Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait. I've been to two separate vacations where I've been too busy selfie-stalkingand dodging raindrops with my cousins to think of writing (NO REGRETS MGA PAPA-'INSANS!) and the interval between these excursions saw to my attendance of college entrance exam review classes in the city thrice a week for a month (which is just a fancy phrase for "I've been having my head murdered and my body drained for eleven whole days stretched over the last month of summer vacation, what did I do to deserve such torture,"), so that even though my heart had always been in the mood, my brain couldn't get into the right mode to write even during the weekends. Making this and Sisters consisted of 99.99% tear-your-hair-out-in-frustration-over-how-a-single-sentence-takes-half-an-hour-to-create-and-just-two-seconds-for-you-to-reread-it-and-go-"WHAT-THE-FRIGGIN'-HECK-IS-THIS-IT'S-EMBARASSING-OMG-WHY-DO-I-EVEN-WRITE-I'M-SUCH-A-LOSER-SOMEBODY-TELL-ME-WHY-I-HAVEN'T-GIVEN-UP-ON-LIFE-YET" kind of hustle and 0.01% enjoyment. Even so they both made me smile during the Final Edit so I guess they turned out pretty much okay. I'll be posting a lot more often this month since I have more time (I'm semi-homeschooled – classes occur once a week but we are given a lot of homework each meeting) and my feels are all a-flutter (WHY ISABEL AND FARLAN WHY).

I have no idea if white wolves still exist (there were some in the polar regions long ago I think) but hey, if giant wild boars live in Trost, why not, right?

The needle-related thingies are only very loosely based on the actual process of acupuncture. And yes, this has been inspired by Haku of the Mist's senbon-shootin'-way-of-fighting thingie.

To the latest anon reviewer of chapter 3: That's very kind of you (I CAN'T BREATHE OMG QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM,./';[]\-0987654321`— I mean, *clears throat* thanks for the compliment), but as for your Eren-Historia request, I'm gonna make this short and sweet and say I'm afraid it ain't happening here, dear. I'm a solid ErenMika-er all the way (although Eren's so painfully ignorant there's a bigger chance of him ending up with the Ape Titan than becoming Levi's boyversionofhoweverwayMikasa'srelatedtohim-in-law [SEVEN MONTH-OLD HEADCANON CONCERNING MY TWO FAVORITE CHARACTERS FINALLY HAPPENS I LOVE YOU ISAYAMA-SENSEI IF YOU COULD JUST BRING PETRA BACK I'D LOVE YOU EVEN MORE]) and if Historia has to end up with someone, I'd like it to be Armin, I don't know why. (I feel like I've offended more than half of the world with that previous sentence. I'd like to apologize. Please lower your weapons now.) HOWEVER I plan on making Eren and Historia spend lots of time talking and helping each other solve their own personal problems so that they become close and really start valuing each other. Speaking in a (trying hard to be) professional point of view, though, an Eren-Historia centered fic would be an interesting challenge so maybe I'll make you a separate story about that in Black Chocolate someday (\~^/w/^~/).

And to those of you who think my character portrayals are OOC, gomen nasai and patawad from the bottom of my heart (that's "sorry" in two different languages), but know that I am trying my hardest to successfully depict our beloveds' essences. These are, after all, original situations which they've never been in before, so I have nothing to base the way they'll behave in a certain scenario on save for the how I've perceived 28 episodes and 55 chapters and on how I've personally interpreted their unique personalities (am I the only one here who heard Darius Zackeley speak for the first time and instantaneously thought of Atticus Finch especially when he removed his coat later on? Please don't tell me I'm the only who gets this in-parenthesis thing) and interactions with one another (who else thinks Rico Brzenska and Ian Deitrich would have been so perfect with each other? I have nothing to back my claims but just think about it. Really think about it. And then, if you aren't busy, cry with me when you're done and let's chat) which is really fairly difficult. Please continue bearing with me; I will get better at this!

Inertia

It has been a whole week but she was still alive.

Her body felt like an inescapable nightmare but it was as tolerable as bur on her hair compared to the torturous cesspool of never-ending voices that gnawed on her mind without stopping. After years of running away from death, she had at first been more than happy that at last her whole person would soon achieve the rest she wanted, but after seven days of ceaseless agony, she started to wonder if she had already passed away sometime between alternating nauseous consciousness and troubled sleep and was now, in fact, in eternal hell.

After her captor and his commander left her with unspoken threats and promises, she had retreated to the right corner opposite the cell door and sat rigid against it with her arms wrapped tight around her legs. Since then, she had hardly changed position except to occasionally soundlessly rise to piss against the corner opposite her and drink the water they slipped through her cell's bars twice a day when her current guard went on a five-minute potty break or had to come upstairs to inform their replacement that it was time to change shifts. Her highly developed sense of smell had made results of the former activity unbearable and more than once she had retched on the floor, in the same stiff position, a disgusting blend of water and acid from the smell alone. And then that too would add to the sinister blend of odors they detachedly forced to breathe and she vomited so much on the second night that they actually allowed her out of her cell in order to move her to another one. Even there, the air still felt cramped and forced, like the oxygen itself was wheezing from the lack of sunlight, gasping from the lack of rain.

Even for her, it was cold and this did not help her bones which were already suffering from the lack of motion. They let her out to get to the toilet once a day after her switch (with a gun against her head, of course), but walking a hundred and seven steps each day with her hands shackled behind her back was like tossing around in her sleep compared to the daily dose of physical activity her body was used to performing each day. Thanks to the small blonde girl who tended to her each night, the wounds she received from her torturers were all considerably far down the road of recovery by the fifth day but her stomach still collapsed on itself at the slightest movement of her torso and the skin surrounding the deep gash on her cheek had begun to start hurting as well no matter how much merciful bags of ice she pressed against her abdomen each night or how much ointment her cheek received.

If that wasn't enough, she had to deal with the fact that she was living underground where the sole paranoia of the ceiling falling on her head gradually transformed into an almost desperate hope for eternal escape. She learned to look forward to her bathroom trips, knowing this took her closer to the sky and when they pushed her upstairs with the end of their guns to do just that, she wholeheartedly savored the little eternities when she happened to pass by a window – it had been so long, she had almost forgotten what glass and curtains were – as a draft was passing through. Even then, she did not have the freedom to take pleasure in the wind's sweet touch or rejoice in the fact that she wasn't as trapped as she was beneath the ground: everyone of her guards save perhaps for the blonde boy who guessed the importance of her sketchbook seemed to always be in a hurry to take her back to her suffering and she would be shoved back down to her cell with the end of their rifle and locked up for another 23 hours and 55 minutes of almost absolute stillness and silence.

But she only wished it for there was none of that at all. Outside, on the surface, the wind sang, the trees whispered, the birds whistled, the animals chattered to one and the Titans stomped and roared and moaned as she killed them, all without stop. The cacophony that had surrounded her previous life wasn't noise at all for it was one with the world and as natural as starspeak and there was never a need to tune them out for they were one with her existence as she was with them. But here in her cramped cell, far from the eyes of the sun and moon, here was a chaos of unnecessary sound and volume: there were people surrounding her almost each second and they breathed as loudly as they should speak, spoke as loudly as they should scream and had footsteps that could attract a whole herd of giants to ultimately save her from her suffering. There was nothing she could focus her mind on in order to block out the noises, save perhaps how utterly trapped she was and the hopelessness of her situation, and when she tried stuffing her palms to her ears against her noise, her hunting instincts would kick in and force her hands to ricochet off the sides of her head, alarmed by the unnatural way that sound was coming in muffled and broken.

She had been almost fully oriented on the night after they made her switch cells and had been able to successfully and silently free her right hand from its leash by faithfully attacking with her teeth one of the many rings of interconnected metals that joined it to the wall when no one was looking. They had watched her a lot more closely after that but she had come to observe that the night guards were not at all fond of tea and were prone to falling asleep halfway during their shift and she had been able to free her other arm two days later at the expense of the general lack of pain in her mouth. At first, it had been fine to see them watch her more fearfully than before despite their gallant attempts to cover up cowardice with aggression, but robbed of a definite purpose she could act upon, she found herself suddenly forced upon the arduous task of finding a way to run by observing. But she was a doer, not a thinker, unused to analyzing things and scheming, and her head quickly learned to spin out of control and dwell on eight years worth of suppressed emotions, tinkering with the words that go along with it in order to form solid, disturbingly real thoughts instead.

She thought at first it would be better than gritting her teeth and embracing the din that casually bound her in a constant state of frigid horror, but after allowing her brain to understand in words that she was hurt and frightened and angry, she began to force her mind to accept and dissect the many shouted conversations being held above her but it was too late: there was no turning back. She became mad at her kind for creating Titans and Shifters in the first place, mad at the Shifter for existing, mad at that man for looking like him, mad at them for making her suffer, mad at her own uncontrollable bloodlust to get them all killed and desperation and stupidity, mad at the world, mad at life. The fact that she had to rely on her captors in order to continue breathing made everything much worse than it already was so that any new fact, such as where the lightest threading footsteps go to after dinner each night or how many times the stride of a 5'1" person zips in and out of the bathroom in a day gets smothered by emotion until she would snap out of her sulking long enough to realize she had already forgotten the knowledge she had just obtained.

Slowly and then all at once her whole being was affected. She would unintentionally fall asleep and wake, slightly better than she was before her slumber but her regained mental strength would crumble into dust she got too tired to be angry for the day and her mind learned to dwell on the sordid, disgraceful present. She would drink the water they gave her, for water was a gift from the earth and not from them, but she would ignore the bread they balanced on top of her mug despite her stomachs fierce pleadings. She would pay no attention to any attempts they made to communicate with her and murder them with her eyes if they wouldn't stop; she never let them hear her or see her moving about save for when their healer was working on her wounds. If there was one thing she knew, it was that she had her pride and she was proud of it – it took her five years of her life to learn how to hold her head high up and she wasn't going to let a bunch of bratty shit-sucking worms ruin that.

But now, on the eighth night, as she listened to her current guard climb up the stairs for his routinary potty break, she let a shuddering sigh escape her throat and lips and hid her face in her hands. All the rage that she thought she might be able to make last until the next age had now completely dried out, leaving her nothing but tiredness. Stomach threatening to devour her very soul, she wished her famished body would stop protesting against her head. She stared at her night's ration on the floor – they only took it away to replace it with a new one to minimize the number of times they had to descend and deal with her – and imagined what the dry crust on the rim of her empty cup would taste like; it's been so long that she'd forgotten. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't notice if she took a just a little bite…

Somehow, she ended up lying on the floor. The brown hunk of baked wheat looked and felt like miles away. Her master's laws required her to try until the bitter end so she pushed off against the slab against stone to reach for it… and fell down again.

She was too empty to feel angered, too electrified with exhaustion to defy the here and now. Somehow, there was nothing more she could feel save for something that might be sadness. If only, she thought, if only she had her – Shut it, her head whispered. Acknowledge no weaknesses. Use no excuses. If she had enough strength, she would have genially snorted back at the voice for existing in the first place. Fight, it continued. Get up and resist. Struggle. Push back. Fight.

I don't want to, she thought back. I'm tired and I can't sleep. I want to sleep. But it just wouldn't come. Ah, well, the former voice continued as she let her eyes close without resistance. You've started talking to yourself. It won't be long now.

It has been a whole week and still no one was used to her presence.

For one, there was her indirect influence over the whole squad. Everyone was constantly tense and on guard; the sight of Mikasa Ackerman of all possible people suddenly cringing in pain and clutching her chest in the middle of a task was more than enough to remind them of the danger that lurked beneath their feet who, although currently weakened, would be more than capable of destroying them all the moment they make a mistake. Deciding who would guard her prison or give her meals next led to contests, debates and gambles on which face of the coin or die would stare at the ceiling or which card would be drawn – petty scuffles that would have been funny if it weren't for the fact that the loser would have to spend the next twelve hours or thirty seconds within three meters of their criminal. A whole day of negotiations, deals and blackmail were inadequate to make a guard and server schedule they could all agree on ("But my head still hurts!" "You stopped wearing bandages ages ago, Connie, be reasonable." "Two days isn't ages, stupid." "Shut it bastard, you're not even involved in this!" "Don't you tell me what to do, horseface!" or "But what if she bites me while I'm slipping her rations through the bars?" "Bites you? I understand you're afraid of her, but now you're just being paranoid!" "But haven't you ever seen her look at you, Armin? A cornered white wolf who's already been wounded has absolutely nothing against her!" "But… but she's human, Sasha, and I really don't get your point…?"); however, Levi's presence considerably quickened the arrival of conclusions to these skirmishes and so the wilier ones of the five who were required to participate in these contests had learned to somehow drag their competition to where their captain was at the moment.

For another, there was the legacy of her capture: the damage she had done to Squad Levi. Although Eren, Mikasa, Sasha and Connie were all more or less back to normal by the second day, the conditions of Jean and Levi's respective injuries didn't worsen nor improve over seven days. No one was sure who was more annoyed, the two of them combined (although he never openly acknowledged his wounds, Levi's ever constant scowl deepened by a few degrees which made him look even more menacing than it already did and even though Jean never whined, his senseless screaming matches with Eren grew even more frequent each passing day) or Historia, who although wasn't suffering physically, was deeply affected by the fact that she was helpless over something that she took pride in, not just as she had when she was Krista Lenz but also now as her real self. This and the fact that she had to return to using her fake name – although everything seemed to point to the opposite direction, Mikasa took it upon herself to constantly remind them that they couldn't completely disregard how their guest might be a spy from the government and they were nagged on an hourly basis to never this, never that, and never use Krista's real name – gave her alternating fits of prickly rage that surprised and, more often than not, hurt those around her; startling oversensitivity that drove her to tears in the shadows of the stables when she thought no one was watching; and a dauntless, icy silence that worried her squad mates more than any amount of snappy retorts or hidden tears could.

And then, there was dealing with her itself. In twelve-hour-long shifts, a solitary guard would sit on a stool clutching a rifle to the right side of the bars of the cell at the furthest edge of the dungeon and occasionally look in through the bars to make sure their prisoner was still alive. Although they were supposed to make a log of the slightest change in her behavior, the only varied time of the day when she wasn't hunched against the right corner of her cell and staring at her worn boots would be when she would spare a sideward glance to look poisoned daggers at them when they made an attempt to talk to her. According to the logbook that only left its post on the current guard's lap to be studied by Levi each evening, this hadn't been happening ever since Armin was first assigned to give her dinner when she changed position for the first time and actually turned her head to kill him with her gaze when he had insisted on commencing a one-sided conversation with her despite the obvious warning signs after which the poor boy jumped out of his socks, made a stuttered excuse, and half-raced, half-tripped his way up the stairs. Meals were brought to her twice a day but when the next person in charge of her ration arrived at her cell, they would find the previous batch of bread and mug of water seemingly untouched and in the exact position where the last one in charge left it, although her cup would always be perfectly empty when they retrieved it.

Their most interesting situation with her, however, would have to have been on her third night, when Connie woke up to the sound of a clang in the wee hours of the morning on duty and walked in on her devotedly gnawing on the chain attached her right wrist while the one on her left sagged on the floor, its other half hanging limply from its clasp on the wall. At the sound of his gasp and shouted warnings, she had glared at him the glare of someone who has murder in her mind but can do nothing about it and then returned to her original posture without a single word. Eren then proposed she was moved somewhere else and Mikasa proposed she was tortured again but in the end, they went with Armin's suggestion to let it be as they just might end up with a dungeon completely devoid of any forms of personal restraint save for barred doors which they all thought would be rather unreliable. The next few days, they kept an even closer watch on her but they never caught her in the act again and on the night they had begun to relax again, history repeated itself with Jean as the witness: this time, he was returning from a short water break to find her massaging her bleeding gums with her fingers to the sound of her severed chains clinking on the floor.

This incident led for Levi to lend Krista his pistol when she made her nightly trips downstairs to tend to their convict's wounds. The original routine was to have the current guard point their gun at her head until their healer finished inspecting her body, applying ointment to her wounds, replacing her bandages, and watching her drink the medicine for her stomach, which they still retained for good measure. Curiously enough, the girl was always perfectly obedient during these examinations, and seeing that their physician's life was not in danger, Sasha had stopped reminding Krista to teach her what she knew about healing in order to avoid being capable enough to take the younger girl's place in performing the task as was Levi's orders.

Meanwhile, Hange's experimentation with the girl's things were, in her words, "going smoother than a comb sliding through Erwin's perfect hair – I swear, that man has got to be wearing a wig, cheeky little- hey Levi, there you are, d'you wanna prove it with me the next time he comes around?" Although she refused to elaborate and insisted on giving the full report in Erwin's presence the next time he would be able to leave HQ and visit them in full assurance that no unwanted shadow was tailing him, she assured Squad Levi that two of the girl's belongings gave conclusive proof that there was a way to preserve Titan flesh postmortem, although she was yet to confirm the exact method of this preservation. After scheduling an interview with their "pet peeve" in her cell with Levi, the newest members of Squad Levi received their very first "Hange Treatment" and when Eren, who had gained wisdom from experience and walked away with Levi when he still had the chance, experimentally checked on them the next morning, he found his senior still happily chatting away about the unpredictability of life and its biggest mystery which was Titans while everybody else slouched on their chairs, staring at her with blank eyes and slack mouths or were otherwise dozing with their heads lolling over their chests, their laps collecting little drips of spit.

And now, on the eighth night, Eren idly watched Jean traipse his way from the bathroom down to the cellar and sighed as the trapdoor snicked shut above his comrade. "Am I really not allowed to see her?" he asked. Knowing the disadvantages of Eren's fierce curiosity, Levi had prohibited the rest of his squad from telling the boy when their guest's nightly excursions took place to get him out of harm's way. One of the brunet's good traits, however, was that he was thrifty, and was therefore constantly armed with a powerful, silent weapon with plenty of ammunition to spare. Although it didn't take much to loosen Connie's tongue, it took almost a fourth of what was left of Eren's first wages to get him to promise he would curl it up tight behind clenched teeth, most especially towards Mikasa and Levi. Still, he got what he wanted, and on the fifth day since the capture at midnight, he hid behind the door of a spare room and waited for them to pass through his corridor. Candlelight and several torch's fires weren't exactly the ideal lighting to use to view things through a keyhole and Eren had been able to discern nothing of the girl save for that she was small and her very short hair was a shade of vivid red. He returned to the spot every night to watch her come and go but it wasn't enough, it would never be enough, and he hadn't had a night's sleep since, trying to picture her face from what Armin had told him.

"No, Eren," said Sasha the hundredth time that night.

"She doesn't hurt His- I mean, Krista when she patches her up," he almost whined. "And Heichou's busy and Mikasa's on guard outside. Just a tiny peek-"

"No, Eren," repeated Sasha as if she had practiced the proper way to say those two words in front of the mirror since time began. If he felt a little better, Eren might have rolled his eyes over the familiarity of her tone. "Have you been sticking to Mikasa again?" he asked.

The brunette blushed then grinned a little sheepishly. "Spot on! But how d'ya guess?"

"Beats me," he mumbled, placing crossing arms on the table and laying his chin on it to languidly watch Historia play chess with Connie. Levi had retired to his room early to do some paperwork but none of his juniors were feeling particularly sleepy just yet. They were gathered around the dinner table and Sasha was polishing her bow in front of Eren. "Are you sure that's all she ever does?" he insisted.

"That's the ninth time you've asked us that, Eren," said Connie, his fingers hovering over his knight and rook. "We told you already. She curls up against the corner and stares at her feet 24/7 save for when Krista makes her move around to fix her up, no big deal. We never see her sleeping or shitting but she must have, otherwise, she'd be long dead. I don't think I've even seen her change position save for when she was chewing on her chains." He made up his mind and brought his rook nine spaces forward. "She reminds me of our dog that way."

"What about you His- I mean, Krista?" said Eren. "Anything new about her?"

"Her cuts and bruises have all healed save for her left cheek which is infected," she said monotonously, her eyes roving across Connie's side of the board. "Her stomach's eating itself because she won't have what we feed her and since it's already wounded like that, it would be three days tops before the acid kills her." She moved her queen to the side and muttered "Checkmate," more to herself than to her opponent, who pummeled the table with his fists and cursed. Sasha, who had instinctively lifted her bow, can of wax and rag in time to spare them from the violent tremors that now toppled her seatmate's black chess pieces, said, "Ouch. That's 6-0, Connie, but at least you're starting to hold out a little longer. But Krista, I think Eren's talking about her behavior?"

"She stares at the ground and does everything I say," intoned Historia, helping Connie pick up the fallen pieces. "And when I tell her we're done, she doesn't move back to her spot until we're out of sight. She doesn't make a sound or talk."

"But I don't understand," said Eren, raising his chin from its perch on his right forearm. "It's been a whole week. She should have said something, like, I don't know, threats or other things imprisoned people say." He blinked, realizing what he just said, and sensed prickly discomfiture creep up his neck and face. In his Squad, only Mikasa, Armin and Levi knew where he had disappeared to after the Battle of Trost for a week two months ago and he wasn't ready to broaden the circle of those informed just yet.

"I don't know about that, Eren," said Sasha, who had set down her weapons and tools and was now plucking at her bowstring and listening to the vibrations. "I think it'd be a lot sooner that we hear her growl than talk."

"Growl?" asked Connie, pausing in the act of setting down his bishop on its place and turning to raise an eyebrow at his seatmate. "What the hell? I thought we were talking about the girl just now?"

"We are talking about her," said Sasha. "It's just that keeping her locked up with us like this puts me in the mind of when Papa tried keeping and taming a wolf to help our village with the hunting. The bassets are our best sniffers but it's the forest locals who know where the deeper hunting grounds are."

"And how did that turn out?" asked Eren, resettling his head back down nearer to the table. His tone talked of blatant disinterest, as if he didn't care if he received an answer or not.

"Terrible," said Sasha grimly, remembered dread creating sparks within her chocolate eyes and making her face look positively queasy. "She made Papa trust her enough to leash instead of cage her one night and she raided the McCormacks' poultry houses without so much as rousing the dogs." She stared down at the table, looking nothing short of teary-eyed and mournfully whispered, "We couldn't have chicken for more than a month…"

"What happened to it?" asked Eren, his voice suddenly tinged with interest.

Sasha shrugged. "We tracked her down to her lair the next morning where she was trying to move her pups out. Must have sensed we were out to get her," she said quite nonchalantly, going back to making sure her bowstring was tight and set. "And then we drove her back into the den and shot her dead."

"That's unfair," said Eren. Pity for animals was unnatural for him as he had never really been especially fond of them, but he knew what injustice was and he felt sorry for the wolf. "You should have just left it alone. It never would have done that in the first place if you hadn't taken it in."

"They had no choice Eren," said Connie, putting on the tone he used whenever he knew (or thought he knew) he was saying something witty. "The forest near the Dauper Village is slowly running out of game in its borders so them hunters need a guide to help them go deeper." He let his pawn devour one of Krista's with a smart click on the wooden board – clearly missing that it was a trap she laid out for him to expose his king – and Eren can't help but be painfully reminded of Oluo. "Besides, chicken is chicken. I say it got exactly what it deserved."

"Why, Connie, you're not half as bad as everyone says you are!" said Sasha, her pitch heightened with genuine cheer for her squad mate.

Connie started in his seat and when he turned to splutter at her, all the suave and smooth in his voice had gone coarse. "Was that supposed to be an insult, Potato Girl?!"

This time, Eren did roll his eyes over the shocked face Sasha pulled on, which he was sure wouldn't be so comical if it had been anyone but her bald comrade who caused for it to happen, but before she was able to tell the provoker how much she trusted him and demand an explanation for breaking her heart, the trapdoor opened to reveal Jean's solemn head.

"Hey Eren, remember what I told you about her never saying anything?" he hastened before anyone could verbally acknowledge his arrival.

"Ye- what? Why? Has she started talking? What did she say? Did she say anything about Outside?" asked Eren, jumping out of seat, eyes shining with excitement for the first time in days.

"Nothing of the sort," replied Jean sardonically. He turned to the others before Eren had the time to spit out a rebuke. "Good news. She's changed position. She's still curled up but she's lying on the floor. I don't need the extra food so you could pretend you've found it out, Sasha."

Eren retried screaming at the taller boy for intentionally holding the news back from him but before he could, Sasha said, "That's great! Thank you Jean! I'll let Armin know when we switch for guard duty outside." Eren could hear from her voice that her mouth was already watering over the prospect of taking the blonde's share of bread for a meal, which was the reward Armin promised anyone who took his place at guard duty and, should what he had been anticipating for the past week happen during the stand-in's turn, promptly report "The First Altercation" to him, after which he would award the aforementioned person a whole day's worth of loaves.

"What was she saying, Jean?" asked Historia blankly, her soft voice hardly heard over Connie's string of protests over not being the one to take Jean's impending prize.

"Shut up, Connie, overeating will only make your head hurt even more! That's the bad news, Krista. For her, anyway. She's passed out in a delirium, muttering fever stuff."

-blood, sweat, tears, dirt, muck, we are the prey and they are the hunters, the cockroach felt alive and kicking at her throat, she threw up but still felt thirsty so she leaned down and drank some more, she screeched and slapped at the rats but they wouldn't stop biting her, they said they'll be friends if she did it so she ignored the hot wet stink and bit down, the thing that pinned her to the ground was heavy and big, she couldn't move or breathe and it all felt so wrong-

Wrong

Wrong

Wro-

"Tom, save me."

Wrong.

"Ruska. Are you awake?"

Her eyes tore open at the sound of her name and she made to swipe a cocked fist against the throat of whoever spoke but she found that she couldn't. A crushing weight was blanketed over her and keeping her eyes open felt like hell. So she closed them. She was dying anyway, and she might as well be as comfortable as possible.

Something started slapping her cheek and each hit was harder than the one before. "Don't close your eyes, don't sleep. You'll die if you do. Ruska. Ruska."

She wanted to tell them to shut up but she knew that whoever they were, they weren't worth her time and remaining strength. Soon enough, she'll see him again and everything will be better.

Something tugged at her hair and forced her left cheek to leave the floor. Now she had to protest. "Go away," she tried to say, but her jaw and tongue had transformed into lead. She managed to open a bleary eye and saw that her healer was leaning over her, her golden locks framing her fair face. The girl on the floor twisted her face into a weak scowl.

"That's much better," said the other blue-eyed girl. "You passed out from hunger last night. It's been twelve hours since. You need to eat."

Che, she thought. She closed her eyes again and let her face unfurl back to its natural state; they were no longer touching her hair. She breathed, knowing oblivion was at last within reach of her fingertips.

The last thing she remembered was the feeling of something thin and curved entering her mouth and depositing within a thick, warm fluid with tiny chunks of something soft and solid. She swallowed it gratefully and let her mind float into oblivion.

Once upon a time, there was a girl with no name. She lost it a long, long time ago, when she was just a baby. At least, that's what she told people when they called her names but she knew deep in her heart that she never had one, never will.

She lived in a farming village with other people, but they had families and friends and they were too busy being happy to give her what she needed. Everyday, she would watch mothers and fathers shop in the streets and work in the fields but they were all disgusted of her and when they whispered to one another, they would look at her with undisguised loathing. She would ask to play with the children her age but the little girls always shrieked and ran away and the little boys always said mean things and threw stones when she got too close.

She wondered if it was because she had some body parts missing and they didn't.

"Are you sure about this, Krista?"

Historia tapped a heel impatiently on the bit of the wall beneath the windowsill she was sitting on. "I told you already," she said, striving hard to let her tolerance stretch a little longer. "We're running out of blood pills and sneaking into Sina to buy something so expensive and suspicious could get us all caught. Besides, don't you want Jean and Heichou to get better?"

"Of course I do," interjected Sasha. "It's just that… what if what she says kills them?"

"It won't. She owes me. And if that isn't enough, I know something about her that would get her to do anything we want her to."

Stumped, Sasha stared at the floor, searching for an excuse to stay out of what her squad mate was proposing. After a few seconds, she looked up and said, "But what will Connie say? He'll be on guard by then, 'cause he lost when we–"

"He's in on the plan and he won't tell on us. I need you to get down there then call for me in front of the others and say she's passed out again."

"Well, er… Won't they be suspicious since you spent the whole day yesterday feeding her?"

Historia sighed. It was hard dealing with unwilling and unimaginative people, she realized. "We could pretend that she's still sick," she cooed, channeling the essence of Krista Lenz into her mouth the very best she could. "You're a good actress. You could say that you felt her body heat a whole floor away even before she dropped down or something. I wouldn't ask you to do this for me if I knew you weren't capable, you know."

Sasha reddened and her eyes rested on the ceiling of the small unused room they were in as if she was already rehearsing the scene she was about to play in her head. Although Historia despised being Krista, the latter's perceptiveness on what makes people feel good about themselves and talent when it comes to the subtlest forms of persuasion were some things she had no plans on discarding.

"Alright," Sasha said finally once her thoughts slumped back down to earth. "I'll do it. But you'll take all the blame in case we're caught, yes?"

"Don't let it worry you," said Historia, hopping down from the table.

"But why did you have to bring me back down here?" Sasha wailed, quietly so that those above them didn't hear. Her well trained ears sensed Krista's little sigh in the darkness.

"I need to make sure you won't tell on me, that's why," she said. A spark of smoke and a hiss of orange revealed her comrade's set face.

"I wasn't planning to," said Sasha moving her candleholder whose fire had gone out earlier from hurrying to the dining room to make their act look believable in her hand towards the flame in Krista's hand. She had even taken Krista's wrist and dragged her down the stairs without lighting it first in a state of frenzied panic, which was why they were now in the dark, barely having managed to assure Levi-heichou that their prisoner wasn't too sick and needed his attention.

Sasha guarded the fire from a nonexistent breeze with her free hand as Krista touched the match to the wick before flicking her wrist twice to put out the original flame. "I understand perfectly well why you couldn't give me bread for this, but I have my honor," she continued.

"You're only saying that because you're talking to me now," said Krista, moving forward to push away the barrel that hid the cellar's trapdoor.

Sasha inhaled to fire back a protest but thought better of it and instead watched the goddess she once knew opened up the hole on the floor. She pulled on the door once got in next to her and together they made their way downstairs.

Sasha glanced at her squad mate's tranquil countenance in the dim light and took in the turbulent storms swirling in her sapphire eyes. Like all the other times she did so the past month, this sight caused for her annoyance to dissipate into pity for her team mate. Among their squad, Sasha and Connie were the one who felt and understood the blonde girl's sadness over losing Ymir the most but even they was baffled over how Krista's emotional decline refused to cease even after one whole month of sullen mourning.

"Krista…" Sasha began.

"I'm sorry," said Krista quietly. Fairly enough, Sasha felt it but it was accompanied by a chilly sort of droopiness, the same one that colored their captain's voice whenever they asked him about his past and he gave them an answer. She thought she had stopped feeling Krista's sorry's in its raw form weeks ago. Suddenly, something clicked and Sasha found her heart thumping uncomfortably over the dangerous notion: they were slowly, surely losing her.

Sasha knew she had to do something, anything to pull Krista out of the pool of despair she was sinking in. Forgetting everything else but the well-being of her friend, she said, "Krista, if you want to talk about it-"

"Thank you, Sasha," the shorter girl answered, just like it was scripted. "But not now. We have more pressing matters at hand." It had always been a maybe later, not yet, not now… not ever. Sasha exhaled through her nose in the half-darkness.

"Hey, Krista," said Connie as they approached him, shocking Sasha out of her dismal wonderings. She made sure he saw her scowl and turn her head away from him: she was still mad over him calling her that two nights ago. "Hey, Sash," he acknowledged her a little lamely, using the nickname he employed when trying to get to her good side. She crossed her arms and turned up her nose.

After a few seconds of silence, Connie huffed (Sighed hopelessly, Sasha assured herself) and turned to Krista. "I won't tell on you guys like you said, Krista," he said. "But would you mind telling me what's going on now?"

"Thank you Connie. That will do," said Krista. "We'll talk with her now, if you don't mind."

Connie stopped tapping the butt of his gun against his knee. "Are you telling me to go away?" Krista just stared at him.

"Okay, your highness," said Connie sounding pissed. He rose and grumpily trudged away from them. "I'll be working on my abs in the cellar if you need me."

Sasha listened to the closing of the trapdoor ahead and above them and suddenly felt all her anger for the boy melt away for having been on the receiving end of one Krista's black moods. "Do you want me to leave too?" she asked her companion a little meanly.

"No," said Krista. "You're good. I'll tell him what went down later. I just did that to get her attention." Sure enough, their prisoner's eyes was now attached to their feet even though she was still slumped in the corner the way she always did when Sasha fed her or checked her out during guard duty.

"Smart," Sasha whispered.

"Ruska," Krista began in a brisk, business-like manner, stepping closer to the cell and holding one of the bars. "My name is Krista Lenz. I saved your life yesterday. In exchange for that, I want you tell me how to heal Jean and Levi-heichou."

The figure behind the bars blinked at the sound of their captain's name and when that was done her gaze turned into a glare. I don't do favors, domineering shit, the midnight within her eyes seemed to say. Sasha wondered when the voices in her head learned to swear. Maybe that factor was unique to just this one.

"Well, I thought you'd react that way," said Krista after a bout of quiet, as if the girl on the floor really did say that out loud. "Well, I can't give you back your sketchbook," she continued. "But I know there's something else you would like."

Their prisoner's dark eyes began to slither back to her feet but before it could complete its journey, Krista said, "I know because you have moaned for your eyes more than once while you were delirious."

The girl turned to look at them so suddenly that Sasha almost jumped. Her eyes had contracted so much that they were hardly pinpricks in the soft, orange light. The fear that shown off them was one that Sasha was familiar with, like those a fox who had just realized that the hunters were not after her, but her cubs: it was one that Sasha had seen in the woods more times than she could possibly count, one that had the ability to transform into raw fire in a matter of seconds and send her hunting party home, victorious but mangled and wrapped with bloody bandages. Sasha tightened her grip on her bow and arrows and almost moved to take aim and nip the deadly onslaught she was sure was coming in the bud, but she remembered there was nothing in her hands but a candlestick that was trembling almost as much as her soul.

Then, the girl blinked and the fright was replaced with a blaze. Sasha posed to dash the hell out of the place and drag Krista to safety upstairs but there was something wrong with the miniature inferno shining at them from the darkness of the cell at the very edge of the dungeon. It didn't look anywhere near violent or fierce, just unbelievably smooth like a knife in the dark. Biding its time and waiting.

Somehow, this was even scarier than what Sasha had expected. She inhaled sharply and wondered just what exactly was wrong with their captive. "Krista," she said, her voice several pitches higher as she turned to look at her companion. "Krista, maybe we should go-"

"Your eyes for information," said Krista, elevating her head and crossing her arms. Sasha thought she looked strange for elevated heads and crossed arms belonged only to Levi and perhaps Mikasa but the shorter girl's cockiness didn't lessen the dread the gripped the brunette's stomach. "Take it or leave it."

The gleam in their jailbird's eyes flickered for a moment, as if her wrath had alleviated into something milder like annoyance, but it reverted back to normal as quickly as it changed. She held Krista's gaze for what felt like a lifetime and Sasha felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle when she heard a ghost's whisper: "Get me a paper and pencil."

Levi has come across a lot of far-fetched shit in his lifetime but he has never encountered anything more far-fetchedly shitty than this.

"Let me get this straight," he said after Historia explained what she was going to do to him and Jean. "You poke several of those things into 'all the right places' as you say and this" (he jerked his bad arm irritably causing it to bleed for the second time that night) "is supposed to get better?"

"Yes, sir," Historia answered with a confident nod. She looked better than she ever had ever since they caught the cunt, he realized.

Levi surveyed the determined glint in her eyes and decided she hadn't cracked from the strain like he first thought when she gave him the papers and told him of her plan. He rechecked the perfectly drawn diagrams of the left arm without the skin she had placed before him on the table. There were four arms in total, each drawn from a different angle, and everyone of them displayed a few holes in certain points on different veins and muscles.

"She calls it 'acupuncture'," said Historia. "I had her explain how it works. Apparently, what she had done to you and Jean involves piercing the right points in your blood vessels and muscles to make them tense and close down, hence stopping the flow of blood and… energy to your arm and leading for paralysis. Taking the needles off the wrong way stops paralysis but, in her words, 'disorients' the affected part, preventing it from going back to normal. This 'acupuncture' does the opposite and reopens up the stressed parts for… energy to naturally flow back to where it is needed."

"You falter at 'energy'," Levi pointed out, tearing his eyes away from noting the positions of the six new pinpricks he was about to receive to look at the speaker. Historia glanced down at her feet and did something that Levi could only describe as an embarrassed sort of cringe but didn't say a word. It's pure and utter bullshit, he imagined her saying.

"It's pure and utter bullsh- sorry, Heichou," said Jean from across him at the table. He too was holding a sheet of used paper in his hands and his long face looked particularly worried over the prospect of having Historia stick a needle into one of the veins of his neck. "I know we need to do something about this soon but isn't there another way that doesn't involve the chance of us dying or becoming useless for life?" He faced Historia and continued, "I know you feel sure this won't hurt us 'cause she owes you your life and all that, but…" He looked back to the drawing again and flinched before looking serious again. "I'm nothing special so it wouldn't matter much but… if this goes bad and Humanity loses Heichou-"

"I know the risk," Historia said plainly. "That's why, if Heichou gives me permission, I'm trying it on you first." (Jean's head snapped to the right to gawk at her, alarmed by her straightforwardness. Levi suddenly found himself liking the girl much better than he did five seconds ago.) "However, I am fully confident that this will do nothing to put you both in danger. It won't be an exaggeration if I say I have her at the palm of my hand at this time. She wouldn't dare do anything to displease me." She said it very simply without a hint of drama or arrogance, so simply that Levi couldn't be helped but feel bothered. It didn't take him long to get it.

"You offered her something in return," Levi said slowly. "But not her sketchbook. The next important thing."

The statement hung in the air like an ornate chandelier supported by a string of yarn. Showing reluctance for the first time that evening, Historia gave a wooden nod. "But what is it? And how did you find out?" asked Jean, aghast. Levi felt dread that had no place in the present chew at his lungs.

Historia stood there but the expression on her face was the furthest you could get from guilt, or pride for the matter. Slowly, she took a little phial from the pocket of her skirt and placed it on the table.

"Her body has an incredibly strong resistance against hunger," she said. "I can only imagine why. The average human becomes delirious after 36 hours without eating. With continuous supply of water and at the rate she was going, she could've lasted another three days. We simply couldn't wait that long."

"You mean… two nights ago wasn't… natural," said Jean, his question turning into a declaration halfway through his sentence as he eyed the empty bottle on the table. There was a sound from beyond the door behind Historia like someone gasped sharply and tried to suppress it halfway but they all dismissed it as the squeaking of a mouse (Why the fuck won't they run out, thought Levi.).

Levi felt something cold prick the inside of his midsection and he exhaled slowly. The childish-looking young woman had the vaguest personality among his subordinates, god knows why, but as Levi stared at the expressionless mask she wore as she looked back at him, he knew now that she was unique: as passive as a rain cloud, relentless like the sea and colder than a glacier.

Historia Reiss had a sting of her own.

"Jeez," Jean muttered with a little What the hell happened to you, smirk on his face. "Looks like you've learned a few tricks from Ymir."

Color lit up the girl's face and she looked down at her shoes. There was nothing smug or sadistic about her expression but the suppressed little smile she wore told Levi that Jean's words pleased her, like it was some perverse and secret compliment. If it was possible, the man felt warier over the child. "No, not really," she said almost bashfully. "I thought about it on my own. It had been easy to sneak it in her drink that evening. When she had blabbed enough, I gave her the antidote and fed her. She did need to eat."

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" asked Levi. He wondered if he should have said it accusatorily.

Historia looked him in the eye and shrugged. "I didn't want anyone else involved," she said, "in case it didn't work. It would have been a waste of time to make everyone expectant. Besides, I want to be fully responsible for it. I mean-" She glanced down at her shoes again and something oddly brittle seemed to shine through the usual silent tempest that churned within her eyes. When she raised her head a second later, it had vanished completely. "So. Shall we?"

Levi tried to discern the fragility she had let slip that one precious moment and at the same time, unravel the truth behind her last sentence. He knew his efforts were futile. "In a moment," he said instead. "What else did she say?"

Historia tilted her head slightly to the side. "Not much. Something about being too weak to save someone. She kept saying the name 'Tom'. Nothing useful to us, at least not now."

"Do you have anymore of those?" said Levi, pointing his chin at the bottle. "We might need them again." Historia shook her head.

"Well," said Levi with a little huff. He turned to Jean and said, "What do you say? Will you do it?"

Jean started, obviously taken aback by the fact that humanity's strongest was asking him for his opinion. Levi remembered the first time he did this to Eren and was glad that the taller boy's reaction wasn't as exaggerated. Still, he found himself battling the urge to roll his eyes up to the heavens. "O-of course sir," said Jean. And then, as if to demonstrate willingness, he smiled grimly at Historia and said, "We'll need the needles from Hange-san and whatever she requested, eh? So what did she ask for?"

She told them. Levi pondered for a second. He looked back at the six needle-sized holes marked on his paper and for a moment wished that getting what their captive wanted wasn't that easy to get. "Wrestle with Hange for it if you have to," he ordered.

from the Diary of Historia Reiss, September 16:

It worked. My plan worked. I did it. Jean and Heichou are completely healed. Just some bleeding from the needles, natural bleeding. But that'll go away and they both said they feel fine now, perfectly fine.

I thought I should be happy.

Connie didn't understand why Sasha had very (in)discreetly plunged a pair of goggles into their prisoner's mug as he took up her rations in the kitchen (partnered with the pressing of a pointer finger to her lips and a very noisily executed "Shh!" before marching back to the dining table to help the others bus the dishes while humming loudly and yelling that she had been up to nothing, nothing at all when Levi opened his mouth to ask Eren something) or how Krista had finally found the cure to the captain and Jean's wounds just last night or why Eren had greeted Krista at breakfast that morning with a bellowed "WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?" and was now glaring at her each and every time they happened to pass each other.

Go figure, he thought now, tossing the loaf of bread into the air and catching it again with the narrow mouth of the mug in his right hand as he made his way below the cellar. He stopped his descent for a few seconds to let it wobble back into its steady state and grinned at his dexterity before tramping down the stone steps once more and walking into the current guard's line of sight.

"Hey Jean, check this out!" he called, extending an arm to show that his left hand was occupied by a candleholder. He flicked his right wrist up in a way that catapulted the loaf into the air but didn't cause the water from the mug to spill outwards. As it fell one feet above his head, he hit it with the cup to let it fall in a position that would make its shooting into the mug impossible when he caught it, but he miscalculated where it would fall and somehow ended up on the floor with his arms askew in front of him and the bread between his teeth. He cringed over the pain in his chest from skidding several feet on the floor and felt his ears burn at the sound of Jean's laughter.

"Nice!" gasped Horseface. "Real impressive slide!"

Connie banged the candleholder on the floor and used his now free hand to take the loaf off his mouth to curse.

A conversation. A noisy one. Teasing. Angry. Footsteps ascending stones…

She waited for the sound of the slammed door above her to echo into nothingness. When this happened, she scooted closer to the bars of her cell and pulled her rations towards her. Placing the broken loaf on her lap, she pulled her goggles out of the water and gently shook it dry, carefully wiping each corner and inch with the edges of her tunic. Then she nuzzled it to her lips and clutched it close to her heart.