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Eren cut through the water, his body slipping through like a knife. Bubbles swam past him as he made his way to the bottom, a black silhouette against the bright sun scattered across the waves. Two eyes opened underwater, green as the sea around him, and he buried his fingers in the silt at the bottom. Placing his prize into the woven basket around his neck, he pushed off from the ocean floor kicking up debris as he made his way to the surface.
He was down there so long, Levi thought he might be stuck. He unhooked his arms from around his knees and toddled to the edge of the dock and peered in. Cresting the water, breaking through the smooth resistance, Eren wrapped both arms around his little brother and pulled him under.
“Stop it!” Levi protested when he came up for air. “Mama said not to!”
Their names weren’t really Eren and Levi. But a name was all he had to attach to the memories that came to him.
They washed the oysters in a bucket of fresh water and then Eren grabbed his knife. He scraped along the edge until he found a little wiggle room and then popped it open. The rest they’d bring home for Mama to cook, but this was just for them. A treat between the brothers.
“Now, chew, don’t just slurp,” Eren instructed.
Levi ignored him, sipping the delicate meat from the shell. He grinned and swallowed and then choked. Eren slapped at his back and then Levi spit it up onto the sand.
A pearl.
Eren reached forward and picked it out of the sand, brushing it off with a calloused thumb. Unable to determine its color, he dipped his curled fist in the bucket of clean water. Looking at its dark shape in the palm of his hands, he turned to Levi and they both broke out into ecstatic grins.
“I’m going to be rich,” Eren sang later, carrying the bag of oysters slung over a stick behind him. “You just watch. I’m going to sell it and make a fortune.”
“It’s my pearl!” Levi said, hopping in Eren’s muddy footprints. “I found it!”
“I found it,” Eren corrected. “You tried to swallow it.”
Eren showed it to everyone they passed on their trip.
“You should sell it!” their older neighbor said kindly.
Sasha. Her name was not Sasha.
“You should plant it,” said her son. Connie. His name was not Connie. “Grow a pearl tree.”
Eren laughed but Levi hopped along behind him.
“A pearl tree?” Levi asked, thumb in his mouth again.
“He’s joking,” Eren said rolling his eyes, but Levi was already fantasizing about planting a seed in the muddy earth and watching it grow.
They took it home and Eren tried to hide the pearl, keeping it between his toes, in the hole of his sandals. Levi spoke up and informed their parents.
“Eren found a thing!” Levi shouted as Mama placed a bowl of stew in front of him.
“Is that true? Eren what did you find?” Mikasa asked.
“Nothing!” Eren insisted, but their mother held firm.
Papa grunted and Eren fetched the trinket out from between his toes.
“Oh,” gasped Mikasa as it rolled around on the table. “How beautiful.”
“I’m going to sell it!” Eren said proudly, hands on hips. “I bet Hannes would buy it!”
“You can’t sell it!” Mikasa said suddenly. “Jean, tell him he can’t.”
Jean looked at his wife. Levi was sent from the table to help clean up before bed, but as Mama rocked him to sleep he overheard.
“When you want to have children of your own someday, you will need to marry. And it is our custom to present your bride to be with a gift. This can be your gift.”
“What if I don’t want to get married?” Eren grumbled.
Papa laughed and patted him on the back.
Eren crawled into the bed with Levi and Levi tucked his head into Eren’s armpit as Eren looked at the item in the dark.
That night they heard gunfire. Papa grabbed his shotgun and left to join the other men. The shots grew closer.
“Boys, wake up,” Mama shook them. “Eren take your brother. Both of you run to the next village.”
“Mama,” Levi started crying as she tied a small pouch around Levi’s waist full of dried fish.
“You need to be a big boy, Levi, listen to your brother. Eren, don’t you lose him. Now go.”
They began the trek across the marsh lands. They heard angry men’s voices and Eren began to run, pearl in one hand and Levi’s in the other. When Levi stumbled in the dirt for a second time something whizzed past his head. He began crying again for Eren not to leave him and Eren picked him up and ran. Bullets struck the mud around them and Levi watched as their home went up in flames. Eren ran until his breath was ragged, his steps shaky. When they made it to the other village, it was burnt and dead, so they walked on.
They couldn’t escape the armies. They were swept up by one group and taken to a school for orphans inside the Walls. They cut their hair with razor sharp sheers, not minding if they nicked the scalp or an ear. The teachers beat Eren with a stick when he refused to obey. He was always defiant and disobedient, baring his teeth. Levi just wanted to be ignored. The other children grabbed him and pulled at his clothes. Called him dirty. Called him filth. At night Eren crawled into Levi’s bed and Levi tucked his head into Eren’s chest.
Some nights Eren cried from the pain from his beatings and Levi stroked his hair and said, “It’s okay Eren, Mama and Papa will come for us soon,” in his tiny baby voice and Eren would only cry harder. Other nights he’d look at the secret pearl in his hand and then at the moon.
They grew up that way. When Eren was sixteen, he ran from the school. He grew his hair long like he had worn in their village and braided it like Papa’s. One day he ran to Levi and forced the pearl into his hand wordlessly. Levi didn’t understand it was a good-bye until he heard the soldiers had arrested two thieves.
“This kind of behavior,” said the magistrate as they tied Eren to a pole and began cutting off his hair. “Is not permissible inside the walls. The great walls are your only hope, your only saviors. Talks of other gods, of outside, and holding onto these old ways are not why the walls were built. The walls protect, the walls give you life, and you dare mark them with your vile tongue!”
Eren sought out Levi’s eyes in the crowd.
The magistrate brought a gun out and held it to Eren’s head. The gun sounded. Levi shook, clenching the pearl in his fist, but never cried out.
<*>
“Do you want to see a secret?” Mikasa asked one night while under the covers.
“What kind of secret?” Eren asked.
Mikasa struggled to slip her dress over her head.
“I don’t need to see your secret!” Eren said in panic.
“Here,” she pointed to a lump by the seam.
Eren had never noticed it before and he stretched out tentative fingers to touch it.
“What is it?” he asked curiously.
“It’s my clan’s,” she said. “When we were driven from our villages, my grandfather was carried by his brother for several days. They said he walked the entire length of the outer wall. So I must carry it.”
She sewed it into the hem of every new dress and Eren never saw it outside until years later. They were holed up in the cabin. Eren hated hiding but he grit his teeth and cleaned frantically for the Captain’s arrival. Mikasa was hanging laundry and she ripped open the seam and took out the pearl before washing her garment.
“C-can I hold it?” he asked and she nodded.
She placed the black lustrous pearl into his hand and he held his breath. They stayed up late into the night, talking and passing it back and forth, looking at its sheen in the lamplight.
“You two should be in bed,” Levi said, startling them. “What do you have there?”
Mikasa’s hand clamped around Eren’s wrist but he extended his palm to show the Captain. Levi extended his fingers to touch it, but pulled them back as if afraid his hands might mar the precious object.
“It’s beautiful,” he said simply.
The next time Eren saw it, he was having it fitted for a ring and then placed that ring on Mikasa’s finger at their wedding. She never wore the ring after that day, but kept it sewn into her dress, like she had before.
Their children loved Levi. They crawled in his lap and played with his ears, tried to smooth away the crease between his brows with their pudgy thumbs and went to him for lullabies when they couldn’t sleep. They drank from empty cups when he took his tea, trying to emulate him.
Eren walked with him in the afternoon. He said he enjoyed Levi’s company, but Levi knew he was worried. Levi’s steps had grown slower and he leaned heavily on his cane. It sank into the dirt more than a few times and Eren helped him along.
“Uncle come play with us!” the youngest cried, running up and clutching at his coat.
“Not today, dear, the Captain is tired,” Eren said steering her back to her brothers.
“I’m going to be a titan!” roared the eldest, stomping weeds under his feet.
“Then I’m going to be a warrior like Uncle!” the second said wielding twin sticks.
“I’m going to be a warrior too!” piped up the youngest.
“You can’t because you’re a girl!” they teased and Eren had to intervene.
“Your mother is a warrior,” he reminded them and they grumbled as she joined them in their play.
“Eren,” said Levi, as he struggled up the hill. “Do you remember when you carried me across the field?”
“Captain?” Eren asked, not understanding.
“I’m sorry, Eren, but I think,” he paused panting. “I think I have to ask you to carry me once more.”
Eren slipped his hands around Levi and helped him up the hill. Levi sunk down to the ground.
“Captain, here, don’t sit in the dirt,” Eren said placing his coat down.
“I just need to rest,” Levi said tiredly. “I just need to rest here.”
He closed his eyes and put his head back. Eren sat next to him and looked over the orchard, eyes shining as he observed the children playing. Mikasa called them in for dinner and Eren didn’t move from his post.
“Mooom,” whined the middle child. “I’m hungry. Can we eat yet?”
“Not without your father and the Captain.”
She walked out to the front of the porch and looked out, shielding her eyes from the sun. Beneath the large tree on the hill she could make out two figures. Sensing her looking, Eren rose and shook his head.
“Oh,” Mikasa gasped, reaching down to grasp the pearl hidden in her dress.
<*>
Eren stood in front of the display, hand in pockets. He felt rather than heard the curator approach.
“May I help you, sir? Ah, The Pearl of Sina. A beautiful piece,” the curator said in a quiet, low voice.
“It is,” Eren nodded.
The two stood facing the case in quiet contemplation.
“What can you tell me about it?” Eren asked.
“It’s from before the fall of the Walls,” the curator said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “It came to us from a private collector and goes up for auction at the end of the month. But I see you have our catalogue so you knew that already.”
“Is there any way I could make an offer today to purchase the piece?”
“I’m sorry, no, not before the auction, but you could put in a starting bid.”
Eren frowned.
“What else can you tell me about it, then?” Eren asked.
“Well, officially I can only tell you what is in the catalogue, but I know most buyers want a little lore with their purchase. The story that was told to the previous owner was that this ring belonged to a great warrior. He offered it as a token of love to his betrothed and she wore it until the day she died, whereby it passed to her grandchildren.”
Eren snorted at that.
“She was a greater warrior than he ever was.”
The curator seemed not to hear him.
“It would make a great anniversary gift for your wife,” he said. “Should you choose to participate in the auction.”
“I’m not married,” Eren said, not taking his eyes off of the pearl.
“Then an engagement ring. This artifact is one of love. I’m sure your fiancé would be very pleased.”
He adjusted his glasses and they glinted in the reflection of the glass case holding the ring.
“Did you think, Levi,” Eren asked, turning to look at him. “That we were reborn solely to repeat the past?”
The curator shifted his feet, avoiding Eren’s gaze, instead looking ahead at the ring.
“You, me, Mikasa, Armin, and all of the people we love have been tied together for so long, Levi. Our souls mixing and touching upon one another. We’re all bonded. Each time is different and yet we all always find each other. Here is the one constant. The one thing that has remained the same all of these years.”
“Did you…” Levi started. “Did you come looking for the pearl or for me?”
He looked up at Eren, a lump in his throat. Eren brushed his greying hair off of his face and held his palm against his cheek. Levi closed his eyes and pursed his trembling lips, holding Eren’s hand there.
Eren pressed his lips to Levi’s ear and whispered, “I don’t give a damn about the pearl.”