The Birth of Freedom

Tempered Steel

RIAN

Weeks had turned into months and months had turned into just under 2 years. Aurora and I were no longer rookies, and as such, we were now counted amongst the veteran contingent. With every successful mission, more and more recruits began to flood in and not just with the newly graduated cadets. Transfers from the garrison and MP regiments had been a complete surprise though by no means an unwelcome one. For the first time since its conception, the Survey Corps had a full battalion at its command, including field medics, two elite squads, a science division and a fully manned tactical command squad. We actually looked like a respectable military branch now.

Of course, we hadn't been sat with our thumbs up our asses for the last two years either. With countless expeditions behind us, we managed to establish a strong network of supplies from the Trost district halfway through to Shiganshina and contingency supplies had been placed on alternate routes on the off chance that our route was forced to divert from the main supply line, Erwin had literally thought of every worst-case scenario, the cynical bastard.

Aurora and I had settled into our roles and found a new home amongst humanity's warriors, even true purpose in our work. The Miche squad with our added additions had been moulded into another elite squad for commander Erwin's to deploy as he saw fit, and deploy us he did. If the Levi squad was known to be Erwin's sword, then the Miche squad was his shield and we its bearers. Aurora and I remained primarily in the vanguard for the long-range formation, and as always we were the first line of defence when encountering Titans, something we were now experts at. However, that being said, on occasion, we would serve as a hammerhead alongside squad Levi to eradicate large groupings of Titans around areas of interest to the commander. To say those occasions turned into blood baths would be a slight understatement but Aurora and I had always managed to make it home in one piece.

After our first expedition, we had greatly improved, no longer green we had earned our wings of freedom though that being said, one thing had changed, and that was Aurora. Had I not been her brother, I doubt I would have noticed the changes over time, subtle as they were. Returning to headquarters after our first mission, a sense of pride had been about her for her achievements in the field, she had been as content as I had seen her since that last year at training camp with Eren, Armin and Mikasa. The next morning however she had been quiet and reserved, I hadn't been the only one who noticed either on that occasion.

Eld had asked her what was wrong his voice thick with concern, and looking at him with a blank expression Aurora hadn't divulged him an answer and had left him standing there. Later that night I had found her in the gym having worked herself to the point of exhaustion, carrying her to her room I had left her in the care of Nanaba who I had watched tuck her into bed before taking my leave. The next day when she had turned up for training after missing breakfast, her emptiness was gone and replaced with a fierce determination that scared the hell out of me.

Aurora threw her very soul into life as a Scout and had honed her skills like tempered steel to become one of the best titan slayers in the entire corps. She would never match Captain Levi's freakishly natural ability to carve through Titans like a hot knife to butter, but she had become a force to be reckoned with in her own right and as such was widely respected throughout the corps. Despite this newfound reverie, Aurora's affections though never really giving freely before, remained exclusively to those who she considered her family and close friends, and having very few friends outside the Miche squad the majority of the corps only ever saw the soldier and not the woman beneath.

One person I hadn't expected Aurora to include in her very select friendship circle was section commander Zoe Hange, the brilliant if not eccentric brain trust of the Survey Corps. Their friendship was as baffling as it was amusing to watch, by rights Hange's endless ramblings should have clashed with Aurora's usual reserved nature but somehow it worked with both parties having a shared curiosity about all things Titan. Of course, Aurora's curiosity centred on how to kill them, Hange's not so much. I had asked Aurora once how she could be around Hange for hours on end.