The day Wall Maria fell to the Titans, soldier Arden Keiser selfishly chose to save herself. She disobeyed direct orders and abandoned her role within the Garrison Regiment, taking the life of another as she did so. She made an attempt to escape fro...
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Erwin Smith had no choice but to face the onslaught of ridicule awaiting him within Trost. He was meant to accept his failures as the Scout Regiment's newest commander.
But while he didn't think of the expedition as a failure, for his formation had resulted in far fewer deaths than ever for the Scouts, there had indeed still been an abundance of lives lost on that day. The crowd of civilians knew no better than to berate him and his distraught soldiers as they marched through the district.
"You brought the Titans back! They're going to take down Rose and kill us all! Just like Shiganshina!"
Erwin furrowed his heavy brows at that comment. How could humanity be expected to survive, to keep the Titans from striking the Walls ever again, if they did not fight back? Going on expeditions was the one way to learn more about those beasts and to eventually win the war. Humanity had to try something to defeat the Titans, to keep them far from Wall Rose.
Further back in the line of soldiers, Arden walked alongside her horse, dragging the reluctant animal down the cobblestone path. Levi was at her side. They were silent.
The only sounds in Trost were that of the civilians who ridiculed them.
How could they curse them so? Especially knowing that they just faced cruelty beyond their knowledge as simply civilians?
But Arden used to be like them. Closed-minded.
She cracked a grim smile at the thought. Many months ago, Arden used to stand in the crowd and taunt the Scouts similarly to these people. She suddenly regretted the many derogatory remarks she once threw towards her regiment.
Her regiment.
As Arden looked around, taking in the sight of scowling civilians, bleeding soldiers, and wagons filled with lifeless corpses, she thought of it as being her regiment. How strange.
She was no longer a soldier of the Garrison. In truth, she hadn't been for three months, but it took her until now to accept that the Scouts was her regiment. For whatever reason, she was a scout, fighting alongside other suicidal maniacs in an effort to achieve a future that didn't exist. That future didn't exist in her eyes at least.
As far as Arden could see, there was no freedom on the other side of this war. There were no survivors.
"Arden!"
She turned into the crowd, meeting Dutch's bright eyes. His smile quickly dissolved at the sight of his old comrade, leaving a distant look in his eyes, one reminiscent of that day in Shiganshina. Winfield, standing right at his side, never smiled to begin with, but he still held that same distant and pained expression. Arden could only imagine how awful she looked herself.
She turned away. She couldn't hold their gaze for any longer than a few seconds.
