*Levi's POV*

Levi leaned against the stone wall beside him, arms crossed over his chest and the shade of the roof mostly hiding him from view as he stared pensively out at the open field. The horse training was finished for the days, and the horses were being allowed time to roam in the open field for the time being. One individual, however, was spending some one on one time with a mare, walking through some common techniques to get a horse to trust you.

At first, he'd wondered why she was using such a long rope, since he was fairly certain the distance between a horse and a potential rider during this exercise wasn't supposed to be that far. Quickly Levi realized that if she got much closer, the horse was not having it. It was truly afraid of her, though she appeared to be making some headway, if she was able to lead the horse around on the long rope while the other horses stayed clear.

Horses that had been trained and bred to retain nerves of steel and ignore their fears, especially in the presence of Titans and the chaos of a battle, and apparently all of them were at least skittish around her. That's what he'd heard from the stablemaster, anyway.

Not a minor detail to be overlooked. And a problem, if she couldn't get around it. Clearly, though, she was putting in the effort and time to fix it, and she didn't mind going at the proper pace instead of trying to rush it. From what he'd been able to observe, she was also approaching the situation with an admirable amount of patience, no outward signs of frustration or anger when she reached a setback and had to back up a foot or so on the rope instead of shortening it a little more. Her approach changed slightly each time, too, attempting to adjust to fix whatever she'd done wrong the previous try.

Well, at least she had some positive character traits to be discovered alongside the worrisome fact about the horses he wasn't going to ignore. So he could give her some merit while his suspicion raised a little more.

"Captain."

Levi turned at the sound of his title, noticing the individual approaching him from the main building, a file in hand. He snapped a salute when he reached Levi, then held out the file for him to take. "You asked for the file on Cadet Y/N L/N."

Levi nodded and took the file from him. "Thanks. You can go," he said in a distracted tone, already opening the file as the soldier walked away.

His eyes scanned the information in the file, which was surprisingly scarce. Her place of residence was formerly Wall Rose, there was no living family, no record as he thought there might be after their spar. She ranked sixth in her class–which didn't at all match the spar they'd had, and gave further credit to his belief she was purposely holding herself back even when it mattered for placement. Maybe she wanted to avoid the spotlight? She wanted her talents to be recognized, but she didn't want them front and center since she was still trying to scrape by without her full potential being noticed. She excelled in individual evaluations, especially the physical and instinctual, but seemed to have some problem with others. It was noted in her file that she was a loner and outcast during training, suggesting teamwork might be a point of issue with her. The opinion of her classmates might shed some light on that matter–it could have easily been the other party and not necessarily her that was the issue. Some of her classmates had joined the Scouts as well, if he remembered correctly, so there were some around that could be asked.

Levi reached the end of the file far sooner than he expected.

There weren't any official documents giving age or place of birth, just an inked in note marking that she was in her early twenties–older than most new recruits, strangely enough–and the name of the town she was born in. There weren't any legal documents, and no visible records of her existence before she started leaving a trail behind in Wall Rose two years ago, with a rented space in her name and her official application to join the Cadet Corps the only real official documents here.

That shouldn't have been possible. Of course, if she lived in the Underground beforehand, it would make perfect sense for her to have no trail until she surfaced, but it was right here in ink that she was born within Wall Rose.

Had she lied? Had she somehow managed to get topside without official immigration and slipped right through the fingers of the authorities? The Underground would have fit a little comfortably in his working picture of her–loner, exceptionally skilled in combat and other physical areas, not having a record before two years ago, the street fighting skills...

He wasn't going to write off the Underground yet, but how she might have gotten topside needed some fleshing out before he could consider it more seriously.

Appearing out of the blue and an unknown past only made Levi's unease grow. Maybe if there was more, he could have deduced what her reason for joining the military–hell, joining the Scouts–was.

More questions, and not much in the way of answers.

Dissatisfied, Levi returned to his position resting against the wall with the file now tucked under an arm, watching as the speckled grey horse with the black to white mane gradually came closer to her as the rope slowly shortened, but it's caution and unexplained fear still kept it out of her arm's reach.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The new recruit in front of him was so nervous he was trembling. He might have thought he was hiding it well, but it was plain as day to Levi, who was leaning against the wall sipping on his cup of tea with eyes fixed forward on the recruit sitting on the other side of his desk. He'd called the young man in as a sort of character reference for L/N, asking him to state his opinion on the young woman's abilities and if they were an asset to the Scouts.

His final question, however, had caused the recruit's suddenly shifty demeanor, and Levi's gaze narrowed slightly at him when he hesitated.

"Are there any qualities you feel she possesses that would be harmful to the Scouts?"

The recruit across from him couldn't look Levi in the eyes, on the brink of saying something, but for some reason holding himself back. Levi waited for several moments before there was a spark of impatience starting to grow in him.

"Spit it out."

The recruit's shoulders hunched slightly, and he started to haltingly speak. "She doesn't exactly get along with other people."

Well, that could mean a lot of things. Levi wasn't the friendliest person in the world, but that didn't stop him from doing his damn job. Antisocial didn't necessarily count as something that negated her ability to perform in the field. This kid needed to be more specific.

"Does she start fights with her comrades?" Levi asked bluntly.

"No, but she has been in a few–"

"Does she fail to communicate in the field?"

"Never, though–"

"Is she incapable of working as part of a group?"

"Not really–"

"Does she take actions that could cause harm to other members of the team in the field?"

"I haven't–"

Levi let out a slow sigh. He kept interrupting the recruit because he didn't need long winded answers that spun the narrative a certain way. He already knew he couldn't entirely trust the feedback this kid was going to give him, because either he would downplay her abilities and up-play her flaws to make himself look better, or vice versa to make her look better, all based off the assumption Levi was asking because Levi was looking to have her join his squad.

It wasn't too far off the mark, but Levi was considering adding her less and less the farther he dug into her background. And while he knew he couldn't trust much of what the kid was going to say to his face, that wasn't the point. It was what came after this that mattered the most, and it still gave him something to work with to get a little further in his investigation.

She communicated and worked just fine in a group, and while she had been in fights before, she hadn't been the one to start them. It was starting to look more like harassment of some degree on the other side that kept her from interacting much with her peers. Aside from the pretty much confirmed antisocial behavior outside of the field, of course.

"You have to be more specific than 'she doesn't play well with others.' I don't always get along with other people–that doesn't keep me from doing my job," Levi deadpanned.

The recruit was really struggling to get it out now, his face all twisted up as he tried to rework his words. "While her skills are undeniable, socially, her relationship with her peers is...poor."

Is that really what this amounted to? No one liked her because she wasn't friendly enough with them? "Your complaint is that she's not a social butterfly?"

"It's more than that, sir, she's not..."

Levi waited another five seconds before he decided this wasn't being productive anymore. Time to kick him out of the office and go on to the next part, then. "Either come up with a solid answer, or I'll take your silence as a no so you can leave to take care of that constipated look on your face."

The recruit looked put out and frustrated, but he ended up standing from the chair and leaving, Levi watching him silently from over the rim of his cup and eyes lingering on the door after it had closed.

This sneaking around behind the scenes getting dirt on people was usually more Erwin's speed, but Levi had been around Erwin long enough to pick up a few tricks of his own to use when necessary, like in moments like this. Levi could be subtle when he wanted to.

A few moments after the recruit walked out his door, Levi finished his tea, set down the empty cup on his desk, and followed after him, keeping far enough back that he wouldn't be noticed. Just as he'd suspected, the recruit found his way back to another pair of recruits and proceeded to go about cathartically bitching about the situation.

Levi missed the part where the other two asked why Levi wanted to talk to him in his office, but since that wasn't the important part, Levi wasn't too concerned, stopping just around the corner and pressing his shoulder against the wall to listen in to what they really had to say about L/N when it wasn't being filtered by the intimidation of speaking with a superior.

"Of course miss ice princess is being considered for Captain Levi's squad. Why wouldn't she?" the recruit who had been in Levi's office was fuming.

"I don't get why you two are so upset–if Captain Levi's already asking about her, surely that's because she has the potential, right?" asked the young woman in their group.

"You didn't train with her–you didn't see how downright infuriating she was! If it wasn't for the occasional lost spar round or missed question on a test, or a margin behind someone else in an endurance test, whatever it was, she still somehow managed to look perfect. Even if you were ahead of her, it was like she was right there behind you!"

"Not to mention she didn't even seem to try," the third one muttered.

"Exactly! We'd work our asses off, and then she would waltz in and do whatever they asked her to as if it was as natural as breathing! It was so–so–so infuriating!"

"Sounds like you're jealous," the woman surmised.

"Wouldn't you be upset? She didn't even try! Then to make matters worse, she always acted like she was above us. Yeah she usually beat us all in everything, but she didn't even try to be nice about it."

"Yeah–I know this girl who tried to be friends with her part way through training. But she was always treating her like a plague–she'd move further away from her, or she'd ignore her attempts to talk to her or actively dodge her. She made it pretty damn clear she wasn't in the Corps to make friends. And she was like that with everyone–she never let anyone get closer than necessary to her. Sure, she'd give you some tips in the middle of training, but it was always just what was necessary, and she never let the conversation move to anything personal. She's a bitch," the friend added.

"I figured all that time spent by herself, she was just focused on her training. It got me certain that she was going to be top of the class–some say she should have. Hell, I thought she'd be pissed when she got sixth, but I swear she looked pleased. Pleased! And I thought she wanted to at least make the top five with how fucking perfect she seemed."

"Okay, so she was antisocial in training and she's good enough at what she did that it made you all jealous. I still don't see anything that would make you hate her so much. I've seen her around a few times and she doesn't seem nearly as frigid as you all say. Distant, yeah, but she seems...warm, if a bit melancholy," the woman said thoughtfully.

"Don't let it fool you. She's probably just trying to make a better impression now that she's where she wants to be and is about to get placed–possibly in the best squad, now, too, apparently." There was the sound of a boot scuffing the stone, then a thwack of a broom handle being thumped against the offender's head. "Ow! And she's not warm and she's not innocent. I don't know what she was doing, but she was up to something during training, even if we couldn't prove it."

"Oh? And what was it? She managed to get an extra loaf of bread on her plate?" the woman asked almost mockingly. Clearly she wasn't convinced by their ranting.

"One of the most infuriating things about her was how she could break the rules and still get away with it! She used to sneak out all the time at night while we were in the Cadets, but no one could ever catch her. Even when we gave the instructors a warning that she would be sneaking out again soon, she still wouldn't get caught, and we'd get in trouble for lying about a classmate. Not once was she caught, and we had classmates that could attest to her not being in bed at some point in the night, so we knew it was happening! But we could never prove it. It still drives me nuts to this day!"

"If you kick this floor again, I'll hit you even harder–you are not messing up the cleaning job I've been working so hard on!" the woman fumed suddenly, and there was a bit of a scuffle before things calmed down again.

"I swear, if Captain Levi puts her on his squad I'm going to be so fucking–"

"Look at the bright side, you probably won't have to deal with her anymore if that happens, because you're nowhere near that league," the friend teased. It sounded like there was going to be another scuffle breaking out, so Levi finally stepped around the corner to make himself known.

"Oi."

The two boys immediately panicked, while the woman snapped to attention, eyes flickering to a fresh scuff mark on the stone with a clearly upset face to see the two were already back to mucking up her hard work. Levi ignored the two who were scrambling to their feet and trying to snap to a salute, walking past all three without even glancing at them.

"Get back to cleaning. And find another place to bitch about superiors," he added before he continued down the hall and out of earshot once more.

Idiots.

There was nothing wrong with a little bitching to get it out of your system, but at least have the decency to do it somewhere less public where anyone could find and hear you.

However, Levi officially had some honest first hand accounts of her relationship to her peers, and a lead he could follow further into this mystery.

She snuck out a lot at night when she was in the cadets, huh? He wondered if she was still doing that now...

It seemed he had something to do now in the hours insomnia kept him from sleeping. He could keep an eye out to see if she was sneaking out, and try to figure out where she was going on these little escapades if they were, in fact, continuing after leaving the Cadets.

The more he looked into her, the more uneasy he became. He was already at the point where he knew he was going to have to bring up his concerns to Erwin, but he was going to make sure he'd gone as far as he could with this investigation of his before he went to Erwin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the first few nights after hearing about L/N's nightly escapades in the cadets, Levi didn't catch anything amiss. He was well aware of the best spots in this building to sneak out at this point, and had several points he liked to retreat to for some alone time that just happened to give him a good view of the surrounding area. He was fairly confident that if she tried to sneak out, he would be able to spot her as long as he was looking–which he was.

By the fifth night, he seriously considered the possibility that if she was doing something shady such as meeting a co-conspirator in the the night, the wise thing would be to cut all communication once she was inside the Scouts. If her nightly actions were something dastardly like that, then it was entirely possible that he wouldn't see her sneak out because she wouldn't make the attempts now in such a high risk area.

Still, Levi kept an eye out, always near a window at night so he could peer out into the darkness and see anyone trying to slip away if it did happen.

At long last, almost three weeks after the recruits had first arrived, he managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of a hooded figure moving in the darkness away from the building. Believing it to be L/N, he got up from his seat immediately, taking the less forgiving but more direct route of climbing out the window and down to the ground so he could close the distance before she left his sight entirely and he lost track of her. Going through the building down to the ground floor and to a proper exit would have taken him too long, so his unconventional route was one he didn't second guess.

Landing quietly on the paved stones, Levi crept forward at a walk that was barely restrained from becoming a jog for the first few moments, keeping to the shadows like his quarry as he attempted to follow after her. He wasn't armed in case there was trouble, mostly because he didn't get the luxury of enough time to grab a weapon–he'd only caught a fleeting glimpse, so he'd had to act instantly.

Levi managed to catch up to where he would want to be on a tail after two streets, feeling himself settle down internally once he was the desired distance away. She didn't slow down, plowing forwards with a purpose that told him she knew exactly where she was going and she was going to waste no time getting there–he just had to keep up.

Yes, she. He didn't have confirmation that it was her, but he was operating off the assumption it was between the story he'd heard and the fact he'd been waiting for something like this to happen and her to be the culprit.

He continued to follow her street after street, taking several corners, occasionally losing sight of her before he caught movement again and continued on the path. After a few minutes, however, he realized these direction changes weren't exactly pointed and purposeful, but random. They happened too suddenly and without warning for them to be planned.

She knew he was following her, and she was trying to shake him.

Hoping to make her think that she lost him, Levi slowed down his pace, allowing her to pull a little further ahead, far enough away it would be more difficult for him to follow, but at the same time it would give her the impression that he was too far away and that she lost him.

Levi managed to make it a few more streets this way, catching the edge of a cape or a flash of movement as she turned a corner to give him a direction, until suddenly, he realized he couldn't hear footsteps or any other sound in the night, and he no longer had even a fleeting visual on her in order to give him a sense of direction.

That wasn't possible. Pulling back had been risky, yes, but he'd been sure he could still keep track of her. And he should have at least been able to hear footsteps in the distance, because she would have had to speed up to lose him so suddenly.

Did she have ODM gear hidden under her cape? Had she taken for the skies to get out of visible range of the streets?

Wanting to test the theory before she could get too far, Levi used window sills, boxes by stalls, wooden awnings, whatever he could to climb up to the roof of one of the buildings, turning around swiftly with his head on a swivel as he tried to catch a glimpse of movement, a figure moving through the night either on ODM gear or on the streets down below.

Nothing. It was just him standing alone on this roof in the night's silence.

Where the hell had she gone?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Levi...why didn't you bring this to my attention sooner?"

Levi scowled, meeting Erwin's serious expression head on before he turned to move again, occasionally crossing the floor at an extremely slow pace, stopping for a while before he would turn around and move again. Considering Levi usually remained stationary, it counted as a sign of unease.

He had just come to Erwin with what he knew about L/N, which admittedly wasn't much. For the most part, he was simply telling Erwin about his concerns and a bad feeling that he'd been harboring since meeting her. He did have some legitimate red flags, like her apparent trips out into the night that were continuing here at the Scouts and her lack of a record from before two years ago with nothing to show she might have been from the Underground.

"Because it was just basic curiosity at first, but the more I heard, the more I had to be concerned about," Levi said pointedly, lips pulled down in a prominent frown as he mulled over everything in his mind.

"Well, based off what you've been able to find out, if she is a threat, how much of a threat would she be," Erwin asked patiently, his eyes continuing to track Levi as he moved about the room. Levi stopped, turning his head slightly in Erwin's direction.

"Erwin...she had me. In that spar on the training grounds. But at the last second, she shifted and threw the match," Levi explained quietly.

"...I see."

Levi turned around all the way to see Erwin sitting forward in his chair, hands laced together in front of him and pressed against his lips, eyebrows furrowed together in contemplation.

"Don't mark her as an enemy in your mind, yet, Levi. Let this play out a while longer, first. This may be a situation where we need to spring the trap after it's set to truly know the situation. So far, she hasn't done anything to hurt humanity's mission regarding the Titans. I don't like how many unknowns there are with her, either, which is precisely why we have to approach this correctly. There's as much a chance we could be wrong as there is that we can be right about her intentions." Erwin's hands carefully folded back over one another on top of the table, Erwin turning his gaze on Levi with that expression of his that usually appeared when he was mentally calculating a gamble. "Continue your investigation as you see fit, so long as you don't outright antagonize her. We don't want to risk driving her off, if these skills your glimpsing are as strong as your intuition tells you they are. She could still be a great asset if she's truly on our side. Keep an eye on her, try to figure out at least if her intentions align with our own or run against them."

"And you?" Levi asked suspiciously, looking to see if that gambling air about Erwin was tipping over into the dangerous side of things.

Erwin hummed. "I'll do some digging of my own, see what I can find. Of course, if you can't find anything concrete by the next expedition, going beyond the walls will allow you to get not only a stronger grasp on the skills she's bringing to the table, but will help with figuring out her general intentions."

"I don't like the thought of having to babysit while we're out there," Levi returned flatly. Expeditions were far too unpredictable as they were without adding a mysterious woman of unknown capabilities and intentions along for the ride with the task to keep a sharp eye on her and evaluate her every move.

"Then perhaps you'll want to find out if you can trust her out there or not, first. I know you can't guarantee finding the answers to all of your questions in such a short amount of time, but you could at least find out if she will have the back of her fellow scouts on the first expedition," Erwin said with a pointed look. Levi could already tell this mess might get a little ugly, but at the very least, knowing he could trust her not to turn and kill someone on the expedition would go a long way in making his job digging into her background a lot easier.

After Levi gave a nod of confirmation, Erwin continued. "In the meantime, I'll make sure she's placed in the formation so that she's within your sight at all times. Considering the rumors you've stirred up that you might be looking to recruit her to your squad, it would only make sense for you to be watching her out in the field to see how she does. It's also a nice excuse for you to make a few more direct inquiries to L/N, herself. You've done plenty of work in the background, I think it's safe to say you can start approaching her as well. Subtly, of course."

"After she shook me last night, she might already be on edge," Levi pointed out. She had to have known someone followed her. There were no guarantees that she knew it was Levi, and he didn't think she'd had the chance to confirm who was following her any more than he'd had a chance to confirm if he was following her.

"Then be careful about it. But whenever you come to a decision about whether she's a danger or not, I want to know. This will go a lot smoother and faster if we're sharing information."

"I'm not stupid, Erwin," Levi said with a long-suffering sigh, straightening up. "Anything else?"

Erwin's lips twitched upwards towards a smile, his hands moving to a drawer to pull out some paper and ink. "Have fun making a new friend."

Levi scowled again, turning to leave after it was clear Erwin was ready to move on to the next thing. He was a little worried about this task to test L/N's intentions to help the scouts before going out into the field, especially because he knew that look of Erwin's meant he would set it up and Levi would simply have to observe.

But, he did have his own ways of testing her out as a person, and some people he could get to help without having to inform them of everything behind it. He was already observing her from a distance and could safely continue to do so. With the rumors going around he was looking to take her in under his wing, he could use that to his advantage to ask a few questions and approach her at the right times.

Yet, despite the fact he knew he would have help in prodding at her to see a bit more of what she was made of, he couldn't help but notice that his sense of unease that had been tickling in the back of his mind was not shrinking. If anything, it only seemed more prevalent. As long as he continued to have this feeling of unease about her, he wasn't going to let the matter rest. He was going to figure out what she was hiding, if only so he could assuage or confirm his suspicions before they grew wildly out of control.

At least it seemed Erwin shared his concern, confirming it wasn't all in his head, and there was cause to worry. He only hoped they could figure out what was going on here before they had to spring the trap, as Erwin had suggested.

Levi shook his head. He could worry about that, later. First, he had a recruit to get a feel of before they went outside the walls, and he had to make sure he didn't spook her while learning what made her tick.

Thankfully, he already had a pretty good idea where to find her in her down time, with all the work she'd been putting in to fix the one glaring flaw in her ability to go outside the walls.

The stables.