Chapter Text
The sun has awaken a long time ago, she guesses, judging by the way leaves ruffle and shadows dance, stains of orange light covering the grassy ground. It might be early in the morning still, her horse still sleeps on the porch, head on the wooden railing. It doesn’t hold much, the wood creaks and faded paint falls in scales, but the horse finds it comfortable, always laying its brown head on it. Since she doesn’t move much anymore, having stored enough food and water for a month, maybe more if she keeps on jumping meals, the horse stays limp most of the days, moving around for an hour or two before settling back against the railing. She guesses that the horse will rot away with her. She had wondered for a while if it would survive the next snow, but seeing how the horse already tilts at each breeze, only skin on bones, she didn’t have to wonder for much. It has lost its muscles and the strength that made it a horse and now, only a shell of its past self, glories of war and fights won long gone, the horse will die soon, retired from the action, far and deep into the forest of tall trees, where so many of its comrades died for the war. She doesn’t go and salute it anymore, just witnesses its slow decay, a mirror of her own self.
She decays too, mind first, waiting for her body to do the same. She has kept it well-built and balance for too long, and it will take time before it finally follows her mind. Skipping meals doesn’t do much, it just lets the meat she killed rot inside pots full of salt. She had hunted the beasts down with the fiery of a soldier only for each and every prey to be killed too fast and too easily. The adrenaline it had procured had only been short-lived and in the end, she hadn’t felt the desire to eat anymore. If Sasha were to be there, she would have eaten the meat only to see her pout, but Sasha isn’t there anymore, Sasha isn’t alive, and Sasha won’t ever come back.
The sun is full, she guesses, judging by the awakening of the horse and the shadows being fully drawn on the ground, the wind being stronger, the leaves falling faster, plummeting on the shadows they draw. Elbows against the window and head in her palms, Mikasa only watches as time flies by, slowly enough for her to think, slowly enough for her to count the hours with an accuracy she didn’t have before, for during the war counting the hours meant having the time to do so, and soldiers didn’t have the time to count, didn’t have the time to watch the hours fly by, didn’t have the time to breathe and to live the idle life she leads now. Never was it annoying, never was it boring, never was it only the leaves falling and the horse dying. Now it only is that, and Mikasa hates the life of passivity she had created for herself. But she doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know where to go, for she has never created a dream she desired so much to fulfill. Armin had, and for most of his youth, it was only the dream of seeing the ocean and the worlds beyond it that had carried him throughout the war against greater beings. Eren had followed, freed from his crimes, freed from his rage, having fulfilled his revenge, making Armin’s dream his own. Jean had stayed back in the inner cities of the wall, finding peace in a wife he truly deserved and a child he had longed for. Connie had left the graveyard last, leaving Sasha behind, grief finally done, and it’s with the dream of counting his tales that he left to wander beyond the walls, settling his own colony, naming it after his dead mother. Historia had remained the queen, leading the country with the courage and confidence of the woman became, longing for the love of Ymir but settling for her duties instead. For the rest of them, it is unsure what they became, and Mikasa imagines their new lives, ones of peace and quiet with no threat to slay. She could have followed any of them, they all had asked her to, but those weren’t her dreams, so she had politely declined before leaving quietly in the dead of night, brown warhorse by her side, without a farewell. She was never good with words, silence always suited her better.
The horse tilts, she sees past the dusty window. It tilts and it tilts against the wind until it finally falls. Its tired cry should be enough to shake her awake, out of her thoughts, but she only watches the animal as it cannot stand up. Leaves fall on its brown fur, the light casts fully on the pathetic beast, and she slowly witnesses as it begins to give up. Hours pass by, the horse stays lying on the ground, not dead yet not alive, and as the sun sets, she guesses, for the shadows become blurry and the leaves begin to settle, the horse doesn’t breathe anymore, doesn’t move, doesn’t beg. Memories of frightful fights become foggy, her strong silhouette leading the horse into battle. As it dies so does her past life, leaving her alone now, without the ghost of a company that was her horse. She had never named it, never planned on it, calling it a horse, simply, by fear of getting attached to the animal. Now, as it lays frail and dead on the ground, right on her porch, she doesn’t feel sadness, doesn’t feel compassion. She doesn’t feel anything, and maybe any kind of feeling would have been better than this. She misses the fight, misses the action, but she doesn’t miss her horse, loyal companion, nor does she miss her comrades, all gone to live better lives. Their tales would be told, but never hers, and she believes it is for the better. The life she led wasn’t one she was proud of, only one she was accustomed to, and one she greatly misses now that it is gone.
She blinks, all source of light has faded. Another day has passed by without her in it. She sighs and stands up, moving from the window to the bedroom. It isn’t far, the cabin being quite small, sole building in the whole woods. She had built it piece by piece, cutting the wood on her own, the horse carrying it with her. She had built the foundation, had made the walls stand, had placed the windows, the curtains she never closed, had decided of the rooms, of the colors, of the pieces of furniture. All made out of dark wood, all engraved by her own hands. She even had embroidered the tablecloths, the sheets, the decorations on the walls, ever her clothes, just like her mother had taught her. The clothes were thin and quite useless in the winter, giving her another reason to not go out anymore and stay in her cabin, cut out from the rest of the world never to see the sun directly, only its light being cast through the leaves and the branches.
She enters the bedroom and, without undressing, she slips under the thin sheets and rests. Sleep never came easily and now that she doesn’t exercise or work during the day, the night stays restless and unmoving, without an eye being closed or a snore being heard. With not a soul by her side she lays silent, head facing the tangible ceiling, listening to the creaks of the wood and the sounds of the forest. She wonders in her false rest if a tree as big as big as the tallest of titans will fall on the weak roof one day, breaking through the roof bridge, the chimney, even the gutters she tried to recreate by sheer memory. The trunk would puncture the hardwood, crush the pieces of furniture she put her heart and soul into, trying her best to mimic the ones she had back in the woods behind the walls, warm days of innocent childhood. It would crush her, too, and maybe, finally, she would have the amount of endorphin and adrenaline she desperately needs to feel back alive. There, silent in the too vast bed, it downs on her every single night how pain and action were her only fuel, the only kind she truly needed. Now that nothing is done, now that her days aren’t at risk anymore, she doesn’t have anything to fuel her. Not a loving family, not the companionship of a friend, and the last companion she had just died in front of her eyes, old animal, carcass of a past she cannot forget.
So, with her thoughts running wild, with her past haunting her, mocking the idle life she lives now, alone in the tall woods, she awaits for the day to wake again, for the sun to rise through the leaves and the branches. She lays silent, thin embroidery covering her dressed body, her fingers siding against the familiar scar she had done herself on her wrist. If her mother were to be there, alive and well, old and gray, she would surely push her to a different kind of life, a better one, where she would overwork herself everyday, forcing her to finally find a restful and dreamless sleep. If Eren and Armin were to be there, back from their lifelong trip, they would surely bore her to sleep with the many tales they would tell, describing from vivid memory the landscapes, the frozen lakes, the desert of sand, the mountains of steel, the horizons made of cottons. She would listen carefully, never really understanding their fascination, not being able to comprehend or see the lands they traveled to, but she would listen anyway, closing her eyes as their words would fade. She would sleep, content with just being by their side. But at the same time, if her mother were there, if her friends were there, if anyone she knew were to be right there, in this pathetic excuse of a cabin she built, she would be leading a life that wasn’t hers, and she wouldn’t feel right, wouldn’t feel like herself. She just doesn’t know what kind of life suits her, she who knows violence and unfairness. So she lays awake and waits, imagining but never living, a foreign life that could have been.
It’s morning now, she guesses, judging by the light casting through the embroidery of the curtains. She pushes the thin sheets away, undresses and dresses again in embroidered clothes, she walks to the kitchen, drinks a glass of water, puts her elbows on the window frame, puts her head in the hollow of her palms, and watches as the light moves. The horse had been eaten during the night, traces of sharp teeth and jaws in his dry flesh. This time, it’s clearly dead. She doesn’t go to move the carcass from her porch, doesn’t go to clean the blood that has flowed down the woods between the cracks, just watches the unmoving body, the light, the falling leaves. Her tired eyes drift to the hidden sky, and she guesses the weather to be cold, the leaves having frozen overnight. Orange and red and purple and yellow, winter begins to settle, the first snow will fall soon, and it will once again cover the roof, cover the walls, cover the porch, this time finally covering the dead body that lays on her grounds. The wolves will come back tonight to eat the rest of it, and only bones will remain. She sighs. She doesn’t move. She closes her eyes. For a long and everlasting moment, she only hears. She hears the light shining, the wind picking, the body drying, a knock at her door.
A knock at her door.
She jumps, and for the first time in forever, her heart accelerates. It beats faster and faster as she runs to the door. There, hand against the hard wood, fingers going through another piece of embroidery hanging pathetically, she pushes the door ever so slowly, fearing that the disruption of her peaceful and boring days might have just been a creation of her deliriously tired mind. She pushes and pushes, leaving the dust at the doorstep to fly as the wood passes over it, and as the light shines against her pale skin, she sees the silhouette of a man, small but strong, covered in a long dark blue cape. She stays silent, unsure of what to say, stunt at the intruder facing her. She knows this face, she knows those eyes, she knows this person that faces her proudly despite the age.
“Corporal Levi...” She whispers, hand still tangled in the embroidery, body still frozen under the surprise. The man looks deeply into her eyes, boring though her every pore. He pushes the cape down, lets his hair float freely under the wind. She blinks.
“There’s a dead horse on your porch,” he says, disgust clear on his face, voice strongly carried by the wind. It resonates against the walls of her weak cabin only to echo right back into her head. “It’s disgusting.”
She sighs.