Chapter Text
Somewhere down the paths...
A gentle wind blew over them, a sweet caress with the distant scent of the sea. Ah, the sea, Ymir thought, smiling tenderly as they crossed the desert, an infinity of stars above her weary head. It was a dream, everything was just so perfect, so quiet.
Well, almost everything.
"We're close..." Berthold commented from Reiner's armoured shoulder. They had been moving for hours, and in the distance the first lights could already be glimpsed, a faint orange, like a lit match.
Ymir snorted. "The sea, is it the same as it used to be?" she asked naively as she breathed in, reaching out her hand towards the night sky. "Sorry but...I haven’t seen it in so long..."
"It's...what it always used to be..." Berthold pressed his lips together, pensive. "Ymir...there’s still time, you know?"
"Time?" Ymir sighed, grabbing a handful of stars. "The Goddess gave me too much of it, I reckon".
"Reiner and I...we talked about this" the boy from Marley carried on, his eyes fixed on her, she could feel their weight. Their gravity. "Jaw's agile, and we...we were exhausted after the battle with the Survey Corps" a brief pause, a moment of hesitation, and then "You managed to escape".
The girl smiled. "What a nice story" she said. "But a story nonetheless".
"FOR FUCK’S SAKE!" a voice thundered, a roar that shattered the quiet. The Titan shook beneath her, and its run stopped in an instant, its armoured feet scraping across the sand, leaving deep, long tracks. Ymir had to grab onto a spike to keep from falling.
"What the hell are you doing, you moron?!" Reiner’s voice echoed from somewhere inside the gigantic body. Muffled by all the layers of flesh and armour and whatever, but still audible, still strong. Still angry. "We're giving you every fucking chance, every single opportunity to go back to those damn devils, s-so why the hell don't you just take it?!"
The Armoured turned its head and looked at her with those thin yellow slits it had for eyes. Ymir had always thought they were threatening in some way, yet at that moment, they just seemed sad.
"Don't you understand, if...if you come with us, you're dead! Dead, they'll feed you to Porco, i-ss that really what you want?!" Reiner's voice echoed scornfully. Unrestrained. Merciless. "I thought you cared about Krista, I-I...I thought you cared about her at least!"
"I..." Ymir stammered. "I do...but..."
"Then fucking prove it!" Reiner yelled. "Run away while we're still away from the port, you should have enough energy to transform again, right?!"
Ymir furrowed her brow. "Reiner..."
"With the Jaw’s speed..." Berthold mused. "...you could reach Wall Rose in two, possibly three hours".
Two, three hours, was that was all that separated her from her life? From Kris...no, Historia, now. Despite it all, she was still so close, eh? Ymir felt as if she could reach and feel her soft hair, her skin as pale as snow, see those eyes as blue as the sea.
So close, but was she really?
"Historia's safe now" she commented, looking Berthold in the eyes. "They’ve got Eren, your coordinate".
The boy's lips twitched. "You know that won't protect them forever".
"Well, that'll have to do" the girl smirked, leaning back against the Armoured's shoulder. "That's all I can give them...time..."
"What the hell are you even talking about?!" Reiner roared from deep within his Titan. "Just get your ass up and go, damn it, I don't..." hot steam came out its jaws, and Ymir saw this white column rise and spiral towards the sky. "I don't want to kill any more of you idiots!"
She smiled. "Well, you're not gonna be the one, Square Face" Ymir simply said. "Porco will have the..."
"You think that makes it any better?!" Reiner retorted, his armoured fists clenching, in some places even cracking the white armour.
"We're taking you to the gallows so that Porco can eat what's left of Marcel a-and all this, just because you refuse to be a bitch the one fucking time it would actually matter, for fuck's sake!" the boy gasped, almost laughing, really. "A-And you expect us...you expect me to just agree to all this?!"
"I...I'm sorry..." Ymir murmured weakly while she stared at the stars. They were beautiful, and she doubted she would ever see them like this in Marley. If at all. "This was the only way I could think of..."
"The only way for what, are you fucking insane?!"
"Possibly" the girl giggled. "But now, my life's going to have...some meaning" and she breathed out, her chest emptying. She held out her hand to touch the stars. They trembled, the stars and suddenly her eyes were full of tears. "At least this way...there was a reason for me being born..." she cried, with a trembling smile.
Berthold stared, then asked "Because at least this way, Historia will be safe?"
And then Ymir laughed. She laughed for real and she cried, for real too. "She told me once...that me being born...it hadn't been for nothing..." she sobbed, the sky just a mass of flickering white dots. "I never...believed her...but now I do, now...now I know...she was right..." and she turned her head.
"One of you...that's what I stole from you" she told Berthold and then, her eyes flickered over the yellow cracks of the Armoured.
"Two I’m saving now...you’re no genius, Square Face but Berthold here can tell you that... this is a net bloody gain..." and she snorted, before even her smile cracked, tears marking her cheeks, wetting her lips. "So now... stop being a crybaby. and take me to that bloody monkey!"
"Ymir..." Berthold tried, his voice low, his hands clenched on his shoulders. "Once we get there, there is no..."
"You failed your mission because you couldn't see it through, Square Face! What, you wanna fail this one too, you want your family to be slaughtered because you're a fucking failure of a Warrior?!" she railed, her eyes filling with tiny red veins. Reiner listened, not saying a word, just two yellow, expressionless slits staring back as night faded above their heads.
"Take me to them, to the monkey, to fuckin' Magath, whoever!" Ymir commanded. And there was anger in her voice. Fury. But also sadness, a consuming one, and Ymir soon began to sob again, her body shaking with spasms.
"Please, Square Face...please take me to your chief, at least this once, I... I want her to have been right about me, that my birth...really did have a meaning" Ymir cried, clenching her fists, banging them against her armour. It hurt.
Not enough.
"Please" he begged. "P-Please" again and again. "Just please!"
Reiner stared. Unmoving, almost as if there was no one inside that armoured body. But there was, Ymir could see it in those bright slits. Then, she had the confirmation: Reiner said nothing, but the Titan began to move, towards the rising sun. Towards the taste of the sea.
"We...we're sorry, Ymir..." Berthold sniffed. "We...we tried, we really did..."
Ymir just smiled as her tears turned red with the dawn.
"Don't be sorry, this...this is the best day of my life..." Ymir laughed. "Because today...today I know that voice in my head is wrong, I...I was meant to be born...to be here, t-to save her and you..." and gasping for breath, she rolled her eyes one last time towards the sky.
The night was now over, and the last stars bid her farewell.
"Today...I finally...don't loathe myself anymore..." it didn't matter, she would join them soon. And with them, rest. She was tired, but even so, so very happy. "Today...I am finally proud...to be Ymir..."
TO BE FULFILLED...