𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 | 𝐉𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐊𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐢𝐧

𝐗𝐗𝐕𝐈𝐈𝐈 : 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝

Did you want it to last an eternity? Would you sacrifice your soul if it meant you could stretch out his pain a lifetime longer with the few minutes you had?

"My blood will soak the walls of your home for what you have done," you raised your curses' volume so he could hear over the wind and rain. "It will curse everything you loved long after you are buried. You will know nothing but pain in death."

You had no idea what you were saying as the blood kept dripping down and down and down. Your fingers stung as the rain kissed your self-made wounds with its gentle healing. Your spirit would feed the grass under your feet, but you had no control.

You finally heard little prayers fall from the quivering coward, "Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee..."

His Holy Mother would not come to save him, but your unholy one had saved you from living like him.

Hadn't she?

And you would slit his throat just before he finished his useless penance.

Would you?

But, when it came time for you to step forward and free Father's knife from your own skin to plunge it into the Sergeant's, you couldn't move. The mud held onto your legs, and you swore you felt yourself sink lower in an invisible struggle.

Move, your mind ordered, but your body stood still. This man has stolen everything from you, so move, Goddammit.

The more blood that rushed from your fingers, the more you pictured the deer in the cedar grove. Her anguished cries deafened your ears so much worse than any rain or distant rumblings. Now, her blood gnawed at your knuckles, and you had to fight the hyperventilations from seizing your throat.

It should be easy to kill this man; he was a monster, not a gentle deer that had only entered your peaceful grove at the wrong time. So why did that sweet creature bury you with sudden sickness in your descent into rageful madness?

You earned justice. You earned this moment. You earned the right to watch him die, clawing at his neck–praying for a savior that smelled of moonshine, rain, and salt–only for that person never to come.

Did you earn it? Who gave you the right?

You were not a monster in the same way he was. Witches were not monsters. Your mother was a witch, but she did not murder all who spoke ill of her. She did not commune with the devil and had no vile magic backing her wicked streak. She healed men in military clinics and burned away her woes with branches. She may have been harsh, but she was no monster.

Witches were not monsters, and you were not a monster. You were not a deer in the woods or a little girl. You were not a God who decided who lived or died. You were a lost woman, circling the drain of her madness, burning away all her goodness like a cedar branch.

Move, you tried again, fighting an inward battle of the body and spirit.

Eren would tell you to keep going. If he were there, watching you falter, Eren would have stolen the knife from your hands and killed the monster himself. Then, he would have walked you home in silence, never to speak of that night again. But that thought did not move your muscles. Hitch would never put herself in this situation. She would send Marlowe to clean everything up while she and you chatted over tea and scones. You should have done that instead of trying to fix everything yourself. Marlowe had even offered assistance the day he visited, but you brushed off his service as an empty bit of kindness. But that thought did not move your muscles, either. Niccolo would have killed him by now. He'd make short work of his throat like a turkey at Christmastime. Even Connie, in his idiocy, would have handled himself better. He would have chucked the knife at the Sergeant's throat, grabbed you, and ran for the hills. And yet, you remained unmoved.