AN: Short fact file on my OC Lena, just for those who need a visual image at the start: 20 years old, dark brown eyes and light brown hair. Just finished her three years training. Slightly shorter than Levi.

NAMELESS FLOWERS PART 1

Wearily, I watched the leaves skip across the grass and skitter past me. The wind tugged at my hair as I woke from a dream-like state, body still heavy as I sat up. I lay back onto nature's soft pillow and let the blades of grass tickle my ear. I had to rest my head on its side to avoid knocking the clip on the back of my head which was holding my hair securely in a bun. I chose to look towards the left, watching the birds soar at eye level. It's not often that the birds are flying at the same height that you're laying. I was atop a hill that looked down onto the terrifying structure they call the HQ. Just the sight of its huge walls with green ivy scrambling up the stones makes me feel weary. The HQ was on my right, hidden away into the dip of a valley. I was looking off towards the left, where no towering walls could block my vision of the endless fields and trees surrounding us.

Peace.

Footsteps.

I sat up quickly to see who was approaching. A silhouette of a short man, no taller than me, was walking up the slope as though he was just doing his morning walk to the canteen... Bearing in mind that the walk to the canteen doesn't involve a practically vertical slope. He hopped from rock to rock, following almost exactly the same route I had to the top. He'd clearly done this many times before- like me. His eyes became clearer and suddenly shot in my direction. The man paused and took in my figure on the hill top.

"Oi, neewbie." He said, his voice reverberating like soft thunder. "Shouldn't you be at the passing out party?" I paused before replying, watching as the sunlight peeked out from behind a cloud and illuminated his sharp features. He was watching me with stern eyes, yet he didn't seem angry.

"I didn't realise it was compulsory...sir?"

"Corporal." The man corrected. I nodded.

"I didn't realise it was compulsory, corporal."

"It isn't." He shrugged and began walking back over to me. "Not interested in partying, then?" I shook my head.

"I don't like loud places... Or loud people." I added. To my surprise, he walked past me and sat on the edge of the hilltop beside me. Now that he was turned away from me, I could see the triangular figure of his back; strong shoulders and narrow hips. A small man made to carry a huge responsibility. Suddenly, I was reminded of something.

"Forgive me for asking, but aren't you Levi heichou?" I asked, turning my body so it was more comfortable to talk to him and lifted my legs into a cross-legged position. He was silent.

"Depends when you're asking." he finally replied. I smiled; I think I understood him.

"What about now then?" I tilted my head to the side and watched the wind sweep through his hair. He took an age to answer again.

"Right now... I'm just Levi." He finally said, his shoulders dropping slightly as he relaxed.

"Well, Levi. I'm Lena. Lena Hertz." He didn't reply. He didn't need to. In that moment, we both understood each other. We had both looked for peace in a world where peace didn't seem to exist. We both just wanted to feel the wind's assurance sweep through us, to watch the birds soar like today was their last day to live. We both could let go of everything in those moments... in only those moments.

I couldn't have known the carnage that would follow this encounter.

LEVI-

I woke up. Just like everyday of my life that had passed before now. Still, the view from my window hadn't changed. The branches of the tree outside my window were bare as Autumn's wrath began to suck the life out of nature; a parasite causing the disease of winter to hit.

I sighed and put on my uniform, then I cursed myself under my breath. This year, I'd decided I would quit sighing and huffing and puffing and snorting and all those other derogatory sounds that often escaped my lips when life hit me in the gut. It wasn't working. Nearly ten months into the year and I was still groaning and 'hn'ing.

I opened the window to let some air into my room, before shutting it two minutes later. I couldn't stand how the wind swept through and messed up the paperwork I had so carefully laid out on my desk. My room would have to keep that dank, musky smell for a while longer.

Knock, knock. "Heichou?" I rolled my eyes and almost groaned.

"If it's Eren, leave." There was a silence.

Knock knock. "Heichou, sorry to bother you but-"

"What's your name?"

"... Eren, sir-"

"Then fuck off. My duties don't officially start until 9:00am and if you've wet the bed, I'm not going to clean it up."

"But sir-" I slammed the door open, revealing to the world my morning face. And if you hadn't guessed, I'm not a morning person. I seemed to have less control over my murderous intent in the mornings. Like a reptile, I was colder in the mornings until the sun had the chance to warm my blood a little.

"This better be worth it." I raised a sceptical eyebrow at him and gave the poor boy my best glare.

"C-commander Erwin wants to speak with you a-about today's duties..." I glanced at my watch.

"It's 7:30am. Breakfast is at 8 and my meeting with Erwin is usually at 9:00. What's the rush?"

"He just asked me to tell you, s-sorry." Eren practically bolted away.

I groaned.

Then I groaned for groaning. This was going to be another long day.

"I'm off to the inner walls today which is why I called you early, Levi." Erwin sipped on his morning tea, only serving to piss me off more. I'd had to skip most of my morning routine to get to his damn office for this shitty meeting. He better finish early too, because it was 8:05 and the canteen shut at 8:40. If I missed my breakfast I swear-

"I'd like you to take over for me today, Levi."

"Sure, I love paperwork." I rolled my eyes. Erwin set down his tea and folded his arms.

"No, not today. Today the new cadets are getting acquainted with the horses. There's also the matter of assigning rooms and teams."

"No problem. They can clean the shit holes while they're at it."

"Well, here's the list of what needs to be done. Get Hanji involved on some, too." I took the sheet and glanced over it. It was definitely going to be a long day.

"Enjoy the King's company," I remarked, standing up. Erwin raised a thick eyebrow.

"Any messages you want to pass on?" Wow, a joke. I wasn't expecting that.

"Yeah, tell him that I've got some special 3DMG gear with his name on it, specialised for overweight pigs. He'd make excellent titan food."

"I'll make sure I tell him that." Erwin almost smiled. Almost.

I left the room and made my way to the breakfast hall. 8:15. I could make it.

"LLEEEEVVIIIII!" Or not. Hanji smashed her way down the corridor. Physics seemed to change its rules around this woman. She made a simple footstep reverberate louder than you would think possible for a person of her stature. "Quick! Something happened to Eren!" I just glared at her.

"Can it wait?"

"NO! WE MAY HAVE JUST MADE A GROUND-BREAKING DISCOVERY!" She grabbed my arm and lunged off. Literally lunged. I found myself almost tripping as she yanked me down the corridor. Down the stairs. Out of the building.

"Where the hell are we going, shitty-glasses?"

"Here, he's here!" Her eyes gleamed at me as she pointed at Eren. Eren blinked in surprise.

"What?" I growled.

Eren stood on the patch of grass just outside the main entrance to the HQ. He held a knife in his hand and had Mikasa glowering over his shoulder. For a second, I regarded her, before turning back to Hanji.

"HE HEALED!" Hanji practically leapt about. She circled me, waiting to see my reaction.

"I think I'm missing several minutes worth of information here." I checked my watch. 8:25. I could still make it.

"He HEAALLLEEDD!" Hanji repeated. "IN THREE SECONDS. He cut himself with that knife when chopping a tomato and it HEALED IN THREE SECONDS. I was watching! Usually it takes more then seven seconds for a cut that wide and deep but-"

I switched off. Waiting for any further revelations, then realising I had just wasted precious time to be eating, I turned back to walk to the canteen before my world-renown Thantos was unleashed upon Hanji. Who says I can't control my temper?

"Heichou!" Oh you have got to be shitting me. "Heichou!" A man with cropped blonde hair skittered to a halt before me and saluted. It's not even time for me to start my duties yet, I thought.

"Heichou, one of the horses has gone mad! We can't get it back into the stable!"

"I'm not a fucking horse whisperer, do your own job while I get back to mine!"

"Sir, we really need some assistance!" I glared at him, wishing for real daggers to stab at his eyeballs.

"That canteen better stay open." I spat.

Following him to the horse stables, I was greeted by around ten men all trying to capture a horse bucking and running wildly. I hate disorganisation. Taking in the horse's stature, I saw that it was a relatively young horse. It had probably never even seen a titan yet. These horses were bred to run long distances and come back to their owner no matter what. Although, this one seemed to have ideas of its own. I couldn't blame it.

I ordered the others to get back to work whilst I dealt with the problem. It wasn't particularly hard. You just had to show it who was boss instead of whistling at it for five hours. It whinnied in its stable and trotted restlessly. The horse was clearly very young and was small for its age. I glared at it, wondering how long it would take it to be broken.

"Is this horse safe to give to a new cadet?" I asked the stable officer. Some officer he was. For the entire epidemic, he sat on his fat arse and glowered at everyone. His belly almost punctured his shirt which was tucked into his trousers, strained to the point of transparency. How did he become a soldier? When I turned to him, he spat out whatever was in his mouth and coughed (as though he had only three days to live by the sound of it).

"Should be. It wos fine until this mornin'. And if you can tame it, then it should settl' dahn."

"I don't like the amount of 'should's in that fuckin' sentence. Is it safe or not?" The man scratched his stubble and glared at me.

"Aye. It is." He finally responded.

"Good. If I hear of one of these fuckin' incidents again, you'll be in deeper shit than you can swim in. I don't like getting involved in shit that isn't my fuckin' job." Knowing he was probably raising two dainty fingers behind my back, I strode off.

8:40.

Someone was about to die.

LENA-

We waited, roughly lined up behind the HQ where we always met for the day's activities. Usually, our instructor was late. But now we were no longer in training, fallen in with the rest of the scouting legion; to my surprise, the instructor for the day was bang on time. I even checked my watch to see it was exactly 9am.

My eyes widened briefly, before settling. It was Levi. I had not seen him since we first met upon the hilltop and his expression was definitely scarier... definitely more corporal-like. I guessed the rumours were true then.

He climbed the small wooden stage where the instructor could be seen by all. Following him were a few other instructors and ranks. Everyone fell silent as he glared at us one by one. It wasn't a deliberately threatening gaze, but it had the same effect.

"Existing scouting legion members, move to your squads. Today you'll be training on the obstacle courses." No one moved, expecting a formal dismissal. Levi rolled his eyes and breathed out sharply. "NOW." People began to hastily move. The new cadets gave each other puzzled glances and shuffled together. I held back and kept my eyes trained on Levi.

"Right, brats. I'm in charge today. Erwin has left me a list of your squads, so we'll do that first. You will have ten minutes for your instructor to introduce himself..." Levi paused as a woman behind him coughed. She was the only woman there; glasses, red hair and a smirk hinting slightly more than eccentricity. "I'll take over Erwin's squad for today." I noticed he didn't change his words. "Rest assured, none of you brats will have made it into my team." His eyes danced along the members of the crowd once more, until finally they rested upon me. We shared eye contact as his glance paused. Neither of us smiled. Eventually, his gaze drifted off again and he turned to the woman who handed him a list, whilst pouting something to him. I caught the words 'titan' and 'three seconds', but Levi just 'tch'ed and faced us again.

He began reading out the names of people in different squads. My name came just before the middle. I was in Erwin's squad.

"If any of you brats are good enough, you might be moved into my squad. I hand-pick my members and I don't like crowds, so don't bet on it." Like anyone would want a sadist in charge. "We're promoting a new squad member who will take over Erwin's group. Squad leaders, you have ten minutes. Go." Immediately, everyone began to shuffle in different directions and the volume cautiously rose.

"Lena!" someone called. I span around. "We're both in Erwin's group." It was Guthrie Eisenberg. Behind him followed Kurt Jung. I knew them well from my training days and it had been just yesterday when I'd last spoken to them. Guthrie was tall, fair haired and had a square jaw. He was built like a rugby player and as far as I knew, he was around when the titans first invaded. He'd seen the same hell I'd seen. Kurt was the opposite. He was quite tall too, but he had brown hair that he repeatedly swept back off his face. He was a very cheerful guy and a great person to be around when you wanted cheering up.

Nodding in reply, I joined them to walk over to Levi. There was a clear height difference between the two lads and Levi, but Levi didn't seem to notice (or care). They stood just in front of him, towering over him like Wall Maria. When we had all gathered, around fifteen men and women hovered around Levi. Levi sniffed and wrinkled his nose.

"You all stink." There was an awkward pause as Levi stepped back before speaking again; this time he was louder. "I don't know how long Erwin is away. Until then, you have me. I'm corporal Levi. Not Levi. Never commander. Just call me heichou. If you forget that, then prepare to have your throat cut out so that you can't make the same mistake twice." His expression never changed while saying this. He folded his arms and glared at us again. "Any questions?"

Silence.

"Good, because questions can only mean you weren't listening. Lesson one of life." And with that, he strode away and remounted the stage. Everyone fell silent again. "Your first job." His voice was husky and low; he didn't need to shout when people would listen to him without question. "It's an important job." Kurt glanced at me and Guthrie excitedly. "You will all be cleaning this shit hole from bottom to top and back to the bottom again. Your rooms will be assigned by your squad leaders. Every room on every floor must be spotless before you report to your squad leader. If your squad leader is happy, then report to me. The last to finish is put on cleaning duty for a week. The first to finish will have done it wrong, so do it again."

I was beginning to learn just how messed up, yet so straight-forward Levi's logic was. Do as you're told and do it right. Or else.

Two hours later. The rooms on our squad's floor were practically sparkling. A fresh breeze swept the hallways and the bathrooms smelt nicer than they had probably ever been. But Guthrie was quivering; it was quite a sight. A man of his stature- quivering. We had all taken it in turns to tell Levi we had finished. Only myself, Guthrie and two others had not yet spoken to Levi. That meant we had failed his inspection eleven times. Now, it was Guthrie's turn to take the wrath of Levi. I was putting off our second private meeting as much as possible. Kurt had brought back horror stories from his experience with Levi a few cleans ago.

I patted Guthrie on the back as he composed himself behind Levi's door. Guthrie nodded and took a deep breath. He knocked and entered following an incomprehensible grunt from Levi. The rest of us dodged out of sight as the door opened and cautiously hovered whilst we waited. The door opened again; Levi and Guthrie exited. Levi yawned lethargically and we all followed him to our rooms.

The first room he came across was my room as it was the directly on the left hand side upon exiting the staircase. The first time he had entered this room after our first clean, he had said-

"Girl's rooms should be tidier than this." We all just looked at each other. How did he know? As far as we knew, we had been randomly allocated rooms. There was no clothes out either. No hints.

Just another one of Levi's strange traits.

This time, he just scanned the room. "Fine." he muttered, walking out to go to the next. I was expecting that; my room had been clean since the third time we had been rejected. He had pretty much said the same thing since then.

Minutes ticked by as he inspected room after room. In rooms he had previously inspected, he barely glanced at the walls. In rooms he had said were too dirty, he paid more attention. This time, we were drifting outside the second to last room. All good so far.

Levi strode inside. He paused and glanced around. Then, he glanced suddenly to the window. I watched as Levi made his way over to it, like a dog who had suddenly caught a whiff of a cat. "Oi." he grunted. Guthrie started and stumbled to his side. "Pull back that curtain." Guthrie did so. No doubt his heart was pounding frantically. Behind the curtain lay a small pile of dust that had collected on the windowsill and not fully been removed by the damp cloths we had wiped them with. "What the fuck's that?" Guthrie bit his lip and replied loudly.

"Dust, sir." There was a silence as Levi's eyes burned into Guthrie's. Sweat dripped down Guthrie's face.

"How many fuckin' times do I have to get you brats to clean this fuckin' place?!" His voice didn't raise, but suddenly became ten times more menacing. "Start again! Useless pieces of crap." Levi stormed out.

When it was safe, everyone heaved a collective sigh. Luann kicked a table leg. "Kurt!" she yelled. Kurt frowned at her. "This was your job!"

"Your room was dirty too!" Kurt curled his lip, clearly disgusted that she would start placing the blame. He was right; we had all messed up. We were a team.

"Ours got passed. Your slip up just cost us more time!" Flicking her dark brown hair over one shoulder, Luann pointed one perfectly sculptured nail at Kurt. "You're holding us all back!" Guthrie stepped forward to stop the argument, but I got there before him.

Luann was from inside Wall Rose. She had desperately, desperately wanted to get into the Military Police, but was so shocking in her practical work that she missed out of the top ten... by quite a lot. I had gotten third place and decided to join the Scouting Legion. Luann was quick to blame and slow to do any work herself. Apparently, her family had been trying to get into the inner walls for years, without much luck. Clearly, they were terrified of the titans.

"Oi." I crossed the room over to Luann. "Cool it down." She snorted at me.

"Shut it, pig-girl." I ignored her comments.

"Levi is testing us. Getting us to do meaningless tasks over and over to perfection... the weakest will start to crumble first. Those who don't want to be here, will leave."

"Are you calling me weak, bitch?!" Luann snapped.

"Are you admitting that you're crumbling, then?" I retorted.

"I'm not! If you had all learned how to clean properly and weren't so incompetent, we'd have finished hours ago." There was a collective set of grunts as people were insulted by her cheek.

"Don't insult us. We're a team. We all worked on this."

"Oh, and of course you did somuch." Luann rolled her eyes. "Pig-girl probably left more shit lying about than she cleaned up." My hand twitched. She was insulting the fact that I was a farmer's daughter.

"Like the shit that's rolling out of your mouth?" I immediately regretted having given in my pact to stay calm. I was trying to be nice... ah well. Luann seethed on the spot. Steam was practically rolling out of her ears.

"I've had enough of you, cow!" Before I could even blink, her hand had snapped up and slapped me. Hard. As in, my neck cracked with the force. I guess the training hadn't quite been wasted on her.

My hand flew to my face and Guthrie immediately intervened. He knew as much as I did that a fight between me and her would only end up with her in hospital... not to brag, but try getting a tiger and a mouse to fight. That was the difference in our strength.

Kurt came to my side and started muttering calming words to me, but there was no need. I wasn't going to retaliate. Luann stormed out of the room, followed by a few others.

We all went back to cleaning.

"Right. Prepare yourself, Lena." Guthrie rested both his spade-like hands on my shoulders. "Go in there and use your feminine charm to woo him into letting us off." I snorted.

"Kurt has more feminine charm than me." I laughed.

"I don't know what you mean." Kurt pouted and pushed his hair back. We all tittered. Luann was scowling a few metres away, whispering violently to one of her friends. I turned back to Levi's door and breathed in.

My turn.

Knock, kn-knock, kn-knock. "Levi heichou." A grunt followed which I translated as, come in, brat. I did so, closing the door behind me. It was just the two of us, alone in the wide expanse of his room. A bed lined one side of the room, fully taking up one wall along with a wardrobe. Opposite me and behind him was a window, curtains drawn back, revealing the top branches of a tree struggling towards the sky. Levi put down the paperwork he was filling in and looked up. His eyes glinted as they rested upon my swollen cheek.

"What happened there?" he nodded at it.

"I tripped and fell into a wardrobe whilst cleaning, sir." I lied. He regarded me, then smirked.

"Did that wardrobe have fingers?" I didn't know how to reply. "That red mark is strangely in the shape of a hand."

"Yeah, it had fingers. And an ugly face." Levi stared at my straight expression and his mouth twitched.

"You're Lena, right?" I nodded.

"Tell me, did this wardrobe have a problem with you, or the cleaning?"

"... Both. Most likely." He smirked again.

"I guess you want me to check the rooms again."

"Yes please, corporal." I nodded. He rose from his seat.

"It better be clean now." He added as he left the room.

"You have my word." I smiled back.