The first time it happened was a few months into their military training and Armin should've seen it coming from the start.
As the late August sun stood on the horizon, it still scorched the part of Armin's neck that his hair didn't cover. Training in this weather was hellish, leaving cadets soaked in sweat and drying up on the spot, powerless against the sun's relentless efforts to burn their skin red and itchy. Not long from now, hot daytime would make way for a cool dusk, and all were looking forward to escaping the insufferable heat as the nights got colder and came a little earlier with each passing day.
They were walking back to the barracks, him and Eren and Mikasa, after lingering outside in the cool shade of the mess hall when they'd finished their dinner. Eren was going on about having to push himself to do better after losing a sparring challenge against Jean during the day and Armin was only listening halfheartedly. His mind was occupied with other things.
Today was one of the rare days where he didn't stumble over his own feet from exhaustion when making his way to the barracks during the evening. Things usually didn't go so smoothly for him. He'd survived joining the Training Regiment as fresh meat, offered no mercy when it came to easing into his new life as a soldier. This meant early mornings and late nights bordered on long hours of drills, sparring, introductory 3DMG practice, and theoretical classes. He'd shown up to roll call much too often as an animate corpse, present only because Eren had dragged him out of their bunk every morning, praying that Shadis wouldn't run him into the ground for slouchy posture and pitiful performance. Two years of working in the fields had done nothing to prepare Armin's body for the hell they were put through every day, and if he didn't have the drive to prove himself and if Eren and Mikasa hadn't been there to push him in the back, he would've dropped out in the first week.
It was exactly his improving stamina which led him to start gaining an interest in exploring his surroundings. Despite this exhaustion, he'd been eager to look around the training grounds whenever he had the chance. Naturally, every building on the site had its own use, but a small storage space at the side of a building had caught his attention when he couldn't quite figure out what it was for. Maybe it was a supplementary storage room, but he had seen multiple cadets enter at once and leave again with no flak from the instructors for going somewhere they didn't belong, so a different theory formed.
A hand waved in front of Armin's face. "You doing okay, Armin? That's the third question you just answered yes to, even though I asked you for your ideas on how to better tackle jerks who don't fight fair," Eren broke up his thoughts. They were nearing the boys' barracks, headed for where Reiner, Jean, Sasha, and Connie were talking by the banister.
Armin blinked a few times at him, scrambling for his words. "Distracted. Not feeling so well?" his voice intonated, testing if the excuse would work.
"Are you getting sick?" Eren stopped in his tracks and slapped his palm on Armin's forehead, causing him to whimper and recoil. "You feel hot. You should go to bed straight-away so that you recover and you don't get behind on training tomorrow!"
"It's been a warm day, Eren, of course my forehead feels hot. I'm probably a bit sunburnt, I'll be okay," Armin placated. He pointed his thumb behind him, not bothering to swipe Eren's sweaty hand off of his face. "I'll just make a restroom stop before I go to bed. You go on ahead to the barracks without me, okay?"
Eren retracted his hand, patting it on Armin's shoulder a few times and eyeing him up and down. "You probably didn't drink enough. Did you drink enough?"
"I–"
"I can bring an extra waterskin for you if you're struggling during training," Mikasa chimed in.
Armin nodded his head, flashing a humbled, grateful smile. "Thank you, Mikasa, that might help."
"You gotta take better care of yourself, Armin. Make sure that we stay fit and competitive. See you in a bit, I'll go throw everyone who's being loud out of the barracks so that you can sleep." Eren gave a final tap to Armin's shoulder, then let go and stormed off with Mikasa right behind him.
He made use of the two having their backs turned on him to not have his deviation noticed — surely none of the people standing outside the barracks were paying enough attention to him to notice he wasn't headed for the outhouses. He disappeared between two buildings to get out of sight, then pattered on over the dirt path behind the mess hall.
The building that had caught his interest was on the other side of the training site, overshadowed by a steep hill that bordered it. The cool shade made for an ideal location to build a storage shed, so Armin's imagination likely had just gotten the better of him thinking of all that could be hidden in there. Regardless, when he finally stood a couple of hundred paces away from the building, he froze, eyeing it cautiously now that he was there with the intention of entering.
Armin suddenly wasn't so sure if this was such a good idea. He must've only looked more suspicious — so shortly before curfew, skin tinted pink by a sky painted in reds and purples and oranges, sweat dotting his skin, and hands wringing around the hem of his shirt as he instinctively searched the area for prying eyes, like he was trespassing just by being in this general area at this time of day. They'd never explained what this building was for, while other public spaces had at least been hinted at in their first week.
No need to be this nervous for something this innocent, he reminded himself. He'd signed up to the military to find his own purpose in life without backing down from any challenges, to make sense of a world that would kill his parents, and to stay with Eren and Mikasa, and now he couldn't do something as simple as entering a building because he was potentially not supposed to be in there? The secrecy towards Eren and Mikasa about going here must've contributed to his mood. He wasn't even sure why he wanted to keep it a secret, but it made him feel equal parts giddy and jumpy.
He should just go ahead and enter already. Finding himself truly alone after double-checking five times, he tiptoed his way to the door, but before he could reach it, it opened in front of him. Armin leapt a pace backwards as he readied himself to fire off a good excuse for why he was there and not in the barracks in the hopes of avoiding having to run laps until morning, but his worry was quickly eased when it was one of the cadets he'd met a few months ago – Bertholdt, Armin was sure his name was – who'd left the building. The boy must've grown since last they met, as Armin didn't remember his eye level being so low that he practically peered into his chest when they'd made their trip to that lake on their first night.
Pressed tight against Bertholdt's chest there was a book, and Armin's heart fluttered at the confirmation that his theory was correct.
Armin had spent most of his childhood hunched over the small collection spanning a couple dozen books his parents owned, exploring the vibrant world each one painted with great care and on many occasions even sharing the full extent of this open world with Eren. Some were more realistic than others, but they all described the world as it could be found both inside and outside the walls. It made Armin's mind soar for the entire first ten years of his life.
In better times, the Arlerts used to have the money to buy such books, but after Armin's parents started up their project to design and build a working hot air balloon, they lacked the funds to buy new reading material. Print wasn't exactly a new technique and mass-produced books were far more affordable than their handwritten counterparts, but most of their money went into savings for mechanical parts and supplies for their survival. It didn't really matter, because that small collection was all that Armin ever needed.
That wasn't to say that Armin's knowledge cut off where his parents could no longer afford to buy up-to-date books. Those same two people who'd shaped the fundaments of Armin's own curiosity to explore the world did everything they could to stay aware of the world around them, learning by word of mouth and the many connections they'd made with customers and acquaintances around Shiganshina. Armin had spent countless afternoons seated on his mother's lap, her arms wrapped around him in a safe hug as she told him about the world of the past and the present for hours on end and Armin hung onto her every word. His father would walk around Shiganshina when Armin was a toddler, seated in his neck so he got a better view of the city, and tell him stories of local buildings and places and people at every corner they passed, always running into new people to strike a conversation with. No one knew the city better than his parents did, and no one was more ambitious to know what lay out there, all that history they hadn't yet documented. They both made for great storytellers and Armin could only hope to honour their legacy by keeping that interest alive.
A banned book about the outside world found somewhere in his home was what truly fanned the flames of Armin's imagination. Whereas his parents fed his curiosity and taught him to question and think about everything, this one book fuelled his childhood dreams, and he could read it over and over even when his parents were busy. He enjoyed having that control over when and where he got to escape. Even years after that innocence was corrupted and he was forced to face reality, he still hoped to one day see what was written on its pages in person when he finally ventured out there himself, even if the book had been lost the day Wall Maria fell.
Now, years later at these training grounds, in front of him lay a library, and a smile quickly overtook Armin's features as the excitement of this discovery sunk in.
To think that there was a whole collection out here with more books for him to consume – more fantasies to lose himself in, more accounts of reality right at his fingertips for the full three years he would spend training at this site – made Armin's brain explode with possibilities. The collection may not exactly include illegal books about the outside world as his personal one did, but to have so much material available felt like a dream come true.
He shouldn't get ahead of himself, maybe there was barely anything there.
Bertholdt stood still in the doorway for a moment before smiling back uneasily at Armin, who only then realised what he was doing – he must've looked terrifying just standing there gaping at his chest wordlessly as his expression gradually turned into a grin – before the taller boy walked past him to return to the barracks. It made sense that Armin would run into him here. The first time they'd met, Bertholdt was quietly reading something in his bunk before Armin and Eren interrupted him and Reiner to ask for help. He must've stumbled upon this library too on his first day – fit as he was, Armin never got the impression that he and Reiner had any issues adjusting to the military lifestyle. Of course he had time to go exploring the site to retrieve some material to read in his spare time. Living and working in a mountain village must've prepared them well for these harsh conditions.
The incident was soon forgotten about as he entered the building, pulling the door closed behind him again to ensure he was undisturbed. Apparently this was a bring-your-own-light venue. In the darkness of dusk, Armin could barely make out anything save for a few details here and there, just barely illuminated by the gentle curtains of light seeping through the roof windows. Six book-lined shelves stood inside, two taller ones against the walls and four lower ones in the middle, two each back-to-back, forming three neat lanes to pass through. He couldn't spot any tables or chairs besides a small one near the entrance and an end table by the back, but behind the rows of bookcases there were some cosy nooks he could easily see himself hole up in with a blanket if he ever came over to read in his spare time.
Without a lantern, he wasn't going to be able to distinguish what he was picking up, but that didn't stop him. In a tiptoe dash across the wooden floorboards, he went to the back of the building, to the shelf the farthest away from the door and the one he expected the fewest cadets would've browsed. If a gem were hidden anywhere, it'd be where the least amount of people looked. He grabbed something off the shelf – a moderately-sized book that had to be about a hundred pages in length – but couldn't make out any of the details on the cover with his eyes not adjusted to this level of light. His curiosity was sufficiently sated and he could return another day with a lantern to browse the collection. For now, this one would do.
Walking back to the barracks, he couldn't help but flip open the book he carried to the first page. Tale of Allumia its title read, and Armin felt a tinge of disappointment that he seemed to have picked up a work of fiction rather than an account of reality. He could always come back later during daylight hours and pick something else when he was done reading this one. For now, he would read just about anything. How long was left before lights out, half an hour? That oughta be enough time to find out who or what Allumia was and what this tale entailed, right?
