He had to get away from her.
Had to get out of her touch, away from her scent, but not for the reasons she probably thinks right now.
As Michael briskly walks through the hallways to his suite, he sighs into his hands before dragging them through his hair.
She probably thinks she did something wrong, again.
Gods, he couldn't even give her a proper goodbye.
His mind had been swarming, fogging with the need, the want . . . the drive to touch her. To feel those soothingly gold fingers against his heated cheeks, his burning soul.
He was drowning in her snow-covered lilac scent, enough so that every inch of his body, every part of his mind, every muscle, every gods-damned vein wanted to feel her. To have her body pressed against his; to feel those rose-pink lips on his, to bury his hands in her hair . . .
He hates that he left her there – questioning herself again, wondering if she did the right thing.
But if she had seen what her touch did to him . . .
Another reason why he left, the truth would've been obvious if she had looked to the seat of his pants.
It was a bull-faced lie when he said he wasn't lonely, and gods-damn it the queen saw right through it.
He didn't realize how starved he'd really been for affection. For joy and light and love.
But there is a line with Elsa. A deep and long line that he cannot cross. He counts the reasons with each step he takes closer to his rooms.
Left: she's a queen.
Right: he's just a peasant, if broken down to the basics. He has no real home, no other clothes. He cant even call himself a mercenary.
Left: she has a castle and kingdom.
Right: he only has the clothes on his back.
He turns down the familiar corner leading to his rooms. His door is the second to last on the right. The castle feels as hollow and as silent as husk.
Left: she's happy here; happy and whole and living.
Right: he's barely chipped against the cold, hardened silence in his heart. Could he even return any affection? Would he even know how?
Left: she has everything.
Right: he has nothing. No dowry to give her, no land or gold or jewels. He'd just be a burden to her. Another mouth to feed.
She is everything.
And he is nothing.
Nothing but a broken and battered orphan boy who can't seem to fill the void in his heart no matter how much justice he brings to the world. Not matter how many criminals he throws into prison.
Even when he plunged his dagger into the king's throat all those years ago, even as he held it aloft on that balcony that night for all to see – rebel and knight – he felt nothing.
If anything, he felt even emptier than when his parents were killed.
There was nothing left for him in that kingdom. Nothing left for him in the world, anymore.
He didn't even go back to the cabin, knowing fully well where exactly those two wooden crosses were, set at the head of two dirt mounds, both with bouquets of flowers, and carved words that are probably faded off by now.
Beloved Mother
Beloved Father
Michael makes it to his rooms, near flinging himself inside and shutting the door behind him with a slam that was louder than intended. The worn memory of that mid-summer day tugs at him, sucks him in.
The soldier's hand was the size of a dinner plate, the knuckles torn and scabbed from when they punched his father. Over and over and over.
Both his parents kneeled before him, bleeding from so many places their clothes were soaked with it, their hands trembling as they kept them interlocked behind their heads. His father's arm was broken, the joints near dangling beneath the skin; probably the only thing that's holding them together. Broken, but the men had made him put his hands up anyway.
Their front door was nothing more than splinters, the entire cabin ransacked. Every piece of their belongings, their memories had been broken, shattered, splintered or smashed.
His cheeks were cold from the spring breeze tickling the stream of tears that flowed from his eyes. He's tried to fight back, to fight for his parents, resulting in the blackened eye that now throbbed with every beat of his heart.
The man's grip was more than to just keep him restrained; within it was all the suppressed rage of losing three of his men to a "piece of rutting shit."
Michael's shirt and hands were stained with the blood of those men, and he even managed to get a good slice across this man's face, deep enough that it will scar. But when the men started to converge onto him, his parents both pleaded with them to "Stop!" and to "Let him go! He's just a child!"
"Confess!" The head guard bellowed as he paced before his parents.
"We didn't do anything –" his father barely finished the sentence before one of the cronies punched him in the face again.
More blood.
He can't remember how long his father had been trying to tell them, trying to reason
But the next thing he saw was two more cronies hauling his father over to the tree stump where they would chop their wood for the fire.
They shoved his father to his knees.
"Dad," he whimpered. More tears rolled down his face.
His gaze flicked to his mother. To that beautiful, fierce face.
"Stop!" his mother pleaded, blood dribbling from her swollen, chapped lips.
One of the guards drew his sword.
Another slammed his father's head onto the tree stump.
"Dad –"
Michael blinks, the shimmering memory replaced by the muted glow of moonlight on the wooden floor.
He can't even remember if his father confessed or denied, or if either one would've been a ruse to try and save Michael and his mother.
Not that any of it mattered.
Despite the cold floors offering some reprieve of his heated skin, Michael forces himself to stand up and walk to his bed.
He doesn't remember falling asleep.