Hello, Stranger (Hange Zoë x f!reader)

Part three

It felt colder somehow. Despite being covered in fur and nestled beside the fire, you couldn’t shift the cold from your bones. You sighed. It had been a fortnight now. A slow, uneventful, fourteen days, since Hange had left. The loneliness had never bothered you like this before. Ever since your mother had disappeared, you had been alone. You still missed her, you always would, but time had dulled your longing. You’d searched the whole forest, screamed your throat raw calling, but nothing. She left no note, gave no warning. She had simply disappeared into the night, leaving you to adjust to survival on your own. As time passed, you had grown more accustomed to the silence of loneliness. Focused on the positives. You could come and go as you pleased, leave in the dead of the night for weeks on end, stay up watching the stars, change your form as you liked. No one was there to complain. No one was there to worry. You could disappear off of the face of the earth, and no one would remember you. They would find your home one day, maybe. Ask questions that would remain unanswered till the end of time.

It was stupid, you scolded yourself, getting this worked up over someone. They’d been with you just over a week. Not a month, not a year, a mere twelve days. Now they were gone. So be it. That was life. People come, people leave. The only constant is you yourself. Yet, despite your constant reaffirmations that you only needed yourself, you still hoped Hange had gotten home safely. Would their friends welcome them? Moblit had certainly seemed overjoyed at their reunion. Would he look after them? How many others were there? What was their base like? How far was it? Was it big, small, one of those stone buildings like the few that were scattered in the forest? The longer you lay lost in thought, the more your questions preyed upon your mind. The fire was retreating now, slinking back into the depths of the embers. You drew your body closer, burying your nose in the fluff of your tail, and entering into a light uneasy slumber, still wondering.

This repetitive mundane existence continued for another week and a half. Wake up. Hunt. Avoid death. Preserve more food. Mope. Sleep. Wake up. Read. The longer you were alone now, the more you were plagued by the notion that your choice had been the wrong one. Years buried questions tore back up to the forefront of your consciousness. Why hadn’t your mother gone to the Walls? Surely she would have found some place safe there. There were three of them, there had to have been somewhere for you two. Why, then, hadn’t she taken you there? If it really was safer, wouldn’t it be wiser to live there and raise a child, rather than keep them in a tree like some oversized squirrel? The only answer hung heavy in the air. Were humans really worse than titans? You sighed. You hoped not. You had to. You had to believe there were others out there that were good. If not, what was the point? Living in a world where every other being wanted you dead? What was the point of living in a world like that, you had wondered to yourself, as the tendrils of an uneasy slumber dragged you into their inky depths.
Maybe you wouldn’t have felt like this is you had said goodbye properly. If you had made it clear to both of you that that was indeed a farewell, turned down their hope of a future meeting. Closed that door, tightly, and locked it. You hadn’t, stupidly you chided yourself, and now, you found yourself standing at the threshold of that door, shifting from foot to foot and reaching for the doorknob. Two options presented themselves now. You could open the door and walk through, or you could lock it here and now yourself, alone. You paced back and forth. You had nothing to lose, did you?

The decision was solidified now. You would go. You would find Hange, and you would find out more about the rest of the world, the flying Survey Corps and the Walls themselves. You would just have to be careful, and extremely so. As fascinated as you were by them, you couldn’t help but feel anxious at the thought of being Hange’s latest fixation. Now the decision had been made, you would need to prepare. You had dug out your best bag from the chest behind your stool. It had been custom made by you, the straps were all resizable, designed to be able to adapt to your changing shape. They could be tightened by hands, or indeed, teeth. You took to wrapping dried herbs in spare cloth, wound rope into a ball, packaged food, and laid what few clothes you had on top along with a water container. It wouldn’t be forever, you reminded yourself. You weren’t leaving for good, just a few days, most likely. Then you could come back, content that you had dealt with what had been gnawing at your mind.

It would be safest to travel at night, you mused, tightening the bag’s lid. Most titans seemed immobile at night, for whatever reason. Granted, they wouldn’t take notice of you unless you were human, it was still unnerving you have to walk alongside their often unnaturally proportioned bodies. Their footsteps often would shake the earth, messing with your gait and reminding you of the raw power their contorted forms possessed. They would look past you, eyes strained on some unknown in the horizon, detached from reality. You suppressed a shiver. It gave you several more hours to plan and prepare at least. If you assumed Hange had travelled in a straight line out of the woods from the direction you last saw them, you would simply have to follow the invisible trail. Should be easy enough. There had to be some trace of them, especially when they had no reason to hide their tracks. Hange had mentioned the difficulties of flying with nothing to grab onto once, when they were showing how the mechanism on the handle worked. Would they have to run back to their base then? You couldn’t imagine it would be that far if it were true. Regardless, you were determined to find it.

It was near freezing when you finally hit the forest floor. The moon was half full, granting just enough light for you to see comfortably. You had taken the form of a wolf now, its body would be able to handle the trek ahead. It wasn’t as fast as other bodies, but was gifted with enough stamina to run for days on end. For all you knew, you would need it. The supplies rustled slightly as you took off into a bound, hurtling over exposed roots and between bushes. You had missed this, the feeling as the wind tore through your fur, the sensation of earth beneath your pads and grass clumping between your claws. You pitied humans. They would never know this freedom, this openness, so long as the titans continued their onslaught.

Your ears swivelled to the left. One sat hunched over, limp, its skin near translucent in the nightlight, barely hiding its protruding ribs. It paid no heed to you as you tore past. You were thankful, as ever. The trees had begun to thin. You were confident you were still on the right track, and now as the scent of horse flooded your senses, you were proven right. Tracks, human and equine, were muddled and intertwined. They bore the scents of ODM gas, sweat and humans. In amongst them had to be Hange, you mused. Yet amidst the cacophony, you couldn’t pick them out. That made more sense at least, they would uses the horses to travel long distances.

“That way.” The indentations in the earth seemed to continue for as far as the eye could see into the horizon, weaving back and forth, stopping and starting as their makers had fought for their lives. It would be a long night ahead.