#I was Fr screaming when Reiner picked up the titan

[niamnomas]

I only know spoilers so I’m pretty sure he would have been fine and probably has some titan strength in his human form but Reiner picking up a titan and going to throw himself and the titan out the window was one of the most badass moments in AOT imo

[danipopplers]

Mirrored Masks Chapter 4

Tell me what you think!! You can also read it on AO3 and FF.Net.

The snow fell in large white chunks, quickly coating the frozen ground below in white, obscuring all manner of dirt and hoofprints. Without sound or warning, the winter storm had snuck up on them, slowly blotting out the sky and erasing all landscape markers. And the animals were all still out in it.

Krista felt the panic bubble up her throat, but she swallowed it down. This camp was practically in the south compared to where she had been raised. She’d dealt with snow before. She’d been raised on a damn farm! She could do this. She rounded on Reiner, who was still frozen in place, staring out the barn door in shock.

“All of the animals are still out there. We have to get them back here before we lose all visibility, and we have to act fast, or we’ll get trapped here until it passes ourselves.” She grimaced at the thought. The barns weren’t heated, and didn’t keep human food on hand. At least she had asked Reiner to help her today, otherwise she’d be stuck in this mess all alone. He blinked down at her a few times as she issued her orders. “You finish up the stalls, then go see if you can herd to pigs into the other barn. Don’t forget the piglets- there should be eight. The chickens will hole up in their coop during the snow- they know enough to get out of the cold- but you have to lock the coop once they’re all inside.”

“And what are you going to do?” he asked incredulity.

“I’m going after the horses and cattle,” she said grimly. The swoop of Reiner’s eyebrows down into a frown would’ve been comedic if the situation wasn’t so dire.

“Like hell you are! You’ll get stuck out there!”

“They’ll get stuck out there if I don’t go!” she retorted, leaning back from his vehemence. This was her chance to prove that she wasn’t weak- to the other soldiers and to herself. She wasn’t going to pass on this, no matter how deadly the situation. “I know where they like to hang out in the pasture, it’s not far from here.”

“Then tell me where to go and I’ll do it!” Reiner snapped, glaring down at her. He crossed his arms over his broad chest, his tone beginning to escalate.

“You’ll just get lost. And they know me. They won’t come to you.” Krista turned away, heading for the stables equipment room. There were plenty of horse blankets and saddle pads in there- she could borrow one for the journey. Her thoughts turned fatalistic as she weighed her chances of return. “Besides, those animals are worth more than my life to the military.”

“Well, they aren’t to me,” Reiner growled, tailing after her. She could feel her stomach flip over at his confession, but there wasn’t time for that. Every second they spent arguing was another second the animals could get lost in the drifts. She shook out a blanket and wrapped it snuggly around herself and over her head, tucking the ends into her belt so her hands still had free range, and secured a single lead around her body like a sash. Reiner’s bulky frame filled the door, heaving shoulders silhouetted by the snow outside. She paused for a moment, soaking in his concern. Slowly, she came to a stop in front of him, and placed a hand carefully on his chest as an act of reassurance. She tilted her head up to look at his shadowed face and closed expression.

“Trust me. I’ll be back before you know it.” He searched her face for a moment, before turning slightly to allow her out of the room. A large hand closed over her elbow as she passed.

“At least let me come with you,” he pleaded in hushed tones, molten gold eyes boring into hers. Softly shaking her head, she removed his hand.

“Someone has to take care of the animals here. We both have jobs to do. Trust me,” she repeated, before spinning on her heel and sprinting out into the snow. ---

He’d let her go. Like a damned idiot, he’d let her go. Out into a fucking snow storm. Alone. What was he thinking? He allowed himself only a moment of self-loathing before turning distractedly to his assigned tasks. Krista was out there risking her life after all. The least he could do was follow her orders.

Abandoning the last 3 stalls, he started with the chickens. The snow outside was decreasing visibility by the minute, and if it weren’t for the barns proximity, he might have gotten lost on the way. A fresh wave of panic for Krista threatened to overtake him, but he swallowed it down. Krista has asked him to trust her- he was simply going to have to.

Their coop backed up into the second barn, making it easy to find. The hens had already taken shelter in their little house. They squawked loudly in protest when he stuck his head inside to count them, so he simply locked it down before moving onto the pigs. The pig pen was up against the other side of the barn, and the furless things were huddled together in one corner for warmth. Considering he could already feel his insides quaking with cold, he didn’t blame them. Each pig had a steadily increasing coating of snow on their backs.

There wasn’t an entrance from the pen directly into the building that he could see. He’d have to take them one by one. The problem was, the pigs were big. No one had warned them that pigs were at least the size of a normal human. One was almost as big as he was. He went around to open up the barn, sighing as a gust of warm air bowled into him. The side barn was much smaller than the stables, not used for housing animals as much as it was for storage. There was only one stall, luckily not occupied by any of the boxes and barrels that lined the walls, filled with stale musty straw. That would have to do.

Grabbing the length of rope hooked along the wall, Reiner made his way back to the pen. He’d start with the large one first. It seemed to be the leader, judging by its size and the way it shifted in front of the others to face him when he entered their space. They were cold and scared, and he had little desire to test if pigs could eat a person as well as a titan.

Carefully, Reiner approached the largest animal, looping the rope around its neck. It snorted at him, and began to yank on the rope, quickly panicking itself and the others. Squeals stamps filled the small space, quickly lost in the echo of the frozen air. The creature dug its cloven hooves into the rapidly freezing mud, squealing when Reiner tried to tug it towards the gate. Reiner heaved, succeeding in dragging the pig to the exit, before shutting the gate on the others. Piglets screamed below the other two pigs, calling out for their missing family member.

Reiner slumped against the stall door after he finally managed to shove the pig through behind it, exhausted. Krista had been right- the animals didn’t know him and it was proving a chore to get them to listen to him at all. Thinking of Krista churned his stomach with anxiety, and he hauled himself to his feet to finish the job she’d assigned him. We both have jobs to do rang in his ears.

The other pigs proved easier than the first had been. They were small enough that they couldn’t yank against the rope as much, and without their leader to bolster their confidence, they followed him with little complaint. The piglets squealed like they’d been stuck as he chased them down one by one in the deepening snow, but they quieted once they were all deposited in the stall with their mother. All eight- he’d carefully counted them as he went.

The wind picked up as he was finishing, whistling ice in through the cracks in the wooden slats. The stables almost couldn’t be seen from the barn as the snow continued the fall. Before he left for the stables, he made sure to crack open the thin sheen of ice growing ominously atop the water trough of the stall. ----

Wind and ice swirled around Krista as she trudged through the quickly rising snow. It was already to her ankles, without showing signs of letting up. At least they still had three more hours of daylight. Guilt gnawed at her insides as her mind flitted back to Reiner’s desperate face as she’d left. There was nothing to be done for it, though. There hadn’t been another choice. And if someone was going to sacrifice themselves, she’d rather it be her than him.

Krista tugged her makeshift blanket-coat tighter around her face, trying to avoid the sting of the icy wind. Her nose had stopped transmitting feeling fifteen minutes earlier. It would be a surprise if she still had one after this. By her estimates, she still had another few hundred meters to go before she reached the pond. Located at the other end of the pasture, the small natural pond was surrounded by a clump of trees and long cattails. It wasn’t very deep, and in the hottest parts of the year, Krista would often find several of the animals wading into the deep water to cool off. Since it was the only available water source outside of the troughs, and the only place where the trees stood close enough together to offer shade, it was a favorite of the cattle and horses alike. She just had to get there first.

A particularly large gust of wind almost knocked her off her feet, but the resulting stumble kept her upright. She had promised Reiner she would be back. She had asked him to trust her. She had to make good on that. She continued on step by step. One foot in front of the other.

Through the howling white swarm, she could just make out the blurred outline of trees. The sun had all but disappeared since she set out, but Krista’s had a decent internal compass, and she had allowed it to steer her way. It apparently had paid off. The pond was up ahead, and that meant the animals would be too.

It wasn’t long before huddled masses of large shapes came into view, scattered under the tree clumps. Tails whipped furiously around their owners, and ears laid flat against their heads in an effort to stave off frostbite. The poor babies. Her heart broke for them, but she was here to fix this. She could do this. Just like any other day of leading them back inside.

A loud snap cracked through the air, and Krista froze in place. Experimentally, she pivoted one foot. It slid, and she was rewarded with a soft crackle echoing up towards her. Dread clawed up her throat as she looked down at her feet. The pond had already began to freeze over, thin layers of spider web ice reaching out from the bank. With the snow, and her hurry to reach the animals, she hadn’t noticed that she had stumbled onto it.

She wracked her brain to remember what she was supposed to do in this situation. This was an entirely new experience for her, but that didn’t hold true for the rest of the kids in the small farming town she came from. A boy had been sucked under the ice and drowned three years before she’d enlisted, she recalled with a grimace. What a horrible way to go, and not one she cared to emulate.

Carefully, Krista crouched on the ice, anxiety spiking with every crunch and crack. She couldn’t be too far out into the pond, and even if she cracked through, it wasn’t deep enough to drown. At least she didn’t think so- she wasn’t exactly the tallest person. More like shortest in the whole camp. And the plunging temperature almost guaranteed she’d succumb to hypothermia before making it back if she got wet. As it was, her chances of making it back before hypothermia set in dry weren’t looking good.

How long would Reiner wait before coming out to look for her, she wondered?

When she reached low enough that her hands could touch the ice, she placed them down, fingers spread wide to absorb the weight she shifted to all fours. Wincing at the burn of the ice on her hands, she slid each limb forward, individually and incrementally. Left foot, right hand, left hand, right foot. Inch by inch. The ice burned, and the wind threatened to knock her off balance.

Finally, her hands dug forward into snow drifts with hard, solid dirt below. She scrambled up the bank, chest heaving with relief. The adrenaline that had been coursing like white fire through her veins slowly dissipated. She couldn’t spend much time recovering though. The hooves stamping behind her jolted her back to the present, and she heaved herself up to standing, willing her heart to still.

Putting two frozen fingers to her lips, Krista whistled loud and long. The few horses and cows closest to her twitched their ears and turned to stare, but the sound was lost to the wind for the rest of the animals. She could work with this though. She approached the closest horse, running her hand soothingly down it’s flank as she approached its nose. When she reached its face she almost gasped in relief, stroking the long grey face. Stormy. The biggest of the horses, and the leader of the group. The other horses would follow single file if she could get him to listen.

“Hey, sweet boy,” she cooed, stroking his soft snout, allowing warmth to seep into her voice. “You must be so cold out here.” Carefully, she pulled the lead over her head. He started at the sight, and shied away with pawing stomps. Stormy was more temperamental than the other horses- hence the name- but he’d listened to her before. He could again.

“Oh no you don’t,” she hummed, keeping the musical lilt. Horses didn’t know what you were saying; they only cared about tone. She raised the rope length again, and took a small step towards him. “Come on, you big baby. Let me get this lead on you. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

One large black eye blinked at her, ears twitching forwards and back in annoyance. She stroked his nose, shushing and cooing as she brought the rope up to his face. The eye tracked the movement. He shook his head once in defiance, but she continued patiently. With a practiced hand, she slid the rope up and over his ears without breaking contact or alerting him to it. He snorted, but didn’t yank on it when she began to walk him forward.

This was the moment. The other animals would either follow his lead, or she’d have to try another plan. Not that she had one. Hesitantly, Stormy followed her out of the safety of the trees and into the building snow drifts. His wide hooves cut thick paths through the snow, leaving trails behind him. Krista risked a glance back behind him.

It was working! The other animals were slowly leaving the clump of trees to follow after him, single file as they hunched against the wind. She could only make out about five back, but she could see at least one dairy cow- Annabell, it looked like- and more horses. As long as they stayed in a neat line, and followed Stormy, they would all make it back alright. Provided Stormy continued to follow her.

The storm had already erased any trace of her original journey to the pond. She couldn’t see more than two or three meters ahead of her, although with nothing but swirling white, it was hard to tell if it was even that far. Her hands ached from the cold, but she kept them wrapped tightly around the lead rope. Mentally, she counted back. How long had she been out here? An hour? Two? It was impossible to tell without a visible sun, but she knew she had to get them back soon. If they were caught out here after the sun went down...she didn’t want to think about it.

She trudged forward for what felt like hours, pushing her way through the snow and occasional hail. One foot in front of the other, trusting her instincts- and Stormy’s- to guide her back to the barn. On a clear day, it would’ve still been visible from the pond at the other end of the pasture. Now she could barely see her hand in front of her face, let alone the building. The horses whinnied in disapproval everytime the wind gusted and the cows bellowed in fright, but the fact that she could hear them at all was heartening. That meant they were still following her lead, at least. She hoped none of them got lost in the storm. Turning back was no longer an option. She clenched Stormy’s rope tighter.

Step by step. One foot in front of the other.