Challenge #458 - Holiday (Attack on Titan, Historia/Ymir)
Title: Anniversaries
Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan
Pairing: Ymir/Historia
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: holiday
Word count: 250
Summary: Every year, the kingdom celebrates Historia's coronation. Historia herself is more ambivalent.
Every year, the kingdom celebrates Historia's coronation, and she presides over the festivities, crowned in gold, smiling. Ymir stands behind her, a crude knight to the nobles' eyes but her knight nonetheless. And her monster, too - Historia's heard the whispers that race along palace corridors, but people don't flinch from Ymir as they once had, or reach for weapons, and she counts that a victory.
And this too is a victory, the parades and feasting, proof of prosperity beyond the bones of survival. Still, it tires her. It feels false, the shadow of an old assumed name and face. This year, there's a play where a queen slays a giant, armed with a steel blade and a holy blessing, and she knows that her mythology is already overtaking her.
She dismisses the servants at day's end, lets Ymir lift the crown from her head and the mantle from her shoulders and then lead her to the divan where she sits, heavy, weariness drawing her down. Outside, she can hear music, carried from the gardens with the smell of blooming jasmine, and Ymir runs long fingers through her hair, careful, gentle. She shivers, not unpleasantly, after all this time imagining claws.
The holiday is over for another year, and she's glad; it was meant for her, but it isn't hers, or Ymir's. What they celebrate is a different day - a ruined tower, a secret, a promise kept. True things. Things that matter.
Historia closes her eyes, forgetting the legend, becoming herself again.
Fandom: Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan
Pairing: Ymir/Historia
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: holiday
Word count: 250
Summary: Every year, the kingdom celebrates Historia's coronation. Historia herself is more ambivalent.
Every year, the kingdom celebrates Historia's coronation, and she presides over the festivities, crowned in gold, smiling. Ymir stands behind her, a crude knight to the nobles' eyes but her knight nonetheless. And her monster, too - Historia's heard the whispers that race along palace corridors, but people don't flinch from Ymir as they once had, or reach for weapons, and she counts that a victory.
And this too is a victory, the parades and feasting, proof of prosperity beyond the bones of survival. Still, it tires her. It feels false, the shadow of an old assumed name and face. This year, there's a play where a queen slays a giant, armed with a steel blade and a holy blessing, and she knows that her mythology is already overtaking her.
She dismisses the servants at day's end, lets Ymir lift the crown from her head and the mantle from her shoulders and then lead her to the divan where she sits, heavy, weariness drawing her down. Outside, she can hear music, carried from the gardens with the smell of blooming jasmine, and Ymir runs long fingers through her hair, careful, gentle. She shivers, not unpleasantly, after all this time imagining claws.
The holiday is over for another year, and she's glad; it was meant for her, but it isn't hers, or Ymir's. What they celebrate is a different day - a ruined tower, a secret, a promise kept. True things. Things that matter.
Historia closes her eyes, forgetting the legend, becoming herself again.