A/N

I debated waiting until later to post this, but why not now? Chapter 14 is coming along better than I expected, all things considered. But I'm determined to get it just right.

This prologue is relevant to the story in some ways, but I don't want it cluttering up the flow. Besides, it's pure, 100%, certified fluff. So it will go here. It will be another week or so until I get the actual chapter perfect, unless my broken heart doesn't cooperate. So far, so good, though. Strong emotions help me write, I think.

Chapter 14 Prologue

Hitomi watched the dust motes settle across the rays of afternoon sun streaming through the tall, pink-curtained hallway windows. After five days with nothing to do but sleep on the merchant ship, her feet and fingers itched for activity, but she took a breath and made herself patient as she sat here upon her mostly-empty trunk. She flicked some mud off her dress—the same one she'd worn on her trek here last fall—and noticed another hole close to the hem that needed patching. Just before she could stand to pull out her sewing kit from her trunk, Millerna's head housekeeper appeared from the distant stairway door. Standing, the queen fixed her skirts and watched as the woman strode swiftly closer and pulled out a large ring of keys.

"Thank you for unlocking his room," Hitomi said.

"You're welcome, Majesty," she said as she unlocked the door.

"Does my husband have his own key?"

"Yes, Majesty," she answered and held the door open.

Excitement rushed up her skin. She took a breath and stepped past the woman but stopped just inside the door where a discarded grey bag—the same one Van had been packing when she'd given him the button—lay limp and empty on the floor.

It had been five months since she'd been in this room. She remembered clearly leaving it clean and having it locked, but now the room was … strange. The blue velvet bed curtains had been thrown closed. Damaged-looking armor had been tossed next to the wall, clothes and other things from his trunk lay scattered about as if he had been searching for something, some of the furniture had been rearranged, papers had been stacked on the table, and there was an obvious bed made on the couch. Topping it off, making her heart skip and sending bile up her throat, bloodied clothes lay visible on the washroom floor, reminding her all too much of the unconscious figure of her husband she saw too often in that accursed dream.

She took a deep breath, her nostrils filling with dusty, stale air, and turned to the housekeeper. "You're sure my king isn't here?" she asked.

"He's not, ma'am," she replied.

Letting her breath out, she asked, "Does he always leave it like this?"

The woman's wrinkled mouth puckered. "I couldn't tell you," she said sharply.

Her heart was slowing down. "Can you tell me when he was last here?" She watched the woman, noting the smart way her gray eyes took in Hitomi and then the unsettling room. As the head housekeeper, she undoubtedly knew everything about the goings on in the palace and likely had a ledger detailing everything from the dates guests stayed to the meals they took.

"Yes. Two weeks ago."

Her breath hitched. That wasn't so long ago. Why had he left so much stuff behind, especially his armor? "How long did he stay?"

"Two nights."

He made this mess in two nights?

"Has he been here any other time between then and last fall?"

"No, Ma'am," she said with a succinct shake of her head. "Word was that he spent most of his time in Zaibach, but I don't know anything further, nor do I know where he went, just that he came and left in a hurry."

"Thank you. Will you please send a maid with a cleaning cart?"

"I'd be happy to, Majesty."

"That will be all," she said, dismissing the woman.

She began by throwing open the window and then lighting a fire. Next, she took the blanket from the makeshift bed on the couch and pushed the pillow into the corner. After Van had left, she'd needed something to busy her hands in the evenings, and so she'd updated the pillow she'd hidden under her dress with some simple embroidery, re-stuffed it, and left it on the couch. Whoever slept here had used it.

Had Van hosted a guest? Why else would he need another bed on the couch? When she pulled open the bed curtains to replace the blanket, however, she found it made up precisely as she remembered leaving it, minus the blanket in her hands.

He hadn't slept here? Hitomi looked from the unused bed to the couch.

Had Van slept on the couch? Why?

After folding the blanket over the foot of the bed where it belonged, she began gathering the papers stacked on the table. Every single page was blank. She held them up to the window, wondering if there was perhaps a hidden watermark indicating a secret letter, but to no avail.

With a shake of her head, she replaced the papers in their cubby in the writing desk and continued returning things where they ought to be: filthy clothes to the gray canvas bag, belts and buckles and official-looking clothing folded back inside his trunk, the tea table and couch and chairs back to their former positions.

About halfway through her tidying of the bedroom, a knock at the door announced a maid with the cleaning cart. Hitomi greeted her, accepted the cart, and dismissed the maid promptly. Over the winter, she'd grown accustomed to keeping busy. The days on the levi-ship had been both refreshing—especially since her dreams had turned relatively uneventful—and very, very boring. The queen itched to do the cleanup herself.

Once she had returned the bedroom to order, she moved to the washroom. Van's butler's tray with shaving supplies appeared untouched, though his comb and toothbrush were on the counter. Her tray, however, with the tonics and soaps from Millerna, was missing, though she later found it had been moved to a shelf and covered by bath linens—clean ones, judging by their smell and the still-present fold lines. Conspicuously, the hair brush she'd used on her visit and left on the tray was nowhere to be seen.

What was going on here? Had Van needed her brush?

Hitomi's stomach twisted as she moved on to sweeping the room, her mind rolling over various theories and ideas. Why would Van intentionally create this mess? She'd left it tidy for him with the bed freshly changed. In fact, now she thought about it, the note she'd written informing him of this fact was missing. She had left that on the bed where he was sure to see it. It would have been impossible to miss, so she knew he must have known the bedding was clean.

Why had he opted to sleep on the couch instead? Why had he moved so many things out of place? Did he have a compulsive desire to live in a mess? Was his head okay? The idea that perhaps he wasn't right in the head made bile rise to her throat, and she imagined him maniacally, purposefully dismantling the room he'd had tidied just for her—.

Hitomi froze, mid-sweep.

He'd had it tidied just for her, for her comfort. Usually she wasn't here.

Could this be his way of erasing her presence?

Dropping the broom with a loud smack, she rushed back to the washroom and ran the water into the sink basin, bringing a handful to her mouth. The cold water helped calm the acid in her belly, but her head spun. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, and she needed more than a few handfuls of water. After pulling the bell for a maid, she collapsed on her back upon the couch, with her feet up and her head upon the pillow she made, the one Van had likely used. It was cold comfort.

Had he wanted to pretend she'd never been here? Had he wanted to forget her? Had she come all this way to see a husband who didn't want to see her again?

The thought made her shrink. Her heart squeezed painfully, and tears stung her eyes and made the swirling pattern on the ceiling disappear. Shifting to her side to face the flames, hoping to find solace in them as she had so many times, she automatically slid her arm around the pillow to cradle her head. As she did so, her hand brushed against something prickly shoved back into the corner of the couch.

With a jolt of recognition, she pulled the object out by its handle.

It was the hair brush. The very same brush she'd left on the tray, the one Van had used to brush her hair that first night together.

She stared at it for a moment, noticing distantly one stray hair tangled in the bristles that she'd neglected to pull out before her departure.

Automatically, she sat up, her head and lungs clearing. With a swift movement, she lifted the pillow and found the note she'd left upon the bed.

My Dear Van,

I left the bedding clean for you. I hope you sleep well.

Affectionately yours,

Hitomi

It was a simpler note than the letter she'd entrusted to her father, namely because she was leaving it out in the open where a servant might see it. How funny that he'd slept with it under his pillow.

Dropping her hands to her lap, she pawed at her eyes and gazed around the room.

Perhaps by intentionally cluttering the room, Van hadn't been trying to erase her presence so much as make himself more comfortable by hiding the reminders of her. In a way, she could relate; she'd struggled with a lot of feelings and emotions those days after he left. She'd even slept in one of his tunics.

She looked again at the brush and note in her hands and wondered….

No. Van wasn't like that. He wasn't sentimental. He couldn't be. No, not her Dragon King.

But why else would he sleep with these under his pillow?

What if he was… sentimental?

Heat rushed through her body, warming her neck and cheeks and hands. Hitomi stood quickly– needing movement again–and strode to pick up the broom.

As she resumed sweeping, this new idea swirled in her mind. Her heart skipped. Could it be true? She laughed to herself and shook her head. If it was, then her husband, the king, sure had a strange way of missing her.

TLDR: Van is a man of strong emotions.