‘girl, you’ve beaten me black and blue’ - chapter 5

Another chapter to the story I wrote for @rivamikaevents 2021 Rivamika Week event. This chapter doesn’t follow any particular prompt, though.

Rated M mostly for swearing (no explicit sex in this chapter, sorry!)

Read the story on AO3 from the beginning HERE, or go straight to the new chapter HERE.

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The world falls even darker and colder beneath the cover of thick grey clouds. The rain seems to drop in one continuous sheet, and the crash of the roiling waves on the shore below fills his ears like the rushing pulse of his own blood.

Mikasa reappears at the door, her old military-issue backpack jostling as she slings it over her shoulder, just as another rumble of thunder rattles his windows. Around her neck, that tatty fucking scarf, moth-eaten and threadbare — and worn just to piss him off, he knows it.

“Bye, Levi,” Mikasa snaps, a wide scowl as dark as the sky marring her lips, still reddened and swollen from their earlier activities. “Enjoy your fucking solitude.”

He catches her wrist as she darts past him. “Leave if you want to,” he hisses, “but do it after the storm passes, okay?” He wouldn’t be able to live with yet another avoidable death on his hands, especially hers.

She tugs. “Let me go.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I said,” she says lowly, “let me fucking go.”

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rivamika weekend: autumn 🍂

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@rivamikaevents​​ | prompt: strength “Distraction” | Post canon | ao3

Summary: An innocent arm wrestling that leads to much more… or how oblivious-Levi doesn’t realize her intentions.

beating like a drum - part 2/2

The second and final part of my contribution to day 6 of @rivamikaevents Rivamika Week event. Prompt: Older!Mikasa/Younger!Levi.

Part 1 here if you missed it.

(Also I can’t write fight scenes to save my life i’m sorry)

This will also be my last fic for a little while. I need to take some time off to concentrate on my PhD work and my new job. I’ll be back around the New Year.

Also on AO3

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“Captain,” Shadis calls to her as she makes her approach. Plumes of dust kick up with every step she takes, clinging to her sticky skin and clothes. “The commander said you’d be dropping by.”

Mikasa rolls her eyes. “The commander says a lot of things.” She pauses beside Shadis, crosses her arms at her lower back, and surveys the group. Fifty gangly teens with either very lofty ambitions or no other choices, of whom the Survey Corps will see maybe three at best. “How’s this batch?” she asks quietly.

“Mixed bag, like every year,” he tells her, matching her tone. “But number one is head and shoulders above the others. Could probably stand in for a hundred soldiers beyond the Walls if he can learn to keep his fucking ego in check.”

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beating like a drum - part ½

Here’s my final contribution to @rivamikaevents Rivamika Week 2021! (super late but whatever…)

Prompt: Older Mikasa/Younger Levi.

I’ve kinda wanted to write a role-swap for a while, so here it is! The second part should be up early next week… I need to research fight scenes…

Unbeta’d because I’m lazy.

Also on AO3

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Captain Mikasa Ackerman is stationed on a long-term mission with her squad in a fortified stronghold due south of Wall Maria when she receives word to report to the eastern branch of the Cadet Corps Headquarters as soon as possible. At the bottom, a sternly worded order not to die along the way.

 It takes two days on the fastest horse available. She cuts into the flat farmland inside Wall Maria and curls her way east and upwards, as close to flying as she can get without her ODM gear propelling her through the air. She sets up camp in the dense forests scattered throughout, anchoring herself to a high-up branch and sleeping in the air with her horse moored below.

 After being stationed south for so long, the bustling Stohess district is a shock to Mikasa’s system. The reverence afforded to the wings emblazoned on her uniform in the outer districts isn’t as freely given here. Too-obvious whispers follow her through the streets until she reaches the Cadet Corps eastern branch on the city’s northernmost outskirts, on a patch of barren, unused farmland.

 A lieutenant, a short woman with round glasses and a long, vibrantly red braid, meets her at the entrance and snaps into a salute. “Captain Ackerman. Welcome to the eastern branch of the Cadet Corps. We’ve been expecting you.”

watch the sky become the ground

Written for @rivamikaevents August weekend prompt, Full Moon.

I just kind of wrote this without thinking of how it would fit in to canon, but this is definitely AU, set in a timeline where Eren doesn’t swan off to Marley by himself, and instead the full Levi Squad infiltrates Marley together.

Unbeta’d because I’m super lazy.

Also on AO3

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They choose this campsite for the small hill at its rear.

 The hill will serve several functions should a worst-case scenario play out: it will serve as a shelter should the weather turn bad; it will make it difficult for any Marleyean forces to get the jump on them; and the copse of trees at its base will provide firewood and hunting grounds should their reserves run out.

 None of these things are likely to happen. The sky is so clear that any weather event would be seen a mile off. Unless there’s a spy in their midst, there’s no way the Marleyean military is keeping track of them, much less that they even know what they’re doing right now. Staging their invasion at the height of summer means no fires are necessary beyond what they need to cook their ridiculous stockpile of rations, which won’t run out unless a wild animal tears through while they’re sleeping.

Sasha still makes short work of the wildlife in the trees, though. Everyone has something to take their rising nerves out on. Armin reads and reads and reads some more. Jean draws with a delicate set of charcoals. Connie helps Sasha prepare her kills after she’s removed the pelts. Captain Levi whittles sticks into sharp points and stabs them into the ground as though he’s fencing himself off from the rest of them.

 For Mikasa, she has Eren.

 And Eren, he has her.

rivamika weekend: full moon 🌕

bartender!mikasa and her favorite costumer

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the world repeats itself somehow

@rivamikaevents

Written (very very late) for Rivamika Week day 5.

Prompts: weddings; arranged marriage; cause for celebration.

(Woot this is my 5000th post)

I’m not great at establishing what kind of canon continuity my AOT/SNK fics fall under, but I guess this is canon compliant up to 138, picks and chooses what parts of 139 to include, and then does its own damn thing. I guess we’re about two, maybe three years post-Rumbling, Levi never fucked off to Marley because what sense did that make anyway, and Mikasa moved on as is healthy and proper.

(Also… I’m actually very, very tempted to continue this fic, if only because I’ve built up an entire headcanon around Mikasa’s kanzashi, and took out a lot from the first draft that bogged this story down too much. I’m not making any promises, and I’m marking it as complete for now, but if there’s any interest in maybe expanding this fic (into the lost Hiruzan princess, political intrigue up the wazoo, oh-my-god-i’m-in-love-with-my-spouse fic of my dreams), please let me know :) )

Also on AO3.

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Levi’s wedding to the gloomy brat is due to take place at 1730 hours on the last day of summer, in room eighteen on the second level of the newly rebuilt Trost District Courthouse. Levi doesn’t get to choose this time, nor the venue, nor even the bride.

Par for the course for a man whose life had been strung together by random actions and outcomes that he had no hand in whatsoever.

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@rivamikaevents @smutchallenge

Day four at last! Apologies for the delay – I’m still working on these fics!

Prompts: Rain; Tease; Soulmates. Again, let’s whack together all three; why not? However, ‘soulmates’ is a little more implicit than explicit in this chapter.

Speaking of explicit… well, there’s a reason @smutchallenge was tagged this time. It’s still pretty mild (I don’t write smut often enough to feel particularly confident with it), but it’s a little more outright than previous chapters.

As before, this installment follows on from day 3, which you can read here if you haven’t already.

Also on AO3

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The storm hits in the silver light just before sunrise, bringing torrents of rain and wind that batter his windows and rattle his doors. The cabin has stood up to worse before, though; Levi saves his concern for more important things.

Like the warm, naked body curled around his.

Insomnia has been a constant companion for as long as Levi can remember, though the reasons for it have evolved so many times he can’t pin them down anymore. A person shouldn’t be the antidote — it’s not fair to either of them — but he can’t deny that he sleeps far more and for far longer when she’s by his side. What does that make her? He’s got a thousand labels assigned to Mikasa Ackerman, and not one feels right, all of them either too much or not enough.

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