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Ch.61- "Nexus"

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Ready-made clothing had only just begun gaining popularity maybe twenty years ago, and mostly within Mitras and later, Wall Sina. For those of the middle and lower classes, wardrobes were destined to be limited, mostly comprised of hand-me downs that eventually ended their life cycle as rags that were more patches stitched atop patches than the original cloth. Up until he'd joined the Corps and begun receiving a salary, Erwin's plainclothes wardrobe had been his father's with a few alterations here and there (putting on the mass of a first ranking soldier in addition to the growth… "spurts" seemed inadequate- growth surges of pubescence, resulted in him ending up a fair bit wider in the chest and shoulders than his father had been, much to his… and in this case, "disappointment" seemed too strong a word).

Nowadays, with the textile mills that had, in the beginning, been a monopoly within the Interior now well-established within Wall Rose, boutiques, while not common, were no longer the exclusive pleasure of the rich and powerful. Every district had at least one or two clothing shops, but the further in they got, the more specialized they became. Stores which sold only shirts, or only slacks, or only coats. Shops that carried only one style of dress, and if you wanted something else, well, you were more than welcome to look for it in another establishment. The closest thing to an Interior boutique Erwin had ever set foot in was the haberdasher he'd bought Thomasin's gloves from, and if they hadn't been so, so beautiful, and him feeling so, so guilty, he'd have taken one look at the price tag and quickly set foot back out of there. Thomasin, for her part, avoided everything north of Wall Rose whenever possible, and whenever not, made a concentrated effort to only go exactly where she had to and no further.

While she would be the first to admire the innovations and advancements from the Interior, it would always be from a distance, waiting for them to eventually trickle down to her. She wanted nothing to do with the people involved, and wanted to hand over to them a single coin even less. As far as she was concerned, if one of the two general stores in Calaneth (and there had to be at least one in Krolva, right?) didn't have any clothes that fit her, then she'd have to make do the way she always did. Pile sales were generally worth the money paid, but there was another source of clothes that could potentially serve her purposes much closer to home. She'd confronted him about it before they left…

"You have hundreds of pieces of clothing on base. I can make alterations." He felt his whole body tense, had to force himself to relax before a cramp began, especially in his stump.

"Those don't belong to me. They belong to the Scouts' next of kin--"

"You know at least a quarter of them don't have next of kin." There was nothing cold in her voice, nothing hard or cruel. She spoke plainly, neutrally. A fact which warranted as much emotion as a reminder that the sun was rising. "You know who doesn't have any family and you're going to have to get rid of their things anyway. Is it better to just throw those things away, or to give them to someone who can actually use them?"

"You can't use everything--"

"Yes, I can. There is always a use to be found, but sure- don't give me everything. Give the rest to the church to give to the poor. Give it to the overcrowded orphanages. They're dead, Erwin; dead people don't care about the shit they leave behind." Her voice was still mostly neutral, save for a hint of bitterness; she spoke from experience…

She was right. Ultimately, it happened after every expedition- someone didn't come back, their family didn't come or send for their personal effects, and while uniforms and equipment would be reclaimed by the Corps and cleaned and recalibrated to be passed on to another, those things that didn't explicitly belong to the government remained in stasis. Occasionally- very occasionally, for such a thing was generally seen as being in poor taste- the other Scouts would pick over their fallen brother or sister's belongings, with the first pass being given to friends, squad members, and occasionally lovers. And as for anyone else, they would usually repeat the same mantra: "Well, it's not like they need it anymore…" Whatever wasn't taken by those on-site was eventually… well… Erwin didn't actually know what happened to it.

He did not clean out the rooms of fallen soldiers anymore, hadn't since becoming a section commander- Frey had been the last prior to the Fall, the last journey in five years to see an aging parent and pass along a heavily washed but forever stained cloak. It was his job to contact families for those who had them and pass on belongings to those who wanted them; he didn't know what the others did with the scraps that remained of the destitute and forgotten and unwanted among his legion. He didn't want to know, not yet at any rate. There was time for that later, for there was always time. If Thomasin wanted to pick over his dead Scouts' clothes for things that might fit her, he could arrange that later, but that in no way satisfied his desire to see her in pretty dresses.

~o0o~

Ehrmich was as far north as Thomasin was willing to go, which was fine because that was as far north as Erwin could stomach. Ehrmich was familiar, not as much as Trost or Shiganshina, but slightly more so than Calaneth or even Krolva… he hadn't been home in years.

The carriage was a necessity. What little weight she had gained so far wasn't making much of a difference (though eventually, it would, and that brought with it an entirely new set of fears he had to talk her down from), but walking without the numbing effects of laudanum still caused Thomasin no small amount of agony, an amount which increased exponentially when she walked long distances. She had crushed and mixed and steeped new tinctures to ease her pain, ones she promised had no opioine in them whatsoever, even letting him get a good whiff to prove there was none of that thick, tell-tale bitterness (she'd used what little she had left the day of the reclamation). The ingredients she used now, rattling off a list of words that meant nothing to him because what did he know of herblore, were too mild to be dangerous, to be deadly, but as a result, they were also too mild to do anything more than keep her from screaming.

While the carriage rolled over a particularly smooth stretch of road, Erwin could see her eyelids begin to drift downwards, shutting completely for a few seconds before a jolt from an uneven paving stone jolted her awake once more. If the transport companies had access to the Survey Corps' suspension systems, she could at least rest until they got to their destination. He pulled one of the short velvet curtains back, watching as the apartments gave way to storefronts. The streets weren't exceptionally crowded- it was still fairly early, not yet noon- but there were enough people that any non-zero amount of them stopping in their tracks to stare would be noticeable. The carriage was also a necessity. to prevent that for as long as possible.

The lingering glances and too-loud whispers and outright ogling that had followed them in Stohess had been but a taste, most of it directed at Thomasin. Erwin had been a nobody back then, his name and rank only meaning something to the people who wore the same uniform as him. Now… now, he was the man who had supplanted the king and sat one of his own soldiers on the throne. He was the man who unleashed Titans in crowded districts because the whim struck him and no one could tell him "no". He was the monster that broke down the gates in Shiganshina and Trost and could do it again whenever he felt like it.

Is it true that your wife isn't a Child of Ymir…?

He was the man married to and walking arm in arm with someone who didn't look like everyone else, and thus was obviously one of those evil Marleyans who wanted them all dead.

"Erwin." The soft voice pulled him back from his thoughts and he released the curtain, letting it fall back in place, blocking them off from the outside world once more. Thomasin carried her stress in her brows, not nearly so thick as his but that made it easier to see the smallest of furrows wrinkling their normally smooth arch. "What are you thinking about?" He stared at her for a moment, his own features relaxing into a small but genuine smile.

"I want to buy you a hat. A big fancy one." The concern didn't leave the depths of her eyes, but the rest of her expression reflexively twisted into one of revulsion.

"Ugh. No. Why would I want some ugly centerpiece wasting space in my closet?" Their closet.

"To wear…?"

"Wear it where, exactly?"

"I'm being honored by the Crown in two weeks; it's a small ceremony, but I can't imagine that they wouldn't allow soldiers' family to attend." For those who had them, so… what? Three of his recruits? The concern in her eyes seemed to freeze over, another layer building on top of it so as to almost completely obscure it, the same disdain that twisted her lips.

"Erwin. What in god's name makes you think I have any interest in seeing you get rewarded for failing to get yourself killed in spite of your constant attempts?" He had to fight back a shudder, and still didn't manage to stop all of it. He kept his tone light, jovial, desperate to fend off this encroaching darkness.

"I mean, it was only a year ago that you were saying they should be honoring me instead of Pixis--"

"Yeah, and I also think they should kill cats by decapitating them rather than drowning them; that doesn't mean I want to see either of those things happen." Her hands balled into tight fists, pulling at her sleeves but thankfully not digging into the flesh beneath the cloth… yet. "You have a sickness of the mind, you and every other Scout, and they're praising you for it. I haven't managed to kill myself yet; where's my medal? If I put on a soldier's uniform, would that--"

"That's enough!" He couldn't stop himself, pure instinct pushing the words past his lips as his control slipped and Commander Smith took the reins, not speaking to his wife but ordering one of his subordinates. Thomasin blinked, taken aback by the tone or the volume or maybe just the fact that he'd barked out an order at her. It didn't matter; she stopped talking for a moment, just long enough for Erwin to wrest back control of his own mouth. "Thomasin, please- forget I said anything. If you don't want to come, you don't have to come; let's leave it at that." She did not speak, and he exhaled, hard but quiet. That was uniquely unpleasant, but more than that, it was dangerous. He didn't want Thomasin thinking about death, doing everything in his limited scope of power to turn her thoughts away from it when they seemed to be veering in that direction, and yet without fail he forgot that much of humanity still viewed the Survey Corps as a government-sanctioned death cult… and that Thomasin was amongst those people.

I wonder if anyone who joins the Survey Corps is happy, or if all those brave Scouts just want someone to acknowledge when they're gone…?

You have a sickness of the mind, you and every other Scout…

He shouldn't have been thinking about work, not here, not now, but the words Grisha Yeager had written had been seared into his mind, a mind that was sick, a mind that had been--

"Thomasin?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you know about how the brain works?" That layer of anger in her eyes froze over as well, confusion and distrust slowly creeping over it, swirling but never quite mixing as she regarded him with a different kind of frown, the kind Nile normally wore around him. The kind that said I know you're up to something and I know it's bad, but I don't know what exactly… She didn't say any of those things, of course. All she said was,

"A bit."

That was the answer Erwin had been expecting. Thomasin knew "a bit" about a lot of things, and when you added it all up, it turned out that she knew "a lot". More than most people, at least more than most people he knew. Very few soldiers were formally educated- it was simply a result of how the military was designed. It wasn't impossible to join as an adult, but for the most part, recruits were young- fifteen had been the minimum age of enlistment for decades, and only after the fall had it been lowered to twelve. One couldn't peruse higher learning and vertical maneuvering, so one had to make a choice, and the military was the choice that guaranteed three meals a day.

Erwin could have gone to a university; he had things very few soldiers could claim, namely tuition money and an admittedly incomplete tenure in secondary school. He'd dropped out after his second year; he didn't know a single other person who had even enrolled. Most soldiers knew how to read and write and do basic arithmetic- if they hadn't been taught as children, they could learn through supplementary classes in the Training Corps- but to join the military was to choose a life in which you would be perpetually surrounded by people who rarely knew more (and usually knew less) than you.

Thomasin had fallen into a life that saw her perpetually surrounded by people who knew more than her- far more. Civilian life resulted in her surrounded by university-educated men (and the occasional but not that common woman) at the top of their fields, and even if they did not go out of their way to teach, they still provided opportunities to learn, and in turn, taught how to learn. Thomasin had explained that to him when she still lived in Shiganshina, when he'd glanced at one of the many towers of books stacked around her tiny apartment and asked just how many trashy romance novels a single person could read.

Mr. Reed taught her chemistry, but in order to understand what chemicals came from certain plants, she needed to learn about those plants- how they looked, where they grew, what other properties they had and which parts possessed those properties because a root and a leaf could have two completely different effects. And in order to understand how chemicals affected the body, she had to learn about the body, because different organs were affected by different chemicals in different ways- something water-soluble could be given in higher doses because it passed through the urine, whereas something oil-soluble would be absorbed and stored until it built up-- and at that point, Erwin had insisted he understood because the sun was starting to set and he really needed to get back to Trost.

In part, he did understand for it was the same method that had resulted in him creating his Long Distance Enemy Scouting Formation- he studied history and transport and even animal migration patterns, and stitched those random pieces of unrelated knowledge into something that applied to him. Something that applied to the military, because that was all his life revolved around. Thomasin's life did not revolve around a single thing ( around him, and Erwin tried his damnedest to strangle that thought into submission) so she picked up on much more seemingly unrelated knowledge, cooking and woodworking and animal husbandry and horticulture and even a bit of metallurgy (because alchemy was the precursor to modern medicine, and there were still people who thought eating or drinking certain metals could cure them). And, an unavoidable side effect of working in a hospital, a military hospital especially, human physiology.

"Why?" He inhaled deeply.

"Dr. Yeager said something in his journals, something we didn't publish in the papers--"

"So you're gonna tell me classified information?"

"This is hardly the first time you've been brought on as a consultant. This isn't Survey Corps business," he added quickly, seeing her nostrils flare and the muscles in her thighs bunch up, getting ready to stand (and potentially dive into a roll out of a moving carriage). "It's just something I'm wondering about." She forced the muscles to relax.

"I'm listening."

"We can't verify anything he said, so take this with a grain of salt, but apparently there was an epidemic several centuries ago that ravaged most of the world… save for the Eldian population. The king at the time, Fritz V, apparently…" He swallowed, the coppery tang in his saliva a precursor to the bile that would follow if he wasn't careful. "It was said that he used the Progenitor Titan to… change the bodies of the Children of Ymir, to render them immune to the sickness." Whatever anger or distrust lingered in Thomasin's face was completely swept away by the tide of shock that washed over her.

"…what…? But… that-- that's not possible…"

"That was what I believed, too, until I remembered that one of Fritz's descendants rendered our grandparents unable to remember the world they had lived in only years prior. And then I remembered what the Assembly threatened, that once they- or rather, Historia or her father- got their hands on the Progenitor, we would forget our attempt to overthrow them. We know it's possible for a single person to change how our bodies work; that's why I was wondering if you know how our bodies work. How memories work in particular. How they can be changed." She gaped at him- it seemed at the very least that he had chased away all thoughts of death from her mind, but in its place something far darker was given room to take root.

"I-- you-- the only way to permanently affect a person's memories is to fuck around with their brain." Thomasin looked down at her lap, where her hands were wringing one another. "I've seen it. You probably have too- hell, it may have even happened to you, even if you don't remember. Even if you can't. Memories don't come from the heart or soul like people think- they come from the brain, just like all thoughts. We don't know where exactly, surgeons in the Interior are still trying to figure that out, but they think it's mostly centered near the front because… we can see what happens when you damage that area. There are sicknesses that affect it, age… usually, it's physical damage. You get hit in the head really hard, and… it erases part of you. Some people will forget their entire lives up to a certain point. Some people can tell you exactly what color dress their mom wore for their sixth birthday, but can't remember the name of the captain whose squad they were assigned to last week…" The twisting hands moved up, no longer rubbing at skin but at cloth, pulling and tearing at the hems of long sleeves.

"There was one soldier, a year ago… he remembered everything. We thought he was fine. And then he asked who I was, what was I doing there- what he was doing there. I thought he was just messing with me- they do that, sometimes, but no; it was the same for the other nurses, the doctors… every time one of his squad mates came to visit, he would ask what had happened, why he wasn't being discharged yet… even though he'd been told exactly why five hours earlier. Five hours, Erwin." She looked up, her eyes black in the gloom. "He got struck in the head by a piece of Wall while they were installing a canon, and it took away his ability to permanently form new memories. He could only remember new things for five hours, and then it was like they never happened."

Standard dangers of being a solider. Things they wouldn't tell you about during basic training.

"So the brain is damaged in some way, and that makes people forget," Erwin whispered, his mouth uncomfortably dry. "And a single person can reach into the brains of every single Eldian on this planet at once, and destroy any piece they want with a word…" Fritz the "Good" had taken away their memories of the outside world and the people who still lived there. What- other than Grisha Yeager's teeth- had stopped Frieda Reiss from taking away their ability to speak? To eat? To breathe? If Fritz V had twisted their bodies to render them immune to a specific disease, what was stopping any other king or queen from twisting their bodies to give them a disease, a sickness of the mind, perhaps? A sickness that stripped away the curiosity and inventiveness that seemed to be present in the majority of humanity outside the Walls. A sickness that rendered humans docile and yielding, making them that much easier to control, to rule

What's a god without omnipotence…?

But with all sicknesses, some people were naturally immune… He instinctively began to flinch away from the chill that touched his hand, thankfully noticing the dark fingers covering his own before he pull away completely.

"What are you thinking about now?" Thomasin's voice was low, weighed down with thoughts she probably wouldn't admit to him. Erwin's shoulders sagged and he sighed.

"Everyone's mind has been twisted except for mine. I'm the only sane person living within these Walls." It started out as a snort that eventually turned into a full-blown belly laugh as Thomasin drew her hand back, clutching her sides as she laughed at him until tears began forming in her eyes.

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Hange was one of the smartest people Erwin had ever known, a feat made even more incredible considering they hadn't ever received a formal education (they learned how to count by keeping track of how many piglets were in a litter, mostly to ensure the mothers didn't eat any of the babies before the village did). They rectified that by reading extensively once books became readily available in the Survey Corps, physiology, engineering and metal working their subjects of choice (because even though iron bamboo was a plant, it was the ore deposits within the plant the military used for weapons, and if anything more readily available- and thus, cheaper- could be used as a replacement, then maybe the commander would be more likely to sign off on their new capture cannon prototype).

Unfortunately they, like him, made the choice to join the military and surround themselves with people who typically regarded higher education as a waste of time. Moblit had been smart, but his expertise had been in the arts, and their few medics mostly learned via trial and error. As a result, Hange didn't have many people who appreciated their desire to learn about Titans, and even fewer who could provide workable knowledge to aid in that desire. That was why Erwin had to keep his hand over their mouth as he told them what he'd discussed with Thomasin, ignoring the ragged edges of their bitten nails scratching at his knuckles as he fixed them with a hard stare.

"She's not coming to the base." A muffled groan. "You're not going to our house." A louder but still muffled groan. "There will be no written correspondence between you." The whine was so high pitched it hurt his ears. "Thomasin has more than enough things to deal with right now without your added insanity. You will not bother her about this. Do I make myself clear?" Hange's entire body slumped, but ultimately they nodded and Erwin slowly removed his hand, wiping it on his pant leg (their attempts to bite him hadn't worked, but the disgusting sensation of their tongue dripping saliva against his skin had nearly done it). Hange watched him carefully, waiting until he'd moved a step away before perking up.

"So once she gives birth--"

"GOD DAMN IT, HANGE!!"

"Ugh, fine!" This time, they crossed their arms, slouching until their back touched the lower cushions of the couch. "So she believes that the Founding Titan physically alters the minds of the people whose memories it affects?"

"She maintains that it's the only way possible, unless you believe in the existence of magic, and as I do not, I'm inclined to believe her. Given what we know about Titans, it makes sense. The weak spot, all that is left when a human merges with a Titan, isn't just the spinal cord or nervous system." Thomasin had dug out one of the many books from her chest when they returned home, a second-hand medical textbook even more worn and falling apart than any of her romance novels, and shown him an illustration of the nervous system. It looked like thread, many many threads in the vague shape of a person. She had seen them, during surgeries. Up close, they looked more like thin noodles.

"It's where the nervous system connects to the brain." He bent his head forward and ran his finger along the base of his skull. "This part- she says this is the most important part, severing this is what actually kills a person when they hang properly. What if the reason severing that connection kills Titans is because it severs the Progenitor's connection to the Titans? It can no longer alter their bodies in such a way to repair what's been damaged." Hange frowned, thoughtful yes, but there was a touch of frustration there as well, the frustration that came with not knowing an answer.

"If everything is connected, it has to be connected with something. Even if it looks separate, something has to be physically tying it all together, like a mushroom colony."

"A what?" The section commander looked up at him as though they'd forgotten he was in the room with them.

"Oh yeah, you're a city boy, aren't you? I guess you wouldn't see those in the districts. Well, when you go out in the woods, you'll sometimes find a ton of mushrooms growing in the same area, the same kind. And that area can be massive. And it looks like they're all popping up individually, maybe in a few small clusters but still individual mushrooms… but if you dig around there, you'll see that they have roots. A lot of roots. And if you pull those roots up, you realize all of those mushrooms, dozens- hundreds of them- are all a single organism. You can't see it, but it's still physically, tangibly there." Erwin shook his head slightly.

"Things can be physically present without being tangible to us. How many people are aware of the air when they don't feel it in the form of a breeze?" Hange's frown deepened.

"I guess you're right. We could all have some kind of neural umbilical cord that we can't perceive leading back to the Founding Titan… which I guess would be leading to Eren in this case. We need to run tests. I know Rod Reiss said Eren can't use the powers of the Founder because he doesn't have royal blood, but we know for a fact that he can, at least in a limited capacity. Maybe it only works on Mindless Titans, or maybe he has to make physical contact with them."

"Unfortunately, it's going to be a long time before we can test that hypothesis." With so few soldiers, there was no chance of them risking a venture beyond Wall Rose to bag a test subject. "And given that we've all but killed every Titan within Wall Maria, just finding a suitable test subject is going to be difficult." Hange sat up, their face a stoic mask but their eye gleaming with intent.

"Actually, it would be super easy, barely an inconvenience. You know we have a Titan in Wall Rose, Erwin. The perfect test subject- a large, immobile, Abnormal…"

"…you don't actually mean to subject one of our recruit's parents to that." They leaned forward.

"Knowledge is always worth the risk."

~o0o~

The Survey Corps had precious little time to rest, even when their numbers had dwindled down to nine (or eight, temporarily). Even while returning from a mission, Erwin would begin laying down the path for the next expedition. Levi would have to consider who his new squad mates would be while returning belongings to the families of those who just died. And Hange planned future experiments on their way to current experiments. The mentality of a veteran Scout was that nothing could be wasted, not time or resources or even people because there were times when someone had to serve as bait, as a decoy, as a distraction for the sake of all the others. It was a callousness that took years to build up, and years were something their new recruits did not have.

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" Connie Springer had an exceptionally loud voice for such a small boy. Hange winced, their ear still sensitive even two months after an MP's rifle went off beside it.

"There's no risk of her dying, Connie- we won't be touching the weak spot. I mean, we wouldn't even be able to get to it without a crane--"

"So death is the worst thing you can do to a person now!? Cutting off their limbs is just a fun little game!? Eren told us what you do to Mindless Titans- you torture them!"

"Those were necessary experiments--"

"Oh, is that what you were doing to that MP, too? 'Necessary experiments'? You know we heard all that, right? You were enjoying yourself. You started with Titans and worked your way up to people, and now you just wanna play with something that's both!" Hange attempted to keep their voice calm in the face of the boy's almost manic shrieking, but even they had a limit.

"You know I don't need your permission, Recruit Springer. I'm informing you ahead of time because I was hoping you would understand the necessity to continue furthering our research--"

" That's my mom!!" All sound, save for the quickly fading echo and cries of birds scattering, ceased as the Scouts stopped their horses, waiting for the recruit to catch his breath, angry pants quickly turning into tear-choked gasps. "…even if she's a Titan… she's still my mom… she's all I have left… You can't just…" Levi's ODM gear clattered softly as he approached his squad mate. There was pity in his eyes, but his voice was hard.

"Every Titan was someone's mom. Or dad. Or brother or sister, or friend or lover. Every Titan we've ever killed or captured was someone, and the only difference between them and your mother is the fact that they didn't have anyone to advocate for them. Other than Shitty Glasses here, and nobody took them seriously, not me or Erwin or even Moblit. This is the one person in the Walls- probably in the entire world- that cares about Titans and treats them with empathy. They didn't number their test subjects, they gave them names and spoke to them with the same respect they'd use for a person-- no, actually, Hange treats Titans with way more respect than they treat people. You know what this idiot does during those 'necessary experiments'? Maybe Eren left this part out; they cry. Like a fucking baby. Because this is the one person who understands, better than you or me or anyone, that every Titan is someone. And you think this is the person who wants to cut your mom up for shits and giggles? I knew you were dumb, Connie, but god damn, you're stupid…"

Erwin understood what Levi was trying to do, and understood that in other circumstances it might actually work, but there were certain emotions that had to be appealed to when speaking of one's parents. He turned his horse around, the palomino quick to respond to his shifting weight, and approached the small group.

"Connie. I understand your concerns, and they are valid, but they are also misplaced. The Titan in Ragako may have been your mother once, and we will attempt everything in our power to ensure she can be once again one day, but at the moment, she is not. That Titan is not sapient. It's not even sentient."

"Huh?" The boy's despair was temporarily overtaken by confusion.

"It's not conscious," Erwin explained. "It's not aware that it exists. Some Mindless Titans react as though they may be capable of feeling pain-" a capacity that Titan Shifters strangely, yet thankfully, lacked "-but I guarantee that they are not aware that they are in pain. They are not aware of the presence of anything, and if we ever return your mother to her human form, she will not remember anything of the time she spent as a Titan." Connie glanced at him, quickly looking away.

"How can you be sure?" he asked quietly, his voice hoarse. "Just because you didn't remember anything doesn't mean it's the same for all Titans."

"It was that way for Ymir." Several heads shot up, startled by the new voice. Eren's eyes were as dark and smoldering as they had ever been, but his voice was quiet. "It was that way for me, and my dad, and every other holder of the Attack Titan. No one remembers anything until they turn back into a person. They don't even remember that they were a Titan until they see the blood and pieces left behind of whoever they ate. Your mom's eyes might be open, but she's fast asleep, probably dreaming of you coming back to visit…" Connie stared at Eren as though the other boy had just thrown him a lifeline, but green eyes had since looked away. Gold eyes looked back at Hange.

"…you're only gonna do what's absolutely necessary, right?"

"In terms of invasive experiments, yes, but I was also thinking of running some… let's say 'non-standard' tests. Your mother is one of the few Titans that we know of that has the capacity for speech. After doing tests on the physiological, I'm hoping we can maybe pin down the psychological aspect and get her to talk again." The section commander sighed dreamily, squeezing their horse behind the dithers and spurring it forward. "I'd give my other eye to hear a Titan speak…" Levi scoffed loudly as he began riding ahead to the test site once more.

"The Beast Titan can speak; I heard it laughing and running its mouth talking to itself before I carved it up. Maybe you'll get to hear it too before I turn Zeke Yeager inside out."

"I would forever be in your debt, Levi~ But we might not even have to wait that long. If we're lucky, Erwin will have the proper mouth and throat structure for speech. Lips would be a good place to start…" He couldn't shudder because his soldiers were looking at him, none more so than Eren and he didn't want that boy sensing an iota of fear coming from him.

They'd set down on the Maria side of Wall Rose before the sun rose, scouting the area just beyond the settlement for signs of any wayward Titans. The glowstone lanterns banished shadows more efficiently than the sun often could, and Erwin could not stop the pang of resentment that struck at his heart. How many missions could have been salvaged if only they'd had better visibility? How many Scouts' lives could have been saved if they'd been able to see the monsters lurking in the mists or shadows? This wondrous miracle that could have improved- saved- the lives of so many hidden just beneath their feet by selfish-- no.

No, that wasn't a strong enough word. By evil monsters who saddled the burden of their ancestors' sins on the backs of people who had nothing to do with anything. Were he a younger, more foolish man, Erwin might have been confused as to why the royal family allowed them to live within the Walls at all when it was obvious that extinction was the ultimate end goal. But that man must have bled out when he'd had every nail meticulously ripped out from the bed. The cruelty was the point. They weren't supposed to die- they were supposed to languish, to suffer. If there truly was some kind of web that connected all the Children of Ymir to the Progenitor, to those monsters in human skin who corralled them into this pen to begin with, he hoped they were at least marginally aware of his satisfaction in using their carefully guarded secrets to wrest back the knowledge they tried to keep hidden.

Erwin removed his cloak and jacket once he dismounted, handing them both to Floch. There was no point in donning his ODM gear- Eren's had been completely destroyed after his first transformation, and given that the commander's had to be specially made, they didn't need to risk ruining it for no reason. The majority of the Scouts remained on their horses about twenty meters away- they'd used charring of the trees and grass surrounding the impact site at Wall Rose to gauge what a safe distance could be- their ODM grips in hand but empty. The only one wielding blades was Levi. And the only one close at hand was Eren himself, also vested of ODM gear. He'd proven that the Colossal's steam did nothing to him and if something went… awry, well… the boy wasn't exactly known for fighting Titans with blades, now was he?

"You ready, Erwin!?" Hange cupped their hands around their mouth to amplify their voice, a wholly unnecessary gesture. "I'll fire off the smoke shell, and we'll give you… let's say a minute to transform before approaching!" Because it might not be instantaneous. Because he needed to have a clear goal in mind. Erwin nodded before remembering how far apart they were.

"Ready when you are!" He couldn't hear them, but he knew Hange was giggling as they raised their arm, signal gun in hand, and pulled the trigger. He couldn't hear the pop from such a distance, but the sight of that green plume stabbed at his heart, the smell of gunpowder burned in his nose, the rocks whistled as they hurtled towards them, louder and louder until it was all he could hear--

"Hey!" He tore his eyes away from the sky and they landed on Eren, who was glowering at him even more than usual. "You're not gonna turn into anything just staring at the sky." Eren had been on the other side of the Wall, dealing with the Armored and Colossal… everyone on that side had died in an instant in a flash of light and heat

there weren't even any bones…

He pushed those thoughts from his mind. He needed to focus. Inhaling deeply, Erwin brought his hand to his mouth the way Eren did, and paused, staring at the flesh between his thumb and wrist. The skin was unmarred on his hand, but he clearly remembered a ring of little scars in that exact area, bite marks that didn't billow steam as they closed up but scabbed and knit together into pale lines that faded but never truly went away. Why had it never occurred to him that it was such an easily accessible area to hurt? Swallowing, he opened his mouth- wider than he'd expected- and wedged that soft flesh between his teeth. An injury, and a goal- that was the catalyst. His goal was to transform. To not go on a rampage. To not hurt or kill anyone. He bit down and almost immediately drew his hand back, staring at the ring of indentations. So little pressure and it hurt so much already…

"Bite harder." Eren's tone was short, as though he were annoyed at him for not grasping so simple a concept. Erwin pushed his own annoyance to the back of his mind- this was no time for his pride or ego or what have you to make itself known. Eren knew more about this than he did; it was only natural to defer to someone with experience (even if their attitude could use some adjustments…). Breathing deeply, he brought his hand to his mouth again, fighting against every instinct that told him to stop, that the pain meant something was wrong. "Harder!" It was like trying to tear through leather- if he bit any harder, his remaining teeth would crack (of course, they'd probably grow back just fine). "You're not doing it hard enough!"

"It hurts!" he yelled back at the boy as best he could gagged as he was. Eren's emerald eyes looked nearly black in their disgust.

"It's not enough for it to hurt- you have to draw blood. Literal children can do it, so why can't you?" Beating back every sense of self-preservation, Erwin bore down on his flesh until he felt something give, a hot metallic tang exploding on his tongue. He tensed, having no idea what would happen next but expecting it to hurt as well. But nothing happened. No flash of light, or heat, or pain beyond the throbbing in his hand. Saliva laced with blood flowed thickly down his wrist, dripping onto the grass, and nothing else happened.

"Oi," Levi yelled from across the field, "hurry up!!" Lowering his hand, Erwin turned back to the other soldiers.

"It's not working!" He looked back down at his hand, a red ring carved into the pale skin. It had taken more willpower than he would have even thought just to overcome the mental block needed to inflict harm on his own person. And he was doing it to transform into a Titan, to give humanity a much-needed weapon. How… how could anyone do this to themselves, of their own volition, to silence their own thoughts? What could possibly hurt so much that this was less painful by comparison?

"Why are you stopping?" He almost flinched at the sound of Eren's voice- he hadn't realized the boy had crossed the admittedly short distance between them. Hange and Levi were crossing the field, the others remaining behind.

"I don't think this method is going to work for me," Erwin told him calmly, locking all his thoughts and feelings not regarding the mission at hand in a little box deep down in his soul. "I have trouble biting with enough force to draw blood- I am missing several teeth, and unlike yours, mine didn't grow back. I might need to use an implement like the one Annie had."

"You're just making excuses…"

"Excuse me?" Even if a part of him could understand Eren's annoyance, that in no way excused his poor attitude.

"It doesn't matter how long it took the injury to happen- it did. You could have transformed at any time… but you didn't. Because you don't want to. Because you're not focused."

"Eren. I am trying. I would think you of all people would understand how difficult forcing a transformation is under non-life threatening situations, especially the first time."

"You're not trying hard enough." Eren turned away, but not before Erwin caught a faint "Armin would've--" It felt as though one of the chains barring that box had snapped off. Erwin lowered his voice, his tone making his simmering anger clear.

"What did you say?"

"…nothing--"

"No. I heard you muttering under your breath. If you have something you want to say to me, recruit, then say it." He almost expected Eren to double down and insist that he hadn't said anything, to be smart enough to avoid a fight with his commander… but the events in Shiganshina should have made it painstakingly clear that Eren Yeager did not care to avoid fights with anyone, regardless of age, size or social standing. His hands balled into fists, shaking at his sides, as he rounded on Erwin, eyes flashing with a bitter loathing.

"I said 'Armin would've been able to do it by now'. Armin always managed to do what needed to be done, no matter how hard or painful it was. He never let whatever personal bullshit was going on in his life stop him from giving his all and dedicating his heart to humanity- you know, that thing you keep telling us to do that you can't! 'Dedicate your hearts!' 'Sacrifice your lives, while I waste time moping over my worthless wife'--!"

It felt like a jolt of static, a tiny little shock, and then the world went white. Erwin could feel it, the tendrils snaking under his skin, twisting around his muscles and nerves, into the marrow of his bones. Not just the ones remaining in his stump, no- he could feel them winding all the way down his fingertips, even under his nails, feeling every sensation perfectly in the digits he lacked. He experimentally flexed those missing fingers, and heard a cry of pain in response. The blood drained from his face as he looked up from the steaming, contracting muscles. The hand was small for a Titan, especially the Colossal, but so very massive up close, large enough that Eren looked like a rag doll clenched in that giant, flayed fist.

"Erwin! Let go of him!" The back of Levi's jacket was smeared with grass stains- he must have been close enough that the blast caught him off guard and knocked him back. Erwin opened his hand, but even though his brain recognized the signals from his missing nerves (it had to- he still remembered what moving his fingers felt like), the Titan's fist remained closed tight.

"I don't know how!" Levi's blades were already locked in place, already prepared for an emergency extraction, and they gleamed as he ran past. His movements were so fast, so fluid, a silvery wheel severing muscle and tendons.

Massive fingers fell onto the grass, quickly burning into nothing as scalding blood pumped out, showering the recruit as he tried to stand, breathing hard and coughing. The fingers were already beginning to regrow, but Levi did not wait for them to move. Clambering onto the arm, not without a wince here or there as the exposed muscles singed his palms, he placed his blade between the fibers and Erwin's shoulder and severed them. It didn't hurt… but it felt like it should, and the sensation of there being no pain despite his mind telling him there should be set his teeth on edge so badly that he didn't even notice the tendrils that were still connected to his skin withering and falling off. The smell of rotting Titan flesh was still repulsive, even if the steam no longer hurt him. Eren had long since been conditioned to not be bothered by either, and Erwin (wrongfully) assumed that was the cause for the boy's stoicism as he stared at the quickly disintegrating arm.

"Eren… I apologize; it was bad form for me to lose my temper like that--"

"Do you remember what it felt like?" Cerulean eyes blinked.

"What… what felt like?"

"That fury. That hatred." Eren looked away from the arm, up at the commander, his face as still as it had ever been. "That's what it was. You can lie to the lieutenant and Hange and everyone else, but you can't lie to me because I know. I brought up your wife, and for just that one second, you hated me so much that you would have crushed me into a paste if it meant shutting me up." The boy stepped closer and, despite hesitating for a moment, reached up, squeezing Erwin's left arm just above the elbow. "Hold onto it, Commander. The memory of that hatred, because sometimes, especially early on… pain and concentration and a goal just aren't enough. Sometimes, you need a little push, and hatred and anger… they haven't failed me so far…" His expression shifted, something unknowable playing behind his eyes, and when he spoke again, there was something akin to discomfort in his voice.

"I meant everything else I said, but… I shouldn't have brought up your wife. None of this is her fault. I'm sorry for that." Erwin swallowed hard, and then swallowed again- it was the only way to keep the bile from rising up his throat. He could still taste blood in his mouth, his heart was racing and his hand burned despite no steam indicating the holes were closing.

"Levi, I think we should take a--" He turned to where his lieutenant had been standing, only to find empty air. A glance off to his right revealed the shorter man had stopped a few meters away, kneeling on the ground beside a huddled figure. He spoke so quietly, Erwin could only hear him once he was but a few steps away from the pair.

"It's okay. Nothing happened. He didn't transform- it was just an arm…" Hange didn't respond. It seemed likely that Hange didn't even hear anything that was being said to them, what with their arms pressed tight against their ears, their hands covering their head as they whimpered and sobbed and shook on the ground. Hange, who had been at the epicenter of two of the Colossal's attacks, whose face and hands still bore scars from the burns, who lost an eye while their entire section lost their lives and who saw their oldest friend burned away so completely that there weren't even any bones left… And he had lost control just as they were approaching, had nearly turned into that thing in a moment of anger…

"Hange--" Erwin whispered, his throat tight, but he could say no more as they flinched at the sound of his voice, curling up tighter.

Afraid. Of him.

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A/N- Me, when I started writing this chapter: "I wanna write a fun shopping scene!" Me, when I came back to this chapter several weeks later: "I don't wanna write about shopping anymore- let's rework the magic system."

AoT had a lot of ideas that I loved in the beginning, like the fact that Titan muscle gave off extreme amounts of heat that was actually capable of hurting people, and that Scouts had to worry about running out of things like gas and blades, things that became less "ever-present rules of the universe" and more the occasional "rule of drama" Easter egg as the series went on. I liked it more when I thought the Titans actually functioned on some kind of hard logic rather than "magic sand monsters that can do whatever the plot demands of them and have no negative side effects whatsoever" (the 13 year curse doesn't count as we don't see a single character actually suffer from it, and no- Kruger getting a little nosebleed doesn't count), so I've been trying to bring that back in this fic. It's not quite the hard magic system I wish it was, but to be frank, the amount of fucks I have left to give for both this fic and this franchise as a whole deplete with every chapter I write. I will finish it, but… dear god, do I wish I'd never started writing it now. Hard to imagine I was so passionate about it in the beginning… Oh well. Have some Hange trauma! If anyone should be wetting their pants at the mere thought of the Colossal, it's them (I was actually going to have them wet their pants in this chapter, but then I remembered Oluo and Petra and how so many people view a legitimate fear response as a joke and I didn't want anyone laughing at Hange in that scene).