Shingeki no Jiyu

III

c.838

      Keith's resolve against campaigns continued, increasing the pressure on both Mike and Erwin as Squad Leaders to soothe the unrest amongst the community. Three times this week, pissed off aristocrats attempted to set fire to the stables where the fleet of 600 purebreds were kept; they didn't appreciate their taxes being wasted on resources which ran through the cracks. Coincidently, Hanji was under the same pressure to allow the formation of the Thirty-Fifth Training Corps to ensue.

      Within the past few years, over twenty of the original eighty applicants, revoked their admissions due to the length Keith was willing to take to stall the procedures. As far as Adria knew, the remaining troops were camping on the outskirts of Maria at the training facility, not being able to learn or practice. She empathised with their frustration all too well; she'd given up on enthusiastically participating in Hanji's exercises and coaxing a smile on Keith's passive face. The ordeal had minimal pay off in Adria's opinion, her months were spent hooked up to Hanji's toys, going through examination after examination while she got different doses of 'vaccines'.

      Viktor had no patience left to give the Survey Corps, refusing to leave his room half the time. And when he did choose to rear his head, he spoke nothing but blasphemy to the Survey Corps—though, he had stayed around long enough one afternoon to break an idea to her. Despite the civil unrest, Viktor wished to break out of the Survey Corps clutches on their last night which was on swift approach. Adria had called him insane at the time, but she knew that it would come to the point where they wouldn't have a choice.

      "Argh," a harsh breath left Adria's clenched teeth as the foreign pressure pressed down on her.

      Even having no word from her remaining relatives, she chose to write to Neal. She had never gained a response and was unsure if Erwin posted the letters half of the time; but a Saint of Maria had grown fond of her. Adria didn't consider them murders despite the lone wolf which caused Gregory's death, the fantasy which Neal had spun as a child resonated with her, even now at the age of nineteen.

      The specific Saint of Maria was known amongst the Corps due to their strange accumulation of military paraphernalia, presumably from the Underground markets. Many nights Adria would sit on the window ledge and watch as Military Police shot through the streets attempting to catch the lone Saint who used the vertical gear better than most trainees. However, the Saint took one wrong turn and ended up in Trost where the Military Police had no jurisdiction. To conceal themselves, they hid in her room. Adria had returned later that night from dinner with Viktor and Hanji to find them there.

      She'd never experienced such infatuation as she had staring upon the Saint, and every night, her endearment grew. Over the months of captivity, she got the Saint to warm up to her and they gradually allowed her to see through their shadowed extremities. Adria observed that the man was just older than her with styled hair in the angled cut of aristocracy and convinced him to abandon the velvet black gloves covering his creamy fingers.

      The Saint adjusted her against his hips and took to suckling her neck. Adria clutched his hair harshly, tugging at the roots. The beaked mask obscured the majority of his face from view, but she was satisfied by the silkiness of his charcoal locks. The situation didn't appear odd to her since the bliss was utterly intoxicating; to her, it didn't matter that after one year he remained nameless as long as he was able to pleasure her through the abyss she was cast into at the hands of Keith Shadis.

      "Might want to bite down a little harder love," he cooed in her ear. Unlike Viktor, the man had a gruff voice almost as if he feigned an accent to appease her. "If you make any more noise, you'll alert the dogs."