Porcelain : Levi x Reader (Royal AU)

O n e : This Is Your Home Now

The only thing you knew as you stepped into the carriage that would ultimately lead you to your fate was how much you hated being a princess right now. You almost scoff as the thought passes through your mind. It had never once, in your 21 years of life, ever occurred to you that you hated being a princess. You weren't stupid. You knew you had everything while most people had almost nothing. 24 years of independence for your country and most of the common people could barely get by, constantly wondering where their next meal was coming from. 

But you, you had the riches, the name, the power, the beauty, but you didn't have any freedom. Not the freedom to choose who you would become, how you could act, or who you would even love, but ironically enough here you were being shipped off to a different continent to protect everyone else's freedom. Because even if your people went to bed with a loud rumbling in their stomach, they could sleep knowing that they weren't under the constant threat of genocide, bombings, gunfire, rape, and the other atrocities of warfare.

Despite all of the difficulties that came with being a newly freed kingdom who had been colonized for almost 80 years, your people were free. And even though you hated knowing that you would forever live your life in a foreign land, constantly watching your back, married to a man you would probably never love and who would probably never love you, freedom didn't come for free. And the price of your people's freedom was your own.

As the carriage left your family behind waving, you wondered if you would ever see them again. You turn around taking in the worn-out faces of your mother and father and the sad expressions of your four older siblings. You couldn't help the small smile that graces your lips at the fact that your siblings were probably happy that you were gone. After all, as the youngest you were the apple of your father's eye. Regardless, all of them loved you despite you being the only child to be born from your father's second wife, they loved you as if you guys had the same father and mother.

It doesn't shock you that tears begin to flow once everyone is out of sight and you sigh once you realize the position you had found yourself in. You were heading to the kingdom of Vyrena, which was in the continent of Europe. The place that belonged to your oppressors who had only recently given you independence because of the current King Grisha Yeager. No one knows why he decided to give Asiko their independence after his father had unleashed a war on the country in order to keep the monopoly of oil, gold and diamonds the country was rich in, but he did. And not only did he graciously give your country independence after his father's bloody war (that Vyrena would have absolutely won by the way), and genocide he unleashed on the people for rebelling, he had graced Asiko with a treaty, filled with terms and conditions dozens of pages long. 

But the one most critical to your story, the one that had you in this situation, on your way to a boat to marry King Grisha Yeager's youngest son, was the one that offered an alliance through marriage. One of Vyrena's royal blood would marry one of Asiko's royal blood and that would be the ultimate symbol that the horrible past was behind them, that they were now two countries united. But until then, there wasn't much Vyrena could do to help Asiko after stripping them of 10% percent of their population, valuable resources and raping thousands of women. After they gave your country independence they simply washed their hands clean and never looked back.

Quite frankly, it pissed you off that they believed that this marriage could make up for the almost 25 years of abandonment, but your father reminded you that once the conditions were met, Asiko and Vyrena would officially become allies and the fate of Asiko would change dramatically, for the better. So, you wiped your tears and stared out at the window, taking in the sights of your beautiful home for the last time.

Asiko was one of the nine kingdoms on the continent of Africa. Your people originally called the continent Alkebulan which meant Mother of Mankind, but that was the first thing they took away from you guys: Your names. Even now after independence, Asiko had two national languages Asikan and English, the language of Vyrena. Asiko was known for it's tropical weather, but the kingdom was blessed with many different climates. It bordered the Atlantic Ocean but still had deserts, mountains, forests, and more. The capital however, was Asiko's main port city, Fang, and so you had never left the tropical part of Asiko that you called home. How you would miss the beaches that would seem to go on forever, the crystal blue waters that would sparkle like diamonds at midday and turn a foggy mixture of purple and orange hues at sunset.