4 | The Parabola of Lost Seasons
parabola (n.): a plane curve which is mirror-symmetrical and is approximately U-shaped.
She found Pastor Kircher on his knees in the dirt. Beside him, Balthazar watched her with wide green eyes, tail swishing lazily.
Two of Pastor Kircher's many privileges in Wodan University: a small plot of land at Ignace College that he tended to himself, and a cat.
Or, conversely, his two most treasured things in the world: his garden and Balthazar.
"So you've finished your five years," Kircher said, trowel in one hand, the other digging up something. Never mind that it had only rained less than two hours before and Kircher was probably getting mud all over his trousers. "And you've gotten your degree. Have you thought of what you'll be doing after?"
Camille sat on a stone bench a few meters away. Even from that distance she could hear the expectation in his tone. There was nothing easy about Kircher, except for the way he could easily go off on a never-ending tangent about something that interested him. He'd written a great many books solely on those things that interested him, whether it was commentaries on philosophy and religion, the scientific discoveries he'd made while on his travels, or most recently, his plants in his garden at Ignace.
Kircher tended to teach a bit of everything everywhere, but luckily he only taught mathematics at Pascal College, and she'd survived it on her first year. Still Camille bit the inside of her cheek, knowing she didn't have a complete answer ready for him yet. "Yes, Father. Somewhat."
"Really now," He deadpanned.
"Pascal reached out to me," She admitted. "They wanted me to teach one of Professor Beeckman's lower level classes."
"And I suppose it was Simon who endorsed you and then told you about it later."
She laughed. She'd always been told that Kircher and Laplace went back a long time. Though she could never be sure if Kircher secretly hated Laplace or only tolerated him. "Are you telling me you wouldn't endorse me, Father? After all we've been through?"
The older man stopped. Then he threw his trowel aside and started patting his hands. Balthazar, as if sensing his master was done with the garden, prowled between the tomato plants. He jumped onto the bench, sitting at Camille's side.
She didn't reach out to pet him. Like his master, Balthazar was notoriously moody. Affectionate one moment and then slashing your arm open in the next.
"Now why would I want to do that?" Kircher said calmly, sitting on Camille's other side. He was large in more ways than one – aside from his towering intellect and his outsized reputation, Kircher was also at least six feet tall. "Unless you ask me for one. I will give it, Camille. But only if you want it."
She pored over his words.
Meanwhile Balthazar's tail swished. Rainwater ran down the stalks of Kircher's tomato plants. Sunlight, now golden, filtered through the red maple leaves.
And just like her carriage ride with Levi, all this beauty felt despoiled by the reality of how it came about. How any of this was possible without the nobles and the wealthy hoarding all this rich land in Wall Sina. She'd always known it, as someone who'd grown just outside of it.
But Levi was the first person to put it as bluntly as fucking pigsty. Perhaps she'd rolled in the muck with the pigs too long to not notice that filth wasn't the inherent state of things.
"Can I ask you something?" She began. Kircher seemed surprised, but nodded. "You once told me you left the Church because you couldn't bear being surrounded by nobles. But you still call yourself Pastor. Why? You're here at Wodan, and you're still surrounded by them in some way, aren't you? Why stay here?"
"You take too long to get to your point," Kircher reminded her as if he was giving one of his oral exams. "Pick something or synthesize, Camille."
"Fine," She huffed. "After everything, why stay where you are?"
Kircher looked down at her. "Are you suggesting I should be somewhere else?"
More pedantry. She groaned. "Father. Please answer the question. It's not something I can work out on my own, I promise I've reflected already."
"Good," He said, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Why stay here? Why does anyone stay where they are? Because they think this is where they should be, despite everything, or because of everything."
She contemplated this. "So? You like teaching that much? Most of these nobles don't even seem to care. Can it ever be that simple?"
"You're doing it again. Pick one or—"
"Father. Can it be that simple?"
"Alright, alright. The truth is I don't know," Kircher lifted a brow. "Or I'm not sure. It could be. Being here means being surrounded by so much knowledge, too. I take what I learn here and bring it with me wherever I go. I bring it with me to my classes here, and sincerely teach the few that are willing to listen, and I teach the many more out there who want to learn. Teaching in Wodan allowed me to bring you here, didn't it?"
"…That's true," She said, voice soft. "But surely you don't have to stay here."
"But I choose to. Rarely is anything in this world purely good or evil," He uttered. "As subjects we always seem to find our own individual balance for how much we're willing to seek or take of either. Sometime the judgment is simple: I stay because I like being in my garden. Sometimes it's difficult: I stay because the wages in Wodan are large enough for a season's worth of teaching and living simply in Wall Maria. But that's what makes us subjects."
"…We can think for ourselves. That decision is always ours to make." She finished for him. She sighed, scrubbing a hand over her face. Subject. She'd taken a philosophy class on a whim once, and hearing Kircher say it had made her brain convulse for a moment. That single class five years ago had been a bad time, and that was already in comparison to Kircher's mathematics class she'd also been attending.
"How is Iris?"
She straightened, looking up at Kircher. He was ostensibly staring out at his garden, but the look in his eyes told her he was somewhere else entirely. In his memories, perhaps. That was likely if they were talking about her mother. "Is she still upset at me? Her memory is too long. But I can't help but think of her every time they chime the hour here."
"You could say yours is even longer, Father."
Kircher had a perfect memory, one completely unaided by techniques the way her and her mother's were.
"We created the memory house together as a means to mimic it," He said. "Fools like Simon will covet it, but only your mother ever had the rigor for it." Then the haze in his eyes seemed to clear, and he looked down at her with a corner of his mouth lifted. "And now you, of course."
"You were friends once," She sighed. "I don't see why you can't be now."
"Mm. I suspect she never forgave me for not leaving the Church when I should have."
Years ago, her mother and her grandfather had been tasked to design a carillon for Wodan University. Beforehand they'd only been building them in villages in Wall Rose; their work had been noticed by a noble, who brought her mother and her grandfather to Mitras. It was on that occasion that Iris had met and befriended a young Anislaus Kircher, studying at the same university, already a pastor by then.
…Or so the story went. Those were the details she'd cobbled together from Kircher's long-suffering sighs and Laplace's own spotty memory.
"But you did eventually," Camille pointed out. "And mother still calls you a friend, you know."
Kircher's brows jumped. "She asks after me?"
Not really. Iris rarely brought up her past with Kircher. But she knew he carried a soft spot for her mother. "Want to be my father that bad, Father? My real father would strangle you."
He chuckled. "To say the least. You're right; much too late for that." Then he patted her hair, "I wouldn't have you as my student otherwise. But don't you think I've ever forgiven you for enrolling in Maurice's ethics class instead of mine, Camille."
"And you complain about mother's grudges!" Camille laughed. "You're both terrible."
Kircher lent her a carriage on the way home – though before that, they'd had dinner followed by tea at Ignace College's dining hall, and spent two hours in his rooms poring over the clock plans she'd submitted before graduation. She told him her original intention of gifting him the clock she'd made – though that was before the dean had gone and taken it for himself.
Kircher had only smiled and said he'd have the clock in hand eventually. Camille had cackled; that usually meant Kircher would exploit his long memory to blackmail the dean into surrendering the clock.
It was near midnight when she arrived in Belcastle, using a carriage Kircher had borrowed from Einrich College. Even in the black of night, she could see the outline of their chimney huffing smoke, which meant someone was still up.
She'd been expecting Lotta, because the older woman tended to worry when she wasn't home by sundown. But no; it was her mother sitting by the fireplace, warming her toes against the hearth. No other candles were lit, the only light emanating from the fireplace.
"Camille?" Her mother uttered. Iris sat still as a statue, gazing into the fire. "Finally home, are you?"
"You know Pastor Kircher," Camille replied, leaning against the doorway. She wound her coat tighter around her, feeling a draft in the house. "It's always a long talk with him."
Iris said nothing. Her outsized shadow splayed on the wall beside the fireplace, and Camille could make out the individual strands of the blonde hair they shared, the slightest rise and fall her mother's figure made as she breathed.
"Did you talk about what you're planning to do now that you've graduated?"
Camille swallowed. Honesty. Honesty was the best approach – right? When it came to her father, probably, but honesty tended to yield a mixed bag with her mother. That left lying, but lying had always been nothing if not worse.
"Yes, we did. I wanted to ask him about teaching in Pascal College. They – they offered me a position…"
Her mother seemed to take this calmly. "…So you'd be leaving the shop, then."
Leave us. Leave me and your father; leave Lotta, leave Belcastle.
"N-Not necessarily," Camille felt compelled to say. "I can take a carriage from here – "
"Listen to yourself," Iris cut in. "Lotta told me Levi lent you his military carriage to take you to Mitras today. And I suppose Kircher lent you one from the university going back, too."
"He woke up the entire college looking for a driver that would still take me, actually. And that may be so," Camille added lightly, acutely aware of the downturn in the conversation. "But I could arrange something similar, perhaps – "
"Why waste the time and effort? You could just board in the university like you've already been doing."
She stared at her mother's unmoving back. She moved forward in the dark, approaching Iris. Camille joked with a quiet voice, "You want me gone that bad?"
Her mother sucked in a breath. "It's not like that, Camille. I didn't just send you away. You learned more than I ever could. Why stop there?"
"There's nothing wrong with wanting to stay here, right?"
The words had left her mouth but Camille only half-meant them. Just as much as she hadn't imagined staying in Pascal College the way Laplace wanted her to, she'd never imagined staying in Belcastle either.
She'd also grossly miscalculated in assuming her mother would be upset if she left. But her mother had always been impossible to read, and Camille dutifully took up the logical conclusion of the argument to stay.
Kircher's regret still hung in her mind's eye.
"Mother, even you gave up Mitras to be with father."
If there could ever be a climax for an informally trained mechanist's career, her mother had experienced it while working on the carillon for Wodan's Tower of Minerva. A hundred bells, four hundred meters of copper wire, twenty-four different tunes to signify each hour, and a lifetime's worth of work; her grandfather had died halfway through the project. Her mother, despite only being eighteen, had refused to abandon it.
It had been a feat of engineering. Her professors sometimes talked about it: Laplace was especially fond of using it in mechanical examples; how had such genius eluded the clutches of Pascal College, he lamented during their many private chats. It was only right, Laplace liked to conclude, that the daughter of such genius should be schooled in Pascal.
And then her mother never returned for a second project. No; not even when the royal government or the Church of the Walls coveted a carillon for their own buildings. Iris Leto had taken her formidable genius and deserted Mitras, and the friends she'd made there, altogether.
"That's different," Iris snapped. "Unless Erwin's proposed and you've decided to throw everything away as you're implying I did?"
Camille stopped in her tracks. If she'd wanted to, she could have reached out and touched her mother's shoulder.
But her hand stayed at her side now, clenched into a fist. The mention of Erwin was a blow below the belt. "He has nothing to do with it," Camille muttered, turning away from the room entirely. "You should know that by now. He only ever visits if he needs to."
Her mother's spiteful voice followed her even in the dark hallway, even as she rapidly put one foot in front of the other on the stairs. "He can't make this decision for you either, Camille! No one can!"
When she rose in the morning and looked out her window, Camille was surprised to find that the beautiful weather she'd glimpsed in Mitras had continued the next day.
The house was quiet as Camille made her way downstairs.
She couldn't hear anything coming from the shopfront or even from the basement; walking inside the sitting room, she found it empty.
It was only Lotta's voice as she sung in the kitchen that gave any indication the house hadn't been deserted: autumn's flourish fruit that falls for you, apples sweet as death; all that falls has lived and died for you –
It stopped as the older woman's head popped out from the kitchen. "Good morning Camille, isn't it nice that the sun decided to come back today?"
Camille felt her face stretch into a smile, and she moved over to the cupboards where they kept the tea. "Yes, it's rather nice. Maybe the clouds rained all they could yesterday. Black or green tea, Lotta?"
"Either, I'll drink what you're having. Here, let me get the kettle on for us."
And again the sound of her singing filled the room.
Camille scooped two tablespoons of black tea into a teapot and left it by the table. While waiting for the water to boil, she gathered the honey they kept on a high shelf, and a little bit of milk from the pail; next the silverware, and lastly the teacups and saucers. When she returned to the teapot, it was also to pour the freshly boiled water over the tea.
And her eyes caught on a square of paper that sat in the middle of dark, polished wood of the dining table, apparently having missed her notice until then:
Out. Need to finish the repairs on the dam east of here.
The shop can stay closed today.
Suddenly the smell of bread baking in the oven woke her senses, and the tea that was only beginning to steep seemed a startling shade of crystalline orange; Lotta's voice reached the loveliest she'd ever heard it, as clear and full as the day outside: all is for my mistress; all is for my maid, sweetness that I took for, sweetness that she gave to me…
But that was the way of things, wasn't it – even if her mother knew she'd hurt her feelings, she'd never apologize. Rather, she'd make up for it in other ways. Such as allowing Camille to take the day off by closing the shop. Camille sighed as she folded the paper and stowed it in her skirt pocket.
The singing stopped. But this time it was because Lotta emerged from the kitchen with a plate of breakfast. "Thank you for being an angel," Camille singsonged in turn when Lotta set the plate in front of her and she pressed a big kiss on the older woman's cheek.
Lotta was red as she eased herself into the seat across her. "Now, there's no need for that! You need a big breakfast if you're going to continue studying for that exam of yours."
Camille smiled at this while she tucked into the perfect breakfast Lotta knew she liked.
First, the tea: black tea steeped for five minutes, with a fat teaspoon of honey and a splash of milk. It was mild and just vaguely tasting of tea – she'd never been picky the way her father was about tea.
Second, the bread: made with flour from the local grain mill her mother had redesigned, toasted in butter Lotta made with milk from the dairy farmer who lived beside Baron. Lotta made cheese as well, which Camille smeared over the toasted bread. In their house they reserved the last of the milk for drinking with tea – even if only Camille and Lotta took their tea that way.
Lastly, the egg: only one, hardboiled. Runny yolks had always been far too messy.
"The day is too beautiful to let it go to waste," Lotta murmured while staring out the window, freshly-poured tea in hand. "I think I'll do some laundry today."
Camille swallowed a mouthful of bread and cheese. "I'll help."
"Absolutely not! You should be studying!"
"Hey, it'll be like when I was a kid, Lotta." Camille smiled, anticipating the nice day outdoors already. "But, I won't be a nuisance now that I'm older! I can actually help, and we can both enjoy the rest of the day."
And that was how Erwin found her.
While she had finished clipping a bedsheet to the clothesline and she stepped back to admire the line of linens that she'd washed and wrung with Lotta's help, a wind had blown.
A sheet flew upwards. She thought she saw a flash of those blue eyes shining with the sunlight; a glimpse of that blonde hair, those ever-present eyebrows.
Camille actually took a step backwards, her heart stuttering in her chest. It can't be.
And yet it was: Erwin emerged from between the sheets, a hand parting the still-dripping swathes of cloth; too soon and he was there in front of her, looking down at her with the corners of his mouth lifted in what she knew was a smile. "I thought I'd find you here."
Camille felt her mouth go dry. She'd insisted that Lotta go inside to nap, since she knew the older woman rose at dawn. She finished hanging the rest of the laundry alone, but now here they were alone with each other, in the backyard they'd always used to play in.
"Sorry," Camille blurt out. "Nobody was at the shop. Mother's away, and I think Lotta's still asleep. S-So really it's just me."
He was dressed in a clean white button down, a pair of slacks. Dress shoes. Somehow she could still make out the remnants of the boy who used to come in with his father to have a mantel clock wound. He wandered around the workshop and Camille answered every single question he had about what he saw: those are gears inside the clock; that's the pendulum that swings back and forth. Mother uses a key to fix clocks; long hand for the hour, short hand for the minute. My name is Camille and I've always lived here. What's yours?
Erwin came to stand beside her, looking at the filled clothesline. "I noticed. I know Lotta likes to do laundry on sunny days like this."
As if on cue another wind blew, and Camille watched the way it lightly tousled the bright blonde hair on his head, normally combed back and so formal. Her chest was still tight – and the memories continued flooding into her mind – but she urged herself to relax, lest she wasted the sudden gift of their time together by feeling nervous. "…Did you need something fixed?"
He looked at her again. "Hmm," Erwin said aloud. Only then did she notice the folder he held in the crook of his arm. "No, I was hoping to speak with your mother, actually. But this works for me just as well."
Against herself, Camille felt a small smile bloom on her face. "Sorry to disappoint you." Her feet automatically began walking towards the oak tree in their backyard, "Was it anything important? I don't know when she'll be back."
Erwin chuckled beside her as they stopped underneath the shade of the tree. "Nonsense." He rested a hand on the old tree, looking up at its branches. "It's nothing that can't wait. And I don't believe we've had an opportunity to speak like this in a while."
Camille leaned her back against the trunk, half-counting the loud beats of her heart at this point. "You've been very busy ever since you joined the military. I don't blame you for having more important things to do."
She was being honest, even if at some points she'd wished the situation were different. She'd never once blamed him for not even writing to her when he left. She took his fewer and fewer visits as a sign that he was moving on with life, and he'd had no use for her anymore.
When she left for Wodan, she'd hoped to achieve something similar. Mostly it had just made her miss him.
Curious about how he felt, she turned to gaze at him, the bark pressing into her cheek. But Erwin was already looking at her with his brows slightly raised. "I could say the same thing. You've been preparing to go to university for years, and then when you left it was for five whole years. I've always thought that was more important than me and my questions."
She laughed breathlessly, an unconscious reaction; her retort was similarly quick, her mouth moving on its own. "You make it sound like I didn't enjoy answering your questions. Or that we weren't friends because of your questions."
"We were, weren't we," He murmured beside her quietly. Almost as if to himself.
Camille slid down to the grass at the foot of the tree with a sigh. "Don't tell me I could've been writing you this entire time."
The branches of the tree swayed with the wind. Grass crunched underneath his shoes.
Then Erwin sat down beside her, their knees brushing up against each other. It made Camille smile; how many times had they sat like this, chattering endlessly about the things that interested them? "What would you have liked to know? I was only a trainee like every other person there. I couldn't have told you anything new."
They both looked out into the sky framed by the red leaves of the oak tree in autumn. It was blue, infinitely blue. Impossibly wide and depthless on that clear day.
"I would've liked to hear from you, however," He added. She glanced at him through the corner of her eye. He was still looking at the sky. "I would've wanted to know what you knew."
Hearing it filled her heart. That was also the way of things: Erwin's bottomless hunger for knowledge, his boundless curiosity. Practically half the time they spent together as children were conversations where they talked about the things they'd learned since they last saw each other.
She nudged him lightly with her shoulder. "Funny you should mention that, because you could've went with me, and I wouldn't have had to write you at all."
That snapped him out of his trance. He looked down at her again with those wide blue eyes. Tell me more. Tell me everything, they always said. Camille could only continue to smile at it all. "You're the smartest person I know, Erwin. You would've easily qualified. The man who sponsored me – "
" – the pastor?"
Camille nodded. "He would've loved a student like you. You're the same. You want to know everything. He teaches everything. He easily could've sponsored you too. You would've loved being there. I know it."
The irony wrung her heart. They could've been writing each other the entire time. They could've went to Wodan together. If there'd been anyone in the world who deserved the opportunity she had in going to Wodan, it was Erwin – and yet here they'd been, forced to spend all those years apart, when the distance wasn't even half as great as it seemed.
"Is that so?" Erwin spoke, solemn as ever. But in this instance he sounded not one bit curious, or regretful, which made her look at him in surprise. "Here I thought you were the smartest person I knew for knowing all these things that I had to ask you about."
She shook her head with a laugh. "Don't be ridiculous. Just imagine, I could've brought you to Wodan's libraries. So many books to read! I swear there's nothing like it – we would've had to split them between us if we wanted to finish reading everything in our lifetimes."
Something flashed in his blue eyes.
And yet he only seemed to entertain it for one moment. "But I went to the military," Erwin said firmly. "And you went alone."
Camille only stared at him.
"Why did you?"
Erwin looked at her. She met his gaze squarely. "Why? And you joined the Scouts, too. Of all the branches."
It had been his last regular visit. She'd been twelve, and him sixteen. He'd already been tall and stern: I'm enlisting in the Training Corps. I expect this to be my last visit in a while.
Goodbye, Camille.
She'd only stood in shock as he departed on a carriage where his aunt waited.
So now she stared at Erwin unflinchingly, the same way he always did when he wanted his questions answered. "Why did you leave?"
His bright blue eyes bore into her own. Assessing, calculating; inwardly, Camille waited for what kind of answer he would give. Would you lie to me now, Erwin, after all this time?
Then he blinked and smiled, and she knew he wouldn't. They never had, as children. Nothing had to be gained by lying to each other then – but as adults she knew the equation grew more complicated.
"When my father died," He began in the same resolute tone he used for everything, "I never told you how he died. That was because I was initially told that he was killed in an accident, but I never believed it. I joined the military because I thought it would lead me to the truth."
Camille had heard of his father's death, of course. That was when Erwin began arriving at their clock shop alone or with a maid. He'd only said he was living with his aunt since his father was gone; Erwin had been so matter-of-fact about it that Camille had simply taken his word for it and never mentioned it again.
Lotta would worry and her parents would sometimes discuss it when they thought she wasn't listening – but Camille had always stayed silent. She believed Erwin would tell her more if he wanted to.
"I know now that my father was killed by the Military Police. But the full truth behind why," He shifted to stare at the endless sky. "That truth is still out there. I want to find it. And I know the Scouts will help me get closer to it."
It didn't surprise her at all that the Military Police was behind his father's death, or that he viewed the Scouts as instrumental to this deeply personal crusade. Evidently he saw things that only he fully understood.
She considered what was the right thing to say in this moment.
"At the university," Camille shared. Erwin did say he wanted to know what she knew. "The MP's are the butt of everyone's jokes. We know they're corrupt. We know they'll do anything to make an extra coin. But somehow we still use them to keep everything inside Wall Sina in order. It makes me wonder why things are the way they are to begin with. Because there's no way this should all still keep running, but it does."
His eyes slid over to her. "That," Erwin declared, and Camille could feel his blue gaze – tell me more, tell me everything – burn brighter than ever before. "Is an astute observation. It sounds as if you've given it real thought."
Caught in his stare, breathing became a conscious effort. "I think anyone who stays inside Sina long enough should be able to see it."
"Be that as it may. Not enough people question it. They just accept it. Others exploit it. And others, like always, suffer for it."
Others like his father. Others like Erwin himself. But Erwin seemed unfazed, or if anything at all, even more determined for it. It appeared underneath the rift that had grown between them since he'd left, he was still the same straight-eyed, driven boy she'd always known.
And inevitably, Erwin landed on the question everyone seemed to ask her: "Will you be taking over the shop after the engineering exam?"
It was quite a ways from what are you going to do now, but she knew that was the question he was really asking.
"I don't know yet," She answered honestly. Thrice now people had asked her that question. And yet it somehow felt the worst when it was Erwin to ask her. "I could teach in Mitras. I could apply to be one of the technicians in a company. I could stay here and take over like you said."
Her mother had only been twenty when she finished the carillon on the Tower of Minerva. Erwin had only been sixteen when he enlisted.
Right now though, at age twenty-four, he was looking at her with his bushy brows raised. Like he was shocked that she didn't know something for once. A laugh escaped her.
His lips lifted at the sound of it. "Those don't sound like bad options."
"You must think it's frivolous," She muttered, her hands running through the grass.
"On the contrary," Erwin pronounced. "I think every choice has the potential to change something in this world. I suppose teaching in Wodan means being in the capital."
Camille nodded. "There are companies as well. I could apply to the East of Utopia Company. Their headquarters are actually in the Utopia District. I could have a nice cottage where it's always cold," She tilted her head at him with a grin, "and you can come visit me, and we'll always have wine by the fireplace."
"Too far. You should be closer south," His eyes glinted with amusement. "So you can visit me in the Survey Corps HQ."
She chuckled. "Utopia owns vineyards around Karanes District. As far as I know, most of their winemaking machinery should be there as well. Is that south enough for you?"
"Not enough I'm afraid." Erwin commented with a smile. "Did you know there are Combat Engineer squads in the military now?"
Camille laughed, nudging him again. "Oi, Lieutenant Eyebrows, there can't be squads of technicians just for that. What do they do all day? Fix your ODM gear?"
At her jab, he reproachfully tugged at her blonde hair, which made Camille scowl. "They're in charge of manning the cannons in the Garrison, as far as I know. Don't be narrow-minded."
She blinked, thinking of what he'd just said. "You don't have them in the Survey Corps?"
Erwin shook his head, and Camille used it as an opportunity to twist the lock of hair he had in his fingers away. "We don't. The Scouts prioritize speed during expeditions."
"Hauling cannons with you would take too long," She finished for him, at which his lips twitched.
"Exactly."
She knew the Scouts used the hardiest horses the government could breed for them. She knew they went beyond the walls – she knew Erwin had joined them, straight out of his time in the Training Corps, and that Levi was also a Scout.
Camille lied back on the tree, resting her head against the oak that had stood there for countless other backyard conversations they'd had. "Erwin," She murmured. He looked back at her. "What's it like? Outside?"
His eyes went dark for a moment, and Camille wondered if she'd said the wrong thing. He was silent as he also lied back beside her, their shoulders touching.
After what seemed like forever, he said: "What do they teach you in university?"
"What everyone else knows, I'm sorry to say," Camille sighed. "The students are mostly nobles and the children of businessmen. So what the university teaches aligns with the royal government's rules. It would be easy to spot which professor went out of line when the students have the same interests as the government."
"The pastor," He turned his head towards her. They were so close Camille could admire the individual strands in his thick brows, and the way he'd apparently begun to groom them. "Your benefactor. What does he teach?"
She chuckled at the turn their conversation had taken. "Would you like to know a bit of everything?" Then she felt a chill run down her spine. "No, actually, he teaches a lot of everything. Want to start with some philosophy? His theological commentary on the teachings of the Church of the Walls, maybe?"
"I see. I will admit, that's a bit disappointing."
As soon as he started saying it, Camille felt herself shaking her head.
Erwin gazed at her with surprise.
"It isn't, actually." Even as she completely disagreed with him – which she realized with a lurch of her heart was actually a rare occurrence – she found herself smiling. "There's so much to know about this world we have inside the walls, and he's written so much about it. I should lend you one of his books. He writes like he's a child! Like he's constantly learning, and he's excited about every new discovery he makes, even though he's probably made so many already. They're beautiful, and they're always filled with the small details in this world that we take for granted, like – "
She pointed at the horizon, where the mountains rose, " – beneath some mountains, people have found the bones of creatures that would have been as big as a house! He could tell you – "
Camille waved a hand at the nearby bushes in the backyard, where Lotta grew her marigolds in brilliant shades of gold and yellow, " – the probability of a flower turning out in this color, or that, or maybe even a mix of the two entirely – "
Then she pointed at a swallow that flew over them, and both their eyes tracked the bird as it swooped and rose in the blue sky, " – and he even once calculated the angles of a bird's wings, and explained why these are the best angles to withstand great amounts of pressure exerted by the air, allowing birds to fly."
She felt the heavy flutter of her lids as she gazed at him with the entirety of her heart poured into it. "Erwin, he and my mother made the memory house. And then my mother taught it to me, and I've been trying to teach it to you ever since. But – he doesn't stop there, you know? He travels everywhere and went to Shiganshina this year to teach anyone that wanted to listen, and all the while he keeps discovering things, and writing, and… and…"
Camille laughed, her exhilaration shuddering through her. She'd already talked so much, and yet she felt as if she'd barely scratched the surface of everything she'd been wanting to tell him for eight years. "I can't help but be excited as well. So don't say it's disappointing. I want to know everything, too. And I want to share what I know the way he does – maybe through an invention, or a book, or something."
When she was finished, Erwin's reaction was to tug at her hair again apparently. "Hey!" She yelped, and she lifted her fingers to his face in retaliation, tousling the hair in his brows – or as much as you could tousle eyebrow hair anyway.
Which was not much, though he looked suitably scruffier after her parted index and middle fingers had done their worst. "Ah-ha!" Camille said triumphantly at the way his face had scrunched just the slightest bit, "I knew you had to have been grooming these things as well, Erwin."
There was a tilt to his mouth, though, that told her he was still amused by such childish antics. "Enough, Camille," He ordered, grasping her wrist, though she tried to swat his fingers away with her other hand.
Erwin was smiling when he finally let go. "I asked you if you were going to take over the shop in the future because I wanted to know where you were going to take that."
"'That?'"
"That," Erwin chuckled. "Everything you just said. Everything you are. You know what you want. I'm eager to learn what path you'll take to get to it."
Camille rolled her eyes at his flowery answer. But she knew deep down that she was glad she still had a friend like him that understood the way she felt, even if they'd initially disagreed about it. "I'll be sure to write you when I decide."
And for a moment it seemed like they were going to leave it at that, while they sat silently admiring the breezy autumn morning.
She nudged him again. "Hey. I asked you a question, and you just steered the conversation away from it."
There, Erwin rumbled a true laugh, one that she could feel through their joined shoulders, the deep sound coaxing a grin from her face. She continued, "I want to hear what you think. What's it like, outside?"
"Fine," Erwin murmured with a smile. "What do you want to know?"
And the day wore on with their talking, their conversation stopping only once when Lotta began to sing through an open window while she went about her work.
Her voice was slightly throaty from sleep, but otherwise it was the same from when she sang in their childhood, and they both knew instantly to pause and listen as soon as they heard it.
Notes:
erwin grooms his brows. that's my headcanon.
(1) the song is called queen bee by johnny flynn; it's a good take on folk music, which is the kind of stuff i'd imagine a village woman like lotta singing.
(2) i borrow heavily from the idea of priests in history being polymaths and scientists. that and a lot of enlightenment thinking and discoveries.
ch5 will be up in a while, because it's a short one! reviews are very much appreciated. :)