Historia listens patiently- or as patiently as she can when it's the fate of her people at stake- to the report as it's given.
A ship from Marley containing Eldian prisoners had been intercepted at the shoreline.
Not a single titan had been made. Both the prisoners and the guards had been taken into custody.
The Eldian prisoners are currently receiving the best possible medical care they can provide.
Still, the reports are blood-curdling.
All freed prisoners have obvious signs of torture. All of them are missing their fingers.
Historia curls her hands into fists, inexplicably grateful that she still has fingers to curl.
She isn't as naive as she once was- she knows her own side has indulged in torture before when it was deemed necessary- but this… this is senseless.
What was the point?
One last humiliation before turning them into monstrosities and sending them loose to consume their fellow Eldians?
It's sickening.
"Thank you, Dok," Historia says when the man has finished, dismissing him. Keeping her voice steady is an effort.
She wonders how much of it had shown on her face.
Nile Dok bows graciously and departs.
If he had noticed anything amiss about her mannerisms, he'd had the good graces not to mention it.
Historia lets herself sink onto her throne and buries her face in her hands.
Paradis treats her as a goddess, as their savior, but a goddess would surely know what to do. A goddess wouldn't hesitate, wouldn't be weighed down by doubts.
…a goddess surely wouldn't hesitate to smite the enemy.
Eren's breakdown from the night before is still fresh in her mind and she tries to make sense of it all.
"I saved us… but, in the process, I killed the world."
(What had been her role in that massacre?)
Historia shoves that thought from her mind.
She won't allow her people to continue to suffer the way they have at the cruel hands of the world, but… at the price of the entire world?
She doesn't think she can stoop to that level.