15 December 1999
Hello, mina -
This fic is in my Blue Bloods series - a Zechs Merquise and Treize Khushrenada timeline that covers/will cover everything from their hypothetical meeting in childhood to Zechs' actions after that nasty last episode.
This is a fic about the day the Sank Kingdom was attacked and destroyed from the perspective of 6-year-old Milliard Peacecraft.
ja ne -
kumiko
DISCLAIMER: All Gundam Wing characters are property of Sunrise, Bandai Visuals, Setsu Agency, and Asahi TV. This work is not written for profit, but for entertainment purposes only.
Author's Notes: Kingdom of Glass describes the fall of the Sank Kingdom in A.C. 182 from the perspective of 6-year-old Prince Milliard. (It is, however, written in third person.)
Key for punctuation:
"..." - character dialogue
/.../ - character thoughts
The sky is beautiful, almost like an upside down ocean, with cloud fish. /Hmmm... this must be a special day. No other day has ever looked like this.../
The golden boy who admired the sky was lying on hisback in a field of daffodils. Puffy white clouds offered themselves up for his analysis against a backdrop of stunning blue. A warm wind hummed through the trees and made the bright yellow flowers bow and sway, like ladies and gentlemen at a ball. It seemed, to the young prince who took it in, to be a day of great importance.
/Something will happen today - something so special I can't even imagine it. It's all so lovely- /
The boy cut off the thought and sat up suddenly. He felt a momentary twinge, as if it was wrong somehow to have these thoughts. Somewhere inside of his mind a voice whispered, "Too lovely? Too perfect? A blessing named bodes ill will, indeed."
He shook his head, blonde hair swinging just above his shoulders, and stood up. "Don't be silly," he said to the daffodils. "That's just a lot of nonsense, Nurse told me so."
To feel more convinced, he put his hands on his hips, determined to shake off the strange thought. The wind blew long white-gold strands out of his eyes and he looked outward, taking in the beautiful sweep of city and harbor below him.
This was the Sank Kingdom, a small, shining jewel in the chaos that was Europe. Ruled by a benevolent monarch and dedicated to pacifism, the Kingdom was the ancestral home of the Peacecraft throne, and what a throne it was.
No one had ever ruled over Sank as wisely and well as King Peacecraft IX. Not only was he a thoughtful and intelligent monarch, but his long, flowing beard of gray and silver and his tall and regal bearing seemed to inspire great confidence in the citizens of his realm. Prince Milliard's great hope was, more than anything else, to live up to the example his father had set for him.
The perfect day had reached an achingly perfect peak when he saw the first sign. In the future, whenever he thought about that day, he would marvel at how he knew, immediately, what the dark plume of smoke heralded. It was two full seconds after he saw the thick, greyish smoke that the shockwave of the blast reached him.
/Thunder? No... not thunder... something much, much worse.../
As he puzzled, five mobile suits screamed over head, through that same azure sky, and headed towards the capital city. Milliard froze. Mobile Suits in this place meant only one thing - his homeland was under attack.
"Father!! Mother!! Relenaaaaa!!" he screamed as he ran through the field toward the palace of Sank. His family was a small one and every member of it was now at the palace and under attack. He reached the edge of the field and, for a second, looked back on what had been his cherished "quiet place." A swath of the field was flattened from his run, the daffodils crushed and broken.
A huge explosion rocked the entire hillside and he almost lost his footing. He kept running, though, and soon he was near the road leading up the palace. He stopped to catch his breath and watched, horrified, as a squad of ten suits landed in the city and opened fire on the people there.
"M-mother?? Father???" he ran faster, seeing the palace come into view and feeling a scream rise in his throat at the site of the crumbled west wing. That was where his mother had her morning room. She was always there at this time of day...
A shell landed 15 feet away from him, the explosion hrowing him several feet in the air. He landed on his shoulder and felt a stab of pain race through it. /This can't be happening... where is Father?? Where's Relena?? Oh... Mother... Father... where *is* everyone??/
He ran through the kitchens. Palace staff that had not yet fled were screaming and crying, some hiding under the kitchen table, others curled into balls in the corners. "Go into the hills!" he ordered. "It'll be harder for them to find you there!" And, looking up at their young prince giving commands, outwardly so calm, they did as he told them to and one by one slipped out the kitchen door and away into the countryside.
Now on into the great dining hall, where the ceiling was beginning to crumble, dust and stone raining down through the silky colored banners that hung to honor each generation of Peacecrafts. Another explosion and the ground was moving, as if an earthquake had struck. Milliard lost his footing once again, falling hard on his injured shoulder and ending up behind a large stone cask. At that moment, soldiers raced into the room and the young prince scurried to conceal himself all the way.
The soldiers were laughing. It was one of the most frightening sounds he had ever heard. Then he heard one of them speak. "Bring the old man out here!" said a low, gruff voice. Milliard venture a look around the corner of the cask, just in time to see his father shoved into the middle of a circle of Federation troops. A tall, man with a weathered face sauntered out and grabbed a hold of his father's long hair. He pushed the King roughly to his knees, and Milliard nearly shouted in his outrage.
The weatherbeaten man was speaking again. "You've cause enough trouble for one lifetime, your majesty," he said bitterly, all the while pulling sharply on the the thick silver hair of the Peacecraft. Casually, he reached into his jacket and brought out a small automatic pistol. Holding it to the King's head, he breathed something into the older man's ear. The King shook his head defiantly and the man cocked the gun.
Milliard had had enough. As the man's finger began to pull back on the trigger, the young prince of Sank ran out from behind the cask. "Stop it!!!! Don't you dare hurt my father!!!" he screamed, launching himself directly into the belly of the man with the gun. "Milliard!!! Ruuuuunnnnn!!" the King screamed , eyes wide at the sight of his only son charging a Specials officer. A shot rang out from another soldier's gun, echoing around the huge hall. Milliard watched his father crumple and fall to the ground, like a paper doll, no longer wanted by a child.
"FATHERRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!" Milliard's voice was a hoarse shriek. His legs no longer seemed to support him and he slid to his knees, sickened by the sight in front of him. The scream seemed to last an eternity, even as it completed it's deadly work, ripping the soul of a six-year-old boy in two.
The soldiers turned at the sound of his scream, and several aimed their guns at him. He turned and ran, fleeing the hall with its terrible, dead occupant. Two soldiers caught him by the arms and began dragging him back into the room where his father lay, dead on the cold stone floor.
The man with the gun smiled and trained the pistol on him. He smirked at Milliard, struggling now in the arms of the soldiers, and said, "So - this is the vermin's offspring? Best to kill the young in the nest -" he smirked and rested the barrel of the gun against Milliard's forehead.
The tiny prince wriggled again in the soildiers' grasp and somehow - managed to break free just as another explosion rocked the palace. Milliard took the opportunity to run, as fast as he could, out of that death-filled room. His only hope now was to find his sister, 3-year-old Relena. The rest of his family were dead.
The main staircase was blocked by fallen debris, so he had to backtrack through the long hallway that fronted the palace. As he approached the end of that corridor, he heard Relena, crying unconsoleably. He felt a burst of adreneline and rage and he came around the corner to find two Federation soldiers with their guns pointed at his little sister.
But she wasn't alone. His father's most trusted aide, Darlian, was there, saying something to the two of them, pleading it seemed. He quickly ducked back around the corner before the soldiers saw him and then silently moved to the corner to listen.
"Please, I'm telling you the truth.!" Darlian was insisting She's *my* daughter. She's very upset because she saw the princess killed by a lighting fixture that fell from the nursery ceiling. Can't you see how upset she is?"
Milliard moved back and leaned against the wall of the corridor. He was shaking and angry, but more than that now, he was frightened.
/They killed Mother, and Father. They tried to kill me. They want to kill a 3-year-old girl... My whole family... they want us dead... Relena... you must be so scared... at least Darlian is taking her in... he's convincing them that she is his... to save her... they would kill her otherwise... so he's making sure she's safe. That's good. It'll be good that she's safe...
/I wonder why I'm not safe? I wonder why no one has told the soldiers that I belong to them... why isn't anyone with me, like Minister Darlian is with Relena?/
He felt a sting of tears and then a wave of guilt swept over him, reddening his face and causing him to stand up straight. /Stop being selfish! There are people here who are in danger of dying! Father is dead - there is no king. There is no queen. I'm the only one who can do anything now... the only one who can save the Kingdom... it's up to me, it's all up to me.../
Milliard heard the sound of heavy boots punding down the corridor that lay around the corner. Knowing the soldiers would appear any moment, he looked around and then saw the door for the family's two dogs, a homely little portal in the corner of the wall, but big enough for a slender child to fit through. With a glance to the right and left, he ran to it and scrambled through to the outside.
It was late afternoon. He had come upon Federation soldiers not 50 feet outside the castle and had fled to the relative safety of his fort, almost completely obscured by early summer growth among the birches and indens. He had hid, curled up in a ball, as long as he could, listening to the horrible sounds of warfare, now focused primarily in the capital itself. With every scream of jets and every blast from the mobile suits, he thought to himself, /Someone just died because of me. A citizen of Sank has just lost his life because I don't know what to do. It's my fault. This is all my fault.../
When he couldn't take it anymore, he climbed down from the fort and crept slowly towards the now-silent palace. He would stop here first, and find out how bad things really were. He didn't want to hide from it now, he wanted to know everything.
He stepped through the wall of what had been the kitchens and saw what must have been 30 corpses scattered in the rubble. /The soldiers must have brought the other staff here and shot them all/ he thought, surprised at how cool and detached he felt.
He walked to where the morning room had been and tried to take in the utter destruction. Everthing that had been in the room, including, no doubt, his mother, was reduced to small bits of rubble - nothing large remained in the ruins that offered soundless testimony to the Federation's hatred and fear of his father, and his father's ideas.
He wandered all over the palace, and found absolutely no one. No sign of any of the staff members, nor his father's aides nor his sister. His last memory of Relena would be the sound of her wailing in terror and confusion, and the horrible feeling of being utterly helpless to comfort her. Had he done so, it would have betrayed her identity to the soldiers.
It was a ghost palace he stood within now. The echoes of their lives here still seemed strong. The breakfast they had shared that morning. The game of hide-and-seek he had played with Relena before heading out to play. His father's smile as he walked into his library for a briefing with his aides.
The events still echoed here, but the people who had brought them to life were gone. The new King of Sank was completely and utterly alone.
Finally, and with strong reluctance, he walked to the great hall, where he had seen the soldier shoot his father. There was no sign of the monarch's body, but a smeared, bloody trail led from the spot where he had fallen out to the front of the palace.
"Father..." the small boy whispered, even that faint sound echoing in the high-ceilinged space.
Stooping, he reached a hand down to the pool of blood. It was cool, and partially congealed, smelling of iron and salt. Milliard pressed his fingers into it then softly swept his small, stained fingers across his left cheek, branding himself reverently with a trail of his father's blood.
/Now,/ he thought, /everyone will know who's fault it is for the King's death.../
When that was done, he walked quietly out of the ruin that had been his home and down to the city to see his people.
The citizens of the capitol city of Sank were crying.
They screamed, if they were among the injured, because not one hospital stood intact - no care could be given. They wailed, if they cradled the dead, for no age was spared, from infants to old men who had only wished to live their remaining days out in peace.
Here and there were even a few curses for the United Earth Alliance and the Specials corps who had devastated their city. But over it all was the soft, bewildered sound of crying.
Prince Milliard of Sank walked among his subjects, along the dirty streets and through piles of rubble that had once been graceful buidlings. The prince walked, and no one knew he was there.
No one in that wretched place would have ever guessed that the pretty blond boy with the dirty face and torn clothes was their new monarch. No one would have known, as well, that the slender boy with the haunted eyes saw every devastated home, every ruined building and dying person, and took each one of these into himself. Each was his own, personal failure.
/It's all my fault. If I had been at the palace, instead of in my quiet place, I could have saved everyone. If I had been there to protect them, my father would still be alive - my mother, too. If I had stayed with my family, my sister wouldn't have had to rely on an aide to save her... I was selfish. I was enjoying the day and I said it was lovely and this is my punishment for being so sure of myself and the day.
/Father... that man... holding him by his hair... the others, laughing... the terrible sound of the bullet, is *that* how easy we are to kill... ?/
All around him, he saw accusatory eyes. Eyes of the dead, lifeless but reproachful. Eyes of the wounded, disbelieving that these were actually to be their last few hours of life. Eyes of the survivors, wondering why the *royal* family hadn't saved *their* families.
/I hate myself. I should have been here. I should have done something more to save everyone... And I hate something else, too. I hate the Alliance. I hate the Specials. And they *will* pay. I swear to you, Father - they'll pay for what they did to you and to all of our people. I'll do it myself. I'll make them pay./
There were adults who would help him, surely. He would have to find them. The aide - Darlian - he had helped Relena, surely he would help her brother, too. He would find the man and get him to help recruit for a counterattack. The man *had* to be on their side.
The small prince walked slowly down the main street of the capitol and out towards the countryside. He knew that Darlian lived out there, and if he had to beg to get help, than so be it.
He kept walking - and not a person who walked by him recognized the slim, grubby young boy they passed.
He thought of revenge towards the Alliance, revenge coming from the hands of these citizens. He thought of rallying them to fight back and to let the world know what an atrocity had been committed here today.
But no one on the street roused themselves beyond the stupor of what had happened to them, personally. After all, the little figure passing by them was only a street urchin...
And so, Milliard walked away from the dying city, heading towards what he hoped would be help, the stain of his King's blood on the delicate curve of his cheek. He paused only once, to look at the daffodil field -his quiet place - in the blood red of the setting sun.
Covered now with mounds of debris and pitted with explosion holes, some 4-5 feet deep, it was unrecognizable as the same place. Only one spot of color remained - a tiny swatch of yellow that seemed to glow from under a large pile of rock and tree trunks. One lone daffodil, perfectly intact, lay on the brown earth, it's vivid color a small protest against the ugliness around it.
owari
(:./kumiko/bblood2)
