COMRADES • Eren Jaeger

CHAPTER 45: Memories

YOU WANTED TO BE SELFISH. You wanted to keep him for yourself, away from the ears of the gods who made him bear the damp cloak that weighed water of the sins of the sky. But the yearning for him was stronger than anything you've ever felt in all this time. You wanted to tell a story of someone neither godly nor mortal. You wanted to tell them about the boy you knew well.

At first, you struggled. The memories had been so repressed that trying to coax them out of your mind was like digging up a hole where you knew water waited for the rickety bucket of a well. You've never had someone to speak about these memories to. But soon the tide rises and everything comes pouring out of you like a tsunami on an island coast. Like good dreams that you could draw out of the sand.

He was like this, you say. And he did this and we did this and so much more. The way his eyes changed color depending on his mood. The strain of his voice when he was especially passionate about something. The sun on his face when he'd swing through the trees with gear on. His skin, kissed by the sun, glowing tan on the sand of the beach. The way his arms felt around your body, holding you close.

He knew love. He had loved many. He knew very little of it in return. But you loved him and you knew it would never cease. They listened, the words rolling off your tongue foreign to their ears.

This and that and this and that. Memories and memories swirling where you were the eye of a typhoon, an onslaught of moments that would last forever in your mind.

Ymir closed her eyes. The blonde of her hair reminded you of some of your friends. She too remembered. Drowning in that tree, then the power that came with it. Rain akin to slate pouring on her skin as she trudged home from the battlefield. She remembered Arya telling her, You should have a choice. The feeling of the spear through her head, the life draining her. It is this feat that gives her freedom. But not free enough.

Eren had loved, you reminded her. That was enough to show you it can exist in this world.

You conjured the boy you knew. Eren, boyish snarkiness in his voice as he paraded around the cadet corps. His green eyes smiling into yours. The swing of his hips as he saddled his horse. Every little moment comes back to you and you ache because you know that these memories could only come and come. They listened, staring at the Coordinate that no longer connected Eldians.

In your heart, you believe that he was there too, the boy who just wanted to be free.

You summon the beach. Your feet sink into the sand as you stroll with the freedom to create your own wind. Two footprints instead of four, your proof of existence with him from years and years ago long buried.

You close your eyes as you near the damp spot where the water borders the sand, a small smile on your lips as familiar waves meet your bare ankles. Light spills cool color over the sea's glittering surface. You stop thinking about what could have been. But still, you try to picture him beside you now.

Perhaps in time you really would slowly forget his face, his voice, his scent. For now you'd let the sun cover you, and you'd feel warm in his hold like you did so long ago.

You think that somehow, someday, you will meet again, and you will be able to tell him in person.

Ymir and Arya's presence is there. Not in body, but you could feel them behind you in blurry waves like heat reflecting the luster of stone. They murmur to each other as though they are discussing something. Perhaps they are doing so because the world has begun to change again. You do not know what humanity is up to anymore, but you have heard that wars are starting again.

None of it is your concern anymore.

You had emptied out your memories, telling them as though they were you. You watch the sun disappear into the eastern sky.

"So love does exist," Ymir says.

"It does," you say. "In more ways than one."

Arya does not say anything for a while until the moon makes itself known in the sky.

Then you see the flying boats among the clouds, ready to rid the world of Paradis. You wonder just how many people are left on the island, if your old friends are still there. Their faces are hazy in the memory and you do not know which ones are real. You search for the regret at seeing everything was for nothing, but you could no longer feel the sharp stab of pain entering your heart. All that you've bled for, been hurt for, scarred for had resulted to nothing but the same history repeating itself. Ghosts had been played for fools, and you do not feel sadness, or anger, or wickedness stirring inside you at this revelation.

You do not know why. Perhaps this is the oddity of being a wispy remain of a soul. Yet something good had been there when it was your time to walk among the living, and perhaps that was enough. Perhaps this is what it meant to be free. Either way, you could never be sure.

The sun sinks over the horizon. You turn to see light shrouding you, steam rising from the ground like the death of a Titan. You know instantly that if you step through this light right now, you will be somewhere where no one can reach you anymore.

"He loves you," Ymir says. A part of her looks sad. She will never know what you do, and you think that this is the one thing your mother of mothers can never give you. "You should leave. He is on the other side."