Slowly the droplets felt into the pristine white snow, ruining its placid and clean effect. His dark eyes watched as the blood came in contact with the ground, more flowing from the wound with each heart beat.

For the few seconds before the crimson liquid touched the ground it seemed to float, hovering above the ground as if loathe to join the filth to which it didn't belong. For a few moments, he contemplated his heart stopping, half fearing the sight he would see if it did. If his heart stopped beating, the beautiful liquid would stop flowing from his body, stop perching on the edge of his fingers, stop falling to the ground with soundless plinks.

He blinked away tears of anger that began to form against his will. How could he have been so stupid? To think that he would make a difference, to think that his sacrifice would not be in vain.

His blood now was a pool beneath the hand he held aloft, seeping into the knees of his jeans as he propped himself up on the other hand. He felt his breath coming in shorter gasps, and for an instant wondered when he had become out of breath. Then the thought fled from his mind as again, the six men he had defended her against sought to harm him again.

Again and again the silver flash of the knife blade came toward him, causing him more pain, and yet, at the same time, less. He could feel his heart beat slowing, and almost wanted to glance at the blood flowing from him. His vision blurred and the edges went white after one particularly violent kick, and he decided to look while he still had the means and opportunity.

His arm was coated in blood, hundreds of tendrils racing each other from his body. He could no longer tell if his heart beat effected the blood flowing softly from him because it was no longer soft. The blood flow was harsh and unrelenting, seeming to come out in torrents, draining his life away with it.

The attacks stopped, and the men fled, each in different directions. The woman had fled earlier, the first second she had a chance. It made no matter to him now, he knew he was dying. Even if she had been her, there would have been nothing she could do to help him, nothing she could to do to staunch the remorseless leeching of his life onto the ground.

He was cold. That was the last thing he thought he'd ever feel. He didn't know if he was cold from laying in the drift of snow that had been chosen for him to die in, or because his death was imminent, but he was sure that either way, he felt the cold.

Slowly, he began to close his eyes one last time, yet the need to live still present in his body, even if only for this one last fleeting moment, he fought against his body.

There, from the sky, fell tiny snowflakes of white, brilliant designs all a part of the whole, one snowflake in a drift.
One snowflake made no difference, no matter how it tried, no matter where it landed, no matter how beautiful.
Yet, they were all unique, all different. He had made a difference to her, if no one else...

He smiled happily, one last time, and closed his eyes for real, one hot tear spilling into his hair as the snow flakes began to obscure the crimson pools beneath his body.