In Love With A Monster (Armin X Annie)

~Chapter Seventeen~

When Annie finally came to, it had been almost a full day since she passed out. She could feel the warmth of a fire brushing against her skin and the cool breeze of the outdoor air, the sun had just set and the stars had began to show. For a moment Annie just laid motionless, she didn't want to speak to anyone just yet and instead stared up at the moon. She didn't know specifically where they had taken her, all she could tell was that they were still within the walls — she just didn't know which one. To her, it looked like it could be wall Maria, she couldn't see any villages nearby or any place anyone would be living in. There was no one around to help her.

"Hey..." She heard Bertholdt speak. He was sat at the foot of the sleeping mat she was laid on, she had barely noticed he was even there.

"Hi." Annie replied, she sat up.

"You were out for a while." He was strangely talkative tonight, he never usually said more than a few words to her unless Reiner was around.

"Oh, really?" Annie stretched her arms out. "How long?"

"Almost a whole day, that fight really knocked your energy, I guess."

Annie just nodded in response and stayed quiet, the two of them faced towards the fire in silence. There were four sleeping mats surrounding the fire, Annie could see their bags sat nearby as well, fully packed with spare clothes and supplies they would need to survive out of civilisation for a while. Even Ymir had a bag packed. Annie guessed that Ymir came with them involuntarily, that somehow once Reiner and Bertholdt found out she had the power of the Jaw Titan they had taken her by force — considering she had nothing to gain by coming with them. But after seeing her save Reiner in the fight yesterday, it was obvious she had her own reason for joining them.

"What's the story with Ymir?" Annie asked. "She was the one who ate Marcel?"

Bertholdt nodded, "Yeah, she was. She's from Marley, was turned into a Titan a long time ago and turned into a shifter after taking Marcel's power. We found her out one day and we told her about how she had taken Marcel's life... to say she felt guilty would be an understatement and when we told her of our mission she was willing to help."

"So she is going to help us capture Eren and also find the founder?"

Bertholdt rubbed the back of his neck, he hesitated for a moment to answer her, "It turns out that Eren is the founder. We found out that Grisha Jaeger had taken the power from Frieda Reiss — Historia's sister — before giving both the founder and attack Titan to Eren. Turns out we were chasing a fake king all along."

Annie couldn't help but sigh after taking all that in, everything they were chasing for years had turned out to be a dead end after all and that the founder was training in the same class as them.

"So Historia has royal blood and Eren has the founder, what would happen if they ever made contact?" She asked.

Bertholdt shrugged, "Who knows, I doubt he even knows the true power of it. We just need to make sure he doesn't find out. He's reckless enough as it is."

Annie nodded. It had been a while since she was able to openly speak about the mission, Marley, even saying Marcels name out loud felt completely strange leaving her mouth. Like she should grab the words back before someone finds out, but she had to remind herself that these were the only other people within the walls who knew. She had wanted to speak about this with Armin, she wanted to tell him everything but every time she went to do so she stopped herself. Annie knew she could trust Armin, however she was scared that it would be too much for him to know there was something more past the walls, that life still existed beyond. She was scared he would feel compelled to take this information back to the scouts and that Marley would later be attacked, her father would be in danger.