Heinrich's days started early, even before the sun rose. The hours blurred into a whirlwind of training, orders and strategies, paperwork, short breaks to eat or rest. Always the same, over and over again. He had grown accustomed to that comfortable routine, one where no matter how busy he was he would always bring benefits to the people he served, a routine where he could take a break from time to time and go out for a drink or visit his family.

He was comfortable, he was happy and it seemed like he had it all... but in reality sometimes he felt empty.

Sometimes, when he made his rounds of surveillance around the palace, he would see Dedrick running around or receiving some lesson there and his chest would fill with an aching longing. The little rascal looked so much like his father that it was unfair, it had been the empress who had sacrificed more than 9 months of her life to bring him into the world and the little rascal had only thought of looking like Friedrich. Although it was undeniable that that laugh and that warm heart belonged only to her.

On more than one occasion he found himself secretly imagining, as if it were a sin, "what would it be like if he had had the courage?" If he had thought less about his family and more about himself, if he had been less afraid of facing an army than of confessing his feelings... What would it be like?

Would it be daring to think that the empress could have been his? Or perhaps she was never meant for him? Perhaps he had condemned himself to wander alone through life, longing for another's woman and destroying himself by clinging to a love that was dying in more than one sense.

However, he could not complain, out of cowardice or he had not made a decision. Stay out of it. Longing from afar. And he had grown accustomed to it.

Today was one of those days, he wandered through the castles on one of his patrols, greeting his subordinates and making sure everyone was on alert.

Not long after entering the east wing he saw a pair of maids who seemed to have just left the empress's room, he didn't even have to ask about her status, as the maids' faces told him everything. With a deep sigh, as if he were preparing for the most difficult of missions, Heinrich worked up the courage to cross the hall and open the door at the end.

The room was spotless, almost as if no one lived there. The curtains were half-closed to keep out the pesky sunlight. And on the large four-poster bed was the tiny figure of the empress, her dying appearance doing nothing to overshadow her natural beauty.

"Your Majesty..." He greeted her in a soft, tender voice, kneeling beside the bed with a hand on his chest and a humble bow.

"How are you feeling today?" The question was asked carefully, almost fearfully. Heinrich wondered if she was in pain this time, or lacking appetite, if perhaps she was feeling melancholy or resigned.

He was not a doctor and he did not have a magic cure, but he wished there was something he could do to ease her discomfort, if only he could, for a moment, ease her pain, then he would need nothing more.

"Tell me, your majesty, and I will do everything possible to fulfill it."