Part 2
"Still nothing?" Eren asked Jean, sliding into the seat across from him.
Jean sighed. "Nothing so far. Hanji and Petra kept stressing the urge of keeping this dream journal up-to-date, but its kind of hard to do that when I don't remember them." He said, staring at the blank page.
They were currently sitting at the kitchen table at the Jaeger household. It had been a few days since Eren and Mikasa had first visited him in the hospital, and Jean was glad to be out of his hospital room and not hooked to an IV.
"Hey, don't stress yourself out about this. When it comes, it comes, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Besides, thinking too hard about it will only make things worse." Eren replied, looking up as Mikasa entered the kitchen.
"I mean, I guess so, but all this talk of needing to write down about my dreams is just worrisome. What's so important that I need to keep track of my dreams anyways? It's not like it's going to kill me." Jean said jokingly, laughing at his own comment. Noticing that Eren and Mikasa was silent, Jean slowly went from laughing to coughing into his fist. "What? It was just a joke." He said, confused as to why they were acting weird.
Mikasa was the first one to say something, her laugh coming out so smoothly that Jean almost missed how forced it sounded. "Yeah, like Eren said earlier, this whole dream journal ordeal shouldn't stress you out too much." She spoke, taking out three glasses from the cupboard and going to the fridge. "If you can't remember what you dreamed about...well, most people tend to forget about 95-99% of their dreams simply because they sleep right through them and don't focus on any part of it. I'm sure that you not remembering your dreams is a normal thing, don't worry about it." She finished, pouring orange juice into each glass and handing them to Eren and Jean.
"Does this have pulp in it? You know how much I hate pulp." Eren whined, taking a small sip of the drink.
Mikasa stuck her out her tongue. "Well, it's good for you, so get used to it."
Jean smiled at the two, chugging down the rest of his orange juice as Eren continued to question the purpose of pulp.
"You sure you don't want to sleep on the bed?" Eren asked, looking down at Jean from his spot on his bed.
Jean looked up from his little nest on the floor that he made with a bunch of blankets layered on top of each other. "You keep asking me the same thing every night, and I'm going to keep answering you with the same response each time: Don't worry about me, I'm fine." Jean insisted, making himself comfortable underneath the sheets.
"Alright, if you say so." Eren leaned over, turning off the lamp on the drawer next to his bed, engulfing the whole room in darkness.
Silence filled the air, but the silence almost felt as if they had both been holding their breaths, waiting for the other person to speak first. Many thoughts raced through Jean's head, and for the first time in a few days, he thought about how he had been away from his parents for quite a few days since his accident. He still had that pre-calc homework to finish and a playing exam in his band class to practice for, though he wasn't exactly sure if he'd get pardoned just because of an accident. It had been almost an entire week since it had happened, but he couldn't do much about that, especially since his motorcycle wouldn't be operational for another day.
"Anything on your mind?" He just barely heard Eren say out of the blue, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife.
Jean chuckled. "I just remembered that I had homework."
"And that's what you're worried about? Jeez, it's not like you at all to think of that of all things." Eren laughed, turning over in his bed, or so that's what Jean thought he was doing from the sounds of the bed creaking.
"Yeah...well, no. I also haven't really talked to my parents since the accident." Jean admitted.
"Mikasa made sure I called them and told them what happened the second I arrived at the hospital. Yeah, they might be a little worried, but don't think too much about it. I'm sure they understand why we had you stay with us after the hospital discharged you." Eren reassured him, making Jean feel a little better about not calling them.
He knew his mother tended to worry a lot about him, which some people chided him for coming off as rude to her, but what did they know about his mother and him? He loved her to death, he was just bad at showing it, which he hated.
"Anyways, get some rest, okay? Goodnight."
Jean settled into his pillow, closing his eyes. "G'night."
A green valley. The smell of jasmines and roses lingering in the air. A cool breeze making his hair dance. The warm sun overhead somehow keeping him from feeling cold. These were the first things that Jean opened when he opened his eyes. He felt different, almost as if he were floating, but he knew that wasn't possible. 'So am I dreaming?' He thought. 'But this is too real to be a dream...maybe I'm lucid dreaming?'
Jean hesitantly went to take a step, to which he was surprised to find that he was able to control his own body. 'Has to be a lucid dream.' He decided, looking down at his clothes. He was wearing a pair of brown slacks, a white button-up shirt, a brown vest, and brown loafers. It wasn't something that he would usually wear, but it wasn't like he could magically change out of his clothes either.
"He's back!" A voice nearby exclaimed.
Turning towards the source of the sound, Jean saw a girl around his age running towards him, her ponytail bobbing up and down as she approached him. In one, hand, she held onto her burgundy skirt, the other hand gripping a bow. She wore a white blouse, a brown vest, and a pair of brown combat boots, a quiver full of arrows slung across her back.
Behind the girl, a group of people ran behind her, seemingly following her. Out of the people in the group, he could see Eren and Mikasa.
"Wow, this must be some dream I'm having if Eren and Mikasa are here." He laughed, throwing his head back.
The brunette spoke first. "What do you mean 'dream?' Jean, you'r-"
"Sasha, not now." Mikasa chided, giving her a look that Jean couldn't quite decipher. The girl, Sasha, frowned and stepped back into the crowd. The way she reacted almost made him feel as if he knew that she would frown, kind of like a familiar feeling, only he couldn't exactly describe it.
"Anyways, this is Jean. Jean, meet Connie, Reiner, Marco, Sasha,..." Mikasa continued to ramble off a bunch of names at once, which made it harder to Jean to keep up with putting a name to a face.
The bald-headed boy, Connie, threw his arms up in the air. "Welcome to the village of Traupagkona."
From what Jean could tell, the village was average sized and had an older feeling to it, kind of like the olden days. Trees seemed to be populous surrounding the village, the branches dancing lazily in the wind.
"Just what kind of place is this? And why are you guys so heavily armed?" He asked, noticing that it wasn't just Sasha carrying a weapon. Most of the group was carrying some form of a dagger, sword, or building equipment on them, the strangest one being a hammer wielded by Connie.
"Why don't we show you? Sasha, you still have extra weapons in that shed of yours?" He heard Reiner say.
Sasha's face turned red. "Yes but you know I don't like people knowing about it!" She chides the tall blond, leading the group in the direction of her shed.
"I know, but this whole group already knows about it, and trust me, none of us are telling the other villagers about it any time soon." Reiner but his hands up in defeat.
After walking for a few minutes, the group finally reached what seemed to be where Sasha lived. "We'll wait in the house while you get him sorted, okay?" Mikasa said, patting Sasha on the shoulder before parting ways.
"Right this way." Sasha spoke, leading Jean through the back of the house and into the backyard where the shed was located. Pulling out a pair of keys, she jammed it into the door, turning it in the lock while shoving her shoulder into the stubborn door, forcing it to open.
"Wow." Was all Jean could say. Inside the shed lay a huge number of weapons, more than what Jean could comprehend. Upon further inspection, he noticed that there weren't any guns in sight, which made perfect sense to them if he was correct about the time period his dream took place.
"Hmmm, how about a spear? Eh, too flashy." He heard Sasha say as she rummaged through the selection of weapons on one end of the shed.
"So why did you get so flustered when Reiner mentioned the shed earlier?" He asked her, picking up a wooden shield that was chipped in certain places.
Sasha pulled out a hammer similar to the one he saw Connie holding and sighed. "These aren't just regular weapons you're seeing, they're enchanted." She explained. "For example, whenever I use my bow and arrows, I can enchant my arrows to do a specific type of damage, with enhanced precision included."
"That sounds cool, but I don't see why the would make you easily upset like that." He muttered out loud, earning him a smack on the arm from the brunette.
"You see, the village doesn't exactly welcome people that are able to enchant objects, and it also doesn't help that I'm like the Beast Tamer of this region. If it weren't for my hunting skills, I probably wouldn't be allowed to live in this village."
Jean looked at the brunette, trying to read her facial expression. She seemed a little lost, but he couldn't see past that, like his vision was cloudy or she was hiding something from him. He picked up a rusty metal shield that was leaning against the wall, sliding it onto his arm and testing it out.
"Ooh, that gives me an idea!" Sasha said, rummaging around in a corner and pushing different weapons out of the way until she finally pulled out a sword, placing it in his free hand. "Now you look like the typical knight in shining armor." She giggled. "But something tells me that this doesn't suit your style."
Jean watched as Sasha pulled the shield off of his arm, setting it to the side as she took him by his hand and pulled him deeper into the shed. He looked down at their interlocked fingers, a warm and familiar feeling resonating through him. 'This would be so much easier if I could just remember.' He chided himself. Truth be told, the whole amnesia thing was becoming more frustrating by the minute to him.
"Here it is!" Sasha said, letting go of his hand as she pulled out another sword and placed it in his other hand. Upon further investigation, he noticed that the new sword was identical to the other sword he held. "As cute as it would be to see you as a knight in shining armor, I having a feeling that you'd be ten times better off with dual-wielding swords. Don't ask why though, it's just a hunch."
"Do you guys use any kind of armor?" Jean asked, getting the feel of each sword in his hands.
She paused, looking up as if in thought. "Yes and no, but you'll have to see for yourself, now c'mon!" She exclaimed, running out of the shed. Jean chuckled to himself, following closely behind her.
I still didn't even get to where I wanted to, so a Part 3 will definitely follow soon! Again, I am going to college full-time now and am writing a book in my free time, so I will try my hardest to update whenever I can find free time to write. Fun fact - Traupagkona is a mixture of four places: Trost, Dauper, Ragako, and Shiganshina, I just felt like combining the names of those villages would make more sense in the end. Hope to see you guys in the next chapter!