"You are a long way from home, girl," the old woman said after she had closed to the door to the girl's room, leaving her to her grief. She did not bother to look at her when she turned and started down the hall, went back into the kitchen, and put more kindling on the fire. There was no need. And against the flames her stout-hearted features, whittled by time, gave way to the brilliance of a life lived ages apart, when the wider world still believed in angels and devils, gods and goddesses, and each their slayers. "I cannot tell you much of the war — your war — for it was before my time, but I can point you to lands beyond these walls where you need to go," she continued, after a long spell of listlessness, bands of yellow, red, orange dancing about her face like the crystal necklace and shore of corpses from Ymir's nightmares. Only, when she spoke ill of the dead, it was heavy with the sorrow. "I can tell you of Helos, though you will like nothing of what you hear." Looking at her then, the old woman waited.
"Please, tell me everything," Ymir replied, wanting to push past the horror of this woman in order to find out the truth buried beneath.
The old woman looked into the fire again. Another sigh. From behind Ymir, the morning yawned as the first rays of sunlight poked their way through the shutters and the darkness shied away and in its moted light she saw the stains of tears, before the old woman composed herself and motioned for her to follow and they walked from the kitchen to a room adjacent the girl's.
It was full of books.
"Some thirty years after The Second Splintering — that is, the First Great Titan War, which itself had endured more than a hundred years," she began, pausing while her eyes moved between the shelves, "The Second Great Titan War is what they called it, though it was referred to under many other names."
As the old woman went to the shelf she was searching for, Ymir found a stool set aside and sat down.
Since the plaza Titan, her memories were becoming clearer each day that passed, and with their clarity came what she could only describe as a sense of displacement; her naked mind pulled from her body wide awake as she was transported to these places once lived as if experiencing them fresh, in person, along with every feeling therein. Different from her nightmares, from needing the touch of someone special, all she had to do was close her eyes and concentrate and she was there. She could only attribute it as another result of the curse in being the monster she never asked to be, like her blood which burned and her wounds which always healed. And though lingering too long in these memories was oftentimes painful, she had learned much and more of Marcel that she was able to reconcile within herself of her own selfishness. In knowing the lengths he had went to join a special program for the sake of his brother and their family, to the sacrifices he had made to keep his brother safe, and, when, at the end, to know the selflessness toward not only his brother, but his comrades, too, meant she did not have to feel guilty. Because she so chose in this new life to live for herself, and nobody else. And yet the corpse of Marcel still followed in her footsteps and she could not figure out why, though he was nowhere in sight as she was determined not to dwell and thought of this Second Great Titan War and her first battle, as she tried to keep moving forward and recall anything of import while she waited.
Eventually the old woman pulled a book down only to then reach behind and what she came away with in her hands was a yellow, folded piece of paper. "From your manner of speaking, you were there, during this war, which saw the last of King Fritz's Eldians fled to here behind these Walls." She unfolded the paper. "And I can only surmise the reason you are here is because you hold one of The Nine."
After a long moment, Ymir asked which one it was, but the old woman shook her head.
"I am not the one to ask such a thing. I do not know much about The Nine, either. I only know that they, along with a horde of the lesser Titans, were used by Helos once the real killings began. That, for each battlefield she walked, the number of dead from both sides piled so high near the end they were countless so, and the losses did not stop there. Perhaps mad, perhaps not, Helos had razed whole cities to the ground. Feed whole families to her hounds, men, women, and children alike. Burned their fields. Scattered the bones over what remained, and, a few cases, it was spread, nothing more than fantastical rumor, make-believe, was seen to have raised them to serve her like in the legends of Ymir Fritz and before, those whom survived struck raving mad themselves, her atrocities were so."
"I…!" Ymir swallowed. She scratched at her throat. It suddenly felt as if she was suffocating. Choking, eyes down, she began dry heaving as something spoken triggered a memory. Where she saw not her feet upon the wooden floorboards but her toes dipped in scarlet sand. When she looked up not to a study and an old woman but a blue sea stabbed and bleeding, heaving as it tried to push its entrails back in. But, the harder it did, the more its intestines spilled, rushing out to entangle her ankle-deep in its death throes.
Folding deeper in her memory, her hair falling about her face as she dug her nails into her flesh, Ymir did not want to lift her head for fear she would see it again, until someone unseen grabbed her by the chin and forced her to. And bawling at the bodies of the slain buried in the sun-kissed shallows, this time she could not turn her head as, all the while, a voice rose as defiant against the calm. Behind her, above her, below her, surrounding her. Enveloped the room and took from her the comfort of the sun, the flame its warmth, as they spoke of murder like one spoke of long lost love, then held her head and pushed her face into the gore. There Helos stood, whispered sweet nothings into her ear, as Ymir's mouth filled with blood.
When she was pulled back to the surface, she was brought to a long table of twisted faces. Given a seat, she rocked side to side wet and dripping with head bowed as the memory faded and suddenly she was back staring at those wooden floorboards.
Silence.
Then, "Raise your head, girl. Look at me. Look. That is good. Quiet your tears. You are a long way from home, the past cannot hurt you here. You have my word. Now… do you wish to know more?"
A nod.
"Once all of her enemies were defeated, the war was officially ruled over, but there were those who could not let sleeping dogs lie, and then there were some who should not have been awoken at all. Helos was the worst of these terrors, and in the aftermath of the war she turned her gaze upon her master to see it weakened and decided to bite. For Marley was never her master nor the Eldian Empire before. With loyalists all, including two holders of The Nine, Helos marched straight to the gates of Marley's capital through lands still bleeding, where she found her path barred and following a fierce battle said to have lasted three days of constant fighting, was struck a grievous wound and her forces routed then hunted down. She vanished shortly thereafter and every effort by Marley to uncover her whereabouts ended with nothing. Though it appears they might not have given up completely…" she wondered aloud.
Fingers trembling, Ymir asked how long it had been, since the conclusion of the Second Great Titan War.
"All in due time, girl," the old woman said, unraveling the yellowed piece of paper on a table, using a few books as weights. "Come, and see." She motioned her over and indicated at two splotches close together. "This," she continued, finger on the smaller, "is where we are. This," she said, now pointing at the larger, "is where you need to go. Do you understand what I am showing you?"
Ymir cleared her throat, rubbing it. "A-A map…" She thought a moment, looking at the larger splotch. And there was Marcel again, as if he had never truly left, screaming the entire time, but, as he was before, hunched over a map of his own, along with three others. His comrades. So came to her their conversation, verbatim, but she only needed the one word to answer. "Marley."
The old woman nodded solemnly. "Yes. Do you wish to know more…?"