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.

it is sunset on the twelfth day when annie first notices her cracks. the world is new, and so it seems all the sunlight. it glimmers over her skin as it sinks beneath the mountains, its warmth fragile and distant. something she thinks she should reach for as it disappears. something to bask in like the others do, like all of them at the end of the world, waiting for something better on the horizon. they all seem to understand what that might mean. annie finds she cannot begin to imagine.

she is coming apart like crystal, like the loose threads of a uniform she used to wear. she doesn't know now whatever held her together. when the sun does down, she realizes she has been breaking for a long time.

twilight comes, and she is kissing armin. something sweet and new. something that should taste like sunlight for a new world. it feels like the first time to her, every tender touch he lays on her skin, but she thinks he must have been here before, if only for the way she lets him dip her onto the bed. she couldn't just let him do that. she'd have to pretend to make him ask first, pinch her cheeks pink, and say something coy. that's what he would expect. that's what she should do.

when he breathes in, he can smell the smoke. something bitter lingers in the acrid aftertaste that touches his tongue, but he breathes again, and the room is warm, the cabin alive with golden light, the pale smoke from their fire drifting out the window into the night. it is open, the window by his bed, and in his warmth he feels the chill wrap around him like a blanket. warm in the cold night, watching the shadows of his friends dance on the cabin walls from where he sits in his top bunk, legs curled up beneath him. the beat of his heart feels strange in the back of his throat. it tastes the smoke, another day, another place, another fire. someone is reciting a poem to the beat of a drum. the world is heavy, like a bottle of wine stuffed with a cork, and he feels as if he could sink into its deep red, watching the glow of the fire light reflect his shadowed face on the glass. he feels as if he will never wake again.

when he does, it is night, still. still. he wakes to the cold wind with a leaden head like he's rising from a thousand days, like he has not slept in years. these years, he has done nothing but sleep. his throat burns, dry, and his eyes are heavy. it must have been only minutes. an hour. two. minutes, still, somewhere in the night over the walls of shiganshina.

48. things you said on our honeymoon

they are married under the willow tree.

married, perhaps, is a strong word; there is no court in the land that accepts their union. even the crown cannot change that. but what is a wedding if not bittersweet? a morning in the tall grasses by the river as the depths of a new world linger on the other side of the walls. a queen with a tiara of rosemary, for remembrance, and chrysanthemums to last through the cold winter; and her lover by her side, at once both consort and captive. 

a marriage by any other means is a failure of the heart. historia decides this one bleak morning in the palace, listening to the hummingbirds through the open windows as she lays sprawled in her clean white sheets and wills away the heat in the air. marriage, for most people, is the end of their lives. for some, like her mother, only the mention of it was enough to kill. 

the moon is waning. that’s what he’s thinking about in the hesitation, what he’s looking at in the darkness as he blinks and finds himself in a blue field of wheat, a space somewhere quiet away from the lanterns and fiddles in the distance over the hills. the grasses are tall this time of year, summer's burning just around the bend; and the moon has passed from its peak to something smaller, slender, disappearing into the milky midnight. 

for a moment, it takes him aback, this passing of time. in this strange land, this other, with no newspapers, no radios, no wars and orders to measure the days, they mark their time by the phase of the moon. when it is full or ripe, and when it is narrow, impossible to see. the seasons are their hours. when the wind blows, reiner turns to see he is not alone.

canonverse arranged marriage part two

a drink is proposed. they are led to an antechamber and sat down in matching arm chairs, small glasses of something bittersweet and amber delicately handed to them. reiner does not stop to consider if it is laced. it could not kill him. and why would they want to, after all this fuss? all the time and money they’ve already spent on this affair. there are two thousand people lined on the streets outside and a silk altar waiting for them where the sea grass meets the water. 

his throat is burning when he sees bertholdt watching from the corner of his eyes, and reiner realizes he is waiting, hesitating, waiting for the amber to slip down his throat and sear a hole into his stomach. he does not doubt there is something in the drink to dull their senses. perhaps just the alcohol. perhaps the sugar will make them drowsy and the sea winds will blow away any thoughts they have of fighting. there is nothing to fight, as far as he is concerned. he watches bertholdt take a sip and wonders if he feels the same way. 

“the princes of old often joined in matrimony.” the bottle clinks into another glass as tybur takes the seat across from them. he takes the drink handed to him. it looks the same to reiner. he wonders if it tastes just as sour. 

cw: dubcon, hate sex??? idk

they’re arguing in someone’s kitchen. bertholdt followed reiner in here, not saying a thing but determined to stand up for the last word anyway. he doesn’t get to open his mouth before they’re on each other. 

one minute he’s picking through the pottery on the floor, putting all the pieces together in his mind and trying to remember what time of day it was they were here last, what last meal these plates would have been used for, what kind of people would have woken up in this house and died there that same day, if the midday lunch had come and gone already, or if it was a weekend, a long quiet morning in shiganshina that saw the sun set and never rise again. one minute he’s trailing behind reiner, something deeper and bitter welling up inside of him. 

reiner’s too busy picking the playlist for the first guy— late twenties, loose tie, smells like beer— that he doesn’t register the second until the door slams and he glances in the rearview mirror to meet bertholdt’s wide eyes. 

“hey,” the first guy says, too loud. outside the people on the streets are clamoring, the music from inside the bar thudding down the sidewalk. “you’re picking us up, right?”

reiner puts on mac miller and watches in the mirror as bertholdt’s brow visibly twitches. “yup.”

he thinks about scratching his name in the walls. turning on the shower and blocking the drain so the water overflows and seeps into the floors. tearing up the carpet. shoving garbage down the sink. breaking a window, or ripping the chain lock off the door so the burglar who’s been thumbing through homes up and down the street will break in and take the stuff he can’t fit in his car. rob this place blind. 

he’s thinking about it until bertholdt is back from the leasing office, coming through the door with the papers in his hand and his head downturned as he shuffles inside and sets his keys on the little table by the door. reiner’s plant is still sitting there, in the dark spot that it likes away from the windows. he would take it, but— he wants to know if bertholdt will take care of it even after he’s gone. water it once a month the way it likes, if he ever noticed reiner doing that, or if it will be dead when reiner finds an excuse to come back here in a few weeks and pick up something he forgot. 

“it’s all done,” bertholdt says from the door. “you’re free.” 

Chapters: 7/12 Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Reiner Braun/Porco Galliard Characters: Porco Galliard, Reiner Braun, Pieck Finger, Zeke Yeager, Theo Magath, Porco Galliard’s Parents, Karina Braun Additional Tags: Canon Universe, Canon Compliant, Pre-Marley Arc (Shingeki no Kyojin), During the Four Year Time Skip (Shingeki no Kyojin), Porco Galliard-centric, Original Character(s), Pregnancy, Abortion, Sterilization, Medical Experimentation, just snk things~, Sparring, First Kiss Summary:

War is coming. It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world realizes Marley has lost two of their titans and strikes on their vulnerabilities. Until then, the empire is biding its' time. The remaining Warriors are sent home and instructed to stay behind walls, lay low, and lie.

If only standing still were that easy.

he's listening to taylor swift when it happens. okay, he's standing in the kitchen and leaning on the counter so he's just out of sight from the revelry in the hall, and he has evermore playing so low he can't hear it over the laughter and din, but the seconds are passing and he can feel it. that's what evermore is anyways. it's not just an album. it's an emotion.

and reiner swears his ex is psychic (among other choice words), because spotify is at 2:09 in right where you left me when he appears from around the corner with a goofily clunky headlamp around his forehead and an empty water bottle in his hand. he stops in the doorway, his sneakers squeaking on the tile, eyes flicking to reiner, before he continues past him towards the sink.

"hi," he says as reiner jerks upright and fumbles with his phone to pause the music. the laughter in the other room conveniently fades out just at that moment, and there's an excruciating three seconds as he slams his finger at his phone and taylor swift sings about breakups while his ex inconspicuously fills his water bottle at the sink.

"hi," reiner says when he's turned the music off. he swipes out of the app and shoves his phone in his pocket. he just barely glances at bertholdt over his shoulder. he can't help himself: "nice headlamp."

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Reiner Braun/Bertolt Hoover Characters: Reiner Braun, Bertolt Hoover, Jean Kirstein, Connie Springer Additional Tags: Canon Universe, Canon Compliant, 104th Training Corps (Shingeki no Kyojin), 104th Training Corps Arc (Shingeki no Kyojin), Genderbending Summary:

Every summery touch of sunlight sets her further on edge. For she dreams of Wall Rose often and the high noon hour they have agreed will mark its fall. There are only days left before the world will crumble again. This time, they will be on the inside.

Beatrice cannot help but think it will be their fall too.

hygiene is the first thing they were taught as warriors. how to scrape the dirt from under their fingernails and scrub the dead skin from their legs. how to wash their hands, properly, with soap, and kill all the livings things lurking on their skin. how not to touch anything inside the zone: no curious dead birds on the cobblestones, no makeshift playgrounds in the gutters, no family who cough with their eyes squeezed shut or breathe like their lungs could give out tomorrow.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Bridgerton (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Kate Sheffield | Kate Sharma, Anthony Bridgerton/Edwina Sheffield | Edwina Sharma Characters: Kate Sheffield | Kate Sharma, Edwina Sheffield | Edwina Sharma, Anthony Bridgerton Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Unhappy Ending, Canon Divergence - Anthony Bridgerton and Edwina Sharma Get Married Summary:

By the time the first snow falls on the streets of Mayfair, Kate is home in India once more— if home can be a place where she no longer belongs.

Chapters: 5/11 Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Reiner Braun/Porco Galliard Characters: Porco Galliard, Reiner Braun, Pieck Finger, Zeke Yeager, Theo Magath, Porco Galliard’s Parents, Karina Braun Additional Tags: Canon Universe, Canon Compliant, Pre-Marley Arc (Shingeki no Kyojin), During the Four Year Time Skip (Shingeki no Kyojin), Porco Galliard-centric, Original Character(s), Pregnancy, Abortion, Sterilization, Medical Experimentation, just snk things~, Sparring, First Kiss Summary:

War is coming. It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world realizes Marley has lost two of their titans and strikes on their vulnerabilities. Until then, the empire is biding its' time. The remaining Warriors are sent home and instructed to stay behind walls, lay low, and lie.

If only standing still were that easy.