Fandom Attack on Titan: Chapter II

[Zer0]

- Coal Krüger -​

A dash of pink and slender pale white mixed with the forest browns and dull greys of the horses drinking by the moat below. A tall gangly youth was kneeling at the edge, hastily rubbing his shock of pink hair free of dirt and grime from the day before.

He had broad shoulders, the cloak emblazoned with the wings of freedom covering his back and shielding his bare top as he sponged the rest of his body clean.

His wet head would look up every so often at the treeline, like a stag wary of predators lurking nearby; one of his hands was on a blade at all times. He had deep eye bags, making him look like a panda, and there was a bit of lackluster to his movements, as though he was a bit out of it, pausing for long moments just staring at the water. Clearly, he was mourning the death of their brothers and sisters.

This soldier was Coal. Usually cheery, usually chill. But since yesterday his smiles haven't really quite reached his eyes.

He bent down to drink and fill his waterskin. "I'm hungry . . ." He muttered, shoulders drooping. His stomach growled in agreement. Burying his grief for the moment, he turned his attention to survival. Maybe there were earthworms or a cricket he could eat . . . Between bugs and death because he had no energy, he'd choose bugs.

Coal stood up, hanging his cloak on the saddle of a horse, and, shivering, donned his shirt and his jacket, finishing with a blue scarf wrapped around his neck.

Some of his friends called out to him to come up already since he was alone down there, but he gave them a wave and a shake of his head as he started circling the moat. Maybe there was a frog around too . . .

He noticed Victoria come down and he glanced at her hopefully when she took out the book. Hooray for smart people! And then Niklas went and put a damper to his hopes.

He swung up to stand beside her. "I can help you look for plants, Victoria." he said to her encouragingly. " I was actually starting to look for crickets, earthworms, maybe there's a frog by the moat."

Flame Demon

 

[SerenityAngel]

"You won't find many eatable fruits or berries around here." Serenity chimes in after finding a perch upon a tall and strong branch. She had been in these trees for about a month and she knew the area pretty well and what it contained. "There is hardly enough to sustain one human child, let alone an army of adult humans. Titans don't need them but their tracks leave the earth a bit....lacking for the proper nutrients and seeds for such things to grow. The animals around here generally stick to the leaves and grass to eat or a weaker pray. There aren't that many animals out here either. The titans may not go after them, but the animals still avoid them because of their clumsiness. With more people, it's going to be harder to get any more food. So the first party to leave for the wall has to be either tonight, since we took all of this one, or tomorrow. The ones that return will be needing to bring back extra rations for those that are going on the second trip. Kind of like that river puzzle with the man, the grain and the goat and the dog. I hope you guys can stand hunger for a few days."

The white-haired woman was calm and sympathetic to their plight, but she was the best person to rely on for the area and its resources. She sat down and checked her gear to assure herself that they would work and not falter when she used them. The tanks were once more filled with gas and she could calm down a little. Maybe even get some rest.

 

[Uncultured]

Fried egg and melting cheese filled Kanes nostrils. Bacon, a rare delicacy, added a smokey allure to the whirlwind of scent, and to top it off, the subtleties of buttered toast provided notes of wheat and dough to the air, all originating from the overflowing plate before the young scout.

Kanes mouth watered at the prospect of digging in to such a fine meal, it had been so long since he had enjoyed such a thing.

He looked around the circular table. There sat his mother, sister and father to his left and his two brothers to his right. He wanted to say something to his two older siblings, to ask why they weren't dead, it would've been bad taste however, to ask such morbid questions over breakfast, thus the scout shrugged it off, for in the moment, in his dream, logic no longer mattered.

Turning perplexed gaze from deceased siblings to bountiful plate, his stomach growled. Digging in, he brought a generous helping to his lips, and just as he took his very first bite he awoke, pale morning light stabbing into squinting eyes and pangs stabbing into twitching core as hunger slammed him like a locomotive.

"They never mentioned this in the pamphlets"

Thought Kane to himself.

Amused at his own dry humor he chuckled, eliciting a few looks of curiosity from fellow scouts who manned brandches similar to Kanes, high above the new "forward base" of the scouts.

From above, Kane could make out a discussion over provisions. Food, being the primary concern. He could second this, for his stomach seized at the mere mention of food.

To help remedy the situation, Kane descended to the group below to offer his own perspective.

He had missed most of the discussion, only hearing the tail end as Serenity disclosed that in this area, edible plant and animal life was sparse. So Kane, in his absolute brilliance, devised a stop gap to this issue.

"Serenity is right, we need supplies, rations specifically."

"Until then though..."

"Even though I don't like it..."

"We could eat some horses..."

"I mean... If it's that or be too weak to fight then I.... "

His words playing poorly across horrified faces, Kane cut himself off with a laugh, rubbing his head as he backtracked.

"Just kidding of course....."

"We could uhh... Boil leather for soup?"

"Errrr... Maybe there are some tubers, if we dig around trees we could find some"

"Grubs and worms too.... Not that I want to eat them but.... It's better than starving"

Continued Kane, hoping to be of some use, his brain finally functioning at reasonable capacity with his recent spell of sleep.

 

[Flame Demon]

"My uncle was a scout" Victoria says looking at Niklas "But if you'd rather starve then go ahead" she says putting the book back in her saddlebag before petting the white animal and she glances at Kane, her eyes cold "And as I mentioned earlier, come near Yuki or Bookworm with the slightest intention to eat them and you'll die" she says in a cold tone, she could go without food for few days, so that's good "And we do need them to get back to the walls, I'd say that those who are stupid enough to eat their horses gets left behind" she states, her tone and eyes still cold, if they wanted to get left behind then fine, but she wasn't going to have one on her horse, not in a million years. She goes back to digging around her stuff in the saddle bags, since the person who left that book there could have left other things "Probably my dad or uncle" she thinks, seeing as the book belongs to her uncle.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

She sates her hunger with a breakfast of crickets. They crunch in her mouth with each and every bite. Interestingly enough, Akai finds hunger makes most things taste decent. "We're running out of options," mumbles Akai. The scout is crouched on the earth, having made a seat of her haunches, and collects more insects in her hands. Foraging for them, she burrows her fingernails into the soil. I'll survive no matter what, she ponders, I'll survive for him.

 

[Zer0]

- Coal Krüger -​

Coal stood awkwardly next to Victoria, then did an about face and walked away, tips of his ears pink from embarassment at being ignored, and resumed his hunt for crickets and earthworms around the moat.

He spotted Akai crunching on bugs, and was relieved there was some food around after all. "Hey, there's crickets over here!" He called to the others, then ran up to the area around the eating scout crouched and hungrily searched the underbush for his own meal.

Minutes later Coal pulled out a slimy earthworm that wriggled between his fingers. He pursed his lips at it with a sour expression, and placed it carefully in his tin mug where inside squirmed and crawled a handful of earthworms and dead crickets.

"Uuurgh." He shivered, after he had washed them and now sat next to Akai looking at the bugs like he was about to dive at a titan. "Cheers." he muttered and wolfed down the whole thing in one go. He cringed, as the things crunched in his mouth, and he gulped, immediately taking a deep swig from his water skin to drown out the horrible after taste.

He glanced at Akai. "You're taking this very well, Akai." He commented, watching her continue to dig around. He looked at the other scouts who had come down to eat some bugs too, some ate it without looking bothered, some looked bothered in the inside, while some, like him, openly showed their distaste.

When he got back home he was going to learn how to use a sling shot and fish. At least if this happens again, he can take down some birds or fish something up.

With a bit of a lull in the early morning's activities, Coal decided to just watch over the group near him as they foraged, watching the treeline and listening for the familliar scary thud of giant footsteps.

Loki The Trickster

 

[Loki The Trickster]

She looks over her shoulder at Coal, whose call, in no time at all, has this area of woods harbouring a crowd. Before she responds, Akai eats some more. There's about a minute or so of crunch, crunch, crunch. For this minute, the Delphic woman stares at him in sombre silence, eyes weary and worn with underlinings of crow's feet and black bags. Akai has, most definitely, seen better days. "Taking what well?"

Zer0

 

[Zer0]

- Coal Krüger -​

"Crickets." Coal grimaced, pointing at the bugs she hasn't eaten yet.

Loki The Trickster

 

[Loki The Trickster]

"Oh. They don't taste so bad. Maybe it's the adrenaline. Maybe some other chemical. Maybe something else. Like the will to survive. Who knows," whispers Akai. When the widow speaks, it's a drawl, a raw and raspy intonation to her manner of speaking that speaks worlds of her temperament. She holds a fourth cricket between two fingers. "I don't believe we've met before," she states, "You must have a name."

Zer0

 

[Zer0]

- Coal Krüger -​

"Coal!" grinned the pink-haired teen putting out a hand to shake. "Coal Krüger." He now looked at Akai with greater interest.

"I'm guessing this isn't your first expedition outside the walls? This is . . . This is mine . . ." He sighed with melancholy at the ground, staring at nothing for a while. Then he hitched back his smile. "It's not the heroic adventure I thought it'd be. . .You got advice for a new guy like me?"

Loki The Trickster

 

[Loki The Trickster]

She reaches out for Coal's hand. He may notice the wedding band on her finger. A diamond ring. With the handshake over and done with, Akai answers Coal's question, "Try not to die." She pauses a moment, frowning. Her face stiffens considerably. "If not for yourself, then for those you leave behind. Your mother. Your father. Sisters, brothers. Aunts, uncles, cousins. They'll never stop mourning."

Zer0

 

[Flame Demon]

Victoria raises an eyebrow at the scouts and she sighs, she figured that she might as well eat something "Let's not mention this to anyone when we're back home" she says, however something in her saddlebag catches her interest "A guide to survival?" she asks, she didn't need it, so she puts it back with her other stuff before heading into a tree and breaking of a branch. She walks to the small river where she sits down and she pulls a pocket knife from her boot "If no one has any complaints I'll be fishing" she states simply while making a sharp tip on the wood with the knife, now very happy that her grandparents were scouts before her.

 

[Zer0]

- Coal Krüger -​

Coal looked surprised to see the wedding band. He nodded at her solemnly. "Okay, I'll try." He looked at some clover leaf, thinking, glancing now and then at the wedding ring.

"In Trost, I have my parents, two sisters, and and an aunt and her kids manning our family inn, the Smilin'Panda. Do you have kids waiting for you back at home, Akai?"

Loki The Trickster

 

[Loki The Trickster]

"No," answers Akai. She says this word, this one word, with some difficulty. Like the single syllable weighs half a thousand kilograms on her tongue. "No," repeats the young, twenty-some woman a moment after, "I wanted them. Many of them. But, my--" Now, words are much heavier; so heavy that they become impossible to even say, Akai seemingly having lost her strength. All of the widow's emotions come to the surface in a ripping mental breakdown. She wheezes out a morose, mournful sob. Those crickets drop, one by one, out of her hands, scurrying back across the earth.

 

[Zer0]

- Coal Krüger -​

Coal looked alarmed. " I'm sorry." He said immediately, and lunged to grab as many escaping crickets as he could. He made a lady cry! Not knowing what to do, he dusted the dirt off his one hand then awkwardly patted her shoulder the way he used to pat his sisters'. "I'm sorry, Akai. I had no idea . . ."

He bit his lip, thinking. "I'll get more crickets for you, okay? You want to talk about something else?" he patted her shoulder again.

Some of the guys were looking at Coal like how dare you make a woman cry. Coal looked guilty, and stared at the other girls in the group, his expression silently asking for help.

Loki The Trickster

 

[Flame Demon]

Victoria, having caught two fish with some difficulty since the scaled animals are sneaky, walks over and she crouches down in front of Akai, pulling the woman into a hug without a word. She gives Coal a warning look "It's okay to let it out sometimes" she says in a soft voice, something no one in the scouts has heard before, she was showing her soft side to someone who needed it right now "They don't want us to cry, I'm sure, but sometimes you gotta let it out" she whispers.

Loki The Trickster Zer0

 

[Loki The Trickster]

Akai falls apart in Victoria's arms with all the qualities of a Jenga jigsaw a moment before collapse. She slumps her head sombrely on a shoulder, for even the muscles in her neck feel weak now. "It's okay," says the woman unconvincingly in a lie poorly veiled, "I'll be okay. Don't... Don't worry about me." As she speaks her piece, Akai, from time to time, wipes away at her cheeks.

 

[Flame Demon]

"You're not okay" Victoria says "Just let it out", she could stay like this for a while if needed and if Akai didn't get it all out now then it was going to affect her on the ride back or even when fighting a Titan which is never good "I know" she says looking at Akai "You should meet my family they'd instantly like you, they own a luxerous restaurant" she says with a slight smile "And maybe, who knows, they can help you get over the loss", truth be told she felt like breaking down, but she could wait till she's safe with her family for comfort that was best for everyone here right now, she was not going to appear weak in front of everyone.

 

[Uncultured]

"Son of a..." muttered Kane, missing his fourth throw, grumbling as his streak ended.

He looked to where his knife had bounced to after the miss and with boots crunching underbrush and snapping loose twigs he went to retrieve his straight bladed combat knife.

The scout was practicing his accuracy on a large pine tree, towards the edge of the camp. For what enemy? None in particular, other than boredom of course, and three hits, the streak he had been on, was his five time career high, his wall so to speak. Thus, as he went to retrieve the weapon, he sighed with frustration, angry that he would die a novice at throwing a blade.

Rummaging through the underbrush for a few moments, Kane found his blade, yet he did not celebrate, for his knife had transgressed, and he had come face to face with a horror so real that his skin turned pale white, and cold sweat gathered on his forehead, breath catching in his chest as he took a hesistent step backwards.

"Hey... Hey there.... Don't... Don't get the wrong idea... Don't get... OH SHIT, SHIT SHIT SHIT!!!"

Yelped Kane, running at full speed towards the camp, an irate mob of hornets following him as he shot upwards with his ODM gear, a prolonged scream following him through the air.

"It was an accident I SWEAR!!!"

Pled Kane vainly as the hornets followed him through the tree canopy, incited by the knife which had cut straight into the heart of their underground nest.

For a time this continued, however, Kane, now battle hardened, eventually came to his senses. Knowing that the law of the jungle demanded blood, the scout stopped on a branch, turning to face the swarm.

Unsheathing his blades, Kanes eyes hardened, calculating strategy as his focus sharpened. He was confident, proud, ready to fight, for if a titan had fallen to his blade, hornets would serve as fodder.

"So you wish to see my power?"

Growled the rookie, a cold chuckle following the words, leering eyes glinting from underneath his lengthy hair.

With a blinding flash Kane lept at the swarm, and with his first two strikes he made purchase, killing two of the hornets with a victorious yell. He bounced from tree to tree using his ODM gear and after a few more slashes found their mark he could see his victory only seconds away.

Thirty seconds to be specific, of chaos and idiocy....

Then twenty seconds of agony.

Then a few moments of further idiocy.

And then finally, it ended.

With steam rising from his body, Kane lay on a wide branch, a dozen red welts covering his arms, neck, hands and face.

The law of the jungle had prevailed, Kane had not, and the surviving 40% of the swarm returned to their hive, eager to repair the damage caused by the inconsiderate human.

 

[Two Fives]

There's a worm in Niklas Dok's mouth. Not long after, he sucks it up, noodle-style. It's very disgusting. You know, anything to survive. He searches for another insect and, as he does this, Niklas can't help but look over his shoulder, catching sight of Kane with wasps in following, intent on turning the guy into a human tomato, "Poor guy," mutters Niklas with a wince. Then, abruptly, something clicks for Nik. "Are those bees? That must mean there's... honey? Honey certainly trumps worms." Of course, risk comes with reward. However, he need only look at Kane to realise what the risk entails... Ouch.

 

[Zer0]

- Coal Krüger -​

"Alright then, Akai." said Coal, nodding. He scratched his head, turned around to look for some more crickets and placed a little leaf bag tied up with some long grass in front of her. "I'll just leave this here." and he shot off his hooks and pulled himself up to the trees.

He sighed. "I am not good with women." he said to one of the scouts. T'was then when he noticed Kane and chuckled. What the hey? He watched him battle the hornets, wincing and 'ow-ing' as red welts popped all over his neck and face. Those are gonna itch like crazy. Coal peeked to see where the hornets retreated to, making a mental note not to go near the area.

 

[SerenityAngel]

The soldiers were getting hungry. So much so they were eating bugs. True they were filled with protein and needed calories, but it was not going to be enough to sustain them all. They all needed to have proper food. Maybe now that there were more of them and they had air to spare, they could go hunting and bring back a couple of large kills? Fishing would take up too much time and wouldn't feed enough. There had to be something done so she had to get at least two or three people to hunt with her. She knew that there would be some deer in the clearing of trees about two clicks from where they stood in the early morning because of the dew on the grass is sweeter then.

With a plan in mind she went over to Niklas and tapped his shoulder. The worm dangling out of his mouth was gross but she was not phased by it as she had done the same her first few days. "I've got an idea for a hunt so that we can all eat but I need more than one person to pull it off." she explained calmly, "We'll also need to make sure our tanks are full and our blades sharp. We'll need to be quick as the deer will scatter quickly if they catch us. I'll need two people at least to go with me to hunt and the rest can cook the meat. This wasn't an option before because it is potentially risky. It's early morning and the titans will be waking up at the time. The deer aren't many and they're fast. What do you think?"

 

[Two Fives]

Interrupted from his meal, Niklas looks over his collared shoulders at Serenity. He chews his worm as she speaks. Chews it some more as he considers her idea. By the time he has finished his consideration, he has finished his worm. He tells her with a fair amount of assurance, “We can try. Got one volunteer already. Anyone else?”

Glancing around the wooded scape at the soldiers all around, Niklas Dok's face stiffens into a frown. While someone else would eat from ceramic ware, these soldiers use plates made of stones and soils. These soldiers use fingers for their cutlery as they dine on dishes of dirt and dust. None of them look healthy. That's to be expected with this diet or lack thereof. An eye, not even one necessarily sharp, can see where their skins stiffen up around the bone. They're not fit for duty. Certainly not Akai, whose emotions are catching up with her like a debt not yet paid. His words, by now, have stopped echoing through the forest.

Thus, he tries again, “Anyone else?”

Midrick Kloudy Coco Adel Flame Demon Loki The Trickster Maki SerenityAngel Uncultured

 

[Flame Demon]

Victoria sighs as she stands up "I'll go with you" she says, she was probably fast enough to catch a deer, so she goes to Niklas and Serenity "So what's the plan for catching deer?" she asks, not seeming to care a hungry scout taking the fish she caught, they needed it more then she anyway, at best she could go three days without food, maybe it was because she was smaller and shorter then most, she frowns in distaste at the dried blood that's still stuck in her hair so she makes a mental note to do something about it when she has the chance.
Two Fives

 

[Two Fives]

Before the three of them leave for the hunt, the corporal tests out his ODM equipment. He loops several cables in his hands, looking them over in the flats of his palms. He looks for any damage, lest they fail on him when he needs them most. Then, turning to the others, he exclaims, “Right, then. Let's go--” Just beyond view, hidden by tree trunks, someone or something stirs in the waters of the moat bank.

Splash, Splash, Splash, Splash... SPLASH.

Titans?

Midrick Kloudy Coco Adel Flame Demon Loki The Trickster Maki SerenityAngel Uncultured