Chapter Text
Marcel is the first to find out.
His discovery is completely accidental. During training the Warrior candidates are often matched up to practice their hand-to-hand combat. Today, Annie and Reiner are paired, as are Porco and Bertholdt. Pieck is home sick, or possibly her father is and she’s taking care of him, leaving Marcel alone to watch from the sidelines. He would typically keep his eyes on his brother, but today Magath has specifically ordered him to watch Annie and Reiner spar instead.
It makes sense. Annie is unmatched among the candidates in unarmed combat, and they all have a lot to learn from her. But for his own selfish reasons, something in Marcel’s stomach curdles every time he sees her effortlessly beat Reiner into the dust.
Every defeat is being recorded and mused over by Magath and the other officers. Marcel knows there isn’t much time left - the decision will be made soon. And he can’t let them choose his brother over Reiner.
He watches blankly as Annie drops Reiner over and over, their moves blurring into each other until it’s all an undifferentiated mass. He lets his eyes flick over to Porco and Bertholdt, who are much more evenly matched in this area. Porco’s movements aren’t as frantic or awkward as they were when they began training, but smooth and skillful.
Doubt creeps into Marcel’s mind. Is he doing the right thing?
Suddenly, Reiner lets out a cry. Marcel quickly turns back to Reiner and Annie, finding that the latter has once again pinned the former to the ground, forcibly raising his right arm above his head at a painful-looking angle.
“Do you yield, Braun?” the training instructor, a Marleyan soldier named Thomas, asks boredly. It’s clear he’s seen this already a dozen times over and expects nothing different this time.
Reiner grits his teeth, clearly suppressing another cry. “N-never,” he manages. “I endure for Marley!”
Annie lets out a scoff and pushes Reiner’s arm back even more until his shoulder lets out a worrying crack. “Give up already, Reiner,” she says coldly.
“Augh!”
“Leonhart, that’s enough. Step back and get back to your positions, both of you,” Thomas orders.
Annie drops Reiner’s arm with a sigh. That’s when Marcel spots it. The dark blur against her pale wrist as the sleeve on her shirt lifts ever so slightly.
That’s…a soulmark!
Instinctual politeness makes Marcel look away before he gets a clear look at exactly what Annie’s soulmark looks like. His parents drilled into him and his brother that it’s not polite to stare at someone else’s soulmark without their permission, especially not a woman’s soulmark. Annie shouldn’t be old enough to have a soulmark yet, they usually don’t come in until puberty, though there are rare exceptions.
Something deep inside Marcel knows that what he saw wasn’t just some dirt that ended up on her arm. And that dark mark on her wrist definitely wasn’t there a few hours ago when they’d been running laps around the training grounds together.
He shifts his gaze down to Reiner as the boy picks himself back up, leaning heavily on his left arm and gingerly lifting his right arm. Annie’s hold has dragged his right sleeve up slightly. And there, against Reiner’s inner right wrist, is a set of dark lines in the unmistakable form of a flower. That wasn’t there a few hours ago, either.
Marcel isn’t able to stop himself from staring this time.
“Galliard, is something the matter?” Thomas asks crisply. Marcel snaps to attention. The Marleyan is glaring at him and doesn’t seem to be paying Reiner and Annie any mind. Marcel glances briefly at them, but they’re back to sparring, sleeves back in place and covering their wrists.
“N-no, sir,” he says quickly, standing up straight.
“You’d better be paying attention, unless you’d like to scrub the latrines for the next few weeks. You’re meant to be watching, not dawdling around.”
“Yes, sir!”
Thomas doesn’t reply and turns away to check on Porco and Bertholdt, muttering about how all Eldians, even their so-called Warriors, have nothing between their ears as he does.
Marcel returns to observing Reiner and Annie, but his thoughts are far from fighting techniques.
Sometimes it takes decades between a soulmark revealing itself and meeting one’s soulmate for the first time. Sometimes soulmates know each other for years before their soulmark comes in. His parents even started seeing each other before their soulmarks appeared.
So the fact that Reiner and Annie knew each other long before their soulmarks appeared doesn’t mean anything. And soulmarks always appear on soulmates at the same time.
Despite being raised as a polite, upstanding member of society, Marcel feels the sudden urge to get a better look at Annie’s soulmark. He has a pretty good guess what it will be.
He never gets the chance to find out. By the time training is over, Annie has her sleeve pulled tightly over her entire left arm, including her hand, having clearly realized that her mark has appeared. Reiner is holding his right arm close to his chest as well, though that might be because Annie injured it.
His possible soulmate injured it…
Marcel’s head spins.
—
Marcel stops by the florist after training, much to Porco’s confusion.
“What do you need flowers for?” he asks curiously, trailing behind Marcel with the swagger of someone who knows he came off looking far better than his rival in training today. “You trying to woo someone or something?”
“Nope.” Marcel looks around the store for something that matches the mark he’d spotted on Reiner’s wrist. He eventually spots it - a yellow flower made up of layers of petals whose edges are almost crinkled. He holds it up at the florist, an old woman who’s watched him peruse the store with a twinkle of amusement in her eye. “Excuse me, ma’am, what flower is this?
She gives him a gap-toothed smile. “That’s a carnation, dear.”
“A carnation…” Marcel twirls the stem in his hand.
“Seriously, what’s the difference between one flower and the other,” Porco mutters. “Just get what you need so we can go home, Mars.”
“I’ll take this, then. I’m getting it for Mom to show my appreciation for her,” Marcel tells Porco, who rolls his eyes and mutters ‘ showoff’ under his breath.
The old woman chuckles. “You might want to pick a different colour then, like pink or white. Yellow carnation means you’re disappointed in them.”
“O-oh…” Marcel selects a more appropriate colour.
“There we go.” She beams at him. “My, what a good son you are.”
His mother hugs him when he and Porco return with a gift “from both of us.”
“I’m so proud of you, Marcel,” she whispers. He buries his head in her shoulder, guilt curling in his stomach. He doesn’t tell her that when he bought the flower, he wasn’t thinking of her at all.
Disappointment…What does that mean for Reiner and Annie?
—
Marcel doesn’t have time to think much more about Reiner and Annie and their soulmarks after that. All his focus turns to ensuring that he’ll become a Warrior and his brother won’t. With a sinking heart, he quickly realizes that Reiner will be the one left behind if he doesn’t intervene.
Soon, too soon, it’s time to do or die. Zeke tips Marcel off that Magath and the others would be making their decision about the Warrior Unit tomorrow. Marcel scrambles to ask for a meeting with the higher ups that evening, and spends the afternoon in a panicked daze.
He starts to question what he’s doing.
Am I right to do this to Reiner? Sacrifice him so Porco can stay safe and live a long, happy life with our parents and his soulmate?
His doubts are quickly chased away by justifications.
Only one of us can stay behind. My parents can’t lose both their sons. Porco has yet to meet his soulmate, I can’t take that away from him.
Besides Reiner and Annie are probably soulmates. And Annie will surely be given a Titan.
Wouldn’t it be better for them both if they went on the mission together, then? Instead of separating them and forcing Annie to die before Reiner?
Isn’t this for the best for everyone, not just me?
I’m not doing something wrong. I’m just making sure everyone is happy.
He goes to the meeting and talks down his brother, explaining all the reasons why he would never be a good Warrior.
“Sirs, I’m here because I have some concerns I felt I had to bring to your attention.”
I’m not doing anything wrong.
“I want what is best for Marley.”
I just want what’s best for all of us.
“My brother’s temperament isn’t suited for the parameters of the mission.”
I’m doing the right thing .
“Braun and Hoover work well together, as do Braun and Leonhart and Braun and myself.”
I’m doing the right thing here.
—
The next day, Marcel is led to the chamber for his ceremony. As he walks he passes Porco, who stares blankly into the distance and doesn’t meet his eyes.
Marcel remembers entering the room and seeing a figure tied to the floor. A tired-looking woman who barely glances up as he’s ordered to stand before her.
He doesn’t remember what happens next.
—
It isn’t until they set off on their mission, sitting in the cramped quarters of the ship taking them to the island, that he gets the first flash of her memories.
She’s lying on a bed with someone else, a man. She lifts her head to gaze at him .
With a jolt, Marcel realizes she’s looking at the previous Cart Titan.
“Tonight’s our last night together,” she murmurs, voice thick with emotion . “Why did we have to be soulmates, Patrik?
The man slowly opens his eyes. “Joanna…” he says quietly.
“I don’t regret meeting you, or being with you,” she says, leaning down to brush her lips against his. “But I wish we didn’t have to fight. To kill. We’ve seen more deaths than we’ve seen sunsets together. And soon we’ll die together.”
Patrik smiles sadly. “Kind of romantic, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t,” Joanna says coldly. “You think I want you to die with me?” Her voice falters and breaks, and she presses her face into her hands to suppress hot tears. “Why did you agree to be the Cart, Patrik? Why couldn’t you live a long, happy life without me? Adopt a dog, spend your time taking walks and whistling tunes from the plays we used to sneak into together…”
When Joanna looks up, Patrik is crying too. “I don’t want you to die either,” he sobs. “You deserve to grow old and retire, become a great novelist or artist, not used as a tool by the Marleyans before being fed to some kid!”
“Marcel? Are you okay?”
Marcel looks up, startled. He realizes he has tears running down his cheeks, and that Reiner is staring at him, concerned.
“I’m…I’m fine,” he stammers, standing up. “What’s going on?”
“We’re getting off soon.” Reiner gives Marcel an odd look. “Aren’t you excited to get on the island and begin our mission for real?”
Reiner clearly is. His chest is puffed up proudly and he’s practically vibrating.
Annie brushes past them both, muttering at Reiner to keep it down. Reiner deflates slightly and he pouts after her.
Guilt crashes through Marcel abruptly, tearing down his flimsy justifications.
What kind of life have I doomed them to?
What have I done?
Reiner, what have I done to you?
—
The guilt eats and him, gnaws at his insides until it’s all he can think about.
The mission…The Wall…What will happen once they break it down?
He’s done a terrible thing. It’s too late to stop what he’s put into motion, but he needs to confess. To get his sins off his chest before he can dedicate everything to the mission.
“Reiner…You weren’t meant to be a Warrior. I’m sorry.”
The look in Reiner’s eyes is terrible.
Marcel pushes him aside when the Titan emerges from the ground.
Reiner, Annie, I’m so sor-
—
Marcel is dead. Our leader just died…We just got here and he’s dead.
“We need to go back,” Annie says.
“We can’t go back,” Reiner says.
Bertholdt says nothing.
“You’re just afraid of dying,” Annie says.
“We’ll all die if we go back,” Reiner says.
Bertholdt says nothing.
“Die for us, Reiner. Take responsibility,” Annie says. She tackles him and kicks him repeatedly.
Reiner lies there, still.
“Please don’t fight,” Bertholdt whispers.
Reiner gets back up. He tackles Annie, choking her until she falls unconscious.
Bertholdt stares at him, terrified.
Reiner stares back blankly before grabbing Annie’s wrist to pick her up.
The cover on her wrist slips off. Reiner stares down at a mark in the shape of a carnation.
—
They break down the Wall. People are screaming and crying, panic has gripped the people of the island, but what does that matter to them?
They’re in. They made it.
The mission has begun.