Chapter 45

Ripple effects.

When a finger dips down under the surface of a pond, tearing its perfectly curated meniscus, the motion begets further motion. Miniscule waves warble out from the point of impact, fleeing the epicenter with haste. They rush to warn the rest of the water that peace has been disrupted and their home is now distorted. Waves pile, crescendo, roll their shoulders in rippling muscled motions until finally the disturbance ceases to exist. Then the water smooths, the surface cools, like glass abandoning a molten furnace to mold itself into crystalline composure.

The thing about ripple effects is they start small. A single shift beneath the ocean as tectonic plates squint to see each other better. A juxtaposition of land and disposition, a single uprooting of a few shoddy inches in a place with no light and no sea life. Then, suddenly, the water that dwelled there needs a place to go, so it kicks out its neighbor, and the neighbor needs a place to go, so it does the same, all the way down the proverbial suburban seascape until there's a seventy foot tall wave of water crashing down over the banks of an ocean view estate and drowning it in scores of red-inked property damage bills.

My ripple started when I made space in my bed for Mina that first night. Now, here I stand, staring at the beach and watching the tide recede far out from the shore. Like a final intake of breath before the ocean screams. There's a tsunami brewing: not a matter of if this ripple will spill over and engulf me whole. Just a matter of when.

I carved space in my heart for Mina. She was slated for death. I attempted to interfere, causing her to live longer, causing Armin to have more time, meaning Eren also had more time to get to Armin. I carved space in my heart for Mina. So the way Eren let her die made me furious, made me desperate to prove her sacrifice was not in vain, and thus I shoved him off the roof. Which means that, now, the Armored Titan has an entirely different facial design and I have absolutely no way of knowing what thoughts belong in Eren's head until he breaks free of the beastly shell. At least he's still killing other titans. At least he's not trying to hunt me down instead.

But the waves are still whispering, dissatisfied by all these fluctuations, and I cannot shake the dread nestling inside me. How was I to know that the titan that ate Mina was also supposed to be in the supply building? Who even pays attention to details that small? Because Annie killed it, now there are fewer titans in the building, and fewer casualties of its gaze. More soldiers lie in wait for when Mikasa drags me with her to regroup with much of the main cast. Enough so that, in light of my booted foot, it's hardly essential for me to even get onto the lift with a rifle.

"You can stay here," Marco says, smiling brightly in his ever-reassuring way. The paper folded against my breast feels scratchy whenever I meet his eyes. "The lift will get too crowded, anyways, if too many of us are on it. Right, Armin?"

The blond is practically staring into my soul. "Right," he echoes. His head pivots robotically as he points down at his impromptu diagram of the floor below, speaking in undertones to Jean and Sasha.

Marco pats my shoulder. "There you have it. You can keep an eye on the titans outside for us, shout if they get too close." He pauses to eye the titan-killer. Its hulking frame heaves with exertion after fighting off so many of its kind. Eren's green eyes look almost sentient through the form of the Armored Titan; such a vivid green are they that it nearly hurts to look. The frown makes his titan all the more menacing. Each roar and grunt and hiss of steam makes me apprehensive of what kind of fate lies in wait for me when he crawls out of the titan. Out of the corner of my eye I see the warriors looking at the window periodically, as if waiting to catch a glimpse of the creature Armin decided to lure here after finding it attacking its cohorts where Mikasa and I stood.

I watch Reiner nudge Connie. "How much do you know about that one titan?"

Connie gives him a befuddled look. "Shouldn't we wait until after all this to talk about that?"

I would laugh if there was any humor to be found. Even a forced smile seems like too much to bother slapping onto my face. Then again, glancing around the room is enough to tell me I'm not the only one in such a dour mood. Mikasa herself still looks like a stormcloud in the making, all jagged turns and shadowed expressions. I think the only thing keeping Armin calm is the plan he and Marco have construed. Once he's executed the operation, I think he'll grow aimless too. Connie and Sasha share remarks back and forth, and I'm glad for it; neither seem to have lost their footing entirely quite yet. Christa and Ymir aren't here but I've no doubt they'll be fine. Somehow they always are.

The waves in the back of my mind tremble…maybe it wouldn't hurt to ask. I make my way over to Connie, trying to avoid looking too far in anyone else's direction. "Where'd Christa and Ymir go?"

"Hm? Ah, right," Connie grunts, sliding a hand up to scratch at his bald cap. "They still had plenty of air, so they went on ahead with some others."

"Who?"

He gives me a weird look for pressing, but at least he answers rather than dodging the question like he did with Reiner. Every so often I'm grateful he's so hypocritically inconsistent with his reasoning. This is one such occasion. "Hitch and Marlo and 'em."

"That it?"

"Floch, too," Sasha chimes in. She stands smack dab in the middle of our conversation, a shoulder brushing its way into my personal bubble and a foot smack-dab in the middle of Connie's. Whatever propriety Shadis attempted to hammer into her thick skull seems to be ill remembered today. "It was a decently large group. Y'all should've seen some of the garrison members they were traveling with, though. They looked pretty poor off."

Connie scoffs. "Well, duh. If they were in the vanguard–you know, the whole position that got wiped out–that's no surprise."

I slip away before the two of them can rope me into their bickering banter. By the time I've enacted my getaway plan Armin has rolled up his diagram and stood up. "Okay," he exhales, and we all pretend not to notice the way his voice shakes.

I tune him out while he tries to explain his plan once again, taking time to reiterate the importance of both teams–the strikers in the rafters and the shooters in the lift–acting in perfect synchronization. While he drones on I hobble my way over to the window, crossing my arms and leaning against the frame. There's no sign of the Armored Titan out here. Every now and then an occasional rumbling and crashing rises up around the supply headquarters. Other than that…nothing.

The blonde shakes his head. "But…should we really be doing this? Is there no other option?"

"We don't have lots of options," Marco says by way of reassuring his friend. He scratches his nose. "If we dedicate ourselves to this plan, we'll be just fine!"

Mikasa nods, looking at Armin as if engaging in a private conversation with him. "Have faith. Trust yourself."

Funny, how a girl like her can say a thing like that.

One of the cadets I've failed to recognize shouts that the lift is ready. One by one the 107th stirs into motion, soldiers donning their guns or preparing to brandish their steel. Conversations rise up in one discorded song, with individual voices lapping over each other all at once. I can make out the gist of the matter fairly easily: doubt and wonder. Is this enough? Will it work?

I rub my eyes and move to sit down, finding a knocked over chair and righting it. It'll do me no good to strain my fractured foot any longer than necessary. Reiner's booming reassurance drifts down the hall as he rounds the corner, taking the conversation with him. Only one other cadet is staying behind. She's got a head wrapped shoddily in some kind of fabric, dark enough to obscure the true color of the stain against her temple. Her cheeks are adorned with freckles that remind me of Ymir's. I'd consider them related save for the fact that the cadet in the room with me has reddish-brown hair and green eyes and quite frankly looks nothing like Ymir at all. For all intents and purposes she's got a thousand yard stare, gazing out the window at something not even I can see.

It doesn't take long until the shots ring out. I don't think the girl next to me even flinches at the harsh sounds echoing out from beneath us. Whatever happened to her is none of my business. I refocus my gaze on the window, wondering how long it'll be until cadets laden with supplies launch out from the building and begin to disperse the canisters. Silence echoes around us. I hear air slip in and out of my nostrils, tickling my skin and fogging the section of the window I've rested my head against. Her head must be aching terribly.

"Hey." I peel my head off the window and turn to the other girl. She's still staring, entirely disassociated from the room in which we sit. I motion towards her head. "There's a doctor named Johan. Ask for him to patch you up. He'll take good care of your head."

She doesn't even blink; I frown.

When I move to stand in front of her, cautiously waving a hand where her eyes are fixated, all the strain in my limbs vanishes. "Ah." I wonder what the last thing she saw was. I close her eyes one at a time, careful not to snag the lids on her already drying eyeballs. She has such short eyelashes.

"Hannah." I startle at the voice. Bertholdt stands behind me, studying the girl.

"You knew her?"

After a moment, he shakes his head. "Not really. She was in love with Franz, though, and Franz became a good buddy of Reiner's."

I glance over my shoulder. "Where's he at then? Franz. Not Reiner."

Bertholdt presses his lips together. "Armin found him. Hannah was there, but she didn't say what happened."

I look back out the window. I wonder if she could see the street Franz died on from here. After a moment, I straighten up and dust off my knees. "Did you come here to collect me?"

"To talk. About what we saw earlier."

My arms weave a protective net over my chest as I raise my chin up, challenging him to speak on the ghosts I'd rather leave buried in the dark. "You'll have to be more specific than that."

Bertholdt steps closer, voice dropping. He looks behind him quickly. "You–we saw the guy you were with. The hole in his neck." I break away from his searching stare. "Marco may not have seen it, but we did. Just what are you after, really? Who do you work for?"

I bristle. After all this time, we're here again, worrying about alliances and enemies. "Do you really want to do this without the rest of your backup?" I snap.

"They can't do it anymore," he says. "Annie–she doubled back. For you. And Reiner"–here Bertholdt drags a hand over his face in exasperation–"I don't know what you did to him, but it's as if he's simply accepted things as they are. Not me, though. I did what I had to do today because it's time we drew lines in the sand. Us. Them. So I need to know which one you are, Aliva. You can't be both forever."

I lean forward, pushing as far into his personal space as I dare. "Watch me."

When I shove past him, Bertholdt lets me go. He stays perfectly rigid, like he can't decide whether or not to acquiesce and follow or to break off on his own path. I'm just about out of the room when he clears his throat and turns around. "You're Marleyan. Right?"

Why he so desperately needs the clarification is beyond me. Foggy memories of all those conversations I had with the warriors to try and convince them I'm on their side rise to the surface of my mind, telling me sweetly that it's better to play both sides for as long as I can. I halt and throw on misguided sincerity. When I glance back at Bertholdt, the light of the window striking his back, whatever thoughts he conveys on his face are obscured by shade and shadow. "Yes."

I wait until he acknowledges what I've said. Bertholdt's processing flourishes like the first bud of spring, tentative and indecisive. I watch the rooted plant tunnel its way out from underneath the snow and into the first hovering inches of daylight. Eventually, so long as I continue to foster my falsehoods, the bud will blossom. For now, it bobs and weaves, in tune with the morning breeze. When he nods once, slowly, I turn and leave the room.

I follow the noise like a bloodhound thirsting for game. The cadets, like flocking birds, coalesce atop the building and caw amongst themselves in regards to the source of their attention: Eren's titan. By the time I've joined the miniature group, Bertholdt not far behind me, there's murmurs of Armin recognizing the titan the Attack Titan is currently ripping the throat out of. "It's the one who ate Thomas," Armin repeats at Jean's request. I glance around. Other than Jean and the warriors, it's just Armin, me, and Mikasa up here. Connie and Sasha must have elected to ferry canisters around instead of join the crowd spectating the scene unfolding in the square below.

With a sickening crunch, the neck of the cadet killer is effectively snapped in two. The Attack Titan hefts its foe into the air like a trophy as gallons of its lifeforce ooze down its neck and straight onto the Attack Titan's face. The blood dribbles to the sides of his hauntingly down-curved mouth, falling to his jaw and running in raging rivulets of surging anger down his neck. I watch the liquid pool in the bones of his collar before Eren's titan heaves Thomas's killer to the side. He flings the corpse with enough momentum to decimate a nearby titan, pummeling them both back into a building that caves upon impact.

When the titan's head rolls into view, those electric green eyes blaze their fury in its direction. For a moment, the world is still. "What…"

Whoever spoke trails off as the titan succumbs to its knees, head of hair hanging low. Fissures of steam crack into the Attack Titan's hide as the vessel gives up in a fit of heat and hatred. "Looks like it burned itself out," Reiner remarks.

Jean shakes his head as if to rouse himself out of a self-induced trance. "Well? Seen enough? Let's go." No one's paying any attention to him, though. I lock eyes with him before turning back to the hissing form on the ground before me. I'll be damned if I miss this transformation. I need to confirm for myself that it really is Eren inside of that thing. "Hey," Jean trails off, train of thought entirely derailed after a blob begins to writhe against the Attack Titan's neck. We watch with bated breath as the blob elongates, isolating itself from the mother form, until suddenly there's the unmistakable form of a humanoid rising out from the living craft.

Mikasa's in motion before I can even get a good look through the steam. Her frantic movements should be all the confirmation I need, yet I can't help but lean forward, impatient to see more. I wrench my eyes away only long enough to watch the warriors and the blatant shock whitening their pupils. Shuddering, I drop off the side of the building. My stomach climbs up into my throat as I fire my hooks to slow my descent and land softly on the ground. Mikasa's already got an ear pressed to the figure's chest. A beat later and her arms are tightly around him, hoisting him up and away from the Attack Titan's rapidly decaying form. Mikasa doesn't even notice me standing there in the shadows as she flies back up to the roof with Eren held fast against her back just as Annie held Armin earlier today. I crane my neck to watch her disappear.

I don't know how much time there is between now, when he's found, and when Eren wakes up. The last thing I want is to be here when he comes to and have him distracted with notions that I nearly killed him (to be fair, I nearly did) while he's supposed to be off proving his innocence to the garrison before they mow him down where he stands.

And I certainly don't want to linger around long enough to take that oath of secrecy. The last thing I need is to be on anyone's radar. So, with the Eldians and the warriors perched high above me, preoccupied with the boy returning to their midsts and the implications it holds for each side, I take advantage of the overcast arches and duck succinctly out of sight.

Water skins are passed around to satiate our thirst. With no instructions other than to get equipped and stand by in squad formations, most of my comrades are wound tight, anxious and terrified of what's to come. For now pike nets cover the gaping hole that allowed the titans to crawl into Trost in the first place. But like any solution, the temporary one won't hold forever. I lean back, adjusting my position on the low stairs I'm currently seated on. The boot around my left foot sticks out in comically large fashion. Sasha sits stoically to my side, looking for all the world that she remains unaffected by everything that's already occurred. "Must be nice," she drawls, that easy mountain twang of hers slipping back into her voice unbidden. "Bein' injured."

I snort. "Hardly. Now I'm stuck here doing nothing while you all wait for new orders."

Sasha leans forward slightly, cupping her cheek with her palm. "How'd you even get around with your leg like that? Didn't it hurt?"

"Devils don't feel pain." Irritation flares up in me as I turn to see who is obtuse enough to think intruding on our conversation is an even remotely solid idea. Sure as shit, Floch looms over us with his hands on his hips and a haughty jaunt to his posture. "Or wait–I guess I mean Reapers." He shrugs. "All one in the same." I'd like to call him out, to ask him whatever happened to that tentative truce I thought we'd established, but he's already moved onto his next victim. I realize belatedly that maybe he was only taking things out on me in order to make sense of everything else. The redhead juts his chin in another soldier's direction. It's as if I was never on his radar at all. "And you–don't you think you're acting a little too pathetic?"

"Floch," Marco starts, brows creased in worry. The boy next to him with fear on his face and snot dripping out of his nose seems too terror-stricken to even register that the redhead was speaking to him.

"Marco, I can't do this…" he wails, shaking his head. Floch leans back. Distaste for the cadet's display wafts clear from where Floch stands straight up my nose. "My buddies all got devoured right there in front of me–but, god, I didn't even care, I was just so relieved that it wasn't me–and we're…we're all going to get eaten…and it wasn't me this time but next time it will be! Next time it'll be my turn, because we're just supposed to keep fighting until a titan devours us!" The cadet hiccups, gasping for air as he froths and foams and freaks out over his fate. Floch's nose curls with disgust. "If that's the way I'm supposed to go then I'd rather die!"

"Hey, hey! Pull yourself together, okay?" Marco interjects frantically, trying to calm the man down. The wailing only seems to get louder. For once I find myself echoing the distaste on Floch's face. Of all the times for us to finally be on the same page, this wasn't the one I'd expected. I clamp a hand over my ear as the sobs turn to near-screeches. "We're all struggling. But look at Sasha! Look how well she's handling it!"

And at that, the girl in question doubles over and grunts, complaining about her stomach. "Put me…on injured reserve…with Aliva…" she rasps feebly.

The guy on Marco's other side starts losing it all over again.

I take that as my cue to get the fuck away from this mess. Mindful of my left leg, I move to stand with just my right leg's strength. Floch, true to his self-absorbed nature, has already turned away to go bug someone else. I'm only halfway standing when the sounds of canonfire boom on the other side of the wall. My hand freezes against the railing. So it's already starting. My faith in the plot grows the longer I neglect to monitor fate's progress; if Eren can still find motivation enough to transform into a titan after being swallowed whole for an entirely different reason, then he sure as hell can weasel his way out of an early grave without my being there. Especially if Armin and Mikasa are there with him.

…That doesn't mean I don't want to watch, though. Shouts of alarm rise up from all around us. I see Reiner, Annie, and Jean take to the roofs to see what's going on and belatedly decide to stay put. I lower myself back into my seat and glare at the man who won't stop crying as if to challenge him to freak out again. At least now he's too distracted to remember that sooner or later he'll become an annoying speck of guts lodged between two oversized molars.

We sit there for minutes on end. It's agonizing, in a way, to realize that there isn't a single thing I can do or observe from here to offer me insight as to how the situation on the other side of the wall is unfolding. For all I know Eren was blown to smithereens. How does Armin manage to convince the troops he's an ally…? Chewing on the inside of my cheek I close my eyes and bid myself to remember, getting lost in the world behind my eyelids. Next to me Sasha and Marco chat concernedly about the state of affairs we're not privy to and the reason for that single cannon shot. Their voices mix and become one, a steady thrum in the back of my skull from which to weave my own focus around. If memory serves me right, it's not that grisly bearded man who they convince, but rather–

"Aliva Moreau." I crack open an eye. The woman standing before me has her arms clasped behind her back with practiced familiarity. I know her, I realize. It's the woman who escorted me to the meadery to meet up with Commander Pyxis. Almost as if she can read my thoughts, she blinks lazily. "You're to follow me."

Marco and Sasha glance my way, curious. Even Snotty over there starts to stare as I slowly rise and begin to lumber towards the woman. "Where to?"

The woman stays silent for a beat. It doesn't surprise me that she won't answer. "Do you require crutches?"

"No, no. Just lead the way." I wave to Marco and Sasha before turning and following my escort down the street. Bertholdt, Christa and Ymir all stand together, curious as can be. I see Hitch and Marlo and Floch farther down the street. With the remaining two warriors and Jean busy snooping on the wall, and Eren and company busy bargaining for their lives, there aren't any other familiar faces around to watch me flicker in between alleyways and out of sight. Memories of trudging through Trost with this woman clear back when I'd been dismissed from the 107th come to light with every step. Though the actual district reeks with titans and we're merely perusing the buildings on the other side of the wall it shares with inner Rose, it feels as if I've been transported back to the past. If I fantasize hard enough Mina is still alive somewhere nearby. I'm on icy terms with Reiner, though it's not really his fault. And Eren is about to judge the hell out of me when he runs into me later after I've consumed alcohol and breathed out papafer smoke.

The soldier and I take the circuitous route around the ranks of idle cadets and troops until we dart into a thin office building. It's unassuming in every context of the word: nothing like the meadery she led me to the first time we met. I hover back in the foyer as she does a quick scan of the first floor, deeming it vacant, and guides me into an office with two flat-backed wooden chairs and a shoddy desk in their interim. I sit down in the chair that grants me a view of the door.

Satisfied, the woman reaches into her jacket and procures a small note. It's placed thin scrawl down, leaving me with nothing more than a blank slab of parchment and the overwhelming urge to reach forward and flip the missive over. To my great surprise, the woman steps back to perch near the door and nods. "Read."

The undersides of my fingernails itch curiously, like they're covered with a kind of damning filth I can't wait to be disposed of. I suppose they kind of are. When I flip the small paper over, thin words stitch themselves into a brief correspondence, the tone of which I remember vividly. It's as if he's leering over my shoulder, a catty old grin wrinkling his spare facial hairs, speaking his introduction directly into my ear himself.

Miss Moreau,

The current situation in Trost has been relayed to me by a rider. I'll be a little late–sorry about that–but in the meantime, won't you pilfer a bottle or two for me? Perhaps even a pretty face to serve it? Yours would do, except now that you're a professional again, I suppose I ought to entertain your cooperation as that of a soldier, eh?

Let's chat soon.

Pyxis (Or do you call me Commander now? I can't recall.)

Pyxis, alright. I drop the letter back on the desk and sigh. "Am I supposed to wait here until the Commander makes time to speak with me?"

"Yes."

My fingers twitch. Irritation at the idea of wasting away in here, wondering. If anything is to unfold the way I've seen it go the first time around, then I may very well be in store for a long afternoon of waiting. Narrowly suppressing the urge to groan, I decide instead to press my only source of information further. So, I tilt my head to see her better, and ask, "I don't suppose you know why I'm here?"

At that, her eyes take on a curious glint. Something like quick wit. Which would make sense, I guess, if she's been working so close to Pyxis all this time. That sort of mental acuity seems a bit essential to the job. "Why are you ever here, Aliva?"

I play the part of the badgering irksome soldier. She responds. Funny, how vocal we get when confronted with the familiar. "I've never been in this office before."

"In Trost."

"Because nowhere else wants me?"

"Because Pyxis needs to speak with you here."

I cross my arms, suspicious, but playing into her game. This is the most vocal she's ever been with me, excluding her false persona as a relative of mine since it hardly counts. "Here. In this run down little office. He needs to speak to…me."

Apparently, whatever unspoken agreement we had was over. The soldier's shoulders pinch together and she turns away. "Wait here," she orders, and then she shuts the door.

I sigh and lean back. What's the point in summoning me already if I'm just going to get stuck in here waiting?

The sun creeped in a bend through the sky. What little light filtered in through the window came in at a dusty slant, obscured in a way that had me wondering just how often this place actually got used. Which, belatedly, made me wonder if it was weird for me to just be stuck here. Waiting.

The first update I hear trickling in through the walls comes in the form of gossip lurching amongst the ranks, talking about some plan to send troops back into Trost.

Next thing I hear comes in the booming voice of Pyxis. I can barely make out a full sentence at a time with how unruly his audience is. Chaos erupts, feet scuffle all over the place, and more or less all I begin to understand is that things seem to be progressing as they ought to. Which means that Eren will be off to plug up a hole. The cadets will be rushing back into Trost. I think of Marco, again, and my paper letter chafes where I've got it stowed away. As soon as I'm able to I should see to making sure the boy makes it out of this mission alive. First, though, I need to get out of this room.

…Which doesn't happen. The sun peppers even further down into the sky. By the time the hinges finally squeak open I've all but decided to break through the window and slip out. Staring at me with utter composure all over her face is the same woman. This time, she has crutches. "I don't need them," I say immediately.

"You will."

Without granting me space to rally a counter argument, Pyxis's henchwoman pushes the crutches into my grasp and waits for me to get one tucked under each armpit before setting out. This time we don't bother with meandering around to avoid people–she takes us in a straight shot towards the wall, where people and canons alike stand poised. I half-expect her to have us use our ODM gear to maneuver our way up to the top; instead, the soldier steps onto one of the gear trolley platforms and motions for me to hobble on up with her. Once situated the contraption rumbles to life and begins its ardously slow journey to ferry us to Wall Rose's top.

From my new vantage point it's hard to ignore how beautiful everything is. This high up, the world spills out like an overturned bowl. The corners of the horizon dip down in a way that stretches the sky in curvilinear strokes. The entirety of Trost unfolds like an open book; I, the ardent reader. Buildings sprawl like sentences. Titans meander the page, clustering off in the distance where I can see hordes of soldiers atop the wall to lure them near. And practically all the way on the opposite side of Trost–a single smoke signal.

"Confirming Alpha Squad's red smoke flare. There's been a serious issue with the blocking operation."

I turn to my left. A man with a telescope was the one speaking. A crowd of various garrison members and officers flocks around, all silent, all sporting grim expressions. The woman who escorted me here charges straight into the crowd like that's where she was supposed to be this whole time. I clack my way in her wake. Might as well.

"Damn," another man grunts, sliding down to the ground in defeat. "So it was all for nothing? Our comrades are dead…was it all just a waste? Were their lives worth this?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the crowd fluctuate enough to embrace the newcomer. Telescope man hands the visionary object over and my escort takes his place at the left hand of the man who I now assume brought me here. Another man clears his throat. "Commander Pyxis. Alpha Squad should return immediately to gate defense. Shall I give the order?"

"No."

I maneuver my crutches forward. I've got a good vantage point from the edge of the group: finally, I can see the commander. Pyxis has the kind of expression that reminds me of the way he looked after my old mission went to shit. Adelheid had turned the apartment into a mega-sized candle and my father was already long gone. Not exactly the kind of news to warm any officer's heart the second it crosses their desk.

My former security detail lowers the telescope, having confirmed the signal for herself. "Shall we have Alpha Squad withdraw?"

"Negative." I can sense the building frustration in the group surrounding the highest authority present. Maybe Pyxis does too. For a second he stays silent, gaze ever-locked on the battlefield below, before he intones clearly, "Giving up this easily is absolutely unacceptable. To ensure the slain did not fall in vain–that is what we must do. We must keep up the struggle as long as we're alive."

I shiver. Blue ribbons sway in the wind, dance in the rain, laugh in my bed. Isn't that what I said when I pushed a certain green-eyed boy off a roof? It should be reassuring that I've retained enough of my humanity to validate my actions in the same manner as any other practiced soldier. It should be. But it's not.

Pyxis must have noticed my shifting, because for the first time since I joined the group, he wrenches his eyes away from Trost and levels them on me. "Miss Moreau. You've done some growing since we last met."

Ignoring the unfamiliar eyes now planted on my person, I slip an arm off the hold of my crutch to form a shitty version of the salute. "Commander Pyxis."

"Dot," he insists, slipping back into old banter.

"Commander."

He smiles. "Shall we?"

The two of us walk all of a dozen steps away from the others for a false sense of privacy. I keep my eyes like vagabonds, ever-roaming around the landscape beneath us. A moment spent to watch the near-invisible remnants of ruby smoke. A second to spy on the cornered titans, slobbering after the concentration of soldiers out of reach. Another moment to watch the officers whose faces aim straight for our profiles. And a final, fleeting second to study the man next to me.

For all intents and purposes Commander Dot Pyxis is exactly the same man he was when I met him, freshly 18 and kicked out of the 107th division by Shadis. For all intents and purposes he's exactly the same man who sent me off to the eastern neck of the aforementioned division despite my egregious shortcomings in the 6-month mission he'd entrusted me with.

Yet the man before me, so wizened by our current circumstances that he's failed to make a joke about pretty faces and prettier meads, does not seem all that similar to me. Perhaps when he looks my way he feels the same. I'm no longer the woman I was then. I'm hardly much of anything now. Just sharp fish bones peeking out of a rotting fish discarded in an alleyway gutter somewhere south of retribution and remission.

"You called?" I say finally.

Pyxis hums. "So I did." I wait for him to explain why, but instead, that vague smile of his crawls back to nest underneath his mustache. "That'll have to wait, I'm afraid, until things cool down for you and Trost."

My gaze flickers to him for a moment. "For me," I repeat slowly, as if I didn't hear him quite right. Pyxis clasps his hands behind his back and scans the sky as if reading his response right out from between the clouds.

"There's been a request to keep you out of trouble. Actually–a request to keep you from making trouble by mingling, I suppose." The hands he'd so rigidly placed behind him come undone to claw at his jacket. In a moment, his fingertips find purchase against a thin steel container. He withdraws the flask and sips idly, offers to pass it, and frowns when I don't accept in favor of further answers.

"Someone doesn't trust me?" It's about the only guess I can venture to make with such a vague explanation. "I'm not sure I follow. You summoned me for something: what changed?"

Pyxis shrugs. "Sometimes it rains on sunny days."

An infuriating answer. This time, when he passes the flask, I take a swig to dull the irritation mounting yet again. "Who?"

He glances my way. "Do you suppose it matters?"

"Depends on the person."

"And if I say?" I've no response to that. He watches me, eyes crinkling back into the folds of his bald wrinkles, and chuckles. "You've become so rough around the edges, Miss Moreau. So hostile."

I grunt. I've no comeback for that one, either.

We stay there, tuning into the distant booms and roars of Eren's titan. So far there's no signal to either deter or encourage the furtherment of Alpha Squad's mission. Funny, how little information is conveyed all the way up here to where we wait. It makes titans seem like a loose detached issue, rather than the hot-mouthed carnal destruction I witnessed first hand earlier.

Why, then, the need to drink even now?

"Let's say I'm indulging a man's concerns." His voice comes at me in low rumbles, tones that I know for a fact will never drift far enough on the wind to be heard by anyone other than me. "Lay his mind to rest, and then you and I can talk about your next assignment."

My brows knit together. "Who, Commander?"

He turns, idly scanning the horizon, acting for all the world as if the next words out his mouth aren't the ones that freeze me solid where I stand. "His plan dictates that you remain out of the way." When Pyxis looks down at me, an amused wink to his expression, I sternly glance away. "Whatever did you do to alarm that young Arlert?"

A/N: y'all don't even want to know how long my storyboarding document for this fic is getting lol