dreamsofwings | open post;

It's strange.

Of course he had briefly considered the possibility that, in trusting the serum to Levi, he would end up the recipient. As a matter of convenience or resources available during any given situation, it seemed just as likely that he wouldn't. He hadn't given it much thought since then, as there was no point in ruminating on something so unpredictable.

By the same token, Erwin never had any delusions regarding his chances of survival for the mission to Shiganshina - he had only hoped to live long enough to learn the secrets locked away. His final gamble, unwilling to simply wait and hope for favorable results, this one, vital thing he could not be absent for the moment of revelation. For the full validation of everything he believed, the redemption of his father - he needed to see it in that critical, historic moment.

He had awoken instead from a visceral nightmare atop the wall reclaimed, his right arm regenerated and a profound sense of change - not only within himself, but in all the others, as though the world itself had shifted.

And indeed, it had.

It's been a week since then. A week since the truth of the world revealed to him. A week of this new reality to soak its way into every corner of his mind, every inch of his being. Already he has read the journals a dozen times, written pages of notes, his body revitalized and whole once again, almost completely unaware of the way the others glance at him in worry and concern to see his full, obsessive focus on full display for all.

Erwin hasn't forgotten them. The devastating loss weighs heavily on them all, the silence of the too-empty halls eerie and solemn like a tomb. They make time for their memorial ceremony, their small number gathered around a fire for the long minutes that it takes him to recite the names of the fallen, each carefully formed on his lips. There is only the slightest fraction of a longer pause in the wake of Armin Arlert.

But especially after being reduced to a drastic few, there is much work to be done and little time for grief. Their understanding of the world may have shifted irreversibly, but that part still hasn't changed. There are reports to write, recruitment efforts to begin, strategies to prepare. Since his own change, his body seems to tire less easily, causing Levi to chase him to bed almost every night, though it does little to shake his restless energy. There hasn't been time to try a second transformation on his own.

Secretly, he is hesitant.

That afternoon, he finds Eren himself - with only a handful of them left, Erwin especially feels that he should try to keep them all close together as possible. They will need one another in the coming weeks more than ever before, and the turmoil that's followed as a consequence of the choice made on the rooftop is unlikely to disperse on its own. But more importantly, it has been far too long since Erwin has had the opportunity to sit with him personally.

He invites Eren to walk with him to the horse paddock, hoping that the fresh air and open sky will be a more relaxed setting than the enclosed and formal setting of his office. The absence extends here too, but maybe it is a little less noticeable than long stretches of empty hallways. Erwin sets an unhurried pace along the path.

"I apologize, Eren. We have counted on you a great deal in these past several months, but I haven't given you much of my time." There has been much going on, and he entrusted Eren's care to Levi, but even so, it felt an oversight.

Erwin looks over at him then, giving him a measured gaze as he tries to gauge his mood. Is Eren angry with him? Resentful? Erwin wouldn't blame him, regardless.

"I'd like to thank you again for all of your efforts. None of this would have been possible without you, and we...no, I, have put you through a great deal of hardship to make it happen. You will always have my gratitude, for helping us reach this point."

He pauses then, letting the sentiment settle before continuing.

"How are you feeling?"

Originally, Eren couldn't decide who to resent. Erwin, for living. Levi, for refusing to listen to the choice Eren wanted him to make. Armin, for fucking dying on him. Himself, for not realising. Reiner and Bertolt — well, fine, he does resent them, and that Beast titan, and Annie, and all of Marley, the "country" (whatever that is) across the sea that wants to kill them all.

Maybe all of the above. There's enough room inside Eren's heart to resent the entire world.

And then he'd had the veil lifted. Something sparked by Historia, the truth of the world and its (lack of) future.

It could never have been Armin. He wasn't there in the bizarre twisted mess of memory, the end of the war they hadn't known they were fighting, the end of the world itself. It was always Erwin.

Years from now, Eren will look through years and memory and tell his younger self to save Armin. If he could save Armin, maybe the future would somehow change. Maybe there would be another path. Maybe someone would have another answer.

There are so, so many things he still can't see. But he knows with a certainty that makes him sick that it has to be Erwin.

Maybe this is the last catalyst, the thing that breaks him. He couldn't save his mom. He couldn't save his best friend. He couldn't save Levi's squad.

He won't lose the rest of them, not now. If every other living thing on this nightmare planet has to die so they can live, then that's just how it has to be. He'll take Reiner's advice and keep moving forward no matter what. He'll take Levi's advice and rely on his own power.

He's surprised by Erwin's invitation. It could be an order, he guesses, but it doesn't feel like one. Anyway, they're all fooling themselves now if they think Eren will ever blindly follow orders again.

They walk a little.

Eren shrugs.

"I'm just a soldier," he says, "and you're the commander. I don’t expect you to come talk to me personally most of the time."

Eren is nothing if not unfair.

Erwin's gratitude and the people inside the walls' wrath and a hole in his heart, a chasm that has only grown since the day his mother died. Is that what he has?

He shrugs again, showing the lingering bits of moody teenager still left in him in these months — years? weeks? — before he crushes them into bland aloofness.

"I don’t know," he says. "I wanted to save humanity. But humanity...doesn't really deserve it. There's a world out there that wants to watch us all die. How am I supposed to feel?"

That's largely rhetorical. Two weeks ago he wouldn't have mouthed off even this much to Erwin. Then the whole world got turned on its head and who the hell cares about hierarchy and the chain of command?

Eren — and Erwin, now — faces a death sentence they cannot escape. People like them all die in thirteen years. What do you do with that?

If you're Eren, you begin to self-destruct.

"Are we gonna fight them?" he asks, changing the subject.

"You have been a critical part of our missions since the day you joined us, Eren. I would be remiss to not at least acknowledge your efforts and hardships directly to you." Erwin flexes his right hand at his side.

"Especially now."

Now that he has some idea of how it must feel to carry such a power within. There are still many factors that separate them, of course - experience, age, outlook - that Erwin would never claim to understand what all of this has been like for Eren. They've put an immense amount of pressure on him because of his abilities, which have made him an object around which constant conflict has orbited ever since. Erwin has done everything in his power, including deposing a false king, to be able to utilize those abilities for himself. For Humanity, he'd always said, and while it hadn't been an outright lie, it also hadn't been the full truth.

Now he has the truth, and it's staggering.

Humanity doesn't really deserve it, Eren says, and Erwin turns the words over in his mind. Humanity isn't in danger; it never was. He had, of course, considered the possibility that that was true. If his father's guess proved correct, which Erwin had long ago adopted as the most likely truth, then it was a likely scenario that inside these walls was not the last bastion of the human race. But making the suggestion would always have been detrimental to his more immediate goals.

In the short term, little has changed. Erwin has already begun formulating plans to survey the rest of the island (ironic, really, that had they been able to wipe out the titans and make the territory beyond the walls safe, they would only have come up against another, even more significant barrier). Eliminating the remaining titans and finding Marley's access point was the top priority, but there was already still so much out there to explore in their immediate vicinity. New resources to find, new landscapes to see. The thoughts are intoxicating.

But it's clear that Eren's focus is further afield, narrower. Humanity doesn't need to be saved, so the question of whether it deserves it isn't important, as far as Erwin is concerned. However, the people they've always fought their battles for are still under threat, and one that is unlikely to ignore them forever, after all of the efforts they've already made.

"I would say whatever you currently feel is what you are 'supposed' to feel, and that I am the last person who should dictate what anyone's emotions should be."

Perhaps it is a little more open than he might have been with any of his soldiers outside the closest circle once, but with so few of them left, and especially in this moment with Eren, it feels like the best approach.

They approach the gate of the paddock. Most of the horses are far flung, grazing leisurely without any knowledge of what has become of the rest of their herd, or of the dangers beyond the walls and beyond the sea.

To Eren's question, Erwin nods, unsurprised. "Yes. Humanity itself may not be in danger, but the people of this island are, and it is their futures we must defend."

His gaze travels back to the young man. "And now especially that we have the truth and two formidable titans at our disposal, I don't imagine that Marley will leave us be."

Eren had never thought there would be people outside the wall (he might have made sure he never thought this, but who knows; there's a lot he took from his younger self that Eren right now is still unaware of). The way he thought before now was so…simple, or it seems it now. Kill the titans. Save humanity. Go see if the ocean is real.

They haven't reached it just yet, but the ocean is sure to be real. He knows. He's seen it, even if the others haven't yet. And across that ocean is the rest of the world, full of millions of people, most of whom have been taught to hate the inhabitants of Paradis for the unforgivable sin of their bloodline.

They're not the only ones who can hate.

Nothing on the island seems interesting now that there's a world beyond it. Does the outside seem interesting? Maybe. But it also seems like a trap, something that will ensnare them at every turn.

He turns it over in his mind. What happens if he tells Erwin the future? Is he meant to do that? Is he not? Erwin won't sentence him to death, he thinks, at least not right away. It's not like the Commander is free of thoughts of violence, but he doesn't know him as a person well enough to know how far he'd be willing to take it.

Maybe just parts of it, slowly. There will be a line, he thinks, that Erwin won't cross. He has to figure out where it is and stay behind it, or pretend to, or…

Fuck, this is a mess. He wishes again that Armin was here to sort it out. He's not smart like Armin is. He's just angry and desperate, like he's always been, though he feels less helpless than he once did.

He rests a hand on the gate but doesn't open it yet.

"Technically don’t we have three?" He asks. "When we can figure out how to use the Founder, we have three." Not if but when.

He shakes his head. His jaw tightens a little, his hand clenched on the gate.

"They won't. They're going to come back. They won't stop until we're all dead, or…"

Deep breath, Eren.

"Or they all are."

He doesn't dare to look sideways at Erwin, but it's a start.

"Yes, three are in our possession." Erwin doesn't refute that they will unlock the power of the Founder. It's something he thinks about constantly, given that it is likely still Marley's goal to retrieve it somehow. "But in terms of physicality, we are working with two."

There's no way to know how quickly they may face retaliation for this latest victory. They will likely have escaped back to Marley, to regroup and strategize. How often did boats come, he wonders? Was there a pre-arranged rendezvous interval? How long did it take them to make the trip from the nearest point? Without any ideas or hints about these answers, it's difficult to know how soon to expect another attack - which is why finding the touchpoint on the island as quickly as possible is his top priority.

Erwin hasn't shifted his focus from Eren, silently taking in the details of his posture, the tension tight in his arm as he grips the gate. For a moment, Erwin thinks of himself at fifteen, wonders if he wouldn't have completely shattered under the weight of such power and expectations. Naturally, he'd like to think not. But if enough people had tried to steer him toward a different goal, who's to say he wouldn't have gone off on his own? Levi and Mikasa notwithstanding, it's still remarkable that Eren has been as compliant as he has been, thus far. Luckily their goals have aligned.

But that could change.

"I would like to avoid either scenario, if possible." It's perhaps a diplomatic answer, but Erwin notably doesn't refute it outright. Although that may have more to do with the fact that eradicating an entire group of people that likely far outnumber the whole population of their island is an unfeasible goal, as far as he's concerned.

"Even if we are a people in exile, this is still our home to defend. If Marley insists on continued aggression, we will respond in kind." If they prove that they can defend Paradis well enough, maybe Marley will be more open to diplomatic discussions.

One of the horses has noticed their presence, and comes trotting up to the fence, whickering a greeting and waiting expectantly - possibly for a good rub on the nose, or a treat from a pocket. Erwin retrieves two halves of a dried apple and hands one to Eren before stepping up to feed the other to the animal, rubbing fondly between her ears.

Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.

YESSS also pls excuse this entire novel orz

Novel it UP live your BEST life

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Hunger Games AU

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Armin - reincarnation AU

Hunger Games AU - after the reaping

1/2

2/2

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eremin turbohell ending 🤗

:')))))

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levi - the au where eren doesn't defect

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