Part Four: Poppy

Even with Wall Rose secured once more, a new sense of fear had overtaken the population, one with no end in sight. For Poppy, the days all blurred into one, a haze of gardening, cooking, cleaning, hunting. The few times she took dried meat to Trost and traded it for supplies, she heard the same gossip on every street: the doomsayers crying the end of the world through the stomach of a titan, the priests calling a return to God in order to end the plague, and the rioters demanding an overthrow of some kind to satisfy their terror—overthrow of the government, of the military, of the wealthy businessman. Anything to upset the constant, exhausting unknown.

She felt that weight herself, but every few months, if she was lucky, it was lifted by the reappearance of a blackbird.

Sometimes his visits were so brief, it could hardly be said he paused as he flew by. Other times, she was able to enjoy his company for a few hours as he assisted her with weeding or repairing the storm cellar. It seemed natural to him to roll back his sleeves and help, regardless of the fact that his dangerous life as a Scout already helped more than any other position in the kingdom.

"You could relocate to the inner ring," he told her once.

But she declared, "My home is here."

Her family was buried on the land. She'd tilled it all her life. She knew the heartbeat of the forest, so much so that it had warned her against a titan. And there was something else—it was only silently she admitted how much home had come to mean looking up to see Levi at the garden gate. No other sight could ever thrill her heart in the same way.

Her closest neighbors had been wiped out by titans, but over time, the small village was resettled by a group of men and women who could no longer bear the overflowing city. They invited Poppy to holidays and dances, and her sense of propriety only allowed her to decline so often. At one such dance, she was unfortunate enough to catch the eye of a rough-edged bachelor, Fynn, who made his subtle advances at her with all the grace of a one-legged, one-eyed pigeon. "A pretty thing like you" seemed to be half his vocabulary, showcased in such phrases as:

"A pretty thing like you shouldn't live all alone."

"It's dangerous out in the woods for a pretty thing like you."

"A pretty thing like you needs someone to look out for her."

Poppy didn't bother smiling. She only gave him cool returns of, "I'll manage," and "Never you worry."

A well-meaning neighbor chastised her for blocking Fynn's pursuit.

"It would do you well," the woman said, "to have a husband to help you manage the land. You're working yourself to the bone all alone out there."

"I have company enough," Poppy said. Infrequent though it was, it was worth every wait.

She never asked Levi about the war or the Scouts. Not that she wasn't curious—she only presumed he didn't travel to a little spot of nowhere inside Wall Rose in order to be reminded of everything raging outside. And the details didn't make much difference to her. Something drew him to her garden, and that was enough. She was content to have his company, to scrub a table as he dusted her shutters and enjoy (secretly) the way he tied his hair back with a white bandana even though it was too short to get in his way. He was meticulous, careful, stern, and above all, a mystery, one she thrilled to solve bit by bit.

"Have you ever farmed before?" she asked. "Seen the capital?" Meaningless questions that felt meaningful all the same when she heard the answers in his rough voice.

"I grew up in Wall Sina," he told her. "I worked with my hands, but . . . nothing as wholesome as farming. Never left the city until I joined the Scouts."

He assured her the capital wasn't as glamorous as rumors made it out to be; corruption marred the inner ring as much as titans marred the outer. Humanity was beset on all sides, if not by cannibal monsters, by self-destruction. Then he halted, and his expression spoke of regret, maybe because he thought he'd depressed her, maybe just because every topic was depressing.

"At least we have trees," Poppy said. She could have smacked herself; there weren't many dumber statements to make.

But Levi gave a little snort, his lips halfway to a smile.

"Thank God for trees," he agreed.

During one of his visits, late in autumn, when he was helping her stock up on wood for the winter, it struck her that she only saw him like this because he was a Scout, constantly coming and going from the innermost wall to the world outside.

She couldn't help but ask, "After the war, what will you do?"

He split the next log without answering, and his voice was quiet when he did. "I guess I'll go home."

Back to Wall Sina, then. Would she ever see him again? Relocating to the city became more appealing in that moment than it had ever been, but she didn't know his feelings on having a stalker, so she set aside the "what if"s for the day the war actually ended. For now, what they had was enough.

Winter came, and she saw him less. It was only to be expected, and she tried to tell herself it was the gloomy days that made the time stretch so long and lonely. With most of her usual activities inaccessible, she applied herself to something her mother had enjoyed—knitting. The wool came at a steep price, but Poppy's access to meat in the forest was a gold mine for trading. She was even able to purchase dye in a rarer color than brown. Through the season, one painstaking day at a time, the wool transformed into something that almost passed as a sweater.

Her neighbors invited her for Year's End, but Poppy elected to stay home. She made the traditional holiday stew in its simplest form, and as it bubbled above the fire, she waded out into the frosted air to her mother's grave. Year's End was the time for regrets; superstition held that if they weren't released, they would carry, festering, into the new year, corrupting it from the start.

Poppy carefully brushed a thin layer of snow from the grave marker. She still remembered the way her tears had stained the wood as she'd carved it. The loneliness hurt her lungs even now.

For her confession of regrets, she said only:

"I wish I could help more, Mama."

There was so much hurt in the country. Poppy had not been raised to stand by and abide suffering, but she also wasn't more than a girl. She couldn't solve the hunger, couldn't expand the farmland, couldn't fight the titans.

We do what we can, she reminded herself. The same thing she'd told her blackbird.

She tilted her head back, peering up through the trees. In the distance, the wall was a black shadow against a dark sky.

If praying could accomplish anything, she prayed for Levi's safety. And, selfishly, for his return.

Then she breathed deeply the cold and returned to the house.

During her next visit to her neighbors, someone raised the topic of Scouts. The criticism came hard and fast: the Survey Corps was pointless; fighting titans one-on-one was willful suicide; if they were so great, they would have already retaken Wall Maria.

Poppy grew sicker with each statement. And then, worst of all—

"Levi Ackerman?" Fynn scoffed. "He's a military farce. They want to pretend they have an unbeatable hero in their ranks, lure us all into security. But I've seen him. He's a scrawny wimp, barely comes up to my waist. The only reason he hasn't been eaten by titans is because they aren't looking for a toothpick!"

Poppy had never been very articulate, particularly when boiling like a fresh kettle. So she spoke in a universal language: She hefted a wine bottle from the table and lugged it at the overbearing pigeon. It smacked his shoulder and shattered against the floor, stunning the entire party into silence.

"Shame on you!" she hissed, face as red as the wine she'd spilled. Her eyes swept the room. "We're safe behind a wall, and they're out there."

She remembered the titan snapping branches beneath her, remembered its haunting eyes and gaping jaw, each tooth the size of her skull and just waiting to crush it. There had never been a more certain picture of death. And the Scouts faced it over and over and over.

Levi faced it over and over.

"Shame on you," she managed again. Her breathing hitched into a sob.

She left the room, saddled her horse. By the time she reached home, her cheeks had dried, but she was still boiling, and there wasn't enough house to satisfy her need to scrub.

A commotion outside set her heart racing with hope, but it wasn't Levi at her gate.

It was Fynn.

His horse pulled at the reins. His expression promised to avenge his earlier humiliation.

"A pretty thing like you shouldn't have such a temper," he informed her.

"I'm not a thing," she informed him.

As he advanced on her door, trampling her garden rows as carelessly as any titan, Poppy's hand was already on her hunting rifle. She lifted it with practiced ease, sighted, aimed.

When he didn't have the good sense to halt, she fired. The crack of the gunshot reverberated through the trees.

Fynn howled with pain. His horse reared, nearly unseating him.

"That's your warning," Poppy said. She'd grazed the same shoulder as the wine bottle. "The next one won't heal."

If he had any ideas about rushing close range, her two Scout swords also waited by the door, ready to make him a true one-legged, one-eyed pigeon. But he galloped away, cursing her all the while.

Poppy sighed. Ammunition wasn't cheap, not to mention the loss of all future social invitations once word got out she was the type to shoot her neighbors. Despite some of the company, she didn't always hate the dances. She checked her rifle magazine—one shot remaining—before returning the firearm to its hooks beside the door. Then she stepped outside to check the damage to her planting ground.

Focused as she was, she still didn't miss the arrival of a blackbird. And it was all she needed to breathe life into a strangling day.

Levi wore his usual uniform, the gray clothes and leather harness, the cut-off jacket and leather boots. Only his green cloak might have offered him warmth, but cold or no cold, additional layers probably hampered his mobility. One of so many sacrifices the Scouts made.

"I heard a gunshot," he said, his gaze scrutinizing.

Poppy's ears burned. "I, uh, shot a pigeon."

If he'd seen anything, he kept it to himself, but that was fine. She didn't want to waste a precious moment of their time on Fynn.

"I have something for you." With eager, nervous steps, she hurried into the house, pausing only to rinse her hands at the well.

When she returned, she brought a roughly knit sweater, the same green as his cloak.

Levi's eyes widened slightly.

"It won't ever be called fashionable." Poppy gave a sheepish smile. "But it should be warm."

He could probably never wear it with his uniform (and likely would never want to), but perhaps evenings, perhaps during the gaps between expeditions, however infrequently he had those.

Levi lifted it from her hands and turned it slowly in his own, examining it in his usual meticulous way. It seemed to reveal more flaws in his hands than it ever had in hers, and part of her wished to snatch it back, but she kept her strained smile and façade of confidence.

In the end, he folded it carefully over his arm. He stepped closer to her and slipped one hand along the curve of her jaw, his chilled fingers shooting goosebumps below the collar of her shirt. He kissed her forehead.

"You stay warm, too," he murmured, and she caught a quick glimpse of pink in his cheeks that hadn't been there previously. Nothing compared to the flame in hers.

In an instant, he'd warmed her for the whole winter and beyond.