Disclaimer: Trigun is sadly enough not mine, or there would have been way more episodes!
Chapter32: Vash's POV
Vash can do nothing but stare at her as he comprehends what she has said. It is far more than he ever expected to know. It also explained a lot about the organization that he had seen among the plants in the past. There was always a guide in a group of twenty, an elder in a group of one hundred. They all seemed to have different gifts. Some actually influence the humans tending their bulbs. Others could work the machines that run the bulbs. The most common gift though was the telepathy.
"Who's the queen?" Meryl asks, her voice full of curiosity.
Before Kikyo can answer however Milly comments, "It's you. That's why you can form outside of the bulb."
A wave of warmth comes from Kikyo, it feels like a smile. You are correct. I am the eldest of the elders, the hive queen of this universe. I can feel every single plant on this planet, I can also communicate with those who are on Earth, and those aboard the various crafts that the humans have in space. Luckily most of the off planet plant elders are strong telepaths that I can connect with easily. There are others who could theoretically form outside the bulbs as well, however this universe runs at a different energy level than ours, a lower one so none of us born in the home plane can truly disconnect from the bulbs and leave them. However, the children of our kind could be born here and able to move around just like you two.
"Are there more like us?" Knives asks, his voice hollow.
Vash can feel the mental pain streaking through his twin even without focusing. Turning to glance at his brother, he uses the one mental connection he is good at to ask, Are you alright?
I will be, it's just another shock to add to the list. Never knew that much about our kind and I have been studying our gifts since we landed on this accursed rock. He replies, his voice soft even in their mental link. Can we talk about it later?
He nods, focusing back on Kikyo even though his mind is going a million miles an hour.
Not at this time, after you were born a hunter, and after the crafts carrying the bulbs crashed to the ground, it was decided that there would be no more releasing of eggs until things were stable. I spent the first fifty years on this planet trying to get all the plants back to a healthy state or release them back to our world which is not easy to do when one does not have the equipment. Then slept for thirty or so years while the elders took care of things, July awoke me, and you should be happy that you ended up with Dai. Any other plant and you would have been submerged in the hive link then, however telepathy is her weakest link which meant she could not embed it the way Tala did. She pauses for a moment, a feeling of warmth directed towards his brother from what he can tell, along with acceptance and reassurance. I take blame for not submerging you into the hive mind as a child, as soon as we realized you were a hunter.
For a while nobody speaks as each considers what she has said. For Vash it is a massive amount of information that just makes him want to ask a bunch of questions because he was sure he had meet Sepheria before yet she had never said anything at all about them being related. A large part of him wondered why. An even larger part wondered why they were not automatically part of the hive. Why they had not been added to the hive as children.
A mental shrug is his answer, It was thought it would be better for you to develop without all of us in your heads, we were wrong, I can tell you any others born of a bulb will get to have us in their head to avoid this sort of situation from happening again. Now, I think I will answer the question that has been driving Knives nuts for years about our blood verse the human blood. We can breed with humans, the children will slowly turn the non-plant parent into a half plant. While the child will be born with three fourth their blood like a plant. Any child they have will be fully a plant in the case of females, while males will do the exact same thing. That child that 'blue-eyes' as he refers to the taller human in your group as is carrying is slowly changing her blood. She will be a part plant before she gives birth, it will also lead to a longer than human life span, though she will not use energy the way we do. She may even develop a minor gift or two. Another thing he is vaguely curious about is whether Vash and 'temper's', as he calls the shorter one, relationship will affect her in any way. The answer is yes, she's starting to change because a bonding will occur. Here's the real fun part, any offspring they have will be fully plant.
Vash stared at her, shock written all over his face as he did so. The child Milly was carrying would make her a half-plant? How and why? If she had children with a regular human would it affect them? How would Meryl be able to have fully plant children? How would Kikyo even know this? Right now was one of those times when he was hoping that Kikyo was listening because he was not sure he could figure out how to ask any of those questions. What about Wolfwood? If Milly's baby was part plant, and it was from Wolfwood, how was that even possible?
Good thing thought reading is something I never stop doing then, yes? Her mental voice chuckles, responding to his thoughts, In answer to your questions, our DNA is stable, locked. Human DNA is changeable, mutable. Thus our stronger DNA overrides it, changes all the mutable parts. Knives here spent a few years playing with human DNA to see if he could create more of our kind here. Ironic really since physical contact in an intimate way can do just that, the male that fathered the blue-eye's child was effectively human, the plant DNA was not coded into him properly, because it was forced, however it did bond to part of his DNA which was effectively passed from him to her. In the passing it was coded correctly, and the end results are thus. One mental shrug later she pauses for a moment, falling into her mind. It is a few minutes before she speaks again. Next thing, the elder Tala inquired of the hive link is if anyone knew about how to lengthen life in one of the humans while thinking of your mate. So I came out of the partial rest that I have been in for the last fifteen years, just in time too. Because Amber never called for assistance according to the elders, and once she finishes healing I will be discovering why. I also contacted the elders of our home plane, not an easy process to say the least, and asked the scientists what would happen, sent them a coding of human DNA. They came back with the answer. Personally, I am pleased to see that there is something between the two of you, I can even hope that he finds a partner because it will make his hunter instincts focused. Does that answer all the questions?
He slowly nods as his mind commutes the information.
Knives POV
Oh shit, he thinks to himself, doing a mental calculation of how many humans he had effected in the time he was experimenting. It really would be hilarious if some of those humans he had experimented on ended up breeding more of his kind. Yet according to Kikyo there were no other unbound plants which meant that they had not bred yet.
Actually, the only one who had a chance to breed was the one who did so with blue-eyes. The elders were watching to track them. If there was another birth we were going to submerge them, one person trying to commit genocide was enough, particularly since we could not get to you in order to correct the problem. Her voice tone was soft, shared only on the private line that he had felt since Tala had merged him in the hive. Luckily, you picked those whose minds were not quite there to work on, the end result was they almost all ended up killing themselves in one form or another.
As his mind comprehends that fact he considers some of the other details that he had learned, including the fact that they apparently from a pacifistic, matriarchal society in which his watcher was at the top of the food chain. Why would he have such a high ranking watcher? There had to be someone else who could do it. And if they were sure he could never do it again, why did he have a watcher anyways?
You have me for a watcher because I am the strongest on this planet, the only one who can completely subvert your mind to my control even when I am half asleep. You have a watcher for now because I am making sure there is not a relapses, because you are not bonded elsewhere, and because you rejected the link between you and Vash once before. She keeps a soft tone, a gentleness that surprises him when speaking.
Why did our mother never say anything to either of us? He asks using the private link, a small part of him hating the idea that their mother had not wanted them to know. None of the reasons he could think of made any sense.
A flood of warmth hits him, We do not recognize familial bonds the way humans do. Our lives can span into the thousands of years without age anywhere past the first decade. As you have probably noticed our first ten years are when all the major aging happens. Short of a lack of a power source, or intentionally overloading, our colors do not darken and we do not die. With such long life spans we recognize all of us as siblings. All children are raised together. Direct bloodlines never feel attraction to each other, thus keeping from having breeding problems. There was nothing personal about it, it is just the way we are.
"Oh…" he mutters, startled.
A soft chuckle startles him, along with a wave of reassurance. Despite your protests about the humans, you still have some of their traits from your time among them, this includes the familial structure concept. Ironically, the town that you have selected to go to is the home of Sepheria, she is also one of the elders of our kind.
He just blinks at her shocked. His mind wandering over the details.
Milly's POV
The explanation was amazing, the fact that she included emotions with it made it even better. Nick had been human, at least as human as it counts. If he had been one of Mr. Knives testers, then that meant he had worked for Mr. Knives when he was still trying to destroy the world did that make Nicholas evil? Why would he have worked for someone like that? It didn't make any sense. Particularly since he was always helping Mr. Vash. Sure they had their problems, Mr. Vash preferred peace to killing, and Nicholas had believed in doing what had to be done no matter how gruesome it got. How was it possible that he had been working for someone against the them?
Standing, she wanders over to look at the bulb and the sleeping form within it. Why would someone work for the bad guy yet help the good guy? It did not make sense, she knew that she viewed the world differently but she had never been so wrong before. How had she misread everything so badly? The really sucky part was he was dead so she couldn't even ask him.
"But you could ask me, yet you're not." She hears from behind her, turning she spots Mr. Knives watching her with narrow eyes. Shrugging, he comments, "You think loud."
Biting her lip she glances back at the girl in the bulb, she hadn't asked for help either, she had just let herself try to die. Why? That makes just as little sense as the idea that Nicholas was evil.
A soft snort escapes him as he steps next to her and glances over as well. "He wasn't evil, it's the entire reason he was assigned to keep Vash safe even as the rest were supposed to drive him insane or kill him. As for the how, it happened to be that the other one who served me with the title of chapel found him as a kid and raised him. Never did understand how he came with a set of morals like he had. However, if you're wondering about the genetics of it all, he was one of the kids given a series of shots to change them, make them into a plant. Technically it did not work, yet he still managed to pass the genes on somehow." His voice is low as he answers, soft enough she has a hard time understanding what he says.
"Oh," she replies glancing over at him. She is almost startled by the serious look on his face, as if he is bothered by something. With a breath that look is gone replaced by something with less emotion to it.
For a few minutes they stand there silently both lost in their thoughts. Finally she turns towards him with a smile after coming to a conclusion, "You set a protector to him, so you couldn't have been completely evil at the time." She pauses, narrowing her eyes at him, "I forgive you for your part in his death."
Saying nothing else, she turns and walks over to Meryl, leaving a very surprised Mr. Knives staring after her.
Meryl's POV
Okay then, well Vash is the normal one, Knives is the odd one, Milly and I are both in the process of changing though for different reasons. That's… startling, she thinks to herself as she watches her best friend. Milly probably just realized that Knives is responsible for Nick's death. That could cause some problems, well it would if she was anyone else. However this is Milly, the girl with the biggest heart there is. She had already accepted that he had done horrible things, so this might not go too badly.
A matriarchal society, how…unusual, outside of books I had not realized that it was possible. Yet according to Kikyo, it is not only possible but fully functional. Of course, she also said that guys were really rare. Wait, guys are really rare. How do they have more children then? Frowning, she glances at Kikyo and inquires, "If guys are super rare, how does your race maintain the population births?
She chuckles, the feeling like a soft brush against her mind, Simple enough, after a male is eight years old they are taken to live in the Queen's Harem, as it is called, it is a compound of men. It is there that they receive training in the skills they have and want to embrace, and the functions that they will fulfill in society. It is also where all females who wish to breed go to do so. Generally, the only females that are allowed to breed must go through testing first to make sure that they will be viable first, intelligent second, and healthy third. Cruel, I realize, but in a society made of females, it is not uncommon for same gender lovers, and for a person to never have a child. Our society does not reflect families in the same way as yours, every member of the hive is considered a family member, thus the need for individual partners does not happen often like it does here. When one lives for thousands of years, it is not uncommon to have the same lover for three or four centuries only to drift apart or go separate ways and then return to each other. In those situations, the male would live with his partner for the duration but return to the Harem if the union was to dissolve. Then there is the rare cases of mates, those who are drawn to each other, those who have a deeper bond then just being lovers, the drifts between them are shorter, for the entire time there is distance, the only thing they can easily think of is their partner. That goes deeper than just being lovers and can be actually traced in the form of a mind link that is deeper than the communications link. For a telepathic race that can be a very important thing.
"Oh, I guess that makes sense. Though why is it called the Queen's Harem?" she asks, curious about that even as she considers the fact that she had called her Vash's mate on several occasions. There had to be a reason for that as well.
Amusement brushes her mind, along with the answer, Because when our race was new, trillions of years ago, the only ones who could breed with the males were the Queen and her chosen successors. As for why I call you his mate, I Saw the link when I touched you using Knives, and I confirmed it when I did so with Vash. There was a reason he kept coming back to you even though he really wanted to keep you safe and thought that not being around would do the trick. He could have no more resisted coming back than you would resist drinking water. The thing I am happy about is you return the affection, because that could have been bad if the link was one-sided.
Meryl blushed, glancing away and accidently looking directly at Vash. Vash smiled at her, that whimsical one designed to be goofy. She just smiled and shook her head, thinking that was her Vash.
Exactly, he's your Vash. Kikyo commented, the sand woman form she was using smiled before drifting towards the now exposed bulb.
Before she could say or do anything, Milly was walking over to her, a thoughtful look on her face.