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Eren hated Marley. It was a personal, visceral hatred developed through experience. He hated the weather, hated Liberio with its bright facades and filthy, stinking gutters, hated the people and their manners, hated the strange rules and regulations that governed every aspect of life (dogs must be kept on lead, no loitering, keep off the grass, Eldians use service entrance).
Several weeks into their reconnaissance mission, he and Mikasa found themselves disembarking a motorbus on Helos Avenue and pushing through the jostling crowd towards the Imperial Museum.
They had come from a disastrous meeting with a Valak People's Army representative. Although Marley was full of anti-Marleyan agitators of all political persuasions, few were interested in a working relationship with the island devils. The man they met in the smoke-filled private room of a poker club had recoiled from them with visible disgust. The possibility of covert arms shipments and anti-titan technology could not sway him. The Valaks would continue to pursue their national liberation without the support of Paradis.
Now they were walking towards Heroes Plaza, passing a cenotaph to the Independence War dead. They were thirty minutes early for their meeting with the Commander.
The columns on the front of the Imperial Museum shone in the sun, the carved palm fronds at the top of the columns extending into the parapet. Liberio was a dazzling, white city, the centre full of sun-bleached palazzos and stone edifices, everything colourless and sun-drenched. People passed hurriedly on the plaza, a fountain bubbled, water sprouting from the mouth of a titan, swords and spears extending from the decapitated head.
Behind the museum was a neatly laid out public garden. The scent of acacia and bougainvillaea wafted in the breeze. People walked through the gardens, some with dogs on leads. Eren watched a woman pass, barely controlling a small, enraged creature. The dog yapped and growled at the passersby, hackles up and tiny teeth bared ferociously. Its fluffy white neck was tied with a bright pink bow. Even the animals here had a sort of smug superiority.
They entered the public gardens and took a turn around the small artificial lake, a bronze snake spitting water at its centre, until they found a shaded spot on the vast lawn and Mikasa lay under the trees. She had a dreamy appearance. Her mouth was slack, her lips parted slightly and her eyes half-closed, her dark lashes fluttered as she fought sleep. He wanted to kiss her. He leaned down and the ends of his hair brushed her face.
“Eren,” she murmured, “it tickles.”
She opened her eyes and he sat up straight.
“We're supposed to meet Commander Hange soon,” he told her, checking his wristwatch.
He stood and offered her a hand. She leapt up.
“Let's go,” she said, brushing grass and leaves from her jacket.
Their clothing was hot and stiff, unbearable in the sweltering heat of a Liberio summer. She wore a summer suit with a long white skirt. Her petticoat swished when she walked and the sound of it brushing her legs fueled his inconvenient arousal. He fantasised about her, about throwing her down in the grass and fucking her in front of the appalled crowd, about trussing her up in bed until she couldn't move and making her scream, about biting her lips, her neck, the firm swell of her breasts, the muscles of her inner thighs until she was covered in red welts and keening with want. He sweated in his suit, the tie uncomfortably tight around his neck.
Mikasa put on her hat and started walking on the gravel path that wound through the museum grounds. It was a strange garden full of little signs describing the plants. Mikasa stooped to read a plaque beside a mass of hanging vines with fragrant orange flowers.
She had been slow to learn the Marleyan letters and she was ashamed that she still struggled to read them. Eren waited until she was satisfied, having learned that the vines were a gift from the people of Mordania. The species grew wild in that land, a hardy perennial favoured by gardeners.
“Where's Mordania?” she asked him.
Eren wasn't sure. There were so many countries outside of Paradis.
“It's somewhere west, across the sea.”
Accepting this answer, she let him take her arm. They walked in step towards the museum.
Hange was waiting by the entrance, dwarfed by the huge glass doors. The god of the sun stared down at them from above the archway. Hange handed over two tickets printed on soft yellow paper. This ticket permits the holder access to the Imperial Museum from the hour of 14:00. Visitors must not touch anything. Do not give money to the servants.
“That bad?” Hange asked when they saw Eren and Mikasa.
“They won't consider an alliance,” Mikasa said.
The Commander sighed, “There are a lot of obstacles but we can't give up. We need to look for allies here. There's still the meeting of the Subjects of Ymir protection group.”
“Commander, we won't find any allies on the continent,” Eren said.
“Enough, you’re out of line, Eren. Keep your pessimistic opinions to yourself unless asked,” Hange said. They smiled and gestured towards the museum, eager to move on. “Let's go in and see what they keep in this place.”
“Yes, Commander,” Mikasa said.
“I'm going to the Science wing. You two go to History. This information is considered general knowledge here, but we can still learn from it.”
Eren nodded, “Understood.”
“We’ll meet in front of the building when it closes,” Hange said and turned into the cavernous entrance hall.
Mikasa inspected her ticket.
“They really do make everything out of paper,” she said to Eren.
The Marleyans threw paper in the streets. They used it for tickets to permit entry to the metro and gave slips of paper after a purchase. They wrapped packages in it and tied it around meat at the butcher's. They even used paper to wipe up their shit.
The museum was guarded by a short, heavy-set man with a few strands of dark hair stretched across his bald forehead. He wore a dark blue suit with a badge on the chest that said security. He looked at their tickets and ushered them past the velvet rope barrier.
Inside was an ornate wooden board with the insignia of the empire at the top listing each exhibition and the corresponding floor.
“History is up there, on the first floor,” Eren said, taking Mikasa’s hand.
She let him lead her, walking a half-step behind. Like a bodyguard. Like a good Marleyan girl. She wasn't playacting, for him she would submit, abase herself. He could make her do anything and this knowledge excited him.
They climbed the stairs and turned into the long, tiled corridors. The first floor housed the historical exhibitions, creating a chronological account of human activity on the continent. They moved sluggishly through the displays of flint axes and photographs of caves where ancient people had lived.
“The Roe Deer Cavern is one of the first sites of human habitation on the continent, with evidence of sporadic settlement starting approximately 150,000 years ago,” he read.
A glass case displayed quartz tools and beads carved from deer bones.
“How old is the world?” Mikasa asked.
Eren didn't know.
She was bewildered by her own ignorance. They had never considered the age of the earth, the origin of the first human. There was no history behind the Walls.
He took her hand, pulling her along, and they left the rows of stone axes, the crude pots and bone needles.
A servant stood guard outside a gallery.
“Tickets please,” she droned.
The sign above the exhibition hall was garish, tiny devils cavorted under the banner: The Empire of Devils. Inside they could see maps, aerial photographs of the Walls, and blurry images of titans taken with a telescopic lens.
Mikasa entered the gallery. Eren followed, anger creeping up his throat. There was a topographic map of Paradis, more detailed than anything Eren had seen in the Survey Corps.
“Eren, read it to me,” she said, scrutinising the information card with its small, tightly condensed lettering.
“The Island of Paradis, colloquially called the Island of Devils, is located in the Lakan Ocean across the Mayotte Channel. The island is governed by Marley as an overseas administrative region and is considered the largest Eldian internment zone in the world. The island's population is estimated at three point two million. Inhabitants live within the confines of three protective walls. The island is also home to pure titans, which keep the Eldians contained within the internment zone and prevent the restoration of the Eldian empire.”
There was a large oil painting of a man with a long face and grey hair. He wore a sable stole and the same jewelled pendant Historia wore for official functions.
“King Karl Fritz, the last king of Eldia,” Mikasa read.
They moved on. The next section of the exhibition hall was dedicated to the historical timeline of the Eldian empire. Tribalism. The Eldian Conquest. The Early Empire. Titan Warfare: Atrocities Across the Millennia. The Eldian Devil: An Ethnographic Profile. The Great Titan Wars. The Independence War.
There were paintings and manuscripts detailing the sins of Eldia. Titans devoured children. Women screamed, carried away as plunder. City walls fell. Blood flowed in torrents.
“The Eldians used forced breeding to extend the power of their empire. Through weaponised rape, conquered peoples could be used as titans in combat. The Eldians living on the continent today are the result of this forced breeding strategy.”
The words were hard in his mouth. He recited them in the same sing-song cadence his father had used and his grandfather. Repeating the sins of his forebearers, he knew he spoke factually and yet hate filled his chest, a hot suffocating thing.
Mikasa was blank and unemotional.
They moved through the exhibition. Each glass case highlighted a new horror presented as a historical curiosity.
At the end of the gallery, they found another map, this one showing the expansion of the Eldian empire across two thousand years. The small red dot started in the central plateau. Progressively lighter shades of red fading to orange and yellow crawled across the map until the year 654 when Eldia spanned half the continent.
“The era of Eldian expansion ended with the construction of Uriel's Wall, a military outpost that at one time ran across the continent from sea to sea. King Uriel I established the borders of the Eldian empire, which remained nearly static for over a hundred years,” Eren read.
In contrast, there was a present-day map of Marley. Here the borders were marked in gradations of blue rapidly moving north, east and west to encompass the entire continent and land across the sea. Again Eren read, sensing Mikasa's curiosity.
“The Independence War (738-743) and the exile of the Eldians in 743 led to our current age of peace and prosperity. The citizens of Marley enjoy greater freedom and comfort than any people in human history. The expansion of the Marleyan empire has spread civilisation and enlightenment across the globe.”
Beyond the gallery was the archway leading to the central corridor and beyond more exhibition halls, each dedicated to the diverse peoples of the empire.
“Is it true? Did Eldia do those things?” Mikasa asked.
He could smell the blood, hear the clash of metal and the frenzied whines of panicked horses, and feel the bodies as they writhed and died in his mouth and hands. A part of him had witnessed it all.
“Yes.”
They were subdued when they met Hange at five. The Commander was effusive, describing enormous lizards that lived millions of years ago, a geyser of boiling water that erupted at predictable intervals, and machines that could perform miraculous wonders.
“There is a machine that can record sound and play it back and another that can take a moving photograph!” Hange explained.
“Commander,” Mikasa said, “we didn't learn anything valuable.”
Hange insisted on taking the metro, staring into the tunnel with rapt admiration until the headlights appeared. They sat in the terrifying metal car whizzing under the ground. The seats shook and the noise of the train moving along the track was deafening. Eren felt like he was in his own grave, the world above turning over his corpse.
The Hizuruan embassy building was a brick mansion with a round cupola at the centre. A long drive separated it from the street. They stayed in a guest house on the embassy grounds, secluded from the administrative offices and ambassador's living quarters by a high ivy-covered wall.
Their squad assembled in the ornate parlour surrounded by Hizuruen antiques. Everyone was sweating irritably on the spindly sofas. It was becoming apparent the diplomatic aspect of the mission was a failure.
Levi had taken the rest of the squad to buy electronics. They demonstrated the use of the portable radio, phonograph and dictaphone. Jean held a new camera model: a handheld box instead of a tripod. The technology would be shipped across the channel as prototypes for the Interior Police experimental unit.
“Look up,” Jean said, pulling a string and snapping a photo, capturing them all mid-blink.
There was some discussion of how many items should be ordered and how to ship them undetected before Levi turned to Eren and Mikasa.
“What about the Valaks?” Levi asked.
“They won't ally with devil bloods,” Mikasa said.
“And your pleasure trip to the museum?” Levi asked Hange.
“Permission to speak?” Eren said, standing.
“Granted,” Hange said.
“The museum was just more proof that the Marleyans are our enemies.”
“This mission is about gathering intelligence, identifying potential allies and establishing a base of operations, not deciding the next steps in the diplomatic process,” Hange said, irritated.
“We can't open diplomatic relations with Marley. They don't recognise our independence,” Eren said.
“Once we open diplomatic channels they’ll be forced to recognise the island's sovereignty,” Hange argued.
“Hizuru is willing to openly ally with Paradis in exchange for a trade deal locking in their monopoly on ice-burst,” Armin said. “If other nations agree to normalised relations Marley will follow.”
“Marley isn't as stable as it seems, we can move slowly and wait for the Marleyan government to change,” Hange said.
“It doesn't matter! You’ve all seen the internment zone and the way Eldians are treated here. We can never live peacefully with Marley. We're already at war. Don't forget they sent the titans, they breached the Walls,” Eren said.
“Eren, the government is committed to international integration and cooperation. The goal is a cessation of hostilities, escalating into open war is the last resort,” Hange said.
Levi came to stand next to Hange. His face was a pinched scowl.
“Shut your mouth if you're not going to give a useful report. You’re very close to insubordination. It's not your place to decide what the government will do with the information we’ve gathered.”
Eren left.
Later, he found Mikasa standing outside his room, hand raised to knock. He came up behind her and put his hands on her waist.
“I was looking for you,” he said.
“Eren,” she said. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”
“We're already at war. We need to fight. Diplomacy will fail, our enemies hate us. It's made them irrational.”
She opened her mouth to answer and he stopped her with a kiss. He turned her around so her back was against the door and pressed himself against her.
“No, Eren, stop,” she turned away. “We need more information, more allies. We can't win in a direct confrontation with Marley. You're so . . ..”
“Mikasa, it's too late. They decided their own fate the day they broke down the Wall.”
Fishing around in his pocket, he found the key to his bedroom and turned it in the lock.
“Are you coming in?” he asked.
He pushed her against the doorframe, both of them halfway in the hall, and held her head in his hands. Her pulse beat against his fingers. Her neck was damp with sweat and he gripped the silky strands of her hair in his fists. She opened her mouth, letting out a little gasp of surprise. It was a throaty sound, so similar to the way she moaned under him in bed that he was instantly hard and aching to fuck her again. She was in his brain, under his skin, the desire for her running rampant, building with each touch.
He kissed her roughly, tongue in her mouth and hands pulling her hair, jerking her neck back. Excruciating want burned through him. She wrapped her arms around him and hid her face in his neck. He gripped her face, turning her eyes towards him, and kissed her again, biting down on her lower lip. He wanted to devour her. His lust would burn her up until she was a dark cinder, an insubstantial husk.
“Someone will see us,” she said, pulling back.
They entered the room. Light from the street lamps and passing motorcars streaked across the ceiling and floor, making dizzying patterns. The room was plain, with a single bed and nightstand in the corner and a wardrobe against the wall.
He pulled her down next to him on the bed and kissed her again, cupping her face in his hands. She kissed him back, her mouth greedy. Sprawled on her back, she pulled him down on top of her and wrapped her legs around him. He ground his erection against her and she moaned into his mouth, arching under him.
He pushed her down, arm across her chest, elbow pushing a little too hard against her ribs, and pulled up her skirt. There was a damp patch on her white underwear. Sliding the cotton pants down until she kicked them onto the rag rug beside the bed, she bared herself to him, legs spread wide. He tried to catalogue the sensations to recall them later; the silken heat of her, the smooth skin of her legs braced against his sides, her fingers interlaced with his. The way they fit together, their bodies moving instinctively in mutual pleasure. How she was always so wet and ready for him, begging for his touch, melting into him, gasping and groaning and coming against his lips, around his fingers, on his cock, how she could never have enough of him.
He was rough, thrusting into her so hard the headboard bumped against the wall and the bed frame creaked. She moaned and made squealing sounds and he covered her mouth with his hand to muffle her groans. He thought it would be the last time.
He held her in the darkness of the little room until she stirred, half asleep, and kissed him slowly.
“Eren,” she said, and then her voice trailed off and she hid her face in the pillow.
She had always been awkward and painfully shy, although never with him. She hid her anxiety well and most people took her silences for aloofness, ascribing to her a sense of superiority she did not possess. The only time she seemed fully alive was on the battlefield. Violence was natural to her and she moved with an assured grace and precision, carrying out the most horrific acts with confidence. This was just one reason why he loved her. He knew that, in the depths of their souls, they were the same: only whole amid destruction.
She was ashamed of what they'd done. Her eyes were closed and she pushed the heels of her hands into the sockets. He felt disgusted then and moved away from her on the narrow bed.
“I have to go. Sasha won't let me live if she finds me here,” she said.
He stood and watched her in the bed. She felt his eyes on her and pulled down her skirt.
“Mikasa,” he began.
“I have to go! We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” she said.
She slipped out into the hallway.
He lay in bed, wallowing in the sting of Mikasa's ambivalence. He had thought sex would bring them closer, but it made her anxious and timid, pulling away from him. He didn't understand her sudden, unanticipated rejection.
Alone, he recognised the way forward. The mission was a failure. Diplomacy was a farce. He had thought a different solution would present itself on the continent, but nobody had as neat and definitive an answer to the island’s problems as his. Every choice led back to his vision, to the world laid flat beneath his power. He would erase his enemies. The apocalypse he had learned about as a child would finally be real. Everything would be wiped clean, the continent empty of all the messy, complicated life teeming on its shores. The world would become pure, an unsullied wilderness, a true paradise for Eldia.
The supposedly free people of the continent had built themselves psychic walls, impenetrable barriers within each mind and heart. He would tear them down and rip each human asunder. Killing brought its own joy, the rush of triumph and the hum of bloodlust.
It was late when he descended the stairs. In the pantry, he helped himself to some wine. It was a cloying dessert wine, unlike the sour, acidic drink he was used to.
“Hey, Eren,” Armin was there, peering in from the servant's stair. “Did Mikasa find you?”
“Yeah,” Eren said, taking another gulp of wine.
Armin blushed, embarrassed. He moved into the kitchen and leaned on the long zinc counter.
“She was upset with you,” Armin said.
“Yeah, she was. What do you think about the mission here?”
Armin took the bottle from Eren and drank.
“It’s not going well, but we’ve established a base of operations to gather more information and ship supplies. That's been a success. We can launch military operations from within Marley and it appears we haven't been noticed by their PSA or military intelligence. It's bought us time.”
“I don't have time.”
Armin sighed and drank more.
“Eren, we shouldn't act just because your time is running out. This isn't about you or any of us. We need to think about the greater good. You need to accept that someone else will act for Eldia after your death. Trust us. We’ll keep fighting.”
He handed the bottle back to Eren and they drank in silence, passing it back and forth until it was empty.
“Armin, tell Mikasa I’m sorry.”
“No. Whatever’s between you two, tell her yourself.”
Armin left, and Eren felt his stomach twisting as he watched him go back up the stairs. He wanted to grab ahold of him and beg him to stay, but he knew Armin couldn't find a solution. Only Eren possessed the power to save Eldia and punish their enemies. He had to act alone.
The cafe was dark and dirty, with a graveyard of dead flies on the windowsill and streaks of dirt on the glass. It had a black and white tiled floor that needed mopping, an ornate silver and polished cherry slot machine that blinked and sang out every ten minutes, luring the unlucky, and tables scattered in the dim corners. Zeke sat across from Eren, smoking and calmly laying out his plan for the slow death of Eldia.
Zeke reminded Eren of all the worst parts of their father. He was obsequious and charismatic, his features and mannerisms reflecting back whatever his audience expected of him. He was pontificating now, playing the wise and benevolent family patriarch. Here was the concerned older brother, leading his wayward sibling into the light.
“You see Eren, it's truly a kindness to our compatriots. It's a crime to be born into this world.”
Grisha had rebelled against Marleyan oppression. Zeke had rebelled against Grisha. He was a hollow man.
“I understand that now. Your plan is the only way forward for Eldia. This mission has been an absolute failure.”
Zeke's conspicuous red armband set Eren on edge. Outside of the internment zones honorary Marleyan status elicited an icy disgust. The waiter had hidden them in a dark corner and scuttled away as soon as he deposited their steaming coffees on the table. Eren lifted the wide, white mug and licked the foamed milk, letting his tongue rest in the glorious white cloud of sweet froth.
“I’m glad you reached out to me. I knew you'd understand eventually. We’ll go to the safehouse and discuss specifics. We can still be monitored here,” Zeke said.
When he paid the bill the waiter refused to take the coins from his hand.
The safe house was a brothel and the sounds of whores and their clients came through the thin walls. They had entered with Zeke's hand on his shoulder and Eren resented playing the rent-boy in the scenario. Eren sat on the filthy sofa across from Zeke. Dusty brocade cushions released musty bursts.
“Eren,” Zeke said, scratching his ear, a gesture inherited from their father. “You’ll need to infiltrate the Liberio internment zone. Next week you'll meet a contact with more information.”
“I understand.”
Eren watched Zeke take out a cigarette and strike a match. Smoke rose around them in the cramped room.
“The second phase of our plan is already in place. Are your Yeagerists ready to fill the void in the military leadership?” he asked.
“Floch, Alzeri and Popovich are ready to take on command roles in each military branch. We have our people waiting for orders. Floch will lead the rebellion on Paradis. Historia has been briefed, she will support the Yeagerists,” Eren said.
“Good. Once you're missing, the rest of the Paradis government will have to support our plan. They won't let their most important asset disappear. We’ll eliminate the Marleyan brass and the Eldian government nearly simultaneously.”
Zeke talked about killing with a bland dispassion. His was an unemotional moral calculus. He believed he was justified and that any pain he dealt was offset by the greater good. The way he described killing made Eren fume. Death should mean something, but for Zeke human lives were just numbers on a ledger. He lacked the capacity to feel passion or remorse.
He saw himself reflected in Zeke. He didn't like it. Eren had always known that, on some fundamental level, he was broken. Innately, irrevocably, not because he had lived through hell but because he had been born a devil. He couldn't love fiercely and genuinely like Mikasa, he lacked the empathic curiosity and will to compromise that allowed Armin to lead others even when he lacked confidence in himself. His friends possessed qualities he could only fake and never truly emulate. He loved them, but he had wondered if even that love was false, a paltry imitation of the real emotions real people experienced. His father's memories proved that. In the memories, Eren lived an emotional life so completely alien it was as if he was experiencing each feeling for the first time.
Zeke exhaled, looking expectantly at Eren through the haze of smoke.
“So, I’m the bait?”
“Exactly right, little brother.”