Chapter Text
Winter 852
from chapter 04 of Forget-me-Not
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Silence thickened across the hill, halting the breeze for a glimpse of time as if announcing her arrival. The breath in her lungs caught itself, too ashamed of its own rise when all lay withered beneath the soil. Fingers tightened around the yellow chrysanthemums that took in sight their next holder.
Here lies Warrior Bertholdt Hoover, honorable Eldian whose dedication shone brightest for the Motherland.
The gold clung to his name like a taunt—too lavish, too false for such an honest soul like his. Her brows twitched, learning how to face the symbol he had become.
"We meet again,” she murmured. “Dear friend."
The echo lingered, reaching the tomb at the twilight of a fierce battle against the dew. The salt slithered within her mind, stealing the attempts of a speech before they bloomed out of her mouth. One quiet smile stirred, instead—until the wind and its too-sharp reek tugged at her sleeves.
“I didn’t expect to lower my head so soon when speaking to you. You were always the tallest of us, in spite of the softness in your frame. But we’re no longer children, are we? Faces sharpened—so did the world. And the sun beams a different warmth.”
“I wonder what kind of man you were becoming. If the words you overthought every syllable of remained still in your eyes, or if you have finally let them out. Facing the world… something you once whispered between two steps, the horizon a line that seemed so close yet so far alike.”
“Mine… are finding their path out of the bottom of my chest. Somewhere they will finally bear their own meaning. Yet when I think them again in the night, sometimes they shift into a key my hands would never reach, for they hesitate still to leave the misery having grown too familiar.”
“All I can do is wait and endure the storm, isn't it? With half-formed words before a faceless man I only know the name and pale memory of. It is… infuriating. So is that grave, too blissful and untouched to be a glimpse of who you once were.”
“We—I only wished for my friend to return. And I would have learnt to know you again.”
One flower cried a few petals. Vivian’s hand rose to retrieve them, only to let go the next second, for they refused her cage in spite of its mercy.
“Reiner never speaks of you—shame blazes in his eyes whenever your name echoes. But he chose the flowers. Yellow. I would have chosen white.”
“Sometimes, I still think of that day, when he and I were squabbling. ‘Warriors don't wear dresses on the battlefield,’ he had repeated with that pout as I struggled to free myself from the tree we had climbed, ‘you knew we had an important battle to win today!’”
“And when he was about to leave me in that tree to save the world, you stayed and made sure I was the one saved. Reiner remained upset for the rest of the day—but the next one, he stood ready to spare my knees from further scratches.”
“Gentle times, before war became the thudding beat in our chests—the sole melody we will ever know, even after the storm has long passed. Yet… I cling to the very storm, for I only feel myself live when its winds shriek loud enough to cover what has died.”
Her breath shivered on flushed lips. Above her head, the sky filled with more darkness, whispering to the frozen grass now waving in a sole, even direction.
As if the dead waved at the living.
“Thank you for being by Reiner's side when I couldn't find the courage to be. I don’t know if I will ever be able to fill the void in his chest—nor in mine. I don't know if I will ever accept that grave of yours as the closest memento I hold. And I…”
Mouth refused to form the words, jaw locked against her teeth. Fingers curled and uncurled until one chrysanthemum slid free and brushed against the golden name her gaze had been avoiding. One hand reached for it, only to draw back.
“The words faded again,” she mumbled at last.
And the salt beneath her tongue invited itself anew.
Head tilted up when the storm lashed its first tears, splattering upon her face and the hundreds of graves crowning the hill. Vivian allowed the shades to meet her—a duel she yet promised to spar another day—until she glanced down at the bouquet held with care in spite of the missing petals wandering still like lost souls. The tiles hissed a complaint when she kneeled, and her hair, plastered by the pouring rain, slid out of her coat.
“May we meet under gentler skies,” the flowers were laid with a final, quiet smile. “Bertholdt.”
The yellow chrysanthemums shone as the sole brightness amidst the tempest, long after the path beneath her feet had lost its faint warmth.