bertall | Iɴʙᴏx ✉ Vɪᴄᴛᴏʀʏ Rᴏᴀᴅ

[ She lets her gear sit in her lap, staring down at the screen and feeling sick. She doesn't gag, nothing so dramatic, but her stomach roils and Lute makes small, distressed sounds, butting against her shoulder with his head. He had to walk around to her other side to manage it: with his one outsized horn, he couldn't from where he was originally settled.

She doesn't realise she's crying until the anger and frustration spills over into tears, and as abruptly, her chest feels hollow. Mad at a world that's lied their entire lives, mad at the nations and politics that keep it so. Mad because she's never done a damn thing except follow orders in the end, and tired, exhausted, and quiet in the wake of that flash of anger. It's stupid. Giving up again now doesn't help. She wasn't anywhere to help anyone. She couldn't even help herself; couldn't even keep her promise to her father, the only thing she'd cared about in the entirety of the shitty world they all breathed the same air in.

Bertolt hadn't deserved to die. None of the people they've killed have deserved to die. Not the nation they first were unleashed on; not those of their own they were directed at next. Years of living on an island and knowing just as surely as she'd known before she ever got there that it'd be a farce, and it was.

They were always going to die. But did it need to be so soon? And did Armin, well, Armin didn't make that choice, either, did he, but he got to inherit the same curse alongside his best friend, Eren. Maybe all these things are meant to be in the end, but she doubts it. Fate is a word to paint life's events as something meaningful.

Screw that. In short bursts, she takes the time to peck out words and sends them, one batch at a time. An ongoing story with a version of the events she just lived with, as far as her memory goes. By now it could have been years ago. By now, it could have been just yesterday. It takes her a long time, and she can just hope he doesn't interrupt, because if he does, she'll never finish what she already doesn't know how to say. ]

When they brought Eren to Stohess District, all of the Military Police were asked to be part of the official observing escort. After all, there'd been the Female Titan, and she'd been interested in taking Eren alive. Before that, there were still the mysteries of the Armoured Titan and the Colossal Titan. Not so hard to wonder if three different intelligent Titans might be related, and knowing what Eren was capable of, to surmise that those three could be within the population.

When Armin approached me in Stohess, I already had my suspicions. I trained Eren, yes, but that wasn't something Mikasa thanked me for, and not anything Armin had a say in. Having him come to me to ask for help escorting Eren through the city with him and Mikasa was blatantly suspicious. Everything he offered as logic fell short, and I turned his request down several times over.

But I still ended up going along with them. Knowing it was a trap, and that anything designed with what we do in mind, that it was very possible they'd be trying to get me somewhere where I couldn't shift.

It's stupid, isn't it? The things we realise matter, even when we know better. There was nothing Armin could say that would logically convince me to leave my post. Talking to him as it was pushed what I should have been doing as a solider, let alone as a warrior.

It was when his pleas got more desperate. I was walking away when I asked him if he thought I was that good a person, to grant such a ridiculous request. He said he didn't believe in good people, or bad people, not the way I was asking. That he thinks it's a matter of what's convenient to someone at the time, that what defines someone as good or bad is different in any one moment. So he said, if I helped them, then to him, right then, I would be a good person.

I knew it was a trap, Bertolt. I wondered if I'd be able to either have another chance at Eren, since they had to bait me with him, if their suspicions were true. And I did try, when I couldn't follow them down into the underground walkways. But the reason I was there at all, and the reason I failed, is just as stupid as everything you or Reiner ever did in calling them friends.

I didn't manage to take Eren again, and I didn't outfight him, not when he was fighting with the Scouting Corps as his backup. There were too many variables, and my limits wouldn't see me through it.

I tried to scale the wall. I knew if I managed it, I could run fast enough to get out of range before they could get horses around to that region. I almost made it, too, but Mikasa caught up and cut through my hands, and I fell. It's strange, because I remember the sky beyond her more than I remember her face. It was beautiful. And I knew there was shit that I could do to keep the promise I made my father if I died there. So I crystalised. I cried, and I crystalised myself, because it was the only thing left I could do to not give them what they wanted, and my only chance at staying alive.

I wasn't defending anyone. I was as selfish as I've always been, and I'm alive because of that, until someone ensures I'm not. But I'm not living.

I don't know how to say this, but the shitty way you died was for the sake of saving someone you cared about. I don't know what Reiner's done with it, but if you hadn't acted, he would have died instead. It's a shitty trade off, and that's one more Warrior they have in their hands, and maybe that will change everything, or maybe we'll all be as screwed as we've always been. You acted on what mattered to you.

That's braver than I've ever been.

[ She's not telling a full truth. She's acted where it didn't benefit their cause before, saving Connie, letting Armin and Jean live in the first place, but... those were different calculated risks. For what he faced, it was something else, and in that situation, she doesn't think she could have done what he did. It's stupid, yes, but she can save that for speaking out loud where he doesn't have to hear it. Not right now, at least. She's not quite that heartless, in the end, and she's not their captain. She doesn't have to sound like Zeke. She doesn't have to believe in their mission, though that always would have been easier. ]

And stupider than I've ever wanted to be.

_{[While he waits, Bertolt snags the corner of a blanket crumpled against the pillow on the bed, tugs it over his shoulders, and after a minute or so of hesitation and thought, he pulls his legs up onto the bed and lets gravity drag him to his side. It's good to lie down (even with the potential embarrassment if Jean finds him like this), and it gives him a chance to quietly add Annie's name into his contact list.

Just in case.

His thoughts are interrupted from both his Comfey floating in from the main area to awkwardly settle on the side of his head and from the Pokegear vibrating in his hands, causing him to jump and earn a concerned trill from the Comfey. It's fine-- He's fine, but she still releases a gentle scent of flowers to reassure her trainer that she was there.]}

...Thanks, MJ.

_{[It vaguely smells of roses and it makes his nose wrinkle when mixed with the smell of cologne off of Jean's blanket, but it's not terrible. Just weird. It gives him a chance to focus on the message Annie sent, even though it makes his heart drop further and further with each sentence he reads.

Especially when he reaches the end.]}

The way I see it, you were the bravest out of all of us. Are the bravest.

_{[Because she's still alive--]}

You always put the mission first and I always admired that, even when Reiner and I got distracted. I wanted to be focused like you, but I also wanted to have.. All of what we had there. People didn't judge us because of what we were because they were just like us, only they don't know it. No one yelled at us or looked at us like we were lower than dirt, and they cared. I've never been a social person, but it truly was enjoyable.

I was selfish, and I think the worst part of it is knowing I'd do it again if it meant saving him.

But|

_{[His brows furrow and Bertolt keeps reading the last two sentences over and over. If he wasn't already close to breaking down, this would've done it. Come on, Bertolt. Deep breaths, in and out. Breathe, and it'll be okay.]}

It does mean a lot to hear that from you. I mean it. I think I needed to hear something like that.

[ Good. Not for the rest, because she doesn't agree. She wasn't focused on the mission, she was focused on getting home, and the mission was simply what allowed her to do that and live long enough to return to her father. Isolating herself to focus was a survival mechanism, and she didn't succeed as well as it seemed.

She knew what he meant, how it was different when the things people looked down on you for were relics of a past, and when they were for what you'd actually done. Being what they were by an accident of birth, being signed up by their parents so their families, big or small, had a chance to be considered almost human? All a bitter, humourless joke. ]

I just wanted to go home.

[ It won't matter, in the end. Here, she can just be grateful that anything she typed out helped him a little. What else can she say? "You died, that sucks." They both know it. It would be like telling Marco it's a shitty thing, being caught seeing what couldn't be afforded, and having to die on a decision he didn't make. It's a shitty thing.

So many shitty things. ]

Even I say things worth listening to sometimes. But enough about what can't be changed. Do you enjoy your life here?

We all did. I wanted to see my dad again and see him get better since he was always getting sick.

_{[And that in itself had been part of Bertolt's motivation for being so willing to become a Warrior to begin with - if they were honorary Marleyans, then his father would've had access to the best medical care that the nation had to offer.

Now, Bertolt has no idea how he is. He had made Reiner promise to look after him in his stead, but...

Tearing his thoughts away from his father, Bertolt's gaze crawls over her words. That's... Okay, good. A subject change. That's good. It'll keep his mind from wandering to what had happened, and hopefully keep it in a good place.]}

You always do, honestly. But I do, yeah. It's|

It's comfortable, and I feel safe here. I disappeared and came back with the memories of everything I told you, but I've been staying with Jean - he picked me up when I woke up stranded on these islands in the middle of the ocean, and we've been working in his shop ever since. You're probably not going to believe it either, but I even won part of a contest with one of my Pokemon not that long ago.

[ It's so nice they all had reasons to want to join. Annie didn't. It's just what her father did, said she was born for, trained her for outside of and on top of the military training they all had. Child soldiers.

And the perks that only her father would see in use. ]

You wouldn't know that with how infrequently anyone listens to me.

I have no idea what pokemon contests are like, so why wouldn't I? It's weird here. But if it's like that for you, then keep it close. Be as selfish as you can for as long as you can.

Jean's being a halfway decent human being now? Look at him all grown up.

I know. I'm sorry, for what it's worth.

_{[He was stupid, and Bertolt still was when it came to certain things.]}

It's sort of how you'd imagine other contests. Performing in front of people, all that stuff. But uh

He's been good, Annie. Really good.
We've been sharing tents and rooms more or less since I got here. It's almost like how things were back in the barracks, only it's... better? I've had to cope without Reiner, but with Jean it's been easier. I can more or less be myself around him and it's nice. Really, really nice.

[ ... Okay, this is reminding her of half the conversations she heard going around in the barracks, in every city, in basically all human civilization, and it's such a tonal turn around and... weird relief that she won't even taunt herself for drowning in what amounts to gossip.

Processing time is helpful, and... no, she doesn't really get this, but she knows she also has a longstanding irritable friction with Jean whenever he opened his mouth, and she knows time as with all things changes people.

It's more Bertolt she ends up shaking her head over, patting Lute's head absently as he sighs and shifts to lay his massive, horned face in her lap. ]

Does Jean feel the same way, or did you just let me into your one-sided romantic affection knowledge circle? I haven't gained any sudden skills in this arena, Bertolt, so I'm hoping this won't devolve into asking for advice beyond the obvious.

[ Starting with you're dancing around disaster and ending with but unfortunately, I understand. Hearts are fickle enough creatures, and none of them really hated anyone in the 104th. Circumstances had simply dictated that those were some of the lives they ended up taking; known faces amoung so many others.

Just... be... careful there, Bertolt. ]

_{[Her words don't fully register for a few moments, but when they do he makes a low, agonized sound deep in the back of his throat that gets a concerned trill from his Comfey. Is that-- No, he's fine, but boy are his ears turning pink. That poor little Comfey hasn't seen that before.

Is he getting sick? Better send out another wave of some nice flower smells!]}

Not you too.
It's not like that|
Someone already|
it's not

_{[Annie, no.]}

Oh my god does it really sound like that?

[ Bertolt, yes??? She breathes out in a sigh, not so concerned about it really, Lute benefiting from her one handed typing with a contented rumbling of his own. It's kind of nice. Not a purr, but it reminds her of one. ]

It does. It's not my business either way, but the way you were talking about him, that's not generally how people talk about their friends. If I were making educated guesses about you, that Jean was an interest point would be one of them.

I don't have any idea what Jean thinks, or what "someone already" means when you wrote it, or who else has already commented on this. It's just what things read like from here.

[ Which is literally coming from someone who just showed up, but who has known him for years, even in the more divorced capacity of their time in the Walls versus the constant training of their childhood.

Also, it's slightly more fun to bluntly exclaim at Bertolt over what a mess his emotions are over things intrinsically linked to life over the devastation of having died, and living with that memory in a final, consuming way. ]

Edited 2018-09-23 07:15 (UTC)

I've talked about Reiner like that!

_{[Except given his track record, there was something there with him too. There was definitely something there during those strange, funky weekends when the other man showed up in this world.

That's... certainly not helping his case, especially given the rumors that may have even floated around behind their backs.]}

There's nothing going on! It's just|
We're just friends!
There's no way that he'd|

We're just|

oh my god there's nothing going on i swear

[ ... ]

This is supposed to be normal, isn't it? People agonising over love lives. Didn't we leave this behind at fourteen?

[ Annie says this while showing Lute the gear. Lute has no opinion, so he huffs a breath and closes his eyes, and Annie rolls hers in turn. Okay, so at fourteen she was discussing her lack of seduction skills as a detriment to potentially getting a man involved with the royal family to marry her, but that was neither here nor there. That was espionage in a long game. ]

And you never caught feelings for Reiner, of course.

[ Spare her. For all Bertolt was also randomly supportive of some of her more offhand remarks (thanks for the power of your belief, Bertolt? she guesses? you're the only one who thinks she could seduce anyone???), he and Reiner had their own back and forth she'd been aware of and... unconcerned with. ]

Ask. Don't claim you know what's inside his head or heart so well that "there's no way he'd" is a logical assessment instead of an irrational one. You know what else surprised everyone? Jean joining the Scouting Corps. If he really would never, get your heart broken so you can work on patching it up again. Don't waste your time on maybes and assumptions and what if's.

I|

_{[She's got him there. He does still have feelings for Reiner but there's no point in dwelling on them, is there? There's no guarantee that he'll see him again. Bertolt worries at his lower lip for a few moments and he nearly pouts at the gear, but he shakes his head (and jostles MJ nestled in his hair at the same time) to clear that thought.}

He originally wanted to join the Military Police, remember?

_{[That had changed after Trost, but Bertolt chooses to not dwell on that by shifting it back to the rest of it.]}

But it's not that easy. I've had it broken twice already, once by Reiner and another by a girl I met here and I'm not too keen on going back to Blackthorn yet. It's too quiet up there, and I don't want things to get

weird.

_{[Weirder than hiding in Jean's bed with one of his blankets wrapped around him like it'll protect him? Quite possibly.]}

I'm not even sure what's going on myself. People just assume it's|
Like that.
I don't know what it is.

_{[The woes of being child soldiers - they never had a chance to figure out how feelings and emotions really worked, so now that Bertolt actually has that chance? They've all kicked into overdrive and left him fumbling through it all on his own.]}

I'm aware, Bertolt. That's why the surprise was when he didn't end up choosing them after all.

If he's so good these days, he won't hold something he doesn't feel against you. Probably. You know him better than I do.

Anyway, I already said what it sounds like, and you're already ignoring any advice I have, so just tell me about your contests instead.

It's complicated, Annie.

_{[If he weren't so blind to how feelings like this worked, it'd be something he'd be considering - just going for something always seemed like a good idea rather than dwelling on it, but this was... Different. This was something he wanted to be careful with.

He's read too many romance books from the Pokemart.]}

There's not really a lot to say about them, only it's sort of... I'm not sure, a way to show off your Pokemon and their abilities. It's like a big talent show.

... I take it back. Let's keep taking about your "complicated" love life, that's at least mildly enlightening.

On an unrelated thought... since we took care to never be close during our time training with the 104th, I'll be sure to stay away and not generally complicate other aspects of your life.

Armin wants to talk. I don't want you being involved with any conclusions he may draw. Whatever follows from that, I'll let you know, but you don't need him turning his attention toward you. Not here. Not for this.

[ In her own way, it's protecting him, but especially so now. Which bringing this up is... after everything else, a different reassurance. A shitty one, but a pointed one regardless. ]

How is it enlightening?

But... You also don't have to stay away-stay away. There's no reason why we can't meet up here and there, you know? It's a big world and sometimes we might bump into each other. You're right that we weren't exactly close back on Paradis but we were still 'classmates'.

_{[It was natural for even strangers to talk a few times while they were in the same class, after all. It was part of blending in.]}

As for talking with him, are you sure? I mean... How much do you think he knows? Considering we all seem to be from different points in time and all. I know he doesn't know that I'm the Colossal otherwise I don't think he'd be so amicable towards me in general, but I'm... I'm worried.

Even we can fall into living like we aren't just tools.

I'm not concerned about no contact, just initial contact. I don't know how much Armin knows, but he's a shitty liar, so you really should know if he was aware of anything with you. As it is, I want to have that conversation to make a judgement call on what he's expecting. If Jean and Sasha know nothing, I'll treat them no differently than before. He's the one I won't predict until I know what his priorities are here.

Like I said, after that conversation, I'll get back in touch. We can figure things out from there, but the way I deal with Jean and Sasha should be the way I appear to deal with you, too.

It's easy to do here, honestly. It's not so bad though.

Let me know what happens with it - what he knows and what he doesn't, things like that. I've been keeping my distance since I came back for my own sanity, since I think... It'd be suspicious if I had a breakdown around him out of nowhere. That's part of the reason why I've been staying with Jean too, because I know if something like that did happen I could rely on him.

Plus, well, just between us? I'd really like you to visit so you can try the things Jean and I have been making in the shop. I think you'd like a lot of it.

[ Bertolt... some things she's already said, so she doesn't say them again. Instead: ]

Bribing me with food?

[ Donuts. That's the thing she really would love to get to try again. ]

Edited 2018-09-24 00:58 (UTC)

Maybe. Is it working?

Not as well as if I were Sasha, but yes.

You won't be disappointed, I promise. Jean makes a really good latte with cinnamon and whipped cream and I've got a big book full of recipes I haven't even tried yet.

You're really enjoying yourself, aren't you?

I am, yeah. I never thought I'd get the chance to do what normal people get to do.

_{[Birthdays are also a nice touch - he wasn't big on celebrating them back home, but here? No one would judge him if he wanted to sit in and read, or get an entire cake all for himself.

Cake was always a bonus.]}

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