Disclaimer: Trigun was created by Yasuhiro Nightow. All characters and trademarks (with the exception of Aurora) belong to him.
Love is Blind – Chapter Six
The next morning, Vash gently shook Aurora. "Are you up?" he whispered.
She opened her eyes to reveal their silver contents, just to let him know that she was awake. Vash smiled minimally. Knives had gone for a walk, so they were by themselves for the moment. She sat up.
"I'm so hungry," she moaned clutching her stomach.
Vash reached into a sack and handed her a hardtack cracker. She gingerly took it from him with a quiet, "Thank you." She nibbled on it, wanting to both preserve it and ravenously cure her arching stomach. It was almost tasteless, leaving much to be desired from it. When she was done, she turned to Vash.
"I think we should go on by ourselves," she said quietly. "We have to get away while we still can! Before it's too late!"
"Too late for what?" Knives's voice came from behind her.
Aurora gasped and turned around, as if she could see him behind her. She clenched a fist at her side and gritted her teeth.
If I could see, she thought, I'd take you down, and make you pay for killing them! You'll pay someday, just you wait!
"I really do hope that you weren't trying to convince my dear brother to run away with you," Knives continued, walking around them as he spoke. "She wasn't trying to brainwash you, right, Vash?"
Vash dumbly shook his head. Knives's voice suddenly entered his mind, speaking to him without moving his lips.
"Liar," he said, his voice getting nastier by the second. "Know this: if you do run away with her - EVER - I will find you and make BOTH of you suffer. I will make sure that NEITHER of you find happiness."
His words made Vash shake while his brother calmly drank from a canteen.
This was how the three lived on their planet - coping with Knives's revolving door of moods in an effort to survive. They wandered the desert-like terrain for weeks. Aurora's sweater was both a savior and a plague. It covered her arm, shoulders, and back so she didn't get a sunburn, but it also made her almost unbearably hot. Still, she found the strength to not complain or grumble out of frustration. She knew it would do her no good, and would just arouse Knives's temper.
Vash held Aurora's hand the whole way, even when their hands got sweaty. He never let go unless it was absolutely necessary. Rem had not commanded him to take care of the little girl as she had with Knives, but he still knew that she need more than he or his brother. Without him, Aurora would be lost in the darkness and vulnerable to any evil that was out there.
Like Knives's… he thought. Then he caught himself.
Had he thought that about his brother? He couldn't have. He loved his brother. Sure, he acted weird and mad sometimes, but he wasn't evil, was he? The word flashed in his mind with every step he took.
Months passed, and soon Aurora felt her hand become smaller in Vash's. Both boys were growing up at an alarming rate. While she still had the body of a six year-old, Vash and Knives looked about twice her age or more.
Knives continued to threaten his two 'companions'. They were smacked, kicked, yelled at, and had their hair pulled, among other things when they showed the slightest hesitation or opposition to anything he had to say. The little girl had to sleep, metaphorically, with one eye open every night, afraid that she would be killed if she were to let her guard down even as she rested. Not being able to see anyhow, she had to concentrate and rely on her other, keener senses to stay alert.
But because of this, Aurora received very little sleep. So in the morning, as the party walked, Vash had to almost drag her along, making them lag and not cover as much distance. Vash did not mind waiting. He wanted to keep his friend well, knowing that besides Knives, she was all he had. As he aged and became stronger, he offered his small counterpart piggy-back rides when she could barely stand on her own two legs anymore.
One day, the three of them arrived on a cliff in the early afternoon. From it, the two boys could see a SEEDs ship that had landed there. People who wore what seemed to be potato sacks were waiting in line for a drink at a water pipe. They each filled up small bowls and went to sit with their families. The line moved very slowly. One man was so thirsty that he could wait no longer. He ran, pushed, and shoved his way to the front of the line and drank directly from the pipe. The people surrounding him were outraged by his selfish act and a riot started. Knives glared down at them.
"Stupid, pitiful humans," he scoffed. "They are just mounds of the flesh full of greed. They do not deserve to be here!" He squinted his eyes into little balls of evil and a bulb near the crowd turned on. The light blinded them and they cowered.
Vash grabbed his brother's shoulder. "What did you do?" he cried.
Knives brushed him off and walked away, smiling evilly. Vash stared after him. What had he just seen? Did Knives actually turn that bulb on? All he did was squint at it. Vash knew that they were different from normal people like Aurora, but just HOW different?
Something else crossed his mind; what if there were changes in him that he would not be able to control? Aurora loved him like a sibling, but would she shun him like the crew members had? Would she try to leave him?
A squeeze from Aurora's hand to his brought him back to reality.
"Vash, are you alright?" the little girl asked. "Your hand is shaking."
Vash turned to her and saw her worried face. Although her eyes were closed, he could tell that if he could see them, they would be glossy with worried tears. More than anything at that moment, he wanted to see what her eyes looked like normally, without the silvery casing of blindness. What color would they be?
"Vash? Is everything okay?" she asked again. Vash let go of her hand and put his on her shoulder, gently using it to push her against him. Being only six, Aurora didn't understand. Why did her best friend just do this to her? Why was he now holding her like this? "Vash?"
Vash glanced at the sky, then at his friend. The breeze played with her long, wavy locks. She looked almost peaceful.
Aurora suddenly felt a swift push from behind her. It launched her forward toward the edge of the cliff. Vash turned to see Knives next to him instead of Aurora; innocence replaced with evil. Knives's eyes were wild with psychotic enjoyment.
She tried to get up, but Knives grabbed her and forced her onto her back so her head hung off the edge of the cliff. She screamed as tears streamed down her face from her shut eyes. Knives cackled.
"Maybe I should just toss you down there, leave you with your own kind," he said. Aurora shook her head as she continued to scream. "Yes…yes…SCREAM YOU PITIFUL HUMAN SCREAM!"
Vash, for this amount of time, had stood frozen watching them. He stared at Knives moving his hands up to choke her. The more he stared, the angrier he got. Suddenly, in a burst of anger, he gave Knives a swift back-fist to the face. Knives grabbed his face in pain, giving Vash enough time to pick Aurora up from the ground. The little girl thrust her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder.
His brother stood, wiping blood from his nose. He glared at Vash, and then stomped off. Vash trailed behind him, still holding Aurora.
That night, Vash awoke to small hands feeling his back and ribs. He opened his eyes and turned over to see Aurora's silhouette in the moonlight. She knelt before him, her hand still on his side.
"What is it?" he whispered sleepily.
Aurora opened her mouth, then hesitated. A moment later, she attempted to speak again. "I…had a bad dream," she said.
Vash looked into her eyes, which were open, and saw how frightened she was. Without hesitation, he raised his arm, and Aurora crawled under it at his command. She nestled against his chest as he wrapped the arm around her. Her hair tickled his cheek, and he smiled before falling asleep.
Aurora awoke when she felt a draft where Vash's warm arm should have been. She sat up and listened. The wind whistled a lonely tune, some birds flapped their wings in the distance. Finally, she heard Vash's gentle footsteps approach her.
"Good morning," he said in a sunny voice. Aurora stood up and smiled at him.
Ten years had passed since they had arrived on this planet. Aurora had grown into a lovely sixteen year-old. She still wore a navy blue sweater with an orange skirt that was just above her knees with black tights. Her blond hair was now just below her hips, and, as with any young woman, her body had begun to develop curves as she entered her teens, albeit subtle. Despite the fact that she was still blind, she was even more confident that she would see again.
Vash and Knives had grown up so much themselves that they looked like they were in their mid to late twenties. Both towered over Aurora, but she could not see it for obvious reasons. She could only sense that her hand was like a small delicate petal in his large ones as they walked, and at night, his arm wrapped around her more easily as they slept.
Knives's malicious tendencies were still visible, more now than ever before. He still glared at his brother when he would save the girl. Each night, his voice would enter Vash's head and threaten him about if he and Aurora ever ran off on him, telling him what he would do to them. He also told him that he would kill Aurora while he was sleeping. That was why Vash, ever since that night that Aurora had awoken him because of her bad dream, had Aurora sleep close to him with his arm around her so that if she moved just a little bit, he would know. However, he knew that all it took was a quick gunshot to take the girl's life; something that he would be unable to stop before it was too late.
The other reason was that over those ten years, as his mind matured, he took a distinct liking to her. He had always liked her as a friend, but now it almost felt like something more. He knew showing it would just anger his brother and make him want to kill her more, so he had kept it in as much as he could.
"Good Morning," Aurora said sweetly with a tilted head and smiling face.
Aurora, for her part, didn't worry herself with how she felt about Vash. She had always thought of him as a brother to her, but didn't know anything about love or passion as she was never able to talk about it with a guardian at the appropriate age. She knew that she got a warm, fuzzy feeling when he held her hand or put it on her shoulder or held her at night. Her face would feel hot and her heart would feat faster. The sensations confused her, but she didn't know whether or not she could talk about them with him at all.
A stomp caught both their attentions.
Vash looked (Aurora turned her head to hear where the sound was coming from) and saw Knives standing with an annoyed look on his face.
"Come on," he said in a gruff voice and walked off. Vash took Aurora's hand and followed him.
As they walked, Vash stole glances at her, which she had no way of noticing. He finally just looked at her, with no worries of her knowing. He was almost amazed at how much she had changed over the years. She had gotten much taller, and her face had changed as well. It was quieter, more reserved. Even though she was much more mature than when the bond between them had been forged, she was still able to somehow keep that certain innocence and cuteness about her that she had when she was six.
Suddenly, he was on the ground.
"Vash!" Aurora gasped, brought to her knees by his weight. "Are you alright, Vash?" She was still holding his hand.
Before Vash could say anything, Aurora fruitlessly attempted to pull him up by his arm. He chuckled.
"I'm alright," he said, getting up. "What did I trip on, anyway?" He looked down at his feet to see a piece of scrap metal. "Huh?"
He looked forward to see Knives approaching a SEEDs ship that had crashed. They hurried to him. "What are we doing here?" Vash asked.
"I left something here a long time ago, so I came back to get it," Knives replied slyly. "I may be a while, so just wait here." With that, he headed in and down a hallway.
"Knives!" Vash called out to his brother.
Knives just vanished into the darkness of the hall.
Vash was going to go in after him, but was stopped by a squeeze to his hand. He looked to Aurora, who was full of fear. They sat inside the ship- huddled together.