Eren isn't (yet) privy to all of Erwin's motivations or goals, but he sure as hell has no room to judge. His own goal had originally been to destroy the titans, but what the hell does that mean now? He's thought before that for titans to disappear from the world, he would have to disappear as well. He knows that to be true now, and wonders if he knew it anyway on some subconscious level. Even Eren can't be sure what Eren knows. No one should hold so much knowledge and memory, certainly not someone so young and already traumatised by the world and its horrors.

Yes. If that is what it takes, Erwin says. Eren chews on his bottom lip. How much can he say and when? He knows the ending but the pieces are out of order, full of holes.

The Colossal Titan in the harbour of Liberio.

A blond man on a stage (which man? which stage?), death and pain and declarations of war.

An army that will follow Erwin Smith to the end of world.

He manages a nod, absently running fingers through the horse's mane as she pushes him for more treats.

"It's hard to separate it all out," Eren says, which is both an agreement and an admission, though a sideways one. A lot of things he says to people lately seem to be like that, truth mixed with obfuscation. He hasn't really gotten to outright lying but he'll have to someday.

"You get used to it, though." The death, he means. The idea that you actually ate someone else. Eren's situation is so, so different. He will never tell anyone that truth. Zeke will see it, but Zeke's timer will run out before Eren's does. No matter how this goes, that will always be true. Whether he outlives Zeke by minutes or hours or years, he will definitely outlive him.

"Sometimes you have to do awful things in order to not die."

As if Erwin, already thought of as a devil by people on their own island, is unaware of that.

"Like becoming a monster," he says, barely more than a whisper.