nightheart

Man Of Peace

Lady Une marched in front of the procession, behind the pair of standard
bearers and to the fore of the empty coffin that was held on the shoulders
of four ex-Treize Faction soldiers. She was dressed completly in unreleived
black, the age-old color of mourning from her own culture. Her hair was
down, just like how Master Trieze had always liked it, and she didn't try to
fight the tears that fell from her brown eyes, unhidden by glasses.
Once in a time not too long ago she would have fought the tears slipping
down her face with all of her strength, believing them a sign of weakness.
That time was past, her once sundered psyche and was complete and she was
made into a whole person once more. Every facet of herself wept unashamedly
for the man she'd loved and lost. Standing through the funeral was the
hardest thing anyone had ever asked her to do. It would have been funny in
an ironic way but Une no longer saw the value of the universes cruel sense
of humor.
The funeral taking place at the moment was simply for show. There was no
body. Une had seen to his remains personally, just as she had seen to almost
everything else of his, up to and including his rose-scented bath oils. His
body had been pulled from the wreckage and cremated. She had scattered his
ashes from her personal flyer into the air and the vaccum between Earth and
Space. She'd felt it appropriate, his remains floating forever in the places
he'd loved so much and tried unto his last breath to reconcile and protect.
There would be peace now, and his spirit would watch over the Earth Sphere
(Earth Sphere includes both Earth and the Colonies) finding rest and comfort
at last in the peace that he had given his life to attain, and Une would
give her life to maitaining it. She would give her life to ensuring that
Treize's life had not been wasted and that his ideals were understood and
embraced in the hearts of the masses.
Treize had not been a follower of any one kind of religion so Une had hired
a Foundationalist (one who incorporated the foundations and universal truths
of all religions into their search for truth) to perform the ceremony. She
had requested and been granted the right to say a few words at the end of
the ceremony, before his empty coffin was laid into the ground, beside the
empty grave of that of his close friend and once enemy Milliardo Peacecraft.
<It's funny, I've neve seen Miss Relena visit her Brother's grave once since
he was laid to rest. I don't recall her ever going to the funeral either,>
Une thought irrelevently as she watched the ceremony roll by in it's
traditional monotony. The funeral was not neccessary, and the huge parading
of his body through the streets ha been offensive in Ladt Une's eyes.
No one else knew Treize like she did, and she was certain beyond a shadow of
a doubt that the public spectacle they'd made of his last rites was not
something His Excellency Master Treize would have wanted. In fact, Une could
recall reading in a missive that his last wish was to have his remains
disposed of, exactly as she had disposed them, and that he be allowed to
fade into history and not reincarnate old rivalries and feuds among the
people and soldiers.
However the Treize faction had demanded that they have a funeral for their
fallen general, and Une had not been in a position to argue with them at the
time. More acurately, she had not been in a state to argue with them. When
she had reached the safety and privacy of her quarters she had collapsed
into a fit of greiving that had left feeling hollow and exhausted. She had
fasted for five days, spending the time in darkness with only a candle to
light her way, meditating and praying in her own fashion. Even Sally Po had
stopped by to deliver her proffessional opinion that such an extended period
of greiving and fasting was not at all healthy. The good doctor had been
sent away, like all the others. Une had only come out when they searchers
announced to her (and only to her) the recovery of his body.
Une had said her goodbyes then, but she could respect the need of others to
have their own closure. But this... This was not what Treize would have
wanted, he beleived that a true soldiers most honorable burial was on the
battlefeild. This blaintant flouting of his wishes disturbed the Lady Une
and undermined the message that Treize had been striving for. He would not
wish that his death and mortal coil become a monument to war.
And since he could not correct the misapprehentions being made by his men,
then Une would have to do it in Treize's name. She would make sure that the
message Treize had wanted to send with his death and the ideals he'd lived
and loved would survive intact. And that the people would realize the ideals
he'd led others to struggle for.
"From the stars we emerged and to the stars we return, from now unto
eternity. We herby commit this body to the deep..."
Une watched the empty coffin being lowered into the ground.
"All of you here now know this man as His Excellency Treize Kushrenada.
Aristocrat and war hero, leader of thousands. He lived his life with bravery
in every single word and deed, he commited himself to his positions and OZ
flourished under his rule. All of you here know His Excellency...the
soldier. There are few who could say that they knew Master Treize as the man
he was. As His Excellency he was revered and celebrated for the battles he
fought and for the wars he won, but few knew or have remembered on this
occasion that he was a man who saw the beauty ond sorrow of a battlefeild.
In this disply you have honored his valor and courage, but have any of you
honored his ideals? Treize Kushrenada, loved the hearts that were willing to
fight, loved the souls that could see the battle for what it truly was. Not
the triumph of the one over the other, not the triumph of the weak over the
strong, but the passionate expression of two ideals and the growth of new
and better strength. Master Treize believed in the beauty and sorrow of a
battle feild, of the hearts and souls of those who would stand and fight not
only with weapons but with hearts true and full of hope for the future, and
he believed above all in the future. We stand here so that we may remember
his past deeds and glories, but we need not stand here on this day to
remember him, we will remember him with every effort we make to strive to
make peice and to hold onto it with all our might. We build the future,
shape it with our thoughts and words, deeds and actions. Let the ideals that
this man sacrificed so much for live on in our hearts and manifest itself in
our actions as we pave the path to a future peace. So now I implor you, all
of you... Let His Excellency Treize Kushrenada not be remembered as the
Commander of OZ, who led thousands in a final war between Earth and Space.
Let him be remembered as the man he was, a man of peace. Let us exchange the
past for the future and live out the ideals he deid to realize in our
hearts, for he was, despite his miliary genius, at heart a man of peace."
Lady Une stepped back from the podium. She didn't know where those eloquent
words had come from, perhaps the spirit of Treize had whispered them in her
ear so that she might better guide the world down the path of his ideals.
<Good-bye my love,> she thought as her tears fll onto the recently upturned
earth. <I will fight to maintain this peace you have wrought in your own
blood in all the ways that I know how. This is the last and final thing that
I know to do for you. I will have to step beyond your great shadow to do it,
but I think that I am ready for he starlight now.>
Tomorrow she would talk to the president...But what to call her idea...?
Hmmm...
Preventors?

The End.

* * * * * * * * * *
Authors Note:
At last! A good Treize and Une fic! I've bee trying for weeks to write one,
but the words come slowly to me. This one flew ou of my keyboard as if it
had wings! I've got another one that I'm about a fifth of the way through,
it's a lot longer...
All the best!
~Nightheart.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, there, I said it... You an all go bac
to your homes, there's nothing more to see.