“Sasha, you need to eat.” Eren watched as Mikasa fruitlessly tried to encourage Sasha, who usually jumped at the chance to snack and wasn’t above resorting to thievery, to have a bite of bread. Sasha only shook her head, a queasiness in her expression that Eren couldn’t quite understand.
It wasn’t only her. Connie had his arms crossed, staring past the edge of the Wall towards the approaching tower of steam. Armin was silent, more contemplative than usual. The air surrounding their group had changed, shifted.
Jean was the one who spoke up. “I don’t think any of us can eat right now,” he said. “We were just killing people left and right.”
Killing people? “What?” Eren uttered.
“A lot happened, Eren,” Jean said, his voice harsh. “And to think the day isn’t even over yet.”
Killing people. Eren knew it was probably a bad time to ask considering the enormity of the task at hand, and the state his friends were in, but he had to know. Did they have to dirty their hands to save him? So he’d not only made people die for him, he’d made them kill for him?
Eren himself was no stranger to killing, he’d kill again if it meant being free and saving the people he cared for, but he hadn’t wanted them to follow him down that path. He’d only ever encouraged Mikasa to pick up the knife to claim the freedom that was taken from her.
His eyes drifted to Feli, sitting with her legs dangling over the Wall. She hadn’t spoken the entire time during their travel to Orvud, lost within her own contemplation. Eren cautiously stepped past the tracks to join her.
She self-isolated a lot now. Not surprising, given the person she was closest to was a traitor, but Eren would have expected her to seek out Jean’s company. She’d been talking to Sasha and Connie more, too, so why be alone right now?
Feli must have noticed him, because she sighed. “Sounds like none of us are having a good day,” she said, her voice dry.
Eren forced himself to crack a smile. “Sounds like it.”
Feli picked at her fingernails, preoccupied with the menial task. It caused a small pinprick of blood to bloom near the tip of her thumb. “You know, my mom hated the military.”
“So did mine,” Eren said, his heart sinking at the thought of his mother. “Well, I don’t know if she really hated it, but she didn’t want me to join.”
“Of course the Scouts have always been your dream,” Feli said. “I didn’t care for that sort of stuff until there was no other choice. But, Mom always told us we could do or be whatever we wanted, just not the military. She said bad things happened to good people who joined.”
“I guess no mom would want her kids to die in the military,” Eren said. The childish arguments they used to have felt all the more petty now. What a fool he had been to disregard his mother so much.
“I don’t think my mom meant dying,” Feli said. “The military corrupts people. And just look at us. We’re murderers now.”
First Jean, now Feli. Blood was definitely spilled beneath the chapel tonight, just as it had been five years ago.
“Why are you bringing this up?”
Feli shook her head. She pressed a palm to the Wall and pushed herself up. “Nothing, it’s probably just my head messing with me.”
She paused, and Eren thought she almost looked like a ghost with how pale she went. “It’s just… I can’t help but think… one of the people I killed down there, I can’t help but think she looked a lot like Mom.”
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