DIE UPON A KISS - ACT V

Act Five: Deaths, Resurrections, And One Last Kiss

The moonlight still is pale and wan,

The same sun shines that's always shone,

Yet all these things are past and gone, 
And won't come back for thinking on.

Zechs entered a bedchamber lit by a flickering candle clock, to gaze doubtfully and in consternation upon his better half. Noin’s steady, calm breathing and her beautiful appearance made him falter. “Should I kill her or not?” Finally, he gave in to despair. As he put the candle out, he mused: “Put out this light, then put out the light of her life. But which kind of fire could revive the latter?”

In utter darkness, he gave in to the temptation of a kiss from her lips before Eternity, and his own hands, made them too cold to be pleasant. And she was woken by that kiss, afraid of him, but still hopeful that he soon would be pleased with her again.

“Is that you?” she inquired, to hear her spouse burst into tears and insults again.

“I swear we’re just friends!”, she denied her presumed affair, defending her innocence. “Ask Quatre himself!”

“I’m sorry, but that is impossible. He will not answer”.

“Quatre... shot...?” sobbed Noin, as tears started to trickle down her cheeks.

Meanwhile, Une and Dorothy were drawn to the bastion by the sound of gunshots, to encounter, lying on the cold cobblestones, Trowa Barton with a serious headshot that had deprived him of life; and Quatre Winner standing up to take a pocket-watch with a bullet on its lid from his pierced breast pocket. The latter was shocked by the sight that appeared before him upon coming to, and a drop fell from the skies unto his flaxen hair. So, he was led back into the guardhouse by the handmaids, for it had started to drizzle.

In the meantime, Noin’s disappointment had segued into despair, as she pleaded, shedding tears, for mercy. But Zechs remained firm and steadfast, and he tightened his grip on her throat even more for each second. Sooner or later, he would make her trachea snap. And the lava of rage that coursed through his veins gave him the strength to do so. Yet Lucrezia Noin, just like her spouse turned enemy, would rather break than bend.

“I still love you! I never had that affair!”, a loud click and searing pain signalled that he had broken her airway, and her true voice was stifled forever. The dark-haired maiden felt as if struck by lightning. Turning blue in her lips and fingertips, desperate upon not being able to breathe, she suffered the lethal and acute condition of suffocation, after which death came as a relief when she lost consciousness.

Then, Zechs let her go, as he heard a knock on the door and opened it quietly. It was Une, followed by Quatre. “Wasn’t he supposed to be dead? Treize will have to pay for such failure”, he quickly thought. The handmaid turned pale upon seeing her mistress bereft of life and half out of bed, wearing the purple collar of strangulation. Then she addressed Zechs in a fit of rage and despair:

“You have been deceived, Your Lordship. And all for a series of lies told by your confidant, my spouse, Treize Khushrenada. As for Mistress, she is innocent of the deed you have presumed. It was Treize who enticed Quatre here to drink liquor, and also Treize who forced me to steal that handker-...” a gunshot was heard, and Une felt a blazing object enter her back at the height of the right shoulder-blade, before collapsing, lifeless, on the pavement beside her mistress. The bullet hole in her back came to view.

On the threshold stood Treize, sheathing his gun. Zechs lunged at the older officer and punched him on the head, causing him to lose consciousness. The, he burst into tears, tears of sorrow and despair. “She was innocent, and I have killed her! Now she can’t come back!” Kneeling before Quatre, he forgave the young blond and ordered him to have Treize arrested for lifetime, a punishment he esteemed worse than death. Then, he unsheathed his rapier and thrust it all the way to his own heart, as he caressed the lifeless features of his beloved and gave her one last cold kiss.

As he lay dying, a new day broke and the ominous clouds were scattered.

The doors of the chapel were firmly shut, and Relena, who had chosen not to attend the ceremony, was listening to the baroque hymns that were sung within. All she wanted was to have been a bridesmaid like Sally and Catherine.

“I do”, she heard Quatre through the shut door, since he was the bridegroom.

“I do”, the bride replied.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife”, Reverend Maxwell concluded before the kiss segued into the hymns again.

One hour later, the doors opened and the newlyweds left the chapel. Quatre, wearing his mess uniform with the sword and epaulets; and the bride in a white empire waist gown that fit the color of her fair hair and blue eyes.

They were followed by Heero, who had been the best man, and then by the rest of the congregation, their best wishes being made to the newlyweds. Relena felt a warm hand on her right shoulder and pretended to be listening. It was the best man, her own fiancé, for whom she cherished the warmest of feelings.

No one in that secluded outpost seemed to remember that a fivefold funeral had taken place in that very chapel a few hours before.

The End.

Curtain Call.