When the sun rose the next day, Neille witnessed his first titan.
That night's ride had been surprisingly uneventful and he had begun to settle into his role as Captain. The pioneering skills he had honed during cadet training had quickly come back to him, and his squad was at the correct spot nearly two hours ahead of time. The rain had died down hours into the night's excursion, making visibility and acoustics non-issues.
"Neille, you're starting to slouch in the saddle." Rowina shouted from her galloping horse. "Don't get comfortable out here. The titans are huge, but they are quiet as mice and can overrun our position in a matter of seconds."
Neille had found that hard to believe until he saw one's head poke up over the horizon.
The titan was over 10 meters tall, obtusely figured, and eclipsed the sun as it began to face the oncoming squad.
Neille was speechless. There was nothing in cadet training that could've prepared him for the sight of that behemoth; still, he glanced over to Rowina, who had gripped both ODM handles without a word or look of panic and kept her gaze on the looming giant. Ivan, an experienced Scout, moved his horse to the opposite side of Rowina in the formation.
They must be planning to bring it down.
He was relieved to see that he was not the only one who was fearful; Peter had both blades out and was shifting back and forth in his saddle, frantically looking between the squad's veteran and the squad's captain for direction.
Neille called out, "Keep your wits about you, Peter. We'll only engage if absolutely necessary."
Please, God, don't let it be necessary.
As the squad continued towards its destination, a tiny village containing a cluster of houses and a single castle, the titan sprang into the air and began running towards their position, .
"It's an abnormal," Ivan shouted. Without a glance or even a nod, Ivan and Rowina spread out far to their left and right, leaving Neille and Peter in the vulnerable middle.
Neille got the idea. "Spread out into a T formation," he yelled to Peter, whose face now sported the same color as his cloak. "I'll act as bait in the middle, you stay behind me and take appropriate action. Now may be the time to show off those blade skills, hot-shot."
Peter gained a bit of his hue back at the name, settling back behind his captain in the formation.
Despite the confidence of his orders Neille felt the terrifying reality of his action; if that titan makes it to my position, I'm as good as dead, he thought.
The titan and squad were closing in on each other. By now, Neille could see its face, illuminated by the dead, hungry eyes that were locked onto not only his body, but his soul, as well.
A hundred yards was all that lay between him and a sprinting giant intent on devouring him whole. The sound of its feet crashing into the earth, mingling with the horses' hooves sounded and felt as if a herd of a thousand cattle were stampeding.
The ground shook with each titan footfall, now coinciding with Neille's frantic heartbeat.
Fifty yards.
The titan reached out its arms towards Neille in eager anticipation.
Please, God, save me.
Rowina blurred across Neille's line of sight, zipping behind the titan's ankles and slashing them both clean.
The giant collapsed forward. Neille narrowly avoided missing its mass meeting the earth as he jerked his horse to the right. He looked back towards the monster— steam rose from where its ankles used to be like the exhaust of a steamboat.
"Ivan, now!" Rowina yelled.
Ivan now circled the beast, looking for the perfect opening.
He found it.
Ivan hooked his cables into the titan's rump. He then jettisoned himself twenty meters into the air and hung in the sky over his prey like a guillotine. With a banshee scream and the hiss of his ODM gear he zoomed down to the nape and slashed his way through.
Rowina, now on her horse, rode over to his position and returned his horse.
Peter began, "Great kill, that was incredibl—"
"Shut it," Rowina cut in. "There may be more of them— let's get to that village, then we can celebrate however you'd like."
No one spoke until they had dismounted their horses, unloaded the provisions, and set up sleeping quarters in the slightly battered castle. They all kept their silence for different reasons; Neille's, however, was the only one derived from guilt.
They saved me, he thought, even though I've been keeping them in the dark about our mission this whole time.
The squad sat down at the oak table for supper. Red banners from some ancient kingdom adorned the walls like dried blood, and tattered remnants of the past littered the floor on every side of the dining room.
"Got it!" Peter yelled as the fire roared its first breath from within its hearth.
Ivan brought in the provisions: bread seasoned with basil, mineral water, and jars of preserved pickles and cabbage. The squad moved into the least wobbly chairs and eagerly awaited their feast.
Neille was unable to look any of his soldiers in the eye. He heard a lid unseal, and Ivan's voice after. "Pickles or cabbage, boss?"
I don't care what Erwin said. I owe them this, at least.
Neille slammed his fists down on the table and sprang to his feet. "I haven't been completely honest about our mission with any of you," he said, "We're not going to meet up with Erwin's squad, nor Levi's squad."
The squad leaned out of their seats towards him, each expressing their own mixture of frustration, anger, and disbelief.
"Then who are we meeting with?" Rowina asked.
The captain paused, and finally, after what seemed like hours, spoke.
"No one— we're going to Shiganshina. Alone."
The gravity of the situation fell on the room; the walls now felt like sides of a wicker basket, with a thousand pair of blood-thirsty, starving eyes, looming over the unsealed opening. Once again, silence took hold of the squad.
Until Rowina smashed her plate into pieces.
She erupted from her seat, quickly making her way to the tapestries, ripping them to the floor in her rage.
"He speaks of trust!" Rowina shouted. Destroying ragged tapestries wasn't enough; next, she targeted the aged, homeless relics of an age long past. The screaming grew so loud that Neille had to plug his ears.
"Why did I never question him?" She pounded the wall with her fist. "My friends from cadet school, my first squad, and— " Rowina sank to her knees. "Kent." Her fingers tangled into her charcoal bangs, which shimmered by the gleam of a few cascading tears.
"Oh, Kent. You died for nothing," Rowina choked as she spoke. "We're all living in our graves."
Ivan pulled his chair close to Rowina and placed his hands on her shoulders. Neille couldn't tell if he had begun crying, too. These two had been through some rough spots together.
Neille wondered for a moment if he should've just kept his mouth shut and did as Erwin said.
Is this Erwin why said to conceal the truth?
Maybe, Neille thought, but it wasn't necessarily because it was the best course of action; no, it was simply the most convenient option for Erwin's control. Now, when Erwin's image flashed before Neille's age, he didn't see the handsome, blonde man, garbed in a heroic shade of green. Instead, Neille saw him for what he was: the Devil.
Humanity is hellbound, and Erwin prefers being ahead of schedule.
Neille forced his eyes open, away from the even more horrible, yet realistic portrait of Commander Smith. He opened his palms and closed them, over, and over again.
Am I just the Devil, too? Will my inaction now condemn them to death, later?
Neille rushed around the edge of the table, grabbed Rowina out of Ivan's grasp, and turned her towards his face. Her blood-shot hazel eyes bored into his.
"I hate him, too, Rowina. I hate him more than living in fear— I hate him more than the titans."
All the eyes in the room were locked on their captain.
"We're not going to die for him. We're going to live. Even with the death sentence he's given us."
Ivan nodded his head and squeezed Neille's and Rowina's hands with both of his hands.
"And when we come out of that hell-hole in Shiganshina, I'll tell the military tribunal the truth: that Captain Rowina led us in and out of the walls."
Peter now moved into the squad's embrace. Wordlessly, they had all grasped one another by either the hand, the waist, or the shoulder. It felt like cadet school, all over again. They sat there for minutes, listening to and feeling the warm breath of one another.
Peter spoke, "I don't want to kill the group therapy session, but I'm starving."
The three men laughed with restraint. "Don't kill the messenger," Ivan began, "But this is going to be our best meal. I dug through those barrels but the food only got nastier the deeper I got; I was honestly afraid to go further."
Rowina let out a tiny laugh and gripped Neille's hand. It brought him back to cadet school, and memories of Francis flooded his mind in an instant.
She spoke, "And here I thought we'd get better food, seeing as our Captain is from the interior."