irosukuyammamoto: I'm so glad that I can inspire a bigger writer such as yourself! You bring up a good point here, the lives of the people across the sea is something that is largely disregarded by your average fandom member. I'm coming to terms with the fact that my story will never grow big because of that.

You mentioned how Isayama didn't delve into Eldian and Marleyan tensions. From a writing standpoint, it makes sense to me why he did that. He created a world that parallels ours during WW1/WW2. Think about the vast number of conflicts, political tensions, countries involved in that. Staying close to the existing scouts is a way of holding the reader's hands through the story and keeping them from getting lost.

Since you have a larger following, I hope that you can popularize the concept of shining light onto unexplored territories.

Feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments as I'll likely do for yours. I guess you're my first online author friend lmao

An Eldian's Journal

Wartime Shenanigans

Chapter 18: Golden Crumbs

"Heinrich, do you think Reiner has hobbies?"

I carried my droopiness with me on the day following the dream (a Wednesday). As I walked to section E, I unintentionally kept it close against my body and it stayed there without paying rent. Unfortunately, I had no one to talk with on my way there so the imaginary Ymir made her typical useless appearance.

"Heinrich, you didn't answer my question."

"That's because it's a dumb one."

"Hey!"

The useless goddess stood in front of me with hands on her hips—the signature pose of moms throughout the internment zones. I walked right through her. "Rude," she replied. It appeared that she was going through one of her phases where she'd try to make me feel better by acting like a bumbling idiot instead of spitballing her typical amount of sass.

Being a bumbling idiot, however, is a difficult role for it requires precision, finesse, and other nouns that sound refined. They are things she simply doesn't have.

"You know what, I think Reiner doesn't have hobbies," she squawked. She then looked over at me as if expecting a 'why not?' response. I kept quiet.

"Why not? You ask. It's simple. Becoming a mass murderer doesn't lend much time to crocheting and painting."

"Ok."

She stood in front of me, and I walked through her again. "Is that all you got to say?!"

"Yup."

That basically sums up our 30 min walk.

After arriving in Section E, I was met with the barbershop from chapter 8. I think by now, you all understand what the section looks and feels like. But as I said before, my approach to this story is playing with words—like building blocks. I'm constructing a double-digit story apartment that is a narrative.

So, if you don't mind, I need to exercise the muscle used in describing settings. I need to add an extra few pounds to the dumbbell that I've been using before. I need to step up my game as your narrator and as the lens to this story…

I was greeted by the chaos-composed soundtrack of Section E. There was an orchestra of trumpet blaring cars and out-of-tune screeching violins in the form of mothers berating their children. The ones conducting the organized chaos of this orchestra were the officers dealing with traffic. They moved their arms in the air like wands telling the tuba-like trucks to move forward.

Hidden in this oh-so-organized composition was a lonely triangle: a simple chime, 'a ting' in the musical production of Section E.

It was a replacement newspaper boy.

I met this boy on the sidewalk where Falco and I sold papers before. He was still fresh, so much so that you could almost smell the green on him and see the simplicity in his eyes, brimming within the lids. "Extra! Extra!" There was more spark, more gunpowder behind his words than I ever could muster.

I dropped a coin in his pouch without taking a newspaper—a donation, I guess. "Thanks!" The imaginary Ymir noticed my act of bizarre kindness and slipped in a sentence. "Looks like you've matured now, Heinrich."

As I kept walking down the street, I thought about the brief time I spent with Falco. I thought about the simplicity of his 8–9-year-old demeanor and how valuable that is in the world we are in. I still wanted to avoid him, though; I didn't want to be reminded of the events from that morning.

So, I pulled my newsboy hat down a little more over my face and continued to head towards the Liberio Daily printing place.

As I headed down Street 1106, I managed to get a glimpse of the alley where I met the crazy con-woman trying to sell her dust-ridden toys to me. The stand was still there, with a mutt of similar color and stature wandering about. But, most importantly, I saw the place where Falco and I shared a pastry. There were no crumbs of gold lying there. It was the last bit of peace I had before a large bite of pain in the form of a crooked journalist.

The vehicles transformed from vegetable trucks to something else. For one, they started getting faster, and instead of holding vegetables, they bore the fruit of weaponry. I would pass by this breed of truck often but never thought much of them.

Buildings weren't crammed together as usual. They weren't teeth shoved together in a mouth much like the buildings in section F. They had room to breathe, for there was a field behind them. An area with bullet-carrying devils: soldiers. The gate leading to this field was closed, thankfully. Along with the typical dust smell, I could pick up the muted scent of grass being crunched alive by devil feet—what a smell.

I couldn't help but wonder if I was going to end up like them one day, running about on the field with my pores pissing sweat, feet being chewed on by sniveling bacteria looking for their next meal…

'Keep walking, Heinrich. You don't need anyone like Falco or Reiner finding you again,' I thought. I pulled up the collar of my shirt and kept walking.

I kept walking on towards the printing place. I must make a correction here about my newspaper duties. I wasn't directly responsible to the printing place but rather a newspaper stand nearby that actually sold them. The man who manned this stand (excuse the rhymes) was a chirpy fellow who looked like a civilized penguin with a toupee atop his head.

*A CONVERSATION*

"Hey, Heinrich! Where the hell have you been?"

"I'm sorry, sir. My dad's bar had an accident, so I was helping out—"

"I don't give a damn about your dad's bar. You're fired!"

A pause and a combing of a toupee later:

"Sir, can I have my job back?"

"Sure, what the hell."

The newspaper stand-man was an eccentric Eldian; we can just keep it at that.

"Heinrich, war is good for the newspaper business. There's more opportunity for papers to be sold since there'll be more news. That means more money for you. More money for me. Keep that in mind."

"Yes, sir."

He pulled out a stack of newspapers. "It's still the morning. Now get selling. You're representing Eld the Eldian's newspaper stand. We gotta beat that fool Joe 'shit' Schmidt's stand."

He looked out across the street to another newspaper stand. "Hey 'shit' Schmidt! Whatchya lookin' at?"

"Your gorgeous hairline, that's what!"

Eld the Eldian's toupee ruffled in the wind as if it was flattered.

Now, I can keep going on about my boss's rivalry with Joe 'shit' Schmidt, but this is not the shenanigan I'd like to focus this part of the story on. I simply included it to provide a sense of normalcy.

XXX

After selling some of the newspapers, I headed back down street 1005, back to the field of soldiers in training.

As I approached the field, the gates creaked open, and I noticed the disbursement of tad-pole soldiers rather than fully-grown ones. They spread out of the gate and swam along with gloomy faces—upside-down smiles and dispirited eyes. It was as if they lost something.

Maybe they were dispirited by the possibility that they would be shipped off to swim in the pools of the fungus-crowded trenches. All of this at the age of 8. A mole in the form of a thought dug its way into my ear when I thought of these tad-poles swimming. 'I hope none of these boys are Falco.'

Without sparing a second, I rushed behind a tree to stay out of view. (I thought there was a possibility that Falco could be in the crowd, and I didn't need a reminder of you know what.) I then listened to guesstimate the number of people around and waited until the coast was clear. After a minute or so, I heard less and less chittering and slithering from the miniature devils.

'Coast was clear,' I thought.

"Heinrich!"

Dammit.

I looked right to see the little soldier boy with a little more gold on his face than usual. He seemed rather cheery compared to the other kids.

"Heinrich, why are you here?! I thought Reiner said it's not a good idea for you to come back."

"Well I had—"

"Heinrich?!" My name was spilled from the foul mouth of another devil in training. It's one that I have mentioned to you before; the one with a brown bun glued to her head.

Out of nowhere, the blur of brown came around me and launched an attack on my unprepared groin. "Oww!" (The karma of Viktor kicking the wall-keeper in the balls finally caught up with me.)

Falco tried pulling the she-devil off me. "Gabi! What are you—"

"You're the one that tried to kill Reiner, aren't you?!"

"Falco, how does she know?"

"Shut up, devil!" The she-devil then turned towards Falco. "Falco, get away from him! He's probably a Paradis devil sent to assassinate Reiner!"

The other tad-pole soldiers took a break from their depression and gazed over at us. Gabi took a wooden training knife and started shanking me repeatedly in the stomach. The minuscule shouts of pain were barrage attacks to my abdomen.

"Die, devil! Die!"

Falco grabbed Gabi. "Gabi! Leave him alone!" She yanked her arm from his grasp. Falco continued with, "It wasn't his fault!"

The she-devil hissed from her teeth. "Hmmph…I need to ask Reiner myself." She shot a bullet of saliva onto the poor grass to the left of my head. It barely missed my face. I wonder if the grass died.

"Falco, how does that girl know…" The rest of my question fizzled out as Gabi bolted away. "…that I shot Reiner?"

He scratched the back of his head as if digging his fingers into the scalp would solve his mistake. "I told her…I thought I could trust her with it but.."

At the end of the day, Falco was a kid. I gave him a pass. However, I was still rather curious about the extra cheeriness molded to his face and voice earlier.

With my groin wallowing in its pain, I did my best to get on two feet. As I raised up, I noticed a badge in Falco's pocket. A new armband. I attempted to speak through a grimace of pain, but my balls grew a headache and I landed back on the ground again.

"W-when did you get a new armband?"

"Today! I've finally been accepted as a warrior candidate!"

I did my best to refrain from smiling although that was easy because of the ferocious pain. Falco must have noticed for his face drooped and crumbs of gold fell off.

"I know you weren't so happy about me doing all this training when I first told you about it."

I barely knew Falco. But something about a little kid going to war with no apparent motivation puzzled me. On the morning he first mentioned it all, he couldn't even give me a proper reason. But then again, he's just a kid. That's the justification I kept giving myself.

I brushed off this thinking as I stood up and gathered my things. Thankfully, the pain slowly let go of my balls and we walked away. As we plodded through, I had an idea: 'Instead of talking to that demented homeless guy maybe Falco can help me figure all this out.'

"Falco, I still don't understand something…why did Reiner only heal when you showed up?"

He quieted. His voice put on a grown-up's coat for it grew a shade darker, a shade older, a shade taller. "Shifters heal based on willpower. Maybe Reiner wanted to..to.."

"To die?" I could remember when Reiner said "Thank you" soon after I shot him. The frames of that scene were engrained into the storage at the back of my head. It's an animated stain made of immortal color and lines.

Falco's voice peeled off the darker layers and returned to normal. "I still don't understand. Why would he want to die?" I had the same question in my head.

I wanted to get as much info from Falco as I could, but people on the streets were throwing glances at us. When I met these glances head-on, the Eldians would quickly turn away and return to their menial tasks. It was as if Reiner's name was taboo.

I changed the topic while keeping track of the glances around us. I didn't want any more crooked people getting in my way.

"How'd you even find us? The roadblocks and construction people closed that part of the street off."

"I told them I'm an honorary marleyan. They let me through."

A chuckle slipped as I glanced around.

"What's so funny?" Falco asked.

"I find it funny that Mrs. Diller, that bakery lady, yelled at you because you're an honorary marleyan. And those guys let you through because you're honorary."

"Yeah…"

"Why do you think that is?" I was curious about the reason that a young mind would think up.

"Maybe…Mrs. Diller was just jealous. My mama tells me that if someone bullies me, it must be because they're jealous."

My eyes took a break from their wandering and landed on the freshly promoted soldier boy. The child-like answer almost caught me off-guard for he sounded fairly mature before. Then again, it was true.

Who wouldn't be jealous of someone that can see the world past these damn walls?

"Heinrich, the war…people are going to be shipped in a few weeks—"

I dropped a sigh.

"—but I don't think you'll get drafted."

"Really?"

I stopped right there on the sidewalk. The pain hid itself just for that second.

"Commander Magath told us the order that they're planning to draft people. He was complaining about how so many people around 25 haven't served yet and that they would get picked first. And then there's the foreign conscripts…"

"It would come down to me at some point, right? Maybe not this month, but maybe in the coming years when I become 16 or—"

"I don't think the war will last that long." Falco narrowed in determination for the amateur muscles bulged on his petit jaw. His golden eyes wore a strong stare. It seemed like his new position provided him some freshly brewed confidence. "Me and Gabi are here for Reiner. Whatever he's going through, I know he will do his best to protect us."

Falco perked up and a wholesome smile grew on his face—a look of curiosity. "Since I'm finally a warrior candidate like Gabi and my brother, do you think I can become a titan shifter someday, Heinrich?"

Dammit Falco. Why'd you have to ask that? You knew what I was going to say. So, I did what I had done before: I crushed a dream. "No."

"W-Why not?!"

"You don't have a good reason. When I asked why you're doing all this a few days back you couldn't even answer."

Falco looked away. He closed his eyes while ducking his chin. He let out a forceful breath and words slipped out of his mouth shortly after. "I-I do have a reason…"

"What?"

"I have a reason! I'm doing it so that girl, Gabi, doesn't get the Armored titan…"

"Why?"

"Because I want her to have a long life!"

Here I was guessing that the only reason Falco was training was since he wanted to be like his brother. No, he didn't want to fight for his country or people. But rather some bitchy girl that kneed me in the balls.

It was selfless.

And selfish at the same time.

My view of Falco was that he was someone that treasured helping people in need. For example, me when I couldn't sell newspapers. I felt warm inside not from a little boy expressing his indirect love for someone. But a tamed flame of anger. Someone using a reason like that to go waste their lives on a battlefield seemed pathetic to me.

*LONG FORMULA #3*
Wholesome smile child bullets gold honorary marleyan unwarranted crush = Falco Grice

"You're pathetic, Falco."

His mouth fell open and the gold in his eyes cooled to silver for they laid still. He stumbled and staggered to a wall with his bottom lip trembling. I walked off having crushed a dream and a short-lived relationship. Breaking off the friendship right there would make it easier to swallow if he died.

With a slight whimper, the golden boy came running after me. He tugged my sleeve and a whimper slept in his voice. "Are you ok, Heinrich?"

"No, Falco…I don't think I ever will be again."