maskormenace | ONE

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[ The screen illuminates what is either a normal-sized man or a decently large teenage boy, his expression serious, brows knit low over his blue eyes. They are a bit shadowed in a way usually indicative of poor sleep, though he otherwise looks very healthy, if not a bit sun-ravaged if the red stripes of skin across his nose and forehead are any indication. ]

Hi.

[ He blinks, then lifts an arm to wave a little uncomfortably to the camera. He's very clearly unused to this kind of thing, and has to keep redirecting himself to look at the place where the camera is. ]

Listen, sorry if I ask any stupid questions, I'm still working this thing out. My name's Reiner, I know a bunch of you already, I think -- if I have it right about how this works. I still need more practice. [ Which draws out a sheepish but affable grin from him briefly, and an accompanying hand gesture that indicates that's part of what he's doing right now. ] So, I've been sort of curious about... ah. Motivation, I guess is what you'd call it. What's inspiring you? Everyone has something, like a person or a goal. What do you do, if it's not here?

You don't have to say it if it's personal or anything, I'm just wondering. It seems like it'd be harder.

[ He pauses, as if trying to remember if there was anything else -- then he snaps his fingers. ]

Oh yeah, one more thing. If a guy like this shows up-- [ He holds a hastily done drawing up. ] And if anyone runs into him before I do, can you make sure he doesn't dehydrate and pass out like an idiot?

Thanks. I'm done now.

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[ With a sharper exhale, Reiner rubs the back of his neck and shakes his head slowly. It's a subject that's only sensitive to him at all because it's Connie, but no matter how he tries Reiner still can't distance himself from those friendships completely. He can pretend, though. As long as he does that, he may well get back to believing it eventually. ]

It's a bunch of complicated crap, that's all. I think Ymir knew about it too, but I couldn't figure it out for sure. It wouldn't surprise me if she knew more than all of us, though... I don't know just how long she's been a titan for.

[ She makes a small noise of frustration, surprising herself. usually she kept those in, but the way of this place makes it easy to think that setting aside the mask she'd worn for playing soldier might be possible. Play the part of herself, Annie, traitor and failure and all the rest.

She picks up the pace, assuming Reiner will stay with her. He's long legged enough to outpace her with a tenth of intent on his part. ]

Unfortunately, Ymir isn't here.

[ Or fortunately. It's a mixture. ]

It doesn't matter. Here, knowing and not knowing are close to being the same thing. Her explanations, if she has them, won't do any good if offered in this place.

No, but if she ever shows up it's better that she come to us than those other guys. It's just a matter of being ready for it, that's all.

[ He follows Annie even at her faster pace without much trouble, keeping his gaze low to the ground. There's not much use in thinking about this now, but it seems logical to give Annie forewarning regardless.

Sighing, Reiner shakes his head. ]

I don't know what we're going to do in a long-term situation. We're not going to be able to live peacefully.

With whom? The handful of people from home?

[ Annie agrees that it's better Ymir come to them, but the choice remains with the other woman. For now, it's a moot point.

What she does want to hear are Reiner's thoughts on thinking... more long term. Where he's at in facing down a possibility of being around for years, up to five, should the word of people brought over by Lachesis from the world before hold true.

It's a daunting concept. Annie wrestles with in, in her nightmares. They don't quite qualify as dreams if she wakes up from them in a cold sweat, do they? ]

The imPorts? Or the rest of this world?

I don't know... either. Especially the people from home, obviously, but--

[ It's not really a simple question to answer; Reiner shakes his head again, nose wrinkling slightly in uncertainty. He has no idea what to expect, what to hope for or dread -- all he knows is that their mission is off indefinitely, and until they can resume it (until he and Bertholdt can resume it, that is, assuming Annie returns to her same incapacitated state form as before.

Already his mind struggles enough under the weight of all they've done, regardless of why. No matter where or who they are, their past will always follow them and their future may never come. ]

I don't see where we're supposed to fit now, in this world or any other. If we aren't warriors, who are we?

[ There's acceptance from Annie. Acceptance, and that knowledge that she will have to live, as long as she lives, with the dead on her mind. Faceless in some cases, less so in others. People she's killed, or who have died indirectly because of the things she's done. More people who would have died should things have gone as she'd been expected to perform.

Not that it matters. (Yes, it does.) Not that it applies here. (Let alone in the nightmares she wakes up from in a cold sweat, sometimes even crying.) No, of course it couldn't matter. ]

Not soldiers... though this military wants us to be sacrifices, maybe. What we are...

[ Annie pauses. She has no good, ready answer. Nothing more than the simple thing. ]

We're human. That much I know. Anything else... I can't say. Who are you? Who do you want to be? Carrying everything that's happened, for as long as you have this freedom, what would you like to be?

I don't know.

[ He's able to answer that fairly easily, all of those questions with three simple but honest words. ]

Are we? [ Human? ] What kind of humans do the things we do, Annie? Would either of us do things differently now if we were given the same mission? I don't know if I would.

[ He pauses as well. ]

Maybe freedom can change us, or maybe we'll always just be blending in.

I was raised by an idealist to do what I did.

[ It's her confession to the fact she doesn't think she'd have done otherwise... even up to correcting what brought about her own downfall. Can she harden her heart enough to kill without remorse? Claim lives for that goal she doesn't believe in so much as support because it's what she knows? ]

Scummy humans do the things we do. Some of them believe in why they're acting as they do... [ she looks up at Reiner, eyes watchful, though she doesn't say anything explicit ] ... others don't know how to turn away from a pull as strong as the one they've always known. Do you feel righteous? The things we've all done, do you believe there's a purpose behind those actions? Behind why you and Bertholdt were sent to the Walls?

[ There are so many horrible things she learns in this world. Some she needs to share, with someone, but doesn't know how. Others... ]

People have perfected the art of war against each other. They never needed Titans for that, or maybe that's exactly why Titans are necessary.

[ She doesn't mean that. But she does say it, anyway. ]

Look into the history of the World Wars on this planet, Reiner. I don't fully understand them myself, they're complicated, and you won't like what you find... but you might see something you can understand.

[ How horrifying humanity can be, and what people make the decisions to act like they do.

People at war. People who are taught and shown how to pull what trigger, when. People who help kill millions of others, faster and slower than the five years it'd taken to guarantee the deaths of 200,000. ]

[ Reiner is silent again as he listens, frowning forward both at her assessments and at the sidewalk as his feet slap somberly against the concrete. Reiner can't claim the same; it wasn't idealists that raised them, taught them to believe they were invincible until the day Berik had been swallowed whole by the titan that turned out to be Ymir. But that doesn't mean they hadn't wanted to believe what they were doing was right in some way, even if it was in a distant way that wouldn't become obvious until after it was all over.

Scummy humans do the things we do. But could something be scummy -- murderous -- but also right? ]

Bertholdt would say we had no will of our own. We were raised to do our duty as warriors and bring down the Walls, and we know we could never be forgiven for it. How can anyone call it righteous when one-third of humanity died because of what the two of us did that day?

[ His voice is level, with the appropriate combination of gravity, guilt, and solemnity. Annie's words are comforting if only to illustrate the fact that even without their actions, humanity might be its own downfall. Where they come from, everyone thinks of it in much simpler terms -- either humanity conquers the titans, or perishes at their hands. ]

Sometimes you do what you're supposed to do, even knowing it isn't righteous. You have to do it anyway. [ His lips press together tightly, wondering if he should ask her to elaborate further. Instead, he asks: ] Do you think humans feel the same way with their wars?

I don't think there are enough idealists in the world for humanity to feel any different in the wars they fight.

[ It's a tempered response. Doing what they've done, what she's supposed to have done, without belief behind it... for Annie, it's hollow. It's an expectation and an end result, and none of it claims anyone will be better off in the end.

It just is. It's the way things move, and they've all moved along with it all. ]

Isn't it easier to be looking out for yourself? That's normal. You're handed a gun and told where to stand and where to shoot, and you do, knowing if you don't, maybe you don't live, or maybe the things you care about won't survive. When everywhere you look, the people around you are doing the same, how long do you spend questioning if the rightness is something you can argue?

[ How many people have that strength of will? ]

[ It's easy to forget any other time how fundamentally different their views really are, because Reiner and Annie have had to rely on each other a whole new way since arriving here. The two of them can normally operate well enough through brevity, simple messages sent or spoken back and forth, but closeness was never necessary.

He wonders how Annie feels about all this. Making friends is a matter of course for Reiner, but Annie has always done things her own way.

And then he thinks he's probably been quiet for too long. ]

I don't know. [ It's honest, at any rate. ] It's not myself I'm concerned with. It isn't even being right, in the end... whoever's right or wrong doesn't matter once the battle's finished. All that matters is who's still alive.

Not who died?

[ She asks, voice quiet, eyes focused on the ground. ]

Or is it a mixture of both, in the end? The ones who survive, and the ones who don't? Right, wrong... I'm not as interested in those things. They sound like absolutes. I don't believe in those.

[ Tendencies she believes in; concepts of normalcy, or the general flow of things, but not absolutes. The world is not so unchanging or untouchable as to be absolute. ]

[ Ah... right. That is the other half to that equation, Annie has a point. At the same time, though, Reiner's mind goes to absolutes automatically, wholly wanting to believe either one thing or the other. He sees shades of grey, but thinking in them doesn't come as naturally. ]

Right and wrong might be complicated, but that doesn't mean they can't exist. I don't get that kind of thinking -- I'm not interested in doing wrong to lead to only more wrong. There still has to be a reason.

[ If not a "greater good," then still a goal of some kind. A reward.

He looks at her. ]

What do you believe in, then?

[ Annie looks up toward the changing sky, blues impossibly far out of reach over their heads. The same skies that once bridged them to those in the Walls, and those beyond them.

The freedom which she lost, being able to see anything - those skies, the faces of the people around her, her own inadequacies and failures - for a long time, if ever again. ]

I don't know. Humanity.

[ Such a sense of humor in saying that. ]

The shades of gray the world exists in. What normal people are... and that sometimes, the special idiots who look for change will find some version of it that might actually help change things, just a little, for the better.

[ Reiner narrows his eyes slightly at her answer -- "humanity" -- as if it wasn't the most goddamn vague answer she could possibly offer. What does that mean, Annie? Reiner is constantly too caught up in his own dilemma of what humanity is to him, who he is with or without it and if someone like him (like them) can really be called human when they can turn into monsters taller than buildings. ]

Sort of like what we're trying to do now, you mean?

I don't know that I'd call any of us special.

[ She says, tone of voice dry, but she believes she knows what Reiner means. Humanity is everything and all encompassing to her. The better and the worst of what people did, their motivations, the strengths and weaknesses. To her, they're all human, too. But not just human. Inevitably, tragically, they're also something more and less than simply human.

But their hearts, their heads, those are human. Titans don't have that capacity for thought and feeling and reasoning. Everything that let them choose to interact with the world... that's human. ]

But yes. Sort of like what we're trying to do now.

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rotfl wow gabbie you can ignore this, look how behind i am

tags back ANYWAY!! whatever!!

rebel!!!

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