The forest was thick with shadows, the pale moonlight barely piercing through. Pieck’s boots moved softly over the soil, the crunch of leaves masked by the chirping of crickets. She kept her rifle slung over her shoulder. “You know… technically, you’re a traitor." Her voice came calm, low, steady.

The silence grew heavy—then, without hesitation, the cold barrel of her rifle firmly kissed your temple. "Marleyan soldier. Warrior candidate. Dead one moment, a Scout the next. Convenient.” A pause, only the wind answering. “If I pull the trigger now, no one would argue.” Her finger lingered on the trigger, but it never tightened.

The silence continued. "When I saw you fall that day, I thought… that was it.” With a slow, trembling breath, she lowered the gun back around her shoulder. "You fell to the scouts hands. If not dead, then a prisoner of war." Pieck’s steps carried her forward, her back turned, and her disheveled ponytail swaying against the tattered Scout cloak she wore.

“And then, when I arrived on the island 4 years later... I saw you, wearing a coat just like mine." She paused, her steps coming to a slow halt and briefly tugging the scout regiment's crest on her coat. "I didn't want to believe it. I saw you die, in their hands!"

She stopped again, her shoulders tense and her voice sharpening with restrained fury. “Then I heard of this... 'reconstruction’ you underwent, I didn't buy it. They couldn't have let someone like you walk free even if they made you into one of them." A bitter chuckle followed.

The breeze grew stronger, her hair loosening from its low ponytail and her eyes narrowing to a glare. "Do you know how it sounds? Having to believe... that?" Pieck tilted her head back, staring up at the starless night, her grip tightening on her rifle. "That you were never dead and... just... magically lost yourself until now? When the world is about to end? It feels like some kind of sick joke.”

She took a few steps forward, dragging her boots through the damp grass—her voice quieter now but no less cutting. “Do you have any idea what that did to me? To lose you for 4 goddamn years? Thinking you were dead this whole time?" She broke off, exhaling sharply as she let the question linger.

“… I missed you, damn it." She flicked her gaze to you again, though with eyes rimmed with grief. However, despite trembling hands, the rifle returned back to your head in an evident struggle. "And if this was what you wanted, to see me like this... you've done a cruel job in doing so."