bilem

ERENDIRA MARTINEZ DAWSON

• She was born in Miami, where her earliest memories were heat, salt, and her mother’s laugh before it dulled. When her mother remarried and moved them north to Canada, everything changed - weather, language, rules, expectations. She became practical early: calming, covering, standing between her younger siblings and the sharp edges of abandonment as her mother seemed to forget she had kids for her new husband.
• Then everything Happened. And for Eren, it wasn’t so bad for a time; the anger softened and the loneliness blurred into something manageable. The Veil didn’t give her joy, but it gave her function, something she needed. Her life had stability. She did well in school, married her high school sweetheart, went to college: those things might not have been possible without it. She took a job as an agricultural pilot after school. Solitary, precise work, long days, and a sense of purpose.
• She didn’t really have an opinion on Cal disappearing, because she couldn’t have an opinion. The chip wouldn’t allow it. There was no warning, no body, and she carried on as if it were a normal Tuesday. Even though she was pregnant. She quit work, moved back in with her mother and stepdad to be a full-time mom until her son would go to pre-school.
• She didn't know kids could cry. She knew she hated it. At first it didn’t feel like a conscious choice to hide it though. He was three years old when he first had a real tantrum. Then Luis didn’t go to school, she decided to teach him independently. They moved out of her mother's house. And then her stepfather started butting into her parenting routine, and she felt it for the first time: something feral, and ancient, and angry. And for reasons she couldn’t fathom, she tugged at that thread: she pushed against the Veil with a will sharpened by years of endurance, by parenthood learned too early, by grief she had never been allowed to feel. It tore.
• They'd chipped her baby, and it malfunctioned, and if she didn't do something her baby would be dead. And Eren was furious.
• It was not hard to find her; years of pent-up rage are easy to spot. The resistance grabbed her and her baby, and after three months of coping with All of It, she finally put her child back into something resembling normal school, and joined the Battlest cell. At least childcare is easier. Considering her husband has been here the whole time he was gone.