Unnamed Dragon Story Excerpt

A conversation bettween 2 characters from a story I've written some random excerpts for. Heavily influenced by Attack on Titan.

Sleep had never come easy to Jean, at least not since her world had shrunk to a 30 foot square. Every stir and snore drew her eye, even after years of adjustment. But tonight there was no restless scout camp to keep her awake. The abandoned church was still and silent, but no sleep came for her. Instead she lie wide awake, watching two of her greatest enemies sleep peacefully in the corner of the room. 

She wanted to convince herself they were the cause of her sleeplessness. What kind of scout could sleep with a dragon in the room? Though even as she intently watched each rise and fall of their chests her thoughts were far away. On a king who picked a fight with a monster, only to hide safely behind the lives of his people. Every friend and enemy devoured in Strausburg, the other cadets in Remies, who knew how many lives each time a dragon broke through. Not even their true targets, just obstacles between a mad dragon queen and her true target. 

Then there was Fort Kemy, and every squad member and scout lost since. She had always told herself they’d died for something greater, died fighting in a war for the survival of all humanity. But they’d never been fighting for humanity, not really. All those scouts lost, and they’d just been dying for him. A king who now that they finally stood a chance, would rather have them dead than able to challenge him as well. Everything they’d done for years, it wasn’t for humanity, they just happened to be the disposable lives stuck in the middle. 

A hard lump formed in her throat, an unsettling mix of anger and helplessness that threatened to spill over. She exhaled hard and tried to swallow past it but still it remained, a ball of ugly unease keeping her from sleep. Unable to lie with her thoughts a moment longer she sat up. Casting one last wary eye to George and Thomas before making for the door. Higa could handle himself fine, and if they really wanted to kidnap Hugo she wasn’t feeling inclined to stop them at the moment . 

When Jean reached the door she could just make out Madeline sitting on the steps outside, feet jittering on the stone even after all they’d been through that day. Jean sighed and wondered for a moment if the woman ever actually slept, and then how she’d managed to squirrel away so many coffee beans. The sight of her also made Jean hesitate. So far she’d seemed unable to do anything but alienate Madeline. And after their argument earlier it was sure to be much worse. She’d never been good at talking to people, maybe it was better to stay alone with her thoughts. 

“Marshal…?” Madeline called suddenly from outside. Jean cursed quietly and pushed open the door, stepping out into the cool night air. Madeline regarded her a moment before casting her gaze back to the perimeter. 

“How’d you know it was me?” Jean asked, slowly walking to stand beside her. 

“Easy,” she replied, not bothering to look up. “If I hear someone lingering about 20 feet away, it’s a safe bet it’s you.” 

“I hadn’t thought of that.” 

“I’m not surprised.”

Jean bristled at that, but tried not to let it show. Instead an empty silence grew between them. Madeline stiffened when Jean sat down beside her. 

“I should get some sleep.” She mumbled, shifting to get up. 

Jean reached out and touched Madeline’s arm. Surprising even herself. “Wait.” She paused, struggling to find the right words. “Just… stay here a moment…please.”

Madeline regarded her curiously but stopped and sat back down “Alright marshal, what is it?”

“Jean. It’s Jean here, you can speak freely.” Then Jean scoffed. “Not like that’s ever stopped you before.” 

“I only spoke up because it was necessary, I had to-“

“No, no” Jean interrupted “I didn’t mean it like that, I-” She shook her head and laughed despite herself “It was just a joke… How can I kill f*****g dragons but be so bad at this?” 

“Marsh- er… Jean?” 

“Madeline, as much as I hate to admit it…you were right to tell me to get myself together back there. It’s hard to let go sometimes. And I… I just couldn’t keep my head with those… things trying to act like we’re all allies suddenly.” 

“Do we have a choice?” Madeline asked, clasping her hands together.

“Of course we have a choice! There’s always a choice. We… ” Jean searched for an option before bowing her head between her knees. “No… we don’t really.” 

“I get it Jean. You want to be winning this war, hell we all do… but we’re not. There may be small victories sure, but we’re barely surviving. There’s no room for your kind of blind hate anymore. If these dragon’s want to fight and die for our cause let them. I’m sick of watching our people do it.”

“And what if they betray us? What if it’s all a lie and they wipe out what little of us are left.” 

“We seem to be doing an okay job of that ourselves lately.”

Jean bit her tongue while Madeline regarded her silently. Her unspoken accusation hanging in the air between them. Another strangely loud silence filled the empty space.

“Joe shouldn’t have died.” Madeline finished.

Jean had to resist the gut instinct to snap back to try and defend herself. It hadn’t gone so well last time. And as much as the accusation hurt, it felt wrong to try and dodge it. Try as she might to think of all the people saved under her orders, she couldn’t ignore those who died by them. She tried to think of the right response, some way to explain. Nothing came to her, and she broke the silence with a sigh. 

“Joe shouldn’t have died.” She echoed. Madeline looked her over, searching for some sign of insincerity. Seemingly satisfied she nodded and looked back out into the dim forest. Jean bit her lip, a question she was too afraid to ask still hanging on her tongue. It was a dumb question, a poor question for a commander to ask with nothing to be gained no matter Madeline’s answer. But still it tugged at her, a gnawing fear deep in the pit of her stomach that she couldn’t ignore. 

“Do you blame me for- I mean does everyone… is it really all my fault?” She asked, her composure slipping. “Joe’s death, Lumi, Victor, and Moris. God and Clarice’s arm…” Jean dropped her head in her hands and shook her head. “Did I fail them Madeline have I just been failing you all?”

Madeline stared in stunned silence. She opened her mouth to reply, once, twice, but said nothing for a long while. Finally she placed a tentative hand on Jean shoulder and spoke up.

“You want the honest answer? I don’t know Jean. Maybe there was some plan back there where no one died today, maybe there was a plan where all of us died. Maybe if you’d sent people for him Lumi might have lived, or maybe more of us would have died trying to save a corpse. And maybe Clarice might have gotten away with her arm if you hadn’t stepped in, or maybe she’d be dead, maybe we’d all be dead. There’s really no way to know. I’ll admit it’s easy to blame you when something goes bad… I’m guilty of it myself sometimes. But I wouldn’t put your job on my worst enemy.”

For a moment Jean was silent, taking it all in. She lifted her head and forced a smile. “I think that was the worst pep talk I’ve ever gotten.”

“Yeah well I’m abnormally low on caffeine.”

Jean clasped Madeline’s shoulder. “Thank you Captain.”

With a yawn Madeline stretched and groaned, pulling herself to her feet. “No problem Marshal. Now if you don’t mind, that was a bit heavy for my tastes. I think I’m going to go sleep today off.”

“I didn’t know you slept.” Jean replied, bemused. Madeline stood in the open door and chuckled. 

“Yeah well don’t go spreading it around.”

Author's Note

This isn't a complete work, just a short conversation I wrote out for the sake of repairing a character relationship. I mostly posted it because of what I dislike about it, mainly the abrupt emotional transition at the end. I feel like it's a problem but I've been working on it on and off for a long while and don't have a solution. I'm mostly posting this for advice, and or to see if it comes off as an issue to anyone else or I'm just being overly critical.