Since youâre the one needing to talk at 2am, Iâm going to pretend I didnât read that.
I met up with you for a walk. It was like the time we did one of those tasks together, to fix the city layers, and I showed you Kaiser. I think you were walking some dogs, too. The task we chose was to talk about family and what makes you happy with them. You werenât my sister.
But I still asked âShould I talk about you first, or Titan?â
No matter what reality weâre in, I canât see one where I donât love you. You donât have to be my sister for that.
Your sleep schedule should be better than mine. I told you this could wait. I don't need to talk now. I'm only...
[ Clover's sleep schedule is shit, and she hasn't slept well for months. Her emotions are haywire, and her judgment is poor. ]
... Oh, Eren, I don't deserve you. I don't want to imagine, dream, or think of a life where I'm not your sister. I don't want that life. I want this life.
You > Sleep schedule, your nagging doesnât work here.
But donât degrade yourself like that, Iâm not better than you. This is your life, the same way itâs mine. Is that all youâ e been dreaming about?
... I always hate being this honest, but if I can't tell you, can I cling to calling you family? Even if I sleep, I inevitably wake up from nightmares. Four... either kills or runs away from being killed or she's just... herself. It unsettles me that if I sleep, I'll dream more of her or my subconscious will remind me of what I've already seen. Or however dreams work.
Four chases a fleeing fleet of elves. They only fight back because Four is after them. She hunts them all down and sinks all their ships with a dragon. The dragon protests, calls what they're ding cruel, and names it manslaughter.
Four laughs. How can it be manslaughter if elves aren't men?
She kills them all until all that's left is ash in a hazy sky.
She looks down on the elves and considers them subhuman. She relishes in their death. She calls them all evil pirates, and that's why she's in the right. If she didn't kill them, they'd rise up to do evil.
She didn't really care about that. It was only a flimsy excuse to justify wanton murder.
She's terrible, Eren. She's atrocious, reprehensible, and abhorrent, and sometimes, I wonder how far away am I from that?
Clover . . . I donât want to sound like I want to justify any of that, but let me just tell you that Iâm not the best person to judge morality anymore.
[ which is to say: he has nothing âawfulâ to say about it, as awful as it was. senseless murder or murder with purpose was still murder, and all come with an origin. a reason. he was quick to judge what was right and wrong when he was younger, as young as one year back, caused by the loss of their father and sharpened to an intense sense of justice. that has gone far away the longer heâs had the app and the more heâs lived in the shoes of his past self. ]
Youâre not telling me you feel that way about yourself, are you?
You should condemn her. She deserves it. I don't want to sink into thinking like her.
I wouldn't be so scared of Four, of becoming like her, if I thought it were impossible.
[ What origin there is, Clover only has a faint idea, but even without Four, her own sense of what's right or wrong or justice is broken. She'd throw away what she knows is morally right in the face of her loyalties. ]
What if you understood her instead? Is that too far fetched? If you knew why she was like that, then maybe you wouldnât be so worried of being just like her.
... You can judge both. Self-awareness makes a difference, Eren. We aren't perfect people, and we will never be perfect people, but it's fine to point out what you know is wrong even if it's something you've done. Isn't that growth?
I know both, but I donât want to preach something I know Iâd still do if the situation called for it. Killing out of jealousy or spite is wrong. Mass killing is wrong. Killing in general is wrong. But Iâd still kill, and I wouldnât feel remorse. Iâve done it already out of hate, out of anger, and out of necessity. I donât know if accepting that is walking backwards or being self aware, but thatâs how I see it.
You arenât wrong in condemning her and not wanting to be like her, Clover. I wouldnât want you to. And given our circumstances, I donât think you ever will.
I shouldn't feel as touched as I do. I don't know if it's a good thing that we're similar in this, but I don't care either.
I love you, Eren.
[ In some ways, they really are brother and sister, and that's why those messages and those dreams hurt so much. She wants to be able to reject them easily, but doubt grows as fast as weeds in her mind. ]
[ She doesn't think it'll help her now, but she'll try it. Maybe knowing Eren's near will take her back to a time before all of Retrospec and she can sleep like she used to. ]
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no subject
I met up with you for a walk. It was like the time we did one of those tasks together, to fix the city layers, and I showed you Kaiser. I think you were walking some dogs, too. The task we chose was to talk about family and what makes you happy with them. You werenât my sister.
But I still asked âShould I talk about you first, or Titan?â
No matter what reality weâre in, I canât see one where I donât love you. You donât have to be my sister for that.
no subject
[ Clover's sleep schedule is shit, and she hasn't slept well for months. Her emotions are haywire, and her judgment is poor. ]
... Oh, Eren, I don't deserve you. I don't want to imagine, dream, or think of a life where I'm not your sister. I don't want that life. I want this life.
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But donât degrade yourself like that, Iâm not better than you. This is your life, the same way itâs mine. Is that all youâ e been dreaming about?
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It's not the only thing I've been dreaming about. There are other reasons why I'm always up this late.
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Always? [ đ ] Why else?
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[ Clover takes a while to write the next part. ]
... I always hate being this honest, but if I can't tell you, can I cling to calling you family? Even if I sleep, I inevitably wake up from nightmares. Four... either kills or runs away from being killed or she's just... herself. It unsettles me that if I sleep, I'll dream more of her or my subconscious will remind me of what I've already seen. Or however dreams work.
no subject
Can you tell me one of them?
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Four laughs. How can it be manslaughter if elves aren't men?
She kills them all until all that's left is ash in a hazy sky.
She looks down on the elves and considers them subhuman. She relishes in their death. She calls them all evil pirates, and that's why she's in the right. If she didn't kill them, they'd rise up to do evil.
She didn't really care about that. It was only a flimsy excuse to justify wanton murder.
She's terrible, Eren. She's atrocious, reprehensible, and abhorrent, and sometimes, I wonder how far away am I from that?
no subject
[ which is to say: he has nothing âawfulâ to say about it, as awful as it was. senseless murder or murder with purpose was still murder, and all come with an origin. a reason. he was quick to judge what was right and wrong when he was younger, as young as one year back, caused by the loss of their father and sharpened to an intense sense of justice. that has gone far away the longer heâs had the app and the more heâs lived in the shoes of his past self. ]
Youâre not telling me you feel that way about yourself, are you?
no subject
I wouldn't be so scared of Four, of becoming like her, if I thought it were impossible.
[ What origin there is, Clover only has a faint idea, but even without Four, her own sense of what's right or wrong or justice is broken. She'd throw away what she knows is morally right in the face of her loyalties. ]
no subject
What if you understood her instead? Is that too far fetched?
If you knew why she was like that, then maybe you wouldnât be so worried of being just like her.
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I don't want to understand someone who says she'd rip off all her sister's skin and tear it to pieces in a fit of jealousy.
[ The problem is she understands Four's thinking. What got her to be that way, she doesn't know, but she can understand how deep her envy can go. ]
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So you do know why sheâs like that.
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That's why I want to condemn her.
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I know both, but I donât want to preach something I know Iâd still do if the situation called for it. Killing out of jealousy or spite is wrong. Mass killing is wrong. Killing in general is wrong. But Iâd still kill, and I wouldnât feel remorse. Iâve done it already out of hate, out of anger, and out of necessity. I donât know if accepting that is walking backwards or being self aware, but thatâs how I see it.
You arenât wrong in condemning her and not wanting to be like her, Clover. I wouldnât want you to. And given our circumstances, I donât think you ever will.
no subject
No one would be able to convince me it would be wrong. No one would be able to convince me it wasn't right.
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Even in that, we make a pair.
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I love you, Eren.
[ In some ways, they really are brother and sister, and that's why those messages and those dreams hurt so much. She wants to be able to reject them easily, but doubt grows as fast as weeds in her mind. ]
no subject
Love you too, Clover. You know you can always come and take over the guest bed. Iâll make momâs sleepy tea.
[ the special tea they probably always had served by mom when anxiety plagued the sleep schedule. the power of herbs. ]
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I'll take you up on it tomorrow.
[ She doesn't think it'll help her now, but she'll try it. Maybe knowing Eren's near will take her back to a time before all of Retrospec and she can sleep like she used to. ]