Red as Blood, White as Snow

(and Blue like a summer sky)

You feel it in the bones, freezing the very core of your being and clenching your heart with icy claws.

Your soul is a frozen, deserted landscape and you love it: the clarity it gives you not being able to feel anything. It is truly a blessing.

xXx

They give you orders, you follow them.

You kill people for them, the corpses are never found.

They're pleased.

xXx

They don't tell you your name. You don't ask it. You don't care.

A name is nothing but a sound.

You know who you really are: the Soldier of Winter.

Snow follows your deadly path and buries the blood you spill under its lily-white mantle.

xXx

When they assign you your next mission - kill Captain America - you just take your gun, your knife and you rifle and vanish, swallowed by the darkness.

xXx

You see the red, white and blue of his shield: the flag of your - their - enemies.

You shoot: crimson bleeds from his right shoulder.

xXx

He drops to his knees.

xXx

You raise your gun to his head, like an execution.

He raises his eyes to your face, like a prayer.

xXx

You don't know mercy, you won't concede it.

Except... he's not begging for it.

xXx

He takes your hand, he kisses the knuckles, reverently, and still you can feel the touch, nothing more than a brief brush of quivering lips, linger through the metal.

xXx

Your right arm shakes and drops the gun by his own volition.

Your entire body is betraying you: even your legs break under the overwhelming weight of an unknown sensation.

xXx

It's not pain, not exactly.

Pain is a knife tearing your flesh apart, a bullet shattering your bones.

This is more of a dull ache, pounding insistently on the left, just beneath your ribs.

And yet it's more powerful and excruciating than everything your body ever felt.

xXx

You find yourself on your knees, eye to eye with this man.

This man who didn't fight you, but won you still.

This man who's bright and warm and blinding like a summer afternoon.

xXx

And when he brings you closer, nails scraping at your back and tears burning hot against your cheek... the ice starts melting like a glacier under the sun.

xXx

And when he whispers your name into your ear, his voice soft and melancholic... it's not just a hollow sound.

It's a promise, a wish, a gift.

It speaks of home and friendship and devotion.

xXx

Of a bed shared by scrawny kids to keep the cold away.

Of a tent shared by brave soldiers to keep the nightmares at bay.

xXx

"I thought you were dead" he says, with love in his eyes.

"I thought you were smaller" you reply, with summer in your heart.

xXxXxXx

The End