I was dizzied with bewilderment and overwhelmed by fatigue. The heavy heaps that I felt on my shoulder blades, weighting them down in a way that had forced me to slump forward, had been wings. Angel wings. I was an angel.

"Eren," Historia spoke gently. Her voice had pulled me out of my stupor. I looked up, unsure of when I had lowered my head in the first place, and met her soft gaze. "You should get some rest. Although your mind may be registered for early morning, much like your time of death, the essence of time itself does not exist in this world. We sleep when weakened, and arise when replenished."

That made enough sense, but still, I had to ask, "Is there any special way that, you know..." Even though I hadn't stated the question yet, I could already sense Jean's judgement. It was practically radiating off of him. "Is there any special way that angels are supposed to sleep?"

"Hah!" I had called it. I had totally called it.

Historia had had it with him, and in a fit of huffy disapproval, she tugged at my arms and pulled me away from his hold. "You're done," she said, doing her best to sound stern. "I'm taking full custody of Eren."

Instead of looking disappointed, which, really, why would he have looked disappointed, Jean merely stuck up his nose and emitted a boastful aura. "Is that so? And just who is going to teach him how to fly? You? Don't make me laugh again. You know that I'm a better flyer than you are."

Since when had Jean and Historia become such rivals? All it had been was back and forth arguments, since the second I had been reborn. It was starting to make me agitated.

"For just one second," I breathed, my voice picking up in volume as my words progressed, "just a second, could the both of you shut up? Just, like, shut up? I mean, oh my God, all I did was ask a stupid question, and yeah, it was probably stupid, but now it's turned into a battle over what? Who gets custody of me? I'm not a child, and this is getting annoying." I turned to Jean. "You, stop being a jerk." I turned to Historia. "And you, although I appreciate what you're trying to do, I don't need you sticking up for me like some wimpy kid on the playground. Just answer my question so that I can go to sleep."

I knew that my outburst would stir up some emotions, but I hadn't expected the reactions that I received. Jean, probably for the only time in his life, was at a loss of words, and Historia, sucking on her lip and lowering her eyes, looked as if she were about to cry.

"I, uh..."

"No, you're right," Historia interjected. "You're absolutely right. Jean and I, we've been nothing but disconcerting this whole time."

"No, that's not it," I tried. I didn't want her to think that she'd been totally useless. After all, she and Jean had both given me a pretty good background of why I was where I was, and what I had to do to determine my future in this body.

Jean spoke up, this time. "Nah, Eren, you're right. We've been pretty crappy to you. Well, me, I've been pretty crappy to you." He snickered, and I could only assume that he was reflecting on something of the past. "You know, you've changed. You're not like you were back then. You've still got that stupid-I mean, you still look the same, it's just, I guess now that we've lived through a myriad of different lives, things are...different."

Of course things were different. Humanity had regained its freedom. Walls no longer caged us like cattle. Wars amongst humans had resumed. Food, although an issue in some underdeveloped nations, was readily available with just a simple trip the supermarket. It was overwhelming, but it was perfect. However, it was the life that I no longer lived.

My decision was final, as I extended my hand out for Jean to take. "Let's call a truce." It was an offer that he could refuse, but somehow I knew that he wouldn't. "Let's keep the past in the past."

It was funny how, even after his lengthy speech about change and difference, he still hesitated to shake my hand. Fitting it into his own, he shook it, nodded, and said, "The past is the past."

I could hear Historia breathe a sigh of relief from behind. "Thank God." The air of her voice told me that she was smiling. "Now that all of this is settled, Eren, you had a question about sleeping?"

It was a shame. Now that I was about to get an answer, I wasn't feeling all that tired anymore. I nodded, thinking it best to repeat myself. "Yeah, I did," I said, turning on my heel to face her. "I wanted to know if it was the same as how humans sleep. I'm only used to that way, you know?"

Historia nodded, and Jean made a sound of agreement. "It's a bit different, I have to admit," she affirmed. "And it's pretty hard to put into words, so I should probably just show you."

I couldn't object to that. After all, I found that visual learning was a lot more effective, at least in my case, rather than oral or verbal.

Historia took one, two, three, small steps backward. Her demeanor was majestic, divine even, but I didn't expect any less from an archangel. It was a faulty on my part, but I hadn't even noticed Historia's wings until she had spread them. They were rounded, I saw, more so than I would have imagined. Their symmetrical nature gave them the appearance of two halves of a whole heart. It was befitting, definitely befitting for someone like Historia.

"First, you should open your wings up like this," she instructed, flapping her own gently to accentuate her point. "Then, you go like this." Her wings flared, sending out a cascade of feathers, before reaching forward. From what I could tell, they served as some sort of a makeshift shelter housing.

"Is that it?" I asked, wondering if such a thing could seriously be so simple.

"Yup!" she cheerfully responded. "It's the most comfortable way for us to sleep. Usually, from here on out, most angels either curl up into the fetal position, or sleep with their legs crossed."

"What would happen if an angel slept on their back?"

"One word," Jean spoke up. "Ow."

"What, really?" Hearing such a thing made me feel uneasy. "Why?"

"Serious wing irritation," he explained. "We've had newborn angels awake us in the middle of our resting period, screaming at the top of their lungs, because of cases of severe irritation. Trust me, just don't do it."

"I won't, I won't," I promised, "but that's really weird. Why does it happen?"

"Angel wings, especially for newborns, are terribly sensitive, Eren," Historia took over. "Now that your wings have been cleaned, you're feeling it, aren't you? The tender sting from having your feathers ruffled about so roughly?"

I hadn't realized it, but now that she had brought such a thing to my attention, she was right. My wings did feel kind of sore. I tried rolling my shoulders to ease the pain, but it didn't help much. If anything, it only made the discomfort of them all the more apparent.

"Luckily, wings don't have to be groomed very often," Historia added kindly. "Preferably, cleaning your feathers once a week is a good standard, but it's based entirely on how dirty they get." She chuckled a bit. "You know, when Jean was just a newborn, he needed to have his wings preened every single day."

"What?! That's not true!" Jean shouted in his defense.

"Come on, don't deny it," she giggled. "You weren't always the spectacular flyer that you make yourself out to be. Every day, it was up in the air and straight down to the ground with you."

Huffing, Jean crossed his arms over his chest and turned away. "Yeah, okay, whatever. Enough is enough, though. Eren, spread your wings and get some sleep. You're going to need it, if I'm going to be your flying instructor."

I didn't feel intimidated in the slightest, but maybe I should have. Who knows? Jean's teaching style could have been insane and I just didn't know it yet. Whatever the case, I was becoming rapidly reacquainted with my prior fatigue.

Just like it was hard to move an arm or a leg that had fallen asleep, I found it rather difficult to move my wings. I obviously knew that they were there, I just didn't know how to move them on command. Jean had pinched me, and that had caused them to open the first time, but they had long closed up since then.

"Uh..."

"Oh, Eren, um..." Historia smiled at me. She looked apologetic. "You're probably not used to the idea of having wings yet."

"Probably not, yeah," I agreed.

"I've got an analogy," Jean chuckled, jabbing me in my lower back. "You know those people who say that super long fingernails are like an extension of their fingers?" I nodded. "Well, think of your wings as an extension of your shoulders. Expand your mental image of your body and elongate your subconscious."

"Elongate my subconscious," I repeated, turning the idea over in my head. It may have sounded like an easy enough task, but it wasn't. My shoulders, no matter how much focus I placed into them, would not extend.

"Yeesh, if you can't even open your wings," Jean sighed, "you're going to have a field day trying to fly."

I scoffed, angered by the fact that he was attempting to undermine me. Who would have thought that the very anger that bubbled in my core would have proved to be just the push that I needed to spread my wings? I didn't, and neither did Historia or Jean. But there they were, opened wide and far too large for me to handle. I stumbled forward.

"Whoa, whoa, watch it there," Jean said cautiously. He stuck out his hands, and assuming that they were for me, I took them for support. "You got them open, and that's great, but you need to steady yourself. We'll practice all of this later. For now-"

"Sleep, I know," I interrupted with a yawn. "I can handle myself from here. Thank you for all of your help, but I'm good. You two, go off and do whatever it is that you do. I'm going to huddle up into my little wing-tent now."

Jean snorted, and Historia laughed lightly.

"Enjoy your rest, Eren," Historia smiled, placing her right hand onto my forearm gently.

"Yeah, rest up, trainee," Jean snickered. "God, I've waited forever to say that to someone like you."

"I'm sure you have," I sighed, whilst rolling my eyes. I had been pulling on the edges of my wings as if they were stage curtains.

"We'll come back for you, once you've awoken," Historia informed. She stepped beside Jean, who, in turn, stepped next to her.

"Nighty nighty, Eren," Jean breathed in a taunt, and before I could even fabricate a witty comeback to utter in response, he and Historia had taken flight. For Jean's sake, I hated to admit it, but it was the single, most graceful sight I had ever seen. It even drove me far enough to think, 'Crap. I want to be able to fly like that.'

I tucked myself into my feathers, relishing in the incubated warmth and comfort that they provided. Maybe living with these gigantic things wouldn't be so bad, especially if I got to sleep with this much security each and every time. I mean, sure, they were super heavy, and yeah, my shoulders were killing me, but they were cool enough to make up for it. And being able to fly with them, a dream that I've had ever since the very first time I had strapped myself up with Three-Dimensional Maneuver Gear way back when, yeah, that was pretty cool, too.

"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty. Time to train those titanic wings of yours."

I groaned and pulled my knees closer to my chest, as if such a motion would make Jean go away. It didn't.

"Wow, really? I thought the word 'titanic' would have sparked something in you," he laughed. "You know, like 'Titan'?"

"Haha," I laughed monotonously. "Very funny."

Jean was still laughing, as he pulled one of my wings back. It was just enough for him to get a better view of me from inside of them. "Seriously, though. Get up."

I snapped my wings shut on him, which only enticed him to laugh all the harder.

"Hey, good job!" Jean said with praise. "Look's like you're getting the hang of controlling your wings on your own. That's good. Really good, actually. We can totally skip that part of your training now, and move right to the important stuff, which, you know, is flying."

What Jean had thought would spark my interest hadn't, but the idea of flying had. Parting my wings just enough to peek through the small gap that they had created, I looked up at him curiously. He was staring back down at me with a playful smirk.

"And a good morning to you," he teased.

"I thought time didn't exist in this place," was my counter.

"You're right, it doesn't. I was trying to make you feel at home."

Still unwilling to stand, I asked, "How long have I been asleep for? Answer me in terms that I would understand, please."

"Terms that you would understand, huh?" Jean repeated thoughtfully. "I guess, you slept for the Earthly equivalent of three days."

"Three days?!" I gasped. Immediately, my wings had spread wide open and I was up on my feet. My balance, somehow, had improved considerably, but the lopsided nature of my wings had caused me to waver. Still, I was able to catch myself, before Jean had to.

"Great, you're up," he spoke, in a rather congratulatory manner. He gave me a firm pat on my shoulder. "Ready to get started?"

"Yeah, but wait a second," I said. "Where's Historia."

"Duty calls," he sighed, and shrugged his shoulders. "Another angel was born."

"Does that happen a lot? Like, angels being born and all that stuff?"

"Typically, no," he answered, "but I guess this is just one of those rare occurrences, you know? Usually, one angel is born for every Earthly week. This gives us enough time to dedicate ourselves to one angel alone, working with them until they're mature enough to carry out their purpose. Like you, most angels usually spend a few days sleeping after they're born, so that gives us about, hmm, three to four days of flight training?"

"Was the angel someone that you know?" I wondered. "That I know?"

"Nah, it was some woman who had lived in Argentina. She told Historia that her last life experience had ended due to a terminal illness. Lung cancer, I think she said it was."

"That's rough," I mumbled.

"Yeah, and so is getting hit by a car, man! Now come on. Buckle up and get ready. We're taking flight."

Before I could say anything else, Jean was already airborne. "Wh-whoa!" I shouted, watching him as he flew on ahead. "Hey, wait! Wait for me!"

"Not a chance, Eren!" he called from above. "First lesson, you've gotta try and catch me!"

Catch him? How was that even possible? He was all the way up in the air, and I obviously didn't know how to fly yet. Regardless of that factor, I had to think fast. Maybe I could start off on foot and go from there? Yeah, that sounded like a good enough plan.

It wasn't until I had started running after Jean that I realized I had been wearing clothes. Well, they weren't exactly like the clothes that I was used to. They were light in color and soft in texture. Not only that, but they were loosely fitted, which definitely gave me an upper hand in running speed. My quick pace was short lived, because, oh yeah, that's right, I still had two, ginormous wings on my back.

Jean came down from his heightened flight, when I face-planted into the ground. "What's the matter, Eren? Was that lesson too hard for you? Maybe we should start with the lessons that I teach to our angel toddlers."

I tried to talk, but my mouth was full of...salt? Actually, I wasn't sure what it was full of. Whatever it was, though, all I could say was that the ground wasn't made of dirt. It tasted salty. Gross.

"Okay, okay, maybe that was a little harsh," Jean sighed. "Here, let me help you-"

"I can get up on my own," I huffed, after I had spit. But could I actually and honestly do that? Get up on my own? No, I couldn't. Jean helped me.

"Alright," he said, stationing me back onto my feet. "I'm going to be honest with you. If you had been able to start flying and had been able to catch me with no instruction at all, we would have deemed you, like, some sort of flying prodigy."

"What the Hell!" I was visibly frustrated. Because of Jean, my pretty clothes had been ruined. Just because the ground didn't look like dirt, didn't taste like dirt, it still messed up clothing like dirt.

"I'm sorry!" Jean shot back in his defense. "It's something that I do to everyone! I'm not just singling you out because I feel like it. Although, I have to admit-"

"Don't."

"Right, okay."

He took a step back and flexed his shoulders. "First lesson, the real first lesson, isn't actually a lesson at all."

"...What?" No, really, what?

"Calm down," he breathed, "it's nothing complicated. It's just a question."

"Oh, okay," I nodded. A question. That was simple enough. I could handle a question, right? "What's the question?"

"Have you ever seen a bird fly?"

My answer was almost immediate. "Well, yeah. Of course I have."

"Good," Jean said. "I would have been severely concerned, if you hadn't." I'm not sure why, but he began to pace. I guess he wanted to seem more serious, teacherly, or something along those lines. "Now, explain to me how a bird flies."

"Huh? Wait, I can't...I don't know the answer to that."

"Sure you do." He seemed almost positive in his response. "Now start explaining."

I bit my lip and racked my brain for an answer. How do birds fly? How do birds fly? They fly on instinct, right? Doesn't the mother bird push them out of the nest, or something like that? Isn't it a sort of do-or-die kind of thing? Maybe my answer was right. I wasn't confident in it, but I said it anyway. "Isn't it because of instinct?"

"Partially. Explain your thought process to me." Geez, he was persistent. Almost like a real teacher.

"Well, alright," I began, relaying my thoughts to him. "Doesn't the mother bird force her baby birds to fly? She shoves them out of the nest, right? If they don't fly, they're useless, and if they do fly, they live?"

"Pretty good," he nodded, "but do you know the mechanics of flight."

"Yeah, no. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not a bird."

"Sure you do," he said once again. "You're close enough to one, right?"

"Right...?" Why was it that the more that I learned, the more confused I became?

He shook his head and expelled a breathy sigh. I could tell that he was getting frustrated. Whether it was at himself or at me, I didn't know. "Look, what I'm trying to say is that every angel is born knowing how to fly. It's kind of like how all babies know how to swim."

"Babies know how to swim?" This was news to me.

"We're moving on."

"Aye, aye."

Jean moved to stand behind me. "Open your wings," he instructed, and I complied. It felt good being in control of something that was now a part of me forever. Kind of like a piercing, or a tattoo. Actually, scratch that. This was nothing like a piercing or a tattoo. "Good. Flap them."

"Flap them?" I asked, hesitance lingering in my voice.

"Yes, flap them. You know, like a bird? A butterfly? Like any other creature that has wings?"

I guess it couldn't be too hard, right? I mean, I knew how to move my wings now, and I had seen Historia do it before, so naturally, I should have been able to flap them.

Concentrating all of my focus onto my wings, I inhaled a deep breath and lurched them forward. Suddenly, my body was propelled backward, directly into Jean's arms. Had he seriously been anticipating that this would happen?

"I knew something like this would happen," he chuckled. Well, there was my answer. "You're wings are huge, so of course they've got power to them. Not only that, but you started off completely wrong."

It was embarrassing. Having all of the knowledge of a teenager, but possessing the skill sets of an infant, it was really, truly embarrassing. "Can't you show me through a visual demonstration?" I groaned. "You know, like Historia did?"

"Actually," Jean said, "that is exactly what I was planning on doing next."

"So, what was the purpose of what I just did right now?" I asked.

"There wasn't one," he admitted. "I wanted to watch you mess up again."

"What ever happened to that truce we made?!" I shouted. "You know, the one where you said you would stop acting like a jerk to me?"

"That was regular Jean's truce," he grinned. "Right now, I'm teacher Jean."

"Ugh, whatever." I was so mad. "Be a teacher, then, and teach me how to fly!"

I didn't know why, but Jean's eyebrow arched as he gave me a once over. "Actually," he said, "it doesn't look like I have to."

"What do you mean?" I was so annoyed, and seriously growing tired of asking so many questions.

"Look at yourself," he stated, offering out his hand as a gesture. "You're already flying."

Somehow, through my fit of frustration, I hadn't even realized that my feet had left the ground. Neither that, nor the fact that my wings had started moving back and forth in a quick, rhythmic pattern all on their own. Why was it that the moment such a thing had been brought to my attention, my wings had snapped shut and I was on the ground again?

"See? I told you that you already knew how to do it," Jean said approvingly. "It's just gotta be a natural thing. You can't force it, it just happens. I mean, I guess I kind of pried it out of you, by getting your temper up. It's pretty cool, though, how anger makes you learn faster."

I tuned Jean out. I was far too fascinated by my own accomplishment to even process what he was saying. Oh my God, had I actually done it? Just a second ago, I was really flying. No gears or wires were holding me up. It was all me. All of it. Just me.

"Um, Eren?" I guess I must have been spaced out for too long, because Jean had decided to wave a hand in front of my face.

"Let's fly," I said, speaking eagerly and quickly.

"Huh? What?"

"Jean, come on!" I coaxed, unable to cleanse myself of my giddiness and overjoyed feeling of satisfaction. "Let's fly!"

Before he knew it, and even before I knew it, I had grabbed his arm and had pulled him up into the air with me. He was capable of flying on his own, so he shrugged himself free from my grasp.

"You're really excited, aren't you?" he smirked.

"Hell yeah! This is so cool! I can't believe I'm doing this!"

His smirk became something more genuine, but even that was gone before I could comment on it. "Oh yeah? Well, you know what?"

"What?"

"You and me," he used his thumb to gesture at the both of us, "let's have a race."

Narrowing my eyes, I nodded. I was always up for a good competition. "You're on."

We had taken off without a moment's notice. There was no countdown, just flocks of feathers left in our tracks.

To avoid collision, I assumed, Jean flew from below, and it had become an unspoken agreement that I would fly from above. We hadn't set a goal, nor did I know where I was going, but the rush of warm air that blew across my face and tousled my feathers was so amazing that I didn't even care.

That ecstatic feeling was only until I had completely blacked out.

"You're going to be okay! Damnit, Eren! You're going to make it out of this mess alive, do you hear me?!"

Jean told me, after the fact, after I had come to, that it looked as if I had been knocked unconscious. He said I hadn't crashed into anything, because really, there wasn't anything around to crash into. He asked me what had happened, what was wrong. My response must have made no sense.

"I need to find him."

"What?" he asked. His eyebrows were knit together with unmistakeable confusion. "What are you-?"

"I need to find him," I repeated. My tone sounded nearly robotic.

"Find who, Eren?" Jean persisted to ask. "Find who?"

I shook my head. I shook it again, and again, and again, until it started to hurt. "I-I don't know," I responded. "I don't know, I don't, I-"

"Eren, what are you saying? Look at me and answer me properly."

I looked at him, and I answered him properly. "I don't know who I'm looking for, Jean," I said, and that was the honest truth. I swallowed roughly. "But somehow, I know exactly where he is."

Hello there! Chappy here! :D

Wow, this chapter was not only a behemoth to write, but a behemoth to proofread and edit, too. It's 4,300+ words. That is a huge accomplish for me, oh my gosh. I honestly don't know if all of the chapters to come will be of the same length, but wow, just wow.

Anywho, thank you very much for taking the time to read! I hope you've enjoyed!

- Chappy