Author's Note: I have tried to keep spoilers to a minimum, yet this tale does contain them. You have been warned! :)
Mangaverse: This chapter contains information gleaned from Trigun Maximum Volume 3, chapter 6 (and following).
Disclaimer: I don't own Trigun [Maximum], or Vash, or any of the other characters in that manga or anime. They all belong to Mr. Yasuhiro Nightow.
.
.
Legend
Year 0105 month 2 day 5
.
I cannot pinpoint when or how it began, with me.
However, I have learned how it began with our village.
He was found by people from our village, collapsed in the desert, about 50 years before I was born. Even he did not know with precision how long or how far he had wandered, before hunger, thirst, heartbreak and dehydration came terribly close to ending his life.
He was in such bad shape that those who brought him into our hospital feared he would die. They were all pleasantly surprised when he awoke and showed signs of recovering.
I have seen pictures. He looked young, like a youth most people would expect to be around 14 or 16 years old. However, he was closer to 80 at that time. He's not an ordinary human, like we are. He's a Plant, who lives outside of time... and outside of a bulb.
Decades later, it seems he has stopped aging. He now appears like an ordinary human who's in his early to middle twenties. Yet he has lived for more than a century. In fact, he's approximately halfway through his second century. According to our pictures, he's looked the same since he was about a century old.
When our people found him, most of his left arm had been cut off. His straight blonde hair tended to stick out in all directions, as it still does when he hasn't made it stand straight up from his head like a crown. Even back then, his clear aqua eyes showed that his spirit was burdened with worries and pain.
He is a very gentle soul, who has been compelled to resist a terribly violent man with a grudge against humanity. We would not survive against this enemy, without his aid. Fighting this enemy has been tried, so my prior statement is not mere speculation or theory. This enemy can destroy us at will; we cannot stand against him. However, the man our ancestors found... he can.
Because he is strong, he chooses to protect humanity from this threat that we could not resist by ourselves. It hurts him, having to do this. Yet he continues, for it needs to be done and no other can do it.
Because he is different from us, he has been rejected and abused many times by other humans. In some ways, his soul has been even more deeply scarred than his body.
Yet, somehow, instead of making his spirit as twisted and distorted as his poor scarred body appears, those hardships and abuse have made him even more gentle and caring.
He will smile, no matter how much he is hurting inside. He will find time to play with the children. He will take the trouble to learn the name of every soul in the village. Even knowing that we will die long before he will, and that he will grieve deeply for each person he meets – he still wants to meet and know everyone here.
His friends die, his acquaintances are killed, and some of those he calls friends will point a gun at him. Yet he still continues to wander around, trapped within his own personal hell, saving so many... his troubles and his scars just keep multiplying. Somehow, he manages to keep his focus on the bright side of life.
I don't know how he does it, but I admire that in him.
There was always an awareness of him, throughout our village, during my whole life. The self-appointed "guardian angel" of No Man's Land, Vash the Stampede, considers us his family and our village his home. We are all very proud of him!
Though he rarely visits recently, he keeps in touch by way of the ear radio that we gave him. We always know that, when he is away, he is busy fighting to protect every life that he possibly can. Nobody could have survived what he has, without learning effective tactics. His methods are said to be unusual, but none can dispute his results of many lives spared.
How could we not love him for these things?
Except for us, he is alone. So we do what we can to support him: little things, like providing him with a prosthetic arm, protective clothing, and money.
He still loves his brother, and grieves for everything that fiend has done. He still hopes to change his brother's mind. Yet if that effort fails, then he will fight... to the death, if necessary... to defend humanity. He has come dangerously near to death many times, in the process of trying to save others from his brother or from other threats.
His deep compassion, his pain, his determination, his scars, his gentleness, his humor... somehow, who and what he is has touched more than my mind.
I always knew, and have never doubted, that Vash has no romantic intent toward anyone.
His love for everyone is entirely platonic, compassionate and utterly altruistic. That love is also very deep; it is an integral part of who he is. His compassionate heart thinks of everyone as if we were his sisters and brothers, or nieces and nephews, or daughters and sons. He has no favorites.
I was a bashful loner. In that one small personality quirk, I was a little like him. Who he is has awakened something within my heart that has never since slept.
I have heard it said that "it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." That may be true for ordinary humans, who need not live more than a few decades after losing the one they love. I no longer believe that saying can ever be true for Vash.
If Vash ever chooses a bride, she should be one of his own kind. He needs someone who can live as long as he does.
To my shame, I did not realize these truths entirely on my own. They were taught to me, by one who loved me, and Vash, well enough to tell me the truth - even when it hurt.
At first, I resented my uncle for sticking his nose in where I hadn't invited him. I don't know how he figured it out, but he knew. It's not for nothing that he's called "sensei" by most of the village.
"Consider this man you love, my dear heart," he said firmly, yet with a profound gentleness. "Consider how deeply he mourns the loss of a mere acquaintance. Consider how perfectly he remembers everyone's face and name, and all he has ever learned about each person, no matter how many years have passed since last he saw them. Consider how he knows the names on every gravestone, even those that have worn completely away from the surface of the stone, and how gently he touches each stone and speaks the name of the person buried there."
"If you think about those things," he said, "you will discover that his mind does not seem to function like ours. For us, past memories soften and fade over time. It appears that he retains memory perfectly, without it ever fading. Now consider your father, who still mourns your mother."
"Tell me truthfully, my dear heart," he challenged me, "would it be a kindness to put the man you love through the same agony that your father suffers, every hour of every day, for hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years?"
I stayed away from his office, and the hospital, for months after that conversation.
I watched my father, still mourning my mother 20 years after her death. I rarely saw any joy in him when he recalled her. Instead, he usually overflowed with sorrow, grief and a terrible, aching loneliness. It weighed on him heavily, day after day. He tried to live on, believing that is what mother would have wanted. But he failed, consistently.
My father died last week. One morning, he simply did not wake up. Now I stay with my uncle, who is my nearest biological relative. Here in the village, since there are less than 500 of us, we all consider each other kin. However, when it comes to living arrangements… biology usually takes precedence.
As I slowly grew to understand that what I craved with Vash could never be, I wept a great deal. Months of mourning passed, mourning for what might have been... if only I were of his race. Alas, I cannot become what he is. I can only pray that one who is like him will come into his life, and that she will be good for him.
That is one of several reasons why I have begun to help out in the message center, now and then. I hope that if we can contact Earth, they may have more free-walking Plants. Perhaps, through that means, he can find companionship that he'll not lose too soon. Maybe there will be a Plant from Earth that will be worthy of his love, someone who can cure his loneliness completely.
Sometimes, the only way to express love is through sacrifice. I understand this now, though it was a very difficult and painful lesson to learn. The best way that I can share my love with Vash is to let him go. I must sacrifice my own selfish wishes, every time I encounter him. Instead, I need to allow him to do what he must do, unburdened by concerns or distractions from knowing about what happens deep within my still-selfish heart.
However, I must admit to a strong wish that someone would explain these realities to young Jessica! It hurts to listen to her, so loudly professing in her innocent arrogance that she will claim Vash for her own.
Clearly, she does not even begin to understand or appreciate who and what Vash really is.
I hope her foolishness will not wound his tender heart further, when he hears her.
He deserves better than that.
...
.
...
Author's Note: I'm not sure if the people of No Man's Land would have all the technology needful to accomplish some of the things that will occur in chapter 2. However, I shall do my best to adhere tightly to canon, where ever information is provided.
By the way, the PoV speaker is a canon character from the manga. Hopefully her identity will become clear in future chapters, if this chapter is too vague. *grin*