DREAMS OF WATER AND SKY
written by A. E. Stover
this version not edited
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Eren sat on the ground.
He heard Hanji barking orders and Moblit repeating instructions, their voices disturbing the small pockets of grim silence that persisted in the forest clearing like a heavy fog.
Eren leaned his back against the thick trunk of a tree, his gaze remaining on what remained of his squad. Ilana lay motionless in front of him. So did Richard, with his chewed-off leg, and Zamir, whose uniform was drenched in his own blood.
One of Hanji's squad members, Kain, came by Eren with a white sheet, his face impossibly stoic as he gently draped the sheet over Richard's unmoving form.
Eren stared at the outline of Richard's body as it appeared against the white sheet.
More soldiers appeared; two from Moblit's squad came forward to take Ilana and three more came to carry Zamir a few meters away where Yoshua had just finished amputating his friend's arm.
Analise was nowhere to be seen.
Eren didn't know what he would say to her uncle.
All around them lay steaming limbs and crumbling slivers of bone. The air stank of blood and festering titan flesh. Eren's own titan body was left dissolving away at the bottom of the cliff, where he'd struck down the last titan before being cut out by Moblit.
He'd stayed knocked out for twenty minutes or so, and had woken up beside a heavily injured Terrance Gestalt, one of the soldiers on Jean's squad who had gotten separated in a titan rush hours ago. Eren wondered if Jean was out blaming himself for Terrance's disappearance. At least there would be a happy end at the closing of their mission.
If they all survived that long, that is.
A figure came to stand before him, fishing him out his cynical thoughts and tossing him back to the forest floor where Richard lay dead an arm's reach in front of him. Eren stared at Richard a bit longer before looking up to see who it was.
It's Nila Baptiste, one of Mikasa's soldiers Erwin had placed temporarily on his team while Mikasa was temporarily re-assigned to Levi's Special Operations squad with Armin and Sasha. Her hair was tied back with a makeshift bandana fashioned out of a strip of someone else's cloak. Her face was spotted with dirt and blood, and the haggard expression she wore seemed to drag her whole body down along with her face.
"Ça va?"
Eren looked down at Richard again. "I'll be fine."
Nila stood as she was for a few more seconds before plopping down in front of him. She stared blankly at him, her slouching shoulders and drooping eyelids reminding him that Nila isn't blank-faced out of contempt or judgment or fear, but out of pure exhaustion.
"Do you always have to be cut out?" she asked suddenly.
Eren spared her a glance. The blank face is still there, but he saw a glint of curiosity in her eyes. There's also hesitance he sees, enough to know that she may be regretting her choice of a conversation starter.
He was appreciative of the offer of distraction, however, and decided to humor her.
"Not always. It depends on my condition."
Nila nodded thoughtfully. "Do you remember what you do?"
Eren gave a wry smile. "Again, it depends." He paused. "Did I do something I should know about?"
Nila pursed her lips for a moment. "I... I think so? You tried to bite off the throat of one of the titans."
Eren raised an eyebrow. That wasn't normal behavior. Then again, he didn't exactly understand the inner workings of a titan's mind. "Was I incapacitated?"
"No. You had the upper edge. The titan was in the process of regenerating its legs, and it had just fallen off the cliff. It was on the ground and you were trying to bite its throat off."
Eren felt his brow crease as he gave the information some thought. "What stopped me?"
"Another titan. It was one Yoshua and I were occupied with."
Eren nodded and dropped his gaze to the dirt to think. He didn't have the opportunity to ponder because in the next moment, people were screaming through the forest.
"Hanji-buntaichou! Hanji-buntaichou! We have a survivor!"
"She cut herself out of a titan! She survived being swallowed by a titan!"
Eren was already crossing the open space of the forest when the second announcement was finishing. Three medics rushed into the clearing, carrying a cot with a body drenched with an array of titan fluids into the clearing. Eren saw a wet, clumped mass of dark brown hair atop a face scarred with burns — a face he knew because she was one of his own. Relief hit him like a sudden gale, threatening to knock him over with the knowledge that one more of his own was not dead or missing but alive.
"Analise," Nila breathed out, snapping out of her blank visage and letting her face awaken with emotion. She rushed forward.
Before Eren could follow suit, someone clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Eren."
He turned. It was Moblit, his tired face adorned with a grim shadow. He tried a smile when he and Eren's eyes met, but the hollow gesture fell in a blink of an eye.
"There's something you should know about our expedition today," Moblit began carefully, his words a whisper in the clearing.
Eren turned to face Moblit fully. "Of course."
Before he could continue, a new finding sparked to light in the form of a steady hiss of steam — one Eren was all too familiar with because it was a sound his body made when it was actively healing. But he didn't have any more injuries to heal; he'd finished that process a while back, when he was keeping an eye out for who was still breathing and who wasn't.
A chorus of surprised murmurs and gasps effectively turned his attention to the soldiers who had crowded around the girl who survived being swallowed by a titan.
There was titan steam rising from the burns on Analise's face and body.
The murmurs rose to a steady chatter, and turned to startled cries and accusations that erupted all over the camp. Eren shoved through the crowd to reach his squad member. When he got to the cot, Hanji was already standing over her, a peculiar grin plastered across a once-exhausted face. Hanji's eyes flashed ominously behind tinted goggles and pulled out a smoke gun.
Eren let the shot reverberate in his ears and shake him to the core. A pillar of yellow smoke extended beyond the clouds above as a signal for the Commander on the status of a mission Eren had not been told about.
Hanji pocketed the gun away. "Secure our first target," Hanji ordered and stepped away. Eren felt his eyes widen. When there was no movement, Eren realized Hanji had addressed him with the order.
Eren just stood as he was, standing over Analise and staring at the hissing steam that kept rising from the burns on her body, watching new skin pushing through like spring daisies amidst green fields in the summer sun, and wondering why, why, why, why. The smell of burning flesh bore down on him; it was not unlike his own recovery process, a fact that he found difficult to accept.
And all the while, Analise was breathing steadily with her eyes shut to the world. She was someone whose heart still cared and loved, no matter how bleak the future seemed. She was Zamir's anchor, and Ilana's confident. She was Richard's admirer, and Nila's training partner. She had friends in Jean's squad and a father in Trost. She crushed on the Commander, like other girls, and believed in fighting for humanity's freedom.
She was fifteen.
But so was he, once upon a time. And it was the same for Annie, and Reiner, and Bertholdt.
"Secure our second target," came the next order.
Eren whipped his head around. Hanji was kneeling beside Yoshua, looking down at Zamir's recovering form. Except Zamir was fully awake and straining against his restraints.
"Hanji, wait!" Eren rose to his feet but Moblit stood before him.
"Calm down," Moblit urged. Then, his eyes sharpened and his voice grew tight. "Eren—"
"No!" Zamir cried out, kicking against Yoshua and Hanji who held him down. "Stop it!" Zamir's wild eyes burned deeply into Eren's heart. He blinked, and it wasn't Zamir he was seeing but himself, chained to a pole in a courtroom in Sina full of people who wanted nothing more than to rip him apart and feed him to the dogs. Was this any different? He thought of Annie, of Reiner and Bertholdt. He thought of Analise, retrieved from a titan's throat and suffering burns, and turned his mind's eye back to Zamir.
The young soldier was pinned to the ground by two veterans; terror twisted his face and tears stained his pale cheeks. Blood dribbled down the corners of his mouth and the sheets he lay on were awash with red — with blood. There was too much blood.
He shouldn't even be alive.
Zamir didn't seem to know about that. He continued to flail, struggling against Hanji and Yoshua, who were shouting at him to stay still. "I-I don't understand! Why are you — I didn't do anything wrong!"
"Hanji," Eren began, taking a step forward, "Hanji, wait!"
Moblit stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Eren, don't—"
"Secure the target!" Hanji bellowed, and the soldiers came to life around them.
Eren's hands fisted at his sides. "Just, wait! Stop!"
Moblit's hand dropped from his shoulder and his voice hardened. "Eren!"
Zamir sobbed. "I didn't do anything wrong! I-I... I did exactly as you told me to!""
Eren's eyes squeezed shut. "Hanji!"
Moblit's voice barked sternly above the raucous. "Drop your weapon!"
Eren's eyes flew open in time to see the soldiers surround him. Swords were drawn and rifles were aimed. There were capture barrels lined along the edge of the clearing; Eren didn't know there were any with them. Eren didn't even know who they were aiming at. The weapons were drawn in his direction, but the soldiers stared gravely at a point beyond him.
"Drop your weapon," Moblit ordered again.
"Call off your dogs," spoke a voice Eren vaguely knew.
"You are threatening the life of a squad leader of the Survey Corps," Moblit continued in a steady voice. "Your actions are treasonous. We will act according to the law if you do not cease here."
"Whether you execute me before or after I take his life... There's not much of a difference to me, is there?"
"No, please!" Zamir cried again. "Imora!"
Eren's eyes widened. Imora? Imora Llarome? She was a member of Hanji's squad for 5 years now, hand-picked after 3 years of dutiful service to the Corps. It was Imora that saved Zamir during the cliffside battle. It was Imora that had seen Nila and passed on the note about the status of Eren's squad. And, apparently—
Eren turned around.
—It was Imora who was pointing a pistol at his neck.
"Don't move," she warned. "Or I'll shoot."
"And risk my shifting?"
"I'll hit your spinal cord."
"Pistols aren't known for their accuracy."
"No. But I am."
Eren grit his teeth. He'd heard the rumors; Imora Llarome never missed a shot — with anything. Whatever she aimed, she got with whatever she had. He never bought into the stories, especially because Imora wasn't the type of soldier to go on the offensive. She was an evasive fighter, preferring to fight with brains over brawn by setting up traps and playing on her team's strengths and weaknesses to create the best counterattack. But whether it was true or not didn't matter; Eren wasn't about to screw up a secret op by inanely testing theories.
"Eren," a woman from Hanji's squad, Vaeda, whispered to him. She was a stern lady with a motherly heart whose presence brought comfort in whatever situation; Eren found her presence soothing even now. "We won't let anything happen to you."
Eren glanced at Vaeda's reassuring gaze before looking at Moblit. Moblit had put up a stoic mask, but it was a welcome expression; it meant that whatever plan was on right now was running smoothly. To confirm, he looked past the line of soldiers to Hanji, who was now standing at the ready in front of Zamir and Yoshua. Hanji dipped her chin down ever so slightly, a knowing look appearing in her eyes. Behind her, Yoshua kept Zamir firmly against the ground; Zamir was far from calm, but he at least wasn't fighting back anymore. The fear in his eyes remained, however, and Eren wanted to cross over to stay beside him — Eren found that Zamir calmed down more when he spoke to him.
"There's nowhere for you to go," Vaeda spoke reasonably, this time to Imora. "We can still talk about—"
"If you think I'm like Zamir, you're dead wrong. I've no intention of talking to anyone."
"You sure are talking a lot right now."
Eren heard a surprised gasp before the ringing of steel slicing through flesh. Two heavy thuds made the grass rustle behind him, and Eren whipped his head around.
Levi stood over the headless body of Imora Llarome. Her head had rolled off to the side; her neck bled into the blades of grass and her eyes were still open.
Immediately, Eren whipped his head around to Zamir. The boy was out like a light; Yoshua was running a pulse check and quietly setting him down with an eased sigh. As for himself, Eren felt his knees buckle. He allowed himself to sink to the ground and let his back drop against the forest floor.
"Levi!" Hanji shouted, running furiously toward him. "She was our last source!"
Levi spared a glance at Llarome. "Not anymore."
Hanji fell to her knees with a disgruntled cry and buried her fingers into her hair.
"How did you find us?" Moblit asked while patting Hanji on the back in a consoling manner.
"The flare."
Moblit cringed visibly, looking quite disappointed with himself at having forgotten that detail.
"Mikasa," Eren found himself blurting out. "And Armin, and Sasha — what happened to them? They were with you, weren't they?"
Levi pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket with a scowl, wiping his blades down with a conscientious effort to stay as clean as possible. "I had to go solo. We were with squad three when the flare was shot. I told them to assist squad three, since they're still getting themselves together after that rush. They're still missing two people." Levi looked to one of the men with an acknowledging nod of his head. "Though, I guess the missing count is down to one, now."
Terrance meekly raised a hand.
"May I ask who else is missing?" Vaeda inquired.
Eren didn't miss the quick glance Levi gave him before answering, as if to tell him to prepare himself. His heart dropped to his stomach regardless of the prep.
"It's Jean. Squad three's leader. Jean Kirschstein."