Frost (m/m)

Chapter 5

Henry was feeling warm and cozy sitting on a well cushioned chair by the fire and a book "stolen" from the castle's library in his hands.

He had told the guard not to let anyone enter without knocking, and stripped down to a night shirt. The book he was reading was in Hullian, but he was having fun with the pictures. Apparently, Frost Giants were like humans, but their skin were a shade of grayish white. There were pictures of them standing by fires, and enormous structures Henry supposed was their homes all over the mountains. It made him look at the icy mountains out the window a bit differently. The females were eight feet tall and the males could reach nine feet. Henry tried to imagine Haomath mating with a female and shuddered in disgust.

It was afternoon, not even close to evening, but he was feeling lazy that day. It wasn't just the warmth in this room made him feel so light and groggy. There was the fireplace that Henry asked Jiha to lit everyday and it provided a strange long lasting fire, and he was noticing how the hot spring affected the room. The walls, made of solid polished rock, still amazed him too. This was the most beautiful bedroom he had ever seen. He supposed his addiction for it was a mix of everything, now tainted with the knowledge it was the King's bedroom. He had felt an innocent but insistent pull in his belly since day one, something that wanted to curl in that bed naked forever. But knowing that he wanted to curl up in another man's bed made things weird.

He had asked Ataveus that morning over breakfast- demanded it, really - to change rooms, but the old man said Haomath had decided to put him there and he could do nothing about it. He looked proud of Henry for asking, though. Made some comment about kicking the king out of the bedroom, which made Henry choke on his water. But Henry was surprised to notice he was not mad, not really angry. Just feeling a little out of place.

When Ataveus told him the other day Haomath wasn't sleeping in the castle, that he was spending the nights in the barracks with the soldiers, it had worried him a little. Now that Henry accidentally - it was his own fault really - kicked him from his own room, where was he sleeping?

He gazed at the window. It was just so cold outside. So much snow.

Haomath was probably fine though. He was no weak thing, no. He was a king, and he could take care of himself, probably having slept on forests and deserts before, on the hundreds of adventures he sure had. Henry sighed. That was his dream.

But he didn't really wanted to see Haomath since that night. Well, he wanted to see the king, but only if Haomath to apologized for what he did. The... prank? He had noticed the king's strange fascination with him, probably for being a priest. Maybe that was a strange kind of hullian bonding, playing around with him like that. He didn't even knew for sure what had happened that night exactly, it was so confusing, but his instincts told him something was off.

He wanted Mithlond. He wanted home. Surprisingly, he missed the temple and his masters. He was a priest only because his father had believed Henry when he told him his wish to never marry and to go on adventures, being a hero. That hadn't went down well, his father's feared the word getting around that little Lord Henry was useless and off to the temple he went. Now, he kind of missed the morning prayers, the rituals around the statues, the routines. It was so easy to follow their orders, to feel the gods blessing. He was a little useless in the temple, doing more wrongs than rights, but they had patience with him.

But first, he wanted another room.

Well, he didn't really, but it wasn't right to be in the king's bedroom. It felt dirty, like Henry was beneath all this and should be sleeping on the floor or something.

He had searched for his family in the morning too, but hadn't managed to find them. It was like they weren't even in the castle anymore. He knew they were there because he asked Ligia of their location from time to time, and he stumbled upon them on the corridors sometimes, but they didn't went off their way to find him. Without permission to leave the fortress, and with the cold outside, there was nothing else to do but to come back to Haomath's room. He felt yet again a shiver up his spine when he remembered he had slept in the same bed Haomath slept everyday, but it wasn't a bad shiver so he ignored it.