To Kill A God / Reiner Braun

chapter three

ACE AUSTEN IS SEVEN STEPS AWAY FROM DEATH.

   And it may not be her own.

   To be in her presence is to be painfully aware of your own mortality. Of how fleeting and temporary your life is.

   She drips of ichor. And, it too, may not be her own.

   Tell me, the world asks, is this what sin on skin feels like? Is this, what a monster looks like?

   But what do you say, when you don't know if this skin is yours. If this body is yours. If this mind is yours. If these bones are yours. If this blood is yours. If this life and this death are your own. What do you say, when you don't know if you are yourself. If you belong to yourself.

   She replies: world, do you wish to hear me call myself a monster?

   And it answers: do we not call things by their names? Do we not call things what they are, how we see them? A broken heart is a broken heart—not the world shattered. A fallen soldier is a disgrace—not a martyr, never a hero. We call things by their names. And you are monster before you are Ace. You were monster before you were born.

   She wakes up from her dream. Someone else would have seen it as a nightmare. But this vision has haunted her long enough for Ace to call it a friend.

   Morning comes, sunlight beaming through the window. When Reiner and Bertholdt get up, Ace's bed is already made. She will always be seven steps ahead. In this life as well as the next, Ace refuses to not come out on top. She will never fall back nor fall behind. The blood in her veins doesn't allow for failure.

   As the training corps tiredly pile into the dining hall and drag their bodies onto the benches, Ace pushes away her empty breakfast plate. It is unnatural for her to fall in line with the rest. That is why, she is programmed to always be seven steps ahead.

   "Sucks for you," Marco mutters as he plops down next to her, resting his head against her shoulder. "You'll just get hungry sooner."

   Haven't you learned by now, Marco? She was hungry before she was born.

   "You look like corpses."

   He huffs, taking a gulp of water. "You don't look too peachy yourself, Ace."

   "Better than you, at least."

   "Yeah, maybe. I almost forgot about the early mornings."

   And nothing hurts more than the almost.

   "What did you expect from military, Marco? You'll get used to it again, you don't have a choice. You have to."

   Don't you know, Marco? This is the only way.

   She stands up, pats his back and makes her way out just as Reiner and Bertholdt walk in.

   "Morning, sunshines," she drawls, her signature smirk tracing itself across her face. "A little late, aren't we?"

   "You could've woken us up," Reiner grumbles, his voice jagged and rough.

   Ace decides she likes him better in the mornings. When he sounds as raw as he looks. A deep tone to match the weariness in his eyes and the bags under them. She thinks it's when people take their truest form; in the early of the morning and in the dark of the night. And, in this moment, if this is to be Reiner's true form, then Ace concludes that it doesn't bother her. That she could get used to it.