My Own Prison
Part Three: My Eternal Heart




"Remember the night where I was in a coma for three days?" Schubaltz asked softly, his arm against the window.

"Yeah, the doctors said you grew mysteriously ill." Thomas responded, his green eyes blinked with confusion. "They were baffled as to what type though. We kinda feared it was the Black Plague."

"No." Schubaltz almost growled upon speaking. "Marcus poisoned my coffee... this wasn't the first attempt on my life, but it would have been successful if I didn't think the coffee tasted weird and got another batch."

"But Marcus was supposed to be your right-hand man. Why would he do a thing like that?"

"Minister Prozen wanted me dead, he was sending his lackeys to do the dirty work.... Marcus just picked the WRONG Major to piss off."

"...."



"Colonel Schubaltz, sir..." A young woman with long red hair and wearing the tags of a Captain. "I'm Captain Yyelena, I'm Trisha's right-hand girl..."

Schubaltz saluted her and nodded, then he saw the look in her golden eyes. "Something wrong, Captain?"

"General Trisha... she went up to the mountain."

"So?"

"You don't understand, Col. Schubaltz. There is a certain thing about the northern culture that you should know. When a warrior feels that he or she is too old to fulfill the duties of a warrior, they'll go up on the mountain... to kill themselves in ritual seppaku."

"...." It did hit him like a hammer. "So she is never coming back."

"...yes, sir."

He tightly closed his eyes and slammed his fist against the wall of the hallway, then he directed his attention on Yyelena again. "Does Aethelwulf know about Trisha?"

Yyelena frowned upon hearing that, the young red-head looked away shamefully. "...yes. He hasn't left his room since. He won't even eat... Trisha was like a grandmother to him... considering the fact that he's well over 12,000 years old."

"..." Schubaltz walked passed her and down the hallway, he drew a deep, composing breath as he walked. In the corner of his mind, he couldn't imagine Trisha going up the mountain to do away with herself, but this IS her homeland after all. He seemed to recall what his nobleman uncle did when it was time for him to pass on. The Late Great Baron Truman Schubaltz died the way he lived, listening to opera while drinking himself into a stupor. The poor idiot choked on his own vomit. Good riddens. But Schubaltz couldn't recall if his homeland had a custom for funerals and such...

"Hey!!!" The sudden, quick and angry attention he got from an irrate technician snatched him back into reality. Schubaltz looked directly down at the technician as he tried to repair the panel that housed some electrical equipment.

"Watch where yer going!!"

"*AHEM* Sorry." Schubaltz went around the person, but something drove him to go to the mountain to talk to Trisha before she did decide to kill herself in ritualistic seppaku. He bundled up in his winter gear and climbed into the Bearfighter, since his Iron Kong Mk-II was no more. The journey up the mountain was shorter than expected, Trisha was in an ice cave, contemplating. She was surprised to see Schubaltz crawling into the cave.

"Karl... what a surprise."

"Trisha... what's going on? Why are you going to do this?"

Trisha frowned, setting down the dagger, she took her long silver hair in her hands. "I got cancer, Karl. I only have 3 more months to live. I decided to not burden myself or the Imperial army in Sovereign with my illness..."

"But those men need you. They'll listen to you more than they'll listen to me."

"But these things need to be done, Karl." Trisha looked at Karl with the saddest blue eyes. "You have your father's eyes..."

Surprised to hear her say that, Schubaltz thought for a second, collecting himself. "What will happen to the men? To Darien? He looked up to you for support."

"Darien is a big boy, Colonel... he's been that for many millenia. You see, Karl... Darien is immortal, he can never know what it is like to die." Trisha looked deeply into Schubaltz's eyes, there was a twinkle in her blue hues. "Darien knows all too well that happiness comes in very small doses, that is why he tries to get those 'doses' anyway he can. He doesn't want to be alone for all his eternity but that's the ultimate price he paid for his true mastery in the Arcane Art of Magic and Sorcery. No mortal man shall ever bear the weight and the power of True Immortality, he guards this secret and this burden well... he just wants... for someone to love him until it is time for them to find the Summer Country."

"So he bears this burden on his own...." Schubaltz spoke with a very low voice. "For all 12,000 years of his immortal life, he's been alone."

"Yes, it's hard to imagine, isn't it?"

He sat down on an ice rock and bundled up in his fur coat, Schubaltz began to shiver a little. Trisha pushed a tin cup of warm water his way, the bishounen colonel took it in his hands and sipped the water.

"He loves you dearly, Karl."

"...." Schubaltz stared into the clear liquid in the cup. "...I do... I do love him too."

"Then why aren't you confessing it to him?"

"Because...." Schubaltz found his reason to be redundant and needless at best. "....I...."

"Tell him how you feel, make him happy. Don't be afraid of rejection or being hurt. Take that leap of faith, trust me, you'll bounce."

She was right, he was too afraid to admit that he was in love with Darien. Clasping the cup tighter, Schubaltz thought to himself, then from out of the blue. "I don't want him to carry this burden alone...."

"Huh??"

"I love him with all my heart, Trisha. I don't want to see him suffer anymore... suffer to make sure no mortal man ever gains the power to become Immortal. I want to share that burden with him."

"Y-you're... you're speaking madness..."

"No, I'm not..." Schubaltz put the cup down and stood up, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling. "You seen my style, I cannot bear to see anyone suffer needlessly and for long periods of time... this decision is final and I am absolute." Schubaltz crawled down the tunnel and into the open. Trisha sighed, but looked at the water in the cup. "At least I got him to confess that he was in love with Darien."



"Darien." Schubaltz pounded on the door, then typed a code on his keypad. Inside the room, Darien was sitting at his desk, writing. "Darien, we need to talk."

"Let me guess, Colonel... you want nothing to do with my love because Marcus burned you way too many times..."

"Darien, I just wanted to tell you a couple things... hear me out."

"Fine." Darien slammed the pen in the inkwell and turned around. "Speak. You're the Colonel."

"..." Schubaltz looked down at the ground, then looked up at Darien. "I love you, Darien. I had been very scared to admit this for myself... I love you and I do want to be with you."

A warm smile crept on Darien's handsome face, he brushed the blue strands of hair from his face. "Karl..."

"Also..." Schubaltz walked up to him and slid his hands on Darien's shoulders as he leaned downward. "I don't want you to bear the eternally heavy cross of Immortality alone any longer..."

That got Darien's attention immediately, he looked up at Schubaltz. "Karl... do you realize what you just said?"

"Yes, I am aware... but it shouldn't make any difference. I love you, I want to be with you. I don't like it when others suffer like this."

The blue-haired Major smiled, tears in his violet eyes. Schubaltz smiled and wiped them away with his finger, but before they could lean over to kiss, gunshots rang out. Darien snapped awake to see that ice pirates had somehow entered his abode. He looked down in time to catch Schubaltz as he fell forward into his arms. The back of his uniform was bloody a thin trail of blood trinkled down his chin. Darien held him close as the ice pirates continued their raid. Without warning, Darien screamed into the air as lightning shot into their bodies from the Heavens above. Darien's eyes were white but chilled like the blackness of the Void.

...The bulletwounds on Schubaltz's back were starting to heal...




"MOTHERFUCKER!!!" Thomas threw another clip of ammunition onto the floor and reloaded his assault rifle. "I HATE ICE PIRATES!!!"

"Good! They hate you too!" Yyelena shouted, then fired her machine gun at a bunch of harpoon weilding maniacs.

"Die already!!!" The dark blonde lieutenant fired some more, getting another pirate in the chest and stomach. The doors opened and two men stepped into the command room, the pirates with the barbed, spiked harpoons threw them at the men. Darien caught the ones thrown at him but Schubaltz was ran through. Thomas screamed in terror, seeing his brother drop while impaled on harpoons. But to their utmost shock, Schubaltz grabbed the handle of the harpoon and in a spray of blood, he peeled himself off the harpoons and staggered around for a second. The ice pirates dropped their harpoons with their jaws wide. Thomas and Yyelena were also in total shock, Thomas moreso than Yyelena.

The ice pirates opened fire on Darien and Schubaltz, but the colonel was shrugging the bullets as if they were nothing and he was wearing full assault riot gear. Schubaltz whipped his pistol out and returned the volley of fire. "Don't just stand there looking pretty, lieutenant!!"

Thomas shook from his haze and continued to take out the pirates, back to back with Yyelena. Darien opened fire as well but the rounds in his assault rifle were electric rounds. They shot lightning as they hit their mark, making loud thunderous booms.




-Continued-