all your shouting friends who despise you to your face

[needlepricked]

Who: Annie Leonhart & OPEN
What: Annie arrives.
When: Sunday, March 9th.
Where: Into the Woods, later on, town.
Summary: Annie's a New Feather in Luceti, still sussing out the area on day one before leapfrogging into the use of the journals.
Rating: PG-13, spoilers limited to season one of Attack on Titan and/or chapter 33.

She didn't recognize the forest, filled with trees too small to have been any great forest from where she'd trained over the years, or the forests from earlier still. Isolated in the wilderness... she supposed there was a certain apt joke to being so estranged from the rest in her own head. "In the middle of nowhere, there's nothing left to hate."

It took her careful maneuvering around the crown of the tree she's climbed to catch sign of human habitation. Smoke from more than one fire curled and twisted into the clear skies. It caused both relief and dread to settle in her stomach. People could be good, or they could be her own self-manufactured torment.

No point in waiting here to figure out which. Dreams didn't operate by logic other than their own. She couldn't stay out here in this thin dress, winged or otherwise. She climbed back down the tree with far more grace and at greater speed than she'd first climbed up. With the sky receding above her, Annie reached out toward the ground, jumping down and going into a roll that caused pain to constrict her chest to the point where she struggled to breathe on impact.

No more contact between her wings and anything else. Maybe that was the symbolism right there, the crippling pain that came attached to wings once meant to symbolize freedom. Something she wasn't owed, she supposed. In and of itself, that hurt, but no more than she'd always thought it might.

Annie walked on through the forest, heading on toward the hope of anything kinder than the silence of her own company in this alien landscape.

Comments

oops

[petreefied]

There wasn't anything in the forest for Petra; she had gathered all of the things she had found around her, her clothing and that little notebook. She had even kept the dress she had woken up in, thinking at the time the fabric could be reused, or even just made into bandages, if nothing else. Even so, she had still dragged herself back into the forest. Maybe it was to help settle the dreams she had the night before, muffled screams and shouts against the slow sound of the wind blowing through the leaves. Maybe it was just to get out of the homes of the living and retreat somewhere more private and solitary.

It didn't matter, really. The forest was filled with talking animals, and that's mostly enough to distract Petra from her worries until a figure in the corner of her eye catches her attention. That shift--the same kind she had just woken up in. Maybe the girl--she didn't look young, but she's shorter than Petra, which is fairly impressive--didn't want to talk to her. But maybe she did, and she might have been as lost and confused as Petra had been a few days before.

So Petra will approach her, calling out to her from short distance. "Hello, did you just wake up, too?"

this cruel world

[needlepricked]

Was it easier to kill those who weren't your friends? It was unlikely she'd be asked, but Annie would have said yes.

One thousand times yes.

Was murder itself easy? That was a different question. It's answer was less straightforward.

Annie reacted to Petra's voice not with comprehension or recognition, not right away. With her hair loose and the cold keeping her moving for the sake of circulation (cold in a dream is a simple sensational oddity she recognized and cataloged away), Annie looked like she was dancing to the side, bangs obscuring her face as she secured her footing and looked the other woman's way.

"Wake up?" A curious choice in words. Annie's wings twitched, the kind of spasms they were prone to when so new to a body. She didn't have direct, conscious control, not in the way she would expect with all the rest.

When she saw Petra, she felt her eyes widen and her mouth go dry. There'd only been glimpses of this woman with Annie's own eyes, and less distinct ones in Titan form. Dreams were peculiar things. She'd prefer if this didn't detour into the kinds of nightmares she had no answers for outside of her silence, and the apologies that were meaningless in life.

best savor petra's niceness while it lasts

[petreefied]

Petra nods, noting the girl's shocked reaction. Was it recognition? Possible, but Petra didn't recognize the girl herself, and most people were too distracted by Levi to take notice of her when she rode out with Survey Corps. Maybe she simply resembled someone from the girl's home, or maybe it was possible that she hadn't expected to see anyone around in the forest. Either way, Petra's posture shifts slightly, taking a defensive stance. There was no telling how this girl was going to react, and Petra wouldn't blame her too much for assuming she was somehow behind her kidnapping.

"Yes," she says, smiling. "Or come to, whichever feels better for you. I don't know if sleeping is the right way to describe how we were brought here." The dead don't sleep, so coming to may be better reserved for Petra and her fellow deceased. She changes the subject; it veers too close to sensitive and sore subjects. "If you're cold, I can take you down to the village. The clothing's free, you'll be able to find something more comfortable than that."

Hadn't she had her own clothing nearby? Maybe it wasn't the same for everyone. Regardless, if she was brought here like the rest of them, it probably wouldn't hurt to guide her back down to the village, if only to make sure she didn't catch cold in that little shift.

best five minute relationship arright

[needlepricked]

Some people were simply doomed to inappropriate homages in white, though if taken as a symbol of death, it seemed to be apt enough. Annie's face lost the edge of surprise, her shoulders slowly falling into a more neutral hang. She sees Petra's shift to defensive posture, and doesn't want to invite the fight that might in fact be Petra's due.

"I don't understand." Annie stays honest, if nothing else. "What village is this?"

Free makes little more sense, but she can worry about that later. She takes a step back, wings pulling against her back like too alien weights she has to recognize as being part of her. She might appreciate the warmth when they've been there long enough.

five minutes is not long enough to brew a nice pot of tea, won't you stay longer?

[petreefied]

"This place is called Luceti." Petra says, shrugging. "I don't know that much about it. I was brought here yesterday, so I'm not much better off than you are when it comes down to it. The Malnosso brought us here, gave us these stupid wings." She motions to her back, wings extending just a little. She'd gladly wear the wings of freedom on her back, but actual wings? It was a bit much.

"Come on," she says, motioning to come follow her. The way the girl moves--it's not complete distrust, though it's not much better. "I'll show you the way back. There's food, too, if you're hungry. You won't feel much better after eating, but it helps." Death may not be permanent, but illness still seemed to be an issue, one that should be avoided if at all possible when there could possibly be a draft at any time.

And then, almost as an afterthought, she introduces herself. "My name's Petra, by the way." It'd be easier to gain the girl's trust if she knew her name, right?

[loudnoises]

His dreams have always been vivid. All too clear in how disturbing they get. When he sleeps well enough to have them, he often wakes up gasping.

And now is no different, except even by his standards everything is too real and foreign—he starts and snaps up to his feet in an instant, eyes darting around him as they grow wide. It's a forest clearing, but he was in the middle of a city before and he can hear the chatter of animals (animals?) bouncing off the trees around him. Some sort of fevered dream, he thinks, before he stumbles forward and the wings on his back ruffle with disgruntled thwacks against his shoulders.

Yeah, no, that's not okay. The shock doesn't dissolve quickly, but his body makes to be more productive, and he's moving amongst the trees far faster and earlier than his thoughts can keep up. Answers. He needs answers. It feels like he's been navigating the brush forever before he spots someone at the base of the tree, apparently trying to catch their breath and he thinks to maybe yell out, figure this shit out—

But when he draws closer and spots who it is (could barely recognize her beyond gray wings and a dress), he blanks. All the panic and all his questions fizzle out, and his voice is smaller than it means to be.

"—Annie?"

It won't be long before the rest of his emotions catch up with him, but for a few seconds he affords himself some blank staring.

[needlepricked]

She won't be surprised by familiar voices, she told herself. Even if she straightens up, turning toward the sound of her name, she won't allow herself to be surprised. Dreams were rarely a freedom from reality, in any sense of true escapism. It made about as much sense that she'd push away from a tree trunk that felt rough and real under her hand to see Eren Yaeger standing in this same forest.

Winged like she was, which made even less sense.

Yet for all she told herself she wouldn't react, that she wouldn't be surprised, she still was. Annie opened her mouth to say nothing. Her eyes widened, surprise evident there and in the set of her shoulders. Her hair, loose and unruly where it fell across her face, harkened back more to her Titan form than the self most who hadn't seen her newly awakened would recognize.

At her back, grey, patterned wings spasmed, reacting to what she hadn't yet said. What she probably wouldn't bother asking. Why are you here?

"Eren."

[loudnoises]

If this was a dream, he wanted out. Part of him wants to confront her, and there's a swell of emotion that leaves him sucking at his teeth when she finally addresses him, but none of this makes sense. She seems as surprised as he is, which means they might be on equal footing, though he doubts it—Annie always seemed one step ahead of him.

Even now, he can feel himself losing ground. Seeing her like this was absurd, hair unkempt and a little too familiar in all the wrong ways. The Female Titan, he reminds himself, hands tightening into white-knuckled fists, pushing off thoughts of Annie Leonhardt. Respected comrade. Hard-hearted mentor. A girl he'd trusted, and likely the biggest mistake of his short life. His voice is dangerously uneven as he takes a step forward, staring her down.

"When did you get out—?"

Of whatever that crystal shit was. How did she get past everyone and escape? What was going on? Those aren't really the questions he wants to ask (why did you do it, do you regret anything—), but it's a start. When Stohess was said and done, he'd resolved to fight her, and for the moment, that conviction keeps him focused.

(But it's harder than it should be, and there's a glint to his eyes that might be pained.)

[needlepricked]

Annie stares back, but she breaks her gaze away first. She doesn't have the sense of justification that makes it easy to stare down someone she's betrayed, and she doesn't know if it'd be harder to do this in reality than it is in this fractured dream context.

Yet what he says doesn't make any sense. Annie looks back to him, brow furrowing at his words. "Get out?" She hasn't. Dreams weren't an out, they were the false escape that lead inevitably to nightmares.

"I'm not out of anywhere. I'm trapped." Hemmed in by choices she's made, and not ones she can universally lament. What is it to say sorry for this, or feel sorry for that? She didn't start down the path that lead her to this dreamland believing in herself. Wanting to believe in others, wanting to go along with the way of things...

She shakes her head. Eren's an emotional being, and Annie, Annie only knows about her degrees of necessary control. She doesn't even know how to communicate what she does feel, only that she lacks the words.

To Eren in a dream, what is it she'll even say? "In a nightmare that can't even afford pants." Her hand brushes at the material of her dress, a look of displeasure showing briefly on her face.

She doesn't know what to say, and so she lapses into non-sequitor, starting to turn away and leave the strange image of Eren in this place behind. The wings fit him. She hopes his bring him along to the freedom he fights so hard for, and not at a cost he can't afford to bear.

[niceguypose]

Rock Lee could be found at a clearing in the forest, trying to regain his strength from a vampire bite. Yes, a vampire bite. There is a bandage on his neck, in fact.

Garbed in his green jumpsuit and flak jacket, he faces off with a particularly sturdy tree. And he unleashes kick after kick upon it, very swiftly and powerfully. All the while, a squirrel chitters nearby, his own audience and a pet of sorts; the Malnosso had somehow sent the very squirrel from the Forest of Death to him as a Christmas present.

For the moment, Lee continues to kick away while letting out grunts and youthful cries as he counts his way through this set.

[needlepricked]

All those youthful cries do as much (if not more) to attract her attention than the recognizable, steady thump and grunt of someone going through practiced motions. She stops where she is to listen for a while. The cadence is off, not quite something she'd call familiar.

Yet it's a sign of life, and someone disciplined enough to train may be (in some part of her mind) the easiest to approach.

As long as it wasn't her father, but her dreams could in some ways be kind. She rarely saw his face.

When she finds Lee and the chittering squirrel, Annie watches instead of interrupting his routine. She'll wait for a break, or for him to notice the quiet company. It's simpler that way.

She shifts from foot to foot, keeping off the colder ground, wishing for proper shoes or the heat of something soaked in sunshine over the course of a sunny afternoon.

[niceguypose]

This is actually quiet and relaxing for Lee. Although a small note that the bite mark may actually be on his arm instead of his neck, so the bandage may be harder to distinguish from the training bandages he wears around his forearms.

He soon does come to a stop. He glances down at the squirrel for a moment and inquires, "Were you impressed?"

And then the he turns to do some stretches as a break. It's then that he notices the woman, and his eyes widen in surprise. He hadn't expected to run into a New Feather.

"Ah... Hello, Miss!" he says as he nervously pulls himself into a quick attempt at a polite bow. "Do you need assistance?"

[needlepricked]

What is he doing? Annie considers him as a whole for the moment. Nothing about him is familiar, and in its own way, that's reassuring. Even the question is more helpful than she'd expect out of her own imagination.

Do I need assistance?

"I'm not sure. Probably." Glancing at her surroundings while keeping Lee in her peripheral vision, Annie lifts her shoulders in a slight shrug. She doesn't seem inclined to come any closer for now. "Information will do."

you wanted a stalker, right...also sorry for tl;dr

[reviling]

As more and more new names seemed to be showing up in the journal (and especially after Petra's arrival), Levi has been monitoring the list very closely the last several days. He checks it at least ten times a day, if not more, to catch the arrival of any recognizable name - friend or foe.

It really was only a matter of time before one of them showed up. He wasn't so naive as to think that the Malnosso would be especially discriminate, but if they were going for strength and power for their cause, it would only make sense that the titan shifters would appear at some point.

Yet of all of them to show up first, it was her.

Levi knows very little about Annie as a person. Perhaps, at one point, he might have cared - and perhaps he may still have the capacity to care, but it's buried underneath the weight of Erwin's goals and the hollow empty feeling that only comes with loss, filled too often by anger.

He won't deny that the feeling of his blades slicing into her titan flesh had felt satisfying, and denying her capturing Eren as a result had been an added bonus. But whether or not his desire for revenge or justice or just plain violence had been abated, even he isn't entirely sure.

What he does know, though, was that the moment he saw her name, his entire body had gone tense, jaw clenching and a cold sensation slid through his veins.

He'd closed the journal, equipped his gear and left Erwin a note before heading out to scout for her.

It takes him a while, even with the gear - there's a lot of territory to cover. But eventually he finds her in the forest, the white gown making her easy to spot amid the budding trees. He stops, still quite some distance from her, landing on a branch, just observing as he considers his approach.

go away stalker chan

[needlepricked]

There are some sounds which carry through a forest, ones familiar to Annie, and foreign to the landscape. If he was close enough to watch her uninterrupted by the very nature of the woods, then he'd become part of her peripheral awareness.

Annie knew someone was watching. Who, or what, remained to be seen.

After another pause to listen, Annie moved forward, choosing her way carefully. If anyone were using the equipment she'd been hearing earlier, then her careful movements would be for nothing, but to a casual tracker, Annie left very little evidence of her passing.

Whatever stalks her in her dreams will come and find her eventually.

no 8|

[reviling]

Levi's not trying especially hard to be undetected. He's keeping his distance, and if he does approach, he's not going to risk startling her into transforming. He could probably outrun her on the gear, but it's not a chance he wants to take at this point.

Levi's not sure he trusts himself to approach and not provoke her. He grips the handles of the blades tightly, jaw clenching as he watches her pick her way through the trees. It's strange, in a way, that he's never really seen her moving around as human. For him, she's only been a body preserved in crystal, or a fifteen meter tall monster. He's never witnessed her humanity. If indeed she has any.

He moves to a closer tree, landing on a high branch - there's no way he's going to stay on the ground, preferring the advantage of a quick getaway in the event she does transform.

yes

[needlepricked]

She glances his way again, squinting to make out where he is. There's that impression of where someone's standing, but it's not easy to pick out against the unfamiliar backdrop. While the trees here aren't the same level of impressive monster as those in the untended forests, they do provide their own cover.

Annie grimaces, reaching down to worry at one corner of her dress. She doesn't like how it feels constrictive around her thighs.

"If you're planning to shadow me along," she says while she works, "You may as well get around to introducing yourself at some point."

The fabric begins to tear under her fingernails. There's something satisfying about that rip of cloth, even as she cringes. Good cloth is not something to ruin out of hand. She wants to be free to run as much as she must, should her stalking shadow provide more aggressive than sounds so far construed them to be.

[breezing]

When Annie gets closer to the outskirts of town, she might come upon a clearing nearer House 56, somewhat near the Barracks but not quite. At the center of the clearing there's a raised mound of dirt, perhaps a foot high, evenly packed. On this mound are some curiously distinctive gates, made of wood and metal and painted with strange symbols. They don't look particularly old, but are clearly not overly new. They've been there perhaps a year, maybe a little less.

Also in the clearing is a young girl of maybe eight, standing beside the gates. After a second of inaudible words to the trees, she'll turn and set the gates spinning with a blast of air. After that, she'll begin going through them, careful to avoid getting knocked out, from one side to the other. It's as much training as it is play time, and Ikki isn't likely to mind an interruption; she is somewhat unlikely to realize anyone is there until something's said, at which point she'll be as chatty as can be.

There's a trill of birdsong as someone else notices Annie, though; a rather large bird sits in the tree that the little girl had been speaking to, and he's sharper-eyed than his partner is, most days. As she comes out the other side of the gates, Ikki pauses, glancing back at the Pokemon's perch. "Soren? What's up? Is something wrong...? We still have lots of time before we have to be at the bakery."

[needlepricked]

After having so many birds chittering the same set of phrases over and over as she moved through the woods, birdsong uncomplicated by greetings or warnings is almost a welcome relief. Annie had found herself watching the young girl moving among the spinning boards, fascinated in spite of herself. It's difficult to tell from her expression. Annie watches so much of the world from behind a neutral mask.

"He's probably announcing that you have company." Annie moves away from the tree she's been leaning against, hair loose around her face. Her wings are pulled up tight against her back, under her control for the time being. They hurt, but the ache is easier to ignore for being steady.

[breezing]

There's clear startlement on Ikki's face, but she recovers easily enough, breaking into a friendly smile almost immediately. New Feather season - so, either someone new or just another person out and about. That's not out of the ordinary, since it isn't terribly early in the morning. Though Ikki rises with the sun by habit and nurture. "Oh! Hello, there."

It's a good thing she's used to people with completely neutral expressions by this point, or she'd remark on it. And ask about it. She has managed to learn, over about two years, some modicum of tact, though. So instead Ikki does not point that out, as it would be rude. "I'm Ikki; what's your name? Are you out for a walk? It's nice out for it, huh? I think pretty soon we're going to have flowers and everything blooming, although I didn't plant any around here. I think maybe I will, though, at the edges of the clearing, maybe. Some wildflowers, if I can find seed for it. That'd be super pretty, right?"

[needlepricked]

Chatty people were fairly easy to get along with, particularly when they didn't require much in the way of affirmation from the other party involved in their conversation. She let Ikki chatter on, slowly losing her more defensive body language in favor of a more reluctantly open way of holding herself.

To another fighter, it should be relatively easy to read.

"It may." Annie hadn't thought about the flowers. If they were pretty or they were not, did it largely matter? Unless they were edible, it didn't seem to. Not in her opinion.

"I'm Annie. As for walking weather," she said with a glance down to her feet, "In the proper gear, then yes. It might be."

[gunkonmyboot]

Up in the sky, there was a young man with icy-blue wings hovering over the forest, someone bored. Seventeen was that person, with his body laid back as if he was on a recliner in the air, hands behind his head. The snow was gone, and this cyborg is once again bored. He was like a bird stuck in a cage.

After a couple minutes, Seventeen descended to a high tree branch and then laid his back against the tree with his arms crossed. He stood there while some wind brushed his dark locks. Another bored day to add to the books.

[needlepricked]

Annie was most definitely not bored. It had more to do with the fact that she had been climbing said tree from the far side in order to check her position, since directional indicators with the sunlight being broken up by the branches.

What she hadn't expected was anyone flying through the air, unsupported by omni-directional gear in any sense, let alone to have them land in the high branches of a tree she'd been scaling.

Annie lost her footing, cursing as she slammed her arm into another branch and pulled herself up and onto it, heart hammering in her chest with how near to a fall she'd been. She shouldn't have let herself be surprised. Even if this didn't kill her outright, it would be long and exhaustive to heal, and the exposure wouldn't be beneficial in the slightest.

[gunkonmyboot]

Well, something startled the birds which brought Seventeen's curiosity. Evidence left from the sound and leafs from the tree lead to a branch below where a girl hung there with a dress? Seventeen curled his lips up as he lifted both hands in front of him. He clapped both hands together a couple times on a steady beat at the woman's performance.

It was quite impressive the woman made it up here with a dress. She wasn't some tree climbing amateur if she caught herself before the fall. Still, it was probably dumb. At least he wasn't bored anymore.

[needlepricked]

Annie heard them clapping, risking a glance upward to spot if he'd moved from where he'd settled down. So far the answer was no. As she regained her balance, she shot him a glare.

Ass.

Regardless of how ill suited dresses might be for fast movement or scaling down, she didn't feel more inclined to climb closer to someone who she didn't know, in a situation just surreal enough to say she almost wasn't dreaming. Annie started her skillful, graceful decline, ignoring if her skirt hiked up too far for one leg over the other. Coming down from her initial adrenaline rush as she descended through the branches of the tree, she wanted to be away from a situation that afforded her little movement, and away from someone who turned reaction into performance mockery.

She didn't really have patience for things like this.