When I think about my childhood, there really isn't anything there. How old have I been, how young have I been? It's so blurred, so inconceptial. I feel it slip away from me like water, something like air or wind. I can feel it, I can't define it. What I know now and what I knew then...I feel as if I've moved backwards in time. A wise man once said that maturity is realizing how little you know. I think he was correct.

I can feel the sun so hot at my back now, it feels as if it's not the same as when I was younger. Like the entire world changed beneith my boots in only a few years. I used to play in the sand as a child. I have memories of chaos and adventures, I can recall the time I was taken to the town doctor isles away when a poisonous animal got to me. They bought me a tin of fruit drops afterwards, because I had been quiet and good. I don't suppose I knew I was going to die if they hadn't done something. I don't suppose any of us really know that until we're dying. I get the feeling sometimes that time has moved backwards..that we had more, and only a little is left. Like a ring of hard water around a bathtub.

I can hear music in my mind as if ingrained by my ancestors...music I'll never hear in this place. Like I'm a walking artifact encased in a shining new security system. No one will ever punch through. Is this why I wander? Is this why I hunt? Am I looking for others like myself, or just a little clue to the past that's no more than a sand scarred stone?

***

"So you've been hunting for all these years. Don't you get nervous?" The blonde man across the table from me was speaking again. He seemed to never shut up. Having entered this town, I hoped he would leave me alone of his own violation. But he was still following me like a damned stray dog I'd accidentally fed. Perhaps the longer I ignored him, the more he wanted to stay. Damn.

I glanced over the top of the paper at him, quirking an eyebrow. Half of my attention had been trained on the paper, the other half to the radio in the background. We sat on the light stone patio outside, which looked over the center of the town. Some children clattered by, I saw them over his shoulder, waving their arms and laughing. I narrowed my eyes and tried to think if there was a time I too did that, one I could readily recall. His eyes were fixated passively on me and he blinked, quiet and curious. I grunted and shook he paper in my hands, returning to reading it.

A young girl with red hair came quietly to our table and set two cups of tea down. I did not look at the blonde man as I took my tea and sipped it tenitively. The young girl...I felt her eyes move over me from under red bangs as she walked away, serving tray pressed flat against her front. The wind pulled lightly at my hair and I returned to reading the paper. That girl was going to be a problem, I felt it inside me, simply from the way time twitched when I felt her look at me.

A voice that dropped to a cynical flat tone was talking to me now, I had to tune it back in. Him again. "For someone who's supposed to be a bounty hunter, you sure seem out of it."

Could time freeze on him? He'd stopped it once but I wondered. I felt time slip forwards around me as I gauged my chances. I could see the Tomas dropping in my memory and the bullets falling to my feet when he threw them. No, no chance of that. However...Inside my jacket slipped my hand to the revolver nestled at my side. I saw him stop and grab the edges of the table, to do what he didn't have a chance to show. Time froze on his wide green eyes like pools of paint, and the ripples in my teacup, still hooked around the index finger of the same hand holding my paper. A corner of the paper itself was halfway bent, frozen as it ruffled. The sun was reflected on the tarnished barrel of the revolver, and the hammer clicked back, connected. A gunshot ripped through us all, and time lurched back to life. His teacup shattered in all directions, spraying him with liquid and spattering the back of my paper. The gun went quietly back into its holster and I smirked over at him, ruffling my paper. He seemed frozen with his arms over his face, defensive.

"Point taken," he laughed shakily and set down his arms, sitting bolt upright and grinning fakely. Afraid? Maybe. Maybe bluffing fear. I wasn't going to risk assuming that on a man who for his own sake could stop time from freezing. I sighed and checked the weather, trying to ignore him again. People were staring since the gunshot had gone off, I could feel their eyes boring into us. He swept the teacup peices into a pile and folded his arms over them, trying to make it seem as if nothing at all had happened. I looked up to take another quiet sip of my own tea and caugh the eyes of the red headed girl leaning in the corner. She looked afraid. Afraid but something else as well. Damn.

"If you're wondering why I haven't shot you," I was quiet, the most subdued tone I had. "It would be more in your interest to ask."

I felt him grow serious and it shook me. I dropped the paper as my tea slipped over the edge of the cup and spattered on the paper, pooling ink and brown water. I stared at him now, the attitude change was so drastic. Was this...really him? Was this instead the man who stopped time? The smile was only a facade then..."I have to admit, I'm interested in that detail."

Forcing myself to compose, I folded the paper quietly, the pages not so much as rustling. It was useless now, drenched in tea. Why had I felt compelled to egg him into asking, did I want to speak? It was something new then. "Firstly it's not my style to shoot a man in full view of the public, no matter how big a criminal I may believe him to be...It's not something they need to see." He was watching, eyes stoney now as I spoke. Disapproving...? "Also, I'm in no hurry to fight with you. You seem to be able to take away my only fighting advantage over other targets...I don't like that. Thirdly," I took a sip of what tea remained in my cup. "I do not believe you are Vash the Stampede."

He was silent, as was I. This felt like a parting moment. I stood, took my paper, and walked off the patio into the street. The blonde man did not follow.

***

"GOD DAMNIT!"

I shook the little tin in my hands like a five year old, rattling the contents around, peering into the little black hole opening. Sitting on a stone bench outside the general store, I was quickly gathering stares from passerbys. I didn't care and kept cursing. At the current rate this tin was aggrivating me, I expected to be freezing time in about four minutes or so...

"Don't ya hate it when ya buy a whole tin, and they don't have da flavour you want?" The strangely accented voice beside me made me snap up my head, hair flying back. The tin clenched to tightly in my hands that my fingers made indentations in the metal, my teeth were clenched.

I gazed upon the stranger leaning against the building besides me. I couldn't tell if it was male or female, the black coat's collar went up well to their cheek and the weatherbeaten black hat was tucked down over the front of their face. I snorted and let the hand clutching the tin of fruit drops drop between my knees, dangling there. "Yes," I snapped, doing my best to excersize some control on my tone. "Personally I find the only thing more objectionable is getting a scorpion dropped down your ass in the middle of sex, hmm?"

The stranger didn't respond or move for a moment. With deft and curious movements of their hands, they pulled another tin of candy from a pocket somewhere on the black jacket. They must have gotten them from the same store, perhaps moments ago. I snorted and rattled my own tin in my hand. Pulling out the metal plug with their thumb and index, the stranger tipped the tin into their hand and moved the drops around in their palm. Sugar powder dusted off on the black jacket, bright and streaking dusty white trails. "Ya strike me as a grape person, nyu."

"You strike me as one who wants something."

"Nope, don't want nothin at da moment." Selecting a drop from the multitude in their hand, the black clothed stranger dumped the remainder back into the tin and plugged it up again, returning it to its unseen home in the jacket. Holding out the selected drop to me, they did not look in my direction. Good preception, this one had. It was grape I was looking for in the first place. I took the drop and nodded thanks, popping it into my mouth. The stranger continued to talk. "I just thought I'd come by ta warn ya," Tipping the rim of the hat upwards with their thumb, I could see a pair of glasses nearly obscuring dark brown eyes. An eyebrow quirked upwards at me. I took in the shape of the face quickly. Female. My apparent guardian was a female. "I been watchin ya a while now, Dimma, and I admire yer work. Da thing is, ya seem ta have picked up a tail or two."

Mentally, I reviewed, rolling the fruit drop across my tongue quietly. That was deffinitly true, although I hadn't seen much of this tail. Damn, I must have been blind lately. If this person had been following me for however long she had, and I hadn't even seen her, something was up. But which trail was closest? May D, Hoyes? Or was it someone new, someone I wasn't sure of yet? The blonde man or the red haired girl?

"All of da above, actually," The stranger lowered the hat rim and I raised my eyebrows to her, disbelieving. A mind reader? Cliche...and odd. She seemed to have understood again. "Nah, I'm not a mind reader. I can, however, think da same way ya can. And hence, predict yer thoughts, Dimma."

"How very convinient for you."

"Ya'd be surprised. In any case, I just figured I should bring it ta yer attention. By da way, I'm gonna be travellin with ya from now on."

"Pleasent. One should know the names of one's companions." I snapped the drop in half on my teeth. "You would be?"

"Call me Foxtail. Ashido Foxtail." Ashido moved back the sleeve of the black jacket so slightly, but I caught sight of something. Scars, burn scars across her arms. I said nothing and continued to crunch what remained of the drop. "Well," Foxtail tapped the face of the watch upon her wrist a few times and glanced up at the sun. "That bein said, I'd say it's time ta get outta here."

I gathered my feet beneith me and stood, sealing and pocketing my own candy. So many people seemed to be eager to meet with me lately. It was growing peculiar...and bothersome. Glancing slowly towards Foxtail, I wondered aloud. "What do you think of time stopping for me, then."

It was impossiable to miss the smirk that showed under the rim of the hat. "How very convinient for ya."