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"Nobody taught me to want. But now I want. I remain lying down with eyes open, looking at the ceiling. Inside is the darkness. A pulsating “I” is taking shape."
- Clarice Lispector, Água Viva
Ymir makes one final loop of the bandage around her forearm and ties it, a little tighter than Historia expects. Enlisting is rather strange. Training is strange. Moving around the world under a new name is strange. Ymir becoming something akin to her own shadow — that is the strangest of all. They don’t know each other; Historia would’ve remembered anyone except her mother coming around, ’people’ having long since made their ascent up her priority list.
Ymir pokes at her scapula. “You carry too much of your weight on your shoulders,” she says.
“I’ll do better next time.”
Ymir scoffs. Historia doesn’t blame her disbelief, the fall was nasty, the lifeline cut from too high up and Historia herself not being too used to the manoeuvre gear yet. There’s a calmness that has settled all around her since becoming a cadet — despite the warren-like quarters, the ruined cots, the instructors’ shouts — like a pool or more accurately a lagoon, her floating in the middle of it free and finally with a purpose. It’s hard to say that failure hurts when Ymir’s palms pat at her ribs, up and down and up, scrutinising Historia’s expression. To fail, one must first wish to succeed — and Historia does, for once; formally holds something to do that will be of benefit to others and to herself.
“I always forget how much this hurts,” Historia lies.
Historia weaves fingers through her own hair clumsily, feeling for the knots that have formed during the day, before the tie secures it away from her face. The rope in her hand is coarse as she pulls the bucket of water up, the sussurus and chuckles coming from the other cadets all around calming. Everyone is gathered around the entrance to the kitchens, where Jean has broken three whole mugs and is getting harangued by an instructor and spoken to more kindly by a more experienced cook, like they don’t have their own list of post-training tasks to do. Historia herself is not sure which of them pulled which chore today — except for Ymir, who pulled up nothing but still claims boredom and 'having nothing to do' and thus hangs around her pretending to kick pebbles while carrying smaller sacks of ash for the laundry, and, when Historia grabs the handles a little too loosely and almost spills the water meant for the horses, she’s readily there to help her steady them.
“Why are you helping?” she asks.
Ymir inspects the handle like it has caused her some grave offense. “Got nothing better to do, do I?”
By the time winter shortens the days — and thus their training time — cadets are tired and half out of their mind from the strain their bodies have had to endure. The distance between their previous lives and the endurance required from them, the kind of lean muscle they have to find themselves packing in order to be properly bound to their future cause.
The duties increase with the lowering temperature: focusing on the perpendicular plywood, learning about insulation, proving that they can survive at even the harshest of conditions with their fingers and toes paralysed and still handling their harnesses, shooting their grapples, keeping themselves balanced against the roaring wind and the snowflakes clumping their eyelashes. She’s uncomfortable when this brings on the likely, daily event of them all spending time around the fire to warm themselves up, fists clenched and shaking and barely managing to get any words out without the clattering of their teeth interrupting the syllables. Much as she’s trying to bury it, keep it down enough for it to become a part of her, maintaining the sweetness is an unceasing, self-imposed hindrance that becomes that much harder during these drawn-out interactions.
Everyone feels freer; even Thomas — Thomas! — asks, “Who was your first kiss?” and if most of them weren’t busy making fun of each other for naming other cadets, they’d see her traitorous blush, Ymir’s cool silence. Historia shoves a ration bar between her teeth to avoid the questions. By the time she pulls it free, a drop of blood sticks to it. Her tongue stings.
“This sucks,” Ymir says.
Historia will love to answer, once she catches her breath. In a second. Just a little bit.
The state of them both is so unjust — Ymir is a little grumpy, as she always is, but stands steady, only the tiniest bit winded from the last drill. Like there was nothing to be considered hard during today’s set of the omni-dimensional gear’s manouevres. Hands resting on her knees, sweat having coated her entire face and probably drenched through her shirt, Historia looks a lot more like someone who has just endured Instructor Sadis bellowing ‘PRACTICE YOUR 275 DEGREE TURN,’ at least twenty times.
It’s fine; the air is cool enough to not fear overheating but not cool enough to worry about getting sick from her clothes drying on her body. It’s just another day in the training grounds she herself has chosen to be there for, another exercise filled with voices and bodies that aren’t her own or her imagination’s, space taken up by other humans rather than the trees and plants and floorboards and her near-statuesque mother.
Some serenity spreads in the silence, Historia inspecting the grapple hook and her propellers. She’s willing to let Ymir pretend that she has spoken lightly, jokingly — like this doesn't suck, she wants to be there as much as Historia does. They both know this to not be true.
Historia forces herself to look pleasant. “I’m sure it’s good for us!”
“You push yourself too hard,” Ymir says, after Historia’s too-sore muscles leave her unable to take down even one of her hand-to-hand opponents today. They’ve all been cycling through each other, needing to learn and needing to be prepared and needing to fight; she has examined that need, and found herself lacking.
Historia glances around them, at the state of everyone: in heaps, or with their legs over their head, or groaning while holding a knee. She gestures at them — see? Never mind that it’s true, that Historia spent too long on the gear and even longer carrying around gas, needing to know that it’ll be available in the event anything happens.
Ymir hasn’t even tried to turn her head. Stubborn.
“Well, not everyone can be as apathetic as you,” Historia says, readying herself, legs spread and slightly squatting and already feeling the burn at her calves and thighs from the opening stance alone.
The action — or reaction — is not instantaneous. It can not have been more than a few seconds that both of them stand rigid, poised, staring at each other, no telling what either is waiting for. Preparation, maybe. For Historia to strike in a way that hurts as revenge for the words.
Historia doesn’t.
In the end, Ymir attacks slow. Some of it is an act, but a small part of it — a small part is all her, a disinclination towards the obvious, favouring quicker, squirrelly movements that land the person standing in front of her on their back with enough force for her to put space between them again. The kind of distance that is not about cowardice, but about living to see another day, as she so frequently likes to declare in completely different words.
Well, Historia’s in a mood to entertain this kind of speed. Her hand on Ymir’s wrist, her own body twisting towards it, the shirt bunching up under her touch as Ymir is flipped over, gangly limbs that usually promise fury offering no resistance. She’s grinning as she goes down, teeth catching and reflecting the sun as her back hits the ground, welcoming the circle of Historia’s knee to the stomach like it’s a hug instead of a pinning move.
There’s dust in the wind. Historia stands and pokes her with the toes of her boot, leaning down. “You—” let me win on purpose, she bites her tongue on. “You have no room to speak, this was really bad! Get up and try with me again!”
Ymir’s strange affection towards her has been both flattering and odd. Historia’s stopped questioning the why, for the most part, the enigmatic allure of Ymir’s company enough to subsume curiosity and, honestly, she kind of enjoys the attention, gauche as that may be. She resigns herself to this selfish kind of acceptance. Ymir might like Krista, her wide eyes, her niceness, or— no. Ymir hates Krista’s niceness. Perhaps she can see something else, deeper, buried in the ridges of Historia’s bones. Perhaps she likes the cornucopia of lies Historia so very carefully arranges the moment her eyes snap open in the morning, the tower of falsehoods she’s built by herself on top of those forced upon her, or the constantly-boiling point of meeting ‘no’ at every turn, just like she has learned to like it. Historia is dancing top of all those ‘no’s, them and the lies and the tales — moving on top of them and using them, ignoring them, where Ymir would rather squeeze in-between, having perfected the art of getting lost despite her overwhelming presence. Still, Ymir seems to not see the differences. They’re alike, she says. She also says she doesn’t care about Krista’s goal, the spoken one about bravery. Prodded with too many events, feeling Ymir’s shadow following her as though it is her own, Historia settles on the opinion that she does care. About the one real thing: that Historia does want to see beyond what they have, explore the lands, never again feel the claustrophobic entrapment of being home.
So, she tries to see what Ymir sees in herself, and return the caustic remarks.
Shamefully, Historia slowly discovers that she has an aptitude for this kind of life. It’s not just stubbornness propelling her through joining the Scout Regiment, and not just Ymir giving up her spot that put her in the top ten. Trying to establish routes out in Titan territory is the only part that often lives up to what life her books told her life was like. Protecting the factories still out in Wall Maria territory, covering the basics of necessity, expanding what it is that they know about the world — and the uglier parts, the humiliating losses against Titans, the proof of death, and the equally humiliating losses due to greed, the gates being shut to favour goods over lives. It teaches her a lesson: there is no more reading and observing at cool remove when the only option ahead of her is carnal envelopment.
“Look to the hinges,” a voice from behind her says.
Historia’s hands halt on the door, her failed lock-picking. “How did you find me?”
“Huuuh? Call it a sixth sense.”
There are too many screams. Historia has twisted her ankle one too many times while running, jumping on top of roofs. Some of them are slippery from with the blood from leftover limbs, tiles knocked loose by the occasional corpse. There are still people inside Trost, soldiers and civilians alike, and someone — she — has to help them with gas. She has to carry some cannisters.
She looks towards the hinges. Ymir is right; they’re rustier, easier to break than to open the lock. She’s helping Historia again, betraying a past neither of them talks about.
They don’t let them help. The gate is coming down. Historia sits, hugging her knees to her chest, going mad with worry.
If training is grueling, then expeditions push them to their limits. They get even more dangerous once the objective moves from ’learn about and defeat Titans’ to ‘flank and protect Eren.’ There’s hope in the distance, now, so Historia understands. It’s exactly like she’s dreamt of. People, humanity — they’re exactly like in the books. Very loud. Some are mean. Some are nice. Some, like Ymir riding behind her protectively, are both.
There are so many soldiers dedicated to this. Not as many as in the garrison within the walls, but, wherever Historia turns her head, there a person is. Scared shitless, usually, teeth grinding so hard she can hear the sound from several yards away, a lump of a creature with the Scout Regiment’s trademark emblazoned on the back of the coat. Does she look like that to them? Like their typical comrade? Like a normal human? She bets she looks somewhat odd: too unused to the nature of personal space, how minuscule that is, always interrupting the flow of interaction. Someone who jerks away too fast and then apologises too loud.
Every soldier here is so brave, to push on when each flare sends them sitting a little straighter on their saddle, fear palpable even through the murky depths of Historia’s perception. How wretched, to feel this happy at the sight.
She holds the reins tighter and urges her horse to move. Everyone who came from Wall Maria lost any tension from other humans being too close; they stayed with others, slept near others, no concept of one’s own unique room, let alone one’s own unique house like she’s had. The flat panes where she grew up are similar to the grounds they’re transversing. It’s all both so strange, and so familiar, and so different from others’ experiences. She has to seek to understand them, hold out a hand.
“Hey!” she calls out to a girl galloping a little too fast on her left, when the vibrations from the Female Titan’s heavy footsteps cause her to almost scatter. “We can do this! Don’t break formation!” She smiles. She hopes it looks reassuring.
The girl’s lips are still trembling, but she nods. Historia glares at Ymir’s disdainful glance, with as much heat as she can muster towards Ymir — which is really not much at all. They barrel on, the canter uncomfortable on the thighs, the clink of a belt buckle hitting the saddle every few seconds too noticeable in the absence of flares. When Jean’s horse comes running, when Historia instructs her own horse to turn, she can feel Ymir’s eyes boring into the back of her head. For once, she doesn’t follow her.
She’s pretty sure Ymir doesn’t know all the gradations of the effect she has. Ever since being told they’re the same Historia has watched her more closely, analysing every jab she made in that draughty girls’ room, how others, in turn, reacted to her — reacted to them both. Ymir’s voice and actions do not so much adorn the space as they twist it to pour out the — unacceptable — desires and actions that she appears fully certain languish in every individual. Historia tells her that it is not so, look at Sasha, look at Mikasa and Connie, see how earnest they are. Not everyone has a layer of deception, Ymir, she conceals in those statements.
Ymir lifts a shoulder in response, in an imitation of a shrug. “But we do.”
Pulling at Ymir’s sleeve is enough to wake her up, Historia finds. Her fumbling, the patter of her feet have once been enough too, when she sometimes finds herself awake in the middle of the night, clutching at her pillow. Ymir always observes her walking outside. Just observes, as she always does. She hasn't followed yet.
Well, today she will. Historia gestures at her to get up and places a finger on her lips — a warning shush, despite Ymir not needing it — and keeps her fingers locked around the fabric. She brings them both outside and into the field where they so often run laps until they collapse. A shiver runs up her arms from the cold as she crouches, pats the ground next to her. It’s a little too humid, too receptive beneath her feet, hopefully not enough to dirty their nightclothes.
How thrilling, to care about such things like dirtying clothes. The trilling crescendo of a nightingale seems to agree. Here they are, two birds, away from their nest, free to fly on their own. Finally free to be observed.
Ymir doesn’t even check to see if it’s damp before lying down. “What are we doing here, looking for snails? Oh, darling Krista, I’ll gladly help you find a snack—”
“The sky!” Historia interrupts. She also tries hard to not give in and laugh. “We’re looking at the sky. It’s really clear tonight, I thought— maybe you’d like it.”
“Huh.” Ymir follows where she’s pointing at the dappled canopy of the night above them, where the stars emerge, each with its own unyielding ambition to shine. A little like Ymir herself.
Historia scoots closer and grabs her hand to whisper about all she knows, all she’s read about the inky ocean above them, how to navigate it, the promise of it. It seems to spark something in Ymir’s gaze; whether it comes from her words or the cosmos itself, she doesn’t know. She’s not sure it matters — she’s here, sharing a shred of honesty while Historia shares her own.
They only return when dawn has started to break, happy that their schedule for the day is mostly routine.
The sleep deprivation’s worth it.
They stand together, shoulder-to-shoulder, too often. She has come to think of Ymir as an extension to herself, the one allowed to be harsh where she is soft, to have her skin marked by the rays of the sun, the freckles that form as a consequence, drawing the eye in. A golden symbol of life, even under the moonlight, with them all pushed by necessity to the top — a symbol still when she taps the knife against her wrist then drops with it in hand, the small spray and the light. She’s beautiful like that, jumping on top of Titans. Her mouth, which has so many times been used to tease, to hurt, to taunt and laugh, filled now with sharp teeth; Historia admires the accuracy of them, slipping inside the nape of every Titan that dares to attack. The rising steam glints.
Fear comes with this, too. Watching a Titan, even one on their side, fight, is not a cheerful sight, but she will treat it like something she has to cheer for. And she does cheer: for Ymir’s attacks, for the way she shows herself. For the way she inspires.
It’s how Historia finds the feeling of freedom for the first time, what she realises she has to do: to stand over Ymir, to destroy, to happily shout ’Atta girl!’ as the tower goes down with them in it. And how she feels fear, and relief: at Ymir being alive, at whispering her real name, at the smile it elicits. Smoothing out the dent between her eyebrows is how Historia takes the first step at accepting that she doesn’t have to justify the fact of her existence.