EAT YOUR TAIL ⸻ attack on titan.

02 ──── the raven heralds our fate today

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.