(film noir)
( a vignette. )
"Knives contemplates the past, the future, and old Earth films."
x
x
let's begin at the beginning. . .
Skin, skin, skin, makes me sad, makes me cry. Different. Monster. Alien skin. Not like everybody else. We're not like everybody else.Now are we. . .
He remembered. Rem had introduced them to video films, the ones from old Earth before the planet had died. Sometimes she showed them recordings of television broadcasts, sometimes motion pictures. She had even managed to salvage some reels of old space footage; satellite images of Earth and its revolving moon. Then, billions of light-years in the distance, the one and only sun that all those millions of people had ever known. If he recalled correctly, there had also been eight other planets.
It was a whole other solar system, the one they came from. The people, all the people. . .the humans. Looking at brand new stars in the aftermath. All the dead and alive stars, the burned and burning suns. They had never seen so many stars and suns before. So much sand. They should not have been able to live without forests and oceans, mountains and valleys and plains. Should not have survived the crash at all.
But they did.
Knives cradled his head in his hands, hiding his face from view. Long fingers drifted through his hair over and over again. He covered his eyes with his palms.
Skin. Your skin. Smooth, unscarred, undamaged. Sisters, lightbulbs, Plants. Knives and feathers. Raining blood. Rain. Water. . .the sand, it thirsts for water. . .everything. . .so dry. . .is that what you would say to her, Vash? Vash. . .?
Sometimes Knives wondered where the Plants came from. Why there had been only two freeborn out of all of them; and then, that they were male. They were not like their Sisters, after all. The Sisters had the power.
But they did not have the power they had.
Don't worry. . .someday he will listen. Someday we will free you. He will see.
Vashu. . .you're such a fool. . .
The humans will never really love you. Not like I can.
Even your beloved Rem. . .
Was a liar just like the rest of them.
Knives had liked the motion pictures second best. He had thoroughly enjoyed the films that ended in misfortune. The truthful ones. The ones where someone had to die. Always, he could pinpoint the character who most deserved their punishment; and then, he could explain his reasoning logically.
Rem, of course, had disagreed. She had always preferred the hero, hadn't she?
Vash, he now recalled, had not enjoyed the old Earth films as much as he.
Like a "film noir", like the playwright's tragedy, we are.
Vashu. . .I didn't have to be the villain. It didn't have to be this way. . .
And now I play the role you've chosen; better than you ever could have dreamed.
Was I right, Vash. . .? When will you see that I was right. . .?
Knives sighed, leaning back into the leather encased touch that had been stroking over him, letting the steady trickle of relief pool into his shoulders and the pleasant white slate of his mind. The blank walls; resounding with internal dialogue.
As he eased himself out of it, the slow, lingering caress both mentally and physically subsided, and the fingers wrenched themselves gently out of the pale roots of his hair. Visibly relaxed, Knives let his eyes drift open, resting on the huddled form behind him as he moved to stand before it.
"Well done, Legato."
The servant inclined his head reverently, infinitely grateful for the rare acknowledgement of his good work.
"You are dismissed."
Lissomely, he stood, lowered his eyes, again, respectfully, and left the room swiftly and deftly via the metal sliding door to Knives's left. Cracking the last treacle of tension out of the muscles in his shoulders, the freeborn Plant settled himself into a low-seated chair, drumming his fingertips on the arms. He was contemplating. Something. A phrase, perhaps.
'Do you see nothing? Do you remember, 'Nothing?' I remember . . . .
Oh yes, I remember. . .
Those are pearls that were his eyes.' Look.
Why would he choose the dead Earth over the new Eden?
Finish.
AN: One or two lines towards the end quoted from T.S. Eliot's, "The Waste Land". Legato, Vash, Knives, and Trigun also all belong to someone far more talented than myself. So consider this officially DISCLAIMED. And don't forget to r&r!