The first time they meet, she is nine years of age, tired, wet and cold. A miserable drizzle has been falling since the early morning hours, the mountain paths are steep and turning into muddy streams. The leather straps of her backpack are chafing, her load of suger, salt and flour is heavy on her back and a trickle of rainwater has wormed it's way through her oilskin to run down the back of her neck.
The promise of a hot fire and warm stew in her belly propels her onward. Her mother has promised her embroidery lessons and apple cakes for the evening, when the day's work is done.
With the grinding scream of rusted iron bearings a mule cart emerges from the rain curtains and cloud shreds the north wind is driving over the ridge line.
Mikasa huddles into the rain-shade of a wind-bend larch and waits.
"Good day to you, Sir." She calls out. Her mother has taught that politeness will go a long way. Her father always says that a good kick in the nuts will do the rest.
In all honesty she isn't too sure what nuts have to do with it. Dad explained it was short for nut cake. She supposes that the destruction of cake is quite potent a thread, but conquering it for delicious noshing makes more sense and the way he made her pinky-swear not to ask mom, makes her think he was fibbing. She wishes she had remembered to inquire with Mr Schulz the shopkeeper this morning, as she had originally intended.
The weatherbeaten, old wagoner smiles kindly and pules gently on the reins of his team, while rain water drips from the broad rim of his leather hat.
"Hop on lass. It's a wretched weather, but you are not going to get any wetter up here and at least the poxy bastard is doing most of the heavy work." He says and gently taps the sides of his mules with his reins."
Mikasa frowns thoughtfully, "Which one is the poxy bastard?"
The kindly man, chomps on his pipe stem, eyes crinkling. "The left one is poxy, the right one is bastard." "That seems fair." Mikasa concedes and shares a secretive smile with the kindly man.
The cart rumbles over a tree root, hammering the hard wood bench into their spines, which the wagoner comments with a string of colourful curses.
"The suspension on this piece of crap kicks harder than Trost hookers," he groans, rubbing his aching backside.
"What's a hooker and why are they kicking you?" asks Mikasa curiously.
The wagoner opens his mouth but evidently thinks better of it and closes it with a 'clack' before fishing a handkerchief-wrapped package from the pockets of his leather rain coat.
"Say lass, do you want some sweets? I have some cookies left over."
"Are they nut cookies?"
The wagoner eyes her suspiciously, squinting under bushy brows, "… No?"
"It's gingersnap."
There is no helping it, decides Mikasa and nibbles experimentally on the cookies.
Her face lights up and with a sound not unlike a grinding mill-stone, the sweets begin disappearing down her gullet at an alarming rate.
"Theesche are reeeeeeally…"
The kindly man smiles indulgently, "Empty your mouth, lass. You are spraying more crumbs than a firing line does bullets. And slow down, you are going to choke yourself."
"Sorry Sir. These are really good. What are you doing up here, though. Are you lost? Are you a cookie salesman? Are you part of the trading caravan that arrived in Müllheim this morning?"
"Mmmhmmm." The wagoner stuffs his pipes meditatively.
"I came with the caravan. I have an appointment to pick up some folks here, today."
"They want to travel back to Trost with the caravan?"
"No, lass, we will travel by a different road, but never fear Poxy and Bastard can be quite fleet on their feet, when they put their mind to it."
Mikasa eyes the moth-eaten mules doubtfully, while licking the last crumbs of her fingers, but does not comment.
"But there isn't much up this way, only our cabin and the hut old man Heinrich stays at, when he drives his cattle to the summer pastures and a couple of charcoal burners in the woods."
The wagon gently rolls to a stop before the large silver fir, marking the path to her parents' cabin.
"This is your stop, I believe."
Blinking rain-drops from her lashes, she hops from the wagon and lifts her load on her back.
The wagon begins to pull away, iron bearings screaming, as soon as her feet touch the muddy ground.
"Are you sure, you are on the right path? It's easy to lose your way in the mountains, especially in this weather?"
The kindly man is a black silhouette against the cloud fragments drifting on the wind, but his teeth are strong and large and very white like rows of ivory tombstones in his face, when he smiles.
"Fear not for me child. I'm the wagoner, Mikasa. I know all the paths, for I bring home the lost."
It will not be until hours later, when she lies with her mother's blood drying on her face that she will note with curiously detached bemusement, "Strange, I never told him my name nor where I live."
The next time she sees him, the north wind kisses her with winter's cold caress.
It's nearly the end of the campaigning season and soon the snowfalls will make the roads impassable. Nightfall comes early this time of the year, but the setting sun is still staining the western horizon with the red of arterial blood, when the tolling bells announce the return of a patrol.
Eren is of like a flash, his chores forgotten, but Mikasa knows him too well to be surprised, gathers her skirts high and keeps easy pace with him. They are still two street crossings away, when they hear a hundred voices, deep and hoarse, raised in song.
I had one faithful comrade
'Ere we heard the war drum's call,
And we pledged our hearts forever
In battle joined together
To beat the foe or fall.
All the children of the garrison towns know this song by heart, even if none have ever sung it themselves. It's reserved for warriors bringing home their dead.
The torch bearers come first and this is where she finds him again, in the third row, torch clutched in his left, leading the horses of the corpse wagon with his right. He is long and lanky, this time, with thinning blond hair and a blood spattered survey corpse uniform and an unremarkable, if a bit haggard, face but his smile is the same.
As long as she draws breath, she will recognize it anywhere.
Their eyes meet briefly and cold dread settles in her belly, as his gaze moves onward, a black insect scuttling over faces, before settling on her companion. She knows the moment shadowed black finds emerald green, feels the connection.
She grasps Eren's hand and runs.
She is ten-and-a-half years of age and not much given to philosophical thought, but there are a few fundamental truths her world is built on. Her boy is hers and the wagoner cannot have him.
She feels his tombstone smile on the back of her neck, his soundless laughter ringing in her head, without ever touching her ears. "I'm the lamp bearer," he says, "I light the way in darkness for the seeking."
She doesn't want to think about who maybe seeking what, doesn't want to think about the ways that Eren isn't quite right, doesn't want to think about the well shafts full of broken black ice and nest of winding snakes that yawn beneath the happy family life. She doesn't want to imagine a small boy keeping count of every small forgotten hurt, all the hate and secrets he keeps hard and silent in his heart, a black thorn bush bearing ghastly fruit.
Above her a red hunters moon is rising and Mikasa tightens her grip on Eren's hand, ignoring his protests, and walks faster into the falling dusk.