A.N: I kind of got this odd idea a few years ago when I ran in to a crack ship Zeketra (ZekeXPetra, which I totally do not ship) and it hasn't left me alone since, so I finally decided to write it down.
Salvation
Zeke walked among the tall trees inside Wall Maria, confident of his safety in his titan form. Even if some pure titan happened to bother him, he'd get rid of it easily enough. The only things he actually had to be wary of was to not run out of stamina while still on the ground, and the locals who sometimes rode on their horses or flew around in the trees with the help of their weird machines. If he spotted them, he usually just hid somewhere in his human form. It was too early to make direct contact with them. He had been told to only observe for now, but he was sure there'd soon be an order to take a look inside Wall Rose as well.
"Looks like they've come out again recently" Zeke thinks as he notices a rather fresh-looking body hanging from the trees. Upon closer look, he sees it's a young man, one that he was pretty sure he'd seen a time or two before. If his memory served him correctly, this one was fairly good at hunting down the pure titans.
"But clearly not good enough… hm?" going even closer, he notices something odd: it didn't look like the man had been bitten at all. In fact, his neck had clearly been cut open.
"Interesting…" Zeke muttered. Had these people had a fight among their own? Or had this man perhaps been suspected of being one of their spies? Or were their spies behind this?
"Usually there are several bodies in one area…" he mused, scanning both the trees and the ground as he walked forward. And he found some more, though these ones were clearly done it by a titan, not a human. However, only one of them had been bitten "Looks like one of our warriors must've been behind this."
He pauses when he sees the body of a young woman next to a tree. He'd seen this person before as well, having taken note that she too was rather skilled in pure titan killing. It was a shame for her, for all of them, to die so young, he supposed. They'd all been doing a good job in saving the tormented souls sentenced to wander this hell on earth in their never-ending nightmares. But of course, their souls deserved salvation too, and now they were finally at ease, finally resting.
"I'm not in a hurry; perhaps I should bury them" he thinks, and so he does, easily digging a few-meter-deep bit with his titan hands. He starts with the man hanging from the tree, placing him in the grave first, before moving on to the bitten blond and the other remaining man. Lastly, he picks up the young woman, her unseeing eyes still slightly open, he notes, placing her on top of the other bodies before moving the dirt back on them. This was the least he could do for his fellow Eldians. These ones, at least; he'd never have a chance to give a proper burial to everyone. Everyone, the rest of the people of the walls, would follow them to their fates soon enough, along with all the other Eldians in time, he'd make sure of that, he'd find a way. But until then, he'd say his prayers to these brave, though foolish, souls who kept saving the ones who'd been judged. May they rest in peace.
A.N: I think their bodies were retrieved in the anime, but that didn't happen in the manga, so this idea works… I think?
Anyway, I've mostly been out of inspiration for SnK one shots for a while now, so if anyone has any ideas, feel free to share and I'll see what I can make out of them.