A Matter of Stature

Part 10

A Matter of Stature

Chapter 46: Flowers for the Dead

You spent what felt like an hour in the forest, searching for mini titans, going deeper into the forest than you had earlier. A few three to five meter titans came by to disrupt the mission, but they were normal, human eater, non-explosive titans, that were swiftly dispatched by the scouts on guard duty. 

"What's that?" Levi noticed something and got off Cali to check. You looked over as he searched the nearby bushes, having spotted a color that didn't seem to belong among the green vegetation. He pulled out a slightly mistreated but still in good condition bouquet of roses with a sky-blue ribbon tying the dozen roses together. Peculiarly, the thorns had all been removed and the roses looked fresh, as if they were picked relatively recently. "Someone was here," he concluded, and it wasn't a scout, since there was no reason for anyone to carry a bouquet of roses to a mission, plus there weren't many medicinal plants in that area of the forest, so none of the scouts should have gone that far before. 

"Aw," Hange popped up behind Levi, going into all out shipping mode. "Did you get those flowers for (Name)? How sweet!"

"That's right, four eyes, I came all the way out here early in the morning, across the mutant titan infested field and hid these flowers in this bush. Then I went back to the city, just in time to go out of the gates along with everyone else and cleverly led the expedition to this very spot, so I could find the flowers and present them to (Name)." You laughed at Levi's smart mouth while Hange looked like she was considering making the feat the plot of her next fanfiction.

After the moment of distraction, Erwin took a moment to examine the bouquet, but found nothing out of the ordinary about it, except its location. "Hange, you're sure none of the scouts came out this far?"

"I'm pretty sure," Hange replied. "They would have passed (Name) or me on the way here and it would have taken them a while to rejoin the formation when we left the forest. I mean, it's not 100%, but it would be difficult to slip by and come all the way here, just to leave these flowers behind."

Why someone would take flowers to a battlefield made no sense what so ever, but it was at least a vague clue. "If these flowers were purchased in town, then that could give us a clue about who was here and we'll know where to direct our questions," Erwin theorized.

You kept looking at the flowers with curiosity. There was just something about them that seemed familiar. "So, are you going to give them to (Name)?" Hange inquired once again. "I know they're evidence and all, but she's looking at them."

"I was thinking they remind me of something." You clarified, so that no one would get the silly idea in their head that you were actually being distracted by flowers in the middle of the mission, though you still appreciated Hange's attempt to lighten the tension brought by the uncertainty.

"Of what?" Erwin asked with interest, as if looking for clues.

You shrugged, making it clear that you didn't think it was a particularly important detail. "We used to have roses like this at Sina. My father would always give me a bouquet on my mother's birthday in remembrance of her because they were her favorite. He'd remove all the thorns too."