Placeholder - [Trigun] Garden of Eden (incomplete)
In response to squidlet's post about strawberries.
Wolfwood and Vash come across a torn-away part of the ship that crashed, with dessicated organic matter so dry it crumbles at the touch of a fingertip foamed around the entrances, but deep inside the shell and partly buried underneath the sand, they find something like a greenhouse, with flourishing and rotting strawberries all over the place, vines tripping them up as they walk in.
"Wolfwood," Vash says, his voice heavy, and Wolfwood is by his side in an instant, vines of fascinating fruit or no. The previous groundskeeper is lying on his side on a bed of lush leaves, now beginning to dry and crackle at the edges. He has a serene look on his face, and his fist is loosely clenched around a handful of tiny, perfect, ruby-ripe strawberries, not even bruised by his fingers. Vash reaches down to close his fingers, carefully folding each finger in, and then folds the groundskeeper's arms across his chest and steps back, allowing Wolfwood to step forward and get on his knees in the soft mulch of the ground, the knees of his pants go damp in seconds. Wolfwood says the last rites with the smell of rich earth and growing things all around him, in his nose and skin and in the dampness of the air, and though he gave up regret and sentimentality, those useless things for a priest, a long time ago; he is, nearly against his will, moved by this nameless man's life.
When he is done, he takes off his jacket and goes outside to dig a grave with the chipped and rusting (rusting, he marvels, and flicks some of it off the blade) shovel. If he waters some of the endless sand he is moving with sweat, though after a lifetime of living in deserts he rarely perspires, it dries up in the glare of the sun quickly enough anyway.
Wolfwood and Vash come across a torn-away part of the ship that crashed, with dessicated organic matter so dry it crumbles at the touch of a fingertip foamed around the entrances, but deep inside the shell and partly buried underneath the sand, they find something like a greenhouse, with flourishing and rotting strawberries all over the place, vines tripping them up as they walk in.
"Wolfwood," Vash says, his voice heavy, and Wolfwood is by his side in an instant, vines of fascinating fruit or no. The previous groundskeeper is lying on his side on a bed of lush leaves, now beginning to dry and crackle at the edges. He has a serene look on his face, and his fist is loosely clenched around a handful of tiny, perfect, ruby-ripe strawberries, not even bruised by his fingers. Vash reaches down to close his fingers, carefully folding each finger in, and then folds the groundskeeper's arms across his chest and steps back, allowing Wolfwood to step forward and get on his knees in the soft mulch of the ground, the knees of his pants go damp in seconds. Wolfwood says the last rites with the smell of rich earth and growing things all around him, in his nose and skin and in the dampness of the air, and though he gave up regret and sentimentality, those useless things for a priest, a long time ago; he is, nearly against his will, moved by this nameless man's life.
When he is done, he takes off his jacket and goes outside to dig a grave with the chipped and rusting (rusting, he marvels, and flicks some of it off the blade) shovel. If he waters some of the endless sand he is moving with sweat, though after a lifetime of living in deserts he rarely perspires, it dries up in the glare of the sun quickly enough anyway.