disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: to florence + the machine for the best songs, and to the god or deity who thought it was due time to send my inspiration back home. thank you.
notes: i'm not reading the current chapters of the manga, so be aware that i don't know a lot of things. stopped around Mikasa almost confessing her feelings and did you guys see that? ermahgerd, that was brilliant and awesome and Eren, you're a fucking idiot, i swear.
notes2: i'm deeply sorry it took me so long to write again. please, accept my heartfelt apologies for it. i hope you guys enjoy this next chapter all the same.
notes3: did you know i missed you guys? a lot :)

chapter title: li†tle girlS that go† swalloweD up
summary: the worst of humanity hides in the risers, the shining stars rot away in the dirt. in a world where no one saved Mikasa that day, Eren leads a titan army. -—darker characters

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the greatest trick the devil ever pulled
was convincing the world there was only one of him

.˙. ¤ .˙.

.˙.˙.

˙.˙

. qu i e † chamb e r — no i s γ he a r † .

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.˙.˙.

There's love in your body but you can't get it out
It gets stuck in your head, won't come out of your mouth
Sticks to your tongue and shows on your face
That the sweetest of words have the bitterest taste
—Florence + the Machine

˙.˙.˙

˙.˙

. † .

There is pain.

It starts when the darkness recedes, with the burn of her flesh and the crawling on her skin. It is never–ending and all consuming, Mikasa thinks with her eyes clenched tight, but it means she's alive.

She's alive — and she doesn't know if she's grateful for it.

It's not that Mikasa is afraid to get hurt — she is no stranger to pain. She has had her fair share of injuries, purple bruises blossoming like flowers on her marble skin and bones broken so many times they may as well fit as puzzle pieces. She's not afraid to fight, not afraid to bleed — but did it have to invade her dreams as well? Green leaves and green eyes swirling behind her eyelids, a memory of girlhood and bloodlust, smeared together to keep out reality.

She is going to open her eyes and see the tent ceiling, stained of dirt and sloping down to the barren soil. She is going to open her eyes and hear the roar of titans, a song about murder and mayhem and death. She is going to open her eyes and await for Armin to stumble in, bleeding and shaking like every other evening.

It will all be a dream, and Mikasa will never again take her freedom for granted.

Her eyes flicker open.

She finds herself in a world of feathers and blossoms, amidst filmy cream curtains and white pillows, light glinting off dull gold bars. A gilded cage for a dirty princess, and Mikasa is trapped in ruffles and lace and fresh–picked flowers woven into her hair.

This is wrong. This is wrong. Mikasa feels uncomfortable and inadequate and fights the violent urge to scratch at her skin and rip all the petals from herself. She wants to vomit and scream herself hoarse, because the truth is that she is not made for beauty or frills or delicate things; she is not a princess. Mikasa is made for battle — a child born of war and painted in blood, a child drowned in sorrows. Life hasn't been kind to her and she has decided not to be kind back, and being a soldier, a Riser, she doesn't know how to do anything besides slaying titans and numbing herself to the pain afterwards.

Even so, before collapsing due to exhaustion inside that Warrior's mouth — her adrenaline rush all but gone —, Mikasa could have sworn it had all been in her mind.

Before, she could swear it had all been a dream.

Now she just thinks she's going to be sick.

A fickle light burns above her head, the flame dim and trembling inside its glass lantern. But outside the cage there is only darkness — darkness so absolute and so deep she feels like a child once more, a little girl who has been swallowed up and down the beast's throat.

She almost smiles at this because, really — she supposes it's not that far from the truth.

"I never got your name."

Mikasa blinks for a long moment, gazing at the warm flame above her head. She counts her breaths in a slow pace, feeling her chest rise and fall with each intake of air. With each intake of life.

If only she could stop breathing right now.

"I know you're awake."

Mikasa rises to her knees and — hating herself, hating him, hating everything — crawls to the bars to push the curtains out of the way. Her knees crack and pop, tensing just slightly. She remembers the feeling from a time far away, when she is nine and held kneeling by her nape, fighting the fear that grips her heart and the numbness on her legs. She remembers the sickening laugh of her mother's killer, dancing above her bowels sprawled on the dirt. She remembers the stickiness of her captor's hand, red and warm from her father's blood. She remembers their taunts of how this was the end for her.

And Mikasa isn't above lying, but she's not going to lie to herself.

Because it had been so good to prove them wrong. It had been so good to slice that filthy hand off her and shove it down the bastard's throat. Almost as good as dragging her knife across the stomach of her mother's murderer and who had their intestines upon the ground now?

Ripper! Burn the Ripper!

Mikasa had made a promise that day. She had sworn (over their dead bodies, over their own blood) never to live on her knees again. Because it's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees any day — and Mikasa knows that better than anyone else.

And yet, here she is — kneeling inside a golden cage fit for those lovely song birds. But Mikasa has forgotten how to sing anything besides battle cries, and she can't fly amidst the forest anymore. She's stuck behind gold bars and creamy silk, looking at her captor through silken bangs and dark lashes. And she can't see his face, can't see him at all in the absolute no light; but his eyes, green and burning—

They glow cat–like in the darkness.

The world stops for a moment, and she thinks about an empty cage and the cat below it; its tail twitching as it licks blood and feathers off. She thinks about the wolf that chases, muscles rippling beneath the brown fur and paws digging into the moist soil, as its prey runs and runs and tastes freedom — but never gets to really escape. She thinks about chances and choices, and realizes she has none at all.

The cat that eats the canary. The wolf that hunts its prey.

Either way, she ends up dead.

Mikasa should have been angry. She should have been fighting and screaming, furious enough to make herself bleed, to break out of this pathetic cage. She should not accept being trapped like an animal, should not agree with having her choices ripped away like this. And even if she's a beacon of hope (but not anymore), and even if she's strong (not strong enough), had she been Erwin–heichou or Hange she wouldn't be in this position in the first place. Had she been them, she would have already escaped.

But she isn't. She is just Mikasa.

Bloodstained and battle–worn Mikasa.

And Mikasa is tired, not angry. She is so tired and so sorry, and even if she is a Riser and worth a hundred soldiers, she has had enough. Enough of people dying and killing in name of a self–proclaimed duty, enough of monsters ripping everything apart and leaving the earth smoldering in their wake and she's just so tired of war—

—because war, once started, lets lose the whole contingent of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.

Mikasa has been bleeding for a very long time.

"Hey, Ripper–girl. I'm talking to you."

'Shut up', Mikasa wants to scream — for him to be silent, to go away, to just end this charade. However, even if she wants to rant and spit and run her steel blade through him, she doesn't do any of those. Not because she doesn't have her gear or because she's stuck inside a disguised prison — no. She sits still and only looks on with tired eyes because, sometimes, some things are able to poison your marrow.

And regret and sorrow have already reached bone–deep.

She looks down and, in the end, it isn't about dread or anger or fear of facing him. It simply comes down to the fact that she absolutely refuses to acknowledge someone with the potential of killing and ripping herself apart. And Mikasa supposes, recalling green eyes and a sharp sharp smile, that he could rip much more than her body—

—and that is something worthy of being feared.

There is a long pause, and she can almost see his frown when he tells her, "I could kill you."

"You could," Mikasa murmurs, and has to fight the bitter smile that threatens to take over her lips. She can't believe she's having this conversation — and the problem is not discussing her death, but with whom she's discussing it. Mikasa, the Riser worth a hundred soldiers. Mikasa, humanity's best hope. Mikasa, the Bloody Ripper—

Mikasa, talking amicably with a Warrior.

It almost makes her laugh — back then, Annie hadn't been able to utter a single excuse before Mikasa's blade had pierced her heart.

That had been a long time ago.

"You could," Mikasa repeats, suddenly looking up and gazing at those bright feline eyes, ready to raze and burn and smolder her into nothing but ashes, "but you won't."

"What makes you so sure?" he asks, and there is amusement lost amidst the echo of his voice.

"I'm still alive right now, aren't I?" Mikasa reasons, twirling the stem of a flower between her fingers. Her semblance is indifferent, even tranquil, but disgust and sarcasm wage an eternal battle inside her to crack it. "If you were going to kill me, you would have already done it."

Mikasa closes her eyes, rejoicing the moment silence resounds. But even if it's deep, silence is also fragile. Breakable. When the clapping sounds, Mikasa just open her eyes and sighs, accepting it has already been lost.

"She has you there, fucker."

A voice, deep and dry, resounds from somewhere in the dark chamber that is not the man in front of her. Everything stands still, and Mikasa feels a shudder run down and freeze her spine because this voice—

It's only a tasssssste dear

—sounds exactly like the snake must have sounded when it offered Eve the forbidden fruit.

The temptation that leads to one's downfall.

Mikasa looks on as a man appears from the darkness; slowly, as if he is not the one who steps into the light, but as if the shadows are the ones who unfurl from him. He walks with a different kind of confidence, without the benefit of hurry or recklessness or doubt, and Mikasa recognizes a soldier (predator) when she sees one.

He has dark hair and a darker gaze, with eyes of a penetrating grey that speak of storm clouds and quicksilver, and when he stops just outside of her bars and looks at her—

She can hear her screams, echoing inside the blackness of an endless pit, rebounding all around. She can smell the scent of blood and rage and despair, can feel the chains digging into her wrists, and when she gazes into the light above her prison, all she can see is his shadow staring back at her, with a sadistic grin and whispers and promises of no mercy—

Mikasa shrinks away from him.

Because cages, as much as to keep someone from getting out, also keep monsters from getting in.

"Awn, look at that! You scared her, bastard."

Mikasa is too terrified to pretend otherwise.

Because what she has seen in those orbs of molten silver is more than her death, more than her life being blown out like the frail flame of a candle. Oh no, she thinks. What she has seen is much more frightening than that.

It's the dissection of her soul. The unraveling of everything that makes one herself.

The unbecoming of Mikasa Ackerman.

"I see you brought the girl."

Her captor scoffs, finally sliding out of the shadows. He's using the same black leather uniform as before, and the red scarf hangs loosely around his neck. Nevertheless, even if his hair is not windswept this time around, his grin is still as sharp as her blades when he says, "yeah, and didn't kill her too. Just like asked."

Mikasa stills. A memory, not far away, resurges from the deep recesses of her mind, breathing in the air of remembrance.

"Not going to kill you, little Riser. Got orders from bastard not to."

It sinks inside her mind again, quiet and sleepy, and she stays silent. Mikasa may be afraid, and confused as to why she is here, but what she is not is stupid.

She is a Riser, a soldier, stuck in enemy territory. Her chances of survival are slim, but if she stays put and pretends just enough, then maybe, just maybe, when the time comes…

"Not like you did a great favor." Retorts the new man, seeming bored of the conversation already. "It was an order, fucker. You had to follow it."

"Oh yeah?" Sneers the Warrior, sharp teeth glimmering in the dull light. "And what would you do if I didn't? Rip my arm off, huh?"

Mikasa looks on surprised as the man's face loses its impassiveness for the first time, contorting into something akin to disgust. "No. It would get blood on the floor, and I would be the one to have to scrub that shit off later. It wouldn't even be worth it in the end, because you would just grow the arm back like a damned lizard or something. Urgh, gross."

The warrior throws his head back and starts laughing, low and full–bellied. The sound rebounds and echoes, losing itself in the blackness of the high ceiling, and Mikasa flinches a little. The truth is that she should be used to it already, with Connie and Jean and Sasha always—

Stop. Don't think about them.

The knot on her stomach tightens. Every day has been a struggle and she realizes that, at this point, all those she considers friends may be dead — and if she doesn't start to focus soon, Mikasa may also be.

The new man walks closer, stopping just outside the bars. A dark thrill goes up her spine as the light of the lamp spills down on his face, setting ablaze those pools of mercury but casting in shadows the hollows — below his eyes and nose and the base of his throat. They all sing of darkness and bloodlust.

There is a wild look in his gaze, and every bit of sense Mikasa has tells her to skitter away from him, to get to the bars at the other side of the cage and hide — not for forever, but for a long time. Instead, she stays where she is, with her knees tucked underneath her body, frozen by the intensity of his study. The sense of danger is what baits her attention, what makes her a true prisoner in this cage with no lock.

Her captor approaches and stands by the other man, both staring down at her. Mikasa scowls because, really — she feels like an animal held on display for the public eye.

"So," the Warrior starts, cat–like grin too sharp for her tastes, "are we gonna get your name or what?"

"No," she replies, as dry as the barren land.

"Huh," he chuckles, "didn't think so. Maybe tomorrow."

Mikasa does not voice her negative — no, not tomorrow, not even after that. He won't hold that sort of power over her, because she won't be the one to hand it over to him.

"At least do you know ours?" He asks.

"Yes," she answers with a straight face, "you're Fucker. He's Bastard."

There is this moment when only the dust particles and silence are suspended in the air, a moment in between — and then it's shattered when her captor explodes in laughter again, leaning on the gold bars of her cage for support. He laughs long and hard for some time, but the other man doesn't even blink.

"Huh, who would have thought?" 'Fucker' says, wiping away tears of mirth. "This girl has some cheek."

"Yes," the one who has been called 'Bastard' says, impassive voice and impassive eyes directed at her, "her cheekiness must have been born the moment she impaled Leonhardt on her sword."

Suddenly, Mikasa is angry. The anger bubbles in the pit of her stomach and rises, fast and furious up her esophagus, leaving a trail of fire in its wake and burning on her tongue. She doesn't understand exactly how — how she can be so furious when only a minute before she was afraid, how that man has gotten a rise out of her with such an insignificant comment —, but she understands the why.

"You presume to know much about me, don't you?" She spits, fingers curling around the bars and eyes aflame and wild. Her face is a mere breath space from his own, but for the first time she looks into his mercurial eyes and doesn't feel that crippling sense of fear. It's empowering, this sensation — of confronting your worst foe, the one able to completely crush you, and not hold yourself back because of self–preservation.

It's also madness, Mikasa knows. Only right now, she doesn't care.

The man with gray eyes leans back, straightening his posture and never once avoiding her gaze. "It looks like this Riser has a death wish bigger than most."

Her captor only laughs, obviously not taking the threat for what it really is. "Leave her be, Levi. She's interesting."

Mikasa latches on the name like a leech, hungry for blood. Levi. Levi.

It sounds strong, dangerous; it sounds—

her screams, echoing inside the blackness of an endless pit

—just like her death sentence.

Both men look at her for a second more, quietly observing her as she sits back on her legs. She lets her hands fall limply at her sides, fingertips touching the petals scattered all around. Suddenly, it feels like all the energy has rushed out of her. Mikasa feels drained — and then, when the Warrior starts to turn around to leave, she feels panicked.

"Wait."

The word tears itself from her lips without her permission, and leaves her horrified. All she has wanted is solitude and silence, and now she betrays herself with the desire to stall them for company?

(Mikasa isn't above lying, but she's not going to lie to herself)

If she thought she was going to be sick before — well, now she thinks she's going to be really sick.

The Warrior swings around and looks at her — her in her gilded cage; rare and precious and so very trapped — and says with lips bended in a little feral smile, "yes?"

"Where are you going?"

A strange glint ignites his (oh so green) eyes. It's maniac — bloodlust and psychosis running rampant and interlocking in a lovers' embrace. His hands slide through the gold bars, and when Mikasa flinches back, they are quick to trap her cheeks with tender brusqueness.

"I'm going out to end this war with my bare hands, little Ripper." The Warrior murmurs, thumb running along her bottom lip, fingers spread like spiders upon her temples. "Maybe next time, I'll let you come with me. You seem to be good at killing."

His words strike something inside her heart that leaves Mikasa struggling for breath.

Because even if it's the truth — even if she only knows how to fight and maim and raze and burn — it doesn't mean she's proud of it. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

It's for the best, she supposes. Nine–year–old Mikasa may have been the nurturing kind, good and motherly. Eighteen–year–old Mikasa is a soldier.

And mercy does not grow in the blood–soaked soil of war.

He grins down at her. His canines appear long and sharp, glimmering dully in the dim light of the lantern. "You are an interesting Riser, aren't you? So pretty and yet so efficient at destroying. So scared and yet so determined not to show it."

He laughs, but for the first time Mikasa does not find any mirth in it; only bitterness.

"I will let you in on a little secret, huh?" He tells her, face serious and resentful and so very close, and she think his next words must taste like poison. "Bravery cannot be used as a mask in a place like this. Here, the darkness strips away everything that you are not, and you will learn that too much pride gets you killed."

He shoves her back with such force that Mikasa falls amidst the pillows, limbs askew and cheeks hurting from his caresses.

When she sits up again, he has already withdrawn.

"Eren," he says. "Remember that."

He strides into the shadows. She doesn't hear a door close behind him.

There's a long moment of nothing but the oppressing blackness around her, dripping like shining oil around her cage. And then—

"I don't know if Eren was right."

Mikasa slides her eyes to the other man left in the room. She hasn't forgotten about him — could never ignore a predator only a few steps away, dangerous and ready to strike out at her. The truth is that after becoming a Riser she could never again not see. She could never again close her eyes to the shadows (because they've been branded inside her eyelids), could never scrub off all the cruelty and gore and death (because they are imbibed on her skin). It's sad, but nowadays, Mikasa sees more the bad than the good.

Sometimes, she wishes she could mourn her innocence, stripped away so suddenly it left her bare and scarred to the world. She wishes she could cry for all of those who lost their lives, that she could just stop for a second and fucking breathe. That she didn't need to be as strong as one of those Walls.

"Later," Erwin–heichou would tell her, hand heavy with duty on her shoulder.

"Later," she agrees.

The time never comes.

"Eren said you're interesting," Levi's impassive voice brings Mikasa back, clawing at her attention and denying her any reprieve, "but I'm wondering if it's enough."

She sees red. Because it's not in his right to throw half–concealed threats like that — like it doesn't matter, like he's not talking about a taking a life —, and his face is so impassive while doing it that she has this violent urge to run her nails down it and scratch his eyes out and draw blood—

"You know nothing about me." She growls instead.

"Oh no," and his tone is condescending, mocking her for her ignorance, "I know more about you than you realize, Ackerman."

Her name on his lips is like a punch in her gut, and the space between her ribs feels hollow all at once.

"How did you—?"

"Mikasa Ackerman, the Riser worth a hundred soldiers, also known as the Bloody Reaper." He starts, voice flat as if telling her a particularly boring story. But Mikasa knows better, because it's her story.

And it's nothing if not tragic.

"Your parents were murdered when you were nine, so in revenge you gutted their assassins. Quite a dramatic one, aren't you?" He makes a brief pause, as if asking her a real question. She knows he is not. "But then, when you started to struggle to live on your own — not unexpected, since you were just a pathetic little brat — you decided, instead of going to an orphanage, to enlist on the army."

He pauses and looks at her askance, as if measuring her worth. If he reaches a conclusion, she does not see it.

"How cute." Levi spits, lips twisted into something akin to contempt and disgust. "Did you think you could save the world, when the world didn't save you back? Did you think you could protect humanity from monsters, when in slaying and killing you've become one yourself?"

Mikasa looks on at him, eyes as wide as the dark ceiling, trying to swallow down this cruelty that strikes so close at home.

But Levi is not finished yet.

"So efficient, aren't you? The perfect soldier." He sneers, as sibilant and venomous as a snake. "Always ready for a command, always obeying your orders — like a fucking dog."

She sits still, stunned for a long moment, breathless and frozen, and her voice is but a whisper in the wind.

"How dare you?"

But then — then she's shaking from rage all over, jumping to the bars and baring her teeth at him like the rabid animal she feels like.

And it may be madness. And it may be her death sentence. Only right now, she doesn't care.

"How dare you?" She snarls viciously, "how dare you talk about murder and monsters when it was your side that started this wretched war? You compare me to a dog because I obey orders? Well, I have some news for you, you fucking hypocrite! You're as much as a dog as I am, but in the end you're worse, because you're a dog that serves the wrong master—"

The words die on her tongue with his hand around her neck. It presses hard on her windpipe, choking her, and Mikasa claws at him to let her go, to let her breathe—

"Eren was right," he says, eyes as incandescent as coal aflame, "you are cheeky."

He releases her throat after only a few seconds and yet, to Mikasa, it feels like a lifetime. She gasps for air, more out of fright than necessity, and wonders if his touch is going to bruise.

She has always been proud of her scars, but she does not care for this particular purple flower to bloom.

Levi's hand is just like his stare, like his words — a viper, always striking and striking true. Suddenly his fingers are back, and before she can retreat, they dart to the back of her head and coil in the dark strands of her hair. They yank her closer until her forehead is almost touching his, and his grey irises sear into hers as much as they pull her in, like a supermassive black hole.

There is something lurking on his eyes, Mikasa realizes, just below the surface. It's like the brewing of a storm, like the promise of a hurricane and the undertow of the sea — it's electrifying and dangerous and when she blinks, it's gone.

He studies her for a few seconds and then, slowly, as if to not scare her, leans in. Her heart beats fast while he tilts her head back, and as she watches the flickering shadows on the ceiling, she feels him brush his nose along the tender skin of her neck. His hot breath leaves a trail up the column of her throat, and the sensation is so strong it makes goosebumps rise on her flesh.

"So fierce, yet so naïve," he whispers, and she can feel his words and tongue and teeth on her skin, "so let me tell you a little secret, Ackerman. There's no such a thing as a right or wrong side on a war — there's only the side who's left."

Mikasa doesn't know how to cope with the feeling of loss when Levi suddenly lets her go.

She stays there, neck exposed as if in sweet offering and gaze glued to the lantern, seeking light amidst the blackness that encloses on her heart. She curls her fingers into her palms and presses hard, until it breaks skin and hurts enough that the world starts making sense again, and it's this — the fact that pain is her anchor to reality — that tells Mikasa, more than anything else, how messed up she really is.

When she finally lowers her head, she finds that without another word, Levi has gone.

He never tells her he will be back, even if she knows he will.

Mikasa is left in solitude, kneeling amidst soft petals — a princess of silence. Staring into the all–encompassing darkness, right into the bottomless void, it's not difficult to imagine it to be the jaws of the beast enclosing on her, eating her whole and leaving nothing but the wisps of a girl that got swallowed up.

She should have said goodbye.

The taste of regret is harsh and bitter on her tongue. So Mikasa closes her eyes and grasps tightly to the shades of blue that Armin always dreams about, to the flecks of golden sunshine that spill through lush leaves and the hot orange of when the sun goes down to sleep.

She was so free…

And now she isn't anymore. She is stuck in a lovely cage fit for a lovely bird, and there is nothing she can do to escape this fate.

Her breath hitches. Her throat closes up. Helplessness settles in—

The Ocean is out of reach.

— it's when the tears finally come.

…

…

. † .

For a long time, Mikasa simply lays there.

Her bed is made of white roses and begonias, of aconite and oleander, and she traces the shadows on the ceiling and maps them like stars on the night sky. The light of the lamp is dimmer, faint, but she draws figures all the same, making a game of it. That one looks like a dwarf Warrior, the other a loaf of bread — Sasha would never let her live this down — and, if she squints just slightly, the next looks just like Armin with one of his cases of bed head. Mikasa smiles at this, and her cheeks hurt as if forbidden of a smile for too long.

It doesn't last anyway (happiness never lasts too long), because what she sees in the next shadow is Wall Maria up in flames.

She stops playing then.

The silence she had wanted so much is back to offer her company — only this time, Mikasa is not able to draw any comfort from it.

Instead, she feels only dread, and a mild sensation in her gut that might speak of despair.

Mikasa turns on her side and curls tightly around herself, warmth eluding her — escaping in her breath, evaporating from her skin. She tastes the skin on her neck with her fingertips (it's bitter), where the ghost of a touch still seems to haunt her.

— orbs of a penetrating grey, that speak of storm clouds and quicksilver and the unraveling of everything that makes her herself —

Mikasa lets her lids fall like a guillotine, killing herself to her poisonous thoughts, closing herself to the cruelness of the world. She tries to coerce her mind to stop, to let her memories lie as still as the waters of a well — quiet and dark and so deep no one can see the bottom of it.

So no one can strip her away with only a glance again.

When she opens her eyes again, there's a chasm around her. Mikasa looks up, and even if she can't see it, she knows there's nothing behind the lantern's glass besides cold air and elusive smoke.

The light has gone out, and now there's nothing to keep the shadows at bay.

And so it starts — when the darkness approaches, darker than black and much colder than death must feel like. It starts with shadows swirling and dancing on the walls, curling around her cage and whispering her name, ready to pour down her throat and get her drunk.

Mikasa rolls over, gasping for air. She won't do this, no, she absolutely refuses to be dragged back to a time she was not in control of herself. So she closes her hands into fists and raises herself on her elbows, bones digging into the soft pillows below. Mikasa breathes, slowly, her eyes dilated to take in the world around her. And she tells herself she's not afraid, but when she looks around and sees her cage wide open, all the hairs on her arms stand up.

How was that possible? She'd looked for the door before, but found none. There was no lock; if there was no lock, how could there a key? There was nothing but golden bars and golden floor and golden ceiling, seamlessly melded into each other, and Mikasa thought she would be trapped here forever, with no way out.

Only she must have been wrong, because her way out is right there, staring at her mockingly, whispering promises of freedom and sunlight when there is nothing but betrayal awaiting for her. On the other side, her escape smiles and becomes her dangerously into the unknown, where beasts feast and innocence is lost.

She drags herself to the edge of her prison, and doesn't ask if anyone is out there. There won't be an answer anyway. What kind of predator calls out before closing on the prey?

Mikasa envisions screams rebounding inside a well, a shadow laughing down at it. Recalls green eyes alight as a forest on fire, and a sharp sharp smile — and thinks not this kind.

She grips the bars tightly, lowering her legs out of the cage one after the other. The floor is the rough of stone, scraping at her skin, and she closes her eyes at it. Everything is so dark and so very cold, that Mikasa shivers for a moment.

And then she stops.

She is a Riser, who has seen more than her fair share of blood and gore. She is a soldier, who has been trained to handle the cold, to handle hunger and the deaths of people she holds dear. And even if she's lost and thirsty, or tired and confused, she's not a pitiful little girl hoping to be saved. She doesn't have that kind of trust in others.

But she has that trust in herself. And she's too strong to simply stand down and not fight back.

And Mikasa is angry, not tired. She is so angry and so sorry, because she should have been fighting since waking up, should have broken Levi's neck and spit on Eren's face when they got close enough. She wants to scream until her throat is bloody raw, because she should have been ready, dammit — and even if she wasn't before, she is now. So she lowers her legs, lowers her fears, and at opening her eyes, forgets about everything but surviving.

It's time.

Staring right into the darkness, Mikasa steps on.

.˙.

.˙.˙.

There's love in your body but you can't hold it in
It pours from your eyes and spills from your skin
Tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks
And the kindest of kisses breaks the hardest of hearts

˙.˙.˙

˙.˙

.

.

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notes4: awn, the language of flowers. Also, Levi says hello, bitches.
notes5: so. Eren is dark dark dark, Levi is kind of bipolar and Mikasa allows herself to show emotions. wow. so, yeah. maybe i got something — everything — wrong.
notes6: nah, jk. i got the cleaning fetish right. #haha #suchajoker #watchoutforbatman
notes7: not talking about Eren and Levi (they have their issues), but in Mikasa's case, i tried to make her more human in this chapter. she is strong, and brave, but i allowed her to be also afraid, because she does not have her love for Eren to propel her forward, to make her fight harder. here, she starts alone. and even in face of enemies, she does not need to be strong all the time. she can show her fears, and frustrations, she can cry and spit and rage. because too much pride only gets you killed.
notes8: watch out next for badass Mikasa #winkwink.
notes9: would you like to tell me your favorite part? i will tell mine, hee hee.
notes10: please do not favorite without leaving a review! it's so fantastic to hear from you guys :)