Natalie gave a questioning, bordering on disgusted, look upon the table in front of her.

It was filled from one end to the other with plates piled with strange food. She was certain some of it was still raw.

Sasha, however, had no qualms with it as she eyed a large, red, bug looking animal in the middle of the table.

"Is it even edible?' Jean questioned.

"Smells pretty fishy." Mikasa muttered.

"I think the dead fish is looking at me..." Natalie whispered to herself.

Yelena held her hands behind her back as she smiled, leaning towards the group.

"Have you never had seafood before? Niccolo's a master when it comes to Marleyan cuisine." She said, gesturing to said man, who was stiring a pot of... Something from behind her.

Natalie heard Niccolo muttering something, probably some insult, and watched as he turned his head just as Sasha had picked up the red bug thing and tore it apart, revealing a sweet smelling meat inside, and then proceeded to devour it.

Tears welled up in the brunettes hazel eyes, as they began falling down her face rabidly.

"You're a genius! This is the best food I've ever eaten!" She wailed tearfully.

Niccolo's cheeks turned a soft pink. "Hey, stop eating like some kind of pig!"

Sasha continued to mutter incoherently with the food stuffed in her mouth, as Connie began to try some of it as well.

The blonde turned back to his pot in an attempt to hide his reddened face.

"There's plenty, so take your time..."

Natalie patted Sasha's back as she continued to cry over the food.

Deciding to try some for herself, she hesitantly picked up a crescent shaped thing, with what looked to be a tail on the end, and put it in her mouth and chewed.

As soon as she felt the crunch of the tail against her teeth, she spit it out onto the floor right next to Jeans feet, causing him to exclaim in disgust.

She heard a deep, amused laugh from the other side of the table and looked up, seeing Yelena smiling at her.

She picked up one of the crescent, meat thing, and tore the tail off of it, handing it to the girl across the table.

"It's shrimp, you're not supposed to eat the tail." She said with an amused grin.

Natalie's cheeks flushed pink in embarrassment, gently taking it out of Yelena's fingers.

She popped it into her mouth and chewed once more, humming in satisfaction when she didn't feel a crunch.

She grabbed an empty plate from one side of the table and piled a bunch of shrimp onto it.

"Hey!" Connie exclaimed. "Don't take it all for yourself! You're just as bad as Sasha!"

She narrowed her eyes and pulled the plate to her chest, puffing her cheeks.

"You take my food and I'll bite your finger off."

"Nat, be nice to your friends." A voice said from behind her.

Turning her head, she saw Maliath walking towards her, Adri following behind him.

She gave him the finger, not noticing how Sasha was slowly taking food from her plate.

"You're not my dad, Mal. I can threaten Connie all I want, he's trying to take my food."

Maliath rose an eyebrow. "Really? Cause it looks like he's not the one stealing your food." He said, pointing to Sasha.

With furrowed brows, she looked down at her plate to see it's contents half gone and Sasha stuffing shrimp in her mouth.

Natalie's mouth opened in shock as she gasped in betrayal.

"Sasha! How could you?!"

Said girl stopped her eating and stared at her like a deer caught in headlights.

Setting her plate down on the table, Natalie grasped the brunette by the shoulders and shook her, eyes wide with a single bead of sweat falling down the side of her face.

"How could you do this to me?! I thought we were friends! Now you're going and stealing my food! Imagine if I did that to you!"

The shaking continued as Maliath laughed, catching the gaze of Yelena.

His laughing ceased and his smile vanished as she stared him down, making him uneasy.

It was like she was analyzing him, studying him. It made him uncomfortable.

The stare down came to an end when her gaze shifted from him to Natalie, her face going from stoic to amused in a matter of seconds.

He clenched his teeth, his eyebrow twitching.

He couldn't shake the feeling of how uncomfortable she made him. How her gaze sent shivers down his spine.

What was her deal?

~~~

The sun began to set on the pier, almost all of the food was gone, but there were still some munching on the occasional piece of fish.

Natalie sat on the ground of the small deck/kitchen, her legs bent at the knees and spread, her arms resting on them.

She gazed at the sun, which she seemed to be doing alot of lately. She didn't know why, maybe it calmed her.

"So, did you enjoy the food?" A voice asked.

She felt a presence sit down next to her, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of choppy, blonde hair.

Yelena looked over at her, seated in the same position she was. She appeared to have removed the apron she was in earlier, only now wearing her button down shirt and slacks, the sleeves of her shirt rolled up to her elbows, and the top two buttons on her top undone, revealing her collar bone.

Natalie felt her face flush, which was luckily covered up by the orange sky.

She offered a smile to the tall blonde, nodding.

"I did, it was delicious. Niccolo is a fantastic cook."

Yelena smiled back, resting her chin on one of her hands, which was propped up on her knee.

"He is, but maybe you should tell him that." She said with a light chuckle.

Natalie hummed in amusement, pushing her long bangs out of her eyes.

"I have a clip on me if you want your hair out of the way." Yelena said.

The freckled girl let out a questioning sound, turning to her head before realization came to her.

"Oh, it's no big deal. I've been meaning to cut it for awhile now, anyway. I might do that soon."

The blonde nodded.

"Pardon me if this is a bit weird, but I think you'd look pretty with short hair."

That made Natalie's ears and neck heat up in a blush as she let out a nervous laugh, turning away from Yelena and messing with her hands.

"Really? I mean, I wasn't planning on going too short, but I was also thinking of doing an undercut sort of thing." She said with a nervous smile.

Yelena smiled in amusement at her embarrassment, patting her shoulder.

"Trust me. I mean, look at my hair. Absolutely no one can pull off a bowl cut."

Natalie glanced over, looking at the blondes hair.

"I think it suits you." She said with a grin.

Yelena grinned back, her eyes closed.

Natalie adjusted her sitting, gazing at the blonde once again.

"Sorry if this is rude, but it's been bugging me for awhile. Um, just how tall are you?"

Yelena looked at her in silent shock, before she regained her composure and laughed.

"No worries." She said with a small wave of her hand. "I get it alot, so I'm used to it."

"To answer your question, I'm 6'3. And, also yes, I was born a woman, so no need to ask me if I'm in any way transitioning. I identify as a woman, and was born with those parts."

Natalie's eyebrows furrowed. "Have you been mistaken for a trans man before or something?"

Yelena just shrugged. "It happens sometimes, nothing I'm too worried about, and I don't take offense to it. It just gets rather bothersome sometimes when different people ask me all the time."

The shorter girl let out a noise of acknowledgement.

"I get that. Well, not personally, but my sister is a trans woman who's been out for years, and she still gets misgendered. Yeah, she can be a bit of a bitch sometimes, but I'm not gonna let people do that."

Yelena moved her arms to rest behind her, leaning on her hands.

"You seem rather passionate about that sort of thing. Is it personal?"

Natalie shrugged her shoulders. "Well, yeah. Ever since she was put on the throne, our queen had been working to make things better for people who aren't straight, as I'm pretty sure she's a lesbian. Maybe bisexual, but that's a stretch."

"And what about you?" Yelena asked.

"Hm? What about me?" Natalie questioned.

"What are you on that spectrum?"

The raven haired girl sooner realized what she meant, and let out a soft "oh."

"I'm bisexual, heavy women preference. What about you?"

"Lesbian." She said simply.

Natalie's eyes slightly widened. "Really? Wow- I mean, not that that's a bad thing, but I just assumed that maybe you were straight or something with how I saw you talking about Zeke Jaeger the other night to Hange and Levi."

Yelena shook her head, laughing softly

"No, no. I worship him, for sure. I see him as a god, but I'm not romantically interested in him."

Natalie moved to say something else, before a voice called out to her.

"Hey, Nat it's late, we gotta get going."

She turned her head, seeing Maliath stand behind her.

She scrunched her nose, annoyed that her conversation was interrupted by her brother.

Yelena chuckled softly in the back of her throat and patted her shoulder.

"It's ok, you can go ahead and go. It was nice talking to you." She said with a smile.

Natalie's freckled cheeks turned a soft pink once again, before she nodded and stood up with a grunt.

"It was nice talking to you, too. Hope to see you around."

The blonde grinned and tossed her a wink, along with a single finger gun.

As Natalie turned around and began walking away, Maliath turned his head to Yelena with a frown.

Her own smile fell as she stared him down once again.

It lasted for a few seconds before Natalies voice called out to him, making him turn away from the blondes intimidating gaze.

With one last glance to Yelena, he walked away.

~~~

It was dark out, midnight perhaps, and everyone within the Survey Corps headquarters was sound asleep, all except maybe one.

Natalie lied awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't fall asleep.

Multiple times she ran her interaction with Yelena today through her mind, never able to stop thinking about it.

She knew it was stupid, how she could be thinking this much about a woman who she's barley known for a few days, even worse was that nobody seemed to trust her, or her people.

Her own brother even expressed some dislike for her.

Maybe she was the only one who could see that Yelena was actually really nice.

With a sigh, she turned on her side and closed her eyes, attempting to go to sleep once again.

A single question still hung on her mind, though.

Why did she find Yelena so trustworthy, anyway?

End of chapter featuring a meme I made:

Edit: just made an official playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Vh3GaK15YHhO1TVVipltq?si=AZW5s4X1ToaeSfdb1bDKiQ