Attack on Titan Fanfiction – The Stowaway: Chapter 6

All She Ever Wanted

“A woman’s worth,” Hange told her firmly, “is not determined by her ability to reproduce.”

Mikasa nodded, but she was unconvinced. On an intellectual level, she knew Hange was right. Of course a woman’s worth was not determined by her ability to reproduce. Of course having a child was not the defining aspect of being female. Of course there was so much more to a woman’s identity than motherhood. Sure, it was all true. Anyone with half a brain should know as much. 

Paradis might have been backwards and lagging in terms of technology and economic development, but their social intelligence as a nation was far more advanced than other countries in the continent. Theirs was a society that tolerated, though not fully accepted, gays and lesbians. Most other countries at the time treated homosexuality as a sin worthy of criminal punishment. But Paradis was relatively progressive. 

Unlike many other nations, the island had unparalleled female soldiers who fought fearlessly in the front lines. Paradian women were strong, capable, able to protect not just their own families but the entire nation. And it wasn’t just in the military. Nowadays, there were powerful female politicians in the government, powerful female business magnates and captains of industry. Women played an important role in Paradian society, with or without children.

And yet. And yet. 

Royal Marines Lt Col Mikasa Ackermann-Kirschtein, the most formidable, powerful female soldier on the island, felt like a total failure. Because she was barren. Infertile. Sterile. Cursed. Unable to have children. 

Each time she glanced at her wrist and she saw the tattooed family crest of Clan Hizuru, she’d remember her own mother giving it to her. “Pass it on to your child,” her mother told her. Not “pass it on if you have a child” or “in case you have a child, pass it on.” It was clear what her mother said. Mikasa was going to have a child, and she was going to pass on the family crest. 

Today, inexplicably, her own self-worth became somehow intertwined with her ability to get pregnant and bear a child to pass that mark on to.

What was the point, really, of having ovaries to hatch eggs, breasts to deliver milk, and a womb to grow a baby, if she couldn’t use them as nature intended? The arrival of her period each month reminded her of her reproductive failure.

I’m defective because my uterus is defective.

It was hardest when she was around other people’s babies. The impact was profound: she would be struck not just by envy but the physical and emotional craving to have children. She’d look at their tiny hands and feet, at their button noses and wide foreheads, and felt a deep and heavy longing spread throughout her body. 

It was painful, especially when she visited Princess Ymir and Prince Eren. The twins set off an emotional trigger telling her, no, screaming at her, to have her very own. How she’d love to give the twins a cousin! For she was their aunt, officially speaking. Mikasa had been legally adopted by the Jaegers, so she wasn’t merely their aunt in name only. 

“Ontee Meeksha strooong,” the twins would gurgle, squealing in delight as she hoisted both of them at the same time on her powerful shoulders. Even during the twins’ terrible twos, when they terrorized the entire royal household, Mikasa would carry them and play little games with them, marveling at their perfection. She would bury her nose into their hair and inhale their baby scent, count each of their little fingers and be awed by the flawless tiny fingernails. Even during the times they threw tantrums she was fascinated by their loud cries, the way they could make such a huge sound with those miniature lungs. When they were happy and content they were the cutest angels on earth. How precious they were, how utterly darling! At the royal palace, each and every time, Mikasa was wracked by powerful emotions: adoring the twins, wanting her own baby, and being envious of Queen Historia.

These days she avoided Historia as much as possible. During top level meetings with the queen, she did what she could to weasel her way out of them. Because the painful truth was, Mikasa was afraid of the cruel things she would say to her sister-in-law. 

“This is all your fault, Your Majesty. You did this to me, you and your evil ancestors. You turned us awakened Ackermanns into sterile slaves. It’s not just enough that you made Eren love you and let you carry his children, you also had to take away my chance at happiness with Jean. You’re a malevolent sorceress, Historia. The blood of the malicious, repulsive, sadistic First King runs through your veins. If only you also inherited his ugly face and beastly manners, then I’d be vindicated. But alas! You have to look like an angel, have charm and kindness in spades that make your subjects beg to worship you. I envy you your perfection, your fertility, your…everything. I hate you. I fucking hate you,” was what she really wanted to tell the mother of Eren’s children.

These savage thoughts and feelings tortured Mikasa because she knew in her heart that none of her suffering was Historia’s doing. “If I could take it back, I would,” the queen told her that day in the palace when Mikasa was first shown the ancient scrolls. She knew Historia felt genuinely sorry for the entire Ackermann fiasco. 

And yet. And yet.

Mikasa spent a year in sex-crazed denial, but nowadays she moved past that and was in the anger stage. As Jean had feared, the masking effects of denial began to wear. 

Now she was angry. Angry at the queen and her ancestors. Angry at Eren Jaeger for not fixing her deformity after Founder Ymir lent him her powers. Surely he must have known? 

All she felt was blinding anger. Anger at Jean for loving her despite learning of her deal-breaking defect. Anger at all the fecund women who haughtily strutted before her, taunting her with their swollen wombs. Anger at being a cursed Ackermann.

The Ackermann gifts of superhuman strength and extraordinary self-healing abilities became a toxic legacy. 

Thousands of women looked up to Mikasa to teach them the ways of the perfect soldier, she was well respected by her peers, and pirates the world over cowered at the mention of her name. It was largely thanks to her that the large, lucrative Port of Shiganshina could carry on its business without being overrun by marauders. The security of the island’s most important port was directly connected to the flourishing of trade, which was directly connected to the economic prosperity of the nation, which brought about the rise in living standards of the people. 

“It’s thanks to the Ackermanns that we can all sleep at night,” Hitch Dreyse-Schulze told her. They’d become friends, and Mikasa knew Hitch was trying to be kind, trying to make her feel better. 

Easy for you to say, Mikasa thought darkly, enviously, as she glanced at Hitch’s fertile body heavy with child. You’ve given birth to a baby girl, with another one on the way. I’d rather be a weak nobody but have a baby with my husband, than be a freak supersoldier who could never experience the joys and pains of pregnancy and childbirth.

For Mikasa, whatever contributions she gave to the country really meant nothing. She couldn’t contribute a child, and in its own twisted way that somehow became for her the ultimate, defining contribution. Everything else faded in the background. Her sense of self-esteem as a soldier was decimated by her sense of inadequacy as a barren woman. 

“We’ve come a long way, Mikasa,” Hange told her. “We’re beginning to move on from the days when a female’s primary role was to produce children. We no longer openly ostracise the infertile ones, nor consider their infertility as a form of divine punishment.”

Easy for you to say, Mikasa thought darkly, enviously, as she glanced around Hange’s expansive lab. You’ve found your purpose in the pursuit of knowledge, in your technological inventions and scientific discoveries. I envy you. I envy you the fact that you haven’t become so completely possessed by the intense desire to become pregnant and give birth, to the exclusion of all else. 

“This desire to breed, it’s driving me insane,” she opened up to Hange. “How do I deal with a primal urge?”

“There is more to being female than spawning young,” Hange said. “I won’t classify the desire to breed as a primal urge.”

“But how can any woman not want to be a mother?” Mikasa asked fretfully. “Isn’t it a built-in desire?”

“Based on my studies,” Hange answered, “the desire to reproduce doesn’t appear to be innate. The so-called maternal instinct is not necessarily a primal urge. Scientific evidence shows that females of the human species are not biologically programmed to procreate, because not every female experiences this so-called maternal instinct.”

“But motherhood has got to be an evolutionary instinct,” Mikasa countered.

“I’m not so sure about that. If that were true, then every female on the planet should desire children. But the fact is, there are females who do not desire children. I believe this so-called maternal instinct is greatly influenced by external factors. It’s easy to argue that it is innate, but from my studies, I would classify it more as a learned desire. It feels innate because the assumption of motherhood for females is so deeply ingrained due to cultural norms and social expectations. It feels innate not because it’s instinctive, but because it’s ingrained from our environment.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better, Hange,” she told them honestly.

“I know. I wish there was something I could do to change cultural norms,” was the reply. “Our pronatalist planet, as a whole, remains extremely cruel to females unable or unwilling to bear children. If there was something I could change in society on a psychological level, it is the worldwide reverence of motherhood as the greatest of all life’s accomplishments.”

“I feel like a complete failure,” confessed Mikasa, “because I can achieve and accomplish anything, except for this motherhood mandate. I just can’t help but feel that a life without babies is inherently inferior. On an academic level, I understand what you are saying and agree with you, but on an emotional level..I just can’t rationalise away my desire to have a child from my own womb…”

Hange looked at her with great pity. Young and beautiful, infertile and tortured. Poor woman. 

“Listen to me, Mikasa,” they said, grasping the soldier’s upper arms. “You are one of the reasons Eren chose not to destroy the rest of the world, the reason why we islanders can all start living a normal life. We owe you our continued existence. You are of indescribable value as a human being, whether or not you can produce offspring. I don’t want you to buy into entrenched social norms. I don’t want you to allow your infertility to submerge every other aspect of your identity.”

Mikasa sighed, lowering her head in agonising sadness, trying to stop the tears from falling. “I know, Hange. Jean always tells me it’s not my fault my reproductive organs don’t work. He tells me it’s not my fault I feel so distressed about being robbed of a future that I wanted more than any other. He tells me he will never blame me for not having a life that represented the epitome of happiness and belonging. He tells me he loves me no matter what, and wants to be married to me, come what may. He tells me what you tell me: that there is more to me than my breeding capacity.”

“Jean is absolutely right, Mikasa.”

“I know. He’s right, and so are you. I know all that. But even then, I can’t help it. Being barren, it’s driving me insane. I’m going mad, Hange. I’m losing it.”

Thank you so much for reading! Please consider sharing a thought or two in the comment section below. Your comments give me life and are a real source of encouragement. xoxo, hana

Next – Chapter 7: Lady Geraldine

Back – Chapter 5: All He Ever Wanted

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