A/N* For those of you who've read my fic Under the Sky so Blue: Aftermath, this is just a little extra epilogue to the story and a bit of a prelude to the sequel (which shall be titled "Sound Life".) It explains a bit about how Wolfwood and Artemis knew each other, though not in too much detail. Just the basics. ^_^
Disclaimer/Claimer: I do not own the characters or Trigun title nor am I affiliated with them in any way. Artemis Fawn is my own character, however, and belongs solely to me.
Fateful Meeting
History of the Cloth
He began smoking at an early age. Why the hell not? The first time he fired a gun he'd only been seven years old. He figured, 'Well, I've killed someone, so will it make me any worse of a person if I lit one up too?' Still- twelve seemed awfully young for a kid to have picked up the habit.
He was sixteen now; a prime age in a teenager's life and all he'd done was train on how to shoot to kill. It was probably pathetic, but he had to admit it was a much better life than the one he'd had before his eighth birthday.
The smoke wafted upward in a gentle white-grey stream, past the sharp blue eyes obscured by locks of almost unruly ebony hair. The cigarette hung loosely between his lips, crinkled from staying too long in his breast pocket. They always got crinkly when he kept them there for too long of a time, especially when he was training that day. No matter- he wouldn't throw out a perfectly good smoking stick just because it wasn't completely intact.
It was a bright day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was just right. That's how he remembered it anyhow. That was how he remembered the day that Chapel the Evergreen went out alone and came back with a stranger. The young man sat on the window sill, one leg dangling over the side, his lanky form leaned against the frame in relaxation. That's how he was when Chapel showed up again.
"He goes away for three days and comes back with a…who is that?" the young man squinted against the harsh sunlight.
There was a girl walking beside the man in black, her chin tilted upward as she stared at the house placed carelessly in the desert on Gunsmoke. Chapel lifted his gaze his eyes covered by strange red and white faux eyes, and called out to the curious boy in training.
"Nicholas, come down here."
Turning on the window sill, Nicholas pushed off and landed on the sandy ground, a cloud of dust rising about him. Chapel crossed his arms.
"What?" He replied to the look haughtily.
"That is a treacherous habit," Chapel motioned to the cigarette still between the teenager's lips. "Put it out, Nicholas. This is Artemis- she'll be staying with us for a while."
The misty blue-eyed teenaged boy lifted his gaze to the red head. Artemis held his gaze with her own shocking blue-green one. She had pretty eyes, he noted, and she was kind of cute…in a little girl sort of way. The freckles speckling her nose and cheeks were almost countless.
She jutted a hand out to him and sported a wide and easy smile. "Hey- nice to meet ya."
Taking her offered hand, he shook it lightly, raising an eyebrow at the strong grip she had, then looked to Chapel.
"No offense intended Master, but what the hell is going on?"
Chapel stared from behind the fake red and white eye lenses and remained expressionless. "I already told you, Nicholas, she will stay here for a while. Artemis will train with you every day, understood? Oh yes- and since the house is not very accommodated, she will share a room with you. Understood? Good."
Without as much as another word of explanation, the man left the two teens standing somewhat awkwardly across from each other.
"I guess I should show you where you'll be sleeping." Nicholas finally muttered, jerking his chin toward the house. "Follow me, kiddo…OUCH! What was that for?!"
The teen boy rubbed his shoulder, now sore and the skin glowering red from a hand print. He looked accusingly at Artemis who appeared as shocked as he was.
"I'm so sorry! It's a force of habit- I really hate being called kiddo! It's these damn freckles they make me look like I'm five years old."
"How old are you, anyway?" he asked, curiosity piquing.
"Fourteen…I'll be fifteen in about seven months." She replied then changed the subject. "Hey, sorry, but I didn't really catch your name. I was kind of spacing out."
Nicholas smiled faintly. She was a trip. "Nicholas…Nicholas D. Wolfwood."
"What's the D stand for?" Artemis asked.
"I'm not at liberty to say. Come on, we'd better get inside."
* * *
When it had only been Nicholas and Chapel residing in the house, the boy's room was very sparse. There were two beds, a closet, a dresser, and a mirror. That was about the extent of it all and that was how Nicholas liked it. Clean and bare.
Within six months' time it all changed. The presence of a female not only brought about some clutter, but it put Nicholas' nerves on edge. Artemis wasn't exactly the tidiest person around. Her clothes were always strewn about her bed and her bed was almost always unmade. And then there were the lovely female…things of hers in the bathroom. Nicholas didn't even want to begin to fathom the use of them, but he had an idea that it had some relation to her extra crankiness every so often. Then to top it all off, she made a note to give him an annoying nickname: Wolf-boy. He wished he could call her kiddo just to get her to back off, but that usually ended up in a beating. The girl could seriously kick his ass if she wanted to.
As Chapel had mentioned when coming back with Artemis, she did indeed train every day with them. Her aim was exceptional, however, her skill with a gun wasn't nearly as good as Nicholas'. Artemis made a point in expressing she didn't like using firearms, though never really said why she didn't like. Nicholas accused her of making feeble excuses for her not being as good as he was with the weapon. It usually resulted in a beating.
It wasn't until the approach of the seventh month that Chapel announced he had to leave for a week. He was going on official business he claimed. Whatever business it was, Artemis and Nicholas had the feeling it wasn't something a priest like Chapel should meddle in. He'd left plenty of food and felt the two were responsible and capable enough of holding down fort.
"I'll be back in a week." And he left.
Nicholas snorted…now that he thought about it, it wasn't very smart to leave the two of them alone. Artemis, if given the chance, might've killed him over the period of five days. However…she didn't. In fact, it was probably during that week that the apprentices formed their bond.
If it hadn't been for Chapel leaving during the week of Artemis' fifteenth birthday, the night Nicholas found the girl sitting in his usual spot by the window might never have happened the way it did. She sat there with eyes to the sky, knees up on the window sill, arms wrapped around as she hugged them to herself.
"Hey, you're in my spot." He pointed out, crossing his arms after lighting a cigarette.
She shrugged before moving off the sill. "Sorry."
Sorry? Hm, something wasn't right here. She usually had a smart ass remark up her sleeve. "What's wrong kiddo?"
"Why do you think something's wrong?"
"The fact that you didn't just try to kick my ass because I called you kiddo adds to my suspicions. You seem upset."
Artemis raised an eyebrow. "You read people too much. I don't really feel like talking about it."
"Confession is good for the soul," he replied with a catty grin, leaning against the wall. "Go on and tell old Wolfwood what the problem is. It can't be the fact that it's your birthday and nobody's said anything, can it?"
Astonished, Artemis looked to him. "At least someone remembered, but it's not the fact that it's my birthday and nobody's acknowledged it…it's just, my birthday isn't full of the best memories, ya know? Being raised in an orphanage and well…my parents were killed after July was destroyed…on my birthday. I don't have fond memories."
Nicholas stared at the girl for the longest time thinking he could relate. Neither of them had good childhoods and here they sat in the house of a man who called himself a priest…a very unorthodox priest who taught teenagers how to handle firearms. He couldn't really recall any decent memories of his own.
"Let's make this one a birthday you'd like to actually remember then. I took the liberty of actually getting you a present, but it's not much. Here…" he turned and took a package from the corner, handing it to her.
She blinked at him before somberly opening the box to reveal a slightly dull wooden bow. "This is different."
"You don't like guns. I don't know why, but this seemed to fit you more. Wasn't Artemis the goddess of the hunt?"
"Yeah…she was. Thanks Wolf-"
"Ah…how about I give you another gift, huh? I'll stop calling you kiddo if you stop calling me that god-awful Wolf boy name."
She laughed, "Fine then, it's a deal…Wolfwood."
* * *
Had that really been seven months into it? It felt like so much less. Time really flew by and Nicholas credited that to the fact he had someone to actually talk to and spend free time with. Chapel treated them both equally, trained them to be what he was, though in Artemis' case she'd be a priestess. An unordinary one at that- Artemis was now allowed to train with her bow, using arrows instead of bullets. She adapted quickly and soon became a better shot with the bow and arrow than Chapel and Nicholas with their guns.
By the time that Artemis' sixteenth birthday had come around, she and Nicholas had become quite the experts on their weapons of choice. She never seemed to understand how he could carry around the Cross Punisher given to him by Chapel. Every time she tried to lift it, she found it too heavy.
"Just stick to your girly weapon, alright?" Nicholas would tease lightly, usually around a lit up cigarette. Chapel gave up trying to get the boy to quit.
Though…Nicholas Wolfwood was no longer just a boy- his eighteenth birthday arrived a month before Artemis' sixteenth did. They lived nearly two years in the same house, in the same room, both of them growing up together and closer together. They had nobody else but Chapel to talk to, so each other's company was preferred. While it was usually a purely platonic friendship, there had always been moments which might have suggested otherwise.
It made him laugh, to remember one particular situation that left him…physically scarred. His fingers trailed to the back of his neck where the crescent shaped scar lay under his dark hair. Nicholas made the horrible mistake of not knocking before he walked into the shared bedroom one day and found to his…horror and pleasure, that Artemis wasn't quite done changing once.
She hadn't even heard him come in, and all he could do was stand there and gawk. In all the time he'd never been caught in a situation like this one and now he felt too embarrassed to say anything or risk closing the door again and being caught anyway. So he made an ass of himself anyhow.
"You're very pretty."
This got a very unexpected reply. She finished tugging her shirt on and turned, calmly, walked to him and placed a hand behind his neck, jerking his head down.
"Um, Artemis?" he laughed uneasily.
"Knock next time you idiot." Her thumbnail dug into his neck, drawing blood and leaving the scar because he pulled away from her frantically.
"You're nuts!"
"And you're a perverted priest in training," she shot with a smirk.
Nicholas D. Wolfwood gazed across the desert from his window, tending to the cigarette hanging from his lips so carelessly. It felt different, that day…their room was uncharacteristically clean at that. It wasn't until he saw the slight form moving under the moonlight that he realized everything felt so weird because Artemis was leaving.
She'd taken everything with her and was now sneaking out as quietly as possible from the house. Where was she going? Why was she leaving? Just as the first day he met her, Nicholas jumped from the window and landed just behind the red head.
"You're leaving?"
She stopped in her tracks. "Yeah…it's time for me to go."
He put out his cigarette. "You weren't going to say good-bye?"
Turning, Artemis shook her head. "I don't like good-byes. Good-bye is forever. If I don't say it then I know we'll meet again."
"I guess that makes sense. What's Chapel gonna say?"
"Does it look like I care?" she chuckled softly. "To tell the truth I only stayed here as long as I did because it was nice…to have a friend again. But I have to go and look for another friend now…it would've been easier to leave without anyone knowing, so I'd appreciate if you didn't tell him you saw me go."
Nicholas nodded and glanced to the vast desert stretched out before them. "Be careful out there…there's a lot of people who'd…well never mind. They'd be pretty stupid to try and mess with Artemis Fawn the Arrow Goddess."
She smiled. "Thanks Wolfwood." She put her arms around him and hugged tightly before sighing and stepping back. "Hey…you never told me. What does the D stand for?"
Blue eyes twinkling, he winked. "Hm…I'll tell you the next time we meet, alright?" To tell the truth…he thought they'd never meet again.
Artemis nodded and turned around. "Catch ya later Wolf-boy."
"See ya kiddo…"
* * *
The time had come to leave Demetri at last. Wolfwood didn't know how he'd managed to stay in one place for so long, but he couldn't leave without visiting the cemetery. There was some unfinished business he needed to attend to.
"Well kiddo…you know, I never knew why I called you that. You weren't that much younger than I am. It must have been the freckles…I know, you're kicking my ass right now for it, so I'm sorry." He chuckled and took out a cigarette. "Do you mind? No…of course you don't. You never did.
"You hadn't really changed from what I could tell- but I know you weren't the same Artemis I knew back then. Nobody's perfect though…we didn't have the best child hood but we made do with what we had.
The night you left, you asked me what the D meant…my middle initial." Wolfwood laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, tilting his chin upward. "I only avoided it because it's such a long name…but I did say I'd tell you the next time we met. It's…bear with me now, alright… Dokonokuminomonjowaresumakineshiteshizumetarokakora. Now you tell me if it was worth the five seconds it took to say it."
He stood there with a faint smile on his face for a while before feeling the wind on his face. It was strong at first and then it died down, fading away with the song of flying birds.
"Mr. Wolfwood! We're leaving now!" Meryl's voice called from the distance.
The priest turned and smiled, nodding to the group with the insurance girl before glancing down at the wooden cross stuck on top of the grave site.
"The past has passed us by, there's nothing we can do to change it. You're in a better place, I believe that, I do. I don't know if we'll ever meet again because of that…my sins may never be atoned properly and so…so I have to say it, kiddo…I have to say good-bye."
Nodding to himself as to confirm his decision, Nicholas D. Wolfwood turned around and left.