Perhaps it was good that they did not break out the wine to process their discovery about Titans and Ymir- and just what Eren may have done- because Onyonkopon arrived shortly that afternoon to provide a personal update on the Alliance. He had yet another telegram- classified to the rest of the public- from Armin. But he didn't even give them time to read it and instead shared the news with Levi and the women over a round of that same awful tea Levi knew better than to throw out the window in his presence.
"Mikasa?" Karina responded quizzically. She eyed Levi, who was equally surprised.
Of course. He should have damn known it right away during the news broadcast. Not very subtle on her part to kill and bound them that way. But she was alive and still fighting for them, her old comrades. The same spirit.
"Just how long has Mikasa been doing dirty work for Queen Historia?" Levi asked. What yet another coincidence.
"A month after Hizuru negotiated protections and immunity for Mikasa upon their encounter and recovery in the wilderness, Her Majesty requested her audience in secret regarding Eren and the Rumbling." Onyonkopon rubbed his chin. "Even the foreign affairs administration has kept their conversation classified from me for unknown reasons. But it seems to be a private matter between the two women, and Mikasa has been working for her since then."
"Tch. Keeping quiet about Jaeger's real plan and returning favors by putting a roof over his lover and killer's head on an island that wants our heads on a stake. What game is she playing?" He rubbed his sore leg. Tina's brow furled.
Onyonkopon thought for a moment. "Well, she is no longer the puppet queen she was those years ago when Eren began to act on his own. The new military chain of command still uses her as their symbol, but she has been mentored under Kiyomi's alliance. If Kiyomi had failed with making Mikasa to be the Azumabito's next heir, Queen Historia was prime material next on her list- a blessing for her despite Zeke's faux fifty year plan eventually falling through. We will only have to watch her next moves. Who knows who else she may be using as her pawns?"
She was a puppet queen. If she had said anything those years ago, would the military have even believed her that their island's greatest hope was scheming for something that even the prior military regime did not wish upon the rest of the world? Would he have believed her? Would Hange and Erwin have?
Erwin. There is no future where humanity can inhabit these lands without Eren, he told Levi in his hospital room after recovering from his amputation. Trouble was, just whose lands and whose humanity? But it wasn't time to regret anything.
"The royal bloods always seem to have something they want to hide," Tina commented, pulling a strand of her hair away from Viola's reach. "That woman… Karl Fritz still lives in her blood."
"Tina!" Karina exclaimed. "Blood doesn't matter anymore." Tina huffed, palming over a non-existent crease in her blouse.
"Anyhow, thank you for your visit, Onyonkopon. And for your help with the Grice's and Dolph. Falco was beginning to sound like my Reiner the other night, and it… opened many wounds for us."
Onyonkopon nodded solemnly. "In my time in the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers, when we were deployed in Kivuli during the Kivulian Nationalist Uprising of 851, we saw far too many young men barely more than children take their lives after Marley succeeded in recapturing a base the Volunteers and our allied forces had taken back after years of struggle. A sudden brutal assault on the base ended up destroying a historic burial site. Their ancestors' resting place forever desecrated, lost to bombs. Graves dug on top of graves. Never had I seen so many eyes turn dim when the Kivulian Army had the option to join Marley or the bones in the ground," he paused with a tinge of pain in his eyes. "But let's not discuss this now."
Kivuli. Another nation and people destroyed by the Rumbling. There would be nobody to tend to the remains of the burial site now. Graves on top of graves.
But there was another matter to attend to. Karina eyed him and nodded.
Levi cleared his throat. "Are the Alliance and Mikasa going to be open for communication with us? We want to send them a message that they all need to see, and Mikasa needs to damn see it too, maybe give her priority. It's about the Titans… and the Ackerman clan. Us."
Onyonkopon cocked his head. "Is this about what happened at Fort Salta three years ago?"
"It's about that… and Eren and Ymir." Karina replied. "Mikasa needs to know this. Or will this also have to be classified?"
"What are you talking about?" Tina asked. Damn, did she really have to be included in this conversation about Eldian history? If only she hadn't been so belligerent about joining them that day accompanied by her old prejudices rearing their ugly heads. Who knew what she would have to say about the Ackerman clan if he wasn't here? He probably wouldn't be seen as a great savior of her child. "Does this have to do with that book the children found?"
"Yes, Tina, of course it does. It's what's made these past few days so damn frustrating. And you may want to know this too so you can show a little gratitude for Mikasa saving your nephew's ass again… and yours." He stretched out his crippled right hand. Tch, and when did he become so snappy?
"Book?" Onyonkopon butted in to stop the escalating tension. "Ramon and Cecilia said nothing about a book. What does it have to do with you and Mikasa, Levi?"
…
Several hours earlier, upon their discovery and realization, Levi and Karina couldn't decide whether to speak up or not when Onyonkopon called ahead of time to inform them further on the Alliance. Not that they didn't trust him as their friend and ambassador to keep quiet about sensitive information. This was just like when they were in the brats' basement, the truth about the wider world just being within some dusty old pages of a book, truth that could change the walled in world that they lived in. Levi paged through it gingerly at the table.
"So, do you think the remaining world governments will let this pass off? That they're not going to try to get their hands on Eldians- and maybe me- to make a test subject of? Who gives a damn about whether Titans exist anymore? Public opinion is that we're still devils. And if the Jaegerists get this, they'll have all the more reason to worship their god who twisted the minds of Attack Titan Shifters before him to let them salivate over their power like mad dogs." How far back had Eren gone? What did he see? How many young men and women's lives did he fuck up to get them into this mess?
She hummed. "And the rest of the world thought us devils for worshipping Ymir long ago even after she died. Too late for any change with Eren and the devils he made on Paradis. With your thinking, it's just going to turn out the same one day. But the rest of the world won't come after the Ackerman clan. You're one of their 'good Eldians' they have here who betrayed the royal family and stopped Karl Fritz' creation."
He scoffed. "And the good Eldians at the internment camp? Didn't stop Marley from nearly butchering the Shifters." He sighed. "I've already sent too many comrades to their deaths because of some hidden information. May as well take this to the grave with me. Nice to know that Ymir girl had something to do with the Ackermans' resistance to the Founder's powers. Nothing else anybody needs to know."
"What about Mikasa?"
He thought for a moment. Poor woman walked away in grief without anything to gain. Even Armin had to step up to take credit for the kill. And what did she know about Ymir? Anything? She was probably living on the island without any close contact outside of diplomats from Hizuru. "Tch. Would she like to be compared to a girl whose special bond arose out of a situation where she had to fight to survive with a monster of a man she cared for?"
"Oh dear," she chuckled inappropriately. "And now you wish to conceal your heritage from a younger relative, even if it's the truth? Have you forgotten last night already? I never thought my Reiner would have learned the truth about Timothy and me, and look what happened to him." She removed the plates from the table to wash them.
"No, it's not like propaganda against yourself, Karina. If we're going to have our lives interrupted again, I don't want any part in it. Blood tests haven't vanished with the Rumbling. It would only take a mad scientist to get a vial and use it to grow Titans like weeds or make super soldiers of us." He had been a dormant Ackerman before. Was it just the same now without the curse? Did a part of him still have those genes? "There's always a way we could be used with this information; Dolph was wrong about that." He crossed his good leg carefully, hoping his health hadn't taken a turn for the worse with the distress he faced the other night.
She was concerning herself with the dishes, ignoring him. Oh, she was on him again. No real reason to be ashamed of his own heritage, though no real reason to be proud. Was it his loyalty that day? No, was his own feelings getting in the way? No. Because Erwin told him the truth, and nothing but the truth. Truth that was the cause of the mountains of corpses he stood upon, ones that he added to as well. Shit. He was going to have to stop going in damn circles again. He rubbed his brow above his bad eye.
"Fine. Only if you share more with your niece when she's home."
She scoffed and laughed softly. "With Gabi? Oh dear, then I'm afraid we'll have to keep it a secret from my brother and Tina." He frowned, and she clarified, "I swear she sometimes recites the List of Grievances Caused By Eldians to soothe herself to sleep when she thinks nobody is listening. Gabi's never heard her since we relocated here, but that girl and her eavesdropping…." She set down a clean plate. "She certainly did a few nights ago like a little rat. All over inviting you for tea."
Were her cheeks turning pink? And why was blood rushing to his head? He shook his head.
"Yes, she did." He sighed. "Those brats… they wanted me to take this damn book in the first place. Seems like Eren wanted me to as well."
"Because of Gerhard's note?"
"He had to have seen something worth this all for us-me. He never spoke to me like he spoke to the others. It's more tripe about children and the future targeting me." He cringed at the description the past Shifter wrote about him. "'Ignorance is not freedom'. Tch. When everyone is ignorant, we're all just stuck in place. And when everyone is informed, we're stuck in an endless cycle of the same shit until we're all dead." He slumped and threw his head back, not wanting to think about what the lie and truth was anymore.
How much more was the remnant of humanity outside Paradis going to take of this if the current world they lived in was cursed with the memory of Ymir and the Eldians living on in the hearts of the bloodthirsty Jaegerists? Were they going to live in fear any longer before striking back?
How much more were the Eldians abroad going to have to take to get past this week? They couldn't even go out now without accusations of sympathizing with the Jaegerists, let alone live in their own homes without animal blood being painted on their doors or send their brats to school without fearing for their safety.
And why was this book thrown into his hands by Eren via those brats?
Those brats. What had he promised them a few days ago before the Alliance got caught in another bout of violent extremism on Paradis if they got a miraculous outcome and they got to go back to the island for themselves?
The forest of giant trees.
Live a life without regrets.
Damn it, Jaeger. Both of them. He slammed the book shut.
"We'll get it to the Alliance and Mikasa. If it can at least give them something to feel good about for once when they're making passionate speeches about our story that the worst of the Jaegerist Faction will condemn to hell, even if it only helps Mikasa know about herself, we'll do it. And the brats? We'll get it out so they can see Kaya again. And the giant trees."
Karina took a moment and collected herself, a new aura of confidence shining in her. "Good. And I will do this for Gabi and Martino, and my Reiner as well. We were almost all wiped out for no reason three years ago, and we would have been lost forever. There's no need for any of us to be keeping secrets from each other anymore."
…
Onyonkopon listened to their whole story starting from a few days ago with the brats' lucky or fated find (whichever made more sense at this point) to the note left on the inside cover by Gerhard to the dual bird attacks- unless they were driven by hunger- to their own speculations from their experiences as Titans and Ackermans. He nodded along, part thinking and part fascinated by their tale. If he knew anything about Onyonkopon, his faith was never shaken no matter what kind of shit he encountered or what kind of people were out for him.
Tina listened adamantly as well, but she recoiled upon hearing Karina recount in their analogy for being Titans about how Eldian schoolchildren were treated and what they had to recite to prove to their oppressors that they would atone for their sins. Her ears tinged pink when her sister-in-law shared a brief glance, and she adjusted her headcovering. Onyonkopon folded his hands.
"This is a lot to understand if you are by any means correct based on your experiences. Very little prior Titan research still exists, and the royal family records and your book on the clan may as well be the last written documents preserved. There is the need to educate future generations with what we witnessed for ourselves and what little we have left, which lies in the hands of Commander Arlert… but as you say, the one who would most value this would be Mikasa. Yet the political atmosphere on Paradis would not make it very safe for this information to be shared with her right now as according to the administration, Mikasa is registered as a missing person to the Jaeger Faction. And at what cost are you willing to risk sending this over now?"
"Our lives," Tina replied bitterly. "Or at best our homes if the vandals here decide to move on from the schools. What will happen to my daughters then?"
Where had she been during their discussion earlier that day? He would have won his way with Karina at first thanks to her overflowing optimism.
"Mrs. Braun, I spent several years on Paradis working with the young men and women of the Survey Corps and the government who thought the world outside the wall was just a legend because of their oppressors inside and outside pushing them to believe that. We introduced the concept of a railroad. With the treaty from Hizuru supplying the island, we opened up a new world for the islanders. Now vital supplies for the poorer districts could arrive from the inner walls faster than the old ferry system. But we also introduced the history of the world outside the walls, and that only pushed some very pathetic, propaganda-driven individuals further into themselves with pride and anger, and they lashed back at the world they never got to know for themselves." He dug into his briefcase for a moment before pulling out a pocket-size black-and-white picture of a young man with a buzzcut who looked like him.
Oh. It was him. Levi remembered this back in the medical tent when Onyonkopon's arm injury from the flying boat crash was being reexamined a few weeks later. Each day, there was hope that he would be found or make contact, but that never came to be. He could only listen from his dingy cot as the man mourned next to him over a man who didn't even have a body left to bury.
"The edges of my homeland were trampled because of my own willingness to inform and protect the ignorant and oppressed out of charity. My brother Dodzi and his family remain lost among the debris and bones. Dodzi who was supposed to be drafted for Marley instead of me years ago under the Marleyan empire to get our family food during a difficult farming season. But I lied about my age and took his place so he could marry the girl he loved. If I hadn't done that… there would have been no Rumbling. Or would there have been anyways? Didn't I at least do anything to change the lives of a few men and women who fought until it was over?" His dark eyes pleaded for response from a silent room.
Tina sighed, trying to restrain a fussing Viola. "Alright. We are still alive, if anything. But we'll never know the truth, will we?"
"When the Creator brings all anew, only then may we know." The women's faces looked stung upon hearing the reference to the Church. "And may those who deny that the Creator made Eldians and Ymir as humans too be cast into the chasm that day."
Good save, Onyonkopon.
"But for now," he continued, "I judge it best that the Alliance sees this information first and foremost for their own opinion and incorporation into their negotiations. Just two experiences and one old book is probably not enough evidence to be deemed worthy in the eyes of researchers yet, and with protections in place, you should not be seeing any immediate problems from the administration or wider government, so I would not have any reason to worry. I am sure Ms. Ackerman would find some peace of mind with her role in ending the Rumbling should this end up in history books one day."
Just like the newspapers. He'd tear them up and throw them out.
"Onyonkopon," Karina started. "We would like to write these messages for ourselves. It's time my Reiner knows the truth for himself from his mother about my past, our family's past. Even if it's just bits of the stories my grandparents shared with me, it's still all we have left."
Tina opened her mouth in shock. "Are you saying-?"
"Yes, the Ymir temple worship. And Gabi and Martino are going to learn about this too. Gabi and Falco and the other Eldian children should not have to be terrified of a Church member misusing our ancestors' sacred symbols to scare us into a corner. Even if we no longer practice, we will teach them just what it meant to us."
"But that's- that's devilry! The people our ancestors killed, what would they think about our bloody traditions with the Ymir girl?"
"Did any of us know who Ymir was? We were all wrong about her. The poor girl suffered for almost 2,000 years by King Fritz. We are not worshipping her at all. Not even the Jaeger Faction does such a thing."
"And how will they do with Eren Jaeger?"
Levi hoped Onyonkopon could spare some more wise words, but he instead toyed with a pocket watch, looking for a leave as Tina and Karina bickered.
"How about I give you some time to figure out what you want to share with them in your letter? I must get to a meeting with Mr. Leonhardt and the local Eldian Rights Committee regarding the increased amount of vandalism and violence over the past week." The men exchanged a nod before he turned around and left.
Mr. Leonhardt had become a leading figure in the Marleyan-Eldian refugee community in Nodlon following his role in capturing the train to their flight to safety. He often dealt with complaints of crimes- some worse than others- against the newly settled group. But he also had to handle Eldians who were not quite grateful to the native citizens and other settled communities. It turned out that there were several Jaegerist sympathizers among them who wished to see Eldia restored, and amidst the rising tensions, they celebrated in the streets the night of the bombing. Even some of the remnants of long established Eseresoan Eldians from the fall of the Eldian Empire could not restrain themselves from rejoicing for the return of the Empire.
Tina stood up with Viola. "Alright then. Share with them. They're only going to feel shame and guilt over what our ancestors did. And it sure would have helped you and Reiner those years back if you were just honest with him about Timothy."
"Tina!" Karina exclaimed, but she had huffed off to another room. She shook her head in exasperation.
What a disrespectful, hypocritical little…
No, he wasn't going to say it. Not with her brat and the dog story. It wasn't really her fault.
"Is she going to act like this the rest of the day? I was just about to enjoy the change of mood around here." Maybe the leaky apartment building would be a good escape, but he needed to stay here for the Braun's. And the Grice's. And Dolph. And the Alliance.
"Oh, no. She'll calm down. She's just still upset about Falco from last night," she replied dejectedly.
"If she starts calling Mikasa the 'bad Ackerman' for working for Historia and me the 'good Ackerman'-"
"She won't, she won't. We're just having a terrible day. She just wants her family to survive, don't we all?"
The brothel. So lonely and cold. His mother dressed him with what tattery garments she could pull off the streets. On the rare days they could leave before she got sick, she led him by the hand outside. If she didn't get enough clients some days, they had to beg on the streets. She showed his skinny little ass to frowning, drunk men and wealthier looking prostitutes from better brothels. If one was not too much of a heartless bastard, they would get a few coins, and they would get to eat some stale rice. She tried to give him extra, only for his sake. She loved him, but she was just trying to survive on her own accord. She never knew if somebody would come looking for her. Or him.
Reiner had never spoken much about his past on his previous visits, but with all being said and done these past few days… would he have been able to change him seven years back? Would Karina have been able to? It was never easy with persecution at your doorstep.
"Yeah."
Theo pawed at the bars of his cage, ready to go out. Karina took the teacups to the kitchen.
"Here, I'll take the dog out, and then we can think about what we want to write. We need the fresh air anyways."
Levi stood. "I'll come too. If we have to sit confined for another minute with more moaning about the state of the world, I'll throw the rest of this tea out the window. Onyonkopon's got to stop trying to poison me with it."
"Are you sure you can come?"
"I'll be fine. Just make it a short walk." He cautiously rubbed his leg, hoping that nobody would notice it was getting worse.
…