And the Dream Meets the Man of Dreams

She let go of his hand and backed up a few steps in confusion. The man stared down at the child, the sun glinting off his purple-blue hair as his golden eyes studied her closely. She became painfully aware of the dust that coated her body and her soggy shoes that made squishing noises as she shuffled from foot to foot nervously. A few of her fingers tangled themselves in her long, black hair as they attempted to make order from the dirty, chaotic black mass. His eyes reflected his disgust and disproval as he turned, striding over to the canyon's edge where he gazed down at the fair-headed Plant far below. Yume saw the man's body tense and, in a voice that had the barest trace of joy in it, he said, "Master?"

"Are you going to find a way to get me up there, Legato Bluesummers, or are you going to waste that brain of yours like the rest of your garbage race does?" Knives' sharp voice rang out from the canyon floor in answer.

"If You will wait just a moment, Master, I will have devised a way to bring You up to this level." The man, Legato, turned around and as Yume watched him, she thought she saw the faintest glimmer of tears in the corners of his closed eyes. He stood for a moment, either composing himself or immersed in thought, Yume could not tell which. His eyes fluttered open and his piercing, predatory gaze focused on the broken ladder lying in the dust and sand. He waited for a long minute, only staring at the rope ladder. Then he picked it up and began to pull on it, down its length, testing its strength as Knives had done to its twin.

"What are you going to do with that?" Yume ventured to ask, her curiosity overcoming the overwhelmed state her mind had fallen into.

He looked at her quizzically, as if amazed that she had spoken. Ignoring the question, he turned back to the edge of the cliff and threw one end of the ladder over, holding the other end in his hands. Yume hurried to the edge and looked down at the Plant far below. Knives held the end of the rope ladder in his hands, looking at it with a judgmental expression, Yume glanced back to Legato and saw that he had wrapped the ends of the rope firmly around his hands and, with a determined set to his jaw, he had one foot braced against a rock. The ropes suddenly went taunt and Legato was jerked forward slightly as Knives put his weight onto the ladder. Yume saw a smile twitch at the corners of Legato's mouth and the man relaxed a small amount as he adjusted to his task. She turned to look down to see where Knives was once more and quickly backed up, startled, as he scrambled over the lip of the cliff.

Knives nodded to Legato, barely acknowledging his presence, and said, "Lead on."

Legato bowed and said, "This way, Master," as he gestured to the left. He began walking that way and Knives followed him. Yume took a step forward and paused, looking back to the right. She saw a town sprawled out in the distance and remembered her dream from the night before. She shivered as she felt something crawl up her spine while she fervently wished that she did not know where the blue-haired, amber-eyed man was taking her and Knives.

As it turned out, Yume did know where Legato was going to lead her and Knives. All the while they walked down the rock path, she felt an incredible sense of déjà vu that threatened to sweep her off her feet and carry her off the ledge to the ground far below. That, coupled with her fear of heights, did not make the short journey a very enjoyable one.

When the small group of three reached the cave, Knives immediately moved forward to sit in the chair while Legato stood a short distance away from the table, waiting expectantly. Feeling somewhat out of place, Yume moved quietly to the bed of blankets in the back and sat down to watch the two speak.

"Report," Knives commanded curtly.

"Yes, Master." Legato settled himself into an assumably more comfortable stance and began his narration. "After my confrontation with, and injury by, Vash the Stampede, I retired to a secure location to recover and to reassess and reevaluate my situation. Subsequent to a relatively long period of recovery, I began to search the world for Your whereabouts. It took longer than I had expected but I eventually located You and left a short note for You to find. The rest is already known to You, I presume."

Knives nodded. "Duly noted."

"May I have permission to ask a question of You, Master?" Legato inquired hesitantly and a faint smile tugged at the corner of Knives' mouth.

"As you already have, you might as well ask another. What is it you wish to know?"

Legato made a small, indicating gesture towards Yume. "Who is the girl?"

"Her name is Yume and she is a Plant," Knives answered simply. At that statement, Legato's face registered shock and Yume found herself the focus of intense scrutiny by his amber eyes. Knives also contemplated Legato and his visible reaction to the news. Knives looked down at the table and stroked its surface idly, saying, "Do you not believe me, Legato Bluesummers?" He looked up with pale, icy, dangerous eyes to lock gazes with Legato's golden orbs.

Legato studied his master and stood for a moment without speaking. Then he said simply, "Yes, Master."

Knives' expression did not change very much. Only his brow moved, shifting into a position that did not betray rage or anger, merely slight surprise and curiosity. "Why do you not believe this, Legato Bluesummers? I do. Do you doubt your master?" The last words had a distinct steely quality to them. Yume did not quite understand what was going on, but she felt that it was a tentative time and she stayed quiet, merely observing the events as they unfolded.

"I could never doubt You, Master," Legato answered.

"Then why do you not believe in what I have told you?"

"Because I do not doubt You, Master. I doubt her. I believe she has fooled You somehow, using some despicable, human trick. I doubt, Master, that she is a Plant." Legato glared at Yume with a gaze that would have proved lethal had it manifested into the physical world. She drew her knees up to her chest in a defensive posture and looked down at the floor, not wishing to meet his eyes.

"She has said no more than ten words in your presence. How can you doubt her when you have nothing on which to base this doubt?"

Legato did not answer.

Knives nodded, satisfied that everything had been cleared up and dealt with. He stood up from the chair and looked out of the cave's entrance. "I believe I shall take a walk and familiarize myself with the nearby terrain. I shall return shortly." He exited, leaving behind two people at odds in a situation that would either sort itself out, or destroy those involved in the process.

Yume sat on the pile of blankets, slowly rocking back and forth and feeling very uncomfortable with the predicament she now found herself in. The man Legato was eyeing her distastefully, as if he was amazed that she was still alive and the earth had not opened up to swallow her down whole. Yume wracked her limited brain for something to talk to the man about, something that would be a completely neutral topic that he might respond to. She hesitantly queried the man, "What's your favorite color?"

Legato Bluesummers stared at her with an expression he would have used if she had just grown a third arm. It took him a few moments to respond as he wondered if she was serious and came to the conclusion that she was. "Blue," he answered.

"Ah, blue's a fun color," Yume nodded sagely. "The sky's blue."

His expression evolved to a higher level of disbelief. Then, it moved on to reflect disgust and he strode forward to stand over her. Grabbing her shirt, he pinned her down to the blankets with his forearm and said coldly, "Don't dare think that I buy your act for a moment, girl. I don't know what game you're playing and what your goal is, but I'll find out and then I'll kill you for it."

Yume felt her bowels loosen and she secretly was grateful that she had relieved herself less than an hour before or else she knew she would have done it right there and then. She half expected him to add casually something along the lines of "I eat little girls like you for breakfast." The child did not know what scared her more about the way he spoke; how he was precise and to the point all the time or how he delivered everything with calm, composed, detached cynicism. She stared up at Legato in a mixture of fear and fascination and she noticed that on his forehead, under the hair that draped over the left side of his face, there was a horribly disfiguring ring-shaped scar. Before he realized what she was doing, she reached out and gently touched it with a feather-light finger.

He let go of her shirt and backed up with a stagger, as though he had been slapped. Yume looked up at him, wondering why he reacted with such extremity. "Where'd you get that?" she asked quietly, unable to understand or elude the allure the man entrapped her with.

Legato held a hand to the left side of his face, covering his eye and scar, and did not respond. His visible eye seemed glazed over, like he was lost in memories of a time before.

"Is that the injury you said you got when you were talking to Knives-sama?" Yume inquired.

"Yes, it is." The mention of Knives' name seemed to pull Legato back to the present and he looked down at Yume, taking his hand away from his face.

"How'd you get it?"

Legato shifted into a stance Yume recognized from before. She mentally dubbed it his 'story-telling pose' as Legato began to speak. "I was confronting Vash the Stampede at LR Town. My orders from Master were to make sure Vash the Stampede suffered eternally and that is what I accomplished. By kidnapping Vash the Stampede's friends, I forced him into a most uncomfortable situation. Either he could stand by and watch his friends die or he might take initiative and save them. Of course, the second option did not come without a price. To save them, he had to kill me."

"Kill you?" Yume spluttered.

"Yes, kill me. After a few minutes of arguing and pleading, Vash the Stampede finally did the deed. Whether fortunately or not, his bullet entered my brain at such an angle that in its passage through the tissue therein, it encountered nothing of relative importance, therefore leaving me with my mind and skills intact and at my disposal." Legato reached up and touched the scar with something akin to reverence. "It's still in there, embedded somewhere in the throbbing brain matter contained within my skull."

The hand fell back to Legato side and after clearing his throat slightly, he continued with his story. "I, however, was incapacitated for an hour or so while my body recovered from the shock of the injury. Vash the Stampede left with his two friends after standing over my body for a few moments in what I dare say was an act of mourning. Definitely to my own fortune, they did not bury my body. I recall that Vash the Stampede wanted to, but his companion, Meryl Stryfe, argued that I was not worthy of wasting any more of their time and at least my body would do some good in feeding the carrion beasts, making up partially for the evil I had accomplished while living. After they left and I recovered enough to stand, I departed the location with some effort, not wishing to remain any longer than was necessary." Legato closed his story without a closing statement; merely telling the facts as they stood and leaving them open to interpretation.

Yume sat on the pile of blankets and looked up at Legato, thinking about his story and him. Legato stared back at her for a period of time and then said, a slight snap to his tone, "Well?"

"That…" Yume struggled for the perfect words and fell far short. She grasped out and spoke the first thing that came to mind. "That must've really hurt."

Legato looked at her with an unreadable expression. After a moment, he said softly, "It did… but not as much as those few moments that stretched on for a small eternity where all that I knew was that I was dying and leaving my Master behind."

Yume opened her mouth to speak, but found there were no words left for her to use. She sat on the pile of blankets, broiling in the uncomfortable silence as she wondered if she would ever feel at ease around this enigma of a man.

A slight shuffling sound at the cave's entrance alerted both Yume and Legato to Knives' return. Legato nodded a greeting to the Plant, saying in a tone that masked his emotions, "I welcome your return, Master." Knives nodded tersely in response to his minion's hail.

Yume, on the other hand, did not hesitate in showing her affection. She leapt to her feet and barreled past Legato to jump onto Knives, wrapping her arms around his neck. She grinned widely up at him and chirped, "I missed you, Knives-sama! Welcome back!" A small smile tweaked the edges of his lips and he nodded to greet her also. Yume buried her face into his chest so she could hide her expression because she was no longer smiling. She felt afraid and lonely suddenly, as now she could feel the piercing, cold yet hot stare of jealousy that threatened to burn twin holes right through her back and into her small, beating heart.

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Jeril: *crawls out from under the rock that she has been living under* Greetings. I would apologize for the horribly long delay, but I feel that I apologize too much and you people are probably sick of apologies from me. So… I hope you enjoyed the chapter. It was a royal pain in the ass producing. Legato just would not cooperate with me. . I felt like shooting him myself half of the time.  Oh, and yes. In my own little fanfiction Trigun-verse, Legato is really that obsessed. ^_^;; If you want to get a better idea of exactly how obsessed, read my little one-shot 'Anokata' and by the end you should have a good idea of his mentality. ^^;; And yes, he is fairly strong too, although Knives does not way that much anyway…

I must say though, my favorite line in this chapter was "She half expected him to add casually something along the lines of "I eat little girls like you for breakfast."" Hehehe. I actually was going to have Legato say that, but I realized it would be OOC for him, so I had Yume think it. ^_^;; Yay for getting inside characters' heads! I also liked it when she said "That must've really hurt." Legato tells her his story and that's all she can say. Heh.

Speaking of getting inside Yume's head, I just want to add that when I write her thoughts down, except in a few special cases, I tend to glorify them. Such as when Yume wonders if "she would ever feel at ease around this enigma of a man". Now, the 'enigma of a man,' referring to Legato, is utterly glorified. I don't think Yume even knows what the word 'enigma' means, or even if it is a word. So, I tend to write her thoughts not as a five-year-old would think them, but in a better context for you and I to understand what she is thinking. So, forgive me for that. ^^;;

Anyway, next chapter, expect a "bit" of a time-warp. I'm thinking we'll be jumping forward… hm, probably ten years or so. I really don't want to but one way or another, it's going to have to go forward that much time and I really don't want to trudge through ten years of their lives. @_@ Don't worry though, I'll most likely include a few flashbacks to show you how Legato and Yume do, or do not depending on your perspective, adjust to each other.

Yume: Uncle Legs is such a wonderful person! *starry eyes* He's almost better than Knives-sama!

Jeril: Erg… I do hope Legato doesn't maim her somewhere along the way… that would be quite a shame…

Legato: Hm, maiming. I have not thought of that idea yet. *eyes Yume* I think I will.

Jeril: o.o How, oh, how is Yume going to survive ten long years living with both Legato and Knives? I have no idea myself. ^_^;; I think that's a bad thing though…

About the next update, I can't make any promises, but I hope to have it up in two to three weeks. But, if you want to know the minute it's updated, join the mailing list. Just leave your e-mail addy in a review and you'll be added. Until next time, farewell!