The Time You Were Gone | Eremin Story

A fallen soldier

~chapter 16 of part 2~

Summary
The group encounters a small animal and the siblings decide to take care of it

"What is it, what are you looking at?" Armin impatiently approached them to peek. All of his friends had turned their faces towards them now, moving slightly away so they could also see.

On the ground there was indeed something small. For the first few seconds, it seemed like a small pebble, before Armin realized it actually moved, it was alive. Taking a better look, he also noticed the peak and the wings.

"We found it lying here, maybe it fell down its nest." The girl with the ponytail clarified and the blonde looked up to look at the three above them. Then back at the bird, he noticed it was still really small.

"It's still a baby!" He discovered, completely immersed in the little creature below. It lied down on its side, looking back at them with its black eyes.

It had a lightly brown color, with a little bit of black in the front. Looking at him like this, he realized it wasn't natural for birds to just lay on the ground.

It seemed like somebody had read his thoughts. "It seems like its wing is damaged.." Mikasa knit her eyebrows together, showing concern. Maybe it was trying to fly, but failed and fell bad. Now it couldn't fly back up.

"How long have you stood here?" Armin turned around to whoever he was the closest to, and it turned out to be Connie. He shrugged.

"Not too much, Mikasa and Jean called us after.. Doing whatever they were doing here." Armin quickly shot both of their friends a look, but then turned his attention back to the boy. "But I'm confused," he now spoke to everybody. "Can't we just pick it up and put it back on the tree?"

"What?" Jean frowned after hearing his friend talking. "How stupid are you? If we do this, we will leave our scent on it and the mother would disown it!"

"Ah, what a trust me bro source did you find this information from?" Connie rolled his eyes and stared at him sceptically. Jean didn't resist to talk back immediately.

"And besides that," Armin interrupted, completely uninterested in their small squabble. "We can't just leave it like this. It wouldn't survive."

Of course, things like this were happening daily. It wouldn't have taken more than a day for a stray cat or another animal to find it, playing with it its cruel games before putting it out of its misery. It was just the nature. Annie didn't say anything about that.

It really reminded her of herself. This way it made the unfortunate creature a little more important. After staring at it for awhile and noticing how the silence had fallen upon them, she gazed at the blonde boy who was standing right in front of her at the moment. Hе was looking down, his legs brought up close to his chest, thinking hard just like he would do. She didn't expect anything less from her champion.

"Hey, Mikasa?" He at last asked, surprising a little the tall girl. "Would you like to keep it?"

She blinked twice, waiting a little for him to clarify before answering. "Why me?"

The boy shrugged tensely. "I just got the impression you would. I'm just asking if you want to, you don't have to if that's not the case." Her eyes moved back on the animal, thinking. "I just, I don't think we should leave it, it would be cruel."

"We could take it to a veterinarian and take care of it until it recovers." Sasha suggested, and this time everyone agreed on it. Almost.

Mikasa at last nodded, making a slight smile. "I think.. I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to take care of it until that happens." Eren looked at her, not even slightly surprised. Since he was half his height now, he had noticed how much she liked looking at birds, insects and everything that could move. Once she admitted she had found a little stray cat in a box in front of a building while coming back to school, one she really wanted to take home, but didn't because she feared they wouldn't approve it. She had a point then, but now..