Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Trigun. If I did, my writing would be much better than this, don't ya think?
I haven't updated in a while, so sorry! Inspiration has been slow in coming. This is for elaine, who does not believe in capitalization and who has graciously put my humble drabbleseries on her 'Favorite Stories' list. Hopefully, it's a better thank-you gift than old fruitcake.
Dominique never forgot the day of her first, and last, heist.
It had happened a lifetime ago, maybe ten. Back before she met a beautiful, golden-eyed demon; back when she still had two clear, bright eyes and her father's name of Pontellier, and 'knives' was only the name for the silver things that rested on restaurant tables. The bounty hunting game had been slow and frustrating, and her gut told her that she was still too young and inexperienced to be hired as a highly paid assassin in one of the big cities. So she had boarded a bus to New Oregon one sunny morning, to try her luck in a new city and hopefully replenish her alarmingly small supply of cash.
She walked out of the bus and into the glare of one of Gunsmoke'stypically blazing summer afternoons, and watched as the other passengers streamed into a nearby saloon. The place was obviously a popular traveler's rest stop, and it gave her an idea. At age fourteen, she had been an accomplice when her best friend robbed a convenience store. Robbing this place would be just as easy, and it would get her some quick cash. Resolved, she looked up at the black and red sign of the Gatsby Saloon and entered the cool darkness of the bar. Inside, she sat on a stool and drank a whiskey she couldn't really afford as she surveyed the room from under the brim of her hat. Respectable, middle class passengers lounged on the suede sofas or stood at the wooden bar. A stylish young woman in a velvet trimmed denim jacket and a purple fedora sat at a glass and chrome table across from Dominique. The bounty hunter figured she was a trust fund baby out slumming with Daddy's money.
It was a perfect setup. In what appeared to be one fluid movement, Dominique had left her stool, crossed over to the table, and put of her gun to the girl's temple. "Anyone moves, and the girl dies", she announced to the room. "And since I hate a mess, the bartender here is going to give me all the money in the register, or I'll blow her brains out. Am I clear?" The other patrons froze, their faces ashen, as the bartender cursed and slowlylaid billson the bar with shaking hands.
Dominique backed up to the bar with her hostage held firmly against her. The girl's face had paled, and she was staring straight ahead at their reflection in the mirror across the room. After about a minute, the girl's lower lip had stopped trembling, and to Dominique's surprise, she spoke. "Well… ", her hostage said slowly, "If….if I'm going to be killed, it should at least be at the hands of someone with good fashion sense. Take my hat. You can use the old one to plant geraniums in."
Dominique blinked, momentarily stunned. Then she reasoned that the girl's bravery was the strange sort that came when one had made their peace with death, and put on the purple fedora with her free hand. She took a second to glance at her new reflection, with the hat that complimented her lavender hair, and smirked. Even she had to admit…. she looked damned good in it. Her reverie was broken by the sound of engines and the tromping of policemen's footsteps outside – the bartender had pressed the silent alarm while she was distracted, and she was outnumbered. She released the girl and sprinted out the kitchen door just as the police burst in. Six months later, her purple fedora, precious symbol of her womanhood, was shot off and ruined in a firefight.
Through everything that had happened to her since that day, Dominique never forgot her first, and only, heist. Now, as her body hung from the building where the Hornfreak had left her, her vision growing dim and the life force flowing from her neatly severed jugular vein, the former Dominique Pontellier, now Dominique the Cyclops, had her last thought before passing from this world to the next.
"Damn, I miss that hat."