Never let me go

10: Prepared to sacrifice

Wall Rose Year 850 - Survey corps headquarters:

Iris awoke to darkness. Confused at the disturbance she moved, and realised she was alone. His side of the bed felt cool underneath her searching hand. She felt a slight tug somewhere deep inside her stomach as her fingertips trailed over the sheets where he'd lain only hours ago as she fell asleep. The mattress felt too wide without him there next to her, and the room felt too large.

"My body sensed he had gone and woke me up," she thought. "Where would he have gone at this hour? It must be past midnight by now." She climbed out of her bed, wrapping her blanket around her naked body as she stood. Three long strides brought her to the small window, and she peered through it out into the night.

Iris thought of another night a few weeks ago when she'd awakened and found him gone. She had had a dream in which she had been walking with Reiner along a riverbank in a strange, depressing looking city. She'd been wearing a dress, and Reiner had worn a uniform, but not the uniform of their military forces. It had been a muddy green colour, it's fabric rough. And he'd had a wooden rifle on his back. Huge lizards with wide mouths full of razor sharp teeth had been swimming in the river waters, looking at them as they strolled by. She had heard gunfire, and turned to look that way. Then she'd heard a menacing hissing, and when her head turned back around, Reiner's head was the head of a snake. Its uncanny eyes had stared into hers before its neck snapped forward, sinking it's long curved teeth into her face.

Her own screams had awakened her, and just as it was now, the spot next to her where he slept had been cold and empty.

Iris had gone back to sleep after some time, thinking Reiner was out on one of his midnight walks. She did not know what kept him awake; when she asked he would smile and either mention something silly, or tell her it was nothing. The fact he said it was 'nothing' was what had her stomach in knots. 'Nothing' surely meant something was going on, but that this something was a 'something' he could not talk to her about.

At midday on the following day, all military personnel had been summoned for inspection. Their combat gear had been scrutinized, and they had been asked when last it had been in use. The reason for the inquiry was that the two titans captured inside Trost by the survey corps had been slain during the night.

Fidgeting, Iris had held her breath as the officers had inspected Reiner's equipment, afraid he would not pass the inspection. Then, almost as an afterthought, she had realised that if she worried he wouldn't pass, she was also ready to believe there was a possibility that he had slain the titans.

He had passed the inspection though, and for a few hours that had calmed her. She had been reassured of his innocence until she had pulled him aside later that day and asked him where he had gone during the night. He had given her a long, contemplating look before telling her he had just taken a walk to clear his head. So she had asked what kept him awake at night, and he had smiled and told her: "It's nothing, just been a long week, you know." - If only she could believe that.

Misliking the memory, Iris blinked and tried to see if she could spy anyone walking about the dark castle grounds below, but she could not see anyone out there. With a sigh, she thought back on how the weeks that had followed after they had joined the survey corps had not progressed as expected.

On the first day, she had been lead into an office by a soldier. Finding herself inside captain Levi's study, she had stood at attention stiffly. The bare floorboards underneath her feet had creaked as she shifted her weight, and she had breathed in the smell of old books and herbal tea. Despite everything inside the room being old, the place had been spotlessly clean. In places like this the dust would have found its way everywhere, into fabrics and little crevices, in between the floorboards and the smallest cracks in the walls. Back inside her own tight sleeping quarters the sun glares through the window had revealed dust swirling through the air; but in his office even the air seemed cleaner. She had felt uncomfortably dirty all of a sudden.