The Birth of Freedom

Together We Give Our Hearts

(if anyone has any questions that I can answer without giving the plot away, please ask away :D"

RIAN

"You think there is a chance they will choose to stay away from the scouts?" Aurora asked dejectedly, knowing full well the answer to her question. 

Standing from the side of the stage, Aurora and I watched Armin and Mikasa standing at ease in their row waiting to make the choice that would either throw them in our coming fight or keep them safe inside the walls. 

The Commander had asked us with Captain Levi in witness, to accompany him, Miche and a handful of other scouts to the cadet headquarters in the hopes of recruiting for the scouts under the guise of providing some much-needed space between the rest of the Levi squad and us after yesterday's tense affair. I had been entirely in agreement with Erwin until I had seen the distrusting look on Levi's face and realised, we were here for another purpose entirely.

"Would you in their shoes?" I probed knowing the answer to that question too. We had been in Armin's and Mikasa's shoes, and we chose to do right by them, they were no different and even though it was safer for them to select the Garrison or in Mikasa's shoes the MPs, they would make the same choice we did, for the family.

"Do as I say not as do, right." Aurora joked as she rocked on her heels nervously. As much as she wanted us all together again, she didn't want that to come at the cost of Armin's or Mikasa's safety. It was too late for Eren, but I knew Aurora silently hoped they would not choose the Scouts, she wasn't selfish like that.

Unlike me. I need to tell Aurora how sorry I am.

"Aurora..." I began, but the rest of the words stuck in my throat, some apology this was going to be if I couldn't actually spit out the words. Turning her head upwards, Aurora faced me with kind understanding eyes and I felt my body relax.

"I know what you're going to say and there isn't any need. You didn't say anything that wasn't true Rian, I guess I just thought you understood that part of me." Aurora sighed sadly. "I know what I am, and I don't regret my actions because if I hadn't done those things, Mikasa wouldn't be standing in that row now, proud and free. My actions were mine, not grandfathers, not yours or Eren's but mine and I will gladly bear their stain for the sake of our family," she said wistfully as turned to gaze upon Armin and Mikasa in adoration before turning back and taking my hand in hers as she met my eyes.

I only added to that burden.

"I shouldn't have goaded you that night. It wasn't fair of me to turn up in the dead of night and demand that you accept Eren's situation at face value with no regards to your feeling on the matter, no matter how I wrong, I think they are." Aurora apologised, her grip on my hand tightening before letting go and refusing to forgo the contact, I brought my arm around her shoulders and pulled her into my side, hugging tightly. 

"I don't think you are a monster, and neither is Eren." I admitted, "I was blinded by my fear, and the pathetic truth is I'm still afraid. What he can do changes everything we thought we knew about the Titans, about this war. They took everything from us, and when he turned out to be the very thing I hate most in the world, what I have dedicated the last two years of my life slaughtering... I-" I faltered as my emotions began to run wild. How do I admit that every Titan I slaughtered in Trost after seeing Eren's Titan had morphed into him? How do I explain I allowed the line between friend and foe to blur?

"This isn't as cut and dry as we thought, but when has it ever been?" Aurora debated, and I hung on her every word, "Our whole lives we have been trained for an unknown purpose and yet the moment I found out about Eren I knew in my bones it was for him. Eren isn't just the key to defeating the Titans, he's the key to finding the truth, about us, about everything. It's not a coincidence that we were raised alongside a Titan-shifter, We were meant to help him, not just as his family but as soldiers, it's the only explanation."