FEBRUARY 2021 EVENT: PART TWO

[robbies]

 

CHAPTER TWO, PART 2: THE LIVING ISLAND

Everything you never wanted to see.

YOU CAN’T DO A LITTLE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T DO ENOUGH | JUST A DREAM FROM YESTERDAY | DARKNESS HELD ITS BREATH | YOUR FRIENDS WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH | COME AND PLAY WITH ME

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YOU CAN'T DO A LITTLE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T DO ENOUGH

Perhaps you’ve been on tenterhooks since you woke up to find that your friends, your family, your neighbors somehow went missing in the night. Perhaps you’ve been hitting the pavement and knocking on doors trying to find them. So far, your efforts have been for naught. There’s been neither hide nor hair of the missing, and every attempt to find them has met with a dead end.

Until February 13.

In the afternoon, a strange, unsigned message goes live on the network. What is the meaning of “Living Island”? Does it have anything to do with what’s going on? There’s no elaboration… until midnight, when every neighbor’s television set turns on at full volume, hissing static and garbled noise as the dials turn and adjust. Several disjointed clips follow, ending on a mural that depicts the same words from the post.

“Living Island.”

The following morning, you’ll find that stranger things are beginning to happen. Some of you will be woken up to the blankets and sheets being yanked off your sleeping bodies by a powerful force. Others will find that when they step out of their morning shower, a message has been written in the steam on their medicine cabinet's mirror. Depending on how quickly you shower, you may only be able to see part of the message — but running the hot water longer and allowing the steam to fill the room will reveal it in its entirety:

“LIVING ISLAND.”

As time passes, you’ll find that the same message shows up every time the bathroom steams up, whether you’re in the shower or not. The same force that turned your TV on seems to insist that you pay attention to what it’s trying to show you, and its behavior escalates the longer you refuse. Characters will find that books go flying off of bookshelves, drawers are yanked out of dressers and desks, and breakable objects are smashed. Trying to prevent the spirit from destruction won’t go your way: If you try to catch or grab something that’s about to be thrown, you’ll find it ripped out of your hands anew and smashed anyways. If you tried to take all of your chairs down from where they’ve been stacked on top of the dining room table, you’ll find they’re back atop it the instant you look away.

All that’s to say nothing of the rumbling. It doesn’t start until the end of the first day, but from time to time you’ll feel the house beginning to shake on its foundations, a dull groan as it struggles to keep itself from collapsing in under its own weight. As time goes on, this will get louder and louder until the house seems to roar of its own accord, an unyielding shriek that can’t be stopped until the force causing it backs down.

Attempts to make contact with the spirit will never go well. It does not seem to be able or willing to communicate with you beyond its own tantrums, and characters who try may find that the attempt rapidly goes out of control. Candles flare up and burn wildly, Ouija boards are ripped into pieces and planchettes go flying, offerings of food are knocked over or thrown, and the lights flicker manically in turns. While you may be able to get some sleep at night if you’re lucky, the only thing that will reduce the poltergeist activity is to pay attention to the message it’s sending you and figure out what it means.

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JUST A DREAM FROM YESTERDAY

Living Island. If ever there were a first step to stopping this madness, it’s figuring out what those words mean. But starting is always the hardest part, and with nothing else to go by than two seemingly unrelated, nonsensical words left behind by a force you can’t see much less communicate with, an already arduous task seems even more impossible. This is furthered by the reactions you get when you hit the street and start asking people if they know anything about Living Island. Most of them can only look back at you blankly, as if waiting for a punchline that never comes. Others actually take you seriously enough to consider the question, and to their credit, they do take their time racking their brains to remember where they’ve heard that name before, why it sounds so familiar. But the most you’ll get back from them is a sheepish shrug of the shoulders and a reply that it sounds like something from TV. It gets to the point where their answers blend together, each one more unremarkable than the last. Save for the one you get from the last person you haven’t asked. Living Island. I’m sorry, what was that? What the fuck did you just say? Dale Harding and Rosemary Craven might be as far away from each other as possible, doing things around town that couldn’t be more different, but their reactions are the same. When they overhear you asking what feels like the hundredth person you’ve seen that day about Living Island, they look your way — Harding in the middle of his patrol or lunch break, Rosemary in the middle of grocery shopping. Harding looks honest-to-God surprised. Rosemary simply looks confused, even somewhat concerned. That's such a... strange name. Where did you hear that from? When they hear your explanation, they go quiet, mulling it over. Rosemary’s expression turns thoughtful. Harding’s, suspicious. If I remember correctly, that was a clubhouse the children around town used to play in. I haven’t heard about it in… goodness, I can’t even remember. Years, perhaps. It’s a play on “safety island” — another name for a bomb shelter — and the name of this… stupid kids show that used to be popular. I guess they thought it was cute, calling a place like that something fun. But where is it? Well, most of the shelters in town are still in use, and children aren’t allowed in them unless there’s an emergency. The only place I can think of is… The grade school. Administration ran out of funding before they could finish it, so they just scrapped it. Closed it off and just hoped for the best. Didn’t stop people from sneaking in. I used to bust them for playing down there all the time, the little shits. Harding’s mouth twists into a sneer that doesn’t reach his eyes, which are soft and miserable, while Rosemary waits patiently for any other questions and, when you have no others, excuses herself to go back to her groceries. Now you have something even better than an explanation: you have a destination.

Finding Santa Rosita Elementary is as easy as a fifteen minute drive from North Santa Rosita to Shadyside. Getting in is a different story. By day, the school is open for business and humming with activity, so you can’t very well go barging in and not expect to be reprimanded for disrupting class. This leaves you with three options: go before it opens, wait until school is over, or come in the middle of the night. Each have their own pros and cons, but all of them will get you the same result.

After hours, the school is desolate and still. The wind, the occasional slap of a naked branch against a window, and the squeak of your footsteps on the shiny, clean floors are the only sounds you’ll hear as you navigate the empty hallways. Most of the classrooms are locked, and the ones that aren’t don’t have anything any more unique or worthwhile to them than the occasional lunchbox left behind by a student or the classroom frog croaking in its tank. In a way, this is a good thing — it doesn’t leave that many places to investigate and makes your path that much more linear as you finally, inevitably and silently make your way downstairs into the bowels of the school.

The long corridor that awaits you in the basement is, in theory, not very different from the hallways upstairs. There are lockers lining both sides, dented and darkened with age and dust. The tiles are cracked, dirt and pieces of stone kicked up from exposed areas of the floor. Seemingly, this appears to lead to a dead end. But look closely at the wall and you’ll see the impression of a door, painted to match the walls. The lock is flimsy — in fact, depending on when you find it, someone may have already broken it. All that’s left is to enter and descend down the tiny room’s only feature: a ladder under a rusty steel hatch door, stretching down into darkness.

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DARKNESS HELD ITS BREATH

CW: gore, surgery

Stepping into the old shelter, the first thing that hits you is the stale, uncomfortably moist air. This first room is cavernous and dark, and your footsteps and whispers echo in spite of how quiet you might try to be. There’s a faint smell in the air, a trace of copper and rubbing alcohol that might make your eyes water, making your mouth feel unpleasant as it hits your tongue. As you get your bearings and begin to pick your way through the dark, you’ll notice traces of another smell — something simultaneously spicy and cloyingly sweet, a scent that seems to assault your senses and leaves you with a headache pounding at the base of your skull. Thankfully, there isn’t enough to do more than make you nauseous, but the smells warn of what’s still yet to be found.

As you continue through the labyrinthine warren, you’ll begin to find signs of human presence — some of the trashed rooms may be fitted with tables and supplies one might expect to find in a laboratory, meticulously labeled with typewritten strips. Several of these boxes appear to be old, covered in grimy layers of dust, while others are fresh and clean. All of them contain medical supplies. Eagle-eyed investigators might note that the untouched supplies tend to be the type contained in first-aid kits — acetaminophen, antibiotic ointment, simple adhesive bandages — while the ones that have been opened are for heavy duty surgical work — coiled IV lines and tubing, empty syringes, surgical gloves. One room in particular seems to have been fitted out for someone’s personal use, boasting a stripped-down bed, a chair and desk, and a comfortable recliner.

The trickle of water can be heard in the depths of the shelter, and as you emerge from one corridor that filters into a large chamber, it becomes immediately obvious where you are: This is an operating theater, with a table stationed beneath all manner of lights that can be adjusted and moved. A faucet drips monotonously in the back of the room, over a sink stained with blood with bits of grey, pulpy matter stuck in the drain. A bucket filled with blood and viscera ferments on the ground beside it. There are smears of blood, both dried and fresh, on the cloudy tiles, and a cabinet full of surgical instruments is slightly ajar. Looking at the instruments, characters will find that a couple of scalpels and a pair of tongs have dotted blotches where the metal was cleaned with water; whoever used these tools last didn’t dry them before putting them away. A small table near the operating area has a turntable sitting atop it, with a record already set under the needle: a single of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.” There are a few other records sitting in the cabinet beneath it, including Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog,” Frank Sinatra’s “Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely,” and James Brown and the Famous Flames’ “Think!”

In a separate area of this room, an oversized desk is piled with books and empty food containers that look as though they’ve been repurposed for one reason or another. These books are chiefly on anatomy and the medical sciences, though there are a number of books on psychology and how the brain functions. Though some of these books are water-spotted and dog-eared, there aren’t any notes written in the margins, nor are there any papers to be found. You can turn this area as much as you'd like, but all you’ll find is a couple empty cigarette boxes and some broken and bitten pens; the trash can next to the desk, filled with soggy ashes, seems to suggest that any papers that might have given you a lead were destroyed before you got here.

But the lab, with all its instruments, isn’t what you came here to find. There’s still at least one more room to be found…

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YOUR FRIENDS WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH

CW: gore, surgical trauma, amputation, lobotomy, brainwashing and interrogation, mouth trauma, eye trauma, ear trauma, body horror

The missing are being held in small, sturdy cages in a single room connected to the back of the operating room, dim and dank. The cages are placed equidistant around the room, ensuring that even if you try, you can’t reach out and make contact with your neighbors. The missing will find that they wake at approximately the same time, curled up on the ground in uncomfortable positions. Unlike your rescuers, your nightmare began far earlier than when you first awoke in this room, sore and disoriented. In fact, you could argue it started the moment you went to sleep on February 9th, leaving empty beds and concerned family members behind.

With no clocks or watches available to tell the time, you may not be able to tell how long you’ve been here. You sleep and wake, sometimes to a bowl of what looks like sticky rice lying in your cage that wasn’t there before. Sometimes, an overpowering smell will fill the room, faint at first; by the time you register it, it’s already overwhelmed you and sent you into a deep sleep. And when you wake, one cage will be empty. The inhabitant will be returned the next time you go to sleep and wake up, but not quite the same as they were before. They seem heavily drugged, discombobulated — or perhaps there's something visibly different about them. Whoever has taken you is doing a lot of work in their lab — and from the smell of things, meat work — and before long almost all of you will be sporting dressings of some type or other, fresh red seeping through the sterile cloth within a matter of hours.

Maybe you should try to keep each others’ spirits up. You don’t know how long you’ll be here, after all.

All of this goes on for a while — days, although it won’t be easy to count them given that there are no windows in the room. But nearly a week later… you wake to find that the front of your cage is unlocked. Unlatched. Open just an inch. Looking around the room, you’ll find that yours is not the only cage to have been opened — all of your cages have been unlocked.

Is it a mistake? Or are you really free?

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COME AND PLAY WITH ME

CW: blood and violence

Whether you’ve released yourself from your cage, or were discovered by a well-meaning friend before you could, or you’ve simply had your fill of exploring the shelter-turned-laboratory, the time has finally come to leave. Unfortunately, if things were that easy, you wouldn’t even be around by the time the scuttling sounds begin — somewhere down the hall, in the room behind you, fleeting and sly. It’s not an animal sound, a creature picking its way through the garbage and debris littered around the shelter. No, with the way it stops and starts every time you start and stop walking, this is a very deliberate, human sound. And if you don’t believe that, you’ll see soon enough when you see the naked, bone-white figure walk into view at the end of the hallway as casual as you please, their body smooth and sexless like a department store mannequin. They turn (your) their head and stare directly at you with (your) their wide, glassy eyes crinkled in thousand-yard delight. You hear your voice echoed back at you, airy and chirpy and so indescribably wrong it makes your blood run cold.

"Hi!"

Much like the Doppelgangers you encountered in January, these ones look and move like dolls, their limbs connected with ball-joints. However, whereas those ones were near perfect imitations of you and your friends, these ones look like they just fell off the assembly line. Their faces are unnaturally flat and plastic, like all the imperfections have been ironed out of them, but they are unmistakably yours. And when they open their mouths to squeal at you before running with all the unnatural speed not having a pair of lungs affords them, you’ll find that even their voices are perfect imitations — and not necessarily of your own either.

There’s no way to tell how many of these Doppelgangers are down here with you, hiding in the dark. They’re stealthy and sneaky, only coming out to attack when they’re sure you’re alone. Even if you’re not, they’re intelligent enough to come up with ways to separate you from your group, calling to you from another part of the shelter, mimicking a voice from someone they know you’ll listen to. Even if there’s no possible way they could be in Santa Rosita.

"Help me!"

"Is that you...? Oh thank God, I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Please, don't leave me!"

Other times, they’ll take a more aggressive approach, allowing their limbs to pop out of place so they can sprawl on the ground, imitating a heap of discarded doll parts. Once you get close enough or turn your back on them, they’ll pull themselves together and attack, speeding towards you on fours like a crab.

There are two ways out of the shelter. The first one is the hardest: go back the way you came. With the low visibility, the number of Doppelgangers, and the confusing layout of the area, you’re more likely to get turned around and go in circles than you are to find your way back to the ladder — a location made even more difficult to discern since the hatch door has been lowered, blotting out all light from the room above.

The second way is the longest but also the easiest: head deeper into the shelter, past the operating room, through the rooms filled with broken furniture and ruined floors that are very easy to trip on — especially when you’re in the middle of running away. Eventually, you’ll come to another ladder, this one leading to an open hatch that deposits you into a dark passageway. The air up here is more fresh, but not necessarily pleasant smelling. There’s only one way to go — forward.

After what feels like an hour of walking, you’ll see a light at the end of the passage. Follow it and you’ll find yourself exiting a storm drain that drops you into the heart of Old Growth, just outside of West Santa Rosita.

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OOC INFO

Welcome to the second part of February’s event! You can use this entry to top-level for the event, but feel free to utilize the log and network communities as well.

There will be a top-level posted for NPC interaction tied to the second prompt below, wherein you can request to play out your character’s interaction with Harding or Rosemary. If you would like to have your character interact with either one of them, comment to the top-level with the name of the NPC you would like to thread with. You may only thread with one NPC. The mods will respond to NPC tags until February 28th.

Any questions can go in our FAQ thread below. Try to check and see if your question has already been answered on the plotting thread first here.

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SETTING INFO	calendar | setting | housing | npcs | death and tranquilizing | the story so far | event suggestions/engagements

Comments

[13thcommander]

You don't have to hide your face from me.

[Without realizing it, Erwin has slipped into speaking Eldian, and his voice is soft. Falco's face is horrifying, but Erwin has seen enough battlefield injuries to not be repulsed by it.]

Then again, I understand the impulse. Of everyone here, only Levi has ever seen my stump.

[Which, being well healed and scarred over, is objectively way less gross than Falco's face. Still, Erwin keeps it covered, and while he doesn't mind mentioning the lost arm, he doesn't want to wave the evidence of it around either.]

[Having dealt with that subject in as much detail as he feels like, Erwin cracks the book open. He peruses the first page, then clears his throat and starts reading. His reading voice is slower than usual, because he's mentally translating from English to Eldian.]

Squire Trelawney, Dr Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island, from the beginning to the end, keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island, and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted, I take up my pen in the year of grace 17-, and go back to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn, and the brown old seaman, with the sabre cut, first took up his lodging under our roof.

[grice]

[ oh, so . . . oh. it might be mild in comparison, physically, but who was he to call any scar mild? how'd he lose his arm? a tale for later, maybe . . . if he were to be okay with talking about it. that at least gets the boy to ease his shoulders, not yet pulling the blanket down, but gradually doing so as erwin began reading. he wanted to straighten his back and lean in closer each time, occasionally bringing his gaze to the man and back to the open book. by the time he's gotten to the third verse, the blanket is completely on his lap and his jaws exposed. he's watching erwin more than he is the book. out of concentration, muted enthusiasm and a grand amount of growing respect. ]

Is this a true story?

[ murmured and stiff because of the shape his mouth took, it's the first time he's spoken in days. ]

[13thcommander]

[The story of Erwin losing his arm isn't all that interesting, really; it wasn't even a shifter that bit it off, just a regular titan, and it happened during a momentary lapse of judgment. Funny, how you come to expect your Ackerhack own safety on the field, and then it comes back to literally bite you at the worst possible time.]

[Erwin notices the blanket gradually falling, and how Falco is leaning in towards him. It stirs a memory, so old it's grown hazy and indistinct, of himself as a boy, listening to his own father read to him, tucked in against his side and almost dozing, but fighting sleep to hear the rest of the story. Erwin doesn't think Falco would necessarily lean on him, but he's realizing too late that he should have sat on the couch next to the boy.]

[He looks up when Falco speaks; it's the first time he's heard his voice in days, and Erwin smiles at the sound.]

I don't think so. It was in the fiction section of the library.

Are you enjoying it?

[If there's one thing Erwin is confident about, it's that someone who is enjoying a book will want to talk about it, and it's a way to encourage Falco to speak.]

[grice]

[ it sounded real with how vivid it was— but maybe that's just his imagination playing out the written details of the first chapter as it went along. he's correct that falco wouldn't lean, he hadn't the intimacy to do that— but as much as his parents loved him, he hadn't ever had the time for this. it was a new experience he was quickly cherishing, whether erwin sat next to him or simply by him.

you can't tell if he's smiling, the glasgow split his lips partake in strain any attempts that might go unseen. at least falco feels it, and his eyes convey the softness better. ]

I like Livesey.

[ calm and a subduing voice of reasoning. he relates to it. ]

[13thcommander]

[Fortunately, Erwin is used to watching for those subtle cues, those little tics, that indicate someone is smiling even if their mouth doesn't move. Years of being around Levi taught him that, and he knows Falco is smiling back at him.]

I do too. He's thinking ahead about what to do.

[Erwin shifts and holds the book out so Falco can see the pages.]

There's an illustration of the ship port.

[Which looks unbelievably busy and crowded to Erwin, but might be more ordinary to someone from Marley.]

[grice]

[ ah . . . he likes it already. starry eyed inquest follows the book’s open pages to illustration, and falco sighs from his nose as he looks down at every fine detail. the people, the trade, the ships, ]

It looks like the port from home. [ even if it isn’t as much of an everyday sighting as it was for a marleyan. he decides to correct himself: ] From what I remember. I never got to see it much.

[13thcommander]

You're one step ahead of me. I've never seen a port at all.

[Erwin tilts his head, examining the picture with Falco.]

Are they as busy as in the picture? And do the ships truly have sails that tall?

[grice]

[ he hopes he can capture the accuracy of his memory in his words— because there was everything wrong in not being able to step outside and see the world, he knew that. he was spat on in the streets for showing up before he earned his spot as a candidate. people were killed for venturing from their cages.

he'd want erwin to see it, and hoped that maybe, at least his people, would be able to do that just as everyone else. ]

Yeah— because of trading and commerce. They bring all sorts of things over from the neighboring nations. [ at least. the ones they're on "peaceful" terms with. falco seems to have grown some ways enthusiastic, pressing his thumb against the sketch of the sail. ] Not all of them have sails anymore, either. They can be powered by steam or have motors, so they don't need the sail if they have fuel.

[ —he realizes he's been speaking enough to make up for the time he was keeping quiet, and modestly shuts his trap. he might have questions. in the meantime, falco's hands press together and slip between his knees, where he claps them into a squeeze and waits. ]

[13thcommander]

[Erwin has leaned in, listening closely as Falco talks about the port. He's read a little about the ships for this world--he had to, to keep his WWII soldier story from crumbling under scrutiny--but it's still fascinating to hear from someone who has actually seen them.]

Please, go on. How does steam power work? Is it similar to using compressed gas?

[Which is an entirely mindblowing concept to consider. Could they have increased the size of the maneuver gear canisters and powered ships or carts with it? Could they have made cars? Not for the first time, Erwin wishes Hange were here. They would love all the science and technology this world has to offer.</small.]

[grice]

[ oh— oh no, he's not big brain or bookworm enough to know the details! the little details he's sure erwin would like, and that makes falco falter for a second— i'll surprise him, he thinks to consider, to grab a book about steam engines in the library to be able to explain better. for now, he'd have to make do with the simplicity of knowing "basic" technology. ]

I think so, [ falco hovers his hands just above his lap and motions with them, one at a different time than the other but circling, side by side. ] they use coal to burn, and that heats up water enough to make steam. [ his hands stop, and he uses a compacting gesture, ] The pressure the steam makes moves the parts inside and powers the engine.

see: me totally handwaving how the maneuver gear actually works

[13thcommander]

Amazing.

[That was an excellent basic explanation, and one Erwin followed easily. Falco is right in thinking he wants more details, but he also realizes he's talking to a child and not a steam engineer.]

It's a similar concept to how our maneuver gear works. [He gives Falco a quick breakdown on that, explaining how the gas cannisters create enough energy to propel someone as large as himself vertically into the air.] Two completely separate groups came up with the same basic idea around the same time.

that’s rocket science

[grice]

[ amazing, indeed . . . falco didn’t have to say it either when his eyes did all the talking as erwin simultaneously spoke. he remembers seeing how maneuver gear worked— ]

It feels like flying, doesn’t it? [ definitely more restricted, but . . . ] . . . People are really adaptable. I’m just sorry for what you had to use it for.

[ killing their own kind for ages, probably, and they didn’t even know it. on the other hand, how many lives has it saved? ]

literal rocket science! and I am but a lowly English grad student

[13thcommander]

It does. When you're up there, above the trees, close to the sky... it feels like freedom.

[Or as close to freedom as any of them got on the island.]

It came at a cost, certainly. But I'll tell you a secret: now that I'm here, and I'm unable to do it anymore, I miss it.

[Erwin had already been more or less benched from using the gear when he lost his arm, but he'd still been able to use it to scale the walls. Even that dizzying rush had felt like freedom, when their world had been closing in around them and there'd been no escape.]

There were even two different types of maneuver gear. The kind I used attached at the small of the back, and left the arms completely free. Good for the field, and wide open spaces, but limiting in enclosed areas. We found out about another type that attached at the shoulders, and was better for urban combat.

[grice]

[ —it occurs to falco through a memory jog that, with detail, ]

I've seen both of them. The first ones use swords and the second ones use firearms, right?

[ actually, he's had a dream about the first ones—? or not? strange . . . ]

[13thcommander]

Yes, that's correct. Firearms aren't any use against titans, so we used blades instead. The gear with firearms was better for...

[Erwin trails off; the gear with firearms was for use against people, and if Falco has seen both, then it's been adapted by the Survey Corps at some point in the future. Erwin isn't sure how he feels about that; everything in life is a gamble, but he always tried to keep the Survey Corps above having to attack other humans. With so few of them left behind the walls, it hadn't seemed right, not unless they were attacked first.]

Which one did you see them using most recently, if you don't mind me asking?

[grice]

[ falco responds diligently enough, no pause: ]

The swords. I was helping Mister Levi and some other soldiers . . . And there were a lot of titans involved. [ that story might be too large to explain in one go, so he keeps it simple as he subtly places with blanket fabric between his fingers. ] But the first time I saw them, they were firearms. It was in my home, in Marley.

[ and then, quietly, he realizes where this has gone, turns his head slowly up to meet erwin's gaze and. his heart feels heavy every time he thinks about it. all those people who were hurt or killed and didn't know why . . . ]

. . . Marley attacked Paradis first. If they waited— Marley would've attacked again. The first time they breached the walls, it was only a Recon mission. [ and the damage that was done was hideously destructive. ] I'm not saying any of it was in the right, but . . . Your people were defending themselves, sir.

[ there's no excuse for killing, but they were in the middle of a war. he understood that. he didn't want either side to be harmed, but he knows it for what it is. he's still sorry for it. ]

[13thcommander]

[Erwin is quiet for a few minutes after Falco finishes. He knew most of this already, but hearing it from someone on the opposing side, someone who would have ended up fighting against them (but is now somehow on their side? he's going to have to get the full story at some point), is another perspective altogether.]

I wasn't there. When the first Wall fell.

[He stares off into space, looking at nothing, and his voice goes quiet.]

The Survey Corps was out beyond the Wall when the attack happened. It was either planned, or a horrible coincidence. We weren't there for the first few hours, and it was... a massacre.

[He remembers riding back into Shiganshina, and the chaos and horror they found there. He remembers the three days in the saddle after that, doing everything they could to get civilians out of harm's way, and suffering catastrophic casualties doing it. He remembers the tattered remnants of the Corps limping behind Wall Rose, and getting handed the reins and told to rebuild, and how everything changed.]

[But he also remembers a pair of young Survey Corps recruits, barely out of childhood, and how, for the few weeks they'd been members, they'd been good soldiers.]

War is horrible for everyone. Only someone who has been there can really understand it.

[grice]

[ words never rang more truthful. falco tries to secure the wince in his features, but it still settles down to sympathetic and aware on the same personal level. so much that, after a small pause as he held and curled his fingers into one another, ]

Did you have to start early, too?

[13thcommander]

Training, you mean?

[Erwin actually brightens a bit at the thought. Whether he meant to or not, Falco has chosen the right topic to distract him.]

I joined the Cadets as soon as I was able, so just after my twelfth birthday. It was difficult, but those were some of the happiest days of my life.

[grice]

[ no older than he was at the moment— though falco remembers his training much, much sooner. there was a certain honor that floated around joining the ranks, he's found. even his brother. marley would drill them on how thankful they should be for those tributes since . . . eh.

falco never bought it, but that was simply him. he asks next more out of wanting to know, out of respectful curiosity, than scrutinize. ]

Why were you happy?

[13thcommander]

[Erwin answers Falco's question as honestly as he can, although he deliberately keeps some of his reasoning secret. Very few people know about his father, and Erwin prefers to keep it that way.]

I was making friends for the first time, and learning new things every day. And I felt like I was working towards something greater and bigger than myself.

[Hard to believe the son of a heretic would have trouble making friends.]

What of yourself? When did you start training?

[grice]

[ he couldn't say he felt the same way, but falco certainly was happy for the friends (and crush) he's made along the way. it was the only other contact with kids that he had, and trying to bring confidence back to the name grice was something he did for his family. when he was further in, for gabi. ]

. . . Five, I think. I had to for my family. [ it might've been a year older or younger, give or take— eldian children in marley were allowed to enter the program between five or seven. ] I got to be a Warrior Candidate a while after, and then the Mid-East war began for four years. I'm twelve, um— thirteen, now?

[ there's a pause as he rolls his shoulders in an almost uncertain way. ]

If time still works the same.

[13thcommander]

Five.

[Erwin has picked up on a few things since being here, and one of those is that his home world accepts people into the military at a younger age than most places. He's learned to keep quiet about having fifteen year olds in his command, and about training starting at age twelve. Apparently, when you're not fighting for your very existence against monstrous enemies, that kind of thing doesn't go over well. But five...]

Why were you paying for the crimes of your family?

[Erwin can't imagine a literal infant of five could do anything too horrible, but who knows, Falco might surprise him.]

[grice]

[ that. ]

My uncle was part of a rebel group and was found out. [ by the falling look on the boy’s face, he didn’t seem in favor. understanding, especially with the way eldians were treated, yes, but trying to fix things that way . . . wasn’t the answer either. ]

He got sent to the island with the others. “Grice” just meant treason after that, so . . . My brother Colt joined first. If he became a warrior, then Marley would make sure our family was honorable. We’d all get sent to “Paradise” if we didn’t.

[ ironic lingo for paradis island itself spoken among cocky, disgusted marleyans. ]

I joined after.

[13thcommander]

[And if Falco's uncle got sent to the island, then it's entirely possible Erwin ran into him at some point. For all Erwin knows, Falco's uncle is the one who took his arm.]

And they wouldn't accept the adults in your family? They wanted the children?

[Fuck, but that's a good strategy: getting the youngest, most pliant members of a family and forcing them into the Marley war machine, feeding them all the propaganda they can handle, and promising mercy for the adults, who will stay quiet for fear of their children being murdered. It's brilliantly simple, and so horrific that it turns Erwin's stomach. He's done things he isn't proud of, but he's never sent literal children to do his dirty work.]

[Whether fifteen year olds count as literal children is a matter for debate.]

I'm sorry, Falco. You and your brother didn't deserve that.