Mikasa
In her old home, mornings were gentle. The earth stretched and yawned as the sun peeked over the horizon, ushering away the stars. And the birds began their breakfast gossip, twittering back and forth between the pine groves, harmonizing with the brook bubbling alongside the cabin.
But Shiganshina was jolted with the clamor of the early market. What began as muted scuffling and scraping soon escalated to hooves clacking away at cobbled paths, shopkeepers yelling out daily deals, and townspeople chattering in indistinguishable tones.
Mikasa sprang up from the bed, overwhelmed by everything. The scents of this new house. The bustling of the town. The texture of this unfamiliar blanket. Anxiety swiftly coursing through her veins, she backed away from the bed, step by step, until her back was against the window. Upon contact with the cool glass surface, she whirled around, only to see aligned homes rather than the countryside wilderness.
Oh my god.
The memory of last night surged back in a forceful current, consuming her, swallowing her. The blood pooling from beneath her mother. Her father slumped, lifeless in the corner. Those cackling men. They had taken her, bound and beaten her. Her breath hitching, Mikasa shifted her eyes towards the bed, where a mass, rising and falling with each snore, laid dormant.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
This could not be happening. With due haste, she began tiptoe-ing towards the exit—but paused after two steps. If one of those bastards was in that bed, then there was no telling how many more were beyond the door. She turned her attention towards the window. The men didn't seem to lock it, and desperately, she pushed the glass upwards, praying for an escape from the clutches of these criminals. The window opened a crack, filling her with the electric feeling of adrenaline. But as she continued to push, the glass, squeaking against its frame, let out a high-pitched noise that screamed throughout the bedroom.
Mikasa froze, breathless. The snoring mass groaned, shifting amorphously. At that moment, a snap decision flew through her mind, and without a second thought, she pounced on it. Before that monster—that rapist—could place his hands on her again, she would lunge out the window. If she were lucky, somehow surviving the fall, she'd bolt as fast as her legs could carry her, for as long as her lungs could sustain her. The mass rose, yawning loudly. Her muscles tensed, ready to fire.
The blanket slipped, revealing a boy, roughly her age, with disheveled hair and teal eyes.
"Huh, who are you?" he muttered blearily, blinking twice and yawning once more. His eyes widened when they met hers. "Mikasa? What the h—are you trying to kill yourself?"
The relief crashed over her upon hearing his voice and seeing his face. Her legs forgot how to stand, and her back slid down the wall as she crumpled to the ground. She found herself growing lightheaded, gasping for air.
Instantly, Eren was beside her, slamming the window shut before kneeling down. "Hey, what's going on?"
"I'm… I'm okay," she managed, giving herself two deep, slow breaths.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah." Shakily, she brought herself to her feet, brushing aside Eren's offer to help her up.
"I don't think you're okay," Eren murmured. "I think I'm gonna get Dad to check up on you."
"I'm fine," she insisted, forcing out a smile that probably came out more as a grimace. He gave her an unconvinced look and began to reply, but she quickly added, "It's just… I'm a little confused. About everything. I thought those men had me, but then I remembered I was with you, not them."
"Ah, gotcha." Eren nodded, thoughtful for a moment. "You know what," he rose to his feet, running his fingers through his messy hair, "how 'bout I show you around today? Shiganshina's a pretty cool town, and maybe if you get to know this place, that'll help with the confusion?"
Armin
Swinging around a corner, Armin crammed himself between a tiny space between two trash bins, coaching himself to calm his erratic breathing. Droplets of blood rolled down his shin, tickling his ankle, but his eyes were too focused on the main road to pay any heed to his scrape. They were en route, their taunting voices creeping around the corner. Their pattering footsteps gained volume with each insult. Heretic. Pagan. Liar.
His lips soundlessly begged for them to march right past the alleyway that hid him while his hands shook, attempting to curl into firsts.
"What about in here?" the weasel-faced urchin barked, pausing at the mouth of the alley. His name was Lucas, the boy who claimed the bruise on Armin's shoulder.
Armin sucked in a breath, pleading with his body to stop jittering like a leaf.
A steady clunk approached, the unmistakable sound of the churliest pursuer's footsteps. Theo. A boy with a fried egg for a brain, but pistons for arms. His silhouette loomed across the alley, briefly scanning the scene, before shrugging and turning back towards the busy street. "Not here. We'd hear his pathetic whimpering if he were. Let's go, the fucker can't be far."
The other boys grunted in unison before their outlines shrunk and scattered into the crowd.
Oxygen. Armin's lungs screamed for his heels to skid to a stop, for his legs to collapse into a heap, for a break to suck in breathfuls of much-needed oxygen, but blinking back tears, he tore out of the alley, praying that he took off in the direction opposite of his pursuers. He knew the winding, twisting architecture of Shiganshina by heart, a mental map ingrained after years of running. His sweat stained the cobblestones. His frantic footsteps charted the streets.
He wasn't sure if his mind was playing cruel tricks on him, but when his ears would pick up on Theo's wicked cackle amidst the buzz of the marketplace, his body would push past the limits posed by fatigue. His arms and legs would pump faster, stronger than ever. Before he knew it, he had run straight past a guffawing Hannes, right through the gates, and into the countryside that hushed the urban chatter of Shiganshina the second he took that first breath of clean, rural air. Instinct took him down dirt paths, past windmills, along the stream, until he charged up the hill, to the great oak, finally dropping his knees, breathless before a startled Eren.
"Armin, what's going on?" demanded his best friend.
Armin took a minute to indulge in the fresh oxygen. He blinked a few times until the stars dancing along his peripheral vision were swept away. "Theo," he croaked, coughing once. "They were… after me… again."
"That prick," Eren growled, extending a hand. "He really needs to get his ass kicked."
Armin turned away from the gesture, gritted his teeth, and staggered to his feet. "I'm fine," he blurted, forcing a grin. "I'm getting quicker at least!"
"Still that's not an excuse for them to throw their weight around," snorted Eren.
Armin's eyes shifted to Eren's right, widening upon meeting the concerned gaze of a girl. She bore the appearance of a foreigner, her sleek black hair exotic among the colors of the local girls, her dark eyes both startling and captivating. She wore one of Eren's shirts. His winter scarf was wrapped around her neck and spilled over her shoulders.
"Oh, right, this is Mikasa," Eren added, nodding to the new girl. "She's living with us now. Mikasa, meet Armin, the brightest guy in town."
"Jeez, you're giving me enormous shoes that I can't fill," Armin replied, flushing at the compliment. "Uh, hi, Mikasa! It's nice to meet you! So how long are you staying in Shiganshina for?"
A shadow crossed the girl's face as she struggled for a response, but Eren quickly cut in, "She's gonna be one of our pals for a long time. I thought we oughta show her around, so we took a walk through town, and now we're here grabbing some firewood for Mom."
Armin's curiosity tugged at him to press on and ask for her story, but a warning look from Eren veered him in another direction. "That's great! Did you see the pond yet? Sometimes we can see ducks floating on it, and this is the time of year when they've got their babies in tow."
Something critical happened between those two, Armin decided as he trailed behind Eren and Mikasa. The way his eyes, typically steely and determined, softened when he spoke to her. The way her shy demeanor melted when a small smile escaped her lips at one of his comments. But their gentle, careful exchange was overcast by a dark, thick cloud that lent no window for Armin to peer into. There was something frightening, something malevolent even, churning within the secret that hung over the two, but he chose to shrug away these apprehensions for now.
They sat by the glittering lake, watching its surface reflect the molten colors of the sunset, rippled by the bobbing ducks. As they joked and laughed and teased, Armin could sense Mikasa's reserved demeanor warming up. He watched her rigid, disciplined, scarred expression grant her the liberty of an occasional grin. He beamed when she offered a soft-spoken yet amusing comment from time to time.
"Hey, hey, Armin. Tell us about the salty bathtubs in your book!" Eren nudged Mikasa. "So his grandpa's got this book that was supposed to be burned and tossed years ago, and it has all these neat stories about the outside world."
"Outside world?" Mikasa echoed, her brow knotting in confusion.
Armin nodded, gazing beyond the lake, towards the sky-high walls that caged the countryside. "Outside world, as in waaaay beyond the boundaries of these walls. There are so many cool places out there. Lands covered in ice, year-round. Fields called deserts that are hot as hell and don't have grass or trees. But the most amazing of them all is this… this ocean." He paused, letting that foreign word, unspoken for years until he dusted off the cover of Gramps' book, roll around his tongue. "Imagine a land covered by water, water that's filled with salt. But instead of calm waters like this lake, this ocean is rocked by violent waves. It's lined by stretches of mini-deserts they called beaches."
"That's… unreal," Mikasa replied quietly, giving him a bewildered look.
"That's what we thought at first, but I'll bet every penny in the world that it's out there." Eren smiled, skipping a stone across the lake. "And Armin and I are gonna see it for our own eyes. We're gonna get outta these stupid walls one day, right?"
"Right on," Armin responded, handing Mikasa a pebble. "You should totally join us!"
She flicked her elbow, flinging the tiny rock outwards. Four, five, six, seven times it skipped along the waterfront before plinking underneath the surface, just shy of bouncing into an unsuspecting duck.
"What the hell? You just beat my record!" Eren remarked indignantly, twisting around to search for another pebble. "But beginner's luck will only take you so far."
As he scurried along the shore for more ammo, Mikasa let slip another one of her smiles, which seemed to come more frequently now than earlier in the day. "I think I'll take you up on that offer, Armin."
For another hour, they sought to beat Mikasa's record, tossing stones one after the other into the lake. By the time the sun crested the mountaintops, a few floating feathers and frantic webbed-footprints along the bank were all that remained of the ducks, and that seven-skip record was at least trumped—only by Mikasa herself who managed to land a nine.
"Screw this, it's dinnertime," Eren huffed, scowling at the triumphant Mikasa.
Instantly, she winced at his bitter jealousy, but Armin wrapped an arm around her and laughed. "Someone's a sore loser."
Eren rolled his eyes and shot their new playmate a grin. "Don't get cocky, Mikasa. Next thing you know, you're gonna be shooting to beat eleven skips. Just watch me."
Together, they scooped the almost-forgotten firewood and ambled down the dirt path, towards the gates to Shiganshina. They waved to a supine Hannes, probably knocked out from the beer bottles sprawled around his post. Market stalls closed down after them, and the bustle of the day hushed as the sun continued its descent.
"Hey, look at that!" Armin stopped and pointed into the sky, towards the twilight stars peeking from the last rays of sunset. "Grandpa told me long ago, way before the walls went up, that people used to use the stars to navigate the world. And that one right there—" He pointed due north at one brilliant faraway light. "—is called the North Star because it'll always lead you in that direction. And there's a constellation called the Big Dipper—"
"Spouting off heretic bullshit again, eh?"
The three whipped around, only to come face-to-face with Theo and his gang of three other boys. Before Armin could react, two boys seized his arms, forcing him to his knees, while Theo and another boy confronted a bristling Eren.
"Fuck off, you guys," Eren snarled, clenching his fists. "Or else I'll beat your asses—"
Theo dealt him a swift blow to the cheek, while his companion kicked him in the kneecap. Eren yelped, landing on his back. Twigs and smaller logs clattered to the earth. "Sorry, didn't quite hear you. Jaeger, you're gonna have to speak up," the burly boy mused, delivering a stomp to Eren's unguarded flank. A screamed ripped through the atmosphere. "Ah, there we go. Heard you loud and clear."
But before Theo could reward Eren with a punch to the skull, a lightning-fast form barreled into him, sending him backwards into the ground. Armin strained against his captors, blinking to find Mikasa furiously wrestling with the thug nearly twice her size. She kicked, clawed, punched, and bit with a calculated frenzy that left the other three boys gaping in terror. Elbowing Theo in the jaw one last time, for good measure, she knocked him to the ground, lifted herself to her feet, dusted off her knees, and slowly approached the two boys who were shakily gripping Armin's arms. Her shadow grew in length with each step forward.
"Let him go," she stated flatly, glowering. A terrifying aura seemed to exude from her, and Armin could hear one of the boys gulping nervously.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?" Theo's assist barked, advancing warily.
Poor decision. A whirl of black hair. A flying fist. Ragged howls. When the dust settled, the boys had already limped off halfway down the street, dragging a half-conscious Theo behind them. "Freak!" they called. "Monster!"
Mikasa only shrugged, but her aura of terror rapidly extinguished itself once her eyes shifted to Eren. Immediately, she knelt by his side, cradling his beaten form in her arms, pleading for a response.
He coughed, his eyes snapping open at her touch. "Chill…" he murmured, wincing as he sat up. A trail of blood trickled down from his lip, which he wiped away dismissively with the back of his sleeve. "Armin, you alright?"
Armin didn't answer at first. His eyes were trained on Mikasa, still trying to register the whirl of action that unfurled itself in the last two minutes. He was awestruck by her unmatched strength, by her tactical brilliance that clicked on in the blink of an eye. She noticed his staring and gave him a knowing nod.
"All good," he replied, shooting her a nod of thanks in return.
A/N: Ugh, writing kid Armin/Eren/Mikasa is so much fun, and I'M SO GLAD TO BE BACK. Please let me know what you guys think!