Year 845 - Reyna's POV

I spurred my horse onward with the rest of the Survey Corps through the Forest of Giant Trees. It was oddly devoid of titans, at least for now. That's when Commander Keith gave the order to prepare for battle. I glanced around at the other members of the Survey Corps. All of them were as determined as I was. I looked down at my horse, Bucephalus. He seemed to sense my nervousness.
I patted him on the flank. 'It'll be okay, don't worry.' I thought, trying to send my thoughts to him somehow. 'At least the titans don't go after you.' Commander Keith started riding faster.
"We have one target!" He yelled. "Take it down if it's the last thing you do!" I couldn't see it yet. However, the first to spot it wasn't the Commander, but the person riding a meter or two ahead of me, Captain Erwin Smith.
"Distance to target 400 meters!" He yelled, and paused briefly. "It's coming our way!"
Erwin was actually pretty hot, if you thought about it. Hey, I might be able to kill titans, but that doesn't mean I'm just as good with things I've had no experience with, like, I dunno, REALLY HOT GUYS. Erwin had blond hair neatly parted to one side, and icy blue eyes, not unlike my own. His most distinguishing feature is probably his eyebrows, which are quite possibly the bushiest eyebrows I have ever seen.
Anyway, even I could spot the titan now. It was ugly, like most titans were, and although I obviously couldn't tell its size for sure, it was definitely on the taller size, maybe even a fifteen-meter. And it looked PISSED.
"Split into five groups just like during practice!" Commander Keith ordered. "We'll act as decoys!" I glanced back at the titan. It was much, much closer now.
"Distance to target 100 meters!" We were splitting up. Erwin went one way, and the rest of our squad followed. We were only a decoy team, so when the command to switch to three-dimensional maneuvering gear came, we stayed on our horses. All three attack teams shot off their horses into the trees.
Have you ever heard maybe a hundred people using their maneuvering gear at the same time in a fairly confined space? Let me tell you, it's LOUD. It was all I could do NOT to cover my ears.
"Attack it from all directions!" The commander ordered. I could see one of the people on the attack teams going for the nape of its neck. If it had been anybody else, I wouldn't have been able to recognize him. However, there are only so many blondes in the Survey Corps, and the other two were riding in front of me. So it couldn't be anybody but Moses.
"Have a taste of the power of humankind!" He yelled, going in for the kill. The titan turned around faster than should be possible, and Moses flew straight into the titan's mouth.
Crunch. All that was left of him was an arm, which flew in the other direction. If I hadn't been used to this, I probably would have thrown up. Unfortunately, this scenario was all too common in our division.
After a lot more soldiers were taken out by that one titan, the Commander finally ordered a retreat.
'This wouldn't have happened if the decent fighters were on the attack teams instead of the decoy teams,' I thought angrily as we rode back to civilization. The fact that we entered back in through Shiganshina didn't exactly help.
As we were riding back, defeated, I noticed a couple of kids trying to get a good view. Well, the boy was trying to get a good view, and the girl was being dragged along with him. The boy had short dark brown hair parted neatly down the middle and teal-green eyes, and seemed excited until he saw how battered we were. The girl had fairly long black hair, stormy grey eyes, and was wearing a deep red scarf that seemed to draw all my attention.
While I was studying the kids, the line stopped, and I almost slammed into Captain Erwin. I would have if it wasn't for Bucephalus stopping on his own. I mentally thanked him, and promised to give him an extra-long grooming tonight, then leaned to the side a little to see what was going on.
There was a woman frantically questioning the Commander about Moses. She looked about the right age to be his mother.
"That's Moses's mom..." He mused. "Bring it here." He commanded one of the officers standing nearby. The officer got a cloth wrapping up... something... and handed it to the Commander, who gave it to Moses's mother. She gingerly opened it.

It was an arm.

That's when I remembered how he had died, and almost puked.
"That's it." He said. "That's all we were able to recover." The woman started crying. Hey, if I was her in that situation, I would have been crying too. The kids from earlier were watching as well. The boy seemed shocked, while the girl was completely emotionless.
"B-but," the woman started, "my son... my son was useful, wasn't he?" The commander seemed almost scared by the question.
"IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ANYTHING OUTSTANDING!" She screamed, sobbing over her son's death at the same time. "HE CONTRIBUTED! HIS DEATH CONTRIBUTED TOWARDS HUMANKIND'S RETALIATION, DID IT NOT?!"
"O-of course," the commander said, sweating from the pressure. Then he looked down. "No... The exploration... This time, again, we..." That's when he exploded, and I flinched. "IT WAS ALL FOR NAUGHT! WE DIDN'T MAKE ANY PROGRESS AT ALL! I'VE BEEN NOTHING BUT AN INCOMPETENT, TOYING AROUND WITH THE LIVES OF OUR SOLDIERS!" Moses's mother started sobbing even harder. "WE COULDN'T FIND OUT WHERE THEY COME FROM! WE DIDN'T DISCOVER THE FIRST THING ABOUT THEM!"
That's when I heard somebody saying something that made my blood boil. It was a man in the crowd, standing right in front of where the two kids were. "As it is, our taxes essentially serve to fatten 'them' up by sending out our men as free meals." The boy was apparently as pissed as I was, and punched him in the back of the head.
'Good for you, kid,' I thought, a little happier, 'they shouldn't slander the Survey Corps like that.' The girl, possibly his sister, dragged him off before the man could retaliate. The woman walked off, sobbing, and the Survey Corps continued on their way.

~le time skip of Bucephalus's awesomeness~

That night, Commander Keith resigned and gave his position to Erwin. The stress of Shiganshina and Wall Maria being invaded didn't exactly help. But the only thing I could think of was those two kids.

Did they escape in time?