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"They'll be back in charge of their own lives and decisions eventually, if all goes well. Any control a warden takes is only temporary and anyone who believes otherwise is fooling themselves."

It's a sideways agreement but Hange agrees, anyway.

And she looks at Ford. Her expression softens with weariness - it's like watching a rotten spot suddenly overtake a wooden post.

"... How much do you remember about my world, Stanford?"

She shared some information at one point.

Edited 2020-06-14 20:59 (UTC)

"I recall what you told me about the dimension you wanted to learn more about," says Ford. "I understand it's very dangerous and full of monsters, which you studied outside the walls of your city. And I know your people don't have much hope, outside of a Barge deal."

Edited 2020-06-15 20:03 (UTC)

From the beginning then.

"For most of my life, Ford, all of my people lived in the walls. They don't just surround a single city, but all the territory that was ours, the only safe place for a human to even exist. Imagine them as three concentric wings: Wall Maria, Wall Rose, and Wall Sina, each of them with four 'buds', the hero towns. Titans were attracted to high human population density and so the hero towns existed as sacrificial offerings to make sure that any wall breach took place at a more predictable location. They were called hero towns because in the case that occurred, all the residents would be posthumously declared heroes by the monarchy."

Hange allows herself a somewhat cynical smile here.

"That's the world I knew for most of my life. Within the past ten years - the past five, really - we managed to eradicate the titans outside the walls and discovered that we lived on an island, the only one in the world plagued with titans. Instead of being full of insentient giants who wanted to eat us, the world was full of other humans, many of whom hated us and wanted us dead."

He listens -- surprised by the fact that monsters only existed on one island. Ah yes, the real monster is humanity, of course, of course. Ford wants to hear what Hange has to say, and what it is she blames herself for - really, he does!

But he's got a lot of questions.

"Why on earth did they want you dead?" Ford asks. "Were your people originally put on Titan Island as some kind of prison colony? Or was it more of a...social division problem? I don't see why they wouldn't just leave the titans on the island and avoid it except for scientific study!"

"They despise us because we ruled an imperialistic empire for two thousand years." Ho ho, ho ho ho! Everyone's the villain in this world! "We were isolated so that could never happen again. There's remnants of our people on the mainland still, but they no longer hold any social power like that. It's not like I don't understand their hatred for us, honestly, but none of my people currently alive were involved in our empire, and I don't believe mass slaughter is right either way. I don't want us to have an empire, I don't want us to commit genocidal acts on other populations, and I don't want them to commit them on us."

He winces! An imperialistic empire isn't great, but neither is rounding up a certain kind of person and putting them somewhere to die.

"Yes, yes, that's very reasonable," he says. "Please -- continue."

Swing and a miss, but he didn't say it and Hange still won't explain some things. She looks at him for a moment and then wades back into it.

"Anyway - I've been a member of the scouts for most of my life. Under Commander Erwin Smith, I became section commander - think of it like one of his seconds." She sinks down in her chair, staring at her whiskey. "For most of my life our history was a mystery. It was suppressed with violence when necessary and people were discouraged from questioning the accepted truths of our world... the scouts were an unpopular military branch, since our job was exploring outside the walls and researching titans. Think of it like a catchment for misfits and political radicals, with the crown not shedding too many tears for the high death rate. On a pivotal expedition to reclaim contested territory Erwin gave his life in battle and... and he had time to declare me commander before he died." Glazed eye, voice trending towards monotone. It hurts her to talk and think about. "I didn't want the post. I'm not suited for it. I liked being Erwin's second, but... with how things went, I couldn't refuse his wish. We recovered information in that battle too that told us about the outside world and the truth that had been denied us for ten decades..."

Ford listens to her story, attentive and quiet.

"I'm sorry you lost him," he says. "And a position you liked. What happened next? What happened when you came back with the information?"

"We had enacted a coup by then and raised a new king sympathetic to the cause to the throne. So that part wasn't a problem." She's skipping a lot of extraneous chaos in this story. "And we shared all this information with the public - it seemed pointless to be secretive, dangerous even. We all needed to pull together to save our people, everyone needed to know. And we did... pretty well.

But one of my subordinates, by the name of Eren Jaeger - he was a pivotal support for war effort. After we learned all this he drastically changed."

Her eye droops closed.

"He used to be such a bright kid. Passionate, with a fiery temper at times, but also so full of curiosity about the world, really a good friend to his squadmates... I had such hopes for him... he stole away from our island and infiltrated the Eldian population on the mainland. From there he launched a devastating terrorist attack on a civilian gathering. I don't know how many died, but let's just say there were plenty of casualties and it was clear the attack came from our island.

I had hoped to negotiate with Marley, but since the attack was instigated by us, it became that much harder, even though Eren planned it himself and did it without official support... it's impossible to give him up to Marley as a goodwill gesture for a variety of reasons. We retrieved him and I put him in jail. That's mostly because I needed to decide what the next best move would be.

He broke out and led a coup against us. He cares about Historia, the king, so he'll probably try to keep her safe, but... Stanford, we didn't maintain a two-thousand year empire by being nice or kind. The Eldian people still have weapons hidden on the island of Paradis. Eren will absolutely unleash those on the world. He'll eradicate every other human in the world so the Eldians of Paradis Island can live in peace."

"Oh. Gosh, that's a -- that's a terrible situation," Ford says, with sympathy in his tone even if the words are clumsy. "I'm sorry that that's what you're facing."

He hesitates, then goes on.

"So that's why you intend to relocate your people?" he confirms. "To end the fighting, and prevent this Eren from using those weapons?"

Hange slouches down in her chair as if melting there, and closes her eyes briefly. It's tiring to think about... tiring to talk about.

"Yes. I tried to negotiate before he attacked but - two thousand years of our empire, Stanford. Two thousand years of them hating us. There's discussion of declaring Eldians nonhuman so human rights concerns won't apply to... whatever our fate is."

"Eesh." Ford winces. "I'd want to make a quick exit, too."

He considers the outline of the story she's told, letting the alcohol settle a little further.

"Do you feel responsible for what he did?" Ford asks. His tone doesn't imply that he thinks she should. He wants to know how she feels.

"Sort of?" It's not said in a very sure way. "I'm his CO, Erwin. I, and all the people of Eldia, will be seen as responsible for this. And I wonder if there's a time when I could have caught it... turned him back from this path... we used to be pretty close. But how close can we have been if this is happening?"

"Of course they'll see you as responsible. They're looking for someone to blame. But it sounds to me like he made choices you'd never have agreed with, and he made them without your knowledge. You'd have stopped him if you could, but you couldn't, because you didn't know. Other people might not see it that way, but they're scared and hurt. Feeling that way doesn't make them right."

He gives a one-shouldered, what do I know? shrug.

"Of course, the consequences won't go away either way. But dealing with them's going to be hard enough without feeling responsible for them."

Ford's blamed himself for a lot of things that turned out to have been someone else's decision, and thinking of everything he couldn't prevent as being his fault put him in a very bad place and led to some very bad decisions. Hange sounds like she's in a better place, but...maybe it'll be worth something to hear it? And, if not, it's just sympathetic words over whiskey, which aren't so bad.

"Anyway, I think you're doing a great job with what you've got, which is a situation nobody would ask for."

"Thanks." It's genuinely nice to hear. Things are pretty bad at home, Hange hates her position and feels inadequate for it, praise is rare. "His decisions are his decisions... unfortunately, it's not possible for me to just ignore them, you know? What happens because of what Eren decides could impact everyone in the world. So I wish I had caught it somehow, because I still have to deal with the fallout now that it's happening. I'm really hoping that once he's removed from the situation where our people are threatened, he'll return to his senses. It'll be impossible for it to even seem necessary that we commit genocide to survive. Lots of my people are behaving horribly, to be honest. The pressure of the situation has gotten to them."

Of course she can't ignore them, and he understands wishing you'd caught things sooner. Ford wishes he'd done a lot of things differently, would have if he'd known - lots of fallout he would rather not have had to deal with. But he hadn't known, and so here they are.

"You really care about them," Ford remarks, gently. "You're still fighting for them, even when they're behaving horribly. They're lucky to have you, you know." Taking care of people even when it's hard is an Admirable Person metric Ford's internalized. "I hope it works," he says, with sincerity. She clearly cares about this Eren maniac, questionable as his choices are, and Ford really hopes Hange gets what she wants.

After a second Hange smiles back.

"I hope things work out with you and Bill as well. It sounds like you've weathered a lot together and faced worse things than this." And put each other through worse things than this, on Bill's side. "Bill's changed a lot since he got here, right?"

"More than I ever thought was possible," Ford confirms.

"From that alone, your chances seem good. If you need to step back a bit, he'll have people around who care for him too. You're not solely responsible."

"That's a relief," says Ford. "I spent half my life thinking that I was, and...it's really nice to feel like calamity won't strike the minute I turn my back."

"Fuck." Hange turns sideways in her chair, so she can roll her head way back. "That's the dream, isn't it?"

Ha ha. Look at her, turning upside-down to make a point; Ford's charmed. He gets it, though. Leaving survival-at-all-costs mode is something that has only been possible since he graduated, since Bill decided on his own not to destroy inhabited planets, since the consequences of what Bill does when Ford isn't looking have been consequences Ford can accept and live with. It's been a difficult emotional adjustment, but now that he's got it...he's so glad.

"That it is."

"I honestly can't wait. I can't wait to not be at war. I can't wait to not be afraid my people will be crushed in a genocide, or that we'll commit irredeemable crimes out of despair and fear... I can't even imagine it."

Her people have lived under sustained stress and warlike conditions Hange's whole life! She sits straight again.

"Sorry to load all that on you. I know you're under stress too."

"That's okay," he says, and means it. "I'm glad I could listen! Keeping burdens like that all to yourself isn't easy. But you'll get there, Hange, I'm sure of it."

"I really hope things work out with you and Bill. I understand... it'd be hard to let him go after he was important to you."

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