"Say, Auruo… do you ever dream?"

In that moment, Auruo considers letting go. He considers dropping the façade, gripping Petra by the shoulders and shaking her until she's disheveled, frightened, scared, because of course he dreams, and why shouldn't he? Dreams; the solace, the blessing of sleep – it's the one thing the titans will never take from him, the one thing that keeps him warm and safe and sane. When he sleeps, Auruo can curl into himself, grip his pillow to him like the lover he doesn't have, feel his heart throbbing slow against his wrists. Sometimes, he needs to remember that it still beats after all this time, a rhythmic defiance of the death he knows far too well.

When his eyes are closed, he can remember the voices of his past brethren, the men he's fought with and for, the comrades he's watched die. He doesn't have to remember when he saw them last, bodies half-chewed, crushed between titan teeth, mashed between cruel titan fingers. He remembers them as they were, how they laughed and played and cried and loved; not their mangled bodies – the horrible indignity of their death.

When he sleeps, Auruo can remember before the titans ever breached the wall, when he still played in the brook behind the house where his family lived. He and his brothers would play for hours, games of cops and robbers, soldiers and titans; back when such things could be joked about, when they didn't leave the taste of iron and salt behind his teeth. He dreams of being fourteen again, his first awkward kiss behind her father's tool shed, knowing with foolish certainty that he would marry Anna and start a family with her. He dreams of a time when continuing his family's line was more important than eliminating the monsters beyond the wall.

He considers telling Petra that sometimes, he dreams about her. He dreams of golden rings and picket fences. He dreams of a little boy and girl with curly copper hair who beg him for piggyback rides when he comes in from the fields. He dreams of tables and tables of food and wine, soft honeymoon sheets, sighs and shudders and whispers. These dreams, he doesn't allow himself often. Hope is a dangerous thing to have in the midst of war – it can drive men to madness. Watching her from the corner of his eye, her gaze trained on the profile of their captain, he knows it's true.

Auruo grunts instead of speaking; gives a non-committal shrug. He reaches a heavy hand to refill his mug with ale.

Petra presses her lips into a thin line. His dismissal stings more than she would care to admit. She banishes all her foolish thoughts of telling him what's been on her mind for weeks, now – the dream she lives every night in the dark. A family, and a home; a life without war. Secret smiles and hands entwined. She still feels his lips against her eyelids when she blinks, a warm, sweet phantom press. She sighs, and drops her chin into her hands, a bitter coiling in her stomach.

Some dreams, perhaps, were not meant to be lived.