Disclaimer: From here on out, I own nothing related to the Trigun story.

AN: Just a little side project that should be no more than 4 or 5 chapters, if that at all. It was originally going to be a one-shot but as I started to write it I wrote more details and decided I could get a few chapters on this. This Legato is based on bits of the anime, smidgens of the manga, and some (fan created?) rumors.

WARNING: This story is rated M, for a reason. It contains rape, violence, some gore, as well as physical and sexual abuse. Even so, it is necessary, which you will realize by the end of the story. I hope everyone enjoys the seriousness of the story with my ideas on Legato's past.- FG (10/08/2005)

Legato

Studying the young boy from afar, Knives watched the child dig tiredly in the sand, not getting particularly far before slight movement caused the sand to refill. The boy sighed and swept his hand over his sweating forehead, looking toward the suns in exasperation.

Finally the boy looked toward Knives, he jumped, startling himself and began to dig furiously as if he had been caught doing something wrong. Knives took note of these behaviors as he walked off.

The fallen plant angel had a plan. His twin brother was still at his side, but Knives knew he was close to leaving him. He didn't share the same ideals as Knives did, which could only produce large amounts of trouble for him in the future. Therefore he had to formulate a plan, and he had one, though it would take many years before any results would be noticed. For now Knives walked back to the place he shared with his twin.

A part of one of the fallen Project SEEDS ships was where they took their took residence for now. Walking inside the meager home Knives found his brother sitting on the ground playing with some sort of spinning object.

"What is that?"

Knives voice startled Vash and he quickly swooped the object into his pocket and looked at his brother innocently. "What is what?"

"Vash..." Knives rubbed his temples in aggravation. "Is that a human child play toy?"

Vash said nothing, giving Knives the answer he already knew.

"Give it to me." Knives said calmly, reaching his hand out towards his brother.

"Why?" Vash whined. "I want to keep it Knives, just this one thing, please!" Vash begged his brother.

After a moment of thinking it over Knives nodded his head slowly, and Vash let out a cheer of happiness. He reached into his pocket and took out the spinning top, resuming his playing. Knives sat himself down on a crude chair, remains of a seat from the SEEDS ship itself, and watched his brother play for a few minutes.

As he sat there watching, he chided himself on letting Vash keep the object. 'He's already too fond of humans as is, now you're allowing him to grow found of their materials. Your kindness to him will be your downfall in your relationship'

'I know.' Knives responded angrily to himself. 'But Vash isn't happy often, and if this small piece of wood can keep his interest for him to stay that much longer with me, than I will allow it.'

"So where were you today?" Vash asked in friendly conversation, the top still keeping his interest. It was such a simple creation, he had laughed out loud earlier on how taken he was with it. He had attempted to hide it from Knives, because he hated humans and everything related to them, but he himself was the opposite. Humans intrigued him more than anything, and he especially loved the things they could create, even on a desolate planet such as this.

"I didn't go anywhere of importance." Knives responded, but Vash knew that was not the truth. His brother left him for hours on end, sometimes days, always telling him to wait for him, that he would be back. And like a loyal brother Vash did, but sometimes the loneliness caught up to him and that is when he would go into human towns on his own. He would find little objects such as the spinning top abandoned, and he would take the treasure home.

Once when Knives had left the longest, two weeks, Vash had decided not to stay in the confinements of the remaining SEEDS ship, instead he had curiously watched the humans in a nearby town, observing them with his beyond perfect eyesight, enthralled at what he saw. To think that even when their ancestors had first gotten to Gunsmoke, and had awakened from the chambers that held them, there was much sadness that they would have to live on a planet such as this.

Vash didn't think they would make it, they didn't seem to have much hope in their eyes, but he watched on in admiration as they made a home for themselves. He had learned to love them all the more because of their will to live, they were doing exactly as Rem had said they would. He had been proud of them.

Upon one of those days when he had been looking over the canyon to where the humans were, he felt a shadow consume him and he knew it was his brother. Vash had lost track of the days studying them and now he was caught doing what Knives was firmly against. They hadn't spoken but Vash had followed his brother back to the "home" they shared. Out of respect and loyalty to his brother Vash got rid of all the human artifacts he had been collecting, he made sure his brother was present when he did so. That way Knives would see how sorry he was for going against him.

That was in the beginning, because Vash had hated to anger his twin. When Knives was angered he could do unspeakable things. Vash knew that first hand, the anger was never aimed at him though, because Knives knew it would hurt Vash more if he destroyed something he loved. It had kept him in line for so many years but Knives could see, he could feel his brother waning away from such techniques.

Punishing that which Vash loved, was starting to tear them apart so Knives did it less often, if only to see Vash's smile. He wanted his brother at his side happy, but not if it was on par with losing his own.

Vash let the whereabout of where Knives had been that day go. Questioning him did no good if he didn't want him to know. Every once in awhile, Knives did relay where he had been.

"Observing the cruelties humanity places on each other," or some other vague explanation as that. Vash himself had seen these cruelties but he personally thought their goodness outweighed such a thing, but Knives refused to listen or to understand.

Their last days together continued to be ones in where Knives left and came back, leaving his other half behind. On one of those days, he had returned with two identical guns. One silver for Vash, and one black for himself. Vash thanked his brother kindly for the gift but was already vowing to never to use the gun he had to kill.

A few days later Knives departed from Vash again.

"How long this time?" Vash complained to his brother.

"A week at most, and stop your complaining, I let you come along before and you always find what I do to be dull."

"Of course its dull, you're just exploiting humanities downfalls."

Knives held up a tired hand to his brother, and Vash stopped talking. "Not now, I'll see you in a week." Knives walked off and headed to where he had seen that child before. For some reason Knives was unable to get the human offspring out of his head, and for that reason alone he decided the child must be eliminated. Specific humans should not be occupying his thoughts. He didn't like that his mind was picking one out of the masses to focus on.

He reached the same spot he had seen the boy days earlier digging a hopeless hole. The hole, he could see, had been filled up again, no doubt by the passing winds. The boy himself was nowhere in sight but Knives could sense that he was somewhere nearby. There was a small shamble of a house at his left and he walked toward it, knowing the boy was inside.

Knives stopped abruptly at the noise and shouting that had come to overpower his ears He peered into the window and saw the boy lying on the floor. Knives watched as an older version of the boy came up to him and kicked the young male in the stomach.

The boy did not cry out, but took his beating with an incredible amount of grace.

Knives listened to the shouts, all the while eyeing the boy with a dismissive look, faintly curious as to what brought this beating.

"You worthless piece of shit! All the other boys in the town are diligently working on making useful things for their families, and what are you doing!" The man whipped his son on the back with a leather strap. The boy cringed but would not let a scream or even a gasp in pain escape his thin lips.

"You're out digging holes all day! And for what! We all know this worthless planet ain't got any gold. So what are you digging for!"

He recieved a few more whips to the back and a few more blows to the face, stomach and groin area. When his drunken father got tired of beating his only son he staggered out of the house and proceeded back to the towns saloon which was a third of a mile away. Knives watched the man disapper into the thick sandy winds that had started to form and walked into the household.

The house was a complete wreck. Broken chairs, tables, dishes, it seemed nothing was left intact and the house was also filthy, obviously no one swept the place to keep the sand from layering. Knives looked at the boy who he had first thought to be unconscious but was actually awake and miracously alive. He was scruntched in a little ball holding onto something Knives could not make out.

The boys face was hidden within his body and Knives watched the slight deep breathing as the boys chest rose and fell slowly. His breathing was coarse and probably caused him pain. His clothes were torn because of the whips and his back was bloodied from slash wounds. Knives didnt see the bruises of the face and legs but knew they were there. In his quiet absorbtion of studying the young boy, who was perhaps no older than 8, Knives stepped on a creaking board.

The boy tensed and held his breath, but he did not turn around. Knives could only assume the boy imageined it to be his drunken father back for a fresh new round. But when no force was given to the boy he allowed himself to turn to look at the figure who had entered his fathers house.

Knives watched the boys eyes flick in recogition. 'But from where?' The boys mind thought. He remembered moments later and said nothing as he gazed at Knives. The gaze was broken as something of importance clicked in the boys mind. He uncurled himself with great effort, keeping the moans of pain wallowed in this throat.

When he tried to stand he staggered before falling back down. He didnt look to Knives for help. This time he tried to take his steps a little more slowly. Managing to acquire a bit of balance Knives saw what the boy had been clutching, what he had been protecting from the beating hands of his father.

A potted plant, or a root really.

Using the walls of his house to keep his balance the boy staggered outside, continuing to swallow the pain. Knives followed him curiously and walked slowly behind him as the boy trudged through the sand storm, trying to get wherever he was going. When Knives had tried to read the boys mind again he found he came to a dead end. A lock, the boy knew of Knvies power and had somehow figured out a way to keep him out of his thoughts.

When the boy stopped walking Knives looked at his surrounding, sand everywhere. He wondered if he had been mistaken for following this boy. But the boy didnt stop walking for good, he had only stopped to give a few violent coughs in where blood spewed from his mouth. He wiped the blood away with his hand and contiuned to walk on.

Because the boy was so injured his pace was slow, but Knives was not irratated as he felt this boy would lead him to something of importance. As the night fell the hot humid air of the day turned to a biting cold. The boy had begun to shiver as he walked. It didnt make things better that he was obviously becoming weaker since his wounds had not been attended to, they were caked in sand and a few wounds, even after four long hours of walking, had not closed up and were still bleeding freely.

Finally Knives saw something in the black distance. His eyes rose in alertness as they neared the now, what he could see, plant angel sanctuary. Knives himself had not been able to find the place, though he had been looking for it ever since they crash landed on the planet. He had never told Vash that, this is what he had left him for days on end for. Knives did not want Vash's way of thinking to poison the angels if they were to find them.

Remembering the boy, Knives looked to him. He was still staggering on towards the bulbs, with even greater effort it seemed, since he too had seen his destination, and seeing it had refueled his energy. With Knives' own excitement growing he pondered killing the boy now and rushing aside him to meet his fellow beings, but he felt killing him at this moment would not be in his favor, so he allowed the boy to continue.

The boy himself didn't seem to remember he was being followed by, what he saw, as a blond haired man. The same man that had caught him digging for the plant root he carried. He had been startled by the man when he had seem him digging, and thinking he was a friend of his fathers he had sped up his digging in order to get the root that he knew lay far beneath the piles of hot sand.

He had been lucky, the man had not been a friend of his fathers because when his father had returned home from the saloon he had said nothing to him and had gone straight to bed. He had potted the root the moment he heard his fathers dreadful snoring. He had even dared to use some of the emergency water to feed the small root, in order to keep it alive.

He had learned in a very early age that when his father beat him and hit him it was best not to cry out. If you cried out it only fueled his father to continue longer with the tortures, but if you stayed silent and suppressed the pain your body felt, he would get tired or bored and would leave you alone sooner. The boy had no idea who his mother was and what became of her. When he had asked, he had been beaten senseless. He hadn't been able to stand for months, as his father had shattered his legs with a metal chair.

He didn't have any friends, mainly because parents had warned their children to stay away from him. As he had a violent father, no mother and a dead sister no one talked of. He had been dubbed unacceptable, and respecting their wishes, he stayed away from the town's children, the town in general. He kept to himself in his room which was rather spotless given the state of the rest of the house.

He had learned to trust no person. When he wasn't in his room he had spent time wandering the desert expecting to find something, and one day he did. He was coming across it now.

Knives stopped walking again, as the boy stopped. They both looked at the tall awkward architecture that had parts of a plant bulb sticking out. As if just now remembering he had company he turned and looked at Knives, his eyes filled with curiosity as to why this man was following. He didn't seem to mean him any harm, and he could only hope he would not hurt the being that lay trapped within the bulb.

He walked slowly into the dim lighted room, with Knives following. Knives' eyes widened at the sight of the enormous size of the plant angel. She seemed to be sleeping but stirred awake and looked down at the two of them. Knives froze and watched as the boy set down the potted root besides the bulb and sat against its shell only to fall instantly asleep, or rather, it seemed he had finally fainted.

The angel emitted a soft glow and looked towards Knives. She seemed to realize what he was at once. Knives never said anything but he decided then, this boy was his chosen one. He would help Knives in his approach to make his failing brother understand. The plant angel encased in the bulb stayed up the rest of the night, eyeing Knives, perhaps a little distrustfully, and Knives himself stayed standing against a metal wall arms folded watching the boy sleep. Waiting for him to wake up and become his faithful servant.

End of chapter 1

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AN: I don't know much about Legato (I was too busy studying Knives). All the episodes that include him are hazy for me and therefore this little side project of mine could be completely be out of context. Regardless, I'm going to write it.

Faery Goddyss :)