[AN] happy halloweenie! tonight I'm going to a friend's party as Eren Jaeger. Jägerbombbbbb.

thank you to all who have followed, favorited, and reviewed! I'd also like to thank KiraKiraBluemoon for their consistent reviews, along with first time reviewers mun3litknight and nevvy.

to reviewer nevvy: thank you so much for pointing that out! gosh, I feel like such an idiot. it'd be a bit of a pain to go back and rewrite that scene, so I hope you don't mind if I just leave it as is.

Chapter 12: Pine

If the blade had been aimed at Levi, he would have been able to block it, but Nephele was much smarter than that. He taught her better. Instead, she'd hurled it at his horse, and Levi realized that she was the kind of girl who'd disregard her morals and principles if her safety was at risk. The sword made impact, lodging itself in the beast's eye, and Levi had to jump out of his saddle as it bucked and reared - screaming and half-blind.

Levi had almost forgotten that she'd thrown both of her swords, and arched his body back into a bridge of bone and flesh just as the sharpened plate of metal windmilled towards his throat. It sheared off a quarter of an inch of hair and almost grazed the tip of his nose. By the time he righted himself, Nephele was upon him, and the blade had buried itself in his horse's belly. His spare screamed in terror trying to wrench its reins free from its dead companion, nostrils flared as its powerful hooves pawed at the earth.

"You should work on your aim," Levi remarked while blocking her first strike with the edge of his sword. There was killing intent behind each of her thrusts, and Levi also realized something else about her; she was built to kill people more efficiently than titans.

"I hit my marks," she assured, staying on the offensive, like she was testing her skill against his. Then again, every fight is a test of one's mettle.

"You're quite ruthless. Is your vegetarianism just some made-up personality trait to deceive others into thinking you're compassionate and kind?" he asked, sparing himself a quick glance at the dying horse as it stumbled into its grave, bleeding from the face and stomach. Nephele had untied the sack she had the dog tucked into and left it on the ground before she charged at him. Levi searched for the wriggling bundle, knowing that he could use it as leverage against her.

"No. I just don't support meaningless death. I can survive without meat, and still be strong." Her attacks were fast and frequent and required most of Levi's attention to block. He could end this quickly. He should end this quickly. People are dying. "After all, what do bulls eat?"

"Shit," Levi answered, deciding that this farce had gone on long enough. Their blades collided, and for a moment their faces were so close that if they were to suddenly drop their swords and lean forward, their lips would touch.

Without letting her respond, Levi stopped her flurry of steel with two deft whacks of the dull edges of his swords. The force dislocated her wrists and made Nephele drop her weapons, and before she could relocate the bones, Levi was behind her, pinning her arms to her back with little regard for her injuries. She could feel his abdomen pressed against her back, his breath on her neck, his fingers on the small strip of skin where her shirt had become untucked.

"You're disgusting. I should kill you. Your comrades are dying, and I should be saving them right now," he spat, keeping a firm grip on her even as she writhed in his arms like a worm.

"Then shut the fuck up for once and keep your fucking opinions to yourself and do your fucking job already!" shouted Nephele, craning her neck to stare at him with unfettered sadness in her expression. He avoided her gaze and shoved her towards the horse, his eyes on the horizon, towards Trost. He was always looking forward, never back. The only thing Nephele had to look forward to was her death.

Once Nephele was hoisted up onto the beast, Levi put a foot in the stirrup to join her. She shook her head hysterically, tears in her eyes, her jaw clenched.

"Please…"

Rolling his eyes and making that trademark 'tch' on the tip of his tongue, Levi put his foot back down and walked away. He knelt down in the dirt and picked up the bundle of fur, making a disgusting face as he stared at the squirming, yipping creature. By the time he reached Nephele, she was laughing.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked, his voice low. One moment she was calm as the hours before a storm, the next she was as angry as one, and then she was as bright as the sun after a hurricane, her cheeks wet with rain.

"You're a cat person, aren't you?" she murmured, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand as Levi climbed atop the horse behind her, giving her the honors of holding the Poppy in her lap. His hands found the reins, almost wrapping around her, his chest pressed against her back. But Nephele didn't think about any of that.

She no longer was worthy enough to have feelings for Levi.

"Yeah," was all he said, before digging his heels into the horse's sides to urge it forward, north towards the gray line that is Wall Rose, stretched endlessly before them.

The Wall was their only horizon.

"You're disgusting."

It was the greatest insult Levi could ever bestow on someone, and it was true. If the prison walls had any mirrors, Nephele wouldn't even look in them for once. Instead, she caught her reflection in the tin trays that the guards piled her starchy meals onto. She hadn't eaten more than a loaf of bread since arriving in the dungeon -blindfolded and in chains- because she couldn't stand the sight of herself, nor could she even stomach the idea of putting something into her mouth. She thought of the titans' stomachs, making even the idea of food in her own stomach repulsive.

Nephele wasn't blindfolded or in chains anymore, but she was trapped in a cage like some kind of dangerous animal. On the other hand, her next-cell neighbor was shackled, and the rattling of his iron chains echoed off the empty stone walls every time he moved.

"You're a coward," Eren spit for the tenth time that day. His voice rattled and echoed more than his chains. They weren't keeping him hydrated. At least Nephele didn't get that sort of treatment. Sure, she was looked at with scorn, but at least they didn't fear and despise her like they did Eren.

"Yes," she agreed coolly as she stared up at the ceiling, searching for pictures in the rock. It was difficult to believe that the titan she saw emerging from the one that was about to devour her back in Trost turned out to be Eren. "And you're a monster." Her comment must have struck a nerve, for Eren who was always so quick to deliver a comeback, had nothing to say.

Their cells were separated by a wall of stone and mortar, were four by four meters wide, and shut off from the rest of the world by iron bars. It was damp and the only light came from a few torches on the outside of their cells, which gave Nephele reason to believe that they were in some basement. It smelled like earth. There was a steady trickle of water coming from somewhere, and its constant drip, drip threatened to drive her insane. The only furniture in her cell was a small cot, and the sheets were more thin than the ones back at the trainees. She found herself missing the daily routine, her fellow cadets and the simplicity of things. Now, the days coalesced and were indistinguishable from each other, and she never even knew what time it was.

With nothing to do to pass the time besides think, Nephele conjured up all sorts of ways she'd meet her end. Perhaps they'd give her a fatal dose of hemlock. She remembered reading about the plant in her herbal book, which a Greek philosopher by the name of Socrates was forced to take after being imprisoned for impiety. Maybe they'd hang her in the town square for children to watch as she dangled by the neck from a noose, or feed her to titans, or maybe they'd just empty their guns into her skull.

The only change in Nephele's environment that she had to look forward to was the sound of what she assumed to be the dungeon's door as it opened. It was usually when the guards were switching shifts, or when someone came to bring her and Eren their meals, but she always hoped that it was an officer of the Military Police come to take her life. They'd sowed the seed of despair within her, had toiled it for what felt like months, and she was in constant wait for them to reap the harvest.

After a while, Nephele could predict when the door would open. She was familiar with the guard's shifts and knew when her meals would arrive -though she still never ate them- so when the sound of rusted hinges squeaking in protest as the door opened reached her ears, the red-haired prisoner speculated that it was them. They finally came to kill her.

She'd rather die than spend another second in that cell anyways. Hadn't she been trapped behind walls her whole life anyway?

But she knew those footsteps coming down the wooden staircase. She'd danced with them many nights ago. The other pair she couldn't recognize by ear, but she had a pretty good guess of who they belonged to as well.

Nephele laid down on the thin mattress and pulled the sheets over her head.

"You're disgusting."

"The prosecution calls Nephele Ambrosia to the stands."

Nephele heard a voice echoing somewhere up above. Maybe it was the man they call God, come to deliver her sentence. She wished that someone had told her that she'd be expecting such illustrious company so that she could have at least gone to the effort of fixing her tangled mess of hair.

There were a pair of doors at the end of the hallway she was being ushered down, a guard flanking her on both sides as she trudged along adorned in chains, and when the doors opened, Nephele glanced up to find that the only thing above her was an ornate ceiling, and the man to deliver her sentence was just that: a man. Darius Zackly sat behind the judge's bench, running his hands over his gray beard as he scrutinized the stack of papers in his hands. The woman saw Eren Jaeger chained to a metal post in the center of the courtroom, but her eyes wandered to the graphic mosaic on the ceiling that depicted men killing fellow man. She remembered hearing somewhere that before humanity fought against the titans, their mortal enemies were eachother.

These must be simpler times.

Nephele was led to the witness stand, which sat below the judge's bench and overlooked most of the courtroom. She passed Eren Jaeger on her way there, and saw Armin and Mikasa amongst a crowd of people to her left, refusing to meet their gazes, and tried not to look for Levi. Several days prior, she couldn't have helped but overhear the conversation between Eren, Erwin, and Levi as they discussed his fate. Luckily, they had passed her cell without acknowledging her.

"Nephele Ambrosia. You were a member of the hundred-and-fourth trainee squad that was involved in the defense for Trost, correct?" asked a man of the Military Police, who stood to her left amongst others of his faction.

"That is correct," she said, at first not recognizing her own voice as it resonated off the walls of the spacious courtroom. The voice sounded monotonous and devoid of any emotion.

"And is it true that you were witness to Eren Jaeger's titan transformation?" he asked. Nephele knew that there would be more difficult questions to come, and she braced herself for each one. She didn't want Eren to die, even if he didn't share the same sentiment for her own welfare. No matter what they asked, she'd twist the truth to make him seem like less of the uncontrollable monster that she had fled from.

"It is."

"Can you describe the events leading up to, during, and following Jaeger's transformation for the courtroom?" Of fucking course she could. It's not like the girl suffered from amnesia or anything.

The barrier in Nephele's head that she had laboriously constructed to guard herself from the memories of that day started to crack. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and forced herself to take it apart, brick by fucking brick, and tried not to fall to her knees in tears as she relived Astrid getting swallowed by a titan, and heard Milivoj Hejda's bones crunch within the fist of a ten meter class, and watched Gotthilf Eisner as his limbs were torn off of his body, and listened to Moira El-Hashem's shrieks of terror as she watched Olevia Moore getting her head chomped off before meeting her own gruesome end. She spared them the gorey details.

"After my squad was decimated by a group of…" Nephele's voice trailed off as she tried to recall the exact number. "... I'd estimate nearly fifteen titans, I myself was about to be eaten by a titan when I saw a large hand reach out of its mouth. The titan about to kill me seemed like it would explode from the inside out, like something was rapidly growing inside of it. It happened rather quickly. The titan collapsed in front of me, and from its body emerged a massive titan. I watched as it deliberately stepped on the other titan's neck, crushing its nape, and I was too frozen with fear to move. Luckily, the titan didn't even seem to notice me, and instead recognized its prey as another titan, and charged after it, shouting in anger. After that, I fled."

A chorus of murmurs filled the room as people talked amongst themselves, and Nephele tried not to listen to them.

"If Jaeger posed no threat to you, then why did you run?" inquired the officer as he dug for information to use against Eren.

Nephele scoffed and shook her head as she shifted her weight onto one leg. With arms crossed over her chest, she said, "After seeing that, anyone would run. My fight or flight instincts kicked in, and after all the horrors I had witnessed, I wasn't prepared to handle something like that."

"From your perspective, do you believe Eren Jaeger poses a threat to the wellbeing of mankind?"

Only then did Nephele allow herself to look at Eren, as he knelt in chains like a dangerous criminal. If only they knew Eren. There was nothing that kid despised more than the titans, and he sure as hell wasn't one of them. When he looked at her, he didn't offer forgiveness for her desertion. Instead, she saw a chance to redeem herself. She may die, but the Military Police wouldn't take him, too. The way she saw it, Eren was a priceless asset for humankind, and Nephele was going to pay her debt to the human race by protecting him.

"Do you think those chains could hold him should he decide to shift? Eren could kill us all, crush us beneath a single foot, and yet here he kneels, shackled and obeying the court system when he could easily bring this building to the ground. The only threat this kid poses is if you decide to rob humanity of its only hope: Eren Jaeger."

One hour later…

It was Nephele's turn. They made her kneel, and that was the worst part. Strong, careless hands forced her to the floor where Eren had knelt just a few minutes ago, and then the same metal pillar that held Jaeger in place now held her hostage. Nephele bowed her head -her arms painfully stretched behind her and holding her upright- but not in fealty. She was just tired.

"Nephele Ambrosia, graduate of the one-hundred-and-fourth trainees squad," announced Darius Zackly as he pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "You stand before the court accused of treason. Do you understand the charges made against you?" he inquired, his voice even more powerful that Shadis' was back in training without being quite as aggressive.

"I do," she agreed, not only to the entire courtroom but to herself as well. The high ceiling, empty walls, and the way voices bounced off of them made spoken words seem permanent.

"Then you must know that you are facing death by a firing squad should you be found guilty?"

If only they'd have chosen a much cleaner method of extermination for her. She wouldn't look so pretty covered in holes. Would they hold a funeral service for her, or just toss her mangled body on top of some mass pyre?

"I plead guilty. That is my final gift to humanity. Now, the lot of you won't have to suffer through another trial today," she murmured, lifting her head to sweep her gaze across the room. She saw the faces of people she cared about in the crowd, but several of them wouldn't even spare her a parting glance. Her heart felt heavy, and she wished someone would just put a bullet in it already. "You're welcome."

Nephele's candid words were met with incoherent muttering from the crowd, which Zackly silenced with several hard raps of his almighty gavel.

"Order," he commanded, and so obeyed those who disturbed it.

"The defendant has spoken," came the same voice that interrogated her during Eren's trial. The Military Police should rename themselves as the Prosecution instead.

Nephele's fate was settled, like dust on a windowsill waiting to be cleaned up, brushed under the rug.

"Are there any objections?" asked Zackly morosely, making it evident that the question was only a formality. Surely no one would object to the death of one insignificant trainee, when they'd all rather return to their comfortable homes to wait for the titans to come knocking on their front doors instead.

But Nephele did not want to die.

"I do."

It was the last person Nephele expected to speak up on her behalf. Her head snapped up to look over at Levi, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest defiantly as he stared back at her. For the first time in a year, their eyes met from across the room. Though his gaze was far from gentle, it wasn't entirely cold either. It was neutral; it was a chance to redeem herself. If she didn't know any better, she would have sworn to have seen the faintest of smiles dash across his face.

"On what grounds?" barked Nile Dok, chief of the Military Police who had spoken in favor of Eren being dissected. It seemed that Levi had an uncanny way of getting under the Military Police's skin.

"I have committed crimes far more worthy of the death sentence, and yet here I stand," Levi contested. "I live because I am strong, and all you cowards need me." Nephele didn't know whether to feel elated or ashamed that Levi was defending her. She was a coward, too, of the same creed as the ones Levi detested so much. "You, who cower comfortably behind these walls, who would send a woman to her death for the same crime any of you would have committed were you in her shoes."

He called her a woman.

Erwin raised his hand for permission to speak, and lowered it to say, "The Survey Corps has another proposition." His voice commanded in a different manner from Darius Zackly's. Rather than demand people's obedience, Erwin called for their attention. Was this 'proposition' of theirs preordained? Why were they defending her? They achieved one victory in Jaeger, but asking for Nephele's life to be spared as well was pushing it.

"What do you propose, Commander Smith?" asked Zackly, unamused by the turn of events as he pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

"First, I'd like to remind everyone that Commander Pixis had offered pardons for those who wished to abandon the operation during the siege on Trost," said the Commander.

Turning his attention to Dot Pixis, who was unabashedly taking a long draught of whatever liquid his flask contained, Zackly asked, "Is this true, Commander Pixis?"

Cheeks flushed and eyes half-lidded, Pixis raised his flask as if to toast, and stated, "That's true. Given that many of the soldiers charged with defending Trost had graduated so recently and didn't have combat experience, and because of the grim circumstance humanity had found itself in, I gave immunity to those who lost their fighting spirit. A man who's lost heart is already a dead one."

"I see," murmured Zackly, running a hand over his whiskers as he deliberated. "Then what do you suggest we do with her, Commander Smith?"

"The Survey Corps offers to take Nephele Ambrosia into our ranks. Our numbers are constantly dwindling, and it'd be unwise to waste Ambrosia's talen," said Erwin, his posture straight and formal with both hands clasped behind him and shoulders pushed back. He was truly living up to be the gallant knight that Nephele pictured him as a child.

At that suggestion, Nile scoffed and shook his head, smiling confidently. "And what makes you think that'd be a reasonable decision? Do you expect a traitorous, craven little girl to fight against titans out in the open when she couldn't even face them behind the safety of a wall?"

It was Levi who attested for Nephele. With his arms crossed casually and his weight resting on one leg, Levi carried himself much differently from Erwin, yet it was Levi whom Nephele felt that she was saved by. He wasn't a knight or a hero. He was just a soldier.

"Look at her. She doesn't fear death anymore."

Every pair of eyes in the room locked on Nephele, but the only ones that mattered were Levi's. Sighing, Darius Zackly waved his hand dismissively, as if he could whisk them all away with just a simple gesture. Nephele couldn't believe what was happening.

"Then it's settled. Nephele Ambrosia, you will be placed on probation in the custody of Erwin Smith." The pounding of his gavel signified that the case was closed. Darius Zackly smiled down at Nephele, who was in such a state of shock that her expression was unchanging. It didn't look like she was surprised in the slightest. "Congratulations, Ambrosia. You're a member of the Scouts now."

It's strange, how volatile human life is.