For Recruit!Levi, the snow was a mesmerizing sight. The small, crystallized clusters of frozen water falling from the sky, blanketing the earth with a pristine layer of white. Such a spectacle was one to behold, one that was almost foreign to him. In the grim, darkened corners of the underground, there was no such thing as snow. Only muck, filth, and rot. Where life was so incredibly cheap, with the constant threat of being stabbed in the back at any given moment. Here, on the outside, it was a different story. It was as if time stopped, and the world changed.
Such beauty. All white, and perfect.
It was strange. The sensation of cold, cold, cold, and yet, it doesn't rain. He was used to the rain, always pouring, always cold, never dry. Here, it was just cold. Icy cold, in fact. The sky had turned into a bleak grey and the freezing, cold air chilled him to the bone. Around him, he could hear the sound of murmurs and laughter as his fellow soldiers indulged themselves in the scenery and played in the powdered snow, after an expedition. They decided to take a break, and that valley was a safe spot after they got rid of the titans that were roaming around.
His boots crunched against the sleet on the grass, his fair cheeks now flushed—just like his nose. His hands were freezing; he wasn't used to that much cold. The Underground was cold, it's true, but there in the Surface, winter was freezing. It made his fingers hurt if he tried to move them.
He even observed a snowflake for five full minutes, as it landed on the sleeve of his coat. His mind couldn't wrap around the fact that such a thing could exist in the first place. Where did it come from? How could it pour from the sky and not be like a raindrop? Levi had too many unanswered questions; it had only been two months that he left the Underground, but he felt like a kid, at 26.
Sitting on a cold rock, snuggling underneath his scarf, he looked at a patch of white snow near the tips of his leather boots. He hesitated for a moment, glancing around him—seeing if anyone was looking. Then, with his index finger, he began to draw patterns on the snow. Absently, but his grey eyes were focused.
Nobody saw him that day. But he would remember his very first day on the snow for years to come, and return to the same spot—thanking his good memory for that—to watch the snow falling from the sky.
