Hange leads the way, pausing to key in their destination. She does it quickly. Hange visits home in the Enclosure regularly.
"Eh... one hundred years ago, titans drove my people into the walls. You'll see them. Relentless foes of humanity, who regenerate swiftly from wounds... the nape is the weak point but only the nape. Slice off their head, and it'll regenerate within a minute and a half, usually."
Going deeper into the Enclosure spits them out in... a small-ish area, made smaller by makeshift walls erected around. These walls look like canvas stretched over wooden frames. They wouldn't stop a loose titan, but they keep rubberneckers off.
Sawney and Bean are about as restrained as it's possible to get, collared in multiple ropes attached to frames surrounding them, literally pounded full of enormous nails, in places nailed to the ground. They are hot, hotter than humans, and as Jacobi gets closer, the heat increases and Sawney and Bean shift to eye approaching potential prey. Their faces are disproportioned but recognizably humanoid, and draw naturally into smiles, like a baby seeing someone it likes. They don't have nipples. They don't have genitals. There's a smell to them, a hot, wet, and sulfurous smell.
He doesn't know what he was expecting, but it isn't that. He stares, pretty openly, eyes wide as he takes them in. He doesn't shy away from their gaze, doesn't seem to be afraid of them, but he does heed her words and stays back, not getting too close to them.
"What the fuck, Hange?" is really all he can think of to say at the moment. It takes half a second and he's back in his normal headspace, chuckling softly.
She circles around, keeping Jacobi on her right so he remains in her peripheral vision. Usually her expression seems to want to smile, even when Hange is not smiling - now it drifts into neutrality.
"I am, or I was, a titan researcher.. for most of my life. We understood so little of them for so long. We knew so little for so long. Every sample we captured could add to our baseline knowledge about titans."
She points between them.
"This is Sawney, and this is Bean. Two smaller specimens. It's really too much of a risk to bring in a larger one... we're within the walls now."
"Huh. You named them." He looks up, a little unnerved by them now. They're too humanoid for his liking and he has a sudden taste of metal in his mouth.
The mention, again, of these being the smaller ones has him intrigued and, hands still in his pockets, he walks around, adjusting his stance slightly in case he needs to bolt.
Hange pivots, plants her feet, folds her arms behind her back - very military stance. She's angled so she can easily look between the Titans and her temporary inmate.
"We defeated them, Jacobi. We eradicated the titans outside the walls. I helped. Design of anti-titan weaponry was a large part of my job... unfortunately, killing the titans didn't make us safe. It turns out we were on an island, the world outside was full of people, and they wanted us to stay right where we were... or crawl into our graves and just die."
The walls loom large overhead. Distant, but large - sixty meters tall. There's a palpable weight to their plaster-white anonimity.
"You weren't! Which is why I'm explaining. My world has changed drastically, even in my life. We rode outside of the walls on horseback, while the rest of the world was developing planes and cars and trains. I first saw the sea when I was thirty-two. We were hated because we were empire-builders who held much of the world in thrall, and we were on that island because at last one of our leaders felt remorse for the shadow we'd cast on the world, and he withdrew us - part of us - onto the island called Paradis, and into the three walls, Maria, Rose, and Sina, locked away so the world no longer needed to fear the Eldian people."
He's never been one to worry about feeling small before. But he feels miniscule in their presence. Trapped. It's not a good feeling. He'd rather face the titans.
"You know, you're one of the few to ask me that... a question that weighed very much in my mind, and in the mind of every scout. It's interesting how few people here really demonstrate curiosity like that."
"I don't like anyone, so that's not exactly a good point," he mutters, meeting her face for a moment but too paranoid about the titans to look away for long. "But if you're worried about me blabbing, you can rest easy. Spilling your secrets is definitely fucking with you." Which, as discussed earlier, is forbidden. If not by the letter of the rule, most certainly the spirit.
Hange bites her tongue, considering it for a moment.
She's felt freer sharing some things since her death, and Bill's graduation. She has full confidence in her ex-inmate being able to help solve some of these problems. So...
"I sure hope you're telling the truth... after all, I don't want to be lumbering around here, eating people alive..."
"We didn't know, for a long time. That was another thing we learned."
Hange shifts her gaze back to Sawney and Bean. If they were people, there's little evidence of anything left of them now.
"The humanoid forms... the fixation on eating humans above all other forms of life... I had my suspicions, but no proof. And how it happens is still confusing. The legend passed to me is that long ago, a human came into contact with a being known as 'the source of all life', and thereby became the first titan shifter. A human who consumed titan serum, purified from titan shifter's blood, becomes a pure blooded titan - mindless, like these. A pureblood titan becomes a titan shifter from devouring the spinal cord and cord blood of a titan shifter."
He gives them another long look, trying to imagine them as people, as what they were, but all he sees are the strange proportions and odd expressions. "Okay, okay. Yeah, that's clear as mud."
For a moment, he tries to spread it out in his mind. "So what's a shifter? And you said these were smaller? What causes that? The variations in size?"
"No idea. And a titan shifter is a human... with a titan form. Spill their blood, and the body closes around them. The human shape is held in the nape, like the pit in the peach. It was with the power of the shifters that my people held their empire for two thousand years, and why we're despised today."
"So the whole world knew but your whole - people. And then no one told you and threw you behind walls. And just hoped that you'd all kill each other or die out?"
3DMG users do not go around swords out. The blades actually detach from the hilts, and the hilts are what gets carried; Hange swings her arms back and forth.
"And there's more. More and more. My world is a mess, and it's full of problems, and just when you slice down one problem, like killing a hydra, two more grow to replace it. I have two deals under my belt, and with those I hope I will avert the worst. But there's almost innumerable injustices I could choose to correct..."
He steps back. "Well, might want to try an easier case next month," he says, eyeing her warily because the talk of deals and such goes back to wardening and the Barge and everything else he had conveniently been able to forget about.
"Walk around is just fine. I think I've seen what I need to of them." Because now that he knows what they are, he's not sure seeing them wild, seeing them loose, is going to do much else for him.
"Since you're not willing to cut your losses just yet..." He steps close, willing to follow. "So what do you know about me?"
"These are just little guys." A hint of levity. "Are you suuuuuure? You don't want to see a ten-meter? Fifteen-meter? Or the tactical gear...?"
She'll lead the way out of their little enclosure, though.
In a hero town, the walls are especially close, visible from just about every point except where the wooden buildings around might stand tall enough to shield them from the sight. The outer wall of the town has a clear horseshoe shape, and curves sharply back around to meet with the main wall, with its less extreme curve.
"Not a lot, anyway. I don't have your file, and I didn't get a lot of personal details."
More emotion than logic, Warren said, but she won't pass that on.
"Yeah, I don't really get excited about things that were human once but now kind of aren't," he tells her softly, a far cry from the biting sarcasm or complaints from before. It's a genuine sort of aversion. Lovelace had been an exception, but he knew her first.
"And if you know his story, then you know mine. Mostly. Not much more a file is going to tell you."
He keeps his eyes up, still feeling small beneath the walls, but at least he knows what to expect this time.
"You know...enticing me with tactical gear seems like cheating..."
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He takes her in with a trained eye, though that doesn't do much except tell him that it's a uniform. Of what? He has no idea.
But apparently she means business.
"Can't wait. So what? These things are in your world? What's their story?" he asks, shoving his hands in his pockets. He'll follow after her.
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"Eh... one hundred years ago, titans drove my people into the walls. You'll see them. Relentless foes of humanity, who regenerate swiftly from wounds... the nape is the weak point but only the nape. Slice off their head, and it'll regenerate within a minute and a half, usually."
Going deeper into the Enclosure spits them out in... a small-ish area, made smaller by makeshift walls erected around. These walls look like canvas stretched over wooden frames. They wouldn't stop a loose titan, but they keep rubberneckers off.
Sawney and Bean are about as restrained as it's possible to get, collared in multiple ropes attached to frames surrounding them, literally pounded full of enormous nails, in places nailed to the ground. They are hot, hotter than humans, and as Jacobi gets closer, the heat increases and Sawney and Bean shift to eye approaching potential prey. Their faces are disproportioned but recognizably humanoid, and draw naturally into smiles, like a baby seeing someone it likes. They don't have nipples. They don't have genitals. There's a smell to them, a hot, wet, and sulfurous smell.
Hange shadows Jacobi.
"Don't get too close..."
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"What the fuck, Hange?" is really all he can think of to say at the moment. It takes half a second and he's back in his normal headspace, chuckling softly.
"What are you doing with them in here?"
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She circles around, keeping Jacobi on her right so he remains in her peripheral vision. Usually her expression seems to want to smile, even when Hange is not smiling - now it drifts into neutrality.
"I am, or I was, a titan researcher.. for most of my life. We understood so little of them for so long. We knew so little for so long. Every sample we captured could add to our baseline knowledge about titans."
She points between them.
"This is Sawney, and this is Bean. Two smaller specimens. It's really too much of a risk to bring in a larger one... we're within the walls now."
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The mention, again, of these being the smaller ones has him intrigued and, hands still in his pockets, he walks around, adjusting his stance slightly in case he needs to bolt.
"You were? You don't plan on doing this again?"
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"We defeated them, Jacobi. We eradicated the titans outside the walls. I helped. Design of anti-titan weaponry was a large part of my job... unfortunately, killing the titans didn't make us safe. It turns out we were on an island, the world outside was full of people, and they wanted us to stay right where we were... or crawl into our graves and just die."
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He turns, taking in the walls but never once turning his back on the creatures. As much as he wants to. As much as they make his teeth clench.
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"You weren't! Which is why I'm explaining. My world has changed drastically, even in my life. We rode outside of the walls on horseback, while the rest of the world was developing planes and cars and trains. I first saw the sea when I was thirty-two. We were hated because we were empire-builders who held much of the world in thrall, and we were on that island because at last one of our leaders felt remorse for the shadow we'd cast on the world, and he withdrew us - part of us - onto the island called Paradis, and into the three walls, Maria, Rose, and Sina, locked away so the world no longer needed to fear the Eldian people."
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"And the titans? Where did they come from?"
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"You know, you're one of the few to ask me that... a question that weighed very much in my mind, and in the mind of every scout. It's interesting how few people here really demonstrate curiosity like that."
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"This is an important secret, you know. Especially to tell to an inmate, who I don't know if I can trust, who doesn't even like me..."
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She's felt freer sharing some things since her death, and Bill's graduation. She has full confidence in her ex-inmate being able to help solve some of these problems. So...
"I sure hope you're telling the truth... after all, I don't want to be lumbering around here, eating people alive..."
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Hange shifts her gaze back to Sawney and Bean. If they were people, there's little evidence of anything left of them now.
"The humanoid forms... the fixation on eating humans above all other forms of life... I had my suspicions, but no proof. And how it happens is still confusing. The legend passed to me is that long ago, a human came into contact with a being known as 'the source of all life', and thereby became the first titan shifter. A human who consumed titan serum, purified from titan shifter's blood, becomes a pure blooded titan - mindless, like these. A pureblood titan becomes a titan shifter from devouring the spinal cord and cord blood of a titan shifter."
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He gives them another long look, trying to imagine them as people, as what they were, but all he sees are the strange proportions and odd expressions. "Okay, okay. Yeah, that's clear as mud."
For a moment, he tries to spread it out in his mind. "So what's a shifter? And you said these were smaller? What causes that? The variations in size?"
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He raises a brow. "Or am I completely off base?"
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3DMG users do not go around swords out. The blades actually detach from the hilts, and the hilts are what gets carried; Hange swings her arms back and forth.
"And there's more. More and more. My world is a mess, and it's full of problems, and just when you slice down one problem, like killing a hydra, two more grow to replace it. I have two deals under my belt, and with those I hope I will avert the worst. But there's almost innumerable injustices I could choose to correct..."
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He steps back. "Well, might want to try an easier case next month," he says, eyeing her warily because the talk of deals and such goes back to wardening and the Barge and everything else he had conveniently been able to forget about.
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"You want to walk around? We're in a hero town. Or we can go see wild ones... in the woods..."
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"Since you're not willing to cut your losses just yet..." He steps close, willing to follow. "So what do you know about me?"
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She'll lead the way out of their little enclosure, though.
In a hero town, the walls are especially close, visible from just about every point except where the wooden buildings around might stand tall enough to shield them from the sight. The outer wall of the town has a clear horseshoe shape, and curves sharply back around to meet with the main wall, with its less extreme curve.
"Not a lot, anyway. I don't have your file, and I didn't get a lot of personal details."
More emotion than logic, Warren said, but she won't pass that on.
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"And if you know his story, then you know mine. Mostly. Not much more a file is going to tell you."
He keeps his eyes up, still feeling small beneath the walls, but at least he knows what to expect this time.
"You know...enticing me with tactical gear seems like cheating..."
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handwave?
Done and done!
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