Creation began on 07-27-22

Creation ended on 08-16-22

Attack on Titan

The Pale One: Dead inside, but living all the same

It was a bittersweet two-day walk to Wall Maria, the outermost barrier between the people of Paradis and the Titans, but the results were worth it. The Titans that they saw at night were inactive, Pēruwan had informed them of what he knew about the power of the Titans and why during the thirteen-year period of any Subject of Ymir was a cruel fate that Marley didn't reveal to most, and should any with the power of any of the Nine Titans die before the Titan power could be transferred to a new Titan, the power would be inherited by a Subject of Ymir yet to be born, regardless of distance or relation to the previous holder.

"But…if you kill the holders before their thirteen years are up, how do you know Marley won't go after the babies of other Eldians to reclaim the Titan powers?" He was asked by the parents.

"Because the Titan powers don't awaken until after the child turns thirteen," he revealed to them. "You can't claim any of the lost powers until that time comes. That's an advantage because if Marley wants those Titans back, they'll have to wait thirteen years for the children that inherited them to become the Titans they lost, by that time, we'll have moved past the violence and wars. And the Titans will be a thing of the past."

This and the fact that they were unlikely to use the War Hammer Titan to supplement their forces in future wars meant Marley wouldn't show up for the resources of Paradis until they were certain that none of their foes could rise up and face them again.

"How are we supposed to climb this?" A man asked.

"How good are you at holding your breath?" Pēruwan asked him, holding two of the children in his arms, who looked like they were holding their breaths.

Then, he jumped up…and disappeared from their sights.

"What in the name of…" One of the mothers gasped, and Pēruwan came back down, without the children he took up.

"Ten seconds," he uttered. "That's how long you need to hold your breath until I reach the top of the wall."

"Are the kids alright?" An elderly man questioned.

"They're alright. Who's next?"

It was different from what they had expected, not only because of the young man's age, but because of how he made it look easy, able to carry them up the wall with little effort on his part. But going up the wall felt like being shot out of a cannon…if they had ever experienced being shot out of a cannon before…but they felt safe with him taking them up. And all they had to do was hold their breath for ten seconds, a short time before the next breath…but feeling like a long time when he brought all seventeen of them up the wall.

"Whoa…" The last man panted, feeling like he had the air knocked out of him. "That was weird. I know you got me up here safely, but it feels like I just ran up and down several flights of stairs with no water…or fighting someone underwater or something."

"Yeah, it wears off after a bit," Pēruwan stated as he looked down at the expanse of land on the other side of the wall. "We can stop here for now."

-x-

He awoke in the dead of night, escaping a nightmare that had been intense. But something had changed in the present…and he wasn't sure what, how or why. Getting up from his bed, the affected man vacated his room and headed down to his study in the cellar; he had to write his thoughts down and wrap his head around them.

-x-

She opened her eyes and felt like something strong enough to rattle the foundations of the past had been unleashed upon her home. Normally, she would've seen everything that happened, but not tonight when she was stirred from slumber. No, tonight, her vision, her perception…was as clear as water in a cup; there were no ripples, no murk, not even the faintest trace of dread. But she knew something was amiss, even if she couldn't see it coming.

Why? She wondered to herself as she sat at her desk. Why can't I see?

-x-

Pēruwan rarely had what most could call a good night's sleep, no matter where he was in the world. Even if it wasn't on account of needing to keep watch over others or having to make sure he stayed ahead of potential enemies, he wasn't much of heavy sleeper. Such was one of his drawbacks as being one of Mother Gaia's horsemen.

"Four horsemen?" He recalled questioning her as she showed him a photo of a previous incarnation of four men. "Were they…horse owners?"

"No," she explained to him. "There is a book called the Bible, which was written by people that received wisdom to foretell many events, some real, others imagined. But not everything was written down…because not everything was foretold. There were two groups of horsemen: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, also known as the Four Riders of Revelation…and the Four Horsemen of the Restorative…also known as the Four Riders of the Heavens. They represent light and darkness, Heaven and Hell, the pure and the impure. Revelation is just a form of truth taken to its extreme. The Four Horsemen of the Restorative are a four-men group chosen by the Heavenly Body to carry out the will and intentions of the divine for the good of the world, and they have always been given the power and blessing of the deities to do right by others."

She had shown him paintings and carvings depicting four individuals throughout the ages, each holding a sort of weapon or tool every time.

"Known throughout history as Conquest, War, Famine and Death," she revealed to him their names, "but each name has been spoken over the generations in different tongues, with different ways of saying the same thing, time and again. In your case, your name, Pēruwan, meaning 'The Pale One', is just another way of saying your designation as the Restorative Horseman of Death. You are the Pale Rider, the fourth member of the Four Horsemen of the Restorative. After the White, Red and Black Rider, you are the most influential member of the Restorative that walks the line between light and darkness, life and death."

But I'm the only one that can walk in both realms, he thought as he reached into his bag and pulled out a small blade with a rope tied to the back of its handle. I'm the only one that can traverse the realm of the dead.

"Can't sleep?" He heard a little boy ask him, and he turned to his left to see one of the children looking at him as he sat against a parapet.

"I don't sleep much," he responded. "I live only half a life."

"Why?"

"It is a karma that only those with nothing left to lose can do…and something to be gained at the end of all things."

"What does that mean? Karma?"

"It's a way of saying…what one is here to do for others."

The boy nodded in his limited understanding, and laid his head back down on the ground.

"You seem sad all the time," he told Pēruwan. "You should smile sometimes."

"Thank you," Pēruwan replied to him, but smiling was limited to the horseman.

Not because of his position as a horseman, but because of his emotions. He smiled when he needed to, but kept his face devoid of many emotions to keep a clear focus on his objectives. But he could smile for those he needed to smile for sometimes.

"You look full of hope when you smile, Pēruwan," he remembers her telling him. "You look like there's a future to your life after this is all over. I hope to see that future with you."

I hope to see that future with you, too…when we meet again, he thought as he smiled at the thought of seeing her later in the future.

-x-

He couldn't see anything that was likely to happen. Even as he expected something to occur, he couldn't see anything that indicated he needed to do anything. He took it as a sign that whatever was supposed to happen wouldn't happen just yet.

"Nothing was meant to be set in stone," he looked up from his desk and saw a young man whose eyes were dark with discord, dressed in a simple shirt and jacket with trousers. "He…and those either like him or choose to follow him in exchange for his protection…are a threat."

"Who are you and what are you talking about?" The man in the room asked him.

"You know who I am…and what you need to do."

"I don't know you…and I can't cross that line. I would plead for the safety of the people if something were to endanger them, but I refuse to be the one that endangers them."

"You sacrificed everything, and for what? I thought you wanted to get revenge for what was done to your sister."

"Do you honestly believe that vengeance is the same as justice?" They heard and saw a woman that had appeared in the room with them, standing across from the young man, dressed in a flowing, green dress with waist-length blond and ebony hair, and red eyes. "They are not the same, young man. Vengeance is a poison that takes you over and turns you into something else, something ugly and rotten. You let it be the only thing that drives you…and you cross a line you can't uncross."

"Who are you?" Both men asked her.

"I am…the voice within the forest. I am the maternal force that walks through the land of mortality. The one who governs the four that ride towards the future for all of life."

"Are you…a god?" The older man asked her.

"In a sense, I am, but I am not a cruel person. Gods are not meant to be uncaring or disregarding of the sufferings of people. I understand why you would desire revenge, but can you really call restoring a fallen nation that some call an empire built upon the suffering of other people by a man that exploited a power obtained by a young maiden that suffered at his hands justice? Can you really believe that taking a power that can never be used by yourself or this man from another family will restore order?"

"What other choice will I have?"

"That's the beauty of what you just said there. What other choice will you have? Many people believe there is only one way or another when there is always another way, one that doesn't have to be the way others want you to go. Most people don't understand the greatest truth in the history of our existence, and that is how people are the ones that create evil in their world, every trace of darkness resulting in the repercussions of their choices made long ago. You make a choice that endangers other people, like a family, because you want something they have, you're the one creating the evil, the hate, that poisons the world. It wasn't you that got your sister killed; it was the man that saw you two outside the wall and made that choice, creating the evil that poisoned you for years. It was you, however, that chose to push your son into the world of violence and hatred, creating the evil that led to your group being tortured."

"What do you know, lady?" The young man sneered towards her. "No matter what we do, all we can do is move forward. Those that can't or won't don't deserve to live. If you don't fight, you can't be free."

"And those who don't believe in violence against others are the ones who have a conscience that enables them to see what is possible, young man."

"Life is nothing but a struggle for living. People have to fight to get what they want."

"But if all you fight for is something as fading as some type of freedom that doesn't exist…then you don't really want much. It's not all that different from telling women what they should do to get what they desire, even if it means selling themselves to the highest bidder; if what they have is all they have, then they don't want much beyond what they claim to need."

"And you believe in four men that you call a necessary evil because they are good people that follow you, even in your memory, because you have faith in them."

"Do you have faith in those who believe in you for the right reasons? Did people believe in your father for the right reasons? Those that follow an idea…and those that follow a belief…go down different paths. A belief is a labyrinth, an idea is a straight line; you can't truly change a belief like you can change an idea."

"There is no other choice. Even if he doesn't do anything, he only has less than a year left to live. He either takes the power from the royal family or there's no future."

"Except he can't know for sure if you are the one that knows what will happen and refuse to show him everything except what you want him to see…or rather, neither of you can know the future if you don't know what will happen. Your father only knows the future through your present, so if you are the one seeing things from the current state of the world in your timeline, you can share your memories with your father so that he may know what will happen and how to either prevent it…or cause it to happen; in essence, you change the future you live in by altering the past that your father lives in. The evil you create influences the evil that he will make if he chooses to be swayed by you."

"You stood by as the world condemned us to a century of suffering after the Great Titan War. You may have gathered people that believe in coexistence, but you can't change the world with some relic that lies buried under Paradis."

"What?" The man questioned. "What are you talking about?"

"There's a relic here that my Four Horsemen will come for to use, and they can remove the hatred from people's hearts. Eldians and Marleyans, men and women everywhere, their animosity towards other men and women will be removed. Hatred becomes love, despair becomes hope, wars end before they can begin or escalate, but only if one of them gets to it and makes use of it. If used to its fullest, the power of the Titans becomes a thing of the past."

-x-

They really had to give Pēruwan credit for his abilities after walking atop the wall and descending to the grassy terrain below where a nearby village could be seen. It was strange that he didn't possess the power of the Titans…but he was powerful in his own right due to his position as a Horseman of the Restorative, which put him on par with those endowed with one of the Nine Titans…to a degree. He was…not like other people, but he used to be like regular people, and was still like regular people; he wasn't really invincible, as like everyone else, he could be hurt, battered, broken, bruised and crippled, and, without aid, he could become an invalid and die. Still, he was quite impressive when it came to his chosen primary specialty: Assassination, taking out targets that were believed to be untouchable.

"Knowledge is power," he told them as they were walking the village. "To be able to best your adversary, you must understand your adversary. However long it takes you, to gather information from asking daily questions that are rarely asked and answered, you can acquire knowledge that helps you to understand others. It doesn't matter what you do during that time you're gathering bits and pieces of information; you can be a florist in a district of the middle wall, a soldier from whichever branch of the military there is here or an escort in the innermost wall. Record what you can, but do what is the most important thing above what I'm asking you to do: Live. Live among these people. Make friends, develop hobbies, and you never know what could happen."

"Oh!" A man gasped, seeing the people being led to the village by a young man that was dressed oddly and was paler than they were.

"Please," a little boy spoke, trying to sound as convincing as possible. "Help, please."

It wasn't really something that they wanted to do at a time like this, but it was to help Pēruwan and themselves conceal their existence as much as possible; they would only say that they came from a town that had been ravaged by Titans, but they were able to get away. Whatever equipment they had to climb up and down the wall was lost in the process. They couldn't say that they were from Marley just yet; that day would come when Pēruwan saw an opportunity to expose the people that were controlling the government and took their power away.

"How do you know we'll be able to move forward in your plan if we go down this route?" One of the men asked him.

"I don't know for sure. Nothing is promised to anyone here. Nobody, including myself here, has a future that is filled with promise. Every one of us can only do their best to see the next day. But I will promise that as long as I can do what I'm capable of, and so long as you gather information while living with the people of this island without hatred…I will protect you from those that would come after you. My word is my anchor."

-x-

"…I'll be gone for a few days," Dr. Grisha Yeager informed his wife and son before he left out to the village he was told had people he needed to see; all he knew was that some people showed up two days ago in the west of Wall Maria, said they were from a town that had been attacked by Titans…and that one of the men was unusual in terms of his appearance.

"What's so special about a village from the west side of Wall Maria?" His son, Eren Yeager, asked him.

"Maybe when I get back…I'll tell you why," Grisha told him.

To be continued…

A/N: I'd like to hear some opinions about what will happen in the future of this story. I already know how to end the story, but what would like to see happen that isn't canon?