Disclaimer: I don't own anything Trigun, so don't sue me please, thank you!
Myshkin: And now for something completely different! Let's get to know some original characters and check in on some old friends!
Tying up Loose Ends
Chapter 5
Introductions and Inquiries
A young woman stood at the door of a kindly, old house, watching the world wander past her. The world as Edy saw it composed itself of a stray cat and a few dust clouds scuttling by. Her comfortable home sat on the very far north side of February, standing off on its own; it all the years of its existence, the city never over-took the house, leaving the home of the most revered healers in all of February on its own. It wasn't so much that people were afraid of the Gardener women, because any who met them usually grew very fond of them, but they were obviously quite powerful in their craft and no one wished to cross them. So Edy grew up enjoying a large yard and no pesky neighbors, while not missing out on playmates.
The north end of February actually contained the seeds of the sprawling city. The first settlers huddled there around the old plant that, even after a hundred years or so, still existed in perfect working order. From this neighborhood February sprouted and spread. People often referred to the area as the Hollow, where the old buildings clustered around narrow streets seemed to take a person back fifty years or more, especially compared to the rest of February which was all caught up in the modernization boom.
Time didn't move forward in the Hollow, it just seemed to stay put, caught in a perpetual cat nap. Older residents who were born and raised here planned to die here, as well as the younger families that never could find their way out of their childhood homes. It was a place where you still bought your bread fresh every day and haggled over fruit prices with the grocer despite the fact that he finally moved his stall into a store front at the urging of his "modern" son. It was most certainly the type of place that trusted the word of a good, old-fashioned healer over that of a new, uppity doctor. In the Hollow, medicine was more akin to witchcraft than the acts of the Gardener women.
Edy Gardener held that revered position currently, as her mother had years before, and her grandmother before that and her great grandmother before that. Pictures lined the front hall of these women, and the similarities between them all were eerie. Edy alone seemed to be of different blood, if only slightly. All three Edwina Gardeners before her looked as if they could be identical triplets, or even the same woman; only the clothing styles distinguished between the generations. They all shared the long blond hair and clear, bright eyes, but in the faces Edy and her elders differed. Whereas they all had the slim face, small nose, and fine, wise lips, Edy's face was round, her nose wide, and her plump lips seemed to forever be turned up in a petulant, sardonic smirk. It was almost like she broke tradition without even trying. People came to depend upon the name and face of Edwina Gardener and Edy not only hated having to carry on that out-dated name, she didn't feel that she looked right either.
Still, the patients came. They saw the hair, eyes, and the name and never doubted a word that passed her lips. Edwina Gardener was always the woman to trust with all your problems and it never seemed to matter that she passed on her name and role every thirty years or so. An Edwina Gardener was always skilled, kind, and discreet. They were raised well. All except this one.
Edy lost her mother when she was eight and just last year her father died, not long after introducing Isaiah into the family. At twenty-three, she had very few questions of who she was or what was her purpose; the only thing that bothered her was that she felt incomplete, not fully trained for her important role in the community. Her mother barely had the chance to impart some of her secrets and wisdom to her daughter before passing. Isaiah would ask question upon question about who he was, what he was, and where he came from, and Edy had plenty of answers. Edy's father never had the answers for her, though, when she asked him the same questions. Very early on Edy figured out that she would never learn anything more than what her father could tell her, so she stopped asking and tried to deal with what she actually had: a half-formed healing ability and a reputation formed years before she entered this world as a healer and an advisor. Whether she felt complete or not wasn't important. Edy couldn't fight the currents of tradition; they were far too strong.
Sighing, Edy turned and headed inside. Roscoe the Rescued Wonder Mutt leapt with sheer joy as she shut the door behind her, forgetting that she had just stepped outside a quarter of an hour ago. To the part Great Dane, part everything else, that was an eternity without his companion. Edy gently shoved him down and scratched behind his big, floppy ears. His large, boxy head reached her stomach which he prodded with his wet nose, begging for something to eat. Roscoe had eaten breakfast scraps only an hour ago, but again that was an eternity to his large stomach. Dogs rarely have an acute sense of time and Roscoe didn't dare go against any dogdom rules; he was a good doggy.
"All right dearheart," Edy laughed, smiling for the first time that day, "I'd better get you something to eat before you waste away to nothingness."
She padded down the hall, having not put any shoes on yet that morning and not planning to for the rest of the day. Edy passed the Edwina pictures on the way to the back rooms where her private kitchen and living room resided.
Like every time she passed these pictures Edy half-heartedly noticed the only difference between Edwina Number 1 through 3 was the amount of black in their fair hair. Edwina Number 1 (her great grandmother) had none, Edwina Number 2 was about half and half, and her mother had only the front locks of blonde hair remaining. Father always said that her mother's hair seemed to only get darker and darker every year leading up to her death; the portrait in the hall was taken only a month before she died. Edy always wondered why their hair never went gray or white, but black. Edy's too was going black, but much faster that she expected.
Pausing to look in the mirror at the end of the hall, just before she turned into the kitchen, Edy lifted up her hair to look at the black layers that grew from the nape of her neck to just above her ears.
"At this rate, Roscoe," she remarked with a humorless chuckle to the dog, "I'll be a raven-haired beauty by my thirtieth birthday." Roscoe only whined and prodded her in the small of her back, urging her as always towards food for the dog. Still, it bothered her without knowing why.
Edy rummaged through the pantry to emerge with some stale bread for the mooch. Usually she liked to only give Roscoe the best snacks but for some reason she woke up on the wrong side of the bed; in fact, it was more like she woke up ten miles way from the right side of the bed on a pile of glass, nails, and really pointy rocks. Something rubbed Edy the wrong way lately, and she couldn't figure out what.
It wasn't Isaiah; she loved the boy dearly and couldn't over how fast he was growing and learning. Already he had left for the day to explore on his motorbike, a gift from the mechanic for helping his wife through a difficult labor. He'd tried to give Edy something for herself but she refused; she felt Isaiah deserved to be more spoiled than her other foundling, Roscoe, and at the time it felt like the dog was winning.
It also wasn't the fact that Sarah, her closest friend, hadn't called on her in a while; the poor girl was up to her neck in wedding plans and all the terrible responsibilities that came with a moneyed marriage. Edy knew she'd be expected to drop by Southtown to get fitted for her bridesmaid gown and she wanted to retch at the thought.
Southtown was all old money and huge mansions, a place far above Edy's station in life; Mrs. Schneider always made sure Edy understood this fact whenever she visited the beastly woman's daughter. Maybe that's what was bothering her; Edy always dreaded going toe to toe with Sarah's cold, snotty mother and stepping out of her place in society. Edy may have been respected bordering on revered in the Hollow, but in Southtown she was a nothing who, gasp, worked with her actual hands for a living. Edy was always amazed to think how such a sweet, kind, thoughtful young woman as Sarah could be raised by that monster she called "Mother."
The bells dangling from the front door jangled and then stopped abruptly as the door itself banged against the wall as it flew open. Roscoe, long done with his snack, went tearing off towards the door at full tilt before he could get his long legs in working order. Edy hurried after him and arrived in the front hall in time to see the huge dog tumble into two gentlemen, taking them out effectively.
"Roscoe, back!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. The dog peeled himself away from the newcomers and sauntered back to Edy, glowing with pride at a greeting well done. Edy went to push him back towards the kitchen when her hand came away from his muzzle covered in deep, brilliant red. Shocked she turned to see the two men were barely able to pull themselves up and were covered from head to toe in wounds, dirt, sand, and of course, blood. Her quiet day came to an abrupt halt at that very moment. Unbeknownst to Edy at the time, her relatively quiet life also ground to a stop, and neither would be the same before the night would come again.
Of course, Edy didn't have time to register the fact that this was one of those Moments That Change Your Life Forever. She had two heavily wounded men bleeding all over her entryway. Edy switched into Edwina mode, as she called her professional manner.
Edy didn't ask any questions, she just led them into the first front room. She couldn't tell who supported whom, but it seemed obvious that the blonde man was the worse off. He looked like one of Roscoe's old chew toys after he'd had a good half an hour alone with it. The dark haired man didn't look much better with a blood-soaked handkerchief tied around his neck and a nasty limp probably from a break or a bad sprain. The blonde went on the tall cot and the dark man on the couch usually reserved for less severe cases.
"I'll go mix up a sleeping draught for the two of you and then I'll see what I can do," she told them in her Gentle Healer voice. Edy left the two men.
It had been a rough day and a half or so, taking them three times as long as expected to reach February. Both had a tendency to slip in and out of consciousness and Angelina II couldn't drive herself; when Vash was awake, he couldn't drive her either. The motorcycle had to be dug out of dunes and chased after countless times by men that were in no shape to do so. It also didn't make matters any easy when they entered February in what was obviously the most upscale and snobbish part of town. No one would give the walking corpses the time of day let alone directions to the nearest health services provider. At last some kind young woman directed them to a healer on the far side of town while under the most scathing and frightening looks from an imposing, older woman, probably her mother. Both men were glad to leave the company of that hawk of a woman, for fear of yet another attack on their lives. And don't forget Wolfwood had to bear the weight of the Cross Punisher the whole way as well.
Wolfwood pressed lightly at the handkerchief around his neck and spoke in a hoarse whisper.
"Not what I expected an Edwina to look like. I figured she'd be short, dumpy, and old."
Vash smiled and sort of nodded. He tried to figure out exactly what they'd gotten themselves into this time.
Edy returned with a tray weighed down by two small ceramic cups filled with something that steamed, a large bowl, and several rags. She handed a cup to each man and told them to drink it all up and then turned her attention to the blonde man.
Edy set down the bowl filled with water and smelled of brine, and rolled up one sleeve. The other, her right sleeve, was attached to the shoulder by a thin ribbon threaded around the arm; Edy untied the bow and pulled off the sleeve entirely, for what purpose neither man could surmise. She began to gently strip away the tattered remnants of the blonde's shirt, whom she called in her head Gnawed On. He fought it at first but as the draught and exhaustion took hold his resistance lessened.
Edy was taken aback by the scars that covered the man's body; she'd seen a lot of things in her short years but never such damage. A tiny gasp, more like a small exhalation of breath, escaped Edy even though she tried to remain stoic. How could this man, who looked hardly older than herself have acquired so many scars? Gnawed On blushed and tried to turn away, but he didn't have the strength. Edy pressed on and began to wash the new wounds. He gritted his teeth as the salt burned in the cuts.
"I'm sorry, but the salt helps to clean the wounds out better," she murmured softly, in her most reassuring voice. As she washed, her hand lingered on the cage around the man's heart. "I can take away these scars of yours, and get rid of this metal," she said quietly. She spoke half to him and half to herself. He was barely awake by that point but he managed to shake his head and speak.
"They're a part of me, every single one. I couldn't lose them now after so long."
"But this cage, it has to hurt. At least let me take that much."
"Hell, let it go Tongari," the other man, whom Edy called the Priest to herself, rasped with a chuckle. "If she wants to do you a favor, let her do you a favor. She's willing to save your life and then some; either she's as kind-hearted as you, has a thing for your pathetic self, or thinks you're richer than you look. Two outta those three ain't bad."
Edy decided at that moment she didn't like that dark-haired man, his cocky manner, and his rude tongue. She glared at him but he only smirked back. Maybe she'd leave the man now known as Jerk Priest with the limp.... No, she wasn't that cruel. Edy turned back to Gnawed On and he smiled a true, kind smile, not a mocking, cold one like his supposed friend. His lidded eyes met hers and he nodded his consent ever so slightly and then he dropped off to sleep.
Without turning to look at Jerk Priest she asked him a question, keeping her voice clipped and professional.
"What do you two gentlemen go by?"
She got no other response than gentle snores. Well, she'd have to just find out later. She quickly finished cleaning both men's wounds and then began the actual healing.
Roscoe laid protectively in the doorway, basking in the soft glow of his master's work. The windows stood open since the weather was actually somewhat fair that day, and a feather gently blew across the floor on the breeze, landing between his massive paws. He sniffed it gingerly, and then after recognizing Edy's scent all over it, he happily gulped it down; it wasn't food, but that never stopped Roscoe from trying to ingest anything before.
* * * * *
"Sempaiiiii! Time to get up! Another bright and sunshiny day has begun! Well, it's actually been going on for some time now, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get up and start your own day!"
Meryl buried her head even further beneath the covers. If it weren't for the fact that she actually liked Milly, she would have left her in the middle of the desert ages ago. The small woman tried to make herself even smaller and curled up into a ball in the middle of the bed. Bright light suddenly flooded in, making Meryl cringe and cry out.
"Why do you do this every Saturday, Milly?" she whined, blinking painfully up at her towering partner. The big woman grinned big and threw her arms up in the arm, tossing the blanket in the process.
"Because I have big news!" she replied, bursting with excitement. Then she stopped in mid-burst, actually processing her friend's question for once. "Well, that's not why I do this every Saturday," she pondered out loud, "usually I just can't wait to wake you up and see your smiling face. But this Saturday I've really got a good reason! Big news!"
"You already said that," Meryl muttered, her voice rising to a growl. "Are you going to tell me this big news or what?"
"Mr. Vash is alive!"
Meryl fell out of bed in shock. She leapt up, grabbing Milly by the collar.
"Of course he is, that's not news! Remember? We promised ourselves that no news was good news and we wouldn't think the worst until told otherwise! That goes for Mr. Wolfwood too."
"But this time I know for sure! People were talking down at the store that Vash the Stampede was seen south of February a little over a day and a half ago and he was heading straight for it! It's all over the wires!"
Giddy joy welled up in Meryl's tiny frame but she didn't dare betray it. To cover it up she half-heartedly chided her friend. "Stop punctuating in all exclamation points, Milly, it's obnoxious."
Milly calmed down, looking regretful of her exuberance.
"I'm sorry, Sempai, I was just so excited I couldn't wait to tell you and it just burst right out! I mean, out. I hadn't heard anything since Mr. Wolfwood's letter found us last month, and by that time it was already a month old itself and he hadn't found Mr. Vash either. I thought you'd be happy."
Meryl sighed, regretting her sharpness. "I am happy, Milly, really I am. I just don't know what to say. I mean, there's nothing we can, really. We don't know where he is and he wouldn't want us to try and find him. He'd made that clear."
"Who says we have to go find him?" Milly asked innocently. "Maybe we just wanted to go to February on our own. We deserve a nice vacation, don't you think Sempai?"
Meryl grinned; she always allowed herself to forget how clever Milly could be sometimes. Jumping up, she ran to the shower, calling to Milly behind her.
"Call the boss and tell him we're taking an over-due vacation! Then go get us a jeep and pack your things. It's about time we took in the sights that February has to offer!"
Myshkin: And now for something completely different! Let's get to know some original characters and check in on some old friends!
Tying up Loose Ends
Chapter 5
Introductions and Inquiries
A young woman stood at the door of a kindly, old house, watching the world wander past her. The world as Edy saw it composed itself of a stray cat and a few dust clouds scuttling by. Her comfortable home sat on the very far north side of February, standing off on its own; it all the years of its existence, the city never over-took the house, leaving the home of the most revered healers in all of February on its own. It wasn't so much that people were afraid of the Gardener women, because any who met them usually grew very fond of them, but they were obviously quite powerful in their craft and no one wished to cross them. So Edy grew up enjoying a large yard and no pesky neighbors, while not missing out on playmates.
The north end of February actually contained the seeds of the sprawling city. The first settlers huddled there around the old plant that, even after a hundred years or so, still existed in perfect working order. From this neighborhood February sprouted and spread. People often referred to the area as the Hollow, where the old buildings clustered around narrow streets seemed to take a person back fifty years or more, especially compared to the rest of February which was all caught up in the modernization boom.
Time didn't move forward in the Hollow, it just seemed to stay put, caught in a perpetual cat nap. Older residents who were born and raised here planned to die here, as well as the younger families that never could find their way out of their childhood homes. It was a place where you still bought your bread fresh every day and haggled over fruit prices with the grocer despite the fact that he finally moved his stall into a store front at the urging of his "modern" son. It was most certainly the type of place that trusted the word of a good, old-fashioned healer over that of a new, uppity doctor. In the Hollow, medicine was more akin to witchcraft than the acts of the Gardener women.
Edy Gardener held that revered position currently, as her mother had years before, and her grandmother before that and her great grandmother before that. Pictures lined the front hall of these women, and the similarities between them all were eerie. Edy alone seemed to be of different blood, if only slightly. All three Edwina Gardeners before her looked as if they could be identical triplets, or even the same woman; only the clothing styles distinguished between the generations. They all shared the long blond hair and clear, bright eyes, but in the faces Edy and her elders differed. Whereas they all had the slim face, small nose, and fine, wise lips, Edy's face was round, her nose wide, and her plump lips seemed to forever be turned up in a petulant, sardonic smirk. It was almost like she broke tradition without even trying. People came to depend upon the name and face of Edwina Gardener and Edy not only hated having to carry on that out-dated name, she didn't feel that she looked right either.
Still, the patients came. They saw the hair, eyes, and the name and never doubted a word that passed her lips. Edwina Gardener was always the woman to trust with all your problems and it never seemed to matter that she passed on her name and role every thirty years or so. An Edwina Gardener was always skilled, kind, and discreet. They were raised well. All except this one.
Edy lost her mother when she was eight and just last year her father died, not long after introducing Isaiah into the family. At twenty-three, she had very few questions of who she was or what was her purpose; the only thing that bothered her was that she felt incomplete, not fully trained for her important role in the community. Her mother barely had the chance to impart some of her secrets and wisdom to her daughter before passing. Isaiah would ask question upon question about who he was, what he was, and where he came from, and Edy had plenty of answers. Edy's father never had the answers for her, though, when she asked him the same questions. Very early on Edy figured out that she would never learn anything more than what her father could tell her, so she stopped asking and tried to deal with what she actually had: a half-formed healing ability and a reputation formed years before she entered this world as a healer and an advisor. Whether she felt complete or not wasn't important. Edy couldn't fight the currents of tradition; they were far too strong.
Sighing, Edy turned and headed inside. Roscoe the Rescued Wonder Mutt leapt with sheer joy as she shut the door behind her, forgetting that she had just stepped outside a quarter of an hour ago. To the part Great Dane, part everything else, that was an eternity without his companion. Edy gently shoved him down and scratched behind his big, floppy ears. His large, boxy head reached her stomach which he prodded with his wet nose, begging for something to eat. Roscoe had eaten breakfast scraps only an hour ago, but again that was an eternity to his large stomach. Dogs rarely have an acute sense of time and Roscoe didn't dare go against any dogdom rules; he was a good doggy.
"All right dearheart," Edy laughed, smiling for the first time that day, "I'd better get you something to eat before you waste away to nothingness."
She padded down the hall, having not put any shoes on yet that morning and not planning to for the rest of the day. Edy passed the Edwina pictures on the way to the back rooms where her private kitchen and living room resided.
Like every time she passed these pictures Edy half-heartedly noticed the only difference between Edwina Number 1 through 3 was the amount of black in their fair hair. Edwina Number 1 (her great grandmother) had none, Edwina Number 2 was about half and half, and her mother had only the front locks of blonde hair remaining. Father always said that her mother's hair seemed to only get darker and darker every year leading up to her death; the portrait in the hall was taken only a month before she died. Edy always wondered why their hair never went gray or white, but black. Edy's too was going black, but much faster that she expected.
Pausing to look in the mirror at the end of the hall, just before she turned into the kitchen, Edy lifted up her hair to look at the black layers that grew from the nape of her neck to just above her ears.
"At this rate, Roscoe," she remarked with a humorless chuckle to the dog, "I'll be a raven-haired beauty by my thirtieth birthday." Roscoe only whined and prodded her in the small of her back, urging her as always towards food for the dog. Still, it bothered her without knowing why.
Edy rummaged through the pantry to emerge with some stale bread for the mooch. Usually she liked to only give Roscoe the best snacks but for some reason she woke up on the wrong side of the bed; in fact, it was more like she woke up ten miles way from the right side of the bed on a pile of glass, nails, and really pointy rocks. Something rubbed Edy the wrong way lately, and she couldn't figure out what.
It wasn't Isaiah; she loved the boy dearly and couldn't over how fast he was growing and learning. Already he had left for the day to explore on his motorbike, a gift from the mechanic for helping his wife through a difficult labor. He'd tried to give Edy something for herself but she refused; she felt Isaiah deserved to be more spoiled than her other foundling, Roscoe, and at the time it felt like the dog was winning.
It also wasn't the fact that Sarah, her closest friend, hadn't called on her in a while; the poor girl was up to her neck in wedding plans and all the terrible responsibilities that came with a moneyed marriage. Edy knew she'd be expected to drop by Southtown to get fitted for her bridesmaid gown and she wanted to retch at the thought.
Southtown was all old money and huge mansions, a place far above Edy's station in life; Mrs. Schneider always made sure Edy understood this fact whenever she visited the beastly woman's daughter. Maybe that's what was bothering her; Edy always dreaded going toe to toe with Sarah's cold, snotty mother and stepping out of her place in society. Edy may have been respected bordering on revered in the Hollow, but in Southtown she was a nothing who, gasp, worked with her actual hands for a living. Edy was always amazed to think how such a sweet, kind, thoughtful young woman as Sarah could be raised by that monster she called "Mother."
The bells dangling from the front door jangled and then stopped abruptly as the door itself banged against the wall as it flew open. Roscoe, long done with his snack, went tearing off towards the door at full tilt before he could get his long legs in working order. Edy hurried after him and arrived in the front hall in time to see the huge dog tumble into two gentlemen, taking them out effectively.
"Roscoe, back!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. The dog peeled himself away from the newcomers and sauntered back to Edy, glowing with pride at a greeting well done. Edy went to push him back towards the kitchen when her hand came away from his muzzle covered in deep, brilliant red. Shocked she turned to see the two men were barely able to pull themselves up and were covered from head to toe in wounds, dirt, sand, and of course, blood. Her quiet day came to an abrupt halt at that very moment. Unbeknownst to Edy at the time, her relatively quiet life also ground to a stop, and neither would be the same before the night would come again.
Of course, Edy didn't have time to register the fact that this was one of those Moments That Change Your Life Forever. She had two heavily wounded men bleeding all over her entryway. Edy switched into Edwina mode, as she called her professional manner.
Edy didn't ask any questions, she just led them into the first front room. She couldn't tell who supported whom, but it seemed obvious that the blonde man was the worse off. He looked like one of Roscoe's old chew toys after he'd had a good half an hour alone with it. The dark haired man didn't look much better with a blood-soaked handkerchief tied around his neck and a nasty limp probably from a break or a bad sprain. The blonde went on the tall cot and the dark man on the couch usually reserved for less severe cases.
"I'll go mix up a sleeping draught for the two of you and then I'll see what I can do," she told them in her Gentle Healer voice. Edy left the two men.
It had been a rough day and a half or so, taking them three times as long as expected to reach February. Both had a tendency to slip in and out of consciousness and Angelina II couldn't drive herself; when Vash was awake, he couldn't drive her either. The motorcycle had to be dug out of dunes and chased after countless times by men that were in no shape to do so. It also didn't make matters any easy when they entered February in what was obviously the most upscale and snobbish part of town. No one would give the walking corpses the time of day let alone directions to the nearest health services provider. At last some kind young woman directed them to a healer on the far side of town while under the most scathing and frightening looks from an imposing, older woman, probably her mother. Both men were glad to leave the company of that hawk of a woman, for fear of yet another attack on their lives. And don't forget Wolfwood had to bear the weight of the Cross Punisher the whole way as well.
Wolfwood pressed lightly at the handkerchief around his neck and spoke in a hoarse whisper.
"Not what I expected an Edwina to look like. I figured she'd be short, dumpy, and old."
Vash smiled and sort of nodded. He tried to figure out exactly what they'd gotten themselves into this time.
Edy returned with a tray weighed down by two small ceramic cups filled with something that steamed, a large bowl, and several rags. She handed a cup to each man and told them to drink it all up and then turned her attention to the blonde man.
Edy set down the bowl filled with water and smelled of brine, and rolled up one sleeve. The other, her right sleeve, was attached to the shoulder by a thin ribbon threaded around the arm; Edy untied the bow and pulled off the sleeve entirely, for what purpose neither man could surmise. She began to gently strip away the tattered remnants of the blonde's shirt, whom she called in her head Gnawed On. He fought it at first but as the draught and exhaustion took hold his resistance lessened.
Edy was taken aback by the scars that covered the man's body; she'd seen a lot of things in her short years but never such damage. A tiny gasp, more like a small exhalation of breath, escaped Edy even though she tried to remain stoic. How could this man, who looked hardly older than herself have acquired so many scars? Gnawed On blushed and tried to turn away, but he didn't have the strength. Edy pressed on and began to wash the new wounds. He gritted his teeth as the salt burned in the cuts.
"I'm sorry, but the salt helps to clean the wounds out better," she murmured softly, in her most reassuring voice. As she washed, her hand lingered on the cage around the man's heart. "I can take away these scars of yours, and get rid of this metal," she said quietly. She spoke half to him and half to herself. He was barely awake by that point but he managed to shake his head and speak.
"They're a part of me, every single one. I couldn't lose them now after so long."
"But this cage, it has to hurt. At least let me take that much."
"Hell, let it go Tongari," the other man, whom Edy called the Priest to herself, rasped with a chuckle. "If she wants to do you a favor, let her do you a favor. She's willing to save your life and then some; either she's as kind-hearted as you, has a thing for your pathetic self, or thinks you're richer than you look. Two outta those three ain't bad."
Edy decided at that moment she didn't like that dark-haired man, his cocky manner, and his rude tongue. She glared at him but he only smirked back. Maybe she'd leave the man now known as Jerk Priest with the limp.... No, she wasn't that cruel. Edy turned back to Gnawed On and he smiled a true, kind smile, not a mocking, cold one like his supposed friend. His lidded eyes met hers and he nodded his consent ever so slightly and then he dropped off to sleep.
Without turning to look at Jerk Priest she asked him a question, keeping her voice clipped and professional.
"What do you two gentlemen go by?"
She got no other response than gentle snores. Well, she'd have to just find out later. She quickly finished cleaning both men's wounds and then began the actual healing.
Roscoe laid protectively in the doorway, basking in the soft glow of his master's work. The windows stood open since the weather was actually somewhat fair that day, and a feather gently blew across the floor on the breeze, landing between his massive paws. He sniffed it gingerly, and then after recognizing Edy's scent all over it, he happily gulped it down; it wasn't food, but that never stopped Roscoe from trying to ingest anything before.
* * * * *
"Sempaiiiii! Time to get up! Another bright and sunshiny day has begun! Well, it's actually been going on for some time now, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get up and start your own day!"
Meryl buried her head even further beneath the covers. If it weren't for the fact that she actually liked Milly, she would have left her in the middle of the desert ages ago. The small woman tried to make herself even smaller and curled up into a ball in the middle of the bed. Bright light suddenly flooded in, making Meryl cringe and cry out.
"Why do you do this every Saturday, Milly?" she whined, blinking painfully up at her towering partner. The big woman grinned big and threw her arms up in the arm, tossing the blanket in the process.
"Because I have big news!" she replied, bursting with excitement. Then she stopped in mid-burst, actually processing her friend's question for once. "Well, that's not why I do this every Saturday," she pondered out loud, "usually I just can't wait to wake you up and see your smiling face. But this Saturday I've really got a good reason! Big news!"
"You already said that," Meryl muttered, her voice rising to a growl. "Are you going to tell me this big news or what?"
"Mr. Vash is alive!"
Meryl fell out of bed in shock. She leapt up, grabbing Milly by the collar.
"Of course he is, that's not news! Remember? We promised ourselves that no news was good news and we wouldn't think the worst until told otherwise! That goes for Mr. Wolfwood too."
"But this time I know for sure! People were talking down at the store that Vash the Stampede was seen south of February a little over a day and a half ago and he was heading straight for it! It's all over the wires!"
Giddy joy welled up in Meryl's tiny frame but she didn't dare betray it. To cover it up she half-heartedly chided her friend. "Stop punctuating in all exclamation points, Milly, it's obnoxious."
Milly calmed down, looking regretful of her exuberance.
"I'm sorry, Sempai, I was just so excited I couldn't wait to tell you and it just burst right out! I mean, out. I hadn't heard anything since Mr. Wolfwood's letter found us last month, and by that time it was already a month old itself and he hadn't found Mr. Vash either. I thought you'd be happy."
Meryl sighed, regretting her sharpness. "I am happy, Milly, really I am. I just don't know what to say. I mean, there's nothing we can, really. We don't know where he is and he wouldn't want us to try and find him. He'd made that clear."
"Who says we have to go find him?" Milly asked innocently. "Maybe we just wanted to go to February on our own. We deserve a nice vacation, don't you think Sempai?"
Meryl grinned; she always allowed herself to forget how clever Milly could be sometimes. Jumping up, she ran to the shower, calling to Milly behind her.
"Call the boss and tell him we're taking an over-due vacation! Then go get us a jeep and pack your things. It's about time we took in the sights that February has to offer!"