The Cursed King

Loriel soon returned after the hunting trip and, even though he won the majority of the competition that the dukes and lords challenged him, he was not happy and was only looking forward to seeing his wife.

There was an assasination attempt during his first night of the hunting trip and during the second and third day, he ended up heading into the front lines of the nearest city to take care of a sudden attack.

Thankfully he was able to quell the attack and return home to the royal palace.

However, Loriel was surprised that Elise was not enthusiastic about his arrival. Was it another one of those bouts of pregnancy hormones that shifted her mood? 

For this time, the two of them had their lunch in Loriel's castle because he needed to communicate back and forth with his men, but now Loriel looked at his wife during dinner and asked.

"Is the food better to look at than me?" Loriel joked once he noticed her toying around with her food. She wasn't eating yet and she wasn't in the mood to talk either so Loriel started the conversation himself.

Elise raised her head and shook her head. "No, not at all, Your Majesty. I just don't have the appetite. But I will eat."

Loriel sighed inwardly, but decided to remind her to eat in a lighthearted manner. "Just because I was gone for a few days doesn't mean that you should lose your appetite. You should be eating more now that I am back."

"I will," Elise said and still didn't eat just yet.

Loriel sighed a bit and took a sip of his drink. It was easy to get impatient when Elise was like this, but he hoped it was just hormones. Still, he wanted to look on the more humorous side and so he rested a palm underneath his cheek and said.

"You know, I wish you could have said something before the trip, Elise. If I knew that you were going to miss me this much that you could barely eat, I wouldn't have gone at all."

Elise raised her head and her eyes were moist. 

"I told you to go because you were being cajoled by your ministers to leave. Isn't that the proper thing to do? Were you neglecting your responsibilities and used my pregnancy as an excuse to not attend to kingdom affairs?"

Loriel's eyes widened, and he felt anger well inside of him. After everything that he did, did Elise still doubt his intentions towards her? 

Sure, Loriel questioned his own emotions every now and then, but he hoped that she put her faith in him.

Before he could say those words, he quickly shook his head and raised a hand placatingly. "I appreciate what you did, Elise. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was offending you, I just wanted you to eat."

If there was any other time for an argument, it wasn't now.

Elise nodded stiffly and then started to eat. "I accept your apology."

The two of them ate in silence and once they were finished, Loriel started to approach his wife to head back to the queen's residence in order to stay with her. However, he was quickly stopped when Elise glanced at him.

"Your Grace, I think it is best that you sleep in your chamber tonight and do not sleep with me," Elise said. "I heard that you were also forced into the frontlines when you were only supposed to go hunting. So, you must be tired."

"Oh...okay."

Loriel couldn't say anything to her as Elise left his residence to return to her own. He was a man of pride and if Elise said to sleep in his own chamber room, he wouldn't insist on staying with her tonight. 

A man also had his pride. He would ask Zaff if Elise's reaction was caused by her pregnancy hormones or not. He hope it was. He couldn't think of any reason why his wife would suddenly be angry at him.

***

"Where is Her Majesty? Is she not coming here to eat, Horatio?"

The next morning, during breakfast, Loriel waited for Elise to join him for breakfast in his residence since the man slept in his own area… but Elise failed to show up.

"According to her maid servants, Her Majesty has already eaten in her chamber and does not feel like going out."

"I see…" Loriel frowned and nodded.

His loyal butler assured him that the queen already had her breakfast in her chamber and didn't want to go out. So, Loriel left her be. Zaff already confirmed his suspicion that his pregnant wife had that really bad mood swing during her pregnancy and it was best if he let her be.

Since Elise didn't come for breakfast with him, Loriel thought Elise was probably still angry at him and didn't want to see him for a while.

Fine. He could accept that.

"Hah, it's a good thing that I didn't empty my entire chambers' clothes to have them with her." Loriel returned to his chamber to get dressed before he attended a meeting with his ministers.

Except he was surprised to see most of his clothes were already back in his closet.

Weren't they in his wife's chamber already? 

Why did she have them returned here?

"Oh, Elise…" Loriel rubbed his forehead in frustration. How could he use those clothes as an excuse to come to Elise's chamber?

The king thought it was fine if Elise didn't want him to spend the night with her and she didn't want to see him during mealtime. However, if his clothes were still in her chamber, at least the king would be able to go there and visit her to 'get his favorite clothes to wear'. 

Now, he realized his plan failed miserably. Had Elise started to hate him  to toss all his clothes baack to him?

The man's heart felt hurt at this thought. He was used to seeing the adoration look on Elise's eyes whenever she saw him, but now she didn't even want to see him?

She had avoided him for breakfast... would she avoid him for lunch and dinner too?

She was pregnant with their baby and he understood that her mood was probably not the best right now, so, Loriel tried to be understanding. 

"Elise will come to look for me." He told himself after he thought deeply about it. "She is just having a bad mood swing."

Loriel let Elise be and focused on work, even though his mind was all over the place.