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starfirette · 4 years

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Chapter Three: Attack On Trost

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You reminisce your old passions and dreams when you meet an old friend–but the peace quickly ends.

tags: @kuxredere | @luvelyxp | @fan-g0rl | @levisbrat25 | @a-dream-is-reality

a/n: Levi makes his grand arrival soon! Thanks to those who commented, liked, and reblogged the last chapters, as well as the Armin x Mother! Reader fic. Yall are so sweet!

Connie Springer’s entire family is quite alive.

You learned this unexpectedly when you were working on your assigned duties of the day. Every new graduate was taken to Trost to ‘celebrate’ their new found ‘freedom.’ The new cadets were to do the dirty work for the next three days while assignments were being made.

In Trost, assigned with five others you didn’t even know the names of, you were on the ground transporting wagons of dry solider feed and blades to the supply center, or, for Garrison soldiers, headquarters.

You wouldn’t have had any qualms with this job. It was nice to be outside among actual people, breathing fresh air. Trost is a little bubble village along the southern mouth of Wall Sina. Since the breach five years ago, Wall Sina served as the only defense against the titan beyond. Everything beyond it, including your old home, would now be ridden with them.

You’d half hoped you’d be assigned to the suppliers along the top of wall. Not because you wanted to see Titans, but because you would have wanted to look out to the vast fields that you had once lived amongst. But Shingashina wouldn’t be at all visible to your naked eye, not even from the highest point of the world. The idea that you’d never again see Shingashina did hurt your heart more than you cared to admit.

But that pain was naught compared to that which you felt when you watched Connie Springer, a younger boy apart of your corps, become embraced by a group of people you could only presume to be his family. A woman had him wrapped in a motherly embrace.

He looked entirely surprised, and while he acted embarrassed, you could see in his body language that he was over the moon with joy. Who wouldn’t be?

After over a year of spending time sharing showers in the community sauna with the other cadets that regularly kicked your ass, being with your family is much like being in Heaven.

Your stomach ached as you turned back to your duties. You lifted bags of wheat and grain to the carts that would soon be taking off for HQ. You realized through the blurred vision of tears and sunshine that you were trembling all the way down to your knees.

Now more than ever, you wish desperately for Annacka. Even just a letter from her in her swirly script would be enough. You half hope that she’s lingering somewhere, trying to catch a glimpse of you so she could make her grand, surprise visit. Maybe at any moment little Freda would attach herself to your legs, crying your name with that angelic lilt the way she used to.

You wiped your eyes quickly with the back of your jacket sleeve. The scratchy material was clearly made to protect a body, and not to soothe one’s skin.

You and the rest of your squad seemed to notice the surplus of family members gathering about the village center. It is the village center, but you can’t help yourself from getting annoyed. How could they just stand around and watch you all work? They were mostly in the way.

With some annoyance gathering as a scoff in your throat, you hoisted a large sack of dry feed over your shoulder. As you walked to the transport wagon about a yard away, you were suddenly stopped by a person.

You tried to keep yourself from expressing your discomfort as you averted your eyes. You walked around her, but she stepped in front of you again.

You couldn’t avoid her any longer, so you dropped the dry feed from your shoulder into your arms, holding it like an oversized baby.

“You’re Y/n L/n!” The young woman gasped. Her eyes were wide as plates, and they stared at you with such confidence and familiarity that you were a little bit frightened.

“I don’t know you,” you tell her cautiously.

Her ginger lashes fluttered like butterflies as her bow of a mouth shaped into a thin smile. “My name is Fable Rippley. We grew up at the orphan house together.”

The dry feed slipped out of your arms, falling by your feet with a thump.

“My god,” you say. “You’re so tall now!”

Fable Rippley held her freckle arms open for a hug.

Though you recognized her, and were of course happy to see her, you hesitated to accept her hug.

As her arms wrapped around you, you felt how bony and thin she was. You lightly touched her back with your hand, using the bare minimum of a hug to get by.

“I had no idea you—!” She exclaimed, but she quickly pressed her lips flat. “The other girls never responded to my letters. Eventually they were being returned, so...”

"So you figured that I had died,” you assumed for her.

Her thin mouth smashed into a pale line. “I did,” she admitted, the words sounding as though they were being ground from her throat. “I always felt as though it should have been me rather than the others,” Fable continued on a trail of thought.

“That’s not your fault,” you note to the tall girl. “It’s a blessing that you were adopted when you were. How old were you then?”

“I was ten,” she said with a faint lilt of happiness as she recalled the simpler times. “I’m sixteen, now. My birthday’s just passed.”

“Happy birthday,” you tell her with a half of a smile. “What brings you to Trost?”

“I am only visiting. My parents have relatives who’ve just had a child. The little boy survived, and so we are all shopping the market to celebrate.”

“Oh,” you said. You didn’t know how you were supposed to respond to such a broad statement. ‘Glad the kiddo didn’t die,’ you could say, but she might not appreciate such humor.

“I’m so, so happy to see you,” Fable suddenly burst out. “I never thought that I could see anyone from my past ever again. And to see you, now, to see that you’ve gotten so much older...it makes me so painfully happy that you could carry on the legacies of our sisters.”

Fable’s sudden outpour of emotion struck you like a bolt of lightning.

The blood rushed to your face as you looked up at the taller girl with a feeling of queasy-ness crossed with embarrassment. “I suppose so?” you worded very carefully.

Fable just chuckled-a light little noise like that of a pixie.

“We all loved you so much. That’s what I mean. The other little girls bickered for your attention, and somehow, you managed to spend quality time with all of them. All of us. Do you remember the shoe shine box? Oh, it was that special box with the expensive balms to treat leather. And one Yule, every girl got her own pair of real leather Mary-Janes. There was only one shoe shining box to go around. You found a way to split the balms amongst all thirty girls and even yourself! You were a sister to us. Even a mother to the littler girl, what was her name...Freda? Yes, yes, Freda. Oh that child clung to you or to Annacka, and she wouldn’t accept anyone else. Don’t you remember the time when-”

Fable’s voice had risen to a giggle, but she cut herself off shortly when she took a stern frown to her mouth and examined your face.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Tears poured down your face like damn waterfalls, and you couldn’t get it to stop. You did remember the shoe shin box. You remembered trying to use it so sparingly between all the children. You remembered panicking when the balm ran out and scrounging together all of your spare change to buy more.

You even remembered having none left over for yourself.

And you did remember little Freda. Her shoes were purchased many sizes to big so that she could grow into them. She sat on your lap at the tender age of three, swinging her legs as she didn’t pay attention to your lecture on how to care for leather.

She wanted to wear them as soon as you were done, and vehemently insisted the shoes would fit miraculously when you informed her they wouldn’t. She had to take such careful little steps around the place so she wouldn’t trip or fall.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned her at all,” Fable murmured. “Or any of them.”

You wiped your eyes with the mounts of Venus, shaking your head negatively. “Freda didn’t die that day,” you said, your voice sounding dreadfully thick with sorrow. “Freda is very much alive. She lives with Annacka now. Annacka, Freda, and I, we were the only survivors from the orphanage. And also you. Annacka is her mother. I doubt Freda remembers me at all.”

“How couldn’t she?” Fable asked. “You were such an important part of the house to all of us girls. It’s strange...strange to think that you were only fifteen, then. You gave up your childhood to help raise children. And now you’re a solider!”

You stifled an informal chuckle. “That’s one way to look at it,” you agreed.

“You know,” Fable said with a eye crinkling grin, “I remember how badly you wanted to be a doctor.”

The words made your heart flutter. “You do?”

“How couldn’t I?” Fable laughed. “You were always talking about the hospital in Calaneth. You wanted to go so badly to be a nurse. Somehow, being a solider suits you more...”

Fable drew you in close for another tight hug. Her boney arms were strong, and her finger tips may have even bruised your back, but her embrace was the most comforting.

“I should find my family now,” Fable said with a shy gleam in her eyes. “I live in Fairkelt. It’s a little village near Stohess. I’d like to write to you.”

“Then I will write to you,” you assured her.

“Amazing! I live in Fairkelt,” she repeated. “But I guess you could just mail the letters to Stohess. The disctrict’s messenger can bring the letters out to our farm. But, you could just label it to Fairkelt if you’d like that more. I really don’t mind. But what do you think would work better? Maybe a letter to Stohess, marked with a note to deliver to Fable Rippley, would be more clear and concise. It couldn’t get lost that way.”

She titrated on with her childish charm and rant.

“I’ll write two,” you amused yourself. “Both letters couldn’t get lost, could they?”

Fable went red in the face as she laughed. “I’m sorry for ranting on. You have duties to attend. I’m so happy we’ve bumped into one another. I’ll look out for your letter.”

As Fable skipped away, further into the marketplace of Trost, you looked after her, her red hair swinging back and forth like a lick of fire in the air. She was white as a ghost. She must never get any sun, you think as you bend down to retrieve the dry feed you’d dropped earlier.

Fairkelt, just off of Stohess. The mental image of the map in mind led you to pinpoint Fairkelt somewhere along the forest. Perhaps she lived in a secluded little cottage under the shaded canopy of trees.

You carried the feed to the heavy carts mounted to four large horses.

The Garrison solider that supervised your squad chastised you as you set the sack down. “I ought to write you up for idle chatter while on duty.”

You tucked your chin downward. “Apologies, sir,” you echoed the template you’d been so dutifully taught by Sadies.

He seemed to considered saying something else; another set of lecturing words, perhaps, but he didn’t. He waved you to continue.

You and your squad continued the painful march back and forth, over the same dirt and stones of the two 1/2 yards.

“Why can’t the damn wagons be closer together?” a girl of your squad grumbled.

“Maybe cos thee Garrison don’t wan’ no pussies in thur ranks,” someone retorted.

The girl mocked his words in the same thick accent he spoke with. “Wut makes yu think the Garrison gun wan a dumbo like yu?” she fired back, her hands on her hips.

Well maybe Fable just doesn’t get outside much, you were thinking again of her wispy white skin, as if she were a ghost.

You’d read a wonderful story, though long ago, about a ghost coming to warn the village of a coming attack. The attack came every century on the same night, and only one boy in the whole village believed the ghost.

Wouldn’t that be exciting?

To know a ghost? To be that bridge of life for them?

Oh, but how painful it must be for ghosts, for they can watch forever what they can never have.

You hoisted another sack of dry feed over your shoulder. Turning on the balls of your feet, you looked at the full wagon that would be making it’s way to the Garrison’s supply center. Your final bag would be it.

The sun blazed down across you, the heat beating past the thick material of your uniformed jacket.

You tossed the final sack of dry meal onto the wagon, and your squad cheered at the sight of their chore being completed.

“So we get to see the center now, right?” one of the girls from your squad politely asked the supervisor. He gave her a stern look over his thin glasses.

“Yes,” he said, finally.

You collapsed against the side of the cart as your squad cheered. You could feel the sweat that saturated you underneath your clothes and uniform.

The leather straps and belts seemed to slide around easier than they had this morning, which made you feel better. The harness usually made you feel bloated. But with all the sweat, you were like butter on a hot griddle.

You looked down at your own knees. Sweat stains formed at the joints of your white pants.

You began to shrug out of your jacket when, all too suddenly, a group of cats ran past you.

It was a strange sight, to be sure, for these cats did not only run-they sprinted. They went bolting as if they were hiding for their lives. You looked after them, counting them each in your head.

One...two...three...f-

The CRACK of the thunder quaked through the earth you stood upon, jolting even the wagon. There had been a brief, brief flash of light, one that you doubted you’d even seen.

The entire village came to a standstill. People muttered, asked questions, looked about for signs of storms. But you just looked after that group of alleycats whose tails were upright and haunches were breaking past their fur.

The sweat dribbled down your neck as you spun around to look up in the air, which itself had a fresh smell of smoke. The sort of smoke that was layered with hot, raw meat. The scent made your eyes water. You looked to the sky. It’s emptiness filled your stomach with violent anxiety and just when you’d began to comprehend what was happening, the screaming started.

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