They were friends now, Reiner supposed. He wasn't sure what else to call it. Krista actively sought him out now, so he supposed that made them friends. She waved and smiled at him when he passed her by in camp. She asked him for help when they were cleaning their vertical maneuvering equipment. She even sat with him when Ymir had morning meal duty. It was almost more than he could take.

He could feel his preoccupation with her growing with every sweet smile she directed his way. Everytime she said his name, his heart clenched. He was supposed to be focusing on becoming a top tier soldier in the military. Yet, every smile ripped through his chest, blasting a hole in his warrior core and replacing it with honor and duty and...something else he couldn't name. At least not yet. Instead of fading away, his infatuation was growing stronger. It was cementing itself inside the cracks in his soul and worming its way into his mind. He wanted to be the soldier she thought he was. To be worthy of her. Krista was gentle and kind, and it made him want to be too, instead of the monster he knew himself to be.

She didn't tell anyone about that night. Whether out of her own embarrassment, or simply following his lead, he couldn't be sure. She didn't mention him carrying her, or her falling asleep in his arms. Part of him wanted to tell the entire camp that he'd held that angel in his arms- that she trusted him- but a larger part of him wanted to keep that memory to himself to treasure in private.

Her increased interactions with him had not gone unnoticed by the squad either. They drew side eyes and ribbing when they spoke together in public, to Reiner's bone-deep embarrassment. Zeroing in on his blood in the water, his crush was becoming a hot topic of teasing in the boys barracks. They delighted in the light mocking, and Connie had taken to fake swooning whenever he walked through a door, much to his chagrin. Reacting to it made it worse, so he tried to suffer in silence.

Ymir routinely shot daggers his way at meal time, particularly when Krista chose his company to eat with- which admittedly wasn't often. She often tried to steer Krista in another direction when she saw him coming, and more than once, she'd interrupted their conversations to drag Krista off for whatever urgent matter she had thought up in the moment. Reiner was sure she had a stockpile of them waiting in her head for moments such as those. Krista seemed oblivious to the hostility, and continued to seek him out daily.

The other soldiers weren't the only ones who had noted the difference either. His fellow warriors were beginning to take note of their closeness as well. Bertolt watched them interact closely, and while he didn't attempt to stop him, Reiner could see his eyes tighten every time he indulged in her. Annie, however, was more vocal about it. Well- as vocal as Annie could be.

"Why are you even bothering making friends?" she had hissed at him during hand to hand. She had subdued him into a headlock, so she could reach to whisper in his ear. "You know that never ends well." Reiner had shaken her off with a glare and a well placed heel, but the words had rattled around in his head for days. He'd even ignored Krista's wave the next day, and hadn't stopped to talk with her. The hurt look on her face had been too difficult to bear repeating the behavior.

Slowly he began to seek her out as well. He began to initiate some of the conversations. She seemed to welcome them, and her happiness at seeing him couldn't be faked- could it? She seemed to really enjoy his company. He sincerely doubted that, but she'd even said so herself. How could someone as pure as her want to speak with someone as monstrous as himself?


Winter was creeping into the camp at a relentless pace as the weeks after that fateful field test wore on. The camp had yet to experience their first true snowfall, but light flurries served as a reminder of what was coming. All the windows were iced over each morning, and fogged breath trailed after each recruit like titan smoke. The cold was adding difficulty to their daily chores, but that didn't mean the workload had lessened. There were still meals to prepare, wood to chop, equipment to maintain, and animals to care for. Krista's favorite job by far was the latter.

The training camp was in possession of two dozen horses, ten dairy cows, three pigs (one of whom had recently had an out-of-season set of piglets), and a smattering of chickens, ranging from a dozen to as little as four depending on how fast the foxes were that season. The civilian population was not wrong in saying all the best food was wasted on the military. It was an exorbitant amount of livestock for a camp that housed around a hundred people. Granted, the horses weren't for eating, but the other animals amounted to a small fortune each. And they each required their own food and care according to their species needs. It was exhausting work for most. But not Krista.

Farm blood ran deep, and she was no exception. She'd been raised tending to animals on a small farm inside Wall Sina. Animals had been her friends when the other children were cruel. They had been her escape from an indifferent mother and absent father. Creatures were kind and simple. It didn't take much to understand them, and they offered their love without conditions. Something that Krista had had precious little of in her life.

It looked like snow on the morning she was assigned livestock duty. The grey clouds were heavy and dense in the sky overhead. Icy moisture permeated the air and whipping wind stung her cheeks pink, but Krista didn't mind. While she would have to feed them and clean out their stalls and pens like usual, the cold weather also assured she'd have to stable the animals for the night as well. All of them. It was no small task, even for one of her experience. And with Ymir assigned to bunk cleaning duty, she knew just who to ask for help.

"Reiner, hey!" she called, waving the giant down. He stopped and turned at the sound of her voice. His face didn't change, but Krista was getting pretty good at reading his stoic expressions. Whenever she called to him, his eyes crinkled at the corners and warmed, thawing his yellow eyes to molten gold. She liked to think that it was just for her.

"Morning, short stuff."

She giggled at the name, reveling in the butterflies it elicited in her stomach. He was slowly becoming accustomed to speaking to her, and the more often she sought him out, the more comfortable he was around her.

"What were you assigned this morning?"

He shrugged casually, an easy roll of one broad shoulder. "Equipment maintenance."

"Would you want to blow it off for me? I have a load of work with the animals today. Normally I'd be able to-"

"Sure," he agreed easily, cutting through her stream of explanations.

"Are you sure? You could get in trouble," she reminded him. He never seemed to mind getting in trouble for her, but that didn't mean she had to like it, even if she was explicitly asking him to do it. The corner of Reiner's mouth quirked up on one side.

"Hey Jean! Can you cover for me at equipment maintenance?" he threw over his shoulder, eyes sliding from her face to the boy walking a few meters behind them.

"Oh sure! Put it all off on me!" Jean grouched back, but nodded his head in agreement.

"Thanks! I owe you." He turned back to Krista with a smirk and raised eyebrow. If it weren't for the frigid temperature, she might have melted into the dirt. "Easy."

Krista rolled her eyes- more for his benefit than hers as she was utterly charmed- and turned on her heel towards the stables. The animals were kept several hundred meters away from the other buildings, though their fields did butt up against a few. The stables and barns themselves were kept farther away, about a kilometer and a half. It wasn't the safest choice, but whoever had built the camp was more interested in the smell than the security. Since the camp was already in the middle of nowhere, there really wasn't a risk of bandits, just other animals.

"So what am I helping you with?" Reiner asked, matching her pace casually with his hands in his pockets. Meanwhile, she was taking two steps for every one of his, trying desperately to not jog. That would be humiliating.

"I normally have a lot of work to do with them anyways, but with this weather…" She looked up at the heavy clouds, her brow creasing in worry. "We'll have to make sure we get them in for the night before it snows."

"We have to make it back before it snows too, you know," Reiner mused, observing the sky with her.

"Yes, I know. As much as I'd like to have a sleepover with them, I think we'd better not," she giggled. They talked the rest of the walk, with occasional lulls into comfortable silence. She had to skip a few times to keep up with Reiner's long strides, drawing a laugh from him each time. She didn't really mind his laughter. It wasn't mean or cutting like the others who had laughed at her in her past. His laugh sounded almost charmed, buoyant and light. Kind.

When they arrived at the stables, several of the cattle began to walk towards the part of the fence closest to her, swinging their low heads back and forth in welcome. She stopped to scratch a few large floppy ears before heading into the buildings.

"Hello, my lovelies," she cooed into the stables, and was answered with a chorus of whinneys and hoof stamps. The stables smelled of hay, and manure, and warmth, and love. She breathed in deeply, eyes closed with the nostalgia it invoked within her. The stables always centered her. It was a safe place. She was pleased she could share it with Reiner. Shyly, Krista opened her eyes and glanced over at him, only to find him staring at her intently with a strange look on his face.

"What?" she asked, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear self consciously.

"N-nothing," Reiner stammered back. He averted his eyes to glance around the stables, granting Krista a glimpse of red tipped ears.

"These are the stables," she said unnecessarily, with a sweep of her arm, and began to walk down the row of stalls, stopping to rub the nose of each horse as she passed. "This is Cinnamon, and Ginger, and Cocoa. They're sisters. This one is Stormy- he's a big boy. This is Poppy and Lily…" She continued down the line of horses, naming them off as she went until she got to the end. Reiner trailed behind her, bewildered.

"I didn't realize they all had names," he admitted and Krista scrunched her nose up in derision.

"They aren't supposed to, since we use them for dangerous military operations. But I thought they deserved names," she shrugged. It had been her tiny act of defiance in the face of the military. If animals were her friends, then they deserved to have names. Reiner grinned at that, head cocking to the side as he looked down at her.

"Makes sense to me. Now you dragged me out here for my help. What'd you need?"


Krista had not been kidding when she said livestock duty was a lot of work. It was grueling, long, and complicated. Reiner was amazed she'd been able to work the job on her own in the past, let alone preferred it. It was exhausting, but Krista was showing no signs of stopping. Miraculously, she maintained her chipper addittue the entire time. She really seemed to be in her element- happy and glowing. It was mesmerizing.

She'd put him to work immediately, mucking out the stalls that were vacated as she led the horses to the fields in an orderly line that would make school children weep. Reiner was no stranger to hard work, or livestock care, but it was a mountainous task she had set him on. Or at least he'd thought so. When she stopped him at mid afternoon for a snack break, he still had three stalls to go. Meanwhile, she had already milked the cattle, gathered the eggs, and fed the pigs.

"Still haven't finished?" she teased. Her eyes twinkled with amusement, causing his heart to sputter momentarily in his chest. Krista held up her basket for his inspection as she neared him, grinning. Inside were 5 brown speckled eggs. "Not a bad haul for the season."

Reiner, who wouldn't particularly know, nodded wisely. She giggled and placed the basket in a corner, before turning back to him and jerking her head for him to follow her. Intrigued, Reiner leaned his shovel on the wall of the stall he was still working on. When he turned back, she was disappearing around the corner at the end of the stalls.

The stables were the largest of the two barns, one long hallway with barn doors on either end and stalls along the sides. Since it was the largest, it also had the most storage in the loft as well. Most of the hay and alfalfa was stored in the second story, with a free standing ladder leading up into the small hole in the ceiling. A small hole that Reiner was now staring up at quizzically, wondering if he would fit.

"What're you waiting for?" Krista's head appeared at the hole, eyes dancing with amusement and giggled. She was fast, and light on her feet- he had to give her that. Even with all his training, he hadn't heard the ladder when she'd ascended. Her head disappeared again above him, and he scrambled up the ladder swiftly, wedging his bulky frame through the opening.

The loft was surprisingly beautiful, in a soft sort of way. The light filtering in wasn't as bright as Reiner suspected it usually was, due to the overcast day, but it still maintained its air of magic. Golden hay bales piled up to the slanted roof, surrounding the opening. Small walkways were carved between them so that one could make their way deeper to alfalfa and grains, branching out like the narrow mouths of mazes. The bales linked up like blocks, giving the impression of massive staircases winding endlessly upward.

Krista was already perched up two levels of hay, legs crossed neatly. She giggled as she watched him wiggle through the gap and waved to get his attention. On the straw next to her, she'd already laid out their snack for the day. Even if they were military, they still only got two full meals a day. The benefit of working one of the harder jobs was that you were provided with a midday snack to make it to dinner. Unfortunately, only one of them had been assigned this difficult job and had the food to show for it.

"I know you didn't get a snack for today, so I thought we could share," she explained shyly and Reiner felt his chest tighten. She was so generous. Is she this way with everyone or is it just...with me? With an apologetic smile, she held out a crusty wheat roll in one dainty hand and a small, wizened apple in the other. "Not a great choice for today, but you can have first pick?"

"I don't want to take your food, Krista," Reiner hedged, looking from the food, to her face. Even perched higher up, their faces were almost the same height. She was so small, surely she needed this more than him? He could feel him mind drag itself back to carrying her. Even in full gear, she was a feather.

"Don't be silly," she smiled widely, eyes creasing at the corners. "You're doing this job too, right?"

Without giving him a moment to consider, she tossed the roll his way. Instincts kicked in before he had time to make a decision, and his hand reached out to snatch it out of the air. With an innocent blink of her large, blue eyes, she bit into her apple, chewing loudly to prove her point. Reiner chuckled at her and sank heavily down onto the bale below her.

"You're deceptively stubborn, you know that?"

She snickered, and nodded, still crunching through her bite. Taking her cue, he bit into his own snack. They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments, munching quietly. Wind whistled through the wooden slates, bringing in wisps of cold with it. Reiner simply soaked up her presence, content just to be close to her. That's all he was supposed to do anyways. Just observe from a distance. What did it matter if that distance happened to be only a few centimeters…?

"Thank you for agreeing to help me today." Krista's voice brought him back to the present.

"I can't say no to you," Reiner teased, ignoring the way his stomach twisted uncomfortably at the thought. It was becoming more and more true.

"Still...it was really nice of you," she continued. Carefully, she stepped down from her bale to sit next to him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention. A brush of her sleeve against his forearm sent chills up his spine. Every inch of his skin was intimately aware of her proximity.

"You're a nice person, Reiner."

"No, I'm not."

The words were out before he could call them back. The urge to physically reach out his hands and stuff the words back down his throat was overwhelming. Krista, who didn't seem to notice his inner turmoil, giggled.

"Of course you are. You always help me out when I need it. And there was that time during the field run…" She trailed off and he risked a glance in her direction. He could see her cheeks darken as she gazed down at the apple core in her hands. "Not everyone would stop and help someone so weak."

There it was. Finally. Weeks after the fact. Without ever having spoken of it aloud, she'd just brought it up like it was nothing. Although, they'd been in the company of others since that day. They hadn't been alone like this since then. The loft suddenly felt stifling hot, despite the cold creeping in. Reiner had to remind himself to breathe.

"You aren't weak," he whispered. His gamble paid off as she looked up at him, large, watery blue eyes meeting his. She smiled up at him sadly, as a shadow fell across her face.

"Sure I am," she sniffed, and he watched with rapt attention as she gracefully swiped away two tears dangling from the edges of her blonde lashes before they fell. "You had to carry me all the way back. If that isn't weak, I don't know what is." She laughed then, a short, breathless thing that caught in her throat. Reiner hesitated, before plowing forward against his better judgement.

"It wasn't your fault. You'd hurt your ankle after all. How else would you have made it back?"

"Then I'm glad you were there." A small, cold, soft hand slipped into his rough one- a reward for his gamble. Her fingers wound around his own as they dug matching finger-shaped gouges in his heart. His mind shattered into pieces around him, his mask solidifying into something real. He could be a soldier. He could be that for her. As quickly as she had entwined her hand in his, she was pulling away, leaving him with nothing but a small squeeze of his hand that he felt echo deep in his chest.

"We should get back to work," she said softly, and hopped up, dusting herself off casually, as though she hadn't just left him behind in tattered pieces. He hoped his helplessness wasn't visible on his face as he watched after her lithe form. He was directionless now, blowing in the wind- she, his anchor.

He followed her numbly down the ladder, as though in a daze. At the bottom, she stood in place, staring out the end of the stables with muted horror on her face. Panic surged in him as he followed her gaze towards the door.

Outside, snow had begun to fall.


Duh Duh DUUUUUUUUHHHH! And the plot (snow?) thickens! Tell me what you think!