Porcelain : Levi x Reader (Royal AU)

T h i r t y : Someday, The Boy

Levi only stops riding after a few hours because his horse needs to rest and he decides that it is best that he should too, even if he is not that tired. As his horse grazes an empty field and then lays to fall asleep, Levi rests his back against his steed. Comfortingly he rubs her mane and falls into a light yet restless sleep after building his small camp.

His stomach growls audibly as he tries to sleep. The little boy who could not have been younger than 9 could easily pass for a little boy of 7. As he lies on the hard mattress of his bed, his stomach growls again and he moves into a fetus position, hoping that it would stop. The sound only reminded him of how hungry he was, of how little he had eaten these past few weeks.

A soft hand touches his shoulder and he immediately slaps it away and sits up in his bed, pulling the covers over his body in fear. The girl pulls back at his rash movements and they both stare at each other in the pale moonlight in fear of the other.

Levi speaks first, "What do you want?" He whispers, afraid to wake anybody and have the man who runs the orphanage come in and yell at them.

The girl with reddish-brown hair formed into two pigtails and bright green eyes responds, she couldn't have been any older than Levi, "Here." She says reaching into the pocket of her nightgown and pulling out a small piece of bread. It wasn't even half the size of her hand but she offers it to him anyway.

"Why are you giving this to me?" He asks skeptically. He knew who she was, she was a new girl in the orphanage and he believed her name to be Isabelle.

Although Levi's tone is rude, the shy and kind look in her eyes does not change, she smiles, "Eric has been stealing your food for the past two weeks. So, I saved some of mine for you."

He turns away in embarrassment; he hadn't known that anybody knew about it. It was true that Eric had been stealing his food ever since the orphanage had brought in a new haul of kids. There were more mouths to feed, but the orphanage wasn't given more food, which meant everybody was only eating half of what they needed.

Levi was easily the smallest and skinniest boy even though he was not the youngest and the rest picked on him for that. He was skinny, Eric argued, so he didn't need all of his food, and Eric felt that it was his right to take it from him by force. Often pushing him to the ground and kicking him in the stomach if he ever tried to fight back. Once, Levi had tried to report it to Mr. Brighton, the 56-year-old head of the orphanage, but he had dismissed the boy with the wave of a hand, "In the real world if you want to eat, then you have to fight for it."

But Levi could not win in a fight against a 12-year-old boy that was six inches taller and weighed 30 more pounds than him.

"I don't need it," He pushes her hand away again and she frowns before walking away and sliding back into her bed. She was the closest to the door and he had always wondered why, when all the new arrivals had been placed towards the back of the room, closer to where he slept.

Levi lays back down and pulls his knees to his chest in discomfort and tries to fall asleep despite the rumbling in his belly. The next day, he sits at breakfast at the end of the table in the corner of the room. There were about 40 kids in the orphanage now, and the small dining room had only three long tables where the kids sat and ate slowly. They knew that there was no lunch, only a small breakfast, and a measly dinner so they savored the taste. Isabelle sits beside him although he is as separated as he can be from the rest.

"Why are you sitting here?" He asks her and she shoves a piece of bread into her mouth.

"So that Eric doesn't steal your food."