This one really rather sucks, but I was bored and thought it couldn't hurt to post it.  Written, obviously, at a not-so-great time when I really just needed to clear my head.  Thanks to CM on that note, btw.  ^_^

Of Ice and Blood

    The snow crunched quietly underneath his boots, its crisp top layer of ice cracking with every step that he took.  This sound was the only one to be heard for miles; all else was silent.  For once in the expanse of his miserable life the silence did not disturb him. 

    He trudged on through the snow, lowering his head against the slight breeze, looking as downtrodden as a soldier returning home from war.  Perhaps that was all he was now. 

    The white glare of the sun upon the snow burned his eyes, causing them to water until at last tears began to squeeze out from his clenched eyelids, wetting his chilled face in tiny streaks that were certain to freeze before his business here was done.  He was not bothered by the possibility of illness; there was time for it to affect him. 

    The trees were glazed in white and spires of ice hung from their branches like so many arms straining to reach the ground, straining to reach something…that something was always so unattainable.  For one moment he paused, so overwhelmed was he by the beauty of it all. 

    The dagger hung at his side, the sword and the gun beside it.  Yet another weapon he had not needed as an OZ soldier, simply designed and carried to impart an image of power and grandeur and of overall elegance, to flaunt how aristocratically elitist the organization considered itself to be.  He would only be needing one of them even now. 

    His uniform had not been made for places such as this; his coat alone kept out the chill.  He did not care.  It was the mask that he wished for now, the cold shell that had for so many years concealed his face and—though this had been far from his intentions—had distinguished him both within the ranks of OZ and on the battlefield.  It was the mask he wanted to feel upon his face, the simultaneous lightness and heaviness of it, carrying behind it that secret that should never have been told, that he was the Prince, he was Milliardo Peacecraft of the Sanq Kingdom—

    May he rest in peace: the betrayed and outraged Milliardo Peacecraft.

    Milliardo Peacecraft had died years ago.  Today he would die as Zechs Marquise. 

    His gloved hands rose, gingerly touched his exposed face.  So strange to feel this naked, this revealed, so alien to feel this face, the face of the dead Prince, uncovered.  Even after all the time he had spent acting as an ambassador of the kingdom or as the leader of the White Fang had not accustomed him to it, not under this name, not in this uniform.  This was the attire of one who stood for everything the Peacecrafts had fought against, a bloodstained mercenary, a killer of his own men.  The Prince's face above it was a blasphemy to peace. 

    He wondered briefly if any of the others had decided to take the path that he was.  He was certain that some of them had, particularly those who had understood all along the purpose of the war regardless of which side they had taken.  Perhaps ultimately Treize's method of excluding himself from the war's end was the only correct one.  More had been learned from his death than could ever have been learned by his living after the war.  That was always what was needed to, for the time, cure mankind of his horrid desire to fight: a death, thousands of them, soldiers falling in their own blood, leaders yielding quietly to their own grim ends.  That was what mankind understood, not proposals and contracts and agreements that could be reached.  They were no better than animals, really. 

    He had wanted to leave the battle through Treize's way, a quick, merciful death that would be over in but a flash of light, momentarily cleansing the darkness of space, but such a thing was not to be.  There had to be one to see that it all ended in the planned manner, the only one that would ensure peace for however brief a time it was to last; he had understood this.  And so he had finished it, making himself the great villain and all under that hated name of Milliardo Peacecraft, and thus it was only now that he could bring himself to an end. 

    He stopped when at last he came to the line of frozen trees, gilded by their towering adornments of ice.  This place would suffice.  No one would find him here; no one would come to interrupt him, and when at last he lay lifeless and silent the snow would fall again and cover him, masking his entire body rather than only his face, turning the long strands of his hair into the same spires that hung from the trees and his dead eyes to blue marbles.  The snow would be his grave and when spring came there would be nothing left of Milliardo Peacecraft or Zechs Marquise, only a discolored lump of flesh and bone.  He would be forgotten by then. 

    He knelt beneath a tree, assuming a position much like that of one in prayer though his mind offered no such supplications.  There was no need for prayers and pleading now.  He deserved no such forgiveness.  Let someone else pray for him, now that it was already believed he was dead.  Let Relena, misunderstanding and innocent pray for the forgiveness of his damnable bloodstained soul.  Let Lucrezia with the crimson rosary that she had always kept concealed in an inner pocket of her uniform pray that he at last found some kind of absolution, even if it were only in hell.  Let any of them do it; he would not.     

    We will be making war plans in hell someday, Milliardo.  Treize's words, spoken so long ago, when the OZ organization was but another one of Treize's opportunistic aspirations.  They had been meant as a jest, but both of them had known even then of their inherent truth. 

    Absolution in hell, then. 

    He removed the dagger from its sheath, laid it on the snow beside him.  The blade gleamed brightly in the sunlight, enticingly, invitingly, as though already death welcomed him into its silent embrace. 

    Come to me and I will give you peace.

    He stripped the white gloves from his hands, cast them down carelessly.  He studied his hands calmly, each line, each curve; the sight of his hands bared like this was altogether alien to him.  How white they were beneath the sun, how pale and perfectly clean.  Such hypocrisy.   The blood that stained them could not be denied, no matter how he wished it were so. 

    He pushed up the sleeves of his coat and uniform, exposing the undersides of his wrists.  This time it would be his own blood that was spilled upon them. 

    He took the dagger into his hand, held the tip of the blade to the opposite wrist.  It would be so easy to push it in, so simple to make that initial cut and then drag it down… it would be so very easy to do it, and yet he could not, not yet.  There was still something that he must do. 

    His eyes fell closed and his thoughts turned again to her, his sister, and to all of them, to all the soldiers slain by his actions.  He saw her face, his young sister, the very image of their mother.  At one time he had believed that she could salvage the Peacecraft monarchy but he was now all too aware that there could be no truth in this.  What she would go on to do after this she would as Relena Darlian; she was no longer a Peacecraft, if indeed she ever had been.  He thought of Treize and how it seemed that all for which they had strived for so long was at last accomplished. 

    And then at last he thought of Lucrezia.  Would she understand, were she to know of what he was about to do?  No.  She would not.  She was too kind and too compassionate to understand a thing such as this.  Better that she should believe he had died within the confines of the Epyon in space than here, by his own hand.  Better that she never knew how weak a man he was, how damnably weak.  Better that she continued to love him as what he had been, not what he was now.  

    They would forget him in time, all those who now survived.  They would forget all that he had been and all that he had done, until he was but a name in some inconsequential military record. 

    He found the thought strangely comforting. 

    He pressed the blade into his flesh, opened his eyes.  A tiny drop of blood appeared; he felt no pain.  Disappointment darkened the blue of his eyes—he had hoped for the pain, for the burning, aching sensation of his flesh being rent as the blood poured out from it.  He had hoped to die longing for death. 

    He could not do this.  He did not want this, he could not do this, he could not—

    The dagger fell from his hand.  Another drop of blood fell onto the snow, marring its white perfection.  He stared at it dumbly, only barely aware that it was his own. 

    May he rest in peace…

    A slight smile crossed his face; another freezing tear, incited by the sun, ran down his face.  A drop of blood, such a suiting offering. 

    …the betrayed and outraged Milliardo Peacecraft.

    It would be the last one spilled for him. 

    He replaced the gloves upon his hands and rose from his knees, tucked the dagger back into its sheath.  He followed the path of his own footprints through the snow, thinking of everything and nothing all at once. 

    The war is over. 

    The snow heralded his departure, echoing his every footstep.

    It is all over now.

    He gave a tight smile at the thought.

    The war is over. 

    After several minutes this entire incident was forgotten. 

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Okay, I know it wasn't very good but I thought I would post it anyway.  Please be merciful???  [scared expression]