Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7361881.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Shingeki_no_Kyojin_|_Attack_on_Titan
  Relationship:
      Levi/Original_Female_Character, Levi/OC
  Character:
      Levi_(Shingeki_no_Kyojin), Eren_Yeager, Mikasa_Ackerman, Erwin_Smith,
      Hange_Zoë, Sasha_Blouse, Petra_Ral, Special_Operations_Squad_|_Squad
      Levi, Dot_Pixis, Jean_Kirstein, Ymir_(Shingeki_no_Kyojin), Krista_Lenz_|
      Historia_Reiss, 104th_Training_Corps, Mike_Zacharias
  Additional Tags:
      Canon-Typical_Violence, Eventual_Smut, Slow_Burn, Angst, Post-Traumatic
      Stress_Disorder_-_PTSD, Gore, Implied/Referenced_Suicide, Levi_is_a_derp
      in_romance, He's_also_in_denial, Let's_not_forget_the_Levi_baggage
      either, Age_Difference, Awkward_Levi, Possessiveness, Moral_injury
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-07-01 Updated: 2017-08-27 Chapters: 17/? Words: 70517
****** Ankaa ******
by InsaniaTorn
Summary
     Some people burn to ashes.
     Some rise from them anew.
     ----
     He was crass, reclusive and generally unlikable; she was a good
     soldier with a lot of potential and not a lot of patience. There
     weren't many happy stories from behind the Walls and Levi was certain
     this would have some sort of tragic ending as well.
     Given the way she looked at him, though, he decided that they'd at
     least go down together.
     (Content warning for discussions of rape and human trafficking.)
Notes
     Ankaa, or al-anqa, is the brightest star in the constellation
     Phoenix.
***** Alnilam: The Brightest Star *****
Chapter Notes
     The fic's name comes from the 2016 album of the French metal band,
     Eths. If you like metal, check it out!
     The chapter's name and the lyrics at the beginning also come from a
     song on the album. Alnilam is also the brightest star of the
     constellation Orion.
 Les temps, l'espace ne font qu'un.                   Time and space are one.
         Demain… hier, ne sont rien.                  Tomorrow… yesterday, is
                                   nothing.
Je suis ici et maintenant.                                   I am here and now.
 
[Year 835]
“Well, you can’t keepher,” a woman’s voice said with disdain.
“She’s mine,” the man answered—a little tentatively, almost as though he was
sad.
“Her mother is dead. I’m not raising a whore’s daughter as mine,” the woman
continued, her voice reaching a fever pitch, “she’s too old to be mine; doesn’t
even look like me! Everyone will know!”
The man seemed helpless. “What am I supposed to do?”
“She’d fetch a good price,” the woman suggested, a little calmer now. “Look,
she’s pretty—she might grow up to be beautiful. We could sell that promise to a
customer.”
“Sell my own flesh and blood?” the man was angry now.
“You bought her mother, I don’t see how you’re not being a hypocrite here,” she
said snidely. “At least this way, we’ll have more money to spend on our own
kids.”
“Miesha, I can’t,” he said desperately. “Her mother was so kind. She…she told
me things. About her own mother and how she was sold to cruel people. I
couldn’t do that.”
“How was her mother even a pure-breed? Perhaps she lied to you.”
“I won’t talk about this while Aisha is in the room,” he said pointedly.
Miesha scoffed loudly. “Xavier, she’s five, she won’t remember. Besides, she
probably has already learned deceit from her dirty whore of a mother.”
“I wish you wouldn’t speak like that,” he said through gritted teeth. “You
never met her. You want to know? Fine.”
There was the sound of a bell tinkling.

“Nanny, please take Aisha back to her room.”
“Yes, sir.”
Aisha fussed a little when the kindly woman picked her up, taking her favourite
doll into her other arm. She liked to hear daddy talk about her mother.
She didn’t understand why her mother was suddenly gone. This new one wasn’t
nice.
Maybe she was just sad and would be nicer later.
===============================================================================
Daddy was taking her out. Just the two of them—he said. They were going on a
trip and he’d even taken her favourite things along. It started out great. She
was in her father’s arms, looking out above all of the people passing by. The
ladies in their fine dresses, and the men in their waistcoats and cravats. It
was blissful.
But then, they entered a dark, strange place. It was down several flights of
stairs, and it felt dank…disgusting, really, compared to home. Daddy ignored
the jeering passersby, his valet following closely with his hand on the pretty
pearl revolver he usually kept in a drawer. It felt like an eternity, filthy
faces looming past, staring at the small convoy openly. They finally stopped at
a decrepit, musty-looking house. Daddy knocked twice.
The man who opened it looked very much like Daddy. They had the same dark hair,
the same deep, hazel eyes. He however, looked worn and tired. “I never thought
I’d see you here.”
“I came to ask you for something,” Daddy said stiffly. “I have no business
doing so, but…”
The man looked at Aisha for a long while. “Why did you bring her here? I’m not
selling a child, if that’s what you’re here for you—“
“No! No, I…” Daddy got sad again. “I need to protect her from that. My wife
doesn’t want her around. It’s my fault, I didn’t tell Miesha about her when we
were courting, I just couldn’t…”
The man sighed, opening the door wider. “Come in then. You bastard.”
“Thank you.”
===============================================================================
 Aisha didn’t understand why Daddy had gone. The man had introduced himself as
Ambros; he said that she would be staying with him for a while. He’d made her a
little cup of tea, and was busy pacing back and forth while she drank it. The
door opened again, and an elderly woman slowly made her way inside.

“Who’s that?” she peered through dirty, cracked glasses.

“This is Aisha, mother. Xavier brought her here.”
The woman, stooped with age, teetered slightly as she shuffled towards the
table.
“Certainly walking in the footsteps of his father, eh?” she laughed bitterly.
“Aisha, my name is Lotte. Welcome to the family.”
Aisha felt the woman’s papery skin as she patted the side of her face, and
looked up in awe at how every fragile she seemed. She wondered how long Daddy
would be, and what they would have for dinner tonight.
 
 
***** The Sword: The 99th Training Corps, Part 1. *****
Chapter Notes
     Song and lyrics are from the metal band Blackguard :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                               A choice to make,
                      A narrow road and no easy answers.
                              Make a stand today,
              Small is the gate and hardship's  what you'll face.
[Year 842]
Aisha stood stock-still amongst her peers. She was frightened, much like the
rest of them, but under that feeling bubbled a tentative resolve. The small
iron locket that Ambros had given her lay warm against her chest, complete with
its small picture of Lotte. She wondered how the old lady was feeling this
morning; Lotte may have looked frail, but she had the constitution of an ox.
Many times when she and Ambros had fallen ill, Lotte shuffled around, slow but
still completely fine.
She allowed herself a little smile. She missed her family, but she would make
them proud. Bravery, above all things, Ambros would say.
“You!” the instructor sidled across, coming to rest so close that she could
almost tell the thread count of his shirt. “What the hell are you smiling
about?”

“Sir! I’m happy to serve humanity!”
“Oh? Are you happy to put your life on the line? Happy to die?” he yelled.

Aisha tried to keep herself from wincing. “I want to make my father proud!”
“How do you plan to do that, shrimp?”
“I’m joining the Survey Corps, sir!”
There was an uncomfortable shifting around her. The instructor paused.

“As you were, little girl.”
He moved on to the next unlucky soul, and the boy beside her gave her a
sidelong look.

“Survey Corps? Are you mad?”

“They’re the best and bravest,” she murmured. “Of course I’m joining them.”
“You’re insane. It’s your funeral.”
Aisha shrugged. Yeah, probably.
===============================================================================
At dinner, there was a sustained murmur of conversation as the rookies finally
got a chance to socialise. Aisha nibbled at her baked potatoes, glancing around
at the little knots of people that formed across the room.
“I’ve never seen someone like you before,” a tall boy with blonde hair placed
his tray down directly across the table. “Oh, uh—sorry, that was rude. I’m
Klaus. From Trost.”
Aisha held a hand out. “Aisha Kaur. I…ah…I’m from the Underground.”
She watched as he battled to keep the surprise off of his face; there was a
little pang of shame—not because of where she lived, but because she had
faltered. Ambros would have held his head high and said it.
“Wall Sheena, huh? I guess that’s a different world from where most of us are
from.”

“I wouldn’t know, really,” she sipped her water, “the Underground isn’t really
a part of Wall Sheena in that sense. I don’t really know what the surface is
like firsthand,” she lied.
“Oh, right. Sorry again. I keep saying sorry, geez,” he laughed a little
awkwardly. “What’s it like there?”
“Dreary, to be honest,” she explained. “Can’t say I’m mad about not being
there.”
“I heard you said that you were joining the scouts. That’s insane,”
“I’m set on it. I want to do the job so many people shy away from.”
Klaus’ almost crystalline blue eyes met her own. “But why? If you got into the
top ten, you’d be safe. In the Military Police, you would never have to worry,
you could probably even afford to bring your family to the surface sooner or
later.”
“They don’t want me to pick the cushy route,” Aisha smiled wryly. Lotte would
curse her right out of the house if she did. “My dad was a scout himself, but
he’s injured. He values heart. He told me all about how things work here,” she
gestured to everyone else in the room. “Almost everyone is going to choose the
garrison. The scouts die or get phased out from injury so often, and no one
wants to join them. They’re the ones who are going to save us. They’re taking
the fight to the enemy, while we sit here and wait for them.”

“But, we’ve never had an incident,” he pointed out. “It’s pointless to go out
and die like that.”
“Not if we find out about these things,” she said. The conviction in her dark
eyes made him wilt slightly. “We can have better than this. Cozying up to the
bourgeois lifestyle, staying safe and mooching off of other people’s suffering?
I can’t do that. I can’t better myself and dance on the graves of the poor.”
Klaus shifted uncomfortably. “Not everyone can be brave.”
Aisha’s eyes narrowed venomously, and she saw a flash of the man who had left
her. “No, they can’t.”
===============================================================================
The instructor took a swig from his canteen. “Cadet Kaur!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Are you tired yet?”
Aisha sat back on her heels in the rig, feeling the sun beating down on the top
of her head like a furnace. “Yes, sir!”
“Giving up, shrimp?”
“No, sir!” she said with conviction. She stared evenly at his lapel; it was
easier than meeting his eyes from this position. If she moved her head just a
little, she was afraid that she’d faint.
“Still want to join the scouts, cadet?”
“Yes sir! I will gladly do so!”
He stooped a little to make eye contact. “Then have another hour up there.”
“Sir, yes sir!”
He moved away towards the sidelines, where the other instructors were gathered
under a shady tree.
“Is it necessary to do that?” Valerie asked. The newest among the lot, she
didn’t quite have the heart for torturing them yet.
“Little bitch wants to be a scout,” he said stiffly. “So I’ll do my duty and
haze the shit out of her. We’ll see if she survives it. If she does, they’ll be
lucky to have her.”
“She’s twitching ever so often,” Andrei pointed out. “Instructor Gregor, should
we-?”
“That’ll be the dehydration,” Gregor said, checking his watch. “If she’s still
up there in fifteen minutes let her have some water. She’s made of tough
stuff.”
===============================================================================
An hour later, and all of the muscles in Aisha’s body felt as though they were
on fire if she so much as twitched. Ambros was not lying when he said the drill
sergeants could be cruel. She would meet the challenge, however. They knew who
raised her. She would not sully his name.
“Alright, kid,” Andrei unbuckled the harness. “Easy does it.”
Aisha’s feet had already been on the ground, but without the rig, all of her
weight finally hit them. Her muscles sent a shock of pain that blinded her for
a second, and she fell straight into the grass below.
“Oh boy.”
“What do we do?” Valerie asked.
“Take her to the barracks. He said no medics.”
Aisha heard a sharp intake of breath as she was hoisted between two people. A
wave of nausea rose as she clamped her eyes shut. She couldn’t vomit on them.
That would just make things worse.
“Kid, you may want to re-think your plan.”
The cool sheets were a small comfort. Marie, a girl from a small village in
Wall Rose scampered forward with a wet washcloth that felt like fire when it
was put on her forehead. Aisha opened her eyes and promptly vomited right into
the basin that was being held up for her.
“The sergeant said you’d do that,” she said sympathetically. “He said that you
need to drink this, and sip a few canteens over a couple hours.”
“Thank you,” her voice was barely there. The bottle Marie held up was filled
with some foul-tasting, salty liquid. It took everything that she had not to
vomit again, but she choked the whole thing down. Marie helpfully lifted a
canteen of water to her lips.

“He said not too much at first,”
“He’s trying to kill me, isn’t he?” Aisha laughed lightly.
“Everyone’s talking. They say you’re mental,” Marie said. “You don’t break
easily, do you?”
“High pain tolerance,” Aisha sank back onto the bed and pulled the wet rag down
over her eyes. Even the damn lights hurt.
===============================================================================
Whoever said that there was no rest for the wicked was right. There were no
excuses the next day, no calling in sick or expecting to have it easy; Aisha
dragged her sore, painful body out of the bunk and wolfed down her breakfast.
Even holding her own head upright felt like work.
“Here, have mine too,” Klaus handed over half of his bread. “You look like you
need it.”

“Thanks,” she murmured. Perhaps she’d been too hard on him. On all of them.
They weren’t brought up in the same way…experiences made the person, right? Who
was she to judge them? All she could do was try to win them over, to see
something greater than themselves. Being haughty wasn’t going to do that, and
really, it was hard to be imperious when you spent the night vomiting into a
bucket. She’d woken up with some of it in her hair.
Perspective was a hell of a thing.
The whistle sounded, and the cadets all rose from their seats, feeling
thoroughly beaten. It was going to be a long, long three years.
===============================================================================
[845]
The largest of the 99th Training Corps was a boy called Kai Olsen; at fourteen
like most of the other recruits, he was easily well over six feet tall, and
probably weighed more than Marie and Aisha put together. Gregor roughly told
him that he should consider being a ground troop in the garrison. That big ass
of yours is going to run a gas tank down in no time. He took it to heart,
though, and was easily one of the top cadets.
“I can’t figure out how the fuck you guys are so good at the 3D Manoeuvre
Gear,” he groaned.
It was a relatively quiet evening. They’d run their course with laden packs,
and those who managed to finish the course were released to spend the evening
on the greens.
Aisha tossed him an apple from her pack. “I’m about a hundred and fifty pounds
lighter than you, that might have something to do with it.”

Marie giggled. “You’re a workhorse, though. If you join the military police,
you’d be a squad on your own.”
Kai made a face. “Yeah, I guess. I am a better shot than most of you guys.”
Marie nodded sagely. “See? Silver linings do exist.”
“You’d probably be an entrée otherwise,” Aisha pointed out. “I’d be dessert.
Perhaps a light snack.”
Marie’s face blanched, but Kai roared with laughter. “You are a crazy little
shit.”
“Where’s Klaus, anyway?” Aisha finished her own fruit with gusto. “I was
expecting him to be here complaining.”

“He didn’t make it in the top fifty in the course. Sarge has them running laps.
He’ll be complaining alright,” Kai grinned. “Y’know, a lot of folks are
thinking of joining up with the scouts, Aish. Because of you and your incessant
hero-worship.”

“Pssh, I wish,” she stretched out on the cool grass and closed her eyes
contentedly. “It’s because of the scouts themselves. Did you hear about the new
one?”
“Levi? Of-fucking-course,” Kai rolled his eyes. “He’s only the best we’ve ever
seen. He joined, what, a year ago? He’s already a Captain and a squad leader.
They’re calling him ‘Humanity’s Strongest Soldier’.”
“Uplifting, right?” Aisha said, stretching a little. “That’s something to live
up to. In any case, we’ve got all evening to relax, and I’m not passing this
opportunity for a nap up.”
“I’ve heard he’s kind of a dick though.”
“Napping, Kai.”
Chapter End Notes
     The loveable 'kind-of-a-dick' himself will be making his debut in the
     next chapter!
***** Revenge of the Dadaists: The 99th Training Corps, Part 2. *****
Chapter Notes
     The lyrics and chapter title are from The Agonist.
     If you've been following the timeline, I have a feeling you know
     what's going to happen soon ;)
 
               Sont-ils prisonniers?         Are they locked in?
              Devrais-je les libérer?       Should I release them?
                                        
 [Year 845]
“Congratulations, 99th Training Corps! Two-hundred of your sorry asses have
made it,” Gregor called. “Your top ten for the Southern Division are as
follows: Henning Abernathy, Marie Lisiewicz, Rene Maslow, Mikael Jorvin,
Jeanette Gluz, Kai Olsen, Gelgar Beck, Simon Dietrich and Aisha Kaur.”
Aisha’s jaw dropped slightly; a few rows ahead the ash blonde Simon turned
slightly to give her a thumbs up. First? Out of the District?
Ambros would be pleased—not proud yet—but pretty happy. Proud would come after
she survived her first foray into the world.
“Sign up for your chosen posts by this evening! You are well on your way to
serving humankind! The 99th Training Corps is dismissed!”
“Sir!” the resounding cry was met with the steady sounds of fists meeting eager
chests in salute.
The newly graduated recruits broke ranks for lunch. Aisha met up with some of
the others at the canteen, which was a currently a din of energetic chatter.

“Bacon sandwiches,” Simon said excitedly. “They made ‘em special for us today.”
Aisha took one, giggling at the gleeful way that he and Klaus were devouring
theirs. “Where’s Kai?”
Klaus swallowed with some effort. “Trying to wrangle another one. He’s a big
guy, he says, so he should have more food.”
Marie appeared at his elbow with her arms full of their canteens. “Geez. You’d
think orange juice was some sort of valuable resource. They were practically
climbing over one another to get them.”
“Let’s go to the yard, it’s getting fucking terrible,” Aisha called over the
yelling. “Kai’ll find us.”
A nice spot in the shade was open, and they were able to sit on the stone floor
and watch the convoys of soldiers passing as they ate. Aisha savoured each bite
with ambrosia; meat was not something the cadets saw a lot of, and being from
the Underground, she’d seen it even less than her cohorts.
“Rumor has it that almost a quarter of us want to be in the Survey Corps,”
Simon said. “Commander Shadis’ll be happy.”
“Will he, though?” Marie folded the sandwich paper neatly under her canteen to
keep it from blowing away. “Every time I see him he seems to be getting more
and more haggard. It’s like he’s wasting away.”
“Commanders have a good life though,” Klaus pointed out. “Private quarters,
good wages, enough food…what’s with him?”
“He’s got blood on his hands,” Marie said. “It takes a toll.”
“Imagine that—your decisions can mean the deaths of so many men,” Aisha said
with awe. “It must be killing him inside. Casualties are down for now, but
could you imagine what he went through before?”
“Yeah, Survey used to be a one way trip to either a Titan’s dinner or the
nuthouse…”
===============================================================================
Valerie arranged the tables and sign on sheets for the recruits to pick their
assignments; Gregor was looking at the knots of recruits wistfully.
“I can’t believe they made it,” she motioned to Simon and the others. “Top ten
and all.”
“They pushed each other,” Gregor explained. “And I pushed that girl so hard, I
knew she’d either rise to the very top or drop out,” he sighed. “She’s a
mixture of aptitude and determination, but I’m afraid of her attitude.”
“What d’you mean, sir?”
“She’s too foolhardy. She wants this, but she doesn’t know what it means. What
it costs,” he looked down at his gnarled hands, remembering the screams of the
many men who’d died as he viciously clung to life. “She doesn’t know what it is
to be helpless.”
“She’s got Lisiewicz and Dietrich. Two level heads if I ever saw them; Klaus
Lindemann is good too. I’m surprised that he didn’t get into the top ten,”
Valerie wiped the sweat from her forehead as a cloud provided a blissful
respite from the sun.
“They’re babies,” Gregor said. “We’ve got an excellent crop this year.
Lindemann was good, just like the rest of them, but there’s only room at the
top for ten. Some of them got there by fractions. But they’re still green…you
can be a gutsy son of a bitch, but still lose your head when it counts.”
Valerie gave her superior a sympathetic look. War jades even the toughest
bastards.
===============================================================================
“How the fuck did you manage that?” Simon was gawking openly at Kai’s precious
second sandwich.
“The lady was going to tell me no, but apparently, I look like her son,” he
answered with a grin. “So, she slid me a second when people weren’t looking.”
“Well, hurry up and eat it,” Marie pointed to Gregor, who’d started walking off
of the stage. “He’s going to the bell. Lunch is practically over.”
“Is that Commander Shadis? And is that Pixis?” Klaus wasn’t the only one
staring at the convoy that was making its way to the stage. Every recruit in
the yard had stopped talking or eating.
“Yeah,” Marie said. “And those are their best people.”

The sight of the wings of freedom made Aisha’s heart practically skip a beat.
With Shadis was a group of about four soldiers: a tall, blonde man with proud
cheekbones and a handsomely aristocratic face; an even taller blonde with
stringy facial hair and hooded, calm eyes; a bespectacled woman with disheveled
reddish brown hair and an infectious smile and finally, a short, sour-faced man
with a closely shaved undercut of dark hair.

Kai elbowed Aisha hard enough for her to almost tip over, “Captain Levi! He’s
the one with the black hair.”
“Huh,” she rubbed her shoulder absently. “Thought he’d be taller.”
“He’s still taller than you,” he pointed out. Aisha stuck her tongue out at
him, and Klaus gave her a little shove. The Captain was giving them a sidelong
glare.
The bell rang out suddenly, and the silence was replaced by the sound of the
recruits levying to get into position.
===============================================================================
“Look at the little babies!” Hange planted a shove square in the middle of
Levi’s shoulder blades. To his credit, the shorter man barely budged.
“Yeah, yeah, little shitfaced brats,” he said his voice dry and non-committal.
“Ooh, that guy! The blonde tall one,” she pointed openly. “He’s probably bigger
than you Mike!”
Mike gave the rookies a lazy glance. “Huh. What’re they feeding them? The three
of them are fucking huge and the other two are barely people.”
“The little girls are so cute,” Hange clasped her hands in mirth. “The dark one
looks so eager to get started. Survey Corps for sure!”
Erwin turned and made a small ‘stop it’ motion with his hands. Hange deflated
slightly, but kept that manic smile on her face.
Levi scoffed. “You can be cute and still dead.”
Hange opened her mouth in retort, but was drowned out by the head instructor’s
heavy bass voice as he called the recruits to attention. The Survey Corps was
up first to make their pitch. They usually needed all the help they could get.
Gregor moved aside for Commander Shadis to begin speaking, coming to rest
beside Erwin and the others.

“What’s the climate like this year?” Erwin asked, staring straight into the
ranks of eager faces.
“Better than the past few years,” Gregor said bitterly. “Little idiots.”
“In the top ten?” Hange asked, her voice was low, but the excitement was
tangible.
“I know at least half of them in the Southern Division seem to want to be
scouts,” he sighed. “The top recruit can’t shut up about it. She’s the small
one next to that giant blonde kid.”
“What’s with the tiny ones being the badasses?” Hange elbowed Levi.
“Fuck off,” he murmured. “None of them are badasses yet. Not until they
survive.”
Gregor sighed again, but this time, it was filled with despair. The four squad
leaders looked at him.
“They’re excellent, all of the top ten. Even those who narrowly missed it; we
had an unprecedented performance this crop, within all the divisions,” he
explained. “But when has that ever stopped a Titan?”
Mike gave a snort, “Yeah—they’ll learn that promise is nothing if you’re
inexperienced. We’ve all seen talented kids die before they got common sense.”
They looked out at the innocent, resolute faces in the crowd in silence.
***** The Plague Within: Fall of Maria, Part 1 *****
Chapter Notes
     The chapter title and lyrics are from Paradise Lost; the song is No
     Hope In Sight, off of the album The Plague Within.
     All of my depressing and/or epic music is getting put to good use for
     this fic! xD
See the end of the chapter for more notes

                                 It's a battle
                          as the years start to fade.

                               No hope in sight.
                            A light before us dies,
                            Aligned the horrified.
                               No hope in sight
 [Year 845] 
Aisha still remembered the smouldering distaste in the eyes of Humanity’s
Strongest Soldier as she signed her life away to the Survey Corps. Squad Leader
Erwin Smith though, was quite kind—shaking her hand and congratulating her for
the brave choice.
The warmth of that little embrace still seemed to be trapped in her fist as she
watched the afternoon roll into the evening time. Lotte and Ambros had made a
rare, and very expensive trip to the surface to visit her. They had surface
citizenship, so they went relatively unmolested by the Military Police. Lotte
still held a list of things that her neighbours and friends wanted them to find
before they made the long trek down again.
“You haven’t touched your tea,” Ambros said. He was looking older than the last
time she saw him; grey streaks were slowly creeping into his dark hair, and
little lines were making themselves more apparent in the corners of his eyes.
“How’s your back?” Aisha took an obedient sip from her cup. She could only
imagine how long they’d been saving up money to see her off.
“Better,” he said firmly.
There was no reason to ask about Lotte; she was humming to herself, looking
just the same as ever. She stared out of the window of the café, no doubt
remembering the days of her youth on the surface.
Ambros froze as he spotted some of the Survey Corps passing on the street
outside, probably headed towards Wall Rose. “Well I’ll be,”
“What?” Aisha craned her head to get a look.
“That little shithead’s a soldier?” Ambros was seemingly talking to himself.
Aisha caught a glimpse of Captain Levi; it was probably his squad headed back
to their barracks.
“You mean him?” she gawked. “Captain Levi is a legend.”
Her adoptive father gave a low chuckle, “Yeah, he’s always been a legend
alright.”
As if he could feel the weight of the older man’s gaze, Levi turned and met his
eyes for a second. They then slid to Aisha, before the group disappeared
through a crowd.
“He wasn’t in the army when you were,” she pointed out, “how—“
“Don’t worry about that. Now go order yourself an apple tart,” he produced a
few bills and shoved them into her fist.
“I—good lord, this is a week’s worth of food!” she growled. “I’m not buying
myself pastry with that.”
“Go buy your dessert, child,” Lotte poured herself another cup of tea.
The retort died on her tongue. There was no arguing with Lotte, and frankly she
didn’t have the heart to. Aisha obediently got the tart, but she insisted that
the three of them share it. She used to make pastry back in the Underground;
granted, it was using practically every substitute she could find for the more
expensive ingredients, but they sold well. Ambros would always come back from
the market with an empty box every time she made a batch of her dried fruit
tartlets.
“Are those your friends?” Lotte asked, gesturing towards the door. “They’ve
been hanging around staring for a while.”
Aisha turned around, spotting Kai, Simon, Klaus and Marie. “Yes, you should
meet them.”
After being waved over, the group moved shyly towards the table, looking
furtively at Ambros.
“Congratulations, all of you,” Ambros rose with some effort, his hand
supporting the small of his back for just a second. Aisha’s eyes narrowed.
He shook everyone’s hands as they introduced themselves, while Aisha gave Lotte
a pointed look. Lotte continued sipping her tea.
Aisha rolled her eyes and fixed her gaze onto Ambros’ back. Utterly
insufferable, the two of you. If his back was acting up again, why would you
come? Why risk it?
The Underground was dangerous, it was as simple as that; just to get to the
surface, Lotte and Ambros would have had to pay through the teeth. If one of
the thugs guarding the stairs got any inkling of the goods they were carrying
back, they’d both be defenseless. She made a mental note to go with them when
they returned; at least to see them through the entrance.
“…yeah, I wasn’t too great at using the 3DM gear,” Kai laughed bashfully. “At
least not as good as the rest of them were. I ended up getting more than enough
in my other scores though.”
“So where are you all headed?” Ambros looked expectantly at the group.
Each one murmured ‘Survey Corps’, save for Kai.
“The instructor said I’d be too much of a hindrance,” he sighed. “I don’t want
to cost people their lives.”
“No shame in that,” Ambros clapped him on the back. Aisha stared. Really? Since
fucking when? If I’d shown up and said I was going to the garrison you’d have
kicked my ass.
“I’ll give you guys some pointers sometime,” he said lightly. Marie, Klaus and
Simon all had to see their own families. Everyone was headed to their
assignments tomorrow, so this was the last, precious day of freedom.
Kai managed to wrangle a chair from a nearby table. The café owner looked a bit
displeased—but he apparently thought against saying anything after he caught a
glimpse of Kai’s massive frame. His family was too far away to come visit
before he was enlisted, and it was clear that he was beginning to become a bit
lonely watching all of his peers surrounded by their loved ones.
“It seems like such a waste to be behind the walls,” he lamented. “It’s not
like anything ever happens.”
“Pray it doesn’t,” Lotte said quietly. “If the Survey Corps lose most of their
men on a monthly basis, imagine the rest of us if a Titan attacked.”
“What are they like?” Aisha turned to Ambros. His eyes grew even more tired-
looking.
“Worse than you could ever imagine. They’re…vacant. They smile, they look like
us, but they aren’t—they smile right up until they shove one of your friends in
their mouths.”
Kai swallowed loudly. “That’s uh—that’s fucking terrifying.”
There was a loud noise, almost like cannon-fire a distance away, followed by
smaller crashes. Everyone in the café grew silent for a moment.
“What the-?” Aisha looked around for any other soldiers. The room was just
filled with civilians; no one seemed to know what could have made those noises.
“Might be the wall-mounted cannons firing,” Ambros said quietly. “A titan might
have gotten too close in Shiganshina.”
“Is that it?” Kai asked desperately.
“If I remember right the place is a magnet for ‘em sometimes,” he explained.
“Never had cause to hear one that loud before though.”
“I should find someone,” Aisha rose from her seat, “maybe the Captain is still
around—“
“You, you’re a soldier, right? What’s that?” the café owner placed a hand on
her shoulder. His blue eyes were no longer haughty; instead they were wide,
seeking reassurance.
“I don’t know sir, but I’m going to find out,” Aisha looked down at Ambros and
Lotte. “I want you two to get home.”
“It’s just cannon fire,” Ambros said.
Aisha met Kai’s gaze and they seemed to be carrying the same line of thought.
They’d never heard mention of this sort of attack from the outer districts
during training; to the contrary, they hadn’t been necessary for years.
A garrison soldier burst through the door in a panic.
“A fucking Titan!” he was shaking so hard that his teeth were chattering. “T-
taller than the wall he—it—Shiganshina’s been breached!”
The room erupted in a collective uproar; some persons began diving for the
exit, some staying crying in their seats; a few held to Aisha, Kai and the
dishevelled soldier asking them what to do.
“Get to the evacuation point,” Aisha said. “Get your families if you need to.
We’re close to Wall Maria, and it’s not safe.”
“You think a Titan can destroy the wall outside of Shiganshina and then Maria?”
Kai’s hand was gripping Lotte’s chair hard enough for the wood to squeak.

“We don’t know, but the fewer folks are near to that wall, the better,”
He nodded, while the rest of the people piled around them started fleeing.
“We’ll have to report to the garrison.”
Aisha grabbed his arm. “I’ll go find the others. Take them with you to Wall
Rose, please,” she gestured to Ambros and Lotte. The older man had gone
positively white, his face creasing with worry. Lotte was alert—she was looking
from Kai to Aisha, and waiting to hear what she should do.
“Go with him,” she told them, swooping down to embrace each; she stared Ambros
dead in the eye. “I want you two back in the Underground.”
For once, he didn’t argue. “Be safe.”
===============================================================================
Not many people seemed to know what was going on; those who did kept
running—not explaining, and not stopping until they were well shot of the wall.
The result, of course, was mass confusion. Almost every civilian accosted Aisha
as she ran past, demanding to know what had happened.
“Get to the muster point, and tell everyone you see on the way,” she repeated.
Marie and Simon were already rooting through the crowd.
“We saw Klaus headed towards the training grounds!” Simon called over the
hubbub.
“Let’s go then.”
Adrenaline dulled the noises of the people near to them; all Aisha could feel
were her cold hands, gripped into fists as she ran. They got into the yard to
find more chaos. Soldiers were ordering civilians away, while more confused
recruits kept stumbling in. Gregor took the stage, with his two very tense-
looking subordinates.
“The day we feared has come. A Titan has breached one of our walls. You all
must report immediately to HQ behind me and equip your gear,” he announced.
“Garrison officers are here to assign you to your roles.”
Kitz Weilman was not a man who inspired confidence. He walked towards the
centre of the stage, and the recruits grew tenser by the step. His sunken eyes
swept across them all, and his voice was filled with apprehension. He explained
that each recruit would be re-organised into their original squads and then
deployed according to the garrison officers’ needs. The 30th squad filled their
gas canisters quickly, trying to drown out the panicked conversations of their
classmates. The terse reminder of execution if they deserted still hung in the
air.
Marie caught Aisha’s arm. “This doesn’t seem well-thought out.”
She took a deep breath. “They know what they’re doing. They have to.”
“I hope so too,” Simon clicked his canisters into place. “I can’t think of why
they’d do things this way, but I need to believe they’ve thought this through.”
Aisha placed a hand over Marie’s. “Be safe.”
She nodded and went off to join her squad. It was time.
===============================================================================
Their squad was assigned to the very middle of the battleground. They would
provide support to the garrison and help evacuate while the Survey Corps came
into position. Aisha was defaulted as the leader, however, they were assigned
an older garrison member as well. Penelope Andersson was a tall, brunette woman
with a serious face.—she at least seemed to know what they were supposed to be
doing.
“Alright,” she pointed towards the map as they took inventory at Wall Maria.
“This is where we’re going. The evacuation is ongoing, and about two ferries
have left. We need to buy time for the others. An hour has already passed, so
let’s get moving.”
The whirrs of the 3DM gear were all that Aisha could hear as they zipped
through the air and over the wall. They came to land at the ferry site to check
in on how many estimated trips they would need.
“Four,” a red-haired garrison member reported. He looked positively ill.
“They’re talking about closing the gate soon, I mean…”
“Pull it together,” Penelope said stiffly. “Alright kids, move out. If we get
separated, you know that Kaur is on point, and if she’s not there, then
Dietrich is.”
The recruits all voiced their assent. Klaus’ eyes were fixed to the water
below.
“What…the…”
Aisha followed his line of sight and saw that the water was trembling. Ripples
were fluttering like footsteps.
“Oh no, oh god,” she groaned. The ground was beginning to take the same rhythm.
People screamed; panicked bodies threw themselves at the boats as the ferries
began to push off. The shrieking rose exponentially as a deafening roar was
heard—Penelope’s orders were drowned out and the shaking earth almost brought
the soldiers to their knees. A few feet away, a beast of a Titan came into view
and was running full speed towards Wall Maria.
“What the fuck is that!?”
The crash of its impact was deafening. Aisha screamed, but she could barely
hear it; all she was sure of was the blood pounding in her ears. As if on
instinct, she clicked the 3DM and moved frantically into the air, trying to
avoid as much shrapnel as possible. She, Simon and Klaus landed on the nearby
rooftop of a residence. The dust covered everything; it was choking, gritty and
almost completely opaque. Klaus’ hand sought hers, gripping her wrist in a
clammy embrace.
“What do we do?”
“Wait,” she whispered.
Simon was staring into the cloud without a word; little chattering noises could
be heard as his hands shook against the sheaths on his thigh.
The Titan was gone, but Aisha could see more of them coming. Ambros had been
right about them…they were vacant. Positively stupid-looking, but that somehow
made them all the more terrifying. A fourteen-foot tall, smiling, bug-eyed
buffoon could send you to meet your maker between his tombstone-like teeth.
Klaus’ grip on her wrist tightened, and Aisha’s gaze was diverted towards the
carnage below. The dust was settling, leaving chunks of the wall and its gate
visible; everything was covered with a layer of white, but the oozing crimson
of blood was beginning to seep through. Little splatters of blood and viscera
were left around particularly large rocks, while she could discern fallen
bodies with various levels of injury near to them.
“C-can you see Penelope?” Simon managed, raising the hilt of his blade; his
fingers were pressing the trigger when Aisha stopped him.
“We can’t go down there,” she said tersely. “It’s a deathtrap as is, and the
Titans are coming; there’s nothing more we can do. We can only hope the rest of
them got out and leave this to the wall guards. We need to get into position so
we can prevent more of them from swarming.”
“But-“
“That’s the mandate we were given,” Aisha tried to keep her voice from shaking.
“We can’t pick and choose our orders. They know what they’re doing. We’re
needed to stem the flow so the ferry can move safely.”
They boys nodded hesitantly.
“Do we join someone else?” Klaus asked as they whipped through the air.
“Yes, the 19th squad is near where we were supposed to be,” Aisha called.
“We’ll find them.”
===============================================================================
Erwin watched his livid comrade slam his fists into the table.
“What the fuck do you mean that this happened an hour ago?” Levi growled.
Hange looked towards their commander. “That’s a while. Why weren’t we
informed?”
“There were communication errors,” Shadis said, his eyes haunted. “And if we’re
getting tied up and we’re here-“
“Those soldiers will die because of faulty intel,” Erwin finished for him.
“They’ve also sent the cadets.”
“The babies?” Hange was horrified. “Not to the front."
“Yes,” Shadis said. “They’re already on the battlefield dying. No one expected
Wall Maria to fall like this, so the current plans are unsubstantial.”
Mike kept his gaze steady through the window, watching as terrified people ran
through the streets, trying to find out what had happened. The government was
going to have a hard time with this one.
“Give us the word,” he said quietly. “We’ll go. We’re better suited for this
than the garrison. They and the rookies are probably being torn to shreds.”
Shadis closed his eyes. “Alright go. We have no plan, we have practically no
time to come up with one and we’re losing people. Erwin, you’re taking point on
this. Co-ordinate your fellow squad leaders while I go figure out why the
fucking sky is falling.”
Erwin picked up a spare map of the walls and began to draw them a strategy.
There was no conceivable way this could get any worse.
Which meant that in all honesty, it would probably get worse anyway.
===============================================================================
“The orders are to advance!” the garrison messenger was barely standing on his
unsteady legs. “You’re going to the eastern market!”
The soldiers on the rooftop exchanged a look. Some of them were from this
district; the marketplace was sure to be a hotbed of carnage, where familiar
faces could be lying dismembered in the dirt…
“Sir!” Aisha saluted him.
The others followed suit. Squad 19 had already sustained three casualties,
leaving them with two surviving members. The plan was to merge their two
squadrons, and just get the job done until the evacuation was done. They sent
word with the messenger back about their low numbers, but Aisha was certain
that they would get little backup. Scores of people were probably already dead.
They cut through the air with wicked speed; there were mostly five and four
metre Titans below; it seemed as though they couldn’t get over some of the
fallen buildings. Though they were moving quickly, she could still see the
little flecks of blood that signified where someone had died…as well as the
flesh-coloured blurs that were once limbs.
The squad settled onto the roof of the largest merchant centre. It was too
quiet.
“There’s no one,” Simon breathed.
“We’ll fan out,” a sandy-haired soldier suggested. Aisha struggled to remember
his name.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “I mean, we have no clue what the
situation is.”
“Hey, just because you’re the de facto leader of the 30th squad doesn’t mean
that you’re our leader,” the other soldier said. “We’re going to avenge our
teammates.”
“You’ll die,” Klaus said viciously. “Do you want that?”
Aisha’s pleas for the men to calm down went unanswered, but she could suddenly
hear another series of loud bangs. Like large strides.
She turned in time to see what was probably a seventeen-metre class Titan
sprinting towards them haphazardly. It looked like a slightly overweight man,
with a grotesquely simpering face; he was too close, there was no time to even
formulate words—
It crashed into the building and she moved on instinct. Chunks of bricks were
hitting every inch of her body as she swung to the next one; she felt one
collide with the back of her head as she pulled the trigger to move to the next
rooftop. The force knocked the air from her lungs, and she felt the hot, thick
blood as it ran down her scalp. Her landing was far from neat—she settled for
rolling to a stop onto the roof. She sheathed one of her blades and gingerly
touched the wound, feeling dazed and somewhat numb. Everything seemed to be
happening in a haze.
Klaus and Simon landed right after her no—Klaus landed, but Simon seemed to be
panicked. He screamed something as he was yanked back.
A Titan had caught hold of his grappling hook.
Aisha scrambled to the edge of the roof, her fingertips just ghosting above his
as Klaus held her away. The seventeen-foot Titan threw their friend into the
side of the crumbling building and then dangled his broken body into its maw.
She couldn’t move—all she could do was stare at the spot where he’d been. The
same boy who’d helped her with her strategising course. The one who had once
stolen a kiss as they helped one another do chores. They’d never really talked
about that; she always figured they’d find the time. She could still feel his
arms around her—no these were different. It was Klaus.
And the Titan was still coming. Aisha remained paralysed.
===============================================================================
Levi and his squad were making a beeline for the first place they’d spotted any
activity. One squad was already being hounded by at least three Titans, while
he could discern that at least three soldiers were in immediate danger a small
distance away. An abnormal was clawing after them with impressive speed.
“Take care of them,” he said, “Mike, are you with me to take on that thing?
There are at least three more Titans coming. Those guys don’t stand a chance.”
Mike nodded; his own squad had already left to help the stragglers from other
decimated groups. Someone had fucked up and fucked up bad. They weren’t just
left without a new plan—someone had actively screwed up the current one. The
list of abandoned and emergent zones was mixed up. These fuckers were sending
soldiers to get killed for nothing while civilians died, thinking their rescue
would come.
They swooped around to take the thing from the other side; it would take a few
seconds longer, but they would have a better vantage point to keep going and
strike the oncoming Titans without stopping.
Levi released his hook and cursed inwardly as he caught a glimpse of the
rooftop properly. They were wearing cadet patches, and one of them was possibly
having a fucking panic attack. Her larger cohort was trying to get her to move,
but he was injured. The Titan was too quick, he was coming back again, and the
boy was throwing her back. She staggered to her feet and watched the Titan
holding her comrade; she found her voice and screamed. It was a piteous,
wounded sound.
He wanted to tell her to stop as she released a grappling hook into the Titan’s
eye, but he was too far. She desperately swung around to get to its neck, but
it snagged her wire, and twisted it. There was little to be done but watch her
get thrown through the window of the building.
It was reaching in to collect its prize. “Hey, you big ugly fuck, over here!”
Levi had gotten there first. With a slice of his blades, its hand exploded into
gobbets of flesh and sinew. It roared, trying to swat at him with its good arm.
He smirked, moving effortlessly out of the way as Mike sliced its vitals. It
slid to the street below with an anticlimactic thud.
“Any of them alive?” Mike came to a stop on the roof.
The blonde man was cut in half. His torso and trailing innards glistened in the
sunset, reminding Levi painfully of another soldier he’d seen die like that.
No. Now is not the time.
“That girl is in the building. She’s safest there, if she’s alive,” he said.
“We have those to kill. They seem to know that the soldiers are all in this
direction, they’re fucking swarming.”
“Let’s get started then.”
Levi looked across to the remnants of the next building and gave the bloody,
glass-covered body a last look. If she wasn’t dead now, she’d damn well want to
be when she came to. He pulled the trigger on his 3DM gear and continued his
duty.
Chapter End Notes
     I'm honestly surprised how long this chapter ended up being. I was
     expecting this fic to be depressing to write, but now I can't wait to
     get out of the dark, icky parts and into the less heart-wrenching
     bits. How does Isayama-sensei do it!?
***** The Perfect Embodiment: Fall of Maria, Part 2. *****
Chapter Notes
     Lyrics and title are from The Agonist.
                       I won’t accept the incompetence.
                       Rotting in the weaker side of me.
                        For all my wounds to be healed,
                     I concede to the greater part of me.
                                        
                            True opposites collide
                        In this fragment of an entity.
                         I am one, forever incomplete
                         Imprisoned in my own defeat.
                                        
                     My reflection, mortal challenge sinks
                           In the depths of regret.
                     Failure to consent, no will to fight
                              In full retrospect.
 
[Year 845]
Everything was cold.
“Please.” Klaus’ face was contorted in agony.
Was he asking to be saved? Or asking her to run?
Who was she to imply that he wasn’t brave?
The Titan’s jaw clenched and he writhed. Trying to keep the screams in.
As she flew through the air, Aisha saw the crest of Scout Regiment; Captain
Levi and the other squad leader were coming. The Captain’s face was paler than
usual—a little less severe. Pitying.
When the Titan snagged her line, she didn’t make a sound as it jerked her back
towards the crushed building. She saw the blonde of Klaus’ hair as she was
thrown. Glass sliced through her jacket, through the white button down shirt
that she’d carefully pressed that morning. There was a crunch as she hit the
adjoining wall, and slid into the debris.
It hurt to breathe; every inch of her body stung at this point. The searing
pain in her shoulder probably meant that there was a shard of glass embedded
there. Roars, screams and crashes melded into a singular cacophony. How could
she have done this?
A single moment of inactivity…of paralyzing fear; that was all it took.
“Hey, you missed a spot,” Simon chided.
Aisha tossed him the rag. “You do it, I suck at polishing. I’ll pack everything
away, it always takes you too long.”
He made a face and obediently cracked open a new can of wood polish for the
floorboards. Aisha squeaked as she skidded a little on the slick floor, but he
was there—a comforting weight at her back. She looked up at him, heart pounding
its way into her throat.
“Gotta work on that balance,” he chided. Soft lips met hers.
A few rogue tears made a stinging trail down her face as she tried to keep her
breathing shallow and slow. In that moment, Aisha desperately wanted to die. To
cease feeling and fall into the unknowable peace of inexistence.
“Fuck, there’s more of them!”
“We’ll have to split these,” another voice added. “We have enough gas?”
“Hell if I know,” the deeper voice called. “I’m going to find whoever messed up
the orders and shove my foot up their ass.”
Messed up?
Aisha felt the ache of suppressed sobs in her throat as it hit her: there was
no one here in the market because it had been given up. They were never
supposed to be here.
Klaus and Simon were mutilated because of a mistake.
Because of her fear.
Rage overrode the pain that was searing its way through her limbs; Aisha turned
and tried to get up without using her hands. She didn’t need glass sticking out
of her palms at this point. Her joints creaked as she got to her feet, her left
shoulder still immobile and throbbing. The window was just a few feet away.
===============================================================================
Levi counted at least six Titans on his end of the street. Fucking fantastic.
None of them seemed to be below twelve metres tall; two were relatively close,
while the others were sprinkled with enough space between them to rule out a
quick kill. The retreat bell had not rung out, nor had the groups behind them
managed to finish their evacuation of the injured soldiers. He and Mike would
have no choice but to act as a buffer.
Tch. A problem we created ourselves. How many civilian lives were lost because
the personnel were sent here? How many soldiers?
He broke into a run, pulling enough momentum to flit across neighbouring
rooftops without the use of his gear. Gas preservation was the order of the
day, at least until HQ got their heads out of their asses and figured out where
everyone was. Closing in a few feet away from the two Titans, he fired a hook
into the eye of the nearest; it grunted in pain, and the other turned slowly to
stare blankly. He easily avoided the swatting hands, slicing the tendons of a
nearby wrist to render the appendage useless. Two quick strokes later, and one
Titan was on its way to the ground; balancing on the shoulder of the falling
giant, his next hooks planted right next to the other beast. It never even saw
him coming.
Unfortunately, some of the others had a handle on running. He latched onto a
sprinting Titan’s nape, spinning in his lethal coup de grace to hit its vitals.
The other one had already gotten too far ahead. The fucker was especially
fast—probably enough so to be considered an abnormal.
Levi never liked playing catch-up, but there was little else to do. The last
two lumbering Titans would be barely near him when he was done; he could pick
them off with ease. He began trailing the running Titan when his eyes darted to
the rooftop where the cadets had been. The girl from before was in fact, alive;
she’d somehow dug herself out of the carnage and moved across to the street
again. She was staring dead on at the mangled body of her squad mate.
Ah, fuck. I don’t need this now. C’mon kid, stop being bait.
The Titan was probably going to get to the building before he would…unless of
course, he used an obscene amount of gas. His finger was on the trigger for a
burst of speed when she finally moved. With a swift movement, she pulled a
wicked-looking shard of glass from her left shoulder and then drew her blades.
A grappling hook shot into the face of the oncoming Titan. It was one of the
more difficult kills from where she stood: the hooks and reels were incredibly
powerful, but there was the added aspect of the Titan’s momentum. There was
little time for her to manoeuvre—if she swung around too late, she’d crash into
it and crush every bone in her body, but if she was too hasty, the speed could
cause her to overshoot and wrap around its neck.
The twang of wires going taut made Levi cringe inwardly. She had no patience.
She did, however, seem to make up for it with quick thinking—a second hook
snapped into the nape of the Titan’s neck as the first was released. Blades
glinted in the dying sun, and the creature fell. She wasted no time, however,
eyes darting towards the end of the street. He knew that look well.
She was swooping past him like a gunshot, going for the two stragglers. He
ended up coming to rest a few houses away, but her visceral screams still cut
through the air.
He carefully landed a few feet away as she stood amongst the slowly vapourising
Titans. She tried to sheathe her blades twice before succeeding, her trembling
hands clenched into fists.
“Kid, you need to get out of the street.”
The girl looked like hell—but, really, it wasn’t much of a surprise. There were
fragments of glass in her dark hair and a nasty wound on her temple from where
she’d probably hit the window. Blood and sparkling glass splinters candy-coated
her entire uniform. She met his eyes for a second and then threw up. Mike
landed nearby and gave a low whistle.
“Tough little shit,” he said flatly. “The evacuation bell went off while you
were running these things down the street. We need to get back before the gas
runs out.”
“C’mon, kid.” Levi motioned. She stared blankly for just a second longer than
seemed normal, and then moved unsteadily towards them.
“She’s got a concussion,” Mike confirmed. “Ah, fuck.”
He held her by the shoulders, cursing a little as she winced in pain when he’d
managed to put his fingers right onto the deep gash in her back. He stared her
straight in the eye; the difference in height between them was almost comical.
“Listen, can you get back to the wall with us?” he asked slowly. “We can carry
you.”
She swallowed hard. “No, no I can make it. I just need a sec.”
Her eyes closed, and a little more blood dripped down from the slowly
congealing wound on her forehead. When she slowly opened them again, it was
apparent that she was trying very hard to not throw up again.
“I can make it.”
Levi scoffed. “Are you a hundred percent sure about that?”
She turned slowly to face him. “Don’t have a choice, do I? If either of you
carried me we’d run out of gas before we got to the wall, and stopping to
switch tanks would probably be suicide.”
Well, she was right about that. “Mike, you take point, I’ll hover around near
her. If she drops I’ll take care of it.”
Mike nodded, and with a crack of grappling hooks hitting bricks, he was gone.
The girl followed and he could tell that she was closing her eyes tightly every
so often. Fan-fucking-tastic indeed.
===============================================================================
The good news was that they’d made it back in relatively one piece. Mike was
able to easily dispatch a few straggling Titans in their way, allowing Levi to
keep a close eye on their bedraggled rookie. When they landed on the wall, she
proceeded to fall over and vomit again. Hange, who was busy corralling the
incoming soldiers to the medical tent, swooped down on her like a vulture.
“Oh, definitely a mild concussion,” she mused, trying to get the girl to track
her fingers. “She’s going to need stitches and observation for a while.”
“Mild?” Mike asked skeptically. “She was barely upright half the way here.”
Hange made a little tut-ing sound. “I know what I’m doing, you know. Anyway,
where’s the rest of them? Is this it?”
Levi stared past them towards the carnage below. “Two of them died as we
approached. She’s the only one left,”
The girl was being supported on one side by Hange. “Shit. Alright, kid, let’s
go. You’ll not be getting a lot of sleep tonight I’m afraid…and I can’t give
you any painkillers that’d make that easier. Tomorrow is going to be a hard
road.”
“Tomorrow?” Levi asked sharply.
Hange’s face became serious. “The Commander-in-Chief has ordered every soldier
who is mobile to be back out there to route the Titans. We’re still evacuating
folks out of Wall Maria. The sun is going down, but we have a squad heading in
already to make sure that they’re not getting too far into unbroken territory.”
“That’s a fucking joke,” he spat. “Half of the soldiers out there today most
likely died, and the ones that made it back are probably half-dead as is. This
will decimate them.”
“We have to save as many lives as we can,” she said grimly. “We’re hearing
whispers that the government will abandon Wall Maria sometime tomorrow.”
“Once it’s not their asses on the line,” he spat contemptuously.
===============================================================================
When he reported to the medical tents, Hange was still stitching up the girl.
Night had fallen, and those left alive were either huddled around fires or
trying to push the nightmares away to sleep. She wasn’t sedated because of her
head injury, but she looked exhausted. A little murmur of consent was given for
him to enter the tent as Hange worked.
“I’m going to be stationed here for a while,” she said, forceps glinting in the
lamplight. “I’m staying with her all night and then I’m seeing off a few of our
other injured. I’ll be on the battlefield probably by midday.”
“Don’t kill yourself, four-eyes,” he remarked. “You can’t expect to be much
use.”
“I don’t, honestly,” she pushed her glasses up onto her forehead. “I’m doing
what I can.”
“First sane thing I think you’ve ever said,”
She gave a tired smile. “Even I can’t be bubbly and exuberant in the face of
this.”
Levi looked down at the girl; she was sitting backwards in a chair, her head
buried in her arms while Hange stitched.
“And what’s this one’s name?”
She raised her head a little to peek at him. A thick bandage covered the wound
on her temple.
“Aisha,” Hange said. “She’s not much for conversation this evening.”
Levi knelt so that he was at eye-level. “You did a good job, Aisha.”
Tears brimmed in her dark eyes, but didn’t fall. “They’re dead,” she whispered.
“I know. They’re not the last teammates you’ll lose,” he explained. “And I’m
sorry for that. But tomorrow, you need to control yourself. You’re
talented—that was obvious from how you handled those Titans. However you need
to keep your cool,”
“My friends died because I panicked,” she said. Hange looked up, her face
drawn.
“You’re a rookie, you’d never seen them before,” Hange said briskly. “The point
is, you’ll be seeing them again tomorrow. Please, learn from your error.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Levi left the tent, pretending not to notice the tears slowly snaking down the
girl’s face.
***** Fully Alive: Fall of Maria, Part 3. *****
Chapter Notes
     Well, this chapter took a while. I’ve been trying to find out
     possible ranks for the military in Attack on Titan, but there doesn’t
     seem to be any stated aside from ‘Captain’ and ‘Commander’ (the manga
     also refers to Hitch and Marlowe as ‘second class’, so there’s that).
     Therefore, as any frustrated author would, I’m making up my own:
     http://flailed-state.tumblr.com/post/147423148562/aot-military-ranks-
     headcanon
     I made it using a comparison of German, French and British WWI ranks
     (AoT is overwhelmingly German, and has hints of other European
     influences.)
     Song and chapter title by Flyleaf :)
                     All my complaints shrink to nothing,
                       I'm ashamed of all my somethings.
                      She's glad for one day of comfort,
                        Only because she has suffered.  
                                 Fully alive,
                                More than most
                         Ready to smile and love life.
                          Fully alive and she knows,
                           How to believe in futures.
                                        
[Year 845]
Erwin came down to the medical tents with deep creases under his eyes and a
ream of paper in his arms. Hange had assigned one of her soldiers to watch over
the injured girl as the squad leaders assembled, almost all of them dead on
their feet.
“Here’s everyone,” she handed over a stack of records. “Organised as you
asked.”
“You had time to take patient histories?” Levi cocked an eyebrow.
“It was Erwin’s idea,” she explained. “Ingenious, honestly. Evaluate each
person and then try to assign them right away based on what teams we need to
put out for the mission. That way we can try to keep as many of them alive as
we can while getting the job done.”
Erwin thumbed through the sheets, “And it seems like we really needed it. A lot
of these soldiers have injuries that would rightfully keep them out of combat.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Mike asked.
Erwin unrolled a map, “We want to keep the miscommunications to a minimum this
time. I’ve modified the Long-Range Scouting Formation for still combat; instead
of avoiding the threat, we’re going to meet it. Every squad leader is to be
prepared to hear the retreat bell—other than that, stay where you are unless
you see Titan advancement. Then, you use a red flare,” he produced copies of
the protocols and handed them out. “I, or one of my designated squad leaders
will fire a green flare in the direction. You then copy that signal and move in
that direction, and so forth. The idea is to try and keep our strongest teams
near the civilians, and also at the other end where the Titans are attacking.”
“Where’s the commander, by the way?” Levi asked.
“In the Capital, trying to make sense of all of the bureaucracy,” Erwin sighed.
“The government was complacent. They didn't update the plan for a wall breach
in years. In any case, this is the gist of what we’re going to do tomorrow. Any
questions?”
===============================================================================
Levi, Hange and Mike walked back to the tent that held the lone survivor of the
30th squad; it was a brisk night, and it seemed as though rain was looming. The
soldier keeping watch was barely awake when the others filed in.
“She seems to be stable,” the woman yawned. “Responsive, not groggier than
usual and she’s able to perform cognitive tasks.”
“Thank you,” Hange took the chart from her subordinate. “Get some sleep.”
“Ma’am,” the soldier saluted and left.

“Are you planning to sleep any time soon?” Mike asked.
“Probably not,” she sighed. “Oh, I assigned her to you, by the way,” she
motioned to Aisha.
Mike gave a snort. “You think she’s a good fit?”
“From your reports she’s a bit of a tank; I mean—she’s beat up now obviously,
but she’s your style,” she explained. “I also gave you some more cadets from
her class who have some similar skills. Top ten, and they’re pretty solid.”
“Babysitting,” he looked at the sleeping girl. “Well, she at least she wasn’t
terrible. She can take a beating and keep fighting, so that’s a plus.”

“Great, so that’s settled.” Hange pushed her glasses up again, holding a hand
in front of her eyes as if she had a headache.
“Four-eyes,” Levi gave his cohort a cutting look. “You look like shit. Go
sleep, I’ll take over the death watch.”
“And you’ll be okay without sleep?” she chided with a smile.
“I only ever need about two or three hours,” he shrugged. “Besides, the last
thing we need is our decent medic to be fucked ten ways to Sunday because she’s
tired.”
“Touché,” she stretched. “She needs to be woken every hour, I can write down
the symptoms you need to look for. I’ll be right here, so if she’s dying, wake
me.”
Levi looked at Mike. “And you, go sleep as far away as possible. Your snoring
drives me fucking nuts.”
Mike smirked. “Aye-aye Captain.”
===============================================================================
“Hey, tank girl. Wake the fuck up.” A boot was nudging her leg.
Aisha groaned and opened her eyes gingerly. He really did need to work on his
bedside manner. The entire night had passed in a flurry of profanity and
sarcasm.
“Yeah?” she asked.  

“It’s morning, sunshine,” he said flatly. “Now get off your ass. You have to
try not to die today.”
The idea of going back out there made a thrill of fear curl in the pit of her
stomach. Levi noticed her trepidation and set up with a scowl.
“You’re alive when the rest of your team isn’t,” he held a hand up when she
looked as though she would interrupt, “shut up and let me talk. This isn’t
about regret, this is about what you’re going to do to keep living. It is your
duty, soldier, to meet the enemy. Regret is going to get you killed. You need
to act like an adult and get some fucking perspective.”
The back of her eyes burned with tears, but she couldn’t cry in front of him
again. She wouldn’t.

“Yes, sir.”
“Now get out and let four-eyes change those disgusting-ass bandages.”
The understanding from the night before was pretty much gone; Aisha could
definitely see the side of Captain Levi that made him so terrifying to the
other soldiers. His temper preceded him, much like his deadly reputation. She
sat up slowly, and he shoved a canteen in her direction, with a labeled little
cup of pills.
Oh, goody, drugs.She swigged the water after downing the pills, and swung her
legs off the bed. There was no nausea this morning, which was heartening at
least.
‘The Nice Captain Levi’, if there even was a thing, was nowhere in sight. He
stormed around the camp growling at anyone unprepared or lagging; Hange
described it as ‘tough love’ while evaluating her for any further issues:
“He means well,” she said cheerfully as Levi was roughly admonishing a soldier
for taking too much time to get to his post. “He was actually rather calm with
you last night, if you remember. He doesn’t kick a man when he’s down.”
Aisha looked at the dejected soldiers surrounding her. “I was beginning to
think the concussion made me hallucinate it. We’re all a little down after
yesterday, I think.”
“Yeah, but last night everyone needed rest and some comfort; this morning they
need to be soldiers again. Being a leader means you know when to push and when
to encourage.”
Aisha winced a little as Hange peeled off the bandage on her forehead; the
dulled memories of what happened yesterday were floating right under her
consciousness, as if they were coated in some sort of film. A pang struck her
as she recalled Klaus’ mutilated corpse, and she desperately shoved the image
away.
“What do we do about the bodies?” Aisha looked Hange right in the eye. “One of
my friends is still out there.”
“I dunno kiddo,” she sighed. “I don’t think it’s as simple as a reconnaissance.
Not with our forces like this.”
The thought of him lying there, forgotten…left to rot…
No, I can’t think of this now. I need to concentrate on the living.
“Is there time to find some of my friends?” she asked a little desperately. Had
Marie and Kai made it?
Hange shook her head. “No. It’ll take too long, and you need to report to your
squad leader...unless of course, you want him breathing down your neck?” she
motioned to Levi, who currently had soldiers scattering as he approached.
“You’re all set. Remember what Levi said: keep a level head and control
yourself. He said it nicely once, don’t make him say it again.”
Aisha glanced at the rampaging Captain.
Level head. Right.
                                      ---
“Cadet Kaur, reporting for duty, sir,” Aisha saluted tiredly. Mike Zacharias
was probably the tallest man she’d ever met. She was always taught to keep her
eyes baring straight when she performed a salute, but all that did was give her
a clear view of the middle of his chest. Levi made her feel small and
nondescript from the sheer abrasiveness of his personality, but Mike could
achieve the same because he was just so fucking huge.
“At ease,” he said. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as he bent a little…
as if he was…sniffing her?
Erm. What?
“Sir?” she stared blankly. He had straightened up with a little smirk, and then
promptly walked off to settle the particulars for their deployment without
another word. Aisha gaped at his retreating frame.
“He does that,” a tall blonde woman explained. “Don’t pay any attention to it.
I’m Nanaba, by the way.”
Aisha, still bewildered, shook the woman’s hand and introduced herself. “He
saved my life yesterday.”
“He’s one of our best,” she nodded. “Probably second only to Captain Levi.
Follow his lead and we may just survive the day.”
Aisha looked at the ranks of barely standing soldiers. “How many of us do you
think will die out there today?”
“At least half,” she sighed. “It’s our job, however, to control that number.
We’re going to be in the second position, near the carnage from the last
battle— in tactical terms, we’re the heavy offense squad. We’ll need to be
deployed while the others get into position; it’s barely sunrise, so the Titans
should be active soon. We had some teams taking out the inactive ones last
night, but we can expect more to pour in.”
“Heavy offense?” Aisha watched the trembling and in some cases—crying soldiers
assemble in their squads.
“Specialised soldiers who are good at dealing a lot of damage over a sustained
period of time,” she explained. “You know Captain Levi has recently been tasked
with forming a special ops squad, right?”
Aisha nodded.
“They’ll move between the ranks,” she explained. “They go anywhere, and perform
any role—like specialised missions, for instance. So their purpose changes
depending on the mission. Our purpose is to steamroll everything in front of
us, so we have teammates that function relatively independently. We usually
only get called around when things get particularly bad.”
“So, we’re the bulwark when teams get in trouble,” the carts with gas and
blades was here. Aisha loaded her equipment and ran enough gas through her 3DMG
for it to hiss; she snapped each blade into place and made sure they drew
properly.
“Essentially. We do have team functions, but I can’t expect we’ll be using them
here,” she said tiredly. “We lost most of our own guys yesterday, and you
cadets are too green to know our strategies.”
“You lost most of your team? How can you be so…okay?”
Nanaba’s blue eyes met hers, and Aisha noticed the fine lines of strain already
showing themselves. “Because I’ve been here before. You don’t have time to
grieve, until the mission is done. You’re learning it too, you just haven’t
realised it yet.”
Aisha looked down at her own cold, numbed hands; she was right. Yesterday she’d
lost almost everything, but today, she was ready to go again despite the
numbing sadness and fear. Her body felt distant—as though it was being piloted
on its own, as if she could be watching it go through the motions from afar.
The closer the time came to deployment, the worse she felt. Henning, Gelgar and
a survey corps soldier named Lynne had joined them. The other 99th Training
Corps members were, like Aisha, quiet and wearing pinched expressions. They
didn’t speak, instead watching the two more experienced soldiers discuss
strategy while the trio huddled together in a little, apprehensive knot.
Mike returned with a copy of all of the flare colours they would be using for
their mission and a bag of their rations.
“We’ll be queuing out in ten minutes, so eat quickly,” he said, calmly as ever.
“Now, each of you three,” he gestured to the cadets, “was assigned to me
because you can take out Titans without help. You have to trust that
assessment, and just go out there and do it. Don’t overthink it.”
“It’s easier said than done,” Gelgar murmured.
“There isn’t a choice,” he said plainly. “Leave the worrying to me.”
“Don’t let your nerves cost us lives,” Lynne added. “Trust yourselves, and
trust us.”
The cadets exchanged a glance and resolved to swallow their fear; each of them
had experienced the helplessness and loss of the previous day. They would never
go back there if they could help it. Levi was right. Regret had no place in
war.
Aisha opened the wax-paper wrapped package and felt a little green at the sight
of the scant eggs and hashed potatoes. It was a rare, coveted breakfast, but
the usually mouth-watering smell of scrambled eggs was repulsive this morning.
She glanced up at the veterans, none of whom were wasting time in eating and
getting their hydration in. Mike caught her eye and she got the message without
a word. Stop acting like a child and get it done.
The whistle rang out in warning for the battalions waiting for their
deployment; Aisha hastily washed the rest of her food down with the remaining
water in her canteen and got moving. At the top of Wall Rose, the soldiers
could see the remains of their last encounter through the hazy dawn: the slowly
fizzling bones of Titans that were taken down by the night teams, as well as
the little splatters and bright red spots where living, breathing people once
stood. Aisha could discern what looked like a human arm lying on a landing roof
some distance away. Her stomach gave a lurch and she closed her eyes.
She opened them to find Mike saluting his fellow squad leader; Major-General
Erwin Smith would be acting as their commander in the field today. He looked at
them with a determined fire in his eyes, his posture straight and untainted by
sorrow or fatigue. It was contagious—each soldier seemed to stand a little
taller, look a little more self-assured as he passed by.
“You have your orders,” he said, his powerful voice carrying clearly. The sun
was just beginning to peek over the distant horizon, illuminating his sleek
blonde hair like spun gold. “I have faith in all of you. We will stamp out the
menace, and we will protect our people!”
The salute she and the others returned was heartfelt. His presence was the
uplifting respite they sorely needed, and he seemed to know that.
When the whistle went off again, she was ready. The cold wind whipped through
her hair, the whirring of her gear and the billowing of the breeze roaring
through the silence of the early morning. They came to rest on a tall building
at the edge of the town, facing the western side of the abandoned city. One of
the teams on the very frontlines was visible a little further down, spread out
with their blades drawn already.
“Wait for my signal,” Mike reminded them. “We will spread ourselves between
this building and the wall, so everyone is essentially on their own. Our teams
out here are staggered to make sure we have as few gaps as possible. If you see
Titans moving in our unguarded space, you signal that the front line has been
breached and take out the threat.”
The soldiers nodded. Aisha stayed in her position as the others left; the team
in front of her was full of veterans, so she felt relatively at ease. The other
cadets with the bulk of the surviving soldiers were either in the middle, or if
they were good enough, near the evacuation site. They were exceedingly lucky
that Wall Maria was not completely urban; it was steeped in forests and hills
that also held streams or lakes. The corresponding city on the other side of
the encircled zone had the added buffer of a deep river. That was where Levi
and his teams would have been headed. They, and a few other soldiers would man
that large expanse with the garrison. Whichever side was done first would send
its remaining soldiers would supplement the other forces.
Mike’s call to move at will came a few minutes before she saw them coming in
the distance. Drawn by the concentration of soldiers, groups of Titans were
shambling towards the front line. There were several that spanned between
fifteen and twenty metres, and she could be sure that under the cover of the
buildings, there would probably be smaller two metre classes as well. The
veterans sprung into action.
Aisha remained rooted to her spot, her eyes darting from battle to battle. When
should she step in?
Instincts. Trust yourself.
She spotted a man caught between two Titans; one swatted him from his course
leaving him to be summarily caught by the other. Her body moved in an instant,
her grappling hook shooting off into the nearby building. She gunned the
trigger that controlled the gas, and used the wicked momentum to fire another
hook into the beast’s chest. Her blades arced through clumsy fists—there was no
time to look back for the soldier as he fell. Swinging like a pendulum, she
released the hook at the top of the motion, free-falling into the Titan’s nape
for the killing shot. She rode the body’s descent, spring-boarding up and
shooting for the building behind the remaining Titan. It was too slow, and
never saw her coming.
When she regained her vantage point on the rooftop, she searched frantically
for the soldier she’d freed. A sickening pang hit her like a blow. Right where
one of the things fell, there was a characteristic bloody splatter of an
impact. Just like those crushed by the debris yesterday.
Had he been dead already? Incapacitated?
Had she just killed a man by trying to save him?
No, stop. You can’t think about this.

Aisha took a slow, controlled breath and looked towards the rest of the team.
They were still in battle, each showing some control over the Titans around
them. She loaded a red flare and shot it off, followed by a purple one. The
military gave little purple ribbons to the families of dead soldiers. The
colour never really felt the same any more, and now always signified death. She
watched the colours bleed into the sky for a moment, and then put her gaze
towards the surrounding mayhem.
===============================================================================
Titan steam had reduced visibility to almost nothing; Levi cursed under his
breath and moved to the highest building he could find. Eld joined him, wiping
his face with his slightly damp cloak.
“Visibility is fucked,” he snapped in a new pair of blades. “Where are the rest
of them?”
Eld’s shoulders visibly slumped. “We lost two whole teams before I came up
here. The garrison is still re-loading their cannons, so we need to stop these
things from crossing the river until then.”
The Captain scoffed. “Fine, go get whoever’s still alive, I’ll start our
attack. By the time you organise them this gross mist will be gone.”
With a nod, the younger man was gone. He was the only one in the current crop
of soldiers that distinguished himself right away for the new Special
Operations Squad. Given the state of affairs and how many soldiers were being
turned into Titan chow, it was likely to stay that way for a while. Levi’s
blades cut through flesh and sinew like butter; the bodies crashed into the
river below. He wondered absently if any of the rookies would survive long
enough to join him.
                                      ---
The concerted efforts of the Survey Corps and Garrison Regiment saw that the
majority of the populace had been evacuated without much of a problem. A runner
brought word that everyone up to the Utopia district had been taken through,
thus, the decision was made to cut the forces and allocate more to the other
side of Wall Maria.
“Apparently they’re not doing so well,” the soldier said tiredly. “Looks like
the majority of the Titans went that way, on account of the hole being closer
and the lack of natural barriers.”
Levi restocked his gas and blades atop Wall Rose, his face as unaffected as
ever. “We have any estimate of the damage?”
“Major-General Smith thinks that the formation may fall within the hour,”
“Ah, shit,” he spat. Without the soldiers in line the Titans would pour through
the gaps and decimate the population. “Alright, where’s my fucking horse?”
He, Eld and the remaining teams were tearing across the diameter of Wall Rose,
headed for the eastern deployment camp they’d left that morning. It was too
risky to try going around in Wall Maria; running into Titans and losing men
before they could aid in the evacuation would be foolish. With the Garrison
Regiment taking up Wall Rose as well, it meant that the fastest route was
through the city. Panicking citizens scattered as the stout horses of the
Survey Corps moved with agile urgency.
At the wall near the camp, they switched to their 3DMG; Levi was greeted by
Erwin and Hange, who were also restocking their supplies before returning to
the battlefield.
“The supply squad got eaten,” Hange explained as she tested her blades. “So we
had no other choice but to come back and make up another while we resupplied
our own gear.”
“Well, this looks like a right shitstorm,”
“It’s going as badly as I’d feared,” Erwin agreed. “It was always going to be a
gamble which side was going to get the short end of the stick. If we don’t
patch this up, the government will abandon the people left here.”
“Tch. Fat fucks,” Levi scowled. “I take it we have a messenger taking reports
to them?”
“Hourly,” Erwin said bitterly. “From the Military Police.”
“Figures.”
Erwin turned to the soldiers accumulated on the wall. “We’re four hours into
this operation, and we have an estimated two more. You are to go out there and
plug any holes you find in the formation. Leave any Titans in the centre to the
mobile support squads or the teams based in the middle; concentrate on the
incoming ones.”
“Sir!” the rough pat of fists hitting chests was heard.
As they whizzed through the air, Levi gave his commander a quick glance. “I
suppose I’m going to join our support teams?”
“Yes,” Erwin answered. “Take your man with you, and meet up with Mike or one of
his squad members. They should give you an appraisal of where you’re needed.”
Levi gave Eld a backwards glance and a curt nod before manoeuvering away from
their stand-in commander and the rest of the envoy. Finding Mike would have
been a chore, but luckily, his freakish sense of smell found them first. They
chose a clock tower roof to discuss the particulars—not only was it taller than
the Titans around, it had a clear view of what was happening for a few metres
in every direction.
“Where do you need us?” Levi looked on as a squad began exterminating the
smaller titans on the street below.
“Honestly, everywhere,” Mike said. “But since I have to choose, you should go
find Cadet Kaur while Corporal Jinn goes down to check in with rest of the
support folks.”
“Tank girl?” he asked. “She hasn’t managed to get herself thrown like a rope
dart again?”
“Last I saw her, she was headed to the inside,” he pointed towards the very
middle of the formation. “We have some Titans that broke through down there;
four teams on the front lines are dead. That gap is at least half a kilometre
wide; it’s probably our biggest issue at the moment.”
“Got it,” Levi then turned to his subordinate. “Try not to get yourself
killed.”
Eld saluted. “Wouldn’t dream of it Captain.”
                                      ---
The Titans were running amok amongst the midline soldiers; there were far more
men in this area, but most were recruits or low-level soldiers. Many of them
were also injured. Levi cut down three of the beasts as he arrived to the worst
part of the battlefield—the air was thick with blood, and unfortunately, it
wasn’t coming from the Titans.
Nearby, a group of rookies was being cornered by a twenty-metre type; by their
inability to move, he’d have guessed that they ran out of gas. Launching
himself off the rooftop, his spinning blades caught the Titan’s arm as it
reached out for one of the soldiers—he rode the momentum up, circling all the
way to the nape. The Titan fell with a crash as he rappelled onto the landing
roof where the scared survivors were huddled.
“How many of you have anything left in your tanks at all?”
A crying girl raised her hand; the others looked as though they were barely
able to discern what he was asking.
“You're on point here, soldier,” he told her firmly. “Use whatever is left if
you get attacked again. You all are to retreat into this building and wait to
be resupplied, got it?”
Her hands were shaking so badly that she could barely salute. “Y-yes, sir.”
He watched them climb through the broken window into the flat before moving off
again. There was no guarantee that they would survive…for all he knew, a Titan
would reach right in and pluck them out. With so many other personnel in
danger, there was nothing else to do but hope and move on.
Several soldiers were fleeing as he passed by, some being carried by others as
they’d either become too injured or had run out of gas. The elite ranks had
finally begun moving forward—he could see the sparse backline troops trickling
through as the others tried to get to safety to resupply and offload the
wounded. At the epicentre, a cluster of Titans was wreaking havoc amongst the
people still there; Levi could discern a bloodied Cadet Kaur as she moved
between giants, either cutting down soldiers from fists or slicing napes.
With eye-watering speed, he’d closed the distance and gotten into the thick of
the battle. Five Titans quickly fell by his hand before he needed to change his
blades—with an unspoken understanding, Aisha covered him by downing the nearby
enemies as he snapped a new set in. She was quick, there was no doubt about
that. It took skill and a large helping of pure will to keep composure and
precision when moving at those speeds. A simple miscalculation or lagging
thought could end in disaster. After another round of attack, the only
remaining Titans were far away; she came to rest nearby, covered with crimson
stains that gave way to steam as they evaporated.
“How are your supplies?” he asked, gauging the distance and number of
encroaching Titans.
“I took blades and canisters from a body,” she said grimly. “I should be good
for now.”
“We have another two hours of this at most,” he allowed himself a quick glance
in her direction. She was staring straight ahead into the oncoming throngs, her
expression hollow.
She tapped her gas canister to check its levels. “That won’t go well unless we
get supplies,”
“Then we need to be especially conservative while we take these ugly fucks
down,” he said. “You take the ones on the right, I’ll clean up the left. Try to
fire your hooks only once to get rid of multiple Titans.”
“Sir.” She was off like a shot.
By the time the retreat signals came, the battlefield was in complete chaos.
Squads were either decimated or completely separated and it was practically
impossible to tell what had gone on across the rest of the midline. Levi was
also forced to make use of the many corpses littering the roofs and streets to
replace his own equipment; the new supply squad was either dead or held up
elsewhere. When the bells rang out, he yelled for soldiers to take whoever they
could carry and make themselves scarce as soon as possible. He and those with
the least amount of gas brought up the rear, trying to keep straggling Titans
off those carrying victims.
Atop Wall Rose, Hange was already perched at the edge of the hoards of incoming
survivors, corralling the injured and her own squads. He came to rest near
Erwin and Mike, who were a small distance away looking out over what was left
of humanity’s largest walled territory.
“At least a hundred thousand people have died,” Erwin said. “We don’t even know
how many citizens in the mountainous and rural areas got left behind.”
The wind blew gently around them, and Mike gave a sniff. “Those bodies are
going to be a problem by tomorrow.”
“We need to stage a cleanup of the immediate perimeter,” he explained. “The
medics and cleanup crew personnel have informed me that we need to at least
dispose of the bodies within a ten metre radius of the wall.”
“Great,” Levi said. “We’re sending them back after two days of hell to deal
with the rotting corpses of their comrades.”
“This can never happen again,” Erwin growled. Levi noticed the heavy vellum
clenched in his fist as he held it up. “I am now the commander of the Survey
Corps. Whatever is left of it.”
He and Mike looked at their cohort in surprise. “Shadis didn’t go get himself
killed, did he?”
“No, he was handing over the reins to me for a while,” Erwin explained. “That’s
why you were promoted to Captain, and why Hange became a Major this year. I’ve
been slowly building my own slate behind the scenes,” he watched as Aisha Kaur
stumbled across the wall with a mangled soldier on her back. “I am going to
make sure this means something.”
The men watched the sun disappear behind the clouds in silence; having divested
herself of her charge, Aisha approached them quietly. Her small frame was
covered in blood and dirt, and the wound on her back seemed to have reopened,
seeping new wetness into her jacket.
“Good job,” Mike’s usually calm eyes were a little pained as he took in how
pitiful she looked. “The others made it back before you did. They’ll be happy
to know you’re fine.”
Fine is highly subjective. Levi watched her touch the bloody patch on her
shoulder, as if just remembering that she was injured. These kids were wrecked.
“I’ll sort out the particulars for our mission tomorrow and let the squad
leaders know,”
Large brown eyes looked up at the new commander as he walked off, her mouth
slightly ajar. She didn’t say anything as she clicked her 3DMG, rappelling to
the street below. Mike and Levi watched her walk a short distance, her stride
haunted and aimless. The figure of the usually gruff Instructor Gregor emerged
from one of the buildings; he pulled the injured girl into a hug and even from
a distance, they could see her shoulders shaking in misery.
 
***** How the Years Condemn: The Aftermath, Part 1. *****
Chapter Notes
     The song and lyrics are from Napalm Death.
     Finally, I get to write some interaction between Aisha and Levi!
     Things should be picking up more in the next chapters. I have two
     written out already, but I've learned that those canon events
     actually happened a year later >.>
     So, we're getting some more fluff before that. (Which is great,
     because they're probably the most bitter chapters I have *ever*
     written).
                            We are not invincible,
                          Nor are we indestructible.
                      There are choices—points of return.
                            Will the path be easy?
                     Nothing is easy, but that's reality,
                        For the sake of my loved ones—
                         I will remain on this earth.

                    It's the last chance to face the fears.
                     I have always known better that than
                             To fear the unknown.
                          How the years condemned my
                         heart to a plague of madness.
                                         
[Year 845]
Another chilly night passed in tightly restrained terror. Many soldiers were
far too shell-shocked to sleep, and those who managed woke up to a never-ending
nightmare. The only souls spared from the grim cleanup operation were those too
injured to manoeuvre; the soldiers were roused from sleep, given more rations
and equipped with masks and gloves. Several teams of Survey Corps troops lured
Titans away with the help of the garrison, while those on the ground scraped up
what was left of their comrades and the many citizens who could not escape.
The cool breeze only served to spread the scent of decay as the morning trudged
on; it stuck to the throats of the soldiers around, wafting into even the
residential areas of Wall Rose. Every bit of human remains close to the walls
was to be systematically collected and burned. Flies had already nested amongst
the corpses, creating noisome maggots that moved through the flesh of
sometimes-bloated bodies. Many of the soldiers had already relinquished what
was left of their breakfast rations, and instead were reduced to dry heaving as
they wrapped remains into sheets for transport.
Aisha completed the last hour of her shift, carrying bodies on stretchers to a
large pyre with the aid of other soldiers. Looking on as flames consumed the
marbled, discoloured skin, she tried not to think about Klaus on the rooftop in
town. Part of her wanted to go and collect him…to give him some form of
dignity—but the other part was scared of what she would find. She couldn’t
watch that kind face distorted, his once cornflower blue eyes filled with
maggots. The thought made her swallow convulsively, trying to keep the bile in
her stomach where it was.
Unsurprisingly, no one was really eating when they returned to the camp. She
stared into the mobile hearth that was set up, clutching a tankard of water;
nothing would ever be the same again, she was sure of it. The Aisha that lived
three days ago would not recognise the small girl in front of the fire, sitting
with her knees drawn to her chest and trying to remain numb.
Kai and Marie had indeed survived—they managed to find her within an hour of
her return to the base. Kai’s leg had been broken, not by a Titan, but by a
loosened cannon on the wall. Marie had been assigned to the rear guard the day
before, and sported a purple bruise on her pale face where shrapnel from a
Titan’s attack on a building had hit her. One of her arms was also in a
cast—not broken, but badly sprained by her fall. They both greeted Aisha with
mingled happiness and relief, but she couldn’t bring herself to smile back.
The first sentence out of her mouth gutted them. “Klaus and Simon are dead.”
Kai slid off of his crutches into the grass next to her, while Marie clapped
her uninjured hand over her mouth, tears leaking out of the corners of her
green eyes.
“H-how?” Kai managed.
Aisha opened her mouth to explain and felt a sob wrack through her body. She
couldn’t say it. She couldn’t even formulate the words.
“Leave her,” Marie said quietly, her voice shaking. “We don’t need to know.
They’re gone anyway.”
Kai put a large hand over hers as she took an unsteady sip of water.
“I’m glad you’re alive, Aish.”
His friend looked back at him with an utterly defeated expression. “I’m not.
All I feel is guilt. Every time I feel something, I’m guilty about being here
when they aren’t.”
The three cadets stared into the fire in silence—periodically broken by the
cannons firing from the wall. Aisha could still smell death everywhere.
                                      ---
The ensuing days were filled with chaos as refugees and Wall Rose citizens
alike struggled to find food. The cadets—or what was left of them, where
meanwhile relegated to their training barracks. Most of the survivors were
recovering from various injuries, both physical and mental; it was not uncommon
to be roused from an uneasy sleep by screams. Many times, Aisha found that the
screams were hers.
On the seventh day after the attack ended, there was a large ruckus outside of
the barracks; cadets filed out, still in their sleepwear, some crying because
they thought there was another assault. The instructors were all huddled around
the showers; a cadet had killed himself inside.
Days passed in alternating bouts of numbness and agony.
Families began coming by to find their loved ones. Every surviving soldier was
interviewed to gain as much information about the dead and missing as was
possible. A majority of these visits ended in heartbreak, but quite a few saw
families being given more questions than answers; they were related to the ones
who’d committed the ultimate sin. They’d fled in the face of the enemy, and
were cut down for it. No one really knew what to tell the grieving relatives,
therefore their superiors deigned to tell them nothing at all.
Aisha sent Ambros and Lotte a letter, lying and saying that she was fine.

Don’t waste the money to come see me. I’m all right.
The military found that it could spare no soldiers for an extended
convalescence. With rising unrest in the walls, they needed more hands than
ever. Shell-shocked, tattered cadets were thus sent to their assignments well
before they were ready. Kai kept with his decision to join the Garrison
Regiment, while Marie had made the difficult decision to take a Military Police
assignment instead of joining the scouts. She’d seen too much, and never wanted
to face a Titan ever again.
Aisha was adamant of staying where she felt that she belonged; the Survey Corps
took the majority of the damage during the assault, with barely a hundred
soldiers coming out alive. So many cadets had died or changed their minds about
joining that she was one of only fifteen cadets who would assimilate with them
this year. This ran against the general sentiment held by the population; given
the terror that the citizenry felt during the two days of evacuation, the faith
in the scouts was actually better than ever. The battle saw many older recruits
coming out of their homes to enlist for the 102nd Training Corps, being spurred
into action by some need to protect themselves and the ones they loved.
Commander Erwin had also made a very good impression; he was more charismatic
than Shadis could ever hope to be. He was young, formidable in build and with
traditional good looks that made him an instant favourite with the populace.
With Captain Levi at his side, they represented humanity’s hope—the skilled,
trustworthy tactician and his stoic, legendary, Titan-killing machine. Of
course, many ordinary folks had never met either of them, and many reports from
the battlefield were highly exaggerated. In this case, however, it did much to
help the morale of prospective recruits.
It was also fairly obvious that a lot of people were also enlisting just to
have a place to sleep and something to fill their stomachs. Rumblings of
discontent were arising from food shortages and scuffles over rations or living
arrangements were happening with alarming frequency.
Aisha had finished a long, difficult report to the commander about what had
gone wrong during the mission. Erwin made it clear that soldiers were to submit
a report and he would personally read each and every one of them. He would make
sure that the travesty that occurred would never happen on that scale ever
again. Aisha somehow found that she had faith in the man; from her few
interactions and observances, he seemed quite the visionary to say the least.
He had lofty plans that they could not begin to imagine. When she signed and
dropped off her document, she was simultaneously given her assignment orders.
With cold fingers, she broke the wax seal of the envelope to learn of her fate.
For the first time in days, she felt something other than cold numbness as her
eyes widened in surprise: she had been specially requested by Major Mike
Zacharias for his team. The wagon that would take her to the Survey Corps
headquarters was already waiting; inside, she met Gelgar and Henning, both with
similar disbelief etched into their faces.
“Carriage twenty?” Aisha quickly double-checked the letter. “You’re assigned to
Major Zacharias too?”
“Yeah,” Henning flashed his own orders. “Cadets getting assigned to a high-
ranking officer’s team, go figure.”
“I thought at first it meant that we were just going to be in his squad,
probably under one of his team leaders but,” Gelgar moved around to make space
for Aisha, “all of my other friends had letters that specifically said what
team they’d be on. So that means we’re on his personal team.”
“I guess we impressed him,” the carriage set off with a lurch, with Aisha
sandwiched between the comparatively bulky men. They gazed at each other in
wonder; after the hell they’d gone through, none of them felt like particularly
good soldiers. Too much had been lost for that.
Usually, cadets were phased into the many teams that formed a squad or platoon
under a squad leader’s command; they were usually very picky about who was on
their own teams, preferring to select those who’d distinguished themselves from
other teams. It wasn’t uncommon to find that squad leaders would form their
elite groups using only Corporals and Sergeants; soldiers who survived long
enough to attain that rank were generally considered to be indispensible.
Cadets were cannon fodder in comparison. Mike was known for being especially
discriminating about his team—almost as much as Captain Levi, in fact. His team
was built from powerhouses: the hardiest, most reliable soldiers.
The ride through Wall Rose was filled with many difficult sights along the way.
Lines of people were waiting for rations with armed guards from the Military
Police standing with rifles loaded and ready. The throngs stretched out for
several streets, like an almost never-ending parade of misery. The carriages
were held up at a few points the cadets learned quickly that each pause meant
that either scuffles had broken out a supply wagon had come in. At one of the
lulls in their journey, Aisha spotted three small children holding hands and
waiting for their turn. Two boys and a girl—all very dirty and very thin; the
brown haired boy and girl in her big red scarf seemed to be quite protective of
the small blonde boy between them. Large eyes turned to the carriage as it drew
to a halt, and she saw the brown haired boy’s face light up as he saw them. The
girl remained impassive, while their little friend held on to their hands for
dear life. Her heart breaking, Aisha managed a little smile and squeezed enough
room to give a salute. The brown haired child positively beamed as he clumsily
tried to do it himself, using the wrong hand. The carriage pulled off, and she
felt a little bit of her remaining humanity being left in the distance with
them.
                                      ---
The Survey Corps headquarters was a little ways out of town, settled in a
clearing after thickets of unruly trees and foliage. It was a fairly grand
structure, encircled with huge walls and turrets; several buildings littered
the compound, with the largest and most impressive being in the centre, where
the commanding officers stayed. The three cadets disembarked their carriage and
saluted their new squad leader, who was waiting with his only surviving team
member, Nanaba.
“At ease,” he said quietly. “Congratulations, soldiers; you are all now
Privates, second class.”
“Thank you, sir!”
“I specially requested all of you because you performed well in the field. The
Corporal and I,” he gestured to Nanaba, “have decided that you all have what it
takes.”
“Rest assured,” Nanaba continued, “we know you’re all still babies. You three
are good, and you could become great soldiers. Providing you survive, we will
see to that.”
“We’re grateful for the opportunity, ma’am,” Henning said.
“Good,” she said. “Now, I’ll show you three to the barracks. Major Zacharias is
meeting with the other squad leaders, so it’ll just be us for the evening.”
The barracks were small cottage-like buildings spread around the compound; each
team had two, one for males and females. Theirs was a short distance from the
main building, shaded by two positively humongous pine trees that littered
little green needles on every exposed surface. Nanaba left the men to their own
devices in their barracks and showed Aisha where she would be sleeping. The
quarters were spacious—perhaps not enough for the four women it was intended to
hold, but for just the two of them, it was practically opulent.
Clean bed sheets and a quilted comforter lay folded on the end of a plain
mattress; respectfully waving off the offer of help, she started dressing the
bed.
“You’re very quiet,” Nanaba pointed out. “More than you were before, I mean.”
“Ma’am?”
“You can forget the formality, we’re roommates and teammates,” she said. “How
are you coping, is what I mean to ask.”
Aisha let the sheet slip through her fingers and snap to the edge of the bed.
“I’m taking it a minute at a time.”
“Have you spoken to anyone?”
“No,” she answered, unfolding the quilt and spreading it across the crisp
surface. “I don't think I can.”
The older woman’s brow furrowed. “If you need to, you know you can talk to
me…or Mike, for that matter. He’s taken an interest in you—more of a concern,
honestly.”
Aisha looked at her with a mildly startled expression. “Have I done something?”
“He’s a bit of a silent den mother sometimes,” she said mildly. “To the younger
ones like you. He's not one to really talk, but he's always tried to support
his struggling squad members.”
The bitterness in her voice took Nanaba aback.
“That’s a new one. I guess I’ve never really had a mother, much less a
surrogate.”
===============================================================================
At dinner, the new Privates all huddled together on their own table in the mess
hall. The numbers were, of course quite sparse, but there were just enough
soldiers to fill half of the room, with the head table being reserved for the
squad leaders and the commander. Levi took his seat next to Hange, who was
already animatedly explaining her plans for her research squad to Erwin. Mike
meanwhile, was sniffing the food on his plate; it was a disgusting habit, but
he had to admit, the fare was a bit perplexing.
“What the fuck is this?” he moved a spoon through the yellowish sauce and rice.
“Some regional cuisine,” Hange said loftily. “A Lance Corporal in the dinner
shift suggested it since we’re short of meat these days, and I think everyone
has had it with beans. It’s rice with some sort of spiced sauce, potatoes and
boiled eggs.”
“It looks like shit,” he cut through an egg stained by the sauce, heaping a
small spoonful into his rice.
“Taste it, it’s not bad,” she had already gotten through most of her portion.
Erwin had practically finished his, which was somewhat heartening, he supposed.
Taking a careful bite, he found that it was actually quite inoffensive. The
spices weren’t something he was particularly used to, but it was a hearty
enough meal. Better than a constant barrage of beans, anyway.
“Well?” she nudged him with an elbow, earning a scowl.
“It’s not as gross as it looks,” he said. “Where’d it come from?”
“Some town all the way in the eastern outskirts of Maria,” Hange explained.
“Apparently it was passed down for a few generations. Lance Corporal Dhavernas
said some one of the old clans must’ve brought it in before they died out.”
“Those groups always seem so mythical, the way people speak about them,” Erwin
said. “My father once told me about them; they weren’t clans per se, but
different races of mankind.”
Hange nodded vigourously. “I found a book detailing a few of them from what was
probably a guy selling stolen goods—“ Erwin gave her a stiff glare “—it was by
a man who had this fascination with the all the different groups.” She produced
a grubby notebook from her breast pocket, ignoring Levi’s deepening frown.
“That thing is fucking nasty,” he slid his food slightly away from her.
“It’s what I jot my working notes in,” she explained calmly, flicking through
the crammed pages. “Ah, here. So, we had clans of people with these almond,
angled eyes and straight hair—the Orientals; then he describes this clan with
people who had skin as dark as mahogany, and the women had lush, pillowy hair
that made him want to sleep in it. They were usually very toned, with
distinctive, beautiful faces. He didn’t have a name for them, but he seemed
pretty obsessed.”
Levi made a disgusted face. “By that description, I think I know why.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter, geez,” she chided. “The man’s just waxing
poetic. Anyways, there’s one last one that he knows about which provided him
with the most confusion. They were almost not a clan in a way, seeing as they
could all look quite different, but they all apparently came from the same
place—they generally had dark eyes and hair and what he described as various
shades of ‘glowing olive skin’. He was pretty preoccupied with the women here
too; he said they usually had thick brows and striking features, which depended
on the type of ‘families’ they mixed with. They tended to intermarry and just
keep creating more and more varieties within the clan.”
“I have never seen any of those,” Erwin remarked. “Pity, because it seemed as
though humanity might’ve been richer for it.”
“You might’ve seen at least one,” Hange said, gesturing to the table of new
scouts. “Flowery writing aside, his sketches of some of those women in the
third clan look like Private Kaur. I thought of the book the first time I saw
her at the training yard.”
Levi studied the girl’s face passively. “The brat does stick out.”
“What happened to them?” Mike asked quietly. “The clans.”
“Well, it seems as though humanity is either going to be worshipful or
completely ignorant about difference,” Hange sighed. “They were considered to
be freaks…desirably exotic ones at that. So they ended up hunted to extinction
because of fear, or because people wanted to own them.”

Levi took a sip from his tankard. The image of the girl sitting with that old,
washed-up soldier appeared in his mind. “Begs the question though: if they’re
all gone, how did she slip through the cracks?”

“I wanted to ask her about it but,” Hange propped her chin onto her arm
tiredly, “the kid’s probably not in the best frame of mind.”
“She isn’t coping well,” Mike added. “She thinks she’s hiding it, but it’s
obvious she might be the least recovered of the three she came in with.”
When she met his probing eyes looking like prey in a snare, Levi had to agree.
===============================================================================
The burning ache in the middle of her shoulder blades was somehow soothing;
Aisha swung the axe again, splitting a log neatly in two. Nearby, Gelgar was
heaving bales of hay for the horses, cursing through the searing sun. He
straightened up and wiped his brow, leaning on the pitchfork that he stuck into
the ground.
“Are you not tired yet?”
Aisha reluctantly paused, looking over at the steadily growing pile of
firewood. “Not particularly. In any case, you guys will get enough firewood
from this so you two don’t have to chop any.”
“I mean, thanks and all—but you’ve been at it for more than an hour,” he
pointed out. “What about your injuries?”
“Major Hange took out my stitches yesterday,” she positioned another log on the
chopping block. “I’m fine.”
The half-truth slipped out with ease—some times were more fine than others.
Right now, with her muscles sore, her vision blurred by sweat and her mind
consumed with effort, she felt fine. The lulling moments of reflection on the
other hand…those were the most difficult moments to get through. Her teammate
sighed, and began putting away his tools. They always asked, but given that the
same answer time and time again, they quickly gave up.
“Hey, Aisha?” he turned a little as he was about to leave.
“Hm?”
“Dinner is in an hour. Just make sure to be early this time.”
There was a loud crack as the axe descended. “Thanks.”
The gravity-fed showers in the barracks were only a smidgen more comfortable
than the ones at the Training Corps. There was a strict rule about heater use,
thus most recruits found themselves bathing in cold water unless it was
nighttime. These rules would only be relaxed in colder months, keeping fuel
wastage to an absolute minimum. Aisha scrubbed irritably at her skin under the
cool torrent, trying very hard to concentrate on the task at hand. There was
little to be done besides menial chores these days; the corps was making some
attempt at keeping their new recruits wrapped in gauze and padding before they
began training in earnest. In all honestly, Aisha would have preferred to be
thrown into the thick of it. Rest was not something that passed quickly amongst
the shell-shocked soldiers; most dreaded the idea of going to bed.
Turning off the spray, she toweled dry as quickly as she could, braiding her
still-damp hair and forming it into something passably professional before
donning her civilian clothing. After five in the evening when duties were
through, most soldiers shed their uniforms, preferring to wear their own
clothes as they enjoyed their little time unoccupied. It was expressly frowned
upon to show up to dinner in one’s uniform unless it was a special
occasion…which was what Aisha had done the day before, as she’d had no time to
change. Nanaba had taken her aside and kindly explained the unspoken rule—it
showed indiscipline at worst, and a lack of time management at best. The only
ones who would be in uniform at dinner would be those coming out of
punishment—right off the track where they would have been doing drills.
She made the extra effort of wearing her good boots today as if to make up for
her previous indiscretion. She threaded buttons through with the slim wiry hook
and hoped that in some juvenile, roundabout way it would at least show Major
Zacharias that she was serious about the customs of military life. It seemed as
though his concerned attention was growing with the passing days, and she
didn’t want to appear weak and affected. It began with odd checkups during the
day’s tasks—and continued even in meal times when she could feel the calm blue
eyes boring into the back of her skull as she ate. I didn’t come here to be a
baby again she thought bitterly. There just comes a point where kindness is
insulting.
Moblit, one of the new recruits assigned to Major Hange, was picking at his
baked potatoes and stewed beans with a pensive look as she approached.
“Indigestion?” she quipped, settling down next to him with her plate; nearby,
the other trainees, as hungry as they probably were—seemed all a little more on
edge than usual.
“We’re on the next expedition,” he said quietly.
Aisha felt a small thrill of anxiety settle into the pit of her stomach. She
pushed the meal away. “That would do it, yeah. When did they tell us?”
“Commander Smith sent word just now,” he explained. “We’re training in earnest
tomorrow.”
She massaged her numbed hands together. “We couldn’t hide here forever, I
guess. When is it?”
“We don’t really know,” he said. “I’d expect the government is giving more
trouble than usual, so he’s negotiating a date.”
Aisha looked up at the head table, where the squad leaders were dining and
chatting as if nothing were amiss.
“You think we’ll get like them?”
Moblit followed her line of sight. “If we survive, who knows. Major Hange
though…she’s…”
“Hard to deal with?”
The boy visibly wilted. “She’s not…stern, really, she’s just a bit…odd.”
“Well, I mean mine sniffs people,” she said matter-of-factly. “It's become
quite charming, actually. I think everyone has their thing.”
“What d’you think the Captain’s thing is?”
“Aside from scaring the piss out of rookies?” she asked, managing a small
smile. “I dunno. If he’s like them, we’ll find out soon enough.”
“It’s getting cold,” Moblit shifted his food around with a sigh. “I can’t waste
it, not with what’s going on outside.” He took a pained bite.
He had a point. People outside of the military were barely getting by; she
wondered if Ambros and Lotte would have enough to eat regularly. They were used
to deprivation in the Underground, but the disaster that was looming was beyond
anything they could have anticipated. Her mind then wandered to those three
children from the ration line.

Aisha scooped up a mouthful of food and forced herself to chew.
===============================================================================
The wind picked up to a buffeting gale; Levi remained impassive in its chilly
embrace, making his way to the mess hall with a calm stride. Tonight was more
restless than most. He’d already gone over his room with a fine-toothed comb,
and then he’d cleaned and re-assembled his gear. The horses were all asleep, so
there was no chance for a ride; therefore he decided to walk the grounds to put
his restless mind at ease. He was walking towards the training forest when he
noticed that the lamps in the hall were still lit—everyone would have been in
bed hours ago.
The dining room was empty, though lit dimly by a few stray lamps that were left
on. The fire had been tended as well, and cast a warm glow across the worn
floorboards. Someone had wiped down all the surfaces, and had swept up better
than usual. He was used to the relative sloppiness of some of the soldiers when
it came to mess hall duty, and was apt to make them do it all over again if he
found it. A small bustle of activity was occurring below, where the kitchens
were located in the cellar. At the foot of the stairs, Private Aisha Kaur came
into view as she shifted from the work tables to the large sinks; there was the
faint aroma of something cooking—no, baking.
“Taking up housewifery instead of being a soldier, brat?”
She didn’t jump at the sound of his voice, but he noted the startled look in
her eyes as she turned to face him. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“So, you decided to use up our rations?” he walked into the room and pulled a
chair at the worktable.
“Just the extras,” she said cautiously. “We’re getting our supplies tomorrow,
and some of this stuff was going to be thrown out. Besides, I didn't use
anything expensive.”
He watched her pull a thick kitchen towel from the table and carefully divest
the oven of its contents, placing it gingerly on the table. Swinging the cloth
over her shoulder, she moved across to the cabinet and placed a mug before him.
He raised an eyebrow at her and she remained unruffled.
“I thought you’d want a cup of tea,” she said simply, scooping fragrant black
leaves into one of the smaller ceramic teapots before filling it with steaming
water from the heavy cast-iron kettle.
“Who was on duty this evening?” he ran a finger over the work surface. Not a
trace of flour or dirt.
“Henning,” she replied, putting out a pair of plates. “He cleaned up earlier.”
“But you re-did it,” he met her eyes and for the first time, she appeared a
little sheepish.
“He was tired halfway through and I didn’t feel like resting,”
He scoffed. “Keep doing that and they’ll think you want to fuck them. And then
they’ll never learn how to sweep a floor properly.”
Aisha stifled a grin; she looked markedly less haggard and miserable, but she
still seemed perpetually exhausted. “It’s not like that.”
He’d bet it wasn’t. Soldiers were never that simple—even the young ones; he
knew the look of someone desperate to keep themselves occupied. It left little
room for introspection, and thus gave a little respite from the pain. She
poured the tea, and slid over a plate of what she’d made; it was a circlet of
puffy pastry, with some sort of mingled fruit topping. He’d seen these before,
being sold by the crippled old soldier with the dark hair.
“If this is any indication, I expect that you won’t be feeding me shit when
it’s your turn on the dinner roster,” he said plainly.
“I’m…taking that as a compliment,” she said mildly.
“Now are you going to talk about why you haven’t been sleeping, or will you
make us a three-course meal before that?” he stabbed a section of the tart and
took a bite.
Might as well start calling her pastry girl instead.
Her gaze slipped and she sighed. “Nightmares.”
“So your solution is sleep deprivation. Becoming Titan food because you can’t
keep yourself awake in training is a good way to get rid of bad dreams, though,
let me tell you.”
“So why are you awake?” she asked—just a little accusatorily.
“Maybe I had to take a shit,” he shrugged. Her answering laugh was the first
genuinely joyous sound he’d heard her make.
“Down here, in the mess hall,” she nodded sarcastically. “Understood, sir.”
“I could make you run laps until dawn,” he sipped his tea. “Or you could start
communicating like an adult about why you can’t perform like a normal human
being.”
The smile faded from her face; she pulled a chair, one hand turning the little
locket around her neck pensively. He let the silence reign for a bit as he
continued eating.
“I didn’t listen to you,” she said finally. “About the regret thing, that is. I
regret what happened out there almost every moment.”
“Listen,” he met her eyes sternly. She was probably just as young as Isabel had
been when…No.He crushed that thought at once. “You will never know how things
would have turned out otherwise. You weren’t prepared to go out there, and you
didn’t expect it to go that way. There’s nothing you can do about that but move
on.”
She nodded slowly, her face forlorn. “I try to think that but…when ever I’m not
occupied, whenever I have the time to think, it just…”
“You didn’t recover them or get to bury them, did you?”
“No,” Aisha traced a knot in one of the planks on the work surface. “Simon was
eaten whole and Klaus was too far away.”
Levi thought of his two comrades, lying broken on the battlefield—alone and
left in the rain. “Then maybe you should say goodbye.”
She looked up again. “Sir?”
“Paint a rock or something,” he said with a shrug. “Carve something into a
fucking tree, I don’t care. Just do something that tells yourself that you’re
letting them go.”
Her expression softened a little. “I’ve never thought of that. I’ll write to my
other friends—it seems like something we should do together.”
He finished the rest of the tartlet; an odd feeling was settling into his
chest. Isabel had a voracious sweet tooth; he and Farlan would spoil her every
so often with something from the market. She was particularly fond of those
tarts that Ambros sold—one day, she’d even convinced him to give her one for
free with her incessant wailing.
“I’ve seen these before,” he said quietly. “Where did you learn to make them?”
She gave a wry smile. “That’s a conversation that warrants a me making five
course meal before I can talk about it.”
“If I catch you down here again you’ll have to,” he said darkly. “Now get to
bed, tank girl.”

She winced a little at the nickname. If he hadn’t thought the dim light was
playing tricks on him, he would have sworn there was a tinge of pink on her
dusky cheeks.
===============================================================================
Aisha’s sleep that night was dreamless, for the first time since Wall Maria had
fallen. She awoke to the wakeup call uncharacteristically groggy, her body
feeling heavy and unwilling to extricate itself from the bed. Nanaba was
already up and about, leaving the younger woman to stumble halfheartedly into
the showers. She hissed as the cold water hit her skin, each nerve in her body
springing to life with a vengeance.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she sang under her breath, trying to lather up and get out
of there as quickly as possible. She could hear Nanaba give a muffled laugh as
she passed by.
“You’re livelier than usual,” she called.
“I actually slept last night,” Aisha felt a strange little twinge in the pit of
her stomach at the memory. “The Captain and I had a talk.”
“Well now,” Nanaba sounded genuinely surprised. “He’s not known for his
approachability, but I’m glad it helped. I’ll head to the mess hall; we can go
down to the training forest together later, the rookies are doing drills
today.”
Aisha cut the spray off, and bundled her frigid body into a towel. With winter
approaching, the air was getting uncomfortably brisk on mornings; the southern
areas of Walls Rose and Maria never really saw snow, but they could not escape
the dry, bitter cold. A button-down was not going to cut it today—she dug
through her sparse trunk of belongings and extracted a cream flannel shirt with
a high-necked collar, throwing an extra scarf around her neck for good measure.
As she pinned up the snarling waves of hair, she thought back to their training
exercises in the frigid north with a shudder. It was probably the closest she’d
ever come to failing her training, or just quitting so she could go home to a
warm fire.
Breakfast passed quickly, with the rookies being shepherded to their squad
leaders for the trek down to the training forest. Aisha caught sight of Moblit
fussing over his superior, trying to get her to take a small sandwich that he’d
taken from the hall. Hange, as eccentric as ever, was still nose-deep in her
copious notes about the Titans that soldiers reported in the battle.
I guess Mike must be a catch she glanced at her own leader, who was busy
sniffing at the air. He’s weird, but at least I don’t have to remind him to
feed himself. She turned back and caught a glimpse of Hange’s unkempt, slightly
oily hair. Or bathe, for that matter.
===============================================================================
Eld paused his brushing, eyes darting towards the line of passing recruits.
“Captain, are we headed to help them?”
Levi raised his head from his tankard of water impassively. “Erwin requested
that we go. We’ll give them a good fifteen minutes to settle down, fucking
bratty kids.”
His eyes narrowed slightly as Eld continued to stare. “Are snot-nosed rookies
especially interesting to you, or something?”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Ah, no not really.”
“Then why are you staring at them like a creep in a schoolyard?”
Eld’s voice was a little ashamed. “I’ve never really seen a girl like that
before, is all. I’d never had a good chance to look at her in the mess hall—she
always put herself in the hard to see corners.”
Levi followed his line of sight to Private Kaur. “Perhaps she doesn’t like
being stared at, dipshit.”
“Sorry sir,” he continued his brushing. “She is very pretty though.”
The Captain rolled his eyes inwardly. Fucking snot-nosed kids and their damn
hormones.
***** Alibis: The Aftermath, Part 2. *****
Chapter Notes
     This chapter is a little slower and more focused on some Aisha/Levi
     interaction; things are going to go from 0 to 200 really fast from
     the next one!
     Chapter title and lyrics by The Birthday Massacre.
                            There is a shadow here,
                        But there's no light behind me.
                       The stains of blood on the floor
                              Serve to remind me,
                           The time is drawing near.
                         Turns like a knife inside me.
                          I've never wanted it more,
                             Come stand beside me.
 
“Come on Aisha!” Mike’s deep voice reverberated through the thick foliage.
With a breath, she sprung into action, hands moving herself back and off of the
horse; there was little room for error in a manoeuvre like this—either you
timed it right, or you could get up close and personal with a horse’s hooves at
sixty miles per hour. Grappling hooks shot into the trees, and adrenaline
surged as she swung through the air, eyes alert and searching for targets.
“She’s definitely got some finesse,” Nanaba’s voice was amused from her perch
above.
“You don’t get points for putting on a show,” Levi said evenly. “Though, she
managed to actually get off of the horse, which is more than I can say for some
of the others.”
“Well, I mean, at least we didn’t have any smashed skulls or massive brain
injuries,” Hange pointed out cheerfully. “Just a fractured femur.”
Levi’s response was as deadpan as ever. “Yeah, slow moving dinner instead of
brain dead dinner. The Titans will appreciate their retained ability to scream
before they get eaten.”
He swooped into the trees at the perimeter of the course, moving quickly
towards the soldiers manning the Titan analogues. He could hear her approach in
the distance and held up a hand to pause the boy below from swinging the wooden
frame into view.
Closer…closer…
There.
He signaled with a few seconds to spare; the answering shriek was amusing, to
say the least—but to her credit, the girl didn’t crash into the dummy. With a
far less graceful movement, she flipped in the air to avoid the wooden Titan’s
‘mouth’. A hook was shot into a nearby tree, snagging her forward momentum
almost to a halt; she made a little noise of protest as the harness bit into
her skin, but followed through, turning enough to reach the nape.
Not bad, tank girl.He watched her hang against the tree after cutting down the
padded target. She shook her limbs a little to work off the adrenaline buzz and
moved on.
Even Eld wasn’t that smooth when he came into the corps—he had more stopping
power, obviously, but his control had been wrought through practice, not
instinct. If she managed to stay alive, that is, she could be a force to be
reckoned with given enough training.
At the end of the course, the commander was waiting for the team and squad
leaders to report in for each recruit’s progress through the forest. This was
their first big test after a full month of training. Some passed, some failed;
those who fell into the latter category got a nice dose of drills to either
work on their aim, their horseback riding or their usage of the 3DMG.
“Levi?” Erwin looked down at the clipboard. Nearby, the girl was leaning
exhaustedly against a tree with a canteen in hand—her eyes however, were
focused on the commander. He was the last leader on the course, and thus the
last to hand in an evaluation for Private Kaur’s performance.
“She got through my trap,” Levi said simply. “Good instincts, little sloppy on
the rebound but overall, not as fucking useless as some of the others.”
The commander made notes, probably omitting the profanity. “Any
recommendations?”
“Some of her cuts were nearly too shallow, she needs to work on her arms,” he
continued. “She’s not the biggest kid in the world, so she needs to build the
strength that doesn’t come as naturally as her speed does.”
Erwin sighed and looked up from the board. “You know, almost every recruit has
had a similar report. It’s either their strength, or their endurance—problems
they didn’t have in training.”
“Given the ration situation, the little shits are probably not building a lot
of muscle,” Levi said frankly. “They’re underfed. A fucking barrage of potatoes
doesn’t change the fact that they barely see enough protein.”
Hange appeared at the commander’s side. “It’s going to get worse before it gets
better, I’m afraid. I’ve heard it’s becoming utter hell outside. They’ve
started sending refugees to plant crops, but we’re just running out of viable
land.”
“Too many mouths to feed,” Erwin signed the form and handed it off to Hange.
“Give that to Mike, and send the recruits back to the barracks. I know they’re
sticking around to hear the date that we’re heading out, but I can’t give that
to them.”
“So, it’s true,” Levi said. “We’re going to be sitting on our asses here for a
while.”
“You’ve all suspected,” he nodded, “and you were right. The government hasn’t
approved our expedition. They’re up to something.”
“Tch. They’re probably labouring their empty pig brains for a plan to save
themselves, before a riot breaks out,” the shorter man said snidely. “They’re
going to have to hope that a lot of refugees simultaneously drop dead or the
Titans decide to march in a line out of Wall Maria.”
“The first suggestion is what worries me.” With that, the commander walked
away, leaving an ominous silence in his wake.
                                      ---
November was fast approaching its end, and no one was sure about when the corps
would be out again. Even the once-anxious rookies had become antsy, itching to
use their skills and leave the safety of Wall Rose. Tonight, the full moon
illuminated the landscape, the brisk air waving through the trees in a relaxing
rhythm. Captain Levi walked the grounds somewhat aimlessly, his mind wandering
back to his many winters in the Underground. There’d been a few nights where
he’d awoken to find Isabel had snuck into his room, her cold hands pressed
against his back for warmth. She would alternate between him and Farlan, until
they simply decided to place all three mattresses in the room with the
fireplace. She’d been ecstatic at the idea, not even murmuring a complaint when
Levi insisted that the floor be absolutely spotless before he would deign to
sleep on it.
He’d never been a man for a family until he had somehow accumulated one. Being
a loner was simple; it minimised the unknowns. He was a one-man island. Then
Farlan had appeared out of convenience, and he suddenly had a best friend. They
got on well enough, and he had learned Levi’s quirks early—forging an easy
companionship. Then Isabel showed up, and he suddenly had a sister. She came
with her own eccentricities, most of which he would never admit that he missed.
Ratty, stubborn and loud, she had been so pure.
Then it had all vanished in an instant. Levi was once again alone. He continued
his silent journey through the collection of officers’ barracks until he caught
sight of movement near the shade of a large pine. An old well stood behind one
of the buildings—it had been filled and bricked over, providing little more
than a spot to place spare goods. It was empty now, except for the very obvious
outline of someone lying supine and staring up at the passing clouds. He didn’t
need to think twice to know who it was. A small part of him wondered why this
had become so routine—and it was ignored soundly as usual.
“I thought you said the nightmares stopped, brat.”
She had heard his footsteps approaching, crunching through the needles and
grass. “They did, but I still couldn’t sleep. I’m restless.”
Her head turned a little towards him, and he could spot where several pine
needles had worked themselves into her hair. It was a little bit confusing to
realise that he’d just made sense of why her hair always smelled like pine
trees. He’d never really been aware of knowing that in the first place, so he
paid it no mind. A little discomforted, he shifted his gaze to the moon as
clouds wisped by.
“It’s a good night for a ride,” he murmured. “Visibility has been shitty with
the cloud cover all month.”
“It would’ve been a great time to be out there, I guess,” she observed quietly.
He gave her a sidelong glance. “You want to go on expeditions now?”
“It’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?” he could hear the smile in her voice. “I
want to do my part. Why is it taking so long to start one?”
“Bureaucracy,” he said sourly. “Fucking bastards who never see danger in their
lives are dictating how we live ours.”
“’What’s the use though? Wouldn’t it be best to get a route through what’s left
of the Wall Maria territory as soon as possible? The commander said that our
first mission would be the most dangerous, and that conditions would probably
get worse with each day,”
He scoffed. “Since when did the government give a shit about us and our
objectives?”
“Then why have us around?” she became pensive. “Why pretend? Just disband the
corps then.”
“It’s more complicated than just getting rid of us, brat. Politics is a slimy
business.” Levi explained. He could still remember the rumblings of discontent
that made one pig in particular want to murder Erwin Smith. “But don’t think
they haven’t considered sending us all on a suicide mission—if it wouldn’t look
bad, we’d all be dead.”
She was perplexed. “I always knew they thought about themselves over the rest
of us, I mean—it’s pretty obvious. But what good is this?”
“Who fucking knows? I suppose when you have enough money, it starts making
sense.” He stiffened a little as a gale of wind brought a chill right to his
bones. “Come on, get up.”
She sat up, surprised; little pine needles were falling off of her dress.
“What?”
“We're going for a ride. We might as well do something constructive…unless you
want to stay here and keep staring at the moon like an idiot schoolgirl.”
She hopped off the well with a grin, pulling her thick blue scarf a little
tighter. Watching her practically skip towards the stables, he had to admit
that his recently dug up sentimentality was beginning to make him worry.
                                      ---
It was a perfectly gorgeous night—just like the one before he, Farlan and
Isabel had gone on their first expedition. Levi pushed his reliable mare, going
at an eye-watering pelt through the trees of the training forest. Behind him,
he could hear Aisha coaxing her own horse forward, her voice a little unsure
every time the moon was hidden in the clouds, enveloping them in darkness. At
the very least, she’d learn to rely on her hearing at this rate. He continued
weaving through the path, coming to rest at the creek that the squad leaders
had so loved to booby-trap for rookies. If there was one spot where they would
ensure at least one person fell, it was here.
He dismounted and led the horse to the bank, patting her absently as she dipped
her head for water. Isabel had named all of their horses the year before; his
was aptly called Sky, after the coveted horizons that they’d finally seen
firsthand. Farlan and Isabel’s steeds, Willow and Freedom had died with their
riders. It was almost ironic, really. He could still remember looking down at
where Farlan’s remains were scattered, with Freedom lying broken nearby. He’d
been overwhelmed with the bizarre desire to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
A pattering of hooves told him that Aisha had finally caught up, leading the
younger horse she’d called Azur by his bridle. It was a strange name—when
pressed, she couldn’t recall where she first heard it, just that it was a name
she’d known for a long time. The horse had taken up the habit of nosing at her
face when she was dismounted; it was something that Mike had warned her about a
few times. These horses weren’t pets, and begging for attention was a sign of
being spoiled.
“That was a lot more difficult than I thought,” she admitted, stroking Azur as
he pushed his face to hers. The frigid air had left a trace of colour high on
her cheeks.
“It’s a useful skill,” he said, watching the moon slowly vanish again. “Out
there every fucking thing can go wrong.”
The thought of the blinding rain made a quiet rage awaken in the back of his
mind. Even then, there was no helping it by relying on his hearing—the
landscape had become a blanket of dull, white noise….
“Captain?” her voice was quiet and tentative in the darkness. “Do you think the
corps will succeed?”
“We don’t have a choice, kid,” he said plainly. “What are we fighting for?”
“For humanity—for freedom, right?”
Levi had once thought that freedom meant getting out of that disgusting sewer
of a town. After trading a stone roof for stone walls, he realised that he’d
been a fool. He had learned from a young age that some were always content to
stay in their cages. He had also learned that a cage was a convenient place to
be eaten up by the world. Who was to say that the ultimate freedom lived
outside of these walls, when the world operated in a system of chaining those
within it?
“We’re also fighting for survival,” he told her. “For every child, every
cowardly fuck in this place, for every shitfaced politician—we’re working to
change the way things are.”
In the dim light, he could discern a slightly solemn expression. “It almost
feels wrong to think about whether I’ll be there to see it,” she sighed. “It
feels selfish.”
He scoffed. “Don’t apologise for wanting better for yourself. You’re already
putting your life on the line; denying yourself further isn’t more noble, it
just makes you a good doormat.” As the clouds shifted, he reached for a little-
used pocket watch that Hange had given him. “Let’s get a move on.”
===============================================================================

Aisha would have been lying if she said that her late night trysts had not
become something she looked forward to since the Captain started coming around.
He was an intimidating man, but his presence was strangely comforting. Though
he’d been in the corps for only a year longer, he was already a hardened and
experienced soldier. She was also still battling with the little anxious
feeling in her gut that made it far more difficult to act as though she was
unaffected. She was almost always waiting—either in the library with a book, in
the mess hall with tea or just on the grounds; he would almost always stumble
upon her as he wandered around. Sometimes he would stick around, others he
would give some sort of cutting remark and leave her to her own devices.
He’s very guarded, isn’t he? Aisha’s curiosity was tempered only by her desire
to not piss him off…but nonetheless; it felt as though progress was coming an
inch at a time.
She warmed her hands on the teacup before her. “Captain?”
He gave her a look to indicate that he was listening.
“Why do you hold your cup like that?”
“You don’t get to ask nosy questions until you answer what I asked you
already,” he said plainly.
Aisha wilted slightly. “About where I learned to bake?” she stared into the
newly tended fire in the hearth. “My adoptive grandmother taught me.”
“That’s half-assed,” Levi was giving her a steady glare over his mug. “You
lived in the Underground.”
She suddenly remembered Ambros’ words the day Wall Maria fell. “You knew Ambros
Krause?”
“We knew of one another,” he explained simply. “Is he your father?”

Her expression darkened. “No, he took me in. I don’t really remember my father
too well.”
Levi’s voice was filled with sardonic amusement. “Seems to be the token story
down there. The old woman who came to see you was his mother, then.”

“She is,” Aisha sipped her tea. “I was left with him and Lotte when I was about
five. No one has ever really told me why.”
“Your parents lived on the surface,” he observed. “The fucks in the Military
Police would send anyone without citizenship right back.”
She nodded. “Ambros and Lotte have surface citizenship too. I’ve worked out
enough to know that they—well, we, were all down there because someone on the
surface was uncomfortable. I’m assuming you lived there too, right?”
“I forgot that you haven’t been around long enough for the rumour mill to catch
up,” he said mildly; his face had taken on a grim cast. “I wasn’t as lucky to
be born on the surface, however.”
“So how did you get out?” she asked cautiously. To get out of that hellhole was
a feat…and usually one wrought with vicious and highly illegal stakes.
“I made a deal,” he rose from his char. “Make sure you wash all of this shit
before you head in.”
Aisha was left staring at his broad back as he turned to leave. A feeling of
disappointment was settling into her chest; he paused.
“The first time I saved up for tea, the cup I bought had a handle that broke
before I could even take a sip,” he said without turning back. “Spilled it
everywhere.”
She smiled sadly. “Thank you.”
Just one inch at a time.
===============================================================================
Levi’s strong hands moved across his floorboards again, working his energy into
pushing polish into the wood. There were few things he could think to do to
occupy himself anymore. He’d left abruptly, pushing away the intrusive thoughts
as they arose, resigning himself to forced indifference again.
He’d never seen her in the Underground. She’d obviously never had an inkling of
who he was, despite his infamy; Ambros and his mother had sheltered her from
the workings of their world as much as they’d sought to protect her from its
evils. He recalled seeing that old woman arriving on a special visit weeks
ago—one requiring the permission of the commander. Erwin had probably just
signed the forms without giving them much notice; with the corps on standby, a
family visit wasn’t a big deal. The girl had just had a birthday, and true to
her style, she wasn’t making a thing of it. If the woman hadn’t shown up, no
one would have even known. As he and Eld trotted their horses around the edge
of the training forest, he could see them sitting in the grass, talking. The
woman’s eyes—still bright and alert, found him. They were knowing and vaguely
unsettling.
Four-eyes was quite right when she’d spoken about how persons could be hunted
down and trafficked like cattle. She’d never seen it first hand, however. The
more exotic you appeared, the more likely that you could be a target; he had
fledgling memories of his mother giving into the need for bodies and bought
attention. The ones who were sold could arguably have a much better time…or
worse, depending on who was holding their chains. They had no chance of freeing
themselves; their children were also likely to be slaves as well.
Where had she come from? And why did this bother him so much?
Another night passed with a fitful discourse between his yet unnamed feelings
and the side that knew better.
***** Born Dead, Buried Alive: The Aftermath, Part 3. *****
Chapter Notes
     This chapter may actually be one of the bitterest things I’ve ever
     written; it’s fitting because I began writing it watching coverage of
     the Nice, France attack and then the attempted coup in Turkey. Then
     while I was editing it the Munich attack happened. I don’t think I
     had it in me to write about something nice.
     Does anyone feel like the world is crashing down around us this year?
     Song by The Agonist.
Brainwash young minds—they will learn what you teach; practice what you preach.
                   Brainwash young hearts—breed corruption.  
     Didn't you expect when you built your empire on pillars of cadavers…
            Genocide yields power—you built your empire on murder.
                       …that it would corrode with time?
                           Say, how do you justify?  
             I lock eyes with the black monolith towering over me.
                     I lock eyes with the black monolith,
          In my reflection I see our name printed far too many times,
                              Over and over again.
 
[Year 846]
February of the next year heralded a slew of windy evenings, promising rain and
little comfort for the corps. There was a distinct lack of murmuring when Aisha
entered the mess hall. The usually voracious soldiers hadn’t touched their
stew, which signaled something amiss.
“What’s the matter? Have we resorted to eating the horses or something?”
“No—no it’s venison, I think. It’s actually really good today,” Moblit spooned
a mouthful of the thick liquid and let it fall again. “We’ve just been hearing
a lot of concerning rumours. Haven’t you caught wind of it yet?”
This wasn’t the first time Aisha’s lack of socialisation was coming around to
bite her. “What is it?”
“People are beginning to starve,” he said quietly. “The government has decided
that we’re to take back Wall Maria.”
“How?” Aisha stared. “They’ve shelved us for months when we could have started
a supply line. I mean, we don’t have the technology to plug that hole now,
right? Major Hange said it could take years—decades.”
“She’s right,” he agreed. “But…they’re not sending us soldiers. They’re
conscripting ordinary people.”
Her insides worked themselves into a tense, cold knot. “You’re sure about
this.”
“I asked the Major. She didn’t answer me but she looked really concerned about
it,” he explained. “It’s insane.”
Aisha looked up to the head table, noting that Commander Smith was nowhere to
be seen. Most of the other soldiers were pale with worry, their food untouched.
There was more silence as the soldiers’ brief respite drew to a close. It
seemed like the nightmare would never end.
                                      ---

Days later, their worst fears were confirmed. The list of conscripts had
arrived; each tense squad leader read a statement detailing that government
wanted to ‘safeguard’ the corps after what they’d gone through. Shaking lines
of soldiers stood at ease and listened to the disbelieving voices as they spoke
of how brave and noble these conscripts would be. How they would reclaim the
lost land and bring glory for humanity.
Aisha was one of the many soldiers filing into the main barracks to thumb
through the enormous book of names; the top brass had insisted that they would
come in teams—leaving on-edge platoons desperately waiting for their turn. From
their barracks, they could hear the wails of those who’d read the names of
loved ones. When it was Team Zacharias’ turn, Henning went first; neither
Nanaba nor the Major had any family to be concerned about, so they stood back,
stern-faced and mouths set into a grim line.
“N-no one,” he wiped sweating hands on his trousers, backing away from the book
as though it was some sort of wild animal.
Gelgar stepped forward and began looking for his family name with trembling
fingers. Aisha felt her heart pounding with building terror; with each flicked
page her breathing became shallower. When he stepped back with a relieved
noise, her pulse began hissing in her ears with a dull roar. She could barely
feel the heavy pages between her fingers as she looked for the name Krause.
A fleeting sense of relief arose, as she didn’t see Ambros’ name. Her eyes slid
involuntarily into the column of women as she caught a glance of something
familiar.
                                Krause, Lotte.
No.
This couldn’t be right.
She kept reading the two words, a sickening sense of numbness spreading to her
limbs. There was a crash as the book hit the floor; her teammates all called
out in a rush as she yanked the door open and fled. She could vaguely hear them
yelling as she launched herself into the yard, past a surprised Eld and Captain
Levi, careening at full-speed into the stables.
===============================================================================

Levi and his subordinate stared after the girl for a second, before registering
that her entire team was in pursuit. She’d already gotten the standby horse—the
only one kept ready to ride at all times—and was disappearing up the path in
the forest.
“What the fuck is her problem?” Levi automatically pulled a saddle from the
cache and heaved it to Mike, who’d turned a mild shade of red from his sprint.
“The conscription list,” he said, bridling his mare. He looked back at Henning
and Gelgar as he mounted the horse. “Either of you know who she saw on the
list?”
“No, sir,” Henning was panting.
Levi had quickly equipped his own horse with Nanaba’s assistance. “Come on, we
have to find the brat before she gets herself arrested. Eld, saddle yours and
follow us.”
The men took off at full speed, keeping a neck and neck pace.
“She should be headed to the training yard,” Levi suggested. “That’s where all
the activity is.”
Across the landscape, they could barely make out her figure as it sped into
town. Luckily, the congested streets were able to slow her progress, so as they
approached the grounds, they found that she had abandoned the horse and was
pelting through the crowd on foot. The commanders of the three regiments were
atop the stage, supervising what they could all only term as a pathetic
display. Even the most stringent of government supporters could not fathom the
meaning of this.
People caught sight of the three men, parting at the fierce look on Mike’s
face. Aisha was within reach, but she seemed to start forward as she caught
sight of the person signing their name in the admittance book. A muscled arm
caught hers, pulling her back and caging her against a solid chest. Levi
stepped around the two, catching Erwin’s eye as he scanned the crowd. He
quitted the stage, approaching with long strides. Some observers looked on the
verge of accosting him, but stood warily in the face of Military Police rifles.
“What’s going on here?” he glanced from the girl being restrained by Mike to
Levi.

“The brat saw someone she knew on the list,” he explained. A slow moving figure
at the corner of his eye had renewed Aisha’s struggles. “Fuck. The old woman.”
Erwin’s expression darkened. “She looks almost eighty; this is ridiculous.”
An officer was handing her some variant of weapon that she could not possibly
use. Mike felt the girl in his arms go limp. She was as light as she looked.
Haven’t these people been through enough?
“I can’t intercede for her,” Erwin sighed. “ Or anyone else. They don’t care
what any of the brass has to say.”
Levi’s stern eyes fixed on the familiar figure of the dark haired soldier as he
tried to push towards them. Erwin seemed to recognise him as well.
“Krause?”
“You’ve become commander,” Ambros’ face was drawn with misery. “Then perhaps
you can tell me why my mother is being sent to war when she can barely walk.”
He looked from Aisha back to his former comrade. “She’s yours, is she? It
shows.” He placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “The short answer is that
they’re trying to cull the population. There’s no other reason.”
“Then let me go instead,” he hissed. “Why can’t I volunteer to take her place?
It’s still one less mouth to feed.”
Erwin’s reply was bitter. “To them, they’ll probably reason that you’re more
likely to be able to work a field.”
Ambros let out an unpleasant bark of a laugh. “You know, it’s funny how this
worked out. Almost all my life I lived in hell, in sewers below all the rich
bastards—dirt poor. We were stuck there with people who could never leave, but
we had a citizenship that we never used…that same fucking citizenship was what
made her eligible for this.”
Levi stiffened. He looked back at Aisha who was feebly stirring, trying to push
her squad leader’s arms away with little ineffectual hands.
“I’m a soldier,” she murmured. “Not her. I signed up for this.”
He could see the tiny shred of humanity that was being reformed for the past
few months was straining to the point of no return.
“Let her go,” Ambros said quietly. “We have one last resort.”
“And what is that?” Mike asked, arms still trapping his subordinate.
“A man who owes me far too much.”
===============================================================================
The Captain, Eld and Erwin had remained in the yard. A carriage was brought on
the commander’s orders for Ambros and his bewildered charge—the latter of whom
was being closely watched by her squad leader. Mike seemed to know Ambros as
well, but his disposition was far less friendly. The girl beside him meanwhile
stared out of the carriage window, as Wall Rose became Wall Sheena. At one of
the many townhouses, their journey ground to a halt. With some difficulty,
Ambros exited onto the street to grasp the heavy brass knocker in his fist.
A kindly looking woman opened the door, eyes widening in surprise. “May I help
you, sir?”
“I’m here to see Xavier.”
“Lord Varnhagen,” she said slowly, as if trying to make up a convincing excuse.
Then, her tired gaze settled upon Aisha, and a flash of recognition lit them.
Her retort died in her throat.
“Clara?” a male voice called from inside. A man appeared behind the woman’s
shoulder, his face aghast.
“Ambros, what-? Has something happened to Aisha?” he gaped, incredulity turning
to something akin to terror when he saw her. “Come in, please.”
The trio moved inside, with Aisha staring up at the nobleman with large eyes,
her expression unsettlingly calm. As she passed him, he attempted a smile.
“You’ve grown,” he said. His gaze slid to the uniform and he blanched. “Ambros,
why is she wearing this? What have you done?”
The older man rounded on him. “She chose for herself, because she’s not a
coward like you!” he snapped.
Xavier spluttered in reply, preferring instead to turn his attention to the
tall blonde man currently standing at ease behind Aisha. “And you, who exactly
are you?”
“Major Mike Zacharias,” he replied evenly. “Survey Corps. I am Private Kaur’s
superior.”
The handsome face creased a little with strain. “Ambros, did you just bring her
here to shove it in my face? You’ve sent my child to die?”
Mike’s expression darkened. Nearby, Aisha was still staring unwaveringly at
Xavier, her intense gaze otherwise unclouded by any emotion.
“She ceased to be yours when you dumped her on me,” Ambros said acidly. “You
have amassed a good debt, and you’ll have to pay it now.”
Xavier tried to meet his daughter’s eyes, and seemed injured by their coldness.
“What do you want from me?”
“Lotte Krause,” Aisha’s said calmly. Xavier gave a little flinch at the sound
of her voice. “She has been conscripted. She’s too old, and she is one of the
only people in the world that I have.”
“I-“
“Xavier, what on earth is this racket?” a female voice called. The door opened,
revealing a stately redheaded woman, shepherding a similarly coiffed girl.
Rather than expressing shock at the sight of the party before her, sapphire
eyes clouded with rage. “How dare you come here? And bring this bastard of a
girl with you?”
Aisha’s gaze dropped to the young girl; she looked barely twelve. “I’ve said my
piece.”
“Meisha,” Xavier’s voice carried weakly. His wife silenced him with a glare.
“Get out,” she said viciously. “You don’t belong here.”
Aisha ignored her, looking instead towards her slowly wilting father. Meisha
took a step towards the girl, but found her path blocked by the formidable
frame of the Major. His calm eyes had a hint of warning in them.
“I can’t,” Xavier said, his voice shaking. “Ambros, my title is practically a
courtesy post. A Barony means nothing.”
“Grow a spine and do something right for once in your life,” he roared in
reply. “Your father tossed my mother and I out on our arses, only for you to do
the same to Aisha. You have shown no shame in your pathetic existence—none! All
you do is run and hide when consequences come calling.”
“I didn’t—I loved your mother,” Xavier looked pleadingly at Aisha. His wife,
meanwhile, was becoming more enraged by the second. “I did, but she died—and…”
“I’m not interested,” the girl replied simply. “I came here for Lotte, not for
your excuses.”
“It would be treason,” he said desperately. “I can’t expect to go up to the
court and beg for the life of some—of a woman I don’t know!”
Ambros laughed derisively. “You knew her. She was like a mother to you, you
fucking useless man.”
“Publicly, you mean,” Aisha said quietly. “You don’t know her. You won’t help
her because of how it will look.”
He rose from his chair and moved closer to her, dropping to his knees to grasp
her hands in his. She noted the silky feel of his skin—much unlike the hoary
surface of Ambros’ hands, calloused from hard work and a life of pain.
“Understand for me please,” he pleaded. “It would mean certain death in this
climate.”
“And what would I know about that?” for the first time, Aisha’s voice was
tinged with a venomous amusement. A fist connected with the underside of his
jaw, staggering the man who looked so very much like the one who’d run himself
ragged to keep her safe. She shoved a boot into his chest to get him away from
her. But not quite you bastard.
The trio left amidst Meisha’s high shrieks of seeing them all hanged. The girl
at her side looked on in dumbstruck awe. As Aisha reached the threshold, the
kindly woman—Clara, held her back. She held out a package wrapped in heavy
brocade.
“Some of your mother’s things,” she said, pushing the bundle into Aisha’s arms.
“She tried to get rid of it all, but—I always thought you would come back here
one day.”
Mike’s careful gaze saw exactly when whatever was left of Aisha broke into
little pieces.
===============================================================================
Captain Levi leaned against the doorframe of the infirmary. The building’s
occupants had waned in the many months of inaction, but now, it was busier than
ever. The clock had ticked down to the moment of the first deployment of
conscripts…and the influx began in earnest. Most of the soldiers in bed were
sedated, sleeping fitfully under the watch of the medics. Aisha was not drugged
up like the others but was instead sitting up quietly on her own, almost
comatose.
“Lance Corporal Weiss needs another shot,” Hange was moving from room to room,
her squad members taking attentive notes.
“Four-eyes. Drafted again, I see.” Levi pushed off the frame as she walked by.
“They’re low on hands,” she sighed. The bubbly disposition was gone again.
“Research has been slow anyway, there’s not much we can do without being out of
the Walls for months.”
“Most of them look like they’re a syringe away from becoming drooling piss
machines,” he said frankly.
“Some of them are hysterical otherwise,” she sifted through some of her own
notes. “A few are suicidal, and there’s this one girl who seems to think she’s
back home again and that we’re all her family members. She keeps trying to get
out of bed to go feed non-existent farm animals.”
“A lot of them have survived Titans,” he pointed out. “What the fuck happened?”
“It’s not really surprising. Put it this way: you’re a soldier, you join up
knowing that you might die. Some may even be at peace with it. You never think
your family are going to be the ones to go off while you’re sitting here at
home.”
His eyes shifted to the girl staring blankly at the wall before her. “They were
getting better.”
“Yeah,” she pushed her glasses up to rub at her eyes. “How’s Eld, by the way?
He came out fine, right?”
“No one in his family was chosen. His grandfather wrote to say his neighbour
got it though,” he explained. “Fucking pigs seemed to be conscripting the
poorest people and refugees.”
Hange walked up to Aisha’s bedside, taking her pulse and trying to get her to
respond or track her fingers. Nothing.
“She’s been in and out since Nanaba couldn’t get her out of bed a week ago.”
“That old bastard hasn’t come to see her?” he looked at the bedside. The only
items were little notes from her two friends in other regiments.
“I figured he was in a state himself,” she said, jotting things onto the chart.
“Mike comes to sit with her sometimes. She doesn’t talk but it looks like she’s
listening. And, y’know for him to speak at length is a feat in and of itself.”
The girl had been put in a simple cream nightdress without any straps and with
all of the buttons on the back so she couldn't hang herself with it. At night,
she was cuffed in place as a precaution. Mike had said nothing about the visit
that they’d made to Wall Sheena, only divulging that it was fruitless. Levi
glanced at the large clock on the wall, and began walking out; time in the
corps froze for no tragedies. He had training to do.
At the ground floor, he watched one of the junior medics excuse himself for a
cigarette. A silver chain glinted in his grip, and he twirled it absently as he
walked the grounds. A familiar locket shone on the end.
The quiet rage in Levi became a little louder.
***** The Outsider: The 28th Expedition, Part 1. *****
Chapter Notes
     We're getting further into Aisha's backstory in this one, along with
     a nice long journey outside of the Walls.
     Angst and Levi/Aisha development ahoy for the chapters ahead!
     ._. I've also worked out an entire timeline for the various Training
     Corps graduations/intakes as well as one for all of the major events
     in the backstory and current story. I may have a bit of a problem.
     Chapter title and lyrics by A Perfect Circle :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
    Help me if you can—it's just that this, this is not the way I'm wired.
                  So could you please, help me understand why
             You've given in to all these reckless dark desires?  
                        You're lying to yourself again.
                              Suicidal imbecile,
              Think about it, you're pounding on the fault line!
              What'll it take to get it through to you precious?
          I'm over this. Why do you want to throw it away like this?
                                 Such a mess.  
                        Why would I want to watch you,
              Disconnect and self destruct one bullet at a time?
            What's your rush now? Everyone will have his day to die.
[Year 846]
Three months of ‘fighting’ had left a little under one hundred survivors out of
the two hundred thousand conscripts. No one had gotten any word of their loved
ones’ survival or death until what was left of the final wave came home. The
commander had taken it upon himself to hand out the ribbons to each soldier,
looking far older and more tired than his age would presume. That morning, Levi
had taken the four hour carriage ride to Wall Sheena; the thugs at the
stairwells remembered him, and swiftly stepped out of his way as he approached.
It took little to find out where Ambros lived; or rather, where he existed. The
small structure was one side of a dilapidated townhouse, much like his old
residence. He pushed in easily. The floor was thick with dust, and the man in
question was hunched on a small, grubby dining table. There was no air of drink
about him, he was like Aisha, dead on his feet without the aid of any foreign
substance.
“So this is your excuse for not visiting her?”
The mass shifted. In his stupor he’d somehow still managed to keep himself
clean-shaven. “And what the fuck are you doing here?”
“I wanted a reminder of the shithole that I left behind,” Levi said
sarcastically. “She hasn’t spoken to anyone in months. She eats, she looks
around, but that’s it.”
“How am I supposed to help that?” Ambros asked bitterly. “I couldn’t protect
her from this.”
“Save the sob story,” the harshness in the younger man’s voice cut through the
stale air. “They’re handing out the ribbons today, and she’s going to be
getting your mother’s. Shouldn’t you get off your useless ass and be with her?”
He laughed. “That’s a fucking farce and you know it. That thing is an insult.”
Levi crossed the room in easy strides, kicking the chair out with a fluid
movement. Ambros crashed to the floor with a hiss.
“Get yourself together. I don’t know what the fuck went on in Wall Sheena, but
you’re the adult here. You're the one leaving a sixteen year old in her own
living hell while you wallow.”
“What do you care?” he asked, joints creaking as he rose on unsteady feet. “You
never gave a shit about anyone besides those two grubby kids that followed you
around.”
“They died,” Levi said frankly. Ambros looked up at him, and for the first time
there was feeling in his eyes. Regret.
“That redheaded girl. You never knew if she was adorable or just plain
annoying. She’d gotten so much free food out of me, it was pathetic,” he said
absently. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve taken in enough strays,” Levi stated. “I don’t have room for yours.”
Ambros smiled sadly. The action seemed to age him. “Aisha might be a stray, but
she’s not one of those helpless puppies that needs a home. She’s the fox that
moves in under your house and refuses to leave. You don’t really get much of a
choice.”
There was some truth to that. The older man moved to the doorway and looked out
at their dreary surroundings.
“I’m leaving this place,” he said evenly. “I don’t care what that bastard or
his family thinks, but I’m tired of hiding under their feet. With mother gone,
and Aisha in the military, I have nothing left to lose.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said,” Levi looked around the hovel.
“This place is a fucking sty.”
                                      ---
He’d returned to find that the ribbons were just being handed out; Mike was in
the infirmary, sitting alongside Nanaba and the two other Privates with Aisha.
Mike had coiled the little locket and placed it in her hands; dark eyes looked
shifted towards it, still unseeing. The sight of the chain made the long-healed
grazes on his knuckles smart a little in memory; Mike had said nothing when
Levi burst into his office, dropping the thing on his desk with bloody fingers.
Needless to say, the medic had earned himself his own bed in the sick bay.
Hange stood beside him, watching silently as the commander moved from bed to
bed, placing the crested, embroidered ribbon in the hands of the soldiers and
murmuring whatever ineffectual words he could come up with. Aisha was at the
end of the line; he waved off the saluting teammates, pulling a chair at her
bedside. It was hard to tell which one of them looked worse. Commandership was
not wearing well on Erwin these days.
“The government would want me to say that Lotte Krause died for the good of
mankind. In a sense that’s true, but not in the way that they meant it; she
died so the rest of us had enough to eat. She died because they sacrificed her
to protect themselves,” he placed the ribbon on her lap. “You may think this is
a relic of that needless death, but it isn’t. It’s the product of her valiant
sacrifice, regardless of how unfairly it was created. It is a reminder of
bravery in the face of cowardice.”
For the first time, there was life in those dark eyes. Her thin, graceful hands
covered the one that the commander had left clenched on the bedside.
“It isn’t your fault, Commander Smith,” her voice was hoarse from its long
absence. “It’s theirs. The Titans and the government.”
The man, as tired and as worn as he was, smiled; Levi recalled the words that
Erwin had told him, almost two years ago. It was just a little ironic that a
brat was repeating them to him. The significance was definitely not lost on the
commander.
“Thank you,” he said genuinely. He shifted his gaze to the soldiers at her
side. “I did lose my way in this. I took for granted what it meant to be
responsible for lives while constrained by forces that want you to turn a blind
eye to the squandering of life. I owe my soldiers a heartfelt apology for
that.”
“You’re one hell of a leader, Erwin,” Mike said. “You handled it better than
any of us would.”
The older soldiers stepped forward and saluted in agreement, leaving Gelgar and
Henning slightly taken aback by their leader’s frankness. Levi could discern
the slowly eroding humanity within Erwin; he was chipping away himself to
become the commander that the corps deserved. It was something Shadis could not
have accomplished. The chess master could not be chained by sentimentality and
expect his game to be won. He was apologising not for inaction, but for feeling
in the face of tragedy. Like many soldiers before him, he was already hardened
to the loss of those who had signed up for war; the conscription on the other
hand, was completely unbroken territory. It rooted itself in even the most
unfeeling of them.
As the commander walked away, Aisha pushed aside her blankets to swing her
weight onto unsteady legs. Hange stepped forward and helped her stand,
murmuring about taking it slow and allowing her muscles to catch up to being
used again. The girl brushed it off, taking several pained steps anyway.
“The cull is over,” she said simply. “That means we’re going out soon, and I
have to be ready. I have Titans to kill.”
Levi watched her put the locket back on, and tried to extinguish the dread that
was building. The look about her was not one of recovery.

                                                                               
                                  ---

Whatever was left of Aisha was eclipsed by a dour calm. In the months that
passed between, she was in and out of the infirmary again: not due to grief,
but rather due to injury. Mike had frequently reported how her overtraining was
becoming a problem; she’d lost a lot of weight in her convalescence, and was
seeking to quickly rebuild all of the strength that had gone with it. Eld had
already found her in the practice harness, weighted down with plates chained
different parts of her body. Muscles strained against the unbalancing forces,
pushing against weights almost double that of her own. He had recounted this to
his Captain in awe, unaware of the concern that was deepening within his
superiors by the day.
The week before the 28th Expedition beyond the walls, the soldiers were tested
to discern who was ready to be deployed. These further expeditions would be
among the longest ever; it was estimated that this one could last a full month
or more as the corps aimed to form new supply lines. The 100th Training Corps
would be graduating soon, and they would be coming straight into training with
the soldiers who were left. When the regiment returned, there would be a short
period of recuperation, and then they would set out again, with their new
soldiers.
Many of the senior officers were cleared without a fuss; therefore the ones in
the limelight were the yet-untested recruits. Many of these tests saw the
younger soldiers moving at night, with broken equipment, limited rations or
other handicaps. Aisha passed her evaluation with high scores, and was thus
shunted into the brigade with little scrutiny. If state of mind was being
measured—it would have been clear to anyone who had seen her that she was not
fit for active duty. Her skill was being channeled into dangerous recklessness.
Little glimmers of her old self remained, but they were carefully hidden—they
showed when Levi was around, and she talked with Mike, who she seemed to have
placed in the void that Ambros had left with his absence. Still, whatever
feeling was there was distant, covered in a layer of bravado and abrasiveness.
The night before the expedition, he found her in the kitchens again. He had
apparently become predictable; another mug was set out, ready with tea.
“You’d think tonight of all nights would be a good time to get some sleep,” he
grasped the cup and pulled it towards him.
“I can guarantee you that half of the brigade is up right now,” she said,
taking a sip of her own drink. “We’ve been waiting for too long, and I for one,
want to kill some Titans.”
Levi scoffed. “Look how far you’ve come. Just don’t let the time off get to
your head, better soldiers than you have pissed themselves outside the wall.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Would it be suicide to ask if that was a
personal experience?”
“If you’re fond of your teeth where they are, I’d steer clear of insinuating
it,” he continued calmly. She gave a rare smile.
“I’ve never managed to get on your bad side yet,” she continued. “I’ve heard
stories though.”
“You’ll know when you get there.”
“You and Eld are in the scout support position as well, right?”
“As always,” he said quietly. “Though, Erwin’s getting a little ahead of
himself putting you there instead of on relay with the rest of the recruits, if
you ask me.”
She bristled a little. “Maybe they think we’re ready. Henning and Gelgar are
there too.”
“No, you’re not ready,” he said firmly. “You three are green as fuck, but we’re
short on men. Fifty percent of new recruits die on their first mission, and
being in this spot just upped your chance of being one of them.”
“Do you want me to run from my responsibility, is that it?” she asked harshly.

He put the cup down. “No, I want you to actually think about what it means
because it might just save your life. And don’t take that tone with me again,
Private Kaur.”
She was glaring daggers at him as he rose to leave. “Sir.”
The word seemed curt, injurious somehow.

Two steps forward, three steps back.
===============================================================================
The ride to Trost took the convoy two hours; many lined the streets to see the
soldiers off—more so than usual, according to Nanaba. Aisha watched the
upturned faces of children, scrambling over barrels and piles of firewood to
see them. She adjusted her cloak as they waited for the garrison to give the
all-clear and open the gate.
“Look, it’s the Captain!” one of the little boys shoved the girl next to him.
“He’s supposed to be the strongest soldier ever!”
She gaped. “Really, that strong?”
He nodded vigourously. From her vantage point, she could see Levi looking at
them at the corner of his eye.
The little girl pushed too-long, auburn bangs out of her face and pointed at
Aisha. “She’s so pretty!”
The boy squinted past the other soldiers. “What’s wrong with her skin? She
looks like she’s been in the sun too long.”
“If I stay in the sun will I look like that?”
“I dunno. Maybe she’s just dirty and needs a wash.”
Aisha stifled a snort.
Nope, things did not change on the surface that much.
At the commander’s rallying cry, the brigade moved out; the wind whipped
through her hair, and the long tunnel of the gate gave way to gloriously blue
skies. She moved into position near the right-flank, with Mike at her side.
This is it. I’ve been training for this for years. Lotte, I’m going to make
sure it wasn’t all for nothing.
                                      ---
The formation moved fluidly, like a single beast across the landscape; the
signals to shift course came relatively often within the first three hours,
with no black smoke being reported. A relay messenger had just come by to
inform them that the first supply stop would be coming up soon. Aisha coaxed
Azur to slow his pace, matching her squad leader’s.
“Is it always this smooth of a ride?” she called.
“Not often, no,” he replied. “But this is untested territory, so I can’t say
how much of a good thing that is.” He gave a sniff. “I can smell them
everywhere though. We’ll definitely have to fight if we’re stopping soon.”
She nodded. “I’m ready for it.”

Red smoke wafted overhead; she fished a red flare out of her bag and fired as
well. Soon, a green series of green flares moved towards the east. Mike sent
off the green signal, and they followed the formation. It was a more than a
boon to have a superior officer with her, she realised; it could be so easy to
stray. Even though they were on scout support, they would barely ever see the
scout teams on the very edge of the formation. She absently wondered how the
other two rookies on the team were doing.
“Aisha,” Mike was looking up at the sky. Black smoke was coursing through from
their end. It was followed by a flash of purple.
“I’m on it,” she pulled Azur’s reins, shifting his course.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir,” she said firmly. “I can do this.”
“Alright, go. Signal as soon as you have the threat under control.”
She looked back with a brief nod, and was off, pushing her horse as fast as he
would go. She spotted the Titan easily within the next few minutes; it was
careening towards the middle of the formation, ignoring the soldiers around
him. She could discern a grappling hook on its chest, still attached to a limp
soldier. Waiting until she was mere metres away, she gunned the trigger,
hitting the beast in its ribs. She flew in, close enough to avoid the clumsily
swatting arm. On the up-swing of the movementum, she fired again, circling to
the nape for a deep slice. It fell quickly, and she extricated herself from the
now steaming corpse.
Azur trotted by, and she faced the soldiers who had been in pursuit. “Is that
what you couldn’t handle?”
“Couldn’t handle? We’re some of the most elite soldiers in the scouts,” a dark
haired man protested. “Get back on your horse!”
Aisha was already mid-mount. She looked past the man, towards a soldier who was
positively shaking in her boots. “What’s the matter?”
“This wasn’t the only one,” she said, her voice on the brink of breaking. “Th-
they’re all over, they just scattered when we engaged them.”
Aisha looked towards the front of the formation, keeping Azur at a trot. Black
smoke rose in several spots.
“Fucking hell,” she murmured. She fished a white flare and fired, to signal
that her job had been done. “Alright, if you all are fine to get back, I’m
going up there.”
“You’re just a Private, aren’t you?” the man called. “You can’t be serious—“
“I was put in this position for a reason,” she said seriously. “Good luck, and
I’m sorry about your comrade.”
She left them in the dust without another word, moving with a vicious purpose.
                                      ---
At the front, all hell was breaking loose. Aisha fired a purple shot, vaulting
Azur over a series of mutilated bodies before switching to her 3DMG. Three
Titans were closest, positively decimating the scout and some of the scout
support teams. A soldier sliced the Achilles tendon of the Titan closest to
her, bringing it to its knees; Aisha vaulted to its nape for the killing blow,
moving directly on to the other. She sliced behind the knee of the running
twelve metre Titan, sending it to the floor with a crash. A redheaded soldier
swooped to finish the job. The last one was all hers, and was busy gorging
itself on some unlucky victim. It looked up at her, eyes vacant as it easily
sunk its teeth into the body, severing the lower half. She knew the look; it
was getting ready to launch itself at her.
When it did, she was ready, firing a hook into its eye and slicing as she made
contact, launching herself over the flailing body and into the air as it hit
the dirt beneath her. As she fell, she set her hook into its nape, skidding
along its back for the kill. Wiping the steaming blood from her eyes, she
looked around from her spot atop the sublimating corpse’s head. It was carnage,
with just enough blood and body parts to be unsure about how many soldiers were
dead. With this many possibly lost in the first three hours, how were they
expected to make a full month?
Mike trotted up from his position, holding Azur’s reins. “You should have come
back to check in with me first. This could have been too much for you.”
She hopped off the Titan’s head and mounted her horse again. “I didn’t think
there was time.”
The scout assist team that she’d met was still trying to ascertain how many
soldiers were dead. The redheaded man gave a salute.
“Major, if I may; she was a great deal of help.”
Mike sighed. “So she was. Alright, Aisha let’s go. We'll discuss this later.”
She gave the scene one last look. A woman’s torso lay feet away.
So this is life outside of humanity’s stronghold.
                                      ---
The first stop was only a half hour away from their encounter with the Titans.
It was a large castle-like structure, once an old noble house, but in the years
right up until Maria’s fall, it had become an estate of sorts for a business
owner and his farms. The once carefully tilled lands lay in ruin, with weeds
springing up where crops once stood. The yard was overgrown as well, but it
seemed at least the large iron gate was functional.
They were among the last soldiers to file in; their horses were left in the
stables, where Hange was supervising her team.
“I hear you two got quite held up,” she smiled. “A knot of abnormals, was it? I
didn’t even know they could travel in a pack like that.”
“I didn’t get held up,” Mike said, looking at his subordinate. “Private Kaur
here decided that she had to kill four Titans.”
“Four?” Hange let out a low whistle. “Quite a day for a Private.”
Eld, who was brushing his own horse had been drawn closer, his face etched in
disbelief. “Four, really?”
“I killed two,” Aisha said evenly. “I assisted with two more.”
“Still, that’s impressive,” he said, giving her a kind smile. Aisha mirrored it
with difficulty, feeling slightly awkward.
“It was reckless, but she had enough skill to save her,” Mike continued. “Come
on, you’re going to fill your gas tanks and get assigned.”
The others watched their retreating figures as the girl was shepherded away.
“You know, if we had just gotten one of those Titans,” Hange said wistfully.
Moblit blanched. “Major? You mean like catching one? Why?!”
Eld cursed inwardly and edged away as the rookie found out why one avoids
asking Hange Zoe a question.
                                      ---
Captain Levi’s scowl deepened as he supervised the cleaning of the castle
interior. Half-assed, all of it. They had the pretense of being in the field
and under duress, but that was no excuse for shoddy cleaning.
“There aren’t any Titans around, but there are cobwebs,” he swiped a finger
across the tables in the dining area. “And that’s means you still have a
fucking job to do, soldier.”
The girl who had been doing the room squeaked an apology and ran off to do it
again. They would be using this as their singular base as they branched out,
scouting the best areas for new supply points. Therefore, in Levi’s mind, there
was no reason to live in squalor while they were doing it.
He saw Mike’s burly frame enter the room before he spotted Aisha; well, she’d
made her first day. There was word that at least nine soldiers had died that
morning, but their names were being withheld for now. A small voice in the back
of his head nagged as the others filed in without either of them. The relief
that flooded him was thoroughly unwelcome; in fact, it made him feel positively
annoyed.
“We’re told you are the one handling things in here?” Mike surveyed the
cleaning progress with an amused snort.
“These kids can’t do anything right, apparently,” he said, within earshot of
one of the rookies, who frantically began polishing faster. “Here to lend your
services? We need someone tall to get to that dusty-ass chandelier.”
“Maybe later,” Mike said. “I’m going to see Erwin. Aisha can stay and help
you.”
The girl did not seem happy about it. Frankly, neither was Levi. Mike had left
the room by the time that he’d noticed that there was a cut on her collarbone,
just barely visible where her shirt ended.
“What did you do to yourself?”
She started slightly and touched the wound. “Shrapnel. I think I got it on the
fourth one, when it fell and I had to jump over it.”
“Fourth,” he repeated.

“Why is everyone acting like it’s a big deal?” she exclaimed. One of the girls
sweeping gave the Captain a hasty glance.
“Because most rookies who take on a Titan in their first mission die,” he
explained calmly. “And not a lot of people find themselves taking out four in
one day. Unless of course, they’re out looking for kills.”
She looked vaguely insulted. “I wasn’t looking. I saw the signal and the team I
was with reported a lot of them headed in that direction. The others needed
help.”
“And you were the first there.”
Her frown deepened. “Sir, what do you need me to do?”
Levi fought the urge to throw her on her ass. “Go fix the kitchen.”
“The whole thing?”
“Hard on hearing, Private?”
The reply was curt. “No, sir.”
She stomped away, haughty and very obviously displeased. The girl with the
broom was still gaping.
“You have a problem or something?” Levi snapped. “Because there’s still a fuck-
load of dust at your feet, and I personallyhave a problem with that.”
===============================================================================

Rations that evening were eaten with slight distaste; none of the soldiers had
course to eat them in months, which had dulled the memories of their loathing.
Knots of soldiers broke apart for light conversation while they put out their
bed rolls; though there were many bedrooms in the castle, there was no reason
to waste the fuel and manpower to spread the soldiers so thinly. Instead, they
broke into three groups, each occupying the Keep, the old living rooms and the
dining room, as these had the largest hearths.
The night was one of relative ease, everyone was in good spirits, being not
overly exhausted nor too discouraged by the early casualties. What helped the
matter was that wholeteams seemed to have been killed this morning, with the
exception of the man Aisha had seen on her first Titan. Instead of being a
completely bad thing, the soldiers had began compartmentalising—once your team
and your friends were fine, things were fine. Surviving in times of war meant
little sacrifices of humanity, many made without realising.
Aisha found herself a corner and extracted one of her mother’s journals from
her jacket. She had taken the time to practically sew a new, sturdy pocket into
her jacket to make sure that it would not budge. During her time training for
the expedition, she made the decision to put off reading any of them until she
was out of the Walls; it seemed fitting somehow.
                                      ~~~
July 6th, 824.
This is my first week in the household of Varnhagen. I’ve not been able to eat
much or sleep for that matter. I don’t know where we are, really, other than
the fact that we’re on the surface and in Wall Sheena. My brother told me about
this place, but his words could not do justice to the beauty. The sky is so
beautiful, the houses…everything except the people. They might be richer, but
they’re no better than the ones who held us. They just buy us from them.
The people here stare at the godja on my face with open derision. The one on my
arm still bleeds, a reminder that I have left my family…or what was left of it.
Before I left, I was given the needles and ink to take with me, for when the
next is needed. The one I dread the most.
Xavier seems like he’s afraid of me. He comes by, tries to talk to me, but I
refuse to speak. I don’t like the way he looks at me. He gave me a maid—of all
things, and she is the only one I turn to these days. Her name is Clara; I only
wish she and I could run from this house. But where would we go?
I’m so tired.
Thema.
                                      ~~~
Aisha’s hands shook slightly, and turned the page. Her mother had been bought
like an animal by that man. She sat in the little niche, reading page after
page of her mother’s fears, her sorrows and her loneliness. Then, a single,
very short entry caught her eye.
                                      ~~~
December 20th 824.
The time I tried to prepare for came, and I was still not ready. I hate him. Oh
god, how I hate him.
                                      ~~~
Feeling enraged and vaguely ill, she shut the book and tucked it back into the
inner pocket of her jacket. She should have slit the bastard’s throat when she
had the chance.
===============================================================================
Levi did a final patrol through the rooms of sleeping soldiers; he had assured
Erwin that he was more suited to keeping an eye on things. The man needed
sleep, and Levi was all too used to sleep deprivation anyway. The night started
slowly, with some staying awake to chat or make furtive trips to the many
bastions of the castle—something that they weren’t exactly supposed to do.
Those that he caught wilted under the icy glare, and obediently went to their
bedrolls. He couldn’t blame them though; just about two years ago, he was like
them…thirsty and craving the sights of freedombeyond those walls.
The night watch was huddled in the wall-walks on the second floor, waiting to
be relieved within the next hour. With that, he decided that two in the morning
was a good a time as any to get to sleep. He walked silently through the
clusters of soldiers, huddled in either teams or groups of friends. Levi was
uncharacteristically exhausted after the day’s events, though benign they were.
He didn’t stop himself when his eyes sought the spot where Aisha lay. Like most
nights, it was cold, especially within the stone confines of the castle. She
had ended up huddled in a little mass up against the muscular wall of her squad
leader, with Nanaba on the other side. The other two rookies were towards the
end, splayed in all directions as they tossed and turned. He allowed himself an
amused smirk; it was like watching parents and their newborn child.
Eld was further away from the fire, having given a choice spot to the rookies
out of kindness. Like the hardy kid he was, the cold didn’t bother him very
much. The Captain spread his own bedroll out very carefully next to his
sleeping subordinate and lay staring up at the darkened ceiling for what felt
like hours, despite being so very tired. He thought back to Ambros’ words and
sighed.
The little fox under his house was a stubborn, stupid fuck. He was probably
worse for allowing her to stay there.
Chapter End Notes
     The ‘godja’ (pronounced god-ya) is my variant of the word ‘godna’
     which is a traditional form of tattooing in South Asian culture. I’d
     learned about this while doing one of my anthropology papers, because
     the practice still survives with some elder folks within the West
     Indies (which is where I live).
     I figured with Mikasa’s clan branding her, and the likelihood of any
     minority clans interacting due to their common marginality, some may
     have adopted and adapted practices from one another, so you’ll be
     seeing quite a mishmash. It’s up to the reader to really decide who
     adopted from whom ;)
***** The War Inside: The 28th Expedition, Part 2 *****
Chapter Notes
     I'm sure it comes as no surprise because of how long it took, but
     this chapter was actually one of the most difficult ones to write
     yet!
     I kept re-doing and re-working some bits of plot (nope, not just a
     filler chapter, some of these events and characters are coming back
     later ;) ) and I feel like this is good enough to keep the
     development going. Also Pokemon Go came out in my country yesterday
     and I ended up running around instead of finishing this ;-;
     Song title and lyrics by Switchfoot. Hope everyone enjoys!
                         Yeah, every thought or deed.
                           Yeah, every tree or seed,
                  The big things come from the little dreams.

                     Every world is made by make believe.
                   I am the war inside, I am the battle line.
                  I am the rising tide, I am the war I fight.
                             Eyes open—open wide,
                    I can feel it like a crack in my spine.
                    I can feel it like the back of my mind.
                             I am the war inside.
                                        
 
Hange was following Erwin on his rounds, indignant and resolute.
“I’m serious about this!” she said angrily. “Isn’t it worth a thought?”
“I’ll give it a thought, but not now,” Erwin said firmly. People were beginning
to stare. “Hange, this isn’t the time, we have our mission. We can discuss this
when we get back.”
She stared after him in defiance, with her team sheepishly at her heels.
“Uh—Major, do you think that’s wise…talking to the Commander like that?” Moblit
asked meekly.
She rounded on him. “I didn’t ask you. Now, come on, we have notes to take and
samples to get from the surrounding areas.”
The boy caught Aisha’s eye and they exchanged a sympathetic look. He allowed
himself to be carted off with the others to wander around the perimeter until
more soldiers could be spared for a reconnaissance run. Aisha was left to
follow her squad leader as he made sure their surroundings were secure. This
felt like her unspoken punishment for the events yesterday—everyone else was
either allowed to relax for now, or was otherwise occupied in something that
felt useful. Even if she and Mike found Titans, they weren’t going to be the
ones going after them.
Mike sniffed at the air. “Come on, we’re going onto the bastions.”
She engaged her gear and followed him up the stone walls, where they could see
right up to the forest to the south. That was where many of the Titans would be
clustered—at least according to the commander, anyway. The remains of the
nearest town was about a day’s ride away, and they would only head in that
direction after locating another supply point along the route.
“Shit, Erwin was right,” he murmured.

“They’re over there?”
He nodded. “The stench is definitely coming in that direction. We can probably
reduce our chance of running into them if we head south.”
Aisha fished a map of the area from her jacket. “Nearest town is called Gorj,
and if we skirt the forest and go south…that’ll turn our day long ride into
probably two.”
“Anything marked along the way?”
“Not that I can see, but there’s bound to be a farmhouse or something.”
Mike glanced back to the forest. “I’ll talk to Erwin. It’s only a matter of
time before they realise that we’re here and come knocking. We’ll need to get
started on some trenches.”
“The wall is about twelve metres high but,” Aisha looked down at the worn
exterior. “I’m not convinced it’ll survive an attack.”
“Neither am I,” he replied. “We need buffers in place to slow them down. Go
report to Levi, he’ll have some use for you getting everything organised
inside. I’ll take our findings to Erwin.”

Aisha tried not to look disappointed. “Yes, sir.”
“It’s that obvious that you’re being kept out of action, isn’t it,” he stated
drily.
She nodded. “Yeah, that it is.”
Mike gave his snorting laugh. “Live and learn—live being the operative word.
You’re too young to throw your life away for jack-shit.”
“What qualifies as jack-shit?”
“You’ll figure it out,” he said grimly. “If you live long enough, you’ll see
more than enough people die for nothing. It happens by accident, but don’t ever
choose it.”
                                      ---
Inside, the activity was bustling; rations and supplies were being stowed away
in every available area. They chanced bringing double the number of carts
along, hoping that they would at least make it far enough into hostile
territory to form a cache from which they could branch out. The gamble had
worked, so the while the castle’s provisions were being offloaded, at least
three other carts remained laden.
“Hey, tank girl,” a surly voice called. “Stop daydreaming and get a move on.”
Aisha scowled at the Captain and scooped the entire crate of goods off the
table. One of the nearby soldiers froze while packing flint into a store
cupboard to stare. It might have been heavy, but it was faster than moving it
bit by bit.
Eld gaped as she dropped the crate next to the large trunk where its contents
would be stored. “You don’t play around, do you?”
Aisha shrugged. “I don’t see the point of prolonging this when I could just do
it faster.”
“Yeah, but that’s about a hundred pounds of equipment in there and you didn’t
need to haul the whole thing at once,” he pointed out wryly.
“It’s no skin off my teeth,” she shoved the trunk open, a little more
aggressively than she had intended. She could feelthe Captain’s scowl still
focused on her.
The blonde man frowned a little. “You’ll burn out if you’re not careful.”
“Thanks for the advice.”

And with that, the conversation came to an unceremonious end, as she began
dumping items into the chest, leaving Eld feeling rather as though he was
watching a miniature bull being let loose in a china shop.
The next task was stripping and taking down all of the drapes; they weren’t
necessary any more and after a year of neglect, they did little beside adding a
musty note to the air. As they piled the heavy brocades behind the barn, they
could see the returning figures of the squad sent to engage the nearby Titans.
With a pang, Aisha noted that there were markedly fewer than those who’d left.
Eld pulled down the cloth that was tied around his face.
“How many is that? One…two…shit,” he murmured. “They lost seven guys?”
“Why didn’t they signal to us?” Aisha stared, catching sight of a soldier
barely able to keep himself upright; Eld had seen him too.
“Fuck, come on—“
They sprinted to meet the party, running through the open gate; as they
approached, the soldier on his horse slipped off under the force of the uneven
rhythm of the trot. Eld narrowly managed to catch him before he hit the ground,
while Aisha took the horse’s bridle to calm the restless animal.
“He…he’s dead, I think,” Eld was desperately trying to feel a pulse, his voice
filled with disbelief. He placed an ear to the man’s chest. “Nothing.”
His comrades had dismounted by this time, and had surrounded them. Worn, tired
faces twisted into concern and agony.
“Oh god, what’s wrong with him?”
“Victor! Wake up, c’mon man!”
One of the watchers rappelled down the wall, hyperaware and tense. “Get inside
guys, this isn’t the time or place.”
The two soldiers tried to shepherd the bereaved team into the walls, placing
the dead weight of the limp body back onto his horse to make him easier to
carry. Inside, the brigade’s medics were waiting. An ashy-haired woman
approached the body as Aisha and Eld pulled him off of his horse and onto the
grass. She repeated Eld’s movements—first checking for a pulse, and then a
heartbeat. She placed a hand under his nose and gave a heavy sigh, shaking her
head.

“Gone.”
Around them some of the survivors were beginning to become hysterical.
“How?” a girl dropped to the dirt beside them. Aisha recognised her from the
Training Corps, but struggled to recall her name. “He was our team leader, he
was fine. He had just cut down one of our comrades—“
“Help me take off his harness,” the medic looked at Aisha and Eld, her face
expressionless.
The soldiers nodded, while the girl continued to mumble about how utterly
normal Corporal Victor Strauss had been acting. As the chest straps fell away,
the medic swiftly unbuttoned his shirt to reveal heavy, mottled bruising on the
entire torso. A crease of concentration appeared between the medic’s thin
eyebrows, as though she was straining to keep her own composure.
“Oh god,” Aisha recoiled slightly. She’d never seen anything like it. She
glanced at the man’s young, nondescript face; he seemed no older than the
Captain.
“He was bleeding on the inside,” the woman said softly. “He must’ve gotten hit
or something. There was never anything we could have done.”
“I-I mean he’d been kind of talking funny when we were returning but I didn’t
think…”

Eld patted the girl’s back gently. “Everything happens so fast out there,
sometimes you never notice when someone just slips away. It’s happened to all
of us.”
Aisha remembered Simon slipping off of the building and swallowed audibly. “It
never makes sense. Never.”
“We lost so many,” she’d finally begun to cry, tears falling in earnest across
freckled cheeks. “M-my cousin is out there. Ulric—we were running so fast we
couldn’t take him, we need to go back.”
The commander had already joined the fray; soldiers saluted through tears and
sobbing, punctuated by the sound of the girl’s frantic explanations. He waved
them at ease and came to rest before the body, his face unchanging save for the
darkness in his eyes.
“How many?”
“Seven, sir,” a soldier nearby announced. “Eight—actually, counting Corporal
Strauss.”
“What did you find?”
“Five or more Titans, sir,” he began to shake. “It was hard to tell, after it
got started. We—we couldn’t take any bodies, we just had to run; we got all but
two, but we’d been running low on gas. They swarmed us, we heard one of them
roaring and then…”
“You made the best call,” Erwin placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Go get
checked out, all of you. We’ll work on burying the Corporal later in the
evening, so you can all pay your respects.”
“Sir,” the girl was staring up at him with tears shining in her large eyes.
“Aren’t we going back this evening? We have men out there.”
“They’re dead, Kate,” the soldier murmured.

“We have to get them!”
“There may be nothing left,” Erwin said seriously. “Our next move will be made
tomorrow, and by then, who knows how many Titans would have already been
attracted to the corpses. I’m sorry, I’m afraid there’s nothing more to be
done. All we can do now is press on.”
She moved to follow as the commander turned on his heels, but was caught by
Aisha. “Please understand, we can’t lose any more men today. We need to wait
for the Titans to disperse and get your reports before we consider going back.”
“My cousin,” she was weeping in earnest now. “What am I going to tell my
family? I couldn’t even take his emblem—I don’t have anything to take back to
them.”
With a pang, Aisha saw the faces of Simon, Klaus and Lotte. Nothing but those
cursed ribbons was left.
“I know,” she said quietly. “But it isn’t worth your life, or the lives of
these soldiers. It’s hard, but it’s a truth we’ve all faced.”
“I won’t ask them to go then,” she said, straining to calm her frantic
breathing. “I’ll go alone.”
“That’s suicide,” Eld said firmly. “You may not even find him, and what would
you do if you got cornered?”
“Your family would just lose someone else,” Aisha finished for him.
“It’s easy for you to say,” she looked up at Aisha, her face red, pain-filled
and indignant. “You’re strong enough to do it. You could if you wanted to. I
have to accept that I’m not.”
Was she?
Perhaps that was the wrong question to ask. Would she? If that were Lotte…Simon
or Klaus…within reach…
No. No regrets.
“I’ve made that decision before.”
“Then you’re heartless,” she wrenched herself away from the pair of them and
stormed off, tears blinding her progress.

Eld placed a reassuring hand onto Aisha’s shoulder. “You’re not, you know. Just
by taking the time to set her straight, you’re not heartless.”
She looked at him, as if for the first time; he seemed tentative—though quite
sincere. Like Simon used to be. The dour calm that cemented itself over her
cracked slightly, and she smiled.
“Thanks,”
“C’mon, let’s go,” he got up, dusting his trousers off. “The Captain is looking
at us like he thinks we’re slacking.”
She looked across and caught the steely gaze from the doorway. She admitted
that it was childish—but she still hadn’t quite forgiven him for earlier. The
smile melted away and she got up with a sigh.
                                      ---
The night’s watch was a surprisingly relaxing affair. Atop the bastion, there
was little to see, even when the moon was shining at its brightest—most Titans
were inactive during at night anyway. Aisha thumbed through the journal
absently; the entries had grown sparser during that first year that her mother
had been in captivity. The ones that appeared were clipped—quite disturbed and
morbid as she’d written about how hard Xavier was trying to win her over. How
oblivious he was to her disgust.
“What time is it?” she looked towards Henning, who was nodding off slightly.
He took some time to fumble his pocket watch out of his jacket. “’Bout three
thirty. We should be getting relieved soon.”
“How far d’you think we’ll get this run?” she stared out into the darkness,
trying to imagine the overgrown and abandoned towns that lay ahead.
“It’s insane, but I really want to get in range of the Wall. I want to go
outside.”
“You think we’ll make it in a month?” she laughed lightly. “That’s so far away.
There’s about a hundred kilometers from Rose to Maria,”
“Well, when you put it like that…” he stretched with a yawn. “What the—hey,
Aisha, look!”
She sat up with a start and grabbed a telescope. There was a small shape—a
horse, running at full pelt towards the forest.
“Who the fuck is that stupid? Oh, god, Kate you didn’t…” her heart was pounding
in her throat. If there were any Titans still active, she would be dead for
sure. The moon was bright, but there were far too many clouds to rely on its
light.
“What do we do? Signal?”
“No, we’d just throw everyone into a panic—I’ll wake up the Major,” she quickly
slipped the book back into her pocket and flung open the trap door to the
stairs. “Stay here and keep an eye on her, you can signal to us how far she’s
gone from the wall.”
“Got it,”
Her hands were numbed and clammy when she wrenched the doors leading to the
drawing rooms open, fumbling to keep as quiet as possible. The rest of the team
was nestled in their regular spot; she hastily dropped to her knees near her
leader and shook him. His eyes opened almost immediately; knowing him, he
probably smelled her coming, even in his sleep.
“Aisha. What’s happened?”
“I think Kate went back to the forest to get her cousin’s patch,” she whispered
urgently. “She took a horse, Henning and I spotted her just a few minutes ago.”
He inhaled sharply. “Fuck, alright. We don’t have much time; I’ll saddle the
horses. Wake Levi, we’ll need him.”
“Yes, sir.”
She hurried across the room, weaving around the sleeping bodies, practically on
the tips of her boots; Eld was the one she spotted first, with his blonde hair
glinting in the weak light. The Captain was nearby, stock-still and on his
side. There was a moment of quiet hesitation as she hovered over him, but it
was quashed with the panic that was coursing through her. She gently placed a
hand on his shoulder; he was just as solid as he looked. Though he was
deceptively short for Humanity’s Strongest Soldier, he was not lacking in terms
of sheer muscle, which was every bit as intimidating in its own right.

“Captain?” she murmured. He was stirring a little, but at her voice, the icy
eyes opened.
“What is it?”
“Major Zacharias and I need your help; one of the survivors is going back to
the forest, the watch spotted her about five minutes ago.”
He sat up immediately, cursing under his breath and shed the thin sheet that
had probably barely kept out the chilly night air.
“We need to get a move on, now.”
He slipped into his jacket with a fluid movement and they swiftly moved to the
entryway, which served as their armory. With an unspoken efficiency, she helped
him buckle the 3DMG in place before they exited the building. Mike was already
waiting with their horses. Two of the watch soldiers were at the gates,
wheeling them open just enough to fit the horses—any more and the noise would
have the whole place woken up. Henning was perched atop the wall, still peering
through his telescope.
“Lost visual contact about a minute ago,” he called. “She was straight ahead.
The battlefield was to the south-east, right?”
“Now that she’s in the forest who knows where she might end up,” Mike said
darkly. “Henning, inform Erwin about all of this—but keep things quiet until he
says otherwise. Alright, move out!”
The three soldiers tore across the landscape in a small, V-shaped formation
with Mike at the helm; with his acute sense of smell, he was probably the only
one who would know where they were going with any accuracy. The wind was
picking up, buffeting them and swirling the clouds in the sky over the moon
with alarming frequency. Vision came, and went, and in the end, they could only
trust their horses to guide them as their sight failed.
Within the next few minutes, they’d entered the forest, its massive trees
blocking out all but a few slivers of silvery light. Aisha closed her eyes to
keep the fluttering light levels from distracting her, relying on her hearing
as she’d learned on her nighttime ride with Levi all those months ago. Aside
from their galloping hooves, there was a disturbing stillness…
“3DMG, now!”

Her eyes snapped open and she triggered her equipment at the nearest tree,
flying off as the horses continued their course. She picked a high branch—about
thirty metres up; further up than any known Titan aside from the Colossal could
reach. Levi and Mike were in the adjoining foliage, and rappelled over to join
her.
“There’s a Titan awake,” Mike said with a sniff. “Maybe two.”
“Abnormals?”
“Who knows,” he murmured. “I can pick up something human this way. We may as
well just stick to the trees and hope we find her before those things do.”
Levi unsheathed his blades. “It could be easier to hunt those fuckers down
directly and then try to find her.”
“Point taken,” Mike closed his eyes, as though he was concentrating deeply for
a few seconds. “They’re closing in, actually. We don’t have much of a choice.”
Aisha fitted her own blades and started at the sudden, drawn out scream.

“They found her, let’s go!”
She jumped off of the branch and swung through the trees, the Captain at her
side.

“Get her off the ground as soon as possible, Aisha,” he called. “I’ll handle
it.”
For once, it didn’t occur to her to argue. “Sir!”
He darted forward with eye-watering speed; she concentrated meanwhile in
searching the dark floor of the forest for Kate. For that, she needed to go
lower, which would make her a target for any Titans nearby. She had to trust
the Captain—and of course, with Mike nearby, they would have backup. She was as
safe as she was going to get.
A flutter of the regiment’s cloak barely caught her eye, and she changed course
with a sudden snag of her 3DMG lines. Kate seemed to be running. She had little
time to look for where the threat was, she could only accept that her life was
pretty much in Levi’s hands. She dipped, one arm coming down to grab the girl
in mid-stride; she could hear the thundering of steps behind her and gunned the
trigger up again. There was a searing pain as all of Kate’s weight pulled at
the muscles in her side; she let out an involuntary gasp but gritted her teeth
through it. She came to rest on a high branch, and collapsed near to the trunk
for support, clutching her aching ribs.
“What the hell did you do, Kate?” she ground out. “And why aren’t you using
your gear?”
“I-I’m sorry,” Kate’s expression was solemn in the dim light. “I shouldn’t have
come back—my gear broke when I hit a tree in the dark and-“
Aisha held up a hand, still trying to breathe without pain. “You can explain at
length if we survive this. Come on, if you can’t move, you and I are going to
have to rely on one another.”
The forest floor shook with a crash; Levi had felled whatever was below them.
Aisha sighed, and motioned to her back.
“Hold on to me and for the love of god, do what you’re told this time.”
She sniffed and nodded, clutching the other girl’s shoulders with a vice grip.
Aisha took a deep breath and launched them both off of the tree. It took some
doing with the extra weight, but her overzealous training had paid off—she’d
become stronger and she was used to balancing with extra loads. Through the
murky, steam-filled atmosphere she was barely able to see a silhouette. They
landed nearby.
“I got her,” Aisha said, massaging her side again.
“Captain—I…”
“We’ll discuss it later,” he said shortly. “Get the horses.”
Kate managed a whistle, and by then, Mike had joined the trio.
“I smell more, but I don’t think they’re moving.”
Levi’s eyes darted to the source of the steam. “There were two awake, like you
said. Aside from the fact that they were active, they seemed like ordinary
Titans. One was even slower than usual, like it was groggy.”
The horses had trotted towards them; Mike mounted his and gave a final sniff of
the atmosphere. “I won’t take it for granted that the others will stay asleep,
given what happened tonight.”
The Captain’s reply was grim and dry, as usual. “Yeah, because we know luck has
fucked us sideways more times than we could count. Let’s get out of here.”
They urged their horses forward, weaving towards the edge of the forest;
luckily the moon was out, so they could at least tell what direction they were
going. It was slinking back into the darkness when a deadly roar sounded in the
distance.
“Fuck—keep moving!” Mike called. “There are more!”
They felt the wind blasting in open air as their horses tore across the open
landscape, with the sounds of giant feet running after them. Coming closer and
closer.
I am not dying here, not like this.

Aisha looked back, and saw one of the things running at full speed. She
reversed seating on the horse and fired; the moon was hidden again as she
slashed blindly, instinct driving her for the spot where the nape should be.
The limpness of the creature below her boots assured her victory; she followed
it to the floor with a crash. She could still hear more of them…then more
crashes, presumably caused by Levi and Mike. The former finally trotted towards
her when the moon came out, holding Azur’s reins. There was a hint of
uncharacteristic relief on his face, which just served to make him look more
morose.
She struggled a little to re-mount her horse, and winced at the sharp throbbing
in her side. “Kate?”
“She’s fine. Crying like a baby with a shitty diaper, but fine.”
“We’re a few minutes out,” she said a little weakly. “Let’s get moving, I don’t
think I can do that again.”
“First hint of self-preservation I’ve heard from you,” he commented. “You might
actually grow out of being a brat one day.”
The injured girl suppressed the urge to stick her tongue out at him as they
pushed their horses into a run.
I’ve got unfinished business and a lot more Titans to kill before I die. 
The silvery light was hazy when they finally got back to the base. Aisha felt
the throbbing in her side ease slightly as the tension of battle lifted. The
other watchers had obviously woken the commander and some of the others; they
were waiting with the gates open, lanterns and torches in hand.
Erwin took Hange’s lamp as she started looking over the girl. “Is everyone
fine? You ran into active Titans at night?”
“We barely made it,” Mike admitted. “It’s one thing to face them out here, it’s
another to face the abnormals in the dark.”

“We’ll deal with this in the morning,” he looked down at the shaking figure.
Kate had begun to cry again. “You all need to be looked over.”
Levi dismounted his horse and approached Aisha, who hadn’t budged. “You
alright?”
“I think I pulled something,” she winced. “Kinda hurts to move.”
“Not as indestructible as you thought, huh?” he reached across to help her ease
off of the saddle. He was as strong as he looked, and easily supported her as
though she weighed nothing.
“Is it a sharp pain or an ache?” Hange had finally sent Kate off to bed, and
was now peering at Aisha in concern.
“Little bit of both,” she said meekly. “If I move or breathe too deeply it
hurts.”
“Might be a hyperextension or a pulled muscle,” Hange ignored the little hiss
as she prodded the area. “Nothing like a sharp stab, right?”
“No,”
“Alright, well it should pass with a hot compress and some bed rest. I can
barely wait to hear about what you found tomorrow!” she turned to Levi, looking
him up and down. “You look like you always do, so I’m assuming you’re fine.
Mike’s gone off to fill Erwin in, so she’s all yours.”
Azur’s restless neighing just barely covered the Captain’s growled cursing.
Hange smiled angelically and sauntered away. It was an easy enough path to get
inside with him helping to keep the weight off of her right side; everyone else
was still asleep, and the soft sounds of crackling flames were soothing. Near
the drawing rooms, Eld was waiting his face slightly pale and washed out in the
dim firelight.
“They woke me and said someone ran off into the forest,” he whispered. “So I
waited up in case we needed extra hands.”
“Good, because we do,” Levi said blandly. “Fix a hot compress and bring it
over.”
To his credit, Eld only looked mildly bewildered. “Sir.”
Aisha looked around at the cold stone floor with wide-eyed apprehension. “We’re
staying all the way back here? But the fireplace is—“
“Too far away, unless you want me to carry you,” he said darkly. “And that
would hurt the sprain and you’d yell and wake everyone up.”
She positively pouted. Levi’s mood was not improving; in fact, he was beginning
to develop a steady pain behind one eye. Goddamned brats.
He trusted her to keep standing long enough for him to fetch some bedrolls and
place them in their new corner, nestled behind some supply barrels. By the time
Eld returned with the hot water and the towels, she was curled in a tiny,
painful ball on her frigid bedroll.
“We’re good from here,” the Captain said. “Now go back to sleep. We have a lot
of shit to get done tomorrow, and because tank girl went and injured herself,
you have to pick up her slack.”
Eld visibly blanched. “I—yes sir.”
Aisha stared at his retreating frame, “That was mean.”
“Shut up and pull up the blouse so I can put the damn compress on,”
“I’ll freeze to death if you get my clothes wet,” she protested.
“Then unbutton the fucking thing.”
There was an awkward silence. Aisha tried very hard not to so much as glance in
his direction as she loosened the buttons of her blouse with her good hand. She
slipped her shoulder free on the injured side and lay still, waiting for the
compress.
Levi shelved the rising annoyance in his chest and concentrated on the job at
hand. There was no telltale bruising like there had been on Victor; though, if
there had been she would have probably been dead already. He tested the heat of
the towel on his hand carefully and placed it over the length of her torso,
feeling the muscle spasm. She gave a little sigh of relief.

“Better?”

“Somuch,” she said. “I want to keep this thing on forever.”
“I’m not sitting up and changing it all night,” he said blandly. When it
cooled, he replaced it with another, repeating the process until the hot water
had gone tepid, which didn't take very long given how cold the night was.
“How’s it now, kid?”
There was no answer. He felt a mild alarm, but she was still breathing—when he
sought her face, he’d realised that she’d fallen asleep. He breathed a long
sigh, wanting to curse, but at the same time admitting—very grudgingly—that it
was endearing. A little cute, even. The brat had her moments.
He moved the basin and towel away, pushing them against a small book that had
fallen out onto the floor. It was old, a little worn around the edges, but it
looked expensive. A cursory glance at its contents, even in the dim light was
enough; he tucked it back into the girl’s jacket and settled onto his bedroll
with a grim expression. He was staring up at the ceiling, fitting all of those
little pieces of what had happened earlier in the year into place. That did
explain why Mike had been hesitant to tell any of them about what had
transpired in Wall Sheena. He hadn’t even told Erwin.
A small weight pressed against his shoulder, and he smelled pine needles. He
let her fumble closer in her sleep, seeking warmth; it was a habit reminiscent
of Isabel, making it easier to let slide through his thick veneer. Was that it?
Was that why he was feeling like this?
Yes, obviously.
No, there was something else…
He thought back to the moment that he’d noticed that she engaged the Titan back
there; he saw her flying through the air, poised to attack, and then it went
dark. He vaguely remembered the last time he felt that panic, and it had a very
different outcome. This time, he stole himself and did his job. He trusted the
skills that had made her the top student in her class—the ones that had gotten
her onto an elite team even as a baby soldier. She had a better start than
Farlan and Isabel did. They never had military training; they were very good,
even without it, but instinct and natural talent had a habit of sending people
to an early demise out here.
In the end, she was fine save for the sprain. But that did not put him at ease.
On the contrary, it bothered him a great deal, bubbling beneath his skin in a
roiling mix of uncertainty and apprehension. He felt the soft brush of her hand
as she shifted and wondered just how much his friends would laugh at him if
they saw him now.
And everything about that thought hurt.
 
 
***** Trouble: The 28th Expedition, Part 3 *****
Chapter Notes
     I’m so happy that people are enjoying the story! The comments and
     kudos really mean a lot. I know these OC pairings aren’t the most
     popular in the fandom, and I came in with that in mind so it’s really
     nice to see your appreciation. It’s really motivating :)
     I feel like I should also tell you guys that I’ve already written
     three sex scenes because I have absolutely no patience. We’ll get to
     them, but I just had to get some of these ideas out of the way. I
     think you guys will love them ;) I’ve also read chapter 84, and good
     lord, that was intense. It really has me wondering whether I should
     re-evaluate the possible ending for this fic/series (it’ll probably
     come along after the actual series ends). I want to keep to the tone
     of the manga, so depending on how the series shapes up, I may have an
     alternate ending.
     Also, if anyone is wondering what I headcanoned Aisha as looking
     like, here’s a post on it (she's *much* smaller in the chest though):
     http://flailed-state.tumblr.com/post/148164771257
     (This link is spoilerless, but please don’t look at the blog’s home
     page unless you want to be spoiled! All spoilers are tagged, but I
     want to warn you just in case.)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                     I see the morning dew creeping on in
                   Inside a calling voice from deep within.
                             So I borrowed a book
                 With pages so blank and wrote down some words
                  Then I sang them out so they could be heard.
                       Don’t you worry it will be returned
                           To you all shiny and new.
                  Don’t you worry it will be returned to you
                             All shiny and new.  
                    Walking down what used to be my street,
                           Now paved with disbelief
                         Friendly faces turning away,
                   Whispering hey—hey now, hey now, hey now!
                        There he goes, he must be mad,
                  Speaking of a friendly place in this world
                                Ain't that sad?
 
Aisha awoke to fledgling sunlight pouring through the large windows in the
foyer; the pain in her side was reduced to a sore ache that protested as she
tried to sit up. The air was as frosty as usual, leaving her reluctant to leave
the warm bedroll.
It was just a bit bigger than it used to be, though.
She looked down, and flushed a little at the sight of another one, right next
to hers; it was empty, but she’d probably rolled over into it after its
occupant had left. Said occupant was meanwhile in the archway leading to the
dining rooms, holding his cup of tea in his usually awkward—yet somehow
graceful manner, staring out at the little rows of sleeping soldiers who’d been
on watch that night. Ignoring the pain, she used the cold stone wall to get up,
dragging a hand through her sleep-tousled hair.
Well, this was a new one. Time in the military is certainly not as routine as
they advertise.
Unfortunately, with the sprain, she didn’t walk across the room so much as she
limped. Oh well, grace wasn’t necessary in battle, right?
“Hard of hearing, soldier?” he asked with his usual deadpan.
“Not particularly,” she said softly. “Little bit stubborn though.”
He scoffed. “Get in the room and sit the fuck down, idiot.”
She gave him a little smile and sidled into a chair as he disappeared down the
stairs. The old grandfather clock in the dining room had been re-tuned, and
read just after six in the morning. The rest of the soldiers who hadn’t been on
watch were probably already awake, waiting for signs of Titan activity and
continuing to set up the supply point.
The Captain came back and shoved a small mug at her, still scowling as he
pulled a chair.

“That notebook you keep carrying around fell out of your pocket last night,”
Aisha felt the smile slowly disappear from her face. He really was as blunt as
a cannonball.
“You never did talk about what happened in Wall Sheena, and neither did Mike,
for that matter,” he said coolly, continuing to sip his tea.
“I didn’t even talk to him about it, really,” she said, reclining in her chair
to stare up at the ceiling. “I just never knew how.”
“I’m guessing you know why you ended up in the Undergound then,”
“From what I’ve gleaned, I think when my mother died, Varnhagen got married to
a respectable woman and she didn’t want me,” she explained. A tired frustration
was building in her gut; Aisha pulled the bands from the snarling waves of
her hair and combed a hand through it absently.
“That’s who you went to see.” Levi’s voice was remarkably bitter. “Your
father.”
She laughed lightly. “Yeah, Ambros wanted to settle the debt he thought that he
was owed because of everything the family did to him. It didn’t work though,
the stupid fuck was too much of a coward.”
“You don’t expect much from the folks in Sheena,” Levi scoffed. “As a general
rule they exist to fatten their own hides and make things shittier for the rest
of us.”
“The thought of him buying someone,” she ground the words out through gritted
teeth. “Like she was a horse or livestock. She hated him so much and his head
was too far up his own ass to see it.”
“The traffickers operate in the Underground, you know.” Levi said. She raised
her head and looked at him. “They’re usually the ones who make the most money
down there.”
“You mean, for all these years…I was close to them? How many more of us could
there be?”
“Who knows at this point? I’d hazard a guess that Krause kept you out of the
public because of it,” he finished his tea and rose up from his seat. “Talk to
four-eyes; she had an idea about some of the old clans in the Walls. Just be
warned that she’ll fucking bore you to tears for hours about it.”
Aisha took the book out of her breast pocket and stared at its worn exterior.
Many of the pages seemed to have little droplet marks—as if someone had cried
while writing.
Clans?
How many more of my people are suffering?
                                      ---
Hange was outside with her team, compiling reports from those in the battle
yesterday. She spotted Aisha with glee, a manic gleam appearing in her eyes; a
quill was shoved into her hand and she was practically carted into one of the
benches.
“I need your report from yesterday! I keep trying to find Levi, his is always
so clipped—I mean he doesn’t really have a way with words, but c’mon I’ve made
recruits re-write reports as short as this,”
Kate was nearby, hunched over her own parchment. She was huddled into a little
mass, as though trying to appear as small and inconspicuous as possible; her
face was still red with crying.
“He was in the commissary,” Aisha said, biting back a smile. Oh, he’s going to
murder me if she finds him.
Hange turned to Moblit, who was looking utterly harassed as usual. “Supervise
these two, will you? Let me see here,” she sifted through the reports to find a
small sheet. It was true, Levi had written a pitiable amount—barely a
paragraph. Granted, everything had happened in the dark, so there wasn’t much
to tell, but it certainly seemed like a page’s worth of details to Aisha. “I’m
going to find the Captain.”
She watched the Major storm off with amusement, before looking towards Moblit.
“Have I just done something terrible?”
Moblit laughed shakily. “You have no idea. Half the time I think he’s going to
crack and kill her with his bare hands.”
Aisha giggled. “Fantastic.”
He walked over to Kate to see how her report was going; she hastily snatched it
out of his view. Dismayed, he made eye contact with Aisha, unsure of what to
tell the girl.
“Kate,” she said quietly. The girl jumped as though the mere sound of her name
burned. “The commander can’t have been that hard on you— it’s your first time
out here, no one died, and you weren’t hurt.”
Tears started leaking from her eyes again. “You were though. The Captain made
it clear this morning that I’d almost cost you your life.”
Levi?Aisha was perplexed. “I mean—I’d rather not have a sprain, but I was far
from dying,really, you shouldn’t—“
“I’m sorry, okay,” she said quietly. “I wasn’t thinking about anyone else.”
“There was a time when I thought about doing the same thing, you know,” Aisha
said with a sigh. Kate’s large eyes focused on hers for the first time, and a
heaviness was spreading through her limbs again. “During the breach, I lost two
of my teammates, two guys I lived with and loved like they were my brothers. It
killed me on the inside to know that one of them was still in pieces on some
building. That his family would hear that he was never recovered. For just a
little while, when we were collecting the others I thought—how hard could it
be, you know? I could get to that rooftop and come back.”
“And why didn’t you?” her voice was barely audible as though she was trying to
hold it together.
“Because Major Zacharias and Captain Levi saved me the first day out,” she
explained. “The next day I watched so many soldiers die, some I could save,
some I couldn’t…would I put them in danger again? Would I subject someone to
that to save me again?”
“You were right,” Kate wiped her eyes.
Moblit sat next to her and patted her shoulder kindly. “Live and learn, right?
You’re alive, Aisha’s alive and everyone else is fine.”
“What did the commander say, anyway?” Aisha signed and dated her own report
with a flourish.
“I’m benched until further notice. Unless there’s an emergency I’m out of
combat,” she said sadly. “Just as good, really, I learned the hard way that I’m
not even as mediocre as I thought I was.”
“We should train together,” Aisha said suddenly. Moblit and Kate stared; she
just had the overwhelming need to help this girl. To do something so that Kate
didn’t end up as fucked up as she was.
“You’re injured, but…I mean, you want to train with me?”
“Yeah, why not?” she said lightly, forcing a smile. “I might not be able to
join you now but I can give you some pointers. I’ve got a few days of downtime
anyway.”
Kate seemed visibly relieved, giving them the first genuine smile that the
other two soldiers had seen.
“Thank you, really. I mean that.”
Hange had returned, paper in hand and a slightly satisfied look on her face.

“He did another, which is going to be great for research purposes—but I can’t
really submit this one to Erwin,” she flipped over the cover page. “He
addressed it to Shitty Glasses, and it’s just full of profanity. He also
misspelled reconnaissance.”
Aisha stifled a laugh, which sent a little bit of pain through her sprained
muscles. Moblit was hiding his own grin behind his tankard, as his squad leader
fussed over the documents in her hands.
“Oh, by the way Aisha,” Hange looked up with a discomforting grin. “Levi
mentioned you were keen on learning about Titans and the clans; I love to see
rookies so enthusiastic about research!”
Aisha wilted slightly. “He did, did he? That was—ah, nice of him.”
Moblit gave her a sympathetic look. “Major, please remember that Private Kaur
is injured, she also needs to rest,”
“True, we’ll give you the short version,” she grinned. “Alright, let’s start
from the beginning…”
Well played you evil son of a bitch. Well played.
                                      ---
Surprisingly, Aisha found Hange’s tirade more informative than painful—this
made it easy to flash the Captain an angelic smile when he and Eld emerged from
the building to take their turn on watch.
“So, basically, you want to bring one into the walls?” she asked, sipping the
tea that Moblit had been nice enough to bring out for them.
“Yes, if I can get the permission, of course,” Hange nodded vigourously. “I’ll
get Erwin to come around sooner or later. In any case, we’ve been going on and
on about Titans all morning—what did you want to know about the clans?”
“For one, what they were,” Aisha pulled her mother’s journal from her breast
pocket. “I met my biological father earlier in the year; he was from Wall
Sheena, but my mother was from one of these old clans. He’d…bought her in the
Underground.”
Hange’s face took on a slightly more solemn tone as she took the book. “Ah, I
see. Well, it’s not uncommon, I’m afraid. I have intel on about three clans,
but there were probably so many more. Difference can be poorly received, but
I’m sure you’ve known that all your life.”
Aisha nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard everything from my skin being the sign of a
curse to me being thrown in an oven as a baby.”
“I don’t expect the average person to be very good at sorting it out,” Hange
smiled sadly. “The clan that I believe you came from was located somewhere very
far—not as far as the Orientals, but it was somewhere in the middle. If you let
me hold onto this…perhaps I can dig up some more. When we get back to the
walls, you and I can go looking.”
Her eyes widened. “Thank you, Major. I can’t tell you how much that means to
me.”
“Don’t mention it,” Hange turned her eyes skyward. “There’s so much we don’t
know about the world—including ourselves. It’s the least I can do. I’ll talk to
that squad leader of yours to let you off when we get back.” She rose from the
table and looked at Moblit. “Alright, you take your lunch, I’m going to go sort
out our final report for Erwin.”

“Major, you need to eat too!” Moblit called. She waved him off lazily and kept
walking.
“Who exactly is watching over whom, here?”
Her comrade sighed. “I don’t even know any more. I’ll go get our rations, let’s
hope whoever was on lunch duty knew what they were doing.”
                                      ---
[Two weeks into the 28th Expedition]
“Kate, you’re dropping your knees again,”
“I thought I had it,” she complained. “Can I take a break? My abs are killing
me,”
“Yeah, why not?” Aisha looked around; through their few days of training,
they’d somehow accumulated a few hangers-on. Most were rookies like them, and
came around when they were let off of their team or squad leaders’ charge. Kate
unhooked herself from the makeshift harness and groaned, rubbing at her
midsection. Moblit had been especially helpful; with gas reserves being so
important, it was impossible to train outside of the Walls with the 3DMG.
Somehow, he managed to make a frame that was very much like the training
harness they used in the corps, but with more give in the lines. The resulting
apparatus was hand-cranked, winding up enough force to slingshot the person in
it to allow them to work on their manoeuvering while they moved.
Someone else volunteered to try, and hopped into the harness; the object of the
exercise was to be well clear of a small fence that functioned as an
obstacle—and sometimes as a Titan’s nape. Most of the rookies were having
difficulty not overshooting their dodging, which not only would waste gas, it
could cost them a Titan kill.
“Y’know, you could be a team leader in no-time,” Moblit pointed out.
Aisha snorted as she took a sip from her canteen. “I’m just teaching them what
I figured out the hard way.”
“Yeah, but it’s more than the rest of us have gotten,” he said mildly. “You,
Henning and Gelgar are really good. Those other two aren’t good at explaining
things though,” he added with a laugh.
He was right about that—Henning and Gelgar were both pitiably bad when it came
to report writing and descriptiveness. They communicated well enough with one
another, but to those outside of their team…it was a chore. Erwin had already
sent back their reports to be redone, causing Aisha and Moblit to stay up with
them for several nights and help them.
Nanaba had finished her daily duties and had also joined the fray as an
observer.
“I was wondering why Erwin was so amused for the past few days,” she looked at
the training apparatus with a small smile. “He says you’re all getting antsy
without anything to do.”
Aisha blanched slightly. “This isn’t against the rules or anything, is it? Kate
wanted pointers and then it just sort of snowballed.”
“No, it isn’t,” she assured the younger woman. “Besides, it’s probably useful.
How’s your injury, by the way?”
“Gone, for the most part,” Aisha said with genuine happiness. “Major Hange said
I should be back at it tomorrow.”
“Well, that’s going to be welcome,” Nanaba stretched lightly. “Don’t tell
anyone, but I think Mike prefers having you on watch with him. I’m always with
the stationary guard and I think Henning and Gelgar drive him up a wall.”
“Yeah, he takes some…” she broke off, searching for the words. “Understanding
to work with, to say it lightly.”
Nanaba laughed. “He’s a man of few words. That’s probably why you get on so
well with the Captain too.”
Aisha thanked her lucky stars that she was tanned enough to hide the sudden
flush. “Ah—I don’t think we’re on particularly good terms. We just chat.”
“He doesn’t chat. That’s the thing,” she said. “It’s good to build that
rapport. You’re doing all the right things—just remember to keep your head on
out there.”
“Everyone keeps telling me the last part,” Aisha sighed, slightly exasperated.
“What am I doing wrong, exactly?”
“You’re a one-woman squad, but you’re not a one-woman army,” Nanaba said,
putting a hand on her shoulder. “There are some risks that you take that are
just borderline unnecessary.”
Aisha was silent for a moment; she knew there was something to Nanaba’s words
but—
“When are we heading out?”

“That’s what I came to tell you. We’re on the move tomorrow; the protocol is a
bit different, as you’d expect. You’re with Mike again, but there’s no going
off on your own this time—that’s not because of anything you’ve done,” she
added, spotting Aisha’s reproachful look. “But because we need to keep the best
of us safe, uninjured and together from now on. We don’t know what went on out
there when that soldier ran off. The reports, coupled with the ones from the
squad the day before have been worrying.”
“What d’you mean?”
“There’s at least one Titan out there that’s an abnormal among abnormals—we
don’t have enough intel to identify it other than the fact that the others
swarm whenever its around. Levi could’ve sworn he saw a flash of something, but
it was dark that night.”
“Does that have to do with the weird roaring I reported?” she asked seriously.
“I didn’t see anything myself since I was looking for Kate…but after, when we
were heading back—this roar rang out and the others started running after
everyone. But it wasn’t anywhere back in the forest, it seemed like it was
somewhere near us. It’s like whatever it was followed us.”
“But you didn’t see a Titan, did you?” Nanaba asked. She looked towards the
horizon, her eyes squinting as though she were trying to see something beyond
it. “A small Titan would draw attention to itself pretty quickly—even at
night.”
“No, but what the hell else would make that sound?”
“There’s the conundrum,” Nanaba, “we don’t know anything more than that. Mike’s
not even sure what he was able to pick up either. Until we figure it out, we
need to be much more careful than usual.”
“The world’s just making less and less sense, isn’t it?”
The older soldier sighed heavily. “I hope we’re wrong, but it sure as hell
feels like it.”
                                      ---
When she was freed for dinner duty, she found Gelgar in the cellars while she
searched for more cast iron cookware. His usually pristine pompadour was a
little limp from the manual labour today, but he seemed in oddly good spirits.
“I’m not sure why you’re down here, but did you happen to spy a cooking pot or
something?”
“There’s a really dusty one behind those crates, but,” he said excitedly, “look
what I found!”
He held up a case of dark bottles, leaving his teammate to stare incredulously.
“What’s that, wine?” she asked mildly. “You sure you want to be drinking out
here?”
“Why not?” he asked reproachfully. “It’s not like anyone else is going to use
it, besides, we’re pretty much done for the day. You’re not on guard duty
tonight, are you?”
“No, I’m just off of injury,” she plucked a bottle from the crate. “Looks like
ale actually. Geez, you could’ve drunk your fill before we left, you know. We
had a year of twiddling our thumbs.”
He snatched the bottle away. “You’re not going to join me, fine, but not going
to rat me out right?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Just don’t drag my name into it if you get
caught.”
Hoisting the cooking pot onto her hip, she rolled her eyes at the man before
she left.

“You don’t know what you’re missing Aisha!” he called.
“You don’t know what you’re missing Aisha!”she murmured mockingly under her
breath. “Damn dandy little jackass.”
“Taking up talking to yourself? I thought you were supposed to be resting.”
She looked up to see the Captain seated near the kitchen hearth, staring
imperiously at the cellar entrance.
“I’ve found that I’m not very good conversation,” she replied sagely. “I’m a
bit of a bitch sometimes. I also took pity on your poor man and said I’d help
with dinner duty—he’s pretty much been working double duty for almost two
weeks.”
He kept looking at the cellar as she moved the heavy pot to the sink, his eyes
thoughtful. “Who the hell is down there?”
“Gelgar,” she said, pumping water into the sink. She glanced at him with mild
concern. “You’re not going to get him in trouble, will you?”
Levi scoffed. “For what? I don’t have time for all of the shitty rookies and
their mischief.”
“Great, well,” she began scrubbing the dirt off of the cast iron surface. “He
found some ale and I think he’s planning on drinking it all. Probably not at
once—I mean hopefully not at once, the blasted fool…”
She hadn’t been looking at him, or she would have noticed the change in his
eyes. Levi reclined into the chair and cursed himself again.

“Not planning on helping him?” he asked blandly.
She rolled her eyes at the pot. “Considering Major Zacharias can tell when last
I’ve washed my hair, I don’t think I’d get away with it. Gelgar’ll just learn
the hard way.”
His usual surliness was broken by mild amusement. “No speeches on it not being
‘soldierly behaviour’? Tch. I think we’ve underestimated you,”
“Yeah, I’m a wild-child in my spare time,” she said sarcastically. “Doesn’t it
show?”
“If by that, you mean that you want to find the most efficient way of fucking
killing yourself, I suppose.”

She dropped the washrag into the sink with a thud and rounded on him. He stared
right back.

“Geez, d’you need me to move the table to give you two room to murder each
other?” Hange’s bubbly voice broke the silence. She waltzed into the room and
grinned at Levi, “You’re not scaring her are you?”
“What do you want?” Levi asked irritably.
“I just came in to get a cloth when I interrupted your lovers' quarrel,” Hange
replied, raising her hands in mock-surrender. “Aisha, are you sure you’re ready
to deal with him tomorrow?”
The younger woman just gaped absently at her superior.
“Oh—well, I suppose Mike was going to tell you. You and he are on Special Ops
tomorrow,” she explained. “I’m sure you’ve heard that we’re expecting some
problems.”
“If she wasn’t so busy playing house, I’d have suggested that she dust the
cobwebs off,” Levi placed his tankard down and rose from his chair. “Because I
don’t expect to be babysitting.”

Aisha bristled slightly. “You don’t get rusty after two weeks.”

“Willing to bet your life on it?”
While it was true that she was helping Kate train, she hadn’t touched a 3DMG
while injured. Her instincts still felt as sharp as ever, though, she did admit
that there was a tinge of anxiety that was growing in her chest. Just a small,
yet very potent sliver of self-doubt.
“Well, what’s it going to be?” Levi asked impatiently. “Are you going to make
dinner, or are you going to go outside and pick up a sword?”
Aisha rolled her eyes inwardly and wiped her hands off; she gave Hange an
apologetic look.

“Could you find Eld for me—?”
“Yeah, don’t worry,” Hange waved her off. “I’ll loan him Moblit or something. I
can’t guarantee we’ll be happy about what they come up with though.”
“Thank you,” she smiled, feeling just a little guilty. The poor guy had been so
worn out these days.
The Captain’s voice called from the other room. “Now hurry the fuck up, I’m not
waiting forever.”
===============================================================================
The sun was beginning to wane in the sky, colouring the landscape in burnt
orange. Levi hung back as the girl worked through the makeshift course he’d
made; they would be using some of the older farmhouses at the very outskirts of
the castle premises to do their training. It was doubly useful—they were still
within the enclosed safe haven of the base, but they also had a good simulation
of the neglected buildings they’d encounter during the coming days. He didn’t
bother to warn her about the possibility of collapsing rooftops or unsteady
beams—she’d have either figured it out, or would learn it the hard way.
He placed small marks were just barelydiscernable on the wood panels in the
side of the buildings, leaving her with the challenge of hitting them with her
hooks and moving to the next mark fluidly. She shot past him, slipping only
slightly when the first hook gave way—another was placed into the beam of the
next building, right on the mark. She easily made it to the last building,
treading very carefully around the rotted spots along the wooden roof.
“Satisfied?” she called.
“Get down and practice your blade work,” he said evenly. “And keep the sass to
a minimum.”
“Yes, sir.”
God, she was a handful.
He had little course to worry about her physical readiness for the next day,
however—he did have concerns over her mental state. She was probably right
about being sharp and unaffected by her two-week convalescence, but that was
all down to her exceptional status. Even then, she still lacked the maturity to
be objective. As he knew with particular certainty, that lack of awareness
could be deadly.
She rappelled down to the yard again, and drew the swords from her sheaths to
practice her slices on the many hay-stuffed canvas bags that the others had set
up. It was a poor substitute for their course at home, but it was the best they
could do, given the lack of space and resources. The tightly packed hay yielded
easily under her strikes; when she retreated, he was expecting a
complaint—instead, she turned one of her blades around and looked at him
expectantly.
“How do you hold your blades like this?” she tested them in her arms, trying to
emulate his circular arc. “I feel clumsy.”
“You look clumsy.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, colouring slightly as though she was surprised
at herself for doing it. There was an odd feeling in his chest, which he
soundly ignored; he walked towards her and drew his own blades with ease. With
a fluid turn, the canvas yielded like butter scored with a hot knife. She was
watching him closely, and shifted her stance slightly, still too loose around
the shoulders to move smoothly.
“Hold on.” He sheathed his weapons with a sigh. “Your stance is angled too
much; the torque isn’t coming from your shoulders, it has to come from your
whole body.”
Aisha stilled a little as his hands pulled her shoulders straight, coming down
to her torso to adjust her stance. How was she this small? He pushed the very
loud thought in his head about how absolutely tiny around the middle she was.
As he removed his hands, he was uncomfortably aware of the wide hips that
tapered out. He clenched his fists and let out a slow breath as she gave
another attempt.
“Better, now try it again,” he kept his voice even, but there was a note of
strain that he couldn’t suppress. She carried on as though nothing had
happened.
“What d’you think would happen if I switch the other one?”
He willed himself to bury the unwelcome thoughts with purpose, and found
himself hoping that she’d just call it a day.
Chapter End Notes
     Well, that was a little bit of fluff, a little bit of plot and a
     little bit of crack xD
     Hope everyone enjoys! Updates may be a teeny bit slower since I'm
     busy trying to get my MSc registration sorted, but I'll try my best!
***** Until We Are No More: The 28th Expedition, Part 4 *****
Chapter Notes
     Oooookay, I'm back (sorta!). I totally underestimated grad school >.>
     Yeah, don't do that.
     I hope that you guys are still around! I ended up finally finishing
     the chapter tonight. I'll try to dedicate at least a few spare
     moments per week to write. It's not like I don't have the ideas, I
     just have so much reading to do! (Seriously, after I upload this I
     have to go trudge through 30+ pages of reading, and this is a *light*
     day ;-; ...But I love it though. It's fun torture.)
     The song is by Moonspell :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                   Every man’s a sinner, every man’s a liar,
                    Life’s a slow procession into the fire.
                       Carry the weight or crush under it
                Every man’s a sinner, in the name of the father,
                      History’s repeating into the fire.
                       Carry the weight or crush under it
            We started wanting to be ourselves until we are no more.
                                   Breathe in,
                                  Breathe out,
                       You reached the top of the chain
                                    Inhale.
                                    Exhale.
                       You made it ‘til the end of days.
                                        
                                         
[Year 846]
[Two weeks and two days into the 28th Expedition]
 
“It’s like this place was frozen in time,” Eld murmured. He was right; the
ruins of Gorj were an unsettling amalgamation of nature taking back its domain,
and the struggling ends of mankind trying to hold onto its home. The streets
were littered with weeds, broken roof tiles that had fallen from neglected
houses and the almost macabre belongings of those who fled. The wind carried a
cool summer breeze, leaving a deceptive feeling of peace within their
surroundings.
“We haven’t seen a Titan in a while,” Levi pointed out. “Stay alert.”
The day-long ride had been an uncommonly quiet one; there were a few Titan
spottings, but thanks to the formation they had generally been able to steer
clear of them. The few abnormals that cropped up were split between the two
special squads situated on either side of the flanks. One was Levi’s Special
Operations squad, with the addition of Aisha and Mike; the other was Nanaba,
Gelgar, Henning and two other high-ranking scout veterans.
“It’s almost like the commander is expecting the most trouble to come from our
end,” Aisha had said.
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Mike had replied with a sniff.
The formation was tighter now that they had entered urban territory; they
continued to move in their semi-circular pattern, but reduced the space between
their ranks. It would be far too difficult to get to a comrade in trouble on
horseback in these conditions; 3DMG would be their best bet.
“I see white smoke, the Military Police outpost is up ahead!” Eld called.
Aisha urged Azur forward as the formation picked up its pace; she could see the
scouting teams right on the adjoining street, their eyes combing the
surroundings for anything amiss. With Mike nearby, their job was a lot
easier—but no one was taking any chances.
The large, brick building was coming into view; the gates were broken, which
provided an extra challenge. Erwin’s second white signal came—this gave the
others the order to circle the compound while Levi and the others searched the
building. Smaller Titans could have easily infiltrated the outpost, and until
the building was cleared, it had to be treated as an active Titan zone. Aisha
followed her squad leader into the yard; the squad remained mounted and traced
the perimeter, giving Mike a chance to track any Titans. With nothing outside,
they made their way back to the entrance and switched to tracking them on foot.
“There are some in there,” he explained. “Not sure how many, but they’re in
there.”
“They probably got trapped,” Levi signalled to the debris at the doorway.
“We’ll clear that after we get rid of them. We can get up to the third floor,
break a window and move downwards.”
Eld nodded, looking towards Aisha. “In an unsecured urban zone that’s always
your best choice; if there are no taller Titans that can reach in and grab you,
you always aim for the higher floors. The smaller ones usually can’t get up
those stairs.”
“Got it.”
“Alright everyone,” Levi drew his blades. “On the count of three.”
At the signal, the familiar feeling of blood rushing through her ears was all
that Aisha could hear within the second that it took them to scale the
building. Levi was the first through the window, breaking the glass and rolling
to safety. Aisha was next, taking care to get as far out of the way as
possible. The other two men joined in quick succession. They dusted the shards
from their cloaks and paused, listening for movement.
“I can smell them in the building, but they’re not coming any closer.”
“That puts us at what estimated Titan class, Private Kaur?” Levi asked sharply.
“Three to four,” she answered.
They moved carefully down the hallway. “And why not five-metre class?”
“The Military Police have a smaller armoury, they don’t carry 3DMG often so
their gas reserves are smaller—they’d rely on the garrison’s HQ. A five-metre
class would be too big to get into the room.”
“Good.” They were approaching the first flight of stairs.
“Aisha, hang back—Eld and Levi are taking point, you and I are on standby.”
“Yes, sir,” she fell back to walk alongside her superior. This did make it
easier—with her and Levi being smaller, it was now possible for the pairs of
soldiers to walk down together. She could hear them; the rumbling had started,
now that they’d heard the movement from above. They’d probably even caught
their scent, just as Mike had caught theirs.
Floor by floor, the soldiers made sure there was nothing lurking around. There
were a few stray mice, and more than a fair share of spiders making their homes
in the abandoned building, but it seemed otherwise uninhabited above the ground
floor. Aisha dimly registered that her heightened alertness carried no tinge of
anxiety or fear—she hadn’t felt fear in the face of Titans since they began the
expedition.
Was that a good thing?
“Alright, we’re right up to the ground floor,” Levi said. There was a faint
grumbling from below, they could hear the scrabbling as the Titans were trying
to claw their way up the narrow staircase. “I’ll signal to the outside, they’ll
send a squad to the doorway and see if we can lure some of these ugly fucks
away so we get some space.” He walked to the grimy, dust-coated window and
threw it open, firing a yellow flare. On cue, a small contingent of soldiers
stopped their circling and entered the yard.
“Good, now,” he turned to the others. “Eld and I will take the ones closest to
the stairs, Mike and tank girl are going to handle the ones to the other end of
the room. Any idea how many?” he added, looking at Mike.
“Five, at least.”
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Levi nodded curtly at Eld and Aisha. “Let’s go.”
                                                                               
                                                             ----

Aisha’s blades sliced through a Titan’s Achilles tendon, rolling out of the way
of its desperate lunge. Mike summarily cut the beast down, leaving the soldiers
alone in the room. It was rare that Team Zacharias got to use any of their
team-based strategies, but with Erwin on high alert, no one was allowed to work
on their own—even Levi.
“Ugh, it’s like a fucking gutter in here,” he scoffed in distaste. He threw
open the window and fired the yellow flare to signal that the mission was over.
Aisha squinted through the murky steam. “Let’s get out of here, they’ll take
forever to get the debris out from in front of the door.”

Mike helped Aisha onto the windowsill, peering through the fog as she dropped
down. “I’m sure Erwin will have a lot more work for us anyways.”
Levi exited the building without any help, watching the formation pile through
the gates with apparent disinterest. “He’s probably thinking that whatever’s
out there will make us a target. We’re pretty much at a disadvantage with all
these buildings—we can’t see shit around us.”
By now, Erwin had broken the ranks and had trotted over to the small group.
“That’s why you’ll be securing a radius around here. We’ll want a trench at the
very least, and while they’re busy doing that…”
“We’re keeping the Titans off of them.” Levi finished for him.
“Exactly. We’ll use the same grouping as before, but this time, I’m adding some
more men to support your squad.”
Aisha blinked. It seemed overkill, even if they were expecting some abnormal to
come launching itself at them. The purpose of Squad Levi and Squad Zacharias
was to use less manpower to complete a job.
Levi gave Erwin a long look, almost as though he was considering a complaint.
“Fine, let’s move out. They can join us out there.”
“Replenish your gas and blades before you do anything,” the commander warned.
Aisha and Mike exchanged a glance. They’d barely used any of their supplies on
the way here.
The Captain’s expression was neutral and his tone was oddly measured. “Fine.”
Aisha felt the familiar swoop of dread filling her stomach. What in the world
was going on?
                                     ----

It was around midday when Aisha had led some of the other rookies to take
inventory of the area surrounding their temporary base. The more experienced
squads were slightly ahead, so they were by all standards rather safe. She felt
slightly out of place leading a squad, but for some reason, the commander had
placed her in charge of one. The streets themselves were full of weeds and
broken cobblestones, but every now and again, there was a shadow of what used
to live here. One of the squad members found a journal hastily dropped in the
escape and was almost beside herself; it was well-known that many people from
Gorj were overrun. The town was just too close to the breach, and too far away
from the evacuation zone.
Aisha kicked in the door of one of the dry goods stores, hoping for at least
some supplies. The more they could scavenge, the less of their own provisions
they’d have to leave behind. The place was musty, with thick cobwebs hanging in
curtains from the wooden beams. Dust lay an inch thick on the dry, neglected
oak floor.
“Aisha…”
Kate was behind her, sounding a bit pinched.
“What, are there any signals? I didn’t hear a flare or anything. This place
shouldn’t take too long to clear, it’s a one storey building and the entrance
is too small for even a tiny Titan…”
“No, look.” She pointed to the far corner of the room, near to the service
counter. Aisha swallowed hard.
Like a discarded doll, the husk of a human body lay amongst the strewn packages
and debris. Aisha approached it slowly, her hands clammy with anxiety. She’d
seen bodies of the freshly killed—she’d even seen them beginning to decay…but
this was different. It was sadder somehow, to see it like this, forgotten and
nameless.
She stopped short of the blackened ring that it had left on the floorboard,
probably from when it had started to rot. Its skin had browned and leathered
with age, leaving very little in the way of identifying even if it had been a
man or a woman. A skeletal face peered back, with empty eye sockets and
tightened skin pulling dried lips back from its teeth. She spotted a small
patch on the darkened sleeve of its threadbare jacket and bent slightly to read
it. There was no smell of decay left, just one of dust and age. The sight of
the patch however, made nausea rise up in a powerful wave. With a hand clapped
over her mouth, she backed away from the thing as though it had shown some sign
of life. Kate and the others had remained a ways back, and it was clear that
her reaction was serving to make them uneasier.
“What is it?”
“That’s the patch of the conscripts.”
A tall boy with sandy hair let out a pained noise and lurched from the room—she
could only stare after him with a hollow, distant feeling in her chest. Most of
the soldiers left had known someone in the ranks of the conscripted forces.
Some of them had been family.
“They made it all the way here,” another boy murmured. “And they didn’t get
eaten.”
There were footsteps approaching, but the soldiers remained pensive. “What’s
the hold up in here, and why is that kid throwing up our valuable rations all
over the street?”
Aisha looked up at Levi helplessly. “We found a conscript.”
He strode over to the corpse, keeping outside of the ring of decay. With
unchanging eyes, he looked at the patch for a while before moving to tear it
off. The aged fabric yielded easily.
“From the looks of it,” he nudged the nearby knife with his foot. “They decided
it wasn’t worth it to starve to death. We should be able to find the person’s
identity from the number on the patch. We’ll take it back to their family.”
Aisha stared down at the body and tried to keep her mind from going there, but
there was no use. The body was far too large to be Lotte’s. Where had she died?
Where had she been? Did she make it this far with the rest of them, with no way
back?
“Aisha,”
She started slightly and looked at the Captain. “Pull yourself together
soldier. Now is not the time.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” she shook her head, trying to force the thoughts
out. “Come on, we need to see if there’s anything left.”
She tried very hard to avoid looking at the body as they searched.
                                     ----

It became clear that Gorj was the final stand for many of the conscripts. More
bodies were found with the military insignia upon almost pathetically
mismatched, peasant jackets. Aisha had steered clear of every single one of
them. Her squad remained perched on the rooftop of a townhouse, near to squad
Levi, which had the addition of Gelgar and another, older survey corps member
for the day.
“I can’t tell if it’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing that we can carry
those patches home,” the sandy-haired boy murmured.
“Yeah, the rest of the families will want something, but we can’t give it to
them,” Kate said despondently. Of course, with her own cousin being
irretrievable, the findings were taking a toll on her quite keenly.
Aisha let them talk without reminding them that their mission was to keep an
eye out for any encroaching Titans. They needed the outlet. Their quiet
conversation melted into the background as she scanned the landscape, feeling
the cool wind swirling the tendrils of hair that kept escaping from her messy
bun. This could almost be relaxing if they weren’t in Titan country. The
thought had barely formed when her eyes slid involuntarily to the black smoke
at the very end of their perimeter. The familiar blood-curdling roar sounded.
“Look alive, guys!” she drew her blades, rappelling to squad Levi’s rooftop.
They would be safer and more effective as a larger group, especially with so
many rookies.
The others landed behind her in quick succession as she jogged carefully across
the dilapidated roof.
“I think whatever Erwin was preparing for is probably here,” Levi said plainly.
The crashing sounds of footsteps were audible in the distance. Aisha could
barely make out the silhouette of a Titan looming in the street. Light hair
swirled in the sunlight as it seemed to easily dodge the soldiers around it.
“Whatever it is, it brings more Titans with it,” she looked at the others. “And
it moves quickly. We don’t know what it’s after.”
Mike landed nearby; the rest of their squad had been placed in the same area as
well. Nanaba, Henning and Lynne were close behind, blades at the ready.
“Levi!” Mike moved across a chasm in the rooftop with ease. “There’s a whole
lot of them coming this way.”
The Captain gave an irritated scoff. “Looks like he was right, it wants
something here.”
“They’re closing in quickly.”
Aisha watched the strange Titan draw closer from their vantage point. The
townhouses here were taller than most of the surrounding buildings, providing a
relatively safe view of most of the approaching Titan classes. It moved
intelligently…as though it was ready for their assault. As it fled up the
streets to avoid more soldiers, it became easier to see.
“Is that a female Titan?” she gasped. “It has skin almost like the armoured
Titan that broke through Wall Maria’s inner gate.”
“Looks like it,” Mike answered. “She runs like an athlete. What could she be
looking for?”
Aisha looked around at the soldiers. This rooftop was actually the highest of
the lot, standing four storeys high. Unless the Titan was an uncommonly large
class above fifteen metres, they would not be easily visible to them. It seemed
odd that a contingent that contained humanity’s strongest and second strongest
would be put on the highest, safest buildings unless…
“She’s coming for you two,” Aisha blurted out. The soldiers stared at her.
“We’re far away from any of the fighting, and we’re uncommonly safe, aren’t we?
Why else would we be here? Earlier the commander placed Major Zacharias and me
in squad Levi, essentially putting two of the best soldiers on one side of the
formation. That’s not a normal move.”
Levi remained silent for a minute, looking at the Titan’s battle with their
cohorts. No one seemed to be doing very well.
“The brat has a point.”
“You’re saying that thing can think?” Henning asked incredulously. “Isn’t it
bad enough to have dumb abnormals?”
“Listen,” Aisha said a little forcefully. “It showed up that night we rescued
Kate. She sent all of those Titans after us, and it seemed as though she wasn’t
expecting us out there. She wasn’t ready, but we were out there and she took
the opportunity.”
Kate nodded shakily. “I saw a blonde Titan when we were riding away. I can’t
tell you if it was a female Titan, but I could see the hair in the moonlight.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Levi snapped. “This is a great theory, but it doesn’t
change the fact that she’s tearing through the ranks. If she’s looking for us,
it’ll be a matter of time until she finds us at this rate.”
“I’ll take your lead on this,” Mike moved to the edge of the rooftops with
blades in hand.

Levi put his hood up, and the others followed suit. “I say we engage. She won’t
withstand the two of us, especially if she can’t tell who we are.”
Mike nodded. “The rest of you try and distract her, but steer clear of engaging
her unless you have a good shot.” He glanced at the carnage ahead. “She’s
killing some of our best people, so remember that this isn’t an ordinary
Titan.”
Aisha nodded, fixing her eyes on the silhouette of the Titan before her. She
was going to pay for the deaths she’d caused.
                                     ----
With the arrival of their squads, the Titan’s behaviour became more erratic.
More and more of the soldiers were taking their lead as they signalled to pull
their hoods up. As many as fifty hooded Survey Corps soldiers were converging
on the Titan—who seemed to be growing ever more desperate; Levi, in trademark
style, was as quick as lightning, cutting her Achilles' tendons without pause.
Mike cut the tendons in her arms as Aisha swooped in front of her, flipping out
of the way of her powerful punches. As she fell, all hell seemed to break loose
as though the other Titans she called had caught up. They charged with a furore
that the soldiers had never seen before.
Many of their ranks were scrambling to staunch the flow of the incoming hordes;
Mike and Levi were undoubtedly caught in the rampage behind the almost fifteen
metre fallen Titan. Aisha swirled around to face the female Titan, firing a
hook into the nearest building to get enough height to attack her nape. With an
astonishing speed, a muscular arm shot out—Aisha had little time to register
how quickly she had regenerated. The swipe was clumsy, but it took out the side
of the building that she had been attached to.
Rubble flew in all directions as though the wall had exploded; she fired to the
next building, keeping her arms in front of her head to protect herself. The
ensuing scramble up that building was lost in a blur of action; with her last-
ditch effort, the other Titans had enough time to converge. Aisha found herself
gripped by a ten-metre class in the melee, and desperately tore herself free
with her blades as Nanaba swooped in to cut its nape. She spotted Kate and the
sandy-haired boy on the roof, paralysed. Ignoring the blood that was dripping
down her face, she swung herself towards them, pulling them out of the reach of
one of the incoming Titans. Her shoulders protested with their weight, but she
kept them in a death-grip until they were able to engage their 3DMG.
“W-what’s happening?” Kate exclaimed. “She’s gone!”
Aisha stared through the thick steam at the broken street. The female Titan was
nowhere in sight, and now, all of the Titans she’d brought were busily ripping
their way through the forces.
Aisha fired a black flare again and loaded the first cartridge that she could
reach into the gun.
“Stick together and conserve gas, we don’t know how many of them are out here,”
she told them, starting off towards the edge of the roof again. A nearby Titan
had cornered a few of the other rookies in a relatively open space that lacked
any walls for their 3DMG. Without engaging it, they didn't have a chance.
Aisha fired a flare into its face as the Titan reached for them. Her hooks
latched into its back as it swatted the air around it; the distance from the
building wasn’t large enough to provide a huge amount of swing to reach the
nape, so she sufficed by running up the beast’s body as the reels pulled her
up. She pushed off of its back in a somersault to get the space she needed, re-
firing her hooks higher into its neck. The Titan fell as her blades cut through
its flesh; she ignored the steaming body and headed towards the stranded
soldiers.
“Are you all okay?” she asked mildly. She could feel the blood on her forehead
beginning to gel with sweat and dirt into a disgusting sheen.
“Yeah, we just couldn’t get away and it—was blocking all the walls nearby,” a
shaking boy explained.
“Get to higher ground,” she told them. “Stay together.”
They nodded and rushed off, leaving their peer with the fizzling Titan corpse.
As she rappelled to a new vantage point, she vaguely registered how odd it felt
to be taking charge of the people she would have graduated with. They may have
been in the same class, but looking at them, shaking in the face of death as
she had done almost a year ago—she felt irrevocably different from the others.
It had changed her somehow. Some persons crumbled under the trauma, but others
chipped away at themselves to return stronger.
Aisha replaced her blades and prepared to engage another Titan. Sometimes there
was no way to know which side you were on until it was time to do or die.
                                     ----
The retreat was possible only when the other forces managed to arrive; by the
time it was complete, night had fallen and those Titans left had begun going
inactive. As a precaution, they were killed anyway, just in case the female
Titan returned. Twenty soldiers in total died at the hands of the Titans that
day, and at least thirty more were injured to the point of inactivity. Aisha
returned from the fracas with her joints aching from the continued 3DMG use,
which was only compounded by the many times she had to pull people away from
danger. In some blissful miracle, her squad had all survived unscathed. She met
Mike at the water troughs, where he was tiredly splashing water over his face.
“I’m alive,” she murmured weakly, following suit. The water stung the cuts on
her scalp and face, but it was so very welcome.
“For once, I didn’t worry,” he said matter-of-factly. “Funny, because nothing
like this has ever happened before, but I didn’t feel like you’d be the type to
die there.”
“It’s weird,” Aisha slopped more water onto her now aching head. “I didn’t feel
scared either. I just kept going and going. It’s like I didn’t have to think, I
just did.”
“It happens,” he nodded. “In any case, you’ll have to be like this a little
longer. We’re headed back tonight.”
Aisha stared up at the sky. The moon was still waning, but the night was
cloudless enough. Given a stiff pace, they could probably return to Wall Rose
in four or five hours. However, if clouds came out…they’d be stranded in the
dark.
“Get something to eat,” Mike gave her a non-committal pat on the shoulder.
“You’ll need it.”
Aisha managed to drag herself to the rations, where soldiers were already
trying to cram in as much sustenance as they could before they had to return to
their posts. She took a ration bar and chewed absently, taking a swig of water
every now and again to wash the dry, tasteless fare down. Her searching eyes
rested on Eld, who was leading his horse from the nearby stable; she downed the
rest of the bar and water before rushing over, despite her protesting limbs.
“Eld!” she appeared at his elbow, causing him to jump slightly. “Where’s
Captain Levi? He’s okay, right?”
“Of course,” Eld yawned. “He’s with Erwin talking about what happened today. He
was more concerned about you becoming a blood-splatter on the pavement, to be
honest…”
“Yeah, I lost sight of him and Major Zacharias when the Titans all showed up,”
she explained, quashing the embarassingly large wave of relief that flowed over
her. How could anything happen to Levi? She was being ridiculous.
“He’ll feel better knowing you’re in one piece,” Eld said casually. “It bothers
him a lot when good soldiers die, especially the young ones. He might not show
it but he’s a pretty caring guy as far as his subordinates go.”
Aisha nodded, paying only a vague attention to his words. Her mind was far too
busy chastising itself for the flush that she could feel rising on her cheeks.
===============================================================================

Mike entered the make-shift operations centre and placed a few ration bars
firmly in front of the two men, along with their canteens.
“You both need to fuel up before we get out there. The soldiers are almost
prepared to leave.”
Erwin opened one of the rations and obediently took a bite, with a small smile.
“You are a reliable friend you know, Mike.”
“At least as far as reminding you that you’re human,” Mike sniffed. “And you,”
he glanced and Levi expectantly. The shorter man scoffed and tore open one of
the wrappers with a little too much savagery to be normal.
“I know you’re upset that we didn’t get her,” Erwin said calmly. “I am as well.
We lost good men out there because of her.”
Levi said nothing, but continued to chew.
“Who do you think she was after?” Mike asked. “Levi, me or both of us?”
“It seems like it should be the both of you,” Erwin explained. “But Levi is far
more visible. She may have set her sights on you as the biggest threat.”
“But what’s her end goal? Can a Titan even have a goal besides eating humans?”
Erwin sighed, crumpling the empty wrapper and picking up another bar. “We can’t
know right now. We have to investigate further. I have Hange compiling
everyone's preliminary reports right now.”
Mike looked at the deepening creases under Erwin’s eyes and thought against
pressing him further; they were all incredibly uneasy after what was discovered
today. Most of the others didn’t know, of course. It would be best to keep it
that way.
“Alright. In any case, I want to recommend Aisha Kaur for promotion.”
Erwin looked mildly surprised. “Already?”
Levi stopped chewing. Mike noted that some of the tension in his shoulders
seemed to melt away at his words.
Hm. It seemed as though while he wasn’t worried about their younger cohort,
Levi hadn’t been as confident.
“She handled herself well and showed that she could lead her peers. A few of
the preliminary reports from team leaders say that some of their men were
rescued by her today.”
“It’s always a morale booster to have someone rise to the top, honestly,” Erwin
smiled slightly. “What do you think, Levi? Is she ready?”
Levi swallowed the tasteless rations and cursed himself inwardly as he nodded
on instinct. Since he became part of the corps he had never been this invested,
felt this utterly savaged by relief with anyone, even with his own men. After
Isabel and Farlan died on their first expedition, all he had left was a shadow
of a connection to other people. He had lost men before. Good soldiers, ones
who he had worked with for a while…and that still chipped away at him. This
feeling, however, was not chipping away, no—it was pulverising his insides in
the most confusing, painful way. Why was he so attached to her? What in the
world was happening to him?
But the other part of his brain was more easily pleased. She was alive.
He pushed his chair off from the table and walked out as the two men began
discussing the particulars of what the new rank should be. When he got outside,
there she was, seated atop her horse and yawning as though she hadn’t slept in
weeks. Her hair was dishevelled, and there were dust and cuts all over her, but
she was there. When she met his gaze and smiled, he felt the overwhelming urge
to punch himself until this feeling was utterly eradicated.
 
Chapter End Notes
     Levi is not good at feeling things xD
     I'll see how quickly I can get the other chapter done. I appreciate
     the patience you guys! <3
***** As Above, So Below: A Brief Respite, Part 1 *****
Chapter Notes
     Things get a little more personal and fluffy in this chapter (with
     fanservice hhuehueheuheue). Also, I was supposed to be doing an
     assignment, but I wrote the end of the chapter instead (;-; I am
     going to die tomorrow srs).
     Hope everyone enjoys! I'll be here drowning in work T.T
     Song by The Agonist!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                             Return to the earth,
                           Away from tangled nature.
                           Down, down, down! Again.
                 She searches through her mind for her garden.

                     Take the answer’s failure to describe
                             Simplified delusions.
                    Taste the yearning underneath her skin.
                              Liberation within.

                              As above, so below.

                            A proposal in reverse!
                        Consume the flesh of progress.
                          She contemplates surrender
                        At the bidding of the conclave.
                         She falls back into herself.
                                        
[Year 846]
 [The day of the return]
 
The formation piled in single file through the outer gates of Wall Rose, each
soldier trying to bury the fatigue and hold their head high.
“They’ve been gone for a while this time!”
“Almost three weeks at my count,”
“Commander Erwin really is something, I can’t see Shadis ever managing that.”
The murmurings rose to a fever pitch as they wheeled some of the dead and
injured in—two more had fallen to Titans as they approached the safety of the
gates when the sun rose. They had been too worn down to react properly.
Aisha’s eyes burned with the need to sleep, so she continued to gaze vacantly
ahead. A man was pushing at the crowd, cowing them with ease until he got to
the front. She slowly and with effort, shifted her eyes towards him.
Ambros.
The smile he was giving her was as genuine a joy as she’d ever seen. He took
off in a run until he was at Azur’s side as they trotted along.
“You made it,” he placed a hand on her arm, almost as though he was trying to
make sure that she was real.
“I did,” she nodded. “I’m a real scout now.”
“If Lotte was here, she’d have thrown you a parade, honestly,”
The unexpected words stung, and Aisha coaxed her mind to keep the sight of
those aged corpses buried. She forced herself to smile and reached for her
locket, that held the precious portrait.
“I kept her close, don’t worry.”
He slipped a small note into her hand and held it. “I’ve been doing some work
of my own while you all were gone. Here’s the address of our new home. I’d
expect the brass will give you enough rest time to come visit,”
She looked surprised. “You left the Underground?”
“I was going to tell you, but I decided to wait until I had everything in
order. With the expedition happening at the same time, I didn’t want you to
worry. He’s not one to talk, but I’m glad Levi didn’t tell you either, in any
case.”
Aisha gaped at him. Levi—what?
“Ah, there he is. I’ll see you, there kid. Get a few nights’ sleep and I’ll
show you everything. We’ll have a long talk.”
Her large eyes followed his long strides towards the Captain.
When did everything become so confused?
                                     ----
HQ was a flurry of activity when the soldiers returned; new recruits and those
left behind were busily preparing the barracks and the mess hall.
“All right everyone,” Erwin’s powerful voice carried over the din. “Take your
horses to the stable and have a good shower. If anyone needs medical attention,
we have the medical staff on standby. No one in this group is to work for ten
days; fill out your reports and go back to see your families.”
The exhausted battalion let out a sigh of relief. Aisha, Henning and Gelgar led
their horses to the stable, easing their stiff, painful limbs off of the
saddles.
“Are they staring at us?” Aisha glanced at a knot of soldiers at the very edge
of the training field.
“Probably,” Henning yawned. “Must be the guys out of the 100th Training Corps.”
Gelgar nudged his teammates. “You see that? Smoke is rising from the barracks.
Do you think we’re getting hot water?”
“Oh god, I hope so,” Henning gave a groan as his joints creaked with each step.
“I may just sleep in there,” Aisha murmured. She waved tiredly as the boys
moved to their own quarters.
Nanaba was nowhere in sight in the women’s barracks, so with a grateful air,
the younger woman shed her bloodstained, dirty uniform and slipped into the
small shower. She let out an audible sound of relief as the water hit her
skin—it was indeed warm and utterly comfortable. Still, gravity fed tanks
weren’t limitless, so she forced herself to scrub the congealed blood and sweat
from her limbs before reluctantly leaving the soothing jets of hot water.
She picked her simplest dress—one made of dark blue heavy wool with its lighter
surcoat—before falling into her bed. Summer was waning quickly, and the warmth
was welcome. It was only when Nanaba had left the shower, that Aisha stirred
slightly, opening her eyes with reluctance.
“There’s nothing like coming back,” the blonde woman said, stretching to the
tips of her toes. “I hate to rip you away from your nap, but the Commander
wants to see you later.”
Aisha rolled over and groaned. “Can I be considered AWOL if I sleep in?”
Nanaba laughed. “He’ll cut you some slack, but it shouldn’t take too long. I
think he said six this evening.”
“I’ve got an hour,” Aisha raised her head slightly to look at the small, hand-
wound clock on the dresser. “I’ll go eat in the meantime.”
“Let me know how it goes tomorrow,” her comrade yawned. “I’ll be asleep.”
“I kind of hate you right now.”
Nanaba laughed. “I’ll get over it.”
                                     ----
Aisha found Moblit in the mess hall in their usual spot; he was visibly
uncomfortable as he ate.
“It’s like they’ve never seen fellow soldiers before,” he hissed.
She glanced at others, many of whom were still staring at every person who’d
come back that morning. “I guess we used to be them.”
“Were we though?” Moblit took a mouthful of his potatoes and chewed
thoughtfully.
“True, we didn’t have a normal induction to the corps,” she sighed. “We got
thrown right out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“I feel like they think we’re better than we really are, to be honest,” he
smiled sadly. “I mean, you’re great, but the rest of us are barely hanging on.
Kate and the rest of them ended up just taking their food and leaving. It’s too
uncomfortable to be looked at like that…when you know you’re not that person
they want you to be.”
“Hey, you guys survived too,” she said firmly. “You did just as much.” She met
the gaze of a dark-haired man, who sat at a table with other rookies. He
matched her for a minute before dropping his eyes.
“Maybe one day we’ll match that ideal,” he said. “In any case, it’s nice to
have at least one of us be capable.”
“Well, if you recall, most of the really capable ones died before we ever got
to enlist,” she said bitterly. “If Simon and the others were here…”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Moblit added hastily.
“I know you didn't,” she took a sip of water and finished off the rest of her
meal. “I just wonder, you know? What it would have been like if that day had
never happened.”
“What was it that Captain Levi always says—No regrets, right?” he nudged at her
elbow. “It’s not something you need to think about. Anyways, Major Hange says
you’ll be joining us after our break, that’ll be great.”
The thought livened Aisha a little. “Yeah, she promised to help me look into
where I came from. I can’t tell you how much of a big deal that is for me.”
“Hange is great,” Moblit nodded. “A lot of people write her off because she’s
different, but you know,” he looked wistfully at his own hands. “She dedicates
every bit of herself to this cause. She’s the most intelligent person I’ve
honestly ever seen—I think she’s even better than Erwin.”
“She’s very kind,” Aisha rose from the table with her tray in hand. “And I’m
going to be eternally grateful for this. I feel like there are so many stories
that never get told, and someone like my mother—hell, her whole family…they
deserve to have someone know. I deserve to know.”
“Are you afraid of what you’ll find?”
“Honestly? I’m terrified. But I’m a soldier, I do it anyway.”
 
                                     ----
Aisha’s boots made little thumps on the polished hardwood of the officers’
building. Everyone else was likely asleep. She walked as quietly as she could
to the fourth floor, where Commander Erwin’s office was situated; this was the
first time she’d been in the place since the conscription. It had an air of
old-world opulence that was rather lacking in the plain barracks that each team
inhabited, but rather than making it feel more comfortable—Aisha found herself
being rather uneasy. It reminded her slightly of thatplace; where her so-called
father resided with the family that shunned her and her mother.
Aisha sighed and knocked lightly on the door.
“Come in,” the commander sounded tired. His first expedition had gone well, by
any standards, but it must have worn on him. Even with the corps being back,
his job was still not done.
She pushed in and saluted. To her surprise, Mike was there. “Sir, you wanted to
see me?”
“Yes, Private Kaur. Please,” he gestured to the empty seat before his desk.
Aisha wiped the apprehension off of her face and stiffly moved towards the
chair. Near her, Mike had the tiniest of smirks; he knew the eccentricities of
his subordinate probably better than anyone.
“Now, you know that the newer scouts are automatically raised to Privates,
First Class when they return from an expedition.”
“Yes, sir.”
Had she done something? Was the recklessness enough to bar her from—?
“Your squad leader, Major Zacharias has suggested, however, that you’re above
that level. Majors Hange, Ness and Captain Levi all agree. With that in mind, I
have decided to promote you to the rank of Lance Corporal.”
Aisha’s jaw dropped. “Sir?” she squeaked.
He gave her a genuine smile. “I’m serious. Congratulations, Lance Corporal
Kaur. You’ll now be a deputy team leader when the time arises. I’ve assigned
you a few rookies and one or two of the Privates for training. As a part of the
Heavy Offense Squad, your primary function will still be within Squad
Zacharias, but when the need arises you will be training to organise and lead
your fellow soldiers.”
She rose from her chair so swiftly that it almost capsized, giving another
salute. “Thank you, sir. And Major Zacharias, thank you for your faith in me.”
The two men exchanged a glance and laughed.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen enthusiasm,” Erwin explained. “Good
luck, Lance Corporal, and enjoy your time off—you’ve all earned it.”
Aisha wandered down the stairs feeling slightly lightheaded.
A Lance Corporal?
She touched the locket around her neck and wondered what Lotte would have said.
It would have been something proud, yet so very dry—as though she’d always
expected it. The old woman had always given the impression that she saw more in
Aisha than the girl could ever see in her self.
“Wasting your free time in here?” a familiar voice scoffed. “You look like
hell.”
She gave a wry smile, hoping that the heat rushing to her face remained
unnoticeable. “Commander Erwin wanted to see me.”
“Right, he’s made you officially less of a snot-nosed brat,” Levi said blandly.
He’d also changed out of his uniform, instead wearing a dark suit with his
trademark cravat. As always, it was pristine.
“Thank you for recommending it as well, by the way,” she continued a little
meekly. “I always got the impression that you thought I was a bit of a moron
out there.”
“When the others are worse, a bit of a moron isn’t as irritating,” he said.
“Besides, the other brats look up to you. I hope that’s a burden you’re willing
to grow into.”
Her face fell slightly. “I don’t even know how to be a leader, to be honest.”
He shifted his gaze slightly to the open window nearby. He seemed more
reticent, if that was even possible. “You’ll learn. Just try not to get them
killed unnecessarily.” Aisha kneaded the cool fabric of her surcoat a little
nervously; she wanted to ask him about what Ambros had said, but she wasn’t
entirely sure how.
She decided to forget it for now. “You’re not taking the rest if the day off,
are you?”
He scoffed again. “No, I’m doing Four-Eyes a favour by going to look up the
patches we brought back.”
A pang of sorrow buried itself into the pit of her stomach. She pushed it away.
“Do you need help?”
He studied her for a second, his face expressionless. “Fine, if that’s how you
want to spend your first evening back.”

A genuine—but small smile appeared. “I just don’t think you should be stuck
with everything on your first evening back either.”
He began walking towards the stairs; all of the records were kept in the floor
below. “It obviously won’t be very fulfilling work.”
“Not all work is,” she replied. “But someone has to do it. It should be better
with company.”
Levi didn’t reply, but he seemed to look rather thoughtful as he opened the
large paneled doors. The rest of the evening was spent poring over hastily
scribbled records, but she was right—somehow it felt rather less like a job
with her around.
Hours later, she yawned absently and sealed all of the little notes that would
be the official recognition from the corps that the soldiers had been
recovered. There was red sealing wax in a stray tendril of her hair, which she
picked at half-heartedly, her eyes heavy-lidded and sleepy. It was almost a
little adorable.
“Go to bed,” he sighed. The usual irritation in his voice was instead replaced
by a strain of tiredness that had nothing to do with the fatigued ache in his
limbs.
She mumbled something as she rose, but he was distracted by the way that the
candlelight caught her face for a moment giving her warm skin a golden, regal
glow. He shook his head; he really needed to sleep as well. He would have to
inform all of the families tomorrow, and it would be a long, long day. Usually
Four-Eyes or one of her subordinates would take care of it, but their squad
been through the wringer on this expedition.
The girl waved lazily and sauntered from the room, leaving him discomforted and
mentally exhausted. If he’d listened to her, he would not have been surprised
to find her in her uniform, ready to accompany him the next morning.
                                     ----
[Three days after the return]
Aisha rolled out of bed, relishing the feeling of waking up naturally for once.
The fire had died down slightly, leaving the barracks a tad chilly in the
morning. Nanaba meanwhile, was bringing in spare firewood.
“What’s the plan for today?” she smiled. “I see that you’re enjoying having
nothing to do.”
“You bet I am,” Aisha yawned. “I’m probably going to Ziegeberg for a while.”
“That’s the village outside Krolva District, right?” Nanaba asked. “That’s a
good two hours on horseback.”
“I’ll enjoy the scenery,” Aisha stretched lightly and began packing a satchel.
“Ambros apparently lives there now.”
“The man who adopted you?”
She nodded. “Something got into him and it seems as though he’s been there for
a while. He pretty much just told me about it when we got back.”
“Good luck then,” the older woman smiled kindly. “And remember to relax.”
                                     ----
The roads that connected many of the villages to larger towns were rarely
travelled alone; most persons kept themselves at home, or travelled only when
it was completely necessary. Unlike life in the towns and outcroppings of Wall
Rose, life was far less urban on the planes and frontiers. The eastern side of
Wall Rose was particularly known for its mountainous, treacherous terrain—it
made for good exercise and hardy people, as well as a sound industry of goat
herding. The leaves of giant firs drifted through the breeze as Azur plodded on
through the landscape.
Aisha breathed in the crisp air with relish; the journey alone was far more
relaxing than just staying at the headquarters. She wasn’t particularly worried
about bandits either—the weather was getting far too cold for laying in wait
for some unsuspecting traveller, especially on such lonely, vast roads. Still,
she kept alert, her hand never straying far away from a heavy iron pistol kept
in the saddle.
Ambros had given her the directions not to the village itself—but to an area
skirting it. She passed through the sleepy streets of Ziegeberg, seeing little
but farmers and labourers milling through. A few stared openly—something that
she’d grown used to. With her heavy cloak about her shoulders and the sparsely
laden saddlebags, she was very obviously just a visitor. Azur however, with his
large, imposing frame signaled that she was a soldier—and a scout at that. No
civilian could have had a horse built like this.
It took about fifteen minutes of travelling beyond the boundaries of the
village to spot the clearing that Ambros had written about. It was nestled at a
wall of imposing fir trees, flanking one of the steep, majestic mountains that
Ziegeberg was known for. A modest house had been erected out of wood, with a
small barn off to the side.
Ambros had definitely been busy for the past year.
She dismounted and led Azur up the craggy, rocky pathway up to the house. At
the sound of the horse approaching, a figure appeared from the side of the
structure. Aisha beamed; the time out of the Underground had truly done him
some good. Lines were still etching themselves into his face, and his hair was
still greying, but there was a glint in his eye that had long been absent.
“You finally got here,” he called. “How do you like it?”
“It’s—something,” she said, a little taken aback at just how massive the
clearing seemed to be. “Do you own all of this?”
“I do,” he gestured to the small, nondescript fence he’d started building some
metres away. “That’s the boundary.”
“How did you afford this?” she gaped.
“We weren’t totally destitute down there,” Ambros explained. “Lotte also left
me a few things that I sold.”
“What, like gold or something?” Aisha was still flabbergasted. This place
wasn’t in the most choice of locations, it was true, but it would still cost a
lot of money.
“Some jewelry, yes,” he admitted. “Most of it was hers when she lived with that
bastard’s family in Sheena. We always kept it in case we wanted to escape from
down there…a nest-egg, if you will.”
Aisha let out a low whistle. “Some nest-egg. I assume he doesn’t know you
left.”
“Like I give a rat’s ass,” he said harshly. “I’m tired of living under the
thumb of a coward. It took what happened to Lotte and a visit from that grumpy
little shit to show me that.”
A perplexed crease appeared between her brows. “Captain Levi visited you? I
know you mentioned him but uh—why?”
“Seemed like he was worried about how you were coping,” he led Aisha across to
the barn to hitch Azur. “I didn’t expect it, but if it were Zacharias, I’d
probably be missing a few of my teeth.”
She stared.
“You seem to keep forgetting that I was a soldier once upon a time,” he laughed
lightly, catching the scandalised look on her face. “Mike and I served
together. I don’t think he was very happy with me and how I handled
everything.”
Aisha’s head was buzzing with all of the new information. “I suppose I
shouldn’t be surprised that he didn’t mention this either.”
“His sense of smell seems to have taken his desire to speak for the most
part—the man’s a damn near mute. I’m glad he’s your superior in any case,” he
sighed. “He’s a good man—he has high standards, though. But you seem to have
met them.”
“And you didn't?”
“Let’s just say I was a very angry young scout. It’s the reason I can’t do it
anymore,” he touched at his lower back, where Aisha knew there was a long,
wicked-looking scar.
Mike’s stern attitude when she’d gone off on her own suddenly made more sense;
she thought back to the fierce look on his face at the manor in Stohess.
“Are you just exploiting my good nature or are you actually coming back to help
me do this?”
The familiar voice made the swirling thoughts evaporate. She caught sight of
the Captain, standing nearby with several lengths of neatly cut pinewood
stacked behind him.
Aisha stared at Ambros and managed a weak “Why?”
Ambros shrugged. “I told him about the place and he showed up. He’s just as
uncouth and crabby as ever, but he can carry a hell of a lot more than I can in
my state. We always seemed to have an understanding of sorts, even in the
Underground.”
A stern voice cut across the confusion. “Hey, tank-girl, come make yourself
useful.”
Aisha flushed slightly.
“Endearing nickname,” Ambros said drily.

“Oh, shut up.”
                                     ----
Aisha ended up taking care of things inside of the house and carting things
from around the yard for Ambros as he continued building his fence. He’d
finished a tiny paddock where he’d proudly announced that two of his newest
family members were going to take up residence.
“You can afford livestock?” she bleated, looking suspiciously at her adoptive
father. “You didn’t do anything illegal to get all this money, did you?”
“Nope,” he placed a few nails between his teeth, marring his speech a little as
he continued hammering the planks into place. “I did some work as a labourer
and a guard in the village when folks needed to travel during the warmer
months. Took me almost a six months to get everything in order.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she exclaimed.
“Because you’d have acted like this and I would have gotten a headache,” he
said blandly. She stared at the back of his head as he placed another plank,
humming a little under his breath.

“You seem a lot happier,” Aisha pointed out.
Ambros took the last nail out of his mouth and tapped it into the fence.
“Weren’t you when you could live in the sun for as long as you wanted?”
She smiled sadly, thinking of Lotte. “Yeah, I was.”
“This place is everything I wanted, Aish.” The older man straightened up,
combing a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “I needed to be free.”
She nudged him lightly. “Maybe find some company? I mean, if any woman could
put up with you, obviously.”
“Don’t even start—“ he laughed. “Now go check on that kid in case he’s given
himself a hernia or something. He’s been working all day.”
Levi—a kid? Aisha’s brain tried to wrap itself around that particular concept
as she flanked the house, where the sound of chopping wood had not ceased for a
moment. She turned the corner and froze. Levi was still at work, all right—but
in the sticky heat of exertion, he’d thoughtfully divested himself of the crisp
wool shirt, which hung neatly nearby. The axe swung downward and her eyes
traced the lines of thick muscle between his shoulders. Aisha momentarily lost
thought of why she was even there.
“We should probably fill the reservoir for the bath,” Ambros had appeared
around the corner and clapped a hand on her back, making her almost jump out of
her skin. “You can take a break, you know Levi. We’ve got more than enough
firewood. It’s getting a bit late anyway.”
Levi glanced over and put the axe aside; with effort, she looked at his face
and not the chiseled planes of his chest and abdomen.
“I’ll uh—go draw from the well then,” Aisha said meekly. Ambros was giving her
a very aggravating, very playful look. She stomped off with as much dignity as
she could manage.
As she reeled in the water from the well, trying to ignore her burning cheeks,
the wind wove through the fir trees lazily—almost like laughter.
 
===============================================================================
Night fell and the trio retired to the house; furniture was sparse, but Aisha
found a cosy spot on the floor near the fire while the two men sat at the
modest table.
“Are you sure you don’t want the chair?”
“Your back is terrible.”
“Well, are you sure you don’t want Levi’s chair?”
“I like to live, thanks,” she gave the Captain a quick glance. Was he smirking?
No—it had to be the firelight.
“When next are you all headed out?” Ambros sipped his tea pensively.
“It all depends on Erwin,” Levi said simply. “He’s still trying to get those
fucks in Wall Sheena to sponsor more equipment. With the new crop of little
shitheads running around, we’ll probably be holed up for another month. The
second brigade may venture out before we do.”
“I miss the action, but I really do not miss the politics,” Ambros said mildly.
He watched as Aisha began clearing up all of the dishes and cutlery. “How’s she
doing?”
“Well enough,” Levi explained. “She’s been promoted to Lance Corporal.”
Ambros almost choked on his beverage. “She didn’t mention that!”
“I don’t think the brat is one to brag,” he said quietly. “She’s probably still
coming to terms with it.”
“A lot of people couldn’t believe I let her enlist,” Ambros said. “’You know
what it’s like out there!’and all that. I couldn’t stop her even if I wanted
to.”
“Tch. Some people like holding on to their own hides, even if it means scraping
by and living in a cage,” Levi scoffed. “Freedom has a price.”
Aisha had reappeared from the adjoining room, her hands wrapped inside of her
dressing gown for warmth.
Ambros glanced over at the lone bed. “You can take that and—“
“No.”
“We’re accustomed to sleeping on the floor, if you didn’t remember,” Levi said
drily. “I don’t really look forward to having to haul your old ass around
because you pulled something, so just shut up and keep the bed.”
Ambros raised both hands in surrender. “All right, fine.”
“What about the loft?” Aisha wandered over to the ladder that led to a small,
hay-covered space. “Should be warm, right?”
Levi rose from the table and made his way up the ladder. “Well, it doesn’t
smell like a barn house, so I don’t have an issue with it.”
The girl turned slightly pink, though luckily, she was out of view. “Great,
well, there we go.”
Ambros was giving her that look again. Aisha feigned apathy, though she was
sure it wasn’t convincing.
The loft was actually very nice; there was enough room to kneel upright, and
there was a sliding hatch built in to the roof. Hay lay thick enough on the
wood to provide more than enough comfort and it kept out the chilly night air
nicely. Aisha slid the hatch back and stared out at the gorgeous moon, the wind
swirling the zesty smell of pine and fresh air towards them.
Levi came up to find her with her knees drawn up to her chest, illuminated by
the silvery light as she took in the sight. He was still unsure about whether
he was right to come here; the old soldier needed the help, and was far too
much of a stubborn fuck to ask. In the days that they lived in the Underground,
Ambros had always been around—selling things and doing small bouts of part-time
labour. Isabel had taken a liking to him, because he was one of the few adults
in her life that didn’t turn his nose up at her. Because of that, Levi and
Farlan came around in time, and the old soldier became more than just a face
they’d pass every so often. If they knew that they had to hit the market or a
business place, they would do it when he wasn’t there—they would routinely
intimidate those that they heard murmuring to threaten him. Not that he knew of
course. But it made Isabel happy.
He watched the girl for a second and decided that he’d find something else to
do for a while. She wasn’t like Isabel, but they’d have gotten along. Isabel
was more outlandish, more precocious and childlike. Aisha had grown up very
quickly—still with a coy, dry sense of humour, but there was a girl who knew
what the world was behind that. In that sense, she was more like
Farlan—sometimes the clown, but deep down, all business. He could easily
imagine if they’d been allowed to meet that they could have become friends.
Though, people who became friends with him didn’t last long, did they?
Isabel was just a year or two older than Aisha was. It could have been her,
laid waste to in that rainy, muddy field had she not been in training. Levi
rubbed at his face as though to push the fatigue and confusion away. Ambros was
still at the table, reading a leather bound book in the dim candle light. The
sight of the book brought back the memory of that journal that had fallen out
of her jacket at the castle.
“You’re related to her father, aren’t you?”
Ambros looked up. “My half-brother.”
Levi scoffed and pulled his chair closer to the fire. “Your family is a fucking
mess.”
“That’s an understatement,” he yawned. They could hear Aisha’s footsteps coming
down the ladder.
“It’s about time you explained that, to be honest,” she said flatly.
“All right, all right,” he put the book down. “From what I was told, my mother
was from a small farming village in Wall Maria. She was given the opportunity
to train as a maid; from a young age she ended up in the household of
Varnhagen. The young lord of the house had other plans, obviously. He educated
her well enough, she was growing into a proper lady despite her peasant roots.
They wanted to marry, but of course, it wasn’t going to happen. I came along a
while after, and then a few years after that came Xavier. We grew up together
for the first eight years of his life.”
“So you knew the good life,” Levi interjected.
“I did. My father treated me like his own son. He groomed me like an heir,
though, I couldn’t have been one. Everyone assumed I was his legitimate child,
as he’d managed to keep my mother out of the public eye—they figured perhaps I
was Lady Varnhagen’s. She would have been rather young and she wouldn’t have
been married, so the line was that the family kept it hush-hush until after
they were properly together. A bit risqué, but nothing truly improper.”
“So what happened?” Aisha asked.
“Blackmail, of course,” Ambros smiled wryly. “Someone doing business with him
figured it out. They had bought off the doctor who saw to my birth, and were
prepared to go public.”
“Tch. Of course; those swine stoop to any level,” Levi remembered the luxe
carriage that had come to take he, Isabel and Farlan to kill Erwin Smith.
“It didn’t exactly work,” Ambros said. “They were able to dispose of him and
the doctor before anything happened. However, this posed a problem. The family
was adamant that something had to be done. So, Lord Varnhagen’s eldest son died
quietly of an unknown ailment.”
“I’d imagine Lotte wasn’t happy.”
Ambros laughed. “I think she was livid that she ever allowed herself to be
caught up with a man who had all of the power to define whether she was free or
not. She’d been young and easily taken in—and it stung. As for me, well, it
turned me into the cynical bastard I am now. When I got word that man died, I
went out to celebrate.”
“You don’t know what happened with my mother, then.” Aisha looked pensive.
“Conjecture says that good old dad suggested to his son that instead of getting
a mistress who was a woman on the surface, finding someone who’d never known
freedom would be easier to control. There was always the chance that Lotte
could have exposed him to her family and I don’t think he liked it. With your
mother, she didn’t have a family around.”
She smiled bitterly. “He said he loved her, but she hated him.”
“Xavier has that effect on people.”
“In any case,” Levi continued. “There are more out there. Probably being traded
in the Underground, by the sound of it.”
Ambros nodded. “One of the reasons I kept Aisha under wraps. I didn’t know
anything, but I had my suspicions. I knew Kuchel as well, you know.”
Levi stiffened. Aisha looked at the two men, feeling the almost palpable
tension fill the air.
He managed one word, and it was full of contempt. “Really.”
“I don’t mean in that sense,” Ambros said drily. “I only knew she’d taken up
that side of things after she passed.”
“She went by another name, then,” he said quietly.
“Which is why it took me a while to put two and two together. I asked around
one day, and they told me the woman who was living there died a long while ago.
Said she had a ratty little kid a few years back, and he’d left.”
Levi stared at the table for a while before speaking. “I don’t remember a lot
during that time, other than when one of her friends came and got me out of
there.”
“From the sounds of it, I don’t blame you,” he sighed. “You’d have been what,
four?”
“About.”
“I wish I’d kept better track of her,” Ambros admitted. “She wasn’t used to
life down there.”
“And how’d you know she was my mother, then?”
“The rumour mill runs deep in those places, kid. You cropped up and people
knew. Most of them died out eventually as you got older, but I heard about it.
I thought maybe I should have stepped in, but you were taking to life in your
own way as I see it.”
Levi could still feel the hard handle of the knife in his hands, the feeling of
blood congealing under his nails. “You could say that.”
Aisha cleared her throat meekly, feeling as though she’d probably heard far
more than Levi would have been comfortable with. “I’m going to go to bed then.”
                                     ----
When he returned to the loft, he found the girl bundled into the hay, her face
peaceful in sleep. The moon was still shining down through the hatch in the
ceiling; a few stray pine needles had found themselves inside, and lay strewn
across the surface. The tiredness in his bones that transcended his physical
labour was still there as he dug a little niche in the soft hay. Next to him,
Aisha shifted slightly and turned to face where he lay. 
She’d had a difficult life, no doubt. It began in luxury, but all of that was
taken away. If her father had wanted, she could have even ended up in the same
manner as her mother—a thought that gnawed at him. She could have easily been
robbed of any chance of freedom. He thought of his mother and the suffering
that she must have gone through. He never quite understood why she kept him.
Had she felt something for one of the men that frequented her small, sparse but
neatly kept home? Or had she just been happy to have something—someone of her
own?
The feeling of belonging—the one he had with Farlan and Isabel was long gone.
In the two years that had passed, he was used to being alone.
If only he didn’t feel drawn to her.
If only he knew what the hell it all meant.
She stretched under the hay and moved a little closer. He quashed his warring
thoughts and closed the distance a little more.
 
Chapter End Notes
     Levi's getting a little more feelsy, and honestly dumb feelsy Levi is
     fun to write. I always headcannon him as being the most obtuse
     motherfucker ever, so it's very satisfying to write him slowly trying
     to suss out his emotions. I almost forgot to mention that Ziegeberg
     and the general idea for Ambros' new home is based off of the book
     Heidi.
     Also sorry not sorry for the Levi backstory feels. I had to >.>
     (Seriously, his mother fascinates me. We'll probably delve further
     into her character later.)
***** 6 to 8: A Brief Respite, Part 2 *****
Chapter Notes
     Eep, it's been quite a while ;-;
     To be honest, I've been trying to churn this chapter out for months.
     Then finals happened :|
     Now that I'm on vacation, I've got it finished and I'm hoping to get
     a lot of writing done. I'm also super hyped from chapter 89 and the
     season 2 trailer! I can't wait for April 2017! I hope you all enjoy
     this one, it's more angst with a bit of fluff >:D
     The song is by AFI :)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
             Six figures enter; they've come to destroy the world.
            They've called together this storm almost every night.  
                           I awake in another place.
     A familiar voice with a stranger's face, speaks more unheard words.  
                     What new friends will the day bring?
                       One for one thousand acquainted.
                     What new home will the night bring?  
               When it all comes down you just throw the bones.
                                  On the way
       I saw five hours of sleep, but your fire makes it all worthwhile.
                                  On the way
                        I wrote words for you to keep.
                           On the way, I saw myself.
                          Lost myself along the way.
                                        
                                        
                                        
[Year 846]
~~~
There was a thud as his quarry fell.
Bloody knife in hand, he felt the man’s face crack under his feet as he
savagely slammed his foot down. The crowd screamed—some in delight, some in
awe. Levi pulled the too-big tunic up his shoulders again and looked for him.
Why was he walking away?
Where was he going?
The crowd was surrounding him, some of them tossing the money they’d won
betting on him at his feet. He was eclipsed from view. Levi took his spoils and
managed to eat well that evening. Still, though he had kept enough food for
two—there was no one else. He slept fitfully, his dreams betraying his desire
for everything he felt that he’d never known. The stories of what life could be
like. He awoke—unrested and confused, wondering what it was like to see the
sky…the sun up close.
Days passed, and Levi kept on surviving. He kept waiting.
He didn’t return.
Why?
~~~
Levi’s eyes opened to the familiar feeling of fatigue and dread. That dream had
not recurred in a while, but there was no doubt that this trip had brought it
up again. He shifted slightly in the hay, only to stiffen as he realised that
the warmth on his chest was a person. Aisha’s hand was clutched into his shirt,
her head tucked slightly under his arm. She turned a little, her face grazing
the skin of his forearm where he’d cuffed his shirt earlier; the contact sent a
strange jolt through him. Her skin was so soft, almost doll-like.
He moved an inch away as gently as he could. She stirred, her hand releasing
his shirt to rub at her weary eyes.
“Captain?”
His reply was nonchalant. “I must have bumped you or something.”
“Oh,” she yawned. She stretched, shivering slightly. When she curled up again,
he could dimly see the goosebumps lining her skin.
He sighed in irritation; the strange feeling was back. “Come closer before you
freeze.”
There was a pause as she seemed to consider it—when she shifted again, this
time, she averted her eyes. Impatiently, he took her arm and pulled her; she
squeaked and the flush was strong enough to show on her cheeks, even in the
moonlight.
“Are—are you sure?” she asked meekly.
“I don’t know how you survived in the Underground in winter, but this is pretty
much how we did,” he said bitterly. He thought of the many times he’d grumpily
told Isabel and Farlan to stop horsing around when they camped together near
their meager fireplace. They always pretended to listen before starting their
shenanigans again.
“We?” her voice was tentative.
“I lived with two friends.”
“Did they come to the surface with you?”
He was almost glad that she was huddled much lower than his line of sight.
“Yes, and they died on our first trip out.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, with feeling. “I didn’t—“
“I know. Don’t bother.”
He could still feel her eyes on him.
He was getting irritable again. “If you want to ask something, just do it.”
“It’s not a question, really,” she murmured. “You just—I thought I heard you
talk in your sleep. That’s all.”
“I’d expect you’ll do the same if you live long enough,” he snapped.
She took the hint and left it at that.
                                     ----
When he woke again, the presence of soft skin on his created a stab of guilt.
He vaguely remembered the annoyance in his voice with a small surge of
regret—what was he doing? Why was he acting like a child?
The sun was just peeking over the clouds through the hatch; the only sound in
the area was the lulling hiss of the cool breeze through the fir trees, which
was far less cathartic than it could have been. He looked down at the girl, who
had settled again in that little space alongside him, her face slightly resting
upon his chest—a small gesture that made him all the more uncomfortable. He
extricated himself with some difficulty, but she didn’t stir. It felt wrong
somehow—this odd sense of comfort, as though the night had passed just a little
easier. His body, used to the insomnia and disturbance of his frequent
nightmares felt strangely lighter.
He moved down to the hearth, where Ambros was nowhere in sight. The old man had
probably been up before dawn. Levi placed the heavy brass kettle back onto the
hearth and wandered outside, his mind uneasy and disquieted. Ambros was busily
in the stables, heaping straw and feed for his newest arrivals.
“You’re up rather early for someone who’s taking time off,” he chided.
Levi looked past him to the two little goats that had made themselves at home
in the new paddock. “They smell fucking horrible.”
“They’re livestock, they tend to do that,” Ambros said lightly. “I haven’t
named them yet, but they seem to be pretty calm about the move.”
“You got them this morning?”
“I went down to the farm near the village,” he nodded. “I figure when Aisha
wakes up we can all go down to Ziegeberg together.”
“Why waste time there? We’re headed back to HQ tomorrow,” Levi said plainly.
“The place looks like some sort of backwater shithole.”
“It is,” Ambros shrugged. “But she hasn’t really explored much since she’s been
on the surface. Training days take you around the Walls, but they don’t let you
feel what life is like.”
“You think that brat as any bit of a country girl in her?” Levi scoffed. “Those
people don’t understand soldiers.”
“They know all about you though,” Ambros smirked. “Believe me, I get it. They
all like to think they have an idea of what it’s like out there, but they
don’t. I see the shit-for-brains lot of them complaining about everything we
do.”
“They know about my record, they know my name, but they know fuck-all about me,
for that matter,” Levi corrected him. “You can’t act like the people that die
out there are useless but then claim to support the ones who live.”

“There’s no helping ‘em,” Ambros sighed. “But I’d like her to see what it’s
like out here.”
He could hear the kettle beginning to drone inside.
“She’ll hate it.”
                                     ----

When Aisha had finally stumbled down the ladder from the loft, she seemed as
though nothing was amiss. Ambros however, had gotten a little more reserved,
staring into his teacup as though he was a world away. As she took a spot near
the hearth, he rose from the table and moved towards her.
“You’d never think that kid could cook, would you?” he motioned to their
breakfast.
Aisha took a mouthful and smiled despite herself. “I’m honestly not surprised.”
She eyed him slightly as he sat still at the table, his cup held in trademark
fashion. His face was carefully blank.
“Really?” Ambros asked idly. He seemed fidgety.
“Have you seen him?” Aisha said mildly. “Details are his thing.”
Levi sipped his tea.
“Huh, that’s true…”
“Why are you floundering, by the way?”
He couldn’t help himself—his lips quirked slightly as the older man spluttered
in reply.
“I’ve got…something to give you. Well, it’s from mother and I.”
Aisha sobered at once. Ambros pulled a small chest that lay in a nondescript
corner near the firewood. The girl placed a hand on the lid pensively and
looked up at her adoptive father.
“I don’t understand.”
“When you were brought to us, that man left a few things. Through the years he
sent some by, but never personally. Mother also had a few things that she’d
kept from her days on the surface, and she always wanted to give them to you.”
“I thought you sold her things?” Aisha said quietly. There was an extra sense
of strain about her that was suspicious.
“Some…I sold the things she left me. I couldn’t touch what she’d meant for
you,” Ambros sounded pained for the first time since they’d arrived. “She
wouldn’t have stood for it.”
She opened the chest; it wasn’t a very large container—but its contents would
have been no doubt valuable. She pulled a paper-wrapped item from the top,
unfolding the carefully covered garment gingerly. It was indeed quite a
valuable thing—even from where he sat, he could make out the fineness of the
fabric as it came into view. It was a rich, jewel blue—possibly an evening
dress, and it was made of a heavy, expensive material. She put it aside
wordlessly and reached for the others, opening them and placing them onto the
deerskin near the hearth fire. There were at least six of them, all easily
worth more than the house they were standing in. Others were not as elaborate,
but still, were far better made and finely designed than most citizens outside
of Sheena could be used to.
She stared at the empty trunk for a while before speaking. “Why?”
“Some of them were your mother’s, I believe,” Ambros explained. “Some of them
were Lotte’s.”
“But why keep them? We could have used the money.”
“Because mother never wanted to resort to selling them. She always said they’d
never be sold fairly—and besides, they were too beautiful. Then you came along
and she kept them for you.”
“Me?” Aisha laughed derisively. “I don’t really flounce around in skirts on a
daily basis you know.”
“She wanted to give them to you when you settled down.”
The girl paused with her mouth open. “What?”
“Well, she thought she’d give them to you when you were married, but…the
military counts as settled, right?”
Levi felt that unwelcome drop in his stomach when her eyes seemed to flash
towards him. Warm brown eyes met the steely grey of his own, and he was further
unsettled without a good handle on why. None of this had anything to do with
him. Did it?
He could hear Isabel’s voice in his head, and almost feel the briskness of that
night as though it were happening all over again.
She’d just finished eating an apple that they’d bought with a bit of their
profits. Smacking her lips in that slightly annoying manner, she grinned up at
him. “Big bro, why are you always alone?”
“Tch. I’ve got you two freeloaders, haven’t I?”
She pouted. “Not what I mean.” She looked out into the night, almost wistfully.
“I mean you seem so lonely anyway. Like you’re unhappy.”
He felt a little startled at that. “We have enough to eat, we’ve got a roof
over our heads—“
“There’s more to life than that, you know,” she said a little loudly. “Maybe
you need to find someone.”
He looked at her sharply, but she didn’t flinch. “What do you know about that?
And why the fuck aren't you pestering Farlan about this?”
She laughed. “Because he’s more useless with women than you are… And I want a
sister!”
He was beginning to develop quite the headache.
                                     ----

The three of them were in varying levels of discomfort when they visited the
village. Aisha drew her heavy cloak about her, staring at the cluttered wares
at the market as though she was looking right through them.
“Would you like anything, dear?” the kindly old woman seemed a little concerned
at the vacant look on her face.
“Oh—no, I’m sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I was just looking.”
She moved off towards the next stall, almost bumping into Levi on the way. With
a mumbled apology, she kept at his side, her eyes pensive and unfocused. He
sighed with some irritation, and took her elbow to prevent her from stumbling
into any of the potholes left behind by the horses. Though he couldn’t know for
sure, he could imagine what she was feeling—if he’d retained anything from his
own mother…especially something that she’d left, so far after her death… How
could anyone cope with that? What were you meant to feel, other than profound
grief?
Of course, this was much more complicated. It was not just the old woman; there
were things from her mother—someone she’d never known.
She followed him limply, his grip on her arm the only thing steering her. He
stopped at a small dry goods store and shunted her inside. The young man behind
the counter became alert at once, his eyes fixed on them. Levi’s attention
wandered to the bags of tealeaves that littered the shelves—Aisha’s gaze
followed and she blinked with confusion.
“You’re taking tea back?” she asked in a small voice. “Don’t we have that
already?”
“Not all tea is the same,” he scoffed. “Especially when the people who buy our
stocks insist on getting the shittiest lot.”
Aisha thought about mentioning the fact that tea was outside of their budget in
the corps—it was widely accepted to be a bribe of sorts to keep Levi less
crabby.
The shop owner sidled over, smiling politely at them. “Good day, may I interest
you in anything?”

Levi briskly asked for the tin that had caught his eye, leaving Aisha to give
him a weary, but wry smile. The shop owner turned to her and grinned.
“And anything for you?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
The young man seemed a bit sheepish. “I was hoping you’d come in, miss.”
Aisha stared, feeling the absurd urge to step behind the Captain and hide.
He continued, “If you don’t mind me saying, you’re uncommonly pretty, by the
way. We all noticed you ride through here yesterday.”
Aisha gave a bewildered flush. “I don’t quite know what to say to that, to be
honest. Thank you?”
“I—I mean we don’t get a lot of visitors. We thought you couldn’t be married to
that guy with the farm, as he’s much older,” he continued. “So I figured I’d
introduce myself.” He flashed a smile.
Aisha continued to smile with uncertainty. What does one even do at times like
this? What’s he getting at?
“Unless of course, you’re with him,” he said, his face colouring slightly. “I
hope I haven’t—“
He broke off, looking at Levi, who was still frozen with the tin in his
hand—trying to bury that feeling, the strange heat of exposure that made no
sense…
“No,” Aisha said awkwardly. In that moment, she was sure that she rather be
walking all the way back to the farm through endless mud over being here.
Levi curtly slapped the coins down onto the countertop and turned to her. “I’ll
be outside.”
She watched him go with a sense of dread, wondering if that had somehow
offended him; the shopkeeper seemed a little less apologetic now.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, I honestly—“
“That’s fine, don’t mention it.”
“I’m Lars, by the way. So you’re a new resident in the village?” he asked
meekly. Aisha gave him a second glance; he was young—probably in his late
twenties, with brown hair and a face that while pleasant, was easily
forgettable for its unobtrusive nature. There was a hint of something—almost
like cunning in his eye, however, that wasn’t quite as run-of-the-mill.
“My guardian has the new farm, if that’s what you mean,” she said mildly. “I’m
just visiting.”

“Ah, that’s a shame,” he nodded. “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow,” she glanced out the window. Levi was inspecting the assortment of
brooms in the shop across the street. She smiled despite herself.
“If I haven’t completely put my foot in my mouth, was wondering if I’d see you
again,” the man eclipsed her view. “At the crop festival tonight? It’s nothing
fancy but…”
Her full attention snapped right back into the room. She took a nondescript
step away from him to give herself some space. “That’s a kind offer, but—I
wanted to spend as much time with my family as I can.”
He wilted. “Oh, that’s fine, I mean—I understand.”
 “I’m sorry.” She noticed that Levi was looking back at them now. The man
politely rested a hand on her arm, and she looked him full in the face. She
fought the urge to smack his hand away.
“Maybe next time, then?”
“Maybe,” Aisha tried to remain polite. Could you even say no repeatedly in a
polite way? “Now I have to go meet the gentleman that was in here, before he
gets too antsy.”
“Oh, is he a friend of your guardian’s?” Lars looked out at Levi. “The people
seem to be a little afraid of him.”
“That’s my superior, Captain Levi,” the little hint of pride in her voice was
reflected in the involuntary smile on her lips.
He did a double take. “He’s—that’sCaptain Levi? I could have sworn he’d be
taller.”
Aisha snorted. “I feel like he gets that a lot. He’s every bit as amazing as
his reputation, however.”
“But wait—that means you’re in the Scout Regiment?”
She gave a dainty salute. “Lance Corporal Aisha Kaur, Survey Corps. At your
service.”
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he rubbed at the back of his head, looking slightly
embarrassed. “I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. It is nice meeting you,
Miss Kaur—I was honestly expecting you to be a farm girl or something.”
Farm girl?  She shuddered.
“I wouldn’t do well on a farm, I think.”
“Aw, really? Not even if some nice guy came and gave you a reason to hang up
your gear?” he smiled. “We’ll see about that. I hope we can talk more next time
you’re around.”
She reluctantly shook his hand; her mind was already outside with the short,
irritable man who was busily scaring the natives with the sour look on his
face.
                                     ----
She walked across the street, feeling a little disconcerted. It ached at her
that for a moment, she’d wondered about Lars assuming that she and Levi could
possibly be—
Had they looked like that? Why did it seem to bother him that much?
“I see the locals are friendly,” Levi sounded just a tad more scathing than
usual. “I hope you realise that you can’t just discharge yourself if you want
to trade your 3DMG for a husband.”
Well, that was quite the low blow. She thought about snapping at him, but the
words instead came out clipped—hurt. “Thank you for the advice, but I never
intend to.”
He watched her walk off; his head was going in so many places, none of which he
particularly cared to visit. He cursed and followed her, regretting every
godforsaken moment he’d been there, along with every time she insisted on
confusing everything.
Ambros had decided to stay for the last crop festival—to be sociable, he said.
The two soldiers grumpily and reluctantly went along. The evening approached
quickly, bringing the fall chill in with full strength. Aisha found herself a
mug of warmed, spiced ale and placed herself near one of the bonfires. It
looked a bit too similar to the ones they’d use to burn the bodies last year.
She took a deep swig from the mug, relishing the distracting burn as the spices
and alcohol did their work.
“Oh—you decided to stay,”
She turned to see Lars, holding his own mug of ale—he reeked of alcohol. Oh,
no, not now.
“My guardian wanted to socialise,” she murmured.
“Makes it seem like you didn’t,” Lars smiled. “Here I thought I might’ve had
something to do with it.”
Aisha felt vaguely uncomfortable; she let out a dry, unconvincing laugh.
“So,” he climbed onto the bench next to her. “What’s it like in the military?”
Aisha stared into the mug. “It gives me purpose I guess. It’s my home.”
“Whoa,” he looked at her in surprise. “Home? You don’t want to have anything
beyond that?”
Her mind wandered towards the Captain and she sighed. “I wanted to help
humanity, and I’m with people who do. That’s really all I want. To protect my
adoptive father and the people who can’t protect themselves.”
When she glanced up, a strange crease had appeared between his brows. “Really?
You think the Scout Regiment does that?”
“You think we go out there and fight Titans for fun?” Aisha took another
draught of ale.
“You’ve been out there then?” his eyes widened.
“Yes,” she said tiredly. “I came back from my first expedition a few days ago.
We’d been gone for about three weeks.”
“And you still think the Scouts are all for freedom?” he asked incredulously.
“How many people did you lose out there?”
“I’d estimate about thirty,” Aisha continued. “We did however, create two
valuable bases out there in Titan country.”
“What good does that do though?” Lars’ voice was taking on that irritating tone
of mocking that plagued Ambros as a veteran. “I mean, you go out there, you
die...and what, leave supplies?”
She looked at him evenly. “We learn about them, and we re-claim land for
mankind. We take the fight to the enemy instead of staying inside like caged
meat.”
He laughed. “I guess, if that’s what you think. But technically you’re just
taking them their meals. I mean why not just stay with the Garrison if you
can’t get into the MPs?”
“And wait for the Colossal Titan and the Armoured Titan to kill us all?” she
was beginning to get deeply annoyed. “Fantastic plan. We’re the best soldiers
that mankind has because we face them.”
“Best? Most of you die off,” he seemed genuinely confused. “That doesn’t seem
like skill really. Just seems suicidal.”
She could still see the glistening blood and viscera on the rooftop where her
friends had died. Still smell the death where so many soldiers had given their
lives so that civilians could evacuate. She remembered the sound of Kate crying
when her leader was killed.
He moved to pull at her wrist when she stood up to leave. “I’m sorry if I
offended you…I mean that’s just what I think, is all. It’s what a lot of us
think, actually.”
“We may be suicidal on some level,” she said quietly, “but none of us want to
die. We know we’re probably going to, and we have made peace with the fact that
we do a job that no one else wants to do. I have lost people who have ten times
the bravery that any of you out here. We do it so that you don’t have to.”
“If you don’t want to die, why do you stay?” he was pulling on her hand now.
She dug her heels in and with surprising strength, ripped her arm from his
grasp. “It’s a job no one asked you to do! I’m sorry, but you’re all dying for
a lie.”
He was too drunk to see the fist coming—she didn’t intend to hit him hard, but
the impact knocked him squarely backwards and off the bench. He landed on his
back in the grass, blearily watching as she stiffly walked away.
When he finally righted himself, cursing all the while, he noticed that the man
from before was standing nearby. Captain Levi?
“What, are you here to hit me too?”
His voice was rather sardonic. “And why would I hit you?”
Lars threw his hands up. “Apparently, I can’t have an opinion. Military women
aren’t worth it—honestly. She’s gorgeous but that attitude is fucking ruined.”
“Or, maybe you were drunk and you annoyed her.”
“Not my fault she couldn’t make it to the MPs,” he shrugged. “Whatever you all
tell those kids to make them feel important—that doesn’t make it true.”
“Maybe,” he considered. He watched the bruise blooming on the man’s jaw with
some amusement. “But that girl was the top of her division. She chose the
corps.”
Lars spat a little blood on the grass bitterly. “Then she’s even worse off.
I’ve never met such a bull-headed, unfeminine girl.”
As he watched the man wander back to the thick of the celebrations, he had to
admit that he took some pridein that.
                                     ----

“I see you fought with your new friend,” Levi said mildly. He’d found her
sitting under a tree with full bottle of ale.
“Friend?” she laughed. “He flat out told me that he hated everything I stand
for.”
“Couples have their spats,” he needled. It may have been a bit mean, but it was
amusing to watch her so wound up.
She glared at him. “Oh fuck off.”
“That was a decent punch, however,” he continued. “That won’t be the last
dipshit you meet though. And you can’t keep beating them up.”
She took a swig of ale. “He was sort of asking for it.”
“A lot of them do,”
“He was saying that we die for a lie,” she explained.
“I’m sure when he sits on his ass all day, it looks like that,”
“I can’t stand cowards,” she went on. “Especially self-righteous cowards.”
“The place is full of them, kid. You can’t be surprised that people are fucking
stupid?”
“I’m not,” she sighed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
“That chest the old man gave you has been bothering you all day,” he said
flatly.
She smiled, apparently unsurprised. “You know, I thought I was hiding it. It
feels so strange to have those things. First it’s Lotte, and then my mother…I
mean, I read another one of my mother’s journals while we were on the
expedition.” She stopped for a second, as though trying to find the words. “I
think she may have killed herself.”
He paused.
“She was talking about it. I don’t know if she might’ve left something in the
last one. I was going to bring it out here with me to read it but—I don’t
really want to know.”
“Whatever she did had nothing to do with you, you know,” he said.
“Maybe having me was the last straw.”
“Maybe she wished she didn’t, but how is that your problem?” Levi looked down
at her. She was clutching the bottle to her chest, staring down at her lap as
though she couldn’t bear to raise her head.
“I guess,” she said finally. “But that doesn’t make it feel any better.”
“It probably won’t feel any less shitty for a while,” he said honestly. “But
your father is the one responsible.”
“But he’ll never be responsible.”
He remembered how easily that fat noble had ripped he, Isabel and Farlan away
from the Underground. How he could have easily erased their futures.
“The world is fucked up.” It was all he could really manage. How else could he
console her? Tell her that justice would be served?
Since when did that ever fucking happen?
She was obviously tipsy—he wasn’t sure how much that fool in town, or the
contents of the chest, for that matter—had affected her until now. He plucked
the bottle out of her arms and she glared him reproachfully.
“You know, you never did tell me about why you talk in your sleep,” she said
accusatorily. “You know so much about me and I don’t know shit about you.”
He scoffed, feeling a painful humour settling in. She actually did have a
point. “I was thinking about Kenny. The man that the old soldier heard about,
who took me away after my mother died.”
“Who was he?” she was squinting at him.
“Who knows. Some part of me thinks he could have been my father,” he sipped the
ale and looked at the twinkling stars. “He was a fucking piece of work though,
whoever he was to me. But he took me in.”
Aisha’s hands were kneading her skirt a little nervously. It seemed as though
he was a little more affected than he’d have liked to let on. “What happened?”
“He left me. I don’t know what I did—or why. He just walked away and he never
came back.”
There was silence for a moment. He looked down at her and found her staring
right back, her eyes still bleary, but with a strange look about them.
“Who would ever leave you?” she murmured. It was almost too quiet for him to
hear.
That feelingin his stomach was back. He rose from the grass and took her arm.
“Come on, kid. You’ve got to sleep it off before you’re a fucking mess on the
road tomorrow.”
She didn’t complain as he strung her along; he dumped her unceremoniously into
the loft where she seemed to fall asleep right away. He returned to the hearth
with a prickling, stress-induced headache building between his temples.
“She’s a handful, isn’t she?” Ambros asked wryly. He was reading his book by
the fire quite unaffectedly.
“She is, and I don’t usually make a business of taking shit from my
subordinates,” he said with a sigh.
“Have you ever seen a fox up close?”
Levi stared at him. “Of course I fucking haven’t, I spent most of my life in
the fucking sewer.”
A little crease of exasperation appeared between the older man’s eyebrows.
“Well, let me clue you in. Some species of fox are noisy little shits. Those
are the tiny ones, the Fennecs; they’re usually the most hyperactive and
they’re likely to have a lot of fun running circles around you.”
Levi glanced towards the fire, and with a bizarre amusement, he thought of
Isabel as she pestered him.
“Some of them though, are a little less energetic. They like attention, and
they’ll harass you if they want it, but they’ll probably take a finger off if
you try it on your own terms. They’re not the most socially graceful creatures.
They scream like little banshees when they want you to do something and they’ll
stick to you for life.”
“And your point is?”
“You, my dear boy,” he gestured to the loft. “Have found yourself a nice little
red fox. She just spent half this trip chirping at you for attention.”
“You’ve spent way too much fucking time out here,” Levi said drily.
“It’s fine if you don’t admit it to me, but I know she’s not just another
soldier to you.”
The directness caught Levi slightly off-guard. He remained silent.
“Aisha’s a kind girl. She guards her heart very closely, so if I were you, I’d
feel lucky.”
The discomfort was building. He decided to take the easiest way out. “Tch. You
realise she’s a kid and I’m almost a good fifteen years older, right? Did you
get kicked in the head by one of the fucking goats?”
Ambros laughed, unfazed by the abrasiveness. “I wouldn’t be highlighting those
facts to me, if I were you. I’m not the one who came all the way out here for
her. Besides, if she really was some uncomplicated farm girl, she could very
well have been strung to some old bastard long ago.”
“I came because your crippled ass can’t handle the work,” he said stubbornly.
“I’m sure you’re a mighty philanthropist on your own time,” Ambros nodded
sagely. “All I’m saying to you is that you should recognise how important you
are to her.”
That feeling—guilt was pooling in his veins again. Perhaps the old man was
right—perhaps the brat did feel something for him. Was that right? Was that
something he should ignore? If what he said was true, she was wasting her
youth, her innocence on him.
He remembered the soft brush of her cheek on his arm—the smallness of her waist
beneath his hands when they trained. The discomfort was reaching its peak.
No. He could not allow any of this.
When he fell asleep later in the night, his dreams were a tangled mess of
regret, loss and yearning.
Chapter End Notes
     Welp, it took him long enough to realise he was feeling something.
     How long do you guys think it'll take before he figures out what it
     means or does anything about it? xD
     Thanks again for all the support you guys send my way by giving
     kudos, bookmarks and comments <3
***** Show yourself: A Brief Respite, Part 3. *****
Chapter Notes
     I am legit the worst author :| I'm so sorry this took forever!
     I'm *finally* done with my taught courses for my graduate degree, so
     I managed to finish off the chapter. I've basically been adding to it
     every so often (as well as future chapters, why am I like this?).
     Basically this thing turned out to be a beastly-sized entry.
     So, enjoy the angst, Levi realising he has feels and the development
     of our sweet baby canon characters! Song by Mastodon!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                           Stars align, stars align.
                   Stars can fall and get you into trouble,
                          Be afraid—don’t be afraid.
                    Speak the ancient wisdom of the desert.
                    You're not as safe as far as I can tell,
                                And I can tell.
                          Only you can save yourself.
                    Soon this will all be a distant memory,
                             Or could this dream,
                                Be real at all?
                          Show yourself, show yourself
                    I want to see everything you're made of
                       Reveal yourself, reveal yourself
                The truth will send a ripple through your body
                      See your fate—you’ll see your fate
                 Death will come and steal you from the living
                         Dead and gone, dead and gone
                     I'll see you on the other side of fire
                                        
 
[Year 846]
Almost two months had gone by since the corps was back; as Levi had predicted,
the second brigade of the Survey Corps was given leave to have an expedition,
while the first was relegated to training. The news trickling through the ranks
hinted that Erwin was having more trouble than he’d anticipated getting
sponsors to buy more supplies.
“You’d think they would be eager to send as much people out as possible,” one
of the new recruits, Gunther, complained bitterly as he mended his gear.
Aisha smiled slightly, “That tune may change in a couple of weeks if we do get
out. Where’s Petra, by the way?”
“Major Hange had her running documents to the commander,” he said. “I know it
seems impertinent, Lance Corporal Kaur but… I get it’s bad out there—the thing
is rookies like us, we don’t know it for real yet. That’s why we aren’t
officially scouts yet. I want to earn my wings.”
She sighed, still a bit unused to the new title and its uneasy respect. “Just
focus on training up. We sat on our laurels for much longer than this, and we
were still shaken up pretty badly by what happens out there. Don’t rush through
this preparation.”
“What was it like?”
“It was…” Aisha looked up at the dying sun as it illuminated the sky in burnt
orange. “Honestly it’s like nothing else. You’re on constant guard for every
moment. Your mind is never allowed to rest, every sense you have that’s trying
to preserve you works in overdrive. That’s why we looked so burnt out when we
came back.”
Gunther seemed a bit hesitant. “But what about…them?”
In a flash, she saw the scene of her first Titan encounter out there. The
forlorn torso of one of her comrades lying there, surrounded by the remains of
her team. Then later, the dry husks of those who fell during the conscription.
She could still feel the impact of all of the little chunks of building on her
body when the Female Titan made her elaborate escape.
There was a strange ringing in her ears now; she felt as though she could
faintly smell blood on the air again.
“Lance Corporal?” Petra had joined them by now, her hands enclosing a small
vellum note. She seemed even more tentative than usual.
Aisha shook her head. “I can’t describe it in any way you’d understand, really.
They’re every bit as horrifying as you’d think and more.”
“What, the Titans?” Petra looked at her fellow recruit, who nodded in assent.
She swallowed audibly. “I feel like that’s even worse coming from you, ma’am.”
That broke Aisha out of her reverie. “What? Why?”
She held up the vellum note. “Major Hange has been aggregating the data from
the expedition for a final report to the commander. Here’s yours,” she handed
it over, and smiled slightly. “Your current kill count is at nineteen
individual kills and four assists.”
Aisha opened the note and scanned it—the number seemed surreal, she hadn’t
really paid attention to keeping track until now. Everything from her current
height, weight and her superiors’ remarks was laid out neatly in jet black ink.
She flushed a little as she saw the little four out of five mark by Levi’s
name. He’d taken one off for recklessness, apparently, but even then—he
admitted that her skill was worth rewarding.
Come on Aisha, you’re better than that.
“Captain Levi’s count this time puts him way out of reach for anyone,” Petra
continued wistfully. “He’s got well over a hundred individual kills at this
point. Major Hange says we might as well stop counting them.”
The strange feeling in her chest got a bit harder to ignore.

Apparently, I’m not better than this at all.
“I wonder how long it’ll take us to get to twenty-three kills,” Gunther nudged
Petra lightly with his elbow.
“I know it seems like such a feat, but I really don’t remember them much. I
know I can kill them, but…” her voice carried the exhaustion of the day, spent
teaching the recruits the 3DMG techniques they’d need outside the walls. “They
never stop being these huge, scary things that could kill you and all of your
friends in the blink of an eye. But what does change is you. Sometimes you’re
just…numb, I guess. I don’t feel triumph or whatever, I don’t feel like I’m a
Titan-killing machine, I don’t feel anything. I just do my job.”
“That doesn’t sound great for you,” Gunther added.
“It probably isn’t,” she shrugged. “But like I said, trust your skills and
throw yourself into the preparation. You’re both top recruits, so you’ve
already got a fair amount of talent on your side. All that’s left is
experience.”
It felt so odd talking to them like this. As though she was so much older, so
much more of a soldier. While it was true that she’d fought Titans during the
fall of Maria and the expedition, these two were both late recruits—they were
at least a year or two older than she was.
She smiled bitterly. Her seventeenth birthday had passed today and it was her
first since Lotte was gone. There was a sad little note from Ambros, but her
cultivated prose was missing.
“It’s almost time for dinner,” she said. The sudden urge to be alone gripped
her like a vice. “You should both head in now.”
“Ma’am!” both soldiers gratefully saluted her and sauntered off to their
barracks.
Aisha took a little bundle of notes out of her breast pocket. She’d been
carrying them around all day, without the strength to read them. They’d been
all of the correspondence that Lotte sent during her trainee years, and during
her few months as a scout before the conscription.
She wandered the grounds until she came to a little clearing near the training
woods. The air was heavy and chilled—winter was barreling in without so much as
a taste of a substantive autumn.  Her thick, cream flannel shirt only kept out
so much of the chill. It would soon be time to bring out their long coats.
She lay down on the grass, and stared up at the darkening sky for a short
while, feeling strangely numb. At last, she opened the most recent letter and
traced the looping curves of script.
                                     ----
“Aisha’s not here,” Nanaba looked across the throngs of soldiers as they mulled
about in the dining hall. The veterans were all being given a rather wide berth
at the front—many of the recruits were still rather wary of their more
experienced peers.
Hange looked across at Moblit, who shrugged.
“I haven’t seen her all day, Major. Gunther and Petra were assigned to her
today.”
“The redhead, right?” Hange jerked her head to the rookies. “She’s over there,
so their training must be done. I’m sure she’ll turn up.”
“It’s her birthday today,” she sighed. “We wanted to spend some time with her
as a team, I guess,” the older woman’s expression fell slightly. “Mike knew it
was her first birthday after…the conscription.”
“Oh, I forgot about that,” Hange looked somewhat sheepish. “I haven’t had the
time to help her search for information on her family or her clan yet. Now I
feel extra terrible.”
“She won’t get in trouble, will she?” Moblit asked. “If she doesn’t show up.”
“Mike wouldn’t do it,” Nanaba said. “I doubt Erwin would either. Your class of
trainees is a special territory, so to speak.”
“Because of the fall of Wall Maria?”

“That, and the fact that most of you lost family members either that day or
directly after,” Nanaba explained. “Erwin isn’t as cold-hearted as a lot of
people think. We don’t need to push you all further, so what’s the use? We’re
not in the habit of being unnecessarily cruel.  We need you put-together and
functional.”
He smiled wryly. “Seems like the very opposite of the Training Corps, then.”
“The Training Corps is supposed to break you,” Hange explained mildly. “They
strip you down to the basics of what humans can be, and then add on what you
need to become a soldier. Traditionally your first expedition and year in the
Survey Corps continues that, but you lot had it done to you already.”
Her protégée’s brow creased with the weight of those still-vivid memories.
“We’re pre-broken horses, then.”
She laughed bitterly. “Yeah. Just look at Nifa and Keiji; they’re green as can
be, and don’t you think they’re a lot less jaded than you were?”
He considered his new teammates for a second, washing down a mouthful of
potatoes with his drink. It was true. They were laughing, chatting eagerly to
their cohorts in such a carefree manner. It almost made it envious—but at the
same time, it tore at him. A small pit of sadness worked its way into his
chest. They wouldn’t stay this buoyant—this innocent—for long.
Henning stood up from his seat, “D’you think I should go look for Aisha?”
Nanaba shook her head. “Leave her for now. I’ll fill in Mike when he gets here;
I think he, Erwin and Levi are planning their next search for funds. I figure
she just needs to be alone.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Moblit looked at the soldiers around him. Hange was
rifling through her worn notebook, lost to her thoughts, so he was just
conversing with Nanaba now.
“A year ago there were so many other people here. Groups like us sitting here—I
mean, there were people in your squads before us,” he said. “And look at us
now.”
“That’s life in the corps,” Nanaba finished her drink. “You lose people all the
time, but,” she looked wistfully at her two younger cohorts, who were busy
arguing about something. “We’re family—even when we’re no longer here. Our
bodies may be transient and fragile, but we’re always going to be family.”
Moblit opened his mouth as if to say something, but his reply was lost. He
glanced at his squad leader, nose-deep in the dog-eared, stained book. Her
half-finished meal was busy congealing on the plate before her—it was probably
the only thing she’d eaten for the day as she’d been up doing reports since
dawn.
Family.
===============================================================================
 
Levi shut the large doors of the main building, feeling the cold slivers of
wind working their way through his hair. There was an imminent sense of rain in
the air—a sudden dampness on the breeze as the clouds flitted by. He walked
down the path towards the dining hall, his way illuminated by the silvery light
of the moon and the flickering, dancing lanterns that creaked in the wind. A
small figure caught his eye, nestled against one of the trees. He could not
make out who it was, but he had a fair guess. With some annoyance—and more than
a little resignation, he made his way over.
“Are you trying to freeze to death, or get in trouble for missing dinner?”
She sat up slightly; one of the vellum notes in her hand slipped away with the
breeze and he caught it. A small glance was all it took for the pieces to fall
into place. Mike was still with Erwin, but the usually quiet and composed
soldier was a more than concerned today. Given how badly off the girl was just
a year ago, it was understandable.
“I wanted some time to wallow, I guess.”
He sighed and sat down next to her, handing her the letter again. She carefully
folded it, and placed the entire bundle back into her pocket.
“How’s that coming along?”
“It was probably a bad idea,”
“No shit,” he replied flatly. She must have been freezing, but she wasn’t
shivering. Everything about her just seemed muted—numb, almost. He remembered
the gut-twisting, harrowing realization that had hit him when a year passed
after Isabel and Farlan died. It was a mixture of sorrow at the reminder of
their loss…and guilt for having gone a year without them. Humans were truly
infuriating creatures.
“What would she have said if she saw you here, on your birthday, feeling sorry
for yourself?” he asked. She smiled, a hint of surprise on her face. It was
surprisingly eloquent, even for him.
“I’d get an earful and she’d pull me into the dining hall by my ear.”
“Then why the fuck are you still sitting here?”
“Because I suppose I just wanted her to be here to do that,” her voice had that
tiny lilt to it that signaled that tears weren’t far off. His thoughts flew
into a series of absurd ways to deal with this, so he kept his mouth firmly
shut. Without a word, he got up off the grass, and pulled her up by her shirt
collar. There was a tiny squeak, but she didn’t resist. His grip shifted to her
small, ice-cold wrist and he proceeded to drag her all the way to the dining
hall.
Most of the soldiers had already retired for the evening, seeking to spend
their free time in their barracks. The few that mulled about noted with some
surprise the figure of their Captain stringing along the Lance Corporal, firmly
planting her into a seat near the fire. They caught sight of his irate
expression and averted their eyes, trying to avoid shifting his attention onto
any of them.
Levi emerged from the kitchens with two mugs of tea, placing one firmly in
front of the girl.
“Thanks.”
“I should be kicking your ass,” he said blandly. “You’re allowed to be upset,
but you’re a leader now.”
She winced slightly. “Sorry.”
For a fleeting moment, he wondered if he was being a little too harsh on her.
She was just a seventeen-year-old, after all, and by all measures this would be
expected. The standards of most communities would have held her as a young
adult, barely ready to debut into her own life—requiring some understanding and
softness. He wasn’t a soft man, however and unfortunately, she was a seventeen-
year-old soldier. He could try to provide the understanding.
“Your new brats look up to you,” he said. “Try not to let them down. Save this
for your own time.”
She rubbed her eyes tiredly. “Does that even exist?”
“Not often,” he admitted blandly.
“That doesn’t sound healthy,” she laughed a little. “I suppose this explains a
lot.”
He quirked an eyebrow and she gave him a tiny, angelic smile. Even when she was
suffering like this, she was such a little shit.
She sipped her tea, her face beginning to look uncertain. “How do you do it?”
He shrugged. “It’s different for me.”
“What do you mean?”
There weren’t many times that caused Levi to curse his ineloquence, but this
was one of them. “After Farlan and Isabel died, I only ever felt survivor’s
guilt once. It wasn’t this shitty, crippling feeling that other people seem to
have. The thoughts are there, but they don’t change anything. It doesn’t affect
me like that.”
“You didn’t shut down like I did.”
He thought back to her semi-comatose state. “No, but I know how you felt.”
“Am I just weak then?”

Weak?
No, she wasn’t. She was definitely one of the strongest soldiers the corps had
in their bedraggled ranks. She’d already survived more than most of them could
have. However here was this innate sense in him that had always knew that other
people weren’t like him. People like Mike, Erwin—maybe Aisha, one day, could be
close. But if he was being honest, there was always this weakness, yes, that
separated them. Whether it was a lack of control over themselves, or a lack of
complete surety, he did not know. Perhaps if he had this girl’s sickening
ability to translate his unruly thoughts, he’d tell him.
Maybe at some point he would tell her all this, and then ask her what it all
meant, if he could find the words. Meanwhile, she was staring into the cup
before her with a crease between her brows.
“You’re still alive and a lot of the people who came before you aren’t,” he
said finally. “A lot of them had shitty luck, but more of them couldn’t handle
what we do. Most people aren’t supposed to do what we do.”
She smiled sadly. “Why are you so good at it?”
“There isn’t a secret. When I was growing up it just happened—I’ve always been
able to do what had to be done. I’ve been this way for almost as long as I can
remember.”
“So you’re just that good.” That tiny thread of mischief was hidden poorly
under the disappointment.
He gave her a half-hearted glare. “You might be a combat prodigy, but you’re a
fan of pushing buttons. Maybe your survival within the walls might be the
problem.”
“It’s a coping mechanism,” she said innocently.
“A better one would be to take care of yourself,” he said frankly. “Now go get
whatever’s left of the food and eat it.”
He took the time that she was gone to internally yell at himself. What was he
doing?
After their excursion to see the old soldier, he couldn’t close his eyes
without hearing the bastard’s voice, the knowing accusation infuriatingly
replicated almost exactly. Ever the pragmatist, Levi sighed, relenting. Fine.
He did feel something for this brat. She was not just another soldier to him.
Every time he saw her, he felt that knot of incorrigible yearning in his chest
that made him want to eviscerate himself. She wasn’t helping matters—the girl
looked at him with wide, trusting eyes, unlike the others. Where theirs were
filled with respect and deference, hers had a strange quality to them that made
him deeply uncomfortable.
He didn’t think himself capable of being this way—though Isabel had frequently
teased him otherwise. But this was wrong, and he knew it. She was too young,
and him? He was a monster. A tainted, harsh creature that had death following
him in close pursuit, taking those around him in his stead. He had almost
always been this way. Aisha was a soldier, but she could have chosen otherwise.
Perhaps he wanted that—to have never met her, as she led an uncomplicated,
peaceful life. The problem arose that was not an uncomplicated girl; her life
before the military had made certain of that. The corps had simply taken that
damage and increased it tenfold. Levi drained his teacup with a scowl; he hated
this. His body was under his complete control, but his mind? The fucker seemed
to love torturing him.
                                     ----
Aisha set her plate aside and studied the man in front of her. The heaviness
that pervaded the day was strangely lessened. He hadn’t said much, but somehow,
it helped. He caught her gaze and cocked an eyebrow, his mug held in his
trademark manner.
A bizarre thought caught her. “Do you…want to keep my mother’s last journal?”
He’d been lost in his thoughts, but at her words, he sat up a bit straighter,
seemingly surprised. “What?”
“I’ve decided that I don’t want to read it,” she told him. “But I can’t just
get rid of it.”
A crease appeared in his brow. “Then why not just leave it where it is?”
“Because I’ll probably read it anyway,” she said somewhat pathetically. “I
can’t do it right now. One day, maybe.”
It was an odd request, but he seemed to consider it. There was strange, sad
look on his face; she wondered if she’d done something wrong, before chiding
herself. How the hell would she have had any sort of effect on him? This was
Levi.
“You can read it, if you want to,” she said, fishing the bundle of letters out
of her pocket; right behind them was a small, expensive book, much like the
others he’d seen her with. She placed it on the table.
After a small pause, Levi reached across and slid the tome towards him. His
face was still rather pensive. Without a word, he pocketed the book and rose
from his chair.
Maybe she’d brought up unwelcome memories. A stab of guilt hit her, and she
suddenly felt very selfish. “Thank you.”
“Just get to bed, kid,” for some reason, he suddenly sounded exhausted. “Erwin
is probably going to talk to you tomorrow.”
She gave an inquisitive tilt of her head. “About what, skipping dinner?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said flatly. “It’s about our funding.”
“What do I have to do with that?”
“Sometimes he drags us to places to talk to the rich bastards who have enough
money to throw around. He’s planning on adding you to the list.”
She stared. “Me? Why?”
“I don’t know, maybe some of them like mouthy brats with a decent kill streak,”
he shrugged. “I don’t understand rich people, so you’ll just have to fucking
ask them.”
“You could have just stopped there and said my performance was good, you know.
You’re really mean sometimes, Captain,” she was pouting slightly but her voice
was playful, even if she had a morose look in her eyes.
He made his way back to his quarters, the miniscule weight of that book in his
pocket shifting with every step.
Sometimes.Maybe she didn’t realise that she was lucky in that regard.
                                      ~~~
Levi blinked, drawing a hand across his tired face. Where was he?
He looked across the room and saw unfamiliar furnishings—not quite lavish, but
still rather homey. By a soldier’s standards, it was luxury. He got off the
bed, looking down at the strangely crisp sheets; the spot next to him was
mussed, as though someone else had been there. Something was quite wrong here.
He opened the door with a pause—why was he being so reckless all of a sudden?
The hallway was empty, its window open and the gauzy curtain was billowing
lightly in the spring breeze.
No, that wasn’t right. This weather wasn’t right. It was almost winter.
He moved down the hall, almost on autopilot; the room he came into had its door
open, and there was a scent of pine needles everywhere. A nagging, insistent
knot worked its way into his stomach at that. The room was some sort of
kitchen, and he could feel the warmth of the heavy cast-iron oven. There was a
little laugh, and he turned around. Shewas there. What she was saying to him,
he couldn’t quite make out. He could hear her voice, but not what she said,
almost as though she was just an echo.
She was in her plainclothes, and seemed oddly comfortable—lighter, even. The
stress of war and loss were gone from her face. There was a very coy look in
her eye, and he felt his stomach drop almost childishly.
“What’s wrong? You missed me, didn’t you,” she asked. Though he could properly
hear her for the first time, he could not answer. She didn’t seem to notice,
bustling past him and divesting the oven of its contents.
“You should write to Erwin. The Scouts are heading out soon, apparently,” she
told him.
“What?” his voice felt hoarse, detached.
“Oh, and Ambros wants us to visit later in the week,” she ignored his question,
pouring tea instead. There were three cups.
“I think a visit would be nice. You should go, Levi,” the voice behind him made
his blood run cold. He hadn’t heard it for decades.
He turned around to look at his mother, her face unchanged and beautifully
relaxed. Her grey eyes twinkled with the same happiness she’d shown every time
she looked at him as a child. She smiled. “He’s probably lonely out there all
on his own.”
He continued to stare at her, his heart racing. The women continued to
converse, oblivious to his frantic thoughts.
“I don’t know about lonely,” Aisha laughed. “He’s probably more nosy than
anything.”
“Very possible—but he’s suddenly found himself a son, so I’d imagine he’s so
eager to spend time bonding,” Kuchel looked at him pointedly.
Levi was frozen in place. He didn’t often feel helpless, but this confusion,
this feeling—
Aisha had somehow made her way over to him, smiling. Her hand was on the side
of his face, and his thoughts evaporated. He wasn’t much taller than she was,
so he was looking her right in the eyes. She was so close, so warm. Her eyes
held that familiar look—not that of his mother’s but one he’d seen before, but
couldn’t place.
“I’m not sharing you,” she said.
His resolve was snapping—he wanted her so badly. He reached out.
                                      ~~~
Levi woke to find that he’d almost fallen out of his chair. It wasn’t anything
new for him to sleep at his desk, but the dream was certainly untrodden
territory. He combed a hand through his hair and cursed under his breath. He
could almost feel the ghost of her touch, and the feel of her under his
fingers.
He got up to light another lamp. He didn’t trust himself to go back to sleep
just yet; with a bitter sigh, he knelt and began polishing the already pristine
floor. All the while, he willed his chaotic mind to quell itself, but to no
avail.
===============================================================================
The next morning, Aisha supervised the trainees while they improved their 3DMG
skills. Although she was still a relatively low-ranked officer, it seemed to be
understood that she was extremely adept at using their gear. This was a test of
her skills, of sorts—Mike and Levi would evaluate the trainees, and thus her
own chops as a teacher.
“Nifa, don’t drop your hips like that,” she rappelled down to meet her. “Unless
you’re trying to flip, you’ll end up tangling yourself in the line.”
She brushed the reddish brown hair out of her face. “Geez, why is this so hard
all of a sudden?”
Aisha pointed towards the other trees in the forest. “This part of the training
area has trees that are further apart than you’re used to. The others will
probably be headed towards the clearing further ahead.”
“I’ll catch up then. Thank you Lance Corporal.” 
With a nod, she took off from her perch, making sure to keep herself perfectly
in form as she moved. Aisha smiled slightly and clicked the trigger on her own
gear. This was one of the best parts of supervising trainees, really—she got to
zoom through the trees, relishing the feeling of the wind through her hair and
the adrenaline that came from unbridled speed. When she got to the final
portion, the clearing, it was unsurprising to see that two trainees had already
beaten their competition there and were decimating the Titan analogues in
tandem. Petra Ral and Gunther Schulz were both in the top ten of their
division; it boded well that instead of fleeing towards the interior, they came
to the scouts instead. Their skills were nothing to be sneered at, even as
unseasoned trainees—they were both quite fast and impressively precise. Unlike
her own team, they worked better together rather than as individual units. The
only thing that could serve to be improved before they went out into the
expedition was their co-ordination, but that would have to wait until they were
assigned to teams.
“Good job,” she smiled approvingly as the pair descended from the last Titan.
Their cohorts had finally caught up, adding cuts to the intact-pieces of the
training dummies. They would lose points for not making the first cut, but it
was better than not managing to touch the thing at all.
“I feel like I’m made of jelly,” Gunther rotated his shoulders slightly, trying
to shake the sensation out of his limbs.
“That’ll be the strain of the gear on your body,” Aisha said. “You weren’t used
to the extra pressure because of how far apart the trees were.”
A figure appeared from the flank and Petra gave a little squeak of surprise.
Aisha turned to see Levi, his immaculate cravat and blasé expression intact.
“I’ll take over the brats now,” he said simply. “Mike wanted to see you.”
“We’re getting tested already?” Gunther looked at Aisha with some desperation.
“If you have a problem with that, you could just ship off to the interior like
the shitty MPs,” Levi’s voice carried the same blend of harshness and boredom
as it always did.
“N-no sir!”
She looked over at the lot of soldiers, who were all looking rather sheepish.
“Good luck guys, you’ll be fine.”
They saluted her; it still felt strange to have such respect and deference. She
smiled at them, and turned to Levi with her own salute, which was met with a
curt nod. She could hear the worried murmurings of the trainees melting away as
she took to the air again. She wasn’t worried. If they could survive Levi, then
perhaps they would be able to survive the outside world, too.
Mike was looking uncharacteristically talkative when she arrived. Gelgar and
Henning both gave her a look that shared their confusion, while Nanaba seemed
completely unaffected.
“How were the rookies?” he greeted her with the slightest of smiles.
“Decent, there are a couple standouts. I can’t wait to see if they survive
Captain Levi,”
Gelgar snickered. “Poor kids.”
“So, Mike, why are we here?” Henning asked with interest. Team Zacharias had
long since shed their trappings of formality with each other. Around their
peers, of course, they would stick to the soldierly means of address, but as
they grew closer, the titles became unnecessary. It was odd—Aisha thought of
poor Eld and Levi. Although he’d been at the Captain’s side for years, if Eld
slipped up, Levi would probably skin him alive. They had their own dynamic, but
it was so very different.
“You’re all going to go get changed.”
The three younger soldiers stared.
Nanaba grinned. “We’ve got leave to go out.”
Gelgar slapped an arm around both Aisha and Henning, earning himself strangled
protests from his teammates. “Holy shit, really?”
She chuckled, exchanging an amused look with Mike. “Yes, really. We’re good for
the evening, now get a move on.”
Her teammate grinned and proceeded to pull the other two along in his haste to
get back to the barracks.
After the trio departed, she turned to her squad leader. “How did you manage
this, anyway?”
“I never ask Erwin for anything, so when the need arises…” Mike sniffed in
amusement. “He’s planning on giving Hange and her team some time off before we
set out too.”
“He’s really trying to do what Shadis couldn’t and keep this brigade together.
I almost think he can do it,” Nanaba said wistfully. “We just never know what
he’s thinking. Or do you?” She eyed him with a somewhat cheeky smile.
There was a hint of awkwardness in the large man as he answered. “No, even I
don’t know what the hell he’s up to half the time.”
Nanaba’s smile widened; she seemed years younger—far more carefree than normal.
“Well, I suppose all that’s left for us is to enjoy the evening. It should be
good for the kids, especially Aisha.”
Mike was thumbing the belt of his harness in one of his little uncomfortable
gestures. His voice however, was more assured. “It’s okay to feel like you
deserve a break too, you know.”
Her brows lifted in surprise, and their eyes met for a second. She felt that
rush of gratitude and relief that came with the security of the
military—specifically with the warm, though understated regard of her squad
leader. She was sure that she owed him more than she could ever repay.
“Alright, I’ll relax. But only if you do, too.”
                                     ----
Aisha passed Gelgar a flagon of water with a wary, yet amused look.
“We didn’t think you’d get this drunk,” Nanaba said mildly. “You’d better shape
up by the time we get back.”
“S’okay,” he answered with a lazy wave of his hand. “Just haven’t…had anything
in a while….” Henning gave him a suspicious look at edged away slightly. “I’ll
be fine.”
“If you throw up on me I’ll help the tavern keeper kill you,” he warned.
“Start a fight in here and I’ll end you both,” Mike warned them quietly. The
two soldiers quickly began to behave themselves.
“You look lost in thought, Aisha,” Nanaba took another bite of her meal.
“Have you ever wondered what it would have been like if you didn’t join?” she
asked absently. “Or, say, if the wall wasn’t breached…or even if, things had
just been different somehow.”
“Why are you asking?”
“I just…don’t know what I would be doing now if I wasn’t in the military,” she
said.  There was a forlorn look on her face. “Ambros said that Lotte expected
me to get married. That’s why she left me some of the things she did. Would I
just be scraping it by in the Underground? I feel like all I have is being a
soldier.”
Mike sighed. “I can’t see you ‘scraping’ by, at any rate, even if you weren’t
in the corps. It’s not a bad thing to join because there’s nothing else going
for you either. My parents died when I was young, so unless I wanted to run the
farm they left by myself, I had to join the military.”
Aisha smiled sadly. “I think Henning and Gelgar are some of the only ones I
know with normal families.”
“More of them exist, but you just can’t help remembering the ones like us,”
Nanaba said bitterly.
“My folks were decent people,” Mike continued. “They were old already when I
came along, so it wasn’t a surprise.”
“If I hadn’t been here, well,” Nanaba laughed coldly. “I might not have been
alive. I didn’t have anything to look forward to either.”
The younger soldiers looked on silently, lost for words.
“Let’s jut say that my parents weren’t the greatest,” she explained. “But the
point is, there are a lot of soldiers like me. We joined to get away. We
weren’t being brave or even signing  up for the greater good at the time.”
Mike’s grip on his flagon tightened slightly. “We all have our reasons, Aisha.
They’ll even change with time. It’s not productive to keep dwelling on the
‘what ifs’.”
“I guess,” Aisha took another sip of her drink. “You knew Ambros while he was
in the corps, right?”
“I did,”
“Why do I get the feeling you didn’t like him?” she smiled sadly.
“There wasn’t much animosity between us for the most part,” he explained. “He
was a veteran when I came in. Well-respected, with a decent kill-streak.”
“So, what happened?”
“One time we were out there, and he decided to take on too much for himself. He
lost his cool and got his squad had been torn apart,”
“That’s when he got injured.”
“He did. I was under his command, and he was badly wounded,” he said. “Another
teammate and I barely got him out of it alive. It seemed like something
personal happened before we went out. I never really forgave him for that.”
Aisha remembered the venomous way that Ambros and looked at his half-brother
back in wall Sina. Could that have been it?
“He regrets it, I think.”
“We all have regrets,” he gave a bear-like yawn and stretched. “He never talked
to us, or anyone, for that matter. No one knew until it was too late. I guess
that’s why I wanted to not make that mistake with my soldiers.”
“That makes sense,” she said. “I suppose you’re worried that I’m still
grieving.”
“I know you are. It’s just better to deal with it.”
She laughed. “I got yelled at by the Captain because he thought I was being too
public about it.”
“He’s probably worried about your reputation,” Nanaba said. “You know he’s not
the best with words, but he’s seen a lot of soldiers come and go. You’re
already very young, so it’s already an uphill battle to earn and keep your
respect. A lot of folks hear about your kill count and they don’t believe
it—far less if they see you in a state.”
“Speaking of reputations,” Mike sighed. “I know Erwin spoke to you about our
fund raising ventures.”
“He did,” she said sheepishly. “I don’t know why I’m going, to be honest.”
“You’re a fresh face,” he said with some amusement. “Apparently you’ll offset
me the way that Eld offsets Levi.”
Aisha snorted. “That’s an interesting line of thought.”
“We should head back,” Nanaba yawned. “Why are those two so quiet suddenly?”
They looked over and saw that the boys had fallen asleep in a fairly
undignified heap. People nearby were staring.
The older soldier may have smiled, but the kick that she aimed to their bench
was vicious enough to throw them onto the floor. Aisha stifled her giggles with
a last swig from her flagon. It was hard to stay florlorn on nights like these,
even when the weight of loss and responsibility wore on her. Maybe she’d be
fine after all.
                                     ----
Days later, the duty of training and teaching gave way to a vastly different
calling. The silence clawed at Aisha’s nerves as she stood stock-still in the
middle of the barracks, her posture awkward and self-conscious.
“It’s remarkable,” Nanaba finally spoke as she walked in a circle around her
with a thoughtful expression. “How in the world does this fit so well?”
Kate tugged at the heavy brocade, adjusting the falling skirts of the abhorrent
garment that was slowly draining the composure of her fellow soldier.
“I really don’t need to do anything,” she surmised, closing her sewing kit. “It
does seem to be perfect.”
Hange had a sympathetic smile. “I mean, it’s very nice—but the look on your
face is spoiling the effect.”
Aisha’s brow creased. “I feel really stupid.”
“You’ll only look stupid if you keep standing like this,” Nanaba emulated her
posture with an exaggerated air. “Relax.”
“I’m not really used to wearing this sort of thing,” she said. There was a
longer mirror that had been brought in, leaning against the wall in its sturdy
frame. She gazed at herself, trying to remember what her mother looked like,
and failed.  The dress was one of the horrendously expensive things Lotte had
put away for her. It was likely to be her mother’s—the fit was too perfect, and
the style and colours were a bit more modern than the others. All of Lotte’s
old dresses were far too long. This one was cobalt-blue,  and cinched in
tightly at the waist; its skirts weren’t the full, ball-gown affair, but rather
something half as intolerably large. Aisha looked at the amount of décolletage
that was on display and wilted.
“I suppose this is how the other half lives,” she sighed. The thing felt like a
heavy cage.
                                     ----
She had no idea how they managed to fit her and the blasted skirt into the
carriage later that evening. Mike had taken one look at the sheepish,
uncomfortable expression on Aisha’s face and burst into his strange, snorting
laugh.
“I look ridiculous.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, his encouraging tone slightly undercut by the
amusement in his eyes. “I actually wouldn’t have recognized you if I hadn’t
seen that horrified look on your face.”
“They put rouge on me,” Aisha complained. “And kohl.”
“You make that sound like an ordeal. I’ll be thankful I’m not a woman, then,”
he nodded as the carriage took off. He was in a tailed suit that was
deceptively well-tailored, looking far more expensive than it probably was. It
seemed little-used by the lack of wear on its seams, with the only indicator of
age being its slightly dated style.
“Are we meeting the commander there?”
Mike nodded. “Levi and Eld will be in his carriage. I got the feeling Hange
told him that we wouldn’t all fit in one,”
Aisha turned slightly pink. “I’ve never felt this obtrusive in my life.”
“You’ll fit in at that ball,” he said. “Believe me, if you think this is
outrageous, wait until you see what some of the noblewomen manage to fit
themselves into.”
As it turned out, her squad leader was right. Two hours later, the carriage
came to a stop inside wall Sheena. From the inside, Aisha could see the
lamplight catching on the assorted jewels that shone on the dresses the other
women wore, while some even adorned their hair. She touched the simple velvet
ribbon around her neck and wondered just how heavy some of those elaborate
getups could be.
Mike helped her out of the carriage, and she took a moment to straighten the
annoying skirts. The difference in height between them made walking arm in arm
a bit comical, but it was comforting to have him there. He easily dwarfed every
man that she saw, so when their inquisitive gazes rested upon them, most of the
time, they focused on Mike due to his sheer, impressive size.
The second carriage pulled up a short time after, as the pair waited on the
vast staircase leading to the building. Apparently this was the mansion of some
Earl who was itching to show off his wealth to the businessmen, and also to the
military. Many nobles found that keeping the right company kept them
relevant—and safe.
Eld was the first to disembark, also clad in a similar suit to Mike’s. It
seemed as though he had grown used to being dragged to these things. He caught
her eye and paused, looking a little startled.
“You look like a different person,” he gaped.
“This must be how dolls feel after a game of dress-up,” Aisha complained.
“Kate’s responsible for most of this. Major Hange and Nanaba supplied the
encouragement.”
“You grew up as a tomboy, I suppose,” he said with an amused tone.
“More or less,” she said. “My guardian’s mother was quite the lady, so she made
me learn etiquette and all that, but I never had the cause to get dressed up
like this.”
“It suits you though,” he said. Aisha tinged pink again. Another layer of
discomfort was added as the knowledge that this was her mother’s dress stayed
to the very forefront of her thoughts. A woman she never knew, and quite
possibly a woman who hated her existence. How had she felt when she wore this?
She turned her face away, hoping that she could hide the sudden despondency on
her face. Then she saw Levi, and felt her skin practically burn under his gaze.
“Captain.” She kept her voice matter-of-fact. He looked completely at home in
the well-tailored, formal suit.
There was something strange in his eyes, but he simply quirked an eyebrow at
her. As though he thought better of saying what was on his mind, he looked back
at the commander.
“Let’s get this over with.”
===============================================================================
 
Levi didn’t sip the wine he was offered; it stayed untouched in his hand, the
crystal glass catching the light of the candles. Nearby, his companions had
done the same. They only raised their glasses after Mike signaled that he
hadn’t detected anything amiss. After the last attempt to poison Erwin, the
safer they could be, the better.
He was in a slightly more sour mood than usual, and the reason behind that was
gnawing at him. Every time he looked at her, his thoughts darkened. She was
still arm-in-arm with her squad leader, who was talking to one of the invited,
high-ranking garrison members. Her profile was illuminated by the grandiose
chandelier, filled with quite possibly hundreds of candles; that regal glow to
her skin was utterly distracting, and so was the cut of the gown she wore.
Unwelcome desires were adding their presence to his already roiling mind.
The nobility were mulling about, many of them whispering excitedly as he walked
by. He hid his annoyance behind his usual, stoic expression. While members of
the public usually hid their fascination, the rich and privileged had no such
need. He noticed that many of them stared openly at Aisha—quite possibly
because of her strange features. Some held derision on their faces, while other
seemed fascinated, as though she was some sort of collector’s item. He never
needed a reminder about how much he hated these pigs, but this had certainly
done a good job. He easily found a spot near to one of the many verandahs, well
outside of the activity of the party.
Erwin had already found the noble who threw the ball—Earl Konig. The man was
probably a bit past middle age, and was the picture of excess. From his overly
flashy clothing to the rounded figure of one who had no issues feeding himself,
he was truly from a different world. Erwin’s charm seemed to be
working—especially on the women surrounding the pair. Eyes fluttered as they
took in his high cheekbones, and his well-built physique. Those further away
from the goings on were all enraptured in their own conversations; he spotted
Aisha with Eld, chatting amongst themselves as the took in the splendour of
their surroundings. The younger man was all smiles, but every time he looked at
her, there was an ever-so-slight change. Levi cursed himself again. This was
getting out of hand.
His heightened attention towards her caught the way the colour drained out of
her face, even as he tried to distance himself. He’d never seen her look like
this before, even when facing Titans. Her dark brows were creased in an irate
expression, her posture stiff and combative—but her eyes seemed to hold a tinge
of fear.
 Swearing under his breath, he left his spot, dodging the guests who excitedly
tried to catch his attention in order to wrap him up in useless chatter. He
glanced across at Mike; by the icy glare and the set of his jaw, he'd also
noticed the change in the girl, but he wasn't looking at her. Oblivious, Eld
was extending his hand to someone who had approached them. When the man turned,
his face was illuminated by the laden chandelier.
He looked almost exactly like Ambros Krause.
 
 
Chapter End Notes
     As you can tell, I love me some drama.
     I'm hoping to get the story moving in earnest now, with some key
     development for these two munchkins. Levi has some idea that he's got
     feelings for her now (weirdly accurate psychoanalytic dreams,
     anyone?), but he's not at all experienced with how to deal with them.
     Spoiler alert: he does not deal with them well. At all.
***** Hit the Floor: The Civilised Chaos, Part 1. *****
Chapter Notes
     Hey everyone :) I’m glad to see so many people like my tendency to
     shove angst and drama in the plot haha. This chapter is going to be
     some more exposition, and it sews the seeds for a few storylines that
     come in later ;)
     Now, on a bit more somber note, I chose Linkin Park for this chapter
     because it seemed fitting. I had a banged up, burned CD of Hybrid
     Theory when I was about seven or eight, and that’s what got me into
     metal. I still remember my parents getting me Meteora for Christmas
     when I was ten. As you may be able to tell by my tendency towards
     using song lyrics in my writing, music is a big part of my life. I
     literally would not be the person I am today without this band, even
     if I did outgrow them as I got older.
     Content Warning: Suicide.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
                I know I'll never trust a single thing you say
            You knew your lies would divide us, but you lied anyway
            And all the lies have got you floating up above us all
                        But what goes up has got to fall
                            One minute you're on top
                      The next you're not, watch it drop
                            Making your heart stop
                         Just before you hit the floor
                           One minute you're on top
                     The next you're not, missed your shot
                             Making your heart stop
                               You think you won
                             And then it's all gone.
 
 
                                      ~~~
The door shook under his fists; the heavy wood was too sturdy to shift
completely. He could hear his wife crying from the other room, but on the other
side of this door, there was only silence.
“My love, please, open the door,” he was screaming.
The servants were piled at the end of the hallway, watching in varying degrees
of horror as he slammed his sobbing body against the door again and again.
Finally, some of the yard boys came forward and held him back before charging
in tandem—the force of their combined efforts, splintering the very frame from
its wall. Xavier flung past them and into the dark room, skidding to his knees
as he slid on the wet floor.
She was there, on the flowered rug, eyes vacant and staring up at the ceiling.
A once beautiful face was ashen and grey, slack with unknowingness and almost
waxen. Whoever said that persons looked at peace when they died was a liar. She
was covered in cold, slick blood when he took her into his arms—though the way
she behaved was similar, in a sort of way. Her body was leaden, and heavy,
protesting his every move—almost the way she’d been in life. His eyes were
clouded with tears, but they combed every inch of the place before settling on
the little bundle on the bed. One of the men had broken through the crowd
gathered at the door and passed over them, picking up the tiny body. The little
girl stirred feebly and opened her eyes.
“She’s alive, Lord Varnhagen,” he breathed, searching her over for injuries.
Even from his perch on the floor, he could see the shredded cuffs of her little
dress, as though it was cut apart.
The servants parted for Miesha, who surveyed them all with red-rimmed eyes. The
butler took the little girl over, and she shook her head, refusing to look at
them both.
“Take her back to the nursery,” she said, her voice hoarse. “The rest of you go
back to your work. Now.”
Xavier stayed on the floor, the weight of the corpse sapping the feeling from
his legs as he choked on wordless sobs.
                                      ~~~
“You look well, Aisha,”
Eld turned to his comrade in surprise. “You know the Baron?”
Her mouth was dry. She could still feel the ache on her fist when she’d hit him
all those years ago. The brown eyes that turned up to his were vicious with
hatred.
“No, I don’t,” she bowed stiffly and moved to walk away.
The Baron sidestepped her, blocking her way as her slack-jawed friend seemed
beyond words. The large, imposing shadow of her squad leader loomed close, and
Xavier was forced to look away from her.
“Baron Vanhargen,” his deep voice was neutral, but somehow deadly in its
inflection. “I don’t believe this is the place.”
The other man drew himself up to full height and met his glare. “I’m not sure
if I know what you’re talking about.”
Aisha stared up at the two men, willing herself to keep her temper in check.
Across the room, she saw the Baroness—her lips pressed in a firm line as she
kept a death-grip on her daughter’s arm. The party mulled around them, unaware
of anything other than the promise of drinks and social niceties.
Xavier’s voice held a new-found smoothness. “I would like to speak to this
soldier. Isn’t it common for the nobility to take interest in the talented men
and women who protect us? Is that not why you came here?”
There was a flash in his eyes that told Aisha that her usually-composed leader
was quickly losing his temper. She looked across at Eld, and there was a
desperateness in her expression that spurred him into action. He tapped Major
Zacharias on the shoulder and murmured in a low voice.
“I’m sure the Commander needs you to help him with the others,”
Aisha slipped away to his other side and melted into the crowd. She took wide
strides as she walked across the smooth, shining marble floor, trying to put as
much distance between herself and the Baron as possible. A hand caught her arm
and she stiffened.
“We’re going this way.”
She turned to see the Captain—a mixture of relief and a new anxiety settled
into her chest. His comparatively large hand wrapped around her wrist and he
led her out of one of the doors and back onto the verandah.
“He’s going to follow us out here,” she said, glancing behind them. Mike had
spotted Levi, and seemed content to let him handle the situation—he’d made his
way back to Erwin, all the while his face was stony and livid. Eld, meanwhile
was trying to keep the Baron in a conversation, but it quite obviously was not
working. With a cursory look, he left the younger man standing there and was
wandering the floor.
“So that’s your father.”
Aisha sighed. “You could call him that, I suppose.”
The girl seemed exhausted already, as though the weight of the evening was
tearing her down. His social graces had never been good, and at the moment he
was searching for something he could do to alleviate that look. All of the
possibilities were far too ridiculous and were summarily dismissed.
“What are you going to do, then?” he asked finally.
“I can’t avoid him forever,” she said. “But every time I see him I just have
this blind rage. I feel like I can’t do anything.”
She was staring at him helplessly, which didn’t help the untangling of his
thoughts. Things that required brute skill—Titan kills, for instance, were so
easy. These things that could not be solved by his methods were far more
troublesome. He could easily kill that man, but what good would it do? Quite to
the contrary, it would probably make everything worse—it was absurdly obvious
that he was not built for politics, which was why he’d always stuck to the
dirty, heavy lifting. Erwin, Hange and the others were the sliver-tongued
tacticians. Levi glanced inside again; he assumed the stupid man would not want
everyone to know that Aisha was his, but he still had far-reaching power. It
was obvious that he didn’t want his daughter dead, or she could have been gone
a long time ago…but now that he had her in his own territory, Levi felt uneasy
in a way that very few things had made him.
“Have you ever told Erwin about this?”
Her gaze dropped. “No,”
“Then maybe you should,” he said plainly. “He’s going to figure it out anyway,
as soon as he spots that man. If he knows the full story, he might be able to
make sure this shit happens less often.”
“I joined the military in hopes of escaping him,” she said. “I wanted to help
humanity and be free. Why does he have to keep finding me?”
She shivered slightly as the chilly wind picked up, knotting her hands together
to keep them warm. This time, he didn’t think—before he’d been able to register
his body’s movement, he had reached out to cover her hands with his. It was
instinctual, much like the drive that allowed him to kill with such efficacy.
The look of surprise on her face was only heightened by the faint blush that
deepened the rouge on her cheeks. Her hands were so delicate—long fingered but
slender, as though they were meant for fine work; he could easily envelop them
with his own, a thought which stoked the embers of those dark thoughts he’d
quashed earlier.
“You just aren’t built to live in this shitty place, are you?” his voice
carried the same bland frankness as ever, eliciting a smile from the smaller
woman.
“I’m really not,” she agreed. There was a double truth to that.
There was nothing she could do to stop herself from thinking about this—how she
loved how warm his hands were, how comforting their calloused surface was as
they held her own. It felt very much like home—like she’d come back from an
expedition to something she’d always known. Was it wrong to feel this way? The
doubt gnawed at her with each passing second; he was her superior, and this had
to be some sort of girlish dalliance. There was no other way for her to
rationally consider his awkward kindness—after all, Humanity’s Strongest was
not a bleeding heart, not like her.
“There you are,” the sound of that voice shattered her thoughts and the feeling
of home slipped away as his hands slid off hers.
Xavier was illuminated by the light of the party behind them, his unwelcome
presence like a beacon upon the dark night. His eyes shifted from her to Levi,
the pride tempered by some measure of unsureness.
The shorter man did not falter. “It should be fairly obvious that she came out
here to avoid you.”
“You’re Captain Levi, then.”                                           
The Captain silently met his gaze, his eyes steely and neutral.
“I came out there because she doesn’t know the real story,” Xavier looked
directly at Aisha. “You’ve been fed lies and half-truths.”
“I don’t have any reason to trust someone who threw me away,” she answered
venomously. “Why would Ambros lie to me? Why would my mother’s diaries lie? Who
would she have been deceiving?”
The colour drained from Xavier’s face. “She—had diaries?”
Aisha thought for a split second, and decided to leave the maid’s name out of
it. There was no telling what he would do if he found out that she’d been
hiding them for all those years. “She did. And she hated you.”
“How do you know they’re real then?” the look on his face was becoming more and
more desperate—deranged. “I loved her more than anything.”
“Like a child loves a toy,” Levi said quietly. “Uncaring about the inability of
the toy to love him back, even when he destroys it piece by fucking piece. Did
you ever buy a new one?”
“You know nothing about me,” Xavier hissed. “You haven’t given me a chance
Aisha. I’m your father, you owe me that much.”
Levi looked over at Aisha and saw her livid expression, her fists clenched at
her sides. He seethed inwardly. Sure. A father who never bothered to take care
of her, one who never lifted a finger to save someone precious to her—yet
still, he wanted to treat her as his own illicit property—to stoke his own ego
and try to believe he wasn’t the coward he knew himself to be.
“She wrote entries in that diary right up to the day she died,” Levi’s voice
carried ominously. Aisha looked up at him, eyes wide.
“So you read it,” her voice was low, tentative.
“I’ll spare you the gory details,” he said.
“No,” she fixed her eyes on her father. “After I gave you the book, I realised
it was a mistake for me to run from the truth like that. I shouldn’t have put
that burden on you, and I should know what happened.”
Levi’s gaze met Xavier’s and the older man faltered slightly. “You drove her to
the point of no return. She planned to kill Aisha that day before she killed
herself—she wanted to drug her to sleep and slit her wrists, but she couldn’t
do it. There was nothing for her in her shithole of a life: she couldn’t love
her daughter and she couldn’t love herself. You took everything.”
There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes. The details that no one else
would have known—that the doctor who checked Aisha over had confirmed the
little girl had been dosed with the sleeping aids that Thema had been given to
stop her nightmares. The shredded cuffs of her dress had been cut away, as
though the person holding the blade was hesitant.
Levi turned his attention to Aisha, whose breathing had become more and more
shallow with each word. He didn’t care to stop himself this time, and placed a
hand at the small of her back, as though assuring her that he was there. There
weren’t any words he could muster to help otherwise.
There was an approaching shadow, and he noted that Erwin had come to find them
at last. It seemed as though Mike had finally caved in and told him everything.
His cunning gaze was unbroken as he took in the scene.
“Commander,” Aisha saluted him, and he waved her off gently.
“Lance Corporal Kaur,” he said quietly. “Mike has told me that you aren’t
feeling well. You can go back to the barracks with Captain Levi. I will give
the other nobles my regrets on both of your behalf.”
Her eyes widened. “Thank you, sir.”
“I wanted to speak with you, Baron,” his deep voice seemed to bring the man
back to reality. “I’ve heard that you wanted to sponsor the Corps.”
The two soldiers paused.
“I did, yes,” Xavier said in a low tone.
“I wanted to politely refuse,”
“Commander, if I may,” Aisha stepped forward.
“Go on, Aisha.”
“Please don’t refuse because of me,” she said. “I know we need the funds, and
this is for humanity.”
Erwin considered her for a second. “I want you to understand that this would
mean he has a greater influence on some of the things we do.”
Aisha looked at her father. He was laid bare before her now, a weak, pathetic
man. She could handle him—Ambros, Lotte and her time in the Corps had made her
formidable enough to withstand the storm. She’d allowed herself to slip this
evening as he’d taken her by surprise—but he was nothing compared to the
Titans…less than nothing compared to her suffering.
“I am aware, sir. I stand by my words. I gave my heart to humanity, and I will
not let anything within these walls break me.”
Xavier was staring at her as though she’d morphed into some form of horrifying
creature—he was scared of his daughter because she had become something
incomprehensible to him.
Levi noted with disgust the way that the parasitic, pleading gaze remained
under the awe. He soon met her gaze with a determined stare. There was a part
of him that was desperate for her to see him the way that he wanted to be seen.
The way that he could never get her mother to look at him. The Commander let
his veneer slip for a second, giving her a proud smile that lifted much of the
heavy weight on her chest. “I commend your spirit. You and Levi should leave
now, I will discuss the particulars with the Baron.”
                                     ----
“Thanks for what you did back there,” Aisha said. She was looking out the
window of the carriage, street lamps casting a soft glow onto her face.
“It’s fine, kid.” Levi was more than a little discomforted now; the intrusive
thoughts were back, and he felt almost helpless against them. He would have
caved that fucking coward’s face in if he could get away with it—hell, he was
sure that she would have, too.
They were back within Wall Rose soon enough, most of the ride passing in
contemplative silence.
“I hope you understand what you’ve committed yourself to,” he said plainly. She
looked at him and smiled sadly. There was determination in her eyes, but he
could tell that she was defeated.
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “I could never run from him even if I quit the army
and went back to the Underground. He’s better off chasing me and not Ambros.
I’d rather have him at my face than at my back, plotting. At least his money
will be going to the Corps.”
She really was a smart, strong girl. He felt a rush of warmth as he
contemplated her delicate features. She’d clawed her way into his life, just as
Ambros said she would. The irritation and hesitation to admit this was wearing
down with time, leaving this confused acceptance in its place.
“You’re a good soldier, kid,” he said finally. “You’ve grown up a lot.”
“A lot of it is because of the military. Thanks for kicking my ass when I
needed it,” she grinned.
The carriage stopped at the base, and he left first, helping her descend
because the ball-gown had almost completely obscured her ability to see where
she was stepping. He checked his pocketwatch; it was almost one in the morning.
The courtyard was completely deserted, with only the whispering of the wind
through the trees making its way through the darkness.
They walked to the barracks almost leisurely, shirking the path in order to
walk amongst the grass and trees. There was an easy silence between them, yet
underneath, a thread of tension remained. He was keenly aware that they were
alone, that he could smell the perfume on her neck and look at the shadows that
were cast along her collarbones by the dim light.
“Tell me if anything happens,” he said suddenly.
She stopped walking and looked at him with surprise. “With Xavier?”
“I can’t accomplish much in terms of politics,” he looked down at his battle-
hardened hands. “But I won’t let you get taken into any games that fucking pig
decides to play.”
Her heart was in her throat, hammering blood into her head and dulling the
thoughts that were battling for attention. “I’ll always tell you everything.”
Was that the truth? Could she tell him about the feelings bubbling in her gut,
setting her skin on fire under his gaze?
He was looking at her again, like he was so tired, so fraught with something
incomprehensible. Was it the same for him? It felt like a prideful folly to
assume he was holding back the same insistent longing…but she couldn’t tear
herself away from it. He’d done so much for her—he was always there, even
though she wasn’t one of his soldiers. There was a chance she wasn’t fooling
herself, right? Whether it was the looming influence of her father on her life,
or the cover of darkness, a certain recklessness was settling in.
The light of the moon and the lanterns barely allowed him to see the intense
look in her eyes. His throat felt dry—any words he could muster would come out
as a dull croak. She was closer to him than he expected, the sweet, fruity
smell of pine needles wafting between them with the breeze. The dream he’d had
was replaying itself as he saw that look in her eyes again. Was it caring?
Desire? He’d seen it on her before, but nothing he’d known in his past could
compare to it. The thought kindled an anxious fire in the pit of his stomach,
filling him with a mixture of horror and happiness. He reached out again, but
this time, he did not awaken in his room—her corseted waist was under his hands
and she stumbled closer, bracing herself against his chest. Like a lost part
clicking into place, the instinctual flurry of movement continued; she looked
up at him and his mouth covered hers.
It was as if he’d been struck by lightning, his nerves were set on fire by her
very touch—her lips were so soft, yielding under him as he was sure he was
being too rough, too earnest. All he could taste was her. He could hear her
little murmurs. Feel her mouth moving inexpertly along with his, parting
slightly in a gasp that he swallowed with ease. His hand snaked up her back,
holding her in place at the base of her head as her fingers clutched at his
suit.
This was exactly what he’d wanted, yet did not care to admit—but it was also
the thing he dreaded. He broke her embrace and stepped away, and time seemed to
rush around them in a flurry, as though catching them up to the present from
their suspended animation. He could feel the painful absence of her warmth from
his skin, the pounding arousal in his veins.
“It’s about time you go back to the barracks,” he said, his voice sounding
detached, even to his own ears.
In the weak light, he registered the way that she’d turned her face away, as
though she couldn’t look him in the eye.
Her tone was sad—forlorn, almost. “Yes, Captain.”
He’d never felt so devoid of his humanity until this moment, when he
consciously made the decision to quash the little yearning voice in his head
with an iron fist. There was no room for selfishness in his life. Nothing gave
him the right to take away her life, her future and tie them to a monster of a
man. She was too young, he was too jaded and this was all too wrong.
He’d just felt so at home when she touched him.
Chapter End Notes
     I am the ~worst~ lololol
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