#lpmusings

Esmé is about to snap back at him, but decides against it, biting her tongue. Her fingers halt at the buckle on her chest, eyebrow quirking at his question.

( Does he believe Lovof had me trained beforehand? )

If her former boss had bothered with that detail,  Esmé might not be such a problematic soldier. However, that isn’t the case. In fact, the basics of the gear are all she is familiar with, and that too from observing other Scouts over the course of the last month or two. If they were beyond the walls right now,  Esmé is sure she wouldn’t survive a minute. If Isabel and Farlan—two skilled users of the gear—didn’t make it back alive, she couldn’t expect her novice self to do any better.

“What training? I had none at all. My job—” She cuts herself off there. Her ‘job’ is in the past. Now, she’s a soldier, with or without her approval. Instead,  Esmé settles with implication, “Lovof didn’t have me trained in ODM gear’s use. I don’t know how to work this thing, at least not properly.”

“So you’re just going to give up?”

At least, that’s what it looked like. ...And as Esmé mentions Lovof, Levi feels himself tense up. That’s why he doesn’t like her. ...Who knows how she’d gotten a position with Lovof - maybe it wasn’t something she could help, for all he knows. But he can’t help but hold a grudge nonetheless.

( If it weren’t for her... would they still be...? )

“I’m not a teacher. If watching me helps, then feel free to watch. Just don’t expect any kind of special treatment.”

“Excuse me...”

Krista approaches the older soldier with a somewhat nervous expression on her face. She'd been told that they were going to be training with the members of the Survey Corps, today, and this was who she thinks she’d been assigned to, but she isn’t quite sure. “Is your name Esmé?”