The Warriors of the Walls

The Devil is in the Detail

ERWIN

Frustration bled through my fingers as I pinched the missive between them, my eyes skimming back over the less than desired information it contained on Eren's recent attempt at hardening.

We are getting nowhere fast.

"I see. Another failure then." I sighed as I tried to contain my disappointment at not being closer to reaching that damn cellar, "Imagine if it had worked, we could have plugged the hole in Shiganshina in less than a day."

We're so close... so close to learning the secrets the Yaeger's and Sparhawke's were guarding... the secrets of this world...

"What we need is information, it's not like there are books on the subject." Levi drawled from his seat at the table in my dimly light quarters at the Karanes garrison, his eyebrows pulled together in a deep frown, "That would make things too easy. We do have Krista- no, Historia Reiss, maybe she can give us some insight into the nature of the walls."

The key to everything if Pastor Nick is to be believed.

"I did some digging and found a report about her life before the cadets." I informed Levi as my thoughts drifted to the golden blonde woman-child that had by chance fallen under my command, "The illegitimate daughter of Lord Reiss, hers was not a happy childhood."

The reports had all appeared somewhat mundane until I had come across older, obscured documents pertaining to Historia's mother who had been killed by cutthroats on the farm she worked on, her throat slashed ear to ear, just like Aurora's mother and father had been, just like her great Aunt and grandparents.

If Historia is the key then Aurora is the link, her family binds all of this together one way or another, I'm sure of it, and I'm even more convinced of who is at the centre of all of this.

"Lord Reiss is the key to this somehow." I mused, my mind tripping over itself in a hurry to keep up, "Why would a mere regional lord know the secrets of the walls?"

"The same reason why apparent commoners like the Yaegers and the Sparhawkes know I suspect, though what that reason is appears to beyond us." Levi sighed in frustration as he ran a hand over his face, his eyes circled by dark shadows that made him look more tired than usual, "Do you ever get the feeling that the answer is staring us right in the face, but we're too focused on trying to figure out the bigger picture to see the finer details?"

"It does appear to be so. They do say the devil is in the detail..." I trailed off thoughtfully, maybe Levi was right, perhaps we had been looking at this all wrong. Maybe we should be focusing not on why they want Eren, Aurora and Historia but instead on who those three are, or rather what the enemy perceives them to be.

"I can see the wheels turning under those ridiculous eyebrows." Levi quipped with a slightly hostile edge, "Out with it."

"Given what we know about our enemy," I began somewhat hesitant after all this was Levi's woman we were talking about, "what is it you think they see when they look at Aurora Sparhawke?"

"A threat", Levi replied without missing a bit, a note of pride underlying his otherwise emotionless drawl. 

Of course, he would be proud.

"Why?" I pressed, eager to hear his assessment no matter how biased.

"They believe she knows something that she doesn't," Levi began, his fingers drumming against the table, the only outward sign of his frustration with the issue we were discussing, "that her family passed on their secrets to her, that she, despite her own belief, is well-liked by the citizens of Trost and by extension Rose, a hero for the people they want to keep in the dark. A rallying figure should she chose to share the knowledge they believe she has."