Off The Beaten Path

That's the Way It Is

☼ LEVI ☼

He brought his fists up to guard his face, his feet were firmly planted on the cobblestone. The young man flew at him, dagger in one hand. Easily Levi twisted to the left, out of the way of the plunging blade. His right hand reached around and grabbed the kids collar, yanking him back. With a sickening thud the would-be-mugger fell straight onto his tailbone. The crack was audible. The man grimaced, not paying attention to Levi, who loosed a quick left handed jab into the mans face, his fist tightening on impact. His head snapped back as his nose bent against his face and exploded with blood. Much later his body slumped backward.

Levi shook his hand, removing his glove with a frown. "Disgusting." He pocketed the item, hoping to be able to clean it later.

"Was that really necessary?" Erwin commented, stepping back towards the carriage they had been riding in, visibly soothing himself.

Levi turned to load back up, "Probably not." He agreed, "However it helped with the nerves."

"You always were a violent thug." Erwin grunted as he pulled himself up the step and onto a plush cushion.

Saying nothing more Levi took the seat opposite. The coach was magnificent to them; lined in plush, stuffed wool, gilded around the carved filigree, the horses pulling were matching delicate white things reserved for the nobler classes. Actual glass was framed into the wooden windows, crushed velvet curtains were cut to size, threaded with turquoise dyed string and pulled to the side with gold gilded hooks. The whole thing made Levi itch with nerves. He hated being summoned to the council, he hated having to make an account of their patrol. He looked at Erwin quickly. The Commander looked just as perplexed.

What was there to report? Twenty more men had died, countless thousands of dollars worth of horses had been rendered essentially useless from broken legs, death, or trauma, even more in supplies and gear was lost, and what did they have to show? Another supposed failure. Levi looked out the window as, through the fog of anger, an idea formed.

"Erwin." The older man came to attention. "I may have seen something. That night."

A thick blonde eyebrow rose and the corners of his mouth twitched, "You mean the shitting owl."

It wasn't a question and Levi shrugged, "It might have been a person." Erwin froze for a moment, his mind obviously grasping at the implications. Levi continued before he could speak. "If we could suggest we had seen an actual person living outside the wall in the ruins, in a titan forest - well-"

"Well we could save the whole regiment!" Erwin's excitement faded to darkness as he pondered, "How would we prove this though?"

Levi shook his head. "I could have sworn the person was a woman." It was useful information, women were outnumbered two-to-one within the walls. "She had an ODM on her."

Erwin's face turned stony. After working alongside one another for so long and in such conditions they had learned to read one another; a well oiled machine. Levi knew Erwin was thinking of the escapees from the war. Unless they were climbing the walls and breaking in to steal ODM's from the armory there were no other options. The bodies of the fallen all had been accounted for in the years since the reclamation attempt; all salvageable parts reclaimed and accounted for in the piles and mountains of paperwork every leader of the regiment had to fill out and present to the treasurer, who then turned them into someone, who then double checked the paperwork and turned that in to someone and over and over again until the papers were either returned incomplete or filed away for records.

"How could they have survived?" His eyes glittered.

Levi shrugged. "They may not have." He reasoned, "Who is to say they didn't die and someone stole their stolen gear? Who's to say there's not a whole village of people living out there in the wilds holed up in abandoned houses or living under ground? Maybe even further out, beyond the walls. There's a whole expanse of world out there. Are we really the only ones left, or are we the only ones on this chunk of land?"