"Fuck, you're filthy," the short devil declares as I turn to face him. He's looking at me like he found a large glob of dog shit on the bottom of his boot.
I look down at my formerly white uniform and sigh when I see he's not wrong. "I don't think these stoves have ever been cleaned correctly," I explain, gesturing at the small pile of crud next to the open oven door. "Took hours to scrape that all out and it's not even halfway to clean enough to cook in."
He glances down at the pile and looks like he's about to say something about it when his gaze snaps back up and his cold eyes narrow. "Don't try to distract me, puke boy. What are your intentions towards the potato brat?"
"What?" I don't even know what a potato brat is. "Is this more island slang?"
"Don't play dumb, you little shit," he snarls, stepping closer.
"B, but I don't know anyone who's like a potato," I deny, holding my hands up defensively, palms out. Suddenly, I feel the wall against my back; I hadn't even realized I was backing away from him. This is damn weird, he's looking up at me but it feels like he's looming over me. Is he using a titan power?
"The brats didn't tell you that story? Tch, far as I've heard, you've only made a move on one girl on this island. Unless you're as suicidal as you are filthy, that should narrow it down plenty."
"Are, are you asking about Ms. Sasha?"
"Yes, I'm asking about fucking Sasha!" he growls, leaning in closer.
"Sir, I, we, just met a couple days ago!" I stammer, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. "And we've always been around other people, I don't see how you could think we were doing something like that…"
"Tch. Stop being so fucking literal, dipshit. What game are you playing with her? You still claim to be loyal to Marley, are you trying to get military secrets out of her?"
"No, sir, I'm not playing any sort of game with Ms. Sasha!"
"So, you just want to get your dick wet and think she'll be easy since she liked your cooking."
"N, no, sir!"
"This isn't some fetish shit?"
"W, what?"
"Does the idea of banging a subhuman devil get you off?" Fuck, he looks like he plans on gutting me and decorating the kitchen with my entrails.
"Huh?"
"Does your shit country not have the concept of context? Am I going to have to use extra fucking small words with people from Marley?"
"N, no sir. I don't think anything like that about Sasha. She isn't a devil!"
"Then what are your intentions towards her? Speak quickly, before I beat the answers out of you."
I try to give a coherent answer, but my mind's all jumbled and I find myself stammering out a disjointed answer as my face grows hotter. "I, well, um, I've, I've never met anyone like Ms. Sasha. And, well, you see, we kinda spent half the day talking and she's an absolute angel, and, well, um… I uh-"
"Fuck's sake, this is the stupidest shit I've heard all week," he interrupts. "Are you seriously telling me that you came to our island, which you people think is full of fucking devils and pig piss tea, got captured, puked all over the place, damn near shit your pants in terror, then fucking fell for one of us? The fuck is wrong with your head?"
"Um, yes, sir," I admit in a small voice, eyes downcast. "My second in command agrees with you, but I don't think there's anything wrong…"
He sighs and takes a step back, face relaxing to a more neutral scowl. "You're fucking insane, puke boy. If you're going to go through with this insanity, at least see to it the potato brat is kept well fed and happy."
"Ah, of course, sir. Does, um, does this mean you approve?"
"No. This is a big-ass mistake you'll both eventually regret. But she's a grown-ass adult now, if she wants to make a stupid mistake like this, that's on her. Just the same, there will be consequences if you hurt her."
"Your, uh, niece already told me about the last guy."
"Good. Try not to end up like that shitbag." That said, he turns and walks out without another word. I sigh and sag against the wall in relief, fishing in my pocket for a cigarette.
"That was fucking intense," Klaus states. I look up as I light my smoke with unsteady hands and see that he's just a few steps away, holding a broom with a white-knuckle grip. "As much as I hate to agree with a damn devil, he's right about this being insane. But you're still going through with this, right?"
"Right." There's no way I can back down.
"You don't have much experience with devils, do you?"
I shake my head in reply. "Lago doesn't have an internment zone. Never even saw devils till I was in the military, never spoke with one before coming to this island."
"So you really don't know. I thought you were being stupid, but you're just naive."
"Explain," I order curtly.
"I had an uncle that fell in love with a devil," he begins. "Poor bastard became a damn pariah when people found out. The family had to disown him, or we'd have faced consequences too. His friends did the same. Got kicked out of his apartment and lost his job, and he'd been making good money as a foreman in a factory. Lost it all over a dame. Now everyone who knew him considers him about the same as a devil."
"Did he end up living among the devils, then?" I guess.
Klaus shrugs. "Nobody kept track of him. Wouldn't be a happy life if he did; devils don't like us any more than we like them." He lowers his voice and continues, "But I think I can protect you from that."
"How so? Rumors are gonna be flying after everyone here heard me ask her out. And they'll hear the guards talking about it."
"Yeah, but they also all heard that little devil yapping at you just now. And most of them saw that scarred up devil dame threatening you. All you have to do is act grumpy and complain about black haired devils, I'll get the squad to help me spread a rumor that you were trying to get intelligence from her and they forced you to break things off."
"And what about Sasha?"
"Keep your pet devil out of sight."
"Sasha's no pet," I insist.
"Whatever you want to call her, no affection when prisoners are around and you'll probably be fine. There's still going to be all kinds of rumors and distrust, you just need some deniability to deflect it."
"You really think this is necessary?"
"Unless you want to get randomly attacked by other prisoners every day, yeah. People trying to drive you away with nowhere to drive you to would get bad quick. Or if you don't want to do that, maybe you could talk your devil smoking buddy into sticking you somewhere outside the camp so you're out of sight and don't gotta worry about keeping up appearances."
"No, let's do the first option. I'd rather not leave the squad." Not after all we've been through.
"Then you'd better put your poker face on, Sarge. You look too happy, try thinking of something like the things in the walls or that tall traitor shooting the Captain." I focus for a minute and he nods. "Better. You still won't beat me at cards, but at least it doesn't look like you're on cloud fucking nine anymore."
I shrug. "Valle wasn't rebuilt in a day. Couple weeks of this charade and I might finally beat you. Assuming she doesn't get offended and dump me."
"Not my problem," Klaus says with a shrug as he resumes sweeping. "It's up to you if you're gonna try to have it all or ask the devils to house you somewhere else."
"You think we should tell the rest of the squad the truth?" I ask as I reach down to retrieve the scrub brush I don't remember dropping.
"Tent walls are thin. We can bring them in individually, when we have opportunities. Sure you want to trust them all?"
"Yeah."
"Oi. Expected you to look happier, from all the rumors I've been hearing."
"It's complicated," I tell Samuel before glancing around to make sure there's nobody else close enough to hear in the mostly empty section of half-built cabins I'd been pacing around. Satisfied, I step closer and quietly explain the situation and Klaus' solution.
"Makes sense," he whispers back. "I think you should go with the other option, though. I know you don't really like the volunteers, but the secure apartment building we have them in is big enough, you wouldn't have to share a room with any of them and could mostly avoid them."
I shake my head. "Feels too much like I'd be abandoning my squad."
He nods at this. "Yeah, I wouldn't want to leave my friends behind either. I'll tell Sasha in the morning so she's not caught off guard. And I'll see about getting the other scouts to stop talking about you two on guard duty. Some of them started a betting pool on if you'll make it past a first date."
"I hope this won't upset Ms. Sasha."
"She probably won't like it, but I don't think she'll blame you. She may even think it's funny, getting to be your forbidden zucchini."
"My forbidden what?"
"It's this tubular dark green vegetable that grows on vines, you probably saw some in the market."
"No, not that. We have zucchini. I've just never heard of one being forbidden before."
"Oh. It's from an old folk tale that we're told is from before the walls closed. Guess it's not if you haven't heard of it. The first King of the Walls must've made it up or adapted it from something else when he set up our society."
"Wait, wouldn't people remember if he just made it up?"
"Only the nobles, he stole everyone else's memories with the founding titan. Relax," he tells me when my eyes widen as I begin questioning my memories, "it only works on non-noble Eldians."
"You could've said that part first, saved me some existential dread. But if it doesn't work on them, are you sure your nobles are Eldians?"
"To be honest, I have no idea," Samuel says with a chuckle. "Aside from the royals, I don't think anyone's tried shooting them up with titan juice to see what happens. Now, what sort of dread was that?"
"One of my squad was studying to become a scholar before getting drafted. Lucille tends to gets all philosophical when we're drinking, she explained it to us one night when we were on shore leave," I reply before detailing what I remember of the concept.
"Prisoner 658921!" a familiar voice snaps at me. I turn from my cleaning and see Sasha standing a few feet away with a stern expression on her face. She has her flying machine on and one of her hands is resting on a handle connected to one of the weird boxes. "Commander Hange has decided to burden me with teaching you about our money and local ingredient suppliers."
"Why you?" I ask, doing my best to look disgruntled.
"The Commander likes creative punishments. She also instructed me to tell you that further attempts at fraternization will be punished harshly and to ask if chefs really need both kneecaps."
I gulp and take a half step backwards before I reply. Hope I'm not laying it on too thick. "You can tell her I'll behave."
She smirks at this. "Keep in mind that I'll break you myself if you try anything. Now follow," she commands before turning and walking out the door with a dangerous and alluring swagger in her step, almost a challenge to try attacking. I have to focus on not looking too happy, following her while she's walking like that.
I hear muffled laughs at my back as I follow her out the door with my head bowed. "That was a low blow, Ms. Sasha," I state with a chuckle when I judge that we're out of earshot. "Pretty sure I need both in the kitchen unless you're going to carry me until they heal."
She chokes back a laugh before speaking. "Hey, I'm trying to walk seriously and pretend to be mad here, Mr. Niccolo. If I start laughing before we're out of sight, I won't be able to take you back to the camp."
"Sorry."
"I'm just glad that didn't upset you. The Commander told me to ham it up, make it seem like you had no chance, and act like a devil. I was really worried you'd take it the wrong way, but the Commander told me they'd see right through us if I held back."
"Don't worry, one of the guards pulled me aside this morning and told me to play along with whatever you said."
"So, you think they fell for it?" she asks as she turns a corner ahead of me.
"I think you were pretty convincing," I reply as she slows down so I can fall into step beside her. "But how'd you know my serial number?"
"Oh, that was the Captain's idea," Sasha explains, lifting her hand from the handle on her box and turning it towards me so I can see my serial number written across her palm. "But he couldn't remember the number, so we had to look it up in the Commander's notes."
"Why would she bother writing something like that down?"
"It was her first conversation with a Marleyian, you might've said something important without her realizing it," she replies as she detaches the handle from one of the protrusions on her box and tucks it into her jacket.
"Huh. Hey, uh, this might be something I'm not allowed to know, but why are there big boxes on your legs?"
"These? That's no secret, they hold the blades for my gear." She pulls one of the protrusions forward, displaying a wicked looking edge.
"But why would you ever need eight swords?" It makes no sense.
"We need spares because it's easy to blunt or break them cutting titans." She states this casually, as if getting into hand to hand combat with a damn titan was a normal day for her. Our briefing had mentioned how they fight titans, but I didn't expect such a casual attitude about it. "It would've been really nice if we'd had something like your anti titan rifles, though. I got to try one out a couple days back and really liked it. And here's the first stop for your lessons, Mr. Niccolo," she announces, pointing to a building ahead.
"The part about teaching me things wasn't an act?"
"Only the part about it being a burden. The Commander heard about our talk in the market, said to keep doing that and consider it a working date."
"Huh, that's a new one for me. Is that a Paradis thing, working on dates?" I ask as I follow her through the doors of what turns out to be a small bar, mostly empty in the early evening.
"No, it's new for me too. I guess it's a Commander Hange thing. Anyway, this is a very average bar with average prices, you can see on the board back there typical prices for drinks and a good sized dinner, so I suppose you won't want your prices below that," she says while pointing at a piece of slate behind the bar with the local writing scrawled on it in chalk.
"Um, Ms. Sasha? That board, um…"
"Eh? What about it?"
"I, uh, can't really tell what it says."
"Oh, wait, did nobody teach you our alphabet yet?"
"Yeah, um, that and your commander hasn't paid me yet."
"Don't worry, drinks are on me today!" she offers while climbing onto a barstool, which is probably her only option with all the gear strapped onto her. I follow suit, scooting my stool a bit closer to hers. "And I guess we'll have to think of something else to teach you."
"You could always tell me more about yourself," I suggest. And there's that cute blush again. And my pulse feels like it's going about as fast as a machinegun.
"I'm not that interesting," she denies quietly, looking down.
"I think you're fascinating," I admit. And my face betrays me again. Damn. I look down at the bar and hope the heat I feel in my cheeks fades before Sasha notices. "Hey, uh, Ms. Sasha?" I ask after a couple awkward minutes. "Is it normal around here for bartenders to ignore customers?" The older looking man behind the bar glanced at us briefly as we walked on and has been talking with some other customers at the end of the bar ever since.
"No," she answers before raising her voice, "Can we please get a couple beers here?"
He replies without looking up, "The Marley scum has to leave first."
"It's alright, Mr. Niccolo here is one of the friendly ones," she insists.
He scoffs at this. "Friendly like the ones that sent the titans that ate my family? Always said scouts were more trouble than they were worth. The King should've disbanded you and sealed the gates so they couldn't break in."
"Hope that's not a common attitude," I remark after we step back onto the street, "might make it hard to get people to try my food."
"No, I've only seen a few people glaring at that uniform. Most seem kinda curious."
"Curious about me, or curious about us?"
This earns a cute giggle. "No, it's definitely that stained-up Marley uniform drawing attention. What happened to that nice civilian outfit you cooked for us in?"
Does that mean she likes that look? "I still have it, guards insist on work crews being in uniform for whatever reason."
"Good, Commander said to tell you that you have meetings the next couple days, you should probably scrub off and put those on tomorrow. And maybe we can requisition another outfit or two for you."
"You mean I won't make a good impression walking in there looking like I tried to clean the floor by using myself as the mop?" I joke, earning another angelic laugh as we continue towards the market.
"Thanks, it's pretty good," I tell Sasha after taking my first sip from a bottle of island beer. I'd only seen the stalls selling fresh produce on my first trip through the market, it had been a surprise when I found out several local breweries ran market stalls as well.
"You're welcome, Mr. Niccolo, so how does it compare to Marley's beer?"
"Pretty well," I admit, "better than what I could usually get on shore leave. I've had better, but not often."
"Good, this came from the best brewery in Shiganshina District."
"Spoiling me with the good stuff, huh?" I grin at Sasha and she returns it as I continue, "Seems kinda backwards, but I won't complain when the beer's this good." I take another sip as she chuckles, then I consider the beer before speaking again, "This would pair pretty well with a lot of what I plan on cooking, too. Excuse me," I say, turning to the man running the stall, "do you deliver?"
"If you order at least a case, sure."
"I was thinking kegs." He looks skeptical at this, like most of the merchants I've spoken to today have been. He becomes much more cooperative when Sasha explains the situation, quickly scribbling contact information and a list of prices on a sheet of paper that I add to the small stack of vendor information I'm carrying. He then enthusiastically shakes my hand and offers us two more bottles, on the house. He's not the first one to be happy about the possibility of a military contract either.
"That's the last one we need to see that's open late," Sasha informs me. "Now, one more booth."
"All this walking and talking really builds up an appetite, huh?" Along with booths selling all kinds of ingredients and household goods are a large number selling cooked food, which I've sampled a wide variety of this evening.
"You know it!" she replies with a grin. We stop at a nearby booth and she buys two small loaves that look like bread, but the loaf she hands me feels heavier than bread should.
"Thanks. Is something baked inside?"
"Good catch. Now let's find a place to sit before you drop all that." I chuckle and nod at this; carrying a stack of papers, the bottle of wine we'd been passing back and forth all evening, two beers, and the mysterious loaf is a bit tricky.
"So what happened next?" I ask, getting back to the story she'd been telling before we stopped at the beer stand. "Did Shadis catch you?"
"Nope! I climbed back out the window with all that bread, then we went around sharing it with our friends and left no evidence. But it's kinda weird, looking back, that Reiner was always willing to help me with stuff like that."
"Yeah. I wasn't expecting to hear about Marley's Shield stealing bread." Especially not when he was supposed to be stealing a titan.
We seat ourselves on a curb on the nearest edge of the market, near enough that there's not much other than the box from her flying gear between us. "So, what do you think is in this one?" she challenges before taking a vigorous bite of her own loaf. She's made a bit of a game of my current inability to read labels, one that I've been doing pretty good at when I don't trip over unfamiliar local ingredients.
I take a bite and chew thoughtfully for a moment before deciding on my answer. "Mostly potato, with some lamb, butter, bit of salt, and an herb we call rosemary back home." I take another bite before continuing, "Bit of rosemary mixed into the bread dough, too." Sasha nods, smiling beautifully before swallowing a mouthful of whatever this local dish is called. We eat silently for a few moments more, enjoying the flavors as we watch the remaining merchants close up for the night. "We should do this again sometime," I suggest after taking another drink of beer, "only without the work part."
"Oh, definitely!" she agrees. "But we'll also need to come out here early sometime to do a little more work too, there's still several merchants you need to meet."
"I just hope your Commander hurries up with the pay before I start feeling like I'm mooching off of you for free food," I joke.
"You can always pay me back by cooking for me," Sasha suggests.
"There's an idea. We can come buy some ingredients and find some place I can cook them up for you."
"I meant when the restaurant opens, but that sounds even more fun." She takes another drink before continuing, "Is that how you did dates back in Marley?"
"Sometimes, yeah. I didn't have my own kitchen, but Lago's right on the ocean, so we'd walk out to the beach and I'd put down a picnic blanket, build a little cookfire, and get to work."
"You keep making it sound better and better. I definitely want to do that some day. Too bad it takes most of a day to ride to the beach."
"And I don't know how to ride a horse. What about that river? Is there any place on the banks like a beach?"
"Not exactly, but I know a few spots that could work. And I could teach you how to handle a horse. Going out riding's a pretty popular type of date around here."
"So, what do you say we go downriver next time both of us can get a day off?" I offer.
"I'd love to. That's a little far to walk, though. I'll have to teach you about horses first." Sounds like falling off a horse is in my near future.
"So, are any of these spots good for swimming?"
"I'm not sure. None of the streams around Dauper are much more than knee deep, so I never learned."
"It's not hard, I'll teach you. What do people around here normally wear to swim?"
"Wear? Um, when we go out to the beach, we just wear regular pants and shirts in the water, rolled up a bit. Do they wear something different in Marley?"
"It's similar, but the clothes are made for swimming in so you don't need to roll anything up. Maybe we could get something like them made, it's just short pants that end a bit above the knee and a shirt with no sleeves. And they're all dark colors, of course."
Sasha chuckles at this. "We learned that the hard way, first time we went in the ocean. Had to have the guys all look the other way so Mikasa and I could wrap up in blankets to cover our soaked uniforms."
I chuckle along with her. "That must've been embarrassing."
"Not as bad as it could've been; I noticed first and we ducked back down in the water and covered up before the boys noticed. But I'm told our faces still looked about like beets," Sasha elaborates while crossing her arms over her chest, demonstrating how they'd covered up. She laughs again as she continues, "Then all the guys started blushing when they realized what was happening, the Commander started laughing, and the Captain called us a bunch of idiots and went back to the horses to bring us blankets."
"So," I begin after a couple minutes spent silently sipping on our beers, "you think settling the betting pool will calm down the gossip we stirred up any?"
"Oh, you heard about that?"
"Yeah, Samuel told me about it last night."
"Hope you don't mind people talking about you, making it past the first date will just make most of them more interested."
"Huh. Guess I shouldn't be surprised, enemies going out doesn't exactly happen every day. They even have plays about that sort of thing back home."
"That sounds fun to watch."
"What sort of plays do you have around here, Ms. Sasha?"
"Nothing good right now. We're a couple weeks away from the Trost festival, so they're just doing ones about the battle."
"Nothing you need reminded of, huh?" It's a cloudy night; too dark to make out much of Sasha's expression, but her tone of voice definitely didn't sound happy.
"Yeah, and they get all kinds of things wrong, too. But griping about that'll just put me in a bad mood, tell me about this Marley play."
"You sure? It's pretty sad."
"You've gone and made me curious, Mr. Niccolo, you can't just stop now," Sasha insists.
"Well, alright. It's set hundreds of years in the past and based on a really old story, so there's a bunch of different versions. Hold on, let me think a moment, it's been a couple years since I saw it." I quietly sip my beer, deep in thought, while Sasha patiently waits. "Ok, so there's this guy called Tristan. He was an orphan, raised by his uncle, who ruled a small kingdom as a vassal of the Eldian Empire."
"And what's a vassal?"
"Basically, when the Eldians showed up, they decided to swear loyalty to them instead of fighting and getting ate by titans."
"Sounds smart."
"Yeah. So Tristan grows and becomes the strongest fighter in his uncle's kingdom. The play starts at the end of a war against a neighboring vassal kingdom and Tristan is ordered to escort a group of diplomats to the other kingdom to negotiate peace. While he's there, he meets this girl named Isolde and they fall for each other, but they had to keep it secret."
"This story's heating up fast," Sasha states with a giggle.
I chuckle lightly and finish my beer before continuing, "Yeah, and they had to be super careful about it. See, aside from being enemies, her dad was the king, so getting caught would ruin the negotiations. So they're having this secret love affair while the diplomats do their thing, but then they hear that part of the tribute her dad agreed to pay was to send one of his daughters to marry the other king."
"Oh no, I see where this is going."
"Yeah, she got picked."
"So she's tending his wounds when they hear the signal from outside the cave, that the army found them." I pause for some more wine. It's a long story and my throats getting dry. "Want to finish this off?" I ask, holding out the nearly empty wine bottle.
"Sure." Sasha takes the bottle and I use my empty beer to pop the cap off my other one.
"Neither one wanted to be captured, so Tristan gets up and rips off his bandages, making his wounds start bleeding out. Then, with the last of his strength, he takes Isolde into his arms and crushes her, so they die together."
"He just squished her?" I can feel her briefly shiver, from where she's leaning against my shoulder. Can't blame her, that's not a good mental image for anyone who's fought titans. She doesn't complain when I wrap an arm around her shoulders and squeeze lightly.
"Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but about all the stories say he was ridiculously strong."
"No, it sounds like he was an Ackerman."
"A what?"
"That's Mikasa and the Captain's family, it's why they're so strong."
"Huh. And here I was wondering if everyone on the island was like that. I don't know, maybe he was. Some versions of the story have him killing a titan in single combat."
"Do any versions have a happy ending?"
"Sorry, Ms. Sasha, tragedies always end sad. And that's not the end. Next, the King walks in and it turns out he'd changed his mind and was going to pardon them and annul his marriage. Then the curtain goes down on the King mourning."
"That just rubs it in and makes it sadder. Do any versions at least have them go down fighting?"
"Yeah, some do."
"That's a little better," she says while popping her beer open with a knife. "Either way, it's good they went out on their own terms, but I still liked the middle a lot more than the end."
"Yeah, and it's even better when you see players up on stage doing all the parts." I take a long drink from my beer before asking, "So, what now?"
"Well, it's getting pretty late and I'm almost out of beer." She leans a bit closer, face tilted up towards mine, as she continues, "We really should be heading back sometime soon."
"And how soon is soon?" I ask, leaning in just a bit towards her.
"If we don't want to make anyone suspicious, I guess eventually?" This is maddening, my pulse pulse beats so hard it feels my heart might explode. Her face is barely an inch from mine; I can't draw this out any longer, and so I close the distance. It's a very light contact at first, but the jolt that runs through my body feels as if I've kissed an electric socket. I'm honestly not sure how much time passes before we pull back a bit. "And maybe we'll have time for another of those." Sasha sounds a bit breathless, like I feel.
"Just one?"
"At least one more," she replies, before pulling my head back down.
Note: For those who didn't recognize it, Tristan and Isolde is a really old story from our world, originally a lost oral tradition, with tons of versions from epic poems to plays to modern movies. They even managed to get included in several versions of the Arthurian Mythos. The modified version Niccolo tells takes bits from several different versions.
