"We'll be together again, I promise!" Erwin Smith smiled and patted a girl's head as he turned to leave. Those were Cordelia's brother's last words to her before he left for the military. After the suspected murder of their parents by the governmen...
"There were five of us..." Erwin began, staring at the ground with his arms crossed as the fire roared amongst them. He closed his eyes and began telling the story of his sins.
~Flashback~
A basin sparkling with water and suds shined in the sunlight...
Splash.
"Mama, look at the bubbles!" A tiny blond-haired girl giggled as she stood on her tip-toes and dipped her hand in the laundry basin. Her hair just above her shoulders topped with a bow in her hair and a blue dress with white socks that landed just below the knee.
"I see, Cordelia!" The tall blonde woman above her smiled as she clipped the clean laundry to the clothesline above their heads. She wiped some sweat from her forehead as she stared at her small daughter playing in the water.
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"Don't fall in, we don't want you to get a cold, you know?" The woman bent down towards her daughter as she began working on the next pair of dirty trousers to clean.
"I know, Mama!" The small girl replied as she was still dangerously close to tumbling into the soapy basin beneath her.
As the woman began on the final pair of dirty laundry, she heard voices in the distance that were gradually getting closer. She peered over her shoulder and smiled at what she saw. Just coming over the hill were her boys. Her husband walking with her two sons, both blond-headed and butting heads about who knows what. Boys will be boys, after all.
"Cordelia," The woman turned her head to the small girl next to her, her long braid followed her head, "Look who's home!"
The tiny girl popped her head up from the basin and looked towards the hill at the figures approaching them.
"Papa!!" The girl exclaimed and ran towards the rest of her family. She was running so fast the bow in her hair almost fell off.
"Cordelia!" The tall man elated, "There's my girl!!" Her father bent down on one knee, arms wide open. He scooped her up in his arms followed by a big smooch on her cheek as she giggled, hugging him back.
"Did you have a good day, my love?" He asked her.
"Sure did! We went to the market and did the laundry! I helped!" She exclaimed with bright eyes.
"I'm sure you did!" His father grinned back at her, he knew his daughter enough to know that she would get too distracted to actually assist with the chores.
Meanwhile, one of the brothers ran to give his mother a hug.
"Mamaaaa!" He cried, "I missed you!" He ran to his mother's arms.
"Hello, Pierce! I missed you too." The woman hugged her middle child, just shy of 8 years old, "Did you have a good day?"
"Today was scary! Big brother told me that there are such things as giant monsters that live on the other side of the walls!" Pierce replied with fear in his gray eyes.
"Ah, did he now..." His mother patted his head and sighed, "When you are older you will understand." She reassured him with a soft smile.
"Oi, Cordelia! Why do you only care about dad? I'm home too, you know?!" One of her brothers yelled up at the pair of father and daughter, very strikingly so with his bushy eyebrows furrowed and his hands on his hips.
"Heehee, hi Erwin!" Cordelia replied.
Her father laughed and put her down.
"Did you learn anything cool today!?" She ran up to him.
"I did," he replied, "do you wanna hear about it??"
"I do! I do!" She looked up at him with large blue eyes.
"Okay! Let's go inside and I'll tell you! I'm exhausted." He grabbed his sister's hand and the family of five walked inside their humble home. It wasn't much, and Pierce and Erwin had to share a room, but it was home nonetheless. And that was all that mattered in the end; that they were happy.
- Later that night -
Two figures sat at the kitchen table talking amongst themselves. It was late at night and the children were tucked into bed fast asleep.
"He's too smart for his own good." The man, looking at his intertwined hands on the table, "I told him the truth and my thoughts."
Silence echoed the room for a while. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall.
"...Theo," the woman interrupted, "I just think he's far too young to cross that bridge... I don't think he was ready to learn the truth yet." The woman worriedly looked at her husband next to her.
He continued to look down, "Rosalie, if you could just hear him in class... He's so curious about the world. If anyone is going to solve humanity's problems, it's Erwin."
Rosalie put a hand on top of his intertwined ones. "I know he's smart and bright... I just don't want to see our son be a sacrifice for the sake of others. This is dangerous, Theo. I'm scared for him. There's a reason why everything is a secret..."
Theo placed a hand to his wife's cheek softly, "I will try my best to ensure that doesn't happen. If anything, it would be a choice he would make on his own when he was ready."
Rosalie's eyes filled with tears, "Please. Don't tell him anymore. Not yet. Even if he begs. Please." She grabbed her husband's hand in her own, pressing it to her temple as she leaned into his arms.
Theo looked at his distressed wife with soft eyes, "...Yeah. I won't."
Except he would. For weeks on end, he would. After class, while they were waiting for Pierce to finish with his tutoring, he would keep his oldest son and educate him on the misbeliefs that were being taught by the government.
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