Disclaimer: Trinity Blood and its characters do not belong to me. This fanfic consists of monologues by the characters at their most alone. Not in chronological order. May contain spoilers for the anime. Rated for potential dark and mature themes.

Just to reassure everyone, I am not going off my rocker as I thought in the last chapter. The wierd bit of writing I did outside that triggered alarm bells was nothing more than me releasing steam over my exasperating kid brother (it involved an industrial mincer turning him into meatballs and burger patties) after a particularly bad quarrel.

Virgil and Vanessa are siblings. However, siblings don't always understand each other…

Vanessa: Starry, Starry Sky

When Moses led the Hebrews to freedom from Egypt, he had by his side, his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam. Lucky chap. No one said it would be easy. It is ambitious and blatantly so. The logistics involved are huge. Every Ghetto man, woman and child. Even their pets. No one will be left behind, I promise myself. No matter what.

Please let it be so…

Virgil Walsh, I sounded you out again over dinner and you fobbed me off saying you need to see to that old woman's funeral. Brother! Bridget is dead. The grandest funeral will not bring her back. I hated Bridget. If only she had not invited me to that Christmas party, maybe I would have remained ignorant of the starry night sky.

I recall that night. I had just come of age. That woman invited us to a small Christmas gathering, just a few close friends. You danced with her while the young Prince Gilbert danced with his cousin. While you were waltzing, I stepped out onto the balcony and looked up. I saw it then. Who ever knew there were diamonds that grace the velvet sky? Tiny pinpricks of pure light in an ocean of inky blackness. All the poets did not do justice to its beauty. The sheer freedom of the night sky… I cried.

You found me later, still weeping. I remember your kind, comforting words and your strong arms as you carried me into back into the manor. They had a room set aside with a large bed for me to rest in. You stroked my hair as if I was a little girl. I asked to leave and you took me home.

I once looked up to you, brother. You failed me, no, all of us, every Methuselah man, woman and child who holds Sir Virgil Walsh in high esteem. We are pathetic souls, trapped in a large cage underground, never knowing what true moonlight is like…

"Nessa?" Patrick calls out to me. I was lost for a while in the past. "The weapons have been brought in. Silver bullets." His brow furrows. We need those bullets to deal with the small Ghetto security forces under Virgil's command. He puts aside the paperwork on the table. We should not linger too long. My brother's people may decide to do an impromptu inspection of this often deserted part of the Ghetto.

"Good work, Paddy." I lean over the table, meeting his lips with mine. He makes a sound of protest but his hands were already tugging at the zipper at my throat. I need this. We are alone. James, Sutton and the others are out. "Make love to me, Paddy…" I purr into his ear as my hands go to his belt buckle. Soon, we are kissing passionately with him pinning me against a wall. It feels so good, a welcome distraction from all those niggling doubts…

"Peter! Carlise! Stop playing already! Peter! Please come out!"

I freeze with my jacket undone, haler-top pulled up and my lover's hand cupping my breast. Oh shit! The last thing I need is for Wendy or any of her little playmates to chance on me in this position. I disentangle myself from Patrick's arms as Wendy's voice comes closer. "Aw, Nessa, they wouldn't come in …" Patrick protests. His ardour has been aroused but mine is effectively quenched.

"No. Not now," I emphasize my point by zipping up my jacket and shoving him aside. Patrick mutters something angrily under his breath before stomping off. It may have been 'bitch' or 'slut' but I am past caring. At least he did not try forcing me like some of my past partners did. I do like Patrick and I would hate to hurt him.

I do not hear Wendy's voice. She must have disappeared down one of the many winding tunnels in this part. I am alone in this forgotten control room with only the hum of the generator as my companion. I close my eyes and let the gentle hum calm my nerves.

Wendy and the children had adapted well enough to the confines of Ghetto life. They must surely miss the open air, the green grass, flowers and night sky. They willingly changed all this for a tenacious safety in this underground world of isolation. Most children born in this world have no idea of such things. Brother brought me a small rose tree in a pot once, a gift from Above. It died after a week. The canary fared slightly better in its little cage. It died eventually.

The artificial light in the Ghetto does not mimic the soft moonlight I have seen above when I sneak out. It is a harsh brightness, only less deadly than the sunlight that is the bane of our race. We have no need for soft lights in a place powered by technology and engineering. Not everyone is a computer engineer. I prefer the soft strains of piano music that you create in your free time. You knew, didn't you? You are a talented pianist, but you only indulged your hobby for the sole purpose of programming the music box you gave her. I hardly hear you play the piano after that. You were too busy.

I return to the residential sector, cramped apartments cheek by jowl. Children chase each other laughing and screeching along treacherously narrow corridors and steep stairs. A little one stops to bob a curtsey before taking off like a bird after her playmates. I catch her by the back of her rompers as she nearly takes a headlong dive down the stairs. Her mother thanks me and scoops up her bawling child. She is lucky. Most children live in homes where they are packed thirty to a dorm, since their parents are too busy slogging on the production lines to care for them. I spent time in such a home whenever his work took Brother away for months at a stretch. He still spends weeks in his factories away from home.

With the booming population, we are getting a tad crowded. Virgil has been looking at the feasibility of expanding the residential sector into some of the older, unused parts of the Ghetto. We don't need more cells…

"Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul."

A solitary busker strums his guitar and croons about the stars and a sky he probably has no idea of. His soul's longing is in his song. We are not machines. We have emotions, feelings. We yearn to be free. Can't you hear our silent desire to be free of this yoke?


"Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now."

Sure, he's as deaf as a doorpost. All he has eyes and ears for his Queen. He can't see beyond the bloody goddamned status quo those above imposed on us. Even now that she is dead, he still clings to the whole notion of the Ghetto, our prison. I know he will fight me to protect his own beliefs, as I will fight him to pursue mine. Can you really put a silver bullet into that person, Vanessa, should it come to that? That person who allowed you a glimpse of the world above through a rose bush and a canary?

Please don't test me, brother. Don't test me…

Author's Notes:

I get the idea of Vanessa as a rebel, like the teenage girl who is forever defying curfew and hanging out with what her folks deem the wrong crowd. If poor Virgil had any ilking what his kid sister's been up to, I think his sense of propreity will be most sorely offended. I slipped in a near love scene, if things got any hotter, I will need to up the rating.

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