Disclaimer: Trigun and all related characters belong to someone who is not me.
Author's Note: Welcome to Part 2 of the series. If you read Part 1, you know what to expect. The same rules apply here--no discernable plot, stream of consciousness rambling, strict limit of 500 words, etc. Love it or hate it, please review. And a very heartfelt thanks to those who so kindly reviewed Part 1. -
The Magician: Master of self; readiness to put plans into action; great power and energy at your disposal; time to use your skills. (as defined by Silver RavenWolf in To Ride a Silver Broomstick)
Trigun Tarot II: TheMagician
Knives sat alone in the dark, thinking, brooding, contemplating, planning. There had been a time--it seemed so long ago now--that he, like his brother, had believed in the humans. He'd looked up to them, been greatful to them. He'd had faith in them.
But ever so slowly, bit by bit, day by day, year by year, they'd destroyed that faith. They'd taken it apart piece by piece, like someone taking apart a jigsaw puzzle. It had happened so gradually that only now had he come to the sudden realization that there was nothing left. They'd taken it all.
There was a time when he'd been able to see the good in people. But now... Now it had become so obscured by their violence and hatred and ignorance that he had to wonder if it had ever really been there at all. It seemed too great a contradiction. How could "good" people destroy and entire world and simply move on to a new one? How could a person with any good in them hate someone just for existing? How could they rationalize hurting someone, hitting someone, unleashing such violence on someone simply because that someone was different?
Rem said that there was good in everyone, that even the most deplorable people held within them the capacity for love. But it didn't make since. Love and hate could not coexist. It was just like the spider and the butterfly--for one to live, the other had to die.
Knives stood and began pacing the small room, his hands balled into fists. Why was he the only one who could see it? They'd all seen the same things he had. How could Rem remain so firm in her beliefs when she was constantly surrounded by evidence to the contrary? She was a fool! No, worse--she was blind. And Vash... He was even more a fool than she was. He too had seen the humans' true nature. He too had been a helpless victim of their violence and hatred. He hadn't even been angry. He'd just sat there, bruised and bloody, and cried.
Vash knew, just as well as Knives, what the humans were capable of. He knew what they'd done to others of their kind--how they'd enslaved them, used them, treated them as nothing more than tools. But still he persisted in believing that those monsters were essentially "good." He persisted in believing in foolish contradictions.
Knives sighed and unclenched his fists, overcome by a sudden overwhelming sadness for his poor misguided brother. He had to find a way to show Vash the truth. The longer he held onto his naive beliefs, the more painful it would be when they were finally and definitively contradicted. He had to find a way to spare his brother that misery.
There was only one way. Knives had thought long and hard, and now at last, he knew. There would be no love, no peace in their lives as long as the humans existed. He would destroy them.