This is for the women who find it attractive when men look pathetic and cries

Emperor Franz Joseph I, usually a monolith of starch and military precision, stood rigid, his hand still hovering near the doorknob. Opposite him, Empress Elisabeth sat in a velvet armchair—a picture of fragile, unattainable beauty, your famous chestnut hair woven into a thick coronet, your face utterly free of expression.

You had just spoken a word that felt heavier than the crown he bore.

“Divorce,” you repeated, your voice musical and precise, devoid of heat or malice. “Franz, there is no marriage left to save. There is only a structure, hollowed out by time and duty.”

The Emperor felt the meticulous order of his world shatter. He was the most powerful man in Central Europe, yet he stood indicted, utterly powerless.

“Elisabeth,” he managed, the name a choked gasp, a desperate prayer trying to force its way past the knot in his throat. “Do you understand what you are asking? This is impossible. We are the Habsburgs. We are the bedrock of the Monarchy. This… this is scandal. It is the dismantling of everything we—”

“Erzsi,” he pleaded, using your childhood nickname, the intimacy tearing through the silence. “Do not do this. Do not consign me to the silence you already inhabit. I know I have failed you in ways I cannot name, but my God, I love you. I need you here. I need the idea of you, if nothing else.”

He reached your chair. He did not sit beside you, nor did he assume a posture of debate. Instead, the foundation that supported the most powerful man in Europe gave way. The Emperor, ruler of Austria-Hungary, crumpled.

Franz Joseph fell to his knees beside the luxurious velvet chair, not with grace, but with the sudden, pathetic collapse of a wounded creature. He pressed his face instantly into your lap, his hands blindly finding the soft, gathered silk of your skirt and clamping around your waist like shackles.

A sound tore itself from his chest—a raw, ugly, un-imperial sound of profound anguish. It was the sound of a man who had held everything together for decades and had just watched the one vital thread snap.

He wept into your skirt, the tears instantly soaking the delicate fabric stretched over your knees. His body shook violently, racked by sobs that wrenched his shoulders forward. He clung to you, the gold braid of his cuff pressing into your thigh, his breath hot and ragged against the smooth silk.

“You are my life"