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There came a stunned few seconds after the stage exploded, of sheer silence as everyone tried to comprehend what had just happened. Gabi motionlessly watched as Zofia’s daemon, Piotr, faded away into nothing. It happened in the blink of an eye, yet it felt like an eternity. He was there, on Zofia’s twitching leg; then –poof– it was as if he’d never been there. Neither had ever been there. Gabi was frozen to her core. Where was Zofia? Zofia– she must’ve moved right before that debris fell. And Piotr had turned into a small fly, almost invisible, and flitted away with her. Never mind that Zofia’s daemon had already settled as an owl. Those legs weren’t hers, they couldn’t be.
Then everything exploded. After the brief silence that felt like an eternity, it was as if time was catching up on the seconds it had lost. Everything happened fast. Colt was there, grabbing her by the arm. Then he was screaming for Udo, whom they had lost in the pressing crowd. Colt began dragging her away, and Gabi didn’t realize her daemon was missing until she felt their connection pull taut. She gasped and whirled around. “Thaddeus!” she shouted for him, but he was frozen, wide dog eyes staring at Zofia’s body.
“Gabi, come on!” Colt yelled.
Gabi yanked herself out of his grasp and rushed to her daemon. She swiftly picked him up right before somebody was about to step on him, instead receiving a kick to the head herself.
“Where– Piotr…” Thaddeus said.
“I– I don’t know,” Gabi answered helplessly. She looked up at the titan, jaw gaping wide and green eyes blazing. Eren Jaeger. Gabi found herself trembling. She had never feared titans, but she quickly came to realize that that was only because all the titans she was used to were those on her side. Now there was a titan looming above them, one that wanted them all dead, and Gabi was absolutely terrified. For seemingly the first time in her life, Gabi was scared. She’d never felt that way before –not when hiding in trenches or facing a dozen rifles on enemy battlefields. But now, seeing the destruction and fear titans caused when she was at the other end of their force…
Next to her, Udo cracked his head on the pavement as thousands of feet stampeded over him. His daemon faltered and slowly blinked out, turning to dust.
Most soldiers had dog daemons, symbolizing their loyalty and strength –with some exceptions. It was for that reason that Thaddeus was usually in the shape of a dog, though he often changed into bigger, more vicious forms when Gabi was angry. Gabi wanted him to be angry now. She wanted him to be a giant wolf that could tear all of the enemies apart, or a bear, or anything. But Thaddeus was terrified. He cowered in her pocket in the shape of a moth, trembling and shivering. And Gabi hated him for it.
He only came out when she found Falco, flitting out of her pocket and huddling close to Falco’s daemon, Eirene. Upon seeing him –and Magath, and Pieck– there came a break in Gabi’s fury. For a second she was just glad that they were alive. Only then did Thaddeus flit into a slightly bigger shape; a hedgehog.
When enemy soldiers with their gear descended near them, he was a moth once more. Gabi wanted to throttle him. Their friends were dead, their enemies were raiding their home, and all this useless thing could do was cower.
“Thaddeus, change into a horse to help Pieck!” she demanded, yanking him away from Eirene in her fist.
“Gabi– stop, it’s okay!” Falco said, putting a hand on her arm. Eirene turned into a bear and carefully picked up Pieck’s ram daemon –Philipp– upon her back. Just then, one of the scouts came flying at them to take out Pieck. Gabi couldn’t see his face, but his daemon was a vicious red wolf wrapped around his shoulders. Falco rushed to stand in the line of fire. Eirene semi-carefully dropped Philipp and stood to her full height, shielding both Pieck and her daemon. “Don’t shoot!” he shouted.
“What are you doing?” Gabi screeched. She reached for a rifle that wasn’t there –oh, she should have grabbed a rifle from one of the dead soldiers to shoot the bastard dead!
“Falco!” Pieck yelled.
The soldier aimed –and Gabi was sure this was the end of all of them– but at the last second, his daemon nipped his arm, and he missed.
Gabi had the urge to yell “Thought so, asshole!” and throw a rock at him, but refrained –Pieck and Magath would probably scold her for senseless provoking, and then tell Reiner–
“Reiner!” Gabi exclaimed, whirling on Falco. “Falco, where’s Reiner?”
He faltered, looking down at his shoes.
The worst flashed through Gabi’s mind in a jolt of horror. “Falco!” she yelled, eyes wide.
“He’s– he’s okay!” Falco said quickly. “He’s in his titan form but…”
“But what? Where is he?” pressed Gabi.
“Near the stage. He saved my life, but… I don’t think he wants to save his.”
Gabi furrowed her brows, trying –and failing– to make sense of everything. In her mind, everything was as chaotic as the outside world was. A mess you couldn’t figure out, you could only try to survive.
Gabi grabbed a rifle and chased after the withdrawing airship. Falco ran after her, trying to dissuade her. Thaddeus had gotten over his shock by then, and was bounding next to her in the form of a giant, angry wolf –bigger than physically possible.
“It’s over, Gabi, they’re leaving!”
“Those devils don’t get to leave– they don’t get to raid my home, kill my people and then just leave!” Gabi shouted, glaring at her friend through teary eyes. “Zofia and Udo are dead! How is that fair, Falco? How?”
He stayed silent. There was no answer; it wasn’t fair. But Gabi would make it fair. She would get revenge for her friends and her people. She would kill them all. She would slaughter each and every devil.
Thaddeus became a fierce eagle as they clambered up the airship’s rope, holding Gabi’s rifle with his talons. At the top, it all happened quickly. In one swoop Gabi rolled into the airship; Thaddeus threw the rifle to Gabi and transformed back into the vicious wolf, growling beside her. No less than two seconds passed. One; Gabi located the sniper that had shot that soldier in front of her –and many more– as they turned to look. Two; Gabi pulled the trigger, and she staggered backwards as Gabi’s bullet burrowed into her chest with a spray of blood. Straight in her heart. The silence of death weighed heavy on the ship. For a second, Gabi was satisfied. But that second passed, and another, and another. And all that was left was emptiness.
Half of the soldiers launched themselves at Falco and Gabi, while the other half crowded around the sharpshooter. Gabi hardly felt the kicking and punching of the frantic, angry mob; hardly felt herself kicking back or heard what she was yelling. All she could focus on was the shooter’s unconscious, half-translucent daemon laying on his belly next to her. Gabi had expected something vicious or demonic, true to the devilish reputation the people of Paradis had. A giant, ugly monkey; a rotting carcass of a bear; something else inexplicable horrific.
But all she saw was… a beagle. A silly, floppy-eared beagle dog –the kind Gabi was more used to seeing as cartoony caricatures in news columns, than in real life. He lay beside the shooter, whining softly with big, vacant puppy eyes.
It was the soldier with the red wolf, in the end, who dissolved the mob and took Gabi and Falco away. The red wolf held Thaddeus and Eirene in her jaw. Any second, Gabi was sure she’d chomp down on them, and that’d be the end. But, though tense, the soldier with the red wolf didn’t hurt them. Gabi wanted him to. She wanted to die right this instant so she’d never be taken hostage on their island to be tortured and starved. But she’d lost her only opportunity when she’d dumbly watched that stupid beagle rather than take her chances with gravity.
In Marley, there were lots of rumors concerning the daemons of Paradis people. Some said they didn’t have daemons, being soulless monsters who deserved to die; others said their daemons were unimaginably grotesque things, symbolizing their wicked souls. Nightmarish monsters with jagged teeth, gigantic cannibal titans.
Then Reiner came home and began telling of a girl with a beagle daemon who had stolen a potato or something. His tales confused everyone, so much that Gabi had entirely forgotten about the story of the beagle and the potato. Until now.
She wondered if it was the same girl. For the first time, she considered whether Reiner was telling the truth, or whether he was just dazed as her aunt had told her. Gabi pushed the thought away. It made her too human.
To Gabi’s dismay, she was actually beginning to like Kaya. It was strange. Gabi was going to spear her with a pitchfork, then told her her mother deserved to die because of her ancestors’ sins, and yet Kaya… did not care. Did not scream, or fight back, or tell on Gabi –all behavior she would’ve expected from a devil. But Kaya simply did not care. She argued against Gabi in the most passionate, adultish way Gabi had ever seen in a kid her age. She was like a second Falco.
“I like it here,” Thaddeus said one day as they were helping around with the farm, in the form of a goat.
“How could you even say that?” Gabi snapped.
“Come on,” he said. “The Braus family are really nice people.”
“They’re devils,” muttered Gabi, but even to her own ears it sounded false. They had given her and Falco a home, even though they were from Marley. Even though they were enemies. It didn’t make sense– good lord, nothing since that godforsaken festival made any sense!
Gabi took out her frustration on the hole she was digging into the earth. “We’re leaving, anyway. We’ll tell the people in that Marley restaurant that we’re soldiers and they’ll get us out of this hellish place.”
“Mia!” Kaya called from the porch. “We’re leaving in a bit! Come change!”
“Coming!” Gabi called back.
Kaya helped her wash and laid out a dress for her. Her daemon was a deer named Konstantine; Thaddeus, as it usually was with children’s daemons, changed into one as well when near him.
“This was my sister’s once, Papa Braus says,” Kaya said in a small voice, stroking the hem of the dress. “Back when they lived in the woods.”
Gabi looked at the dress and stayed silent. She’d begun to admire Kaya’s sister, despite herself. She had been an enemy soldier, after all. But the way Kaya spoke of her bravery and kindness… it was starting to rub off on Gabi.
“It’s pretty,” Gabi said with an attempt at a smile.
“It doesn’t fit me anymore,” Kaya said melancholically. Then her face lit up a bit. “But I think it’ll suit you perfectly, Mia.”
“Your sister sounds amazing,” Thaddeus said suddenly. Gabi flashed him a horrified glare. “You are too. You helped us. Thank you.”
Gabi lunged for him, wrapping her hand around his snout to keep him silent. But the damage had already been done. Kaya was laughing softly behind her hand at the sight. “It’s no problem,” she chuckled.
Gabi’s face flushed. Annoyed at Thaddeus –at herself– she quickly put on the dress, picked up Thaddeus and darted out of the room, face red.
“You are so embarrassing!” she hissed to Thaddeus in the hall.
“It was the right thing to do,” he answered simply.
Even after Nicolo’s betrayal, the reveal that the sharpshooter had been the dead Braus sister, and Gabi’s glimpse of death as Mr Braus accepted the knife from Nicolo. Even after all of that, nothing hurt more than when Kaya tried to attack her, even though the scout lady stopped her. The look of sheer hatred on Kaya’s face did more damage than that knife would’ve done. Kaya, who had saved them. Kaya, who had helped Gabi wash her hair, and had taught her how to take care of animals, and given her her sister’s dress. Gabi couldn’t even be angry. Because deep down, she knew she deserved it. For the first time she let herself think of “the sharpshooter” as a person. Sasha Braus, with the beagle daemon and the bow and arrow, and the black frock and wonderful little sister she never got to see again. Daughter, sister, hunter, scout. Sasha Braus. And Gabi had taken her life, because she had taken her people. And now Nicolo and Kaya wanted her dead. And Gabi wondered just how long that cycle would go on –how long it had been going on, with her playing a part in everything. The wild, wild forest.
Thaddeus had taken the form of an ermine. Gabi didn’t yell at him for it, for once. She felt as small as him now. She wanted to shrink tinier and tinier until she could fit into somebody’s pocket and stay there forever, hidden from the forest.
As the others took care of Falco and Kaya, Gabi was led to another room by the quiet scout lady that saved her and a blonde scout. She didn’t know them, but if they were scouts, they must’ve known Sasha. The woman’s daemon was a leopard cat, as silent as she was, and the man’s a small owl. Once more, not the ghoulish beasts Gabi had been taught to think of. But enemies nonetheless.
“I killed your friend…” she stated, voice raw from screaming and her nosebleeds. The woman’s leopard cat flinched slightly. “Why did you help me?”
The woman thought it over. “I had no reason.”
She looked down at Thaddeus on her lap, trembling. His little snout had begun bleeding as well when Gabi got hurt. “It– it wasn’t Falco’s fault. It was me, so– so kill me, not him.”
“We don’t plan on killing either of you,” the blonde man said matter-of-factly.
Gabi furrowed her brows. “Yes, you do.”
“We really don’t, Gabi.”
“You obviously do– we’re your enemies, so you’ll kill us.”
“Is killing all you think about?” the man said, smiling softly. “That reminds me of someone.”
The following moments were akin to a fever dream. Eren Jaeger walked in –eagle daemon bleeding from its wing, matching his own bleeding hand– and demanded they sit with hands and daemons in sight on the table. Gabi included. The man and woman were shocked at first but did exactly as he said with prepossessed calmness, as if this was a daily occurrence. Gabi, terrified and confused beyond words, followed their lead without argument.
And so they sat. The bleeding eagle, the owl, the cat, and the trembling ermine.
Gabi only half understood their conversation –her mind was mostly fogged up due to sheer terror. She gathered that the three of them were friends, or had been, and Eren liked saying hurtful things to Mikasa and Armin? Annie and Bertholdt were mentioned too, and Zeke. At one point, it got so heated that Armin launched himself across the table to attack Eren, his owl flying at the eagle with surprising speed. Gabi stood, terrified, sure that any minute Eren would transform and they would all perish in the blast. But he didn’t, he only beat Armin up and ordered them to be sent to Shiganshina.
Gabi met the devil again in her prison cell, flanked by two of his comrades. Thaddeus instantly turned into a moth and hid in her pocket, hugging her thumb. The blood thundered in her ears like a pulse. She didn’t catch what Eren was saying, only the words “Falco” and “cooperate”. But then, it didn’t matter much, because not two seconds after one soldier stabbed the other in the neck and pointed her gun at Eren. Gabi blinked, and it was Pieck.
“Gabi, get the gun,” she ordered, nodding her head at the bleeding soldier.
Gabi was stunned, but the military rule of “abide by what your higher-ups say” was so ingrained in her mind her body reacted way before she did. She held the rifle trained on Eren’s head.
“Hands above your head or I’ll shoot,” Pieck said.
Their two daemons were death-glaring one another; Philip’s horns were lowered, and Eren’s eagle was leaning forward as if to strike. Gabi vaguely remembered Armin calling the eagle Kasimira.
“You can’t kill me,” Eren said matter-of-factly, unflinching. “You need the Founding Titan. If you kill me now, you’ll doom yourself and everyone else.”
Pieck stayed silent for a bit, glanced at her ram. “Gabi, lower the rifle,” she commanded.
Gabi lowered it.
Pieck held up her own gun, pointing it at the ceiling. “I have other reasons for not shooting you,” she said. “I became a Warrior to make my father proud; I want to show him a better future before I go. For that, I need to crush Marley. I need to help you.”
“Wha– Pieck?” Gabi breathed. First Zeke worked with Eren, and now Pieck was turning on her people. She clutched Thaddeus to her chest. “After all we’ve fought, Pieck you couldn’t–”
“Gabi! We’re not Marleyans,” she said passionately, grabbing the end of Gabi’s rifle. “We’re subjects of Ymir, each and every one of us. Honorary Marleyan is a farce, we’re all just pretending to be ‘good Eldians’, can’t you see? Soon, they’ll find better weapons, and they’ll wipe us all out, good or bad or otherwise! They’ll never set us free– we have to do it ourselves.”
Gabi blinked, tears forming in her eyes. How could Pieck have done this?
In the meantime, Kasimira was watching them all with a keen eye. Pieck turned back to Eren. “I know where the infiltrators are,” she said.
Eren nodded. “Tell me.”
“I’ll have to go up on the roof to show you.”
The two stared one another down for a couple of tense seconds. Eren agreed, and so Gabi ended up chained to a traitor of her homeland.
He led them up the building to the roof, their daemons trailing behind them. As they ascended the stairs, Thaddeus gave a small gasp. When Gabi turned, he’d changed into a finch and was perching on one of Philip’s horns –though he quickly flew down before anybody else saw. Gabi furrowed her brows, confused. “Thaddeus, what is it?” she whispered. But neither daemon said a thing, and Pieck only spoke with Eren. Gabi tried not to feel betrayed.
They exited onto the roof, Pieck leading Gabi to the edge.
“Where are the enemies, Pieck?” Eren asked.
Before answering, Pieck clasped Gabi’s hand and gave her a warm smile. Pieck whirled around and pointed. “Right there,” she said, pointing at Eren.
The roof rumbled and out came Galliard’s jaw titan to capture Eren, who then jumped back and instantly transformed. Galliard landed beside Gabi and Pieck, shielding them from Eren.
Gabi gasped. “Pieck–!”
Pieck winked at her and pointed up, where a fleet of airships hovered in the sky. “I don’t trust Marley,” she said. “But I do trust my friends.”
“There were never any devils on this island,” Thaddeus said, tears trickling down his furry snout. “Only people. Like us.”
Gabi was crying as well. Hurt at the hatred for her in Kaya, regret for everything she’d ever done or said. She replayed the scene in her mind, when she’d killed Sasha Braus. Every night since she’d had the same nightmare; everything would go as it went, but just as Gabi would pull the trigger, Sasha was suddenly Kaya. Another night, it was Falco. Reiner, Zofia, Udo, Pieck, Magath. And she’d reach out, wanting to take the bullet back, but it was always too late. She’d wake up crying.
“I’m sorry, Falco,” she said through tears. “I’m sorry– I’m so sorry. I killed that girl– I– I’m sorry for this entire mess I got you in.”
“I’m sorry too,” Falco said desperately. “It was my fault, what happened in Liberio. I was the one who led Reiner to Eren, because I thought he was someone else. And– and– I love you!”
Of everything that Gabi had lived through these past few hours, that was the most astounding thing she’d heard yet.
“I love you, and the only reason I became a Warrior candidate was so you wouldn’t inherit the Armored Titan– so you’d live a long life.”
“But– why are you telling me this now?” Gabi asked, mildly frustrated.
“Because I might turn into a titan because of Zeke’s wine, and I don’t want to die without having told you this,” he admitted.
Gabi instantly shot to her feet. “We have to go– you have to get out of his scream’s range!” she said, grabbing Falco by the arm. Thaddeus turned into a horse and Gabi dragged Falco to him. “Get on and ride away!”
“What– no, I can’t! Gabi, it’s impossible!” Falco protested. It was improper for people to touch another person’s daemon, but Gabi was too frightened to care. “Thaddeus can’t survive without you, you know that!”
“Yes he can, just go!” she commanded.
“Stop!” Colt said, yanking Falco away. “He’ll never make it in time… No, we have to talk to Zeke. There’s no other way.”
“And if he doesn’t listen?” Gabi retorted.
“Gabi!” snapped Colt, eyes blazing.
He didn’t want to face it, the possibility of losing his little brother. Gabi didn’t want to face it either; perhaps that was why she went to look for a horse while the other two approached Zeke. Perhaps she was afraid of losing Falco, so much that she didn’t want to witness it.
When a person transformed into a titan their daemon stayed where their body was, within the titan. With pure titans the daemon went dormant, making it as animals were; soulless, without any light in their eyes. The opposite applied for the Nine Titans. Just as the person was conscious, so was their daemon.
Gabi wondered where Eirene was, as she saw Falco in his Titan form try to eat Reiner. She wondered if Falco was lonely without Eirene, she wondered if he even knew. She wondered if he could tell that one of those bodies below him was that of his brother.
“I always thought I knew everything,” she said to Thaddeus, absent-mindedly as she witnessed the battle unfold before her eyes. “Now, I’m not sure I even know anything.”
“You do know one thing,” Thaddeus said, standing beside the anti-titan rifle.
“What if that’s wrong, too?” she whispered. “What if I kill someone else, and it haunts me even more than Sasha Braus does? What if, deep down, he’s innocent?”
Thaddeus shook his head ermine-like. “He’s not.”
Gabi nodded and aimed the rifle. She watched as Eren Jaeger’s head flew off his body, and she wondered if it would all end at last.