Eren yawned after he took another swig of water. Even though that the weather was nice on the island, the night was still a bit chilly. It was all due to the soft wind that started blowing after the sunset. The hot air surrounding the island gradually cooled down and by the morning, many of the children sleeping in the grove, were shaking from the cold.

The answer to why that was the case was quite simple. They had decided to sleep under the open sky, and their sleeping arrangements weren't exactly ideal. After all, those weren't real beds with real bedclothes made of wool. The soft grass and leaves provided no insulation and the coldness got to all of them in the end.

It didn't seem like they were suffering from it too much this morning. But nonetheless, the night wasn't easy.

'What if the weather changes?' He thought to himself as he watched Connie make fun of Jean on the other side of the waterfall.

Eren was no fool. He knew that the weather changed all over the world. His father explained it to him once, when he asked a question about seasons. While they weren't the same everywhere, some changes during the year, were universal.

It was clear they were going to stay here for a long time. The silence he and Armin received while using the radio was quite mind-opening. If no one transmitted anything, that meant the outside world had much more urgent and important problems than looking for some lost teenagers on a desert island.

He started walking back towards the grove. Since him and the others were often moving about between the grove and the waterfall, he could already see a path appear on the ground. Maybe they needed to lay some real pavement here, later…

The young chief strode into the grove with confidence. Several of the teens, mostly girls were still sitting around the trees and when they noticed him walk in, they all turned towards him, in anticipation of how things would go today.

Eren stepped into the middle of the grove. Looking around, he saw that their attention was on him. However, there were still some, who weren't present, and he was sure that if they didn't start up right now, they wouldn't make it before the sunset.

'How do I go about this?' He thought to himself as others started approaching him.

"Hey Eren…" Mikasa spoke with a yawn when she walked closer.

"Eren!" Historia squealed suddenly, startling everyone around.

"Stop being loud" Annie, a blonde girl from Marcel's group groaned before approaching the trio.

"Loud…" Eren murmured slowly "that's it!"

He reached for the conch and played a low, strong note.

This sent a shiver down the girl's spines. Aside from Mikasa, who seemed nervous for some reason, none of them had heard the sound of the conch from so up close.

"You too?!" Annie asked, with annoyance.

Not caring about her opinion, he played once more. This proved to be an effective tactic. Soon, he noticed that the call made Connie and Jean come back to see what this was about and after that, the gloomy forms of the boys from Marcel's group also came to the gathering.

Eren stopped playing to see the effects of his doing. Everyone managed to get here. They could start up with everything.

"Alright!" He spoke, raising the conch up for them to see "since everybody's here already, I think we can start. Let's talk about building the shelters…"

"Now, wait a second!" Marcel interjected, without a care "yesterday, you said something about building a stake…"

Murmurs started spreading among the crowd.

"Not to mention" Armin added after a few moments "we were also discussing the idea of a raft…"

Now, this was starting to get on Eren's nerves. Why was it that when things were going great, some people had to just butt in…

"I know" Eren responded, raising the conch once again "I remember."

The act of showing off the special shell, made everyone go silent. After all, it would be against the law to speak when someone else had the conch.

"I am sure that this night was rough for all of you" he continued "since nobody's really looking for us, we have two options to choose from…"

He made a short pause after that.

"…Either we frantically try to get their attention from here…" he spoke "…or we settle here first…"

"Settle here…?"

"What do you mean…?!"

"Are you saying we should live here...?!"

Eren raised the conch up once more.

"The night was cold" the young chief explained "I'm sure all of us think the same. If we all fall ill here, we won't last until they come rescue us. Trust me, my dad is a doctor."

Affirmative nods replaced the dubious glares. Seeing that, he continued on.

"We need to build some shelters, hopefully some cottages made of wood" Eren spoke "they will protect us from the weather that is surely going to change."

"Aye!" The others cheered at this proposal.

Soon, Eren divided them into two groups. The boys that would do the heavy work with chopping down the trees and the girls that would collect the vines and various other materials to make some strings for ropes that would connect the wood.

Soon, the girls started to talk about the ideas on how to do their job.

"I worked around sheep all the time!" Historia boasted to the other girls "weaving the worsted isn't that hard…"

"Well, as you can see, there are no sheep here" Annie stated the obvious.

"Several plants have yarn" Pieck proposed "maybe we should look around…"

Ymir rolled her eyes at the discussion.

"Alright, ladies!" She exclaimed in annoyance "for now, just focus on getting the vines. Let's leave sweater knotting for later."

With the boys, however, the problem wasn't with choosing the material. The forest was wide, and trees were everywhere. A quite different question was raised.

"How will we chop the trees down with only one knife?" Marcel asked as he eyed Eren's bayonet.

The young chief smirked at that.

"What did the cavemen use?" He asked, rhetorically.

"Oh…"

And so, the boys set out to look for the stones. Eren made sure they didn't go close to the place he had hid the revolver in as he let Reiner guide them to an area in which the other boy saw many sharp rocks.

"This is flint" Armin explained as Connie raised a pretty sharp stone from the ground.

"Is it good for wood?" Jean asked, coming towards them with a similarly looking stone.

"Yes" Armin responded "you guys need to look for those. Maybe they could even serve us later, when we try to spark a fire…"

And so, the boys searched for flints. It didn't take long for them to find just about three dozen, so the next question was about the trees.

"Which ones should we chop down?" Connie asked as he approached a fairly thick tree.

"Maybe let's avoid those" Marcel said, looking towards the younger, smaller ones.

When the others nodded in affirmation, they set out for the work.

Cutting the trees down was a tiring task. Even if they only chopped the smaller ones, making a substantial dent in them still required a lot of time.

Eren took a deep breath. His hands were hurting from constantly banging the stone against the tree. When he looked at the progress he had made, he sighed.

"Hey guys!" Reiner exclaimed, gathering the attention from everyone "look at that!"

As the young chief and the others placed their primitive tools on the ground and turned to face the boy, gasps could be heard among them.

Reiner managed to chop as far as halfway into the tree and was about to down it.

"Come on, help me!" He exclaimed as he tried to kick it.

Jean and Porco walked over to him and grabbed the trunk.

CRACK!

The tree broke from the combined force and tumbled down on the ground.

"Yeah!" The boys yelled at that.

"See!" Eren spoke with newfound confidence "it can be done! But we need a lot more. If we want a shelter, we need a few dozen!"

And with that, they soon managed to cut through and down another tree, then another, then another…

Past noon, they had so many of them, they were sure that a reasonable hut could be made with those.

"My hands are killing me…" Armin wailed as he sat on one stump.

"Yeah, me too" Connie spoke, before lying on the ground "but it was worth it…"

"We all did a good job" Eren said, as he motioned for the others to come along "come on guys, let's get some water and food, we'll need to bring those logs later to the grove…"

The boys stood up at that and followed along. The shelters weren't an impossible idea anymore, now that they realized how much they could do with enough conviction.

Of course, Eren's leadership was another factor…