Our Needs

"The expedition begins in seven days. Three days from now is when our escort departs."

Our guests from Norwin departed only moments ago. Peo and I are alone, the two of us walking back to our room for the night. The young girl struggles to match my pace.

"We must make preparations with haste. The fight takes place on a mountain, so our current gear will not be sufficient."

I hear every set of footsteps within the vicinity, but hers are the loudest to my ears with those wooden sandals.

"C."

"What is it?"

The two of us pull into the sleeping chamber and seal away all prying ears. Peo never speaks up in the presence of others, her voice being unknown to all but myself. This is a blessing as our usual conversation topics are not friendly to our cohabitants.

"Why…fight giants?"

I seat myself on the floor at one end of the bed with Peo standing just beside me. While we don't make eye contact, her anxiety reaches me.

"It's my job."

"But…must we?"

"Unfortunately so."

I say it as a matter of fact. Of course a Blessed Knight will fight a Titan, that is our sole purpose of existing. For any human, there would be no question about it. For any human.

Peo's swinging tail comes into view from behind her body as she places herself right in front of me. Green eyes bear down upon me and a pair of small hands ball into fists.

"Giants…dangerous. Survival is…impossible."

"Perhaps, but we don't have a choice."

"Why…"

Her voice carries a plea whose weight I still lack understanding of. I can read and listen to devastation for hours on end, but only someone that has lived in this world would understand what it truly means to fight a Titan. Regardless, I don't have the liberty to heed any of their warnings.

"I quite dislike incomplete explanations, so allow me to explain in detail."

Peo watches me rise to my feet and walk towards the open window. Something about the black canvas over the ocean makes it easier to organise my thoughts.

"Where do we procure our food?"

"...Here."

"Exactly. So what would happen if we become unwanted by the king?"

The young girl becomes lost in thought as she drops herself onto the bed. It takes almost an entire minute for her to finally speak up.

"Food…can be found."

So that's the answer she came to. Leave it to a skilled hunter to think of an easy way to obtain the basic necessities.

"That is correct. Food, water, and even shelter can be obtained with ease. However, humans have a lot of needs. You may not be human, but many of these are the same."

Peo tilts her head with ears twitching along the way. Their features may be different, but the beasts that I've encountered thus far have acted effectively human.

"Where I'm from, a certain psychologist proposed a hierarchy of needs. As you satisfy needs at the lower levels, you begin to prioritise the ones on higher levels."

I didn't anticipate that I would be explaining the work of Abraham Maslow when I woke up in this strange world. However, humans are humans no matter where you are. Maslow believed this distinction between needs to be a feature that makes humans brilliant, but I see it as a simple way to discern a person's desires.

"Physiological, security, belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation. As long as we are human, we cannot break our desire to satisfy these needs."

"That is…too many…"

Her ability to speak our language is decent, but large words like these are obviously difficult. Throwing too many terms directly at her doesn't appear to be efficient.

"The latter four encompass things that we want in life, even if we classify them as 'needs'. We technically only require the first to survive."

"Want…"

We've been taking life only a single day at a time. Things like long-term goals and aspirations haven't even hit our schedules. However, that doesn't have to be the case forever.

"The desire to be safe, to have companions, to grow. I'm sure you understand these."

"Mhm…"

"In the age I lived in, aiming for multiple if not all at once was natural. However, this world is not so kind. If we can't guarantee basic needs and a means to prolong our lives, we can't have wants."

Slowly but surely, my words begin to make sense to the young beast. Peo grips tightly onto the silver fur as I continue.

"This castle gives us everything. Food, shelter, even a place to belong and grow in power. It's a place to realise our greatest potential."

Of all the positions I could have started in, this one offers the greatest number of luxuries. It meets all of our needs, but at the same time holds us like a curse.

"Think of it in another way, it means we have nothing without it. What would happen if I were to go against its wishes?"

I don't need the blank space to fit my imagination within, the result is obvious.

"We would lose our resources, our safety. In the worst case, we would be wanted fugitives recognised by every nation across the continent. Forget desires, we would struggle just to find a place to sleep."

A quiet shuffling approaches me from behind. Normal people would likely not have heard those bare footsteps, but her presence is always at the front of my mind. A pair of animal ears appear beside me at the window, her eyes staring into the same darkness.

"Do we…need these things?"

"I'm only human. I can't escape my biology, so I have no choice but to need."

I've survived without every level of the hierarchy, but the human within cannot help but want more. Even as an agent, there was little I could accomplish without food and security, always knowing that I would have a place to stay with a meal ready. Those collapsing battlefields filled with enemies, that stuffy suit filled to the brim with gunpowder, that cluttered armoured van. Those were things that put my mind at ease.

I took pride in my work. Many lives were lost every time I took to the field, but those missions allowed me to use the skills I trained to perfection. My job, while not one that gained me much recognition, earned me respect from my peers and from myself. Every mission gave me something to improve, honing my strategy and technique to become even more efficient next time. It was for this cycle that I weathered every storm and struck down every foe.

"I lost everything that met my needs. That means that I must put myself in a position to find such things again. I have no patience for such a life of daily struggle, not for me and not for you."

Her hand grips the end of cloth peeking beneath my armour. Neither of us have turned away from the distance, but I feel as if I can see Peo's expression.

"But…the giants…"

"We don't have to kill them immediately. We need only survive and show some kind of progress. Doing this will buy enough time until we determine a sure strategy."

"But…"

Peo doesn't release my clothes as she pulls the silver scarf over her nose. She hides more of her face, but that doesn't stop her uncertainty from leaking through. Danger was never her concern. She understands me well after our short time together, success is always a guarantee. That isn't where her heart falters.

"Is it…okay? Everyone else…they…"

I can see the figures dancing in the back of her mind. Faces I don't recognise, but ones that were priceless for her.

The fate of a survivor is never an easy path to follow. Your waking hours are spent regretting what you could or should have done to obtain a different result. Even when you realise that your thoughts will change nothing, you become lost in a world where tomorrow doesn't exist. Happiness feels lost on yourself when the ones you used to share it with are no longer present.

This girl has it even worse than normal. It isn't just that Peo was unable to save their lives, hers improved overnight. She's not some scavenger on the run with nowhere to go. She's a prisoner under the care of one of this world's strongest knights. By taking her into this castle with me, Peo no longer needs to worry about her physiological needs for as long as I maintain my position. In this merciless world, only she was given this luxury. It seems that even a beast can feel such guilt.

I know of the words swirling inside her head, the pain that comes with being human. That's exactly why I choose the words I do.

"Your people are gone."