Imperial Affairs (Levi X Reader) AU

7. The Empress's Threat

Reader's POV

I walked over to the gardens to take my usual walk around there and saw a carriage coming in through the gates of my palace. It had the seal of the County of Zoe on it. It was Hange of course. Only a few people could enter my palace without permission and one of them was Hange. I walked over to the gates to talk to Hange, about how she was a day late or perhaps forgot about yesterday and decided to visit out of the blue which happened to be today.

The carriage stopped on the palace grounds and Hange came out of the carriage. She was wearing a red-orange shirt with black pants due to her hating dresses. She was two years older than me and was engaged to Moblit Berner who had been her best friend since childhood. She looked around and saw me approaching her. She grinned and ran toward me attempting to pull me into a hug.

"How has my favourite little cousin brother been doing?!" She asked as she squeezed me.

"I've been fine," I muttered while trying to get out of the hug due to the lack of oxygen that Hange's tight hugs brought upon people.

Once I successfully managed to get out of the hug, I simply asked her where she had been when she was supposed to be here.

"Um, you know, I was doing experiments," She muttered an excuse.

"You're not supposed to do those without permission yet," I stated.

"That's right," she held both of my hands in hers, like she does when she needs something from me, "Can I borrow your palace for experiments?"

"Absolutely," I smiled and added, "not," I withdrew my hands, turned around and headed towards the library, knowing she'd follow. I could spare some time since she came all this way.

"Please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Experiments should be done in laboratories, I don't have one."

"Promise I won't explode anything."

"I'm pretty sure that's what you did that you got found out by Count and Countess Zoe."

"Please?"

"Give it up," I stated, Hange was stubborn but I was a zillion times more stubborn than her.

"We'll talk about this later," she pouted, "By the way, who's this shorty over here?" She pointed at Levi who just gave her a bored look.

"Pointing is rude."

"Eh, whatever."

"This is Levi," I introduced him, sitting down in the library chair. Hange always wanted me to introduce anyone new at the palace, "Sent by the Empress."

"But he's so small," Hange sat down and tilted her head, "How would he be able to do anything?"

I looked at Levi and saw him looking quite pissed off, it was clear that he couldn't stand Hange. Only people with a special kind of patience could enjoy her company and it took time to get used to how loud she was.

"Mikasa, have a seat," I said, "Levi, go take a break, return in half an hour."

Mikasa sat down and Levi turned on his heel to leave. Once he was out of earshot, I massaged my head to relieve the pain that I got after hearing Hange's loud voice after so long, responding to her earlier question.

"He's quite powerful."

"For a small man?"

"For anyone in general."

"Wait, really?" She questioned, sounding slightly shocked.

"Yeah, an incident happened yesterday because some of the soldiers couldn't take orders and stuff happened. I'm not discussing it now, I'm tired."