Perennial Rose | {Levi x OC} | Shingeki no Kyojin |

Chapter 50: Progress

Within Wall Rose, Survey Corps Headquarters

Renata wakes up to a quick shake of her body.

Lying down on her side, she pulls a hand from under her pillow and rubs the sleep out of her eyes. As the drowsy blur clears away and her senses start up, she feels warmth press against her waist as her body is shaken once again.

“Get up, will you.”

It doesn’t take long for her to recognize Levi’s voice---even if it’s the first thing in the morning.

It also doesn’t take long for Renata to realize that instead of waking up by her own body’s clock as she usually does every morning, Levi seems to have taken the job.

She blinks quickly.

Wait.

He’s in her room

Any speck of sleep that had remained flies out of the building when she sits up in an instant. “L-Levi?!” she stammers nervously, confused at the sight of the man seated at the edge of her bed.

Renata opens and closes her mouth, initially intending to point something out but later deciding it isn’t worth the trouble.

His eyes are bloodshot red.

“If I wasn’t here to get your ass out of bed,” he says as he pushes his hands against his knees and lifts himself up. A crack of bone accompanies his ascent, a sign that his legs have not changed position for quite some time.

Levi walks across the room to the door, but pauses to conclude his final remark, “You would’ve overslept.”

He leaves with no time to spare, careful to close the door behind him.

Leaving me with no explanation for what he has done. As expected from him. Renata ponders in utter stupor.

However, she would eventually find that he had left her with something else.

The 3DMG harness which she thought she had gone to sleep with was hanging from the side of her headboard, buckles unfastened and ready to be worn for the coming day.

/~・~/

A glass half full. And a glass half empty.

The distinction between the two is made much clearer.

Renata pours so much of herself into conditioning her team, she feels as if a portion of her being has been depleted and carried out to nourish the bulging muscles and blossoming minds of her young squad. An almost empty vessel of a woman trotting from tree to tree on horse, giving out instructions and demonstrating the maneuver herself, drilling tactics into their heads at headquarters and nursing them to full recovery whenever their exhaustion got the best of them.

Nevertheless, she feels full in a way.

Just over a couple of weeks, Renata watches her four clumsy sparrows develop into the most graceful hawks she has ever laid her eyes on. Her heart swells with pride as they slice through the air in seamless synchronization, young minds intertwined with diligent focus and a jovial kind of drive that she cannot fathom in its entirety. She is content with the pace at which they up shaping up and relieved to find that her effort is fruitful. This all amounts to finding a peace of mind that she can latch onto for the time being.

The next expedition is only a week away.

They need to be ready.

/~・~/