Her Majesty's Knight

Chapter 16 - Historia

AN: Grab another tissue box. Another heart-wrenching chapter.

Song inspired for this chapter: Evanescence My Immortal. Yeah, very angsty... Historia remembers a certain freckled face girl. I think this one really suits Ymir and Historia's relationship. 

A few more weeks go by, and Tilly finally said her first words.

"Big sister."

Well, from what Mikasa told me anyway. I still have yet to hear her speak, considering she's still too afraid to talk around me, and I've never felt so helpless. 

Lucky for the captain, her drawings are nothing more than child-like depictions of Mikasa (nothing from the underground yet). In one drawing she drew Mikasa with a pair of angel wings, one wing blue and one wing white, just like the Wings of Freedom.

Am I jealous? Well, just a little... But I know it's what's best for Tilly.

She needs Mikasa right now, and I'm half tempted to ask my old comrade-in-arms to give up the Scouts and take up a job as a nanny at the orphanage.

But of course, Mikasa would rather be slaying titans and enemies alike. It's in her blood. Kenny Ackerman had been the same way too, and I still shiver when I think about that tall, petrifying man.

In fact, Levi reminds me an awful lot of him, from the way he moves to the way he's in tune with his surroundings.

Could he possibly be an Ackerman too? Kenny did raise him after all.

Armin and I currently read a book titled "Animals of the Serengeti" (Mikasa is upstairs playing with Tilly in the nursery), and my fellow blue-eyed blond was just teaching me about the "watering hole".

The captain enters the kitchen, and my heart gives an involuntary leap when I set sights on him.

Levi's just had a shower as he towel dries his hair. The black strands drip wet at the ends, pouring down into his face, and my legs turn to jelly as I try to control my breathing.

His damp shirt displays the hardness of his muscles, and it doesn't help that his sword looks erect inside its scabbard.

I feel Armin's blue eyes on me next as I gawp at the captain like a gullible idiot, and now I try to think of something else.

Right, the watering hole!

"So... where were we?"

I look back to the page Armin was showing me, and I stare in awe of that beautiful illustration. Whoever drew this was a true artist; I almost feel like I'm drinking from that same watering hole myself with those beautiful, exotic animals. There's a large creature with a long spout for a nose, which Armin said was an "Elephant", and another with the longest neck I have ever seen. That one is a giraffe, and it appears to walk on stilts. Then there's a horned animal called a rhinoceros, and a large, cow-like beast by the name of Hippopotamus. There are also pretty pink birds called flamingos, and smaller, deer-like creatures called gazelle and impala.

Armin continues. "Winter is the dry season in the savannah. It can experience as little as four inches of rain for the whole period. Drought often follows, and as a result, many animals die of thirst or starvation."

My heart breaks when I peer at that adorable illustration of a gazelle. It has a black stripe across its flank. "The poor things..."

I'm aware of the captain's presence in the corner of the room as he pours black tea from the sideboard, and I can tell he's absorbed.