Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun, nor am I profiting off this in any way.
Dedicated to Serilia, who made me watch Trigun.
This is the first chapter of what will be at least five, chronicling Milly and Wolfwood's relationship from beginning to end, from Milly's point of view, according to the anime. I welcome comments and critisicms, as I've only seen the series once, and Milly is kind of a hard character to write. I have a rough outline of the rest of the story, and most of the end written, so hopefully this will be done in a few weeks. Enjoy!
Chapter One: Must Love Kids
The sun beat relentlessly down on the bus, and the meager breeze afforded by the open windows only served to carry in exhaust fumes and more of the ever-present sand. Were she a lesser being, Milly would have slumped dejectedly in her seat, as Meryl was, but she wasn't about to let a little heat get her down. Although if someone had offered her a canteen at that moment, she would have been hard pressed to refuse. A sudden yell broke the monotony of the desert trip.
"Driver! Stop! There's someone out there!!"
Amazingly, there was someone there, laying face down on the side of a small dune, the minuscule movement of the grains by his face the only indication that he had somehow managed to survive somehow, on foot in the heat, and carrying what could only be described as a giant bandaged cross. Milly thought he seemed nice enough, if a bit rough around the edges. But then again, they had found him passed out in the middle of the desert, so a little wear and tear was understandable. But anyone who shared their food with children when they were so clearly not well off couldn't be all bad, could they? Milly thought not. When they stopped for their next break ("You have to get up and walk around, ma'am! It's not good for you to sit for so long! And do you really want to allow Mr. Vash to walk around outside unattended?" followed by Meryl making a mad scramble for the door.) Milly found that she was probably correct in her assessment. While a person who gave food to children couldn't be all bad, one who charged money for the use of a "portable confessional" probably wasn't all good either. And then the robot attacked. Milly quickly disposed of it, although the priest kept looking at her sideways once they were back on the bus, probably trying to figure out how she managed to hide her gun in her coat.
The sound of the tires on sand was just beginning to lull Milly into inattention when the young mother realized her daughter was missing. Milly squelched the voice in her head (which sounded suspiciously like a blend of her mother and most of her older sisters) that wanted to lecture the woman on properly caring for her children, while Mr. Vash, unsurprisingly, and the supposed priest, surprisingly, leaped from the bus to retrieve the girl, who must have been left back where the robots had been swarming. It only took a small bit of convincing on Milly's part to make the bus driver turn around to pick up the missing passengers. Who would've thought the man had a deep and abiding fear of large weapons? After a bit of work, they managed to find Mr. Vash and the priest in an underground chamber (Milly still wasn't quite clear on how they had managed to, though) and they had found the girl (thankfully unharmed, but more than a little scared) a ways away, crying. After a tearful reunion (during which Milly distracted herself by thinking about the desserts she would be able to eat in the next town) everyone filed back on to the bus for the rest of what Milly hoped would be an uneventful trip to May. Although Milly didn't so much mind when the priest all but collapsed against her shoulder, exhausted. After all, no one who liked children so much could be all bad.
After parting ways with everyone from the bus Milly was surprised that they ran into the priest once more, but she felt a small flutter in her heart when she realised the reason he hadn't continued his wandering ways. Once again, though, the priest managed to cast a shadow on Milly's good opinion of him, when he decided that the best way to help out the family was to enter Vash in a quick draw tournament. Helping out a family in need was a very good thing to do, but Milly thought even Mr. Priest should know that any situation Mr. Vash got involved in was likely to end up going sour, even if he did manage to make the best of it in the end. But the poor child...
That evening, after being called out by Mr. Priest for eavesdropping ('what kind of priest IS he, anyway?' Milly thought to herself as she accepted a glass of whiskey) she decided to see if maybe some liquor would loosen his tongue and help her make sense of his topsy turvy ways. Unfortunately, even though she could beat many of her siblings at drinking, the priest kept going long after Milly's optimism extended so far as to make everything wonderful, especially the way the light glittered through the alcohol as the priest poured himself yet another glass. Luckily Milly was not prone to hangovers.
In the morning Mr. Vash was still a bit inebriated, but he managed to do fine in the first round.
"That's just like him, isn't it, ma'am?" Milly beamed at Meryl, who was still a bit upset with everyone for getting drunk with such a potentially dangerous event on the horizon. Meryl responded with a half-hearted glower, but that was a normal response to Milly's comments concerning Mr. Vash, so she wasn't phased in the least. She was surprised, however, when Mr. Priest was called up to compete as well. Apparently Mr. Vash's childish nature extended to competition as well. She was only slightly surprised when he performed just as well as Mr. Vash had. Despite his seemingly odd nature and kind heart, there was clearly more to the priest than he was letting on, and Milly was very curious about what that might be. A priest with a high alcohol tolerance was one thing, but one who was also a crack shot spoke of hidden depths that made Milly fondly remember reading mystery novels with her older sister when they were children.
Milly cheered loudly for both Mr. Vash and Mr. Priest throughout the tournament, and silently when Mr. Priest told the judge he'd prefer to withdraw than face Mr. Vash, but she felt her heart skip and stop when they both fell to the ground, red liquid pooling underneath both their chests. She had nearly forgotten about the trick Mr. Vash had tried to play on that poor woman the day before, but she recovered quickly. Mercy certainly is a burden, Milly thought as she hefted the linen swathed cross and threw it toward it's owner. The multitude of handguns that were secreted inside of it both thrilled and distressed Milly. On the one hand, she was pleased she was right about Mr. Priest, but at the same time she was half hoping he would just be a nice, sweet priest with a few quirks. One really couldn't expect someone who went traipsing around the desert with a giant cross and a portable confessional to be normal, after all. The way he fought with Mr. Vash, though, reaffirmed in Milly's mind that he really must be a good person. Not one shot was fatal, or even very serious, although they certainly got the job done. He even made good on his promise to donate the prize money to the lady who owned the saloon and her young son, and the way he smiled when Neil's father returned made Milly's heart do a little flip. She tried to ignore it by concentrating on her parfait.
To be continued...