[center][h1][b][color=darksalmon]C H A R L O T T E[/color][/b][/h1][hr][i][b]• Shiganshina District — Wall Maria •[/b][/i][/center][hr]
By the time the sun had begun to rise, Charlotte had already made her way out of her house to accompany her father to work; it was almost like every other early morning, making essential preparations at the bakery for what was usually a hectic working day. Up by five, freshly kneaded dough in the oven by six, and customers flocking in to buy either their breakfast or lunches for later by seven. The busy cycle of baking and selling would go on for hours after that, until the place got locked up at around eight in the evening. The spring season brought warmer weather and longer days, so around this time of year Charlie would be in the kitchen for even longer hours. [i]'Bothersome'[/i], she often called it, though not as often as she did during the horrid, unbearably hot summer months. Working near a baking hot oven for most of the day was more than enough heat for the young girl.

But this morning would instead start off with Charlie trecking off to the local market, with the kitchen running low on ingredients again. A dozen or so bags scattered across the kitchen wouldn't be enough to last the rest of the day, with the usual work shift eating up about a thirty ten kilogram bags of flour in a day. By half seven in the morning, Charlie was out on the streets again, making the long walk to the inconveniently far marketplace to bring back some much needed flour and yeast. With customers already beginning to pile in — even at this hour, her father suspected there wouldn't be [i]this[/i] many people — it would become Charlie's responsibility to bring the ingredients back herself with her father very much occupied so early in the morning. With only half the man power than usual, she could only groan at the thought.

It was almost eight now, and Charlie had managed to purchase what she needed; exactly ten bags of flour and yeast which she would walk to the bakery and back for, one at a time so she wouldn't tire out so quickly at this time of day. She didn't want to make any more inconveniences for herself. Hauling one bag of flour over her shoulder, the real work began. If there was one thing she was grateful for, it would be her skill at carrying bags of flour with much less struggle than the average person her age. Any opportunity to make work easier was very much appreciated.

It was when Charlie was on her second round of flour that she heard the announcement for the Survey Corps' return. A crowd had already started to gather on the main roads, which had some of the younger children excited from all the commotion. Charlie knew the Survey Corps to be infamous for its low success rate expeditions, countless lives of soldiers being lost to those monsters beyond the walls. She had heard all of the critical ramblings from her mother; Charlie figured that it was perhaps a way of putting her off joining, if she was hilariously foolish enough to even do so.

Yet a gut sense of curiosity kept her from breaking into faster walking speed, and Charlie found herself matching the slow, solemn pace of the soldiers as they drearily piled into the streets. Even in such a chaotic gathering of people she could feel the psychological trauma of the soldiers' return, their miserable faces and tattered green cloaks caked in dirt and blood becoming a heavy weight inside her stomach.  

But it wasn't a feeling that would last for very long; this wasn't the first time Charlie had seen such a sight, and unfortunately, it likely wouldn't be the last. She let out a quiet, casual sigh, turning away from the distant sight of the Survey Corps and beginning to pick up the pace again.

Charlie had become much too accustomed to this feeling to express concern for such an event. Like many others in Shiganshina, she would continue on with her life, with the return of the Survey Corps being nothing more than a small bump in her daily routine. Today would be just like other days, nothing less and hopefully, nothing more.