Eren's POV

When I wake up, I feel a lot of pain in my tail and I can't think that clearly. I shake my head to clear it and look around. Hanji is sitting at a desk on the far side of the room mixing chemicals. She picks something up off the table and suddenly the pain in my tail has an explanation.

She drops an ocean blue scale into the chemical combination. I quickly look down at my tail to see just how many scales she pulled out and I find that several normal scales as well as two bioluminescent scales are missing.

All these thoughts about scales reminds me of something. I slowly rise to the top of the tank so the chains attached to my handcuffs are looser than they had been. I grab a small fish bone from the scales near the tip of my tail and I use it to quietly unlock the handcuffs.

I sink back down to the bottom of the tank, rubbing my wrists as I do so. Taking the fish bone in my fingers, I start cleaning my scales with it, scraping everything from sand to seaweed to tiny barnacles out from underneath them. The water is soon clouded with filth. It's been too long since I last cleaned my scales.

Once I'm done getting majority of the gunk out of my scales I put the fish bone back where it goes, and I make sure it's hidden well. I reach up to my head and pull out the ten longest hairs I can find. I bunch them up together and I start flossing in between my scales to get everything I missed with the bone.

When I finish with that, I look up to see what Hanji is doing. She's staring down at me with a notebook and is jotting down notes. She sees me looking at her and she asks, "How did you get out of your handcuffs?"

I ignore her and I light up my bioluminescent scales. I run my fingers over them, one at a time. I make sure that they are all shining as bright as they usually do before I let the glow die down.

I take my tail fin in my hands, still ignoring Hanji. I run my fingers over its velvety softness, gently massaging it. I flex the fin, making sure that it still works properly after all this time sitting still. It's a bit stiff when it comes to movement, but other than that, it's fine.

"Why did you let him out of his handcuffs? And why is the water filthy?" I hear Levi ask, startling me.

"I didn't. He got out of them on his own, but he didn't tell me how when I asked him. I finished the serum that I was working on and when I turned around, he was cleaning his scales. The stuff in the water is what came out from under them"

Levi clicks his tongue and says, "Get the fish new water and put him back in those handcuffs." He glares at me before turning around and leaving. I snarl at his back as he disappears through the door.

Hanji gets up from her desk and follows him, still writing in her notebook. A minute or two after they left, a mean looking girl wearing a red scarf and a kind looking boy with freckles walk into the room, carrying a large barrel between the two of them. They set the barrel down and I see that it's full of water.

"You're going to have to stay in this while we clean your tank, fish face. Now get in before I make you." Scarf girl says, her voice full of hostility.

"Mikasa, be nice. He didn't do anything to you." Freckles says to her. He turns to me and says, "I'm Marco. If you want, I can help you into the barrel. It'll be cramped, but it's the biggest one we have."

I roll my eyes and float to the surface of the tank. I gauge the distance between it and the barrel, and I take a deep breath. I leap out of the water, landing in the barrel with a splash. I wiggle around until my tail fin and my upper body are out of the water. Marco looks a little impressed, but I don't let it get to my head.

Mikasa flips a rusty looking switch and one wall of the tank opens up,dumping the dirty water into the ocean. She flips the switch again and the wall closes. She reaches up towards the top of the tank and somehow opens the glass wall like a door and the two of them get to work.

Bored, I send out random clicks and chirps towards the door, trying to see what's going on outside. It annoys Mikasa and she glares at me as she works. I can't see anything outside with my echolocation because the door is closed, so I give up and look around the room, observing it from a different angle.

On Hanji's desk, which is now within an arms length, I see a horsehair brush like the ones we use to polish our scales. I grab it and start scrubbing my tail, ignoring the two humans as I do so. Scrubbing slowly, I notice that my scales don't look as shiny as they usually do when I polish them. Maybe it's because the brush hasn't been soaking in seawater for a few years.

I hear the glass wall of the tank close again, informing me that it's clean. It's filling with water, but I don't know where the water is coming from. Marco walks over to me and starts lifting me out of the barrel. I hold my breath as he carries me to the tank and hoists me up over the side.

"Hanji is probably going to be mad when she sees that you have her brush." He informs me as he helps Mikasa carry the barrel out of the room again.

Like I care. I think as I get back to scrubbing my scales. I started cleaning them earlier, and polishing is considered part of the cleaning process. Luckily, polishing scales isn't a dirty task like cleaning them is, so the only humans that should be bugging me for the rest of today are Hanji and possibly Levi.

Just as I finish polishing my scales, I hear footsteps approaching. The door opens and in steps captain short stack. He's carrying a bucket in one hand, and it's full of different types of sea creatures. He probably wants to know what I eat, but there's no way that I'll eat anything small enough to fit in that puny bucket.

"Oi, brat. Tell me which of these you'll eat so you don't starve to death." He says, putting the fish on display one at a time. I cross my arms and shake my head. I recognize every single one of the sea creatures he has, but I never bother with eating them, though I suppose I could if I really wanted to.

What he has are herring, halibut, perch, moray eel, clams, mollusks, sea slugs, muscles, and pufferfish. Not much to choose from, and certainly not what I eat in my regular diet. Everything he has are the little guys that get eaten by what I eat. Mermaids usually eat seaweed, but sirens go for the big boys - sharks, sailfish, swordfish, larger squids, dolphins, whales, walruses, you get the picture. Most of the time tons of whales are washed up on shore at the same time is because they were trying to escape being eaten by sirens like myself.

"Then what do you eat? Seriously. This is killing me."

I can't help laughing at the pathetic look on his usually emotionless face. He sees me laughing at him noiselessly, and he glares at me, which makes me laugh even harder. I just wish that my laughter was audible. That would probably make his reaction ten times more hilarious.

Once I stop laughing, I get an idea. I point at Hanji's desk and then at my scales. Once they're pulled out, you can use them to cut almost anything. I could carve a picture of a swordfish or a whale in the bottom of my tank and maybe he would understand what I was trying to tell him.

He gets up and walks over to the desk, picking up one of the scales sitting on it. He looks at me skeptically and asks, "You want me to give this to you? What for?"

I just nod, unable to answer his other question. "Okay..." He says, looking at me like I'm crazy. He drops the scale into the tank and I immediately grab it and get to work carving a picture of a swordfish with as much detail as I can. This would be so much easier if I could talk.

Levi's POV

As soon as the scale hit the water, the merman grabbed it and started doing something to the bottom of the tank. It looked like he was carving something, but he was in my line of sight, so I couldn't see what it was. He seemed to be putting a lot of effort into it, whatever it was. When he finished a minute later, he pushed away from it and looked at me with those ocean colored eyes of his.

I look down at the bottom of the tank and I see a very detailed picture of a swordfish. "You eat those?" I ask, doubt clear in my voice. He nods once and starts carving something else. Why doesn't he just talk like Hanji says he can? Is he mute or something? No, that's not right. I heard his voice when he tried to drown me.

He finishes his second carving and moves on to a third. I have to admit, he's pretty good at it. He adds a lot of detail in a short amount of time. The second carving is of some kind of shark. I look at it more closely, and by the time I realize that it's a tiger shark, he's moved on to yet another carving. The third one is a pilot whale. He moves away from the fourth carving. It's some sort of squid that I've never seen before.

"Look, fish boy. I don't think that we can get you any of those. Do you think that you could make due with something else until we get to the lab?" I see a hint of fear and nervousness in his eyes after I ask that question. He hesitates for a minute, and gives me a shrug. His face tells me that he honestly doesn't know.

"Well this helped a whole lot." I mutter as I put the different sea creatures I brought in earlier back into the bucket. I turn to leave, but I see a flash of bright blue light before I get to the door. I look over my shoulder to see that the brat has a scared and almost desperate look on his face, like he doesn't want to be left alone. It's like he knows that as soon as I leave, Hanji is going to come back in and experiment on him.

"What, brat?" I ask, putting my emotionless face on.

I see him mouth what appears to be the words, "Don't go."

"Do you want me to stay here or something, fish face?" I ask, almost feeling sorry for him. He nods a couple times. "Is it because you don't want Hanji to pull out more of your scales?" He grimaces, but nods. I put the smelly bucket on Hanji's desk and I sit down.

I hear strange clicking or chirping sounds that seem to be coming from the brat. "Is that noise you?" I ask, wanting to know the source of the sound. He hesitates for a second before nodding. "It sounds like a dolphin using its echolocation." I note aloud.

He blinks, a surprised look appearing on his face. He nods several times, giving me a look that says that I'm right on the money. I decide to make a wild guess and ask, "Is that how you talk to others of your kind?" He nods even harder, almost making me worry that his head will fall off.

I take a second to absorb this. I hesitate for a second before saying, "You... can't talk, can you."