Disclaimer: I suppose this is getting old. I don't own 'Trigun', it belongs to the mind of Yasuhiro Nightow. Any characters herein mentioned belong to him. Also I don't own the title, as it is from an Anne Bishop book. (I haven't the foggish who Anne Bishop is but thank you to the reviewer who mentioned it)
A/N: Yay! I guess it's off hiatus! This was the first bit I ever wrote that I had fun writing. Weird. I always had it in my mind that this would happen. Here's how I see it: if he was allowed to watch Vash, he must be good at keeping secrets, right?
I'm sorry to have bored you with that last entry, but you are the only listener I have. Or had.
Last time, when it seemed I finally reached a balance of closure, concerning…him…my flow of thoughts was interrupted by a severe knock. Or rather it was loud. The nosy of it was loud in my ears, one of the first sounds I had heard in a long, long time.
Time in seems is very much out of my reach. It flows in disjoined streams, wrapping around me slowly or else rushing pass me in a blinding maze, but draining lazily away all the same regardless. At the very least the sound startled me, for the slim river of light that leaked through the broken glass overhead was a burnished yellow, the light of the day sun. And I know, from the life I live here, that Knives never comes in the day. It is only in the night, when it is too dark to see, to really see properly anyway, that he comes.
Since my thoughts had already been running circles around him I had a momentary shudder of paradoxical feelings in myself. Common sense told me it was not him as I have already said why. But another part of me felt quite expectantly that it must be him, after all perhaps there was some need that would drive him here, some archaic reason he had to come. For the child of course.
Now as I sit here writing this, I find there is a seed of guilt at the bit of happiness that thought, the latter one, gave me. It was not a feeling I had ever thought to feel, to be happy at Knives presence. I had already grown to miss him; perhaps I have merely been too lonely.
It took me a moment to realize it was not his knock simply because he does not. Knives has never really knocked. Over the time, I have grown use to knowing when he is approaching so it is as near to a knock as I ever heard. This new bit of thought startled me and weakened me. Another knock followed the brief silence in-between, this one a shallow sort of thud, as if the hand that plodded the metal was unsure of its status.
Insecurity, and a little fear bubbling in my veins, I rose slowly to my feet, banging my hip on the edge of the small table I sit near as I write. The sound echoed thunderously in my ears but the one outside did not seem to hear it.
I made my way to the door. I had not looked at it in a long time. It was as smooth as I remembered, the metal shining gaily with stripes of white-silver light from the sun and warm to the touch. Laying my fingers against the metal's warm surface, my mind pondered how to open it even as a smaller part of my mind scolded me for my stupidly. Had not I tried already to do just that, and what did I earn from that except bloodied hands?
As I have told you earlier, Knives returned two nights later to mend my hands, to make sure they were not too damaged. Of all the times I have ever seen him, it was the gentlest he ever was to me. Oh, he is always gentle, but it is the gentleness of someone who detests what they are touching. At least I believe so. It is hard to remember any other way to be held.
That night I remember how open he was with me. I believe I had been newly brought to this cage, and I can only fathom that I amused him in my fear and despair. Only once in that second night did I seem to get him angry.
By then I had ceased my questioning, not from lack of wanting but by merely coming to realize that he would not answer my questions. Or perhaps he did answer them, in his own way. He ignored my pleads for answers, for something, whatever it was I wanted to know. I find I cannot remember it as well as I could.
He grew angry at me for asking him a question, for something in his words I did not understand. By then he had had what he came for, and he was laying beside me, pulling at my hair as he spoke to me. It was not a hard pull, or at least not as hard as he could have made it. Always when he spoke it was in softest tones, which only made the horrid nonsense he would whisper in my ears even worse. I do not precisely remember what he had been speaking of, only that he seemed to be referring to something, or someone and I had, in my earlier innocence, asked of whom he spoke.
He grew coldly silent and I could nearly feel his body, already hard, growing stiff in a slow burning rage. At least that's what I had expected. Instead of yelling he had grasped my throat, tightening his fingers over my throat in a careless manner, speaking in a distracted tone but staring me straight into the eyes. I would have looked away if I could have but his hold was too secure. "It is not of your concern. You will not last long enough to know," was all he said.
It was not spoken in anger, in the way the anger I still remembered was spoken. His tone still held the gentle rumbling it had been before, only it had grown chiller. I had choked out my understanding, and he had laughed, though it wasn't really one. And then he had pulled me down beside him again.
I wonder, perhaps, valued listener, if you believe he had what he wanted of me without my consent. Now that I think of it, it seems plausible that he would have taken me, even as I screamed in protest. He is surely strong enough. But he did not. He laid close to me the first night, as if getting me use to his presence, touching me occasionally but never really doing anything to me. I had struggled to stay awake and alert for fear of what this strange man would do. I have hence learned he is more than a man, and hardly a stranger anymore. But my body had a stronger will than me, and I fell uneasily asleep. When I awoke I found he had not seemed to have moved but in my slumber I must have lain against him, my head tucked between his shoulder blade and chin.
It was with a strange feeling that I awoke, and as I write this I feel a chill up my spin, to find he had not touched me, or at least had not taken advantage of my body when I had been asleep. Even now I do not fully understand why he did not. I had felt unsettled especially since it was still dark. I asked if it was still night. He told me it was early morning. He didn't look at me as he spoke now. I remember as I nodded that my forehead rubbed the skin on his chin. The skin had been warmer than I had expected, and I gave a squeak of surprise. That had brought his attention back to me.
But all that is many miles away in the past. What concerns you most is the knocking that had so disrupted me last time I wrote.
As I stood peering at the door, there came from behind a rigid hissing sound, so advent that I turned to look behind me. In my moment of turning there was a slim sizzle then a gentle clank, followed by an uneasy set of footsteps.
The door had been opened, and I had missed it, was the first thought I had, behind which came running, there is a stranger in here…a new one, just as rapidly as the first.
That Knives would allow a stranger into my cage kept my mind churning for a moment before I was able to fully draw my attention to the man before me.
He was clearly a man, though he was nothing like Knives. He would not look me directly in the eye, his own straying to the side, mere slits looking out in anger or disdain. His clothes were much simpler than anything Knives ever wore, and I found myself wondering oddly at that. I wondered if all other men wore such simple clothes. They were dark, completely black as far as I could tell, with cuffs and undershirt of white, which stood out in clear contrast to the rest. His hands were clasped stiffly at his side, fingers rolled into fists. There was a scent to him, hazy as something heavy with a thick bitter aroma. It was a mildly pleasant scent though it made my nose itch.
As I scratched my nose, he looked up at my movement, and I saw that his eyes were dark, dark blue. A darker blue than Knives, they were nearly black like the sea at night and veiled as securely as a raincloud.
His dark hair, black even in the streams of sunlight, was cut raggedly around his eyes as mine met his.
He seemed taken aback by this and turned as if to go.
My moment of unease and startlement melted away swiftly to be replaced by a hungry kind of fear. This man was the only person I had ever seen for nearly as long as I could remember. I lunged at this stranger, completely missing his arm but my fingers found the back of his shirt, and I clung to it, scolding myself at my desperate, stupid, silly actions. But the reason of my mind didn't make it to the rest of me. I gripped tighter at the fabric, and found I could smell the aroma better up close.
"You can't leave me." Even as I spoke it, I knew it was foolish. "I have been alone for so long with only…with only… I don't want to be alone. I haven't seen anyone in so long." I went on much longer than that, repeating myself, stuttering mindlessly. I believe some spring may have sprung when I saw this stranger, not because he was anyone special but because he was merely no one at all. He was not Knives and he was not me. He was someone else. It was as if all the loneliness and despair and pain I had felt, that had become a part of my everyday life, had come to a pinpoint. I felt that if this strange man left, left me when all my senses had come back, had gone back, back to a time when there been others though I could not anymore remember their faces, that I would surely go mad when the pinpoint collapsed on my mind. So I stood there and begged him not to leave.
He remained remarkably still through it all, until my voice gave out, and I fell to stuttering mumbles. I thought I heard him murmur to himself. Then ever so slowly, he turned around. As he did my numb fingers lost their hold on the black fabric, and he was staring down at me, a head taller than me.
In his eyes was the oddest expression I had ever seen. His brows were cocked downward but he was not angry.
He stood there, less than a handspan from me, and said in a tired voice. "All right. I'll stay. I won't like it but I can't abide women crying."
At his words I raised a hand to my cheek to discover he was right. I had not even felt them.
" 'Sides, I don't have much choice." This was spoken much softer. When I looked inquisitively up at him, he seemed to realize that he had spoken out loud. "It was nothing. Nothing much anyway."
That had been enough of an answer for me, so I had nodded, in a numbly happy way. Somehow my agreement seemed to make his dark blue eyes grow sadder.
He stayed for a while, and I showed him the books on the shelves, though I admitted I did not know what many of them said. He didn't say much himself, but I was grateful for his company. When the light had begun to grow darker, a pale golden red, the shade of coming dusk, he announced he had better leave.
My fear returning I had asked him to come back, to return again. He had become quiet, then had given off a crooked sort of sigh, saying that of course he'd come back. So happy was I that my body seemed to react in some manner that I had forgotten it had ever known.
I hugged him. It was an awkward action but it was still a hug. The man seemed more put out about this then anything else I had done. Leaving in a hurry, his feet rushed him stiffly to the door. When he reached it, he called over his shoulder in a quiet voice as if he feared someone was listening. "My name's Wolfwood. Nicholas D. Wolfwood."
"My name is Ananaza." I answered, but he had already disappeared in through the large hole that had loomed in the metal for a brief span. I do not know if he heard, if Wolfwood heard.
I hope he comes back.