It was already late when I finally drifted into a shallow, restless sleep in my assigned room at the inn. The horrors of the goblin cave played on a loop behind my closed eyelids, a silent, screaming slideshow of blood and despair. I acted as if I were asleep when Eren returned, the sound of his quiet, measured breathing a strange counterpoint to the chaos in my own mind. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to explain. I just wanted the silence.
In the morning, I woke to the familiar, rhythmic scrape of steel on whetstone. Eren was already up, bathed, and dressed, his back to me as he sat on the edge of his bed, meticulously polishing the blade of his family's ancestral sword. The morning light, filtering through the small, grimy window, caught the silver of his hair, making it seem to glow.
