The Shattered Chalice
By: Nuriko Kamaiji
Disclaimer: The idea is entirely mine (and my sister's I guess) though the one individual mentioned in here is copyright Yasuhiro Nightow and whoever else holds rights on 'Trigun'
Author's Note: This come from a "what if" interest in how far Knives would go to ensure the survival of his own kind, and, more so for me personally, how he'd treat the woman that he chose for that duty.
My life is hell. Or at least as much as hell as the way I was always taught to believe it. I hardly ever see the light of day, except through the stain-glass windows. A multitude of fragmented colored light is my only reminder of the sunlight, as it bleeds and cracks through the distorted windows. Years back, when I was first brought here, I spent long hours staring intently at the disfigured glass trying to discern a pattern, a shape, even a rhythm to its madness. But now I know they were only crafted by a madman. Everything here seems as though it has been smudged by his touch. Though in truth, he likely had nothing to do with whatever pathetic soul built this mausoleum. The walls all around are dark, stark of any other colors. If not for the pigments of glass filtered light it would as empty as a starless night.
In all other conveniences, I could hardly want. The room was larger than any I had ever seen, with rounded walls and an arched ceiling that reaches far overhead. Sometimes on a clear night I can see stars shimmering from the darkest reaches above me. Food is always prepared, set through the iron door by a slot in the heavy mechanics. I have no fathoming of how it works, but the one who keeps me here is able to open and close it at will. The first time he came to see me, after he had departed I tried in vain to open it myself. I clawed, scraped, and torn madly at it but the iron only made my fingers bleed. Two days after he was sure to return to mend my bleeding fingers. He couldn't bear if anything happened to me. That is perhaps one of my only comforts.
At one end of the room is a long shelf, filled with many strange objects, mostly books. I still can't read many of them, as they are written in a tongue I never learned. The pages are filled with archaic symbols, scribbled out like dried up worms in black ink, or serpentine swirls scratched in limpid gold. I entertain myself through the years I've been here by looking through them again and again. Besides the books, there are bits and pieces of hard metal, some shiny, others rough and dim. Some are pale white, with a patterned feel, if that's possible. I asked my keeper once about them. He told me in an unusually calm manner, almost indifferently, that they were seashells. What that means I still have not learned. Others are cold, some warm, some are in jars, and others in carts with locks I have not yet been able to break. And then there was you, too. I found you, this barren little book, among the shelf as well. It is one of the few comforts I suppose I can afford. There are tables and chairs as well, dusty but still soft. Often I will sleep in one of the handful of chairs huddled around the self, just so I won't have to sleep alone in the spot that serves as the rightful bed I was given.
You may think me foolish for saying thus, but you do not understand. At the other end is another, smaller room, jaggedly cropped off the bigger one. Inside it is what would likely have served as my bedroom. There is even less light in there, as there are no windows. The bed is large, as everything seems to be, does it not, and dark, like dried blood. Despite appearances, the sheets are surprisingly cool and soft at the same time. Perhaps you, my dear imagined listener, are wondering how it is I know those things when I say I often sleep in the other room. As I've said it is the fear of being alone in there that keeps me trapped out from it. Or perhaps it is the fear of being alone in there and remembering.
I have not told you about him yet, have I? He was the one who brought me here, or I have always assumed since I have never seen any others. What he is I do not know, but I can safely say he is not human. He calls himself Knives, though why he bothered to inform me I don't know. He keeps me caged in here, like a trapped bird. A bird to entertain himself with, though, in all actuality I'm sure that is being much too over zealous of me. But somehow… Perhaps I am going mad as well, along with him. When he comes to see me, he speaks to me of how he will purge out all the scum of humanity, wipe them all out, to leave a place only for him and this other he speaks of. I have never heard the name of this other and I've learned not to enquiry.
The first night when he came to see him, when I had first been brought here, I asked him so many questions. I don't recall that he answered any of them. I don't remember much except I was frightened, alone and cold in this dark, empty place. I had memories of a happy family, though we were certainly poor than it was all ripped away, so easily I sometimes wonder if it was really only a dream.
Despite what you might think he was never cruel to me. Maybe he was even gentle in his own way. He seems to feel that I am a possession of his. That's what I see in his eyes sometimes. I may still only be the scum of faceless race but I am his property so I have a level of valued importance in his eyes.
But I am a prisoner all the same.