Welp. Apparently Erwin's connections with the nobility mentioned in ACWNR can't be that he was born noble – a recent chapter of SNK disproved that theory. I'll keep writing this under the assumption that the Smiths are a noble bloodline. Hooray for AU!

Mid-Sweet Talk

Evelina stood before her cracked full body mirror with an expressionless face. All of her tears had been cried, her throat was sore from screaming, and she'd already punched her mirror and broken it. Sadness and rage had both run their courses and replacing them was a sense of apathy uncharacteristic to the youngest Smith. She did not even have the energy within her to hate the dress her mother chose for her or to disassemble the intricate up-do and replace it with the simple braid she preferred.

Her hands slid down the silky red fabric of her dress; by far, it was the grandest ensemble Maite had ever chosen for her daughter. The red gown reached to the floor and she would have to be careful to not trip on or tear it. The lace-up corset was pulled so tightly that breathing was a chore, a chore made twice as difficult by the ivory pearls and garnet crystals adorning the corset and upper sleeves. The dress bared her shoulders and the space just above her breasts but covered everything else and was complete with intricate gold embroidery in the style of ivy leaves and lower sleeves of the same color. Whether the gems sewn into the gown were real or not, Evelina did not know for sure, but knowing her mother, the shiny dots on the dress were real rubies and diamonds.

What a waste, she poked at one of the gems as if it were a flesh-eating monster.

Had she gotten a say, she would have worn something simpler and worlds more practical – but she never had a say in anything, did she? Her opinions, feelings, desires and dreams mattered not to Maite. Like every other child born to Sina's nobility, she was a slab of clay tossed onto the potter's wheel for molding and shaping, and like a slab of clay, entirely at the mercy of the potter's hand. Noble families weren't families in the traditional sense; rather, they were vessels through which bloodlines and surnames remained extant. Since her birth Evelina Smith has been spun around on the wheel nonstop while her parents tried to mold and shape her into the perfect noble girl, and her engagement to Kristofer Vogel was just another method. Maite and Otto had, in their minds, failed with Erwin, and they would rather be forced to live in the outer walls than have their second child grow up to be anything but the model noble.

Long gone were the days where Evelina would kick, scream, and fight tooth and nail to get her way. At fourteen years old, she was used to obeying and pretending. Tonight would be no different. In twenty short minutes she was set to meet her fiancé. She had her dialogue rehearsed and memorized. False pleasantries, obligatory declarations of love at first sight, and insincere compliments, all scripted early that morning, were kept in a little box at the front of her mind.

"Evelina, darling," Maite entered her daughters room sans permission with an item covered with a piece of white fabric.

"Mother," Evelina turned to her mother with the largest forced smile she could muster. "I seem to be ready early for once. I realize now that this surprise engagement is just part of our lifestyle – after all, you and Father were an arranged marriage."

"Yes, my dear," Maite unraveled the cloth from around the item and gazed lovingly at it. "I cannot express how pleased I am to hear that, because this circlet in my hands is the same one I wore to my engagement ball and my mother before me and her mother before her. It would mean the world to me if you continued the tradition."

Evelina took the golden circlet from her mother and turned it over in her hands. There was nothing intricate about the piece's design and the only adornment was a ruby in the center. It was the ugliest thing she had ever seen because of what it symbolized but the most beautiful because of its simplicity.

Maite stood before her daughter, white fabric clenched between her hands, anxious with anticipation of her daughter's answer. Of course she would say yes, and why wouldn't she? The circlet was beautiful but the gift had nothing to do with it. Maite was the mother and Evelina the child, and obedience was simply the only solution.

With the circlet still in her hands, Evelina nodded and forced a small grin. "Put it on me?"

"Gladly," Maite took the circlet from her daughter's hands and worked it around the multitude of hair pins and decorations to ensure it held steady. "You look like a bride already. You will make a fine wife to young Mr. Vogel."

"Kristofer," Evelina murmured. "His name is Kristofer."

"Of course, dear," Maite tapped the bridge of Evelina's nose with her finger. "If only your brother would have turned out like you. Evelina, you are faithful, obedient, responsible, and a noble's noble. Your brother is none of those things."

"Surely our lives are different," she managed through her teeth, fists clenched in rage at the badmouthing of not only her brother and idol, but this woman's son. "Will you please give me five minutes to finish readying myself in privacy? I will be down for the carriage before it even arrives I can promise you."

Maite nodded and excused herself from the room.

Evelina had half a mind to take the circlet and defenestrate it based solely off of her mother's comments about the only Smith she ever loved, but instead, she scolded herself.

Idiot, she told herself, you should be used to the witch's harsh words and they are not worth throwing a tantrum over.

She stole one last look in the mirror, changed her earrings from the hoops with the noisy diamonds clanging against each other at the end of silver chains to her favorite pair fashioned after bluejays, and extinguished the flames burning in the candelabras. As promised she beat both of her parents downstairs.

Otto would not even look at her and nor would she look at him. She might have been able to switch to the façade of the happy bride-to-be for her mother but she could not being herself to do the same for her father. Perhaps it was because, unlike Maite who thought that her daughter's engagement was something to celebrate, Otto was ashamed.

Good, the teenager thought to herself haughty and satisfied, he deserves to feel awful until it consumes him.

"Let's go," Evelina pushed open the front door and led the way down the marble steps to the waiting carriage.

:-:

The bumps in the street did not bother her at all that night. Anxiety and adrenaline riddled her body and filled it so completely that things like annoyance had no room to exist. That night, the bumps in the road meant that with each one, she was getting closer to the Vogel Estate and too her future, and the sooner she met Kristofer the sooner her night would be over.

The sooner, she reminded herself, I can pretend it is a bad dream.

Maite Smith was many things but a liar was not among them. She had meant it when she said the Vogel family line was one whose influence and wealth reigned supreme in comparison to the Smith line. The only building in Sina larger than the momentous Vogel Estate was the Military Headquarters; the thing was a behemoth of a structure. In fact, as impressive as they were, momentous and behemoth were understatements, and Evelina was positive she didn't have a single word in her vocabulary that could properly describe the size of her – she shuddered at the thought – fiancé's home. Large marble columns decorated with leaves and scrolls both supported the roof and accentuated the space between the top of the front steps and the front door. Maybe it was the fact that her destiny stood somewhere beyond that door, or perhaps it was the grandiosity of it all, but in a way, the columns made the double doors a holy ground of sorts. Had she not known any better she would had thought she was entering the home of the king. Torn between dread and curiosity, Evelina's hands rested upon the golden door handles but she did not push down to open the doors.

From over her shoulder her mother appeared and gently pushed her smaller hands from the handles. Maite's multiple rings clinked against the metal as her fingers closed around the handles, and her affectionate involuntary laughter accompanied the click of the unlocked latches. How cute, the elder Smith woman assumed her daughter was nervous with giddiness rather than what it truly was – fear, anxiety, uncertainty.

Proper ladies conceal their surprise, her mother's voice played in her mind when she saw what was behind the double doors, and even with the reminder she could not stop the gasp of surprise.

A foyer, decorated with portraits and a carpet so beautiful she did not want to step on it, separated the first set of double doors from a larger set which stood open with armed Military Police officers in formal regalia guarding the entryway and a servant with a guest list standing in front of them. Behind the soldiers was a ballroom walls more splendid than any she'd seen before with decorations to put Felly's skill with décor to shame – though she would never tell her dear nanny – and frankly she found the level of grandiosity to be ostentatious if not a little pretentious. It was not as if Mr. Kristofer Vogel was celebrating an engagement to somebody important; she was just a girl from the Smith family, not a princess.

The armed guards, one of whom whose face vaguely reminded her of somebody, stood still as statues even as her parents greeted the servant, Otto with a genuine albeit barely-there politeness and Maite with her condescending tone and superiority complex, and only moved to briefly bow their heads as the Smiths entered the ballroom. As Military Police guards could only be present at events hosted by a former Military Police officer she found it strange for her engagement party to have them at the doors; particularly because of the nobility's stigma against enlisting in an institution so overcome by 'lower class slobs.'

Granted, the Military Police wasn't the Garrison, and it was certainly more prestigious than the Scouting Legion. The well-regarded reputation of the MP aside, what a man of Abelhard Vogel's pedigree could want with the military, she had no idea.

A cold as corpse hand gasped onto one of her exposed shoulders and jerked her from her thoughts and observations rather prematurely. "Oh," she audibly expressed her surprise and accompanied the exclamation with a slight scowl.

"I do apologize, Ms. Smith," a syrupy-sweet voice behind her purred. "Goodness me, you startle, I will have to remember that if you are to live in my home."

"Mr. Vogel," Evelina turned around, careful not to trip on her dress, and extended an arm heavily ornamented with jewelry. "Pleasure."

"The pleasure is mine, Ms. Smith," Mr. Vogel took her hand and held on a beat to long for a handshake. "It is a joy to welcome you into my family."

"Thank you for allowing it," Evelina delivered one of her rehearsed lines with ease and curtsied with her head down to hide the smile she knew was unconvincing. "And do call me Evelina, Ms. Smith is so formal."

"Where is the groom-to-be?" Maite asked before Mr. Vogel could say anything else.

"Right this way, by the bar."

Evelina suppressed the urge to roll her eyes because 'by the bar' probably meant drunk or at the very least getting there. She followed Mr. Vogel and her parents to the bar where Kristofer stood with an older woman, probably an aunt, with a glass of vine, not hard liquor, in his hand. Admittedly, Kristofer Vogel was a handsome young man, but good looks do not a husband make.

The young man must have taken after his late mother because the only physical feature he took from Abelhard Vogel was his subtly pointed nose. Kristofer stood head and shoulders above both Mr. Vogel and Otto Smith, and though Evelina was accustomed to craning her neck to converse with Erwin and Arthur, he dwarfed her and the angle at which she had to hold her head in order to properly look at him was uncomfortable. A tall man with the muscle to match, his size alone made him imposing and combined with the regal aura surrounding his very existence, he was almost downright unapproachable. His build and stateliness aside, something about him made him seem the opposite of intimidating. Maybe it was that his blue eyes were so reminiscent of the brother she loved, or that his smile was just as forced as hers when he shook her hand, or it could have been the fact that he looked as confused as she felt. Regardless of the reason, when their parents left them alone together after they exchanged the obligatory 'my son/daughter will make an excellent husband/wife to your son/daughter' statements, she was no longer terrified of the man.

An awkward silence which lasted nearly a minute followed once their parents left but Kristofer soon broke it by offering Evelina a glass of vine and a smile. "You look like you need it," he shrugged when she took it and took a sip from his own glass. "We both do."

"Thank you Mr. Vogel," Evelina said without looking him in the eye.

Kristofer visibly recoiled at the formal address. "It's just Kris, or if you must be proper about it, Kristofer. Mr. Vogel is my father, Ms. Smith."

"Evelina," she corrected. "Ms. Smith is my mother though I like to pretend otherwise."

"We have that in common," he said in reference to his father.

Evelina looked around the room and the décor and believed it impossible for a ballroom of that size to have been decorated in just twenty-fur hours' time. She turned to him to ask him a bold statement bordering on an accusation. "This room is quite large, Kris. Your father said you found out about the engagement mere hours before I did, but this room had to have been in the decoration process long before then. I daresay your father's statement was mendacious."

"The woman who left with our parents was my aunt, my father's sister. She's nearly twenty years younger and is always throwing parties; the ballroom is constantly being decorated and redecorated. Up until yesterday I planned on making a brief compulsory appearance and retiring to my bedroom to read a book," he frowned at the notion of being accused of knowing earlier but said nothing antagonizing. "And that is the truth."

"I believe you," Evelina looked him in the eye for the first time and brown eyes stared into blue, unblinking, until she made a quarter turn to grab another glass of vine.

"Evelina."

"Yes?"

"If it's any consolation to you, I did not ask for this."

"Thank you, Kris. It is somewhat – no, tremendously – comforting knowing we are on the same page."

"I don't want this either," he said more to himself than to her but she heard it nonetheless.

"Is it because you play for the other team?" she asked as boldly as she had made the prior accusation

Kris's eyes widened and he took a step back upon hearing her words. "What makes you think I'm – no, that is not the reason."

"In our society it is the most likely and plausible reason," she replied, thinking of Ralf. "For a handsome man of your lineage to be twenty and unmarried; at the very least there should have been courting rumors circling 'round the social circles, and I am positive I have heard the names of every male member of the nobility save yours."

"I typically do not do that which will make me a topic of conversation for those nattering gossips," he said, a bite to his voice.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I apologize for prying, I was j-"

"No," Kris shook his head, turned to Evelina, and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. "I'm not used to personal questions is all. Our parents are looking at us, so I'm going to lean in and whisper in your ear and you are going to laugh and swat at me like I'm being lewd," he removed his hands from her shoulders and leaned in to whisper, "I wasn't going to tell you, but since you asked, the reason is not that I am gay, but…one of my father's servants."

Evelina did just as Kris asked and swatted at his arm and feigned laughter. "I am willing to bet my inheritance she is not very happy with you right now."

"She doesn't know," Kris said, winking at her when he caught Otto and Abelhard staring again. "She is with her family in Wall Rose; her sister is sick, and I dread to see her reaction when she returns."

"I am truly sorry," she said, touching his arm and twirling her hair. "Maybe we can quietly divorce after a year and you can run away with her."

Kris again shook his head. "I would never ruin your reputation like that."

Evelina frowned not at his response but the reality of it. While their society was rather open, sexually, it was not very kind to divorced women and especially not divorced noblewomen. Her frown deepened into a grimace until finally she looked into his eyes again and asked the question she did not need to ask.

"So," she bit her lip. "This is actually happening, isn't it?"

"It would appear so," Kris replied, starting on his third glass of vine. "It's getting stuffy in here; there are far too many people I find abhorrent. What do you say we sneak out back and curse our parents' names?"

"Lead the way," she agreed without hesitation. "Just get me out of here."

~.*~.*~.*

Kris Vogel turned out to be a pleasant man to talk to. In another universe, perhaps they would have met on their own terms and become friends, but not the one in which they lived. The subject of their impending marriage was not brought up in private conversation again until the end of the evening, after the toasting, when Evelina prepared to leave the Vogel Estate.

She grabbed Kris's hand, stood on her tiptoes, and whispered into his ear, "I will find a way around this, leave it to me."

Their parents thought it was simply a farewell laced with suggestive undertones.

The first thing she removed when she shut her bedroom door was the circlet - which she violently threw across the room – followed by the insufferable amount of bracelets weighing down her arms which from experience would be sore the next morning. She had forgotten how breathing felt until the heavily bejeweled corset of her similarly adorned dress was no longer compressing her lungs and the moment she unlaced the corset and let the dress fall to her ankles was the most gratifying of her life. She crawled into bed and slipped a hand under her pillow, her preferred sleeping position, and quickly retracted her hand when it hit something pointy like the corner of an –

"Envelope! A letter from Erwin," she threw the pillow from her bed, scurried to her writing desk, and lit a candle so she could read the letter Felly must have received from Uncle Felix while she was gone.

Written in Erwin's calligraphy ten times more legible than hers, was his special nickname for her, Inna, and all the proof she needed to be sure it was from him. She almost thought yesterday's letter had reached him and hoped he'd written back to tell her he would be there the next morning, but even before she saw he had dated the letter three days before she wrote hers, she knew that would not be the case. In the dim candlelight aided by the full moonlight streaming in through the window, Evelina sat with her feet tucked under her nightgown and read Erwin's words as if they were the words of a prophet.

Dear Inna,

You were right when you said the conclusion to the Betty Freeh drama would certainly be the conclusion. Who knew that my little baby sister would grow up to be a blackmailing evil mastermind? Not that I approve of the blackmailing, because I don't, but nobody ever said that a prerequisite to being impressed was endorsement. I am however very curious as to how Ms. Freeh found out about your brief escapades with Dagmar Herzig; if you wish count a couple of tentative kisses as escapades. The information you have on her must be worse than scandalous if it got her to close her mouth about you. I am relieved to hear that what she had on you did not spread as far as she threatened. It would seem our society is harder on girls who stray from the traditional norm than boys who do.

Telling Erwin about Dagmar took a startling amount of courage to force herself to do. She had always operated under the assumption she could tell Erwin anything and everything but as she grew older and began exploring sides of herself she never knew existed, she learned that some things were harder to bring up than others.

I am admittedly more than a little astonished that you would ask me that question, 'is something wrong with me?,' when Ralf whom you love dearly is a gay male, but I was also a teenager once, and unfortunately it is a time of discoveries which will always lead to more questions than answers. Inna, if nothing else I ever say to you sinks in, let this. There will always be naysayers when it comes to what makes you happy but the people who matter do not care and the people who care do not matter. As much as it terrifies me to think of my little sister discovering sex and sensuality, I have to remind myself that you aren't a little girl, but a young woman. Inna, in your last letter, you wrote that you liked to kiss Mr. Kaulitz but you also liked to hold Ms. Herzig's hand, and the last thing I want is for you to think there is anything wrong with liking both. You are young and have so much life ahead of you. If one day you realize you like one but not the other, good for you. If one day you realize you like to be intimate with neither, good for you. If you continue to like both, good for you. What I have been trying to teach you since you could read letters is the same thing I had engraved on your last birthday present, the bracelet, 'to thine own self be true.' Even if you only like boys there will always be somebody disapproving of your choice in a husband – would you let that stop you from marrying him? Mother disapproves of your friendship with Arthur and Leonie, but have you ever once considered ending the friendship? If you were discovered writing to me you would be in a mountain of trouble but that doesn't stop you from writing, now does it?

I say all of this to demonstrate that you cannot control what makes you happy. Sometimes, what makes you happy will have negative consequences such as punishment from Mother and social ridicule, but you have never cared about that and I ask you to not start now. Do you remember when I told you life was too short to worry about what Mother thinks? It is also too short to spare your feelings and desires for others' opinions. You, Inna Smith, are an intelligent, independent, lively young woman with so much to learn about yourself and you should not be ashamed or afraid of anything you learn – unless you discover you have a proclivity for dismembering people and making clothes out of their skin like Edgar Gottfried of Wall Maria; I strongly advise against becoming a serial killer. Speaking of Edgar Gottfried, remind me again why I thought it was a good idea to explain to you what cannibalism meant? You were, what, maybe nine, ten? That is another reason why I purposely remain single because Erwin Smith should never have children.

Evelina bit her lip and her heart sank. She did not care about the statement about him never having children; the thought of never being called 'Auntie Inna' did not bother her because she knew full well her brother's reasons for not taking a wife and starting a family. He liked to joke about how it was because she was so much younger than him that it was like having a daughter anyway, and she was turning out to be so great, he didn't want to 'mess with perfection and risk royally fucking up try number two,' but she knew what he really meant with his jokes. It made perfect sense for him to remain single in his line of work rather than risk leaving behind a grieving widow; his sister was already bad enough, why add a wife to the equation?

It was more like the fact he had said it and made the Edgar Gottfried joke at all. Erwin, despite being in his thirties, very much acted the child when visiting with her. He poked fun at her like a sibling closer in age would, he played any game she wanted, he opened books to random pages and read paragraphs aloud because he knew she hated reading books out of order, and when she got the urge to randomly dance around like teenage girls often do he would – reluctantly – join in.

His visits were all about creating memories filled with laughter, happiness, and love in its purest form. His letters were meant for affirmation his heart was still beating and advice, not jokes. He only included jokes in his letters if he had something not very nice to tell her such as his request for a day's leave being rejected.

Oh well, she thought. She had gone a long time without spending a day with her brother and she could go a little longer. She picked the letter back up and found where she left off.

I am digressing without you around to elbow my gut mid-tangent. What I am trying to say with this word vomit is there is not a single thing wrong with you thinking you might possibly like girls and boys the same. You are no longer a child so I will not lie to you and say everybody shares my viewpoint, but I can promise you that enough do. I can also promise that as long as I am breathing you have my full support in anything you do short of serial killing.

Here comes the bad news, he usually put the bad news between two blocks of not bad news so it made a bad news sandwich.

I had hoped that with this letter I could send along the date of my next visit but I am afraid that visit will have to wait. We have received beyond the necessary funding for our next expedition beyond the walls and we leave later this afternoon. If I make it back alive and preferably with all of my appendages intact the first thing I will do is request a brief LOA from Commander Shadis. The Commander has been gracious with granting my requests in the past, and after he witnessed the first happy reunion he had seen in ages - during which you almost hugged to death one of his officers – I doubt he would deny my request unless it was imperative I stay at HQ.

There it is, the bad news, exactly as she predicted. It was the titans might eat me for breakfast kind of bad news, not the my boss needs me here this week sorry Inna kind of bad news. She continued to read, wanting to remember everything he said to her just in case he did become titan food.

After watching our little street reunion I was asked a couple of questions about you. They were vague questions, but one in particular you might find amusing. "Is the little blonde brat always that chatty?" To which I responded with "Levi, that wasn't chatty, for her that was quiet." I can feel the scowl already. You know I don't mind the chattiness. It gives me something else to focus on aside from titans and things of the military ilk if only for a short while. More than ever I hope I make it home to listen to another lecture about plants, and maybe (not likely but you can dream), you will finally win a game of chess.

Love always,

Erwin Smith

"Yeah," Evelina sighed, folding up the letter and sliding it back into its envelope. "Love you too, big bro."

She told herself he would be perfectly fine as she crouched next to her bed and reached under it until she grasped what she was aiming for. In a box beneath her bed, hidden among decoy boxes meant to contain jewelry, she kept every letter Erwin had ever sent her since the first letter in 837. From time to time she would reread her favorites, marked with small but distinct ink drawing on the envelope flaps, because no matter how many times she read them they made her smile. Typically she only opened up to letter box when the stretch between letters had gotten a little too long for her comfort. She knew he was a busy man and was thankful or the amount of time he carved out for her, but even for a squad leader, a month without receiving a letter meant it was time to worry.

She had not noticed her grip on the envelope was so tight until she felt the corner bend. "Dammit," she hissed, tossing the letter into the box and shoving it back under her bed. "You're worrying too much, and you've had an eventful day. That's all."

The mantra she repeated since childhood again played in her mind: You are not worried about him; there is no reason to be. He is always okay because he's Erwin. Erwin is invincible. It worked when she was eight; funny thing about eight year old girls is they grow up. Her eyelids eventually grew too heavy to keep open, and if she dreamt at all that night, she did not remember it.

~.*~.*~.*

A requisite piece of a betrothed couple's relationship was for them to spend time together. The first couple of days post-party were full of chaperoned teas, walks through the Vogel Estate's garden, and a short stroll around the capital. Neither fiancé nor fiancée said much to each other when accompanied by Evelina's mother or Kris's father but kept what little they did say genial with a hint of flirtation. Prior to meeting russet-curled blue-eyed Kris, Evelina had not considered herself to be an outstanding actress. By the third day of their engagement she decided acting was not so different from lying, and lying, well, that was something she had down to a science. Her mother and Mr. Vogel were so convinced their children had accepted their fate and taken it lying down that they gave permission for them to take two of the Vogels' horses and go for a ride. To the parents, 'go for a ride' meant ride around the open area just outside of the main city, but to Evelina and Kris, it meant 'Kris, let's go about a dozen kilometers beyond that point and I will show you my favorite place to go.' Evelina was seven years old when she discovered it with Arthur and Leonie. In those seven years she had not even shown Erwin the woodland hideout and had wrestled with herself about to tell Kris or not to tell Kris but in the end decided it was necessary. Should they need to talk privately away from any kind of prying ears the hideout was the safest place she could think of.

"I have to admit, when you said a dozen kilometers, I thought it was in jest," Kris dismounted his horse when Evelina told him to. "However, this is easily at least a dozen from the city."

"I told you, didn't I? I wanted to talk where our parents would not be around to hear."

"Sounds clandestine."

"It is," Evelina said, leading her horse into the woods by its reins while she walked atop the fallen foliage and motioned for Kris to follow.

A couple hundred meters into the forest there was a clearing large enough for them to tie the horses to trees without trees limiting the animals' already small radius of movement, and a stone's throw from the clearing, was a small creek with clear water Evelina wasn't sure was drinkable and a log large enough for sitting lying across the banks like a bridge.

"This was where you played as a child?"

"Ruled," Evelina corrected with a mirthful laugh that took Kris aback. He had not seen her so happy since they met and he did enjoy seeing people happy.

When she was seven and Arthur and Leonie nine the hideaway was their kingdom. They'd even gone as far as giving themselves titles, naming landmarks, and creating a history. If all children were supposed to be founts of stories and imagination, then the comically acronymed ALE trio was a gold mine. The friends made a blood oath to never reveal their hideout to and the last thing she advised anybody to do was break a blood oath but she was pretty sure there would be no consequences unless Arthur secretly offered up their blood droplets to the devils. Considering anything to do with mysticism or theology gave him the creeps, the chances of a demon possessing her soul for showing Kris the hideout were slim.

Besides, as children tended to do, the ALE trio grew up. It had been at least two years since they met by Meeting Tree and raced through Dead Man's Path to risk breaking their legs leaping from branch to branch in Bandit Forest. How only Leonie had ended up actually breaking a bone baffled Evelina to that day.

We could have killed ourselves, she noted as she pulled a flask from her saddle bag and stuffed it in the top of her dress. We all should be dead.

"Here," she pulled the flask from her chest and offered it to Kris. In response to his questioning eyebrow raise she assured him it was nothing strong. "It's vine but I diluted it with pomegranate juice Felly made. Won't get us drunk, I promise."

"Is this speaking from experience?"

"I am a horrible daughter who loves it when her mother throws fits when all her vine's gone and it would be a waste to pour it out, yes?"

Kris accepted the flask and the next few minutes were spent passing it back and forth and dipping their toes in the creek as they sat atop the log. Evelina brought him there for a specific purpose, to talk to him about very specific things, but deciding which words to say was always her least favorite part of social interaction.

"Evelina is a bit of a mouthful," Kris said as he passed the flask back to her and indicated he was done drinking for the time being. "Are you sure you don't have a nickish name?"

She screwed the cap back on and shook her head. "Negative, Captain Vogel. I would offer my middle name for you but I'm afraid Tatiana is also multisyllabic," she paused and absently twirled a lock of hair around her finger. "My brother calls her Inna but I would prefer it remain just him."

"You have a brother? Is he too young to say your name right?"

Evelina snorted in laughter and would have fallen into the creek if not for Kris's lightning reflexes. "Thanks," she giggled as he let go of her arm once she was sturdy. "No, Erwin is thirty-one."

"I have always assumed you were the only child of Otto Smith; I've never heard Erwin's name and as much as I avoid the gossips it is impossible to escape the gossip about your family," Kris help out his hand for the flask. "All of Sina knows of the Smith-Arriaga-Larsen-Perroni clan's dirt."

"People don't talk about him," Evelina said well-aware of her family's popularity in gossip circles. "My parents unofficially disowned him."

It was Kris's turn to snort in laughter. "What could he have possibly done so wrong?"

"When he was my age he ran off to join the military."

"That's nothing that warrants disowning somebody," Kris furrowed his brow and stuck his toes back in the water.

"It is if you join the scouts, which he did," Evelina said. "He's a squad leader now. My parents do not know we write to each other so I would like you to know I am telling you this in confidence."

"Why tell me at all?"

Evelina smiled at Kris, kicked her feet excitedly underwater, and gave a satisfied chuckle. "I told you about the person I love most in the world. Your turn. What's her name?"

"Regine Spieler," Kris answered.

"Regine. That's a pretty name."

"She's a pretty girl."

"When did you meet her?"

"We were children and her father came to work in our stables from Wall Rose. After her father began having health problems her family returned to their home village except for her."

"She stayed for you," Evelina sighed at the romance of it all. She was never one to believe in storybook love but she was a sucker for a real life love story. "How long have you loved her, how many years?"

"Since her father started working in our stables, she was small, then. But so was I, we were only five and I found my tongue frozen in my mouth whenever I wanted to – " Kris's face fell and he eyed Evelina with suspicion. "Why does it matter? I can't be with be with her, it's…well it's wrong."

Evelina shrugged her shoulders and leaned back so that the tips of her blonde waves touched the water. "Sometimes, what makes you happy will have negative consequences such as your father disapproving, but are you going to let that stop you?"

Kris ignored her question and instead told her the same thing he told her the night they met. "That will still come back to hurt your reputation if I demand to end the engagement to marry a servant girl."

"Be selfish, Kris. You have a duty to look out for number one every now and again."

He blinked his blue eyes as the sunlight shone through leaves it previously wasn't shining through and pulled the hood of his cloak up to block it out when blinking was ineffective. "Was this your great plan to get us out of this whole marriage thing – telling my father the truth?"

The blonde sighed and sat up properly as one could on a log and sighed, disappointed. "It was worth a bash but I suppose you're right. Honesty is too idealistic. We'll have to try something sneakier."

"What, like running away?" Kris snorted and downed the last of the vine-juice mixture.

"Yeah!" Evelina exclaimed so excitedly she, again, would have fallen into the creek without Kris's quick thinking. "You said her family is from Wall Rose so you could go ask her dad and he'll say yes and you and Regine can get married and-"

"But where will you run, hm?"

Evelina's enthusiasm again turned to disappointment when she realized that she, the other half of this outfit, had no place to go within Wall Rose. "Damn," she screwed the cap on the flask and stuck it back in her dress.

"My point exactly. Evelina listen to me," Kris reached for her hands and she allowed for him to take them. "I appreciate what you are trying to do for me and Regine but the juxtaposition of our lives and backgrounds makes it so it can never be and we both understand this. Thank you, truly thank you, but it cannot be helped."

"You're wrong," Evelina said, an edge of determination in her voice. "You'll see, Kris, I'll figure something out."

Kris released her hands and pushed a lock of her hair out of her face. "I appreciate the thought, Evelina."

She smiled one of those apology smiles and stared at her feet in the water. "I'm sorry," she said, saying with her body language what she refused to say with her words – I am probably wrong but will not stop hoping.