A Note from the Authors: Written collaboratively, and as a result styles may differ slightly. Rating is for explicit content in later chapters (graphic violence and sexual situations) - do not proceed further if you are not of the age of majority or are otherwise uncomfortable with such content.

Story begins a year before the 104th join.

Chapter 1: Winter's Son

"...and those of you who wish to join other branches are now dismissed. I wish you luck in your chosen paths."

Wil felt a shiver creep up through his feet from the ground and into his legs; it made them move, made him walk away. Although the Garrison was going to be his temporary station, he felt as though he'd already chosen the Scouts. It was going to be a very short year of additional medical training, before he transferred.

The shiver traveled up his spine and he folded his arms to keep it from being obvious. The sound of the departing footsteps walking with him seemed like a thunder and he repeated his father's words to himself like a mantra to keep away complacency.

"There's a far nobler cause out there, beyond the Walls. It takes good men - great men - to go out to kill and eventually meet their own death, and it is easy, in a way; those of us more interested in life must be made of stronger stuff in order to save it. You are my son - you must balance the scales."

I must balance the scales, Wil thought, feeling his father's hand on his back as if he still stood on the doorstep of their home in Utopia, waiting for a horse to be brought.

At the archway of the yard, Wil paused and turned. The last of them that were leaving filed passed him and he barely saw their faces.

Commander Erwin Smith stood on the stage in front of those that remained, flanked by tarnished unlit braziers that regained a little of their old luster in the muted sunshine. He was almost imperceptibly scanning the diminished crowd and Wil let himself do the same. There were only a handful of cadets remaining - he counted - twelve. Just twelve. Out of a class of at least eighty from the Northern Division. How many would there be from the other Divisions, he wondered?

When the footsteps died away, it started to snow -the first snow of the year - and the Commander tried to smile at them. He held up a palm to catch a few flakes. "A lucky omen." He caught Wil's eye.

Wil didn't believe in luck. He barely believed in the salute he had hammered into his chest countless times until it bruised. But he did believe in his calling.

I'll be with you in a year, he thought, and turned away.

(About a year later)

They were too raw, unbloodied, and useless. Zenas scoffed at the new recruits with the rest of his fellow veterans. Only a handful again this year. He doubted the survival of all but three or four come the next expedition. One in particular had the look of an elitist about him; his blue eyes were flashing with a demented sense of over-importance.

"Don't put that twerp in our squad." He glanced over at Welcome and received a shrug as a response. "He reminds me of my brothers." Left to his own devices, that kid would get everyone killed. Zenas shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

"I'm assuming you're referring to Wil Ives." Welcome glanced down at the roster in his hand and flipped a few pages. "Comes from Utopia. He's got promising talent as a field medic, but his instructor mentions that he doesn't work well with others. You two should get along great." Welcome smirked, but his brown eyes weren't laughing. He knew that kid was no good too.

Without another word, Zenas turned his back to the new recruits and sought out his hiding place. He was reluctant to have any of these new kids on his squad, though there was an open slot and it had to be filled. No one could replace Dorian, but one of these newbies would have to do the trick for now...

Wil only got two steps in the leading-away of his pale mare; the sudden appearance of a young woman about his height with close-cropped brown hair and a spare cloak in her arms interrupted his path. She was smiling at him and it made her elfin face into a heart. He couldn't remember the last time someone had smiled at him that wasn't family and it made him warier still.

"Ives, right?" she checked. She seemed to take Wil's suspicious nod in her stride and shook his hand, "Kitty Bailey. Here," she handed him the cloak with the embroidered Scouting Legion emblem gleaming up at him. "You're with us." Her head jerked over her shoulder to indicate two other Scouts loitering by one of the side-entrances to Headquarters. "I'll introduce you."

Reluctantly Wil followed her, tugging Comet behind him.

"Carter Brook," she gestured at the stocky, fairly short man who stood up from the doorstep. His hands were occupied with stripping a piece of vine of its bark but he nodded to him, his large dark gray eyes as wary as Wil's own. "Draiga Buchanan," she pointed at a smaller, dark woman with sharp eyebrows, eyes, mouth - even her thin hair seemed sharp - who did nothing more than look at him and blink.

"Only four?" was all Wil could think to say.

Brook snorted.

"Oh, Toby's around here someone," Bailey craned her head to look past him and the horse. Wil followed her line of sight to two men talking a short distance away, one a curly-haired blond with a roster in his hand and the other, an olive-skinned athletic sort with light brown hair and five-day stubble, clapping him on his shoulder and moving their direction. "Tobias Spiegel, Squad Leader. Hates his last name - just use 'Tobias'."

When Spiegel got closer, he gave Wil the same wary smile as Bailey had. "You must be our newest addition," he said. His voice was a drawl that grated on Wil's nerves. "I'd say 'welcome', but this is hardly the kind of place you're happy somebody arrives at."

"I'd like to think things will start to look up, now that I'm here," Wil said, the hand that didn't hold Comet's bridle slinging the cloak over his saddle and trailing to his medical satchel strapped behind it.

The four raised their eyebrows and gave one another smirks before laughing heartily.

"Go put up your horse, Ives," Spiegel was still laughing. "And put up that attitude while you're at it. This ain't your personal guard and you're not here to play nurse, no matter how much Kit likes that kinda thing." He pushed past him on his way inside.

Bailey scoffed at the comment. She and Brook turned to follow Spiegel. Buchanan, trailing behind them, jerked her pointy chin at Wil's cloak, "That isn't a saddle blanket. That's your new skin. Remember that."

(Fifteen days later)

"Dammit!"

Zenas didn't look. He knew what Welcome was cursing about. He could see the black flares cutting through the soft blue of the sky. Green flares drove their course in the opposite direction, but he knew it was too late. They were on the far left flank, just behind the scouting group that detected the Abnormal. He dropped the reins to the spare horse that galloped beside him. It was too late.

"Wel!" Zenas galloped forward to reach his squad leader's side. "Are we going to go for it?"

Welcome gritted his teeth. "We don't have a choice."

He was right. The Abnormal was stomping their way, it's tuft of blond hair snapping in the breeze. It had a soldier in its left hand, but it's arms were so long that they were dragging over the ground. The soldier was dead, his or her face having been obliterated by the earth that scraped over the remaining scraps of flesh and bone.

Zenas broke away from Welcome and signaled to the newbie, Dag. He broke his place in the already decimated formation and joined them. Gemma was still ahead of Welcome, but she knew what to do. He watched as she lifted herself, hopping up so that her feet were resting in the saddle beneath her.

"Alright kid, listen up and listen good." Zenas glanced over at him for just a second. He was terrified: face pale and shining with sweat, hands shaking. "We have to engage it or it will tear through the formation. You are going to stay on the ground, got it? Just like we practiced. Get ahead of it and try to lead it in a straight line. Head for the trees."

Dag nodded, licking his lips and taking a deep breath. "Just... just like we practiced. Right." A wary look of determination crossed his features, but that didn't put Zenas at ease. If anything, it made him even more anxious.

The Titan was only a few meters away now. Welcome raised his hand high, their signal to break apart. Gemma launched herself from the saddle, performing her spectacular back flip as the cables shot out. Each one hit the Titan. Dag raced forward, one blade flashing in the sunlight. Zenas and Welcome split apart and fell behind, watching Gemma as she swung herself around the Titan.

One of the beast's massive arms lifted high, brushing one of Gemma's cables to the side. Zenas heard Welcome curse again, and together they shot into the air. Zenas pushed himself faster, spun, and dug his blades into the Titan's neck. The moment he was away, Welcome was adding his own cut to ensure the Titan's fall.

They heard the crunch as the Titan hit the ground. He and Welcome claimed separate trees to land in for a second. Zenas could see Dag's horse, but no Dag. He looked over at Welcome and found a pained expression. Glancing back to the ground. He spotted the blood-stained green cloak crushed between the Titan's forearm and a tree. Gemma was in another tree, having recovered, and she threw a grateful look their way. Zenas just nodded to her once.

One sharp whistle later and their horses were below, so Zenas and Welcome descended. They raced ahead to rejoin the formation, unable to claim the bodies of those two who'd fought beside them. He didn't even know who the other soldier had been...

He forced everything away, focusing on the surrounding area. The trees were easier to fight in, but harder to see flares through. He caught a glimpse of another green flare far to the right. Welcome didn't say a word, they just changed directions and raced ahead at full speed. There was little else they could do.

The kid was officially a bad luck charm. He'd lost his entire squad already, and no matter how many busted ankles and wrists he taped up, he couldn't make up for that. If Welcome had the capacity to hate a person, Zenas knew it would be Wil. Tobias had been Welcome's friend since they were trainees, but now Tobias was dead. They couldn't say that it was Wil's fault, but Zenas couldn't get away from the thought.

They'd come to another stop. Unloading the supply wagons at the new checkpoint was a pain, but necessary. Anyone who was able to move had to help, leaving them all sticky with sweat from the humid late-autumn afternoon. Zenas sat the final crate from the wagon he'd been working on just outside of the small cottage. This was all relatively safe place with little Titan activity. There were only a few more hours until nightfall.

"I need a bath."

He glanced over at Wil with one eyebrow raised. "Yeah, and where do you expect to get one?"

Wil gestured towards the creek trickling just a few meters away. "We have a supply of fresh water."

Zenas rolled his eyes before grabbing the crowbar to pry off the nailed-shut lid of the crate he'd just deposited. "We don't have time for that nonsense."

He could see the frustration building under Wil's skin. It was in the way his jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed as he angrily brushed away a few strands of hair that clung to his cheeks. If he wasn't so annoyed with the kid, he might have laughed.

"Ives!" Squad Leader Hange was jogging for them, one hand raised in the air. "Come with me." Zenas followed too, curious. Welcome had told him not to let the kid out of his sight as well. He'd like to say that he didn't know why, but he could remember his own first expedition with perfect clarity. The urge to just run away from the death and stress was overwhelming for certain newbies.

They were headed for one of the cottages in the center of the village. It was the largest one. Hange ushered Wil inside, but didn't bother to block Zenas' path. He knew to make himself scarce, so he stood against the wall, watching in silence. There was another newbie stretched out on a dusty bed, blood seeping from a deep gash in her arm. He felt his stomach churn at the sight of her bone poking through her skin.

"I need clean water and my bag." Ives glanced around the room for a quick moment, but realized the things he needed weren't present. Zenas narrowed his eyes as Wil's gaze rested on him. "Quickly." In the next second, Wil was tugging at her harness, snatching off one of the belts and binding it around her arm above the deep cut and shattered bone.

Zenas knew the life of this girl was more important than his pride. He remembered Wil leaving the bag out where they were working, so he grabbed it first and ran it back to the cottage. The scene hadn't changed much. Wil took the bag and looked at Zenas expectantly.

"What?" He knew his tone was too harsh, but he didn't care. This kid's arrogant attitude was pissing him off.

"I need water. Soap, too." Wil was just standing there, waiting for his demands to be magically obeyed.

"What for?" Zenas pointed at the girl behind Wil. "She's bleeding out and you're just standing there!"

"I've still got blood on my hands from my squad!" Wil shouted, leaning forward. "Not to mention that I'm sweaty and dirty. If I take care of her now, an infection would kill her before we even made it back."

Zenas ground his teeth together, but turned on his heel and stomped back outside. He returned with Wil's soap and water and watched as he scrubbed his hands and arms furiously before turning to the girl.

It was only after Wil had finished with her that Zenas dragged him back outside by his collar. The sun was sinking over the horizon, leaving everything tinted with a runny orange hue. Wil jerked away from him.

"What's your problem, Ronan?" His shout attracted the attention of the few milling about.

"You're a pretentious little shit!" Zenas was done with holding in his frustration. Welcome should have known better than to pair them up. "Sitting there barking orders like you run this whole operation. It makes me sick!"

Wil stood his ground, though Zenas was thinking of all of the ways to snap his wiry frame clean in half. "What would you have me do? Leave her there to bleed to death while I worry about finding the essentials?"

"This not the time or the place!" Hange stepped between them, her hands against their chests as she shoved them apart. Zenas hasn't realized how close they'd been. "She's awake, but she says she can't see. Wil?"

Zenas bit down on his tongue as the kid stalked by him on his way back inside. He made to stomp back to where his work was waiting, but only made it two steps before he was intercepted.

Levi was scowling up at him. "You're filthy. You have no business being in there."

"Shut up." Zenas stepped around him, his rage threatening to boil out of him. He retreated to the area he'd been in before and began to unload the crates, his exhaustion undermined by his anger.

By the time night had fully settled over him, Zenas was resting against the wall of the cottage alone, facing the black open world before him. He cursed himself. There was too much death. Welcome found him much later, half-asleep with his head propped against the wall. They went inside without a word, shared their lousy field rations, and sprawled out on their sleeping bags on the floor. Words weren't helpful, and they both knew it. They could mourn in private later, after they'd returned. Strong alcohol and fist fights had a way of soothing Zenas that almost nothing else could compare to.