Chapter 9
Reaper's POV
I was going to murder Kirstein.
"De-soaping" the kitchen took hours, and drying everything took even longer. Apparently Levi had instructed all the Cadets not to assist me in any way; they all gave me pitying glances and scurried along. By the time I was done, I had missed both lunch and dinner, and I still had stable duty.
Little did Levi know that his extra punishment was actually the only thing keeping me going through the day (other than the fact that I WAS IN ATTACK ON FUCKING TITAN).
Back in Texas, I had evening stable duty. I found it relaxing, not to mention rewarding. I felt like I was doing something with my life, rather than just sitting and watching anime characters act out adventures that I would never have.
As often as I had watched and re-watched Attack on Titan, it was impossible to get a clear layout of the Survey Corps HQ. When I saw Armin in the hallway (holy fuck he was in the same room as me with no cosplay involved), I stopped him.
"Artlert!" I called. He whipped his head around, seemingly confused until his eyes rested upon me.
"Y-Yes?" he stammered. He was obviously very anxious about something, and I couldn't blame him. I was sure I had a bad reputation among the Cadets by now.
"I was just wondering how to get to the stables from here," I said. He gave a little nervous smile and looked away.
He gave me very clear directions to the stables, though they were interrupted by frequent nervous "ums" and stammers. I said my thanks and began to walk off, but I was stopped by a "wait!" I whirled around to face my addresser to find it was Armin again.
"Yeah?"
"I- um, I heard that you were from outside the walls!" he said. I laughed lightly. I had a good feeling that I knew where this was going.
"Yeah, I'm from outside the walls," I affirmed. His face lit up.
"Is it true? About the ocean? Is it real?" he asked excitedly. I nodded my head with a small smile. It made me happy to see him so excited.
"It covers over 70 percent of our planet, Armin," I said. "It's incredible."
"Whoa," he said. "Thanks!" He walked away with an obvious spring in his step.
I managed to find my way to the stable with very little trouble, pausing only to whinny when I saw Kirstein turn a corner. When I opened the door I nearly passed out.
The stable was disgusting. A thick layer of manure coated the manure forks, the storage stalls were overflowing with disorganized supplies, there were muddy bootprints tracking all over the mats, there was hay everywhere, the water toughs were disgustingly coated with green scum, and a fine layer of dust covered everything. For fuck's sake, even the horses were dusty. And everything reeked with the smell of horse manure. With a stable like this, it was no wonder the Cadets dreaded stable duty.
"Dear mother of fucking God," I said lowly.
I trudged through the layer of dropped hay covering the mats in the aisle and grabbed a manure fork, then took it outside to spray the shit from its tines. Once clean, I took it back inside and entered the first horse's stall, beginning to scoop the missed piles of manure from the soaked shavings.
This was going to take a while.
Levi's POV
It was about an hour before lights out for the Cadets and Reaper still hadn't reappeared. Slightly worried, I looked for her in the kitchens. While the kitchen was spotless, there was no sign of the girl. Remembering she also had stable duty, I made my way through winding hallways to the night-darkened stable. When I flipped on the stable light I froze.
About two-thirds was just as I had left it that morning - disgusting. But that one third of it was absolutely spotless. There were no stray pieces of hay, no muddy footprints, no green pond scum in the water troughs. Even the manure forks had been cleaned. I noticed that the horses' coats looked more vibrant thatn usual, then realized they must have been filthy.
I heard a faint bout of muttering coming from a stall.
"Sure, use a fucking pitchfork to muck stalls, you absolute fucking dimwits. See how far it gets you."
I found her mucking my horse's stall with my horse tied to the hitching post in the middle of the aisle.
"I trust you're getting along well enough alone out here," I said. She looked up, then hesitated before remembering to salute. I dismissed it.
"Whoever you assign to stable duty should never touch a horse," she said bluntly. "This place is disgusting." She stuck her manure fork into a pile of shit and sighed.
"And may I ask why my horse is tied in the middle of the aisle?" I asked.
"He was getting in the way," she answered, then looked back down at the stall floor. "Do you mind if I work while I talk to you? I'd like to get this stall done before lights out." I motioned for her to go ahead, and she dug under the final pile of shit.
"How do you know how to do this so well?" I asked. She sighed but answered.
"I had evening barn duty back in my colony," she said. "I learned from my family." She forked the pile into a wheelbarrow that was stationed by the stall door, then exited the stall to wheel it to the dump pile outside the stable. I followed her in concealed awe.
"Is that all you're going to do tonight?" She sighed and shook her head before wheeling the wheelbarrow to its station in front of my horse's stall.
"I've still got to put new shavings in this stall," she said, pointing to my horse's stall, "which entails getting all the old wet shavings out. And I've also got to groom up that horse."
"I see," I said. I stood there for a moment, just watching her use the large metal shovel to scrape all the remaining shavings from the stall. "Do you need any help?" She stopped moving, then raised her head and quirked a brow.
"What's the ulterior motive?"
"I don't always have an ulterior motive, Reaper. I'd just like you o be able to bathe yourself before lights out. You're disgusting." She scoffed.
"Well, thank you, kind sir. And yes, I could use a bit of help." She scooped the last of the shavings into the wheelbarrow and leaned the shovel against the stall's doorway. "Would you mind wheeling this out to the dump pile?" she asked. I shook my head and grabbed the handles, leaving her to groom my horse as I crossed the threshhold out of the stable.
Hanji leaned against the siding of the stable, a smirk plastered on her face. She had obviously been waiting for me.
"Well, what do you know?" she cackled. "Shorty taking requests?"
"Shut up, Shitty Glasses," I told her wearily.
"Hey, it's okay. I won't tell anyone you're falling hopelessly in love with the girl." I tried to keep my face emotionless.
"You're an idiot, Hanji," I said as I began walking the wheelbarrow to the massive dump pile at the treeline. "I just don't want her to be unshowered for tomorrow. She starts training with me and I don't want her to smell."
"Suuure," Hanji drawled, then ruffled my hair affectionately.
"Don't do that," I spat, fixing my hair, then wheeled the huge pile of shit in the wheelbarrow over to the even bigger pile of shit at the treeline. I dumped it from the wheelbarrow's basin and began dragging it back to the barn.
"I'm going back to my lab now, Shorty!" Hanji called after me. "Don't miss me too much!"
"Don't worry," I muttered. "I won't."
When I got back to the barn I found Reaper gently brushing my horse with short, sharp motions. A cloud of dust had risen from its hair and was settling onto its ass. But what caught my attention wasn't the filth; what I noticed first about the encounter were the sounds resonating from her figure.
She was humming some unintelligible song, but the way her voice came sweetly from her throat... it was something else. She somehow managed to flawlessly hit every note, even without singing actual words. I snapped myself out of the trance she had put me in and coughed.
"Oi, brat!" I called. "Are you going to groom my horse or serenade him?" She turned beet red and mumbled a garbled "sorry." Then she turned to pull a hoofpick from the brush bucket.
"Brat," I addressed her. She looked up from her task of picking up on of the horse's legs.
"Yes, sir?"
"How much experience do you have with horses?" I asked.
"I did barn work in the womb," she answered, head turning back to her task as she picked at the built-up shit crusted to the inside of my horse's left front hoof. "I have all the experience with horses."
I sighed, resigning myself to the fact that I would have to ask someone a favor.
"Would you like to be in charge of stable duty?" She looked up at me, shock evident on her face.
"What?"
"Did I fucking stutter?"
"No, sir," she said, a grin beginning to break out on her face. "I'd love to be in charge of this."
"Good. You start tomorrow after your training," I said. "Take a few days to get this place clean, and then teach the Cadets how to do it properly."
"Absolutely."
