Creation began on 08-02-22

Creation ended on 08-03-22

Attack on Titan

You'd be proud of her if you gave her a chance

A/N: The twenty-fifth chapter of Jerry236's Founding Titan Past and Future inspired this chapter that is a bonus to my Hope from the Sky story.

All she did was ask for Historia to hold her left hand as they sat against the tree of her family's farm. It was to help boost her connection to the young queen's past…and Kaede Sogen, the sole holder of the Dark Titan, the last holder of the power of the Titans and the Queen of the Titans…found herself in the past of Historia Reiss.

"Aah!" She heard a scream, and turned to see a little Historia being pushed away from a woman that had this look of fright and anger.

So far, Kaede had learned, through her combined power of the former Founding and Attack Titans' temporal abilities, she could be unseen to anyone in the past…until she wanted to be seen by them. As she watched Alma, the absentee mother of Historia Reiss, walk away from her daughter, who was bruised and slightly bloody by her shoving, Kaede followed her, leaving her friend and distant relative.

"Why was she forced upon me?" She heard Alma say.

Even though she got here through Historia's memory, she was still in the past, enabling her to follow Alma due to the former Founder's connection to the past and future. She followed her to the day she was leaving the farm and decided to make herself known to this…this woman; without a deeper sense of what her deal was and why she refused to connect with Historia, Kaede couldn't accept Alma as a mother…or a person.

"You shouldn't push her away," she uttered as she appeared to Alma inside the carriage she was using, surprising the woman, who thought she was alone.

"Who are you?" She demanded to know from Kaede. "How'd you get in here?"

"I'm a concerned friend of Historia Reiss," she revealed; whether or not she gave her name to this woman was up to how this conversation turned out.

"You? A friend of that girl? No, no way. She doesn't have any friends. She doesn't have anybody, including her father. She…"

"You're wrong. She has friends. She has people who love her. You have no idea how much she is loved by people that see her, that actually see her."

"Then these people are fooling themselves into believing that she's special when she's not."

"Why do you think that? Why do you think so little of her life?"

"Because she has been nothing but a burden on my heart ever since the day she was born! I never wanted her to begin with! She was forced on me!"

"She was…forced on you?" Kaede questioned. "Her father forced you to have her?"

"Her father…didn't have to do anything," Alma replied. "It's nothing but a stigma. She is nothing but a stigma. If I could do so, I'd wash the world clean of her presence."

This woman hasn't a single measure of acceptance towards Historia, Kaede heard her Dark Titan speak to her; both were taking all that they could in this conversation with the woman.

"She…isn't a stigma, Ms. Alma," Kaede told the woman. "I may not have lived the type of childhood that she lived because of you and her father, but she didn't let either of you break her spirit with your absence and negligence. You can say what you want about Historia…but I'll let you know that regardless of your personal feelings toward her…you'd be proud of her if you gave her a chance. If you really gave her a chance. I didn't need to…and I'm proud of the person she has become. People love her, tolerate her, accept her place in the world."

"What has she ever done a day in her meaningless life to make you believe she's worth everything you say?" Alma wanted to know. "She nearly killed me with her first breath."

Kaede could've said that Historia, a few years from right now, would become the Queen of Paradis, or that she would be the guardian of the children orphaned by the Titans or the crime that plagued the island after her rise to power by replacing her father as the immediate ruler, or just show her the future of her daughter, her relationships with the people that needed her to be the queen, how she herself dedicated her Titan power to helping the people and protecting her whenever needed alongside her boyfriend and his man-made behemoth that fell from the sky the day the Colossal Titan returned to attack Wall Rose a second time. But she didn't. It wasn't because she couldn't, but because it probably wouldn't have changed how this woman felt towards Historia. Even with the power to manipulate memories and control Titans, Kaede wouldn't stoop to the level of a puppeteer and rework Alma to make her feel concern for her only daughter; to manipulate other people's feelings, to make them do things that were otherwise not a part of their nature to begin with, it would be a violation of their will in favor of her own desires.

She couldn't project her will over others unless they were mindless Titans, and even then, only to help others or the island of Paradis. So Alma, despite her animosity towards Historia, would keep her mindset, no matter how much it was a pain for Kaede to accept. But she had to share with this woman her personal feelings about her.

"You want to know what she has done?" She asked Alma, raising her voice. "You wanna know what kind of person she is? She's a saint. I admire her for being the Queen of Paradis. I respect that she cares for orphans, despite her mother, despite someone like you, thinking she's this terrible, terrible burden that was forced upon her life. She's among the kindest, sweetest and selfless people in the world that care more for others than she ever could for herself."

Alma looked as though she wanted to say something about her daughter, but she shook her head in the negative.

"I can't believe that," she says to Kaede. "I won't believe this. Not you and not that child. She's nothing, a nobody. You believe her if you choose to, but I will never accept that she's this good person when she is just a waste of space."

Kaede lost her cool for a moment and raised her right hand, balled into a fist, in front of Alma, but stopped herself from doing something that she would've regretted. Lowering her hand back to her side, she sighs and looks at Alma with different eyes, in an enlightened perception.

"You know, I was told you were not a talkative person," she told Alma, "that you weren't open about your feelings. I actually thought I'd hate you as a person, that I'd really, really…hate you. Except that I don't hate you. Honestly…I pity you."

"You pity me?" Alma questions her.

"Yes. You have no idea how great a person Historia is and what an amazing life she's going to live when she grows up. If you hate her just for the mere fact that she exists, then it tells me enough about what kind of person you are deep down. And no, it's not whatever you're thinking; I don't know what you do beyond being a servant for a noble family…and I really don't care, either. You can be a florist for all I care…or a former member of the Military Police that resigned after a few years. Either way, I just pity who you are."

Suddenly, the carriage stopped moving.

"I don't need your pity," Alma told her.

"Good for you," Kaede replied, and the door was opened. "Good for you."

When the light was let in, Alma found herself alone in the carriage.

"Miss," the man that pulled the carriage spoke to her. "I'm sorry, but…was there someone else in here with you?"

"No, sir," she replied; the young, gray-haired woman that she was talking to was just gone, as though she had never been there at all.

-x-

Kaede sighs as she lets go of Historia's hand.

"Your mother was… Frieda was right about her," she told her fellow queen. "I'm sorry, Historia. Alma was a terrible person, regardless of what I said to her."

"It's okay," Historia replied. "I was there, too. I saw and heard everything you two spoke. You were going to hit her when she expressed her contempt towards me, but you stopped yourself. You could've used your power to make her think and feel positive towards me, but you didn't do that, either."

"If I had done that, it wouldn't have been fair to anyone. And…it would've been a betrayal against my conscience and the oath I swore not to abuse my power in any way that impeded the progress of Paradis. I can't just play with someone's mind and change it to suit other people's needs or interests. But I won't lie, the very thought of doing so wouldn't have slipped my mind. Alma being…pleasant to be around and proud of you… Who wouldn't be happy?"

"You? Me? My mother? But nothing has changed…except what has changed since Shinji fell from the sky. Even without my mother, I still have others in my life: Ymir, Frieda, you and Shinji, the children. This is probably a question not many people hear or ask, but…are you happy? I mean, are you truly happy?"

Kaede had to give Historia props; that was a question that not many people used. If it had been asked to her, she would have given her honest answer about her own life in its current state. If she had asked Shinji that same question, she'd want his honest response.

"Are you happy, Historia?" She asked the young queen.

"Yes," Historia answered her. "I am happy. I may not have my parents involved in my life…but I have friends and family involved in my life…and that's enough for me. And my life is mine to decide how it's lived. I can go anywhere, do anything, be anything. I've recently taken up painting; I had no idea how hard it was to paint a background in full detail."

"Nobody is perfect in the beginning…but if you love what you do, then you get better at it. Not even Ymir Fritz was perfect in the beginning…but we all know how great she became later in her life before she passed away."

"Yeah. What about you, Kaede? Are you happy?" Historia asked her.

"Yeah," she answered back. "I used to believe that my life had been shattered into pieces because of Grausam Zanki, may he suffer in the loneliness that he was condemned to long ago, but I was able to put the pieces back together and move past his sick and depraved acts of wanting a life beyond the Walls and Paradis. I never thought my life would be the way it is right now; I live outside Wall Maria in Paradius City, I have a boyfriend that gave me back my sense of hope, the Dark Titan…and my little sister, Sumairu. My life's better than I initially believed it was when I was little and in Shiganshina. And one of the best things I've done since I've come to embrace what the Dark Titan can do…is fly…and it's a euphoric feeling that is unlike nearly every other experience you'll ever get in life."

"Flying, huh? Different from the boat ride to and from Gigante when we found out about Titanus Yggdrasilus and discovered that there were people living underground that have origins from all over the world and live harmoniously?"

"Very different from that ride. No shaking or queasiness."

"Heh-heh-heh. I gotta try that sometime."

"Yeah."

"Thanks again for what you did today, Kaede."

"You're welcome."

The two young women then looked at the land in front of them. Nothing might've changed between Historia and her mother, but she was fine with that. She just had to accept that Alma was simply never happy about her life…but she refused to let herself be accused of her death when it was never her fault; her murderer, Kenny Ackerman, and her lover, Rod Reiss, were responsible for her death and would rot in prison for the rest of their lives. Nobody was perfect, but Historia swore that when she had children in her future, she wouldn't echo what her mother did to her on any of them. Luckily, she had the rest of her life to decide when she and Ymir would have children.

When you give others a chance to show you who they are, surely, you'd be proud of them and what lives they lead

A/N: I blame you for this, Jerry236. I only did one story so far where Alma changed her attitude towards Historia, but I have no idea when the next story will include Alma being motherly towards her and changing her own future. Maybe in the Redemption or Retribution story, as there is something else in that story that will happen when I get back to it. I hope this impresses people with Alma being told by Kaede that her daughter is a good person, despite being from a union that was lacking in love, and Kaede not crossing the two lines that were hitting her and altering her behavior, despite having the power to do the latter. Until next time.