The New Midget

Summary: "Did you see Krista? One of the new recruits? She's even smaller than Levi, I didn't think such a thing was possible."

Have fun ;)

She held back a sigh as she placed the fresh hay in one of the horses' box stalls. It was heavy lifting, but she smiled as the horse turned its head, ears flicking for a moment before it walked over and bent its head to start eating the grass. Krista reached out a hand to run her fingers along the bridge of its nose as it ate, letting out a soft giggle when it neighed at her, shaking its head and she let her arm drop back at her side, just watching as it crushed the grass between its teeth.

A pair of voices floated through the air to her as she remained crouched in the box stall, at first not paying attention until they started talking about the recruits.

"Mikasa and Armin were the ones at Eren's trial, right? His childhood friends."

"Yeah, but I'm more curious about the ones we don't know much about already. Mikasa was top in her class and Shadis spoke highly about her, so we know what to expect there."

"Armin wasn't in the top ten, but we've certainly gotten most of them that were in there."

"Yup. All but two, it's looking to be a good year for the Corps. Don't you think, Terry?"

"Definitely. But that doesn't stop our casualties from dropping."

"Right, right. Hey, did you see Krista?" Her own ears seemed to perk like the horses' at hearing her own name. "One of the new recruits? She's even smaller than Levi, I didn't think such a thing was possible."

"Really?" Terry asked. "Shorter than the Captain? That is quite a feat."

She could feel a burn in her cheeks as the other unnamed soldier went on, "We got ourselves a new midget."

Terry's laughter practically assaulted her ears as Krista began to make her way out of the box stall, keeping low to the ground. "Don't let the Captain hear you saying that, Miguel."

~ L ~

Levi frowned as he saw the instructor of the recruits once again move away from the group to talk to another soldier for some unfathomable reason. Of course, when the man looked away from the recruits some of them would start goofing off, two in particular: Connie and Sasha, but there were others. Those two were just the worst at goofing off.

And the instructor somehow kept missing this, not reprimanding them like he should. If the man didn't stop in his duties to go and talk with another soldier he was sure the goofballs would have been caught by now. They had been playing this game behind the instructor's back for a solid hour. It was ridiculous, even more so that the recruits hadn't even realized he was watching their progress.

With a sigh, having had enough of this, Levi got up from the chair to make his way to the instructor, who still had his back turned to the recruits. At least most of them had the sense to stop goofing off when they saw him coming over. Not including the Connie fellow that is.

"What are you doing?" Levi questioned the moment he was close enough so that only the instructor could hear him and not the recruits. The instructor turned around quickly, probably having recognized his voice. "You're suppose to be training the recruits," Levi said, letting the man know from his tone of voice that he wasn't amused by this.

"Sorry, sir." The instructor said quickly, waving off the other soldier. "One of the recruits is actually missing and I've been trying to find them, but I've had no luck so far."

"You've been looking for this recruit for over an hour and you still can't find them?"

"W-well, yes." The instructor stuttered for a moment, cheeks rapidly turning a bright shade of red. "Her name's Krista. She was suppose to be working at the stables earlier, but when I had a soldier go to get her for training she wasn't there. Her job wasn't even completed. It looked like she had taken off halfway through her own duties-"

"We're not discussing another's duties when you're shirking your own. Go and keep an eye on the recruits. They've been making faces behind your back. I'll find your missing recruit so whatever soldier you got looking for her now can also go back to their original task."

"Y-yes, sir." The instructor gave a quick salute before turning to the recruits, somehow not catching any of them goofing around, again.

Levi just started walking towards the castle as the layout of it appeared in his mind, along with the knowledge of all common routes and what places would have the least traffic throughout the day, not to mention at night. There were quite a few places that a recruit with this knowledge could go to hide if they didn't want to be found.

He started with those places closest to him, working his way out to the other sections of the castle when he didn't find the recruit immediately. They must have known that anyone sent to find them would be coming from where the recruits were training and hid further away from that side of the castle because of it. Levi sighed as he checked another alcove before moving further down the hallway.

When he heard a sniff over the sound of his own boots though, he stopped. Levi glanced in the direction of the noise, remembering there being a small cabinet just around the corner and walked over, pulling the door open in the next second without bothering to knock.

Something like a surprised shriek came from the occupant mid-sob, never reaching its full volume as she let out a hiccup shortly afterwards. There was no doubt in his mind, this was the recruit that had gone missing. "Is your name, Krista?" he asked, simply out of courtesy.

The girl, Krista drew her legs up further, so the bottom of her chin was hidden behind her knees, but she gave a nod of her head, seemingly holding in another sob as he watched her.

Levi paused before stepping into the store room, closing the door behind him, enveloping the both of them in complete darkness. He was silent for a time before asking, "Why weren't you with the other recruits training, earlier?"

"Is the... is the training finished?" Krista asked. From the rustle of fabric she was brushing her tears, saliva, and snot on her uniform.

Disgusting.

He reached into his pocket to retrieve a handkerchief and tossed it in her direction. "Use that instead." Levi didn't care to answer her own question when it should be clear to her by now that the training was done and over with for the day. She had missed whatever lesson that instructor had been teaching them, but considering what he had seen of the instructor he doubted it was anything worthwhile.

Krista hiccuped again and he could hear her now using the handkerchief he had given her rather than the sleeves of her shirt. "I was in the stables when some of the soldiers were talking." He glanced toward her when she finally spoke, silently urging her to go on. "The two of them were talking about the new recruits and... us." He frowned slightly at this, wondering just why his name would come up in a conversation about her, but didn't say anything that might stop Krista from explaining further. "They commented that I was even smaller than you. That... that I was the new midget."

His eye twitched at that word, midget. "Did you happen to catch their names before hiding?"

"Terry and Miguel," she said after a few seconds had passed.

He could hear her getting to her feet now and pushed the door open so she could walk out, but he stopped her before she could get more than a foot away. "Don't go missing from training again. I don't want to have to come looking for you a second time, got it?" At the nod of her head he continued, "Just tell me if something similar happens again instead of doing your own thing."

Her head tilted slightly, just enough so he could see her left eye looking back over her shoulder. "Okay," she said before disappearing into the hallway, foot steps tapping swiftly on the stone.

~ K ~

She blew softly on the warm porridge in front of her as the other newly appointed scouts chatted around her. They were all sitting at the same three tables as they had yesterday, granted a few had asked where she had disappeared to before joining in the conversation.

Ymir was the only one that continued to be worried even when she had said it was nothing.

It was part of the reason why she was looking down at her food, to avoid her friends' gaze so she didn't feel guilty about not saying anything more about it. She didn't want the others to know what she had overheard the other day or why she hadn't showed up in the first place.

The whole thing had been embarrassing in so many ways. Hell, she had even ended up dragging the Captain from his duties to find her, the person those two had compared her to just because of her height. Something she had no control over.

Krista gripped her spoon and dipped it into the bowl, bringing it up to her lips to sip at the contents as she let her gaze slip around the room. Even know she could hear the familiar voices of those two; it didn't take long for her to find them.

She almost dropped her spoon when her gaze landed on the one she could see clearly, that was sitting on the opposite end of their table so that if they looked in her direction they would see her. But they weren't looking, she doubted they would be able to see her even if they, though.

The man was sporting a black eye, no doubt fresh from the sickening color of the skin around the socket.