"I'll go get her," Moblit murmured apologetically and dismounted from his horse.
Louis nodded and watched as the soldier entered the stationery shop. Two days ago he had been ordered by the Commander to pick up Hanji. He had arrived at headquarters in the afternoon two days ago. However, due to experiments, Hanji could not leave until the next morning. The next morning, however, the farrier was already shoeing Hanji's horse. They could have left in the afternoon, but Moblit's horse only had its horseshoes changed in the afternoon. Hanji did not want to leave without her assistant and neither Moblit nor she wanted to ride other horses. Somehow the woman had the crazy idea that they would have to go outside the walls to better explore this female Titan. That was why she wanted her own trusted horse with her. "With which soldiers only?", Louis had pondered, but preferred to keep that thought to himself. The experienced soldiers at the training camp were either dead or injured. "Possibly Commander Erwin has already kicked us out in the meantime anyway."
Anyway, today they had finally left. But Hanji absolutely had to go to a stationery shop. "I need notebooks. And new pens." She had said that almost half an hour ago.
Louis also dismounted and watched the market happenings, yawning. He grinned as he fell back into his old pattern. He scanned the market booths for possible victims. In the past, he had stolen, kept himself alive that way. In the past was before Chagara and Paul had caught him, paid for his theft and told him more about the soldier life while they were having soup. Then in the summer he had gone to the training camp. In his pocket a letter from Peter to Shadis - If there were too many applicants, the former Commander of the Scout Regiment should definitely not send the boy away.
The fruit booth vendor was too engrossed in a conversation with several women. Louis could easily have stolen two or three apples from him, because the crate was out of his field of vision. One of the women had put her basket down on the ground. He could also have simply stolen the small bag with money in it. Suddenly, a girl with brown hair knelt down next to the basket. She pretended to have a hurting ankle and was now palpating it. "Beginner," Louis smirked. "Too hesitant." He sighed. "Probably a too kind heart," he muttered to himself, doing what Chagara usually did.
Trembling, the girl reached out for the small bag in the basket. But suddenly someone grabbed her hand and pulled her up. "Come," Louis said with a smile, putting a coin on the trader's plate and taking an apple.
"Why doesn't he shout at me? Why doesn't he hit me?" Without any resistance, she went along with the young soldier. "Scout Regiment, right?" The brown-haired girl eyed the emblem on the green cape.
"What's your name?," the blond giant asked as he let go of her hand and patted one of three horses. "I guess you don't talk to strangers, huh? That's not bad either," Louis commented as she continued to remain silent. "Here," he offered her the apple. "I'm Louis." When she made no move to take the apple, he placed it in her hand.
The girl's sceptical eyes gazed at the red apple. "Why are you doing this?," she finally asked him.
"Why shouldn't I do it?"
"Because people only do things when they get something out of it for themselves. What do you get out of it?"
Louis pondered. "Mmm. I saved you from doing something stupid. Actually, you're a good person, aren't you? You hesitated when you wanted to steal the woman's money. So you already had a guilty conscience before you did it. And if you weren't hungry, you wouldn't have had that stupid idea in the first place, would you?"
The girl with the ponytail now held the apple with both hands and bit into it. Louis smiled. "If you have no idea at all where to go, you might consider joining the army. The training to become a soldier always starts in the summer. And if you can say please and thank you and don't use bad words, go to a church next time you're hungry."
"Church?," the girl asked, swallowing her bite.
Louis could read from her expression that she didn't trust the church. "Mmm. They're always trying to help with food too."
"Yeah, but I can ask for a discount," Louis heard Hanji say, upset.
"Yes, but if they don't give a discount, you don't have to tell them everything about Titans directly," Moblit explained calmly.
"Yes, but I just wanted to explain to them why I need those notebooks. For my research. And the results will benefit them, after all," Hanji justified herself.
"Yeah, still, you don't have to tell the most bloodthirsty stories about those monsters." As she heard these words, the girl with the brown hair winced. "Especially not when little children are standing next to you."
"Yes, but that's just the world we live in. Better they know soon enough."
"Of course, that's one way to scare off potential soldiers, too."
"Louis!," Hanji shouted as she jumped up on her horse. "Come on! We've lost enough time already."
"Yes," sighed the young soldier. No sooner had he climbed on than he felt the girl's hand on his leg.
"Louis? Thank you!," she said, pointing to the apple core.
"Here," Louis put two coins in her hand.
"Louis? ... Are all the people ... here ... so nice?"
"Here? Is she from a village?" Louis shrugged his shoulders. "Every person decides for themselves whether they want to be nice or not. I used to steal too."
"Now not anymore?"
Louis shook his head. "Now not anymore. Now I make money. And protect people." He winked. "Sometimes from themselves, too."
"Thank you," the girl began quietly. "I'm Ymir."
"Well then," Louis nodded at her with a smile. "It was nice to meet you, Ymir," he called over his shoulder and followed the two soldiers.
***
Three days had passed since the rescue operation. Chagara obeyed Erwin's order. She was only in her room or in the kitchen. Cut potatoes, carrots or onions. Baked bread. Most of the time she could sit while she worked. She was grateful for that. Because standing and walking continued to hurt. She also avoided the canteen. She wanted to avoid Erwin completely. If he didn't want to see her, the earth would shake when the Commander met his cousin for the first time. Only when that was, no one knew. Peter was still unconscious.
But she also stayed away from the canteen because she couldn't stand her own team. Everyone immediately reminded her of the dead. Especially Paul. "If it wasn't for the rescue operation, five out of six dead comrades would still be alive." It was the first thought when she woke up and the last thought when she went to bed at night.
Chagara touched the orange biscuits. They were cool and the decorations of light chocolate sprinkles were solid. Since Levi had yelled at her, she hadn't seen him either. He hadn't come to her room once. "Why should he." They had yelled at each other outside the stables in the morning on the day of the rescue operation. She had not been able to apologise for that. Instead, they had shouted at each other again the morning after the rescue operation. "Don't do anything stupid, understood?", Paul had said the last time. Chagara wiped with her hand over her eyes.
Would he be happy about the biscuits? Would the hint of dark chocolate be too much for him? Would he even let them into his room?
"Alert, alert, alert!" Laughing, Emily bounced through the door. "Oh, no one is there?" The brown curly haired girl looked around the kitchen in astonishment and finally put on some tea water.
"What's up?," asked Chagara tiredly.
"Poison Dwarf Heichou wants black tea. Could you watch the water, Ayumi? Then I'll go and get the rest of the potato sacks in."
Chagara nodded and prepared the tray with the tea set.
***
"Come in." Levi did not look up from the evaluations. As the door opened, he heard dishes clattering. It had to be his ordered tea. "Just put it on the desk here. Thank you," he muttered. He furrowed his brow, however, when he noticed the biscuit on the saucer out of the corner of his eye. There were biscuits here? At the training camp? The biscuit reminded him that he had not been to lunch again. He avoided the canteen as much as he could. He didn't want to run into Chagara. He did not know how to behave towards her. He was angry with her. At the same time, he was worried about her. Whether her wounds were healing? How had these wounds happened in the first place? Why had she come back barefoot? What had she done? And, he had to apologise. He had hurt her again. Even though he had sworn not to hurt her again.
His stomach grumbled and so he reached for the biscuit, lost in thought. Only when it was too late and the sweet taste spread in his mouth did he realise that he had bitten into the biscuit. Disgusted, he spit the bite into the bin and reached for his cup to swallow the gross sweetness with a gulp of black tea. Only now did he notice who was standing in front of him. Chagara. Still far too pale. And still with far too sad eyes. But before he could say anything, Hanji rushed into his room.
"LEVI! Here you are!" She flew around her friend's neck.
"OI!"
"Did you miss me?," it continued to bubble out of Hanji's mouth.
"When did you last have a bath?," asked Levi in disgust.
"Bathed?" Chagara looked at Levi questioningly, but Hanji had already taken his face in her hands and turned him to face her.
"You know," Hanji let go of his face and ruffled through Levi's hair.
"OI!"
"I only bathe with you," Hanji laughed.
"So it's true. The recruits' stories about the two of them." Feeling her eyes filled with tears, she looked down at the floor.
"Levi Heichou," they heard Emily say from the doorway. "Here's the tea. Where should I pu-," the young kitchen help broke off when she saw the teacup on Levi's desk.
"Are you going to bathe in tea, Levi?," joked Hanji.
"... Put the tea down for the guest?," Emily said quickly.
But Levi had already understood. "So you came to see me?" He looked questioningly at Chagara, but the girl continued to hypnotise the floor.
"I thought your guest might want tea too. And so I -"
"Thank you," Hanji interrupted the kitchen help cheerfully. "That feels really good after the ride." She reached for the cup. "You have biscuits here?," she asked enthusiastically, pointing to Levi's bitten orange biscuit that her comrade had tossed onto his saucer.
"Um, yeah?" Emily looked uncertainly at Chagara, who, however, seemed to be in a world of her own.
"Are you still eating that, Levi?"
"No," Levi replied, but Hanji had already devoured the biscuit anyway.
"Do you have more?," she wanted to know, chewing.
Chagara just shrugged her shoulders and left the room with her head down.
"Um, yes?," replied Emily again uncertainly.
"You have ingredients for something like that?," asked Hanji with interest. "At the training camp?"
"They were just leftovers. We wouldn't have been able to do anything else with them anyway. It wasn't even an oven tray," Emily lied. Chagara had gotten the ingredients herself.
"Say, could I maybe get one, two, three more biscuits?," begged Hanji.
"Yeah, sure," Emily replied. She felt uncomfortable in this situation and wanted to leave the room as soon as possible.
Through the crack, Chagara saw Levi looking down at his teacup, smiling, while Hanji swung herself up onto his desk. "So you're smiling when she is around you."
"And if you could bring also some lunch," Hanji called after Emily, waving.
"Yeah, sure," the kitchen help replied, closing the door. "What was that?," she asked, horrified, running after Chagara. "You were right," Emily began. "He's not Poison Dwarf Heichou. He's Meanie Heichou. He can't just give away your biscuits like that. After all, you baked the biscuits for him."
"Just hand the cookies out," Chagara only said, entering her room and locking the door.
"Ayumi?," asked Emily sadly. But Chagara did not respond to her knock. Only a quiet sob was heard through the door.