Ribbons
So quiet, so peaceful....
They were lucky, unbelievably lucky, to have stumbled upon this place. A small, sleepy, isolated town that went lights-out at dusk. So, late at night, the sky above was clear, untainted, and beautiful. Each little star was a gem set to velvet, pearls in a fathomless ocean.
"Hey, Tongari! What are you staring at?"
Vash turned his head, looking up. The preacher was sideways in his vision, from his ground-level perception, where he had been laying on his back in the still-warm sand, staring up at the sky. The preacher looked like he always did, apparently not having gone to sleep yet, for he was still dressed. He leaned against a support for the porch of the inn they and the girls were staying in, at the very edge of the town. A cigarette hung from his lips, casually, as so often.
"Home," was the gunman's single, enigmatic reply, and he went back to staring at the stars.
One didn't have to be psychic to feel the preacher's confusion, radiating from him as heat did from the sand. And so, Vash felt the need to clarify.
"I've never really thought about it before, but... I don't really know where I came from."
Wolfwood nodded, then asked, "But didn't you come on the Seeds' ship?"
"You know I'm not... normal. They just found the two of us, deserted." He seemed to hesitate one the word "us," but Wolfwood understood and did not press the matter. "All I know, it's somewhere up there...."
"What brought this on, Tongari?"
Vash's response was to sit up and look at the preacher, rubbing the back of his head nervously, then running that hand through the black half of his hair. "Just a random thought...."
Wolfwood took a long drag on his cigarette, then looked at the man before him, who now stared at the sand intently. For the first time he noticed that the sky above was moonless; a rare occurrence.
"Did you ever think, maybe, there are more like you?"
He looked back up, bright green eyes sparkling yet unreadable. "The Plants?"
Wolfwood shook his head, looking neutral. "Like you."
Vash stared at him for a moment, eyes wide and natural as they were when he honestly smiled. The rest of his face remained the same as he listened.
"You had to come from somewhere, right?" He dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, refraining from pulling out another. "And I can almost guarantee that you didn't just walk out of a Plant one day. You had to have had parents."
For an inute, the gunman stared at the preacher, that look as the one the first day they had met, when the preacher had come so close to touching a sensitive nerve, watery green the shade of his eyes.
"If that's the case, though, I'd say you're few and far between... but there, all the same. Just a thought," the preacher said, shrugging casually as he turned and went back into the inn.
Vash watched the door, closed, until his companion's footsteps had faded away. Even after this, he sat attentive, before turning and letting himself lay down on the sand again, his gaze instantly going to the stars....
The stars....
Overwhelming was the pull he felt towards them, emotional, mental, the tugging at his heart beneath his breast nearly impossible to resist. Awe set in, making the struggle even harder. He reached one hand up as a song buzzed in his ears.
So... on the first evening a pebble, from somewhere out of nowhere drops upon the dreaming world.
Did you ever look at them, Rem?
That beautiful woman appeared to him, a ghostly figure against the dark sky, long hair flowing in a breeze that was always with her.
So... and on the second evening, all the children of the pebble joined hands and composed a waltz....
You must've seen them every day... did you think they were beautiful?
That awe was replaced by despair, a heavy brick settled in the pit of his stomach, and the grip held by the stairs was strangled by a profound sorrow, the tightening in his chest. Tears rolled down his cheeks, glittering of their own accord, and a choked, painful sob escaped him as his angel turned, and he moved his hand to touch her face.
I want to show you, Rem... Do you think the people here have done well? Have they achieved a decent life, for the most part? Have they succeeded? Would you be proud of them?
She smiled, reached down to take his hand, and he could've sworn the stars winked out, one by one.
Would you be proud of me?
His hand strained, almost made contact with hers, and then she disappeared, a parting mist.
"Don't... leave...!" he pleaded, voice broken by another constricting sob. His hand closed on air and fell back to the ground, defeated. A bit more of the black creeped over blond, and that left darkened to a honey-ish brown.
I want to show you how beautiful both skies are.
I know, I know. I got anime and manga versions all confudled. Sorry about that if it bothers any of you, but it served my purposes. A friend mentioned that we know absolutely nothing of where Vash and Knives came from, and I realized that not even Vash seems to care. Then again, he mentions his mother in one of the little blurbs on the episode previews. I dunno. Maybe I'm psycho. If anything is wrong, feel free to tell me, but it's probably intentional AU. At first, I wasn't going to post this, but I was struck with a sudden burst of apathy. I don't care how bad it sucks. I don't own Trigun, nor do I own the song Ribbons. I don't own anything related to them. I own the story--not what it tallks about.