Disclaimer: Midlife crisis disclaimer: I'm broke, up to here in debt, and don't own Trigun
Chapter Forty-One: From Atop the Rock
Do you care if I don't know what to say
Will you sleep tonight, or will you think of me
Will I shake this off, pretend its all okay
That there's someone out there who feels just like me
There is
"There Is"- Boxcar Racer
The fire crackled gently in her tired eyes, dancing and jumping with vigor and life. Heavy lids closed once, twice, blocking out the leaping, crackling fire and trying to pull her back into the darkness of sleep. Nuzzling her tired eyes against her crossed arms, Rhianne groaned quietly, knowing that she could not sleep, no matter how much her body pleaded with her. Her right eye creaked open and roamed over to Vash's sleeping, sitting form, chin leaning against his chest and snoring lightly. She smiled, pulling the blanket he had inevitably placed over her tighter to her body; it was cold out here in the desert. Glancing over at Vash again, she watched as he breathed, each exhalation a small cloud of vapor. Squinting at him, she saw that the noticeable chill in the air did not disturb his slumber, and was rather glad of it. Feeling indulgent, she plunger her head beneath the blanket, risking sleep for warmth. She was grateful for the circle of tall rocks surrounding their small camp, large ungainly towers of stone protruding from the sandy ground that protected them from the wind. Lying still, she listened to it whistle as it passed through the narrow cracks between the rocks, shuddering at how violent it sounded.
Reluctantly she pulled her head out of her cocoon of warmth and gazed gratefully at Vash. His hair had fallen over in his sleep and, half-up half-down, looked so adorable that her lips cracked apart in a smile that courted a small giggle. Sitting up, she shivered at the cold of the night and threw the blanket around her shoulders and shuffled over to Vash, who was sitting opposite her, across the bustling fire. Plopping down heavily next to him, she turned her eyes to the fire, feeling the heat surround her she smiled. This was nice; to be sitting here next to someone like her. Even though they had lived billions of miles apart their whole lives, she felt a connection with him- and Knives- that she had only felt with one other person, her brother. Having never met Aeris and Andan, and only recently encountering this set of twins, she had never been able to judge if this feeling of familiarity was because of a bond by blood or of by race. Yet, she smiled at Vash, she was with her kind now, and that flower of comfort blossomed ever the more fully in her heart.
Still smiling, she stood and shed her blanket, ignoring the shivers creeping up her spine and the gooseflesh breaking out over her skin she folded the blanket around Vash, who stirred lightly in his sleep, mumbling something about extra glaze and licked his lips hungrily. A small chuckle at his antics escaped her lips before she turned away and strode, albeit rather sleepily over to one of the massive rocks standing fiercely against the forces of the wind. Standing in it's shadow, cast by the eerily crimson-tinted moons, she marveled at the magnificent work of nature, her eyes taking in the monument of sandstone, a smile of appreciation for the sheer beauty of it as flecks of quartz caught the firelight and blazed with a captured light of their own. Placing a boot against the stone she braced herself against it before pushing herself up and grasping onto a jutting ledge of the wall, hauling herself painstakingly atop of it. She gazed scornfully up at the climb ahead, but rose to her feet and grasped another set of grooves in the rock, wedging her toes into the rock and straining her fingers to maintain their hold on the rock above her. One foot, then the other, painstakingly she moved ever so slowly up the face of the rock, the winds whipping around her and threatening to push her from her from the rock she clung to so steadfastly, sending her to plummet to the ground far below. She shuddered, looking at the sandy desert floor below her feet, which rested precariously close to slipping off the rock; yet she held fast and continued her ascent of the rock.
It seemed like an eternity before her hand lay flat against the surface of the rock, she slammed the other down and hauled herself quickly up and lay there for a moment, eyes closed, marveling at the effort it had taken simply to ascend; and not wanting to think about the decent right now. Her muscled ached with the strain of her climb, yet she ignored them and rose to her feet, and was nearly knocked back off them by the force of the wind. She laughed, a small sound that lingered for a moment on her lips before being torn away by the ravenous wind, like a wolf stealing the meat of another it ripped the laugh away so violently from her mouth that she barely had time to catch it's sound before it was engulfed by the wind's ferocious appetite.
Standing proved to be too much against the force of the wind, and she lay down upon her stomach for fear of being blown right off her rocky perch high above the ground. Her hands clung to the rock, still fearing being torn away from it like a weightless leaf in the might of the wind. Sighing, she leaned her cheek against the cool rock and watched the sand blow over the horizon. A long time she lay there, watching the stars dance in the sky until the wind died down and the sand along the horizon glowed a dull gold with the unbridled sunlight readying to spill over and onto the world. It was a beautiful sight: the golden stars contrasting with the white gold of the sizzling morning sand brought a smile to her lips as her eyelids fell heavily over her eyes that glowed with the unshed light of the morn. All was calm, the wind a small breeze that barely stirred the quartz-flecked sand, and the little planet seemed, to her, to be in a state of quiet preparation, as though gathering it's last bit of strength from the night and readying itself for the day ahead. With her eyes closed Rhianne listened to the sounds of the ending night; the wind picking up the sand and dragging it over the dune-doted desert, Vash's quiet snoring from below her, and the silence that lingered between them, filled with the presence of the dawn waiting to break free, like a gold-winged bird with rainbow tail feathers waiting to break free from its silver-and-ebony cage that is the night, ready to shower her little world with light and color again.
Yet one thing seemed to care naught for the day or the night or the beautiful transition melding the two, she found, as a roar reached her ears. Snapping her head up she caught a fleeting glance of a large creature rear out of the ground, spraying sand and rock out onto her perfect horizon with an howl unlike any she had ever heard amongst natural creatures. In the moment her eyes caught it before it plunged back into the ground with another spray of sand and rock, she saw a massive worm-like creature covered in large protective scales with tentacles on wither side of their faces like massive mustaches that spun and coiled around their massive jowls that snapped open and closed against the wind with a sound like brittle bones snapping in half, a sound that made her cringe at the spectacle before her as two others repeated the performance and dove in and out of the ground like some mutated species of fish jumping from a dry ocean of sand. These things disturbed her; they were giants in a world that seemed too small for creatures of their bulk and size, and she watched them for a long time as they dove in and out of their sandy ocean for purposes she knew not, fascinated by their movements and their very existence on a planet as harsh as this, for she would not have fathomed that creatures of this size would flourish on a desert planet. She had read great lengths about the place the humans called Earth, of its vast oceans and deadly deserts, and knew that in climates such as these the smallest creature was oftentimes the most deadly. But it seemed not to be so on this befuddled little planet revolving around two suns and five moons she concluded, closing her eyes again and listening to the far-off roars as they synchronized themselves in with the orchestra of the morn, dozing off into a quiet sleep by the melodious sounds.
Yet there was no sounds to greet her ears as she awakened. Silence clogged her ears and pressed down heavily upon her, and she wondered why she had awoken to such an eerie silence as this. She lay for a moment, her eyes still closed, straining for a sound to meet her eager ears. Yet nothing moved. It seemed that someone had choked off the wind, killed the SandWorms, and even cut off Vash's rhythmic snoring so that she was surrounded by a lake of silence whose waves lapped in her ears. No matter how hard she listened, to what extent she strained her restless ears, she heard naught but her own breath.
Someone once told her that, before a storm, nature went silence in the anticipation of it. She had never thought this to be true; that it was just a myth told from long ago about the premonitions animals had and their sensitivity to a change in nature. Dismissing it until this day, she had thought it superstitious nonsense. But, she thought as her eyes opened and moved to the dead horizon seemingly not of their own accord, she now knew herself to be mistaken. For as her eyes met with the ever-glowing horizon, a globe of light billowed up like a bubble on the surface of the sandy ocean out of which a lone SandWorm heaved itself out of the sand one final time, and was engulfed in the blinding light. A high cry pierced the thick heavy morning air, pitched so high no human or plant could reach and so filled with pain that it spilled into her ears and sloshed down into her heart, filling her with pity for the animal. She watched as she light shone, brilliantly white that it seemed blue, and realized what it was.
"Knives" she gasped, and then swiftly turned and hurtled herself over the sheer drop of the rock to the ground below.
A/N: I'm not sure why I put that song at the beginning; it was what I listened to while writing this and seemed to fit well with the chapter. This might become a common thing, so let me know what you think, okay? LL
