And Miles to Go…
Chapter Five: Stars and Pieces
By Seishuku Skuld (skuldchan a gmail com)
Series: Trigun
Pairing: Knives/Legato, implied Knives/Vash
Warnings: shounen-ai elements
Date: September 2006

Special Thanks to Asphodel for her time and her beta.

-----

It was hot and sunny, not unlike all the other days since the landing of the humans on the barren sand-swept planet. It was a day very similar to the one when he had fled his home and also like that day, he was once again traveling alone. The winds on this part of the vast planet blew mercilessly both during the day and at night, and had it not been for the thin threads of his power he wove about his eyes he would not have been able to see through the thickness of the storm.

The city was almost deserted, doors and windows on every building barred shut against the wind. Few figures wandered in the street, mostly drunks and beggars, thick scarves wrapped so tightly about their faces that they must have sensed his presence rather than seen it.

He had grown accustomed to having that effect on people: all heads inevitably turned in his direction whenever he entered a town. The women didn't dare take their eyes off him, and the men stared suspiciously, pondering the portents of a man with blue hair and trying to recall dim memories of an old legend from a ghost town far away. Babies cried as he approached, loud and pitiful wails in the hush that accompanied him everywhere—a smoke that always hung about his head, cloaking him in conspicuity. Amidst the sudden silence his mind always perceived something else—a whirlwind of pathetic babble, a swirling sea of emotion. Fear, loathing, sexual attraction. All meaningless. He picked up snatches of thought as he passed by the wide-eyed gawkers in the street, picking them out of the air as if they were overripe fruit about to fall from a tree.

And when he would leave, as he always did with short notice, he would extend his mind magnanimously with a smile and wipe clean the thoughts of the women whose mouths were open. He would wash the entire town of his memory, and as he approached the outskirts of the last homely buildings on his way out, the town would return to business as usual, without ever knowing he had been there, or that he had ever existed. And if he was feeling generous, he would wipe them all blank, down to the tiniest thought and smallest desire. Those were the towns the wind blew through, finding cracks in the clay and wood, banging the shutters and drawing a sandy blanket over the live corpses lying on the ground, some still twitching while others were only empty shells with beating hearts.

Legato walked into the saloon, the only building without its entry barred shut. Inside was a motley crew of criminals and vagrants, evil-looking wanders waiting to prey on unsuspecting travelers seeking shelter from the storm. They eyed him suspiciously, taking in every last detail from his golden eyes to his clean, white coat and his earth-colored boots. One man in the darkest corner considered taking him at gunpoint. The main group of gamblers considered poisoning his drink, and the fat bartender considered taking him to the back storeroom and enjoying him in private.

Unfazed by the leering faces around him Legato sat himself down at a table near the center of the room. He did not need to watch people with his eyes, but nevertheless he let his gaze wander from the table of cards to the bottles of drink behind the counter. Knives disapproved of such human vices as gambling, prostitution, and drinking, but he did not approve of humans in general, and viewed every aspect of their behavior with contempt. Legato was not allowed to drink while on the ship even though alcohol had very little effect on his body, but Knives tolerated it on his trips.

Legato ordered a glass of scotch from a waitress who eyed him saucily. She bent over to show him her cleavage when she returned with the drink, licking her lips suggestively but he paid no attention to her and sipped his drink, counting all the surreptitious glances thrown in his direction. This was unstimulating, boring work, but Knives had ordered it done. Knives was no longer in any condition to travel, and Legato willingly performed whatever his master's bidding was, no matter how odious the task. So he sat in his chair and waited for something interesting to happen—as his senses told him it would—and he thought of Knives and how much he wished to be home, bathed in the light of Knives' pod, his face pressed close to the glass, lips pressed to warm, hard smoothness in an almost-kiss that was but a pitiful of shadow of what Knives had once granted him.

-----

That first day Legato had barely been able to stumble to Knives before falling to his knees in front of his master's disapproving stare.

He lifted his head and waited for an answer.

:So it is as I suspected.:

Legato's heart sank into the pit of his stomach. :What, Master:

:You are not a suitable host.:

Legato's insides plummeted, twisting themselves in strange positions. He wanted to vomit, and he was beginning to find it very difficult to breathe.

:What will happen now, Master:

Knives seemed to smile coldly, though his expression had hardly changed. :Your body will continue to fight the foreign graft. And as it loses, as it inevitably will, you will lose more and more of your physical sensation.:

:Everything:

:With time: Knives replied clinical detachment. :It has already begun. Your somatosensation will disappear first. I do not know about the other modalities. It will be a test of your strength.:

Never in his life had Legato wanted to die more than now, even more than that memory of lying in the sun and sand years ago. He wanted to stop his own heart or crush himself into pieces and let the blood that spilled from his body spell out the ways he loved Knives. But his despair was still second to his love, and it paled in comparison to the swelling of his breath as he looked up to see Knives smiling at him compassionately, willing him to overcome the barriers of his human flaws. To die at his master's feet would mean that his humanity had defeated him, and that he would no longer be there to watch over his master as he healed or restore him to power. He had earned Knives' tutelage but not his affection save for a few, fleeting moments of fancy. He would persevere, wait for the day when Knives might finally touch him again, even if he wouldn't be able to feel the warmth or the pain.

With a deep breath Legato pulled himself to his feet, using his powers to steady himself.

:I understand, Master: he said. :I will continue to serve you in whatever manner you require of me.:

:Good: Knives responded with satisfaction, gifting Legato with a mental caress that sent a spark of elation through him. :You can still feel a few things.:

:Yes, Master.:

:Do not be defeated, dearest Legato.:

:I will not.:

And from then on Legato learned to properly conceal his emotions. No longer did the looks of innocent ecstasy or wide-eyed curiosity cross his face. He fought the battle inside him, the instinct to live and the desire to become the object of Knives' affection warring with the heaviness of the arm he carried at his left side.

He strode from the room with determination, his mind moving his feet with every step, pulling them along and lifting them one in front of the other. He faltered, he stumbled, but he did not fall.

-----

Her story was not unlike many other tales of personal tragedies, though she often fancied that it was unique and that she herself was special in some sort of way. Since mankind's unfortunate landing on the poor desert planet her forefathers had ingeniously set up business. Black blood had run in her family for generations, and not even the thirst or the dry winds had been able to keep that blood from running thicker and thicker as time passed. They had started out with a better lot than most; they'd built their own house and struck water early on, using that at first to start their business. In that respect, she had begun no different from any other rich man's daughter—she had grown up with a life of plenty, though she had also learned at a young age how to protect that.

Sometime during her grandfather's reign as patriarch of the family, the town had finally seized their well, getting some local militia and incorruptible police officers to go along with their plans, and their monopoly of the water was ended. By that time however, the family was already running a number of disreputable establishments, in addition to several reputable ones. The family had spread throughout the town and had their hands dipped in virtually everything from vehicular repair to the scientists looking after the Plants, there were few personnel rosters that did not include at least one member of Di Luca lineage.

Her father had not been quite as clever as his father, and instead of choosing to run something warm and friendly like a restaurant, her father had chosen the casino. Andrea Di Luca was shrewd as far as money-making was concerned, and he had neither mercy nor sympathy for the clients that handed their money over the blackjack tables—he cheated them ruthlessly and rarely ever gave anything back. This was not something Dominique had realized at a young age, though by the time she hit her teenage years this reality had been beaten into her through hardship after hardship. Her father was at least smart enough to realize that being the Don of a mafia family meant that his children should at least learn to protect themselves should anything arise, and eventually arise it did.

Dominique remembered sleeping in her bed, a pitcher of water sitting on her nightstand should she get thirsty in the middle of the night, and awakening to gunshots and the sounds of men screaming. Her older brother burst into her room while she was still in her nightgown, fumbling through the drawers of her dresser for her gun.

She remembered charging for the door—but her brother held her back, picked her up, opened the window and practically flung her out of it. She remembered falling to the dust hard on her bottom, but still clutching her weapon.

"Run!" her brother shouted at her—the last she heard from any of her family—and shut the window. Then her training kicked in. Her father had instructed her that under no circumstances was she to disobey orders from her brothers, especially if the family were under attack. So she picked up her gun and hitched up her nightgown and ran through the town, skirting the midnight shadows of silent buildings until she got to the town's edge and hid there behind a tall gate, crouching into the shadows and waiting. Waiting until some member of the family would get her as her father had said, but nobody ever came.

It had been a well-instrumented, thoroughly planned attack. The Di Luca family had reigned over the town since the first crash, and all that had ended in an efficient coup that had hardly lasted a few hours of the night. For three days Dominique hid, too afraid to come out of the alley shadows during the day and venturing out only at night. The bodies of her mother and her father had been removed from her house, but her brothers, her sisters, and the servants' remains still littered the floors. She grabbed a shirt and a pair of pants from her youngest brother Benedict, cut her hair, and left the town with a bottle of water and her gun.

And that was how Dominique Di Luca, barely thirteen years old and already orphaned, made her way from town to town, falling in with folk of the only type she knew, and set herself on a path that would eventually cross with one who wished to control the destiny of that sad, barren planet.

-----

The first thing he noticed when he stepped into the bar was the girl at the table in the corner. She was dressed in men's clothing, a simple shirt and pants, her long dusty trenchcoat lying over the seat opposite her. She was nursing a glass of whiskey silently, and by the way she was crouched in her seat Legato could tell that she was trying to melt into the shadows. She seemed rather satisfied with her anonymity, but that could have been that the moment the doors swung inward, all eyes had been drawn to him.

His powerful presence quieted the entire room, and the patrons of the saloon stared at him, their gazes sweeping his entire body, not sure whether to note the color of his hair or the fact that his coat was a spotless, undusted white.

Return to your merriment.

Legato issued the silent command without so much as thinking, and the room went back its usual business. The buzz of laughter and talk resumed, and the person at the piano in the back went back his happy tune seemingly without missing a beat.

There is nothing unusual about me.

He touched all their minds gracefully, and it was true, no one looked up at him or sensed anything peculiar about him at all as he walked past them. Except for, of course, the woman in the corner. Her mind he preserved, and she stared at him wide-eyed from the corner. She was tense, one arm at her side ready to pull out a gun she had strapped about the outside of her thigh.

"No need," Legato said simply as he stopped at her table and sat down casually. "You cannot harm me."

"Tell that to my gun," she said quietly and whipped it out, firing a shot at him smoothly without even a pause. No one in the bar seemed to notice the shot or the bullet that clattered to the table and rolled onto the floor. Legato bent over, picked it up, and placed it in front of her.

A man in a white apron approached him with a wide smile.

"A bowl of your best soup."

"Coming right up, sir," the man grinned with good nature, wiped his hands on his apron, and stumped back into the kitchen.

"As I said previously," Legato said, turning his attention back to the woman, as if he had deliberately ignored her while he placed his order, "you cannot harm me."

The woman stared at him, her eyes wide with terror, her mouth hanging open. She glanced to the side to look at the rest of the occupants of the bar, who were all looking away from her corner, and gave no indication of having noticed the gunshot, or that anything amiss was happening at their table.

"How?" she asked, agape, frightened. "Who are you?"

Legato allowed himself a small reassuring smile. He did not touch her mind, though he could have molded it to fit his needs. It would make things easier, he knew, but this he had learned from Knives: those who serve willingly are better faithful and loyal servants.

They would not worry him with the possibility of rebellion; their devotion would save him the effort of keeping them in line.

"I am someone very special," Legato answered smoothly.

"What are you?" the woman asked, still tense and defensive. She did not know how to defend against a man such as him, but she was prepared to do anything, no matter how useless it may prove to be. "Are you a bounty hunter?"

"Assuredly not. I came here seeking you. It seems you have quite a reputation already, Dominque Di Luca."

Her eyes narrowed. "How do you know who I am?"

"You have not yet fully mastered the ability to disappear in a crowd," Legato replied. "I followed you here from your last job."

"My last job?" Her eyes narrowed. "There were no witnesses. I killed him five miles outside the city."

"I was six miles outside the city, and I saw you."

"How?"

"That is a complex answer best saved for another time."

Dominique smirked nervously and kicked back in her seat, leaning it against the wall as she propped her boots on the table. "I have all night."

Legato returned her smile. "As do I. I have a job proposal for the both of us."

"And if I do not accept?"

Legato shrugged. "Then I will take my business elsewhere." But he did not speak of what that business that was, nor what her fate might be if she refused.

Dominique was not stupid, and she picked up on the subtlety of his words. Certainly an interesting man. Blue-haired, golden-eyed, speaking with a quiet, but nevertheless commanding voice. This man could lead an army, she realized. His composure, his very presence, commanded respect—that is, when one noticed him. He was different from everyone else, she thought, remembering the way the room had suddenly resumed as if unfrozen from time. He had done something. She fought not to frown. Here presented itself an elegant mystery in the form of a very tall and handsome man. And well, she was not the type to turn down an enigma wrapped in such a comely form.

"Very well, tell me of what this job is," she said, draining the last bit of her whiskey. This could prove to be something very interesting. She smiled and noticed the special way that he caught her eye every time she looked at him, but failed to notice the faint blush that rose to her cheeks every time she did so.

-----

Dominique was the first that he had found in a long while, and Legato did not miss the resemblance she might have held to someone who had once been very close to his heart. Like his long-dead twin, Dominique was thin and slender, a her build a female version of his own. She awakened memories in him, every time she was on the very edge of a smile. She could never smile a true smile the way his sister had, nor would she ever have her playfulness, but her hair was long and as dark as he remembered his twin's to be. It shone in the sun, and more than once he found himself wanting to touch it as old memories resurfaced.

It was the third time that Legato's hand had nearly shot out to reach for the very ends of those long strands that he finally brought himself under control. Ismay was dead, long dead, like the rest of his family and the town that he had grown up in. Dominique was and never would be his sister, so he put them both firmly out of his mind and resolved never to think about them in that fashion again. Dominique was to be merely a member of the Gung-ho Guns that Knives had ordered him to form. She could not bring his sister back to life, nor could she take Ismay's place. He had long survived without her, and the void of her role had already been filled by another.

Nevertheless, Legato found her company subtly enjoyable in the sense that he did not view her with as much contempt as he did the other human vermin that inhabited the planet. He found that she was intelligent and witty, but capable and serious. She was speedy in battle and stealthy in the jobs he and she performed.

She was a good find, Legato thought one night as he stayed awake, perched on the edge of a window and staring off into the night, wondering how his master fared. Knives would never speak to him on his trips, disdaining his contact with the people of the planet. The nights on the planet were cold, but Legato found that he rarely felt them so. The numbness in his limbs had begun at his feet, had spread to the tips of his fingers and crawled ever so slowly but surely to his heart. Now Legato counted the days he had left until he was numb all over, unable to feel the pain of the sands blowing against his skin—but also unable to feel Knives' touch, should he ever recover again and cast off his glass encasing. Legato vowed that he would see that day before the numbness took him entirely. Things were progressing at good speed. Dominique had already developed what could only be an attraction to him. He lifted the sexual tension from her mind easily, for it infested even her dreams, and from that alone he knew that she would serve him well, flawed though she may be.

Good, Legato thought as they finished a third job together. She will come when I call for her. They dumped the body of Septem's mayor in the desert outside the city, Dominique crouching over his body and ensuring that he was truly dead.

"I have to go now," Legato said simply as she rose after her inspection.

"What?" she looked surprised. "We've only been working together two weeks."

"I have other business to attend to, but I will return shortly." Legato reached out and touched a shoulder, a gesture he had predicted would elicit a positive response from the woman.

His prediction proved true as she blushed again, her heartbeat growing quicker. "I will send you a summons within the next few months," he told her seriously, his tone taking on a tender quality, "I want you to come."

"I will," she nodded. "I will come when you call me."

"Good," Legato smiled, his hand moving from her shoulder to her cheek. "Goodbye. We will see each other again, soon."

And he was gone to the next town the next day.

-----

The sound of the saxophone was smooth—like liquid it meshed with the bass, the piano, and it was oddly calming for Legato as he listened, sitting at the back of the lounge, his face hidden by the shock of blue hair which fell across it. There was some subtle magic being worked in the atmosphere, some dim complacency, some contentment that the band—with their fluid rhythms and the quiet song of the sax—was feeding to the audience, and immediately upon entering Legato had seen exactly why the Tom Cat Lounge was the most sought-after nightclub on the planet and why only the politically successful and the filthy rich were wealthy enough to even set foot inside the lobby.

The saxophonist was no mere musician, he was master of his art—manipulation and also as it was rumored, murder. He could see why the club's clients spent their time there night after night, the Tom Cat's lush and siren melodies a headier poison more potent than any alcohol, more addictive than even the most powerful of sedatives. There was euphoria in the music, such tranquility that the audience sat with untouched wine glasses at their tables; they sat and listened with their eyes closed and wished for the night never to end. Should the saxophonist have wished, he could have sent the entire crowd in the streets, crying, screaming, clutching their heads in pain. But the entire night, from early evening until the bar closed he was in control. He was the master of sound, and through that he effected a serenity on the bar the likes of which Legato had never before seen on the planet. The band played the melody but the saxophonist, whose name Legato lifted from the ambience—Midvalley—was the one who breathed peace into the plush interior of the lounge.

Legato listened, the magnitude of this man's power was wholly unlike anything he had ever encountered. Moreso than the other men he had come across and recruited, this was an ability that was almost like to his, that when harnessed would serve Knives better than all the murderers and outlaws he had gathered so far. Legato smiled though no expression crossed his face. He continued to sit at the back, watching the saxophonist intently, heedful of the fact that if he lost focus for one moment he might get drawn into the same mesmerizing trance that sat in the air like thick, fragrant smoke.

There was something about the way Midvalley played that made Legato raise an eyebrow, and it had taken him almost half the night to catch it—unusually late for him. It had been so subtle at first that Legato had almost missed it, almost let it pass by but then he had seen it again. For all the saxophone's beauty, the more he watched the more he realized that there was something missing in the notes that filled the room. This, Legato realized, was the one weakness in this dim, dream-filled lounge, the one weakness that would put Midvalley into his hands by the end of the week.

Legato waited until the band was done, until they packed up their instruments and the Tom Cat turned her lights off and tidied up for the night. He was waiting behind the building, his back against the wall when the back door opened and the band members spilled out, arms slung around shoulders as they walked home together exhausted but glad for another night's solid earnings.

Behind the main group one man stepped out last, well behind the other members. "I have a business proposal," Legato said smoothly when Midvalley was not yet two steps out the door. The rest of the band seemed not to hear and stumbled tiredly toward their homes.

Midvalley stopped and watched them go. He considered calling out to them but thought better of it. He'd noticed the man in white in the back, the only one the entire course of the night who had not succumbed to his song. Instinct told him this man was dangerous, but instinct also told him to hear him out.

"The band and I usually discuss any propositions," Midvalley said warily, turning around to regard the dim grey figure in the darkness of the alley. He leaned against the brick wall casually.

"This one is just for you."

"All right, I'm listening." Midvalley watched the lounge owner and manager leave, the door opening and shutting again, the men walking off lighting cigarettes as if they hadn't noticed anybody else at all. The owner usually at least said goodnight, but tonight, he hadn't even bothered to look in the direction of the two men with their backs to the dull grey brick.

"Leave the band," Legato said simply. "I have someone in need of your services."

Midvalley laughed. He recalled a particular legend of a ghost town far away that had been destroyed by a monster in the guise of a little boy with blue hair. There was something dangerously persuasive in the man's voice, and that kept Midvalley on his guard. "That doesn't sound very profitable to me."

Legato smiled. Midvalley couldn't see it, but he felt it. "I offer you something which cannot be bought with all the money in the world."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"Power. And a purpose."

Midvalley paused before he answered. "And what if I refuse?"

"Then you can stay here. And wait for the gods to come to you." Legato chuckled and he walked away, leaving Midvalley in the dark.

For the next week Legato went to the Tom Cat every night. And every night he sat in the back, one arm thrown about the back of the booth, a glass of wine in his hand and an unreadable expression on his face. Each and every night Midvalley failed to capture Legato, failed to draw him into the tranquil fantasy he bestowed so easily upon the rest of the Tom Cat's guests. Concentration like that—Midvalley reflected one night as he packed away his instrument—required a focus that was inhuman, almost divine.

On the seventh night since the mysterious blue-haired man had approached him, Midvalley took his beloved Sylvia and faced his defeat.

"I'll come with you," was all he said to Legato, who was waiting outside the back door, as if he'd known of Midvalley's decision all along.

"Very well," the blue-haired man replied and began walking, motioning for Midvalley to follow. "My master has summoned us."

"It's the dead of night!" Midvalley exclaimed, but that elicited very little response from Legato, who kept walking to the town's edge. Midvalley really hoped the man had arranged from some transport, because he was not going to walk all night in the desert. "Where are we going anyway?"

Legato stopped and turned around. "A relic of the past," he said, and Midvalley found that that was all he was going to get out of the man. Perhaps his life was now going to take a turn for the better. Perhaps it was going to take a turn for the worse.

-----

Legato had missed the hum of the ship, he had missed the artificial light, the aseptic smell of recycled oxygen. He had missed the feel of the ship's metal floors beneath his feet, solid and cold so unlike the soft sand of the planet which he despised. He had missed the glow of Knives and his great glass encasement, the soft light basking his skin with what Legato's mind interpreted as warmth, giving his blue hair silver highlights, like slivers of moonlight in a night sky.

Knives opened his eyes when Legato approached, an unreadable glint in his gaze.

"Master," Legato whispered, spreading his arms wide as he pressed his cheek against the glass and rested there, exhausted. Suddenly he convulsed, a burning pain shot into his body, traveling along every nerve, into limbs that Legato had long given up for numb. Legato froze in a silent scream, too frightened to even think or guess what he had done to earn his master's ire. All he could do was beg for forgiveness.

It seemed like an eternity before it was over, before he had fallen onto the floor in a heap, his forehead resting against metal too dark to even show him his pitiful reflection.

:Forgive me, Master: Legato whimpered, drawing shallow breaths into lungs where it hurt too much to breathe.

His answer was a caress so gentle it made him weep.

:Welcome home, my dearest Legato.:

End Stars and Pieces

Author's note: I think I narrowly missed the two year mark for how long this piece was on the backburner. My apologies to all the Knives/Legato fans out there for keeping you waiting. It's quite frightening to think of how long I've been working on this piece. I really do care a great deal for this story and I've poured a lot of myself into it. It will be completed someday. I promise. Even if it's 10 years from now, eventually I will see this through to the end.

That said, I might have waited a little bit too long to release this, because Nightow has already written Legato's backstory (I really, really like how he did it and how there are some small parts that share similarities with what I created), so I suppose this may be considered an AU. Since the manga covers such a longer timescale than I originally planned for this piece, I've decided that this work will follow the TV series' continuity. That means that characters such as Elendira and Livio will not make an appearance. Midvalley, who was recruited by Knives himself in the manga has actually joined under Legato here. Events that happen in the manga will not appear. This was how I originally envisioned the story, so I feel compelled to continue the story as I originally (albeit rather haphazardly) planned.

Thank you all very much for your patience.