TRIGUN BETA: Series 1
Episode 010: Dance-Dance, part 3

.o.o.o.

"Oh, and another thing," The older woman began to say to the two sat before her, speaking in her matriarchal tone.

"Yes?" Vash replied after a moment of disconcerting silence between them.

Edna smiled at him and leaned forward a bit. "You'll have to be her dance partner!"

Vash became deathly quiet and then suddenly fell over.

"Oh my." Edna remarked.

"Mr. Vash!" Mina exclaimed.

.o.o.o.

Vash and Mina walked along the quiet country road. Vash suddenly stopped and looked around.

"Vash?" Mina asked.

He looked down at her and frowned. "I just got a strange feeling, like someone just walked over my grave."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure," Vash began. "Something just doesn't feel right." He added. "I mean, for instance, look around- where are all the birds?" He asked, gesturing towards the nearby cornfields.

Mina smiled and pointed off at something that rose up above the corn rows. "What about the Scarecrow?" She offered, holding up her hand and pointing at a figure raised up on a t-shaped wooden support and dressed in a old worn out coat and trousers with a beaten up hat pulled down in front of his stitched-up face.

Vash smiled at her. "Yes, that must be it." He replied. The two went on walking.

"But a scarecrow shouldn't be that effective. . ." Vash thought to himself as he went on his way.

The two began to vanish off into the distance. The wind rustled the tattered clothes the scarecrow. After a few silent moments, it lifted its head up and looked in the direction that Vash and Mina had gone. A soft chuckle emerged from its concealed face.

.o.o.o.

Rula looked grimly at her underling standing before her. "Now, I do hope that you understand what you have to do?" She asked sternly.

The man gulped. "But, Miss Rula, are sure its really necessary to do this, I mean this is just a—"

"Silence!" The woman exclaimed. "Do you think I plan to spend my entire life as the daughter of a mayor of some town in the middle of nowhere?" She asked without really caring for an answer. "I'm going places and this girl is just another obstacle in the way of achieving my goals!" She exclaimed.

"Now go!" She instructed him. After the man obediently left, she sat down in a chair and looked into a large vanity mirror.

"You control these locals with such ease, my dear Rula." A slightly husky yet distinctly feminine voice remarked from behind her.

"You?" Rula replied when she saw the figure of a tall woman with lilac-colored hair, wearing a long tan coat and a wide brimmed cowboy hat standing beside her own reflection. "Miss Dominique. . ."

"Sorry to barge in on you like this." She offered soothingly.

The other woman placed a hand on her shoulder. Rula sighed. "But this is no where close to what I truly deserve. I know I'm destined for bigger and better things in this world." She replied. "Somewhere, out there, there is a world ripe for the taking."

The woman smiled. "And if you fulfill you're side of the bargain, then my people will see to that your wildest dreams are realized."

Dominique leaned in and looked her in the eyes. "The world my people represent is a place where only the strong will survive, and you have a ruthlessness that we have been searching for someone like you." Dominique offered.

Rula smiled at the other woman's words. She sighed as Dominique place a hand on her cheek. "Dominique?" she asked nervously.

The tall woman smiled at her nervousness and leaned in closer to her face, their noses almost touching. "And I can personally give you something as well." She said simply and pressed her lips against the other girl's.

Rula tensed for a moment, but eased into the action- somehow, it seemed so natural and perfect.

Dominique smiled inwardly to herself. She loved the way women reacted to her advanced like this.

.o.o.o.

Vash waived Mina goodbye with a wistful smile and then turned to see the tall slender form of his new friend walked up to him.

Vash eyes the rectangular box she held under her arm. "What you got there, Miss Maggie?" He asked with his usual brackish charm.

She blushed slightly at his words and then looked back at him with a faint, but sincere smile. "I bought a scarf." She offered in her soft steady voice.

Vash smiled. "But it's still the middle of summer." He reasoned.

Maggie smiled with a blush. "But it will be cold eventually, and besides, it's not just a regular scarf- its special." She finished with a hint of pride in her gentle tone.

Vash smiled. "I suppose you're right," he offered. "I can't wait to see you where when the cooler days role around."

Maggie nodded and blushed. Then, a tangible silence fell between them as they walked along.

The two walked for a while back to town.

"Maggie?" Vash began.

"Yes?" She replied.

"Are you happy with us?" He asked as the walked side-by-side in the dimming light.

"Yes, very much," she replied."Thanks to you, I'm finally experiencing what life is truly about." Maggieadded thoughtfully. She then stopped and looked up at the darkening sky. "My mother died in birth and my father devoted his life to the library, so I decided to remain as he got older and help him take care of it." She explained.

Vash nodded thoughtfully.

"But, one day, his health caught up with him and he died, leaving me alone." The tall girl added. "As for why I stayed there," she began, answering the tall gunman's question before he could ask it.

"That library had become the thing that defined me as a person, and I believed that if I stayed, then I would always have a part of my father with me." She paused. "But we all must move on some day and make a place in this world for ourselves."

Vash nodded and smiled. "Maggie, objects don't give us kinship, it's the happy memories inside us that keep the ones we love alive forever." He told her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

The girl blushed and nodded her head. "Thank you, Vash," she began. "Thank you for showing me how to live."

.o.o.o.

Meryl greeted the two at the outskirts of town with a smile and the three of them ventured back into the town. The last shred of the light from the setting suns on their backs.

A figure in tattered old coat and hat, with bits of straw walked up and watched them from the shadows, standing behind a short picket fence. He placed a gloved hand on the fence and watched them, his eyes following them from deep with in the stitched leather mask on his face. "Foolish Vash, if only you knew what you were getting yourself into. . ."

( - End of Episode 9 - )

.o.o.o.