Categories > Anime/Manga > Attack on Titan > A Song Bird's Wings of Freedom
Hanji
Later, once Levi and I had our fill of Christmas dinner, I pushed him out of the Dining Hall and to my work room. I hoisted him out of his chair and on to the dark colored couch, and helped him lay down. He winced as he laid down, but he patted my back with gratitude. We both shivered in the cold room, so I went to the stone fireplace in front of the couch and started a fire for us. The crackling fire casted long shadows down the room and washed the color from Levi’s face. He looked younger in the light of the dark again.
“Your lips are chapped. They’re going to crack and bleed in this weather,” I said. I remembered how, when we first met, he talked about how his lips would burn in the blazing summer sun. We all made fun of him and his pale skin, but it didn’t fit him in the cold weather. He looked down his nose as if to look at his lips.
“I guess they will,” he said plainly. I rolled my eyes at him.
“Do you want chapstick?”
“Sure, why not Shitty-glasses, and, while we’re at it, let me lick the bottoms of your shoes so I can really get a good taste of all your filthy germs.” He was so stubborn.
“Levi just drink a beer already you short bastard.” He was such a pain in my ass.
“Yes, Hanji, lemme go walk on in to the pantry and get myself a beer with my strong legs.” He spoke with venom, and I knew I struck a nerve. I knew I should have apologized, but it was his own damn fault. Some nights I really could not stand him.
I got up and got us some beers. I sat on the warm fireplace stones that were sun-bleached and white-washed with age, and we relaxed in silence for a long while with nothing more than our drying liquor to keep track of the passing hours.
Levi took a long swig of his beer and smacked his lips, “Oi,” he was drunk already, “what about yourself?”
I was confused, “What do you mean?”
“Where do you come from? What’s the story of Humanity’s Smartest?” He sounded snarky, but sincere. I hadn’t ever talked to him about who I was without my titan obsession and career in science. I sipped at my beer and looked in to the fire. Who was I, outside of the world that consumed me with death and small scientific leaps? Levi continued to look at his hands.
“I was a little girl from Trost District, born to baker parents. They made all kinds of breads and sweets, and they tried so hard to make me in to a baker. They wanted to break me of my curiosity, of my questions- why would a baker need to ask questions unrelated to breads and crops and small village life? I was too consumed with classes, my parents told me. I never appreciated them, and, to this day, I’m not sure if I regret not caring about them or not. It’s doesn’t bother me, though.” I paused and took another drink. I looked up at Levi, who watched me patiently, waiting for me to continue my story.
“I was nine when I ran away from home. I was scared to end up like them, so I chose to leave them to their small world of little things. I never spoke to them again, and I believe they died in the Battle of Trost the day before the 104th squadron’s graduation. I left to Shiganshinia and continued my education there.
“I surpassed all of my new classmates in Shiganshinia intellectually, and my teachers were angry with me because they had nothing more to teach me when I was still so young and they rarely had answers for my unending questions. I was eventually kicked out of the small school I went to, and so I wandered the streets alone for a very long time.
“One day, I wandered so far from the city that I ended up at a farm, and I stole an iron shovel from the red barn in the fields. The farmer chased me away, but I managed to keep hold of the shovel. I came back to the main city and started digging at the Walls in hopes of seeing a titan. I learned about them in school and immediately fell in love with the idea of them and the little known science behind them. I knew I was born to learn the titans’ secrets, and I vowed to learn them all. The Garrison guards always tried to steal my shovel or chase me away from the walls, but I always managed to come back to them.” Levi chuckled at my story and he made me smile. He knew me too well. I sipped my beer again and we stayed quiet for a long time. He looked at the label of his beer and then to me.
“Continue, please,” he said. I nodded and started up again.
“When I was fourteen, a plague hit the city and everyone fell ill very fast, especially people who lived by the water. I decided to find out why people were getting so sick, and I figured out it was because of unclean water that was contaminated with human feces and soil run off from nearby farms. I designed a cheap water filtration system and showed it to the mayor of Shiganshina who approved of my design, and the water system was remade. I was recognized by the mayor and the military as a genius after they delved more in to my past.
“At fifteen, I decided I wanted to become part of the Survey Corps to fulfill my dreams of seeing titans and learning their secrets. For me, boot camp was easy; I’d lived on the streets all my life and I saw through everyone around me. I quickly became top of the class and graduated on top.
“Now here I am, taking care of a gimp.” I smiled at him and he glared back at me. “Nothing very interesting, unfortunately.”
“Don’t cut yourself so short.” I nodded, and we drank a little more. Silence crept between us again in the fading light of the waning fire.
“Tell me about you, Levi.”
Levi
Holy hell did Hanji have constellations of ginger freckles powdered over her supple skin. They traced the brim of her up-turned nose and under her eyes, and sometimes, when she closed her eyes while taking a drag of her beer, I saw them pepper her delicate lavender eye lids. They traced down her hard jawline and onto her strong shoulders where the sun kissed her on hot summer days when she wore nothing more than a thin-strapped shirt. They drizzled down her arms to her thin hands and down her long fingers. Dirt found its home beneath her uneven finger nails. I saw her freckles kiss her collar bone and down her chest. I knew more were hidden beneath her shirt, and I found myself wanting to know how much of her dark skin was covered with them. I felt my cheeks color; how could I think of Hanji like that?
I looked back up to her wide rust eyes and tried to catch my breath and push my heart back down in to my chest after it somehow found its way in to my throat.
“My father left my mother before I was born, and she had bad taste in men; she gave herself to men that loved booze more than themselves or her money they stole from her panty drawer while she slept off her liquor. My mother got knocked up and died from blood loss while delivering my baby brother, and I was left alone to take care of him. I was no more than four or five, and he fell very ill. One day I woke up but he didn’t.” My breath was sharp and ragged; no one knew I had a dead brother and mother. Well, only one woman knew, but she had been dead and maggot-filled for a very long time.
“Levi I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” Hanji crossed the space between us and held my hand after she sat down on the floor next to me. She stroked my hand softly with her thumb like when I was back in the Infirmary. I was drunk; how else could I so easily tell her about the things I wanted to stay dead in the grave? I nodded my head and continued.
“I tried to live on the streets, but the Military Police took me to an orphanage somewhere within Wall Maria- I guess I was born in Wall Rose or Sina then, but I don’t remember. I hated that orphanage; it was so cold in the winters and too hot in the summers. The children there were all angry and trying to find where they belonged in the world that didn’t want them and so cast them aside to rot. I fought a lot and the orphanage owners believed I would never find a nice home to grow up in, but I didn’t care.
“The caretakers were wrong; I did get adopted, but by terrible people.” I paused, unsure if I really wanted to say what happened to me so long ago. I looked down at the beer I held and took another long swig to fill the silence and buy me time to think. “They hurt me.” There was nothing more I had to say on that matter. “I ran away soon after that and lived on the streets. I got involved in petty crimes; I stole food and blankets and sometimes clothes when I couldn’t keep patching up holes that just ended up ripping wider and longer than before even after I sewed them shut repeatedly. I was finally arrested for stealing bread and thrown back in to a different orphanage.
“I was adopted again by a nice family that lived a quaint life in a small house at the edge of Wall Maria. They were very kind people, but I was angry with the world, so I constantly fought with them. Later I realized I was just angry with myself and what the world had given me.
“I hated the military with their fancy gear and the freedom it gave them. So many of them abused their power, so I wanted to prove that anybody could have the power and strength they had; I stole 3DM gear. I used it throughout the city and I was a natural- very clumsy and reckless, but a natural nonetheless. I was arrested, but not without a fight, and sent to Court. My judge ruled that, if I wanted so badly to fly and fight like the military did, then I must lay down my life for the Crown and join the military. I did so with style.
“Training was simple for me, and I graduated at the top of my class- be proud of me Shitty-glasses.” I smiled at Hanji who sat on the floor beside me and she grinned back, her dimples deep set and eager.
“I rose through the ranks quickly and then I met Petra. I fell in love with her when I first saw her- her red hair was so striking; I’d never seen anything like it before! We became close very quickly, but I backed out of the relationship because I was too scared to let her in. Before the expedition, though, I apologized by purposing to her. She said yes. We were going to get married soon after we returned from the mission.” I grimaced and Hanji squeezed my hand a little. I couldn’t tell if she understood my slurred words or not, but she still listened to me ramble. I appreciated it.
“But she was dead before then and I thought all the light left the world with her, but I found someone new. I found someone who shines like the sun and-and-and she…She’s something else, Hanji.” Sleepiness washed over me thick and heavy. It was the boozes, but I let it take me. I smiled at Hanji a final time before I fell asleep on the couch, very drunk on beer and butterflies.
Hanji stayed by my side all night.
Later, once Levi and I had our fill of Christmas dinner, I pushed him out of the Dining Hall and to my work room. I hoisted him out of his chair and on to the dark colored couch, and helped him lay down. He winced as he laid down, but he patted my back with gratitude. We both shivered in the cold room, so I went to the stone fireplace in front of the couch and started a fire for us. The crackling fire casted long shadows down the room and washed the color from Levi’s face. He looked younger in the light of the dark again.
“Your lips are chapped. They’re going to crack and bleed in this weather,” I said. I remembered how, when we first met, he talked about how his lips would burn in the blazing summer sun. We all made fun of him and his pale skin, but it didn’t fit him in the cold weather. He looked down his nose as if to look at his lips.
“I guess they will,” he said plainly. I rolled my eyes at him.
“Do you want chapstick?”
“Sure, why not Shitty-glasses, and, while we’re at it, let me lick the bottoms of your shoes so I can really get a good taste of all your filthy germs.” He was so stubborn.
“Levi just drink a beer already you short bastard.” He was such a pain in my ass.
“Yes, Hanji, lemme go walk on in to the pantry and get myself a beer with my strong legs.” He spoke with venom, and I knew I struck a nerve. I knew I should have apologized, but it was his own damn fault. Some nights I really could not stand him.
I got up and got us some beers. I sat on the warm fireplace stones that were sun-bleached and white-washed with age, and we relaxed in silence for a long while with nothing more than our drying liquor to keep track of the passing hours.
Levi took a long swig of his beer and smacked his lips, “Oi,” he was drunk already, “what about yourself?”
I was confused, “What do you mean?”
“Where do you come from? What’s the story of Humanity’s Smartest?” He sounded snarky, but sincere. I hadn’t ever talked to him about who I was without my titan obsession and career in science. I sipped at my beer and looked in to the fire. Who was I, outside of the world that consumed me with death and small scientific leaps? Levi continued to look at his hands.
“I was a little girl from Trost District, born to baker parents. They made all kinds of breads and sweets, and they tried so hard to make me in to a baker. They wanted to break me of my curiosity, of my questions- why would a baker need to ask questions unrelated to breads and crops and small village life? I was too consumed with classes, my parents told me. I never appreciated them, and, to this day, I’m not sure if I regret not caring about them or not. It’s doesn’t bother me, though.” I paused and took another drink. I looked up at Levi, who watched me patiently, waiting for me to continue my story.
“I was nine when I ran away from home. I was scared to end up like them, so I chose to leave them to their small world of little things. I never spoke to them again, and I believe they died in the Battle of Trost the day before the 104th squadron’s graduation. I left to Shiganshinia and continued my education there.
“I surpassed all of my new classmates in Shiganshinia intellectually, and my teachers were angry with me because they had nothing more to teach me when I was still so young and they rarely had answers for my unending questions. I was eventually kicked out of the small school I went to, and so I wandered the streets alone for a very long time.
“One day, I wandered so far from the city that I ended up at a farm, and I stole an iron shovel from the red barn in the fields. The farmer chased me away, but I managed to keep hold of the shovel. I came back to the main city and started digging at the Walls in hopes of seeing a titan. I learned about them in school and immediately fell in love with the idea of them and the little known science behind them. I knew I was born to learn the titans’ secrets, and I vowed to learn them all. The Garrison guards always tried to steal my shovel or chase me away from the walls, but I always managed to come back to them.” Levi chuckled at my story and he made me smile. He knew me too well. I sipped my beer again and we stayed quiet for a long time. He looked at the label of his beer and then to me.
“Continue, please,” he said. I nodded and started up again.
“When I was fourteen, a plague hit the city and everyone fell ill very fast, especially people who lived by the water. I decided to find out why people were getting so sick, and I figured out it was because of unclean water that was contaminated with human feces and soil run off from nearby farms. I designed a cheap water filtration system and showed it to the mayor of Shiganshina who approved of my design, and the water system was remade. I was recognized by the mayor and the military as a genius after they delved more in to my past.
“At fifteen, I decided I wanted to become part of the Survey Corps to fulfill my dreams of seeing titans and learning their secrets. For me, boot camp was easy; I’d lived on the streets all my life and I saw through everyone around me. I quickly became top of the class and graduated on top.
“Now here I am, taking care of a gimp.” I smiled at him and he glared back at me. “Nothing very interesting, unfortunately.”
“Don’t cut yourself so short.” I nodded, and we drank a little more. Silence crept between us again in the fading light of the waning fire.
“Tell me about you, Levi.”
Levi
Holy hell did Hanji have constellations of ginger freckles powdered over her supple skin. They traced the brim of her up-turned nose and under her eyes, and sometimes, when she closed her eyes while taking a drag of her beer, I saw them pepper her delicate lavender eye lids. They traced down her hard jawline and onto her strong shoulders where the sun kissed her on hot summer days when she wore nothing more than a thin-strapped shirt. They drizzled down her arms to her thin hands and down her long fingers. Dirt found its home beneath her uneven finger nails. I saw her freckles kiss her collar bone and down her chest. I knew more were hidden beneath her shirt, and I found myself wanting to know how much of her dark skin was covered with them. I felt my cheeks color; how could I think of Hanji like that?
I looked back up to her wide rust eyes and tried to catch my breath and push my heart back down in to my chest after it somehow found its way in to my throat.
“My father left my mother before I was born, and she had bad taste in men; she gave herself to men that loved booze more than themselves or her money they stole from her panty drawer while she slept off her liquor. My mother got knocked up and died from blood loss while delivering my baby brother, and I was left alone to take care of him. I was no more than four or five, and he fell very ill. One day I woke up but he didn’t.” My breath was sharp and ragged; no one knew I had a dead brother and mother. Well, only one woman knew, but she had been dead and maggot-filled for a very long time.
“Levi I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” Hanji crossed the space between us and held my hand after she sat down on the floor next to me. She stroked my hand softly with her thumb like when I was back in the Infirmary. I was drunk; how else could I so easily tell her about the things I wanted to stay dead in the grave? I nodded my head and continued.
“I tried to live on the streets, but the Military Police took me to an orphanage somewhere within Wall Maria- I guess I was born in Wall Rose or Sina then, but I don’t remember. I hated that orphanage; it was so cold in the winters and too hot in the summers. The children there were all angry and trying to find where they belonged in the world that didn’t want them and so cast them aside to rot. I fought a lot and the orphanage owners believed I would never find a nice home to grow up in, but I didn’t care.
“The caretakers were wrong; I did get adopted, but by terrible people.” I paused, unsure if I really wanted to say what happened to me so long ago. I looked down at the beer I held and took another long swig to fill the silence and buy me time to think. “They hurt me.” There was nothing more I had to say on that matter. “I ran away soon after that and lived on the streets. I got involved in petty crimes; I stole food and blankets and sometimes clothes when I couldn’t keep patching up holes that just ended up ripping wider and longer than before even after I sewed them shut repeatedly. I was finally arrested for stealing bread and thrown back in to a different orphanage.
“I was adopted again by a nice family that lived a quaint life in a small house at the edge of Wall Maria. They were very kind people, but I was angry with the world, so I constantly fought with them. Later I realized I was just angry with myself and what the world had given me.
“I hated the military with their fancy gear and the freedom it gave them. So many of them abused their power, so I wanted to prove that anybody could have the power and strength they had; I stole 3DM gear. I used it throughout the city and I was a natural- very clumsy and reckless, but a natural nonetheless. I was arrested, but not without a fight, and sent to Court. My judge ruled that, if I wanted so badly to fly and fight like the military did, then I must lay down my life for the Crown and join the military. I did so with style.
“Training was simple for me, and I graduated at the top of my class- be proud of me Shitty-glasses.” I smiled at Hanji who sat on the floor beside me and she grinned back, her dimples deep set and eager.
“I rose through the ranks quickly and then I met Petra. I fell in love with her when I first saw her- her red hair was so striking; I’d never seen anything like it before! We became close very quickly, but I backed out of the relationship because I was too scared to let her in. Before the expedition, though, I apologized by purposing to her. She said yes. We were going to get married soon after we returned from the mission.” I grimaced and Hanji squeezed my hand a little. I couldn’t tell if she understood my slurred words or not, but she still listened to me ramble. I appreciated it.
“But she was dead before then and I thought all the light left the world with her, but I found someone new. I found someone who shines like the sun and-and-and she…She’s something else, Hanji.” Sleepiness washed over me thick and heavy. It was the boozes, but I let it take me. I smiled at Hanji a final time before I fell asleep on the couch, very drunk on beer and butterflies.
Hanji stayed by my side all night.
Sign up to rate and review this story