Disclaimer: I don't own Trigun but I don't remember who does but whoever it is isn't me so I make no claims on it. I'm also not Ovid or Euripides because they are dead and these famous myths on which this story is loosely based is of their hand and not actually mine. Sorry to anyone who is offended by this or doesn't understand it.
Background: This story is based in Greek and Roman Mythology as well as the world of Trigun. It has spoilers for the whole damn series almost and of course it will ruin the basic plot of the myth it is based on. It's the story of Hyacinth and I recommend you read that story first but it doesn't really matter. A good telling of the story can be found at mylifeinblue.keenspace.com thank you.
Authors note: The characters were not pleased about being forced into togas and it took me and all nine daughters of Mnemosyne to get them into them. Then we realized a lot of the characters would be athletes and we had to struggle to get them out of the togas and participate starkers. Many involved have still not forgiven us for this but it made some people glad they at least had togas. I might just illustrate this in some kind of cast picture so you all can enjoy the fact that the Greeks (Rocking'!) and the Romans (go Rome!) were serial bisexuals with no respect for clothing. You love me.
This is slash and death filled but it's still G!
The legend of Legato, as mourned by the daughters of Mnemosyne or the Muses.
There has always been a set of twins though their genders are fluid the older one is usually male and the younger female. The older is often known for being loved by the muses and for being short tempered and violent. He holds grudges though his pure talent in music, art, or drama is well respected by the daughters of Mnemsyne. This has always been so because though his body might change his personality is always the same. The younger is known as a great hunter and fighter and is alternatively a great lover or a great prude. Some times she is found to be all of these things but though she holds grudges like her brother she has a great pacifist nature about life and a karmic viewpoint. Her brother has never shared this. The twins will spend centuries as a constellation, Gemini, but are known on earth as gods and mortals. Sometimes they are forced from the heavens in payment of their sins but most often they come for their own enjoyment. They have been known as Apollo and Artemis by the Greeks, Juno and Diana by the Romans, and Maharet and Mekare by a few cultures. Every time they visit the mortal realm they change the course of history. Each time they repeat their last life exactly and it still changes the world, this is the fate of the Gods. This last time they came they were forced into two demi-mortal bodies both male. There sign was great and it had ended up destroying the mortal planet. The twins were to rectify this problem as their punishment.
Yet something went a wry as the two older than time psyches entered the Seed bodies of Vash and Knives. From the beginning something went wrong and set both twins against eachother into an epic battle never before felt. This was not the repeat of the lives they had had before. Some part of the twins had been lost in this New World. Possibly to the fault of a human at the time possessed by the spirit of Admetus a soul who'd owned one of the twins in his last life. No two ancient spirits would be allowed on earth together because they would disrupt each other's paths. Yet many spirits had been sent to help the mortals. In each time the sinning twins should meet them they would be pulled farther and farther away just as the world was brought closer and closer to destruction. The mortal possessed by the soul of Admetus greatly abused the twin it primordially recognized as wrongful. This broke that twin in ways beyond the gods understanding. This twin was Knives and his psyche's collapse brought about the rift between the twins and caused great angst and grief for the mortal race as it came into crashing contact with a barren world it would not escape from at the hands of the broken twin.
The twins' talent was not lost though and Vash soon took on the confusing pacifistic chaos bearing hunter status that he'd always held. Knives' talent showed in the control of the human mind. He gathered to him, over the few hundred years he lived, warriors of the highest caliber, as did Vash if unknowingly. Yet Knives used his infamous talents to control the very psyches of his consorts. Other older than time spirits were attracted to the twins either as enemies or allies and it caused great disrepair across the barren mortal land. Cash attracted to him three lesser god incarnates Anteros, god of the jilted lover, Hebe, goddess of eternal innocence and youth, and Adonis, the tainted pious beauty. Knives pulled close to him, Polyhymnia, the muse of song, the Furies, the Fates, and the Graces all brought into separate bodies for their triplet groups, and one not unlike the soul of Adonis though blessed with a body of even more eternal beauty.
This soul has been long time linked to the god that was now Knives. In fact each time that that timeless soul should be reincarnated it met with the soul of this past consort. It was the gold thread amongst the tangled that brought this timeless lover down to the mortal ground to play yet again the same story that is always told and always be told. This time the soul was no athlete or artist, nor was he the left hand of an enemy king as he had once been. This time he was no more than a boy whom the muses looked upon fondly for his beauty and his talent. This boy called Legato Bluesummers was linked to Knives before either of their lifespans began since they had from the start of their souls' lives been lovers and friends. Many thought that Legato possessed the psyche taming abilities of Knives but Legato's spirit was not the spirit of a god and in all reality he had no such powers. His only power was in the favor he received. It was brought to him by his beauty which was truly the only part of him that was truly his beyond his steadfast unbending stubborn behavior that made him a precious ally and a feared enemy. Any powers he was given were bestowed on him lovingly by those who favored him weather they knew they gave in love was another matter though, as all would learn from the broken soul of an ancient god.
Legato was the right hand man for Knives as time had always told and without knowing it he and Knives own crusade would take the place of a friendly spat long fought in jest between them. It would replay as it always had from the beginning of time and Legato's first birth as Hyacinth. Sent out to finally bring the twins to the same force Legato realized that should he wish to accomplish this his own sacrifice must be given and in his love for knives he gave this to him thus his blood should water the barren land. It came in an epic battle in which the pacifistic stance of Vash was finally tore down as the bullet passed through Legato's mortal mind. Though before anytime this soul has died it has been honored as Legato's was honored by those he killed and those who wished him dead alike. The world mourned for this precious soul as the twins came to face off in a spray of bullets. None left without wounds and left unhonored by the mortal world Legato's soul was present in the sudden realization of ancient connection the twins were once again bonded together broken or not. It was Legato's work, this communing of the ancient psyche's as though the story of the twins ended it was obvious to all that their goals were accomplished and their preternatural lives continued as all god incarnates should have it.
Yet the soul of Legato stayed on unhonored by the mortal world and lingered in it's gold-eyed beauty taking in the barren waste and bringing to it the honors once bestowed to him. Hyacinth flowers sprouted with white mulberry trees and the ancient plants of star crossed lovers. Everywhere that the ancient souls of the twins now called Vash and Knives went the haunting of immortal souls followed. There were the muses, the fates, the furies, and the graces. Adonis and Legato mourned together being unhonored lovers. Demi-goddesses and demi-gods followed both healing the land and scarring it black with their hate. It came to the point at which. No one knew why suddenly strife and saviors came in pairs together, like lovers. It was not understood because the old stories were lost even upon their bearers. Sad came the day when finally the muses came to both of them with dreams. That night the twins saw all the spirits including their own as their beautiful and timeless selves. Their mortal bodies woke in cold sweat to realize the nine daughters of Mnemosyne stood before them. There each spirit was honored upon the barren land and though this barren land was half scorched and half fruitbearing it became within a century as myth laden as the old earth had been.
Now all wonders however the soul of Legato Bluesummers was put to rest. The night the muses visited the twins and gave to them their further punishment for grievous sins in nearly destroying all the worlds they declared that the flowing nature that would soon come into being would be named Legato. Being the muses that they were as the world continued on to become known merely as Earth and the twins died into legend again and resumed their starry existence this term of Legato came to refer to flowing music. Everything was lost again to mortals over the course of many centuries the memories of the barren world were replaced with scientific myths and the muses amused these ideas until they tired as they once again developed the land to their own ideals. The time came to be the twenty first century' and the muses laughed as they whispered ancient histories into the innocent mortal ear of a writer. The next day the writer sat down to furiously record the ideas that she'd been given and post them before she lost them.
Authors note: What the hell is this?