[ The world we dreamt of was more awful than we could have ever imagined.
To hear of it is one thing; to see it, another. A stone placed on one side of the scale that he's barely aware of, but he feels the heaviness all the same.
He drops the teasing tone, looks at Eren more seriously. This is not the teenager who's all but outright told him he'll protect him from danger while he's still teaching him to protect himself. This is a child. ]
I don't intend on dying either. So what do you suggest we do?
[Blink and you'll miss it, but for a split second, Eren looks--
[No. He was never anything but a child. He makes his expression serious too; maybe that expression should look a bit silly on such a young face, but there's something...discomfiting about its intensity. Eren's little fists are balled up at his sides now, no longer leaning against the ground. He sits in an odd, tense curl.]
We have to fight! This place...It won't be safe forever! We're cattle, waiting to be slaughtered!
[ It's the same conviction he's seen in Eren every time they've talked. In their reality, it's a quiet, smouldering intensity – and here it has all the fire of youth. It would be endearing if he wasn't acutely aware of how things are going to go for this young boy in the future.
Maruki keeps his tone firm and even, trying to ground some part of Eren here that he can still reach. That brief flash–
If he's here, he might as well see how this cognition will respond to a little pushback. ]
Your fate – this place's fate isn't set in stone. There's always something that can be done. How will you fight?
["...this place's fate isn't set in stone," Maruki says; Eren's heard it before. He doesn't quite know what Maruki's talking about, at this current moment, too entrenched in the dream; the words still make him prickle.]
Nothing will change if we don't fight. [There's a terrible sound - a rumbling. All around them, the massive stone walls begin to shake and fracture, large fissures crackling through the stone.]
I will fight. [That brief flash again - a tall body in dark clothes, hair tied up. It doesn't last.] If no one else will, then that's what I have to do! I can't just let her die!
[He hasn't answered the question - or, at least, not with words. The walls continue to quake.]
[ Oh, well, he's been pulled into two abysses but he hasn't died in his dreams yet. He assumes that's about to change, in a violent fashion.
And then his mind fights back: He doesn't want to die, not even in dreams, and especially not in front of someone who has already seen so much in his waking life.
Maybe if he tries to go along with this, his cognition will play nicely and he won't be entirely useless.
So he stands and extends a hand for Eren, entirely serious. ]
Then I'll fight with you. But you have to show me.
Huh? [He looks his age again, but something still isn’t quite right. He still isn’t nearly as subdued, and something about his general demeanor just seems younger than the Eren Maruki knows, if only slightly. He’s still lost in the dream. They may as well be having two different conversations. He shakes his head.]
You can’t help. Only I can do it.
[The walls continue to rumble, but they don’t crumble; they seem to be in some sort of suspension for the time being.]
[ WELL. The stillness seems like a good sign? Maybe?? Unless this is a calm before the storm type of situation. In which case, Maruki will start making peace with his many-tentacled god.
[The boy is gone. There sits a man in his place, but no less a child. This is a different Eren; infinitely colder than the subdued, broken-hearted boy Maruki met in his office. The sky has grown dim, and the ground rattles down as large pieces of the wall begin to crumble and fall to the ground. Screams echo in this distance all around them, but stones continue to fly.]
I will protect my people. [His voice, deep, dark. This isn't a soul to be saved - no, this soul is rotten, rotten, rotten. Its stench permeates the air all around them.
[Heat. Humidity. It builds up to the point of boiling. Giants break from the walls. The noise is unbearably loud, the ground shaking uncontrollably where Eren sits, still.
[Surely, they'll all be crushed, right?
[But, although disembodied voices around them continue to shriek and scream, the titans don't march inward; they march out, out, out across the world, their numbers neverending.
[Look back to Eren. He curls forward where he sits. There's something wrong. Rib bones just out from his sides, tearing through clothes and growing, white and wide, burrowing under the ground and back up again to trap Maruki and he inside of the same cage.
[They're stuck still, but Eren says:] I will keep moving forward.
[ The horror of it all robs him of his perception for a while – long moments that only stretch impossibly longer in dreams. The sight of the giants, the screams, the destruction – it's already the worst thing Maruki has seen in his uneventful life.
His mute terror doesn't last. When Eren's ribs burst forth and engulf them, he screams like he hasn't in years, many years, not since that February night–
It should be enough to wake him up in a frantic cold sweat.
Should be, but then– ]
What?
[ It doesn't make sense. They're both trapped in here, sitting ducks, except– ]
Eren-kun.
[ Perhaps it's unwise, what with the uhhhh exploding bone cage and all, but he shifts closer and rests a hand on Eren's hunched shoulder.
Nothing is coming for them.
Maruki blinks heavily. Voice still shaking with fear, but now a little awe as well. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Maruki wrinkles his nose right back. He's always liked kids. ]
Don't they have to let you back in eventually? You can't live up here on a hill. You're shrimpy.
[ And yes, he's going to give Eren's forehead a gentle, teasing push. ]
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[Eren's glare scans the length of the walls, a perfect semi-circle pressed up against a large curve; they're surrounded.]
We can't just sit around, waiting to die...
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[ The world we dreamt of was more awful than we could have ever imagined.
To hear of it is one thing; to see it, another. A stone placed on one side of the scale that he's barely aware of, but he feels the heaviness all the same.
He drops the teasing tone, looks at Eren more seriously. This is not the teenager who's all but outright told him he'll protect him from danger while he's still teaching him to protect himself. This is a child. ]
I don't intend on dying either. So what do you suggest we do?
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[No. He was never anything but a child. He makes his expression serious too; maybe that expression should look a bit silly on such a young face, but there's something...discomfiting about its intensity. Eren's little fists are balled up at his sides now, no longer leaning against the ground. He sits in an odd, tense curl.]
We have to fight! This place...It won't be safe forever! We're cattle, waiting to be slaughtered!
no subject
Maruki keeps his tone firm and even, trying to ground some part of Eren here that he can still reach. That brief flash–
If he's here, he might as well see how this cognition will respond to a little pushback. ]
Your fate – this place's fate isn't set in stone. There's always something that can be done. How will you fight?
no subject
Nothing will change if we don't fight. [There's a terrible sound - a rumbling. All around them, the massive stone walls begin to shake and fracture, large fissures crackling through the stone.]
I will fight. [That brief flash again - a tall body in dark clothes, hair tied up. It doesn't last.] If no one else will, then that's what I have to do! I can't just let her die!
[He hasn't answered the question - or, at least, not with words. The walls continue to quake.]
no subject
And then his mind fights back: He doesn't want to die, not even in dreams, and especially not in front of someone who has already seen so much in his waking life.
Maybe if he tries to go along with this, his cognition will play nicely and he won't be entirely useless.
So he stands and extends a hand for Eren, entirely serious. ]
Then I'll fight with you. But you have to show me.
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You can’t help. Only I can do it.
[The walls continue to rumble, but they don’t crumble; they seem to be in some sort of suspension for the time being.]
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Maruki blinks at this new-old Eren, closer to how he recognizes him but still with more– life, he supposes.
If he's about to witness whatever changes that, so help him god, he is expediting this Azathoth regain JUDICIOUSLY ]
Only you? That seems like a lot of undue responsibility on one guy's shoulders, Eren-kun.
brief reset to his original canon point yippee
But it’s true! I’m the last hope humanity has!
BABY BOY....
He needs to understand. ]
Then what do you intend to do on your own?
going ham here dream rumbling let's GO
[The boy is gone. There sits a man in his place, but no less a child. This is a different Eren; infinitely colder than the subdued, broken-hearted boy Maruki met in his office. The sky has grown dim, and the ground rattles down as large pieces of the wall begin to crumble and fall to the ground. Screams echo in this distance all around them, but stones continue to fly.]
I will protect my people. [His voice, deep, dark. This isn't a soul to be saved - no, this soul is rotten, rotten, rotten. Its stench permeates the air all around them.
[Heat. Humidity. It builds up to the point of boiling. Giants break from the walls. The noise is unbearably loud, the ground shaking uncontrollably where Eren sits, still.
[Surely, they'll all be crushed, right?
[But, although disembodied voices around them continue to shriek and scream, the titans don't march inward; they march out, out, out across the world, their numbers neverending.
[Look back to Eren. He curls forward where he sits. There's something wrong. Rib bones just out from his sides, tearing through clothes and growing, white and wide, burrowing under the ground and back up again to trap Maruki and he inside of the same cage.
[They're stuck still, but Eren says:] I will keep moving forward.
RUMBLES U RUMBLES U
His mute terror doesn't last. When Eren's ribs burst forth and engulf them, he screams like he hasn't in years, many years, not since that February night–
It should be enough to wake him up in a frantic cold sweat.
Should be, but then– ]
What?
[ It doesn't make sense. They're both trapped in here, sitting ducks, except– ]
Eren-kun.
[ Perhaps it's unwise, what with the uhhhh exploding bone cage and all, but he shifts closer and rests a hand on Eren's hunched shoulder.
Nothing is coming for them.
Maruki blinks heavily. Voice still shaking with fear, but now a little awe as well. ]
Are you protecting me?
no subject
[Eren turns to Maruki. The quaking, the shrieking, the heat, the march - none of it has stopped.]
I want you...to live a long life.
[The dream ends.]