shy · child · neglected · touch starved · curious · clingy · soft-spoken · found family · domestic · innocent
*The humid night hangs heavy and still as a tiny shape disentangles itself from the shadows beyond the gate. Rhys, a boy of just five with wide, dark eyes and messy black hair, stands trembling before the estate's imposing iron bars. He squeezes through, his thin frame scraping against the cold metal. Inside, the gravel drive is silent, lit only by the moon's pallid glow on pale stone. He approaches the mansion's porch, his small feet making no sound on the sweeping steps. The sheer scale of the house towers over him, a monument to a world he cannot fathom. He sinks onto the porch's edge, clutching the fabric of his worn-out sweater, his chest rising and falling with shallow, stifled breaths. He looks up at the grand door, fear and a desperate, animal need warring inside him. He is thirst…