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«If you must die, die knowing your life
was my life's best part»
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Paths rake across the sky, tangling together, glimmering in cerulean blue.
Ymir watches the patterns with a stone-face, standing silently. Unsatisfied.
Things still haven't aligned the way she wants them to. If only he'd give up. If only he could see that its useless.
She averts her gaze, narrowing on the boy next to her, a cascade of tears falling soundlessly from his face, his head hanging miserably.
"Enough." She tells Eren, her voice echoing. "When will you learn? This is the way its meant to be. You cannot change destiny."
He doesn't respond.
She sits down, her legs crossed. "You may be able to see the future, alter memories, re-start a timeline, but I am the one who manipulates the events."
Still, nothing.
Ymir turns her attention to the Paths again. "By now they should be attempting to kill you. Tell me what to do. Would you like to let your friends win, or fight back?"
Eren's teal eyes glower at her beneath the curtain of hair obscuring his face. "I want... Johanna... to live."
Ymir does not waver. "It is her destiny to die."
"Why?"
"As I have mentioned before, its to restore balance."
"Why do you need balance?"
"As I have mentioned before, its to compensate for a mistake."
"Who's mistake?"
Ymir hesitates. Her lips part, at last, and she utters in her usual dead tone. "Mine."
Its been a countless amount of lifetimes since he entered this place, Paths, and ever since his arrival, where he's been prisoner, he's probably had this conversation with Ymir a million separate times. Each time in hopes of making some headway towards a solution.
"Tell me, what was your mistake." Eren inquires.
"I cannot say."
"Just because you made a mistake, doesn't mean others-- like Johanna-- need to suffer for it. Why is she, of all people, the sacrifice to restore balance?"
"I cannot say."
The chains rattle, screeching as he lunges forward but is held back. He shoots a defeated glance at the magical chains fusing him to the tree. The mysterious tree of light that feeds into the Paths.
Coming to terms with his limitations once again, he sits. If he said he hasn't grown to resent Ymir since his arrival many eons ago, he'd be lying. She's a code thats impossible to crack. He's tried everything within his power.
"Are you ready to give up?"
"Never," Eren says, but he frowns, at the end of his wits. "Let me talk to her."
"Why should I do that? Last time she came here without my summoning. You thought about her constantly, so yearningly, that you brought her here. Simply through the willpower of your thoughts. You defied me."
He clenches his jaw, recalling the satisfaction of that single victory. It was small, but it gave him hope. "I overpowered you somehow."
"Defiance. So why should I reward you after pulling a stunt like that?"
He thinks for a moment. "Because..." He swallows hard, "Because if you do, I'll accept her destiny. I'll let her go. I'll let you have your way."
Ymir's indiscernible expression, as expected, does not change. "You lie, Eren."
"Please!" He begs in frustration, "Just let me talk to her. You know I'll never win, so whats the difference? Please."
She is silent. Thinking.
Eren waits, seeking reason. "Doesn't she at least deserve to know? The reason behind everything that happened?"
Ymir does not reply right away, but she turns up to the Paths again, observing its patterns... observing through a different lens this time.
"This lifetime marks one million lifetimes that you've re-lived. Did you know that?" She says.
Eren tries to process this. He really has been here forever.
"All of them different timelines, with a few changes here and there, but always with the same end result. Do you enjoy seeing her suffer?"
"Of course not!" He snaps at her.
"Then why do you insist? If you know she will always die?"
"I'm hoping something... different will happen. Be honest, am I problem? Is it me? Every lifetime I lived loving her she always died in the end, so this last one, I tried to leave her, I broke her heart, and she still died! Be honest, Ymir, there has to be a solution here! Tell me what it is!" He pleads with her.
She is quiet for longer now. After one more look up at the Paths, and a few intervals of contemplation, she finally stands.
"Perhaps a chat with her will finally make you realize the situation is hopeless."
╳ ╳ ╳
At the fringe of endings, there are beginnings.
Darkness. Followed by light. Light followed by colors, shapes, voices, and everything blurs into nothing once again. The cycle continues. It repeats over. And over. And...
.
.
.
.
Waves. Ocean. Cerulean blue.
Suddenly,
one breath.
I sit up with a gasp, my lungs expanding as I try desperately getting used to this sensation again.
I am a shell. And with every breath I feel myself become whole. I am not only alive and sentient. I am not only ribs and flesh once more. Right now,
I am.
In a scape of endless sand and luminous sky I see only a girl. She is very young, maybe 10 years old. I recognize her immediately.
"Its you." The words escape me, feeble and astounded.
"Johanna," Ymir says, "Follow me."
She turns and starts walking. Where, I have no idea. But I clumsily stand, the act of walking a distant memory, and I follow her.
"Wait," I see the patterns in the sky, "I've been here before. Once. What is this place called?"
"Paths." She says robotically.
Before I can ponder this a sudden thought makes me freeze. I look down at myself. I'm wearing a white gown. Simple. I'm also barefoot.
But how...
The last moments come back to me. The blood... The single echoing voice of my father... the ocean outside the warehouse.
"Ymir..." I run after her, trying to keep up, my voice faint with the realization, "Ymir, am I dead?"
"Yes."
I can't help but stop again. Fragments of my life come back to me in sporadic bursts. There are faces, colors, warmth, trauma, laughter, mirth, grief, embraces... I think of Jean, my father. I think of everyone and everything and a wave of horror washes over me. I feel sick to my stomach. Unknowingly I bring a hand over my mouth as an uncontrollable sob shakes me, squeezing my eyes shut as they well with tears.
Its so hard to believe I've left all of them behind.
Ymir doesn't say a word. She simply takes my hand and leads me.
I'm not sure how long we've been walking. It feels like forever.
"Who are you?" I ask her, sniffling.
She doesn't answer.
"What are you doing here? Are you dead, too?"
Again, no answer.
"Is this heaven? Are you... are you God?"
Nothing.
I finally yank my hand out of her grip and halt, staring at her now with mistrust. "Answer me." I demand through tears. "Why am I here?"
She points ahead, "For him."
I turn at her behest and see a pillar of light in the distance, branching out like a tree. I remember this. I remember...
My heart leaps. I run across the valley towards it.
Sand is kicked up with every step I take. The light grows larger, and at the base, if I squint my eyes just right, I can see the shape of someone kneeling. Dark hair, tan, so familiar...
I slow down, the brightness no longer bothering me. It seems almost too good to be true.
"Eren?" I call out, unsure. I've been misled so many times before, each instance so close to reaching him, only to be cruelly interrupted.
He looks up, "Johanna?" His voice rings out.
I race across the remaining space, running like I might take off flying, like I've been crippled my whole existence and I've known no other wish. I just run, run, run.
A strange, glistening chain cuffs him to the pillar of light. It disintegrates to white dust the closer I get, and I see his chest swell with relief, reaching out for me.
I drop in front of him and lock him in the tightest embrace, half expecting him to slip away like water, like he's not actually here and this is some foul trick. But he is. He's really here. In my arms. Clutching me with equal fervor. Warm, solid, and undoubtedly real.
The second I throw my arms around him I begin to cry. A lifetime's weight is finally released and I can cry happy tears now. Well, somewhat happy.
I'm dead. But at least... he's here with me. At last.
Heavens, how I missed him. I missed his smell, his touch, how my face perfectly fits in the crook of his neck, everything.
"I'm so sorry," his words bury into my hair, unable to let me go. I don't want him to.
I pull back to cup his face, relishing the blue of his eyes like I might forget the shade. And our lips meet in haste, with urgency, caught in a moment of sorrow and passion, yearning for a kiss that never ends. I don't want any more endings. I've had the majority of things in my life, including my life itself, come to tragic ends. I just want forever now.
"Johanna Rose Ackerman,"
Eren and I part, unwillingly so, and turn to see Ymir standing before us now. The mysterious shadow over her face is gone, and I can see her eyes now, but all they are is darkness. Pitch black orbs.
She speaks gently, "It is time you understood your life."
END