Off The Beaten Path

Welcome to Paradise

☼ LEVI ☼

He couldn't explain the thrill - the perverse, angry joy he got when his swords slashed through the neck of a titan. He felt powerful, he felt avenged. He wasn't the small kid from the alleys with the whore mother. He wasn't the shrimp commander. He wasn't less. Out on the field, felling Titans - he was a God. His skills were unmatched, his passion for eradicating the scourge on humanity was unquenchable. His blades dug into the titans nape as he contorted his body, stopping on a dime just inside the monsters left clavicle, riding the beast as it fell in a cloud of steam. The heat radiating from the corpse clung to his clothes, making him feel filthy.

Levi worried for a moment about the cold making the fabrics freeze. He looked to his blades and tsked. The titan blood had frozen instead of fading away as it normally did. Vainly he pulled out his handkerchief and began rubbing the mess violently. He knew Erwin would be by soon with a ride since his horse had fallen with his Commanders in the beginning.

Poor creature. He thought, raising his gaze as he heard Erwin's voice shouting above the din and the deep call of a horse.

He squinted in both shock and recognition. Erwin was commanding a civilian around the battlefield. A civilian who looked familiar. He didn't look away as she pulled up. Her lashes and bits of her hair were frozen. Her cloak was pulled over her face, obscuring the majority of her features. Her eyes were an odd shade of blue and so damn familiar. She met his gaze and bristled. Recognition hit him as he climbed in the cart.

Tom's wife. Tom from the Garrison Regiment. He had been a handsome man, strong and sturdy. He'd saved their necks a time or two returning to the Wall from a scouting expedition. He had been a good man, he'd deserved better than mediocre Garrison. He'd seen Tom's wife but once, when he had returned from his first couple expeditions and was being presented to the courts and recognized for his bravery. It had all been a joke, he'd felt angry and sick of all the bureaucratic pomp and bullshit. If he'd never made an attempt in Erwin's life they'd never had cared for him - he'd never had been enlisted in the Survey Corps and would have died in the Underground like his mother, like his uncle.

His eyes slid over to the woman in the back with him. Lisa. He'd seen her haunting the inner wall a few times, smuggled into fancy inns by footmen from one of the noblemen. He glanced down at the fussing baby in her arms, back up to her face. He recognized the pride and shame burning in her cheeks. He couldn't fault the man for bedding her. She was classically beautiful with high cheekbones, a heart face, delicate flawlessly pale skin and deep, cat like brown eyes hinting at a foreign lineage. Spaniard or Portuguese most likely. The baby cried, its tiny body fighting against the blanket it had been swaddled in. Immediately Levi could feel his hate for the nobles resurface.

The other children were much older, piled off to the side of the wagon together to make room for Commander Smith, who was standing behind the driver now. Her braid snapped against her cloak as she made another veering turn, taking on Abel and Oluo without changing course by any degree. Erwin was focused on guiding her through the mine field of death and destruction while saving as many of his men as possible. Luke, Petra and a handful of others fell into the wagon, making it uncomfortably full.

"She's doing great at this." Oluo whispered to Petra, sitting beside him, "I mean- for a civilian." He covered, acting disinterested.

Petra smiled, her eyes darting to Levi quickly before falling away. She liked him, he knew she liked him. He had tried to convince himself she was too young and keep her at arms distance with that reasoning. It wasn't as easy as he had once found. He glanced again towards the woman driving, again impressed at her ability to take orders and her adaptability to the cruel world they had been forced into. It made the Survey Corps sick when news had reached them of what the government council had decided - slaughtering humans. Lives were precious and few. There were things that could have been done to ease the burden of so many lost souls. Erwin had tried to hurry back before the slaughter but already so many had fallen. Most of the returning survivors would be soldiers; they all knew. The blizzard fading around them and soldiers unloading brought Levi back to the present. He paused for a moment, holding back. He wanted to console her somehow, Tom had been someone he had admired, someone he had wanted Erwin to recruit. He had deserved better. A better team, better atmosphere. More support.