AN: Who else cannot wait for AOT no Requiem? The sixty page original mega-chapter that will destroy 137-139 and save Grisha, Zeke, Kruger and the holy trinity of EHY! It's amazing artists like K-LionheART, Uzumaki Ani and Meatkasa (who I do crib from liberally in this chapter, [plus 4koma]) that inspired me to write again. There's also a small adaptation of a Doujin called 'Mother, Girl And Blockhead' (www mangago me/read-manga/mother_girl_and_the_blockhead/) which I urge any EH fellows to read! Also after much consideration... I... being a merciful lord... Will give Kodansha M&A a stay of execution. Perhaps even a full pardon for their crimes? We shall see...

CHAPTER VIII

THE HIGH PRIESTESS

I've failed him... Just like I did Frieda... Like I did Ymir... Why? Why does this always...?

Historia bemoaned the repetition of fate distantly as she collapsed backwards, clutching desperately onto Eren in her lap. Blood poured from the wound in his forehead and across his glassy eyes even as she cradled the back of his head up like a newborn and stared vacantly at her deceased partner. She could only just hear the cries of the others in the state room as if from underwater, muffled and distorted. She could feel his fresh blood droplets congealing on her own face and neck. She could feel her heart about to turn to cold stone or rip in two.

Then Eren's brilliant jade eyes clouded and began to flicker back and forth as if he were in deep sleep. Orange lightning crackled from both his exposed brain and within Historia's own mind as the discharges jumped to her fingertips; the pair at the base of his skull and the pair that she didn't realise in all the chaos, had found his limp right hand and how she was holding on to it with all her might.

Then they were elsewhere. At the end and at the beginning of all things. The great void of the Paths. Historia realised she had been here before, from Ymir's perspective when she had read her final missive. When she had felt her rebirth and all of freedom stretched out before her.

But there was one vital problem. Eren was missing from her now empty arms.

She stumbled up in fright and grief, having to discard her sandals in the loose, slipping fine sand.

"Eren! Eren, where are you?!" she called out through the emptiness.

"Over here..." came a pained whisper from behind a sandbank.

Even as Historia hiked up her ceremonial dress she realised that it was one of her old pastel skirts and that her even daintier dress-shirt clad arm and unclad hand had to have been hers when she was five or six. Still, the illusion of regression where time had no meaning did not deter her from running barefoot over the dune to find a similarly young Eren, asleep on his back without a care in the world, similarly dressed in their poorer clothing sans shoes.

"You... Absolute...! Blockhead!" her voice even more high-pitched and childish than usual, she noted resentfully. "I told you we shouldn't have ousted Zackly in person! But you had to be the big man!"

Eren raised his left arm casually and waved off her concern like he was trying to shoe away a bothersome fly.

"You agreed it would be more fun in the end." he replied sullenly. Though his grumpiness didn't last very long when he felt her footsteps stop above his head and then tear drops patter like the first notes of rain down onto his forehead.

His eyes snapped open and for an instant it wasn't a young Historia standing over him but a slightly older girl in a grimy white and what must have once been red tunic and headband, now faded to pink from ruin and weathering in the open elements. Her hair was straw blond and her face cast in shadow but water still fell, catching the light as if they were living diamonds, encasing the ethereal blue light of the aurora.

Then the vision was gone. Replaced with chubby-cheeked cherubim with eyes of living Iceburst Stone that glittered and wept with that indefinable amalgamation of sorrow and joy, relief and abashment.

"You're so... Beautiful..." he found himself murmuring sleepily and with utter frankness.

She jumped as if she'd been shocked, pleased but determined to stay mad at him.

"Dummy! Dummy! Dummy!" she bawled on her knees, thumping his chest and stomach with tiny fists. "You went and got yourself shot in the head in the end anyway! I only delayed it!"

"Bet-ter - me - th-an - y-ou - si-lly." he blurted in puffs every time she walloped his diaphragm. Which was a lot.

"No!" she cried petulantly. "No..."

"I'll be all right, Historia. The Power of the Titans will heal me and I'll be as right as rain."

"For now," she sniffled. "But you'll keep getting hurt. Whether it's building or battle you'll bleed for our land... You'll keep bleeding... for me..."

"...I don't know how to do otherwise. Mikasa told me the same and only now do I commiserate with her. She tried to become my shadow again, to keep us secret even though it must hurt her. And I reacted cruelly to her when I had promised mere days before that I wouldn't. She's tied to me irrevocably and I never wanted that for her. Nothing she sees in me is real. And yet that's all she has. There's nothing to save herself for, or give herself to. Except to me... In truth, I don't think that's anyway to live one's life. Yet who am I to advise her otherwise? I can't even shake my own hypocrisy."

Historia was laying her head to his breast after tuckering herself out. Hands bundling his warm-earth red brown jacket. She was silent for a moment at his declaration, then spoke.

"We're all hypocrites... We want to help those we love. But you can only be hurt by those who truly love you in return. As Ymir did to me when she left with Reiner and Bertholdt."

"You were beside yourself. As anyone who valued such a relationship would be. But you came to accept her decision. I can't accept like you can. I don't think I can accept anything that's not within my own power. I'm a control freak."

"You're not. You love deeply. So you hate equally so. It's a strength."

"I'm not as strong as you."

She looked up at him through golden eyelashes.

"No... you're stronger. You're my strength. Mine. I lost both my sister and my first love. I can't lose you as well."

"How can you be so generous to me? Because of me and my father, Frieda was murdered. Because I was too weak, Ymir was put in the position that caused her to leave you. I'm the architect of all your pain."

"...This again... You truly are my idiot... Don't you dare give Armin grief again for backsliding! Shall I list the reasons numerically, or alphabetically? My sister was kind and generous. She thought much as you did in the beginning. She wanted to free the people of the Walls and defeat the ghosts of our ancestors that kept us chained. She only visited me three more times after she gained the Founding Titan. And all those times... a stranger's guile, a stranger's face and gaze stared out at me from behind her. I think that's the most terrible thing I've ever seen. More than the Titans. More than my mother's death. To know that Frieda was as good as already dead and that Karl Fritz was puppeteering her body and mind, his own innocent descendent. That he had soiled, desecrated, even my most precious past memories with Frieda before she gained the Progenitor Titan. Was she truly visiting me because she cared for her little bastard half-sister and wanted to nurture and educate me? Or did she have an ulterior motive? Did she want to gauge how receptive I was to her family's rhetoric under the guise of fairytales and myths belonging solely to the Reiss family? So she could spare her true siblings the fate of inheritance... I crippled my father and set you free that day, Eren, because I care for you. But also... because I was afraid. I didn't want my identity to be destroyed by that coward king. I wanted to forge my own path."

Eren shifted to lie on his side and wrapped one arm around Historia, caressing her hair while the other stroked her cheek as they looked into one another.

"I don't think Frieda ever saw you in such an awful way... The Vow to Renounce War was strong enough to seal nearly all the incredible powers the Founder can muster, but it didn't stop her from trying to defend her family against my old man. Didn't you tell me that even Rod thought as I do when he was young? He could hardly have indoctrinated his children if Frieda had announced her intention to beat Karl so openly. No, it was with innocence and purity that Frieda approached you. Perhaps even with guilt and sorrow... She made a choice, like our Ymir did. Would she kick me around or give her blessing if she could see us now?"

"Probably a bit of both!" Historia smiled wistfully and with that her memory of the freckled, dusky girl awakened.

"So, since we finally have a day off from training... I was thinking of going into town for some shopping!" Christa announced cheerily.

Ymir scoffed at the stereotype: "yeah? Well I've actually got some real stuff to do. I'm going to pawn some old valuables I procured during the Fall. A soldier in training's salary just isn't cutting it. But if you insist I suppose I can tag along and keep you company."

"Okay! Wait! Why don't we invite some of our classmates. Make it a big joint adventure where we can all have fun?"

"Huh?! A-Are you serious?!" The elder girls' hackles rose like an angry cat.

"You don't want us all to have fun...? I think it would be for the best."

"I wouldn't!"

"Sheesh... There you go again, getting all crotchety. This is why I'm your only friend."

"Aha! But you're all I need."

"Ymiiir..." she groaned world-wearily. "It's the Treacle Market on today. There's going to be so many options and so much stuff to carry. More hands make light work. So let's invite at least one extra cadet to help us. Hmm... Jean's as strong as a cart horse. Let's get him onboard. He's from around the southern territories and he might even know some out of the way hidden shops!"

"Youth canth thake Jhean ahlongh!" Ymir mocked, lisping with her tongue dangling out; showing just how high her esteem for Jean ran.

"Huh? How come?"

"You've seen him. He's got Mikasa on the brain, creeping on her all the time. He'd risk giving Mikasa the wrong impression. If she saw him leaving with us, y'know?"

"I fail to see how that involves him in a harmless bit of window-buying. But I suppose it's a good point... In fact... It's really nice and considerate of you!"

"N-not really..." Ymir mumbled, turning away to busy herself making her bed, so her friend couldn't see her cheeks reddening.

"Then how about Reiner?"

"Reiner's even worse!"

"Oh come on! He's strong and reliable and he's always been a gentleman."

"When you're looking maybe! But Christa, my darling, when your back is turned, he's always staring at you with a lascivious look in his eye!"

"Really? He seems far more interested in Bertholdt. I always thought..."

"Well, since they're so close we shouldn't do anything to get in between them."

"Yeah, I guess so... Let's take Sasha then! She's a fellow girlfriend."

"Out of the question!"

"But she'd be great to bounce fashion ideas off."

"You think Sasha cares about clothes?! We take her and food-stalls are all we'll visit. And we'll end up looking like heifers in spring time!"

"All right, not Sasha, Annie won't care for such an outing, poor dear. What about Armin? Surely you can't complain about him?"

"That shrimp's too weak to carry anything! And he wouldn't be able to protect us damsels if we were unfortunate enough to be mugged."

"You're just teasing now! If they're invested too much in someone else, they're invested too much in me. Well I know someone who's not easily distracted or obsessed by a pretty face. Who's not a glutton and has great hand-to-hand skills to protect your ladyship Ymir's person!"

"Bleh! Who is this dream-boat, this shining knight, this paragon you've dreamt up?!"

"Eren. He'd be perfect. He's intense and serious but has a lighter side to him and-"

"Are you crazy?! Don't even consider him!"

"Why on earth not?"

"Talk to him for even a second and there'll be hell to pay from Mikasa! She'll carve you up into bite-sized pieces!"

"Reminds me of a surly freckled girl I know who jumps to my side, snapping and snarling whenever someone wants the "honour" of my time..." The golden blonde said slyly.

Ymir hurled her pillow at her head.

Eren was laughing freely at the not so-subtle jealousy that ruled both their houses once upon a time. But he had his own memory to share.

"So you thought my twelve, or thirteen year old self was light in a carefree sense? But intense? ...Perfect?" he teased.

"Faint praise, Eren! I barely meant a word."

"Well... I on the other hand..."

Historia imminently knew the moment Eren was sharing. A week after she had shared that their work here couldn't be wrong and that he thought she was amazing.

"I'm tired!" yowled the young orphan boy, Wim. "Let's take a break for a bit!" he announced, flopping to the grass.

"Okay, but not too long. We don't want Historia finding out." Holger, his age-mate concurred. Now even the kids were being roped into hauling in fresh supplies. The daylight and hot food was all well and good but the two Underground-raised boys had thought their days of heavy-lifting in their workhouse to have been over, much to their chagrin.

"Because she'll be scolding us in an instant." Wim complained.

"Hey, at least you didn't get clouted on the ear by her." Holger replied, failing to mention how he'd been stealing away some of the goods in his pockets.

"Is that what having a mother is like?"

Holger snorted. "Well if that's the case, then maybe I don't need a mum!"

"Hey."

The boys were startled from where they lazed.

"Just what do you think you are doing, slacking off?" Jean Kirschtein sneered dramatically, hefting his bags of flour. Armin and Eren trailing behind him with their own supplies.

"We were not slacking! We're just... resting a little!" Wim defended.

Jean sighed at the two exhausted ten year-olds, then after a surreptitious glance around for the tiny queen he set down his burden.

"So that's it..." he said while squatting, then he dropped back on his rump to sit on the three stack of hessian bags with a relaxed groan. "Heh, let's rest up as well!" he smirked up at his comrades. Armin grimaced but seemed to be enjoying Jean's demeanour as well. While Eren gave him the ultimate in: 'not impressed' looks.

"Well, Eren?" Armin turned to his blood-brother, always so easily and freely following his lead; whatever he would decide.

But the youngest Jaeger was focused on his shoes, debating something inside himself before he addressed the two lads.

"You guys originally came from a foundling home, didn't you?"

The boys exchanged uneasy glances and Jean huffed in irritation. That was the politest term for such an institute. The others being: asylum, halfway house, trash-heap or sweat-shop.

"Yeah! We did! What of it!" Wim proclaimed, as if the experience was something to be proud of beyond merely surviving such an environment.

Eren opened his mouth, eyes narrowed in frustration, then closed it. Armin was ever his silent support, smiling tenderly at his brother as he wrestled with what he was trying to convey.

"When I was a kid, no older than the two of you are now... My mother was eaten by a Titan. Right before my eyes."

Holger and Wim were hardened by their experiences in the Underground but even they were haunted by the spectre of Titans. To see Eren admit he had been helpless was disconcerting.

"Back then I was just a useless, ignorant brat. I couldn't do anything. All I could do was watch. So... To you two, right now... She is... Like a mother, isn't she?"

Shame crept over the two boys as they began to cotton on to what their elder was trying to impart.

Once more, Eren clearly grappled whether he should confront the boys further. That he had already said enough. Then he ploughed on regardless.

"If tomorrow, right before your own eyes, the same thing happened. Wouldn't you regret what you just said?"

Now both Holger and Wim's faces collapsed, their eyes welling.

"I did. I still do. Every day. I wish that I would have listened to her more. That I helped her more. That I made her happier. Now... I can never say what I wanted to tell her."

Armin leant his shoulder against Eren's to remind him he wasn't alone, then pulled back, his own eyes hooded and shimmering wet. Even Jean was respectfully silent.

"Aah... I think it's fine to act your age, get into trouble, mess around and even make her mad. Scolding you is her job after all. But... 'I don't need her...' Saying stuff like that... will only sadden her. I won't allow it. Got it?"

"Yes, sir." They chorused.

Jean valiantly tried to break the heavy atmosphere.

"Really... What a conceited lecture... Are you their father?" he grinned.

Just like old times, the sparks of enmity flared between the two youths as they tried to out-glare one another while Armin stood between them as the delightfully smug spectator.

"Now, now..." he started to say but Armin's interference was unnecessary as Holger and Wim made twin exclamations of joy and gazed up at Eren with something akin to hero-worship.

"What?" the Titan Shifter grunted with feigned disinterest as the boys hoped up and crowded him, tugging at his black coat. The last summer shoots of childhood re-awoken on cracked, parched and near barren soil.

"We don't have a dad either! Is this what they're like?!" Holger asked adorably.

Wim was not to be left out. "Come on! So?! What else do they do?!"

Eren was mortified, Armin infected with joy and Jean loving every second of his arch-rival's discomfort.

He made to end the memory but Historia was able to seamlessly take over from her own perspective, much to the Attack Titan's shock.

"HEY!" a clear, clarion of a voice caused all the males to wince and turn.

"Whyyyy... is it that whenever guys don't have a watchful eye over them, they start lazing around immediately?"

The girl in question somehow had the power to tap her left foot impatiently against the field and to elicit sharp thuds contrary to the nature of the surface. And her pouting scowl put more fear of god into Armin and Jean than their mother's on their worst ever days.

"H-Historia!" Armin stuttered but then he espied an escape! "The truth is... Jean was tired and he said he absolutely had to rest."

"Armin, you bastard...!" Jean gritted out, while Historia hugged a folded black jacket to herself and glowered at the pair. "Resumption!" he declared and he, Armin, Holger and Wim all busied themselves as if nothing had occurred.

"Eren. Here." she held out the freshly laundered garment.

"Ah. From the other day."

"Yeah. The other day. I washed it for you."

His mind brought unbidden an image of a sitting Historia a few evenings prior, wearing nothing but a shift and his newer dark overcoat she was at that very moment returning. She'd glared, unamused and holding onto tattered dignity and pride at being caught by him in such a state. Though of course he thought it to be one of the cutest things he'd ever had the pleasure of engraving into memory. And it was what caused him to hesitate after accepting the borrowed clothing.

"But, Historia? What about you? Aren't you cold?"

"Th-The sky's perfectly clear today, so I'm fine!" she chirruped, trying to control her shivering as the high winds rushed in, playing with her hair bashfully.

Honestly! I'd never thought he'd catch on! He's usually so thickheaded, like all boys! So why would he pick up on something like thi-?

A shadow passed above her and then she was cocooned in the hood and body of the coat that smelled of him. The great outdoors, woodsmoke and the ion of an oncoming storm.

"You don't need to be in such a hurry to return it."

Historia was glad of the hood covering her visage as she was sure she would have died of shame if he'd been able to see how rosy her cheeks turned; she felt as if her face was about to be set alight there was so much blood rushing to her head.

Jean and Armin felt like the most out of place third and fourth wheels in the timeless annals of the Eldian Empire.

"Thank you." Eldia's monarch said plaintively.

"No problem. Let's go."

Jean bit his tongue but still chewed on the domestics he wouldn't have believed to have witnessed afore it had occurred right in front of him.

He just does that so casually, no way... he doesn't know what he's doing, that's it.

"By the by..." Historia pulled the hood back once her complexion was under control and called out to Holger and Wim, busy with some crates. "What were you all talking about during your little slacker's corner?" The boys froze mid-step.

"N-Nothing!" Holger answered, though his colouration put paid to his acting.

"What's with that?" the queen mused, trying to pull one of the two heavy sacks of grain Eren was hefting out from under his right arm. The soldier gave a token, playful resistance but quickly capitulated and enjoyed her yoinking the bag away as a declaration of partnership rather than mollycoddling.

"We were just talking to the pair about how you've become a great mother to them all." Armin announced brightly.

"Really?!"

Eren glanced down at her, captivated by her surprise and joy. Her shining blue eyes swivelled to him and he looked straight ahead, praying he hadn't been caught.

Why is she looking at me?

"Armiiin! Why did you tell her?" Holger whined.

"Me? I didn't say anything strange! Ha ha!"

And just as before, Jean and Armin took the lead with their young charges while Eren and Historia walked side by side at the rear.

"Hey, Eren. What kind of person was your mother?" she asked.

"Well..." he was no good with words. He looked about but found himself settling on the one who had posed the query.

"She was sort of... Kind of, like you, Historia."

The girl was both stricken and flattered at once. She knew Carla Jaeger was important to Eren, how could she not be? But it ultimately didn't help her own matters of the heart save for confusing them! It was the ultimate in back-handed compliments! But she knew in her heart that he only meant an honest admiration but was there anything beyond that?

"D-Do you think... I'm motherly?" she inquired. Glad for her long, obscuring bangs.

"...Yes, I do." To those kids. He thought to himself obliviously.

A mother... She thought longingly.

"Eren." she halted and he had to turn as she once again hugged an object in her possession to her chest. "Are you... Able to see me as a girl?"

The teenager gulped, Adam's Apple bobbing in his throat painfully as his throat went dry and he began to sweat at all key locations.

Squirm out of that one, buster! she challenged.

"You... You are a girl."

She was taken aback.

Safe! he rejoiced.

Historia looked as though her trembling grip would explode the hessian bag she squeezed as violence infused her from head to toe.

Not safe! Eren realised belatedly.

It didn't get... through to him! she roared inwardly, brining her shin around to kick him across his finely toned arse.

"Ouch!"

"Hopeless! Absolutely hopeless, feckless and clueless you were!" She was rolling and laughing in the sand dunes now; they both represented their slightly younger selves, dressed in long black jackets, only hers had no hood.

"Well that was before I gained some much needed perspective, majesty! Plus I was dog tired on those evenings from trying to perfect the hardening ability."

"At least you were always a sweet-heart. I didn't know you defended me from the tots!"

"Shtap it, you!"

"Nevaaah!"

"We'll see about that!"

As Eren mercilessly tried to tickle Historia to death they didn't realise how a great, overarching intelligence watched them with confused interest. All the past kings and queens of Eldia had entered Paths merely to be healed inches from death or to demand a boon from Her power. It had been heavily ritualised and scripted, couched in ceremony. So to have a complete breakdown of any decorum and to only have frank and honest discussion between the holder and Her direct descendent was both refreshing and terrifying for the eldritch being, so used to numbing normalcy.

With a rush of electricity and neurons the couple were thrust into images that could not possibly be true in their current timeline.

Zackly sat at Historia's left hand side and she looked miserable and tired as Hange expounded on some papers, evidently still the head of the Survey Corps. Two years of bloated stagnation.

"It's true... I remember now. The one time I was able to activate the powers of the Founding Titan. Was in the moment when I touched a Titan of Royal Blood. Her features were similar to the woman in my father's photograph. It must have been Dina Fritz. My father's first wife. By sheer coincidence or by a stroke of fate I came into contact with her on that day as she wondered the land as a Pure Titan and that saved my life and the lives of many in this room."

Both Mikasa and Historia looked at Eren with shell-shocked disbelief. Mikasa with hurt at being kept in the dark and Historia with quickly dawning comprehension.

We are going to have some stern words, Eren and I...

"Zeke is Dina's son, he must have figured it out too. How to get around the Vow Renouncing War. How to activate the one hope left to us Eldians. The way to use the millions of Colossal Titans sleeping within the Walls... To crush the world to dust."

"Eren..." Armin wondered aloud.

"You, why did you keep quiet about that, all this time?" Levi accused.

"Because I was concerned about Historia's safety. I couldn't allow her to become a Titan based on my unreliable information. I didn't want that."

And again, before I even realised it, I was protected. When will I be able to stand by you?

"Hey, you seem happy."

"Of course I am! She and I share a heavy burden just by being born!"

"I'm prepared and I'm ready. I will agree to inherit the Beast Titan. So long as the earthen rumbling is necessary to our survival."

"First he makes us pay for our lives with broken Walls, overruns and tramples our land... And now our children are to be bred and killed like livestock! And only then are we allowed to live! Zeke Jaeger can take his sick little plan and shove it!"

"You acted precipitously and put this island in even greater danger. Don't you care what happens to Historia anymore?"

"TELL ME HANGE! IF THERE'S ANOTHER WAY! THEN TELL ME WHAT IT IS!"

"The Military Police Brigade is moving forward with a plan to turn you into a Titan and feed Zeke to you once he defects to the island. Our only options... are to fight the MPs or to run away."

Wow! I look good at nineteen! I didn't think my eyelashes could curl that gracefully! And Eren... Rawr! What a hunk!

"...You know I haven't just been tending to cattle all this time. I know what they intend. There's no need for me to fight or to run. Whatever the most reliable and surest method of our survival is, I'll go along with it. There was no other way. But you stood up for me back then, Eren. You acted for my sake. That's enough for me."

Okay... This is bullshit, Founder Ymir! I would have had those MP dogs hung from their pea-sized balls by piano-wire before I let them lay hands on me and mine!

"Maybe for you... But not for me."

Yeah! Tell her, Eren! Oh, wait... This Eren has been moping around and left me to fumble in the dark for years! Booo!

"What?"

"I'm going to kill them, Historia. I'm going to destroy them. Every last one of those animals on this earth. I'll wipe it clean of life and then... from the ruins, create a new one. One which knows not what it has lost but only what it has been given. The Power of the Titans will die with me and Eldia will inherit that untamed world as the only nation and people left to do so."

"...Please tell me you're joking."

"Have you ever known me to joke about such a thing?"

"You're mistaken! Not everyone outside the island is our enemy! Just like your mother... Most of them would be suddenly... Killed... Without ever understanding why!"

"I know. But... The only way to put a final end to the cycle of revenge born from hate... Is to bury that cycle and the civilization that spawned it, deep in the ground. They want you... to birth a child they can sacrifice for this island. They want to keep forcing children to eat their parents. I won't let them."

"I... Eren... If I don't do everything in my power to stop you... I won't be able to live with myself."

Wow... This version of me definitely didn't share any memories of the Marleyan Empire with Eren. She's quite the devil's advocate... Okay, more like a wet dish-rag.

"Then I can alter your memories with the Founding Titan's power. If you can just stay quiet until then..."

"How could I ever...!"

All right that is utter fucking crap! If my Eren came at me with a memory wipe I'd upper-cut him into next fucking week! What have they done to you, girl?!

"You can. Because... You're the girl who saved me that day. The worst girl in the world."

Historia was silent for a long time, bewildered at why he had risked his plan's destruction by telling her. Touched by his concern for her and her potential offspring. Horrified for his lack of empathy to the countless lives that would be trod underfoot. But more than any of that was why her in particular?

"So. Eren. What would you think... about me having a child?"

"...I already told you what I think! I won't let them sacrifice - !"

"What if...! I were to have a child, not to save this island, not to let them become a sacrifice, but for my own sake and no one else's! What would you think about that?"

Eren looked like any ordinary man walking to the gallows for an instant, but acceptance then washed over him like a balm.

"If you want to have a family... It's not my place to stop you. I wouldn't dream of it. But I still won't let any of you get used as cattle - "

"Heh heh heh... Aha ha ha ha ha! I get it now! You're just as selfish as I am!" Historia cackled, crying tears of mirth.

"Huh?!"

"It's written all over your face! You've been so serious this whole time, but you're still just a dumb crybaby!"

"Hey! What's gotten into you, Historia?"

She gave him a watery, wry smile.

"Even if I had a child because I wanted to, you still wouldn't be able to accept it, would you? Eren do you... What is it you really think? Why do you care so much what happens to me?"

"Historia I..." Eren marshalled every bit of his non-existent emotional courage in the face of her superior showing.

"You're right. I can't accept something like that. Even though I have no right to feel that way. I want you to live freely, to live a long life, but not only that... It's selfish and greedy of me, I only have... less than five years left to live. But if a future with you was possible..."

"Eren, I don't want to die. And I don't want to be the kind of mother who wishes her children had never been born. Whatever time we have left, let's not live it with any regrets. Even if we are the enemies of humanity. I'll always be your ally."

"So... Do you think you wiped my memories of you in that future and went off to die a feeble martyr?"

"Probably... I am capable of such pathetic behaviour after all."

"And you're going to tell me why you kept the secret of circumventing the War Renunciation Vow?"

"...I didn't want to worry you. You had enough on your plate being monarch."

"You lied to me. You didn't trust me with the information."

"I would have told you if you asked and answered the right questions, just as Erwin did for me."

"Have you told anyone else?"

"Mikasa, but- OUCH! Ni fhuckin' noshe!"

"You're lucky that's all I decided to break, mister! You think I'd appreciate you keeping me in the dark like my sister and father did?! That I'd be overjoyed with you manipulating your step-sister?!"

"Noh! I dhidn't whunt thah!"

"Already breaking the oath I swore you to today, huh?! Never lie, even if it means your death?!"

"Chone ohn, Hishu-tohriah! I hight 'ave ti shpy ohn harhey!"

"What?"

He snorted blood and steam and finally healed his broken capillaries and cartilage.

"I may have to spy on Marley in the immediate future. I'll have to lie aplenty and not just by omission as I did with you. I'm sorry..."

"Dammit, Eren... I thought we were partners in this!"

"We are! But I can't risk your life out there! I told you already... I'm not... I'm not strong enough."

"There's no risk to me being turned! We don't have the means in the first place to... Oh..."

"Yes... Do you think your father's convenient bag of plot-holding was left in that cavern for my dad to filch a serum from? He made the concoction from his own spinal fluid in our home's cellar laboratory. I don't even want to know how he took a self-inflicted tap but the memories of the chemical composition are there. Every high-ranking officer in Marley's Public Security Bureau was privy to the formula. My father learnt it through the Owl. And if given a month of testing, we could soon have our own too, derived from the Crawling Pure Titan I've imprisoned."

"But then... That means..."

"We can soon decide who'll inherit the Female Titan."

"...I should take the power from Annie! Once I do so, we can end this pointless conflict once and for all! It can be done before the year is out!"

"And if there's no way to remove the Curse? Even with the Founder's full power?"

"That's a risk you should let me take! As I have done countless times for you!"

"Historia... Zeke would be the safer bet. He thinks he can save me... I loathe him for what he did to Dirk and Klaus, to Marlowe and Sandra, to Erwin... But without his decision to betray his parents I would never have been born... I want to save him from Marley's indoctrination and the trauma my old man inflicted on him."

"If our roles were reversed... Could you stay behind as I go off to war for the both of us?"

"No... That's why God gave me the easy part."

"...If you love me... You'd let me fight at your side."

"No, not that! Don't do this to me, please!"

"Frieda left me behind that fence! I fought in battle alongside Ymir and I'd never felt so alive when doing so and so dead when she left me after! You're asking the impossible for me to stay behind again! To sacrifice everything for you, again!"

"Look at me. I'm on my knees, begging your majesty. No, begging an ordinary, honest, normal girl. I - Can't - Lose - You."

"It's the same! It's the same for me, stupid!"

"Then this discussion is far from over... I want to be a kinder, gentler person... But the only choice I can see to strive forward is the opposite..."

"You can't leave me in the dark... I'm scared of the dark. And we found each other in that darkness."

"I love you, Historia."

"And I love you."

"Historia! Get away from him! He's about to transform!" Armin was beside her. Floch was struck dumb at his actions inadvertently getting his friend capped, standing and staring mutely.

Eren was shuddering in her arms, his heels beating a staccato against the floorboards. Bio-luminescence issuing from his eyes and mouth.

"No... he won't hurt us." Historia said quietly, though no-one heard her over the panicking of Hange and the others as they tried to cart the wounded Pyxis out of the danger-zone.

His body crackled with discharge, setting papers alight and blowing them around the room, the foundations shook, the ceiling cracked and carbon-scoring seared across the wallpaper. But the steam that was now gushing from his shattered skull did not sear Historia or Armin's hands or any exposed skin, though the blood on his brow evaporated. The bolts of crackling energy missed the queen and the two soldiers, decimating the room's furnishings while only tingling static caused their hair to rise.

And then the small localised earthquake ceased, Eren stilled, his powers utterly spent.

Historia pulled back the drenched hair that covered his scalp to find only pink patches of new skin where the entrance and exit wound had been only twenty seconds or so before.

Eren arched, drawing in a sharp shuddering breath as he came to life. Much to Floch's shout of joy and the wonderment of the two blondes.

The trio glomped onto Eren as if he were a living miracle, all fussing and blathering endearments as Eren blinked owlishly and felt even his memory of the last crazy minute slotting back into place fragment by fragment. He'd performed a nervous system shunt far more expertly than Reiner had managed twice in Shiganshina. But then, poor Reiner had only read about the technique as a last-resort fail-safe. He hadn't got to practice taking lethal wounds in an unlimited dreamscape from a mad child of a god; the mirror of Ymir; the Attack Titan. Eren Jaeger.

"Dumbass! Welcome back!"

Eren was still a bit too woozy to know who of the three said it.

"Your Grace?!" Hange called from the stairwell. "I take it from all the laughing and rejoicing that this building isn't about to be levelled?! And that Eren is back amongst the living?!"

"He is, Hange! He is!"

"Whoo! Thank goodness! You men there! Arrest the ex-premiere! He should be lying in the hay bales out back. Don't bother being gentle!"

Slowly, Historia, Floch and Armin helped Eren stand and the first thing he noticed were the streaks of blood on his queen's person.

"Are you hurt?"

"Am I hurt?! This is your blood!"

"Zackly shot you in the face." Floch quipped lackadaisically, then contriteness swept over as he scratched the back of his neck. "I think, he probably would have missed if I hadn't tackled him when I did..."

"That explains the splitting headache... And you did well, Floch. Who knows who he would have targeted otherwise." he comforted while wrapping his arms around Historia's waist. To which she did the same, ear pressed to his pectoral and hearing his heartbeat powerfully and true.

Armin smiled at the couple, his happiness for his friend far outweighing the pity he felt for Mikasa. He glanced out of the destroyed window to see the deposed premiere being shackled by Garrison troops.

And to think... We still had to visit the MP's HQ to give them and Nile similar news. Perhaps Eren's Titan form will have to be deployed...

AN: Show-trials... Show-trials everywhere... Let's see how Nile and Darius like being on the receiving end for once!