▸ Column · The Walled Territories of Paradis — Garrison Regiment, post-wall era
EREN YEAGER replies.
Replied to by Eren Yeager, with a rebuttal from Mikasa Ackerman.
The letter
My husband Emil came home last week absolutely glowing — told me he'd been accepted for a senior posting with the Garrison in the Trost district. Two territories over, on the other side of Wall Rose. He never once mentioned putting in for a transfer. Not a word. And then it turned out he'd already signed the papers before he even brought it up to me. When I got upset, he said I was "failing to support his future," which — I mean, I honestly don't know where to start. I've been a field medic with our local regiment for six years, work I actually love. My mother is in an elder care house twenty minutes from here. Our daughter Elke starts her schooling cycle in the fall. When I finally asked how he could make a decision this enormous for all of us without saying anything, he said he "didn't want to worry me over something that might not pan out." I don't know. I'm furious, obviously. But I'm not even sure what I'm most furious about anymore — the transfer itself, or the way he just... didn't consider that I was part of the decision at all.
— Left Behind in Wall Sina
Eren Yeager replies
The rage is right. Don't let him convince you it isn't.
"I didn't want to worry you over something that might not pan out." That's a decision already made, handed to you after the signing, dressed up as consideration. He filed your career, your mother, your daughter away as secondary concerns and then asked you to call that support. It's a cage. He built it while you weren't looking and named your reaction a character flaw.
The people who tell you to wait, to understand, to compromise — they never have skin in the game. I learned that at ten years old, standing in rubble. You learned it last Tuesday.
First half: you're not wrong. That fury is earned. Hold it.
Now the second half, because I didn't and I paid for it with everything. Rage burns whatever you aim it at — and you have to know what the life looks like when this is over, not only what it stops being. "Destroy it all" was my whole answer once, and I arrived somewhere I would give everything to undo. Keep moving forward. But go somewhere. Don't let him erase you, and don't erase yourself chasing after him.
That line exists. Stay on the right side of it. I couldn't.
— Eren Yeager
Mikasa Ackerman weighs in
"I didn't want to worry you over a maybe." I know that line. Eren used a version of it on me — more than once — and he called it protection and expected gratitude. He decided what I could carry. Didn't tell me what he was building. It cost me more than he knows. He does not get to be the authority on cages.
When Emil made that choice, he thought about one person. Not your mother in the care house. Not Elke starting school in the fall. Not you. Those aren't feelings he can argue around — they're facts on the ground. Name them that way.
Eren will tell you about freedom. I'm telling you about evidence. Look at who was in his calculation when it cost him something. That's your answer.
— Mikasa Ackerman
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