~ 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖎𝖓𝖘 ~
"To commemorate those who gave their lives - including the brave Commander of our Scouting Regiment - we present you with medals to remember those who will not be forgotten."
With that, the remaining of the Scouts - Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Levi, Hange, Floch, and I - stepped forward and kneeled before Queen Historia, who held 6 medals on her arm, to give to each of us.
"Commander Hange." She said, solemnly as she placed the medal around said woman's neck. Hange then kissed the queen's hand. "Captain Levi. Mikasa." My 2 relatives kissed her hand as well as the jade medal was placed.
As she made her way to Eren, she placed the medal around his neck, expecting nothing more than a kiss on the hand.
But when Eren touched her hand, electricity seemed to crackle between them, and his expression contorted into one of pure fear and terror, his skin turning a sickly pale, and she bent down to ask what was wrong.
He took a few seconds to recoil, before shooting Historia a small smile and shaking his head, bowing down with his hand over his heart. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion and my lips turned into a slight frown but as Historia came to present me my medal, I changed my expression.
I will need to ask him later. I thought.
-----MAJOR MANGA SPOILERS!!!
I slammed the door to mine and Eren's shared room, leaning against the wood with a hard expression on my face. I knew Mikasa would come in a few minutes to check where Eren was, so I had to hurry this up.
Eren's face tilted in visible confusion, but something in his eyes told me he knew exactly what I was going to do.
"Eren." I said, trying to get him to look at me. He did, shifting his eyes from my legs to my face. I frowned deeply. "What the fuck was that?!"
Eren's reply was low and heavy, almost calm. "Mikasa will be here any minute, you know."
"Which is why I need you to hurry up, you shit."
He sighed and nodded. "I saw it, Elliot." I tilted my head, confusion rippling my expression. It had been a while since he'd called me by my full name.
I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. "What?"
"Destiny. The future."
Beat.
"All that was needed was physical contact between Historia and I."
I tried to take a step back in shock, but was stopped by the door. I gulped. I knew that he was telling the truth, from the serious calmness in his voice and his unwavering eyes. I nodded slowly trying to process the information while asking him to continue.
He did, and he told me everything he saw when he kissed Historia's hand. I could only listen in horror, slipping to the floor and sitting there for a good minute.
Eren didn't walk up to me until after I had come out of my processing daze, sitting beside me and leaning my head against his shoulder. Tears seemed to brim in his eyes and I thought I was seeing things, but Eren didn't let me look at him for long. "Now we do it together, Ellie." He said, in a way that he didn't expect me to answer.
He knew I would accept if I was in the right state of mind.
I sniffed into his shoulder, but didn't feel tears in my eyes. Instead, my expression was hard, ready to accept fate as it is - or was. Sure I would lose the person I loved the most, but it would be for the greater good.
I didn't fully understand everything, but if I followed Eren with his plan, he would explain more to me.
I just didn't know whether I'd be able to handle all the loss along the way.
-----
Today was the day.
All the Titans on the east side of the walls seemed to be eradicated, and it was deemed safe to travel outside a random direction. Eren told me that it would be fine and that we wouldn't be attacked, but that I couldn't tell anyone.
It annoyed me to no end, but I hid that with a passive face, showing no emotion. At one point, Levi gave me a weird look at my completely emotionlessness. Thankfully, I sent him a small smile and he brushed it off, ruffling my hair.
It had started growing longer and reached slightly below my shoulders. I was starting to look more like a girl, and felt kind of happy about that.
Eren didn't need to help me onto Jupiter since I had grown quite a bit over the past few months, and we trotted alongside each other behind Hange and Levi.
"Let's go." Hange ordered and the gates to Wall Maria opened, allowing the Scouts to run through into the open abyss that was our island.
The geography of our world was a lot different than we had learned in school, as Eren told me.
We lived on an island called Paradis which was surrounded by walls and water, separating it from the main continent: Marley.
That was where we had run away from - or the former King, at least - to escape the horrid discrimination of our bloodline.
We were Eldians. The only bloodline which could hold the power of the titans. How unfortunate.
I wondered if Annie had thought about all these things when she was coming to attack us.
She was forced to attack us - she did it willingly, because was brought up to believe a certain ideology, any of her own opposing inputs immediately shut down.
I shoved that thought away and tightened my grip on Jupiter's reins. I found that whenever I thought of her my anxiety levels ascended.
Annie, I will see you in the endgame. How we will be, he hasn't told me yet.
-----
"Halt! Pure titan spotted on the left!!" One soldier shouted, presumably Jean.
We all slowed down our horses and steered towards said titan. It seemed to have been wedged into the ground, trying to push its way forward in a similar way to Rod Reiss's titan.
The thought sent chills up my spine.
"Look! The grass behind it has all grown out!" Connie said, surprised. I was equally surprised, but kept my emotions hidden.
Sasha seemed to hide behind Mikasa. "It seems to have taken so long to just move an inch!!" She exclaimed. Mikasa nodded in agreement.
I felt a pit form in my stomach as I looked at Sasha. I had to peel my eyes off her to stop myself from feeling sad.
Eren got off his horse and moved towards the titan. There were protests from others like Mikasa and Floch but they were silenced when Eren placed a hand onto the skin of the titan.
He said something to the titan, and though I couldn't hear it, I read his lips clearly. I'm sorry for what has happened to you.
My breath hitched and I looked down at my fingers, fiddling with them nervously.
What he said made me want to cry, but I kept it in, knowing that if I leaked any of the information, things wouldn't go as planned.
The titan had blond hair and blue eyes, disproportionate on his face, but recognizable as eyes nonetheless. They expressed an emotion between grieving and loss.
This man would've had a family, a wife and a few kids, waiting for their father to come home from wherever the police took him, their mother crying in the corner because of the "burnt pie".
Merciless pure-bloods would transform an Eldian into a titan even for the most miniscule of reasons just for the sake of getting rid of them as fast as possible.
In all honesty, the euthanasia plan seemed the best way to go, if one didn't know the repercussions of it.
"Let's continue." Eren said, getting back on his horse.
The rest trusted his judgement and got back onto their own horses to continue on the journey.
"Wait, aren't we going to going to kill it for good measure?!" Floch asked, pointing at the titan with his blade. "No? Okay." And he got back on his horse and hurriedly followed after us.
I tried to catch up with Eren. "We have to work with that dickhead?" I asked in a low voice, annoyance seeping into my tone.
Eren didn't reply, but merely nodded, looking away to hide a short smile.
"We're almost there."
I let out a breath, preparing myself for what I would see.
What was I expecting? The sea? Of course. The horizon where I knew millions of our enemies lay? Most definitely.
I sighed and let myself loose in the up and down motion of Jupiter's trotting, praying that time would slow down and we would never reach the edge of the island.
★ hey lovelies!! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!!! just as heads up, from here on out is going to be PLAIN MANGA SPOILERS so if you don't want to read that, you might not want to continue this book 😔
but anyways, if you're staying, SEE YOU NEXT WEEK (if i stop procrastinating and actually get work done for you wonderful people) 💕