The gondola pulls to a halt in one of the trade villages just inside Wall Rose. The refugees begin to disembark from it hesitantly, and Mikasa pulls her jacket closer around her as she waits. The chill of an early winter doesn't bode well for them. She looks over to Armin, who is currently nestled comfortably against the other side of the strange olive-skinned boy who had saved them in Shiganshina. Armin had begun to shiver violently on the way over, both of them lacking adequate cold-weather clothes, but fortunately for them the boy ran hot as a furnace and didn't seem to mind the breach of personal space.

Armin had tried to engage the boy in conversation during the journey, but any time he was prompted to speak, he would just frown with a confused look on his face. Mikasa finds him...odd.

"Mikasa." She looks over at Armin, who is gesturing at the empty gangplank. She nods and helps him stand, but before she can do anything else, the odd boy hauls Armin up into his arms again 'this time bridal style.

He grunts at her, and Mikasa wonders what exactly she's supposed to take from the sound, but before she can question him he's already making his way to shore. "Be careful with him." She warns, following closely and watching his movements cautiously. The boy just grunts again, and she scowls.

The ration line is long, and the mutterings of the guards only make the wait feel more daunting. What if there really

isn't

enough to go around? What if the guards decide to take the food for themselves? What if they don't find a place to live? She looks to Armin, and the grim expression on his face betrays the same worrisome thoughts. Knowing Armin, he's probably already puzzled out every way this could go horribly, painfully wrong.

She looks to the odd boy to see how he's fairing, and finds him absolutely fascinated by a white moth that was perched on one of the empty crates next to them.

"How can you be so relaxed about this!?" She snaps, anger spiking only to be immediately replaced by regret when the boy turns to look at her with those wide, innocent eyes. He tilts his head in confusion and frowns before glancing around questioningly, as if wondering if it was actually him she was talking to.

"I'm starting to think he really has no idea what we're saying." Armin says softly, still wrapped up in the boy's hold. Armin had tried to convince him to let him down once they were in line, even trying to physically climb out of the embrace, but the boy just looked pointedly at his bruised and bloody legs and held him tighter. Mikasa wonders how long it will take for his arms to get tired.

"You think he's simple?" It sure seemed like it at times.

"He could be." Armin frowns "Or maybe he hit his head during all of the commotion. Do you remember when old man Johnson fell out of that window?"

Mikasa nods slowly, recalling the incident. "He didn't remember his own name for a week." The whole village had come out to help him, which unfortunately only confused and agitated the man more. She wonders briefly if he made it out of Shiganshina.

"When we find a place to sit down, we should look him over just to be sure. He could be seriously injured." He looks up at the boy worriedly.

Just then the moth that had captivated the boy moments earlier takes to the air and with a chaotic fluttering of wings, finds a new resting spot right between two mesmerized blue-green eyes. A lopsided smile splits the tanned face and he looks to Mikasa like it's the most fascinating thing that has ever happened to him.

"Or...maybe he really is simple."

After they were each handed a small loaf of bread, they had hurried to the crowded square to eat their rations and wait for more instructions. They were currently standing next to a monument of someone that was probably either long dead or safe behind Sina, making conversation.

The odd boy still refused to put Armin down, and there had been a heart-stopping moment a few minutes prior when a large man had bumped into Armin's dangling legs, causing him to whimper in pain. Mikasa had been just about to tell the man off when she'd heard an honest-to-goddess

growl

come from behind her. She had turned around to see the boy's teeth bared in a snarl and his eyes flinty. Needless to say, they haven't seen the man since and there was a sizeable gap between them and the rest of the crowd.

Armin had begun patting the boy's shoulder reassuringly after the incident, and now his face was back to displaying its normal curious innocence.

"He needs a name." Armin turned to look at Mikasa, and his face was full of sympathy. "I can't keep calling him just 'he' and 'boy ' in my head." Mikasa glances over at the boy.

"He probably already has one."

Armin gives her a

look

. "That doesn't exactly help us if we don't

know

it, and I doubt he's going to tell us what it is anytime soon."

Mikasa taps the boy's shoulder to get his attention. "Hey, we're going to give you a name, is that okay?"

She gets the exact response she expected from the boy 'which is none 'and Armin sighs at her, getting the boy 's attention. He gestures at himself with his hand "Armin." He nods and repeats himself "

Ar-min."

He does the same for Mikasa and repeats the process over again until he can see understanding light up the boy's eyes. Armin nods again and gestures to the boy, who just frowns. Armin isn't daunted, though, and repeats his and Mikasa's names before gesturing to the boy again.

This time he makes a grunt of understanding. He narrows his eyes a bit in concentration before releasing a gurgling rumble.

"I...hope that means you're okay with this." Armin says, scratching the back of his head. "How about Benjamin?" He repeats the round of names, ending with that one, and the boy grimaces. "Okay, not that one. How about...Robert?" He does it again, and the boy shakes his head like a wet dog.

"Try Ken." Mikasa offers, and he does, only to receive another rejection.

"Hm." Armin frowns. "What about Eren?" He offers up the name, and this time the boy pauses. Armin repeats it, and this time the boy nods, smiling excitedly. "You like that one?" Another nod. "Alright then, nice to meet you, Eren." Armin smiles and the boy '

Eren

gurgles in delight.

They pass the time in the same light manner, and Mikasa can't help but be grateful for the distraction from their situation. Eventually a man comes out and begins assigning work to the refugees. The options aren't grand, but some come with living spaces, and most come with working rations, which were sometime up to three times as much as the living rations.

Mikasa and Eren are assigned a job tilling and tending to the crop fields in a far-off farming village. The man takes one look at Armin's bloodied legs and almost passes him by, but with enough begging, they manage to get him a job in the same village as an assistant to the village doctor. The man gives them a look of pity and tells them that he'll only get slightly more than living rations and that it doesn't come with quarter, but Mikasa insists that he can share one of their bunks if he has to.

The man nods, and marks it down in his book before pointing them in the direction of the carts that will take them where they need to go.

They have a long ride ahead of them.

The dark-haired one,

Mikasa,

collapses onto the cot the second they return from the fields. Eren- (He smiles to himself at the name. He's never had a name before. The other Hyperion-Class Titans have a designated growl that indicates his presence just as he has for them, but it's not a nice sound and it's very difficult on the human throat. He doesn't blame Armin and Mikasa for turning it down when he'd offered it.)

Eren sits next to Mikasa, letting his fingers weave into the smooth black hair atop the human's head. He'll never get used to how many sensations his human body can feel. His normal one could only feel pain, pressure, and the occasional itch, but his human body can actually

feel

the silky texture of Mikasa's hair and the rough grain of the tool he had been using earlier to break earth with.

He marvels at how sensitive certain parts are, too 'like the fleshy parts that cover his teeth and make flapping noises when he breaths large breaths through them. He didn't have those in his Titan form. He's not sure how he feels about them yet. He supposes they look a bit useful for things like speaking, but they get in his way when he eats, and he keeps biting them.

Speaking of...he reaches into the pouch the other humans had given him and pulls out a round brick of human food, handing it to Mikasa. When the human doesn't move, he grunts and pushes the food-product against the head hidden under dark hair.

At least he assumes it's food, since it looks an awful lot like what they had eaten before, despite the lack of any kind of meat smell coming from it. He wonders if humans are plant-eaters like deer despite looking so Titan-like, but he's never seen a plant that looks like the brick in his hand before.

Mikasa raises their head (His? Her? Do humans even have a concept of gender like Titans do? So many questions to ask, but no words to ask them!) and silver-blue eyes widen. The brick is no longer in his hand a second later, so he lowers it to the bed.

He wonders when Armin comes back from the daily tasks. He worries about the delicate human. It seems so fragile. He wonders if he was wrong about the human hierarchy. Maybe the bigger humans just want to protect the little ones more.

But that didn't make sense...the small one from the roaming pack was constantly in danger, and none of the big ones seemed to try and stop it from endangering itself.

Maybe he would never figure humans out. Titans were easy to figure out. They did not have such strange customs and rules. They did not stop him from scratching an itch on his back with the side of a tree and wouldn't have objected to him drinking the hot, chunky, liquid food with his hands. And they would

never

have tried to force him to wear the hateful foot coverings like the humans did. On the three-day-long wagon ride to the place they were meant to do tasks in, he had learned that humans were very different than Titans when it came to what was considered acceptable behavior. Titans do what they want, and if you didn't like it, you ate them. Or they ate you. That's just the way it is!

He sighs. He only knows a few words in human, and he's only vaguely certain of their validity. Humans tended to mash thirty sounds together in order to get a single point across, and if he could only pick out a couple of them, how was he ever supposed to find the answers to his questions?

Mikasa puts a hand on the back of his shoulder, and he instinctively tenses at how close it is to his weak-spot. Words fall from its mouth, and though he doesn't understand them, the look on the pale, round face is full of sympathy. Human facial expressions were very similar to Titan ones, which has been a saving grace in this chaotic civilization of miniature people, but this expression he recognizes from some of the humans in

that place.

Namely the ones who had helped him escape his binds and flee. He hasn't forgotten them, or the promise he made to himself when he left.

He makes a reassuring sound for Mikasa before walking over to his cot. It's much more comfortable than sleeping in a cave or on the forest floor, and he wonders what it's made of. The sun had gone down an hour ago after a full day of labor, so he expected an easy sleep.

He watched Mikasa do the same, and as he felt the sun's energy seeping from his skin, he drifted off.

Armin shuffles back to the shed that had been assigned to Mikasa and Eren for sleeping in, the palms of his hands sore from the worn crutches the doctor had lent to him. It was after dark, but the doctor had kept him late to make sure he understood everything he would need to know; pointing out a seemingly endless amount of bottles and boxes and herbs and even a scum-covered leech tank.

The weight of the bread in his front pocket reminds him of how hungry he is, but he doesn't eat it yet. He plans to try and slip some to the other two, since they had actually done a hard day's work. Plus, the doctor had let him eat an apple from the tree that grew outside the office.

He stops outside the door and knocks 'one crutch wedged in his armpit for the heartbeat his hand is occupied 'sounds can be heard inside, and a moment later, an exhausted looking Mikasa opens the door for him.

"Armin." Every syllable is full of relief 'I was worried when you didn 't come back."

Armin ducks his head sheepishly as he hobbles in, setting his crutches against one wall and sitting on the unoccupied cot. "Sorry, Mikasa. The doctor kept me late to show me the supplies. He said most days won't be this late, though." He stops and says seriously "How was your first day in the fields?"

Mikasa sighs and sits next to him, the uncomfortable cot groaning beneath her. "Tiring. My arms and legs ache and I've got blisters on my hands." She lifts them up to show him and Armin hisses.

"Ouch. Remind me to ask for something to fix those tomorrow." She nods and looks over at Eren's sleeping form. "How was he?" Armin asks, not actually sure what to expect from the strange boy.

"He was..." Mikasa frowns, and for a moment, Armin worries. "Excited and confused."

Armin chuckles. "So just like normal? Did he have any trouble?"

She shakes her head "No, once I showed him what to do, he seemed to get the hang of it." She smiles. "I think he thought it was fun."

"Lets hope that lasts." He muses, looking over at the boy in question, only to startle when he sees bright green-blue eyes staring back at him. "Hey there, Eren. Did you have a good day?" He doesn't expect an answer as the boy sits up, and he doesn't get one aside from a big simile.

Eren climbs out of his cot to wrap Armin up in a bear hug, squeezing him tightly and lifting him off the ground with its force. Armin can't help but smile at the gesture, despite the fact that his toes were dangling in the air.

The embrace lasts for a few seconds before he puts Armin back down. He pats at the human's front absently to find whatever it was that had connected hardly with his chest, only to find that the front pocket held an uneaten food-brick. He frowns and looks at Mikasa, whose mouth is pulled into an upset line.

Taking that as conformation, he offers the brick back to Armin with what he hopes is a stern look. Armin glances away and sheepishly takes the food back, hesitantly nibbling at the end. Mikasa crosses her arms.

With a frown, Eren leans down to look Armin in the eye and says the one human word he knows with absolute certainty.

"Eat."