The pitfalls to being people who knew each other historically, and Annie's knowledge of him recently being entirely fed by Armin and then the handful of them chasing after Eren once the Rumbling had begun (and the short conversation that returned to her at the end of things) is a chasm deeper than the seas the Colossal Titans had swum. At the same time, and by the same measure, she wishes there'd ever been time.
Not because he'd be talked around. He couldn't allow himself. It was the bullheaded charge toward what he decided or nothing, spinning out without meaning behind the atrocities that'd already occurred.
"You died." She says, not shrugging, still staring him down. What hurts in all of it, what bothers Annie the most, is knowing how it happened; because she'd seen Mikasa's face again and again as they rushed toward Eren's front line, because she knew where that ending led. "If it got you what you hoped for, fuck if I know. But it probably did."
She lets go of the beachball, still staring up at him. What's more annoying is seeing how he got taller, just like everyone else, because that was normal compared to the extremity of his decisions on the path he'd dragged the world down. Why does it have to be something so normal, so mundane, as noticing he's grown? She knew that already, she'd seen him on the Path, but it really isn't the same as seeing him in person.
Nothing's the same, is it?
Annie doesn't know which way to lean with what she's feeling. Violence is easy, had always been the easy answer, but not since laying on that stone floor gasping the air she hadn't had in years. If it was musty or sweet, she couldn't remember. Just knowing what had happened, and that she had to move.
Here, though, what's there to say? He's already dead. So many of them are already dead. Yet he's standing there, and is that a ring? Annie flicks her gaze from Eren's hand to his face, once again wondering when he and Reiner had taken that step. That it's a misunderstanding doesn't even occur to her, since Reiner never refuted her statement about his theoretical marriage to Eren Jaeger.
What it does do is give her a focus, when the rest of what she feels, what she knows the people around her felt, won't.
"Do better by Reiner than you ever did by Mikasa," she says in the end. "Founding or Attack Titan or whatever, I can and will kick your ass if you don't."
Violent words... and hell, she means it, too. If this is the lauded chance they never will have back home, then make it better, not just new.
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Not because he'd be talked around. He couldn't allow himself. It was the bullheaded charge toward what he decided or nothing, spinning out without meaning behind the atrocities that'd already occurred.
"You died." She says, not shrugging, still staring him down. What hurts in all of it, what bothers Annie the most, is knowing how it happened; because she'd seen Mikasa's face again and again as they rushed toward Eren's front line, because she knew where that ending led. "If it got you what you hoped for, fuck if I know. But it probably did."
She lets go of the beachball, still staring up at him. What's more annoying is seeing how he got taller, just like everyone else, because that was normal compared to the extremity of his decisions on the path he'd dragged the world down. Why does it have to be something so normal, so mundane, as noticing he's grown? She knew that already, she'd seen him on the Path, but it really isn't the same as seeing him in person.
Nothing's the same, is it?
Annie doesn't know which way to lean with what she's feeling. Violence is easy, had always been the easy answer, but not since laying on that stone floor gasping the air she hadn't had in years. If it was musty or sweet, she couldn't remember. Just knowing what had happened, and that she had to move.
Here, though, what's there to say? He's already dead. So many of them are already dead. Yet he's standing there, and is that a ring? Annie flicks her gaze from Eren's hand to his face, once again wondering when he and Reiner had taken that step. That it's a misunderstanding doesn't even occur to her, since Reiner never refuted her statement about his theoretical marriage to Eren Jaeger.
What it does do is give her a focus, when the rest of what she feels, what she knows the people around her felt, won't.
"Do better by Reiner than you ever did by Mikasa," she says in the end. "Founding or Attack Titan or whatever, I can and will kick your ass if you don't."
Violent words... and hell, she means it, too. If this is the lauded chance they never will have back home, then make it better, not just new.