She stared spitting out stems.
And one day, after she started spitting up stems, Elizaveta and her husband set before her garden, glancing inattentively at the dead vines and wetted down, dried up leaves in the snow.
Even those horrid, ugly black birds had left. There was nothing more to eat. Nothing more to kill.
Nothing.
The King held The Queen's hand. Their breathes took turns materializing before their mouths and the world stayed still as snowflakes came down and made little piles all around their back yard.
"I love you, Roderich."
Her molten green eyes met up with his icy blue ones. But her skin had frozen, and his was red with lively blush.
"I love you too, Elizaveta."
"I'm sorry." She said.
"I'm sorry too." He said back.
Then that small woman fell into a coughing fit. And from her lungs was born another set of blossoms that made a chrysanthemum this time.
She had run out of blood. So now it was just a loose and watery spit that coated the flowers, which made them entirely sad and incredibly beautiful. The Queen's water froze almost instantly around her new, pink chrysanthemum and it looked like a figurine made entirely from colored glass.
Elizaveta rested the latest in the snow.
"What makes you sorry, my love?"
It took a moment for The King to answer. With furrowed brows, he brushed past The Queen's petals with those hard, blue marbles that shone like stone in the cold.
"I made you run away."
"You didn't."
Silence. Inside it, there was time to look at the grey vines writhing their way up the grey wall, which lead into the grey pall the sky made that worked entirely with the snow.
"I think it was just my spirit. You didn't make me do anything…One day, I just remember looking him in the eyes and I thought: he'll do it. He'll get me out of here for a while. Because you were busy, and that's okay. You're The King, after all. But I don't know if I was ever a good Queen to you. I'm sorry for that too. And it's not because I don't adore you. I just make a shitty house plant."
"Of course you make a shitty houseplant."
The Queen squeezed The King's hand.
"It's not your fault I feel like a houseplant, Love. It's just the occupational hazard that comes with marrying Kings."
"Well, even if you are a houseplant, Elizaveta—you're a very beautiful houseplant. Maybe this isn't something that you necessarily want to hear right now, but that flower you just spit up was lovely."
The pair smiled to one another.
And Roderich continued.
"You weren't a bad Queen. But just because you're good at a certain job doesn't mean you're meant to do it forever. I can see now that I'm married to the sort of woman who can run with lionesses in the jungle and kill giant squid with her bare hands. Maybe it's a great injustice to lock anyone up here. Especially when they weren't born rooted into the old cobblestones and marble. I can still see it. You'd be so much more beautiful beneath the sun light, rooted into soft dirt than kept in the corner of my room. I hope you'll forgive me for loving you so dearly. I was driven to claim you for myself; you're the loveliest woman in the world. But it's apparent now that you're happier in direct sunlight than behind a castle window."
Elizaveta wiped two tears away that felt like absentee dew drops.
"I'm sorry too, Roderich. But you should know my love for you was always just as genuine. I still love you. I'll always love you. I loved you when I ran away too…I guess I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry—"
"You don't have to apologize anymore. I'd like it if we moved on."
"Okay." Elizaveta looked into the sky. Snow fell onto her cheeks and turned them blue. "Eventually, I'd like you to let Gilbert out of the dungeon. He's not bad. He kept me safe."
But even she wasn't sure if that was true.
"You can hate him, if you want to. He's definitely dumb sometimes; but please, let him go."
Roderich looked his wife straight in the eyes.
"I'll think about it, Elizaveta."
"Thank you, Roderich."
His hand let go of hers and those strong fingers brushed past her short strands.
"I still miss your hair."
"I know Roderich. I'm sorry about that too."
The King grinned a little. And those old glasses picked up a bit of frost. "I forgive you."
Soon after that, The King and Queen went upstairs and laid beneath their collective of mountainous blankets.
For the first time since she had come home, The Queen truly felt warm.
The King kissed her goodnight.
The woman slept.