#best fma opening argue with the wall

[livuvur]

... While we quietly nestle together under the umbrella I hold

[iwroteinapastlife]

Family

I have been working on finishing this nearly every day since Chlonath Week, but the chapter just KEPT GETTING LONGER. But it’s finally ready! Finally, here’s @chlonathweek day 6, Family! Enjoy~

***

On day one of the art project, Nathaniel learned that Chloé’s favorite color was gold and that she didn’t have a favorite song. She wrote with pen because she, quote, ‘never makes mistakes,’ and her pens were a range of fiery colors—reds, oranges, yellows. Black ink only when absolutely necessary. She would only eat fruit flavors of ice cream and sprinkles were only permitted on strawberry, because, ‘they only look right on pink.’ On hot summer days, she drank mango iced tea, but the rest of the time, she liked hot coffee for waking up in the morning and hot tea for relaxing at night. And if her hot drinks didn’t have steam rising from them, they weren’t hot enough.

He also learned to never ever suggest that pineapple is a valid pizza topping.

On day two, he learned that nothing drove Chloé insane more than someone repeatedly clicking their pen. Pencil tapping was also maddening. He unfortunately learned this the hard way.

But that day, he also learned that she loved the sound of rain on the roof of a quiet room and the scent of asphalt as the first drops begin to fall. Nothing ever scared or excited her quite as much as the first strike of lightning in a storm and by observation alone, he realized that she had a very particular hum she emitted in reaction to the resonance of thunder in her chest.

On day two, she had told him that she rarely wore headphones while walking around, but on day three, she admitted that she wears them every time she goes out in public on her own. Because by the age of 15, she had realized that she would never learn not to listen when she overheard people talking about her.

Day three was also the first time he ever witnessed her 100% complete genuine laugh. He had never thought her so beautiful.

On day four, he realized there was something they would always fight about.

“But Brotherhood sticks to the story of the original manga!”

“That doesn’t mean it’s automatically better! It just means it’s different!”

“Yeah!” Chloé tossed her arms up in the air. “Different better! The original was a clusterfuck with filler that didn’t know what it was doing! Brotherhood was way more organized and well-paced and complete!”

“The original wasn’t bad though!” He argued. “It’s like its own thing separate from Brotherhood! I’m not saying it’s better, I’m just saying it has its own individual value!”

She crossed her arms. “I think you’re just blinded by the nostalgia factor.”

“And I think you’re blinded by newer, shinier animation.”

They never really reached a conclusion there. They went back and forth for a while until eventually they got distracted talking about the story itself. It was somewhere in the middle of Chloé’s rant on why she liked Mustang and Hawkeye more as a platonic ship that it actually occurred to him: his soulmate was a closeted weeb. Watching her go on, eyes spirited and a baseline smile fixed to her lips as she spoke, he was beginning to see why they were soulmates. And when he heard her laugh again, he realized that that sound was quickly becoming his new favorite song.

Day five was the first time he ever found the lines of his pencil coming to resemble her face as he mindlessly sketched in class.

They didn’t really need to meet that day. Their project was done. There were some spots that they could still throw in some extra detailing if they really wanted to, but it wasn’t necessary. The project was finished by the time Nathaniel had gone home on day four. And yet, neither of them said anything about it. Nathaniel still came over to her hotel suite after school and she still welcomed him.

So they did that extra detailing. And they asked each other more questions. And he got to listen to his favorite song again and again and again.

It wasn’t until he lay down at the end of the night that he realized he didn’t have an excuse to spend time with her anymore. He supposed they were still soulmates and that was probably an excuse in itself, but would she be okay with that? And if they were to hang out without an academic excuse under the reasoning that they were soulmates, would it be a date? Were they ready for that yet? Was he ready for that yet?

Nathaniel pulled out his phone with the intent to text her even though he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say.

She beat him to it.

CB: Want to come over on Saturday to watch the FMA movie? I never actually watched it.

A slow smile spread across his lips as he typed his response.

NK: I can’t believe you had the audacity to pick that fight when you never even saw the movie

CB: I stand by my actions.

CB: So?

NK: Definitely.

Spending time with her wasn’t the most natural thing in the world. They were awkward, both of them. But with time came comfort, and with comfort came ease.

Week two was when Chloé started talking to him at school, in sight of other people. Not a ton, of course—it wasn’t like she was eating lunch with him or walking around with him—but when they crossed paths in the halls, there were actual words exchanged. Pleasant ones.

It was somewhere in week four that he began anticipating and even looking forward to those brief interactions. And it was on Monday of week five—after a family trip to the coast had made him go a whole weekend without talking to her—that those interactions started making his stomach flutter.

That next Saturday, as they enjoyed the sunny afternoon out in the park, Nathaniel stumbled across his first opportunity to talk about weres.

“So you two broke up because of a bad kiss?”

The day was warm, with that perfect hint of a breeze that brushed the stray strands of hair about her face just right. The trees above had dappled her skin in an array of shadows, but they left an open window of sunlight just for her eyes. They absolutely glowed as they stared at him like he was an idiot.  

“Well when you say it like that it sounds shallow,” he laughed. “It wasn’t just a bad kiss, it was…nothing. The complete absence of any feeling or passion or desire…” He trailed off as he caught himself looking back and forth between her eyes. Was she wondering the same thing he was? “We both knew that a kiss shouldn’t feel that way. Not with our soulmate.”

Chloé seemed to consider that a moment. In that single breath of silence, his eyes did the unspeakable and stole a glance at her lips—her pink, glossy lips. “Do you think all kisses with the wrong person feel that way?” she asked a second later. As he met her eyes again, he hoped beyond hope she hadn’t noticed where his had traveled.

“I-I don’t know,” he said, scratching the back of his head with a nervous smile. “My only other kiss was Alix and she was dared to do that.” The corners of her lips turned up in an amused smile. Nathaniel cleared his throat and forced himself to look away before his mind could travel further down the track of wondering what flavor her lip gloss was. “What about you? Have you ever kissed anyone?”

She shook her head with a tiny laugh. “Not unless you count kissing my best friend when we were five.”

“You kissed Sabrina? What was that like?”

“No, not Sabrina—,” Chloé cut herself off mid-sentence.

When she didn’t continue, Nathaniel turned to look at her again—and was confronted with a heart breaking sight.

Her eyes almost seemed to dull over and he watched as the tiny smile she had worn all afternoon slowly faded from her lips. “Never mind,” she said, tone suddenly somber. She vacantly watched the children playing across the park, but it was clear that her mind was somewhere else.

He found himself scrutinizing her profile for answers. She looked so melancholy all of a sudden when up until then, they had been having a good day talking and laughing. Where did that come from? And if it wasn’t Sabrina, who did she kiss? Who else did she ever call her best friend? And why did the thought of them make her so—

Oh shit.

You knew him right? Did you know? Weren’t you friends? What did he look like as a cat?

The younger voices of his classmates began echoing off the walls of his head as he recalled that day. The only day Chloé came to school and didn’t talk. The only day everyone wanted her to talk.

Did your dad know? Did he have anything to do with the fire?

He remembered sitting in the back of the class and watching with shamefully vested interest as the other kids surrounded her desk and berated her with a never ending onslaught of questions. Watching with shamefully vested interest as she said absolutely nothing. As she stood up and left without a word. As she didn’t come back to school for a week.

Her gaze had grown hard, as if her mind was retreating further and further into a dark place.

“Was it Adrien Agreste?” he asked quietly.

Chloé winced at the name, but her expression remained unchanged. He wondered how many times circumstances had forced her to practice that absolutely unyielding look.

“Yeah,” she answered curtly, voice just above a whisper.

This was his chance—albeit a less than ideal one. Throughout all of their interactions, he had always kept the topic in the back of his mind, always kept looking for any signs and signals of what she might think. But if ever he was going to have a chance to talk about it—really talk about it—it was with the topic of Adrien Agreste.

He felt like every nerve in his body was shaking. He tried not to let it show as he welled up the courage to ask her something—anything—about it. Finally, in a strained and quiet voice, he pushed out the words, “Did you—?”

“Nathaniel.” If the sharpness of her tone didn’t cut him off, those hard, almost pleading eyes as she turned to look at him surely would have. She softened the harshness in her voice but spoke her next statement slowly, stressing the importance of her words. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

He watched those eyes, studied them, trying with every bit of detail oriented observation power he had to discern any meaning behind them. That was the clear look of someone who really didn’t want to reveal their feelings—someone who didn’t want to open up, didn’t want anyone to know. But he needed to know. If nothing else, he needed to know why she didn’t want him to know.

In the wake of the Agreste fire, Chloé would have thought just like everyone else that there were no survivors. That Gabriel, Emilie, and Adrien Agreste all were dead.

Before they were outed as weres, the Agreste’s were known family friends of the Bourgeois’s. Audrey Bourgeois and Gabriel Agreste old friends and icons in the fashion industry and their children, born the same year, raised as friends from birth. Adrien Agreste—Paris’s collective crush—was famously known to have exactly one friend, and that was Chloé. Chloé Bourgeois—Paris’s heiress. Pictures of them could still be found floating around social media, ranging from when they had just begun to walk, leading all the way up to the very same month of the fire. The very same month the Agreste name was cursed in the angry chanting of mobs and the Agreste mansion went up in flames.

A hint of betrayal could be discerned in her eyes, that much he gleaned. But was it betrayal because her best friend turned out to be the enemy? Or was it betrayal because her best friend didn’t trust her with the truth?

Had she known the truth? Was she aware that whole time growing up that her best friend had the blood of a cat? Did he tell her? Did she find out?

Did she out him?

He needed to know if that was the hurt of shame, anger, and betrayal begging him to drop the subject in that moment, or if that was the hurt of mourning. If he were to tell her that Adrien was alive—that he escaped and had been safe all these years in hiding—would she cry tears of relief or would she speak words of fury? If she were to see him—to confront him in the flesh—would she wrap him in the embrace of an old friend? Or in the embrace of death? Would she speak a word of it to anyone? To her father? To the akumas? To a hunter? Or would she keep the secret held tightly in her grasp, safe and sound, where no one could ever harm him again?

He didn’t know. He needed to know. But looking in those eyes right then, right there, the only thing he knew was that she wasn’t ready to tell him. Not yet.

“Will you?” he asked. “Someday?”

She watched him, and in her then, he could see his own analytical gaze mirrored. Assessing. Gauging. Trying to decipher if he could be trusted or not.

Her expression softened with a slow exhale. “I’m sure I will,” she whispered, and the way she said it almost sounded like a resignation to herself. An admittance. “Someday.”

Someday wouldn’t come for a long while, but hints started to trickle in after that. He couldn’t be sure if it was because she was trusting him more or because she was filtering around him less, but either way he found himself feeling safer and safer around her with each passing week. It was the occasional grunt of disgust when akuma propaganda popped up on her facebook feed or the subtle eye roll when a rally could be overheard nearby. None of the hints were concrete; all of them could be attributed to baseline annoyance or contextual displeasure. But they were there. They were there and each and every one was adding to his growing hope.

It was a warm night in month three, leaning over the bridge railing to watch boats float along the River Seine, when she confessed the words in a hushed whisper.

“I miss him.”

The lapping of the water down below. The music of a street performer down the street. The giggles of children running along the bridge. Those were the sounds that faded away as Nathaniel’s entire world seemed to zoom into focus on her and her alone.

Chloé kept her gaze on the reflection of city lights rippling along the surface of the river. Her eyes weren’t as hardened as he might have expected them to be. Not as guarded.

“I couldn’t save him,” she continued, voice low, her words for him and him alone. “When news broke out about the fire, I ran straight to his house. By the time I got there, the entire building was in flames, the exits blocked. Sabrina’s father caught me trying to claw my way through the police barricade. He held me back, hid me from view. He thought he was doing me a favor. Wouldn’t want word getting out that the mayor’s daughter fought for the life of a were.” She paused, narrowing her eyes in such a way that he knew she was staring at the police chief’s face in her mind. “Such bullshit,” she muttered under her breath.

He waited until he was sure she was done speaking. Softly, gently, he asked, “Did you know?”

Just when he thought those eyes couldn’t get sadder. “No. He never told me.” She let out a long sigh, dropping her head below her shoulders. “I can’t blame him. Even if he trusted me, there’s no telling what could have happened. Look at what happened without him speaking a word. I just wish…”

She never finished that thought.

With a deep breath, Chloé picked her head back up, stood up straight, and turned to fully face him. She leveled him a look built on courage and riddled with fear.

“So that’s who your soulmate is, Nathaniel,” she said. Her voice was still quiet, but strong, and suddenly he realized why she chose to bring it up. “Someone who nearly put their life on the line for a were and would do it again in a heartbeat. We’ve danced around the subject long enough. I need to know if the same is true for you.”

Steadfast blue eyes reflecting every light in a dark city. Determination and fear inextricably wrapped up in one another—wrapped up in a dance of hesitation and necessity. A lonely soul held in the arms of a confrontational spirit.

Nathaniel had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

“Well?” she asked, her eyes darting about his face in every effort to find her answer.

The next breath he took was one of the easiest in his life. Somehow, he had never felt so safe outside of his own home. He didn’t have the voice to respond—nor did he know what words to use if he did—so the best he could give her was a soft smile and a silent nod. She thankfully accepted that.

On June 26th, Nathaniel learned that Chloé wore strawberry lip gloss.

It was the last day of classes and instead of the summer sun that everyone anticipated, they got rain.

Their intermittent laughter and the splashing of their footsteps as they ran through puddles was the music that followed them down the street on their way to the cafe. He could feel water droplets on the back of his neck and dampness soaking through his shoes, but with Chloé’s hand in his and his favorite song on repeat, those things couldn’t be further from his mind.

“You’re getting a bill from my hairdresser,” she laughed as they took refuge under a nearby awning. For the first time in his life, he watched as Chloé pulled the hair tie out of her hair, letting the long, tangled strands fall loose about her head. It was damp and frizzy, and her efforts to comb her fingers through it were hopeless from the start.

As he spoke, he found his hand reaching out, fingers taking delicate hold of a strand that was blocking his view of those beautiful eyes. “I don’t know; I think you look pretty great like this.”

“Oh really?” she scoffed, flat and sarcastic. She gave him a look to match, gaze rising to meet his—a glowing summer sky amidst spring rain.

An easy smile spread across his lips as he tucked the hair away behind her ear. He didn’t drop his hand, fingers threading delicately through tangled strands. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Really.”

The very air around them stilled and the world faded away and suddenly it was just them—two soulmates a breath apart tucked away from the rain. He didn’t try to stop the urge to glance at her lips this time, nor did she. The pull to Chloé was more familiar than the pull of gravity, more natural than the ocean’s currents. Her forehead was warm against his and her breath was cool on his cheek. The moment their lips touched was the thunder after the lightning, the day after the night—the undeniable fate of nature taking its course. Her kiss was more than inevitable, it was right. Like breathing itself, the touch of her lips against his was easy, simple—and something he couldn’t imagine living without.

And it was just one kiss. Their lips parted like the tide’s retreat back into the ocean, leaving the faint taste of strawberry lingering on his lips, but neither of them moved. Her breath still tickled his cheek. His forehead still rested against hers.

“So that’s how that’s supposed to feel,” he whispered.

He opened his eyes just enough to see the delicate curl of perfect lips. Chloé reached up and took hold of the edges of his jacket. His palms likewise found the perfect curvature of her cheeks, fingers threading through the hair at the base of her neck. And they came together again.

By the next week, Nathaniel had learned that Chloé rotated lip gloss flavors. Strawberry that first day in the rain, cherry behind the theater that weekend, lemon in her room two days after that. And forever after that next Thursday, Nathaniel would always remember the distinct taste of raspberry as the flavor of the truth.

His arm was numb, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when it was tucked so perfectly under the crook of Chloé’s neck.

The queen had deigned to grant this lowly peasant the sight of her with her hair down once again and though he suspected she may make him pay for it later, he was taking full advantage of it. His fingers tangled through the soft golden strands at the base of her neck, no doubt making a storm of knots that he would hear about later. For now, however, she didn’t seem to mind. Not with her hand on his waist, thumb dancing along the skin just under the hem of his shirt as she pulled him close.

Their lips moved in perfect tandem, a rhythm born in instinct and refined in practice, and his body molded to hers with such an ease he hadn’t thought possible between two people. Kissing Chloé was so much more than he ever could have predicted it would be. Time was lost when they came together, all semblance of thought gone and reality limited to her skin under his fingers and her tongue against his. The kiss of a soulmate. The taste of raspberry.

“Ey dude, you in here?”

A sharp intake of breath and the kiss was broken as the lights in the room flicked on. Both he and Chloé immediately sat up on the couch, totally inconspicuous. Pins and needles prickled his fingertips as feeling slowly returned.

An amused grin spread across Nino’s cheeks. “Watcha doin in the dark, kids?”

Nathaniel cleared his throat as he clenched and unclenched his hand to get blood circulating. “Watching a movie.” It wasn’t technically a lie; that was what they were doing before Chloé had—

“Oh yeah,” Nino said sarcastically, looking past him, “that menu screen looks absolutely enthralling.”

Chloé snorted behind him. He turned to look and sure enough, Spirited Away sat on the main menu.

He leaned in toward Chloé and lowered his voice—not that it made Nino any less likely to hear him, what with him coming close and leaning on his elbows on the back of the couch. “When did it end?”

She hummed in thought, fingers beginning their endeavor to undo the knots he’d made. “Somewhere around the time you started messing up my hair.” She closed the statement with a tiny glare and he just grinned. He rather liked the way she looked with less-than-pristine hair.

“Dude you owe me one for intercepting Aunt Abigail on her way in here.”

He turned his attention back to his cousin. “Mom would have been fine.” Nino raised an eyebrow at him. “...I think. Anyway, what’s up?”

“Family trip to the coast tomorrow,” he reported, drumming his hands on the couch. “Leaving early in the morning, so Chloé has to go home in a couple hours.”

“Your family takes a lot of trips to the coast.”

Ice water down his back. Nathaniel felt the color drain from his face as he shared an apprehensive look with Nino. He was glad Chloé was behind him at that moment and couldn’t see him panicking.

“Yeah,” Nino replied, giving him a look. “We do.”

“Why?”

He raised his brows at him and Nathaniel could practically hear the ‘Dude, you gotta tell her,’ echo in his mind. Nino knew that Nathaniel had already gotten clearance from the rest of the family and that Chloé had told him in explicit terms that she supported weres. He’d been pestering him for weeks to tell her and the only reason Nathaniel had been able to give him as to why he hadn’t yet was just ‘I haven’t had a good opportunity.’

It was bullshit and they both knew it. The reason was just that he was scared.

Retrospectively loving a friend thought dead who she hadn’t known to be a were prior to his alleged death was very different from being in a current relationship with a were who was very much alive. He’d be lying if he tried to claim that there wasn’t still a part of him—albeit increasingly small—that worried she would reject him upon learning that he had scales when completely submerged. That worried she would be disgusted by him.

“Dunno,” Nino finally said. His voice kept casual so as not to alert Chloé, but the look he was giving him was anything but. As he stood up straight to leave, the message rang loud and clear. Tell her.

Nathaniel swallowed nervously as the door shut, leaving him and Chloé alone once again. “I mean the coast is nice and all,” she continued, “but you go like, two or three times a month. I don’t even know the last time I went.” He turned to face her once again and found her with approximately half of her hair somewhat tamed while the rest was still frizzy. “Do you think I could come actually? It’s been way too long.”

Blue eyes found him as she continued combing her fingers through the mess, absolutely oblivious to the anxiety welling within him. Clear summer skies parting a raging storm.

Nathaniel interrupted her progress by threading his fingers through her hair once more and pulling her into a kiss. A single slow, perfect, calming, centering, breathtaking, mind clearing, soul completing kiss. A soulmate’s kiss.

Nino was right. If she really was his soulmate—which was beyond a shadow of a doubt with a kiss like that—then he should be safe with her. Whether he had kissed her to strengthen his resolve or to savor what could be his last though, he couldn’t say.

“Nathaniel?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

[ghostmartyr]

How do you think Ymir's idea/founding of Freedom in 89 connects or contributes thematically throughout the series and how it may come up in future chapters? Or what Isayama has left to address in these final arcs/chapters. Honestly I'd just love to read your thoughts/writings on the characters, the details you've noticed that are tying it all together and where it may end up. (not concrete predictions, your chapter 90 thoughts highlighted the joy in the spontaneity and odd choices the writing)

This question is my new favorite.

The intensely interesting thing about Ymir is that in her story, it is spelled out as explicitly as you ever could ask for that Paradis is her freedom.

Chronologically, at this point in the story, everyone is running around screaming over their home being destroyed. They’re buckling down and racing further inside the walls as fast as they can, filling their cage to max capacity and throwing people out to die so the rest of them can survive.

Ymir opens her eyes in this place, and she sees freedom. She’s alive, and she has her mind back, and there’s no one nearby who wants her dead. She can do whatever she wants, and it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

That’s the vision we’re presented with as Paradis comes to grips with the fact that they’re hated by the entire world. Ymir doesn’t see the walls closing in; she looks up at the sky and finds life.

And she opens that statement with how little individual humans matter. They’re sort of meaningless, right? There’s no real value in any of her flailing, or anyone else’s.

Except when she reaches Paradis, she can choose.

She doesn’t matter. There’s no significance to her struggles.

She still has the power to do whatever the heck she wants.

That’s so cool.

What makes it cooler is that what she wants, over and over again, is to protect people. Does it Matter? No. But it matters to her. Historia matters to her. Sasha, Connie, and Reiner and Bertolt all matter to her.

And all of these people live in a world where they are so tiny that they can be smacked down in an instant. Some by titans, some by mean ol’ humans. The girl she’s in love with has a death wish and joins a military branch with the highest mortality rate. The two randoms she saves are alive to live out indentured servitude with a dash of genocide until death.

Ymir still finds personal value in keeping preserving the lives of people she cares for.

It’s particularly telling with Reiner and Bertolt.

She saves them from being executed, but Bertolt still dies his next time out. Reiner barely survives, and he’s now alone. There’s no great end game for them just because she gets them out of the most pressing sign of trouble.

She does it anyway. Even if it’s just earning her people one more day of life, that means something to her.

Ymir’s one of the smartest characters in the series when it comes to personal motivation and basic human emotion. She diagnoses and makes snide remarks about everyone’s issues as a character trait. She’s clever, and sees the big picture, and a whole lot of other smart things.

But there’s a reason that Historia has repeatedly called her simple. Her tactics aren’t about saving the world, or any deep, grand meaning. She just wants certain people to keep breathing. That’s how she ends up revealing her powers to two people who can turn her in (and to the Survey Corps, which never had the opportunity to turn into a problem, but could have easily headed that way), and it’s how Reiner and Bertolt survive to assist in slaughtering the comrades of people she cares for. Heck, it’s why she’s looking at a death sentence.

Ymir has the simple, straightforward strategy of a person who cares deeply, but lives so much in the moment that very basic flaws get pushed aside until the moment where it’s become a problem.

To put it in a way that makes this post easier to write, she’s grown into the kind of thinking that drives Eren in his early days. The difference is that it isn’t the consequences of impulses she can’t control; she’s looked at those impulses and decided that yeah, that’s what she wants to be doing.

That all works together to make her marvelously relevant to the recent happenings.

In my chapter post, I bring up how the question of what will end up winning at the end of this series. Will fighting for your friends be rewarded, or will learning to make hard sacrifices? Or will both those choices end in death, eliminating the conflict.

Everyone cares about this question, right? They’re soldiers, brandishing the flag of humanity’s best qualities and fighting for them. The motives that fuel their cause are never without an answer, but they’re still human. They are thinking of the larger picture, and they do believe it matters, and they want to do the Right thing–but they want their friends to be okay, too. Enter question marks.

Then you have Ymir.

Ymir doesn’t give a damn about that question. She has her answer. She’s going to look after her and hers, and nothing exists that can change that priority.

From a series perspective, that’s incredibly neat.

She’s uniquely personal in all of her experiences. The selfish whims that get constant censure from older and wiser parties are what she’s chosen to build her life around.

What makes that more interesting is that, due to the connection her arc has with Historia, you see the direct way that ripples. Historia happens to be the kind of person who wants to look after orphans and keep people safe--but the only reason that gets discovered is thanks to her deciding she’s not willing to sacrifice her autonomy or her friend.

The only reason anyone survives that is because Eren wants to try believing in himself, and downs the armor vial.

Out of that mess, Historia claims her crown, bringing a peaceful end to the coup, through her personal desire to settle things with her father herself.

Ymir’s particular brand of selfishness is the inspiration for Paradis’ current stability.

There’s this line at the end of the Fellowship of the Ring. Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn stand on the river’s shore, contemplating their very recent failures. Their ring bearer has chosen to go on without them. The fate of Middle Earth is seemingly beyond their hands.

“Then it has all been in vain. The fellowship has failed.”"Not if we hold true to each other.”

Then, you know, holding true to each other leads to there being a Middle Earth left for the ring bearer to try saving.

On the surface, the Serum Bowl, following up and concluding Erwin’s arc, is about adhering to the responsibility the Scouts have as humanity’s, and learning to let go despite the great personal agony.

That lesson is presented, and it’s made very clear that all of its good sense loses in the face of how much Erwin means to Levi (and arguably how much Armin means to Eren). Levi, who is responsible for dragging Erwin back to the side of the greater good, flies right in the opposite direction.

So we’ve got all of this angst for easy pickings, and I think a... possible key concept skates on through without standing out too much:

How much do individual lives matter?

After the 104th makes its way back to the walls post-kidnapping arc, Eren looks around at all of the lives sacrificed to get him back. It isn’t the first time, and it might not be the last.

Jean, being Jean, adds his two cents.

“Whether you’re really worth paying that kind of price... is something I still don’t know. As to whether the people who were killed to get you back died for nothing... That depends on you now, doesn’t it?”--51

It’s a fair statement, if a bit demanding. That’s what Eren’s position means, though. He’s humanity’s hope thanks to his abilities. That’s why so many people die trying to get him back; there’s a real chance he can do something against the titans in a way no one’s been able to for a hundred years.

Of course, it turns out, smack dab in the middle of Historia’s arc, that the powers Eren has could be more useful in someone else’s hands, and he self-destructs over his appalling lack of value.

But the part about it being Historia’s arc is important, not just a side effect of me name-dropping her at every opportunity.

In the moment Eren tells her to eat him and save humanity, he’s thinking of himself as a tiny human being with no significance. He isn’t humanity’s great hope; he’s one more instrument keeping them chained. There’s no reason for him to stick around keeping that up.

Historia rejects that on every level.

She doesn’t save Eren because she’s thinking about humanity and what he can do for them.

She saves him because he’s her friend, and she’s his. She saves him because in a world full of terror and trauma too big for either of them to bear, Eren’s emotions reach her, and it doesn’t matter what he isn’t. He is her friend. He can be insignificant, and ineffective, and sure, maybe someone else could do his job a little better than he can, but Eren, as a person, is still valuable.

Flying further down the road, that’s a similar philosophy to what his mother tells Shadis.

“He’s already great. Because he was born... into this world.”--Carla, 71

The desperate need to Matter isn’t a requirement. A human’s worth is argued for through their ability to be alive.

In the huge, ongoing fight for humanity, the lesser concept of humans is not treated as lesser. Humans make up humanity, and each one has a life of value that can’t be replicated or repudiated.

Bringing this back into a post that has, like, a point or something, that presents a new side to the argument of individuals versus the world; without individuals, there can’t be a world.

And once you’ve gone there, you bring in the FMA concept of humans continually looking out for each other on a person-by-person basis, which eventually turns into everyone being excellent to each other and etc.--

--Which finally brings us back to Ymir.

Who owns looking after the little guy.

A pastime that gives Paradis a Queen, and keeps the First King’s philosophy separate from the Founding Titan for the first time in over a hundred years.

Um. I think that’s it. Thanks a million for the compliment and the ask, and pardon the ludicrous bouncing around this post does.

[lunarose99]

Check out my new FMA story! Lots of protective!Roy goodness!

Read on Ao3

Child Soldiers

Chapter 1

 Colonel Mustang stood at his window, hands folded behind his back. An open newspaper lay on his desk, a black headline announcing “Tensions with Creta Grow.”

 He didn’t like it. There had been skirmishes along the west border for a while now, and the Fuhrer had been in negotiations for over three years with the King. Their last meeting apparently didn’t go well. King Damocles had stormed out of the room past the waiting reporters. When one stopped him for questioning, he glared at them and said Amestris’s days were numbered.

 Mustang didn’t like it at all. A threat like that…they were heading for an all-out war.

 He rubbed the glove in his pocket. If war did come…it would only be a matter of time until he was sent to the front lines. All state alchemists would be.

 “Lieutenant Hawkeye?” he called.

 She popped her head in through the door. “Yes sir?”

 “Send for Fullmetal.”

 “Didn’t you just send him off on assignment yesterday?” she asked. “He would have left town by now.”

 “Call him back,” Mustang ordered.

 Hawkeye raised a brow. “Very well.” She closed the door again, leaving Mustang to his thoughts.

 Fullmetal would be pissed beyond belief, especially if it turned out he was wrong. It was a casualty he was willing to take.

Xx

 Two days later, Mustang amended his statement. Fullmetal wasn’t pissed. He was furious. The beansprout had barged in, denting the wall again and screaming at the top of his lungs.

 “I don’t believe you! You send us out on some damn mission to inspect another corrupt bastard and then as soon as we get there you call us back! Make up your damn mind!” he ranted. His brother stepped in behind him, hands up in a fruitless effort to calm him down.

 Mustang didn’t even try. He just raised a brow and inquired if Fullmetal was finished yet or not.

 Fullmetal stomped closer, slamming a fist onto his desk. “No, no I’m not finished! Because of you we just wasted three days travelling around for nothing! Do you know how much research I could have done in that amount of time?”

 “Not enough to actually be any closer to your goal, so shut up and sit down,” Mustang said.

 “What? How would you know?” Fullmetal yelled.

 Mustang rubbed his forehead. “Can you at least stop yelling?”

 “I’ll stop when I’m good and ready!”

 Mustang sighed. This was impressive, even for Fullmetal. Mustang hadn’t even called him short to his face. He did understand the kid’s frustration; he would have been pissed to if he’d had to travel around for three days without any understanding why. But he also would have bit his tongue and followed orders, like a good dog of the military.

 He pulled out the newspaper from the other day. “Read this.”

 “What the Hell for?” he demanded. He took the paper nonetheless.

 “Alphonse, please shut the door.”

 “Oh, yes sir,” Alphonse said. The door clicked shut.

 “What’s so special about this?” Fullmetal asked. His eyes scanned the front page, and he quickly flipped through the other pages.

 Honestly, Mustang had mainly given it to him to try and calm him down a little. It seemed like it worked. The kid’s face didn’t match his coat anymore, at least.

 “The main headline, on the front page,” Mustang said.

 Fullmetal flipped back. “What about it?”

 Mustang folded his hands in front of his face. “How much do you know about our situation with Creta?”

 The kid shrugged. “I know we’ve had skirmishes with them for the last decade, but we have skirmishes with everyone.”

 “While that may be true, Creta is one of the only nations we’ve been actively trying to ally with. However, they want a portion of our land. Bradley refuses to give it to them. When they tried to negotiate a ceasefire last week, it didn’t end well. King Damocles threatened that Amestris’s days were numbered.”

 “And what does this have to do with me?” Fullmetal asked, crossing his arms.

 “If I have my way, nothing,” Mustang said.

 Fullmetal raised a brow. “Then why—”

 “Don’t you get it?” Mustang asked, lowering his hands. “Creta is threatening war.”

 “Yeah, I get that.” His eyes widened. “Oh. So if they actually start a war…”

 Mustang nodded. “You’ll likely be called to the front lines.”

 Mustang had to give the kid credit. He had paled and was trying his best not to tremble.

 “How likely is a war?” Alphonse asked.

 “Hard to say,” Mustang admitted, folding his hands in front of his face again. “But it’s higher than I’d like. Creta will increase their efforts on our borders, and it’s already ugly enough out there. I wouldn’t put it past Bradley to take any increased aggression as a sign and send us in to end it early.”

 Edward nodded. “When will that be?”

 “Any day, if Creta is going to do anything at all,” Mustang said. “That’s why I called you back.”

 Ed furrowed his brow.

 Mustang stood from his desk and walked closer to Ed, dropping his voice to a low whisper. “What I’m telling you now doesn’t leave this room, understand?”

 Both boys nodded.

 “They’ll call any State alchemists to the front line, but if you’re already missing, they won’t be expecting you.”

 Fullmetal tilted his head.

 “I’ll send you back out to Grendel to inspect those mines, but you won’t arrive,” Mustang said. “You’ll have to figure out the details yourself, but go into hiding. Take as many research materials as you want; this could be a while.”

 “What if you need to get in contact with us?” Alphonse asked.

 “I shouldn’t need to,” Mustang said. “More importantly, I shouldn’t be able to find you. If I can find you, anyone in the military can.”

 Ed and Al glanced at each other. “You really think there’s going to be a war?” Al asked.

 “I think the chance is high enough that it’s worth getting you out of the line of fire,” Mustang said.

 Ed nodded and put a hand to his chin. “I probably won’t be able to use my watch, will I?”

 Mustang shook his head. “That would be a dead giveaway.”

 The boys were silent. “So what’s our story for why you called us back?” Ed asked, smiling.

 Mustang smirked. “You forgot to turn in your last report.”

 “What?” Ed exclaimed. “I know I handed it in!” He handed the newspaper back to Mustang.

 Mustang took it and returned to his seat. “If I had it, Fullmetal, do you really think I would have called you back? You think I just love seeing your face that much?” His voice was back at its usual pitch, as was Fullmetal’s, unfortunately.

 “That’s still no reason to call me back! It could have waited until I finished in Grendel at least!”

 “Oh yeah right. I’ll be lucky if I see that within a week of your return!” Mustang said. “I want that report, Fullmetal. Before you leave again!”

 “Are you sure you didn’t just lose it?” Fullmetal glared. The look wasn’t quite up to his usual standards, but the argument had at least returned the color to his face.

 “Of course I didn’t lose it!” Mustang said. “I can’t lose something I never got!”

 “Why didn’t you tell me over the phone? I could have done it on the train!” Fullmetal complained.

 “I have a hard enough time reading your handwriting without trying to account for a bumpy train.”

 “So now I have to waste another two days writing up a report I already gave you just because you can’t keep yourself organized?” Fullmetal demanded. He crossed his arms.

 Mustang noted again how much credit Fullmetal deserved. He’d picked up on what Mustang was doing immediately and had run with it, no questions asked. He even bought himself time before leaving to get ready.

 “It’s your own fault. Maybe if you’re reports weren’t so short I wouldn’t have such a hard time remembering them,” Mustang said.

 “Who are you calling so short a piece of paper could crush him?!” Fullmetal yelled. Still not up to his usual volume, but it would have been odd if they’d been arguing and no one overheard a short-joke-induced rant. It would pass most people’s observations.

 Alphonse sighed. “No one said anything like that, brother.”

 Fullmetal still fumed. “I’ll have your damn report in two days. And then I’m leaving for Grendel!” He stomped out of the room, slamming the door open from the inside and rushing past the rest of Mustang’s crew. Alphonse followed dutifully behind, apologizing for his brother’s antics.

 Hawkeye came into the doorway to close his door for him. “Must you antagonize him, sir?”

 “He makes it too easy,” Mustang said.

 She sighed, her eyes cutting to the second door the Elrics had gone through. “You didn’t really lose his report, did you?”

 Damn. Mustang hadn’t considered how observant she was. But no one could know about this, not even her. There was a reason he hadn’t asked for details on how Ed planned to disappear. The less people that knew, the less that would be able to find him.

 “Like I told him, do you really think I called him back just because I missed him?”

 Hawkeye stared at him. “No, that wouldn’t be like you at all,” she said. She closed the door, leaving Mustang to his scheming.

 He glanced at the newspaper again. He could be wrong. There might not be a war. He might be sending Fullmetal off for nothing, and making it really difficult to find him if nothing happened. But he trusted Fullmetal to keep an eye on the news. He would find a way to contact Mustang if nothing happened, to find out if he could come back or not. The kid was smart.

 Mustang had to trust that. It was all he had to hold onto.