A Land of Nothing (Shingeki No Kyojin Fanfic as of ch 136)

Summer Discoveries

Before Levi knew it, Rin was in the garden with them as they pulled weeds and harvested vegetables in the middle of hot summer. Her mother had her wearing the biggest sun-hat to keep her shaded. She was walking well and knew to stay on the paths between the rows.

The kid was a real little bug expert. The moment you turned your back she found every kind of creepy-crawly you could imagine, from beetles to caterpillars, to ugly spiders. The stink bug was the worst. By the time Levi made her drop it she'd already pissed it off enough to let off a little cloud of bug fart.

"Tch, gross," he grimaced. "You see what you did? You made the bug fart. Your hands are going to smell like rancid almond extract for hours now...and mine too," he muttered, glancing down at them.

She was giggling with delight at the word, one of several she seemed to recognise. Another one was "shit", but they weren't going to talk about that. Levi dreaded the day Rin blurted it out in front of her parents. They would know exactly who to blame for that, when he often said it without even thinking.

He watched her bury her fingers in the dark rich dirt to try and mask the smell on her hands, and he tried that too, finding it worked. "Smart brat."

A minute later he returned his gaze to her to find her holding a writhing earth worm in her left hand. She was staring at it in wonder, and then made an attempt to put it in her mouth.

"No you don't!" he scooped her into his lap, the sun-hat falling off her head, and carefully removed the worm from her hand. "No, don't eat that. Trust me, they're not very good," he said quietly, tossing it back into the dirt from whence it came. She looked up at him with an annoyed frown. "What? You only eat those when you're starving."

Something occurred to him then. "Rin...Are you left-handed?" He held his hands in front of her to see which one she would reach for. Oddly enough she reached for his right hand, but she grabbed onto his ring finger with her left. "Huh...I wonder if I'll be the one teaching you how to write your letters and numbers. It might be less confusing to see someone else writing with that hand," he figured, hugging her just so she couldn't escape and find another critter to eat. At this rate he would never get anything done. Levi understood how Mikasa felt.

She seemed pretty content to stay in his arms, and a moment later he peered down to find her fast asleep with her ear to his chest. Are you really napping in the middle of the day? How carefree children are. Now what am I supposed to do with you?

His jacket was hanging up on a garden rake close by. He got up and grabbed it, laying it out between the garden rows and placing her gently on it, the sun-hat over her so she didn't burn. She continued to sleep peacefully and he was able to continue weeding. And he found it funny that he began to notice all the various bugs for himself. It was like Rin had made him aware of them through her fascination.

"Levi? Where's Rin?" Mikasa called from the other end of the big garden. He put his finger up for quiet, and then pointed at the sleeping child and gave her a thumbs up. She's fine, please don't wake her. Children's naps seemed to be something of a blessing for those keeping watch over them. A reprieve. Mikasa put her finger to her own lips and nodded with a smile. Got it.

They managed to get the whole garden done and some vegetables picked to have with supper by the time Rin was awake again. She was the one to find the garden snake hiding in the carrot patch and grabbed it by the tail.

"Ah!" Mikasa gasped. "Rin!"

Levi was closer and despite being wary of the snake he grabbed it up by the neck so it couldn't bite and held it as it squirmed. "Okay. Now what?" he muttered.

Mikasa picked up her daughter. "I don't know. I don't suppose we should kill the poor thing. It looks like a harmless garden snake."

"Yeah, he was probably just eating bugs," Levi agreed, as the thin little body coiled around his arm in protest at being restrained like this. Rin cried out and reached her hand towards it.

"You wanna touch the snake, Rin?" Levi guessed, holding it close so she could put her hand on it, and she brushed her fingers down its mostly black scales, a look of wonder in her eyes. "Gentle. He's scared," he said softly. She seemed to listen to him. Her curiosity satisfied, she pulled her hand away, and Levi offered to take it to the far edge of the garden and set it free.

I think that was a red racer, he recalled, having seen it depicted in one of Hange's animal identification books. Not venomous, that was the important thing. "Go eat bugs for us," he said quietly as it zipped away into the grass. That was enough excitement for one day.