#xackrmnn

     The humidity brought by three consecutives days of rain still lingered in the air, even if it had been almost a day without one drop from the sky. It could not be more appropriate that such a frustrating day would be blessed with such annoying weather. Not that any of the last were any better, even the sunny ones. There was almost only room for dissatisfaction &  powerlessness. The small victory of the capture of the Female Titan Annie had been hindered by her enclousure, rendering them incapable of gathering any more information. 

     Speaking about it, information was exactly what brought her to Mitras. There was such a loud talk back in Stohess, especially after Eren’s clash with their former classmate, not a living soul wanting to be  s o b e r. Fear has always been a good motivator. And she wasn’t normally so attentive to the conversations around her, but one name caught her attention. Her own. Only that it wasn’t about her that they were talking about. It was enough to peak her interest. Mikasa would have avoided going into personal quests, but that was different. Growing up hearing how her father’s clan had been persecuted to the point of pushing him to live near Wall Maria could only make her curious of who might’ve been this so called  A C K E R M A N N  that could be the last remnant of her family.

     Splashed mud got to her pants when the man fell to the ground after she kicked him on the back of his knee. “You shouldn’t test me.” I am not having a good day. Senseless violence wasn’t really her style, but if the man got too handsy with an unwilling barmaid, it wouldn’t be her fault if he broke a finger or two, right? After all, acts had consequences. 

“Amen.”

Uri stood at the alter, speaking quietly with parishioners as they passed by on their way out of the chapel. he tried to take solace in the fact that the service was over, tried to sink in the cool toned light flowing in from stained glass windows. it had been resoundingly foggy when he had arrived to prepare the sermon, and it had done well to stifle the moon’s rays. as such, the entire church held even more silence in its walls than on a normal day.

it would feel calming if it wasn’t suffocating.

“I need to find a few scrolls of scripture for the next service, Rod. I’ll be back to the estate after retrieving them... I think I may read them here tonight.” as his brother filed out with his wife, and he finally heard the heavy front doors shut, a languid sigh passed by his lips. he had been struck before his worshipers had taken their seats with the topic of his speech and how deeply it intertwined with his memories. it had drawn tears to his eyes during the service, and even still, his lungs ached, his body felt tense.

✦  @xackrmnn​ said:  ❛ upon seeing her shaking and drenched by the rain he couldn't keep from wrapping his arms around her. "it's okay." he said as she clung to him. blood dripping from her shoulder. "it's a'right. you're a'right!" he repeated. holding her tight. ❜

“Kenny…”

Annie spoke through a mouthful of blood, the name sliding thickly from her tongue.  Her spirit had been tempered by the freezing downpour, all bravado washing away.  A dying dog might curl up beneath the porch of its master’s house – hidden, close, quiet in its final suffering – but there was no such home for her on Paradis, not even in her comrades.  Still her weak, whining heart reached out in the dark.  Was it raining in the south tonight?  Were Reiner and Bertholdt asleep at this very moment, while the deluge drummed its murmuring lullaby on the rooftops?

It hadn’t been a conscious decision, to stagger along the thoroughfares and narrow alleyways that led to Kenny’s abode, to shiver and sway on his doorstep.  Instinct had driven her here, into his arms.  Inadvisable as it was, as unthinkable as it had once been, a furtive sort of trust had burgeoned between them.  Annie was not accustomed to being embraced, but she leaned into him, starved of comfort, of contact, of reassurance.

For all the agonies of her youth, for all her endurance, she disliked pain.  It stung bright and hot just below her right shoulder blade where a knife lay buried in her back, thrust into her body with such fury and force that the handle had broken – and therein lay the problem.  Steel sat snugly between her ribs, biting and grating with every crackling breath she took, and she could not hope to coax it free.  Piercing deep, something had broken in her chest; she felt heavy, suffocated, filled with displaced blood.  It was a grave injury, one that might even prove fatal if she was something other than what she was.

There was a price to be paid for skulking in the shadows, for poking her nose where it didn’t belong, for losing her focus for the briefest of instances.  “I should’ve paid more attention.”  The words bolted from her into Kenny’s shirt, muffled by the increasingly damp fabric.  This was the language she had spoken to her father, one of explanation and reflection, every utterance translating to:  I’ve learned from this, I’ll do better next time, please don’t be angry.

     like a theif in the night, she moved among the shadows. a girl who’s name rolled off the tongues of grown men with an air of concern tried to stay hidden as much as she could. make herself known when needed, not any other time. at the end of the day, no matter how quick or intelligent she was - she was still small. one wrong step of her foot or misplaced jab could have her thrown half across a room and nursing a serious amount of busted bones. pieck showed no mercy to men, then in turn showed no mercy for her, either. a sick balance that kept the scales level, pieck had to learn that lesson on far too many occasions. some things in life simply couldn’t be understood ‘till you were thrust into the situation at hand. pieck and the shadows would soon become synonymous. 

     shit. the wind was knocked from her lungs as the ever ominous ackermann stood behind her, hand under her jaw. she’d bitten her tongue from the shock. feeling the sickly pop of canine tearing through the muscle. the taste of iron spreading a thin layer atop her tongue, mixing with her saliva and would no doubt coat her teeth. neck being twisted then, pieck felt her whole body being dragged by her jaw around a corner. gaze forced to meet his, the corner of her lip curled into a snarl.  “ i had this! ”  flashes of all the times kenny had pointed out that she would in fact not have this if he did it on her won played before her eyes. pieck had her sights set on a rather lucrative set of jewels a patron of the bar was rumoured to have, not one to take kindly to being told she couldn’t do something  —  matters fell into her own small hands. her plan had been set in motion from the moment she’d sworn kenny was blacked out from the ale. how she was wrong.