A/N: It's Thursday! You're almost there, you can do it. The two groups will meet next chapter, sorry for the long wait but it will be worth it. Thank you for the comments, favourites, and follows, it means a lot. Hope you enjoy it!

Armin and Hange had gotten so into their work they had forgotten to stop for lunch. Soon enough everyone had returned and they were still hard at work mapping out the land and bouncing ideas off of each other.

"Oi four eyes," Levi shouted, dismounting his horse, "You're not working the brat too hard are you?"

"Shorty, you're back so soon!"

"Look at the sun, four-eyes, it's almost set."

"Oh! I never noticed!"

Levi sighed, "Don't tell me you didn't notice either, Arlert."

"N-no, sir. I guess we got carried away." With that realization, Hange's and Armin's stomachs let out a loud growl.

"Tch," Levi said and walked away.

"Armin! Sasha caught a deer for dinner!" Connie shouted.

"We're having meat!" Sasha shouted.

"Yes, we are. Don't eat the whole thing on us, Sasha," Jean said, remembering all of the times Sasha had eaten their portions or tried to sneak extra food. That girl is a monster when she gets hungry or is around meat, or is around food in general.

Armin chuckled, those three were always an interesting bunch, never failing to make him smile.

"Hey, Armin, I think we're done for the day."

"Okay. I'm just going to finish up this one bit, Hange. I-I mean commander."

"No need to be so formal all the time, Armin. Just don't overwork yourself," Hange smiled, they often saw a younger version of themselves in Armin and they remember how much fun they had being that person. The main difference between the two was that Armin was a bit more contained, he never had any overly loud and enthusiastic outbursts that Hange was prone to from time to time.

Sasha and Connie had gotten the deer to the table with Jean watching over them and Sasha was already drooling.

"Sasha, you know we have to skin it before we eat it," Jean said. But Sasha was in a world of her own mesmerized by the meat in front of her.

"Uh… Sasha?" Connie said, pushing her shoulder. Nothing, Sasha's drooling had only increased.

Mikasa and Eren had been walking past them towards the tents to put their gear away when Connie's shouting caught their attention.

"SASHA! Snap out of it!"

Mikasa rolled her eyes, handed Eren her gear, and walked over to Sasha. She grabbed Sasha's shoulders and made her face away from the deer. Mikasa held a cold dark glare that bore down into Sasha's soul. The glaze over Sasha's eyes disappeared and she quickly wiped the drool from her face.

"How does she do that?" Connie whispered.

"No idea, but it's hot though," Jean replied, trying to suppress the red spreading over his face.

The two girls turned back to the table and began preparing the deer meat in silence.

Eren had stored his and Mikasa's gear away and wandered towards the beach, the ocean was beautiful, he couldn't deny that. But to him, it was just another wall in his way. They had finally killed all of the titans that had kept humanity trapped within the walls but during that process they had learned many things, the big one being that they were not the last of humanity and that the rest of humanity wanted them dead. They could never truly be free until they destroyed their enemies across the sea. That would take time, he should be happy for the little bit of freedom they had earned from the titans but he couldn't bring himself to smile. Eren kept on wandering down the beach now ignoring the ocean and the rest of his surroundings just caught up in his own thoughts.

Back at the campsite, Armin was seated next to the fire finishing up something on one of the maps they had created earlier. Levi was giving Hange a rundown of what they had found in the forest and showing them a poorly drawn map of seemingly random locations. The others were all fussing over the deer with Connie and Sasha making a mess of things and Jean tried to be helpful but just ended up watching Mikasa as she did all of the work. Everyone was so caught up in their own worlds they didn't see the silhouettes of 5 dragons in the setting sky landing in the forest they had just scouted.

The dragon riders had spotted the edge of the island and wanted to land as soon as they saw it but Hiccup made them push until they were almost at the edge of it. Hiccup was the first one to spot the smoke coming from a campfire and he quickly directed the rest of the riders to land in a clearing in the middle of the forest.

"Hiccup, did you see the smoke too?" Fishlegs asked.

"Yeah, but I don't think they noticed us. We should be safe here for the night."

"B-but what if they come for us tomorrow?" Snotlout squeaked.

"Yeah they might try and eat us," Tuffnut said.

"They're not going to eat us, that's just a myth."

"But what if they get angry that we stayed on their island? Or-or what if they're dragon trappers? Or-"

"Fishlegs!" Hiccup shouted, cutting him off, "We will go introduce ourselves tomorrow. Right now we're all tired and they probably are too. Let's just have dinner and go to sleep."

Hiccup looked around at his friends and he could sum them up in three words; Tired, hungry, and scared. Even Astrid looked a bit worried. The stories that the twins told about this place were very far-fetched but in every story, there is a sliver of truth.

Everyone dispersed in silence grabbing gear from their dragons who had found their way to a pond in the middle of the clearing, it was a decent size and had fish in it. None of the Vikings recognized any of the fish but caught and ate them anyway. Rather the dragons caught the fish for them and divided the portions.

Hiccup would be lying if he said he wasn't on edge, who were these people? And why hadn't they seen a village the entire flight? Or anyone else for that matter. He was so lost in his thoughts he never noticed how rowdy Snotlout and the twins got or how Fishlegs barely ate anything or how Astrid kept on staring at him. If it wasn't for Toothless nudging him and picking at his food he wouldn't have eaten anything.

Eventually, the sun fully fell from the sky and everyone went to lie down next to their dragons to try and get some sleep.

Levi awoke in the middle of the night. He lit his oil lamp beside his cot and made his way outside. He looked up at the sky in a bit of disbelief, he had slept longer than usual. He blamed it on the deer. He wanted to make a cup of tea but didn't want to light a fire just yet so instead, he grabbed his ODM gear and began cleaning and polishing it from memory. He would never admit to anyone that he found cleaning his ODM gear, or anything for that matter, therapeutic.

Everything was peaceful, too peaceful. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and just a breeze that would come and go, not the typical bone-chilling wind that starts around this time of year. Something was wrong, he just couldn't put his finger on it. He hated this feeling. His thoughts began to swirl. Levi sighed and put down his ODM gear. I need to get off my damn ass. He managed to find the dwindling stack of firewood and get a fire started. Now with a little more light he got out his kettle and started making some tea. Little did he know that he was going to have a very long day ahead of him, they all were.

A few hours later the rest of the scouts had begun to slowly awake from their food-induced sleep and were all awake before the sun fully rose. Everyone was disappointed to go back to their military rations after the deer they devoured the night before.

"The deer last night was so much better," Sasha whined.

"I know," Connie pouted.

"It just means you have to catch another one, Sasha," Armin said.

"Before we worry about food we have to worry about finding a water supply," Hange said.

"Too bad we can't just drink from the ocean," Jean said, "So much water but we can't drink it."

Connie snorted, "And who figured that out the hard way?"

Jean glared at Connie with eyes so fierce he could have cut the deer with it.

"We found a decent-sized pond in the forest yesterday," Eren said, "We could probably drink that water."

Mikasa looked at Eren, he had changed so much in the past few months, the old Eren never would have passed up an opportunity to insult Jean.

"We also need more firewood," Levi added, sipping his tea, "That's if we want a fire tonight."

"Can we go hunting again? Fresh food was nice for a change," Jean said.

Hange already had a to-do list going in their head and didn't need unnecessary tasks added to it but they were running out of supplies and the next group of scouts weren't scheduled to be out here for another few days. How had they gone through their supplies so quickly? Oh, Sasha was with them.

"Alright," Hange said, "We'll all be heading to the forest today so we all learn the location of the pond then we will divide the rest of our tasks once we arrive."

"Is one of the tasks hunting?" Sasha asked, already beginning to drool and a glaze coming over her eyes. Jean rolled his eyes.

"It depends on your ability to follow orders, brat," Captain Levi responded.

"But Captain, you enjoyed the meat last night too!" Connie whined. Levi remained silent as he took a sip of his tea.

"So you're not denying it, Levi," Hange said with a malicious grin spreading across their face.

Levi rolled his eyes, Hange could switch from composed commander to mad scientist real quick, and it pissed him off.

"Oi four eyes, what's the plan?" He said angrily.

"Come on, Levi, tell me you enjoyed it!"

Levi sent a death glare Hanges way, a glare that could have levelled all of the walls on Paradis, a glare that would have anyone else there quaking in their boots, but Hange was somehow immune. A minute passed with him not answering, it felt like forever to everyone there, when Hange decided to drop it.

"Alright," Hange said, shifting back into their commander roll, "Let's tidy up, dawn our gear, and head to the forest. We will all head to the pond first to source fresh water then divide the rest of the jobs up once we arrive."

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement. They were mostly hoping for Sasha to go hunting for them again and hopefully cook up another great meal with whatever she caught.

Hange looked over to Armin, "Sorry, Armin, the mapping will have to wait."

"No worries, Commander."

They all cleaned up breakfast with a little more pep in their movements than the days prior, even Eren was a little happier than usual. This made Mikasa a little more relaxed, not having to worry about Eren for once. As much as everyone else wanted to deny it they were all a little more at ease today except for Levi, he was unreadable as always. But Levi still had that gut feeling that something was wrong he just wasn't sure what. He took his time putting on his ODM gear making sure to check over each part to ensure that nothing was broken. He double-checked the fire pit to make sure there were no live embers. He made sure that everything in his tent was where he left it.

"What's wrong?" Hange asked, walking up behind Levi.

"I'm not sure, but something is."

Hange looked concerned, Levi's gut feelings were never wrong but nothing was obviously wrong.

"We'll stay on guard during our mission today. We'll figure it out, don't worry."

"Yeah," Levi said, not entirely convinced by Hange's words.

"Alright, Scouts! Let's go survey the forest!"