Now that Nick and Frieda were alone behind the mess hall he could openly converse with her without having to use his thoughts to communicate with her.
"That was much easier than I expected it to be" Nick exclaimed in surprise.
"What was?" came Frieda's questioning reply.
"Making a Friend!" He exclaimed with a smile on his face, "I had honestly thought it would be a lot harder than that, all I had to do was call her pretty three times."
"I don't like her attitude" she came back with, "She looked like she could kill with her eyes, but you broke her facade just like that", she snapped her fingers as she spoke.
"She's probably been through something to make her like that, everyone expresses themselves differently, maybe acting like that helps her cope?"
"Although", he continued with, "she looked pretty adorable when she was blushing" he added.
"If a terrifying girl like her is adorable, what does that make me?"
"A Goddess", he muttered hoping she hadn't heard him.
"Aww, Nick, That's so sweet of you to say that, but surely you-"
"Excuse me", a third voice entered the conversation, "I wanted to make sure that you're okay", Nick turned in the direction only to see what looked like a clone of Frieda, only with blonde hair and she was much shorter than her.
He continued to stare at the blonde, miniature Frieda, his mind unwilling to form any sort of reply to her question until she spoke again.
"Why are you looking at me like that?", she frowned, "Is there something on my face?" as she pulled out a tissue to wipe her face.
He finally managed to pull himself together and replied "No, it's just that ... you remind me of someone I knew, before the fall."
"Oh, I'm sorry if it brought up any painful memories" she spoke with great care in her voice.
"No, it's alright, what did you want anyway, Miss?"
"Krista, Krista Lenz" she held her small hand out for him to shake it and he accepted it.
She continued with, "I wanted to make sure that you were okay after what happened with that girl"
"Yeah, I'm fine, in fact I don't blame her for hating me, it was my fault her sister died"
"How so?" She pressed further.
"I dragged her to Shiganshina the day the wall fell" he grimaced at the memories resurfacing, "She bled out right next to me on the evacuation boat, and she told me to tell the girl I fell for how I felt about her."
"Did you tell her?" She replied, getting anxious waiting for an answer.
"No, she was killed by bandits the night the wall fell" he looked away from her into the distance as he said this.
"I'm so sorry, I can't imagine what it felt like" she spoke softly before lunging forward wrapping her dainty arms around him in a hug.
He just stood there not moving as her grip loosened as she pulled away from him with concern in her eyes.
"I'm not going to lie, i was pretty fucked up after it happened, it was only when my mom asked me what she would want I stopped crying over the regret I felt of not being there and not telling her the truth."
It had begun to get dark as the bell sounded signalling that the recruits could eat their shitty tasting rations, Nick almost gagged at the thought of having to eat the shit that would be served to him, he quickly excused himself from his conversation with Krista before walking up the steps to the mess hall where several recruits were standing watching the "potato girl" run laps until she collapsed.
"Damn, the potato girl's been at it for hours now" said a short boy with a buzzcut.
"I thought Shadis was gonna kill her" he added afterwards.
"It's funny that running till the sun set didn't scare her as much as three days without food privileges" said a brown haired kid standing next to Armin.
"Oh look who it is" exclaimed buzzcut, "It's the guy from Sina, Nicholas was it?" asked the guy with the buzzcut.
"Yeah, but just call me Nick, it's easier than saying Nicholas."
"What's it like in the interior" asked Armin, curios about the innermost wall.
"Well... the food is better there, but the air is a lot worse because of all the factories there, and about 99% of the people in Sina only care about themselves and would gladly sacrifice another fifth of the population just to save their own skin, the other 1% however care just enough about other people to let them into Sina if Rose were to fall."
"Damn" muttered buzzcut, "So what part are you then, the 99% or the 1%?" He asked wanting an answer from him.
"I'm part of the 0%, because I can guarantee you that you would never find another person like me in Wall Sina."
"Wow" they all muttered, "I'm Connie Springer by the way, nice to meet ya"
"Yeah, nice to meet you to, what about the rest of you?"
"Mina Carolina" said the black haired girl with pigtails from before.
"Marco Bott" said a tallish freckled boy.
"Eren Yeager" said the brown haired boy, but Nick now noticed the burning passion in his eyes, as if someone had set them on fire.
"Hey, What's that?" Eren asked while pointing to a cart leaving the camp.
"They're the dropouts" came Mina's reply.
"What, but its only the first day!" Exclaimed Connie.
"That's how it is" came Eren's cold reply, "If you can't handle it, you have to leave, though I can't believe they would rather pull weeds than fight."
"You do realise that without them working in the fields we wouldn't be able to eat, right?" Said Nick.
"Yeah, I'm sure you would know all about that having the best food in the interior" Eren came back with, "Isn't that right", he spat back.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Asked Nick, his voice laced with obvious sarcasm.
"I think you could figure it out with your education in the interior", Eren spat back.
"I didn't do much reading for my education, I usually preferred the more hands on stuff", he began to glare hard at Eren while lowering his voice, "Like when my mother taught me how to defend myself, I'm sure i could teach you some of that. Only if your interested of course."
Eren grew a shade of worry on his face as he stuttered out his reply, "No , tha... thats fine, but thanks for the offer."
"Shame. But alright, I'll see you guys later."
As he went inside he left the others outside as they voiced their thoughts about the young Mitras man.
"Dude" Connie began, "That was seriously creepy."
"Yeah, but at least he wasn't staring at you" Eren replied with, still a bit creeped out by Nick.
"I'm sure he's not that bad once we get to know him, if he really was a spoiled brat he wouldn't be here" Armin countered with.
"Maybe Armins right, I'm sure he can't be that bad if he's here" Mina agreed.
With that they entered the mess hall where a number of recruits had gathered around Eren questioning him about the day the wall fell.
Off to the side Nick was sitting at a table by himself but he was intently listening into the conversation, wanting to find out what happened to him on that day.
But Nick could tell that Eren was becoming uncomfortable with the amount of questions being asked of him.
"Can't they see he doesn't want to answer, What do you think Frieda?"
No reply came from the girl literally stuck in his head.
"Frieda, are you there?" He asked again, trying to get her to talk to him.
"Come to think of it, I haven't heard from her since Krista showed up, I wonder if Frieda knows her and that's why she's not answering?. Oh well guess I'll ask her later"
"I already told you I saw the big guy okay" Eren said, getting tired of the constant questions.
"How tall was it?" Asked one of the recruits surrounding him.
"I heard it stepped over the wall" exclaimed another.
"That was the rumor in my village" agreed another.
"I already told you" Eren snapped, "It was only tall enough to poke its head over the wall" he finished with, hoping the endless questions were over.
"Well what about the Armoured Titan, what did it look like?"
"Is that what they're calling it, looked just like a regular old titan to me" he answered with.
"What an idiot" was Nick's thoughts, "Acting tough won't get you anywhere in the military"
"Well what's a regular titan look like?"
With that question Erem dropped his spoon and covered his mouth as he looked like he was about to throw up his dinner all over the table as the very painful memories came flooding back to him.
"Hey c'mon guys, I'm sure he would rather not relieve those memories again" said Marco.
"At least someone has the decency to stop with the questions" Nick thought.
We're sorry" Connie apologised, ashamed that he put Eren through those memories again. "We didn't mean to-"
"It's not like that!" Eren almost shouted as he slammed his fist on the table kicking his spoon into the air a bit. "Once we master the maneuvere gear I'll be able to join the scouts and slaughter every last titan!"
"Wow, he's got fire in him, I'll give him that, but I'm sure he wouldn't be so eager if he knew that titans are actually humans."
"Hey, are you crazy or something", a voice came from the table next to Erens. It came from a guy with light brown hair and a kinda long face, "kinda like a horse" Nick thought.
"It's not my business or anything, but signing up for the scouts is suicide if you ask me", his opinion on the scouts made clear for everyone in the mess hall to hear.
"Maybe, but you seem to be content hiding in the interior with the rest of the MP's", he exclaimed seemingly angry that someone disagrees with his opinion.
"What's wrong with joining the MP's?" asked Nick out of the blue.
"What's right with joining them?" Eren returned his question with. "All they do is cower behind the inner walls while real soldiers fight the titans!".
"Alright then, lets say every MP had a change of heart and transferred to the scouts, who would protect the citizens from criminals?"
"The garrison would"
"But then who would guard the walls?"
"The garrison" came the same reply.
"But if we were going by your logic, isn't the garrison only for the cowards who didn't make the top ten?".
"Well...Uhh", came Erens stuttering reply.
"The point is" Nick interrupted to save him from embarrassment, "That every soldier has a role to play, whether its fighting titans, defendng the wall, or protecting the king and the citizens, you would understand if you weren't so closed minded Eren."
Everyone in the mess hall was speechless, even the self proclaimed scout in training couldn't even fathom a reply to the very true statement that was given to the recruits by a guy from Mitras no less.
After a few seconds of silence the bell went signalling for the cadets to return to their dorms.
Nick was the first to leave, intent on getting to sleep quickly in the hope of talking to Frieda about what happened with Krista earlier today.
He arrived first at the bunkhouse where he would have a bunkmate sleeping in the same bed as him, he hoped it wasn't Eren so he could avoid his rambling about killing titans at all costs.
He managed to change into his sleep wear before anyone else got there which was a plain black short sleeved shirt with matching black shorts stopping at the bottom of his knees.
He climbed up the ladder to the bunk as he lay down intent on getting to sleep, but he was interrupted by his bunkmate who introduced himself as Thomas Wagner, he had blonde hair with noticeable sideburns running down his face, after exchanging some small talk with Thomas and taking the best pillow and largest blanket, Nick began to drift off into a deep sleep.
(Chief Instructor Shadis' Office)
As Shadis entered his office, the moonlight shone through his window hlinting off the metal paperweight on his desk. As he sat down he opened the file on top of the pile as he spoke to himself as he read.
"Nicholas Meier, born to a noble family within the Royal Capital, at age 14 he witnessed the deaths of the 4 MP's assigned as his personal guard during the Fall of Shiganshina" his face bore a surprised expression as he never expected this to have happened, "It says here that he witnessed two of them get crushed by debris from the wall and another get eaten before carrying another to the evacuation boats, it also says she blec out right next to him on the boat." Shadis couldnt believe what he had just read, he thought others from Maria had it bad, but this kid had been through it all.
"Hold up" he spoke to himself, "There's a doctors note here", he stopped as he read it, "Psychological Evaluation", he muttered as he read on.
"Alright, lets see what this says" , he spoke as he opened the document, "Patient name Nicholas Meier, blah, blah, blah, ah here we go, In the aftermath of the fall, the patient seems to have become severelly depressed as well as potentially suffering from Survivors Gulit, as he has often refused to leave his room and often cries himself to sleep every night." Shadis stopped to think to himself, "What the hell am I reading?, how the hell is he here after going through all this?"
Nonetheless he continued reading outloud to himself, "Due to the tragic death of his childhood friend Florian Reiss, and his childhood best friend, and from the information his mother gave to me, potential love interest Frieda Reiss he has secluded himself from the outside world, often refusing to eat or drink, sometimes for days at a time, however at the time if writing this the patient seems to have improved tremendously since his "realisation" as he put it, however that being said if another event like Shiganshina was to occur and people he grows close with die in the field, it us highly likely he will have another episode of depression or survivors guilt, as a result of this he could potentially get himself and a number of other valuable soldiers killed in the process. It is not my place to say but my professional medical opinion is that the patient is not fit to serve in ANY combat scenario as the risk of another episode occurring is too high and the risk would not be worth the reward."
"Well then" Shadis grimaced, "Looks like its not just Yeagers gear that I'm tampering with now."