Tantamount

The Talk

Songs: Born to run - American Authors // Who are you, Really? - Mikky Ekko

As the clatter from the kitchen reached my ears and my senses sharpened I slowly woke up. Stretching my sore limbs and once again standing up from the hard couch. The morning passed in a blur as my brain thought of possible scenarios. The hooded men had haunted my thoughts and it scared me to think they wanted to hurt my family. But instead of letting fear consume me, I thought about it, every scenario my brain could muster up granted me another situation I was ready for. Mike and I got ready and headed to the bar. Street after street the anxiety grew stronger. As we stood in front of the bar's doors Mike looked at me wearily.

"You ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be" and with that, I pushed the doors open stepping into the poorly lit place. As we took a couple of steps inside my eyes immediately landed on yesterday's blond man sitting at a chair in front of the bar his short stoic friend standing beside him, his arms crossed. The bar was empty with the exception of the owner of the bar who looked at me nervously. 

"Hey, John you okay there?" John was actually a sweet guy and he owned this bar.

"Yes miss...these men wanted to talk to you"

"Did they reserve the place? there's no one around." I paced back and forth not really feeling comfortable with the blond man and his angry elf staring at me. 

"Yes, ma'am."

"I see." I walked towards John and took enough money out of my pocket to possibly cover for whatever loss he may be facing with this little 'talk'  I was about to have with these men. 

"Here take this" and gave him a look that meant 'do not argue with me and take it'. He did so and I returned to the center of the room carefully staring at the blond man and his friend. No ODM gear on sight, they were unarmed. 'huh'

"Glad you decided to come." The blond man said 

"What do you want?"

"I just want to talk."

I eyed him carefully while again pacing from side to side "All this trouble just for a talk? That can't be endgame."

"Amuse me. I was hoping I could get to know you more."

"You can ask, I'll decide whether I'll dignify that with an answer."

The man on his side scoffed and made a tch sound clearly annoyed at my lack of respect for his superior..well I think it's his superior.

"Fair enough. I already know your name, I'm commander Erwin Smith and the man beside me is Captain Levi, also known as humanity's strongest. Now that that's out of the way. I have to ask, Why did you help those people? The ones that are currently under your protection."

I paced a bit thinking of my answer and considering whether my answer could negatively impact my family.  "The Underground is a place full of bad people and crime. The argument that this is how things are and that nothing could be done to change it didn't exactly sit right with me. There are always good people, maybe scarce in a place like this but they are there somewhere. Sadly good people often die at the hands of bad ones who are not afraid to do shitty things. So I found good people and when the murderers decided to exercise their power I defended them. I'm no better than the murderers in this place but I want to give a fighting chance to those who are actually good or at least do try to make things better and not worse"

"mmm. Tell me what do you know about the wings of freedom and titans?"

"Not much if I'm being honest. I've heard the Corps go out the walls, something about fighting for humanity. Titans eat humans and that's as much as I know about them. None of those things are really a daily thought in here."