A day passes, and then another.
I do not always walk alone. Sometimes Christa joins me, but only in the mornings. More often than not, she sleeps in until the waking bell instead; Ymir and her stay out later than they ought to. But that is not my story to tell.
Most of the time, though, it is me and my feet. The sounds of my labored breathing and the echo of my blush rushing through the shells of my ears. An entire ocean of heartbeats, ebbing and flowing with the internal tide of my circulatory system. The summer gambles away its life savings to the fall, leaves dropping like cheap coins and glimmering just as brightly. We train with the suspended belts four times a week and go to classes on the days we don't dangle in the air from our waists.
For the first time in my life (in both of them, really), I sleep so deeply that I cannot recall if I dreamed or not. My body aches without end. But I appreciate the burn. It is a reminder that I have not yet died twice.
When my score ticks up from exactly passing to two points above it, I laugh so hard I think I might cry.
I have earned higher marks elsewhere, though. The classrooms have been enough to keep me on my toes one minute and dozing off the next. As far as the titans are concerned, I know more than anyone else in the entire encampment does about them. Even the warriors, because I at least know the future and every titan that stands to come into being between now and then. I did not mean to be, but at least in this regard, I am matched evenly with Armin and his scores. That is just about the only place where I've managed to tie his intelligence; everywhere else I am no better than a freshly enlisted trainee. The show and the manga never truly provided me with extensive debriefings on the finer details of military life, strategy, and weaponry. Or if they did, then I certainly don't remember paying attention to those monologues. I cram my head with as much knowledge as I can stomach, enough to the point where I speak of pomegranates and grapeshots in my sleep, firing railroad-bound cannons from walls that warp and whisper to me. I walk my body to the point of collapse in the mornings, exercise my balance or my mind throughout the day, and either walk again in the evenings or head to bed early.
I am so busy with my new life–my busy, wildly draining life–that I nearly don't notice when the vial nears its last drops.
I freeze in shock as I stop, the cap upturned and today's dose wobbling a little bit as my hand shakes. I tilt the vial slowly, holding it up to the light, estimating how many days I have left. How many drops I can spare. Can I thin it with drinking water? Halve my dosage?
"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." I bite my lip and slowly, carefully, let half of today's amount drip back into the vial. The rest I swallow cleanly. I lick the cap for good measure and wince as the bitter aftertaste clings to my tonsils and taste buds.
I screw the lid back on. Stare hopelessly down at the vial, wracking my brain for something, anything, that I can do. There has to be some sort of solution.
I hang my head, rubbing my eyes angrily with my palms. This body is so deeply acclimated to the intake of medicine that I can't possibly fathom how it will react when the supply gets cut off. How long is the half life of this stuff? Why don't I have a name for it? I curse myself again for not thinking to pull Grisha aside when he came for his son, because then at least I could've–
I sit upright.
Oh.
My body seeps with dread at the thought of humbling myself far down enough to do what I've just thought of trying. But I have no other choice, do I? I need to know what kind of medicine Grisha had me taking. And if the doctor isn't around to ask, if his wife is gone and both of Aliva's parents are as well…then Eren is the next best thing I can think of. The idea of being at his mercy, of relying on him for help when all I've done is complicate things for him…it does not sit well with me. His fists strike me all over again. His angry, bitter words lance my ears like spears, like chunks of ice hailing down the boughs of my cheeks.
Think, Aliva. Think of a way to get him to answer without…that. He will not explode on me when Mikasa and Armin are around. So, somewhere public. But I do not want everyone to know what I'm saying, so not in the dining hall or the classrooms. That leaves me with…I grimace. Fine, then.
I throw my trainee jacket on and head out of the cabin. The fall air hits me like biting into an apple, crisp and sharp and wet with faint traces of rain. Petrichor rises up to greet my nostrils as I trek through the encampment, footsteps padding against the softly watered earth like rolling drums of distant thunder. I shiver and tug the jacket tighter.
My breath comes out in thin puffs of translucent fog, whispering eddies in the air and embracing the space around me. I think of the titan steam, the regenerative curls of smoke that would begin to trail the shifters around as the plot progressed and injuries accumulated. I watch the leaves fall and wonder how the seasons change between my two worlds, my two halves. If it is autumn back in my past life, then the farmers would be toiling to harvest. The barrels would be full, flush to the brims, the presses thick with the crunch and spittle of cracked olives.
I glance down at my hands. Shift them, coaxing them into the form they held the day I died. I stop walking, cradling my imaginary gun in my hands. There's a knotted oak to my left; I shift and face it head-on. She is an older tree, thick in the trunk with the burden of her years. But she is thin from there up. Limbs jagged and looming. Leaves barbed, not like pure oak leaves with their gentle warbles but more like pointed maples, more like spiked maces, more like teeth in jars.
"Hello, mother," I whisper to the tree. Its foliage ruffles in the wind.
I close my eyes, bidding myself to remember. I am ashamed to admit that the feeling of shrapnel piercing my flesh is beginning to leave my mind. I should not forget, not even for a second, where I came from and how I got here.
When I open my eyes, it is summer, and I am in my orchard. There is sweat on my skin. Pleasure long since dried, like pulp on the side of a dirty glass. I trace the rim and taste oranges on my lips. I gleaned the juice from her.
This world is cru-el
To the people that it loves
I kiss her tender lips. Trail my hands along her skin, like sin, like honey dripped between the thighs and grapes beneath the foot and gravel against the cheek. Her caress is like moss; how tenderly she assuages my bruises. "She hit you again, didn't she?" I brush the words off, slip out of them like clothes for which I can afford to discard. Those words are ink tattooed into my flesh. I could stand naked for a lifetime and still I will not be clean of them.
"I don't want to talk about my mother," I say back. "Not when I'm with you."
She laughs, an arid desert spliced by oasis rain. "We have to talk about her eventually."
"No, no. It doesn't matter what she thinks. She doesn't have to know–"
"But we're in her orchard–"
"The farmers won't tell–"
"They already have."
Angels to demons
And sudden flightless doves
I press my eyes shut harder, and the scene tilts on its axis, like a camera panning a hundred and eighty degrees. I look at my mother, thin and tall and jaunt and flush with money, power, influence. And wrath. And disapproval. Her hands, empty.
It plucks them from the sky
In-king white feathered quills
She looks between me and my sin. Me and the evidence of my fate, the admonition of my guilt, my vice and virtue and vehemence. "You fucking skank," she growls. "You fucking whore. I set you up with a good man, from a good family, and you've gone and ruined yourself with–with a fucking woman–"
Soiling sacred ground
Reaped for mere, cheap thrills
The hunters have guns, for the birds that won't leave the olives alone. They do not shoot when I'm in the fields, because the birds are good when I'm here. At least my birds are. The ones that recognize my face, that tilt their feathered heads when I whistle, the ones that leave me fancy leaves and whorls of string.
The sun watches as the fields
Carry seeds without water
We liked to sit behind the trucks, when the farmers went to lunch. Undisturbed, a canopy of plump trees above our heads and birds at our sides. Empty barrels and empty guns propped up against them. She reaches. I do not understand a gun's weight.
Ob-serves as they grow
Nursing cries, from each daughter
Whatever she screams, I cannot say. I have blocked the words out. They do not find me, or perhaps I lost them, left them behind in the other world. All I remember in their place is the way that the safety clicked off. The lumbering swing of the barrel as she swung it, hoisted it, aimed it.
The farmers pluck the blackness
Sprouted from the trees
My mother fires. I scream. Or was she the one screaming? Either way, it is not me who falls. It is not me who collapses. I turn, eyes like hollow caverns, ghastly horror seeping into my pores. My woman of oranges, of sunlight and starsong, falls to the ground and does not get up. The birds scatter, fly into the sky, abandon me and their trinkets and our seasons of shared solitude.
Ignore the bloody juices
And the bitten-back pleas
I grit my teeth. Tears warp my vision. It is impossible to see beyond my agony, my inability to comprehend the scene unfolding before me, but I turn. I lunge, grab, stand between the body and the mother who still brandishes the gun like a lance of control and judgment.
Then to the hunters go the farmers
Protecting olives with their guns
She sees me grab the second gun. I think–I would like to think–that she wouldn't have actually shot. That she was freaked out by what happened, that the sight of me arming myself made her flinch severely enough to make her finger twitch a second time. But I do not know. I will never know. A second shot rings out.
Shooting down the doves
All while bas-king in the sun
I fall, I relive, I undo my life. Shotgun spray peppers my freshly-kissed skin. When I collide with the ground, the second gun fires.
Because this world knows no love
Can give none at all
The three of us, the orchard-crime-scene, the sun as our judge and jury and the birds as bystanders.
Snapping peace branches in two
And letting fliers fall
And the aftermath.
When I open my eyes, the tree is just a tree. The leaves are just leaves. The world is silent. My mind is not. Every part of me aches, seethes, mourns. I slap a hand over my mouth and collapse quickly, pinching my nose firmly so that I suffocate before I can sob. The body can be bent to one's will. I will not cry without my approval. I will not mourn my death, her death, our deaths, when I am still alive.
I rise from the ground slowly, breathing deeply. I was a fool to attempt to refresh my memory. Now the other ones, the pleasant flashes and the warm recollections, are rising to the surface. I cannot face them. Years, technically, have passed since I lost her. I cannot fathom remembering her now and losing her all over again.
I am breathless now. Something in me is unraveling, tearing apart, slipping and losing surety. I need stability. I need the reassurance that something, anything, has stayed the same. I turn away from the tree and–I start to jog. The movement is tense, jagged, rife with discomfort. But it is freeing. Every step puts me farther from the tree and the scene I let unravel. I do not look back to see if my behavior was witnessed by another human; the mortification of being known is greater than the actual knowledge. I jog without conscious thought, tracing the path I walk in the mornings and the nights. I surge forward, heart hammering like it's ready to burst.
I have purpose again, though, and that is all that matters.
When I make my way onto the training fields, sure enough, Eren is there. He's dangling suspended, Mikasa leaning against one of the wooden poles and Armin sitting cross-legged in the dirt in front of Eren. With the difficulty of our balance exercises increasing, it's hardly any wonder that some people slip off for extra practice. I know I do, with Christa and Ymir. One time I showed up when Annie was there–by pure coincidence–and rather than leave, she stayed.
I watch Eren's eyes narrow as I jog over, coming to a stop when I'm within earshot of their trio. I double over, hands on my knees, gasping for breath. "What do you want?"
"Eren…"
"Ahh–" I wheeze and stop trying to speak for a second. Jogging was…a lot. Too much, probably, especially given how worked up I was beforehand. I swallow back the urge to cough around the dryness in my throat.
Armin stands up, brows furrowed. "You okay?"
I nod dully, pushing off of my knees blearily. I'm exhausted. But in a weird way, my memories give me strength. There is nothing Eren can do to me that is worse than what my first mother has already done. "I need to talk to Eren."
The green-eyed boy scowls openly at me, lips twisted with suspicion. I pretend not to notice. Mikasa and Armin share a look, Eren intercepting it and immediately protesting. "No, stay. Whatever she can say to me she can say to all of us."
Ugh. I forgot how headstrong he is. But, really, what harm would it do for the two of them to know? Hell, maybe Eren already told them. And Mikasa practically would've put the pieces together by now with how many times Aliva likely visited the Yeager's. And Armin was wildly intelligent. He could put two and two together if he stopped to think about it for a second. I sigh. "It's about your father."
My words fall like a blanket of snow, settling over the three of them with a hush. Eren stills in the belts, hanging slack-suspended. "What?"
"About the medicine he used to give me. I…need more. I don't know what it's called."
Eren's eyes narrow. "Yes you do. You requested it by name."
Here, at least, I can be honest. I shake my head. "I switched to a new one, something stronger. I started it…the day…"
I was a fool for bringing that day up. I can see the instant it changes his face, the realization and the understanding warping his expression. Inwardly I'm bracing for the moment the hammer drops. Thank goodness that he's still in the air; if he was on the ground, I've no doubt he'd storm up to me and let me have it.
But the person that speaks isn't Eren. It's Mikasa. "That's why you were there…right?"
I swallow and nod. "We were picking it up. We…I tried to get her out of the way–"
"Save it," Eren snaps, and suddenly I can see the rage thinly suppressed in his eyes. I have made a mistake in coming here. I see his fury and think only of my mother, think only of her hands. I look at Eren's. His are empty, curled into fists. He's already trying to wrangle himself out of the belts and touch down on the ground.
I take a step back. In my last life, I did not know how to flee. I did not know that when your mother discovers you with a woman in her orchard, the smart thing to do is to grip your lover's wrist and run.
"Nevermind. Forget I asked." I turn and start to walk briskly away, but not before Armin reaches out and grabs my elbow. I freeze and look at him quizzically.
He whispers a name in my ear. Leans back. "That's the only medicine stronger than what I once heard Grisha talking about."
When he releases me, I am too perturbed to thank him properly. I nod, swallow, and abandon the training grounds altogether.
Whatever it is that I'm doing here, I'm doing it wrong. Eren's anger with me only continues to grow, and I would be a damned fool if I couldn't protect myself properly the day it finally boils over. Making friends with Christa won't help me so long as everyone still thinks that's her name. Ymir doesn't give two shits about me either way; knowing her, she'd laugh after Eren pummeled me to bits and only help me back up after he left. And Annie…
My steps stagger a little. Annie. That's…probably exactly who I need to keep close to me now. Eren can't beat Annie during his trainee days–he knows better than to piss her off. Truthfully, he can't beat any of the warriors. That's why he ranks fifth later on during the final exam. So if I can find a way to win them over–if I can get them to help me out a little bit, maybe that would be better for me in the long run.
Would it be stupid of me to do something drastic this early in the grand scheme of things? I've only been a trainee for a few months. I'm still fairly weak. But the early classes are starting to wrap up; soon, we'll be starting the hardest training of our lives. The winter treks. The actual firing and loading of the canons. Combat training, ODM gear training. I must be strong, calm, collected. Or I will be left behind.
And maybe there is such a thing as fate. Maybe, when a leaf falls into a stream, it is not because the wind was a coincidence, but more that the breeze knew the land would not be enough. That there was more for the leaf to do yet.
Annie is leaning up against my 'mother' tree.
I approach warily, studying her. It is rare that she seeks me out; rare that she lingers around me at all. Even after all these months of involving ourselves with each other, still she remains an elusive mystery to me. I was never fond of her character in the early stages of Attack on Titan–she killed with little remorse, and was never held accountable quite like Reiner was–but she has been useful to me. Certainly not an ally. Certainly not a friend. More like a helpful acquaintance.
"How is the core strength."
Again, she poses her inquiry like a statement. I blink and sigh. "Better. But not what I need."
At that, she crosses her arms over her chest. "I see."
"It's helping, though. Thank you."
Annie tilts her head and the light filtered through the branches tumbles onto her golden hair. My breath hitches. I see another woman in her place. Another place around us. My chest aches. "You should start doing more breathwork. Your form is at a disadvantage without it."
"How so?"
Her catlike eyes watch me drift closer. I avoid looking at the tree, studying her with as much focus as she studies me. She tilts her head away. "You're not ready to jog. I told you to walk."
"Ah. You saw?" She grunts noncommittally. The leaves stir around us, drifting, tumbling, children rolling down grass hills. They shriek and exclaim in strokes of red and orange and brown. Suddenly I am embarrassed, the tips of my ears burnished with heat. "How much…did you see?"
I sense the shift in her disposition, even if I cannot describe what exactly changes. All I notice is the idle way she rubs a finger over her ring. "Enough."
I nod absently, looking out at the training camp. Marco and Jean meander nearby; Connie and Sasha slip into the mess hall together. So many pairs. So many friendships fostered already. And yet here I am, miming shots at a tree that I've christened 'mother.' I am tired of being nothing. Tired of being merely passing. I want to be sufficient. I want to feel like I am in control of something, anything. Anything at all.
Annie is not watching me. So I get to see the moment her eyes widen; the way her head swivels to stare at the woman who let such dangerous, dangerous words slip past her lips. "You and I are not so different…Marleyan."