June 24, 2004

I do Not own any titles or rights to the show Trigun or to any of it's characters, But I do own the characters Dream, Nicholas, Laura, Juna, Adam, Dante, Caleb, Jonas, Erix, Billy, Seth, Francis, and Bob.

I ask not to be sued for using these characters because it's not worth it to sue the poor.

This story takes place after 'Paradise' and 'Sin' but before 'Sky so blue'. {{ }} indicate the character's thoughts as he/she narrates. Italic is a dream or flashback.

Wolfwood stands gun lowered staring as Chapel aims for him his face contorted with disbelief and shock as though he can't even believe what his body is doing. Wolfwood stands watching then bullets fly. Chapel falls back into the dust dead. Wolfwood stands there grazed here and there by Chapel's shoots. He turns away from his former teacher and takes a single step before he cringes falling forward from the pain of his wound, a single bullet in the stomach. Blood drips to the sand and the dirt alley turns into the dust-covered floor of the church as Wolfwood's lifeless shadow stretches across the floor.

A girl lays in bed her face in grimace as she cries aloud. She sits up awake, beads of sweat dotting her mahogany face as her dark hair falls to cover it. She turns towards the tiny hand that had shaken her. A small boy in a long blue nightshirt stands beside the bed tears in his eyes. The girl picks him up embracing him as he starts to cry.

"It's okay Jonas I was only having a nightmare, everything's okay," she softly whispers to the tiny boy gently rocking him in her arms.

Other children crowd around the door and the young woman gestures them to come in. the children enter and all ten of them climb into the bed with the young woman. She sits there surrounded by the children gently rocking the smallest in her arms, she looks out of the adjacent window and sees a star streaking across the sky to only fall beyond the sand dunes of the surrounding desert.

The woman softly hums a sweet melody similar to that of Rem's song as all the children nestle down next to her. She looks down at the tiny child, Jonas, within her arms, his brown curls ruffled by her long overly large sleeves. The young woman continues to hum as she looks once more to the night's sky, {{My name is Dream and I am a December Orphan.}} a single tear falling from her fierce silver eyes.

Dream of the December orphans

Dream stood at the window as the sun crept through the morning in a red haze.

{{It's true.}}

She had hoped all night that it wasn't so, that her nightmare had been just a night terror and nothing more, but now she knew, Blood had been spilt.

She turned away from the rising dawn and to those sleeping snugly in her bed. It would have made her chuckle any other morning to see the eleven children all-sleeping in her small bed, all of them in a slumbering tangled weaving, but this morning she felt the weight of loss and uncertainty.

Standing before her basin's mirror her 15 year old visage wore no sign to her emotions within, as per usual. She splashed the cold water over it and quickly dried it with her grey and black sweater.

{{I remember the day he brought me here I was unconscious and when I woke I tried to kill him}}