Half A Heart

waking up to only half a blue sky

It wasn't what Marco expected when he thought about what would happen after he died. He had expected the world to just go black and that would be it.

Which would have been fine, really. He had lived his life to the fullest, had met amazing friends and didn't regret a single desicion.

One thing he did regret, though is not being able to say good-bye to Jean. He deserved to know that the freckled boy loved him and that even without him Jean should carry on and become the great leader he was destined to be. He truly wished he had.
Because what actually waited for him after the intense pain pulsing through his entire body got so much it just abruptly stopped was more torturous than having to just let your murder happen because your friends betrayed and tried to kill you mere minutes before that.

When he had opened his curious eyes at the surprising brightness surrounding him he found himself in the middle of a meadow with colourful flowers that were lightly bending in the soft breeze. He frantically looked around just to have his eyes falling upon a raven haired male with a small, yet muscular frame.

He held out his hand to Marco to help him stand up. Puzzled the freckled boy looked up at him "Where am I? And who are you?!" The question made the other man look down at him with piercing blue eyes, obviously annoyed by the lack of cooperation Marco was showing and thus pulled his hand away.

"You're in limbo." the man said before quickly adding "But not for long." That made Marco even more confused "Wh-what are-" "You will proceed your afterlife as a guardian angel of a certain man named Jean Kirschstein. He supposedly is an aquientance of yours and will be in need of your protection." the raven haired interrupted the oncoming ramble.

"Jean's guardian angel?" Marco whispered shocked at the man's words who went to admonish the bewildered boy "As a guardian angel you are not allowed to intervene in the everyday life of your ward. That means no materialising, no talking or making any other attempts of establishing contact. In case you infringe those rules there will be severe punishment inclusing never getting to see your ward ever again. Believe me, you don't want that to happen. Be grateful for your task. Your job here could be much worse."

Marco was getting scared more by every word leaving the weird man's mouth. He had so many questions that were swirling around his head and made him dizzy. Finally he blurted out "But what if Jean really is in danger? How can I help him? What do I do?" The ocean blue eyes mustered him to the point where Marco almost felt transparent before the man shrugged and turned around with the words "You'll figure it out."

And so Marco's vision faded away once more.

That was ten years ago now and Marco could still remember that strange meeting as if it happened yesterday. In those ten years of protecting Jean he learned a few things about his "condition".

One, he had the ability to appear and disappear to the human's eyes whenever he pleased which was A+ pranking material for whenever he got too bored since he didn't allow himself to speak to any of them (though he was tempted about a million times).

Two, he wasn't the only guardian angel here. It wasn't like there was one for every human, but he guessed for the ones who needed creatures like he was there was invisible help. Marco was more than relieved to know that most of his friends from the survey corps had someone watching over them. The other guardian angels were more than kind, especially Armin's  named Makoto whom the freckled boy became close friends with and who showed him the ropes of protecting his ward. That task was quite easy since only shortly after Marco died the survey corps managed to reconquer every district within the walls and build higher and especially thicker walls. All of that seemed pretty nice until the last thing he learned.