Within the walls

50

Levi's pov

Nyx was unconscious before we even got onto the airship. Hanji had tied her up just incase and then leaned her up against a wall away from Eren and Zeke.

She had been out cold for a little while before Zeke decided to mention something to us.

"You might want to check she's still alive, Nyx's titan abilities have been causing her more harm than good these past few years." Zeke said. "I certainly wasn't expecting you to take her with us, she's been relying on Marleyan medicines to keep her alive. She might not make it to Paradis."

"Levi check her." Hanji said, worry crossing her face.

I crouched down beside her and began feeling at her neck for a pulse, I couldn't find one so I moved to her wrist. When I couldn't find her pulse from her wrist either I leaned my head on her chest to listen for it. I let out a sigh when I heard a slow, stuttered rhythm.

"It's there but it's faint and irregular." I said.

Hanji huffed and ran a hand through her hair.

"I wanted to save her, I promised that I would but I might have just endangered her." Hanji said in frustration.

"She's going to die either way. Marleyan medicine wasn't doing much for her, just barely keeping her here. Besides, her term ends in two years." Zeke said.

"What's killing her? Maybe we can come up with something to help her." Armin said.

"There's nothing that can be done. We don't know exactly what's wrong, there's only theories." Zeke said.

"What are the theories?" Hanji asked.

"One is that she doesn't eat enough to properly sustain a titan body and therefore causes permanent damage when she shifts. Another is that she's not eldian enough to shift properly." Zeke said.

"Not eldian enough? She's an eldian slave!" Hanji said.

"You know nothing of Nyx's true bloodline or nature." Zeke said.

"She's descended of Eldian nobility, our King Fritz's royal advisors. They're immune to the founding titan's power and hold the greatest secrets of the royals and paradis. King Fritz sold them out and blamed them for his own actions and used the chaos it caused to escape. Paradis 100 years of peace was founded on Nyx's family's 100 years of slavery." Armin said, gaining a look of surprise from Zeke.

"You knew that and you didn't tell us." I said.

"I wanted to confront Nyx about it first." Armin said.

"In their time as slaves they were raped by their Marleyan masters, forced to have children with people of many different bloodlines to breed out their sins. Nyx is probably more Marleyan than she is Eldian." Zeke explained. "All because they refused to give up on protecting your people. Nyx won't even tell me the secret, she'll take it to her grave."

"Was Nyx... did they ever... you know...?" Armin trailed off.

"Was Nyx raped you mean? The answer to that is obvious, she's beautiful, she's the type of person that draws you to her, if she were Marleyan she'd have her pick of any man in the world. There were many men that were drawn to her, most of which were scum. They knew because of who Nyx was and because of who they were they could do whatever they wanted to her and nothing would be done about it. If I could I'd kick their teeth in, then she'd at least get some kind of closure. I'm sure Eren killed a fair few of them during that attack though." Zeke replied.

I could hear the ager in his voice as he spoke about it. It was obvious Nyx ment something to him, he wouldn't be angry if she didn't. It was possible we could use Nyx to keep him in check.

He was being very open and blunt talking about Nyx. He must have known that she told us a lot of things about Marley and her life already. Still, the new information had me feeling sympathetic towards our captive, her life reminded me of my time in the underground.

"Those kids earlier were pretty hell bent on waking her up, why?" I asked, trying to steer the conversation away from such a depressing topic.

"Gabi and Falco know Nyx to be the cool, funny commander of the Marleyan military. She's helped train them on many occasions and developed a sense potectivness towards them. She's also romantically involved with Gabi's cousin. Those kids see her as a safety blanket, they're relying on her to wake up and save them." Zeke explained.

"All I'm hearing here is that Nyx was better off there and I've just taken her away." Hanji said.

"Why does it matter?" I asked.

"The more I learn about Nyx the more I realise she's probably never been happy before. If she was happy here, if there was something or someone here that made her happy, what right do I have to take her from it. I wanted to take her because I thought we could give her a good life, I thought we could make her happy and I enjoyed having her around." Hanji admitted.

I sighed, there was no way the brat was going to be the same person she was 4 years ago. There was a good chance that she had been through some shit that changed her for the worst.

"When we get to the island we need to get her a doctor and you need to tell us how to make the medicine she needs." I said. "We've already taken her, she's our responsibility now."

This brat was going to be more trouble than she was worth.