A/N 2014: I've decided to resurrect this fic after five years. This is a mixture of anime and manga based, but if you haven't read the manga, you probably won't understand it. If you'd like to request a pairing, just let me know and I'll try to work it in somehow or maybe write a separate one-shot.

The story is non-linear and interspersed with introspective pieces on various characters.

Mythos

Adonis- In Greek mythology, a youth of remarkable beauty, the favorite of Aphrodite. As a child he was put in the care of Persephone, who refused to allow him to return from the underworld. Mythically, Adonis represents the cycle of death and resurrection in winter and spring. []

Adonis- A handsome Greek male in mythology.

That guy just got 4 girls, he is such an Adonis. [Urban dictionary]

Sunset in the largest cathedral on Gunsmoke saw a supernaturally still figure waiting beneath a stained-glass rapture. Plumes of perfumed smoke, like frankincense, quietly rose to the lofty ceiling. Only when she noticed the appearance of an ochre-eyed man did the figure show signs of life.

"Legato, sweetheart," she said sardonically, addressing the newcomer. Without turning around, she lifted an alabaster hand to gesture toward the glass. "It's frightening, isn't it? What madman would build a Gothic revival on this planet, anyway?" Her strong, melodic voice echoed across the enclosure.

"One of your friends," smoothly plied Legato. His sensuous voice masked his constantly suffocated anger. "But if you're afraid, I can check under your bed for angels and gods and other myths."

She laughed: he may have been serious, but his voiced disapprovals were the closest he came to jokes.

"But I'm fond of myths, Legato." Her tone became strangely aloof. "I am one, after all."

"I can appreciate that. However," Legato added disinterestedly, "You're expected to submit to those who surpass myth."

Silence crept back into the space. The woman forwent replying, electing instead to study the window scene before her. The fantastic arabesques and variegated hues of the stained-glass delighted her immensely, but the faces of mortals in rapture served to fill her with an uneasiness that counteracted her pleasure. It seemed, she thought, that given a less wondrous backdrop, the faces would only evoke intense, frantic fear. It was the same disharmony she sensed within the man soliciting her now.

"Devout, are we? You know…I wouldn't switch places with either of them," the woman finally replied, glancing back at last and revealing her sharp canines with a reserved smirk.

"Why?"

"They are neither of them happy." Here she paused as if to invite a rebuttal, but continued once it became obvious that Legato would remain silent. It caused her some upset. "They are isolated, existing apart even from each other. All the wondrous tenets of a vampire's study…music, rhetoric, the art of sex…they care nothing for." She sent a slightly indecent gaze toward Legato. "Or they have no fellow to…learn from. Plant 'culture' is nonexistent. Who among the damned would condemn herself to a life ignoring beauty?"

Legato maintained his deathly stillness as his tone grew more sweetly venomous. "You reach too far." Whenever he deigned to speak, the woman thought, the room around him seemed to shrink away. "They embody beauty perfectly, don't you agree?"

Juno raised her eyes to the vaulting ceiling and grinned.

"No, no, no, no….," murmured Juno, her voice trailing off as she approached the altar, then whirled around to fix Legato with her frivolous stare. Minutes seemed to pass as she simply stood, frozen, in harmony with the other relics of earthly life in the church. Any normal mortal would have felt strangely out of place, as if some sculpted work of piety had upset nature and decided to contemplate him. When she was satisfied with her survey of Legato, Juno drew a short breath and, rejoining reality, pursued her argument.

"You will see I'm right, Legato. As for the younger one…don't let's pretend you find him beautiful at all. You hate him and you know it, and we need say no more."

Even as she spoke of Vash, Juno felt a prickling insistence somewhere in her mind, which she identified as anger communicated from a disapproving Knives. The intensity, she decided, meant he had to be just around the corner.

"As for your Knives," she continued undaunted, "he is like the beautiful youth Adonis. A complicated figure whom the majority honors more for his godly beauty than his higher offices. Don't act like the masses, Legato…it doesn't become you." She inclined her head toward the psychic.

"If one were to stand outside the immediate radiance of Adonis," Juno continued, stepping back to take in Legato, "he would see that the youth's beauty is not so significant. Besides…isn't it easier for humans to fawn over someone they feel forbidden to admire?" She made a strange face and turned away once more, thoroughly breaking the mysterious spell of their former conversation.

But Legato rejected her levity. "You speak as if you forget that you are human. Don't worry." Legato deepened his potent gaze, finally shedding some of the eeriness of immobility. "As I've been entrusted with teaching Vash the Stampede his divinity, so I've been charged with helping you remember your lowliness."

Juno faced him fully now, her tone growing serious once more.

"You're sick, Legato." The words sounded less accusative than concerned. "You shouldn't wish to kill your own kind."

"Oh really," Legato chuckled. "Are we going there again?"

Juno now approached him, and Legato seemed genuinely amused by her persistence.

"Oh yes…but you misunderstand me. Regardless of whether Homo sapiens deserves extinction, it's pathologic for a member of said species to welcome and advance extinction! It's not in your best interests. And stop giving me that look!"

Legato indulged her by mastering his sardonic grin. "How do you suppose?"

"Legato…you're a member of a social race. You're not independent. No one can be." She considered her words a while, how they had gotten away from her, and resumed her detached demeanor before adding, "but then…you don't want to live, right? Silly me, I suppose you can disregard all I've said on that."

"Caught on, have you? I thought I might be guilty of subtlety."

Here Juno couldn't suppress a hearty laugh.

But Legato's bearing suddenly shifted back to reserve. "I'm going now. I dislike talking with you. Master," he added, with a bow, to Knives, who had chosen that moment to appear.

Juno missed nothing. "Oh how unfortunate you dislike talking with me, then, because I rather like looking at you, and it's easier to do when I've got your attention." She ignored the approaching plant, her eyes trained instead on Legato's prostrate form.

"Only with your permission, Master," drawled Legato in what he hoped was his least offensive voice. Some mental exchange had obviously been made, for the humbled youth slipped away almost immediately.

Annoyed, Juno addressed herself. "'I'm going, I don't like talking with you,'" she mocked Legato. "Talking 'with' me…he hardly says a word."

"It's infuriating," she added, shamelessly looking Knives up and down.

Juno The Roman mother and moon goddess. Also known as Optima Maxima: the greatest woman.

Reviews are welcome if you're so inclined.

Disclaimer: Don't own Trigun. Not for profit. Just for shits and giggles.