to carry within us an orchard

em, 30s, she/her. ackermom on ao3.

[ackermom]

nape | a post-canon sonnet

the watchmen sight the ship not far from shore. on beaches teething, soldiers bolden guns. they capture six— three, traitors long before; three, countrymen, of base and faithless tongue.

the island, verdant green and crumbled walls, awaits the bloody execution day. "for justice!" ardent seas of fever call. the queen, her head in thorns, will not betray.

the traitors grace the citadel on knee. cathedral bells raise fervent cries higher. at trial sits not judge nor juror, for he who fans the flames must one day face the fire.

so falls the blade, struck swiftly on the neck. in blood they taste the fate of mortal death.

[ackermom]

we rise with the sun

word count: 79,751 status: complete summary:

Decades after the Hundred Year War, old wounds are still being mended. In a show of good faith and international friendship, the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation is sent to an Earth Kingdom boarding school for a year, with the hope of bringing peace and harmony to both lands. But the shadow of the war still haunts many lives. When she comes face-to-face with the past, Izumi must confront the role her nation, her family, and the world played in the war— and what it will mean to move forward together.

read here

[ackermom]

Chapters: 4/6 Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender (Cartoon 2005), Avatar: Legend of Korra Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Izumi & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar) Characters: Izumi (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar), Mai (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar), Azula (Avatar), Kya II (Avatar), Bumi II (Avatar), Tenzin (Avatar), Aang (Avatar), Katara (Avatar), Appa (Avatar), Druk (Avatar), Hou-Ting (Avatar), Tom-Tom (Avatar), Ming (Avatar) Additional Tags: Post-Avatar: The Last Airbender, Pre-Avatar: Legend of Korra, Character Study, Coming of Age, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Underage Drinking, Boarding School, Minor Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Internalized Homophobia, Post-100 Year War (Avatar TV) Summary:

Decades after the Hundred Year War, old wounds are still being mended. In a show of good faith and international friendship, the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation is sent to an Earth Kingdom boarding school for a year, with the hope of bringing peace and harmony to both lands.

But the shadow of the war still haunts many lives. When she comes face-to-face with the past, Izumi must confront the role her nation, her family, and the world played in the war— and what it will mean to move forward together.

[ackermom]

canonverse arranged marriage au part three

tybur tells them tales passed down since the war and the fall of the great houses. stories told only by his family now, or else locked in government crypts underground to be brought out and used against them every now and then. histories become fables. powers become curses. words become weapons. wedding songs become death marches. 

in the old days, the eldian empire spanned kingdoms and kingdoms across mountains and river and woods. things were not  then as they are now. no  general or emperor commanded the nine titans. six. now, down to five. in the golden days, before the schism, before the prophets became priests and the empire became one, before the civil wars, before kingdom fought kingdom and man fought man and titan fought titan, before the dissenters were slaughtered and the emperor was crowned and the great houses were seated and the titans came under one throne, before syringes and transfers and classification, before religion was trampled in the name of science—

in the old days, inheritance was not controlled. sometimes powers awakened in babes. demolished entire villages to craters. sometimes warriors were hunted and held down and had their spines sucked dry before they died. sometimes a king got his hands on a shifter. sometimes the holy men did. their tomes and scrolls are filled with tales of giant men and strange beasts. rumors and whispers, born in villages and mill towns and palaces, a hundred pages of a thousand variations, with armor and scales and heat and fangs, mythical things only collated as nine distinct types after the new empire’s bureaucratic stratification of knowledge from temples and schools across the land. 

in the old days, marleyans passed a crown from father to son. in eldia, no blood was as powerful as a spinal elixir. a son was only as good as his father’s leashed beasts, and kings spent their lives hunting and bargaining and soothsaying to bring the wealth of titans to their kingdoms. kings spent their bloodlines on soldiers and seekers for the chance to find a warrior. the only royal blood that mattered was the house of fritz, an anomaly, and they kept that so tightly woven into their family tree, every fritz in the last century was born with golden hair, a broken nose, and a penchant for madness. 

that is to say, tybur explains, in the traditional way, eldian kings and queens married their children for advantage, not for heirs or bloodlines. a prince married a princess, or a prince, or sometimes both— for land, for grain, for alliances. priestesses bore children in the baths of the three-starred temples and named newborns under the watchful eyes of the night. the empire prospered. 

the newspapers print it like this: 

ELDIAN WARRIORS TO WED IN ANCIENT CUSTOM, PROVING HUMILITY AND OBEISANCE TO MARLEY’S MIGHT

sentiments that echo against the flash of camera bulbs, like lightning strikes, as the voice of the cultural minister rings throughout the square, her careful enunciation, emphatic on the right words, pruned to play the hand just so. 

“so was the old way of the eldian empire,” she says. “these so-called traditions are outdated and impure, the work of a true devilish race.”

the minister speaks from a podium. reporters crowd the stone steps before her. behind her, the palace of justice. on either side, she is flanked by generals and counselors and cultural affair officers. they have been murmuring amongst themselves all morning. such an ill prospect, but a good idea nonetheless. let’s get this out of the way and then start the next. the cart, of course. why have we not been breeding our own warriors all along? 

from the palace balcony, reiner listens. half hears whatever is being said. it is raining, a grey drizzle in the port capital. he can see the sea, past the city, over the wall, beyond the zone. just a sliver of grey-blue out there, an ocean he once crossed, a world he once knew. he dreamt of the island when he first returned, but he realizes now he has hardly thought of it at all lately. it has been somewhat of a blur. the marriage, the wedding. the deed was already done before a judge and a tribunal in a basement of the palace where they stand. a special license, a law written into existence just for them. now is just the announcement, the ceremony, and then a feast afterwards for generals and consulars to pat themselves on the back for pacifying the eldian problem for one more day. 

“but through the generosity of the great state of marley, and the noble heart of his grace, the governor-king, such a marriage may be made honorable once more. purified in the light of the sun over marley’s waters, the union of two triumphant warriors shall make our great nation stronger than ever. the armored and the colossal are humbled to be shown the way by—“

“do you feel humbled?” bertholdt asks suddenly.

reiner stands still. says nothing. stares straight ahead at the sliver of sea over the wall and thinks what he wouldn’t give to dream of those days one more time. 

“they can’t hear us up here,” bertholdt continues. “we’re just for show.”

it is the first time they have been alone together since the marriage, the proposition, the return. fifty feet in the air covered in rain with branches of wreathed flowers in their hair and fur cloaks wrapped around their shoulders. the way the kings of their people once dressed. the way men once took their vows and were buried. a sight the marleyans below gawk at, photograph, sketch in damp notebooks in exaggerated cartoons that will appear in papers for weeks to come. 

he hears bertholdt sigh. softer, through the rain, “i certainly do.” 

“i would have married you,” reiner says before he can help himself. “if we had been princes of old.”

bertholdt’s first response is silence. then he gives reiner a slow, sad smile, the light of a dead mirth kindling somewhere in his hazy eyes. 

“we wouldn’t have been princes, you and i,” he says. “i think we were meant to be warriors.”

“in the old days, that was a great honor.”

“it still is. but chances are good no one would have known. in the first century, after the schism, the wars, no one saw the colossal for almost a hundred years. they finally found it when a fisherman’s son on the southern coast exploded during a lightning storm while crabbing with his father. it destroyed the boat. the port. half the town. killed his father. somehow he lived. imperial agents heard the report and got to the boy in time. fed him to one of their soldiers.”

when he finishes, he is staring past the crowds and over the wall. grey rain drizzles onto his skin, drops slipping past his nose. “imagine being able to disappear.” 

“we could.” reiner thinks of the guards behind the doors. the fall. only fifty feet. there is a train station half a mile away. there are passersby gawking on the street, leaning out of their cars with the ignition running. “where would you go?”

“the bottom of the sea that marley loves so much. i’d become a creature of the deep.”

reiner imagines that. sailors tell stories of the sea, the things that wake them in the dead of night. beasts that lurk in the depths below, waiting to devour ships whole. creatures with a hundred eyes and even more claws. monsters with a hunger that never ends. 

he feels bertholdt look at him. “where would you go?”

he does not even have to think. suddenly he is aware of bertholdt’s hand in his, the pose they hold, two arms clasped tightly between them as if they are made of the same stone. 

“the sea,” reiner says. he sees it all in bertholdt’s eyes. “if you go, i go.” 

[ackermom]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Levi Ackerman/Erwin Smith Characters: Levi Ackerman, Erwin Smith, Hange Zoë Additional Tags: Canon Universe, Canon Compliant, Tattoos Summary:

He's wondered sometimes what he would say about the ink on his skin. He can't imagine it. He can't do it the way Erwin did, waxing like a lover about old wounds and good men.

Maybe someday, he can talk about this one.

[ackermom]

Chapters: 1/4 Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender (Cartoon 2005), Avatar: Legend of Korra Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Izumi & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar) Characters: Izumi (Avatar), Zuko (Avatar), Mai (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar), Azula (Avatar), Kya II (Avatar), Bumi II (Avatar), Tenzin (Avatar), Aang (Avatar), Katara (Avatar), Appa (Avatar), Druk (Avatar), Hou-Ting (Avatar), Tom-Tom (Avatar) Additional Tags: Post-Avatar: The Last Airbender, Pre-Avatar: Legend of Korra, Character Study, Coming of Age, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Underage Drinking, Boarding School, Minor Mai/Zuko (Avatar) Summary:

You never talk about the war. Why do you never talk about the war?

Izumi's father always responds to her letters on time. He replies to anything she writes, no matter how boring or trivial, no matter how busy he may be. It takes almost a month before she gets the pained response to this accusation.

I'm sorry, Izumi. The war was my life. I never wanted it to become yours.

[ackermom]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Yuan Ka-Fai/Martel Yggdrasill Characters: Yuan Ka-fai (Tales of Symphonia), Kratos Aurion, Mithos Yggdrasill, Martel Yggdrasill, Pronyma (Tales of Symphonia), Magnius (Tales of Symphonia), Kvar (Tales of Symphonia), Rodyle (Tales of Symphonia), Forcystus (Tales of Symphonia), Botta (Tales of Symphonia) Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon Universe, Character Study Series: Part 2 of Down Summary:

Yuan rises.

[lovelylittlelosers]

[ackermom]

yuan companion to my kratos fic coming soon

On the eve before the Chosen reaches the tower, Yuan takes his fellow rebels to the mountaintop and points at the moon.

“This fight is bigger than Tethe’alla,” he tells them. “It is bigger than you can possibly imagine. There is another world out there. A system built to keep us in this struggle forever. If we want to stop the Desians, the Cardinals, all of it— we have to imagine the impossible. For the sake of the lives we can save, we have to try. Can you dedicate yourself to that fight?”

They do not yet know the true weight of his words. They cannot. But one by one, they raise their hands in a salute, until they are no longer a band of rebels but the beating heart of a resistance, ready to rise up and fight back.

Yuan does not realize it then, but the night the Renegades are born is the night he finally lets Martel die.

[ackermom]

an excerpt from the post-canon christie-esque jearmin buddy cop murder mystery i'm never going to finish

"The great Battle of Heaven and Earth," Mr. Jordan booms in admiration. He braces his knife and fork, raising an inquisitive eyebrow as he chuckles. "Now, there is a story that ought to be told!"

Forks scrape and still against plates, a silence falling over the room. The whole dining table seems to falter, from the Eldians at their uneasy places to the rest of the diplomats, avoiding each other's eyes in the sudden wariness that surrounds them. Even the steward blanches. He excuses himself without a word, disappearing with the water jug through a side door. Only the priest seems unperturbed, as he always is, his knife and fork still steadily working across his plate. Yet in the scraping, stifling silence, it takes every hesitant gaze glancing down the table for Armin to realize they are waiting for him to respond.

"Oh," is all he can say. The taste of the silverware seems to stick in his mouth. He swallows. "Well, it is a story we have all heard many times over, I'm sure."

"Surely you've had your fill from the newspapers," Jean says on his right. All eyes flicker to him instead, and he clears his throat, making a show of reaching for the wine and offering it to those down the table. Armin has never felt so grateful for an intervention. 

Jem Jordan, however, remains unmoved, and he huffs, or laughs, letting out a coarse breath that heaves his shoulders. "I've read the newspapers, yes, my boy. But it is quite another thing to have the heroes who saved the world sitting around my dinner table, isn't it?"

Someone scoffs. Mr. Jordan's eyes flicker down the length of the table, his smile somewhat less syrupy sweet than before. My table, Armin thinks, meeting Jean's gaze; he supposes he would be amused, if everyone wasn't so on edge, how easily it is to read Jean's annoyance with the tycoon in the palpable frown that's curling across his face. The others heard the same remark, and Armin can see it on their faces too— this table, nor this ship, does not belong to anyone other than the Azumabitos, though on Armin's other side, Mr. Oyama is smiling with everlasting politleness as if he had not heard the misstep. Further down the other end, Miss Hermann turns from the table to clear her throat, her eyes never meeting another's. It is Mato beside her who speaks, letting out a huff as his knife and fork clatter to the table. 

"I'm sorry," he interjects, his impatient tone making it clear that he is less offering an apology than embarking on a manifesto. He glances around at the rest of them, his brow working itself into keen frustration. "But that name is grating, isn't it? The Battle of Heaven and Earth. Someone says that, and we're just supposed to worship at their feet? The whole business is rotten if you ask me."

"Hear, hear," Pieck mutters, so low under her breath that only those nearby hear it. Beside her, Annie has returned to her food with diligence, and she eats steadily, carrying on as if she is unaware of the argument about to erupt. More likely, she's just bored, having heard it all and more before. Reiner, on the other hand, has hardly touched his plate, and he stares blankly at the table, as if each swell and sway of the ship back-and-forth in the water is all that he can grasp right now.

"Rest assured, the name had nothing to do with us," Armin finally manages to say.

Mato's intense gaze jumps to him. For a moment, the brooding look is so familiar it sends Armin into silence again. He swallows back the lump in his throat and loosens his white-knuckled grip on his wine glass.

"The people who were there that day spoke of what they saw," he says. "It would not be right for me to deny their experience."

Mato stares. "I see."

"I thought you, of all people, would appreciate a great show of heroism," Mr. Jordan exclaims. His knife and fork saw readily through a piece of meat. "Now come to find out, you are a cynic through and through, Mr. Rosario. Those who saved our world from certain despair have no doubt earned the right to tell their tales— and the right to boast about it, if you ask me."

"I didn't say it wasn't well-earned," Mato says curtly. He pauses a moment before his hands return hesitantly to his fork. "Believe it or not, I am glad the world is still here. But there are some of us who would prefer to hear a less sensational version of the truth."

Mr. Jordan mutters something Armin can't hear from the other end of the table— but it does not escape Mato.

"I will not be accused of being a denier!" he shoots back at once, his utensils clattering to the table. "I know all too well what the Rumbling did, and what else it could have done if it hadn't been stopped. I'm only saying—"

"Oh, come now, must we use such terms?" Even Mr. Jordan sits back from his plate, a disgruntled frown pursing beneath his mustache, though he does not once glance in Mato's direction. It is beneath him, Armin thinks, to consort with revolutionaries, even to look at them. No wonder he is on the far side of the table. "This may yet be a polite dinner."

Miss Hermann looks up for the first time, her fork tenderly clinking on her plate. It seems few of them can stomach both the conversation and the food. She glances back down to her plate when she catches Armin looking at her, but her gaze widens and raises with a start when Mato's chair peals back from the table, bumping into hers.

"You wish to speak of great battles, but you choose false names," Mato exclaims coldly. "'The Great Event', is that what you would call it? Such simple words allow you to hide beneath the ugly truth of the devastation."

He towers over where Mr. Jordan sits. Between them remains only the priest and the empty seat for the princess. Armin feels Jean tense, shifting forward in his chair as if to spring into action. These dinner knives are not sharp enough to hurt, should one fling them across the table. But held at close rang in the fist of an angry young man who has lost much of his homeland— Armin does not know what they would could do to stop him.

"That is even worse than speaking of heaven and earth," Mato spits. "What would a man like you know about how the rest of us live?"

"Now, look here, I should say that those who were there have the right to speak their minds. And as for my own experience, you cross the ling, young man—"

"To speak of the heavens and the earth is more apt than our mortal souls might know."

It is Father Emir who speaks, his pleasant and placid voice washing through the argument like a river over rocks. He does not look up at the men beside him, nor at the rest of them. His gaze remains on his plate, his fork moving purposefully in his aged trembling hands.

"For it is a constant battle to understand the wicked nature of this world," he continues, "and we must struggle with the ones from beyond to know the truth they would impart on us. Heaven and earth are only two mirrored planes on which we see our true selves."

He pops a fork of peas into his mouth and looks up with a plain smile. His gaze lands directly on Armin.

"You speak of truth," Mato says a moment later, his brow furrowed as he rounds on the priest. "Yet not one of us know your purpose on this ship. I recall that the delegation agreed not to include a religious envoy. My nation's participation in the peace accords hinged on this decision. If we are to be baited and switched throughout these proceedings—"

"Gentlemen, please!"

Mr. Oyama's nervous, lilting voice finally breaks through the rising argument. Armin had watched him from the corner of his eye, every second closer to standing from his seat. It is only now that he leaps up, his wine glass in one hand, the other outstretched as he shares his most amiable smile around the dining room.

"Each one of us has a purpose to serve on this voyage," he says. "Let us try to enjoy one another's company, and the journey around the coast. There are many days ahead of us before we reach Paradis Island."

His presence seems to remind the diplomats of their mission, and the tension in the room softens with every word he says. Soon, they have all turned back to their plates, the dinner continuing in silence. Armin takes a gulp of wine. Connie dives back into his meal, seemingly grateful for the end of the diversion, while Annie scrapes the last few peas from her plate, leaving it spotlessly empty. Jean lets out his breath. Reiner looks yet worse. On the other end of the table, Mr. Jordan has resumed sawing into his meat, while Mato stabs his potatoes in silence. The priest, between them, finishes eating, stands with his plate, and shuffles out of the dining room without so much as a word— only a faraway look in his eyes and a gentle smile on his wisened face.

Armin catches Miss Hermann's eyes again. This time, she's the one looking at him, watching as he observes the others around the table. He raises his wine glass an inch, nodding to her, and a flicker of recognition flashes in her eyes, though she does not smile before she looks away. He thinks she understands— even in these brave new times, Eldians must stick together.

Jem Jordan coughs, huffs, and clears his throat as he clears his plate and sets aside his utensils. He reaches for his wine glass, swallowing, and nods at Armin from the other end of the table. "But have you considered writing a book?"

[ackermom]

excerpt from a rhaenicent fic i will probably not finish

They find her with the Mother on the morning of her wedding.

"You should pray to the Maid, my lady, to thank her for your marriage." The septa who tells her this is a familiar face, an old sister wrinkled with sun-spots on her brow; yet she is spry as a bird when Alicent bids her word and lights another candle. They kneel together for half an hour more, before her father comes with a convoy of guards who parade her to the bridal chambers to be prepared. "There are many young women in the city who have prayed for such a match."

Fair Alicent keeps her head bowed as the septa spells a prayer for the queen-to-be. There have been many prayers of late, many long hours with a stern-faced teacher, here in the halls of the Great Sept or elsewhere in her father's chambers, sat with a maester or the Hand himself, bent over books of the dragon's lineage and histories, the things she must know now, the legacies her children will carry.

Many hours more are passed in the sitting room outside her small chamber, the place she has called home for so many years that its walls were once comforts as familiar as the arms of a loved one; now others have moved in, and it feels less and less her own as they ready her rooms for the next good girl who will live there. She has tea with ladies of the court whose names and faces she has long known, though they have never before bothered to remember hers. She sits dutifully with wizened old widows who have seen more queens than happy days, and she is instructed on table manners and proper greetings and dress colors and her place in court, all the things she will now have to do. Most importantly, she is told the things she must never, ever do. 

Such a fair girl must be ignorant of the world. But Otto Hightower did not raise his only daughter at court so that she might grow up a fool, and indeed, all the septas and maesters and ladies alike tell young Alicent how impressed they are with her knowledge, her decorum, her virtue and grace. What a bride she will be in Targaryen colors. What a queen to stand beside Viserys in these brave days of Westeros.

She can only say she learned from the best. That is what she does not tell the septa when they pray together to the Maid— how can she explain that she is not only losing a friend, but indeed, gaining a daughter? 

How like Rhaenyra the king is in private, the soft silk of his silver-white hair and the gentle cadence of his mellow voice as he peruses through gestures and histories. His words are not as sharp as hers, not to the girl who listens to all his musings, his bride, his queen, his mother-in-making. And his touch does not burn her skin the way Rhaenyra's fingers do, not even when he is on top of her in bed and his manhood is pressed between her legs, the drip of his sweat salty on her lips and cold on her breasts, where her skin rises with goosebumps and begs to be covered. The stench of his marital act lingers in her linens long after he is gone, the stick of his seed hot inside her like an uneasy ship rolling on rough waters as she lies with her ankles in the air, doing as the midwives bid. 

But bedsheets can be washed. Her skin is stripped of all sweat and oil when she sinks into the bath. The king can be scrubbed from her pores by maids with rough pads and washed over by ladies who dab her veins with sweet perfumes. His touch can be forgotten.

Even when she comes to be with his child— it is her child, her world, her son. There is no love like a Mother's, and Alicent carries her babe into the world wholly, solely, a fullness of her heart so unmatched by anything else that she can convince herself it belongs entirely to her. For a time, there is nothing else besides the swell of her stomach and the little hands that echo back when she hugs the baby to her. 

And Rhaenyra—

She almost forgets. Then the midwives pull the boy from her body, and she sees his starry hair and thinks, how like his sister he looks. 

[ackermom]

They are calling for their queen. In Helaena's eyes, there is a distance, a light gone out, and she turns in the carriage as if she cannot hear the voices or taste their cries. Alicent knows she can hear their words all too well. Queen Helaena! Lady Helaena! Sweet Helaena, they killed your beloved son! A curse on the pretender. A curse on Rhaenyra the Cruel. 

It is all too much, and sweet Helaena loves her silver-haired sister as dearly as the little girl she once was. 

—the same way Alicent loved a dying Aemma, the same way Viserys clung to a brother who brought him nothing but grief, the way he clung to his daughter's claim until he could no longer see past the shadows in his eyes. The same way he gasped and sobbed and bled his way to a bitter end. The way Alicent wept for Rhaenyra's mother as much as she did for her own, the way she cried when she held her baby girl for the first time and saw for her daughter all the same pain she had once endured. Sweet Helaena, who loves with abandon and suffers for it. Poor Dyana, pale with quivers as the tea sank down her gullet and Alicent wiped a drop from her lips. Dear, young Jaehaerys, who dies again every time the stitches in his neck threaten to come undone.

It is the sad things that are the most beautiful. The day they bury her grandson, there are no tears Alicent can shed, for the dragonfire that burns his body is as pure gold as the heart her daughter is bleeding into the earth.

[ackermom]

fem!reibert part 2

"how much do you think i'd be worth?"

the hens are squawking as she digs in the coop for the morning's lay. one of them pecks at her, but beatrice is quicker and has latched the door shut before the hen can draw blood from her hands. she's still on her knees, prodding at the little blue and white eggs in the basket, when she feels rosamund over her shoulder.

"what did you say?" she asks, not looking up. not because she didn't hear, but because she didn't understand. she doesn't, until roz says it again, and then at once bea understands, even before she's finished her sentence.

"all that talk last night," rosamund explains. "the young lady's dowry. i never knew marriage was so complicated."

"it is when you're rich."

without turning around, bea knows roz is sat on the little stool in the inner courtyard, the ankle of her uniform skirt swishing among the hen feathers that she should be sweeping up. in truth, it does not take two maids to task the chickens; it's just one little coop and a few potted plants, tucked in the back corner of the townhouse's basement kitchen garden. the cook's inside lighting the fires and boiling water for the missus. she's yet to start yelling for the day, but if roz doesn't get her ass inside to finish the fireplaces soon, she will.

above their heads, there's the back entrance for the coachman, the hall boys, and the footmen in their suits. above that lies the breakfast terrace. it's early still, and bea knows the family won't be up for hours, but she lifts her head anyway, squinting towards the grey day just in case they're being overhead. the family never bother to notice when they're arguing over their tea. just beneath, there's a nook in the deck where the milk bottles are collected. that's where she sits when there's something good to be heard.

"all this about jewels and gold." she hears roz toeing feathers on the cobblestones. "i mean, land is where it's at around here. the old man will never get a proper gentleman for his daughter if he's not willing to part with any farmland."

"they haven't got any farmland." bea dusts the feathers over the eggs, keeping her head down. her fingernails are grimy already. she'll have to do good wash before cook sees her. they're already going to get raked because roz is behind on the fireplaces— unless annie's picking up her slack again. she hasn't seen annie all morning, but that's not unusual.

rosamund tuts her tongue. "new money. just humor me, bea. how much?"

beatrice sweeps dirt off an egg with her thumb. “nothing. you wouldn’t get a dowry.”

“come on. if i mean, if i was rich.”

if. as if.

“i don’t know,” she says. she drops the egg in with the others. “what does your father do?”

a horse clips down the street. glass rattles. like clockwork, one of the hall boys dashes out the upper door to greet the milkman.

she hears rosamund take a breath. "well— let's just say—"

beatrice dares a glance over her shoulder. roz is as beautiful as any maid ever can be, and just now the morning sun is striking over the red roofs of the mitras to dapple sunlight down the streets, even all the way down into their little courtyard, sunken below the rest of the world. that’s what they may be, but when beatrice looks at rosamund, for a moment she can say the lady they’re pretending to talk about— fair skin, freckled nose, cornsilk hair in a braid over her shoulder. they wouldn’t talk about her like that if she was a lady. they'd call her hair white-gold, not cornsilk. and she wouldn’t be freckled, or wearing such a loose braid down her shoulder. the footmen tease her, call her such a daring girl for her grins and her charms. the housekeeper’s just about had it with her and annie. bea won’t be surprised if they don’t see winter here. 

roz shifts, a strand of gold hair falling out of her braid. she sits with her hands forward in her lap, the crisp white cuff of her uniform shirt pushed up just a little past her wrists, just the way she knows will get her in trouble. white’s not really her color, beatrice thinks. it washes her out. what she wouldn’t give to see miss rosamund braun in silky blues like the sea.

roz leans forward a little, her braid moving with her. “let’s say he sells spirits. there’s good money in that.”

beatrice turns away again. “rich men don’t sell anything. they just own things.”

“fine, he owns fields. how much then?”

“what kind of fields?”

“i don’t know. just lots of them.”

“does he grow grain, or fruit? brandy’s just as expensive to produce as it is to buy. there’s better money in barley and wheat."

roz starts sweeping the cobblestones behind her. has beatrice annoyed her enough into working?

"fine, barley fields. my family's supplied all of wall sina's ale for generations. how much is my hand in marriage worth?"

the hens ruffle their feathers and squawk back to their nests as bea latches up the coop and shuffles to her knees, wiping white feathers from her apron. with dismay, she sees a speck of mud on the starched collar of her uniform shirt. she'll have to change before she goes upstairs. maybe she can find annie and ask what their next move should be. they're running out of time, and she can't stay here much longer. white was never her color.

"i don't know," beatrice says finally, looking down. she itches to paw at the dirt on her wrist. she refrains. it'll only smudge. "i haven't got the faintest idea what goes into a dowry, roz."

in liberio, a bride is worth the promise of hale children and hands to run the household. people haven't got anything else to their names to bargain with, and if they did, they wouldn't be wasting it on eldians like themselves.

when she looks up, rosamund's cornsilk braid has fallen down her back, and she's cleared the cobblestones of chicken feathers, the broom as tight in her hands as a gun.

"i know," she says after a moment.

a shout echoes from the kitchen. cook is calling for them. they're behind on the fireplaces.

roz sweeps the feathers into the corner. "s'alright. who wants to get married anyway?"

[ackermom]

god damn flowers. god damn lesbians.

"i can't stay," bertholdt is saying from the doorway. "my girlfriend's in the car. i was just dropping off a card. saying hi—"

"sorry. i'm sort of— this cake is— you're taking off?"

is he glad bertholdt's not sticking around the party? maybe. he should be, because if he was staying, that'd mean the girlfriend was staying too, and from what historia's said, she's a real piece of work. not sure exactly what that means. it wasn't explained any further. honestly, reiner doesn't need to know. and right now, he doesn't know if he can find the time to care, not in between the five hundred tiny fucking edible flowers ymir and historia want on their stupid god damn cake.

"we've got a work thing," is all bertholdt adds.

"cool," reiner says. he's in the fucking thick of it. he can't look at bertholdt in the doorway right now. bertholdt with his keys in his hands and the haircut reiner always told him he should get. that, or a mullet. he's got curls somewhere in there. he could pull off a mullet.

he's cross-eyed, centimeters away from tiny purple flowers he's tweezing onto the cake as it's melting onto the counter. god damn backyard wedding, and someone needs to crank up the AC.

he hears bertholdt's keys fidgeting in his hands. "historia said you're seeing someone."

the little purple flowers plants off-center. god damn. he'll cover it up later. "yeah. i mean— we're not really dating. you know how it is."

he doesn't know what they're doing. not enough to call it anything. he does the polite thing and returns the favor: "so, how are you and...?"

he thinks he gestures out the window, toward the driveway where the girlfriend must be waiting. he doesn't really remember her name. that must be a step in the right direction. there's a beat though, and when reiner glances over the cake to look at bertholdt in the doorway, his expression has flattened a little. when he sees reiner looking, he gives a good effort shrug, glancing out the window too. the sun's high, and it's glaring off the appliances. but she must be able to see them.

"good," bertholdt says. "fine."

"wow."

he swears bertholdt blushes. "i didn't mean it like that. i just forgot what it was like. you know, dating women."

"i don't know."

"it's— they're a lot of work."

"wow."

"i didn't mean it like that. that sounded bad. it's just not as easy."

"in my experience, men aren't exactly easy." the flowers are going on, thank god. he's never offering to bake a wedding cake again.

"i mean, it's not as easy as it was with you."

the kitchen must be melting.

he hears bertholdt take a breath. "i just mean—"

reiner doesn't remember their relationship ever being easy, even when it was good. he remembers it being fun. he remembers it being like a high, when bertholdt's lips were on his. and the crash that follows, the nights they spent apart. and all the times in between, making love and smoking weed and laughing in the car and getting caught by their friends getting handsy at parties. he remembers being in love, and how much it hurt when they weren't anymore. never easy.

"so," he says after a moment. he plucks up an edible pearl and centers it on a flower. "you're not staying?"

bertholdt shakes his head. halfway out the door. "no, she has this thing for work. she's up for a promotion, and she wants me to be there."

"you must be a catch, huh?"

"yeah, i don't know. it's just that kind of place. when i started— i moved into marketing, i don't know if you knew that— i got the whole speech about the office being a family. so, for this kind of thing—"

"jesus."

"–i know. but it's important to her. and they all know we're dating. if i don't go tonight, i'll hear about it all month."

no wonder he's been dawdling around the house. he dropped off his gift ten minutes ago. reiner could hear their inane conversation from the hallway, his rambling about the registry and historia patting the curlers in her hair as she listened politely. he just couldn't hear what bertholdt got them. he'll have to find out later. he bets he can guess. it better not be a fucking blender.

a car horn beeps twice.

"i should go," bertholdt says.

"if you want out of that place," reiner says, "i can show up and cause a scene to get you fired. expose some sort of sordid gay affair."

he looks up in time to see bertholdt smile.

"you'd make a good homewrecker. i... i didn't mean—"

"i know. it was a joke."

his keys jingle in his hand, halfway out the door. "we've gotta get going. anyways. it was good to see you, reiner."

only a million little flowers left to go. "yeah. same."

"tell them congratulations again, from me. crazy people our age are getting married now."

"yeah, right." crazy.

[ackermom]

it is midday by the time they break through the forest and straight into the fire. the canopy shielded them from the worst of the sun, but now they are an hour behind schedule and lost atop a waterfall in an unfamiliar ravine, and the sweat is running down their faces like blood.

not lost, bertholdt figures out before jean fumbles with the compass and exclaims it so. base camp is on the horizon, if they can find their way around the lake.

his hair is flattened to his forehead when armin kneels on the edge of the cliff and watches the water crash at the bottom. "how are we supposed to get down?"

jean is still fumbling with the map. it is coming apart between his sticky fingers, the ink running across his skin like veins. "shit. this won't be any good. but if we can find a place where it's not too steep—"

bertholdt doesn't think before he answers. "you just—"

jump.

armin peers further. he looks so small at the edge of the cliff. bertholdt might just push him.

it is not that far to fall. he knows these hills, has climbed these cliffs at night, at dawn, awake and ablaze and desperate to find something instead of the noise inside his head. maybe he should throw himself instead. then he could not be cruel before he has the chance.

his father wouldn't have hit him even if he was, not like some of the men he knew on their small canal street wound deep in the bowels of liberio. laundry lines dappled with sun spots, the stench of the gutter, and shouts on either side of their walls, all around them. it might just kill his father to learn what he's done now. the same way he cried when he kissed bertholdt's boots on the day they left. they left their childhoods behind that day. their very lives laid on the dock with the last good they've ever known. marcel was dead the moment his feet left dry land. and the rest of them— he supposes he is still waiting.

he wonders if marcel could do it. reach out a hand and shove someone over. just to see if he would sink or swim. annie, he knows, she could. would, if she had to. and reiner—

armin flicks a stone over the edge.

"how deep is it?" jean exclaims.

the stone clips through the water without a sound and disappears.

it is not so far. and he remembers— poor boys in the outskirts learn to swim from a very young age. diving to the. depths of shiganshina's canals to catch misplaced coins and fallen cargo from passing ferries. perhaps the lake is so deep he'll sink and never have to see the sun again. or perhaps it is so shallow he'll crumple his spine before his head has even breached the surface. maybe he'll wake in a world where his father had beat him, like most boys in liberio, and then he'll know for sure if he was never meant for this one.

[ackermom]

hange's careful! comes sharply, and too late. the burn festers for a moment on his hand, pink and raw and cold as ice. then the steam starts to hiss, and his waxy skin turns into something new, something reborn. armin feels it the moment it happens— a prick inside him like a splinter.

the burn is gone by the time hange reaches him. their arm raises, slightly, leather gloves pulled off, clenched under the elbow. they stop before they even start to reach for his hand. and armin can't help but pull away.

"you should take more care," hange says after another moment.

there's something unsaid in that split second of silence, and with his hand curled to his chest, his thumb brushing off the place where the fire touched him, he feels like he is cowering in shame, like he cannot bear to turn and face his commander, as if they have breached a secret he has been keeping beneath his skin. perhaps they have.

later, he'll realize this was when the wound opened between them, the last time they stood side by side before the darkness they'd unearthed cleaved them apart like continents drifting apart eons to come. anything that follows this night is just a salve pressed to the spot where it hurts. he feels it when he rights himself and finds hange turning, shoulders rolling like they are trying to loose something off their back. a smile he'll come to know as uneasy.

"most of us only get one body," they say.

armin has always been good at letting secrets lie. but lately they feel like breaking from underneath his skin. he almost cries out, almost screams something that he won't understand until it spits from his tongue, a poison welling up from a ravine deep inside himself. he swallows it back. he is good at that. instead, he says nothing. the silence dies then, and he watches hange turn back to their work, their packing and filing glass instruments, fingernails making tiny clicks across the glass with each box they fill, each hopeful little thing towed to some new laboratory under some new castle.

he thinks, as he watches, that one day there will be an end to all of this. he supposes it must be so. the ruins left between them will die, the way all things do. this is the first inkling he'll have of the undercurrent that is tearing up the world, but he doesn't know it then. he doesn't know the world will end sooner than he thinks. he is imagining a near distant future, a rupture of the sun or a toppling of the sky, all the things prophets and priests say will happen to sinners who walk the earth. most of all, he is counting the days— twelve years and six months and eleven days and some odd hours from now, he won't have to endure this anymore.

he has tried to see the days in between. they have all looked toward the future, as the cold sets in and the days feel increasingly short. often he finds he can only think of the past. in the haze, he finds he can no longer remember the last time he saw his parents. instead he sees a small blade in his hands, and in its sheen a sun-drenched city breaking dawn over the walls as he died and woke and died again.

he finds his thumb pressing into his skin again, the spot on his hand where the flame burned and bruised and made him anew. this time, he cannot help but speak.

"sometimes i feel like mine doesn't belong to me," he says.

the glass clinks in hange's hand, then stills. there it is again, the unspoken, broken. he thinks, it doesn't matter. he couldn't explain if he tried.

"well," hange says after a moment. slowly, their hands move back to the vials and beakers. there is much to be done before they leave this old castle. "you are not the only one."

[ackermom]

"someone's going to come looking for us," bertholdt whispers. instinct.

reiner's teeth are on his lips. "who?"

"i don't know." his body is flushed with nerves. his only defense is to protest with excuses he doesn't even believe. "annie."

snort. "annie. she doesn't even know where we are."

bertholdt doubts that, but he'll pretend it's true.

reiner pulls back. his pupils are wide in the dark. "do you want to stop?"

he must be red in the face. fragile and flustered as their bodies press together and a desire throbs within him. no, he doesn't want to stop. but there is something in the shadow of the trees that makes him quiet. something in the light of the near full moon that feels like a great eye peering down on him and watching the places where their hands meet. somehow he expects reiner to pull back and sit up and laugh at him, tease him about his pink cheeks and tell him it was all a joke. a dare. somehow, that would be easier.

but his eyes are full, genuine, his head crooked to bertholdt and the heartbeat pulsing in his veins fast and precious against bertholdt's skin.

"no," bertholdt whispers. he feels like a child the way he says it, admitting a lie to a schoolfriend in the dark. he can't put it into words. the touch of reiner's fingers on his wrist and the heat of their bodies together. he wants it, like some nature he didn't know he had. buried a hundred years deep and caged in his heart through barbed wire fence. their ancestors loved this way. but they are born of a different empire, and some natures are not allowed.

this is a story told; that is all they are in the end, the things they tell themselves, the things they are told from birth. high walls encircle the devils' island, but the people within do not know that name. empires have not touched these lands. there is an ignorance within, a freedom that bertholdt wishes he could understand.

sometimes he thinks about leaving behind everything they know. sometimes he wants to shed their names and find a green field somewhere in these walls, where they can live the rest of the short lives they have, forgetting the things they have left behind. forgetting— it cannot be that hard to do.