He stares at the suit of armor nestled in the corner, with its thin hard lines, glimmering faintly in the half-light of dawn, a touch of yellow in a swath of grey. Washed out. Washed away in the brine which taints the air and stings his eyes.
It is a familiar dream he will never reach, close enough to smell and taste, but never to touch, this set of armor. This armor is the last battle, the hardest, the heaviest, the heaviest. He wonders if this is how Atlas felt, with the world on his shoulders, only Griffith is a thinly-veiled mockery of a God, painted now in shades of bleeding gray, not white. Never white. Never again.
The flap of his tent opens, and he is momentarily engulfed in the shadow of Guts, silvered in the early morning dawn. He almost laughs at the irony of it; he's not used to being beneath another's shadow.
But things have changed.
He is lifted into a sitting position, cradled in the crook of Guts' shoulder, as a child would hold a doll. Guts has the gall to handle him gently, because he is broken now; so sad, so sorry, so worried, so sorry, so sorry, sorry. Griffith knows Guts would mend him together if he could, piece by ruined piece, as one would piece together the plates of armor. The armor he'll never fit into again.
It sits in the corner of the tent, with the sunlight casting tinny golden rays on its polished surface. He'll never fit into it again. What was once a guard is now a cage, shaped like the man he once was, the one who slid into this armor as a second skin, because that was the role he was born into. This armor marks the line between when I was and now I am. A line so thin it can swallow him whole and never spit his bloodied remains out again.
Guts releases a warm breath against his neck, too familiar, too much, stirring the fine hairs on his naked skin. It's soft and affectionate and it has the power to destroy him, all over again. A power Guts has always possessed but never used. Griffith doubts it will remain that way.
For now, they stare at the armor in the corner, the final, hopeless battle. They fight anyway.