparent when someone does something out of the ordinary. For someone like Annie, who hasn't spoken a single word in any of the public spaces to anyone, this definitely qualifies as abnormal.
The two of us flock to the night, winged and without whisper. Annie's footsteps fall without weight and without trace, while mine crunch lightly. I lose myself for a moment in thinking back to the footfalls I had before, back when I knew the feel of bark beneath my feet as well as I knew dirt. Finally, Annie speaks. "Why me."
The way she speaks–phrasing a question like a normal sentence–takes me aback, forcing me to actually process and register her words before I can respond. "We're bunkmates," I say, because it seems like an easy enough answer. I taste olives on my tongue and remember our first conversation. "Besides–you saw me with my vial. I can be honest about my weakness with you. Someone else here might see it as–"
"As weakness."
"Well…yeah."
We fall silent as we walk. Annie strides two lengths ahead of me at all times, never once looking back. I don't care enough to close the distance between us. Instead, I let my voice carry into the air drifting around our ears.
"As things stand, I can hardly run for more than a minute without doubling over. If I can't get strong enough to handle the actual maneuvering gear before we start using it, then I'll get shipped out of here before I even get the chance to pack my bags."
Annie stops. Turns, slowly, a cat retracing its steps. Or maybe she's more like a mountain lion. "Then walk."
"Sorry?"
"Walk. Every morning. Walk the base. Then walk it twice. Then walk it in the mornings, in the nights. Walk until you can run." With that, she lunges, pivoting again and storming past me. I let her go. Only when I know for sure that she's already gone do I look back at the dining hall. Light filters through the windows, making me ache a little bit to return.
But Annie has given me good advice. Weirdly good advice, at that. And I would be a damned fool not to take it.
I set my shoulders and start to walk.