He just wanted to know what he did wrong.

The days the young prince spent in the cellar had been long and painful. The cellar's trapped heat kept him alive far longer than the denizens of Subcon against Vanessa's freezing storm, but just barely. And only to greater misfortune. The cold settled over him quickly once the hopper windows had cracked—later shattered—from the extreme change in temperature, but dehydration and hunger followed swiftly after. He remembered the piercing pain in his skull; the feeling of icy claws tearing apart the inside of his throat; stiff skin worn by the frozen trails that still lined his face; arms screaming from the weight of his own, shivering body pulling down against the chains that kept him suspended in the air… Everything hurt until he finally just went numb. A weariness he'd never known before took over and he had no choice but to give in. If it weren't for the telltale sign of his flesh shifting from its warm pallor to a blue hue, he wouldn't have been able to tell what killed him first.

He just wanted to know what he did wrong!

He didn't need to die this way. What had he done? He loved Vanessa, his princess, more than anything: If she had asked for his life, he would've given it to her without hesitation. She claimed he betrayed her, betrayed their love, but there wasn't a day that passed when he stopped thinking about her. Her childish heart, the beauty in her smile, the bird-like warble in her laughter: Her happiness was everything to him. Of course, their relationship wasn't perfect—no one's was—but they came as close to a fairytale as anyone could.

So how could he let this happen? They were supposed to make the most of their holiday together before he returned to the Academy, walking hand-in-hand by the river that divided the forest, eating under candlelight, spending evenings in the parlor listening to the piano or maybe dancing. He wanted to surprise her, had bought a fresh bouquet from the market before going to the manor only to find his love in tears and himself wind up in chains.

Vanessa could be… disagreeable, when she was upset. She was hurting badly; he had seen it from the crystal tears that ran down her porcelain face. And he didn't fully understand why, only that he was at the root of it. Still, the prince hadn't imagined her to take things so far… Even in death, he had to know. He wanted to understand, and if the last thing he did on the mortal plane was bring back her warm smile, then he could go in peace.

His broken body left behind, he searched for answers. He would've held himself in shame at the invasion of a lady's privacy, but desperation demanded action. One floor of the manor after another yielded clues: Torn portraits, scattered and ravaged letters, a ripped apart diary sitting by Vanessa's bedside all pieced the story together.

Death does strange things to a person. Above all else, it often gives an outsider's insight to one's own life, forcing people to see larger truths. Ugly truths too, like how love is hardly ever a fairytale—at times, it can actually be a nightmare disguised as one. There were others, like how sometimes a prince can't always keep his princess happy, or that sometimes the princess doesn't care much about her prince's own happiness.

However, the ugliest truth that took the longest time for him to see was that he hadn't done anything wrong, and that came with its own shame and regrets.

He couldn't pinpoint where it started, but there had been signs. In so many little ways, she showed how she "loved" him. She forced him to change his appearance to suit her own tastes. She took away things he enjoyed. She didn't want him to have contact with another woman besides herself. Before his "betrayal," she planned to keep him from returning to his studies and even contemplated early on the grim fate that had become of him in the end. As if to mock him, all of it was written in her own hand—in a record that lashed out against his own blindness.

He loved Vanessa, but she was in love with a fantasy. She didn't want him, but a prince for her princess. Anything that didn't belong to the grand delusion called "happily ever after" was an attack against the false existence she'd built for herself, never realizing that she had become the witch in her own fairytale. And he couldn't change that.

The prince realized all too late that it didn't just affect him. All of Subcon had fallen victim to Vanessa's madness. Their kingdom had become a frozen wasteland and the citizens petrified shells of ice forever trapped in the terror of their final moments—running from the storm that destroyed their homes and devoured their lives.

And that, he felt, truly was his fault. He did nothing wrong, but maybe if he had done something different… He argued with himself constantly. If he had read the signs, maybe he could've made Vanessa see reason. There were notes in the pages of her diary that hinted she at least had enough self-reflection to question some of her own behavior: Maybe that would've been enough. Or if she wouldn't listen, then maybe he should've had the foresight to break ties with her early. Otherwise, all he could do was play along with her fantasy for the sake of their people, just as he had already been doing for years if only because he had been swept up in it as well.

It wasn't an act that could be played forever, so maybe nothing he did would've mattered. It didn't matter now anyway. Now, their home lay in ruin. Now, there was no glimmer of a fairytale to be seen; just the nightmare it left behind. Now, he was dead and nothing he did could make up for all that had been lost. He could only hope to prevent greater destruction and preserve the memory of what it was.

He did nothing wrong… Now, nothing would ever be right.

((Author's Note: So this piece was done just kinda as a small experiment that I did in about a night. I noticed a lot that when people were covering Queen Vanessa and the prince—Snatcher or Moonjumper, take your pick—it was often done with a tragic love story angle, but not many people were actually willing to explore the toxic aspects of their relationship. It was typically with Vanessa being possessed in some way, or with a focus on the misunderstanding with the florist, or something similar and... I didn't wanna go that route! XD I'm sorry, but everything about Vanessa screams psycho! Not just her relationship with the prince, but how she treats everyone around her: Regarding what happened to her mother—which pretty much hints at 'death,' given how she became queen immediately after—as an "accident" and only being upset by the fact that she's not technically a princess anymore; how she locked her "prince" away and left him to die despite "loving" him; the emphasis on her possessive nature in the diary entries and notes; how she tries luring Hat Kid out sweetly only to kill her; killing her own people, some even going through a second death if that frozen Dweller in her manor is anything to go by; keeping the frozen corpses of her victims positioned around the house like decorations—you name it! People are free to ship whoever and write characters however in fanfics, but I'm personally not gonna root for this nut! The only saving grace I would give her is maybe her developing a more horrible nature both from possibly being a spoiled princess and strict rearing by her parents, but that's hardly an excuse for all she's done.

Yeah though, anyway, this is just a one-shot. Don't know if I'll ever write anything more with AHIT, I just wanted to do this.

As a side note though, seriously, if you are in a toxic relationship, get out of it. This especially goes for if they ever make you feel like you're the bad guy for not constantly giving into them. Relationships mean compromise and those compromises should never be one-sided. Love is always going to mean hard work for both people involved and each person has to be willing give a little. It means that while things won't be perfect all the time that you love each other enough to get through the bad times together. A relationship where someone demands you to be perfect or keep them happy 'round the clock, where they're controlling you to the point where your goals, interests, likes, and other relationships are always secondary to the things they want, isn't worth agonizing other. Nine times out of ten, you can't change a person like that—no matter how often they might try to convince you otherwise. And yeah, it's gonna hurt if you still love them, but it's not right and not worth it for you to live that way. You'll heal, and you'll find happiness again with or without being in a relationship.))