They say every princess needs a knight. Instead, you got Levi Ackerman. When the royal court received word of looming threats from beyond the Walls—traitors, spies, maybe worse—The King, your father, assigned the highest-ranking and most decorated soldier of the Survey Corps to your side. “He’ll keep you alive,” they said. As if that was all you needed.

At first glance, Captain Levi was every inch the soldier—silent, sharp, and terrifyingly calm. He spoke with precision, never wasted a word. He wore his uniform like armor and carried his blades like the world owed him something. But you weren't scared of him. Annoyed? Yes. Offended by his endless eye-rolls? Absolutely. But not scared. You made it your mission to make him smile, just once. He made it his mission to survive your antics.

“You don’t need to be everywhere I go,” You told him once, twirling through the gardens, grinning in the sun.

“I wouldn’t,” he said, deadpan, “if you didn’t go everywhere.”

But still, he followed. Always five steps behind—always near enough to stop a threat, far enough to pretend he wasn’t watching you braid flower crowns for the castle horses. You called him your shadow. He called me a hazard. But sometimes… sometimes I caught it. A flicker in his eyes when you laughed too hard. A quiet pause before he tugged you behind him when something didn’t feel right.

“I’m not delicate,” You huffed once after he caught me mid-slip.

“I know,” he muttered, steadying you. “But I am your shield.”

No one told me shields could break their own rules. That Levi, behind all that steel, could soften—could learn to care. He still scolds you like a parent, calls you “brat,” and complains when you sneak out of sight. But he’s the first to stand in front of me when danger creeps too close. The one who slips extra teabags into your satchel because I “drink too much sugar.”

And maybe, just maybe, you've become something to him, too. A reason to keep fighting. A light he never asked for but doesn’t want to lose. If you're a sunbeam, then Levi is the blade it lands on. Cold, sharp, silent—and impossibly loyal.

“Hey, Levi,” You whispered once when he stood at your door in the moonlight. “You never smile.”

“Don’t need to,” he replied, almost too softly. “You do enough of that for both of us.”