However Long The Night

FIFTEEN: No one is your friend.

When morning came, Rosario's presence was requested at the commander's office before she even got to the cafeteria for breakfast. After she had her meal, she stood behind the wooden doors, knocking before entering.

"Come on in."

She pushed inside, saluting before taking more than one step inside. The commander acknowledged it with a nod before moving on. "Good morning, Rosie. It'll be a calm day today. We're just going to be reorganizing the archives and gathering some last minute files for a meeting with the Royal Cabinet the day after tomorrow."

Rosario understood what organization he meant. Boxes of files and books lay in front of the shelves haphazardly. Only one box was beside the commander's desk, most likely for those new files.

"Is the meeting about the expedition to retake Wall Maria?"

"Precisely," he sighed. His eyes were set on a reading he seemed to struggle doing. It'd been less than a minute and Commander Erwin had already pinched the bridge of his nose four times trying to read. "Zachary is Convinced, so is Pixis. Then again, they were never the problem. Those nobles are more than comfortable letting everyone outside Wall Sina die than give us a fighting chance. And to think we'd believed we'd gotten rid of all of them."

A list of the requested files lay on the table. Rosario read through it, placing it back down and heading to the first box nearest to her. "Vermin are rarely completely exterminated, Commander. Still, they'd be faced with backlash by the rest of the military if they deny it. Those nobles don't hold all the power anymore."

"True, but they still hold power. And that slows us down."

Rosario slid a book into its place, shrugging. "You weren't exactly going impressively fast before this."

His voice sounded terse when he said, "Thank you for your input, Rosie."

They worked in silence for a while. The commander had managed to get through some of his book and Rosario flew through the organization. The list of requested files grew smaller as she dropped them one by one in the box. At lunch, the food was brought to them and they ate at the Commander's desk.

"I heard you were reprimanded for misconduct yesterday," Commander Erwin said, putting his spoon down. The lunch was rice, a rabbit leg, and porridge that day.

Rosario didn't set her spoon down, answering between bites. "I killed a Titan, and the captain got angry."

"You have a way of minimizing your actions. Do you feel guilty?"

"No."

"Do you not care about the danger you put yourself in?"

She met his eyes as she chewed and swallowed. "You send me to titan infested land and think you have a right to ask that question?"

"What about the danger you put your comrades in? The captain himself was hurt mildly, trying to save you."

Rosario rolled her eyes. "He's literally fine. And I was thinking about the danger my comrades would be in. That's why I went and killed the titan."

"That's another thing." The commander leaned back in his seat. "How did you know? Even Levi and Hange hadn't realized titans were nearby. You yourself had to ride pretty far to actually encounter them. The logs say about a quarter kilometer."

Rosario ripped a piece of the rabbit leg and chewed it thoroughly. "I have good hearing."

"Spectacular hearing, it would seem."

Rosario nodded. "It's quiet in the underground if you ignore the wails of starving children. You have to really listen to every sound if you want to succeed as a thief down there. I had to learn to pick up sounds and distinguish them. Doing that my whole life must have made me better."