Chapter 18

Milliardo knocks away the burning branch that had been almost aimed at him, it seemed. This royal monarch had heard of such things as natural firestorms---but his gut instinct told him that these attacks were anything but natural, though as yet, he could not find their cause.

A blast of flame that could dig a crater in the road had stopped and almost killed them and now this tree was going up in smoke mere feet from where he stood.

It could be a coincidence, some might even call it a fluke of nature. But Milliardo was not one to believe in coincidence.

He draws his sword, catching a glimpse of horses racing away in the dark. He was certain he was now alone in the pitch black forest to face whatever was out there. His little sister's life and safety was more important to him than anything in the world. He would stake his own life, stand and fight whatever--or whoever--was out there gunning for them....or him....

"King of the North....King Peacecraft...King of the cold, cold north..."

A woman's song wafts on the hot winds from all around him. It was a chant calling to him on musical strains, repeating over and over, calling out, taunting....

"Who calls for me?" Bravely Milliardo answers the wind. His eyes strain to see a small flicker of a candle's light floating towards him slowly from the distance.

"Don't you remember? We met a long, long time ago." The female voice was dripping with flirtation. The king tried to recognize it, but to no avail as it comes closer and closer, wavering in the darkness.

"No, I don't recognize your voice. What is your name?" Milliardo finds the voice alluring in its vagueness. He needed to know who she was, now more than ever.

"My name, he he he...." The lilting chuckle that accompanies her melodic voice would almost have been a pleasure to hear if only he could tear his eyes away from the entrancement the single flickering flame of candlelight was holding over him.

"Don't you know me, noble king? Come closer and I will show you all..." Her voice croons. Milliardo, almost in a trance, walks towards the light.

"Don't you remember how good it felt to hold my skin to yours? Can't you recall the fire that burned within us when our lips first touched? Can't you feel that fire now, king? Can't you feel it burning here inside your chest---the same as here inside of mine?" Appearing in a red-orange haze of fire surrounding her, the woman whose voice beckoned to him takes Milliardo's entranced hand in hers, pressing it to her chest over where a heart once burned strong, blazing in passion for him. Her warped mind saw this heir of the same Peacecraft king as the one she had known so well, with a passion that was frozen--ice cold--when he had betrayed her love for a silly, futile thing called peace.

"You, out here, in this warm world and I trapped inside the cold world you put me in.....to be alone for thousands upon thousands of cold, empty years. It doesn't seem fair, does it?" The Fire Nymph of war finds herself enjoying his touch despite all the hatred pent up she had nurtured for him. She finds his crystal blue eyes and his long, flowing platinum hair even more attractive than she did, all those years ago. There's something so much more tantalizing now than before---something different and very, very, extremely....

There's no time for this now....I will not make such a mistake again. I will destroy you now, King Peacecraft. I will now extract my revenge.

"It's because nothing in this world is fair, o noble king." And with those parting words, she separates herself from him and takes a step back, letting the fire blazing in her, built up over the years, take over---and kill the one who had entombed her fire in ice....

"Die, noble king, die." Her calm voice was a mismatch for the fires broiling inside her empty heart for revenge. It came in the form of a sun fire hot orb held between her hands. Hands that were about to launch that orb point blank into the one chest of the man she so despised, burning a hole into the heartless heart who had seen fit to capture her in an ice chamber---and then, and then, she would kill herself along with him in the process.

Why not? I have nothing to live for? Perhaps in death we can finally be together...Why do I still think this way?

Her dark thoughts of negativity cause the orb to grow and grow. She wasn't satisfied enough to simply destroy the hated king of the north. Now she wanted to blow up half the forest and herself along with it.

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The most dangerous opponent is one who has nothing to live for.

Heero hears the thought float through his mind as he rushes forward and takes aim at the firebrand of a woman.

Or perhaps even more dangerous is the one who DOES have something to live for---someone to live for....

With his sworn promise to the fair Princess Relena still on his lips, Heero pulls the trigger with deadly accuracy.

Seeing this, King Milliardo's noble heart stirs him to awaken in this moment and throws himself in the path of the bullet--shielding his enemy for some unknown reason.

However the bullet continues to pass through his bloody shoulder to its true target---to that of a heart that existed no longer.

The Fire Nymph sinks to her knees at the bullet's---ahem---magic dart's impact. It goes straight through her heart and the orb of energy in her hands dissipates as she goes down without so much as a scream.

"Another one of those ought to get rid of her permanently." Heero coldly walks closer, seeing the foolish king's shoulder as only an unfortunate fleshwound. He was just about to plug her again---this time directly aimed at her head.

"End it for me, then. But please, allow the king to finish off the war-like heart whose only crime was to fall in love with him and his peace....I'd rather die by his sword than any other. Good wins the battle over evil, after all...."

So Heero steps aside, though he keeps the gun trained on her as Milliardo steps forward. Her eyes beckon to him again, but this time with something different. For when Heero's bullet had passed through them both, the tiniest bit of human blood found its way into her, causing her to become mortal and able to die---

And also to feel regret and able to love again.

Milliardo too gained something from this mystical merging as well.

"I don't even know your name, but I know you're not truly evil. True evil in this world does not have one drop of red blood in their veins. Look here." Milliardo touches gingerly the wound on her chest. "This blood means that a heart still beats inside you. You do not have to let revenge rule you any longer. You have defeated me already, Fire Nymph. In the name of peace, I concede to you."

Milliardo's upbringing taught him peace at all costs, and it starts with the peace in your own heart---

"And in the name of love, I concede to you as well."

His lips overtake hers as something in the moment assures him that she was one. She was the one who needed his love, his protection---his infinite peace....

"My name is Lucrezia." She whispers in his arms.