BTW: to those that have sent me C+C on 'Cat' I will get back to you on it. I
just haven't been in the right mindset to do the necessary revisions. I'll
probably do them over the weekend. (Hopefully)

Now on to the fic.

XmagicalX wrote:

This story follows the anime continuity rather than the manga, and is
set after the final episode. Thus there are some spoilers for the whole
series.

Since I haven't read the manga and have seen the end of the series, no
problem.

A Little Piece of Paradise

Two years ago the strangers had come to Vista, and had yet to leave.
Three of them, two woman and a man, no more unusual than any desert
drifters,

Oh, then it's obviously not Vash Milly and Meryl. They're as unusual as they
come. ^_^

and since they were willing to work no

work, no one (I think)

one asked them any

questions.  The women were beginning to show gray but he still called
them girls, because he couldn't really think of them otherwise, only
now they found it flattery and giggled when he did.

OIC, some time has passed.

Vista's plant had failed over a decade ago, as eventually they all
would, but there was water running underground, and long before they
lost the plant the

plant, the

And maybe she guessed why, how his energies might sustain like a
plant's.

Run on.

Vista was far from any major road or caravan route, and with its plant
broken few saw reason to visit.  So whenever anyone unknown drove into
town, children were pulled from their street games to safety inside,
and the town sheriff and his deputies would be the first to greet the
newcomers.

Heh. Somehow I doubt if this time they alone will be enough.

He had dismounted, walked toward the trees, and one of the sheriff's
men had raised his rifle, but another stayed his hand.  The bandit
approached the first tree, a grubby, hardy fig.  He reached one hand,
trembling, toward the foliage--not to snap the slender branches,
merely to stroke a single smooth leaf, and then he had fallen to his
knees with tears on his cheeks.  They learned later his family had
labored for two generations to start a farm, on

don't think you need that comma.

a plot of land with

neither geoplant nor water.  When his mother died from the dryness he
left to find food and supplies, and ended up among the bandits.  He
cried at Vista's success where his family had failed, and he cried
that it could be done at all on their cursed world, and he would not
let his companions harm a single blade of grass, nor lay a hand on any
of those who had nurtured that miracle.

Hmm. Interesting. Didn't expect that.

The newest strangers were not bandits.  When the sheriff stepped
forward to meet them, the shortest man met him halfway and produced a
paper stamped with a round seal, glittering gold in the sun.  "We're
from March," he said. "We have reason to believe you are harboring an
enemy of the state."

The sheriff frowned, shifting his hat to scratch his shaggy salt-and-
pepper hair. "May be

Maybe

"Nonetheless, the statute of limitation for his crimes never expires.
Make no mistake, he's still a dangerous man."

Heh. Some men can't outrun their past.

"I'm older than I look."

Nice understatement. :)

"All right," he said briskly.  "You wanted my advice.  You're going to
go out there and, uh, look for yourself.  Leave no rock unturned.  And
when the hunt's over and those city folk go home, we'll decide things
from there.  Okay by you, Vash?"

He said the name as casually as he could manage, a small test, and Red
passed with flying colors, head jerking up as if it were something he
hadn't heard for some time but couldn't help but respond to.

Heh. Yeah. That's a hard reaction to surpress, even when you're ready for
it.

And then Milly screamed.

Not a full-blooded shriek, more of a yelp which didn't carry beyond
the trees, but Vash and Meryl rushed to her side, Meryl slipping her
hand under her coat to grasp a Derringer.  Vash didn't reach for his
own piece, but he didn't have to; he could have it in hand and aimed
the instant he needed it.

True

Vash didn't hesitate.  He marched forward, plucked the cigarette from
the long fingers and threw it to the ground, stamping hard.  "No
smoking," he said severely.  "Didn't you read the sign?"

The boy shook his head, uneven brown bangs falling into his eyes.
"Nope."

"Ano, Vash--aa, Red-san, we haven't put up the sign yet," Meryl
reminded him, sotto voce.

Vash was undeterred.  "You should know better than to smoke by trees.
They burn, you know.  Besides, it's bad for your health."

Heh. Now that is classic Vash.

The street was deserted except for the sheriff, three deputies, and a
giant armored vehicle on treads planted square in the middle of the
road before them.

Well, it looks like Vash's cover's about to be blown.

"There's been a reward out on them for over a year." The boy didn't
twitch a muscle, storm-gray gaze locked on the situation in the street
as he spoke.  "Didn't think they were in the area, though.  The last
report put them in Dryspring, and that's a couple hundred iles west.
How good is your sheriff, really?  'Cause I don't know nothing about
Vash but t

Vash, but

Fire was against a law so basic it was never even recorded in the
books, a rule of survival in a world where wood was more precious than
gold and no water existed to extinguish threatening blazes.

True. Hadn't really thought of that. Think these guys would be so dangerous
that they would be more actively hunted down.

Vash stopped in momentary dismay.  "'Specs'?"

The boy flicked a finger at Vash's round-framed sunglasses.  "Sure you
can see through all that ash on those, oldtimer?"

"Oldtimer?!"

Heh.

The brown-haired boy cupped his hands and mimed a toss.  "With a
running start I

start, I

They might have been criminal but they weren't stupid.

Actual most criminals are stupid, which is why they resort to crime. :)

 Knowing in a

town this small everyone's face was familiar to everyone else, they
didn't attempt to seek refuge in any of the houses along the dusty
street.  Instead they fled straight to the one feasible hiding place--
the glade.

Figures.

Vash stared at him. "I'm not going to kill them," he replied, studying
the boy now glaring at him with such irrefutable force. "But you
weren't..."

"We might want to question them.  Besides," and the kid looked away as
he spoke, so the clustered leaves of the underbrush muffled his words,
"I don't kill.  Enough death in this world already, no point adding to
it." He risked a look back, noticed Vash's widening smile and snarled,
"What?"

Hmm. Interesting.

Vash, still crouched and shaking his wounded hand--when would he learn
to grab with the artificial one in these cases?

Nah. Best to keep it clear so he can use it to shoot if he has to.

A gunshot cracked loudly as they fell, and Vash felt the kid's braced
body sag on top of him, sudden dead weight, with a telling liquid
warmth seeping onto his gray coat to stain his own chest scarlet.

Shot his ketchup bottle, I see.

"So you just shouted the first one that came to mind?" He had to
chuckle, even if it hurt. "You're a real one.  Wish I knew what.  It's
Lobos, by the way.  Victor Lobos."

Well, it's sort of Wolfie. :)

"Bringing me here.  Your friend.  The big girl."  She had, he recalled
half-awaking in her arms, sturdy and yet so gentle.  Safe there, even
in pain.  Comforted.

It reminded him of something--she reminded him of someone, but he
didn't know who.  He had no recollections of his mother; she had died
before she ever held him.  But he had her picture, a file photo of a
petite, black-eyed, curly-haired woman.  She looked nothing like that
lady, this man's friend.  And yet he knew her.

Hmm. Reincarnation, perhaps?

 He looked, but the other man wasn't smirking at the fantasy, only
nodded gravely.  What would even this one say, though, if he
understood that 'dream' wasn't a figure of speech, that for as long as
Victor Lobos could remember, there were nights he would close his eyes
and be there, in a green world, with children around him, and his
friends...those friends he didn't know, except his soul did.  Would
that be enough to surprise this man, to know that he walked in
another's dreams? To know that he had seen the four of them together
there, laughing with children in an Eden which should not exist, could
not exist, only...

Yep.

And the sheriff thought that maybe, somehow, the kid knew exactly what
he had signed on for, after all.

Nice tale. A bit slow for me toward the end, since I knew what was coming
.Might want to consider trimming it a bit in the end there.

D.B. Sommer

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