TRAITOR (E. Jeager)

chapter 47

"Killing more people won't bring my family back. And saving them won't atone for the countries I've destroyed. It's selfish of me to attempt being a hero for my own peace of mind." You whispered to yourself. In the beginning all you wanted to do was save people.

Even if they would never remember you, you wanted to save them. But now, knowing millions more are going to die because of your mistakes made you realize many things.

The clicks of your boots against the wood deck, sending away all of the seagulls that had gathered on the iron bars. You settled yourself down on the floor, knees brought up against your chest as you concentrated on the white rabbits of sea foam that gathered on top of the ocean waves.

It was hard to think about, death had been surrounding you since small but you always turned a blind eye and looked the other way. When your Father died was the first time you couldn't ignore it. But you over came it. You continued with your life because your Mother needed you.

She couldn't work or take care of you so the households work rested upon your shoulders once you arrived home from training. Mopping, sweeping, cleaning, everything you did while you should have been resting your body for the next day.

You ran errands and helped around for money, money that you swore if you had enough of would cure your Mother. Oh how gullible you were. Even after working your ass off for years it wasn't enough to keep her alive until your return. But she left you someone.

Someone similar to you, yet completely different. Your little brother. Not by blood but by choice. The moment he say you he went on about how much he wanted to meet you. Life failed him when Marley took him away from his parents but fate brought him into your life for four wonderful years.

Four years where you felt like life would finally give you back all the stolen time.

And when the declaration of war stole him from you... you felt it happen all once more. The way he called out your name, screaming once he saw what the thunder spears had done to you.

How they ripped apart your flesh and gashed at your life, barely letting you move or do anything but plead for your brothers life. Pleads that would fall into the ears of the deaf. Once again fate stole what you worked so hard to build.

"Bullshit. It's pure bullshit how life stole you away." You cried into your elbow. The wind slowly caressed your exposed arms, trailing goosebumps and making all the hairs stand on edge.

As a child the screams of the countries you massacred fell right onto your deaf ears that were too focused on the cheering that would happen in your country. In the money that you would receive. During that time you would have kicked down all of the cities you had to just for the tiniest of praises from the Marleyan Government.

"Mind if I sit here." Jean's voice interrupted your thoughts. You simply nodded and rested your chin on your arms that were folded on top of your knees. "Might as well." You hummed while tearing the skin from one of your wrists with your nails.

Jean sat comfortably next to you. His hands supporting his body behind his back and his legs crossed in front of him. His head was thrown back as he took in a long whiff as the ocean breeze and squinted his eyes at the bright rays from the sun.

"It's a little hot don't you think?" He asked while tapping you on the shoulder. You nodded. "Ya know, I don't blame you for not wanting to continue fighting. I don't blame you or Annie. After all you two have been through hell and back, I don't expect you to want to go and sever the head of the one you love." He laughed non-chantingly.

"After all I was the one that bozo came to when he was looking for advice on where to take you for your next date. Anyone could tell from a mile afar that he loved you and you loved him." This caught your attention, you raised your eyebrows at him, signaling for him to continue.

"You two weren't as sneaky as you thought you were. Honestly, he would trip over my bed every time he would leave in the middle of the night." He laughed, "and once he tripped over Connie and fell on Reiner, waking the whole cabin up. He made some lame excuse about going to the restroom in the woods, that idiot."

You let a small curve form on your lips that were sealed shut, eyeing the seagull that had just landed in the rail in front of the both of you. Silence temporarily governed the air while you both studied the winged bird carefully.

"You never saw those back home... did you ever see them in Liberio?" He asked, "It was near the ocean, we saw plenty during training. They would fly high above and we would stare at them while getting exploited by Marleyans." Came you attempt at a joke.

"Do you have any stories about when you were in training? How was it compared to the cadet training?" He awkwardly asked.

You shifted to move your face into your arm, covering it from Jean's view. "Training would start at five in the morning, Reiner lived sort of near my house so he would go and pick me up so we could walk together, pissing Porco off in the process. So one day he decided to get there extra early so he could walk me to training."

"The problem was that he went on a Wednesday, and on Wednesdays I would go and sleep at Pieck's house and help her clean while her dad was in the hospital. So Porco ended up waiting along with Reiner at my house the whole morning before rushing to school right before the bell rang."

"It turns out a rumor started that Porco had gone to pick up Reiner at his house to walk him to school, no one would leave them alone about it too. Calling them boyfriends and creating crazy love stories for them." You giggled at the memory.

"Training on the other hand, was ten times worse than cadet training. Not physically but mostly mentally, if you slipped up it would mean your family would be sent to Paradise. To become a warrior you had to have perfect scores to separate you from other warrior candidates. You had to be fast in deciding life threatening decisions and your loyalty had to be over the roof."

"We would run while Marleyan officers watched us in disgust, expressing how much they wanted us to vanish off the face of the earth. When we ran past them they would spit at us or throw rocks. And we would have to simply shrug it off and continue running."

"Titan training revolved around destroying Marley's enemy countries and cities. Sneaking into bases and completely shattering them to the ground. All while still being frowned upon for our blood."

Silence.

"There's more if you want to know more detail." You joked while side-eyeing Jean. "No no, now looking back at it no wonder the four of you had it all together during training. You would give us the most confused looks when we got away with going into the officers pantry." He laughed.

"Yeah..." you sighed while looking up at the clear blue sky. "Eveyone! Get ready to board off the ship and work on the flying boat quickly!" Hange ordered from the other side of the ship. "We should head with the others." You commented while standing up and stretching.

"Yeah let's catch up to Armin and Annie." Jean suggested while pointing at the two blonds up ahead.

Suddenly you heard movement. It came from behind the boxes full of marked goods. "Huh..." You hummed while approaching where the mysterious sound came from. "Y/n? Come on we gotta catch up!" Jean yelled from a couple steps ahead of you.

"Yeah I'll be there in a minute..." you informed while turning back and walking towards Jean.

"Strange I thought I heard something."

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Wow this took way too long than it should have lol i didn't expect my month to be filled with so much homework. Now that I'm in thanksgiving break I'm gonna update again by Wednesday and then again by Saturday. Thank you all for the support! Take care, until next time!
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