Mikasa rode through the field, unsure of what she was even searching for at this point. The dead bodies had surrounded her, and had put a sorrowful aura around the girl. Her mind was still racing at the crusader’s words, trying to determine if it was a simple lie. She sighed heavily in the night, and gave a swift pull with the reins, ordering the horse to a halt. The woman lowered herself to the ground, landing carefully next to yet another body. As she kneeled down and wiped the dirt from his armor and face, it was clear to her that it was one of the Westerners. A young boy, with a frightful last expression upon his sliced up face. 

She passed through waves of corpses. Dead men, both young and old, occupied both her sides. Before her eyes were the start of a dying generation. If it came to another great war, one of the kingdoms would collapse. No one could handle a full-scale destruction again. It had to be stopped, much as Mikasa wished for the Crusaders to scurry back to their land dead. She shook her head, cursing her reckless thoughts. Reluctantly, the woman stopped yet again, by one of the corpses. It looked like he had bled out from his wounds, most likely having been in that spot for hours before finally dozing off. She narrowed her eyes at him, spotting a small pendant. 

The boy carried a broken silvery rose around in neck, in a neat chain. Mikasa separated it from the Heroshidan warrior, studying it further. It reminded her of a merchant in the Capital, selling those exact same pendants. The small jewelry brought a quick smile to the woman in the dark night, though a small piece of paper clenched in the dead boy’s hand caught her attention most of all. “What’s this, now?” she muttered lowly in the night.

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