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Heat sweltered outside the barracks. Trainees within the wooden buildings tossed and turned in the night, struggling with blankets and stripping their clothing in their bunks. Worn from training through the oppressive afternoon heat, the young soldiers drifted to sleep as bruises settled in their skin. Ymir wriggled out from beneath the too heavy blanket and peeled off a soon to be sweat-soaked tunic, inspecting the day’s damage, and feeling the usual ache in her lean muscles. She laid down and closed her eyes, attempting to block the sometimes hazy, yet all too clear memories from entering her mind. As her body grew heavy, relaxed, and welcomed slumber, Ymir heard a change in the breathing of the girl lying in the bunk below.
Ymir heard Christa’s breathing hitch, and the small girl shifted in her bed, curling to make herself smaller and muffle any sound. The taller girl knew she was crying. It had only happened once before, during the first week of training, and Ymir had hoped she’d never have to hear it again. During the day, Christa was the goddess of the 104th, working as hard as anyone else to prove her strength and worth while maintaining the appearance of genuinely caring about others. Ymir knew otherwise. Ymir saw so much of herself in the other girl, saw through her sunny smile and cheerful words. She saw the cold and still emotion drift into Christa’s eyes when she felt no one was looking, saw the emptiness. Once before Ymir had felt the need to work for other people, to see their happiness rather than her own. She knew how living for other people ate you from within, slowly but surely, and grew into self-loathing. Ymir had lived it. She never wished that upon anyone, feeling worthless, angry, and alone, especially not Christa. Never Christa.
Ymir had entered the military with the intention of finding the bastard Reiss child, taking her in order to be absolved from past crimes. She had never expected for this to happen, for Christa to become a shining beacon in Ymir’s life. Christa, no, Historia, wanted to be around Ymir, was her friend, knew her better than anyone else. The girl knew what kind of person Ymir was, knew she was anything but pure and good. Yet she still stood by Ymir’s side. Ymir didn’t want to know the reason. She just knew she didn’t want Historia to leave. She yearned for the day when she would be told Historia’s true name from the girl’s own lips, to hear it and feel it resonate to her bones. She also knew that day could only come when her own secrets were revealed, when Historia knew who, what she was. A day Ymir dreaded.
Shaky breathing came from the bunk below, one sniffle from beneath a blanket and Ymir was snapped back to reality from the recesses of her mind. Ymir didn’t know what the other girl had been through. She knew in order to become so willing to throw one’s own life away in the blink of an eye, pain, heartache, trauma had to be part of one’s past. As sobs wracked the blonde girl’s body, Ymir wanted more than anything else to climb down into the other bed and envelop the smaller girl in her own tall and lanky grasp. She wanted to bring warmth to the other girl, for her to find worth in her name, to love herself as Ymir loved her. Fear moved through Ymir’s body as she said those words in her mind. She loved her. Ymir didn’t know how this had happened and she didn’t care. She just didn’t want the other girl to suffer. Her arms laid flat at her sides, and as the longing to comfort the other girl spread, her hands gripped the sheets on her mattress. A hot tear leaked from the side of Ymir’s eye, unpleasant and surprising. Ymir wanted to scream, to cry out, to go to Historia. Her chest ached and burned. She couldn’t be selfish with the girl. She had to keep her distance if she felt like this. She couldn’t be selfish, not yet. Not yet. In due time, she would do everything in her power for herself, to satisfy her want, need to be with the other girl. She would make Historia happy, herself finally happy, someway, somehow. Just not yet.