On that woman he took pity

She ran back to the city

Crying glory hallelujah

And did his wonders tell

Mikasa likes church.

It's the one time in her life that her fingers aren't busy. Every other moment is a whirlwind of spun things; things crocheted or baked, things dusted, things bloodied. Eren tells her about his work and says that they run him ragged there. He complains a lot, too much. Mikasa herself never has a problem with anything. She wonders about that word, 'ragged'. It's got a kind of frayed feeling to it, like a rope with rotting fibers. Is it only meant to describe working in Paradis' language or does it belong to everything? Everyone? It makes sense. She's feeling it, and she does her best not to feel anything at all. It's as comforting as it is scary that the emotions' bleeding in. Thank kami Eren hadn't come with her today.

Thank Ymir, she self-corrects. She's his wife, he says, and it would embarrass him if she didn't act the part of a proper Eldian spouse. The name feels too soft in her mind, as if it's so different in its shape that it doesn't belong at all. But then, Eren's smart, and taller than her, and anything but a stranger in this land; thus far, listening to him has been worth something. Not to mention, he's her husband. She bristles with butterflies just thinking about it.

Bristles. That's not what you should do when you think about the people you love. Love shouldn't be painful.

I can take you away from here. These people here don't know their asses from holes in the ground. Where I'm from . . . it's the greatest country on the planet. Center of the free world, babydoll. That's why we called it Paradis.

She knows something is wrong.

"Mikasa . . ." drawls Mina Wagner from her spot on the opposite side of her husband Thomas. "Pastor Nick is about to start his sermon! Eyes up, honey!"

"Sorry, Mina," she replies. Thomas snorts, muttering something rude about Hizuru in a language neither she or Mina are familiar with. He's from Marley, with a thick accent and drab facial features that single him out no matter where he goes; where he got the idea that he and Mikasa were not both part of one disliked layer of society, she could not figure. She'd stopped at being grateful she could not understand him and moved on.

Sure enough, there's Nick at his altar, with his feet just touching a sea of heads. Mikasa speaks with him often. She likes him, too. He's grim and has an intimidating face, but he doesn't care that she's not an Eldian, and there's an honesty to him that makes her feel . . . safe. He believes in what he says. There's never any reason to believe he'll do anything to its contrary.

Ymir the Founder's statue gapes over his head on its pedestal, shining with lacquer in the light. A bucket in Her hand, three arrows thrust through Her body, eyes milky and blank as She surveys the ceiling. Altogether, it's frightening. She looks more like some undead berserker spirit than the mistress of love and good fortune that Pastor Nick is already wailing over. In Hizuru, just being near something that looks so unpleasant would be a bad omen, a reason to stay away.

But she's not in Hizuru, so she listens to the sermon all the way through.

The sun rises to its peak. Noon brings streamers hanging from the building's rafters and tablecloths of a dozen colors grace the conference room. Her wares are laid out nice and pretty, set apart from one another to emphasize their individual beauty. Mikasa sits humbly, unable to stop herself from humming. It feels good. Things feel good. The empty seat next to her feels like a miracle, even if she can't really figure out why.

Pastor Nick doesn't smile when he walks up to her table. She doesn't mind. His eyes sweep over the scarves and sparkle.

"Mikasa, dear, you've outdone yourself," comes his gravelly praise. "This one, with the dragon and bramble on it. It is a treasure." He holds up the one in question, green and brown with the creature she'd brought to life. She's prouder of it than most of those on display and smiles up at him, earnestly.

"Want it?"

"It is your best one here, I couldn't–"

"Dinah could. For winter." Mikasa gestures vaguely, a flick of the hand that she's seen the citizens of Paradis do often and that seems to speak in silent ways. Nick hears its message and, corners of his mouth almost upturning, carefully slips a few bills into her open hand. "Thank you." He nods, politely, deep enough that the bald spot on the back of his head shows.

"My dear, if you were any kinder, Ymir would call you into Her paths and make you her saint. Dinah will give you her thanks, I promise. A titan's strength of spirit be upon you."

"A titan to you." She's not quite sure what titans are, or why so many Eldian religious blessings seem to include them, but it's a hard enough word to make up for the weak-feeling Ymir.

"Did you enjoy our sermon this week?"

"Always. You talk well. Peaceful, after." A tap on her temple. "Ymir blesses."

"That she does, child. That she does. Our Founder lays the groundwork for all things, good and bad. Peace is her favorite structure to begin, but it's up to us to complete it, in all its glory."

"Peace is hard." Nick eyes something on her face, right underneath her eye, with a dark look. She knows what it is he's looking for, those Military Police had gone and spoken to him, after all. But thankfully, mercifully, he says nothing.

"We're not meant to build it alone. It's always difficult to create without tools. Without hammers or paint brushes or typewriters. We need extensions of ourselves. Entities outside of us to make the big picture make sense. Without each other, without the network of people around us, each of us is just struggling around in the dark. That's why Ymir gave us the ability to love and be personable. That is our foundation. Our basest urges are those of togetherness." Nick wraps the cloth around his collar, suddenly looking much sillier with the green band of it girdling his face's tight crags. His eyes are intense, stoic, and look as though they're yelling at her, trying to make her understand something. "Be safe, child. Go forth with sure stone always underfoot." And then, his face like part of a walking mountain, he disappears into the milling churchgoers. A few more scattered groups come by; Bertolt and Annie with twins Falco and Udo, each of them offering a few bills for a scarf even if Mikasa can see the parents metaphorically twisting the children's arms to get them to comply; little Gabi and her widower father Reiner, who buys the longest scarf she has with verve, despite the fact that it refuses to cinch itself around his thick neck; and tall, snaggle-toothed Kenny Ackerman, who flashes her a harmless grin that has all the guileless humor of a Hizuri tiger. He's sticky, his fingers cloying, deathly things slick with corpse-rot. Mikasa doesn't know what he does every day, but nobody else does either, regardless of how long they've lived here. Rumor has it that Kenny's actually the original resident of the neighborhood and that he's been here since the frontier days ninety years ago, body proofed against all ailments by sheer blood alcohol content. He certainly dresses like a cowboy. His black hat leers right along with his face as he accepts his scarf with something that looks like grace but definitely isn't.

"Hi, , right?"

She looks up into bright blue eyes, layers of azure and navy striated within the round of his iris. Armin Arlert's face looks like it's doing its best to appear impassive, gently pleased. But if there's one thing she's learned to recognize since she came to Paradis, it's suppressed panic. It's a country of disguises, of veils. Apparently, it's unsightly to be as flagrant and exuberant as her people can be. Childish. In that vein, everyone has on some kind of mask. Armin Arlert's is less than effective. "Mikasa, yes. Armin." For effect, she flicks her hand his way. That silent language starts to chatter again; recognition amid all that blue.

"That's me. I live next-door to you and your husband. All those game shows you probably hear around 6:30 every night? That's me."

"They sound nice. Eren watches lots."

"Well, color me surprised."

"He does not say?"

"No, we . . . well, we talk about you." He fishes around in his pocket, likely for a few stray bills. He finds a couple of stray bills and sets them on the table, but doesn't give them to her or make a selection from the scarves that remain. People are all around them. "Mrs. Yeager– Mikasa, listen to me. I know what Eren's been doing to you. I called the MPs. Ever since you two moved into the neighborhood I know what's been going on. I'm sure he's been telling you all sorts of things, all kinds of excuses, but . . . a man shouldn't do those things to a woman. You know that, don't you?"

She does, even as the fact that someone acknowledged it makes her bristle. Bristle. There she goes again. She's proving his point without even meaning to.

"I know you don't have any reason to trust me, or any of us Eldians. I know it sounds crazy, too crazy, if I could take you back home, I would. But I can't . . . I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to help you." He puts his hand on hers, eyes darting frantically everywhere but her face. Something in her tells her that a man shouldn't do these things, either, much less to someone else's wife, but she doesn't pull away. A stronger part of Mikasa is saying that this is a man in pain and in need of help. Armin won't make his hurt hers, not like Eren. She just knows it, as plain as the color of his eyes. He doesn't have it in him.

"Armin–"

"Run away with me. I can have my car packed up by tomorrow morning. I'll take you as far as you want, wherever you want to go. We don't have to stay together. I just want you to be safe. We can get you a motel room and a job in one of the smaller towns up north and maybe things'll be peachy-keen. I'll stay with you if you want, we can– we can pretend we're married, or something like that, we can get new names, we–" Mikasa turns her hand so their palms face one another, and despite having no earthly reason to concern herself with this odd man, she bothers forward. A squeeze.

"Armin. Why so scared? Why so–" and she strains her cobbled-together Eldian lexicon, quietly proud– "why so urgent?" It's a pitiful look that settles on his face. A hopeless grimace without a scrap of Paradis disguise to be found. Mikasa's seen it in the mirror too often for it to be mistaken for anything else.

"It's my draft card. They pulled it."