Trost aftermath 1

[moonshadows]

“You’re drunk.” The smelly man smirks at me. “Really drunk. You’re going to regret that in the morning.”

I stick my tongue out at him. So what if I am? We saved a lot of lives today, a lot of lives, and that deserves celebration. My memories are a haze of banter and cheerful teasing, stories of Cadets getting their first assist or first solo kill, close calls and moments of glory, and hugs. Lots of hugs, and Mike standing up to announce that I needed hugs and being swarmed with warm enthusiasm, promises to offer or provide hugs if I look down or upset or ask, and being so overwhelmed by the sheer level of acceptance that I could only beam.

And then, later, making my very unsteady way over to Moblit to use his thigh as a pillow because Mozu’s going to make him watch over me anyway, so why not make it easy on him?

Poor Moblit. He puts up with so much from me. I should figure out something nice to do for him.

Wait, I’m dreaming. And it’s one with the smelly man, which means he’s going to tell me something important. I try to focus on him, but he blows smoke in my face.

When the smoke clears, I’m in a different dream. An abnormal with barrels strapped to its back runs around on all fours, lizard-quick, and snaps Reiner up to carry him off in its grotesquely elongated mouth. Reiner has already shed his arms and legs, like a lizard. Wait, wasn’t it the tail that lizards shed? I frown, and Annie frowns back at me. She looks so sad, trapped inside that giant crystal. Like a glittery egg she’s waiting to hatch out of. Then the lizard is back, talking to the taller of the dark-haired Cadets Moblit was watching over and telling him that his father is dead. He stalks away and sits at a fire, across from a giant gorilla who asks in a sickly-sweet voice what’s wrong. Nothing, he mutters to Zeke. The gorilla is named Zeke, because why not?

I don’t like this dream. I don’t want Annie trapped in a crystal, I don’t want Reiner to lose his arms and legs and be carried off by the lizard titan, and I don’t want the third Cadet to have to answer to the gorilla while his father is dead. I try to reach out and hug the sad boy, but the smelly man holds me back.

“Don’t be an idiot about it, kiddo,” he says sharply, but he’s not angry. His breath smells like alcohol and unwashed teeth.

I watch the sad boy as the gorilla named Zeke picks him up and carries him away, into the darkness, with the lizard titan following like an obedient dog.

===

The sunlight feels like needles stabbing into my eyes even with my eyes shut, and I know the asshole was right: I do regret this now that it’s morning. My mouth feels dry and tastes like something died in it, my head is pounding, and the only good thing about the world is I seem to be propped in a corner and wrapped in blankets. I won’t have to deal with the nausea and dizziness trying to sit up.

Footsteps, titan-loud, approach and a whimper slithers out of my mouth like the lizard titan.

Shit. That was one of his dreams. Was all that weird stuff important? Struggling to remember distracts me until there’s a cool something pressed to my mouth and Moblit murmurs, “Drink.”

Obediently, I suck at the water skin, pausing every few swallows for breath. It feels like I’m the water skin by the time Moblit pulls it away, like my belly would slosh if I were foolish enough to move.

“How do you feel, Squad Leader?” Moblit’s voice is soft and gentle, but it still feels harsh on my ears.

I scowl, eyes still shut.

“I thought you might,” he teases, the words as warm as the blankets. “It’s okay. You’ll feel better in a minute or two. Can you handle food?”

Reflexive movement proves that the blankets I am wrapped in are tight enough that I can’t actually move. Moblit has a captive to feed, and I feel as pathetic as a baby bird - but I am starting to feel a bit better, and somewhat guiltily I remember that I really didn’t have anything to eat between breakfast and the post-battle celebration.

Did I even eat anything? Some bread, maybe a sausage? Sheesh, no wonder I’ve been cocooned. Levi is probably watching from a distance, pleased that someone is making my idiot ass eat, and I never answered Moblit’s question. Can I handle food? Maybe. If it’s not too much, too fast, but this is Moblit. He won’t let me gorge.

I open my mouth, the baby bird waiting for food, and suck scrambled eggs off a spoon.

Moblit makes sounds of encouragement for every bite I wrestle down, and after about a dozen the churning in my gut eases as my stomach realizes it’s getting fed. Toast is next, dry and crunchy, making me work to chew it at least a little before I swallow, and the water skin makes a reappearance between bites.

“Thank you,” I whisper when my throat feels like it might cooperate.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” Moblit responds. “Just my job.”

But it’s not, and I frown in his direction. My eyes are so gummy there’s no point in trying to open them, and I suspect he’s left them alone so I can’t see his expression just yet. So he can smile at me and know I won’t see how much he really cares. If I could get up the courage to tell him that I care - but he already faces mockery from outside the Survey Corps officers for being a loyal assistant to someone like me. If we were more than that...

An endless stream of crude questions about my genitals flashes through my mind, and my frown deepens. I won’t subject him to that.

“Something wrong, Squad Leader?”

He sounds so concerned, but what could I tell him? ‘I’m sorry you’re crushing on a freak of nature?’ Apologies for all the questions about my private parts he’d face without even knowing the answers? “Moblit...”

“It’s fine,” he insists. “I’m just happy you’re sitting still for food.”

He is. He really is happy that he gets to feed me, even if it’s because I’m a pathetic, hung-over lump. My throat closes up, but I won’t cry. I’m already too pathetic.

“Will you be okay for a few minutes? I’ll go start a bath filling for you.”

Weakly, I nod.

“Good. Just try to relax, Squad Leader. I’ll be back soon.”

And then his footsteps, no longer titan-loud, retreat across the wooden floor and I wonder if I’m still in the hall that was filled with warmth and camaraderie last night.

There’s a sound like something fell, and light, careful footsteps, and I know Levi was perched in the rafters before his hand alights on my head, fingers spreading across my scalp in a tiny caress before they come to rest in my loose hair. Mozu was watching over me, wasting his time babysitting one four-eyed idiot who drank too much and is suffering the consequences.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

The fingers tighten just slightly on my scalp. Shut up, they say, so I do.

Even more than Moblit, Levi cares and I am filled with the burning mixture of shame and the need to be close to him, to cling to his fierce warmth and bathe in his affection, to open my heart like a flower and sear him with mine.

But I can’t, so I sit like the miserable lump I am and focus on the hand resting on my head as though I were sipping life itself through that tiny amount of human touch.

I’m pathetic.

Footsteps in the distance; Levi’s hand tenses, then retreats in another tiny caress and like a butcherbird in the wild he’s gone.

“Ready for that bath?” asks Moblit, and he scoops me up when I nod. “Okay. Just lean against me.”

Not that I have any other choice, wrapped in blankets, but I go limp against him and my heart leaps into my throat as my head comes to rest on his shoulder. The journey to the baths is swift, all my attention on the warmth of his body, and it’s a disappointment when he sets me on my feet and fusses at the blankets.

“There you go,” he says as they loosen. “I’ll have towels and a uniform ready for you by the time you’re done. Please don’t fall asleep in the bath,” he begs dryly. “Do you need anything before I go?”

A spine. Some courage.

“No. Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he returns warmly, and then a door closes and I’m alone.

===

By the time my bathwater is cold, I have rehydrated enough and digested enough that I feel like an actual person again and not a lump of misery. The soap is scented like some flower I’m not familiar with, sweet and creamy, and it’s surprising how much that helps. My body may be too thin, boney and speckled with scars, but it’s strong and limber and mine, completely superior to all the Garrison turds who cowered and shat themselves when the Wall was breached. I have an assistant who cares about me (and who I’ll have to thank later), my comrades are fond enough of me that I got swarmed when Mike put out the call for cuddles, and the human butcherbird likes me enough that he gifts me with physical contact when I’m miserable.

I saved the lives of probably half the Cadets of the 104th Training Corps, and I don’t know how many of the limp dicks in the Garrison. Maybe I did drink too much, but it would have been fine if I’d eaten first. Balancing everything against each other, there’s nothing to regret. Mentally, I stick my tongue out at the smelly asshole, and suddenly I remember what he’d shown me.

Annie in crystal. Reiner, missing all his limbs, being carried off by the lizard-quick titan. The third boy - was that Bertholt, or Marco? - being told his father was dead and reporting to a gorilla named Zeke.  He didn’t tell me what to do with it, but that just makes me determined. Especially since Annie and Reiner mentioned a certain name I’ve been searching for...

The bath has served its purpose. I pull the plug and stand, towels waiting for me on the stool, uniform piled on a table. Having something to chew on, leads to tug and follow, helps almost more than the bath and I dry myself quickly, thoughts racing as I don my uniform and put my hair up and where-? Moblit is waiting with my glasses when I open the door, and I smile thanks at him as I adjust the straps.

“Feeling better, Squad Leader?” he asks, as though the answer weren’t obvious.

“Mm. Thanks to your hard work,” I tell him, and his face lights up.

“I-I’m glad to serve!”

His joy strengthens mine, and I feel luminous. “Moblit...I need to see the files on the 104th.”

He doesn’t ask why. He never asks why. “Right this way,” he says with a nod, and we’re off.

I set him to searching for Ymir while I locate Braun, Reiner and - oh, no, Marco doesn’t match. It must be Bertholt that I saw in my dream, and when I find him in the H section I’m sure of it. Same mountain town, same spotty record. We don’t even have the name of his father. Annie is also from that area, records just as spotty. Seeing Eren emerge from the angry titan that had been attacking the others made me think about how the Colossal Titan vanished without a trace, and how both it and the Armored Titan had never been seen since the day they first appeared.

If Eren could do it, why not others?

The 104th was in Trost for graduation.

Reiner and Annie would be best.

But Reiner and Annie are only seventeen; they would have been twelve when Shiganshina fell. How long has it been since Bertholt last saw his father? I remember how keenly I missed Papa when I was twelve; the thought of being separated from him for five years only to find out later that he’d died is just a bit too close for comfort, considering that we’d arranged for me to already be gone when he passed.

I’ll talk to Bertholt. I can establish a connection with him, bonding over lost fathers and concern for his companions. If Reiner and Annie do have secrets, as I suspect, they are well-versed in keeping them and approaching them will get me nowhere. No, the one I’ll talk to first is-

“Ymir!”

Moblit’s triumphant voice brings me out of my thoughts, and the paper he’s holding ignites excitement in my veins. “You found her?”

“Yeah!” He holds the file out to me, victory shining from his face, pleased to have pleased me.

I skim the information, excited rather than disheartened by all the gaps in her records. We don’t even know where she’s from; she just walked up and enlisted, named a town of origin but couldn’t point to it on a map, and her citizenship papers were suspect. As far as I’m concerned, that just means the secrets she’s hiding are that much juicier.

“I have to talk to her.”

Moblit nods. “The Cadets are helping with the clean-up effort; I’ll find out which squad she’s been assigned to.”

Something niggles at me, and I stare at her file until it comes back. Christa’s shadow. “No,” I say slowly. “I’ll find Ymir myself. I need you to do something else for me.”

He looks slightly apprehensive. “What’s that, Squad Leader?”

“There should be a girl in the 104th named Christa. Find her record and copy it for me. It’s just a hunch, but I think it will be important.”

For a long moment, Moblit just looks unhappy. Then he nods once, grimly. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Thank you,” I tell him sincerely, and for just an instant his reluctance is replaced with pride.

===

Ymir, when I find her, bears a strong resemblance to Ilse and I have to keep my excitement hidden.

“Is there something you want?” She asks bluntly, tossing bricks off a pile one at a time by the ruined corner of a house.

“Just to talk,” I say, and she grunts. “Let’s go inside and sit down for a minute.”

The look she gives me is wary and distrustful, but she drops her brick and stands up. “Sure. Why not.”

In someone’s mostly-intact kitchen, we right a pair of tipped-over chairs and sit by a table still set for breakfast.

“That’s quite an unusual name, isn’t it?” I ask lightly. “Ymir.”

She looks to the side. “Is it?”

“I’ve only seen it once before.”

Although she still seems to be looking away in boredom, her body tenses and she’s watching me quite intently from the corner of her eye.

“It’s quite the story.” I keep my voice light. “We were out on one of our expeditions past the Walls when I encountered an abnormal titan. He chased me at first, but then stopped and ran back the other way, ignoring me even when I followed. He seemed...anxious,” I say slowly, my voice softening as I remember that day. “Like he’d strayed too far from someplace and had to get back there immediately. When he stopped, it was in front of a giant tree with a cavity about three meters off the ground. Inside the tree was the headless body of a Scout that had gone missing a year before, posed on a pile of broken wood as though sitting on a throne. She looked very much like you.”

Ymir’s turned her head slightly towards me, caught up in the story almost against her will.

“We found her journal, and she had written about her interaction with that same abnormal. He did not eat her right away, but got very close to see her face and then...” My breath catches, because this part still shakes me to my core. “...he spoke. ‘Ymir’s people’, he said, and then he prostrated himself before Ilse and called her Lady Ymir. ‘Welcome,’ he said.”

The change in Ymir is startling. Gone is the hardened, wary look of a cornered animal, replaced with the wide-eyed expression of a girl who’d lost all hope, catching a glimpse of it again.

“He remembered me,” she whispers, tears forming in her eyes. “Even after what he went through...he remembered...”

That is not at all what I was expecting. “Remembered?” I ask gently. “Ymir...what happened?”

Between muffled sobs and through the hands covering her face, the story comes out in a stream of broken sentences and scattered words. She had been a child on the streets, taken in by strangers who declared her “Lady Ymir” and proclaimed that “the blood of the king” ran through her. All she had to do was sit on the throne they built for her and mouth those words, and in exchange she never wanted for food or shelter. But then one day soldiers came, and they were all put in chains and marched through a city where people yelled at them and thew rocks and spoiled food. They were loaded onto a boat like cargo and then unloaded again onto the top of a great wall, lined up on their knees. One by one the soldiers did something to them and kicked them off the wall. One by one she had to watch her subjects, the people who had revered her as a living goddess, topple to the sands below where they turned into titans, and then she herself was falling and the world dissolved into a nightmare.

At some point we moved to the same side of the table because I’m holding her as she weeps, bleeding out the pain she’s kept inside with no hope of anyone ever understanding, stroking her hair and reassuring her that it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t fail them. Inside my head, however, I’m screaming in horror because I wanted to uncover the secrets and origins of titans, yes, but not like this. An entire city beyond the Walls? Soldiers turning humans into titans? How has Ymir held up these last five years, knowing such horrible truths and yet not going mad from them?

“I couldn’t stand it,” Ymir whispers brokenly into my shoulder. “I dug a hole and lay down, trying for sixty years to forget what I had become. Then one day there were people, and I was hungry. I reached...” She breaks down again, hysterical at the memory. “I ate him. I ate him! But then I was myself again and I swore...this time, I would be true to myself...but I never expected to be remembered!”

“You were remembered,” I repeat, stunned by the implications of her words. “You were remembered and revered.”

“I don’t deserve it,” she spits, her voice harsh. “It was a lie. It was all a lie!”

I hug her tighter. “It may have been a lie, but even in his nightmare, you gave him something to have faith in.”

That causes her to dissolve into tears again while I hold her and rock her gently. After a few minutes, she calms down and I release her.

“I guess you’re going to lock me up now,” she says, not looking at me. “Keep me in a cage and experiment on me.”

The words hold an edge of bitterness to them, but are otherwise resigned, and I make a decision I’m sure no one is going to be happy about. “For what?” I ask, forcing innocent cheer into my voice. “For sharing a name with something a titan said? Commander Erwin would hardly stand for it.”

Ymir looks at me in shock, her eyes looking very dark and wide from the tears. “But I’m the same as Eren. If I cut myself...”

“You can really turn into a titan?” I ask in a low voice, the truths she’s shared trembling behind my eyes. “You really came from beyond the Walls, and witnessed people from another land being turned into titans?”

Warily, she nods.

“Ymir...I will keep your secret. All your secrets, unless you give me permission to share them. I ask only that you let me ask you questions. I want to know what answers you hold, even if the world isn’t ready to hear them.”

“You...” Her voice trembles. “You won’t tell? Really?”

“I promise. Whatever you tell me will stay between us.”

The cornered-animal look comes back, but no - it’s the look of a mother desperate to save her child. “Christa,” she blurts. “You have to protect Christa. She carries the blood of the king!”

I’m not even sure what that means, but I nod. “I’ll do everything I can.”

Ymir slumps in her chair. “She’s why I even signed up. To find her. To protect her.”

“How did you know she’s...?”

“I just know!” Ymir shoots me a dark look. “I can’t explain it. I just know.”

“Does she know?”

Ymir looks away. “No. She’s innocent. A fool trying too hard to be a good girl, making up for a sin that’s not hers. She was in the top ten, but she’ll probably go into the Survey Corps.”

“Then I’ll take her for my squad,” I promise. “I’ve been wanting to form a medical aid team. If what you say is true, she’d be perfect for it. No front-line fighting, just saving the lives of those unlucky in battle.”

“You’re serious,” Ymir whispers, staring at me. “You’re going to keep my secrets and protect Christa?”

“I am. I promise.”

“Take me, too. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

I’m quite certain I didn’t actually want to know most of what she’s told me so far, but I nod. “It’s a deal.”

===

Rashad, Keiji, and Nifa are carrying bundles of cloth-wrapped equipment to one of the wagons as I return to headquarters, and for a moment I just follow them blankly with my eyes until what they’re carrying sinks in, and then excitement shoves aside all the heavy thoughts that had clouded my head after my talk with Ymir.

“We got one?” I demand eagerly, and two of my three subordinates grin.

“We got two,” Nifa corrects cheerfully. “Captain Levi was looking for you. We’re off to go check them out.”

“Need to prepare a second wagon, though,” Keiji points out as he passes. “Please wait for Moblit, Squad Leader. He was very insistent on that.”

My impulse is to grab the first horse I can lay hands on and ignore my assistant, riding pell-pell for the blocked gate and the presents Mozu left for me. But that would be heartless of me after this morning’s kindness, and in disappointment I rein myself in. We won’t be heading out to pick up our prizes until both wagons are prepared, so I head inside to lend a hand. It’s not like I’m helpless, after all. The sooner we get everything loaded up, the sooner we can leave, and hopefully Moblit will be back by then.

As I pass inside, I can see three familiar figures walking towards the inner door. Two birds with one stone, right? I dash towards the three Cadets who had shadowed my assistant yesterday.

“Squad Leader!” The shorter of the two dark-haired boys beams at me. “Can we help you?”

“Ah, I just want to borrow him for a few minutes,” I say, pointing to the tall boy who looks confused and slightly uncomfortable rather than sad, like he did in my dream.

“Sure,” he says, as though surprised by my choice. “I’ll catch up with you guys, okay?”

The nod, a little reluctantly, and continue inside while the tall, sad boy follows me.

“Bertholt, right?” I ask as I lead him to the pile of equipment. “Your arms are longer than mine. Could you reach those for me?”

He seems relieved as he plucks the wrapped items off the top of the pile, and sets them down at my direction. Somehow, that just makes me certain that he’s hiding something - although hopefully nothing as world-shaking as Ymir.

“This may be a weird question,” I say as he lifts down another bundle, “but...are you going to talk to Zeke soon?”

A hitch in his breathing; the equipment rattles as the muscles in his arms lock up for just a second. When he looks at me, nervous sweat beads his forehead. “I’m sorry,” he lies through a weak smile, eyes flickering to mine before darting away in shame, “but...who’s Zeke?”

Bingo. I beam at him, the expression Levi calls obnoxious, before turning back to the pile of equipment. “Sorry, sorry. I knew it was a weird question. It’s just that I had this dream last night. A titan than ran around on all fours, like a lizard, told you that your father was dead and then picked up Reiner in its mouth and ran off with him, but Reiner’s arms and legs fallen off and Annie was left behind because she was in a giant crystal, and you sat down at a fire with a gorilla named Zeke and he asked,” almost without thinking about it, I do my best to mimic that sickly-sweet voice, “What’s wrong? But he didn’t care, and you knew that, so you didn’t tell him anything and he picked you up and carried you off with the lizard titan following like a loyal dog and I thought, how horrible! So when I woke up, I checked your records, and found that you three were all from the same area, but we didn’t have any records further back than the fall of Shiganshina and we didn’t have any records of your father at all, so I couldn’t confirm that he wasn’t dead-”

The words are tumbling out of me rapid-fire and when I glance at him, Bertholt looks stricken and uncertain and even more nervous.

“-and then I started wondering about who Zeke was and why he would ask if he didn’t care-” A note of genuine panic enters my voice as I remember the things Ymir told me, and suddenly I’m dreadfully certain I do know who this ‘Zeke’ is, or at least, who he is in relation to Reiner and Annie. “-and I’m sorry, I know this sounds so weird, but I’m worried about what Zeke will do if he’s not happy with you and what would cause Annie to be encased in crystal and why Reiner would be carried off with no arms and no legs, like a dog treat, and...”

My throat closes around the word eaten before the sentence can even finish forming around it, and Bertholt looks grateful for the opportunity to get a word in.

“But Squad Leader,” he says somewhat desperately, “our hometown was very isolated, and it’s not like we had time to gather up our records and take them with us when the titans attacked...” There’s a shadow in his eyes, though, a seed of doubt planted in a corner of his heart. “And...wasn’t that all just a dream?” he finishes, pleading for reassurance while trying to sound like he’s reassuring me instead.

My expression fades into solemnity. “Yesterday, I had a dream that Trost would be attacked while the Survey Corps was hours away, too far to come to the city’s aid, and the miserable pile of shit in charge of Headquarters would abandon his post like a coward, leaving your training class stranded without any way to replenish your gas or blades. I convinced Commander Erwin to wait a short distance away instead of continuing on as planned, and because of that, we were able to ride back and keep casualties to a minimum.” As he’s absorbing this information unhappily, I put my hands on his shoulders. “Bertholt...you and Reiner and Annie...you’re still young. You’re good soldiers, good people, and I don’t believe for a second that any of you would hurt anyone unless you were being forced into it. I don’t want to see Annie imprisoned in a crystal, I don’t want to see that lizard titan carry Reiner off at Zeke’s orders, and I don’t want to know what would happen to you if he carried you off. Please, just think about it, okay?”

The tears are clawing at my throat, and a corner of my mind is frantically searching the HQ’s layout for a good place to hide and cry out the horrors I’ve been made witness to that no one else can know.

Bertholt blinks slowly under the onslaught of my words. “Ah...yes,” he says vaguely. “I’ll think about it. Was that all you needed, Squad Leader?”

“Ah! No, that’s it,” I say, trying to pull false cheer over me again and failing. “Oh, wait! One more thing to think about.” I give up on the cheer and meet Bertholt’s startled eyes. “What did they ever do for you, any of you?” It’s a shot in the dark, a hunch, and I’m not even really sure what target I’m throwing a dart blindly at, but for just an instant I feel like the real Bertholt looks back at me. Whatever this conversation was going to accomplish, it’s done its job and I let my gaze slide away from his face. “Thanks for listening to me,” I tell him softly, hefting an armload of equipment and balancing it on my shoulder. “I’ll let you get back to your friends now.”

It’s not a retreat, I tell myself as I walk way, Bertholt’s grey-green gaze heavy on my back. I’m not running away, and certainly not from the horrible suspicion that Reiner’s future involves being eaten alive at the orders of whoever sent him to break down our gates.

We have an enemy, somewhere out past the Walls, an enemy who wants us dead and isn’t afraid to threaten children, and I can’t even tell anyone because what good would it do? It’s not like we can just mount an expedition to find the wall Ymir mentioned. We can’t even re-take the land that used to be ours just five short years ago.

“Squad Leader! There you are!”

Moblit’s relieved cry shatters my brooding - thankfully - and spits me back out into the courtyard by the wagons, an armload of equipment on my shoulder and not one, but two captured titans waiting to be gathered safely up and transported to a more secure place to study them! Excitement replaces the dull dread and need to cry, and the only reason I don’t fling myself at Moblit in an unexpected hug is because I’m still carrying equipment. That gets handed over to Rashad and before I can even think about my next move, there’s a small napkin-wrapped bundle being pressed into my hands.

“Lunch,” Moblit says firmly, distributing identical bundles to the grateful members of my squad. “I know you’re going to be too excited to eat once we see them, so please, do it now.”

He’s right, and we all know it. Instead of protesting the accusation, I just unwrap what turns out to be an assortment of tasty things between two thick slices of fresh bread. Sharp yellow cheese and thin slices of ham, leaves of crisp lettuce and strips of pepper and a creamy spread to hold it all together. It crunches, it squishes, the flavors dance around in my mouth and I really need to find a way to thank Moblit properly. Somewhere around halfway through the sandwich, I look up and see him eating one of his own, gazing at me in adoration that makes me drop my gaze guiltily.

I don’t look at the others, to see if they know how much Moblit actually cares about me. The fact that he does is quite enough to cause me emotional turmoil; I don’t need the added pressure of other people’s opinions.

Moblit passes a water skin around once we’re done eating, and then it takes next to no time to prepare both wagons. All thoughts of nebulous enemies and the bleak truths about humanity and titans are banished to come back and haunt me later; I’ve done all I can right now. We have a 7m and a 4m to pick up and transport to safety, and everything else can wait.

===

The afternoon is spent escorting our new guests to the courtyard that will be their home for the foreseeable future and securing them under the nervous gazes of Garrison soldiers lent to us for this very purpose. Well, that’s what they get for throwing a fuss about us bringing two light-starved titans through their streets. Moblit is prepared to be worried for my safety, but I’m being very good and directing the preparations rather than getting hands-on, as much as I’d rather be handling it all myself. I have to be content with calling goodbyes to the as-yet unnamed titans, still under their tents for safety, and promising to return soon while the Garrison soldiers give me fearful looks.

Cowards. At least my three Scouts can be trusted with our precious guests.

The trip back is quick and uneventful, sunset staining the sky in shades of scarlet and peach, and Moblit is making hopeful comments about getting a good night’s sleep before I get the go-ahead to start experimenting. The 104th hasn’t graduated yet, however, and I don’t want to miss seeing who chooses to brave the terror of freedom and join us. We should get plenty of recruits this time, judging by how many of them seemed excited during the battle - unless Erwin’s usual overly-dramatic speech about sacrifice scares them away.

...I owe Erwin a verbal peeling for sticking me with the job of making his gamble pay off. Maybe this time, I’ll collect in a different way.

“Squad Leader?” Moblit asks nervously. “You look...excited.”

“Ah, nothing to worry about.” I beam at him, and the strength of my joy forces some of the uneasiness from his expression. “I’m going to write Erwin’s speech this year.”

He’s trying not to smile, but it isn’t quite working. “He’ll never agree to that, you know.”

“He won’t have a choice,” I counter smugly. “He owes me for yesterday; he knew Eren had no memory of what he’d done as a titan but promised everything and then left it to me to deliver. He can shut up and read my speech, or he can hear in blistering detail how much I didn’t appreciate being handed that sack of flaming shit.”

Moblit chuckles. “That’s mean,” he chides insincerely, “but you’re not wrong.”

“Right?” I grin at him. “I worked my ass off yesterday, keeping the Cadets calm instead of terrified. I made sure to greet each one and see how they were doing. I was the face of the Survey Corps, and I was friendly and caring, and I won’t have all that hard work ruined by Erwin standing up there and-”

I screw my face up into an approximation of Erwin’s Noble Suffering And Sacrifice expression, and Moblit bites his lip to smother laughter.

“SACRIFICE YOUR BEATING HEARTS FOR HUMANITY, CHILDREN!” I thunder in a pretty good imitation of Erwin’s command voice. “YOUR BLOOD PAVES THE ROAD TO FREEDOM!”

Moblit cracks and starts laughing helplessly, gasping for breath and wheezing out ‘Squad Leader, don’t’.

As much as I try, I can’t ignore the flutter of excitement that flares in response to his laughter. If I weren’t so afraid of the consequences, I’d do more than just smiling like an idiot at having made him laugh so hard.

We spend the last leg of the trip back tossing ideas back and forth, and I have a pretty good idea of what I’m going to write down by the time we ride into the HQ and discover Levi waiting for us. I open my mouth to thank him for capturing two lovely specimens for me, but his eyes narrow and the way his jaw clenches tells me something unpleasant is happening, and I close my mouth again.

A minute nod conveys his thanks for me keeping my enthusiasm to myself, and then he glares off to the side. “Hurry and pack,” he says shortly. “We’re going to the capitol.”

Right now hangs unspoken in the air, and Moblit swallows. “With your permission, Squad Leader...?”

Absently, I nod and he books it for the inside of the building. I tilt my head at Levi.

“Erwin will explain,” he says.

In other words, I’m not going to like it and I can express that to the Commander directly, but Levi also doesn’t like it so he doesn’t want to hear it from me. I nod my acknowledgment, and the brief lack of tightness around his eyes is a smile of appreciation. He turns, and without another word I follow him over to where Erwin is talking with Mike and Nanaba by an enclosed carriage. Judging by the tail end of the discussion, we’re going to be riding all night to get there before the government’s working hours start. This is a rented carriage, not an official one, which means both that we’ll be swapping horses every few hours along the way and that whatever it is we’re trying to do, we do not have the backing of the government.

Moblit dashes up with both our packs as Erwin and Mike conclude their planning, and Nanaba helps him secure the packs to the roof along with the ones already there. Then Erwin climbs inside, followed by Levi, and Moblit waits for me to climb in before he does. Naturally, Erwin has claimed the forward-facing bench and Levi is sitting on the far end, leaving us the one at the front of the carriage. I sit, my hands absently crawling across the various belts crisscrossing my legs, while my assistant practically collapses into his corner, breathing heavily.

As soon as the door is closed and secure, I can hear Nanaba’s muffled voice calling to Mike, and the carriage starts to move.

Erwin waits for us to get fully underway - and for Moblit to catch his breath - before saying, “The Military Police has taken custody of Cadet Eren Yeager.”

That has me sitting up straight in affront, and Levi scowling out the window. No wonder he didn’t want to hear anything from me; he has to be simmering with frustrated anger over this. I want to blurt out ‘why??’ but that won’t do any good. “Under what authority?” I ask instead. As a Cadet, no single branch of the military has authority to claim custody of him.

Erwin’s expression darkens. “They are claiming that he is not human.”

Not human, and therefore not a Cadet, and their authority supersedes ours.

“You’re filing a counter-claim,” I say. It’s not a question.

Erwin nods. “It will come down to a hearing, of course. We’ve been discussing options and strategy.” We, meaning him and Levi. “You’re the expert on titan biology, however. What can you tell us?”

But my brain has gone in a different direction. “Eren Yeager was born to Dr. Grisha Yeager and his wife Carla,” I recite, sifting through all the things I heard from the Cadets - mostly Armin. “When the Colossal Titan broke the outer gate at Shiganshina, Carla was trapped under rubble. Guardsman Hannes - now Captain Hannes - carried Eren and Mikasa away from the ruins of their house, saving their lives from the titan who then ate Carla, and put them on a ferry to the interior. Eren has harbored a fierce grudge against all titans since that day and repeatedly voiced his determination to exterminate them.”

Levi snorts. “Admirable.”

Although he says nothing, Erwin’s eyebrows draw together and I can see him preparing to ask how that helps us.

“We know who Eren Yeager is and where he comes from,” I continue, spelling this out because apparently I’m thinking too far ahead again. “Some Cadets have spotty records because they’re from far-flung villages, and if that were the case here, the argument could be made that we don’t really know if Eren was ever human. But it’s not, and we do. So that’s one weapon we’ve taken away for our own use. You were already planning to use his impressive dedication to eradicating the other titans?”

“Of course,” Erwin says coolly.

Repeatedly voiced his determination...my brain circles back to that, chews on it, and spits out something so glorious that Mozu is giving me a wary - but hopeful - look before I even open my mouth.

“They’ll have him in a cell, guarded by at least two of their own.” I’m half feeling out the idea, half spelling it out. “It’s doubtful that they’ll let you see him without those guards present to listen to every word you exchange.” Something occurs to me, and I frown. “How did they subdue him for transport?”

“Drugs,” Erwin says shortly.

That makes sense. Can’t shift into a titan if you’re drugged senseless. “Anyway. Even once you convince them to let you see him, you won’t be alone.”

“Obviously,” Levi mutters. “Get on with it, idiot.”

I tilt my head so the lanterns in the carriage reflect off my glasses. “When you get permission to see him, bring Levi. Ask him what his intentions are. He’s been open from the start about wanting to join the Survey Corps and kill all titans.”

Levi’s giving me a skeptical look, but Erwin’s eyebrows are climbing towards his hair. “And the Military Police will hear every word,” he breathes in awe.

Beside me, Moblit’s confusion smooths into comprehension. “Two officers, two witnesses!”

Levi is about to climb out the window in frustration.

“If Eren declares his choice of assignment and is accepted by an officer of that branch, and it’s witnessed by both the Commander of his chosen branch and two members of the Military Police,” I explain, “the choice is legally binding the same as if the proper paperwork had been filed. Eren will instantly become a member of the Survey Corps-”

“-and we’ll have stolen custody of him from the Military Police,” Erwin finishes in satisfaction. “That forces the claim and counter-claim to be heard by Darius Zachary himself. We can tailor our strategy to one man.”

For the barest instant, Levi gives him a look of utterly incredulous contempt. All that time wasted, it cries, plotting scenarios and counter-strategies, and now it’s all useless.

 Erwin is oblivious.

“Do you still want my analysis of Eren’s titan form?” I ask hesitantly.

Levi looks like he’s not sure if this is a relief or just a new torture, but Erwin nods and I take a moment to organize the thoughts I haven’t actually been able to give any time to yet. First comes a listing of characteristics - that the angry titan was muscular and fragile, the glowing eyes, the almost stylized rather than exaggerated face. Only I call him the Attack Titan because no one has given it a name yet, and since what I say will stick, I don’t want the MP being able to twist the word ‘angry’ around at us. I stop just shy of classifying him as a new type along with the Armored and Colossal titans, unwilling to draw comparisons there until I see what results from my talk with Bertholt. However, this is the perfect time to confess to my occasional battlefield habit of trying to dissect severed napes to determine exactly what makes them so crucial to a titan’s survival, and that I have yet been able to determine the cause because whatever lurks within the nape, it is the first to disintegrate. As it was Eren who lurked within the nape of the Attack Titan, he is clearly something distinctly different from the standard or even abnormal titan.

Erwin contemplates this information while Levi gives me a look full of threat for having been an idiot on the battlefield and Moblit makes strangles sounds of frustrated pleading. I keep my eyes on my hands, twisted around each other in my lap, not bothering to protest that it was valuable information. They know it was valuable information; they don’t care because I was being reckless.

“So,” Erwin says into that charged silence, “Eren Yeager is something different from the other titans we have faced. Zachary won’t care about the issue of his humanity, so we needn’t worry about those arguments. All we need to do is convince him that Eren is a vital tool for humanity’s use, rather than a danger to be destroyed.”

“The Military Police aren’t going to like that,” Levi points out dryly.

The conversation devolves into an analysis of the arguments Commander Nile Dok is likely to use, mouthing the concerns of the various rich and powerful groups the MP bow and scrape to. All the things I’m bad at, and the reason I do not envy Erwin his position. I tune out the give-and-take of Erwin and Levi talking strategy, my thoughts circling back to Bertholt...and Ymir.

Humanity has survived outside the Walls, and they are not our friends.

Did Bertholt come from outside the Walls? Did Annie and Reiner? If they are, as I suspect them to be, the Armored and Colossal titans, then are they in the same class of titan as Eren? Is Eren in the same class as Ymir? Did she gain the ability to shift because she ate another human, and if so, why that one? Why haven’t all the countless titans we’ve killed over the years turned back into humans? Eren didn’t know he could become the Attack Titan; are Annie and Reiner similarly unaware of their abilities? How horrible it would be if they weren’t! I can’t imagine the sort of guilt they would feel if they had blacked out for an afternoon and come back to discover that they’d breached the Walls and caused so many deaths. Especially at the age of twelve. But if they, like Ymir and Eren, can control their transformations, then that would explain why we haven’t seen the Armored or Colossal titans in the last five years. But if that’s the case, what caused the attack on Trost?

I don’t have enough information. That’s all there is to it. I don’t have enough information, and I won’t be able to question Ymir for probably another week.

A warm weight lands on my shoulder, startling me out of the dark tangle of my thoughts. Moblit has fallen asleep, exhausted by the events of the last day or two (how much sleep could he possibly have gotten with my drunk ass clinging to him?) and the rocking of the carriage. Levi’s eyes meet mine as this fact sinks in, silently asking what I’m going to do about my slumbering assistant. Not for the first time, I wonder if he knows I have feelings for Moblit. Not that I know what to do with them, any more than I know what to do with the feelings I’ve had for him ever since the first time he called me ‘four-eyed idiot’ in front of Farlan and Isabel, and then defended my status as neither man nor woman in the same breath. Before my thoughts can sink into that particular spiral, thankfully, the motion of the carriage jostles Moblit from his precarious perch. Not wanting him to crack his head on the floor of the carriage, or dive headlong into Levi’s lap, I grab his shoulder and pull him down to sprawl awkwardly across my legs. Levi’s eyes tighten minutely in satisfaction and, blushing, I let my gaze fall onto Moblit’s sandy hair.

It doesn’t mean anything. I would have done the same for Nifa, or Nanaba, or Mike. Still, I find my fingers wandering through his hair instead of plucking nervously at the belts of my uniform, and I wonder if he puts up with me clinging drunkenly to him because it gives him an opportunity to lavish so intimate a gesture on the object of his affections.

With the weight of my slumbering assistant on my legs, my thoughts turn to the issue of my feelings instead of the implicit horrors shared by Ymir. Thankfully, this is a familiar and well-worn rut and the minutes fly by as I build hypothetical futures in which Moblit is alternately accepting of the mismatched amalgam of genitals so close to his head right now, and repulsed by it. Fiercely defiant in the face of crude questions, and driven away by them. Elated by confession of affections, and apologetic that I have misinterpreted his.

Do I even care for him in that way, or am I just so starved for human contact that I will latch onto anyone who expresses acceptance for my ungenderable nature?

After all, I thought I had the same feelings for Mike, and Nanaba, and Nifa. But prolonged emotional contact allowed those incandescent feelings to burn down, and they settled into friendship. Companionship. People that I care deeply about, but have no desire to form a closer bond with.

I’ve known Levi for years, gone through hell with and for him, and I still have no idea how to classify what I feel for him. For that matter, I’ve known Erwin since we were in the Training Corps and he holds himself so aloof that I have no idea whether I want him to fling off his shirt and sweep me off my feet, or just hug me when I’ve had a long day and tell me to get some rest, like Mike does.

Now I’m stuck on imagining Erwin without his shirt, and Levi without his, and wondering what Moblit looks like when he’s not wearing anything from the waist up.

It’s going to be a long night.