SETTLING comfortably seems like a pipe dream. No way in hell is he going to wait around for something to strike him down at the first open opportunity. Wary (and frustrated), his blood itches from directly underneath, spine ridden with a curse that no longer functions as it should. Nothing is making sense. He finally comes to terms with the one thing that could take back the wall and further humanity’s success, and he’s torn away from it all. For… what, again?
Right. Entertainment. If his stomach wound any tighter, it might collapse in on itself. How many times is he going to get thrown into situations like these, expected to act obediently? Too many, if you ask him.
Eren’s lack of a say in the matter only grows more prevalent when he plunges forward, starting down a mountain by the unfamiliar village’s edge. His eyes drift up to the hazy sky, distantly able to recall what it looked like back in Shiganshina only for a moment. Naturally, any semblance of good fortune when it comes to his off-kilter investigation falls away as his boot gets caught in knotted vines. In a desperate sweep to check if any danger had neared in the few seconds wasted on slipping out with ease, he spots someone. Clad in a… not at all unfamiliar jacket. In fact, the signature fabric and two toned hair are a dead giveaway.
Of course he’s the one to catch him tangled in thorns. Well, it’s motivation enough to cut up sharp knuckles and the pads of his fingers tugging away from the trap. What, like he was going to let Jean Kirschtein find him like this? At least his chagrin has almost entirely overcome any previous relief at the sight of him.
Eren doesn’t wipe his hands when he approaches, lips parted in disbelief as both arms cross his chest. “I guess they got you, too?”
Jean is sure that nobody follows no visible trail directly into stark forestry. Nobody will remember him should he get killed or, more likely, completely and irreversibly lost. And after what he just forced himself to do, he feels better being alone and in danger than surrounded by people and safe. Heavy boots crush dead leaves underfoot and carry him further from the civilians he craves to escape.
The worst part of being alone is that his thoughts stretch on for miles unending, and he still feels better. He can see his actions over and over, repeated with the same tone of disgust he has for the people who forced him into it. Forced isn’t right—suggested, with heavy inclination toward punishment if he didn’t follow instructions like a good soldier. He knows that regardless of the penalty, doing as he’s told wins him something that will make survival easier, and he wants to see another day. At least then, he might catch sight of a familiar face.
Rustling to his left throws him for a loop. At first, Jean assumed it was another beast, there to exact revenge on his immoral actions, but once he peers around a rock, it’s only Eren.
“I can’t believe this.” He’s right, he really can’t. The taller of the two’s first thought is that this is some of that dark magic he heard the others complaining of, but a closer look reminds him that some things can’t be copied: the spitfire in Jaeger’s eyes is one of those. Eren’s question becomes rhetorical. “You’re alright?” He means the obviously destroyed vines at his feet and gestures downward to support this, but also tries to hint over to the fact that they’ve been thrown from a place they didn’t even feel comfort in to new lands with unknown, and therefore scarier, monsters.
All things considered, exploring was absolutely a bad idea. Jean was in the open; he was weaponless, and worst of all, he was completely alone. He knew better than to wander too far from the areas he had mapped out in his mind, but still he had to try something — else he lose his chance for an upper had over strangers that could turn violent, or the beasts he was told to slay.
Still, Jean wasn’t useless. Through the sun shimmering down into his line of sight and regardless of the songbirds singing false safety, his sense of soldier, his sense of warrior was still very much intact. He could track the deep footprints of something that was canine, but very, very wrong. The pads of the paws were too large and spaced well apart, and in the distance of strides he could tell whatever he was seeing, though it was lonely, it was powerful and probably much larger than he could imagine. The most important thing to him was that it was alone.
The prints were deep. “It’s heavy...” His silent thought nearly won over his own confidence in fighting the lone animal, but he had a duty. Though he could resist his commands, having something to do helped distract him from the facts: Jean was alone, stranded away from his comrades, and surrounded by a reality that couldn’t be explained away with science. Everything around him was inherently wrong, and it was wearing down his nerves.
Jean struggled with his lonesome thoughts. With his practice and training and very, very real experiences, he should be able spare his brain two tracks to run at once, and the back of his mind had ran directly toward something he’d rather avoid. Though his cool, tough facade had been worn down fairly long ago, the boy still felt like he had to fight away any kind of tenderness he held for people. It wouldn’t do to dirty such a clear mind during stressful situations, and yet he couldn’t fight it away.
He was worried about his mismatched family.
Crrack—
Relieved of his thoughts, he spun carefully on his heel toward the source of the distracting sound. There, between two trees, he could see the beast he’d been hunting cowered over near one of the countless cascades that littered the rocky forestry of Adan. It’s fur was dark and, as he edged closer while using the rightmost oak as cover, it wasn’t just the pigment in the coat that made it so. Several deep, jagged wounds leaked blood into the hellhound’s fur, and every place it made wet only got darker. And striding back and forth under the belly of the beast was a very small pup. Luckily, neither had noticed his presence.
This was a win for Jean. He was told to slay a beast that had offspring; it never said he couldn’t put one out of it’s misery. He waited with baited breath as the slowly going she-beast fell to her side away from her pup, and only when her breathing had become assuredly shallow did he move from his hiding spot. The steps he took were quick now; if he waited too long, his chance would escape and he would have to start over. With every step he gained closer, the pup took back, until it was several feet away. In it’s innocence it had no fright, only curiosity at the strange, tall thing that was so close to it’s sleepy mother. It was so small, so cute, and seeing it made Jean’s heart ache. He understood, but had never felt how it would feel to have something much bigger than you steal your mother away. He’d only heard stories from his rag-tag comrades, after all.
The visible eye of the she-beast watched him as he went, but she already lacked the strength to raise her head and merely growled up at him. It gave Jean little reason to pause; any longer and she would slip away. Near, as a sort of guide to keep the water from the falls from flowing too heavily out, was a border of large rocks. By now his chest was tight, as if he were caught in the hold of an unholy, unforgiven, and incredibly mistaken beast, and Jean was miserable. Still, he hefted one of the small boulders into his arms, and turned to take the three steps that felt like miles back to the fallen mother. Her breaths were but weak pants by then.
He kept eye-contact as he dropped the stone onto her head, and she stopped breathing.
As he stumbled away, sick with himself and the replay of the tiny hound nudging it’s mother to wake her from her now never-ending rest, his heart felt splintered. And he had two more times yet until he could say he was done.
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