Choice
Before Squad Levi, before he'd even met the Underground Rogue, Petra Ral, and Eld Jinn, the Scout called Oruo was something of a friend to Gunther. At least, that's the only label he could attach to him. In all technicality, the old man was too distant to be considered a friend, but he was too familiar to be termed a simple acquaintance. He was something in the middle, perhaps what most would just consider a comrade. But the word friend was much more polite than just comrade, and so it went.
He met him during his first expedition, which was a run across Demeter's Plain to the west, the hopeful destination being the Alma River and the abandoned fortress called St. Gwendolyn's Keep on its shores. The two of them were stationed in the same squad, under the command of Squad Leader Kalmár. In crossing the hillocks of the plain, a trio of titans had converged on them. One was a crawler, the other two were conjoined, a pair of grotesque torsos twisted into a single hip and pair of spider legs that could barely support it. Four arms waved, two heads snarled, and two legs charged. In the skirmish that ensued, fourteen brave men and women died, nearly half of them rookies like him. He was almost the fifteenth casualty, grabbed by the crawler and nearly crammed into its mouth when a senior soldier removed the beast's hand. He fell to the ground again, and his rescuer cut the titan's neck, spared him a glance to ensure he was alive, then rejoined the others in fighting the conjoined abnormal. The last victim was Kalmár himself, who died killing the left head, only to be swatted by one of the right head's flailing hands. With its second half dead, the right side of the titan didn't last much longer.
And the formation continued onward.
When they reached the river and made camp, he went looking for the old man who saved his life, hoping to thank him. He was seated by the riverside, quickly sketching their previous assailants into a weathered journal. "Thank you for saving me, sir." He said formally. Or he might've shouted, nervous as all fresh recruits were in the presence of senior soldiers.
The old man jumped, streaking a charcoal line across the page, and looked up at him, startled. They stared at each other for a dumbfounded moment, then his elder resumed his work, hiding a smile and stifling a bemused laugh. "Bitte." They awkwardly introduced themselves. They introduced their horses, too. His was called Socks. Absolute creativity. The old man's was an old, gray mare called Anushka. Old but full of spirit yet, he said, patting her side.
Since that first expedition, they'd remained somewhat in contact with each other, nodding politely when they crossed paths, occasionally swapping stories and offering advice, laughing at jokes and briefly considering the credibility of tedious rumors. They mourned poor Anushka together. She'd been Oruo's third mount, preceded by Cephas and Fáelán. At the time, Gunther wondered how she could possibly be his third horse. Since losing Socks, he'd lost five horses, and nearly all of them lasted a year or less. He asked him what the secret was once, while Oruo was familiarizing himself with Vittore, Anushka's replacement.
"The horse is God's gift to mankind." The old man said cryptically, stroking the gelding's forelock. "They are my comrades. I make an effort to respect their lives and feelings."
"God's gift, huh?" He'd kicked at the dirt. "Who said that, then?"
"It's an Arabian proverb."
"Who told it to you?" He asked, smiling.
It was four days before the Scout called Oruo answered him.
-0-0-0-
Year 848
Windrunner put his head through the door of his stall the moment Gunther came into the stable, leaving him no choice but to pat the gelding's snout. The beast snorted in response, nuzzling his hand until he scratched under his chin. "You must be hungry." He smiled, kissing his the bridge of his nose. "Don't worry, I'll bring you something to eat soon."
"You could let him graze in the pasture."
Gunther raised his head in surprise. "I didn't know anyone else was in here. You scared me, old man." Oruo was leaning against the door of Vittore's stall, holding a letter in his hands but not reading. His eyes were distant and staring, and the parchment hung precariously between his thumb and forefingers, rocking slightly with an unfelt breeze. Gunther frowned. "Something wrong?"
In response, Oruo wordlessly passed him the letter. Fearing the worst, Gunther took it and began to read,
Bozard,
I pray this letter finds you well, but I fear I cannot waste time with inquiries. Therefore, to get straight to the point, Miro has expressed his intentions to join the Scouting Legion. Naturally, I am against such a reckless choice and I've begged him to reconsider his decision. He holds the Third Rank of the 102nd Training Squad and should join his sister in the Interior, but he will not listen to me.
As his mother, I cannot bear to watch him ride into death. I know in my heart that is all he will find in the Survey Corps. And even if Miro isn't killed, he won't ever be the same. Your regiment knows nothing but pain and defeat. I could not bear it if Miro, our lastborn, suffered through that agony.
For the love of Sina, if you've any love for our son, speak to him I beg you!
Maude Karimi
Gunther reread the letter twice more, slower each time. Miro wanted to join the Scouts? "I don't….ah…." How was he supposed to respond? Clearly, this was a private family matter and none of his business. "I don't know what to say."
"I wasn't expecting you to say anything." Oruo took the letter back. "I just didn't know how else to answer your question." He absently scratched Vittore's chin when the great gelding put his head over his shoulder.
"So Miro's looking to join the Scouts."
"Vypadá to tak." Oruo answered.
Gunther sighed. He'd met Maude Bozard neé Karimi several times before. She was in the Supply Corps, and made her livelihood breeding the Survey Corps horses, so she was often at their Headquarters, taking note of the lost mounts and quarreling with the officers about the costs to replace them. She had no love for the Scouting Legion, he knew, but she was not unfriendly to them. She did not turn up her nose in scorn when she passed by a uniform with the Wings of Freedom nor was she particularly icy to anyone who bore that sigil. She spoke normally to cadets when she gave them a brief review of horse care, speaking with the same confident air as a training instructor and politely answering questions.
She was a gracious woman and clearly still in love with her former husband despite the strife between them. That was a secret she guarded, though, and the only reason Gunther knew of it was because of the sorrowful glance she once spared Oruo when she thought no one was looking. They rarely spoke, and when they did, it was in terse, formal sentences and the occasional inquiry after the other's well-being. Only once did he see them smile when they were together, several years ago when they brought her a dozen foals-one of which had been Cendre-they'd 'liberated' from a neglectful owner. Maude was strong and dedicated to her work, and she treasured the horses as much as she loved her children.
"Maude just wants her son safe just like any mother would, I can't fault her for that. But I've barely seen Miro since he was a boy. Does she really believe anything I say will have an impact? Never mind, she knows I don't have any influence on him. She's desperate if she's reaching out to me after all these years. And some horrible part of me wants to refuse just to spite the woman, but if Miro becomes a Scout, then….I would never forgive myself if he died. Besides, as Maude wrote, even if he doesn't, she's right. He won't be the same. No one ever comes back the same."
He's right about that, Gunther thought. He doubted there was anything left of the boy he'd been in Karanes, the one who obeyed his father without question, said his prayers every night, and remained dedicated to his studies, hoping to make the man proud. It was only after leaving home he realized what a corrupt bastard Reimund Schultz was. A corrupt bastard who accepted and paid bribes, used underhanded but technically lawful means to better his finances, and outright dabbled in trading illegal substances.
And I would've been just like him had I never asked to join the military. His father thought it an 'intriguing idea'. A way for him to gain better insight to the world and better his understanding of the company he would eventually inherit. Better insight indeed, he snorted. Better insight that made him glad to escape the man by joining the military as an active soldier. The Corps had been an accident. At the time, he was too angry to care where he ended up, so long as it was away from a man who cared nothing outside his wealth. He'd taken four coins and dropped them into a hat. If he blindly chose the golden sina, with the head of the warrior goddess and the tail of a rampant unicorn, it was the Military Police for him. If the silver rose, with the face of its namesake and a gleaming rose at its tail, he would go to the Garrison. The bronze was simply called sword, and bore the face of the king and the crossed blades representing the Supply Corps.
The coin he drew out was the lowly copper maria, with the face of the youngest Sister for heads and crossed wings for tails.
Do I regret leaving the choice, and my life, to fate? He wondered with a frown. He didn't quite remember his exact feelings when he saw Maria's face gleaming back at him and her copper wings flashing. Acceptance? Disappointment? Satisfaction as it was the very regiment Reimund Schultz absolutely despised? He didn't know. What he did know is he never regretted signing his name on the roster.
"May I say something?" He murmured suddenly.
"Speak."
Gunther hesitated, wishing he'd kept his mouth shut. Just what was he going to say that would be in any way helpful? He wasn't a parent. Hell, he wasn't even married. He'd never had his heart broken by a woman. He was just the fresh recruit before the senior soldier again. Inexperienced, and only pretending to know what he was talking about. "I…." He started, hoping to change his mind and shake his head. Tell his friend sorry, but he couldn't offer any helpful advice. "I've never met Miro, but if he's anything like you, he'll enlist with or without your consent. I may be out of line as I'm not a parent, but I do know what it is to be a Scout. When I first stepped beyond that Wall, and I saw that endless, blue sky, it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before." He clenched his fists. "There's danger out there, yes, but when I'm out there I never feel more alive. I know you feel the same. Those maps you're constantly drawing. That map of the world-the whole world-you have hidden your brother's attic. When you showed me that insignificant, little pinprick and you said that was the Walls, I didn't believe you at first. The idea that what we're fighting for is that vast….I didn't think it could be real. But it is, and it's incredible. Do you really want to deny your son the chance to see what we've seen? The chance to discover the rest of that massive world with us?"
The old man did not answer. Oruo didn't like answering difficult questions, at least the ones that required no immediate answers. But that night, he wrote back to Maude. It was a short message-maybe four sentences or so-yet it took over an hour to compose.
Two weeks later, when the graduating cadets arrived from the East, Miro Bozard stood among them. Gunther saw him standing amongst his comrades and classmates. He was a tall, lanky boy who towered over most of the new recruits, rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and wore a broad and battered akubra hat over his sandy-brown hair. He'd inherited the tan skin from his mother's heritage, but that seemed to be the only trait they shared.
"Sensible of him to wear that hat." Gunther said with a smile.
Oruo smirked in bemusement. "It was mine once. I crammed it on his head when I left home for the last time."
"Are you going to greet him?" Gunther asked, then snorted. "Of course you're not. That's why I'm here to convince you otherwise."
"I don't-"
"Go." Gunther made a shooing motion with his hand. "If you don't, you may start a family blood feud, and as entertaining as that would be, I don't think the Corps needs that much drama. Come on."
He went, and Gunther followed as they walked slowly toward the new recruits. Several saw them coming and immediately snapped into a formal salute and elbowed their friends to get their attention. When Miro turned to see them, he froze, his copper eyes widening in recognition. Up close, Gunther saw he had his father's face, only much younger and more optimistic. Just as any rookie Scout's was before their first expedition. Then, remembering himself, Miro drew himself up and saluted them.
"Your mother doesn't approve of you being here." Oruo said tersely.
Gunther swallowed, expecting an indignant retort, but Miro didn't bat an eye. "Yet here I stand." He replied in a soft, Middle Eastern accent but with an equal amount of edge in his voice. Moving his feet apart and crossing his arms, he continued, "Nothing and no one will change zat."
An uncomfortable silence stretched between the pair, made all the more awkward by the eyes of fifty-odd staring cadets and Gunther. Miro fidgeted, sporadically breaking and resuming eye contact and clenching his hands into fists. In contrast, his father was a rock, fixing him with a stern gaze Gunther had often seen on his own father's face. It was the very expression the man wore the last he spoke to him before he turned him out of the house. Hell, Oruo wasn't going to react the same way, was he? No, not a chance. The old man wasn't like that. He was nowhere near as cruel Herr Schultz was.
Say something! He wanted to scream. Don't keep staring at him like that!
"Very well. If you want to gamble your life this way, then who am I to stop you? Just…." Oruo faltered, at a loss for words, and lowered his gaze. "Just remember to write to your mother often. You know how she worries."
Don't get yourself killed. Gunther heard.
Without warning, Miro threw himself forward, locking his arms around his father's neck and near startling the man out of his skin. Gunther didn't see the boy's face, but he saw the shock on Oruo's. His shaking hands hovered over the boy's shoulders, as though he meant to push him away but couldn't quite bring himself to do it. He clenched his jaw until his eyes watered, blinked three times in half a second, then he raised a trembling hand and covered his nose and mouth. His other arm suddenly grabbed the boy and held him in a fierce hug. "Gods, I've missed you. I've missed you so much, boy."
The day he'd enlisted in the Survey Corps, Gunther had known right from the start he would never marry or have children. No doubt Reimund Schultz disapproved of that as well, but he was adamant in that decision. Not to be misunderstood, he thought the idea was nice. The love of a woman, a stable home, happy children. That would have made Mother happy. But he couldn't do it. After all the broken-hearted mothers he'd seen crying with and comforting their distraught children when their father or uncle or even their older sibling didn't come home, he knew he could never risk devastating a family he loved like that.
And yet there were people like Oruo who understood the risk and took it anyway.
Four days after he'd asked about the Arabian proverb, the old man reluctantly told him about Maude and the three children they'd had between them. Miro was the youngest, only three or four years old when his father left home and didn't come back for a different reason. Had it been easier for the boy that way? Had he grown up without a care in the world, oblivious to his father's efforts and apathetic to his well-being? Gunther didn't think so. Not with the way the kid had his face buried in Oruo's shoulder. Is that what had drawn him here? He held the Third Rank. He could've easily continued his life in the Interior and not given another thought to his father. For all he'd known, Oruo could've been a cold and indifferent parent, not the emotional man openly weeping with him and holding him as though he were a child. "It's good to see you, Miro."
Gunther smiled and dragged the pad of his thumb over his eyes. Beside him, one of the new recruits standing beside him began clapping her hands. A nearby boy joined in, followed by a pair standing together, and before long, the entire assembly swelled into a quiet applause.
Miro wiped his eyes and pulled away grinning. "Who is this?" He asked suddenly, noticing Gunther for the first time.
Oruo turned to him in surprise, as though he'd forgotten he was there, then clapped him over the shoulder. "My good friend, Gunther Schultz. Gunther, Miro Bozard. My youngest."
"It is nice to meet you." Miro saluted, as did every other new recruit.
"Yeah, same here, kid." He smiled and clenched his fist over his heart.
-0-0-0-
Author's Notes: Yes, Miro is the same Miro from Venture 23: Kronos. He's also briefly mentioned in Venture 6: Pastime. His name is of Czech origin.
"Vypadá to tak." is a Czech phrase that means something on the lines of 'Looks like it' or 'Seems that way.'
Oruo's next chapter-Venture 29, I believe-will be shedding a little more light on Maude in case you thought I skimmed over her description.
Shingeki no Kyojin is owned by Hajime Isayama.