A Devoted Heart (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) - Part 2

Dirty Hands

Seven hours ago

"She's right behind us, Blitz," Levi grumbled, angrily tightening the reins, "stop turning your head, you idiotic horse!"

They had ridden fast for the last hour and a half but not as fast as Levi had wished to go because Mr. Randy Stallion kept slowing down for his mare, not realizing that all female creatures were by default impressed by rippling muscle and great speed and therefore all the more willing after witnessing activities that involved said muscles and said speed.

Or... wait. What if that was one of those lies Survey Corps members had fed him? Levi threw a look over his shoulder, watching with a deep frown how Blatz was laboring to catch up with them. His comrades had occasionally - granted only when exceedingly drunk - dared prank him with false information about what women liked, thinking that funny for whatever obscure reasons. So, maybe... Hmmm... indeed, the mare didn't look like she was much impressed by Blitz' speed - quite the opposite. Her brown coat was wet with sweat, and so much foam was flying from her mouth it was visible at a considerable distance.

With an annoyed click of his tongue, Levi let Blitz fall into a slow trot until Blatz had caught up with them. Both horses nickered happily, nodding to each other with graceful dips of their head. They were almost disgustingly lovey-dovey, Levi thought with a suppressed shudder, concentrating his attention once more on the tracks on the ground.

Two horses. Some hours ago. Thanks to the soft ground, the hoof prints were clearly visible.

The grassland around Hange estate was not flat like he was used to from the area in the South, but hilly, forcing riders to weave their path around the mounds if they did not want to tire their horses by going up and down. Further up North, outside the Walls, the gentle hills would turn into steep mountains. Not that Levi had ever been there, and neither did he plan to ever go. Even just the idea of such huge piles of solid stone put him on edge. He had read in a book how dangerous it was to venture up to the top, with stones falling on one's head out of nowhere, sudden weather changes turning the narrow paths into torrential waterways and making it likely that one lost one's footing and fell hundreds of meters to one's death.

Granted, the rolling hills here, however pleasing to the eyes, did not have a good effect on his nerves either - he kept half expecting Titans to be hiding behind each soft swell before his brain recalled he was still safe within Wall Rose. Here, the enemy wasn't a bunch of huge, mindless maneaters. Here, the enemy had carefully manicured, soft-skinned hands, and waited for the next opportunity to use his formidable power to crush whoever tried to stand in his way.

Here, the enemy was people like Council Hange.

Levi felt a burning rage when he thought of that man's demeanor, his cold, calculating eyes, his ruthlessness and dangerous intelligence. Levi had strong survival instincts that had served him well ever since Kenny had saved him from starvation more than twenty years ago. But somehow, Council Hange had the ability to cloud those instincts, to rob him of the necessary certainties to walk through life with his usual confidence. He made Levi hesitate when he shouldn't. He made him question things, even made him doubt feelings that were stronger than what he had ever known before. He destabilized him, made him feel like things were slipping from his hands, inexorably.

No wonder then that ever since coming to Hange estate, the feeling of being lost in an unknown territory with ground made of quicksand had intensified. It felt like something ominous was about to happen, something he should see coming but just couldn't grasp. Something someone like Erwin would have easily dealt with, just because he was so used to handling nobles, knew all their underhanded tricks. But Erwin was gone, thanks to Levi's fate-charged decision that felt too often like it had condemned all of them.