Our Love Will Be Legend

CHAPTER ONE

Inspired by the song "Whispers," by Dave Baxter. Okay, this was supposed to be a oneshot, but it turned out to be a bit more. This is going to be updated. (I feel really guilty. I've been neglecting my other stories in favor of Ereri.)

Long shadows dance over the mud-choked water of the canal. The morning stirs a carefree whisper among the forests and meadows that line either side, sometimes joined by the hum of a pedestrian walking along the well-worn paths between the walls. Anyone who sets foot there can remember a time, only months before, when the plants spoke in hushed concern, and the river gurgled with tense fear—the fear that it could all be disturbed by the giant nightmares that once plagued the world. But now, for some reason, that fear has faded into that of a past dream or a story told by parents to scare naughty children. Some remember—some remember all too well. And what scares them is how their millennium-long struggle has already dwindled into oblivion. Soon, the titans will be no more than legend.

Where the Armored Titan once broke through Wall Maria, a gaping hole still remains. With the threat of bloodthirsty beasts gone, the Garrison have stopped focusing their efforts on patching it—rather, they’ve evened it out into a series of arches, letting the canal venture through into the world beyond. The remains of a tower blown off in the fall of Shiganshina serves as a toll booth.

The toll keeper is a potbellied man. Even though he’s in the evening of the prime of his life—mid thirties, per say—the military had never been even part of consideration for him. In his logic, while it’s all well and good to defend humanity, there has to be a man out there to keep the human race actually going. Not that it matters anymore, anyway. He and his wife moved to Shiganshina months before, with the halfway promise of honor that was there before the titans were exterminated.

He yawns and stretches. To both the east and west, the canal is empty as far as the eyes can see, and he might as well catch up on some much-needed sleep while the coast is clear—his wife had given birth, and now they both ha a wrinkled, annoying, and absolutely lovable and adorable parasite stealing their nights. As the sun freckles the water and makes the gently lapping waves shimmer like the surface of a sword, he lazily projects his strength on keeping his eyes open and instead soaks in the overall beauty of the place. Minutes pass, and he hears to beginning of the day’s construction, a chorus of hammers and grunting Garrison.

But beyond that, he hears the sloshing of an approaching boat from the west, from the interior of the walls. “Heh?” he mumbles. “There ain’t no barges down the canal, much as my eyes can see.” He shrugs. “Must be them workers slackin’ off and takin’ a bath in downstream. Well, misters, wait ‘til a barge comes along and rams you down. Ha!”

The mild sloshing takes no heed to his words, and he resigns himself to lowering his lids across his eyes and taking a nice look at his dreams—only for a moment or two, I swear. He’s far gone, visions of demonic babies, snappy wives, stone arches, and ruined cities swirling through his imagination (because truthfully, there is nothing else going on with his life at the moment.

A wide canoe—possibly the scrapped bed of an old supply wagon—drifts smoothly along with the current, moving at such a leisurely pace and making so few ripples around its worn edge that one might swear it’s a part of the river itself. Hastily picked wildflowers are haphazardly arranged around the wood, hiding all the unattractive cracks and making a mattress of clouds for its cargo. It slips past the toll booth, giving a hushed giggle like a child, and watches the heaving chest of the sleeping toll keeper.