Chapter 22: Camellia sinensis
Milcah's horse galloped beneath her as the squad raced out of the tunnel of Trost district into titan territory. Milcah didn't remain in her saddle for long, instead shooting up towards the buildings and keeping an eye out for any titans. She was in a spotter position for this trip, her first time doing it, since Erwin liked to keep rookies out of the position until they'd proven they could handle themselves against the titans. The spotters were paired, one less experienced member with one veteran, and one rookie further in to run horses and relay messages. Milcah didn't know what she'd done to be so lucky, but she was paired with Mike Zacharius which comforted her greatly, today was likely not the day she would die at the hands of the titans. Their rookie was a young man with short blonde hair named Henning who was a part of Zacharius' squad. With the new recruits, Milcah was the odd man out on Hange's team and one of the more experienced members at this point.
Milcah dodged the swipe of a titan's hand at the last moment, her line wrapping around its throat as she reeled back in, spinning in her harness and smashing through the nape of the titan, jarring her shoulders from the extra speed she'd accumulated on impact. Erwin had permitted both herself and Levi to field test her double belt 3Dmg on this expedition and she was beyond thrilled. She was also looking forward to the opportunity to increase her ranking among the scouts. Being in a spotter position inherently offered the opportunity to come in contact with more titans, and although the thought made her blood run cold, it also made her steel herself in determination.
Mike nodded to Milcah as the titan crashed to the ground and they both swung back to their horses as they cleared the town. The flare to spread out was fired and Milcah grinned at Henning in encouragement as he swallowed nervously before she galloped off to their left. Mike was in front of her by nearly a hundred meters, far enough to be barely within sight but close enough to assist if anything should happen. They were stationed at the front left of the formation today. Hange and Keiji were the next pairing between them and the command squad. Levi's team was occupying the far right front and Milcah knew she would not see him again until they reached their checkpoint that night, well after dusk.
Training her eyes on the horizon, Milch wiped her thoughts of Levi from her mind, knowing that even a pleasant distraction could result in not only her own death but the death of her fellow scouts as well. As they rode she found that Mike almost always saw the titans coming before she did, it was as if he had an extra sense warning him of their arrival. If it had been anyone else she would have been offended, but Mike had a reputation of being the sharpest spotter in the entire Regiment. The few times she did catch them first, Milcah felt a warm bubbling of pride within her at her small accomplishment.
Although they had ridden this route many times before, wearing the grass thin, Milcah had never been in this area of the formation and rarely on the left side during the first portion of their journey so she found the less familiar scenery enjoyable. She knew that there would be nearly an hour of wide open spaces before the next town and that made it less likely that a titan would appear unnoticed near them. However, Milcah didn't count on the terrain becoming hillier on this side of the formation, and there were many times she lost sight of Mike and Henning, making her tense at the solitude. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like to be lost and alone in titan territory.
When a black flare shot into the sky to her right, Milcah yanked the reins on her horse, galloping as quickly as she could towards it, it must have come from Henning. When she crested the next hill she caught sight of him trying to catch the attention of a 5 meter class titan who was heading further into the formation. Milcah breathed out a relieved sigh, grateful that he wasn't being attacked by this titan, but knowing that a deviant's behavior could change in a moment.
"I'll go for its Achilles, you get the nape once it's down," Milcah called to him, and he nodded in understanding, gripping his blades in nervous determination. Milcah's line impacted against the titan's lower leg, and her heals dug deep grooves in the earth as she swung around and back in to its legs in a tornadic whirl, smashing halfway through its left leg. With a ferocious roar, the titan stumbled, crashing to the ground and Henning launched onto its back, sending a ferocious overhead swipe into its nape. He grinned at Milcah at his first kill, thrilled to have completed it without injury as he pulled himself into his horse's saddle.
"We'd better catch up with Captain Zacharius," Milcah instructed him, "You'll need to relay the information to Nifa further in."
As Henning turned towards the interior of the formation, Milcah caught up with Mike, appreciative of the fact that he'd trusted her to take care of the situation with Henning. With the speed she'd caught up to him again she was certain that he'd dropped back in order to give a hand if things had gone wrong. She gave her right arm a good roll in its socket, it was already sore from her two titan attacks. She knew that her shoulders were her weak points and though the extra speed she was afforded because of her double belt allowed her to dig deeper into titan flesh, it was also doing a number on her shoulder joints. Milcah rode up to him, intent on relaying the information.
"The variant was disposed of," she told him and Zacharius nodded with a sniff, his eyes still sweeping the horizon. Deciding she wouldn't be given more of a response Milcah dropped back to her position. Mike was silent and foreboding when he was focused on something, it reminded her of Levi. The two were a lot alike, however their fighting styles were vastly different. Levi had an intuitiveness to his attacks that gave him incredible speed. While Zacharius was anything but slow, his assaults were more measured and relied on precision and strength rather than Levi's less accurate but equally deadly frenzy.
They were passing some farm houses now, the landscape mostly returning to its typical flatness. Milcah and Mike alternated between shooting red flares to alert Erwin to titans well in advance any of them coming near. Milcah was quickly getting better at titan spotting, discovering that if she let her eyes gaze unfocused on the horizon, rather than sweeping from point to point, that she was able to sense their movement before they came into full view. Mike was still able to out-spot her two out of three times and she usually only caught the ones that were past her shoulder, well beyond Mike's range of vision.
When the sun had finally set and they got to their checkpoint, having travelled all day, Milcah found that her neck was aching from staring off to her left and her stomach was tied in anxious knots. She sighed, grateful she wouldn't be placed in a spotter position the next day. Sliding off her horse, Milcah led him towards their temporary stable, unsaddling him, dropping her supply bags to the ground, and brushing him down. Milcah watched as small dust clouds swirled out of his hair, rubbing her fingers across his soft nose. He looked into her eyes gratefully, his gaze deep and wise as only a horse's could be, and whinnied softly, rubbing his lips on her hand. He was the horse she'd received after the death of her first one the previous autumn, and they'd grown quite close.
"Alright Pikale," Milcah smiled, grabbing a bag of grain and hay mixture that the Survey horses ate from out of her bag which she'd refill before they left in the morning. Before she slipped the strap around his head, Milcah glanced around the stable and gave Pikale a conspiratorial look, pulling an apple out of the bag. His ears perked up and he tapped his front hoof on the ground in excitement as Milcah shushed him, slicing the apple in half with a knife that she carried inside of her jacket. Pikale munched on the offering happily, tossing his mane in delight, his soft lips tickling her palm as Milcah rubbed his neck and grinned, letting him eat his fill of the grain as well.
"Thank you for keeping me safe," Milcah told the horse, hugging him around the neck as he sniffed her hair for more apples. Returning the empty feed bag to her pack, Milcah slung it over her shoulder and headed out of the stable, glancing up at the starry sky as she gave her shoulder another experimental roll, it was still hurting her.
"You're going to make him fat," came Levi's disparaging voice, and Milcah smiled at him from his position leaning against the door to the stables.
"I somewhat doubt that any Survey horse could ever be that." She responded, happy that he had come to find her. Milcah had not expected to have much interaction with him on their expedition. "Is everyone well?"
"Gunther may have twisted his knee, but the rest are unharmed," he responded easily as they walked together, the fingertips of their hands occasionally brushing together as they walked. 'We lost five soldiers, all new recruits."
Milcah nodded silently, unwilling to say the unspoken words of how good that ratio was compared to what it could have been. It was tragic to think that five kids lost to the horror of the titans was such a small number as to be celebrated. Though others in the Corps might react that way, Milcah knew Levi would never come close to thinking so. Every loss of life was keenly felt by Levi, even if he didn't show it. It was something even she hadn't understood about him when she'd first met the man. Levi had no scruples about cutting losses or knowing when saving someone was no longer an option, but the burden of each life lost in the Corps was one he picked up and carried on his shoulders. It was something she loved about him.
Hooking her left index finger around the pinky of his right hand, Milcah walked beside him in contentment. Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye Levi was amazed by this outward display of affection, it had been to his surprise that she was even more tentative when it came to public displays of affection than he was. As they entered the large building in the center of the town that had become their temporary lodging, Milcah let her hand fall away from his, the loss of warmth keenly felt by both. He walked with her to the floor where her squad was staying, both of them hesitating at the open door.
"Milcah," Moblit, Hange's senior team leader, called to her in greeting, grateful to have a distraction that would cut through Hange's excited ponderings. Milcah's cheeks tinged red as many of the room's occupants turned to her. Waving back with an awkward smile, Milcah turned to Levi hesitantly, tucking her hair behind her ears.
"Goodnight Lance Corporal," Milcah told him awkwardly, trying to tune out the excited whispering among her team members whose intrigue in their relationship made no sense to her. Wishing she could do more, but too embarrassed by her squad, Milcah began to head into the room.
"Goodnight Private," Levi responded slowly, watching as she turned to head into the room, his brow creasing with frustration. Any moment in titan territory could be the last moment that they would see each other and Levi decided he would not be left in a situation where he would regret their last interactions.
"Milcah," he called, catching her hand.
"Ye—" Milcah's response was cut off as he pulled her to him, catching the back of her head with his palm and pressing his lips to hers. Milcah's knees were weak at his passionate parting, his eyes dark as he released her from his grasp.
"Goodnight," he told her, turning away and disappearing down the dark hallway. Milcah stood there for a moment, frozen, her face flushed bright red at what had just transpired before heading into the room. She attempted to ignore the congratulatory whoops of some of the veteran members of her team, sitting down next to Hange and hiding her face in her hands, her lips still tingling from where he had kissed her. Hange patted her on the back, her expression entirely unsympathetic.
"Alright kiddos," Hange called to the group, "Lights out."
Getting to sleep was a difficult experience for the new recruits and Milcah found herself holding a crying girl well into the night, rubbing her back comfortingly. She'd seen one of her friends eaten and Milcah knew first-hand what a terrifying experience that could be. By the time the girl had finally fallen asleep, the full moon had risen high above the horizon and Milcah found herself wide awake and perched on the windowsill, enjoying the cool night breeze playing with her long hair. She stared out across the abandoned town, she could see their night patrols walking on rooftops and shaking her head at the sorrowful state of humanity.
Tugging torn pages out of her pocket, Milcah perused Doctor Colman's musings on flight, the moonlight brightly illuminating the page. His handwriting was difficult to decipher especially with her limited reading experience, but she was slowly making out letters and words. Milcah was especially interested in the diagram he'd partially sketched of what looked like a large sack attached to a basket. She didn't understand how he intended to make something like that fly, but was certain that she'd be able to make that out once she understood the writing.
Milcah sighed and rubbed her eyes at what little progress she'd made since her discovery of the journal. Glancing up she saw Henning on night patrol, his head drooping every once and a while. Tucking the journal back into her pocket Milcah swung out of her window and landed beside him. Henning jumped, shocked out of his half-asleep state and drew his knives on her before realizing she wasn't a titan.
"Private Milcah, I um…"
"Go get some sleep Henning," Milcah told him sympathetically, knowing she wouldn't sleep for a few more hours. He nodded to her gratefully, walking back to the building as Milcah began her patrol. Night patrols were usually uneventful, especially after the first few hours of darkness so she wasn't especially concerned. Milcah found herself exploring the yards of the larger houses, interested in this town that she'd never been to before the fall. She wondered what the people were like before they'd had to flee.
Milcah froze when a soft snoring floated through the air to reach her ears. Following the noise, Milcah was surprised to find a seven meter class titan curled up in the garden of an estate, sleeping peacefully and lethargic from the night. Her breath caught in her throat, Milcah was about to turn and report its presence when she saw a small green shrub with white blossoms growing near its head. It was, to her great surprise, a Camellia plant, used to make tea. Against her better judgement, Milcah approached the sleeping titan with blades ready, trying to be as quiet as possible. Kneeling beside the titan's head she could feel its hot breath on her as she dug up the plant.
She was close enough to hear the titan's eyelids flicker open and she leaped back just as it jutted its neck out to grasp her in its jaws. Shooting up to the roof, Milcah knew she was only alive because of its lethargic state. As it struggled to stand she shot her line into its nape using it to real her in faster as she spun in her harness, raking through its neck. Milcah bit down on a cry of pain as she felt her right harm rip free of its socket and she fell against its neck, titan blood soaking her jacket. She was grateful to find that the monster was dead or she would have surely been eaten. Staggering over to the tea plant she pulled off her cloak and wrapped it gently around the shrub before beginning her walk back to their encampment to report the death of the titan.
After being reprimanded by the squad leader for taking on the titan alone, Milcah's arm was seen to and she was relieved by the next watch. When she gingerly peeled off her drying jacket Milcah realized with sudden panic that Doctor Colman's notes had been in the pocket which had been soaked by titan blood. Reaching inside she hissed in frustration at the charred remains of the notes that crumbled in her hand. Milcah tossed the ashes into the wind in anger, heading back inside to get some sleep.