Disclaimer: This world and its characters are no more mine than is the sky or earth. I merely play, I do not own.

Le Mort de Papillion

Off all the creatures in the recreation room, he loved butterflies the best. Rem would watch joyfully as he and Vash would run around the grassy plain, laughing and spinning, chasing after the free fluttering insects.

In the few moments they'd been here, Knives had chosen one butterfly as his favourite. He called her Laughing Dancer, for every time anyone laughed she would spin and dance into the air, carried up carelessly by her two, delicate yellow wings.

Later he would realize that the sound of their laughter had probably disturbed her, but then he thought she was dancing in time with their giggles, dancing to please them. Such were the innocent beliefs of youth.

He wanted to get to know Laughing Dancer better, wanted to be her friend too! Often he and Vash managed to catch other insects in their little hands, sometimes they stayed there and made friends with them, but the butterflies were always so shy, fluttering away whenever they came close.

'Don't try to catch them,' Rem had warned, 'they're happy floating free and they're frightened of you.'

But Knives had ignored her. He was sure that, given a little time, the butterfly would discover that Knives wasn't mean and they could make friends. It would just take some time, surely.

So he ran after Laughing Dancer, determined to catch her and make her his friend so that they could always laugh and dance together.

He finally caught her on a lily petal, sipping the nectar she needed so much. He crept up towards her, holding his breath, careful not to alert her to his presence then, with all the speed he could muster, he clapped her hands around her delicate form, trapping her.

He felt something soft squash a little against his palms, but took no heed.

Then, carefully, he opened his hands a little, just enough so he could look at her.

Dancing Laugher was sitting peacefully upon one of his palms, her wings wide open, her antenna stretched out before her. She wasn't moving much, but Knives took that to mean she was comfortable.

'Hello,' he said softly, keeping his childish voice down, 'my name is Million Knives; I want to be your friend.'

Laughing Dancer remained still upon his palm; she didn't even flutter a wing.

'I know you must be scared of me,' continued Knives, his voice to a whisper, 'but you don't need to be. I just want to be your friend! Will you be mine?'

Nothing…

Well, he was pretty sure Butterflies didn't speak anyway, but he'd hoped for some indication, a twirling of the antenna or something. But she seemed happy and still enough, so he opened his hands fully.

Laughing Dancer remained where she was, not moving at all. He noticed that, for some reason, his other palm, the one not holding Laughing Dancer, was covered in a greenish yellow stuff. How strange. He ignored it; he could always ask Rem about it later.

'I'm glad you've decided to be my friend,' Knives continued, presuming that Laughing Dancer had agreed, 'we're going to have a lot of fun together. You can introduce me to all your other butterfly friends and I'll introduce you to Vash. He's my twin brother, he's a little silly but very nice, you'll like him! He wants to be your friend too!'

Nothing…

'Umm…' said Knives, thinking what to say next, 'I can show you Rem too, she's nice and very kind… I might introduce you to Joey as well, but he's a bit too serious. All the other humans are boring; we won't bother with them much.'

A soft breeze stirred both Knives' long hair and one of Dancer's wings, but other than that she remained still upon his palm.

'So… what do you want to do now?' asked Knives at last, 'do you want to fly for a bit?'

He lifted his hands up high and laughed, waiting for her to flutter off and dance. She didn't, though; she just remained in his hands, unmoving.

He frowned and pouted, 'you know,' he said at last, 'there's no need to sulk, I'm just trying to be your friend!'

At that moment there was an excited yelp from behind him and he turned to see Vash, running towards him and Laughing Dancer.

'Knives!' Vash called out, 'what have you got there?'

'A friend,' replied Knives, unable to keep the smugness out of his voice, 'see! I got one of the butterflies to be friends with me! It's Laughing Dancer!'

Vash stopped and looked into Knives' hands, 'she isn't moving much,' he said at last.

'No, I think she's sulking.'

'Or maybe she's asleep,' suggested Vash, 'perhaps it's her nap time.'

Knives nodded, that made some sense, 'hey,' he called, 'wake up Laughing Dancer! Wake up, it's time to play!'

But again Laughing Dancer remained motionless in his hand, as if not all the shouting in the world could wake her.

Knives tentatively tried poking her with one small finger. Her body moved to his gentle touch, but she didn't wake up.

'She's very lazy,' muttered Knives, 'what does it take to wake her?'

'Perhaps some coffee?' said Vash, 'I've heard the crew say that they can never wake up without some coffee.'

'Maybe,' said Knives, 'but I don't think so… I really don't know why she won't wake up… you don't think she's upset with me, do you Vash?'

He turned to his twin, who was now looking equally concerned, 'we should ask Rem,' he said predictably, 'she'll know what do to.'

'Yeah… I guess…'

'What's wrong, Knives? Don't you want to ask Rem?'

Knives shrugged, not looking into his brother's eyes, 'it's not that…' he said, 'it's just that I wanted this to be a surprise, you know? I wanted to do something for myself, Rem's always doing everything for us and showing things to us… she always introduces us to her friends but we can never do the same. I wanted to be the one to introduce her to Laughing Dancer.'

Vash gently put his hand on Knives' shoulder, a movement he'd often seen Captain Joey do with Rem when she was looking upset, 'don't worry,' he said, 'I'm sure Rem doesn't mind.'

Knives was about to respond that it wasn't about what Rem minded, but he held his tongue, knowing it would be no good. As much as he cared for he woman, he knew that Vash was blind to all things when it came to her.

'OK,' he said instead, 'let's ask Rem. Come on, Laughing Dancer, I'm sure she'll know how to wake you up.'

So the two boys ran back towards the small hillock where Rem sat, staring into the blue sky and humming her favourite song.

'Hello,' she said as they ran forward, 'what have you got there, Knives?'

Knives moved towards her and opened his palms, showing her what he had, 'this is Laughing Dancer,' he solemnly introduced, 'I caught her so that she could be my friend. But now she's sleeping or sulking or something. I don't know why, but she won't play at all! Can you make her play, Rem?'

Rem looked into Knives' cupped hands and sighed sadly, her eyes taking on that strange, dark look that showed she was upset.

'Rem?' prompted Vash, who'd reached the hillock at the same time as Knives, 'can you wake her up?'

'I'm sorry,' replied Rem softly, 'but I can't. I'm afraid she's dead.'

'Dead?' echoed Vash curiously.

Dead? Dead? Dead? The word rang around and around Knives head. Dead… he'd heard the word before, he thought, but he couldn't think where. It was a strange word, kind of hard sounding, brief.

'Dead.' He said loud, testing the word on his tongue, 'dead… what's dead?'

'Dead is what something is when it's no longer alive,' replied Rem smoothly, sorrowfully.

This made both twins frown in puzzlement; they'd looked at what was alive and what was not alive before. Humans were alive. Trees were alive. Plants were alive, stone was not alive however, nor were computers or teddy bears. Butterflies were alive though, Knives was sure of it, he remembered checking with Rem about it once. She'd said almost everything in the recreation room was alive

'But you said that Butterflies were alive,' said Vash, reading Knives' thoughts.

'Yes,' said Rem, 'they are, but this one isn't alive any longer.'

Once again Knives was puzzled, 'how?' he asked, not understanding this strange, double standard.

'Well… to operate properly, to be alive, the body must work, must be fit to contain the life. It's like…' Rem struggled for an analogy the twins would understand, 'like a computer,' she said at last, 'it has to be whole and working to run a program. There's a point where, if the body is damaged badly enough, the creature will no longer be alive. Then we say it has died.'

Knives looked back down at Laughing Dancer, dead upon his palm. Of course, he must have damaged her beyond her ability to be alive!

'Oh,' he said at last, 'well then, make her un-dead Rem.'

'Excuse me?'

'Make her alive again,' Knives reiterated, 'fix her, then we can play and stuff.'

Once again Rem's eyes became terribly, terribly sad, 'I'm sorry, I can't do that.'

'Why not?'

'Because when something is dead, it's dead for good. I can't be brought back to life. That's why life is so precious.'

Knives looked down at his hands in dismay, 'but,' he stuttered at last, 'I want to play with her!'

'I'm sorry, now she's dead that can't happen.'

'That's not fair!'

'No, it's not.'

'Rem…' this was Vash, 'can we die?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'What happens when something dies?'

'Its body returns to the earth.'

'No… I mean… where do we go?'

'If you mean the spirit, I don't know. Some people believe that it goes to Heaven; others think that it's reincarnated, comes back as something else. Some people think that death is just the end of everything, that the spirit is just wiped out. Everyone has different beliefs and no one knows which the right one is.'

Vash opened his mouth to say something else, but Knives cut him off, 'it's not fair!' he repeated, almost shrieking, 'I want to play with Laughing Dancer!  I don't want to wait until she's reincarnated or until I get to heaven, I want to play with her now! Why is she dead! I didn't mean to make her dead! I only wanted to play and be her friend and now… now…' he found he could no longer talk; there was something, a lump of emotion, which was clogging his throat.

He couldn't stand this any longer, it was wrong and mean and unfair! He threw down the still, dead shell of Laughing Dancer and ran off.

He raced down the corridors, ignoring Rem and Vash's cries. He ran until his legs felt wobbly and his lungs burned. Eventually he stopped in a small, out of the way corridor, curling up into a ball and hoping the strange, dreadful feeing in his throat and belly would stop.

He'd never felt so sad before, his breath hitched in his throat, his stomach felt like lead and his eyes seemed to be burning.

Something wet trickled down his cheek; he put a hand to it and found that his eyes were leaking warm water.

For a moment he felt afraid, perhaps all the juices were leaking out of him, perhaps he would end up dead!

Soft sobs of misery found their way into his mouth, his eyes continued to leak salty water, his body shivered in time with the cries. Weeping for a dead butterfly, the first life he ever took.

He didn't know how long he sat their, sobbing, but he remained there until a soft, childish voice reached his ears. Vash's voice.

He took a deep breath and wiped the water from his eyes, trying to contain himself, trying to make himself not sad. He didn't want to be sad in front of Vash, because then Vash would be sad too and would worry about him. Vash worried about almost everything, he could be so serious and Knives hated it when Vash was serious and sad, it just wasn't right.

So Knives stood up and, taking several deep breaths, called out to his searching brother.

'Knives!' said Vash joyfully, 'we were worried about you! Are you alright?'

'Of course I am brother,' replied Knives, trying to sound happy, 'I'm sorry for making you worry.'

'It's OK,' said Vash, shrugging, then he became more serious, 'Rem is in the kitchen making ice cream now. We made a hole and buried Laughing Dancer because that's what you do with dead bodies. I hope you don't mind Knives.'

'It's alright,' said Knives, 'it was the right thing to do. I'm sorry about before, I just wanted to be on my own for a bit. I'm alright now.'

'Good,' sighed Vash, 'Knives… do you think that'll ever happen to us? You know… do you think we'll ever be dead?'

Knives looked into Vash's wide, earnest aqua marine eyes and smiled, he put both his arms on his little brother's shoulders, 'don't be silly Vash,' he said, 'of course not! Nothing like that will ever happen to us, I'll make sure of that!'

If Vash heard the solemn promise in Knives tone he gave no indication of it, 'I'm glad Knives,' he said, 'I don't want you to ever be dead!'

'Me either,' agreed Knives, forcing a smile onto his face, 'and I don't want you to be dead either! Now let's get to the kitchen and have ice cream!'

'Yay!' called out Vash, his happy self once again, and he ran down the corridor towards the kitchen.

Knives followed him, rubbing his hands, covered in tears and butterfly remains, against his trousers, silently vowing that they would never be sullied in that way again.

The End

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