Gunslinger Girl Fan Fiction ❯ Princess, Princess ❯ Princess, Princess ( Chapter 1 )

[ A - All Readers ]

By: perch

Title: Princess, Princess

Author: Pysali

Rating: T

Pairing: None

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters nor will I ever and I am not making any form of profit from this story.

Spoilers: If you haven't seen the 13 episode anime or read the first two volumes of the manga for Gunslinger Girl than this will spoil you.

Summary: If Triella is the Princess, then Hillshire is….what?

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Princess, Princess

My period hurts like a bitch, but like I told Henrietta I feel like having one, month after month, like a clock striking twelve, let's me know that I'm alive, truly alive and not just some wind up doll killer for the Social Welfare Agency.

It's not that I'm not grateful to get a second chance at being alive, being a fully functional girl, but I'm not a normal girl, and that's not your typical girl crap about being a goddess or a princess or one hundred percent unique and awesome. I'm not normal. Barely a teenager and a cyborg killer doesn't make a girl normal.

I know this life is hard on all of us. Rico barely seems to be there most of the time and I keep waiting for the day that Claes stops remembering who we are. Angelica is dying to be back in the action, like that will somehow gain her the attention of Marco again and Henrietta? Henrietta is so besotted with Jose that I'm both envious and worried for her.

And me, the princess they call me, what am I to Hillshire and Hillshire to me?

He's not my friend; he's not my lover, or my father or even my brother. He's barely even my handler and even that I push as hard as I can as often as I can.

I don't know if I'm lucky or not that neither Henrietta nor I are getting the full treatment of brainwashing cocktail that the others are getting. We still get to have minds of our own. Thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, wishes.

But not really, that's really an illusion, a fantasy. What would we do if we didn't do this? Where would I go if I'm not with Hillshire or at the compound? They're not going to let me walk out the door and go back to being a normal girl and I wouldn't be wheeled out that door to go back to my non-existence in a hospital somewhere.

I know my life is lived and my death is measured in minutes, missions here. I know I depend on Hillshire and his continued existence here to stay the way I am and what I am. Without him I could turn out to be like Claes, but would they really need a second tester?

So what is Hillshire to me? Bearer of a succession of Christmas teddy bears? Keeper? Potential friend? I don't hate him, I don't even really dislike him so much, it's more that I don't think he knows what to do with me, what to think of me, how to see me and I don't know how I would want him to see me. So I guess I'm back at an impasse in my own mind. I'm Triella, the Princess, the cyborg doll killer for Social Welfare Agency, the second chance girl, the becoming woman, and he's Hillshire. Just Hillshire.