Chapter Text
edit by @UNDEADsmoak on Twitter
Song recommendation: Experience by Ludovico Einaudi
Green stretched as far as the eye could see. Sometimes he would spot a break in the mist. A hint of the blue sky above them, a flock of swans soaring far above his head, the undulating strands of a horse’s tail, a corpse, crushed under a crag. Faces he once recognised now were twisted, forever frozen in the panic of their last moments. His lungs struggled for air but all he could take in was the dense smoke that enveloped him. That enveloped them. It forced itself down his throat and coated his mouth. Thick. Oily. Insidious. The smoke of death.
His ears made up for what he couldn’t see. War cries intermingled with the gurgling whimpers of dying soldiers. A blast next to him informed him that at least two more of his comrades had fallen. How many more?
All of them, Harry knew. Erwin’s battle screams had gone silent long ago. This was it.
Through a break in the green cloud, Harry spotted it. Towering over the treeline. It was so impossibly big, its lips curled into a cruel smile. Its features lost in a field of brown matted fur. Harry couldn’t help but spot the humanity in its beady yellow eyes. It almost made him fond of it. Now that the only certainty for him was death, it was as if everything became simpler.
Harry knew very little about titans. Science, anatomy, all the complicated things Arthur had tried to teach him about in their cramped little bunk in the Cadet Corps. All the ramblings he had overheard Hange pour on poor Moblit. None of that had ever meant much to him. It almost made his job harder to know about them. They kill you, you kill them. That’s all he ever needed to think about. Wanted to think about.
But one thing he’d been forced to learn - they were human. Underneath those fleshy, awkward bodies was a person. Like he was. Like Louis had been.
He wondered what the person behind the Beast looked like. Were they a man? A woman? Did they have a family? Friends? Had they ever been in love? Could they have ever experienced what himself and Louis had felt?
Harry almost chuckled to himself, imagining the tirade of expletives Louis would have sent his way had he been able to read his thoughts right then. Louis had always hated any semblance of frivolous sentimentality, and no one could read people like Louis could. Just a glimpse at Harry’s face and he knew. Always had the right words, always found a solution for every problem.
But Louis wasn’t there anymore. Harry would never lose himself in the blue of his eyes again. Would never bask in the melody of his voice. And right there, surrounded by his companions in arms, shadowed by the weight of their trust, their dedication, their sacrifice; Harry felt so very lonely.
A piece of shrapnel zoomed past his face and sliced the top of his cheek, ripping Harry away from his thoughts. He raised a tentative hand up to his face and pressed it against the already oozing gash. His face was wet. Had he been crying?
The Beast titan turned around and grabbed another boulder. Harry finally had the courage to look around and try to see how many of his fellow recruits were still standing.
The dense smoke barely allowed him to see a metre ahead of him, but it was enough. Three more soldiers got cut down before he could even process the scene. His eyes locked with Marlowe’s. Marlowe. His companion of many a restless night, bothersome in his tidiness, his roommate, his friend. He wondered if he was thinking of Hitch, as he, Harry, was thinking of Louis.
And then, mere seconds after, Marlowe was snuffed out like all the others. Like little Seppel, like Roman, like Erma and Elena, that devilish duo, inseparable even in death. Like Louis. Like I will be soon.
He wanted to turn his horse around, to flee, to go back to his quiet life in Sina, where Arthur, and his mother, and Gerda would be waiting for him.
He thought of the drink he’d promised his best friend. The drink Arthur would now have to gulp down on his own in some smoky capital bar. Harry knew he'd never forgive him. He remembered their days in training, always up to something, always driving Lieutenant Förstener to exasperation. He’d never see Arthur again. He’d never see his sister either. Her kind smile, her green eyes. Just like his. He imagined them brimming with tears for him. He should have said goodbye, he should have held her one last time. Apologised to their mum. He felt guilty then. Guiltier than when he had joined the Survey Corps, leaving everything behind. Guiltier than when Seppel had died in his arms, his soft half-lidded eyes betraying his youth. Guiltier than the taste of Louis’s lips on his mouth, only a memory by the time Levi had returned from the vanguard, a dark mist clouding his impenetrable eyes.
This was it , he thought once more. Whatever regrets he harboured didn’t belong to him anymore. He’d made his choice. Just like Erwin had said, meaningless as his life had been, he trusted those who survived him to make it matter. And in a second of selfishness he allowed himself to grieve for the world he was leaving behind. A world that one day someone would be proud of.
He looked the Beast in the eyes, bracing himself for the impact of the shrapnel it held in its massive, furry hand.
A cry, far up in the sky, reminded him that he was still there. There was still fight left in him.
“FORWARD!” he screamed as he charged, his throat raw with effort. His last scream.
For humanity, he thought. For Louis.