Crowd by crowd the trainees had massed among themselves in the humid air of the grounds where the shadows fell casted long and canted from one whole source only and the mild winds' whistling between the trees sounded like a howl and wherever the eye could look seem tinted that red of dusk.
My sights had been switching back and forth from one familiar face to another among the trainees for the better part of that morning, not feeling no crease nor wrinkle on any muscles to my face, while looking for any particular signs on those expressions to figure out if anything had occurred. Like living calendars. And clocks.
Even kept an eye to those three over there. And seems like they noticed me.
Well, at least one of them did.
I leaned a little ways over the railing off the platform of the bunkhouse, giving a short wave over to those three Marleyans, of which one Annie Leonhart seemed to first notice my eye, a neutral expression affixed to her stare exchanged.
Reiner and Bertholdt reciprocated better , forming friendly-ish smiles coupled with a hand up from each of the two teens in greeting.
And look at them three over there, good soldiers to their own country, mass destruction caused or not. Mental anguish receiving or no. They're on the fringe either way, aren't they? Even if they'd been born into it. Convinced or not. No choice in it in the first place or not.
Man, my thoughts were drifting.
Dammit, there should be shit I could be doing or something. Trost's yet to rear its ugly head over the horizon in the years to come getting done with the training corps, but the clock's a ticking. Wish it ticked faster, in all honesty.
Maybe there's a head-start. Something there.
...
"How's it been?" A friendly and familiar enough voice rang, and I felt a few pats on my shoulder.
"Not ideal." I replied, not looking away. "Stinking of ball-sweat, swallowing dirt 24/7, and that along with Shadis so cat-eyed a wrinkled collar could set him off on your ass without the courtesy of even a reach-around."
Well, I guess that's the standard the training corps need to hold. But for Shadis..." The fellow trainee, who I knew as one Thomas Wagner, murmured to himself. "...he keeps us angry."
"Like guard dogs. And in the best way he intended, too." I mused, looking to the blonde haired boy.
"I guess." Thomas shrugged his shoulders." Don't reckon it works though."
"Give it more time." I told him. "It's been only a few months. There's gonna be more stink eyes at the man as it drags on, I swear to you my daily bread on that."
"Hey, who's got latrine duty today?!" Connie's loud voice rang from a few ways across the dusty landscape.
"You and Thomas today, Connie!" Jean yelled from the sprawl, facing the bald trainee. "And don't try telling otherwise! I know the shifts! Duty calls! Heh!"
"Duty calls." I parroted, giving a side-eye to Thomas, whom only mouthed a hushed "damn" and grumbled, before vaulting over the railing and going off to join Connie shoulder to shoulder in that chattering crowd of faces just barely rid of all the acne or some other natural blemishes borne of puberty. And I wasn't that different physically either.
Two and a half more years. Damn, I gotta stop counting.
My hands sank in the mud on the ground with a squelch, and I'd been panting like a dog. The heavy weight of the backpack had been giving my shoulders hell, and the rain dripping down my chin through the sweat and grime gave me a cold and filthy hell.
My form kneeled, I reared my sights ahead and my vision looked upon the misty figures of the trainees rucking across the scape of icy rain and the weak-framed trees flailing wild by them.
I got up, feeling my legs quaking. Turning back, a few dozen trainees clamoring to catch up behind me caught my eye. And the drive in me lessened further. Not ahead. Not Behind. Ain't no other way I would have it. Don't think my body would allow more anyways.
I kept the jog on, a steady pace set and my boots sinking in the mud with every step that was took, with my grip on the pack's strap kept tight, listening to the rain make everything else among the woods soundless as it rang in thuds against the hood of my cloak.
Through the rainfall I still heard Shadis' yells amidst the downpour, and the clacking of hooves sounded right then as I caught a glimpse of a speeding blur of the old instructor galloping by the rucking trainees next to us. A sigh escaped me, and immediately drowned out after, even to me among the cacophony of noises. It was lost there with no trace.
"Last lap for the day, maggots! Don't for one fucking second think it means you'll get to ease up! See it through!"
See it through, See it through.
Easy enough.
To ask of.
Covering a considerable distance across the mud and foliage, I stared into the place past the the pines and splintery bushes. The way back into camp, from where we had begun at the crack of dawn. Didn't know how much time had exactly passed, but at least the end was in sight. I kept up the pace, catching up to the leading company of trainees, all of familiar faces.
My legs hadn't given out, and my muscles weren't screaming either, but they weren't really pulling through much either. Just on the verge.
I and a dozen other trainees had made it to the camp. There I found myself plop down on the muddy grounds on my ass along with a few others, hearing their strained groans and heavy breathing among the people there. But some few didn't join us.
Reiner and Bertholdt stood among all the rain and the mud, the duo talking between themselves with the trainees slouched over the ground wheezing for all that day had been freezing for what the rain had wrought. And behind them Annie stood silent.
And some other faces rose up with the relentless rain sweltering off their cloaks. It was all the up and coming top ten trainees that would be but not yet so. All there, stood tall among the wheezing lips, so I went on one knee clawing the soft mud, scrambling to stand myself too. But a pain of the muscles from my calves flared then ached, and my view went awry. I felt my back slam against the ground and I laid there swallowing rain, feeling my ears slowly clog up with no sound going or coming. The earthy, almost nauseating smell of the mud assaulted my nostrils.
...
I reckon that'd be the limit right there.
A dozen or so sighs escaped me as I tossed down the scout jacket heavy and wet with rain-water down somewhere on the floorboards of the musty mess hall. The raindrops that fell upon the roof above were the few sounds that rang through the long hall and empty hall.
"Need a damn drink." I said to myself through all my fatigued groans.
"Pick that up."
A rough and near gravelly tone rang, echoing from the wherever end of the hall hand was. Shit. My vision snapped towards the voice in a quick motion, turning my heads towards Shadis there.
Sat over one of the tables at the far end of the whole place in all that dark. He had been pouring wine from a wooden pitcher into a cup, his eyes fixed to me.
My nostrils flared," Yes, sir..." I replied and obeyed in haste before some words of reprimand came rearing its hideous head. I went to pick the jacket up, folding it and wrapping it around an arm like a waiter. Then I looked to Shadis again.
Dammit, maybe I should've just taken a bath first like the others. Or maybe not. Thirst, lethargy and a coming headache does things to a man.
Shadis held the pitcher up and shook it lightly in view, as if ushering me. And he had with him not those eternally wrinkled brows, but one of neutrality. Seemingly.
I cleared my throat and approached him, my boots squeaking, wet thuds echoing as I treaded across the hall with little to say through my aching legs and suppressed groans.
He made a quick wayward motion of his hand to the bench across him - of which I took to get seated across him setting the wet jacket down- the pitcher of whatever he was drinking being passed over across the table to my side against the knuckles of his fingers. I gave a thankful nod to him, and set to seize a vacant wooden cup on the table pouring the pitcher full what was wine from the strong scent of grapes coming from it.
Hands leant on the table, I took great sups from the cup feeling in the sourness in all its undiluted glory, my eyes wandering around to the plainly paneled walls away the old instructor across me.
"Two trainees died yesterday."
"...Sir?"
"Landed the wrong side, high off the rock climbing course. There they went. Both at once."
"That'd be the norm, and the result for a portion here, Cadet."
He'd been drinking without staring at nowhere specific, but now he'd given me a look, eyes a squinted.
"Well...drinking to them then, sir?"
"No. Both made a foray at late night to the grounds. And the case is now the problem of the people with quills."
He held his cup up. "This is the weekly round."
Then he set it down and continued on. His tone was still rough like sandpaper upon sandpaper, completely unchanged.
"Now why you'd think those two went, Cadet? Slacking? They had been half a year into training. Same as you."
" I wouldn't know, sir."
" I would tell you that you don't need to make it to the Top ten, only that you make it through training, but men of average quality tend to do worse when told to only pass. And telling to vie for the top leads to where those two's roads had stopped. And where you've struggled to the uttermost capacity, there's always someone who done so too, only without an ounce as much as you. And that's not a notion meant to be reminded of humility, no."
" And you think that those two trainee's fates could be my own, sir?"
"What I think's not coming yet, Cadet. Your case, it's the same with Cadet Carolina and Wagner either way."
" And What way would that be, sir?"
"I'd urge you to see it yourself. You're at a crossing. And the graduation's the only way you'll know out of me, Cadet. Is that clear?"
"Crystal, Instructor Shadis , sir."
He let out a deep grunt and stood up from the table, downing the cup in his grip and left, walking off from view. The pitcher was already half empty the moment I first got to it.
As the sound of one of the doors shutting rung through my ears, my free hand softly pinched the bridge of my nose, my thoughts stirring.
Don't reckon I got a performance review.
I stared into particularly nothing, or so myself would let me think.
Across the table where Shadis had sat was what looked like an oil painting, hung on the paneled wood of the walls. Shimmering from the color palette out in all that dark where it had been framed. Just four cups under a thinly stemmed and half-withered tree on a lonesome green hill. A sunless sky behind it with no backdrop that it looked hollow.
Huh.
At dawn's end two men in their MP jackets strutted the walkways across the near-vacant streets of Trost with little diversion upon their paths, their expressions lost to any observer alike under the blackness with sparse lamplights winking and dimmed under the nightly vacancy apparent to the duo. And as they went on the two men came upon a bar, its window lights glaring upon them as they approached closer and made entrance, side eyeing the few patrons before they made haste towards the counter.
"Anything up?" One of the military policeman asked the man on the counter rubbing the shaved and spikey beard on his face. His gaze had been to the patrons downing their swills, little to take away upon his stare.
"Not this week. Nor the other." He answered. " But the string ain't run on the trade yet, don't worry."
"We know it." The other one of the duo spoke up. "Captain's a dreamer, no noon's setting on him. He'll find something."
"Aye. That's so." The barman answered.
All three of the men had found themselves halted of any words to come when they heard the door squeak open. The barman stood blinking at the door, as did both the duo.
At the entrance stood a teen that appeared to the trio only past a few years past ten, his eyes wary and grim, and his gritted teeth noticeable to the three even under the nervous frown his lips had imposed upon his young face. The two men saw that the teen had been scanning for something across the scope of the bar, over the dirty and scraped tables draped with torn cloth stained, and the shattered bottles littered and massed that shimmered each by each like light beacons at a dust-ridden corner of the room under the light of the gas lamps dangling on the sides for all the lack of wind there was.
Young eyes set sights to the brick walls icy to the touch, worn and chipped for what the years had been rent unto them that they aught to have been but a roofed ruin to a layman's veer.
The two men heard a repeated tapping on the counter, and they gave a glance to see the barman rub his facial hair more paced, with a rhythm alien to them and the tapping of his fingers on the counter ringing about to the duo.
The teen walked the oddly-lit place, steps delayed as he made way before the stares of the other patrons of the bar watching like an unseen event of a performance where all those men took part. He stood blinking, taking a place just across the barman, the counter like a low wall or border separating the two of them. And for the two MPs, the barman seemed the better actor well above the teen.
The military policemen by the counter quickly opted not to listen to what the teen and barman exchanged with words, but as they were and would ever be with curiosity only so far tempered they looked about the features changing on their faces, listening to the hushed tones and seeing the teen's features shift around like caught in a bout of circumspection before the words became clearer as their ears leveled to the gibbering lips.
"No man ain't too good for any horrible thing but taxes and long hurdles. Come delay in some places you'll be in greater damnation."
"...I'm here anyway. More words to hand me, or is there something I gotta do?"
The snippets of the exchange went quieter right then, more in hushed whispers from both the barman and the teen, and the latter went blank-eyed and blinking; before nodding slow like in forced understanding at what had been said, before hastening off to the door, turning his back and leaving into the blackness that laid outside.
As the door shut to a close, the barman looked about the two MPs staring. He made a gesture just above his head,a motion of his hands that spun around as much as his wrist would allow. And the creaking of wood coming from the door behind the barman went by noticeably , then the shifting of things un-descript and heavy steps of boots and a distinctive click, before the the whole bar fell soundless even among the words passed between the other patrons.
Then the barman went down under the counter, coming up once more with a bottle of red to present to the two men, uncorking it whole with a finger and with three cups twined in a free hand, he placed them with three clacks on the counter.
With the viscous and syrupy liquid poured, they downed and emptied them to nothing but only let a dead silence be suzerain, with one of the trio grasping his drink to an internalized signage of an unknowable entanglement .
Well, Here's another chapter.
Until Next time.