As soon as Carla knew her children were safe, she opened the door. She was unaware that the both of them were hidden in the shadows and listened in on her conversation with the man outside.
"Hannes!" A warm smile spread on her cheeks when she recognized the blond-haired man who turned red when he met the loving look on the woman's face. Upstairs in the shadows Eren made a show of gagging when he watched those lovestruck adults.
"Carly, hey...I...ah...I wanted to know how you're doing?", he stuttered with a hand behind his head and a nervous grin on his face.
"Just fine. Thank you, Hannes. How is the military treating you?", their mother asked kindly, crossing the arms in front of her and tilting her head to the side.
"Ah...that's...that's good. The training is hard, but that was to be expected.", Hannes laughed slightly, showing his teeth. "And how are the children? I heard Eren got into some trouble today?"
"The usual, thank you for asking.", Carla answered and Eren rolled his eyes. Was there by any chance anyone out there who didn't know about his misdeeds during the day? "Mikasa and Eren are doing fine so far. I will send them out in the woods soon to chop some firewood."
"Ah, because of your injury you can't go yourself, I know.", Hannes grumbled, his attitude truly filled with consternation. "How about I go out there and chop some for you all? I have to anyway. Can't hurt to bring some more with me."
Mikasa leaned over to Eren and whispered into his ear: "He really does love her, doesn't he?"
Eren simply shrugged.
He didn't entertain the thought of anyone stealing his mom from him. No one deserved her endless kindness and the warmth she seemed to carry around with her all the time.
After his father he didn't even think that his mother would ever fall in love with another man. But betrayal and hurt had hardened her soul. If she was ready to fall in love again...
Eren sighed, not all too happy with the thought. But when he saw how loving Hannes treated his mom, how he was always concerned for their wellbeing...maybe there was a guy deserving of her love.
"Please, don't burden yourself with our chores. They both need to get out for once. And with the news spreading in Shiganshina..." She rubbed over her forehead, the sigh she heaved filled with sorrow. "I want them out of this hell, Hannes. They are too young to deal with the horrors of war."
Mikasa and Eren looked at each other with widened eyes, color draining from their faces.
War?, Mikasa mouthed at her brother who shook his head with a pounding heart and confusion, listening further to his mother and Hannes, who nodded in understanding.
"I came here to escape a war in my life.", Carla explained to him. "And I'm not sure I can survive this one...but please, come in. Talking outside of the house – excuse my impolite behavior."
"Oh, please, don't mind me. I was just passing by to look after you.", Hannes declined friendly. "The coming days will be hard on all of us. If you need anything, let me know. I owe you a great deal."
"Thank you." She stood on her toes and kissed the man on the cheek, to which her children looked hastily away, feeling a wave of nausea coming up at the sight.
After closing the door tightly behind her Carla shouted: "You can come down now. Don't think I haven't noticed you lurking up there."
Ashamed they came down the steps, waiting for their mother to explain everything.
Sighing again Carla closed her eyes, hands put on her waist.
"Let's not talk about this down here. You need to go to sleep."
"But it's so early and the sun isn't even down, yet-"
"Eren, I'm not discussing this with you.", his mother said sternly. "Go upstairs, brush your teeth and then...then we will talk. I promise you."
This time it was Mikasa who dragged him with her, when he wouldn't stop staring at his mother like he was waiting for an answer right now.
"Come on, Eren. You are always taking too long anyway.", Mikasa said and that got Eren out of his trance.
Walking upstairs he looked back over his shoulder only to see his mother – hands on her face and shoulders trembling like before.
The happiness switched off.
- - -
It took the siblings no time at all to get ready for bed. They knew their rituals in and out and were a well-rehearsed team by now.
Their room was small. Just a few steps bigger than their mom's one which was the reason for her to give it to them with an easy laugh.
In total there was place for maybe six people in the room if standing close together.
On the right side Eren had deposited his mattress, old and battered but good enough to sleep with a blanket just big enough to cover his lengthy frame. But the winter nights were the hardest with the wind coming through the cracks in the wood.
Next to the shelve on the other side of the room Mikasa had her place marked by a mattress with just the same level of neglect. The only thing distinguishing them were their personal items on each mattress.
Where Mikasa had placed an old stuffed animal from the time before Carla took her in – an elephant-looking thing with big ears and a weathered snout – Eren had placed the chain he had once gotten from his mother.
It was a feather.
A silver one with small petals for each hair on it, playing together as one and marking it as one hell of an expensive pendant.
It represented everything Eren had lost. Everything his father had robbed him of. Everything that should be his and his mother's. And yet now most had forgotten about his very existence thanks to the existence of his brother.
The same submissive little shit who had watched everything playing out in front of his very eyes without doing anything. Without helping him. They were brothers.
His mother's entrance hindered his angry thoughts. She sat down beside him on the mattress and tucked him in, just like she had done the first night they had spent in this house.
Mikasa sat up in her bed, too jittery for lying down.
"You know about the differences between Eldia and Marley." She didn't phrase it as a question as she knew that it was common knowledge that those two kingdoms were nothing but spiteful if confronted by the other.
"Marley's queen, Queen Historia, tried her best to reason with King Grisha." Eren respected her for being able to say his name without so much as a disapproving look. "Those differences reached their peak over ten years ago. Eren, you were too young to understand what was going on. As for you, Mikasa – I fear you had bigger problems at that time."
Mikasa embraced her knees, resting her mouth on them and averting her eyes from their mother. She never spoke of her past.
Not with Carla, not with him – with anyone.
She remained a book full of secret words but Eren wasn't bothered by that. He loved his little sis just as much.
"It was about some kind of bargain King Grisha sought to make with Queen Historia. Until today I have no idea what he wanted from her but it must have been so enraging and insulting that war was the only opinion left.", Carla explained to them. "Afterwards this war got named the "War of Blood" and this war deserved it's name with every fiber."
"Mom, why are you telling us this? It is in the past, isn't it?", Eren asked, turning around to rest his head in his mother's lap. She patted his hair, drove through the strands and massaged his scalp with soft hands.
"I fear not, my darling. Because at this moment King Grisha is about to end the kingdom of Marley." Mikasa and Eren gasped in surprise and shock, nervously looking at each other.
"Of course Queen Historia can't simply give up on her land because of some threat." Carla sighed deeply, closing her eyes in sorrow and she stopped caressing her son's head. "She will have to counter every attack from our side, if only to ensure that people don't loose hope in her or her plans. Giving up would destroy not only Marley but everything it's citizens believe in."
"So that's it? We are going to war?", Eren repeated angrily and sat up properly, facing his mother with a stormy expression on his face. "Why is he attacking now? Nearly ten years later."
His mother shrugged her shoulders and appeared so much weaker in the dark of the room than she actually was.
"I don't know, Eren. He is just that kind of man."
"And you married that kind of man.", Eren grumbled and regretted it the instant he said those words aloud. A guilty shadow flew over his mom's features and she lowered her head in shame. He gritted his teeth and looked aside, ignoring Mikasa's 'Stop talking you idiot' face.
"Mom, I'm..."
"No. You are right. I married the wrong man. I married a monster even if it wasn't with my consent. No princess ever had the chance to marry who they love." She smiled at them with such adoration and love that Eren felt all the more like some shitty bastard, confronting his mother with choices she didn't even make in the first place.
She took his hand in hers and their eyes met in the dark. Honey met emerald.
"But if there is one thing I certainly will not ever regret, it is your birth, Eren.", she said warmly, cupping his cheek with one hand. "Holding you in my arms...seeing what I had created in this loveless place...such a perfect, little and helpless creature...I always wondered if it was a mistake. Not conceiving you but bringing you in a world so full of hate and despair."
She now looked at the both of them, her face solemn and her tone as stern as it was loving.
"I always feared that the light of my children would go out in this dark world. Now I know that nothing can tame a dragon's fire." She placed a hand over her heart. "And we all carry it inside of us. So the one thing I ask of you in a time of war and destruction is that you fight. Never give up when you know there is a chance for you to win. Show the world that they may have lost a prince and a female warrior but let them look at the greatness they have damned and banned and cursed."
Eren leaned forward, his forehead against his mother's. He had never felt more proud of being her son than in this very moment.
"I swear, mom, I will always fight for what I believe in." He opened his eyes and stared right into the eyes that reflected the same pain he felt since that night ten years ago. "And I will take revenge for what they did to us."