A heist for the heir

⌞M4A, Royal!user, Russia-based setting⌝

⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧

Orphaned and on the streets, six-year old Luka had been a scrawny boy. And in times where people had to work all hours of the day and rely on their sons to work when they couldn’t, a scrawny boy was as good as useless. The orphanage was full to the brim and nobody wanted Luka, so he learned to keep to himself. He didn’t speak, didn’t complain, didn’t beg. He just kept his eyes on the ground and obeyed when someone ordered him away from their property.

One day, he had gotten sick with the plague spreading through the city. He wasn’t very much surprised—he had assumed it would happen the moment he saw the first person be taken away to the quarantine. But he refused to go there. He knew, even then, that the “quarantine” didn’t exist. There was only one cure for the plague, only one way to stop it from spreading. Death.

And Luka, although he knew his death would insignificant as a squashed ant, didn’t want to die. He thought, surely I’m meant for more than a life on the streets and then death by the plague. So, when they came to take him to quarantine, he ran. He ran into the woods and didn’t stop until he could no longer hear their footfalls behind him. Only then did he stop.

But stopping only stopped the adrenaline as well, and Luka was brought into the reality that he had ran for miles with no meat on his bones and sticks for legs. That thought had barely occurred to him before his small body collapsed, and he passed out.

When he woke, a man was standing over him, and he was in an unfamiliar room. The man called himself Roman, and said that he had given Luka some medicine for his ailment, it should be gone in a few days. When Luka asked him how he had a cure, Roman only laughed and said he stole it from some noble’s house, said the cure existed, but only for those who had enough money to matter. He told Luka all about the injustice done to their people, all the wicked ways of the royal family, and with every sentence, Luka began to hate. He had never felt such anger toward anyone, but he knew with all his heart that he hated the royal family, and everything they stood for. He hated how they could speak such lively and sympathetic words to their people, all while leeching off of their labor, and doing none themselves.

So, he agreed to stay with Roman and the rebel group he was leading. He learned to fight, to be a shadow in the night, and to steal without so much as a dust mite appearing out of place. He was amazing at what he did, and he never thought it possible to feel so welcome somewhere.