"Has anyone seen the girls?"
Eren splashed water on his face. This morning was way mor dire than the previous one. During the night, winds howled even louder, and the air cooled down much faster this time. It was obvious to everyone that the shelters were the most urgent matter as of now.
"I think they all woke up early and went somewhere" Connie said, as he drank some more water.
"Really?" Porco asked, trying to enjoy his berries in the middle of the morning banter between the boys "I wonder what they are doing…"
"Maybe…" Reiner expressed "maybe it's that time of the month?"
The suggestion startled them. The idea of the monthly matters was well known to the boys. Even if they didn't understand what exactly those meant, many of them had families in which such things would sometimes be talked over.
"All at once?" Marcel asked doubtfully as he chewed on the flesh of his coconut "I don't think so."
"Marcel's right" Armin spoke after a moment "it would be extremely unlikely. They're probably doing something together."
"And what exactly would that be?" Jean asked as he traded places with Eren, to wash his face after his meal "hey Eren! You and Historia disappeared somewhere, yesterday. Did she tell you anything?"
"Well…" the young leader started.
"Oy, Jean" Connie said with a smirk "just look at him! He doesn't know a thing. He was probably more interested in his little rendezvous than anything that she was saying…"
"Hey!" Eren exclaimed with a frown.
"Come on, Connie" Reiner added with a grin of his own "who could blame him, really? The girl looks like a little angel…"
"Yeah, too bad I wasn't invited" Connie replied smugly.
"Don't talk about her like that!" Eren cried out, defensively.
"Oh, easy there, chief" Reiner exclaimed while raising his hands up "we're simply continuing a long and noble tradition of discussing girls when they are not around."
The young chief didn't know what exactly was so noble about this, however the rest of the guys easily jumped at the opportunity.
"Which one do you like the most?" Connie asked Reiner.
"Hahaha, Historia seems fine" the broad teen responded, looking at Eren with a grin.
"Agreed."
"Yeah, she's very pretty…"
"Stop talking about Historia!" Eren exclaimed, this time in anger.
Somehow, he sounded so commanding, that the rest of the boys simply decided not to infuriate him anymore.
"You got it" Reiner spoke dejectedly "anyway, what do you think about the rest?"
"Anyone particular in mind?"
"Mikasa seems pretty…" Jean murmured, while looking away in embarrassment.
Now, this was just too much. Eren really didn't want to hear about any of this, but stopping their charade wouldn't do much good, either. Therefore, he stood up and started walking away from the waterfall.
It was a good sign that the guys were joking around and looking for some semblance of fun, here. Hope for the future was a powerful tool of which importance he had learnt two days ago. Yet, whenever he thought about them discussing about the girls, something inside him growled deeply, as if it wanted to simply jump out and deal with their impertinence here and there.
As he walked into the grove, he heard a verbal exchange.
"…Is it okay…?"
"…It has to be big enough to cover you from head to toe…"
'What's going on?' Eren thought as he walked closer to their usual spot of gathering.
The young chief had a wild imagination at times. He often played games with himself during which he would think of a scenario that had never happened before and think about what he would do. But nothing in his imagination could prepare him for this…
In the middle of the small clearing, all of the girls were using the vines to tie a few giant pieces of thatch.
"What's going on here?!" The boy asked out loud.
The girls looked up from their work.
"Hey captain!" Ymir expressed joyously.
"Ymir…"
The freckled female grabbed a nervous-looking Historia and walked closer to him.
"Our little princess was so worried that you guys were doing all the heavy work, that she convinced us to help with making the roof for our future hut" she explained smugly.
Eren turned to look at the blonde in question. Upon being called out, she started tapping her fingers together nervously. He never expected that she would go out of her way, just to help him out.
The young chief turned to look at the rest of the girls. Working all morning took its toll on them, but nonetheless, they looked proud to be of help. He smiled at them.
"Great job!" He spoke, giving them thumb up "with your help, we'll build this hut in a day!"
"Yay!"
"We did what we had to."
"You guys worked so hard the day before…"
His eyes fell on Mikasa. The girl looked away with a frown at that. It was clear that she was upset.
'Good grief…' he thought, as he scratched his head.
Soon, the other boys walked into the grove as well. Upon seeing the effects of the girls' work, most of them felt a little ashamed that they only managed to chop down some wood, the day before.
Noticing the shift in their attitude, Eren sensed a perfect opportunity to continue on with the work.
"Come on, guys!" He exclaimed, raising the conch high in the air "let's build this shelter! We can't fall behind them!"
"Right!"
"Let's show them!"
The boys rounded up the logs. Right after that, they started working on them.
The trees they chopped down needed some refining, so they began picking out the leaves and cutting the twigs that still protruded from the tall trunks.
When they were about in the middle of doing that, another thought popped into Eren's mind. If they wanted to build a simple hut with rows of logs serving as the walls, they needed something heavy, to drive them into the ground.
Something like a hammer…
"Armin" Eren exclaimed, before handing his bayonet over to Marcel and walking over to the blonde boy.
His bespectacled friend wasn't suited for most of the physical tasks. His small frame didn't exactly equate to a lot of strength, so he wasn't of much use here anyway. What was more important, was his intelligence.
"We need to find a stone light enough for us to use, but heavy enough to help us with building the hut" the young chief commanded, looking down at Armin.
The blonde thought for a bit and looked towards some unspecified direction.
"I think I saw something like this, in the place we found the flints" he replied.
Like always, he didn't let him down.
"Let's go, then!" Eren spoke, before taking his hand.
Walking together with his old friend really brought about several good memories. During their time in Shiganshina, they would often strut around the neighbouring forest and talk about anything that they could come up with.
This time, however, the dynamic was quite different. While Eren enjoyed his newfound position, Armin didn't feel comfortable on the island at all.
"Don't you think it's great we're all working together?" He asked the blonde while they were looking for the stone.
Armin didn't respond to that. Something in his silence told Eren that he may have made omitted an important issue, like…
"Mikasa" the bespectacled boy said, "why are you doing this to her?"
The young chief turned around to look at his friend. He seemed serious about this.
"I'm not…"
"Don't try it" Armin said, raising his hand "she looks up to you. You owe her that much."
Eren sighed at his words. Why did the girls in his life have to be so difficult?
"Here it is" the blonde spoke, pointing at a stone that looked a lot like a huge hammerhead.
The two walked back to the grove in silence. Enough had been said already.
Once they arrived at the camp, the outline of the soon-to-be building had already been laid down. It was of circular shape, with one tall log in the middle, that would support the roof.
Eren actually needed to sit on Reiner's shoulders to drive it into the ground. As the day went on, more and more poles would be driven into the ground around the pillar. To make more room, they decided to lower the floor inside, by digging down around the pole, in between the walls.
As the sun lowered itself more and more towards the horizon, the bunch of connected logs, driven into the ground changed into an actual hut. Soon, the girls, propped up by the boys, would attach the roofing to the central pole and so, the inside gradually got dimmer.
"Here!" Historia, sitting on Eren's shoulders tied the last piece of thatch to the pillar.
As she smiled at him from above, the young chief felt himself swell with pride.
This was his idea from the very beginning. And here it stood, a shelter that would soon prove its worth, by protecting them from vicious weather.
The only worrying thing, was the glare that Mikasa was giving him…
Author's Note: Hey guys! Today marks an anniversary of my literary career, here. Can you really believe it's been an entire year, since I posted the first chapter of 'Attack on Dina'? From here, I want to thank you all. Thank you for sticking with me for so long and I promise I'll keep writing as long as you keep reading.
Here are some yearly stats:
Total words written: 208 891
Average number of words per chapter: 1383,4
Chapter frequency: 0,41 chapters daily
Two 90000+ words stories, a single two-shot and a single one-shot complete.
Cheers, everyone!