Chapter 76
Isaah

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The next chapter will lead into Season 4, followed by the 4 year time skip!
Are you ready?:)

I wanted to dedicate this final pre-skip chapter to Isaah himself. Can you believe I was initially going to kill him off during the rampage of Rod Reiss's turkey Titan?! I'm honestly glad I didn't. His relationship to Fury, I find wholesome and pure. And I hope that is shown in the below script.
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"Wipe the drool off your faces." Levi barked at the majority of the party. Such as Jean and Conny, who yawned widely among the new day, the sun slowly revealing itself for the morning ahead. Isaah dragged himself out of the tent behind them, silent and clear that his mind was wandering. Fury gazed over to him, brow rising upon his demeanour, knowing how his usual and yet annoying and naïve attitude was not apparent. A concern washed over her, as he was still young, after all.
Even she never once saw a Titan at the age of 16.

"Long ride back…" Sasha hummed, rubbing her eye as she began to help clear up the camp gear. "Can't we eat first?"

"Nothing's ever stopped you from eating upon horseback." Jean rolled his eyes, mounting his own. "I'm sure you'll find a way to eat and ride at the same time."

"The sooner we get back to the walls and propose the idea of going to Marely to Historia, the better!" Hange sang with a chuckle at the end. "I know they're our enemies and everything, but I can't help but imagine how advanced they are! Or maybe, we're more further advanced than them! All this could be answered very soon, the anticipation is killing me!"

"Well… If you want a quicker way back to the Walls, we could go West from here?" Isaah suddenly suggested, earning a frown from Fury.

"Isaah…" She would speak out, almost as a hiss. "Are you sure you want to go that way?"

"Why? What's that way? Titans?!" Hange gasped with a smile.

Fury shook her head. "His village…"

"Oh…" Hange, too, looked over to him. "Right…"

Isaah went on, avoiding Fury's concern. "It is the quicker way back, after all. Directly through the woods and the Wall is on the other side. It could cut this day in half."

"We're going that way then." Levi decided. "I don't particularly want to spend more time among this filth."

Straddling upon the rest of their horses, and with Hange taking out her Guide with a map with the area in it, they followed both her and the Captain in the direction of West, an outstretch of trees on their horizon.
Fury, waiting behind for Isaah to place the rest of his things upon his horse, watched as the boy huddled back into his silence.

"Hurry up." She called over to him, as he commanded his horse forward to trot behind Fury. Cantering closer to the rest of them, they entered and passed through a minority of foliage and trees, the sun-rays peeking through the leaves above them.

The ride was quiet, from them all. Eren was still not his own self, and the rest had their own personal things upon their minds. A horse neighed, the party haltered. Fury looked back, Isaah atop his mount glared down the path he once travelled to and from to gather hunted food for his village with his father. Looking back in front of her, the others had haltered too, somewhat understanding the boy's loss, and respected his need to grieve still.

"We'll catch up." Fury directed her words to Hange and Levi, who both nodded, knowing she was more than capable, and they all continued, with knowledge the Walls were on the other side and that their ride back was cut in half.
Fury moved her horse to be closer to Isaah, remaining silent as his eyes peeked over to her own, seeing that they were quietly telling him that it was okay. He inhaled and ordered his horse down the man made pathway, Fury following behind.

They came to an archway, indicating entrance, and both passed through.

The sun then lit the world up in a bright blaze. Behind them, trees and wildlife, in front of them were the remains of burnt wood and destroyed huts from the fire caused by Rod Reiss's Titan as it crawled through this way. The smell of ash still lingered in the air, and Isaah dropped down off his horse with Fury doing the same.
He shuffled his feet through the crisp soil beneath him, soon standing in the middle of his old village. His eyes circled around him, seeing all the old huts in ruin and the still human remains from being crushed or burnt alive from the overwhelming heat that they couldn't escape from.

Isaah then forced himself over to his old home, struggling to see it so tattered and unrecognisable. His eyes widened, and he wretched slightly from the smell of death, seeing the rotting remains of his parents holding each other inside, either crushed by the falling roof or died from the fires. The boy tripped as he tried to turn around and get back outside and into the air, balancing himself as his feet found their footing, though he remained leaned over from such a sight.
A hand then landed upon his shoulder, as Fury, though silent, did what she could to comfort him, her expression grim itself.

"I was out in the forest…" He muttered, wiping his eyes. "I was checking the snare traps for rabbits. It was the radiating light through the trees that I saw that caused me to run back home, only to be hit with a wave of heat and a handful of Titans that had also wandered inside.

There was screaming and crying… I tried to get to my hut here, but the Titan's saw me." Isaah stood back up, exhaling his fresh air into the toxic aroma around them. "If… you hadn't had come back, Aya… Those Titans would've gotten me…"

"I wonder if I'd gotten here sooner...-"

"Please don't…" Isaah interrupted. "It's not like you're the hero type anyway. And from what I saw of the crystal cavern near that Church, looked like you were occupied anyway."

"Right…" Fury hummed, looking around. "Maybe… Maybe you should bury them? Your parents. I'll help."

He nodded, inhaling again, having to brave seeing their bodies once more. Fury took to digging separate graves, at an untouched area of the forest near the village, where fresh air still lingered, and also helped Isaah in wrapping his parents and burying them, watching as Isaah left his mother's necklace atop her grave, that his father gave to her upon their wedding day.

The graves themselves only further reminded Fury of the three she should visit herself, back within the Walls.

"Where was Hexis buried?" She would ask Isaah, who still stood over the mounds of his parents.

"He was set free upon a pyre. It's what the old man wanted. Believed it was the purest way to allow the soul to exit the shell… You know how religious he was."

"He was mindful about it though. At least it wasn't being forced upon." Fury folded her arms, clearing her throat as she did so. As she was about to walk back to her horse, her scout cape was tugged on by a teary-eyed Isaah, stopping her from moving forward.

"Can you… show me your eyes?" He would ask her, letting go of the material locked within his grasped fingers.

Fury raised her brow. "What do you mean?"

"Your Bloodborn eyes?" Isaah gained no response. "I just want to see what they look like."

The woman grimaced. "Why are you asking for that? Honestly, I don't even know if I can without, well… You know… Using it."

"Oh…" Isaah looked down, despite him already being taller than she is, a clear disappointment in his sigh. "I just wanted to see the eyes of the one who came back for me."

Fury knelt down, with closed eyes. There was no words to her action, but a part of her wanted to try and give this to him, for she understands grief a bit too intimately. And against popular belief about who she cares for, Fury, does after all, care for those she trusts. "Aya?"

"Shush!" Fury hissed at him, a deep frown curving her smooth features, a pain evolving deep within her head and an ache growing in her back. Sound was drowned out. All was distant, the birds chirps a mile away, senses heightened as she felt the gentle breeze move her silver hair.

Her nails dug into the soiled ground, as if trying to grasp onto something, Slowly, Fury began to delicately open her eyes. Red highlighted around her irises, spreading out to the whites of her eyes, though her vision was blurred, as she fought back against the exploding need to try and control. Isaah's own eyes widened, seeing the eyes of a Bloodborn. He didn't see a monster, but he saw someone who was born without the choice of wanting to be one or not. The concentration suddenly snapped from Fury, as her petite frame was enveloped by Isaah's arms. She blinked several times, washing the sting away in her eyes as her vision came back the more the bloodshot dimmed away.

"What are you doing now?" She asked with her arms hung low beside her.

"We both need it, don't we?" He sobbed into her, his tears staining her green scout cloak. "You saved me, so one day, like I promised, I'll save you too."

Shocked. That was Fury's expression. Though she was glad, it wasn't seen. And yet, there it was, a small smile as her lip lightly curled, showing a dimple in her cheek. She allowed the raise of her arm, letting her hand pat at the boy's back. Though it didn't last, and Fury soon pulled herself away from him, clearing her throat again, and did her best to maintain her usual frown.

"Stop smirking." She would say to Isaah himself, whose mischievous demeanour was surely coming back.

He shrugged, giving one last look at his parent's grave mounds, nodding his head with new determination. "We're going to go to this Marely place, Aya. And we're gonna find out all we can about these people who Eren thinks are our enemies. And we're going to find those Tybur's, and demand those answers for you."

"Let's… Just focus on one day at a time, huh, shithead?" Fury somewhat chuckled, getting onto her horse.

"Hah!" Isaah boasted, jumping onto his own horse and moved the animal over to ride alongside Fury. "And maybe we can teach you how to open up to the Captain about your feeeeelings!"

The female scoffed, simply moving back to slap at the back of his horse, chuckling more as it became startled and jolted off in the direction they were heading, watching as Isaah struggled to gain control back.

The light-hearted moment gave Fury's shoulders a release from some of the weight she carried. As much as she could not allow herself to become a mother-like figure for Isaah, the care was real. However, with the realisation that confronting the Tybur's could become a reality, her timid smile soon faded. A search for the family she's yet to know, without not truly realising her family are around her every day.