Disclaimers: Blah, blah, blah, I don't own Trigun, but I am getting no benefit except for my own entertainment, short story writing practice, and (hopefully) fun, fun, happy reviews! I also don't own the song, "Van Dieman's Land," that belongs to the almighty U2, and to The Edge in particular.

I decided to write this after a couple of people apparently wanted more along the "World Peace" storyline. THIS IS A DIRECT SEQUEL, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS FIC WITHOUT READING "WORLD PEACE" FIRST. Please respect this author's wishes, thank you. Hmmm…and I think I got partial inspiration for this from the Western TV miniseries, "Lonesome Dove." Does anyone remember that? It ran years ago and I only have the vaguest memories of it. I remember that for a while, my mom was obsessed with it…or maybe the plot-point that inspired this fic was actually in LD's sequel, I dunno…

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DESOLATION

Light filtered through the north window of the kitchen of the tiny house. It was the only building left standing in June and Knives was making temporary use of it. Vash lay on a long table, his many wounds carefully bandaged, even the short stumps that were left of his legs. Knives had removed his bloody red coat and his mangled metallic arm. He had carefully sponged off the body, mingling his tears with the water he used.

He sat in a chair before the corpse of his little brother, watching the sun rise over his white skin.

"I promise…" he whispered, "I promise…I will bury you beside the priest. I know…I know that is what you would want."

Knives struggled to understand it, Vash giving his life for the creatures, though it had proved in vain. He, himself, had taken a direct hit from Vash's Angel Arm once, and had survived. Knives knew that Vash had not taken his discharge directly – but had been caught in flying shrapnel, which ripped through him like thousands of teeth – or millions of knives.

Even if he had taken a direct blast from the light, as opposed to the shrapnel, he would not have survived. Knives remembered the destruction of July. The Angel Arms were a matter of will. He had triggered his brother's arm then, but when he aimed and fired, Vash's intent was not to kill…a desperate desire not to kill. Knives had felt his younger twin's anger, and his conflicted thoughts. Outwardly, he was trying to destroy Knives, but inwardly, he truly did not want to kill, therefore his Angel Arm left July destroyed, but with no fatalities.

When Knives had destroyed this city of June, his intent had been pure destruction, the death of every creature therein, save the Plant. Knives sighed and got up, the creaking of the old wood of the chair the only sound the break the deafening silence. The thought hit him again: He was alone. Aside from his paleness, Vash looked alive. He looked like he was merely asleep, a strange expression of peace on his face.

Knives laid a small bouquet of flowers on his chest. He was surprised to find them growing, of all places, among the loose soil at the base of the Plant, about three feet from the spot where he had found Vash fallen. They were…geraniums, red geraniums.

"I suppose I should be happy for you," Knives said ruefully, "you are with that woman now."

Knives drew up the sheets he had placed on the table under Vash gently over his brother's remains, binding them tightly. Gathering up the body in his arms and weeping softly, he stepped outside to a waiting wagon. Two sleek mules were hitched to it, waiting for Knives to undo the tethers that kept them to a hitching post and to drive them. Carcasses, the town where Nicholas D. Wolfwood had died and was buried, was over two hundred isles away. Knives climbed into the driver's seat and clicked with his tongue to the mules, turning the wagon around and signaling them westward.

He had found the two fine animals half an isle outside of town at a small farmstead. They were penned with three thomases. Equines were very rare. Only the wealthy could afford a horse or a donkey. Thomases, the common native animal of the planet, were, though largely tame, not entirely domesticated like equines, which had come from Earth, were. Horses, donkeys and mules could do more in the ways of work than could the oft skittish and unruly thomases, and were much smoother to ride. Mules, though not as valuable as horses, were the transportation of the rich and highly honored.

"They were just penned there, Vash." Knives said as he drove, "I didn't expect anyone around this small city to have mules. I caught them, led them out of the pen… noticed that the thomases there with them were nearly out of water and food. I was going to leave them. What care do I have for thomases? Then, I thought about you and what you would do. Kicked down the fence, let them go. Hopefully, they'll find food and springs out in the desert and will have a chance to survive."

Knives held up a small object in his thumb and forefinger, watching sunlight glint off of it. He sat back, listening to the wood of the wagon seat creak, contemplating Vash's silver earring. His red coat, carefully washed and repaired, lay folded next to his body in the back of the wagon, along with both his and Knives' guns. Palming the earring, Knives glanced at the guns, thinking about them.

They were designed to destroy, and the black one in his hand certainly did. The silver turned to another purpose, to save. When the blasts from the Angel Arms met one another, the light from the hand that held the black revolver shone white – the tiger side. The light from the hand that held the silver revolver shone black – the lamb side.

The suns beat down on the barren, tawny desert. Aside from the footfalls and random grunts of the mules and the creaking of the wagon, no sound met Knives' ears.

"It's so…quiet," he whispered, "this is what I've always longed for, Vash, to be…in this world with you, without the incessant clamor of the vermin. It's what you've always wanted, too, isn't it? A world of peace? They're gone now, all gone… there will be no more wars. No one here will steal from one another ever again. Isn't it what you wanted? Isn't it what you wanted?"

Knives jumped. He caught himself crying. He wiped his tears away and stared ahead unblinking. He was the strong one, he had always been the strong one.

An hour after the suns had set, Knives stopped for the night. He himself felt no tiredness, but the mules needed to rest. He lay on the sands looking at the stars.

"I'm sorry, Vash…" he whispered to the night air, "So, so sorry…"

He remembered that great showdown of nine years ago, of how, when Vash had decided to stand against him and their Eden, he had tried to destroy him in rage. He had been overcome by passion at the time. Destroying his little brother completely was never something that he truly wanted. Now…he had. The silence of the night crept into Knives' spirit. Memories of life aboard the SEEDS ship came to his mind. Vash had always complained about how the ship was too quiet and lonely with the limited crew, though that loneliness was the only existence that he had known. The two of them would stare at the frozen bodies of SEEDS' cargo in the coldsleep rooms, lined like row upon row of corpses in caskets.

Vash would not want to live in this quiet world. The racket of the vermin he lived among seemed to give him happiness. Knives had to admit to himself that he missed it a little, now. He remembered nights speaking with Legato, indoctrinating the wiry young man, though he had needed little convincing of the inherent evil of humanity. When Knives had found him, he had been an outcast and familiar with pain – so much so that it had become an obsession. He remembered calling Legato to him during moments when he missed Vash. He would spend hours stroking and caressing Legato's grafted arm – which had kept him young and vigorous for unnatural years.

The next day, Knives passed the remains of a city, one of the many he had destroyed in his recent planetary cleansing. He spoke to the Plant there, still standing. She turned away from him, transmitting to him a single word: "Destroyer."

The day after, he drove the wagon over many hills. Despite the heat of the suns and the nature of his cargo, no smell of death surrounded him. A morbid curiosity struck him and Knives removed the wrapping from about Vash's face. Pale white it was, still with tightly closed eyes and a peaceful smile. Other than the whiteness of the skin, there were no signs of discoloration or decomposition. However, Vash definitely was dead. Knives checked for the weakest of life signs repeatedly. He smelled the faint scent of flowers…everywhere.

He remembered a story… or rather a series of them. Something about the "incorruptibles", martyred saints whose remains did not decompose and whose corpses gave off a scent of flowers. Knives wondered about this and continued on his way.

He sang softly as he crossed the barren flatlands that now lie between him and Carcasses. Only a day left to journey and he would be there.

"Hold me now, hold me now, Till this hour has gone around, and I'm gone on the rising tide, for to face Van Dieman's Land…"

It was a strange song that Knives somehow remembered. It was an old Earth song about a poet who spoke out against the polices of his country's government and was exiled to a colonial island that served as a place to ship undesirables to.

"Still the gunman rules and the widows pay, a scarlet coat now a black beret. They thought that blood and sacrifice could out of death bring forth a life."

He felt as if he were now facing his own Van Dieman's Land, alone in a barren, hostile world, alone because of what he had done. Snatches of another song came to him, but he quickly shook his head, trying to dislodge it from his brain. Her song.

The wagon slowly came into the outmost edge of the town he sought. Buildings stood, unpeopled. There were several towns that Knives had not bothered using his Angel Arms on. Some of the villages with smaller populations he simply slaughtered the people one by one, with his black revolver, or by simply concentrating psychic energy upon them.

"Well, we are here." Knives said as he drove the wagon to the town graveyard. He got down from the creaky wagon seat and cut the mules free. Rather than run for freedom they wandered aimlessly down the main street of Carcasses, tails swishing as they became silhouettes to Knives' view in the shimmering heat.

He found a shovel in a hardware shop and made his way to a large graven cross at the edge of the cemetery. The marker was the largest one standing. Knives recalled that when Vash was taking care of him after their battle in Demetary, he spoke of the girls who followed him. Knives remembered meeting them at one point. Vash would praise a hidden talent belonging to the tall one, that she was quite an artist. This cross was her handiwork, an oaken testament carved with the images of winding flowers as well as with lions and lambs, and the name: Nicholas D. Wolfwood.

The grave stood alone, and Knives broke the barren earth on the right side of it. He dug long into the day, until he was covered in dirt and sweat and he had removed his shirt because of the heat. His faded jeans were caked in dust. He had left his bodysuit back in June for reasons he was unsure why, opting for his voyage to wear human clothing. He gathered up his brother with the greatest of care and placed him in the pit as if he were a mother laying her infant in his crib for an afternoon nap. He stood beside the grave and let a handful of dirt crumble into it from his fingers.

"I…don't know what to say…" he spoke with pain, "except that I'm sorry, Vash. I wonder if you are watching me from somewhere…all those stories Rem used to tell us about Heaven…why did you do it, Vash? Why were you in June? Why did you try to stop me? We could have had this world together! Now…Now I am here…burying the one thing I ever truly cared about. Our own people, Vash, our own people…even they turn away from me. They do not understand their freedom. But…I suppose you wouldn't either. I've always told myself that I was not afraid of being alone. Now that I am, it hurts."

Knives covered the grave over, trying not to weep, but his tears flowed freely. He had never cried in his adult life before these last several days. He considered emotion to be weak, a human trait.

There was a small, scraggly tree at the head of Vash's grave, and upon this Knives affixed his long red coat. It was an appropriate marker, Knives felt, as it flapped in the evening breeze like a flag. He knelt at the foot of the grave and stayed there, unable to bring himself to leave. The suns rose behind him and set before him. Wind and sand spiraled around him. His hair grew to touch the ground and the red coat became tatters upon the tree. Still, he stayed kneeling, surrounded by silence.

S.N. "Lady Shadowcat", 2002.

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I hope that was good. ^_^;;; Um, I don't remember what town it was that Nicholas got killed in, so, I'm sorry if I didn't get the name of the town right. I can change this if I am wrong. The tiger and lamb sides of the yin yang…I'm not sure on that point, either. It's something I remember seeing on "Histeria!" -____- And the "incorruptibles", I am not too clear on, I believe that comes from Catholic legend, and I am a Baptist…I remember the legend from an episode of "The X-Files" and thought it was pretty cool.

The song, "Van Dieman's Land", is on U2's "Rattle and Hum" album. The last set of lyrics, though printed in the CD's little cover booklet, are not actually sung. I've been borrowing the CD from my sister for the longest time. When I was reading the lyrics, I was like "Whoa!" (Even though the scarlet coat thing most likely refers to the British), and I was really disappointed when the music faded out and the sound cut to U2 talking about the Joshua Tree album just before the song got to those lyrics. Oh, well, I suppose they have the full song on a CD somewhere, or in their live concerts, which I have yet to see.

Oh, and don't worry. Poor Vash will be alive and well in other fanfictions of mine. I have a perverse thing about killing off my favorite characters, I am a sick, sick person, but, only because I know he'll be alive in other fics.

Vash: *Panics* SHADOWCAT!!!!!! How DARE you do that to me? *Shakes*

Me: Calm down…it was just a fanfic! Have a donut.

Vash: ^_^;