Rating: T
Characters: Mercedes, Fhalz, Baena, Oliver [OCs]
Genre: 'Backstory'
Exploring each Jaguar Squad member's recruitment by Mercedes, told in order of signing up.
Recruitment
Year 851, February – Fhalz
Fhalz looked down, over the railing separating this mezzanine floor, as the door of The Mason's Arms swung open. He pepped up when he noticed that it was Mercedes – he hadn't expected her to come. Well, to be honest, he hadn't expected anyone to throw him a surprise birthday gathering – however small – much less come to it. Really he was convinced that Charlie, next to him laughing at a rather flat joke of Erkel's, just wanted an excuse to drink.
Mercedes was a relief. He hadn't seen much of her since the funerals after the Battle of Trost, even after her transfer back to the Garrison a few months ago, and he wasn't sure whether it was this or something she'd gone through while she was away that made her look different. She was more cautious in her movements despite her attempt at a lukewarm smile at those around her. She scanned the room and when she spotted them, he waved. She smiled more strongly, and began to sidle her way through the crowd to the stairs.
"Oi-up," Erkel, across from him, said. "Who's that?"
He was hesitant to use the word at first, but not for the reason he suspected Erkel thought. "A friend, from my training days in the Western Division."
"Where you been hiding a 'friend' like that, Lathan?" Charlie chimed in. He was craning his neck to see over or around the occupants of the next table to the stairs. "I thought we were your only friends?"
"I didn't have a choice with you two," Fhalz grumbled. "Our mothers were friends. And I haven't been 'hiding' her – we've been on different rotations ever since she got back from the Scouting Legion."
"Seriously? The Recon Corps?"
"Will you shut up?" Fhalz hissed at Charlie.
A moment later Mercedes showed up at the table. "Happy Birthday, Fhalz. Thanks for the invitation," she grinned, and passed him a narrow rectangular box tied closed with twine. Glancing at Erkel, she nodded at the one empty chair and drawled, "This seat taken?"
Mercedes was sitting down even before Erkel dumbly shook his head.
Fhalz glanced between his two childhood friends with a mixture of amusement and annoyance that they'd fallen atypically quiet in her presence. He focused on the present in his hand instead. "Thanks for this – you shouldn't have!" He tugged at the knot in the twine.
"Oh please, it's your birthday," she waved a hand at him.
While he wrestled with the knot, Fhalz jerked his chin to indicate the other two young men, "'Cee, this is Erkel and this is Charlie – childhood friends of mine. Charlie was the one to suggest the night out. Guys, this is Mercedes." The knot released at the same time as their voices, and he lifted the lid from the box. On a bed of cotton was a polished wood and gold fountain pen, underneath which was a matching monogrammed bookmark; his mouth twitched in appreciation of the thought she'd obviously put into it, but he wouldn't smile at it in front of the guys and indeed, angled it away from them so they wouldn't see. "This is great – thank you!" The lid slipped back on with a satisfying shush. He waggled it at her and smiled, placing it beside his beer. "You know me."
"I do," she returned, and he knew she understood. She leaned forward on one elbow – a little conspiratorially, in fact – and a corner of her mouth rose in a smirk. The luxurious pile of her hair tumbled over her shoulder and the smell of plums wafted over the table, momentarily disguising the smell of their drinks. "I have to confess, though. It's actually a little bit of a bribe. I need you."
He knew she deliberately made that last sentence suggestive to mess with the other two, and it reminded him of watching her charm her way around the Western trainee barracks and finding the same admittedly haughty amusement in how easy people were to manipulate. Yet he resisted laughing inwardly with her, this time. These were his friends, after all – dense as Erkel was and coarse as Charlie was – and he felt a brief urge to defend them.
Charlie and Erkel were also leaning forward. "Do you need anyone else?" Erkel practically drooled.
But then Fhalz watched them a moment more, watched the rather pathetic way they obliviously and shallowly hung on to Mercedes' briefest of pauses before her answer like it was a long drink and they were the parched hopefuls. Their heads even tilted down with hers as she dipped it to one side and said, "Sorry, this is exclusive."
He wasn't grateful to her. He was what he was – weedy, glasses-wearing, a bookworm, unlikeable really – and she was what she was – powerful, captivating, popular – but he'd never seen their friendship as anything but equal. She wasn't humoring him, and he wasn't using her. He realized that now, even if he couldn't explain why. Moreover, he felt willing to barter that whatever she was going to ask of him tonight, it marked a new chapter in his life and Erkel and Charlie weren't – couldn't – be along for the ride. And he wasn't sorry about that.
"What is it?" he asked.
Mercedes caught his eye and grinned. "I've been given permission to pick my own squad." It was the first time he'd seen the good pride in her eyes since before Trost. They twinkled expectantly in the lamplight, waiting for him to answer the unspoken question. He knew. But he wanted her to say it.
After a moment of excited staring, he chuckled and said, "Just ask me, 'Cee. That's all you have to do."
Year 851, April – Oliver
Oliver knew why they always made him be the one to do the dirty work – refilling the grease barrels, reloading ammunition supplies to go up to the Wall , lugging them all out to the waiting horse-drawn cart – rain or shine. It was a combination of things, really, he reflected as he trudged up into the rain from the supply basement beneath the Karanese Garrison HQ. He blinked the heavy droplets out of his eyes as he glanced up at the ash-colored sky.
The first reason was that the leader of the default squad he'd been assigned to after graduation was not only an ass, but feeble; he didn't have the stomach to stand up for them and it seemed that all the other members – and Oliver included himself – weren't much better in the confidence department. However, the other four of them were very good at eventually piling it all on Oliver and slacking off. Even now, he'd watched one by one as they'd slunk off into the curtains of rain, their whines and grumbles becoming lost and pounded into the mud underfoot. He'd grown used to it.
Oliver traced the path of half-buried stray cobbles he'd determined for himself to better avoid slipping. He angled the heavy crate of cannonballs he carried so he could see them if he squinted. The trickle of cold water down the back of his neck made him shudder and he readjusted his grip. Mud squelched underfoot and he figured his next task would be relaying the brick that'd sunk over time in this area.
However, the second reason was even more personal. Despite his intimidating size it was common knowledge by this point that he was very young – if not the youngest – and they liked to take advantage of that. Collectively, the mud here was likely older than he was. He also was fully aware of how much he stood out, despite his mother's encouraging words to the contrary. They didn't fully know what to do with him, it seemed. Gunpowder blended with his skin and this seemed to negate everything he'd accomplished at the Battle of Trost, to the point that he wondered if it'd really happened. But then he remembered the pain he'd blocked out – the pain of watching his squad be ripped to pieces.
He set the crate down gently on the cart and shoved it, hard, farther back. The cart noticeably rocked and groaned. Oliver rolled his shoulders and took a brief breather to look around, and it was then that his eyes alighted on a group of three under the covered porch that led from the stables to the barracks. One of the individuals was his next-tier supervisor, but the other two – a young man and woman around his age, and both rather short – he didn't recognize. The woman held a clipboard and he could tell by the way his supervisor gestured in his direction that they were talking about him.
Oliver frowned, and after another moment wondered if he should go to them, since they didn't seem inclined to come out in the rain. His supervisor raised and dropped a hand defeatedly, and the woman passed the clipboard to her companion. Oliver made a couple of steps in their direction but to his surprise, the woman held up a hand and stepped off the porch into the flooded yard. For some reason the way the canopy of shadows drew up and back from her, replaced by the gray light, seemed to him as though she'd opened an umbrella and the rain no longer existed.
Her smile was lopsided, like she knew something he didn't. At first water only gathered on top of her thick dark hair, which was cropped short on the right half of her skull and glossy like paint; the rust-colored shirt she wore under her Garrison uniform jacket complimented the cinnamon color of her skin. She didn't walk so much as course her way to him.
She stopped in front of him and tilted her chin in order to look him in the eye, but seemed satisfied rather than intimidated. "I'm Mercedes Carello," she said, and held out her hand.
He took it, not knowing what else to do, and met a firm grip. "Oliver Ungabwe," he replied in kind, and in contrast to the sinuous vowels of her name his own felt to him like ugly clots of blood or phlegm falling from his mouth. He couldn't stop the feeling of having dirtied her by touching her and involuntarily his chest and shoulders guiltily caved, and he quickly withdrew his hand.
"I know," she said with a relaxed blink and placed her hands behind her back. "I've been looking for you."
He tried to find the maliciousness in her eyes that he was so familiar with seeing in others, but couldn't pick it out. Oliver was nonetheless skeptical as he replied, "Why's that?"
Mercedes' smile grew into a confident, warm smirk and she shifted feet and folded her arms. "Because I think, to someone who single-handedly felled two Titans even as his squad was dying, I have a better offer than another morning as an upright pack mule."
Oliver felt something in him quake and he couldn't blame it on more rain down his collar. The rushing of the water into the drains nearby tried to manifest into the screams of his friends.
"I've been given permission to form a squad," Mercedes said gently, "and I'd like you to be on it. I want to give you the opportunities someone of your caliber deserves."
"Why?" he couldn't help asking. He looked away from her. His hand drifted to the edge of the cart and ran along it, feeling the splinters as a kind of punishment for the hope that'd sprung in his chest. He liked the way she spoke – it reached an arm around his shoulders and promised better days even moreso than what she spoke of. He'd never heard anyone speak like that before. It was like honey.
"Why don't you come with us and find out?" When he returned his gaze to her he must have looked surprised, because she added with a slight chuckle, "What've you got to lose?"
Oliver regarded the tiny woman a little longer. Could she truly offer him a better life? It seemed almost too good to be true, but he couldn't find any trace of ill-will or dishonesty in her words or expression and he was usually very good at picking up on that even if he wasn't so great about sticking up for himself when he sensed it. He couldn't deny she was right – what did he have to lose, even if he still wasn't certain about what she saw in him?
"How about it?" she prompted, and her tone made he feel that he couldn't refuse her. This time, though, it was a good feeling – an accepting of an invitation rather than a surrender.
He finally felt it safe to smile, and held out his hand for them to shake on it. "All right, Boss."
Year 851, July – Baena
The heat shimmered from the rail tracks atop Wall Rose and from the trunks of the cannons that they guided. It was probably the hottest day of the year and Baena loved it. Even the relentless glare of the bone-colored stone felt like it was recharging her spirits – she couldn't say the same for her team around her helping clean the cannons. She'd taken to singing to keep up their spirits on what was truly a droll task. No one had screamed at her to shut up yet, which was a plus.
"…and we'll be dancin', dancin'
our way through the streets
when the sunshine blooms
and the lovers meet –
don't tell me bad omens,
don't tell me goodbye;
please just dance with me
while there's still time!"
Baena took a breath and grunted as she and another Garrison soldier lent their entire body weight against the heavy wooden cannon bracket, pushing it along the track to the spot Captain Woerman wanted. It didn't amount to more than a couple of meters, and really Baena thought he was just fucking with them – but then again she didn't really get marksmanship so perhaps there was a point to it.
The cannon clanked to a stop and the two of them trudged back in the direction of the next one. The other three members of the maintenance crew – mere trainees – were already a little ways ahead, their grease buckets and rags swaying in the wind while their shadows were steady, short blotches of ink under the noonday sun. Baena picked up the end of her ponytail off the back of her neck and waved it a little to cool herself down.
"Hey! Why'd you stop?" one of the trainees called back with a grin.
Baena grinned back. "I need air!" she shouted, and then sighed dramatically for effect. She took a breath and began again with another song:
"I knew a black cat; his name was Soot –
he got underfoot, he got underfoot.
I knew an orange cat; her name was Honey –
wha'd'ya know? She hides my money!"
She whistled a little and eyed the three Garrison figures approaching from the risen elevator in the distance. She didn't recognize them. One was a huge guy, taller than her, while the other guy and the girl were shorter. The girl was in the lead and met the group of trainees, stopping them to speak to them. Baena's eyebrows twitched downward a little but she kept singing.
"I knew a marbled cat; his name was Buster –"
"Hey! Baena!" One of the trainees called to her. "Someone here to speak to you!"
Baena stopped in her tracks, her face scrunching up. She shrugged and resumed walking, but at a slower pace and without a song.
Although the two male newcomers hung back, the girl handed her jacket to one of them and picked up her pace, and met her before Baena could reach her destination. Baena could now see that she was maybe a little younger than her, but she was intimidated the girl's muscles. She racked her brain but couldn't think of a reason someone had come to beat her up.
"Baena Cullis?" the girl shaded her eyes and squinted at her.
"Hello!" Baena responded cheerily and rocked on her heels. She found a mischievous enjoyment in how the girl was skeptically looking her over. She was used to it by now.
"Hi," the girl attempted to grin back. "I'm Mercedes Carello, and –"
"Oh what a pretty name!" Baena clapped her hands together. She whispered it to herself and it felt, in her mind, like an animal dancing over dust, though she couldn't be sure yet what animal precisely.
"Err, thank you. I've – not had anyone say that to me before," Mercedes said and took a moment to regain her train of thought. "You probably don't know me from the next soldier, but I came to find you because I've been tasked with gathering a squad."
"How awesome!" Faces and names flew into Baena's brain, "I know several people I can recommend. First you must talk to –"
"I've already settled on who I want," Mercedes interrupted, firmly but kindly. "That's why I'm here talking to you." She smiled implicitly.
Baena took a moment to process this. She put her hands on her hips and looked at the shorter woman out of the corner of her eye. "Wait. What? Seriously? You have no idea who I am!"
"Is that a 'no'?"
"Fuck no!" Baena reeled. "Sounds fun!"
"Really?"
"I have no idea who you are either but yay!" She lurched forward and seized Mercedes in a hug, squeezing out a noise of surprise. "And yes, really! Why the fuck not. It sure beats rotating through canon duty teams forever. Thank you thank you!" She released her. "But I have to warn you, I probably eat too much sugar, I have an unhealthy obsession with flowers, I'm really inexplicably paranoid about the number thirty-three, I snore…"
