Chapter Text
Historia nearly slipped on the blood. It drenched the floorboards beneath her boots, seeped through their cracks and into the tiny abrasions in the grain until the patterns bloomed like tree branches, veins made stark against the pale wood as if the ship itself was bleeding and not the people on board. As if the ship was dying instead.
She stumbled gracelessly through the corridor, stepped over an arm splayed lifelessly across the width of the floor. She leaned against the wall for support as she made her way toward the light streaming down from the top of the stairs. The ship dipped underneath her. It sent her clinging to the railing to preserve her balance, but she barely registered any of it.
The acrid stench of metal burned her nostrils. Her lungs choked in sharp gasps of salty air as she reached the stairs and began to climb. She couldn’t breathe. It was as though she wore a veil soaked in water, suffocating her and rendering the screams around her muted and muffled and distant. As though all the oxygen had been ripped from the atmosphere.
Still, she continued to climb the steps, powered by the inexplicable feeling that she needed to get above deck. Her feet moved on their own accord, legs wound manually by an invisible hand and throwing her at the mercy of some key spinning between her shoulder blades, sending her unwittingly forward.
She saw the bodies first. A few had been tossed down the stairs prior to her journey, but the number was miniscule in comparison to the amount of fallen soldiers she saw now. Streaks of blood painted crude designs against the sun-faded deck, most still wet and glinting in the daylight. Corpses stared at her with blank, vacant eyes—they wore the masks of familiar faces, violently strewn about at awkward angles in what Historia deemed the universe’s cruelest joke to date.
But those faces had names, and as she stumbled her way through the carnage, Historia found herself identifying them against her own will: Erwin, her father’s personal advisor; Hannes, one of her guards; Petra, her favorite maid.
She could feel her throat closing, her knees buckling underneath her. Ten minutes ago, she had been cracking jokes in her quarters with her best friends, sticking her tongue out in Hannes’ direction as he playfully tugged at her hair. Now Hannes was dead, and her friends…
As if on cue, a familiar voice cut through the dazed fog clouding her mind, a strangled shout that sent her heart dropping into the pit of her stomach.
Armin.
Fighting through the panic obstructing her airway, Historia raked her eyes over the scene before her, skimmed over the bodies that remained upright and moving until she spotted a familiar shock of blonde hair.
Any relief she may have felt at discovering her best friend alive diminished the moment she registered the severity of his situation. A burly young man, rugged and threatening and huge, gripped a blood-stained sword tightly in one hand as he inched closer, backing Armin toward the edge of the ship. Armin had a shaky grip on a sword of his own, one Historia knew he neither wanted nor learned how to use. He thrust it out in front of him, some desperate attempt to protect himself.
The pirate merely laughed and took another menacing step forward. Blinding sunlight refracted off the blade he aimed toward Armin’s throat.
Something inside Historia snapped, then, yanking her to the surface as though by her hair: painfully and shockingly quick. Suddenly the sounds were too loud, the edges of every object and movement in her vision sharp and vivid. Hot anger surged beneath her diaphragm, and it was with this sudden influx of energy that she ran, screaming, a force of fury and desperation until she’d thrown herself between her best friend and his attacker.
She just registered Armin’s terrified blue eyes locking onto her as she yanked the sword from his hand and swung it at the pirate.
“Don’t you fucking touch him,” she snarled. She thought she saw the man’s eyes widen a moment, and she heard Armin’s breath hitch behind her.
“Historia!” he shouted.
“Go!” she fired back, keeping her eyes locked on the man glaring down at her. “Go find Mikasa and hide!” She straightened her elbows, baring her teeth. The sword was heavier than she’d imagined, and the metal of the hilt felt surprisingly cold against her sweating palms. She hated the way her arms quivered under its weight as she pointed it at the man before her, hated just how obvious it was that she’d never held a sword before either.
To her dismay, the pirate began laughing again, a low, demeaning chuckle that gave Historia the sudden urge to slice the smirk from his face with her blade. “So, the princess has come to fight,” he said, clicking his tongue. “Rather unbecoming of a royal.”
Historia eyed the weapon in his hand, hyperaware of Armin’s body heat against her back.
“What else am I supposed to do?” she asked. She injected as much venom into her voice as she could before continuing and almost laughed with relief when she heard it come out steady and firm. “Sit back and watch while you slaughter all my people?”
“It’s what any other noble would do.” The man shrugged, infuriatingly nonchalant. “It’s what your father would do.”
“Guess it’s a good thing you got me, then.”
“Historia—” Armin’s fingertips grazed her arm.
“Go, Armin!” The shout was feral and scraped at Historia’s throat as she pulled herself away from Armin and swung the sword back behind her, gaining frightening momentum. She knew he wanted to protect her just as much as she did him, but the moment her blade collided with that of the pirate’s and sent the shock reverberating through her arm, she knew if someone was going to die saving their best friend today, it was going to be her.
She couldn’t fight this man and live. Historia knew that much. She didn’t know how to, wasn’t sure she even wanted to, but she would fight until his sword cut the life from her lungs if it meant Armin would live. If it meant she’d managed to save someone.
Her impending defeat only became that much more obvious when the flat of her opponent’s blade struck against her knuckles with a blinding pain that sent her screaming. Her own weapon clattered harmlessly to the deck. Historia stumbled. She thought she heard Armin shouting behind her and attempted to turn around to look for him. She felt the hilt of the pirate’s sword connect with her skull instead.
The world grew quiet. Stars erupted in her vision, a chaotic array of lights and black spots accompanying the jarring pain in her head. She felt herself falling, felt her captor’s arms wrapping around her and pulling her against his chest, the heat of his breath as he spoke into her ear. Only later would she recall his exact words: “You think the captain wants you dead? That’d be too kind a fate for you, wouldn’t you say?”
Something warm trickled down the side of Historia’s face. She fought feebly to escape the iron grip holding her in place, but the world was spinning, her thoughts muddled, and she surrendered herself to the realization that this man wasn’t going to mercifully end her life the way she’d hoped. No, he was going to keep her alive, and it was the last thing she wanted after witnessing the deaths of so many people she loved.
The pirate began walking long before she realized he was carrying her. The remains of her father’s ship transited her periphery in a blur of shapes and dark, deadly colors. The guttural shouts and clangs of metal blades were quieting around her, the attack drawing to a gradual and devastating end, and she realized with a sickening lurch of her stomach that most of the people she had sailed with were now dead.
Desperately trying to blink the world into focus, she just barely registered the fact that Armin had disappeared. She couldn’t spot his blonde hair or slight build anywhere, and the fear struck her suddenly that perhaps he hadn’t escaped at all. That he’d been killed the moment she’d lost her battle and discarded carelessly onto the growing pile of cadavers instead.
No, Historia thought. The word trod heavily in her mind, as though wading sluggishly through brackish swamp water. No, he couldn’t be dead. Mikasa either. They were the ones who were supposed to survive this, not her.
Not her.
She realized she had been carried onto the enemies’ ship too many moments too late. Her vision swam, her head throbbed with every jostling step her captor took, and it was with an overwhelming surge of panic that she concluded she was a prisoner here. Isolated and alone. She’d never see her friends or family or home again.
The sudden clarity shocked her, urging her into action. She screamed first, a high-pitched, desperate, throat-raking shriek that cut through her own daze and took her captor momentarily off guard. His grip on her slackened only slightly, though, and before she could wriggle free of his grasp, he tightened his hold on her. Iron arms pressed painfully against her ribs and morphed her screams from those of rage to pain.
It didn’t stop her. The man carrying her could hit her with the hilt of his sword again, she thought, and still she wouldn’t cease kicking and screaming against him, fighting desperately to connect the heel of her foot with something soft and vulnerable. But her short legs couldn’t find purchase anywhere effective and, undeterred, her captor continued to carry her as though she weighed nothing.
The sun disappeared. Historia opened her eyes to find they’d delved into the depths of the halls and corridors below deck. Too late for her to rush back to her father’s ship or cast herself overboard even if she did manage to get away. She screamed again, kicked out violently, and laughed aloud when it crossed her mind that she should’ve practiced combat with Mikasa all those years ago the way her father had suggested. Not once in her life had she ever expected to regret refusing the lessons, to one day wish she’d trained to defend herself rather than dismissed the activity as boring and unnecessary. If she had, she might very well have bested this man who’d so easily overtaken her.
With nearly every fiber of her being, she hoped her friends had made it out of the attack alive, but there was a selfish part of her that longed for them to be with her now. To have Mikasa’s strength and Armin’s strategic mind by her side. Mostly, however, she ached for their company. There wasn’t anything she wanted less in the world than to suffer her ordeal alone.
“Reiner,” someone called behind her. “Hurry and throw her in here.”
“Let me go, you bitch!” Historia shrieked. She threw her head back, relishing in the pained shout that erupted when it struck what she guessed was her captor’s chin.
“Gladly,” he grunted in her ear. Suddenly, she was airborne, flung haphazardly to the side and into the rusting cell awaiting her. Her elbow connected hard with the wooden floorboards beneath her, and she clenched her teeth to avoid yelping at the pain.
“Let me out of here!” Scrambling to her feet, Historia launched herself at the bars in the gate the pirates had slammed shut behind her. “You can’t do this! Let me go!”
“Historia!”
The familiar voice halted her in her tracks. Warm fingers wrapped around her forearm, and her heart leapt into her throat as she whipped around to face the two additional prisoners contained in the cell with her: Mikasa and Armin.
Ymir paced the length of her quarters, listening idly to the sounds her boots made every time they clacked against the hardwood underneath them. Her fingers worried at the frays in her sleeve cuff, hands clasped behind her back to maintain an air of authority even in solitude.
There was an inexplicable exhilaration that went along with a raid. An airy tingling in the gut, an inability to completely suppress the kind of grin that led to sore cheeks and bubbly giggles. But Ymir wasn’t smiling this time. This alone was cause enough for her concern.
She hadn’t gone along on the raid. Instead, she’d awakened that morning plagued by an unexpected anxiety that the mission would prove more dangerous than anticipated, that it might not have a favorable outcome. They’d organized the attack for weeks, carefully observing the Eldian kingdom’s royal family until they’d learned of the travel plans and tracked their movements to their current coordinates. The plan was supposedly foolproof: catch the royal ship broadside, cut down anyone who opposes, drag the princess aboard, and send out a ransom. Surely they’d executed tougher missions than this.
Somehow, it didn’t matter. All the reassurance in the world wouldn’t quell Ymir’s unease until she received word that her people had been successful. No amount of chewing at her bottom lip would stop the questions swarming her mind. What if they had miscalculated the skill the king’s men possessed? What if they’d received false information and the princess wasn’t even on board?
A gentle rapping at the door stopped her in her tracks.
“Come in,” Ymir called. She watched intently as the door opened and a familiar mop of red hair appeared in the doorway. Floch gave her a curt nod.
“Captain,” he said.
“What do you have to report?” Ymir took a step forward, then paused. The last thing she wanted was to come off too eager, even in the presence of the quartermaster.
The smile that spread across Floch’s lips placated her nerves significantly. “Braun easily overtook the princess and has locked her in the brig,” he rattled off, squaring his shoulders. His voice carried no small amount of pride in it, and Ymir had to physically stop herself from heaving a visible sigh of relief. “We killed most everyone else aboard the royal ship, save some poor bastard. We sent him back to report the news of the princess’ kidnapping, along with instructions the king must meet to see her safely returned. There did, however, arise a kind of...development.”
The relief Ymir felt faltered. “What kind of development?”
Floch must have sensed her trepidation because he took a reassuring step forward, flashing her a smirk that told her what he would say next would be in her best interest. “Historia was not the only child of nobility on board. She was traveling with two companions, one directly descended from the Ackerman family and the other an Arlert, both of high power and influence in Eldia.”
Ymir arched an inquisitive brow. Finally, for the first time that day, she felt the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You mean—?”
“We don’t just have one valuable hostage.” Floch nodded. The smirk splayed across his face was contagious. “We have three.”
“Shit.” Ymir let herself sigh this time. Leaning back, she supported herself against her desk and crossed her ankles in front of her. She released a sudden, ringing laugh. “You know what we need now, right?” Floch tilted his head a little, questioning, and she continued. “A party. Organize one at once. I’ll bring the news to the rest of the crew. Everyone aboard the Warhammer deserves to celebrate like kings tonight.”
Floch’s smile matched hers. “Right away,” he said, nodding.
Ymir could feel the smile spreading to her eyes. A curious warmth bloomed through her chest, traveled through her arms and into her fingertips, and suddenly she had the urge to grab for her sword and slice away at something. If whatever pathetic, sniveling mess of a person her crew had left alive truly succeeded at getting word back to King Reiss now, the rewards she’d reap would be overwhelming. Boundless, even.
She thought about the prisoners they had locked away, levels below her feet, and grinned. She hoped they enjoyed eating slop as much as they loved their families’ extravagant feasts, that they liked sleeping on hardwood flooring more than the luxurious beds they’d left behind. If she failed to accomplish anything else, she’d at least make sure they were completely and utterly miserable. There wasn’t anything she loathed more than pampered, weak, arrogant nobility.
“And, Floch,” she spoke up as he made to exit the room. When he turned to glance at her over his shoulder, she continued. “Make sure you place Kirschtein in charge of watching them tonight. Braun deserves to celebrate with the rest of us.”