WHEN SHE RUNS, THE WIND flows through her hair and her feet pound on the ground, and Thea is one with the wind like the wind is one with her spirit.
Shiganshina district knows her face and knows her name, the girl who runs like it's her oxygen, the girl who can never lose her breath like so many others do. Sighs escape ruffled villagers' mouths when her hair flies too close to their bodies, and children try and catch up to the girl, but as always, to no avail.
"Oi! Watch where you're going!" Thea's shoulder rams into the back of a shorter boy's rack of firewood, causing him to trip over himself. The black-haired girl beside him, the lower half of her face covered by a burgundy scarf, helps him up, and Thea only pauses for a brief second to grin apologetically at them.
"My bad," she says, and then she's off, jumping off ledges and heading straight for the market square.
"That's the rich painter's daughter that looks like she's from that ancient Mid-East in Armin's books, isn't she?" The dark-haired boy asks, his blue-green eyes trailing after her disappearing form. "Armin told me that she's always running everywhere! I wonder if she's ever fallen down."
The raven-haired girl hands her companion a piece of fallen firewood. "Don't jinx people, Eren."
Thea Lauriel hops to a stop before a stall in the market square, manned by a lanky young woman whose hair is covered by a cloth, in her hands a red hardcover book that drops to the floor when Thea slaps a bunch of coin onto her table.
"Cardamom and coriander, please," Thea says. Her eyes fall on the fallen book. "Sorry about your book, miss."
The older girl hurriedly shoves her book out of sight, but Thea's swift gaze catches sight of a word.
"Outside..." she trails off when the girl hands her two cloth bags of pungent-scented spices. Thea takes the bags, tying them to the cloth belt around her waist. "Thank you!" She's about to turn out of the market square, in a hurry to get back home. But then she pauses, and spins on her heel to face the girl.
"Wait!" The swift-footed girl points to the cloth the stallgirl had hurriedly shoved her book into. "Is that a banned book?"
A gasp escapes the stallgirl's mouth, and her dark eyes darted nervously around the market. She then bends down, leaning into Thea. Her voice lowers to a nervous murmur. "How do you— no, don't you dare tell anyone about that, or else..."
A shadow descends upon the market square.
The stallgirl pauses. The two look at each other, caught off-guard. Thea raises her gaze to the source of the shadow, curious as to why this shadow seems to have silenced the townspeople.
The top of a raw head stares back at her.
Whatever this is, it is not like any other titan that Pa has ever told her about. It lacks skin. She can see the flesh under a normal titan body, can see the individual fibres that make up the head, the wide brown eyes staring right at her. The strings of connective tissue and muscle close around the top of the wall, that makes bits of the stone crack and powder.
"Wh... what's happening?" The stallgirl's voice is meek, breathy. Her face is drained of any colour, and Thea's head swivels around the market square. Everyone is staring. Everyone is wondering how this... thing... this odd-looking titan is taller than Wall Maria, their first and last line of defence against titans.
"Is that a titan?"
"It's taller than the walls!"
Pandemonium strikes. People scream, and they begin to run away from the wall. Thea doesn't know what to do. One moment she's observing the titan, feet rooted to the ground and unable to do anything but stare into the titan's eyes, count how many rings it has around its irises.
Thea stumbles. Her gaze is brought back to the ground, and she's being pushed around by the panicking crowd. The horde steps on her shoes, and she's getting jostled around, her short stature doing nothing to help her in this situation.
"Excuse me! Excuse me!" Thea's cries go unheard by the people. Nothing is going on in the walls, and yet they are panicking. The crowds push her around, and Thea's knee rams against the ground, a conveniently placed stone digging into tender skin. Pain explodes in Thea's knee, and her hands press flat against the ground. Her knee is not in good condition. "Excuse me!"
Her yells are unheard by anyone. Thea is a distance away from the spice stall, and everywhere people step on her hands and legs kick against her fallen form. She tucks her head toward the ground, swipes her arms across legs and grunts as the people she has tripped come down with her.
And then, Thea flies.
A blast of wind, filled with dust and debris, blows through the streets, strong and unrelenting, sending people crashing into pillars and fills the grounds with a fog of destroyed objects. Thea rolls across the cobblestone pavement, her knee painfully bumping on stones that jut out of the pavement, palms scratching against the rough pavement. Yells are drowned out by the strong wind, and Thea finds herself rolling to a stop, her back hitting a shophouse pillar.
Everything around her is spinning. Her lids flutter shut, her head pounding and knee throbbing. She lies there, on the pavement, back braced against a pillar, hearing the screams and shouts of panicking people fill the streets as they flee.
They ignore Thea. Perhaps they think she is dead. Perhaps they only want to preserve themselves, not some random child on her lonesome, already looking as if she has given up.
Wall Maria is broken. The impenetrable has been penetrated.
Thea has good vision. Pa has always told her that to be a scout, one would need to be alert and aware of their surroundings at all times, and had said that there was this soldier in the Scout Regiment who had a good nose. We'll make an excellent duo, Thea had exclaimed excitedly. I can see things in detail far away, and I can even see in the dark!
(She had averted her eyes before she could see the way Pa's kind face darken. See no evil, hear no evil. Thea has always lived by that.)
Thea has good vision. She wishes that she were blind instead.
When Thea opens her eyes, she sees a face. Bulging eyes, pale skin, bulbous nose, sharp teeth.
When she opens her eyes, she is face to face with a titan.
She cannot hear anything. She can't, she can't, she can't. In her ears is the incessant pounding of her heart, loud and despotic. She cannot think about anything. Her mind is blank. Clean and empty, like the white cloth around the stallgirl's head.
Thea cannot look away. She cannot close her eyes and think of better days. She cannot close her mouth and stop tasting death. She looks death straight in the eye, all faintly humanoid features on a gargantuan face and huge body, taller than the houses.
See no evil, hear no evil. See death, hear death, feel death.
That hand is coming toward her, slow and sluggish and yet too fast. Her skirt is soggy and disgusting, titan drool falling onto her shoes and legs. Behind the rows of unusually sharp teeth, she sees the titan's dangling uvula, sees the dark, endless hole that she will end up in.
On another day, five-year-old Thea giggles and laughs as Pa's stomping stops behind her, and his hands hold hers up. On another day, Thea's cherub cheeks are rounded in a fit of laughter as she is lifted high into the air. On another day, Thea lives.
