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Chapter Text

Eren's wide, green eyes perfectly reflected the three geese flying peacefully across the sky. He could barely hear the dog next to him bark.

On that day... humanity received a grim reminder...

The fear of living under their rule… trapped like birds in a cage...

The Colossal could not see Eren’s wide eyes in the crowd of faces directed at it. Little were the tiny humans aware of how much everything was about to change.

……………………………………………………………………

“TARGET UP AHEAD!”

Cloaks whipping behind them, the members of the Survey Corps rode through the rain and muck, into the forest where their gear could get them airborne.

“Eliminate it and secure a base!”

“Distance to target is 400 meters!”

Several soldiers let go of their horse reins and gripped the hilts of their three-dimensional maneuver gear in preparation for battle.

“Target is 15 meter class!”

“It looks more like 14.5 meters, sir!”

“Target approaching!”

“What do you mean, 14.5 meters? It’s obviously a 15!”

“It’s 14.5!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s 15!”

“The hair doesn't count!”

“Of course it does!”

“It's bald, you idiots!”

“Distance to target - 200 meters!”

“All assault teams, prepare to engage!”

“Maybe from far away it looks 15 meters but you’re obviously letting distance skew your perception of height -”

“And you obviously can’t measure a damn thing -”

“I’ve been doing this for five years, I know what I’m talking about -”

“I think it looks more like 13 meters, you guys!”

“Are you kidding, Tim!?”

“For goodness sakes, soldiers!” Commander Erwin Smith fell back to chastise his men and women.
“We are on the battlefield! Do not lose focus over trivial matters!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Apologies, sir!”

“Don’t forget where we are!”

“Yes, sir!”

“FORWARD!”

“Sir, I think we rode past it!”

“We did? Shi-”

SIE SIND DAS ESSEN UND WIR SIND DIE JAEGER

*Chorus*

Flowers trampled into the ground
Their names completely forgotten
The birds that fell to the earth
Are still yearning for the wind

Trying to repent and praying
Will not change a single thing
What will change anything
Is your will to enter battle

Eren oh my god
That's not what I meant
Won't you please
Just stop picking
Fights with street dogs

You have needed four vaccinations by now
Don't you understand it's not normal

Eren don't you dare
Climb right up that Wall
No I'm not worried that you will fall
I just don't want you
To get to that side
Don't you dare climb that Wall - JAEGER!

I am not kidding
This is strike three
If you think the Walls are this bad
You go ahead and just wait and see
How long you're grounded for

*Chorus*

……………………………………………………………………

845

Eren abruptly awoke from his nap to see his foster sister’s big, grey eyes above his.

“…Huh?”

“Are you done gathering firewood?” she said. “We should head home.”

“Mikasa? Wha… What are you doing here?”

She moved a strand of hair from her eyes to the back of her ear. “Did you have such a long dream that you forgot where you were?”

He sat up from the tree he had been leaning against and rubbed is eyes.

“And did your hair get longer, Mikasa?”

“Mom got me hair extensions.”

“Oh.”

He picked up his firewood.

“Eren, are you crying?”

“No… There’s sand in my eyes.”

“Why did you fall asleep face-down in the dirt?”

“It was soft.”

“Oh, Eren.”

……………………………………………………………………

They made their way across the peaceful, flowery field of Wall Maria, Eren slapping away the saliva-soaked tissue Mikasa kept trying to clean his dirt-smudged face with.

“Look at them, the lemmings,” said Eren, watching people crossing the gate in and out of their home district of Shiganshina. “There’s a whole world out there and they don’t care.”

“Why should they, Eren? We don’t even know what’s there.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Oi, Eren,” said a voice when they entered Shiganshina.

“Oh, hi Hannes.”

Eren scrunched his nose against the smell of alcohol on his father’s friend.

“Ugh, are you drinking? Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“Yup. Manning the gates!”

He did the salute and wobbled a bit. Behind him near the gate, Eren spotted his coworkers, other men wearing uniforms of the Garrison Guard crests upon their backs. They sat on a few wooden crates while they drank from glass bottles and laughed with flushed faces.

“Hannes! How could you be drinking on duty!”

“Eh, loosen up, Eren. It *hic* gets boring out here, you know.” He took another swig.

“You can't be drunk! What if the Titans attack? You should always be on guard!”

Hannes looked down at him and gave him a slow, uneven blink.

"What Titans?"

"THE ONES OUTSIDE THE WALLS!"

"Wha - these Walls? Is that why they're there?! Holy shit."

“For fuck’s sake - forget it.”

Eren trudged through the gate, fuming. Mikasa followed him closely.

“Hey, Eren!” called out Hannes. “Can you get me a blank medical prescription pad from your father’s office?”

“The nerve of that guy!” They now maneuvered around the throngs of people in the market square.

“Don’t let it get to you, Eren.”

“I should just – I should just dump all their alcohol in the river!”

“Just make sure you don’t slip on any rocks when you do it.”

“Stop it.”

They neared their home up a hill when the bells rang across town.

“Do you hear that, Mikasa?” said Eren, his face lighting up. “Either the king died in a fire, or the Survey Corps is back!”

He grabbed her hand and dragged her back down to the main road to get a good look at them.

“Eren, we have to go-”

“Come on!”

He climbed atop a wooden crate with her in tow. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the gate opened and the procession of the Survey Corps passed through town right in front of their eyes.

It was not a pretty sight, to say the least. The numbers of soldiers were significantly reduced, and a majority of the ones who did return sported horrifying injuries. Most of the citizens did not share Eren’s enthusiasm for the Survey Corps, muttering here and there that the branch was a waste of lives and taxpayer money.

Eren spotted Commander Erwin’s magnificent form. Erwin took a look at Eren's smiling face before turning away and grimacing, as if in shame.

“Notice me,” whispered Eren.

Beside him, Mikasa kept a closer eye on Eren than usual. During the last procession a few days ago, Eren nearly got run over by Erwin's massive horse because he just had to run into the road for an autograph.

“Do you think they'll let me join?”

“You're still too young, Eren.”

“I can act as bait!”

Mikasa scowled at him.

“MOSES!”

A frail, old woman ran into the road, shouting the name.

“Moses! Moses!” She approached one of the soldiers with a pleading look in her eyes.

“I’m sorry but I can’t find my son Moses. Do you know where he is?”

The man looked at her with hardened eyes. “This is Moses’s mother,” he said to his nearby subordinate. “Bring it to her.”

The subordinate nodded and retrieved something from a nearby cart of corpses. It was something sloppily wrapped in a bloody white cloth, which was handed to the old woman.

“What… AH!”

Onlookers gasped with her as she unwrapped the bruised and bloodied arm of her son. She got down on her knees and started to sob, her whole fragile body quivering horribly. She somehow found the strength to look up at the man again with a tear-streaked face.

“My son… Wh- where's the rest of him!?”

“Right over there, ma'am, in the medical cart,” said the man, pointing his thumb behind him.

Moses waved at his mother with his remaining arm.

“I can almost see why you like them,” said Mikasa. “They’re very dramatic.”

“And they get to go outside,” said Eren. “Imagine having the freedom to leave the Walls.” Somewhere in an alternate universe, Eren was a fish that jumped out of its bowl and died.

“I’m sure it’s not as fun as you think it is,” said Mikasa, tugging him away so that they could go home together.

“You’ll see, Mikasa. When I’m older and I join, I’ll bring you back a – what’s it called - a seashell!”

“I’m happy as it is with all the rocks you give me, Eren.”

“Seashells, Mikasa!”

……………………………………………………………………

“Welcome home, children.”

Carla Jaeger smiled sweetly from near the stovetop at Eren and Mikasa as they entered and emptied their firewood in the storage place. Grisha was at the table organizing a few of his notebooks for his departure that afternoon.

"Eren wants to join the Survey Corps," said Mikasa.

Carla dropped the ladle on the floor. "What?"

"Dammit, Mikasa! Why'd you tell her!?"

"You will absolutely not!" His mother was livid and yanked the ladle drawer open to get another ladle. "Do you have any idea how many people die on those missions?"

“It’s an average of forty-three point eight percent,” said Eren. “With a standard deviation of two.”

“Did Armin tell you that?” muttered Mikasa.

“I made him write it on my hand, see?”

“This is what happens when you let him see the Survey Corps parade across town!” Carla snapped at Grisha.

She dearly wanted Grisha to encourage their son to be a doctor and take him to his office sometimes, but the last time he did that, Eren contracted a strange illness in which he was covered in pock marks and extremely itchy. He had been unable to sit still for their annual holiday family painting, and he’d been so desperate to relieve the itching that he rubbed himself against the literal Wall during outings and embarrassed Carla around her friends. Grisha did not want to take him anymore, nor did he want to go.

“You can't punish the boy for his curiosity, Carla.”

“The heck I can't. I’m tired of the police bringing him home after finding him stuck in places.”

“If you’re talking about the chimney incident, that wasn’t his fault.” Indeed, the neighbors had not had a grate over the opening like they were supposed to, according to the Homeowner Association’s rulebook.

“Oh, you! Stop enabling him!” She made a show of pretending to hit him with the ladle.

Grisha sighed as he put his medical bag together and stood up. “I'll talk to him when I get back from wherever it is I'm going.” He turned to address his son. “Eren, when I get back I’ll show you what’s in the basement. How does that sound?” He held up the key he kept on a string around his neck.

Eren blinked. “We have a basement?”

“Yes, Eren. Why do you think we have that door to it?”

“We have an extra room and you’ve been making me bunk with Mikasa!? She chews on me when we sleep!”

“She’s probably still teething.”

They walked with him out the door to see him off, but as soon as he left, Carla rounded on Eren.

“It’s not happening. Forget about the Survey Corps!”

“I’ll run away!”

“Where will you go? You’re stuck in these Walls!”

Agitated, he ran down the stairs and off around a corner.

Carla turned to Mikasa and put her hands on her shoulders. “Mikasa, that boy has a habit of getting in trouble. Make sure you have his back, alright?”

Mikasa nodded.

“Now Mikasa,” Carla’s hand moved over to the red scarf, “please, let me wash this thing -”

“NO!”

And she ran off too.

“It’s been a year, Mikasa!”

“NO!"

……………………………………………………………………..

“AGH!”

Armin collapsed against the wall under the punch but was promptly yanked back up by his bully.

“… If you have a problem then hit back!”

“As if I’d lower myself to your level!”

“Say what!?”

The bully lifted his fist for a second punch, his two friends egging him on.

“Hit him!”

“Do it!”

“My dad left me so I enjoy seeing other kids tormented!”

“STOP!”

“Ha! Look at Eren running over here - oh SHIT Mikasa! RUN!” They let Armin go and ran off.

Eren shot right past Armin to chase the bullies. Mikasa ran by him too to get Eren back.

“Uhh. Never mind me, I’m fine.” Armin slid back up the wall, hand over his soft, bruised cheek.

“Where’d they go?” Eren appeared from the same alleyway he had come from.

“You ran in a circle, Eren,” said Mikasa, coming up behind him.

“Yeah, I sure showed them!”

"As usual, Eren, you have a good heart but not enough dimension," said Armin affectionately.

"Who told you about my dementia?" hissed Eren.

"He said 'dimension,’ Eren,'" said Mikasa.

"Oh."
……………………………………………………………………

They went to their favorite spot (near a wharf by the lake) to wind down and throw rocks at the water while contemplating life. Mikasa often threw the rocks that Eren had given her.

“Why were they bullying you again, Armin?” she asked.

“They were mad because I correctly guessed their locker numbers.”

“What did you take?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to see if I could do it.”

“Oh, Armin.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I guess you’re not the only one punished for his curiosity,” commented Eren, throwing another rock.

“I take it your parents didn’t take well to your decision to join the Survey Corps?”

“No.”

“I figured.” Armin let his legs swing back and forth on the large stone step he sat on. “It’s funny, people don’t want to talk about the outside because they’re scared, but at the same time their ignorance could destroy them.”

“But it’s safe here,” said Mikasa. “So what does it matter?

The three of them looked over to the playground of small children playing with their parents.

"We don’t know how safe we are here." Armin glanced up at the Wall. "The fact that it's been peaceful for a hundred years does not guarantee the Walls won't break today."

"God, Armin, you say that every day."

"I'm just saying!"

It was then that they heard an ear-splitting explosion in the distance, one that caused the ground to toss everyone in the vicinity up about two feet.

"Wha… what was that?"

“I think your mom tripped, Armin.”

“Oh, haha, Eren.”

They could see people running down the street from where they sat.

“What was that?”

“An explosion?”

“Did something fall?”

“Oh my god!”

“What is that!?”

“What’s going on?” Armin ran towards the street and rounded the corner.

“Armin! Hey!” Eren and Mikasa followed and found him staring upwards when they reached him.

“What are you looking at?”

“That.”

“…Oh.”

There, on the Wall, a large hand appeared to be gripping the top edge.

“What the…”

Now they saw the huge head emerge. Strangely, it seemed to lack any skin, making its muscle and bones eerily visible. Its face reminded Eren of that one time he tried showing off in front of Mikasa by sliding down a gravel hill and he ended up scraping his whole face off. Grisha was a very accomplished doctor.

"How could it be?" said Armin, starting to tremble in fright. "That wall is 50 meters tall!" He knew because he had counted.

Its grip on the Wall tightened, sending crumbs the size of cats raining on the people below. Its head receded and for a moment the people dared to hope that it was leaving.

But, with a horrifying sound that nearly shattered the tiny humans' eardrums, the thing kicked through the gate in a swift motion of destruction. Boulders came soaring through the air and crashing into houses and people.

Those who did not stand frozen in fear started screaming and running towards the entrance of Wall Maria. From where the trio stood, they could see smiling Titans already rushing in already from their newly created doorway. Soldiers everywhere frantically fiddled with the buttons and wires of their gear, not quite sure how they worked anymore.

Eren made a mad dash through the escaping crowd in the opposite direction of the gate.

“Eren! Where are you going!?”

“I’M GONNA GO FIGHT THAT THING THAT BROKE THE WALL!”

“EREN! NO!” Mikasa shot off after him

“Eren, Mikasa!” Armin reached out a hand for them, but then thought better of it. The last time he followed them, he ended up stuck in a chimney.

……………………………………………………………………

“Mom! Mom! Get out of there!”

Eren had ran back to find his quaint little house now in crumbles. He dug his nails deep into a wooden beam far too heavy for him in his desperation to free his mother. Tears streamed down his face while his nails chipped and tore from the stress. Carla became irritated; he was always ruining his nails.

“Eren,” she breathed, “take Mikasa and run!”

“No! Hurry up and get out!”

They could hear the footsteps of one approaching. Eren looked up and saw it, a Titan with shoulder-length sandy hair and a wide, ear-to-ear grin. Although Titans were supposedly unaware of their actions, Eren could swear it was leering at him. At 15 meters, it was one of the larger ones, too. Wait, it was more like 14.75 meters.

“My legs are shattered, Eren! Can’t you at least obey my last wish!?”

“I’m not leaving you!”

“Please! Otherwise all three of us will-”

Without a moment's hesitation, Hannes showed up and snagged them both to run to safety, away from the Titans.

“Hannes! What the hell are you doing! STOP!” Eren pounded at Hannes’s back with his fists.

"Thank you," whispered Carla before holding her mouth to stop herself from shouting after him to save her, too. "Don't... Don't leave me..."

From Hannes’s arms, Eren and Mikasa watched in horror as a grinning Titan made its way to the shattered remains of the Jaeger house. It dug up Carla and picked her up as if she were a small doll.

"NOOO!" screamed Eren as he witnessed the Titan break his still-breathing mother in half. "MOOOOOM!" The Titan's fixed smile seemed to widen sadistically as it threw Carla in its mouth and crunched down on her.

She was gone.

Eren finally pulled his gaze away and sobbed.

Hannes ran to a far enough point that he could safely put the children down while he panted and composed himself.

“HANNES! YOU DIDN’T SAVE MY MOM!” Eren tried punching the adult, but he might as well have been a kitten swatting at a bear.

"Whoa, Eren, Mikasa...” Hannes looked down at them with bloodshot eyes. “I thought you were that lady's purse."

Eren sat down and cried.

“What do we do now,” said Mikasa to herself, crying too.

“Wait, Eren…” Hannes frowned. “If your mom died on screen like that, doesn’t that make you the protagonist now?"

"KILL… TITANS!"

Mikasa's crying immediately turned into a wail of despair.

Chapter Text

 Over a hundred years ago, the Titans appeared out of nowhere and nearly wiped humanity off the face the planet.

There are many theories about what they are and where they came from. Some say they came from the ground to reclaim the surface. Others say they are the undead victims of the injustices of past societies. Some religious folk believe they were created to punish humanity for its sins. Many believe they are simply demons without a purpose. A crazy man once said that Titans are statues come to life after fairy dust was sprinkled all over them. He was promptly executed.

"Hurry! Shut the gate!"

Many men and women of the Garrison Guard ran in a directionless panic. Others stood paralyzed in fear and staring at the Titans they never thought they would ever see in their lifetimes. Only but a precious few stood grounded.

"Man the cannons!" shouted their captain, guarding the gate with his life. "They're going to breach the inner Walls of Maria!"

"That's what he said!" shouted one of the soldiers as he ran past him in the chaos. The captain made a mental note to have that one executed if he somehow lived through this.

“We have to keep the gates open!” shouted another soldier of the Garrison Guard.

“Are you kidding me? You want all of Maria overrun by Titans?!”

The captain could barely focus over the sounds of human screams and the crunching of bones, penetrated only by the nearby cannons. It was not an easy decision to make.

 “We have to shut the gates!”

“People will die!”

"Many more will die if…! Wha... does anyone else hear that!?"

Loud, echoing footsteps, much heavier than those of usual Titans, resonated from the district's interior.

"What is that?"

"Is that an aberrant?!"

"It's headed here!"

"Ready the cannons!"

The aberrant turned a corner and appeared at the end of the road before them. It was bulky, and appeared to be covered in thick, bone-like armor. Unlike the other Titans around it, the aberrant stood level and focused. Facing the gate, it purposefully poised its body for a sprint.

The captain’s eyes widened in horror as they stared straight into the Titan’s blank, white eyes.

“Wha-”

It took off.

“F-FIRE!”

The soldiers that hadn’t run for the gate fired the cannons with shaking hands, hoping to stop the behemoth before it could reach Maria. But the creature plowed forward, and the cannonballs that managed to hit it just dissolved off it as though they were loosely packed dirt.

"IT WON'T STOP!"

“IT’S GONNA CRASH INTO US!”

"SHUT THE GATE! HURRY!"

Shutting it, however, would not have made the slightest difference; the Titan ran through it, blasting house-sized boulders everywhere and making a Looney Tunes-style, Titan-shaped hole in the Wall behind it.

Skidding to a halt, it opened its armored mouth and let out a thick cloud of hot steam.

It then straightened up and stood there, surprised it had made it this far and not quite sure what to do with itself now.

“Oh god what’s happening?!”

"It’s over, we’re all gonna die!”

A very lucky handful of people watched the breach of Wall Maria in horror as their crowded boat crossed the canal towards the safety of Wall Rose.  The surrounding villages and farms had but a few precious seconds of peace left after a century of prosperity. 

“I… I can never go back to that house… to my mother… It’s all gone…”

“I’m so sorry, Eren.”

The trio watched the Titans slowly filing through the broken gate, the quiet creak of the boat and the gentle lapping of water against it taunting them with a false sense of normalcy.

Eren’s expression turned vicious. “I’ll kill them,” he hissed, clenching his splintered, bleeding fists. “I’ll kill all the Titans! Every last one of them!”

“What are we going to do now?” asked a tearful Armin.

“We stick together,” said Mikasa’s voice through her scarf. “No matter what.”

Perhaps it was due to her dwindling family, or simply her penchant for the safety of being slightly bound in something, but she had somehow apprehended some rope with which she tied the three of them together.

“Where did you get the rope?” asked Eren.

“I stole it from the anchor.”

“Huh. So that’s why the boat took off before they were done filling it.”

Armin fidgeted. "I have to go to the bathroom," he said.

"We go together."

“Huh?”

Eren awoke to the sounds of bells.

“Eren.”

“Wha- jeez, Mikasa, do you have to hover over me every time I’m asleep?”

“I wanted to make sure you were still breathing.”

He brushed her away and sat up. Sure enough, the Titan attack was not a nightmare; he was on the hard, dirt floor of a large barn, which had been hastily emptied out to use as an impromptu space for the new refugees. Eren’s soft bed and warm room were gone forever.

“You were talking in your sleep,” said Mikasa.

“Yeah…” He rubbed his head. “I feel like I met with Father… it felt so real… and he… he was saying something very important… like incredibly, incredibly important.” He frowned. “Like it was a-matter-of-life-and-death important.”

“He should have known better than to trust you to remember anything in your dream.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“Let’s go, Eren. They’re handing out our rations.”

He stood up, and noticed a key tugging at his neck from a string. “Wow, that dream was really real.”

“Huh?”

“Did I always have this key, Mikasa?”

“No… You usually leave keys in the door. That’s how Armin was kidnapped by traffickers that one time.”

“Oh yeah, and then we had to trade our dog to get him back.”

“I miss Snuffles sometimes.”

“Me too.”

They arrived at a small, open area near the barn that housed the other refugees. Eren could not help but notice how frightened and downtrodden everyone appeared, lining up to receive meager sustenance.  Only yesterday they had homes, jobs, livelihoods…

“Our struggle to survive isn’t over just yet,” observed Mikasa.

Eren also noticed some well-dressed people leaving the front of the lines with baskets full of bread. He would later learn that these were people from Sina on a business trip to Rose, and were given bread ration priority because they enjoyed feeding ducks in the park during their downtime.

“Eren! Mikasa!”

“Armin?”

He ran over to them with a smile. “Look what I’ve got…”

“Rocks?”

“Bread, Eren.” He handed them each a small loaf of bread.

“Oh.”

They sat by some pillars and contemplated the new dreary life ahead of them. Eren stared down at his bread and frowned while the other two gnawed at the stale bread with their teeth.

“Hey… Armin?” whispered Eren. Armin turned to see him clenching his bread and staring at the ground. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Uh, sure. What’s up?”

“… In private?” he whispered, glancing at Mikasa’s darkly glinting eyes.

“Okay, Eren,” Armin whispered back, “but how…”

“Hey, Mikasa.” Eren pointed at a bird sitting atop a nearby lamppost. “That pigeon’s been eyeing our bread.”

“I’ll kill it.”

Mikasa dashed to the pole and hastily climbed and slipped down it repeatedly.

“Okay we have like five minutes.”

“What is it, Eren? Is everything okay?”

“Listen, Armin, I have to tell you something. But you have to keep it secret from Mikasa, okay?”

“Uh, sure... What's going on, Eren?”

“I…” he looked around to make sure no one could overhear him before looking back at Armin. “I'm scared of the Titans.”

“What?”

“I'm scared of them. I never want to see one ever again.”

“But I thought you said-”

“I know what I said, okay?”

“Eren, this whole time-? Why-”

“I didn't think they'd be that big, okay?”

“What?”

“I didn't think they'd be that big, Armin.”

“What did you think?”

“I thought, like, I thought they'd only be like two feet taller than normal people.”

 “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you think humanity built Walls that tall, Eren?”

“I thought they did that because the outside was ugly.”

“Oh my Maria, Eren…”

“I didn't know! How was I supposed to know?”

“Wasn’t it obvious? They’re called ‘Titans’!”

“I thought it was an exaggeration.”

“Well obviously not, Eren!”

“Look, just stick with me, let's all join the Military Police so that we never have to see those things again.”

“Okay, but Mika-”

“Is everything okay?” Mikasa came back, her hair slightly frizzled with a couple of down feathers clinging to it here and there.

Eren's face turned angry. “Yeah, everything's fine! Except Armin's trying to talk me out of the Survey Corps!”

“Eren, wha-”

“He's just worried about you, Eren. We both are.”

“Mikasa, he just-”

“You can't stop me! I’m going back to Maria! I'll fight them!”

Armin sighed and picked at his sad bread loaf.

“I'll win back the world, you wait and see! We'll get to see the bitch!"

“Beach, Eren.”

“Yeah! We'll do it! After I kill every last Titan!”

“You’re way over your head, Eren,” said Mikasa. “We couldn’t even escape the Titans without help, let alone kill one.”

“You saying I’m a coward!?” He stood up. “Because I’m not! I’ll fight them! I’ll go back and fight them RIGHT NOW! I’ll- MMF!” For Mikasa had shoved the whole flapping pigeon in his mouth

“Grow strong. Eat.”

 And so for the next two years, the trio waited patiently. Life was terribly harsh for them and the other Wall Maria refugees; the monarchy forced them to spend their days farming useless soil that would not yield crops. It was a fortunate failure, though, because Eren often planted seeds throughout the crops in crude shapes of male genitalia or female breasts. His reasoning behind the vandalous acts was “I hate birds.” Had those fields yielded crops, Eren and the other two would have been culled with the rest of humanity in 846.

It was a relief when they had finally come of age and signed up for the military. Armin was not of age, but Eren signed him up anyway. “You’re welcome,” he had told him.