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Unfolding in real-time, a miracle in the purest definition of the word. A new dawn hatched from a once festered, cursed womb. Those unfortunate to precede such beauty now lap its freshly spawned droplets of liberating existence. Those parched, now quenched with a tang they couldn’t fathom hijacking their senses as honey does to bees.
For the first and final time, the Attack Titan yields. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, all facets toxified and kneeling. Full desertion from anything resembling a cry in defiance. Trumped by the wretched antithesis to its birthright.
The fate also cast on its final wielder and the Power of the Titans in sum. Stamped and shipped in service to humanity’s long overdue sign-off to a blood-encrusted 2,000 years.
Better late than never some will soon remark. At what specifically, would vary between who’s asked. The Titans, the war, Eren Jaeger himself, the one facet humankind’s leftovers will share agreement in would be that refreshing torrent of relief from such. Said filthened and battered remnants will have to stretch it down to the last fiber if they wish to press it into worthwhile progression.
Who would’ve thought the only instance of ‘stop’ eroding that impenetrable skull of his came without shouting or runny eyes. Devoid of such this time around. In came the order, seared inside a metallic chill, goading dry, splintery fissuring crusting his comatose head nesting beneath the uvula.
Death was a finality to the natural order, but its deliverer made it unnervingly special Eren would say. Call it the Founder pinning time into a crawl for his benefit once more, or those ‘life-flashing-before-one’s-eyes’ moments he hears so often, seconds would be spared for him to swallow the lot. And what a hard pill it was.
Consciousness, now waning to a pathetic flicker, plopped like candle wax into his human body. Out from it bubbled a whimpering request for Eren’s eyes to barely scroll up to the brow. Decimation would clog them before they acclimate to the voyeuristic sun peeping through his pseudo-Colossal Titan’s mouth.
Familiarity trumped nigh-blindness regardless, sculpted from that humanoid slush of black over red swiping its arm beneath him. Eren, jostling the handle to death’s door, peers over to indulge one last gaze at the person who will shack with the most potent of grief once he steps through. And with it, retreading his longstanding regret of time etched to unravel so cruelly.
Down Eren’s throat sank one paltry ration of leniency the Founder bestowed him: allowance for its vessel to trade parting of ways with the Scouts, Annie, and Reiner. Much of them spiked to high heaven with tears and anger, sobered with proper goodbyes by conclusion’s time.
None have to rationalize the infinite lifetimes of sin jammed into a few short days during and soon recalling those talks, Eren insisted upon himself before fidgeting with their memories. Proper sit-downs for every dishing of who, what, when, and why, absent of any winging, was the bare minimum indebted.
After all, he never made chaining and starving them down to the skin of answers his pleasure. Silly as it sounds, doing right by them meant scrapping and foregoing speculation on their final stance of their former comrade. The last Founder told himself to listen and nothing more, as out-of-character it may be according to those he conversed with.
One was longer than the others. Much longer. That crawl to the right began priming its paws for a deeper plunging. A well-acquainted firm yet gentle grip incrementally quaked the neckbone by this time.
The one his close friend forged tirelessly for his sake, now spearheading his execution by order of mangled irony.
Four years of mountains and quiet. Titans eradicated, war far enough to pay no mind, loitering in the strainer was Mikasa’s dream: lengthy peace with him safe.
Though even long since stripping the peel of childish obliviousness, reciprocating with Mikasa in that fashion was no offer Eren felt truly comfortable returning. He loves her, even in wrestling his own whininess about expressing it, just not in that context.
It's rendered moot now. Eren’s teeth might as well grind to powder from clenching at the sting of ‘subhuman’ branded to him. For feigning that type of relationship with Mikasa, split timeline or not. The rogue soldier’s own defense would lie in his gut asphyxiation the reason out his lungs. Defense it may be, excuse it most definitely is not.
Long overdue rest and her dearest wants, drip-fed to all the unwavering selflessness primed since youth. The one thing her friend saw as suitable for his atonement to her, still infested with its slice of issues. Carcinogenic rot on what’s well above deserving for someone like her. Waiting till the last minute to finally be honest with her, Eren couldn’t even commit fully.
That shard of him pleaded – no, begged - the woman to live long, be free, and move on after he’s no more. How easy it’d be to trust in her shaking it off in due time, but Eren would be naïver than usual in forking mindless trust over to that unstable proposition.
Fighting her family isn’t normal. Killing them isn’t either. Neglecting that angry weeping sore packed with messy, neglected special feelings till the clock struck twelve would never offer some tinge of relief for that strain of abnormal. It took no time for Eren to chase and catch a visual of the Ackerman choking on such raw, wretched blasphemy.
If there was anything worth recuperating, she was the one who took agency in sending the killing blow. Mikasa can only head up from there, whenever that may be. The army’s worth of strength was untranslatable for his friend’s emotions, but Eren still holds out on being astronomically wrong. That she is as well for her sake.
The excruciating torch of his neurons burned all over. In no time would Mikasa sever the musty thread dangling his slip of life by a splitting hair. It was the boy’s call in letting go to speed things along. Everything he wanted is crossed off by now. He voiced his piece and paid off his debts to those he owed it to.
Well… almost all owed. The omission uncoordinatedly tangoes with the skyrocketing pain as Eren buckles under fabricating his finished business. Gushing out his corpse was one.
One person.
Resting on the island, ways away from every chanting thunder of oblivion. The coward swore off seeing her when contacting the others, already murder on his insides to begin with. To Eren, aftermath outgunned the benefits in capitalizing on that offer.
He’s asked so much. Taken so much. Shared so much with. Too much in some, more than he was retrospectively sound in others. She’s alone out there, edging her due date if he remembered correctly. Not to mention that even if he won, there was still a country for her to run. Which he spent the last few days stewing into a black, putrid cage. Creaking from the overcrowding of ravenous wolves, slowly becoming enamored with eating each other in trade of patience.
What … possible good could come from him showing up? After abandoning her to stage his little insurgence, seeing her bawl and beg to reconsider? Hell, he’s not even factoring his own brand of unleashed terror preceding his current predicament.
Unabashed, pus-spewing abhorrence would fly. As much as they did together, as she assured on the contrary, no one can unconditionally love a monster. It’s unthinkable. If Mikasa of all people had enough gusto to fight him, there were no second guesses on the other’s perception of him.
Damage would only rain by hastily popping in and out one last time. She couldn’t handle a stunt like that he thinks, especially with all that would swamp her after her term runs its course. The last thing Eren would do is hurt her. Premeditatively or otherwise.
…
Time, once again, suspended itself at the Founder’s beckon. At least, Eren, Ymir, or whoever at this point will permit so until they all pass together. Another chunk of the boy’s spirit fled like light, scanning to amend his own cowardice in not visiting her.
Millimeters away was Mikasa’s blade scoring the last digit to her head count, the indescribably sharp pain peaking as it juts down to the root of the spine. Eren still had visual on her but tussled his own heavying eyelids in doing so. He began recognizing warmth; one he’s greeted several times over.
With her next to him.
Just a little longer. I promise. I’ll stop after this.
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Soreness infested each strand of muscle belted to her core, but recovery would make haste soon enough according to the midwives. Historia paid no mind to the stubborn discomfort. Bigger, genuinely important things checkmated her body’s infantile wailing.
Materialized in the newborn mop of blonde curled asleep on her chest, and the apparently eleven people—friends, ex-adversaries, and new faces alike—clawing towards the earshot of the city-sized ribcage laying waste outside the island.
Innocent stares at the newest, freest inheritor of the Reiss name, plagued her mind on how safe raising a child would be, in a country one chip from holing itself. What would follow if or when someone uncovers the background of her pregnancy. She’d tense at the idea if her body wasn’t restraining her from it.
Moving a bit ahead, Historia dreads the day her firstborn catches on how she and her husband behaved more like friends than a couple, even by royal courtship standards. How they only kissed and exchanged ‘I love you’ when her pride and joy asks of their low frequency. Noticing that mama hemorrhaged disinterest in her papa on certain days. The woman was a stellar liar, but try as she might, she can’t forge genuine attraction.
A vacant stare-off with the bedroom wall reminded her to split that worry with wondering if her friends were still okay. Alive even. Making guesses on how far Eren and the Rumbling stretched out from the desert shoreline. And God forbid, did they have to end up fighting one another directly at some point.
With her eyes elsewhere, decrepit self-esteem took hostage. The one that chastised Historia’s entitlement in praying for anyone’s safety by now.
How dare she, not after her own indirect complicity.
Historia Reiss was an impulsive enabler, by her own acknowledgment. Fingers never graced the trigger, and of course the current massacre horrified her, but she hadn’t procured much effort in snatching the gun from the shooter’s hands. She’s an accomplice, like it or not. There’s no right in helping herself to a heaping serving of empathy.
A meticulous scraping whacked away the dreadful inking of her psyche. Historia eyed the window, and she couldn’t believe it.
A squirrel, perched on and pawing at the glass. With the earth trembling for what seemed to spell eternity, all the animals should be succumbing to panic. Cowering in their dens, fleeing from their soon-to-be uprooted habitats, the like.
The oddity only ramped up when she noticed the squirrel instantly stop scratching the glass once it grabbed the attention of the person opposite to it. It began staring, and only that. No swishing tail or twitching ears. No chittering or barking either. Like a living, breathing, wind-up toy idling for the next curious set of hands to turn its key to kickstart it once more.
Any person would say the queen’s gone mad, reasonably so. But Historia could swear, that squirrel, somehow, was staring right through her. Almost as if the creature was asking something.
The new mom huffed at her own surge of delusion as she shut her eyes to rub them. She’s been up all day, so it’s a no-brainer that the fatigue finally caught up to accost her.
…
What’s with this sudden rush of air? Did the window just fly open or something?
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It sure looked like the orphanage, with handfuls of barns and houses sprinkling the plethora of grass and farmland. Only emptied of rejuvenating laughter from all the children and farmhands, and the soft weight splayed on her chest. She couldn’t explain why, but intuition banked on her child being secure somewhere somehow.
The blonde wasn’t even startled at the very least once she lifted the curtain shielding her vision. She felt … safe? Not familiar-location safe. One that she was struggling to put her finger on and seemed to have been slipping her mind for a while now. The harder she guessed, the more her chest started to race for some reason.
This—vision she supposed–still gifted her one of those beautiful sunsets the orphanage is repeatedly blessed with, the same one of many she’d like to gaze at once the staff was relieved, the children drying their last drop of energy, and the daily chores were checked off. That she and Eren would alwa-
…
No. It can’t be him. It feels uncomfortably similar, but she should still see other people if that were the case. Her husband, the nurses, the soldiers, her baby, at the very least with the whole population scattered like a freshly exposed ant colony.
Sleep must’ve taken me by surprise, is what she would’ve agreed on first thing if not for this “dream” feeling as real as she did during that speech. That summer tepidness and pillowy breeze was a perfect mirror of the routine she grew to love. Same applies to her nightgown, traded for her usual orphanage attire: one of her corset dresses and wool shawls.
Silly as it was, Historia pinched her arm to confirm it. The puny sting and pressure lit her nerves as predicted, the girl still very much here and present.
Not that she inquired or cared about what happens in the fact, but this being the afterlife never felt definitive either. Background context factored in; it would be impossible. Yes, the labor was hellish, and stress pileup hazed her constantly during the pregnancy, but she and her newborn both made it out healthy. Spent, but healthy.
So … what is this?, was all she could think, at a loss with confirmation nowhere in arm’s reach. In no time it barreled before Historia’s hands stretched out to brace herself.
The organic whistle of current against foliage was bisected. It’s culprit a soft trudging a couple yards away. On her left, the owner slowly walking the incline pathing her stare out. No time squandered recognizing how the pinkish orange danced with those teal irises. The same didn’t apply to her taking a breath, equal parts relieved and overwhelmed her initial theory bore fruit.
One ocean and half an island away, rendered trivial as if punting a rock off into a dirt road.
Eren works in absolutes, for better and worse. Historia would gamble her reign on him showing in person to say he fulfilled his plan. Never mind miles of sullied ocean and land, he’d accomplish it anyway. That thick-headedness would brute force things in his favor, as it usually would. A walk and a swim would be nothing for him by comparison.
Whatever the case, Eren choosing to communicate with her in such a manner, abrupt and cryptic, spelled the opposite. No speck of doubt goaded her foresight against them leaving each other for good very soon. Historia wasn’t too sure where her emotions sided with that. There was only enough sense to lie down and see what would unravel. Not that she minded.
The blonde’s attention slipped back into its correct slot as the monarch heard it. Her familiar’s latest footstep right in front of her. Now permitting herself to lift her chin and get a long, much-craved look at him.
A rough image of Eren post-desertion was relayed to her from the few soldiers trusted to visit the safe house, so a clean shave and styled hair were first to be noted. Actually, Eren donned the same appearance he had last time they met, right before sailing with the rest of the Scouts’ to Marley. She recalled him asking her to snip away at its bothersome length a few visits beforehand.
Though in all honestly, it was more “same coat of paint, different wall” this time around the more she drank his form, the taste bittering, the uncomfortable quiet growing louder.
Typical hawk-like focus shot in cold blood, apparent with his tug-of-war between her invitingness and the grass leering down below. Shoulders in a ragdoll-ish slouch, as if bracing to collapse on the ground seconds following the take of that aforementioned last step.
Pricking her the most, was his face. Void of gallant sharpness or scarce bouts of vulnerability saved for her in private. Substituting for the two was so … alien.
Self-fueling teal burnt clean of spark, same as a freshly-welded lamp unexpectedly sinking to a benthic tomb. A frown skinned alive of confidence. Traceless of anger, disappointment, hell Historia couldn’t even say depressed. What straggled was tried-and-true, pure, empty misery. Now was the only time Eren Jaeger could be described as such with spot-on accuracy:
Tired.
“Can we talk for a while? … Before I go?” was all that could trickle out his mouth, not even attempting to absorb his drainage before leaking it out all over.
Historia slowly slipped in for a hug, putting her ear to rest on him. Eren snaked his arms around her at a snail’s pace, hesitant to melt into her touch again after so many months apart. After going AWOL on mixed terms. Weak drumming pulsed underneath his clothes, teetering the line between constant alertness and a permanent shutdown. The lukewarmth of his skin piled onto that.
So what? It was still him; she wouldn’t dare complain. If so, the rising heat and heartrate meeting his lack thereof would grill her fibbing. Their exclusive inferno of relief torched valiantly as ever. Would’ve gotten hotter if a sudden realization never hit Historia. Immense shame that this will be the last she’d feel that meticulous rush they hand-crafted. Safely coddled from any disapproving eyes.
From him at least, Historia corrected her on grounds of the bundle safely back in the apparent real world.
“Yes. … Yes please.” she answered.
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“Eighty percent? That seems a little too deliberate, especially for you.” She iced off his abridging of the past few days, both walking side-by-side to meet a large tree resting quite a deal away. In doing this, she noticed that this parallel version of her didn’t struggle to walk, as if she skipped over her labor entirely. He was actively avoiding her gaze, though she refrained from pleas to meet it. He missed her dearly, but he wanted space to prepare himself for it.
“Give or take at least, that’s how much I estimated the Titans got to … before our friends stopped me.” Tone stinking ripe with long-inhibited ease. If his partner listened hard enough, that energetic undertone he had before his first peer into the future was there. Turning up after literal years laying dormant in the crevices of his mind.
Historia knew well of Eren’s reluctance in kickstarting the Rumbling. Now hearing that unfiltered release, satisfaction with his defeat, soothed her worrying a bit. Everything up those sleeves ripped out and neutralized to pulp, obvious to her that he’s content in lacking options.
Memories incapable of crossing over to overload his reasoning. The will of the Attack Titan too crippled to drag him by the neck as if he were a sickly dog dated to be euthanized. Who stood next to her was Eren alone, and by now memory escapes him of the last time he felt so whole. That he could hear himself think for more than five seconds before madness pinned his arms and chucked him to the floor.
She couldn’t be happier.
Eren let a sigh fall free, dragging the weight ballooning inside along with it. “If anything, most of the world would be too busy picking itself back up to take the island by surprise. … So there’s that.”
“Mm.” He wasn’t wrong in proclaiming the outside world would leave them be for now. But he forewent mentioning how work still had to be knocked out. The Rumbling forced them a couple steps back even with the breathing room taken into account.
The island’s a stone toss away from spiraling towards civil war. Paradisans were still cavemen technologically. Cities to rebuild, mouths to feed, and international relationships to mend. The most immediate concern in medicating the Jaegerist infection before it runs rampant through the military. As soon as her strength is restored, scraping around for any soldier still aligned with her was mandatory. Historia mulled over a few names, but that never spelled out any guarantees.
She has plenty of time to rip her scalp barren for that, but now’s no time to unintentionally soil the atmosphere. She’s run through it over and over since they touched each other again, but this is the last time she’ll get a taste of this. Souring it was not her cup of tea.
Historia threaded a hand with Eren’s, the latter lingering before grasping in kind. A slight tremble harassed him, and by extension Historia’s conjoining. The girl couldn’t do much to stifle it besides tightening her grip slowly, hopefully selling that everything was okay right now. It thankfully patched through, with Eren deciding to meet those splashes of crystalline blue for longer than half a second.
Sadness blessed the smile she failed in keeping off her face. “She’s healthy by the way.”
“What do you me- … oh. Right.” A small one, but still an undershoot nonetheless. The approaching wash of irritating embarrassment contorted his lips into a meek twist.
Historia rolled her eyes at the fussy grimace he was oblivious to, letting the following childish giggle run free across the orphanage. She held it long enough to reassure him with an “It’s fine, dummy. It’s not your fault.”
Still mildly annoyed at himself, but she simmered him down to a uniform flow. With the tree closing in, his own mind joined the stroll in treading how Historia must’ve fared pregnancy without him. Yeah, she has a husband who never let her out his sight, but Eren was referencing little things only he and she could have during.
Speculating the baby’s gender. Mulling over how to introduce them to the other children in the orphanage. Wagering on which parts of her parents would blossom in their little one. Spoiling Historia inside-out as she preserved energy for the baby, paying no mind to the playful teasing for coddling her.
If he weren’t an absentee, physically and mentally, deciding on names together would be the thing he’d see himself enjoying the most.
The couple reached their spot. Historia added another hand to their mess of two, slowly prodding him to slide down in parallel to the mahogany bark and rest his legs with her.
Lurching down gave way to Eren’s next question. “Did you pick out a name?”
Historia reached the ground first, mindful in foregoing filthening the dress hem, even while dreaming. “Well, just one.”
Both huddled against the tree, Historia doing her usual in lying her head on Eren’s chest. Psyche speeding more and more, refusing to slow down or crash, as always when he dropped by during her off time at the orphanage. She’s been deprived of this for how long, and her very being still got just as riled up as if no time passed at all.
Historia almost forgot to follow up her statement, the steady pump of adrenaline flooding every cabin built into her train of thought.
“Ymir. … Ymir Reiss. Our little girl.”
Ymir was practically a clone of Historia even at hours old, but those eyes were the cut off. Hazel, a lot like Eren’s mother from what he mentioned to her. Soft yet piercing in shape. The way they siphoned off all the light in the area to feed that natural curiosity. All from his side.
She looked up to hook that sad glimmer in his eyes, and the ghost of a smile he couldn’t help but. “You like it?”
His free hand discretely fidgeted with the knuckle of his thumb. “Yeah. It’s … nice.”
Eren didn’t kid himself in saying the name was sourced from the same individual, but what a funny coincidence it was.
Now, napping on the grass, the drowsy sun staining their skin, and earthly silence. Right back into their sacred normal as if this whole mess didn’t exist. The several, untracked minutes of silence, Historia snuggled next to him, and Eren childishly playing with strands of her hair, painted their unspoken want to partake in a lengthy soak before carving at the rest of the meat dangling off their situation.
“The others got one of these with you too, right?” she pipped up suddenly, voice low so as to not startle him or the mood.
Eren hummed in verification. “During the Rumbling, I had another vision of what ended up happening right now in the real world.”
A few seconds before in truth. Armin restraining his face, the captain blasting those incisors to dust, Mikasa lunging inside. No need to strain in finding out what that fleeting memory alluded to. Time would soon run out, and the world was gracious enough to force-feed him a head start.
“It hit me a little while after I made it to Marley. Once I saw it, I wanted to see them and say what would happen after the fact.”
The Alliance’s reputation will definitely not be scrubbed once they win, but killing the Founding Titan? Stopping the Rumbling? Expunging the Power of the Titans? Public opinion positive or not, his fellow soldiers, those kids, and the Cart Titan will finally be given some leverage to play around with. Eren knows they’re smart enough to capitalize on it however they see fit.
Guilt shred her chest a bit. “Can’t imagine all of them being as mellow as this.”
Eren’s face then churned into a most conflicting expression. A chunky blend of dejection and frustration, glazing his demeanor. Historia was a tad uncomfortable seeing it morph so suddenly, from how on-his-sleeve he’s been since reuniting with her.
“Armin … punched me in the face.”
“I … -snicker-w-what?” she sputtered in bewilderment. Armin hitting Eren? He’s probably joking with her or something. What did he mean by that?
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The sea. As radiant, blue, and teeming of the midday sun as he first saw it with the Scouts. Today being the only instance Eren hasn’t trashed its form or significance in some way, and he was only there in spirit this time. You could even say this is a first in the mutineer having a specific interest in visiting it.
Armin, uncharacteristically, was the one to bludgeon the serenity after Eren said what practically amounted to nothing. On the surface at least from what the ranting blonde clued him in on.
“On the other hand … maybe she’ll find someone for her in no time …” Even with a daze and an aching cheekbone, Eren could taste the grinchy slime coating Armin’s voice. Not as if he particularly cared.
“Yeah. I ... I hope so.” he pathetically spewed out.
“Hm?” Armin went back to ogling the mess he made next to him, clouding over the sand and water swallowing his lower torso.
“I-ju … wh- …” In came a breath before gathering himself to say, “Whatever she does after this, I just … want her to find someone that sees her as she saw me.”
Mikasa’s affection is meant for an equal, whoever that may be, not a chore she has to keep constantly picking up after.
“… Oh. … Okay.” Anything and everything sucked clean from the boy’s esophagus. Whatever the Commander wagered on the boy slumped down in the ocean admitting, wasn’t that.
Way off of the sort.
Someone that sees her like she saw me. … Wait. So he’s not … ?
“I … didn’t expect you to be so content with it.”
“With what?” All signs blared toward it, but Eren wanted assurance.
“Nothing. I-It’s stupid I …” The words were practically fused to his gums, unable to dislodge, rush to the podium, and scramble to make a case for himself.
Suspicion verified.
Eren looked up at his childhood friend, equilibrium now restored. “Armin … if we’re both referring to the same thing then … I’ll just leave it at it’s not what you’ve been thinking.”
Graciously for both parties, Armin heeded from prying further. Studious as always, an educated guess benched on standby, but now’s no time for picking at that. There were more important matters to discuss instead of playing matchmaker.
Like the woman they’re going back and forth on behalf of in the first place.
“ … I can’t say what she’ll want after this … but she has me, and the captain, and everyone else to check on her.” he promised his best friend once getting back on track.
She won’t walk it off, but by God she’s receiving the most ironclad safety net one could have once this is said and done. Armin will make sure of it, for all three of them. It’s what she’s been doing for both those boys, ten years and counting by her own volition. No pain in returning the favor.
“Thanks.” Eren couldn’t stitch the tear in his throat anymore, drowning out the soft lull of the magically conjured sea.
Same for the tearing up, sparse drops now disguising themselves in the seawater as it continued rhythmically swaddling his lower half.
“ … I don’t wanna die.” he wheezed.
Armin took a knee to try and comfort his brother-in-arms, and with that their spiel wandered elsewhere.
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Punching him was a bit much, but Armin did have a valid stance about Mikasa’s safety. Once she makes it back to the island, thanks to adopting her childhood friend’s hardheadedness Historia knows she will, the monarch will lock down her security from the Jaegerists’ prowl.
Eren began to mouth off another sigh, swiftly intercepted as it was revving up. By a sturdy, playful poke in the cheek from his significant other. He peered down to see Historia sporting one of her queenlier glares, elegant yet overwhelmingly powerful. Absent of speech but just as effective in telling him to spill his guts out to her.
“Eren, now’s not the time to hide anything from me.” she gingerly coaxed.
She’s right. No point in holding this in, even though it’s been struck down a multitude of times over by however many minutes stretched to infinity sped by so far. It’s functionally useless by this point.
What’s been eating at him was, “Nothing. It’s just … I expected you to be furious with me after I showed up.”
Eren felt that constant stream of calm cringe tenfold, seeing Historia let out a soft hum and lower her eyes. He didn’t mean to smog up the ambiance, but he couldn’t pinpoint how his earlier confession upset her. Did he inadvertently insult her or something?
Up she sat to shift from her oh-so-intoxicating blanket over his torso, rising up to intersect their sights. Eren, exterior calm as ever, was raring on the inside for whatever she planned on dishing out to him.
He planned for a swift reprimand, swindled by her hands gliding to the swaths of his neck and locking lips with the face pressed between them.
Shut up and listen to me, that intimate, addicting sweetness cried out. Its owner well aware how effortlessly it coils him around her finger doing just that. If the fact that Eren unapologetically let her have him, only jostling around to preserve her balance and sink closer into her, didn’t make it unquestionable enough.
Though Historia soon finds herself steadily mimicking his behavior one-to-one, the crown pilfered and proudly worn by the amorous gluttony pooling into her instincts. Some power play it turned out to be, if she was even conscious of remembering that it was, to begin with.
A simple action exploding into an overstretching laundry list detailing how much she missed connecting with Eren this way. Endlessly stuffing herself to burst with the richness of his mouth, the scent of his hair, and the lightning crackling atop her skin and clothes from each caress of her body. It’s as if she would drop dead the second she heeded from pressing herself against him.
Sadly, Historia would squirm from coming to terms with how incorrect that was.
As much as her common sense has been enslaved, as much as her entirety ached to kingdom come for her to trash all reason in lieu of submerging themselves in the heat of their cravings, there was an end to these means. She regretfully separated from his lips, catching enough breath to reel from her high. Some of that pink, passionate rash spread greedily over her face lifted too.
Her mind tidied herself before she began, though she took a bit of girlish pleasure in seeing Eren similarly messy and wired as she was. Toying aside, she definitely grabbed his attention.
“Eren … let's get something straight. I don’t think the most indisputably evil, hate-filled person on the planet would seriously consider doing a fraction of what you did.” she started.
Eren’s expression never shifted too much, his mouth only sealing shut as he listened.
“What are you trying to srmm-mrph …“ Historia lightly squished her fingers around Eren’s mouth.
Please just … listen for real this time, her eyes catching up to assist in kneading the primary goal of that kissing frenzy.
She could. She should dammit. But why burn herself out at this point? Deep down she’s struggling to air out the fog densifying from her obvious bias, but any random person would mark the same conclusion eventually.
Eren did what he did. Easy as it was for him to trivialize time, he couldn’t reverse it. The queen can’t berate him into fixing something beyond repair, something even out of Paths’ control.
The merit in scolding his atrocities wouldn’t show. She’d be teaching him something he’s already educated himself on. Historia witnessed more than anyone how much he scrounged for any possible angle worth suspending his plan for. Now she knows that him forcing it through the door didn’t make him feel less hollow. Eighty percent, and cashing out on most of what he banked on, was pissing in the wind to him she could tell.
Fruitless in asking if he felt any semblance of remorse for his actions. He chose to spend the last slivers of his humanity apologizing profusely to her and everyone else, sitting down for God knows how long to brainstorm how to make the best of it. For them, and the island’s sake. Historia couldn’t even scrape up the idea of even the most genuine version of her Father being that apologetic.
Why go through the trouble over what’s already been answered? If anyone favored productivity in this case, they’d move past and make the most of what this whim spawned. Making sure his misgivings never go to waste.
And finally … there was that last point.
Above all else, as insensitive as it was to admit, “I’m the worst girl who ever lived … remember? ”
It would be needless repetition in telling him what that entailed. He knew quite well what that label subconsciously got off on.
The one belonging to the jeopardizer of the island’s entire future three separate times, just because she hated being alone more than using her head. All for people infected with her destructive strain of love.
The very same, inappropriate as it was, who got involved and slept with a soldier several times over under everyone’s noses. Simply because being with him gave her the only lasting gush of relief since she became queen. An appetite that could never be suppressed, no matter how much or how long one could shovel in there.
Neatly sandwiched between every patronizing stare from the heads of the military, swaths of disapproval from those clinging to their loyalty to the Fritz family, and the cluttered mess of outside world integration, was him. Free of judgment and restraint. Before them, a canvas the two could decorate as much as they saw fit in their own comfort. Every discrete ogle, hearty laugh, juvenile sneak-away, and dizzying caress, made her mind scream louder to hoard that supply all to herself.
The same “upstanding” ruler, who heard about said subordinate's plan, never immediately imprisoning him and his gaggle of up-and-coming rogues for conspiracy. Why would she? Why would a selfish piece of shit like her, who squandered all her time to empathize with his plight, do that?
Now here she was. The girl, currently holding every freedom and right in kicking him till he bled all over for the nightmare that unfolded outside. Opting without careful consideration, for feeling more heavy-hearted than boiling mad for him.
The reason for it was brain-dead simple. Amateurishly sown, swept under the rug too many times to keep track. Too strong for her to hate him, so much that the idea of just it grazing her hurt. Disappointed in him, yes, but in some veins, she was no better than him.
Historia Reiss will leave Eren Jaeger feeling the same as when she first felt that way about him, logic be damned. Abhorrent, cancerous, rotten down to the last atom, but so her. Them. A ruthless devil and his fallen angel.
Misery breeds company as the saying goes.
“Eren, you’re not a monster. ” He couldn’t tell, but the blonde caught those eyes jolt with a bright, lumbering sorrow.
“I-“
“You’re a moron who made a terrible mistake, but I’ve seen and dealt with my fair share of monsters.” She ended off her rib with a second roll of the eyes.
Historia’s hands finally relinquished his face, now indulging in a modest rest on her lover’s lap.
“Historia-“
“If had to say one just thing to prove you wrong … a monster wouldn’t be crying after hearing what I just said.” she sadly chuckled.
Eren wiped his face, now noticing the stinging in his eyes. He’s done this seven times over, and the eighth was the only time he felt so idiotic during.
Yet he quietly laughed along with her. He didn’t know why, he still didn’t fully side with her opinion on her. Maybe some boyish fragment of him nagged on him to shut his mouth and relax, just for a bit. He’s lost track at this point.
Historia kissed his forehead, sinking down to rest her head on his collarbone. A perplexing buzz slowly crept throughout her entire body. It felt like she was floating, and at the same time getting heavier and heavier.
Time’s almost up, she deduced. Historia could tell Eren caught on and felt the ringing too, with how his hold on her seemed to lightly slip.
“Wherever you go after this, promise one last thing for me.” Historia requested; delivery slow but not unsuccessful in spearheading the end of their little talk.
“What um – what do you mean?” Eren’s voice began to drowsily slur out of nowhere.
“Just … go easy on yourself for me. There’s nothing left after this, and there are a lot of things you have to answer for obviously. It’s not gonna get any easier ... so don't try to be your own worst enemy anymore. It's just you now ... and nobody else is speaking for you at this point."
Eren leaned down into Historia’s scalp, giving into the temptation of those golden locks. He barely had the energy to say he’ll promise to keep her request to heart.
The orphanage, the grassland, the sky. All blending into a running slurry of orange, green, and pink. The one thing they could still clearly take in was the other’s presence. Aroma, heat, voice, everything.
The last microscopic drip of themselves they’ll share … for now at least.
“I love you, Historia.”
She could just barely sneak in a laugh before bleating out a fuzzy yawn. “I know dummy. … I love you too.”
Everything faded to a deafening nothingness.
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Historia blinked, finding herself and her last memory with Eren back in the present. She noticed Ymir, wide awake, staring absentmindedly at her mama.
With those bold, hazel eyes. She’d be crazy not to smile just looking at them.
Take care, Eren. I’ll miss you.