Disclaimer: Still alone…still without Trigun

Chapter Forty-Seven: Scaling the Wall of Reality

Only when I stop to think about it…

I hate everything about you!

Why do I love you?!

I hate everything about you!

Why, do I love you??

(I hate) Everything About You- Three Days Grace

A/N: I want to apologize for taking so long to update. My love, he came back to me the Monday after I posted the precedent chapter to this one. I was so happy that he had found it in his heart to give me another chance… Yet it seems not so, for last Wednesday he told me he doesn't love me anymore, and can't be with me. Again. It is now Thanksgiving Monday and I have nothing to be thankful for save all of you. I could sit here for hours and spill my heart to you, but I must write the story in thanks for your wonderful support and reviews. It's truly heart-warming to see how people can connect with one another simply through words, and how complete strangers will offer words of kindness when another is in a time of need. Perhaps there is a chance for the world after all if there are people like all of you. I am going through a period in which I am numb to my emotions, but reading your words of encouragement brings a smile to my face and lets me know that there are good people out there. I would like to send special thanks to Jesscheaux Kuwabara, Nova, and Vain Songbird of Death for their kind words. You are truly wonderful people to offer encouragement to someone you know only through their words, thank you all.

Lady Leizel

The suns rose high above her, and she shut her eyes firmly against their blinding light, willing them to be gone and to leave her in her hole of infinite blackness and sorrow. To just let her remain in her little niche of darkness and despair. Yet it would not, and she begrudgingly pulled her head from beneath the blanket, her red tear-streaked face meeting with the world. She had not slept; it had been as elusive to her as water upon the sand of this little planet. She had lain there for hours, her head cradled in her arms, praying fervently in her cocoon of tears and sorrow that sleep would take her away from her pain; envelop her in it's arms of nothingness and let her rest a while in a world of her subconscious where she would not have to face the daunting thought of a life without Knives. She had slept, dozed really, for a few moments; dreamt of his face with a smile and then opened her eyes to that fleeting second between sleep and reality where everything is perfect and blissful, and her lips parted in a smile and her eyes glimmered with happiness. But it was not to last. For the world, and it's troubles and truths and trials and tribulations and the wickedness of Knives words, came crashing down upon her and crushed her like frail sand castle beneath a title wave. The moment it did so her eyes were wet with salty tears that were so like those of the ocean that crashed down upon her castle of dreams.

Still tearing, she crawled from the blanket and to the bag Vash had packed, the items within strewn over the sand and now half-buried in the quartz-ridden pebbles. Her trembling hands dug through the shirts and pants and undergarments and the other items still in the bag until she found the items of her search: a pen and several pieces of paper on a metal spiral. Without a word she moved back to where she had lain for so many hours in her despair, and there, paying no heed to the missing Vash, began to write:

Dear Knives,

I'm not sure if you're going to read this; I doubt you ever will because you probably wouldn't take this if I offered it to you. But I need to get my thoughts out, now that I'm somewhat calmer than before. I miss you and I love you still. I'm sorry that I've hurt you like I have; I wish I had been more aware of your feelings. I suppose that it's just people's nature to return pain to the source, if you get what I mean. Yes, I was miserable then, too. But I was so terrible to you because I couldn't see any other way to display how upset I was. I couldn't seem to reach through to you, but be it through calmness and laying it all out or crying and getting upset, I just couldn't. I know that I hurt you but I don't think you realize the extent to which you have hurt me. I know that something has changed between us, but I hope that we can work around it, because I know that you love me deep down inside, even if you can't admit it to me or to even to yourself. I just hope that you can realize this. Betimes I was sad with you, but I'm dying from the inside out without you. I don't think either of us understands the wonderful thing we had, and it hurts to see how quickly all that we've been through can be dismissed so easily. I've gone through a lot for you, Knives, as have you for me. And I know in my heart that you would not have gone through all that you have if you didn't love me. I'm asking you one last time here to forgive me and my mistakes; to come back to me, like I hope and pray you secretly desire to do. But if you do not, if you ignore my pleas, then I will pester you no more. I will simply be content to live out my life knowing simply that I love you and I always will.

Rhianne

She stared at the page for a moment, the flimsy sheet of paper beneath her bloody and botched fingers. Something was amiss within the context of her letter. Something was missing, a small corner that completed the stone. Her eyes roamed the page time and time again, searching for the miniscule error that ebbed away at her mind like flames licking at the toes of the condemned at the stake, tickling and burning at the back of her skull. Again and again her aqua orbs scanned the page, searching for the grammatical flaw that nagged at her like a small child tugging at their mother's hand. Then she found it, stumbled upon it like so many people have stumbled across the simple yet important things across the thousands of years humans have existed. She stumbled upon her err: her name. It sat there, ever prominent in her flowing script, yet it was lacking in something. It looked so alone, simply 'Rhianne'. It was so final, she sniffed sadly. Not 'love' not 'sincerely', just 'Rhianne' plain and simple. She sighed and wiped at a stray tear as it escaped her eyes, her letter felt so emotionless, so unloving and cruel. She sighed, her brow furrowing and her eyes clenching shut as she made to halt the onslaught of tears that threatened her. She then picked up the pen and signed at the end, at the very bottom of the page:

…I will love you always and forever

She sighed a heavy sigh of defeat as she folded the paper up and tucked it into the back pocket of her pants. Rising, she moved to one of the pillars, which now cast a long shadow of darkness over the heated sand. Her tears flowed freely as she climbed, her eyes focused only n the blurred top of the rock that she sought to reach. The last time I climbed this I knew that he loved me… she thought solemnly as her fingers searched the surface of the rock for another niche in which to grasp. Her right foot stretched out over the rock, searching for a ledge upon which to rest her weight and not dangle so precariously as she was now so doing, holding on only by her right hand and a small amount of stone under her left big toe. She squeezed her eyes firmly shut against the small rocks that toppled down at her from where her left hand sought out a ledge and was nearly bowled over by the overwhelming sensation that someone was watching her. Her heart seemed to skip a beat in her chest, could it be that Knives had returned and was now below her? She paused in her endeavor, pondering weather she should glance towards the ground so far below her to see, or just to continue to climb and ignore him. A war was waged momentarily in her mind as she weighed each action, and without realizing it she craned her head over her outstretched shoulder, searching the ground for the one who watched her as she climbed.

Please be Knives she pleaded mentally as she leaned over her shoulder, resting her chin on the fabric of her shirt and peering over the rumpled fabric down at the sand below her.

Yet she saw no one.

Shifting her weight she tucked her head between her shoulder and looked down over her chest and down the length of her legs and the seemingly endless stretch of rock to the ground. The ground of pale sand that was so far below her that 'twas no more that a ripple of beige satin beneath her.

Yet there was no one there.

She sighed, shaking her head and pulling herself higher up on the rock; she was just being foolish, there was no one there watching her, especially not Knives. Knives was iles from here by now, trudging through the sand with those purposeful steps of his, leaving his mark upon the sand of the planet the way he had left his mark upon her heart. Yet unlike the planet, whose sand would move and blow over and leave no trace of his presence, his mark was left forevermore upon her heart and she knew in the darkest and direst pit of her soul that time would not smooth over the jagged edges of her remorse like it would a stone; hers was a pain that would last an eternity at his hand. Running her hand over the stone she now scaled she thought of the hundreds of years the sand had whittled away at the tough stone, yet how it stayed ever-prominent, a blemish upon the flat rolling surface of the planet. This was what her pain was, a mark left upon her soul, a ripe purple bruise on her heart.

I hate him… she thought idly as she climbed. The thought bubbled to the surface of her mind like bubbles upon a pond and she gasped in the aftermath of the thought. Could it be true, could she hate the man who had given her so much? Was it that simple to turn her back on the man who she had loved for so long and who had shared so much with her; her sadness and her pain and her happiness and joy? She bit her lip and tasted tart blood flow into her mouth, and closed her eyes at the sharp sting of the pierced flesh and the sharp hint of new tears that faced her. Her hand grasped at another niche in the stone, yet she could not grasp how she could resent him so. She climbed and her fear at this newfound resentment rose higher with each inch she climbed. How could she feel this way towards the man whom she had given her all? Her life, her devotion and her trust had been wasted, she realized, upon this man who had left her so quickly.

A breeze rushed against her face, hot and humid, and she wondered idly how his heart of ice did not melt at the heat of the suns and the wind, for surely this man must have a heart of pure ice and stone to be so cruel to the one who had loved him so dear. She clenched her teeth and climbed. She despised the thought of hating him, it made her feel dark and hollow and cold inside; her heart felt like stone and her eyes were touched with frost.

I will hate him. She decided as she reached a hand over onto the top of the stone I will hate him with all my heart and my soul and it will make bearing this burden all the easier, for I will not miss the man I loved. The man I loved is gone and has been replaced with this cruel bastard with a heart of stone. Well I shall be replaced, too; my heart will not bruise so easily as it has this day. I will become a hard woman who will not open herself to any man so easily and will not fall into the enticing snare of love so naively as I have before. I shall be cold and unloving and I will not allow myself to become attached as I have to him to anyone else, for they will all cause me intolerable pain, just as he has. I can do it if I try, I know I can. I will hate them all. I will…I will…

"You will be just like him" Said the figure atop the rock, silhouetted before her eyes by the light of the twin suns.