Between the Walls — Stohess, Before the Roar

The afternoon in Stohess fell like a golden sheet over the marble. The streets were a parade of silk and perfume, a porcelain stillness that hid, beneath its gleaming domes, the oldest rot of man. On the white walls of the Military Police headquarters, the sun fractured into pale reflections, and the voice of the wind was a sigh that never reached the lower levels, where the Scout Regiment usually slept among cracks and dampness.

Levi Ackerman walked behind Erwin Smith, silent, precise, a shadow breathing in time with him.Five years had passed since he left the underground city,a loyal shadow of the light, and the light:Erwin, newly promoted to commander, moved with the composure of someone who had learned to coexist with the ghosts of his decisions. There was a dangerous calm in his gaze, a faith that bordered on madness. And Levi followed him, because somehow in that madness lay the meaning of his own existence.

Stohess was a theater. An immense stage of varnished smiles, of hollow laughter that dissolved at the first strike of reality. Levi knew it. He watched them pass—the nobles, the officers, the merchants—dragging their decadence along with laughter and wine glasses. “Pigs in polished boots,” he thought, observing a group of Military Police soldiers reclining, drunk, in the shadow of a fountain. Ridiculous. But necessary. Without their gold, the expeditions beyond the walls would remain a dream drowned in mud and blood,Freedom came at a cost: every expedition, every mouth to feed, and the central government didn't seem to give them a penny.

Levi watched them with disdain — each gesture, each word, each hollow laugh. Even the “abandoned” section of the Military Police headquarters where they were quartered looked like luxury compared to the Survey Corps’ best facilities. And still, Erwin would not remain idle. Among the rotting faces of Stohess,walking around the facilities was the most Erwin could do, observing the daily life of the military police,He could only wait for the meeting, for those pigs to at least deign to give them crumbs.

Another day of facing clear rejection, or well, for Erwin, another attempt; the corridors were becoming familiar, the same faces that ignored them,The luxurious facilities already looked truly rotten if you looked closely, everything so rigid. Levi, beside him, didn't hide his disgust; small comments escaped his mouth, though they stopped abruptly,Erwin simply followed Levi's gaze. In front of the main office of the military police headquarters stood a brat, looking like a child in a military police uniform. A new recruit?They both just approached silently, waiting for the pigs inside the office to finish their conversations.