This time they all went together to the recruitment tents.

Armin did the speaking for them, much to Eren's relief.

Mikasa and Eren in turn did their best to appear strong and useful with tall confident postures and bare, muscular arms. The recruiting officer didn't even look at them, instead just asking their ages and for 'any previous employment' in a lifeless tone, before stamping three brown pieces of paper and shooing them away.

"Take these through to medical over there, next!"

Eren looked at his two friends in confusion.

"Medi-cal?"

"Oh, they'll just check us over. They need to make sure we're well enough to fight, checking our temperatures and reactions and so-"

"Eren, what's wrong?" Mikasa interrupted, staring intently at Eren as he stopped walking, foot frozen in the air. Eren shook his head with a weak smile and made to move to the tent but was stopped by Armin's arm on his.

"Don't worry, you're as fit as a fid- uh I mean- you're very healthy Eren. You'll get in," Eren nodded and smiled, ever so slightly more convincingly this time.

The nurse tutted pityingly when the three new, barely-legal recruits came through the tent flap, before taking Mikasa to a separate tent as the boys stripped their shirts and waited for the doctor.

"Eren Yahger?" Asked a doctor from behind a flimsy scene. Eren felt his face blanch but went anyway, not bothering to correct the Doctor's pronunciation.

He stopped short as he walked in, staring at the raised leather bed before him, his soft breaths straining at his chest.

"I-it'll be okay see-y-you'll be just f- oh go-"

There was a rustling noise as the doctor rummaged through his cupboards and Eren found himself again, standing in a worn out tent, blinking rapidly at the man with a tired gentle look on his face who had just turned around to inspect him.

The Doctor's eyebrows rose slightly when he saw Eren, eyes trailing down from his face to his stomach to his arms and legs then back to his stomach again.

"How old are you?" The doctor asked as he motioned to Eren to sit down.

Eren honestly didn't know, he'd never thought to count all the years, but he knew what age he had to be.

"Thir-teen," he said as he haltingly made to perch on the very edge of the leather bench.

The Doctor looked at him in surprise then hesitantly nodded his head.

"Are you sure?...Hmm... well you must be a really early developer then... Farm work it says on your form, that probably helped develop your uh muscular structure. I take it you have been exercising in addition to that," he said, waving his hand in the general area of Eren's body.

Eren nodded, eyes still nervously flickering over his surroundings.

"Any previous illnesses?" Asked the doctor, holding his fingers to Eren's wrist with a faint frown.

Eren kept his answers simple as the elderly doctor moved around him full of questions, looking at his ears, eyes and posture.

"Good reactions," he stated as he put away that funny little hammer that made his knee go all strange. Eren didn't know knees did that. "I'll just take your temperature and we'll be done," he said as he put a long glass tube in Eren's mouth.

Temperature... That's how warm I am... Eren felt a cold drip of sweat steam off the back of his neck at the thought.

"Doctor? Can I have a word?" Came a soft voice from behind the divider.

Eren quickly pulled the glass from his mouth the instant the man turned his back on him, far too relieved by the good fortune to pay attention to the familiar voice on the other side.

The strange silver line in the glass seemed to be slowly sinking as it cooled in the air. When the doctor finally made to return from the voice, Eren quickly popped the thing back in, holding it gently with his teeth in the space between his tongue and the roof of his mouth.

"Hmm, slightly warm," said the Doctor, examining it, "but other than that you seem to be quite healthy,"The Doctor smiled sadly at Eren as he stamped down a black tick on the form.

"Make sure you stay that way,"

Rolling, rock-filled grassland strolled past the window as Mikasa gazed out of the caravan. Out the corner of her vision she saw Armin once again being jostled around by the unseen loose stones they rode over.

She ignored this, along with the teasing smirk Eren threw him, instead electing to stare at the heavily perfumed golden fields of rapeseed they were now slowly passing by.

She hoped there would be more of those plants near their training grounds. It looked as if it could be good for their perfume if the irritated wiggle of Eren's nose was anything to go by.

They really needed to make much more of the stuff the way Eren had been using it; he seemed to really like the smell for some bizarre reason.

Mikasa turned her attention to Eren now as he deviated between staring excitedly out of the window and staring shyly at the people within. It was quite cute really how nervous he could get sometimes. Especially about things that really didn't matter.

Right now he seemed to be focusing on the blond haired woman they had picked up not long ago, breathing heavily through his nose and giving her a perplexed look. Occasionally he also turned his head to surreptitiously look at another woman with freckles and an unkind expression in her eyes, breathing deeply yet again.

Was he sniffing people again? Damn she thought he had stopped that after their little talk about personal boundaries and appropriate public behaviour.

The blond woman either didn't notice or didn't care about his strange behaviour, consistently glowering down at her hands with deep serious eyes.

The freckled one just glared steadily back at Eren until he got the message and admitted defeat in their little staring contest.

After Eren gave up on his baffled curiosity, he turned to examine the rest of the passengers once more. Mikasa held much less interest in these people than Eren seemed to.

There seemed to be a small skinhead boy who confidently introduced himself as... Connie?- She couldn't remember his second name, it was something to do with one of the seasons- who chatted next to a freckled faced man called Marco.

Eren seemed to be most interested in him now that he had given up on the angry looking blond. The smaller and more smiling blond girl who was talking with Armin (Missy? Krissy? Something like that anyway) had managed to hold Eren's attention for a grand total of five seconds before he seemed to tune her out and directed his attention elsewhere.

Mikasa found that slightly odd as usually Eren delighted in seeing her and Armin smile, trying his best to prize one from their lips given any opportunity. She would have thought he'd really like girls like her...

Mikasa put away that thought and tried to concentrate again on their soon to be fellow cadet's conversations.

"-ning the military? That's what most of us are probably trying, damn shame they only let the top ten in," Connie spoke with a nonchalant sigh "You better get practicing if you want in there Marco," Marco grinned and nodded.

"It would be amazing to be able to protect the king," he smiled dreamfully.

"Huh, I'll bet. Also the fact that there are no nasty Titans to fight there has no effect on your decision what-so-ever," snarked that girl with freckles and thin black hair.

"In royal military you do not fight Titans?" Came Eren's voice suddenly, surprising the others who had not heard a word out of him since his name.

"Yeah, the royal lot stay inside the inner walls and have the cushy jobs, but you have to be in like the top ten of the class to get in there," said Connie with a grin, turning to face Eren. Eren nodded, seemingly in deep thought.

"So you want to join the Military too Eren?" Asked Marco politely. Eren looked up at this with a look of faint surprise on his face.

"No. I want join Survey."

There was a beat of silence.

"You simple or something?" Asked the unkind, freckled girl incredulously. "Who in their right minds wants to join the Survey corpses?"

"Me," said Mikasa, turning to look her dead in the eye.

"Me too," said Armin, breaking away from the smiling blond girl to nod at Eren who was giving them both a twisted half smile.

Connie stared incredulously from one to another then shook his head.

"I think they're crazy, more than simple," he stated before clearing his voice and trying to steer the conversation back to safer waters. "Any idea what the training's gonna be like?"

Mikasa turned to look back out of the window. If it was anything like Eren's training she'd be surprised.

At times like this, when he was looking around at the new sights and new people with his huge, excitable green-blue eyes, it was easy to forget what Eren really was.

When he was running in the forest it was hard to see anyone else but the young man who had dropped from the heavens in a rain of fury and compassion, pulling them from the jaws of death and calmly reassuring them without uttering a single word.

His movements were so fluid yet controlled, no gangling prepubescent stiffness like she saw in the few other teenage boys she encountered and summarily dismissed. His speed and strength were unparalleled, he moved like he was part of the wind, and in his mind he held the passion of fire, consuming all it touched.

But he could also be filled with such stupid innocent wonder, playing games like hide and seek, racing and pick-a-flower with her and Armin, making them laugh and smile in every one of his 'lessons'.

She would have feared that the world would cut down that smile if not for the memory in her mind: a blood stained little boy with sharp focused eyes and a kind smile as he stretched out his hand to her.

...Training here was going to be very different but with those two by her side she was certain it could be done.

Eren straightened his back once again, resisting the urge to shuffle his cramped feet.

Why did the military have to wear clothes like this? Really what was the point?

Luckily he had managed to get one of the larger tops but it was still far too tight on his legs and feet. How was he supposed to gain a good grip for using the gear without his feet?

Wisely, he decided not to push with these concerns however. The humans giving out the equipment and clothes looked far too busy and frustrated to answer questions.

He'd felt pretty much the same as he was jostled from table to table, being told to pick object after object and trying not to trample, or get trampled on by, the people around him.

So as a result, there Eren was, wearing more clothes than he had ever worn before, trying to stand up straight in the correct posture as sunlight hammered in on him and the man before them all paced up and down.

The man, Shadis, was interesting to say the least. Tall, weathered and flinty eyed, he struck an imposing figure to the recruits.

Eren thought he looked quite grumpy, sort of like Mikasa did when people said odd things to him or Armin. He was currently shouting things about barns and pigs at a young man, named Thomas Wagnar (if the younger man's panicked shouts could be trusted).

Perhaps he's angry because he doesn't know everyone well? He's probably being grumpy because he wants the humans to see him as the pack leader straight away, he mused to himself.

Eren didn't think that approach would have been very good when he was teaching Mikasa and Armin. Perhaps a friendlier approach would be better? But then again- he really couldn't imagine playing pick-the-flower with this man.

Another trickle of sweat gently steamed off his back but he bore through the heat, finding himself instead being distracted by a strong scent drifting up from behind him.

It was hard to distinguish over the flower perfume, but it smelt familiar. It was slightly like Annie's, who smelt strange like iron and soap and... something else.

But this one was somehow nicer... It was more... more-

The wind changed, blowing past Instructor Shadis.

Eren's nostrils flared and he had to battle with himself to keep his face from dissolving into surprise. He definitely knew that scent.He had come across this man before! But when?

It was then that Eren realised that Shadis's sunken and heavily shadowed pinprick eyes were focused on him.

"What's your name?" Shadis asked, slowly walking up to stand before him.

"Eren Jeager," he replied promptly, staring straight ahead as he belatedly remembered Armin's warning about not looking instructors in the eye.

Eren blinked in surprise as the human's forehead crashed down on his, creating an echoing clunk of skull on skull.

Eren stumbled back half a step before righting himself and simply looking back up at Shadis with blank surprise as the man stared down at him consideringly.

"It's 'Eren Jeager, Drill Sergent.' Remember that you little maggot," he stated, still looking down at him with an irritable and, ever so faintly, bemused expression.

That was when the last piece clicked and Eren knew where he had met the man before.

In his forest.

He was that pack lead- no- commander from all those years ago. The one whose confused eyes he met after he witnessed his slaughtering of the Titan mass.

His eyes widened and he quickly stammered out his correction.

Did he recognise me? Could he recognise me?

Luckily it didn't seem so as the commander moved past, eyes focused on Connie who seemed to have done his salute incorrectly.

From what Eren could recall, the man had changed a lot from the last time he saw him. Any trace of kindness had been hollowed away, replaced by deep crevices in his face, dark eyes and a harsh tone.

He wondered what the earth happened to him in that time. He knew for a fact humans shouldn't age that fast. In the end Eren, Shadis and many of the other recruits were distracted from their inner musings as a young woman with red hair started loudly munching on a potato.

After the strange potato girl was sent off to do endless repeated laps, the Drill sergeant quickly organised an athletic test for the rest of the trainees.

"Let's see how fast you little children can run from Titan jaws!" Barked Shadis, glare spurring on the nervous recruits.

Armin huffed in a deep breath as they started off their trial running, moving from one side of the field to another, under the sharp shadowed eye of Instructor Shadis.

"Keep it up children, I'm not impressed yet!"

Armin kept a quick pace at the front of the horde of panting cadets; breathing slowly, in through his nose and out of his mouth. However his even steps stuttered as a startling new thought arose.

He hadn't told Eren to rein it in.

How the hell had he forgotten to do that?!

His eyes widened as he imagined his occasionally cocky friend tearing strips of earth off the field as he ploughed up and down, confusing the hell out of everyone.

It would be even worse when they start on the gear. He didn't want to imagine all the trouble that would bring.

Armin looked around the front line of runners for Eren, thinking to angle himself to run by him and quickly whisper his warning, but he couldn't see him.

Eren was, in fact, not at the front... he was in the back... running in perfect pace with the kind blond girl from the caravan and several weedy and overweight looking people, lagging behind some of them actually...

Huh... perhaps he actually understands, Armin thought hopefully, before turning back to his own running.

He would have to talk to him sometime soon about overdoing it though.