A Noble Cause: LevixOC

Chapter 14

      With orders to prepare to head towards the grounds of an uncharted castle, everyone is bustling around the base to saddle horses and load extra military and medical supplies into wagons. Emiline attaches her gear to her body and checks the triggers to ensure that they're properly oiled when Levi approaches. She looks up at Levi from her tasks and observes grey eyes take on a stormy hue to match the grey surrounding his figure.

      "Are you going to be okay, fighting like that," Levi gestures to the corset and slippers still adorning Emiline's body.

      "I'll be fine. I've been trained to fight in corsets tighter than this, but I wish I could find a pair of boots in my size."

      "Were there any in the supplies?"

      Emiline shakes her head, "No, my feet are so abnormally small that there is rarely any in my size in the supplies."

      "Be careful while you're out there," Levi reaches out to the blue ribbon still tied to the end of Emiline's braid and ensures that it is tightly secured. "Keep this till you get back for good luck."

      Emiline smiles warmly and gives Levi a quick kiss. She begins to walk back towards the door and pats her hand twice over her tattoo, "When I return the ribbon is the only thing I want to wear." A laugh bubbles from her lips as Levi's face quickly morphs from his normal apathetic expression to surprise.

      "Damn ginger," Levi mutters as Emiline hurries out the door.

      Quickly mounting her horse, Emiline follows Hanji and the rest of the squad to the ruins just fifteen miles away from the base. The ride over is filled with conversations surrounding Christa, but all Emiline can think about is the secrets being kept. Christa had every right to not reveal her identity to everyone just like Emiline did before she finally came clean, but the tightness in her chest coupled with the sinking dread in her gut drowns her in suspicion. Her parents always seemed to know more about the world and their society more than they let on, being given information about the pamphlet shortly before it was distributed was proof of that. Now that she is thinking about it, whenever her parents revealed new information to her and her brother, Eric never seemed surprised like Emiline did, Eric simply took the information and moved on.

      Emiline can hear her blood rushing in her ears as the tips down to her chin begin to surge in a wave of heat. From the very beginning this dynamic has been occurring and Emiline never realized it because she always believed that her family wasn't like other nobles. No, that wasn't it, more like she accepted the noble way of thinking until it no longer benefited her. She turns her head up to the sky and stares at the cloud covered evening sky, it was dark but she could still make out the rippled puffs of the clouds as she thought to herself, I am truly selfish, I hunger for the freedom to do things my way but when the scope of my world becomes too narrow I burst the boundaries, even if it means disrupting others...and even disrespecting the wishes of the dead. When Emiline turns her face back towards the breeze her grip tightens against the horse's reins when she catches sight of the titans attacking the castle ruins in the distance.

      All of the soldiers in the group go silent at the scene just down the hill, for the first time in recorded history, titans are able to roam during the night.

      "Engage the enemy," Hanji orders, "Emiline, find and protect Christa!"

      "On it!" Emiline stands on top of her horse just as she comes within range of a titan. She shoots gear and hooks into the shoulder of a small titan and rapidly propels herself up before slashing a clear cut into the nape to kill the titan and move on to the next monster reaching out to grab her. As she swings from one titan to the next she spots Christa dressed in civilian clothes with no gear and a titan reaching for with palms and mouth gaping wide open for the taking. Emiline quickly swings onto the titan's shoulder and slashes out its eyes before finally dealing the fatal blow.