Challenge #451: boundary (Attack on Titan, Ymir/Historia)
Title: Beneath Open Skies
Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan
Pairing: Historia/Ymir
Rating: PG
Prompt: boundary
Word count: 250
A/N: spoilers for a major character's identity
Summary: When Ymir looks at Historia, she sees someone who's only ever known walls.
When Ymir looks at Historia for the first time, in a dusty field amid a hundred new recruits who won't outlive their twentieth year, she sees someone who knows what it's like to live behind walls.
Ymir doesn't, never did. She grew up with nothing to block out the horizon, and her memories of that time aren't worth much - too many gaps, even before she lost herself entirely - but whenever she thinks about home, it's mostly just open sky and danger.
She thought she wanted, once, what these wall people have - safety, a chance to live. But then she looks closer, sees Historia move hesitant through life, a stranger's name as armor. It's a prisoner's look, like a caged and hunted thing, and sure, Ymir knows what it's like to be the beast and the hunter, the thing that keeps them all trapped here, but she also knows people shouldn't ever look like that. And she's watching still as they ride out from the gate; she sees Historia's eyes widen as the world opens up around them, the old, constant fear and the sudden freedom, and she knows irrevocably whose side she's on.
When they stand above the world looking down, stop the branches of trees like the trees in stories that sink their roots into hell and reach to scrape the sky, Ymir catches her eye again, and sees her anew. No fear in her now, even with titans massing below.
She looks transfixed, the horizon in her eyes.
Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan
Pairing: Historia/Ymir
Rating: PG
Prompt: boundary
Word count: 250
A/N: spoilers for a major character's identity
Summary: When Ymir looks at Historia, she sees someone who's only ever known walls.
When Ymir looks at Historia for the first time, in a dusty field amid a hundred new recruits who won't outlive their twentieth year, she sees someone who knows what it's like to live behind walls.
Ymir doesn't, never did. She grew up with nothing to block out the horizon, and her memories of that time aren't worth much - too many gaps, even before she lost herself entirely - but whenever she thinks about home, it's mostly just open sky and danger.
She thought she wanted, once, what these wall people have - safety, a chance to live. But then she looks closer, sees Historia move hesitant through life, a stranger's name as armor. It's a prisoner's look, like a caged and hunted thing, and sure, Ymir knows what it's like to be the beast and the hunter, the thing that keeps them all trapped here, but she also knows people shouldn't ever look like that. And she's watching still as they ride out from the gate; she sees Historia's eyes widen as the world opens up around them, the old, constant fear and the sudden freedom, and she knows irrevocably whose side she's on.
When they stand above the world looking down, stop the branches of trees like the trees in stories that sink their roots into hell and reach to scrape the sky, Ymir catches her eye again, and sees her anew. No fear in her now, even with titans massing below.
She looks transfixed, the horizon in her eyes.