Disclaimer: Floating upon the winds of my mind like a bird so free is Trigun, but, like that bird, I cannot grasp it and call it my own.

Chapter Forty-Nine: Paper Songbird

A/N: Dear Moonlit, you'll see….

I think I broke the wings off a little songbird

She's never gonna fly to the top of the world right now,

…Top of the world

Dixie Chicks- Top of the World

The sun beat down upon his sweat-drenched back as he trudged heavily through the drifting sand, sifting beneath his feet and threatening to topple him at any second, to become half-buried beneath the sand that smothered and covered all within a matter of moments like the emotions that he struggled with such difficulty and ill-luck to cover and leave to rot within the dark recesses of his mind. He would not cry. He would not succumb to these human emotions like he had done so foolishly before and he would prove both to her and to himself that he could and would be without her. He did not need her smiling face, nor did he need her warm embrace. He had spent over a century without love, and he could do it again, he growled as he trod over the rolling dunes, his face flushed from the heat of anger and remorse that pounded upon him like the rays of the twin suns burning against his back as he walked.

His hands clenched and unclenched furiously with each step he took, trying to contain his rage and pain with the simple movements and the grinding of his teeth, creating a sickening scraping that echoed in his ears and reverberated throughout his very skull. It seemed that there was naught he could do to subside this anger that had crashed down like an avalanche of white-hot rage upon him. He had never felt pain such as this, never endured such betrayal amongst his ranks since that of the Peacemaker. And he had not felt a pang such as this at his insolence, for he was a mere spider who would have been crushed anywise. Rhianne…she had been one of his kind, one of his kind sent to him like an angel from some far-off planet that was heaven. She had been one of his own, and as such should have been completely loyal to him. He chuckled as he thought this; his own twin had betrayed him, why should he not have expected it of her as well? He had always thought that one cannot trust anyone other than oneself in this world; yet it had been shown to him, that even his own heart would betray him by still loving this woman who had hurt him so.

His heart felt like stone, heavy and aching in his chest as he clenched his fists at his sides. How he wished he could take a dark pleasure in what he had done to her; leaving her alone and stranded in a world that was so cold and unloving with only herself to blame. He wanted nothing more than to smile at her tears, to laugh at her as she pleaded with him not to go; he wished that he was immune to her sorrow and her pain and the emptiness he had left he with, a twisted and sick token of the affection he had once felt for her. Yet it was not so, and he could not comprehend why. His entire life he had prized his ability to shut himself away from his emotions and not be ruled by them like the spiders that he despised so; whose lives were dominated by their love and their hate and their childish whims and fancies that were all the spawns of their emotions that ruled them like untouchable and unalterable gods and emperors upon thrones in their minds. He had learned long ago that emotions serve only to hinder; to plague and to meddle with his plans, and he had come to understand that it was easier to simply live without emotion than to live with it. Without emotion he could completely rule his life and not be bothered by such inconsequential things like love. Yet he had faltered this one time; he had slipped and had allowed that damned woman to penetrate his defenses and to force him to feel. Emotions he had thought long dead and buried in his heart had resurfaced with a wave of tears. Tears that now feel from his icy eyes for what he had done to her; tears he could not help but shed as he looked up at the twin suns blazing down from high above him.

The sky, a brilliant cerulean blue, shimmered beneath his veil of tears and the light of the suns glowed like gems and a thousand tiny diamonds flew across the sky of blue velvet. Tiny diamonds, birds made of the most precious of jewels who flew across the noonday sky like glimmering angels on their studded wings. Angels who flew high above him without a care as they dipped and spun on the breeze. The scene moved him so that he reached up and rubbed the tears from his eyes with the palms of his hands, gazing up at the scene before him: hundreds upon hundreds of tiny birds flew above him, snowflakes against a sky of ice. How he yearned to catch one of these tiny birds and solve the mystery of why he had never seen a sight such as this in all his years upon his planet. Extending a hand, he stretched out his hand, fingers aching to feel the feathers beneath them, to caress the down of these angelic animals who had never before graced the skies of his world. He stood beneath the suns and the sky, reaching to the birds who flew so high above him; yearning to break the wings of the little songbird and keep it forever as his tiny angel. As this thought crossed his mind he saw that a feather floated down towards him; drifting and dipping with the wind that tore at it like a wolf at it's kill. It moved and spun in the breeze, and Knives, like a child chasing a balloon across the field of his dreams, scrambled after it, his eyes locked on it as it fell foot after foot, spinning and twirling downwards to him and he leapt up a dune, ignoring the sand that fell inside his clothes and his mouth as he caught the little feather before it could hit the sand, clenching it in his fists tightly should it be torn away form him like a leaf in the chill autumn wind. He smiled at his triumph, opening his hands carefully as he peered inside his cupped palms to discover that 'twas not a feather he had caught; but a small paper bird that had fluttered down from it's brethren in the sky.

Words scribbled in a flowing cursive caught his eye upon the windblown paper, etched in shaky black pen against the cream paper. His eyes widened as he saw his name, and he sat upon the dune, cross-legged, oblivious to the wind that whipped about him and the birds that flew above him and unfolded the tiny paper bird; a tiny airborne letter sent to him from his heartbroken Rhianne. A moment passed, and tears fell upon the paper, blotting the ink and running it as he moved it from beneath his face as he stood and continued to walk away from her, his heart breaking with every step he took.

It was not a mistake, it was not a mistake, these solemn words he repeated with each step; each ile he put between himself and her. Yet, he wondered as he walked, if it was such a mistake why did it hurt so to do what must be done? He gazed down at the little paper bird in his palms, crumpling it and tossing it to buried in the sand behind him.

I think I broke the wings of a little songbird,

She's never gonna fly to the top of the world...