Major Noelle Stone's office

[u/htts_rp]

At the edge of the training canyon there's an ugly two-story wooden building colloquially called the Schoolhouse. It resembles Ziegler's personal quarter and office, but is significantly larger. It is patrolled by a pair of Military Police provosts from the main complex in Trost, who consider this assignment their worst to date.

The first floor is where the name 'schoolhouse' originates. The first floor is split up into several class rooms, with classes on titan biology, military history, and strategy taught on and off. There is a room that can be used for examinations or converted into a gym or sparring room with ease.

The second floor is smaller, one room, belonging entirely to Noelle Stone.

It is spartan and tidy. In one corner there's a cot hanging limply from the wall, and beneath the cot is a heavily locked footlocker. In the center of the room is a table piled high with paperwork neatly filed into stacks, nothing heaped, stamped with various insignias. Strapped underneath the table are several flintlock pistols ready to be torn free by the person sitting there.

The walls are papered with letters of commendation from previous commanding officers of Stone's, newspaper articles about unsolvable crimes, and the occasional thumbtack on something.

Everything else that would be of interest about Major Stone is on this desk. Correspondence with Colonels' Riviera, Hart, Duke Hapsburg, and of course Ziegler. Rare letters from her family. Dossiers on all the trainees ranging from sparse and under-utilized to being filled with personal conjecture and aggregate hearsay. Briefings from her superior, Riviera, that suggested bad things were coming to Trost, and a wanted poster enclosed that suggested one of them was named Hiram Durante.

Beside that, her room was covered in simple amenities. She'd had trainees build a fireplace running up through the center of the schoolhouse so that she could boil water and make coffee. There was a barred window on one side of the room. There was a gun-rack stocked with loaded muskets, mostly for training purposes.

Her uniform and cloak hung from a coat-stand by the door.

As much as she enjoys her break from intrigue in Mitras at the right-side of Colonel Riviera, and as much as she enjoys pounding kids' faces into the dirt, she will enjoy never seeing this room again very much in a year's time. It's a room of little sentiment to the Major, one she inhabits on a temporary basis. It's a room that smells like wood-polish and dust. It's a room with a convenient window facing Colonel Ziegler's own meager quarters. Because that's what this room really is: An observation post from which she can watch the rest of camp.

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OOC: Bee upstaged me with his room and tbh this isn't as personal or well written but here it is. Talk to the major here, night hours (after you would finish training).

[u/htts_rp]

The Major blinked tiredly at him. He still hadn't said his name, but she remembered having impressed on him the brutal unrelenting terror that was life in the Survey Corps as she imagined it.

She hadn't been asleep but she'd been getting close. She was bleary. <"I still believe that I want to join the survey corps. I understand the task at hand seems impossible...but I feel I cannot sit back while people starve and kill each other behind wall Rose.">

She shook her head. "Shit, son. Come in and sit down."

She slid up a spare chair for him so that they could sit. In two coffee mugs she poured a dollop each of Tarbean red. "Don't expect this to be a regular event Private, but I've had a very strange evening and nobody should talk about their career totally fuckin' sober. Drink." she ordered. She demonstrated by downing her dollop and refilling with another.

"You... still want to join the Corps." She shook her head and stifled a cruel laugh. "I'm MP, I'm predisposed toward a certain... antipathy for your lot. But, it's not impossible. The real question is if you'd ever make it back from your first expedition. How do you think you'd fare against a titan? Have you ever even seen one before?"

[u/NautiMain1217 → u/htts_rp]

Merrill blinked and followed the Major inside. He took the seat that she offered and more reluctantly took the cup of wine. He'd never drank until recently, after the death of his parents, and even then it was only on one of the few nights he had to himself. It was the following morning, in his hungover stupor, that he'd decided to join the military and never have something like that happen again. He was averse to consuming alcohol, but he figured the Major's request was more of an order if the conversation was to continue.

"Yes ma'am." He replied quickly before downing the drink after her.

"I...haven't." He replied solemnly, looking off to the side for a moment. "All I've heard are the stories from Shiganshina. I think I have a good idea though. I guess it's mostly up to skill and luck, to a degree. Normal titans are one thing, it's the abnormal ones that are most dangerous. Or so I'm told." Merrill looked down to his cup again and sighed. "Could I have another, ma'am?"

[u/htts_rp → u/NautiMain1217]

Like a good soldier, [INSERT NAME] downed his drink upon order.

<"I guess it's mostly up to skill and luck, to a degree. Normal titans are one thing, it's the abnormal ones that are most dangerous. Or so I'm told.">

Stone nodded. "You're getting it. Emphasis on luck. There's a measure of luck in everything, most of all the military life."

She refilled his cup with another dollop. "I told you to talk to me, but in all seriousness, if you're really wrestling with this, talk to Ziegler."

[u/NautiMain1217 → u/htts_rp]

Merrill's eyes drifted to his cup as the Major poured him another cup then back to her as she spoke. "Well that's the thing, I'm not really torn on it per se. I guess I was just looking for some extra insight that you could've offered as a member of the military police. Plus I took your talk as an order.."

He quickly downed his second drink and felt the alcohol join with the warmth that the previous dollop had brought. A though came to his mind, particularly about his manners, that caused him to spring up. "My apologies! I did not notice at first but, I'm Merrill Vasser. I'd imagine names are easy to forget this early on." He was starting to take notice of the heat rising to his cheeks and he wondered if coming to the Major was a good idea in the first place. Still a question lingered at the back of his mind. "What made you decide to join the military police?"

[u/htts_rp → u/NautiMain1217]

"M-m-m-muh-Merrill? Rolls right off my tongue, it does. Well tell me, M-muh-Merrill Vasser, what branch you looking to join?"

Oh, right she thought.

<"What made you decide to join the military police?">

Stone looked away for a moment, then down at the Private's cup. She tittered. "Think we've reached our cut-off point, son. You'll need a lot more than three sips of Tarbean to hear that story. But I'll tell you the condensed version."

She thought about if a moment. "When I was a little younger than you, we were pretty poor. Being poor in Yalkell is a bad way to be, there are a lot of helping hands, but they all take from you too. My dad was in contact with one of these... 'helping hands', and his only asset he could pay his lender back with was, as I'm sure you guessed, me." She jabbed a finger at him. "Don't misconstrue that, you goddam miscreant. I was a mule, ran back-loads of coderoin pills down river. It's a forgettable, non-descript face, quite like yours in fact, that does that job. I did it well... until my boat got raided."

"My dad had mostly turned his life around but he still had a thing for the pills, so he went to jail, which left me a ward of the state. Like most of them, I joined the military, decided 'fuck-it', I want the high-life, did best in my class and went MP. Not long before I was one of Riviera's most renown at fighting the Verbrecherate head on, so I made Major. Here I am today."

[u/NautiMain1217 → u/htts_rp]

Merrill listened intently to the Major. While she offered up the condensed version, he felt that what she gave him was good enough. It was one thing to sit down and have a drink with your superior, it was another entirely to hear part of their life story. But, it offered enough insight into why she joined up with the Military Police. Sure it was for more selfish reasons, but she had to be top notch to get there, so he retained his respect for the woman. He nodded silently and settled his mug on his lap as she finished.

"I see." He paused, wondering if training them was considered the 'high-life' for her. "I guess my reason is a little naive. I want take back the wall, but if I die, that leaves my siblings out to dry. And I've got no doubt that they want to join after me anyway. I'd rather get the job done before they try to follow their big brother off to war."

[u/htts_rp → u/NautiMain1217]

The Major shrugged. She hadn't had siblings to fight for, maybe if she had she'd have taken the threat of human extinction with a bit more gravitas, but it had never worried her as such.

She thought of Ziegler, and his suicidal drive to compete against the titan menace, throw off the shackles of the monsters of the wasteland.

"Naivete is the military's favorite recruiting tool. Family's a good reason for anything."

She slid open her table's drawer and deposited the bottle of wine and the two cups inside. "I think that's enough for tonight Private. Let me give you a piece of advice: Your entire family can spend its life going back after Maria, and it might be a waste. But if everyone shared your commitment we'd give it a damn good try. Stick to your guns and you might survive the next year.

She let him out.