A GLAD DAY
By: Lisalu

Vegita woke as a shaft of the orange light of dawn fell across his eyes, feeling the warmth of the soft body curled against his. His hands roaming the rounded curves and delicate silk of his woman's cream-colored skin, his mouth finding the hollow of her throat, tasting the sweet light sheen of her sweat. Vegita-sei was far more hot and humid than the world of her birth, and she always seemed to be covered in a shimmer of faint perspiration, even when her body was at rest. It made her taste all the better, he thought, grinning sleepily. She roused at the feel of his hands moving over her, tensing like a trapped game animal for a second or two. After more than three years in his bed, she still woke with a start some days, with fear and cringing terror flitting briefly across that beautiful face, before her mind righted itself to the present. Then she smiled that enigmatic smile, lips curling wickedly, and wrapped her arms around him, accepting him eagerly, and with joy. He went into her, diving inside that warm inner embrace that always, no matter how many times he had her, laid his pride and self-control to waste, and she moved beneath him, legs entwined around him, making soft, bird-like noises in his ear. He moved within her, slowly at first, then harder and faster, then lost to all control and any semblance of thought, taking her in a rage of rising need that was almost a madness, battering into her until her soft gasps rose to cries of something that was an intoxicating mix of pleasure and pain. He came inside her with a bitten-back cry, every nerve and synapse in his body and brain washed in a rolling wave of fire that never failed to bring him to some terrifying precipice of feeling. He had never wanted to give a name for what she made him feel for her. It was so powerful and unnatural in its dependence on her, it was all he could do not to snap her neck sometimes when control finally reasserted itself. Because of the power she had over him in simply being. He lay above her and inside her, nuzzling her breasts and throat, shaking like a yearling tree in a storm. No control whatsoever…

If he had any where she was concerned, he would have killed her for exerting such a mind-numbing influence over him. She was a liability in many other ways, he thought, stroking her face, feeling her heart still pounding beneath his, her breath slowing to little catches of air in her chest. She was helpless and frail and utterly defenseless in every way that really mattered. And he valued her. Greatly. So much it terrified him sometimes. Which meant she could be used against him by an enemy. But he would not lose her, or see her slain, by his hand or any other's. In moments when he was completely honest with himself, he knew he would lose his mind if someone took her from him, stole her, threatened her in any way. Lose all objectivity and the cold fighting stillness that he had worked all his life to achieve in battle. The wild rages and tantrums of his boyhood had been channeled into purposefulness and direction in manhood, but there were still times when he barely held them in check. And there were triggers that always seemed to break through his control. His Chikyuu woman was one such trigger. The strongest and, perhaps the most deadly, because she seemed to pierce his breastbone and the heart that lay beneath each time he touched her. Each time his eyes fell on her.

A prince, a crown prince of the mightiest empire the galaxy had yet known, had enemies on every side, and no truly trusted friends. And anything in his life that he…treasured was a danger to him. It would not have mattered so much had no one known of his regard for a simple pleasure slave. Had no one known…

But, because of the manner in which he had gained ownership of her, everyone in the Capital knew. It had been a subject of gossip and speculation and more than a little outrage in his father's court. It was also been the subject of his father's extreme displeasure of late. Not displeasure that the crown prince of the Saiyan Empire had a courtesan he doted on. His father, he knew, had taken and kept many mistresses in his day, both slaves and free concubines. But as his father had told him sternly less than a week ago, the Saiyan no Ou had always put them aside after an appropriate amount of time, so as not to seem entranced with his woman in an unseemly fashion. So as not to put his mistress in danger, if he held a measure of affection for her. If she had pleased him greatly, she would be given wealth and freedom when he cast her off. This was just and proper.

But, his father had told him with disdainful anger, a crown prince of the Empire did not keep the same mistress for three solid years and keep to her bed alone as faithfully as if she were his moonbound bride. And more, he did not jeopardize the reputation of the throne and the honor of the royal house for the sake of one foolish wench. Again, Ottoussama harping on the specter of how he had attained her in the first place. His father had never forgotten, nor truly forgiven him that. He knew it had damaged the trust his warriors held for him as prince, though not irreparably. He also knew that the only way to regain that trust completely, the only way his father would ever forgive him for what he had done, would be if he put his woman down. He propped up on both elbows above her, brushing her lips. The time had come, his father had told him during that last tense interview, to be shed of her. Before the whispers of the Elite, which had apparently reached the King's ear through his army of informants around the Capital, turned to mockery. A Prince could survive a scandal easily enough if he were strong and charismatic. But he could not so easily rise above becoming a laughing stock.

"See to her, boy." Ottoussama had said flatly. "Quick and painless, while she sleeps."

He should have felt nothing more searing than supreme annoyance at his father having butted into his private affairs once again. He should have grumbled and cursed Ottoussama angrily for a few days, then done the deed. But his chest and the heart inside begin to cinch up at the mere thought of not having her, of never holding her again, of her lying in this bed, cold and lifeless, dead by is hand.

He shook his head irritably. Nothing would come to a head today between himself and his father in this matter. Nor any time soon. The throne had and would have far too many matters to attend to in the next months for Ottoussama to take time out to bitch at him about such a relatively minor issue. Today---

"Today will be a glad day," he murmured aloud.

"Yes," she agreed softly. "I heard the ship engines all night landing in the space port. Everyone who is anyone in the Empire will be here today for your father's centennial."

He grunted at the mention of his father. She had no idea how much thought his father had given her and the subject of her death. It had been a source of constant friction between the king and his heir for three years now. "Do not go into the city today," he said without explanation. She nodded obediently, her blue eyes shadowed. Perhaps she knew or had heard more than he thought of her own situation.

"Can I go to medlab?" She asked quietly, one small hand stroking his face. "There are some things I need to take care of, and it should be deserted because of the festival."

He frowned, considering. "I will be back at sunset," he said finally. "See to it you return before I do."

Her eyes narrowed, lips curving minutely. "Oh? Do you have plans for me, Ouji-sama?" The soft hand caressing his cheek moved down his back and brushed the base of his tail, a taunting, light gesture. His arms tightened around her again, and he moved inside her, slowly, very slowly, and gentle. This time would be for her. There was an inexplicable sense of power in this, in giving her his body, in taking her the way she wanted him to, making her cry out in pleasure instead of pain. It was a skill he had learned almost too late, he thought in a kind of feverish, trembling ache of rising desire. And then he could no longer think at all.

When they finally collapsed together again, tangled and sweaty and straining for breath, he carried her to the bathing pool in the next room. The house slaves had drawn the bath at dawn, but the water was still more than warm. She sat behind him, bathing him in gentle sweeps with her sponge, the soft soothing lilt of the Chikyuu-jin song she was humming lulling him into a meditative thoughtfulness. He knew that melody she was humming, had heard her sing it before. When?

His eyes snapped open as he touched on the memory. She had been singing it the first time he had laid eyes on her. Three years ago, in the house of Raditz…

He had fought beside Raditz on a number of purging missions, before taking him officially into his royal squad, an honor no commoner's son had ever received as far as Vegita knew. He had taken an interest in the man because his low-born blood was so at odds with his uncommonly strong fighting power. And though the king and his old sensei Nappa had both informed him bluntly that common soldiers were unsuitable companions for a prince, he had been drawn to the man's honest forthright sense of honor and the simplicity in which he saw the world. It was a new thing to have a man at his side who neither knew nor cared for any of the intrigues of court. Who saw the arc of his life as all Saiyans should if they remained true to their basic nature---as a never-ending quest for the next battle, the next challenge to test a warrior's strength, the next chance to grow stronger. These things were pure and unsullied by greed or solicitude in Raditz. And the man had truly wanted nothing from his prince but to fight beside him. He was prince, Vegita had reasoned in the end, and would make his own rules, and take into his personal squad whosoever he chose.

It was just that lack of sophistication that had led Raditz to ask his Prince to sup at the hearth of his back country villa, as though the two of them were truly squad brothers and not master and servant. Nappa had gone into a rage, threatening the man's life and the lives of all his house for such presumption. But Nappa, Vegita had learned long ago, had a penchant for developing a raging hatred of anyone or anything that seemed to threaten his place at his Prince's side. Vegita himself found the invitation charming and intriguing. He had never dined in the house of a simple soldier. It was a chance to enjoy the man's company, and see a piece of the lifestyle of the common man, of only briefly. So, he accepted the invitation. And because he had done so, many things had changed.

Raditz' house was perched in the tiered mountains of Turrasht, in the wilds of the southern continent, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest city. It was simple and rustic, but surprisingly tasteful, sprawling across the grassy plain of a mesa that looked out on a breath-taking panorama of spired peaks. And the kitchen slaves were some form of genius savants, Vegita decided by the third course of the meal. Everything they brought to table was mouth-watering and exquisitely delicious. Even Nappa calmed and began to enjoy himself as the meal wore on, as the food and wine never stopped until everyone was sated and full. The conversation waxed late into the night, as the men sat around the hearth pit that was the heart of every Saiyan house, speaking of battles fought and won, as each man in turn told some tale of a war or battle from ages past.

"It is always a tale of some war from days gone by that we must tell now," Vegita murmured solemnly at some point in the evening, his head spinning pleasantly with too much wine. "There is no more galaxy left to conquer. There will be no more wars…" He frowned pensively.

Nappa grunted in response. "You were born late, Ouji-sama. In the days of your father's youth, there was battle on every side, and strong enemies who opposed Vegita-sei's rise. There was always a war to be fought. Now…purging rebellious systems that we have conquered already is not a fitting substitute. It makes me sad for young men such as yourselves, that you will never know the joy of all out battle. We have slain all our strongest foes…and that is not necessarily a good thing."

Raditz nodded. "We need true battle to survive as we are. Without it, we will slide into decadence within a few short generations. If we do not have it, we will not grow stronger. And we may be forced to change into something else in its absence."

"Change is a dangerous thing," Nappa rumbled, glaring at the younger man as though he had suggested high treason.

"The Tsiru-jin were strong," muttered one of Vegita's retainers. "Had they not all died untimely we would have fought them eventually."

"That would have been a war to end all wars," Vegita said. "My Lord father says they were monstrously powerful. Raditz…you told me once you went to Tsiru-sei on a mission with your father five years ago, did you not?" He smirked. "Is it as barren of life as men say? Are there not one or two survivors of the race that we might hunt down and fight?"

Raditz shook his head sourly. "I have never in all my life had such a mind-bogglingly boring four days in my life as I had on that little expedition. My father asked me as a friend to accompany him on his 'scientific mission'." He said the word with distaste. "He got leave from your father to go and try to ferret out the cause of their over-night death. Bardock is a strange man. He thinks knowledge for its own sake may yield good things. If only to learn what mistake they may have made or what silent, unseen enemy might have killed the lizards in the space of a day, so that we do not repeat their folly. Or so that we may guard against that same enemy. Your father broke the quarantine around Tsiru-sei, and allowed our mission. It had been forty years that no one had dared to venture to the world to learn what actually happened. So we went. My father found the records of experiments one of their scientists had kept. A fellow named Hayull. He had been working on a project to make his people immortal, Bardock said. I don't know all the gritty science details of what was involved, but apparently, it was supposed to be a virus designed to make Tsiur-jin DNA not…fall apart as they age. That, my father said, is the reason living things grow old and die. But it back-fired on them. It made their cells replicate perfectly, without aging, for about twenty days. Then it began to tear them apart from the inside out as their immune system kicked in and caused it to mutate, and---" Raditz stopped, gazing around at the ring of blank faces. "Anyway…it killed them in just a few hours when it went bad. They all died coughing up their own hearts as their insides turned to liquid. A bad death for a race of warriors." There were rumbles of agreement from all around. And Vegita hid a grin at the relieved look on Raditz' face, as the quizzical looks the others had been giving him shifted, and their thoughts turned to the horror of dying such a helpless coward's death, felled by a virus. Bardock, Vegita suddenly realized, was not the only one in his line who bore an uncommonly quick mind. Raditz hid it well, but the man had understood the principals of everything he had just said, both the science and the medicine. Which was probably why his father had asked his help. It was widely held that a soldier of common birth need only know the basics of arithmetic and how to read. To learn more, to even express curiosity in things beyond that narrow scope, was presumptuous. And so the man hid his good mind from others, though he was possibly every bit the closet scholar his sire was. The fellow just kept on surprising him.

"It was, as I said before, a miserable four days," Raditz went on. "We were bound into Madrani bio-hazard suits day and night, couldn't even take them off to sleep. Even when my father and the medical slaves found that the virus would only affect Tsiru-jin, we still had to keep them on, and then we had three fucking weeks of quarantine before we could return home, being poked and prodded for blood samples by one of my father's weakling Madranis every three damn hours. And all we brought back from the entire 'mission' were a couple of Tsiru-jin corpses for the med slaves to study and a pile of medical notes!"

Someone snickered. "Your father must have owed you the hide off his back for that little favor!"

Raditz grinned then, and there was something distinctly odd about that expression. His face looked like a man half-fallen into one of his life's best memories as he spoke. "Oh, he made it up to me." He didn't elaborate any further. The night wore on, and the talk wound its way this way and that, on until dawn. Just as the first rays of light began to nudge over the western peaks of Turrasht, Raditz suddenly sat bolt upright in the chair he had been slowly falling asleep in, his eyes sharp and wide awake. He sprang out of his seat and left the hearth room through the great wooden doors that lead to the sheer cliffside of the mesa, with only a hurried, "Your pardon, Ouji-sama," as explanation.

But Vegita's curiosity had been sparked. He cast his senses along the rim of the small estate, and caught…something. The presence of someone moving outside the house, along the cliff's edges, the faint, soft sound of a female voice calling out, gentle and coaxing. Followed by an indignant squawk. A moment later, Raditz set down in the courtyard, carrying a wiggling bundle in his arms. Vegita watched silently, through the half-open doors that led from the hearth to the garden in the house's central courtyard that the house slaves had pushed ajar to let a light breeze trail through. Raditz set his burden on its feet and began to scold it. It was…

His heart caught in his throat, and he realized after a moment that he had forgotten to breathe. Oh gods, it was beautiful! He heard a faint growl of appreciation at his shoulder and saw that the others in his entourage had followed him and were looking out on the strange scene.

"…cannot even obey me in one simple thing for less than twelve hours!" Raditz was glaring down at the young woman before him, speaking in a hushed voice.

"He got out through the open window," the alien girl whispered, holding something to her breast closely, wrapped in a small blanket. Vegita narrowed his eyes, but could not see at this angle what sort of pet the girl was cradling. It sounded like a hop cat, a very young one. "I was going to wait to go look for him, but he must have gotten himself stuck on the cliffside. I couldn't just lie there listening to him cry for help. I---I had to go get him!"

Raditz glowered down at that porcelain face for a moment, before growling softly. "The fall would not have hurt him, you foolish little thing." His lips twitched, and he was rewarded for his leniency with a smile as warm and radiant as daybreak in high summer. And Vegita stood transfixed, as the tall warrior bent down and brushed a stray lock of that shimmering, exotic blue hair from his woman's face, touching his lips to hers. She smiled and silently vanished through a side door into another part of the house. A soft, growling chuckle from one of the other men caught his ears as he watched her go, and Raditz turned and saw his audience, his face reddening. He approached the other men, entering the hearth through the courtyard, closing the doors slowly behind him. He turned and regarded Vegita's amused face with a strange look of relief.

"That girl," Nappa said unkindly, "has the look of contraband, Raditz. Since when do common soldiers own a beauty like that without so much as a by your leave from their betters?"

Raditz, so normally unresponsive to the older nobleman's blatant dislike, turned on him slowly, his face hard. "A soldier has the right to any fruits of his own conquests, Nappa-san!"

"Where did you find her?" Vegita asked curiously. "I've not seen coloring like hers before."

"Nor will you again, Ouji-sama," Raditz answered slowly. He grinned faintly. "She's a gift from my father. I told you he more than made it up to me after that trip to Tsiru-sei." He drifted over to the hearth, sitting back in the chair he had vacated a moment before, and the others followed him, sensing there was a story here.

"About a month after we went to Tsiru-sei, my father and his squad went on a retrieval mission, to collect my younger brother Kakarott from his infant purge. Some of you may have heard part of this tale. Bardock found the world still full of life, and when he located Kakarott…The brat had been injured in his first days on Chikyuu, his wits scrambled by a blow to the head. He thought he was one of the natives!" Raditz shook his head in regret. "A great waste, my father said, because he had grown very, very strong for his age. Kakarott was about 13 standard years, I think. Anyway, Toussan put the brat down quickly and mercifully. The kindest thing for the poor little half wit really. And then he and his squad finished the boy's mission and purged the planet. But they took this girl alive. Toussan said she shot him with a gun of her own construction that put a hole clean through his shoulder, and he knew in that second she was a perfect gift for me. And her family had cared for Kakarott, taken him in as their own brat, I think. So, Toussan thought he owed her house something." Raditz took another deep sip of his canter of wine, and Vegita suddenly realized that the man was, in a very subdued way, more in his cups than he had ever seen him. And speaking of things he would never have told sober. "She was seventeen years old, and…like a wild thing when they brought her to me. And completely untouched. My father and all his squad are mated, so no one had ever laid hands on her before me…"

"She still seems only half-broken to me…" Nappa said thickly, inches from passing out in his chair. "Needs to be…taken in hand a bit more."

"Courtesan slaves are best when they are not broken," Raditz said coldly. "Otherwise it's like bedding a breathing doll. I like my women with life and spirit. It makes them more troublesome, but the…the end result is more than you can imagine." He took another full draught of wine, draining the cup, setting it down unsteadily. "I had the kitchen slaves prepare a meal, a very good meal, when Toussan brought her to me. She hadn't eaten in days. I sat and ate with her all evening, and listened to her talk, listened to her weep for her home and her kin. And kept pouring the wine. Then, I laid her down in front of the fire and…" He grinned faintly, his eyes growing heavy, his voice softer. "And I seduced her. Very slowly, and very gently. Took all night with it." Raditz' eyes slid shut, and he spoke the last words in a soft whisper that Vegita could barely hear above the snores of the other men. "She is the most precious thing I own, Ouji-sama…"

The sound of a soft voice, singing in a strange, lilting language, brought Vegita out of his light sleep an hour or two later. He rose, eyeing Raditz and Nappa's inert forms with more than a little envy, and picked his way over the sprawled bodies of the other men, following the sound of the music. It was coming from the courtyard, and as he pushed his way through the swinging hinged doors he was greeted with a soft gasp, as the young woman who had been pouring water on the bright flowers in the garden turned and met his eyes with a lack of fear that was amazing in a slave. But then, Raditz had spoiled her outrageously, from the sound of his tale. Looking at her again, Vegita didn't really blame him.

She was painted in cream and sea blue, those brazen eyes matching the azure of her hair. And she was utterly beautiful, even more so than he had thought from a distance of several meters. He approached her silently, eyes trailing over her, taking in every curve of body and detail of that lovely face, rising again to find those pale cheeks reddening, the blue eyes snapping with anger.

"Did you get an eyeful?" She asked waspishly, and for a few seconds, he could only stare at her in open-mouthed shock. That a slave would have the abject audacity to speak sharply to him! Then he grinned. Raditz hadn't been exaggerating when he said he didn't break his mistresses. Apparently the over-indulgent fool didn't believe in reigning them in at all. And she would have no idea who he was, other than another of her master's guests. His hand shot out, lightning fast, and caught her chin, holding her in place. She gasped, tensing with fear, and again fury, at his touch. He stepped closer still then, his free hand trailing through her soft, fine hair, savoring her scent. She smelled like the flowers around her.

"Take your hands off me, you son of a bitch," she hissed in his face, and he nearly laughed aloud. "You don't own me, and you're insulting your host's hospitality unforgivably to touch what isn't yours!"

"Raditz is my leigeman, woman," Vegita said amiably, drawing his hand down her pale face, seeing those brilliant eyes widen in realization. "He will not begrudge me the use of one of his slaves." A part of him knew, was screaming at him, that the woman was right, that he was abusing Raditz' hospitality unforgivably to lay hands on his favorite without asking. But he couldn't seem to take his hands off of her, couldn't seem to even think straight as he brushed her breast lightly and saw, felt, an involuntary flash of terror laced with desire ripple through her.

She was going to be something exquisitely entertaining.

"You---you're the prince?" She whispered.

"I am Vegita," he murmured. "And you…" he smirked, stepping back from her, regaining some measure of control. "You are something that should not be hurried in an open-aired garden. I will do things properly." He turned and strode back into the hearth to find Raditz and the others groggily waking up. Raditz began to speak, and held his tongue suddenly, his eyes widening in shock. He could smell the woman on Vegita's clothes and hands probably.

"Ouji-sama---" He began. The bigger man's face seemed to have lost all its color.

"I will give you your pick of any twenty of the professional courtesans belonging to the royal house of Vegita-sei," Vegita told him, watching the other man's face begin to work in an odd way, watching Raditz swallow hard. "Sell her to me." It wasn't a request. Raditz swallowed again, and Vegita waited expectantly for the man to take his more than gracious offer. Then…

"I thank you, Ouji-sama…I am very flattered by your offer. But…I must refuse."

"You what?!" Nappa barked. "You back water bumpkin! You do not refuse your prince the least thing he---"

"I meant to say," Raditz went on hurriedly, "That I must refuse for the moment. I have---I have promised her to my friend Kyouka for a week. He---he saved my life on that purge of Corsaris that went so wrong, a few weeks ago. He has admired her for some time, and it is a matter of honor that I have given him my word he may borrow her. But, if I do not offend you, my Prince, I will give her to you with joy in one week's time."

"You do not offend, Raditz," Vegita said graciously. "Anticipation makes possession all the sweeter, as my father says. One week then."

"One week, Ouji-sama," Raditz had nodded in agreement. But something…something was wrong in the look of the man's eyes. And Nappa had seen it, too.

"He's utterly besotted with the little trollop," his old sensei told him bluntly during their flight back to the capital. "I do not put it past the fool to hide her away, and try to say she has died in some chance accident!"

Vegita eyed the older man thoughtfully. Nappa hated Raditz with little reason, it was true, but the odd, distant look in Raditz' eyes as they had taken their leave had given Vegita pause. The fact that he had declined an invitation to return to the capital with his prince for several days, pleading that his estate needed tending, was also unlike him. But Vegita had not been outside of his rights to ask for anything that the man owned. He was prince, and one day would be king, and all of the Saiyan Empire, and everyone and everything that lay within it were his to command. And anything that Raditz or any of his subjects owned was Vegita's by right if he wished it. Anything. It had been a test of the man's loyalty, perhaps, to ask of him the thing he valued above all his other possessions. But Raditz had shown that his devotion to his Prince lay above his love of anything he owned, and Vegita had never known the man to balk on his oath. "He has given me his word, Nappa. He will not break faith with me." And they spoke no more of it.

Then, four days later, the big man came to him at dusk, his eyes gleaming in the failing light with malicious delight, and Vegita knew before his old trainer even opened his mouth that he had been betrayed in his trust of Bardock's son.

"You look like a feline with a bird in its mouth, Sensei," Vegita said grimly. "Tell me what you have found."

"It is better if I show you, Ouji-sama," Nappa rumbled. "But we must be quick."

Vegita followed silently him to one of the more isolate space ports in the southern continent, a secondary over-flow base that received the excess shipments of imports from the capital's six landing bases. Ships, great cargo ships from all corners of the empire, littered the port. There was one stand out, sitting isolated on the western wing of launch pads, one small, fast Madrani ship, so stripped down it looked like a smuggler's skiff. And standing under the floodlights of that little ship, holding her little hop cat bundled under a wrap in her arms like a sack of precious gems, was Raditz' woman.

It all went horribly wrong then. Vegita watched Raditz come bolting out of the ship, his face a mask of panic, and knew that the man must have picked up his steadily rising Ki on his scouter. Vegita moved to the boarding ramp where Raditz stood in the space of a heartbeat, his energy soaring upward in rage. The bastard had been about to leave Vegita-sei, probably never to return! He had lied, deliberately putting Vegita off, so he could have the time to make good his escape with the woman!

Vegita did not even given Raditz the courtesy of a word. He had simply rammed his hand through the treacherous oath-breaker's chest, seizing the heart within, stopping it forever. And the woman---the woman was uttering a high keening wail, as though she had been the one killed, struggling like a mad thing in Nappa's arms. But she was not wailing for the loss of her man. Vegita turned his head just in time to see Nappa crush the life out of the thing the woman had been holding in her arms. It was not a hop cat. It was a child. A boy, less than a year old, with black, spiked Saiyan hair…and bright blue eyes.

Vegita turned around in the bath, and gathered the woman in his arms, pulling her before him, to slowly bathe her body, his face blank of any expression, thinking back on that scene. It had been ill done. The half-breed brat would have been put down, of course. There was no choice in the matter, even for a prince. But it didn't have to have its neck wrung right in front of her. He did not understand it, but he had seen this kind of thing countless times in the heat of a purge. Lesser races valued their young above their own lives, would hurl their bodies in the path of an on-coming blast to save their brats. She still dreamed about that, still woke screaming the boy's name, even after three years. If he could, he would raise Raditz from the dead and kill him again for letting the boy be born in the first place. For giving her that grief that would have had to come sooner or later, and had nearly broken her mind. He had beaten Nappa to the point of death, while the woman sat nearby, holding the baby's body, rocking it, singing to the child. Singing that same song she was humming now, he thought with a chill.

The first night in his summer palace, in the low, hilly islands off the cost of the capital, she sat like a doll, not responding or reacting to anything as his house slaves had bathed and prepared her for his arrival that evening. He had come to her early…and departed after a few moments in disgust, as she simply stood like a living body sapped of its soul by some succubus as he touched her. He deserted the island estate and a burning fury, tearing toward the mainland to train until dawn, beating his four strongest sparring partners to death in his rage, beating them even after they were dead. And when he saw Nappa again that morning, bleary-eyed and shaky from the regen tank, Vegita beat the man like a mongrel canid once again for the bad taste and stupidity of the act that had more than likely robbed the woman of her senses.

Then his father descended upon him. He had not been aware that the news of how he had stopped Raditz' defection had been received so poorly at court until his father advanced on him in a frothing rage in his private audience chamber.

"You have dishonored the royal house for the sake of a whore, boy! The man was a member a your personal squad! That is supposed to mean something, you back-stabbing little bastard! Do not tell me he went back on his word, or that he had sired a half-breed with the alien woman. Yes, his life would have been forfeit under law. But you should never have demanded of him what was his, knowing he prized it so highly. Who will trust you now, 'Ouji-sama?!' Who will trust or follow a king who would betray and slay his own squad brother for the sake of a bed slave?!"

"They will follow me because I am strong, Ottoussama," Vegita ground out. "Because I am the greatest warrior, the strongest our race has seen in a thousand years! I am strong, old man!! Is it not the foundation of Saiyan law that the strong may take from the weak anything they desire?! Our people will fear me and obey, or they will die!"

"You are a brainless young fool if your mind cannot discern the difference between ruling with a hard hand and tyranny," Ottoussama said coldly. "Saiyans do not bend to the whip like lesser races. Who will you rule when your people are all dead by your hand, boy? Who will you rule when they dessert the tyrant they no longer have any respect for, and scatter to the four corners of the galaxy, tearing the Empire I have spent my life building to pieces?" His father shook his head in disgust. "You have your stolen prize now. They tell me she has lost her wits. She is useless to you now, unless you have a sick taste for bedding the walking dead that I do not know about. Put her down, and pay Raditz' father a blood price. Do it publicly, and the Empire will see that you have been young and hot-blooded, as young men are in their passions. But that you have regretted your actions, and become wiser for your folly. Do not challenge my will on this, boy. Not unless you are ready to rule in my stead."

Vegita stood for a long, bone-chilling moment, hands clenched in anger, fighting for control. He was not ready to be king. Did not wish to be king for many years to come. And he knew that if he went against his father's will in this, the King would force him into a confrontation that would end in a death match. A very short death match, that would leave Vegita holding the reigns of an Empire he had neither the seasoned years of experience nor the wish to rule right now. And so, slowly, he forced himself to relax, to let go of his fury. Even a crown prince, even a king, may not have all things as he desires, his father had told him more than once. It was a bitter lesson, but there was no help for it. He bowed his head in curt agreement, and went to see to Bardock's blood price.

Three days later, he flew back across the stretch of ocean, to the sanctuary of his island, nearly growling aloud in seething rage. The public blood price ceremony earlier that day had been the most humiliating several hours of his life. And Bardock…the low-born bastard had had the nerve to look him in the eye with a flat reproach that bordered on disgust! It was a look he would have cheerfully killed Bardock for had they not stood in the center of his father's great hall, with every eye in court fastened onto both of them. And the instant it was over, his father had suggested bluntly that it might be prudent if he absent himself from the Capital for a few months. And so, Vegita had left to return to his summer estate. And see to the mad girl's death. The last, pitiful bit of unfinished business in the entire sordid affair. And found, to his surprise, that she had come out of her stupor. With a vengeance.

The house slaves had prepared her for him days ago, as they prepared all unbroken bed slaves, by Silencing her. A simple, local muscle relaxant that worked on the vocal cords alone, Silencing the recipient. It made things far less noisy. Of course, she hadn't needed it until now. The instant he opened the door to her rooms, she attacked him, and he remembered Raditz' tale of how she'd fabricated a weapon that had put a hole through Bardock's Ki shield and his shoulder. She hit him with a jolt of some kind of electrical current, from a weapon cobbled together from the gutted appliances scattered about the room, that took him completely at unawares, and sent him to his knees. Then she jumped on him, brandishing a carving knife from the kitchens, slashing at his throat viciously. It was a rowdy little battle for all of one minute, just long enough for his senses to bounce back from the shock she'd given him. Then he caught her swiping arm in one firm hand, grinning at her in honest admiration, as her mouth moved, screaming silent curses at him, and pulled her to him.

And it was…Oh gods, it was sweeter than he could have ever imagined, especially in the invigorating wake of that little battle, as she fought him for each stroke he drove inside her, biting and clawing like a Saiyan woman in the grip of moonbound heat, and his heart had felt as though it was threatening to burst out of his chest at the end.

And after that, it became like an addiction, his need seeming to grow with each taste he had of her. He did not chain or bind her in any way, giving her the run of the island estate during the day, and it was always a surprise to see whether she would attack him with some new toy of her own making on his arrival, or whether she would have simply fled the grounds and the island. On one or two occasions, as the sweltering summer dragged on lazily, she actually managed to wound him with the ingenious, wicked little devices that had built over the course of the day from things as innocuous as the mechanized cookery of the kitchens and standing lamps. Little by little, as the weeks went by, she slowly stripped the entire estate bare of every construct more complex than a bread toaster in her tireless quest to defeat him. Each evening when he flew back from the Capital, the battle would be joined. Except, of course, on the days when he would find her fled. He began to enjoy the escape attempts and the hunts that followed a great deal, more than her ambushes in fact. But whatever game she chose to play, however long the warm-up bout dragged out each evening, he was always the victor in the end. In the end, he would always sate himself inside that silken-skinned body until the need for sleep overcame him, while she fought him until the last of her frail strength gave out. Week after week, drawn out through the months of that over-long summer, sidled by in this manner.

The end came the day he found her in a foundering sea skiff, seconds from being devoured alive by the razor-toothed sea predators that were encircling her sinking little ship. She gazed up at him, as he flew her back to the island, her face calm and reflective as she shivered against him, soaked to the skin. It was one of the few times since that first glimpse of her in Raditz' garden, that he'd seen her features in something other than a mask of fear, pain, or rage. And she was breath-taking. She fixed those enormous blue eyes on him, glittering with brimming tears like the sea beneath them. The first tears he'd seen her shed in several weeks. She raised her head then, and made some sort of gesture, mouthing a question. Why? Why hadn't he just let her die? He shook his head, holding her against his body a little more securely as he flew.

"I do not want you to die," he said gruffly, and one hand strayed, almost of its own will, to caress her face softly, brushing the damp blue locks from her face. She stared at him, her face a wash a mixed emotions, for a long moment. Then…she sighed against him, seeming to wilt. And he knew that the wrestling matches that had always accompanied their bed play were over. She had run a long, desperate race, but the cold fact was that if you rode a mount long enough, and hard enough each day, even the wildest of fillies would break to the bit in time. Though he suspected that the thing that had finally bent her to his will was not his constant hard use of her or her flagging spirit. It had been that one little spark of gentleness that defeated her in the end.

And he was right. When he lay her down on his bed, peeling of her soaking clothes, she did not fight him. And because of it, he took his time, laboring upon her body like a man crafting a precious work of art, doing all the things that he had been waiting to do to her once her will finally snapped. He used every skill, every trick he could remember, gleaned from years of instruction by the royal house's retainer of Maiyosh-jin courtesans, the best in the galaxy. He made her arch and strain and buck beneath him in silent screams of pleasure as she came over and over under his efforts.

And if he had found her to be an obsession before, she was a madness in his blood after that night, after she began to receive him willingly. Slowly, he began to realize on some unsympathetic level, why Raditz had done the things he had done. Even the child. A lesser man like Raditz had probably been so spell bound by this woman that he would deny her nothing---not even a half-blood son.

The summer wound its way down into fall finally, and still he gave no thought to returning to the Capital, to moving his household back to the Palace. Each day, during the last few months, he had flown into the great city, crossing the water, to attend to his duties and training. He had avoided all public appearances, avoided the company of his squad members and retainers, everyone. Slowly repairing the breach between himself and his father, slowly letting go of his anger toward Nappa. The big man had been a pitiful sight during those months of estrangement, having never been shut out of his Prince's service and companionship for any amount of time. Not since the day of Vegita's birth really. And when the truth was said, Nappa had only done what had to be done, though he had done it in his characteristically brutish and heavy-handed fashion. His old sensei's poorly veiled expression of grateful relief and affection when Vegita formally received him once again into his service, the familiar presence of the man's looming shadow hovering at his right shoulder once again, gave Vegita an odd feeling of warmth. If was as though something had been missing in those months he had turned his back on the big man. Something that had been steady and sure and ever-present his entire life. And in this, his father nodded his approval as they dined together that night.

"It is good that you have reinstated him," Ottoussama said firmly. "Your mother told me once, that on the day of her birth, her father set his young kinsman Nappa to attend her and guard her, knowing that she would soon be betrothed to the heir of Vegita-sei because of her extraordinarily high Ki at birth coupled with her noble blood. He was seven years old. And for over a hundred years, he served her as attendant and squad lieutenant, and vassal, her right hand in all things. Even after I took the throne and wed her, she kept him at her side, which many of the Elite in court found scandalous. But she would not put him aside for the wealth of the Empire, and I indulged her in that. Mostly because she came to my bed still virgin, and thus I knew he had never been her lover." Vegita fought to keep his face carefully expressionless as a mental picture of Nappa and the mother he had never known flickered briefly through his head. The thought Nappa as anyone's lover was one that he couldn't wrap his mind around without fighting a fit of laughter. "When she died bearing you," his father was saying, "I thought he would take his own life in his grief. So, I set him to serve the son as he had the mother. Do not take him for granted, boy! He is an incorruptible servant, whom you may trust implicitly, though I will be the first to say he is not quick of mind. But a man a king may trust with his life is to be valued above riches."

The evening ended with his father issuing a pointed invitation to Vegita to return to the Capital. "You were wise heed my command to keep a low profile these last months and let the talk die down, brat. But it is time to return."

So, he returned, reopening his favored residence in the hills just outside the Capital, the villa he preferred to the cold, stone halls of the Royal Palace. He was twenty-three standards years this winter, he told the King, and two strong-willed men should not dwell under the same roof if they would keep peace between themselves. Especially if they were father and son. Ottousama chuckled gruffly at that, and the matter was settled.

But a week later, his father coldly informed him that the fact that the Chikyuu woman still lived was news to him. "I told you to put her down, boy!"

"You told me to kill a madwoman, and I agreed," Vegita said. "When I went to do just that, I found that she had come back to her wits. You have not seen her, Ottoussama! She would make the greatest courtesans of Maiyosh-sei and Serulia hide their heads in shame. I spent the summer breaking her, and now she is a prize a man might pay the wealth of whole worlds to own."

His father regarded him silently for a long moment, his face hard and thoughtful. "You will do as you wish, boy," he said finally. "I cannot curb you with greater strength or force you to do a thing you do not wish to do." Vegita's mouth nearly dropped open at those words. The truth both men had known for years, that he had never thought to hear his father admit or utter aloud. "When you were an infant, Nappa once told me that you would not hear that the fire would burn your hand until you had tried to grasp it and singed the flesh off your fingers. I will let you learn that lesson in another fashion. Midwinter will be upon us in another two months, with its banquets and tournaments. Do no blame me if you find you social calendar a bit bare this year."

And Gods, he soon learned that his father had never spoken truer words. Vegita found himself, in the height of the season of food, tournaments and merriment, a virtual pariah. He received less than two dozen invitations during the month of Midwinter, and only from the oldest, most faithful of his father's councilors, when he should have had to chose between as many affairs in a single night. And aside from the worshipful cheers of the crowds as he hammered his opponents into the blood-soaked dust of the arena at each celerbatory contest of strength, his reception at the festivals of the few noble houses of Vegita-sei who did not suddenly find his company distasteful, was cool at best. Though no one had quite the suicidal gaul to say a word to his face, the stares, watchful and speculative, the gossip that sometimes began before he was even out of earshot, nearly sent him into a homicidal rage, curdling his enjoyment of the few feasts he had attended. Much of this, he should have expected. He had absented himself since the incident with Raditz, and his return to the Capital was the subject of much talk. The rumors that the Chikyuu woman still lived, that Vegita had indeed reaped the fruits of what everyone in the fucking Empire seemed to see as the wrongful death of his squad brother, had only added extra spice to the scandal. It seemed to sit ill with a great many people. The most telling aspect of the entire affair was the fact that not one of his own squad members, other than Nappa, of course, offered him their hospitality this season. As though to say that they feared he would covet something in their own households and kill them as he had Raditz.

His anger continued to rise, growing to something deadly and almost tangible with each slight as the month progressed, until the night his father's first minister of strategy, Articha, stopped him an instant before he stormed out of the great hall of her Capital residence, away from the hundreds of whispering guests, away from the ever-growing temptation to release his pent up rage and sweep every fool in the hall away in a storm of fire and death.

"No single subject may presume to call a Prince to accounts," the scar-faced woman told him softly. She drew him back to her sitting rooms off the main banquet floor, as the guests began making their way to the arena to watch and participate in what would be the season's second largest tournament. "But an entire kingdom can voice its displeasure as one. This would have happened whether you kept the girl or not, Ouji-sama. Hold your peace, and do not let them provoke you. It will only add fuel to the fire. Your father, I am sure, had made much of this. But only because he would not see such behavior as you have shown in this matter turn to habit, and threaten the stability of the Empire when you take his place. The truth is, it is not a great matter, and all things will be as they were by spring. By then, all these indolent fools will have some new scandal to buzz about. But…if you would see this foolishness end all the sooner, give them a brilliant show tonight as you fight, and they will leave in the morning whispering the legend of the Super Saiyan, and think no more of stolen slave girls."

His father's advisor proved as crafty in her political tactics as she was on the field. Vegita made a mental note after that night to reward her in some suitable fashion at some point in the near future. He fought like of maddened demon that night, and on every occasion that presented itself in the next few weeks, sending the crowds into a swoon of blood lust and worshipful howls of adoration. And by the end of Midwinter, his popularity with the both the noble houses and the common people was greater than it had ever been. And even his father had nodded his head in grudging admiration.

"It was a clever way to divert their attention from your indiscretions without having to lower yourself to speaking a word in your own defense," Ottoussama rumbled, shaking his head. "I have always ruled by pragmatism, the code of the warrior, and the letter of the old laws, but…You grow more like my father each year, boy. He made law and broke it as he wished, but he had the kind of charisma that made men worship him even as he was killing them. Perhaps we'll make a king of you yet."

Throughout the days of winter and into that spring he fought at every exhibition he could find, whipping the adoration of those who saw him kill higher still, driving his fighting power through the roof of its previous limitations with constant battle, far beyond anything Nappa had ever pushed him to achieve. Through the days that grew steadily longer and warmer as the winter waned, he drilled himself like a slave driver, pushing his body to the breaking point. He had learned an invaluable lesson in the last months. Adoration, not strength alone, gave a man license to do whatever he wished. And having all things as one would wish them to be was the only true freedom. If his people worshipped strength, he would become strong beyond the scope of their imagination. And they would deny him nothing.

And after he beat his body to a broken pulp each day, gaining power with each new set of injuries the increasingly complex and dangerous Madrani training gauntlets gave him, he would return to his woman and drive his body to its limits in a different fashion, very often until dawn.

He nearly started visibly one night, early in the spring, when he entered the villa and his private rooms, and she greeted him with a smile and a chilled glass of wine. "You look a little more tired than usual, Ouji-sama," she said softly. In the months since the end of their war of wills, he had lavished every luxury and gift within the reach of his imagination upon her. And her behavior, in return, had been exemplary. He would not have thought it possible for another living creature to please him so well and completely. And suddenly, he had found he wanted to speak with her, hear the sound of her voice crying out in pleasure as he took her. He had forgotten that he had told the house slave medic to discontinue the Silencing relaxant a week ago. It took several days for the vocal cords to reassert themselves when they had been stilled for a long period of time. He took the wine from her and drained it in one gulp.

"Your voice is as lovely as the rest of you," he said, tossing the glass aside and grabbing her. "Let us see if I can make you scream." And so he did. Again and again, teasing climax after climax out of her, until she wept his name, until she shrieked in his ear with pleasure…until she collapsed beneath him at the end, shuddering in a storm of tears that he realized belatedly were grief-stricken and nearly hysterical. He held her against his body, stroking her hair, utterly at a loss to say what was wrong with her.

"Speak," he said softly.

"Arf arf," she said. Her broken sobs had tapered down into little gasps, and now she laughed softly at the look of confusion on his face. "The cooks told me today that you've defied your father and the whole of Vegita-sei's nobility to keep me alive. Is that true?"

He had not thought of it in that way. "I suppose." He drew his mouth over her damp cheek, savoring the salt of her tears, kissing her lightly. He liked that Chikyuu-jin gesture a great deal. It was like tasting her mouth. "Do not fear. I will let no one harm you." And unaccountably, she began to cry again, softer this time, tears rolling slowly down her beautiful face.

"Damn you, Vegita," she whispered, turning her face away from his. "Why couldn't you just keep on hurting me?"

He was silent for a few seconds, before answering with a faint frown. "I never wished to. I only hurt you as long as you forced me to, woman."

Her blue eyes searched his, wide and wondering. "Kami…" She said softly. "You really believe that, don't you?"

His hold on her tightened angrily, and he was rewarded with a faint cry. The ungrateful bitch! Did she have any concept of the hell he had endured all winter for her sake, of the abject humiliation and he had born from his own people, all because he had kept her alive?! "I never bound you in my absence. If you had truly objected to my attentions, you could have taken your own life a hundred times over last summer!"

"My people believed that suicide is…giving up," she murmured. "That while there's life, there's always hope. The only way you can ever be defeated for all time is if you give up. And killing yourself is giving up."

"That is a very Saiyan idea," he said, glaring coldly down at her. He had indulged her too much in the last weeks, perhaps. She needed a firm reminder of her station in life. "But you have been defeated, woman. And I have spoiled you, it seems, with too much privilege of late. I was wrong to give you back your voice. I will have my staff medic repair that mistake in the morning! And if you wish me to hurt you, I can more than obligee you!" Then he had flipped her on her belly, pulling her hips roughly up to his waist, her face pressed down on the bed, and used her harder than he had since the heat had broken last summer. And…she did not cry out once, except as she came at the end, arching her back like of feline, rising off the mattress to meet his last few thrusts with surprising strength. And as she thrust backwards into those last fevered strokes, he was the one to cry out like a slave in pain, not her. He withdrew from her, every nerve in his body quivering, feeling in some dazed fashion that she had somehow taken control away from him, even as he hurt her. He staggered out of bed, seeking the tankard of wine on the table by the open window that looked down on the Capital, still dizzy with the after effects of having her like that, still furious with her. He stood gazing down on the lights, growing calmer by slow degrees, until he felt soft arms wind around his waist from behind

"I'm sorry," she said, brushing his tense shoulder with her lips. "I spoke out of turn. It's just…a lot of things I would have screamed at you months ago if I'd been able to speak are still sort of poised in my lips. Or they were." She moved around to stand before him, and kissed his lips, slow and savoring, until he thought his knees would buckle with desire. "I'm sorry, my sweet Prince. Please don't take my voice away. I'll behave myself."

Gods help him, if he grew any more enraptured, he would be powerless to deny her anything she asked of him. At least while she was touching him, at any rate. "See to it that you do, woman," he said shakily. "If you do…I will spoil you beyond all reason."

She kissed him again, deep and slow. Then she…she had him. There was no other word for it. And again, it was as though she were the mistress and he the slave. She pushed his unresisting body down beneath her, displaying a ferocity and skill in love play she had never shown before, playing his body like the strings of a finely tuned lyrt as she moved above him. And once again, he was the one to cry out as though he had been speared through the breastbone. Later, much later that night, as he lay wrapped around her against the chill of the still-cool nights of early spring, he gazed down at the odd little smile that played around her lips in sleep, and a strange thought occurred to him. In a way, she had just rebelled against him yet again, taking power over him and making him bend to her will in the only way she could. He smirked at the thought. She could rebel in this manner to her heart's content as far as he was concerned.

She proved true to her word, had behaved herself without incident. Until one day in late spring, when he commanded kitchens to served a special meal, to deck his villa's little hearth hall with fresh cut flowers, and dress her in the finest silks the Empire could furnish to await his arrival. He returned after a grueling day of training to find her seated at table, staring blankly at nothing. She did not responded to his voice, or even the sound of her own name, and a cold shiver of dread began to creep up his spine as he recognized that look of disconnected madness. He pulled her up roughly from her chair, shaking her, saying her name loudly, his voice unsteady. She blinked, and suddenly seemed to see him. Then she leaned into him, arms tightening around his body as though she thought she might drown if she let go. He had not told her the occasion this evening, but she was not a mindless fool, and could count the days on the calendar. It was one year today since she had become his. How could he have failed to think what this date would mean to her?

"I almost lost myself again…" She whispered against his neck, and he lifted her without thinking, carrying her away from the untouched meal, to the open window. He sprang into the sky, hurtling upward past the orange glow of the sunset that rimmed the planet's western edge like a ring of fire, and up though the fluff of clouds, glowing red and radiant in the light of the fading sun. He crossed his legs, and sat upon a giant nimbus, stroking her hair idly. She raised her head and gazed around and down in wonder like a child. "My gods…it's beautiful…"

"I have come to sit upon the clouds at sunset since I was a boy. Whenever I was troubled by anything."

"It makes us and our little lives seem very small, doesn't it?" She said softly. He grunted something in response, and she turned in his arms to meet his eyes. "Was it my fault?"

"What?"

"The first time we met…in my flower garden. You---you scared me to death, and you pissed me off. But when you touched me… It was like---My body reacted to you against its will. And I know you felt it. I could see it in your eyes." She clenched her teeth together, her eyes glowing and wild. "Was it my fault you wanted me so badly? If---if I hadn't reacted to you, would Raditz still be alive? Would---would my b-baby---?" Her little hands were clamped around his arms so tightly her fingers had gone white, her entire body was shaking apart with emotion. Was that what had driven her to near madness? Not the deaths of her man and son alone, but thinking she might have been to blame in drawing his attention to her?

"After the first instant I laid eyes on you," he said truthfully, "I think I would have set half galaxy to burn to have you." And she collapsed again in another round of tears, while he held her, feeling like of fool for encouraging this sort of hysteria, but powerless to do anything but rock her gently against him. A slow, creeping fear that he had not been able to place of define had finally given itself a name this evening. In one year, he had come to dote on her like---like nothing else in his life. Raditz had kept her as his woman for…five years? Would Vegita be as utterly in her power when she had been his as long? Willing to fly in the face of death and dishonor, willing to desert his world and his people for all time to keep her if need be? No. It was a fool's thought. Nor would he ever have to. He was the heir to the greatest empire the galaxy had ever known, strongest son of the greatest race ever to draw breath. And he would do as he wished! No one had the authority or the strength to take her from him.

They passed a long space of time in silence, watching the sky and clouds strewn about and below them fade to the color of dark smoke, watching the stars kindle in the night sky one by one. The feel of her, warm and drowsing in his arms, here in his private place of peace, was---He didn't have a word for this kind of contentment.

"Thank you," she breathed softly, just before sleep took her. "Thank you for bringing me here." So strange…The way she said those words in that unguarded moment. Speaking to him like one warrior to another, in gratitude for a gift received from an equal. Or as one would address a bitter enemy who had just shown some shred of unlooked-for honor. There was, he was beginning to believe, an integral piece of her that he had not touched, would never touch. That he only caught glimpses of now and then. He wondered with a puzzled frown if he had ever truly broken her, and indeed, if he even wished to anymore.

That thought began to plague him when he trained by day, and while he held her in the dead of night, as summer came round again. And the words of Raditz as he told the tale of how he had gained her devotion, if not her obedience, explaining why he had not curbed the girl or bridled her in any way. The result is more than you can imagine…That smile she had given Raditz as they stood together in her garden, because she adored him as a man rather than a master, had come from that true, deep self she had only shown him a few times since that first summer. And on each of those occasions…he had taken quick, brutal steps to train her to hide the true woman who lay beneath the obedient slave's mask.

What do I want? he wondered a few weeks later, staring out the arched window of his father's Privy Council Chamber, as Councilor Turna droned out an eye-glazing list of facts and figures, an estimation tally of the wealth and tribute the Empire stood to lose were the planet Shikaji summarily purged for the crime of harboring insurrectionists. He could have a "breathing doll", as Raditz had called them, for the asking. The courtesans' wing in the Royal Palace was full of them, the most beautiful and skilled to be found in the Empire. He'd had the use of them since he had grown old enough to desire such things, and they had taught him all they knew of the arts of loveplay, so that the next queen of Vegita-sei might be well pleased when she came to her lord's bed. But now he found the mere thought of them…distasteful. He always had, on some level. Perhaps it was his innate revulsion for whores, creatures without pride or sense of self, that was tempting him to try a new game. To give his woman her head and let her run, but spoil and pamper her still. To try and coax that wild, indomitable creature, the one who had tried more times than he could count to take his life during her first few months as his property, back out into the light of day. And then win her adoration. Have it freely given, not taken, nor trained to mere obedience. What would it take? A long leash, he thought. With enough slack that she might begin to feel some semblance of freedom. And the patience of a deity, to let her speak her mind, though only in private. But the mere thought of having her turn those sapphire eyes on him with the same look of…of true heart-deep affection she had shown Raditz, was enough to make him---

"Would you like a pillow, boy?!" His father's voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and his face reddened as he saw that every eye in the room was on him. "If you are too disinterested in the affairs of the Empire to stay awake in Council, perhaps I will send someone else to head the purging strike of Shikaji!"

"I will go, Ottoussama!" Vegita sat upright in his chair, eyes gleaming with excitement, all thoughts of his woman fled for the moment. Shikaji was a world populated almost exclusively by Maiyosh-jin, a race with an abnormally high fighting power. The purge would not be another boring roast of mewling, semi-sentient cattle. It would be true battle!

"It is good to have your attention, brat," his father said, still glowering. "You will take a full compliment of six crack purging squads to command, and as many baubles of artificial moonlight."

"Moonlight?" Vegita frowning irritably. "They cannot be so well organized or strong as to warrant that!"

"They can and they are," Articha said quickly, before his father could voice a loud rebuttal. "We now have proof positive that since Vegita-sei purged Maiyosh Prime, more than thirty-five years ago, the refugees who dwelt on Shikaji have been paying their tithe to the Empire with one hand, and furnishing aid and comfort to terrorist armies such as the Red Demons with the other. Now, we have learned that the Red Demons have, in fact, been quartered on Shikaji for over a year now. This raid is a chance to put paid to the Maiyosh-jin underground once and for all. And to tie up lose ends," she murmured, gazing pointedly at Nappa.

"It is not my fault the little bastard escaped, you vicious bitch!" Nappa shouted. "I had accounted for all the royal house when we blew the planet's core. Was I supposed to run a fucking DNA screen on the corpses to make sure the babe Garida Maiyosh held was the true Maiyosh-jin prince?!"

"It might have saved us all a great deal of trouble had you done so," Turna said with a mirthless smirk. "That one infant you allowed to slip through your hands has given the Empire more grief than his entire race combined."

"What does intelligence say of Jeiyce of Maiyosh's whereabouts?" Vegita asked eagerly. "Will he be on Shikaji when we strike?!"

"So we have been told," Ottoussama rumbled, eyeing him in an odd way, as though trying to come to a decision. "Do not take the Red Prince lightly, boy. If you meet him on the field, it will not be an easy victory, perhaps not even for you. He is very, very strong. Saiyan strong. He has never faced a son a Vegita-sei in single combat who lived to tell the tale."

"I do not take him lightly, Ottousama," Vegita said, nearly shaking with joy. "I take him as a gift from the gods. Something I have never had in all my life. An enemy who will test my full strength!"

The older warriors seated around the table growled soft chuckles at those words, nodding their heads in approval. And his father grinned openly. "So be it. You leave tomorrow."

He vaulted into his villa an hour later, feeling like a child who had received his fondest wish, and swept his woman up in his arms, swinging her around, rising off the floor as he whirled with her.

"Jeiyce of Maiyosh…" She had said slowly. "Isn't he the rebel prince who killed so many Saiyans in the battle on Corsaris eighteen months ago?"

Vegita nodded, grinning ear to ear. "He is the only survivor of the royal house of Maiyosh Prime. The planet was purged in the years when my father was still forging the Empire, but Jeiyce escaped as a babe, and was raised by the Regent of Corsaris. He is the Empire's greatest and strongest enemy. And tomorrow, I will face him!"

"It will be a glorious victory for you, Ouji-sama," she told him, smiling that sweet smile that he suddenly realized did not touch her eyes. He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, his exuberance slightly dimmed. There was no time like the present to begin his plan to enslave her heart.

"When I return," he said softly. "I will give you a gift of your choosing. Tell me, woman. What do you truly want? The truth."

"I want only to please you, my---" He lay his finger over her lips, silencing the lies. Gods…how could he have ever found this…this mummery appealing? And he had no one to blame but himself for training her so well and brutally.

"Speak to me as Bulma of Chikyuu, not as a slave in my household. Tell me truly. What do you want?"

She stared at him, her eyes suddenly wary, the facade of her smile slipping a bit. "The truth? The…the real truth?" She frowned at him suspiciously, and he had to hide a smirk. If only because if was a completely unaffected expression. And in that moment, his mind finally latched onto an exact definition of what he wanted from her. He wanted to see this real woman who he now held in his arms, the glitter of a sharp, fierce intelligence flickering in her eyes, receive him of her own free will. And adore him as greatly…no, more than she had that fool Raditz.

"A few years ago, during my first year on Vegita-sei," she said quietly, "I would have asked you for the head of Bardock on a silver platter. He purged my homeworld, and killed Son-Kun…his own son. Like he was putting a lame colt to sleep."

"That I would give you with great joy, woman," Vegita said, drifting back down to the floor with her, to sit in the great armchair before the window that looked down on the Capital, positioning her in his lap. The warm breeze tugged at her hair, ruffling it lightly. "But you no longer desire that?"

She smiled coldly, gazing out the window, her face lost in thought. "His mate Romayna is an interesting person. Not your typical Saiyan woman. She has a strong maternal sense, and she'd had hard feelings toward Bardock for giving Son-Kun to the pod seeding unit in the first place. She was furious at him for murdering Son-Kun---Kakarott. She told him what the hell did a soldier's son need with a full set of brains anyway. He had been strong and brave. So what if he didn't remember his infant conditioning. He could have been taught his heritage. She…she won't ever forgive him for killing their son. And he'll love her til his dying day, and live in agony because I doubt she'll ever take him back. So, he's better off alive, as far as I'm concerned."

"Cruel woman," he murmured softly, grinning. "So, then…" Vegita said, watching her face closely. "If not Bardock, what?"

"I guess a fast ship and my freedom is out of the question, huh?" She paled, realizing what she had just said without thinking. But he only shook his head slowly, forcing himself to not react at all, forcing down the anger and the impulse to repay her viciously for the surprising sting those words had given him. "I'm sorry, my prince…I---" He put his hand over her lips again, speaking gently.

"Do not be. I commanded you to tell me the truth. But I will not lose you. Anything else is yours for the asking."

"Even if I ask you to kill Nappa for me?" She whispered. The hand he had been tracing her face with froze. She regarded him with a cool, steady gaze in the sudden chill silence, smiling oddly. "He's your squad lieutenant now, and your aid. But he used to be your governess, didn't he?"

"Governess?"

"Your care-taker when you were a baby."

"Yes…Woman---"

This time she put one soft hand on his lips. "It's okay. I won't ask you for that either. I wouldn't want anyone in the galaxy to kill him except me." She paused like a cho-deer scenting danger, gazing at his troubled, angry frown. "So…let me think of a present that doesn't involve anyone killing anyone else. Can I have time to think about it, or do I have to decide right now?"

He considered. "Tell me when I return from Shikaji."

Shikaji was of world of monumental god-sized forests, and they were all on fire. The six squads had carved up the planet by sectors and dropped from their carriers, each on a separate part of the globe. And it was an all out battle! Maiyosh-jin, as a rule, had an average fighting power of seven or eight hundred. Dangerously high in a slave race. Shakaji, with its nearly two million of Maiyosh-jin inhabitants, had been spared for so long because the folk who dwelt here had never shown any interest in anything other than pleasing whichever master held the whip hand. But the ancient reputation of that race for treachery had proved true once again, and now Vegita-sei would pay for her leniency with an enormous loss in the revenue this rich world brought. And more than a few casualties. Every son and daughter of Maiyosh Prime old enough to fly had risen to the air when the air raid sirens had begun, and now Vegita saw the wisdom of his father's insistence in taking along the artificial moonlight baubles. The added size and strength of Oozaru was all that was keeping his squad from being over-whelmed by sheer numbers. He slammed a fist through the bole of a great tree nearly two miles high and belted a breath of blazing fire at the rushing scores of defenders, his blood soaring with the thrill of real combat. The titanic tree began to list and fall, shattering the earth beneath it as it crashed, and half of the ground structures of the city below. The air was full of fire and the smell of blood, and he screamed with mad joy.

Ouji-sama! Nappa's mental voice seemed to be originating from his right, and he turned and snarled a ferocious grin and the monster who hovered just beside him. We have lost contact with all three squads below the equator! They have not---! A red blur flew through the moon bauble directly above their heads, shattering it, and the world grew large again, as he watched Nappa shrink beside him, morphing down into---A bolt of Ki struck the big man through the chest, and Vegita had one moment of frozen horror to watch Nappa's face turn gray and bloodless, as he gazed down in shock at the hole through his heart. Then a fist slammed into Vegita's jaw and he flew back, spitting blood, snarling as though he were still in the grip of the Oozaru madness. The Maiyosh-jin warrior burned toward him and…and Oh Gods, they fought! It would have been like a joyous song of blood and violence, ringing in his ears, thrumming through every nerve in his body, to fight with every ounce of strength he possessed, against this opponent who was matching him blow for blow. But the vision of Nappa, death already blanching the flushed pallor of his face as he fell out of the sky, was like a knife in his stomach, twisting in a kind of pain he couldn't fathom. Quickly turning to murderous, blind rage.

"You will die today, son of Maiyosh!" He screamed. "And when you are dead, I will make it my business to seek out every member of your worthless, weakling race who lives, and build my sensei's pyre on the heaps of their slain carcasses!"

The man grinned nastily and caught Vegita with a sucker punch to the balls that doubled him over. Then he found himself being hurled to the burning earth, the other man's body bearing him downward, crushing him into the smoking ground with the impact. Vegita bit back a shriek as he felt the bones in both legs snap, as he landed with them bent underneath his body. Then he was hauled upward by the scruff of the neck, struggling in the grip of a bloody red fist that was locked around his throat in a hold he couldn't break. It was not so! It could not be possible! This son of a bastard race of cowards and back-stabbers could not be stronger than him! He could not!

"Prince Vegita, I presume?" The Red Prince said amiably, as though he were a guest of the Empire at some festival tournament. A fist drove into Vegita's ribcage, pounding the bones to fragments. "Damn! I'm disappointed. I thought you'd be a little stronger that this." Vegita howled and spat blood, trying desperately to tear himself free.

"…kill you…debt of blood and honor, you Maiyosh-jin fuck…"

"What? For killing the big fellow?" The man's knee rose, connecting with Vegita's ribs once again, driving the splintered bones into his lungs. "Debt of blood and honor, huh? I like the sound of that. Take a message to your daddy for me, little Prince. I will repay Vegita-sei, her King, and all her children for the destruction of Maiyosh Prime. I will repay them for the murder of my foster father, Lord Corsaris." Another blow to the ribs. Vegita was strangling, choking on red froth with every breath he drew now. "I will repay them for the murder of my wife, Jula.

And the next time we meet, laddie, I will repay Vegita-ou in kind for the death of my son Jahan by taking your life!" A soft, mocking chuckle pierced through the grinding pain and the gray haze that was pulling him slowly downward, away from the shores of consciousness. "Train harder, boyo. Maybe you'll last a little longer against me next time." The blackness closed in.

He woke to the sound of his father's voice, growling quietly at the Madrani slave medic. He focused on the man's face, hovering anxiously over him, and frowned. The Madrani was part of Vegita's own staff of house slaves. He was in his own bed, in his hillside villa.

…not dangerous at all?" His father was asking in a threatening voice.

"He is out of danger, Ou-sama," the medic said humbly, still adjusting some piece of a monitoring device that seemed to be connected to Vegita's body. "We had to remove the pieces of his rib bones in manual surgery, because the tanks will heal, but they will not extract bone fragments embedded in other organs. After that, we were able to repair the bulk of the physical trauma with a regen tank, but again, the pneumonia caused by the injuries to his lungs must heal naturally. A tank cannot cure that. We are siphoning the fluid out at regular intervals, to lessen the duration. He will begin to regain his strength in a day or so, though he will not be fully recovered for a week. What he needs now, is only to lie still and not move while he heals."

"You will have your freedom for this, fellow," his father rumbled. "The palace medics on my payroll gave him up for lost. Report to me his condition every three hours. I will be in War Council if there are any changes." The sound of their voices faded away, and Vegita's eyes grew too heavy to hold open any longer.

After what seemed like only a moment, though he knew some stretch of time must have elapsed, his woman's voice spoke softly, just beside his bed. "What will you do with you freedom, Scopa?"

The Madrani medic didn't answer right away. "The Royal Palace has free medics on staff. They're paid very handsomely, take vacations…What?"

"You don't want to leave?" She sounded aghast.

"Not really. I want to be free, certainly. But, I've been a slave on Vegita-sei since I was three years old, and Madran is gone. This world, warts and all, is the only home I've ever known. And I have someone dear to me that is still a slave. I want to save money to buy his freedom as well. He used to be Vegita-ouji's head chef, but he…he doesn't really have a gender preference. Likes women and men about the same. So, the Prince rotated him, along with all his other male staff, back to the Palace when you came to us. I couldn't exactly say, 'Hey, Ouji-sama, it's okay. He's with me.' "

"I'm sorry…"

"Not your fault, love. The fortunes of a slave of the Empire."

A little silence. "You look exhausted, Scopa. I'll watch him if you want to catch a few winks."

"No way, Bulma."

"You just said he was out of danger---"

"I mean no way am I leaving him alone with you in his condition." An uncomfortable tension seemed to seep into Vegita's muscles, even thought he couldn't move or even open his eyes.

"I wouldn't---" The girl began.

"Bulma." Scopa said firmly. "I am charged by my calling to help and not harm the injured. Whoever they may be. You're forgetting that I was the one who put you in a regen tank nearly every morning of that first summer after he'd finished with you. And I was the one whose entire medkit and mini surgery you dismantled each afternoon building weapons to try to kill him. I was the only one you could talk to, because I know how to read lips, love. And I distinctly remember you telling me that you would 'kill the motherfucker who murdered your husband and baby with your own hands if it was the last thing you did.' You told me that after he was dead, you would gladly 'damn your soul to Hell just so you could have the pleasure of watching him burn.' These are not things that make a physician comfortable leaving him in your care, even for a few minutes."

"I know you don't believe me," his woman sighed. "but it's true. I wouldn't hurt him now. Not while he's helpless like this, anyway. I can't even explain why in words that would make sense to anyone. If I tried, it would sound like madness. Except to say that…maybe when hate achieves a certain magnitude, it can become mixed up with passion and love, because those emotions all live on a level that hate seldom rises to. You know…I think he loves me, Scopa. As much as he's able, since he's never really been taught how. That's the saddest thing I can conceive of. To love, and not even know what it is you're feeling, or how to express it. So, you just grab the thing you love and squeeze it til it dies…"

"Bulma!" Scopa's voice sounded horribly afraid for some reason, and Vegita thought he knew why. He could almost see that look of 'not here' beginning to wash over her face.

"I'm okay," she said sharply. "I'm okay…"

Sound and consciousness faded, and he knew no more.

He opened his eyes to see her gazing down at him, one soft hand stroking his forehead. "How do you feel?" She asked.

"Like a man who very much wants to go to war," he rasped. "Has my father…" He broke off, shuddering in the grip of a deep, wracking cough.

"Declared war on the Maiyosh-jin?" She nodded. "Yes. You just missed him, in fact. He wasn't what I expected. He told me not to smother you in your sleep unless I absolutely had to."

Vegita tensed. "He was here?" He wondered if she even suspected how lucky she was that she had managed to charm his father in some way, after the embarrassment of the scandal that had surrounded her. "You are very lucky to be alive, woman," he said. And to his shame his voice shook slightly as he spoke those words.

She nodded again. "I believe you. He didn't notice me until he was ready to leave, then he came over and tilted up my chin with one finger, and just stared at me for a minute. Then he grinned, and said, 'Now I see what all the fuss was about.'"

Vegita uttered a weak, croaking chuckle, or tried to. His eye caught Scopa hovering on the other side of the bed, running a med scanner over his chest. "Doctor…leave us. I will send the woman to bring you back in a moment."

"Ouji-sama, I---"

"Now." The medic left reluctantly, eyeing Bulma with a worried frown. Vegita regarded her silently, and she returned his gaze with no expression whatsoever on her flawless, porcelain face. "What would I have to do to make you want me, woman?" The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"Are we still speaking absolute truth, Ouji-sama?" She murmured softly.

"Still."

"Nothing. I do want you. And I hate myself because of it. It's not madness that a man could kill my family, rape me a dozen times a night for months on end, and force me to eventually do what he asked of me. It's madness that I could love my husband, but nearly burn alive with desire the first time you put your hands on me in my garden. It's madness that, after you had done all those unforgivable things to me, you could make me come the first time I gave in to you. Make me want you against my will, against my mind, against my reason, like a fire in my blood. I think that is…is the worst thing you've done to me. But that's not what you're asking, is it? You're asking what can you do to make me love you."

He was silent, his eyes burning into hers, waiting to see if she would answer. "I don't know," she said. "It seems like it would be impossible, doesn't it? But a year ago, I would have thought it was impossible that I would ever…ever want you. So, maybe it's possible. But even if I did come to---to love you one day, I would still…I'll always hate you, too. I wish I didn't. I wish I could stop, because hate hurts like a knife in your heart. And my father always said that if you hate your enemy, you'll eventually become him. And that's the worst kind of defeat." She sat on the bed, and bent to kiss his lips. "I won't tell you it couldn't happen. But I can't tell you how. Because I don't know. But…maybe I can tell you where to start. Empathy is putting yourself in someone else's shoes, feeling what it would be like to be that person, imagining how everything you do to that person effects them as though it were being done to yourself. That's one of the foundations of love."

And she rose without another word and left him pale and staring after her, closing the door quietly behind her.

He woke again, after another full day of sleep, rising to shaky feet, pulling on his clothes. He turned a deaf ear to Scopa's plaintive please, except to suggest that the man take his business and few belongings to the palace, as Vegita had no mind to pay the doctor of freeman's wage. His woman watched him weave across the floor, and put one hand on his chest, stopping his unsteady progress.

"Tomorrow," she said. "Do you want to fall on your way to the palace and have people see it?" He stopped. He did not want that. He sat in the largest chair in the hearthroom, sipping gingerly on the wine she poured him. A thought occurred to him.

"I never gave you your gift."

Her mouth quirked. "I guess it kind of slipped your mind. I did think of something, though. Do you remember me telling you your father had declared war on the Maiyosh-jin?" He growled softly, nodding. He wanted to be at the War Council, dammit! The only thing that kept him from raging toward the palace like a mad thing was the thought of the abject humiliation of passing out in front of his father's Councilors. "You haven't missed anything yet," she told him, reading the frustration on his face. "They can declare war on the Maiyosh-jin all day, but to fight them, they have to find them first. There were about seven planets comprised mostly of Maiyosh-jin former refugees. After Shikaji, within a few hours, they just up and evacuated without a trace. Whole planets full of people." He frowned in annoyance at the admiration in her voice.

"Plus…about three quarters of the people on Shikaji managed to escape." His low growl turned to a full-throated snarl, and she stepped back, away from him, her eyes becoming veiled again. He was…he was forcing her back into hiding, he knew, but it was all he could do not to blast the villa to pieces around them, as the cold truth sunk in and cut to the bone. He had been defeated. He had been beaten like a mongrel animal by a---by a---! He closed his eyes, fighting for calm. Save it. He must save the fury for the rematch.

"Go on," he said after a moment, with some measure of control.

"The problem now," she went on slowly, "The issue they are discussing in Council right now, is where to find them. The Maiyosh-jin have simply disappeared. Though they really

needn't---" She stopped herself.

"Needn't what?" He prodded.

"Needn't look," she told him, eyeing him uncertainly. "They're putting together an organized rebellion now. No more of this strike and run skirmishing. You won't have to look for them. They'll find you soon enough." He felt a slow grin begin to spread across his face. She was right. And in the mean time, he would take the Red Prince's mocking advise to heart and train. Train like he had never done before. So that when they met again, he would ram each poison, bile-laden word down the Maiyosh-jin's throat!

He stared at her curiously.

"How do you know these things?"

"Some I hear from Caddi and Batha in the kitchens, things they heard from slaves in the palace. Some of it is…just common sense."

"Uncommon sense, I think," he said, thinking of the dozens of little weapons she had built to try and---He wondered abruptly just how intelligent she was.

"My gift is sort of related to the fact that the Empire will soon be at war," she said suddenly.

"Tell me."

"If there's going to be a war, there will be casualties, right?"

"I suppose."

"I want to work in the Capital's main medical and research center during the day. Scopa said I can apprentice under him, and learn medicine."

He stared at her blankly for a few seconds. "Why?"

"I---it has to do with my homeworld being destroyed," she said, easing back toward him, sitting at the base of the hearth pit before his chair, warming her hands against the morning chill. "I've seen more death than I ever could have imagined possible as a young girl. And I want to…to learn how to heal people because of that. To sort of combat death wherever I can. That sounds weird, even to me, but it's a true wish. And you are always training until evening anyway. You'll be training late into the nights now, won't you? So, I'd always be back to the villa before you." He nodded in vague surprise that she had seen into his plans and the inner workings of his mind. He wondered with an uneasy chill just how well she knew him. "So…what do you think?"

She was correct that he would be throwing all his will and effort into his training now. And as long as she was there to greet him when he returned…But the thought of her in the presence of other men, of having their eyes roving over her, the thought of another man touching her in any way---! He took a deep breath, thinking hard. He could work around that with creative staffing. It would---it would give her a semblance of freedom. And he had promised her such a gift. And she was notorious, thanks to the scandal of Raditz' death. Everyone on Vegita-sei knew who she was and to whom she belonged. No man who was not out of his mind would so much as cast his eyes in her direction. And it would make her feel…good. She must feel confined, that brilliant mind of hers forced to lie fallow. As he was being forced to keep inactive now, barred from the training fields by his injuries. He was fighting the urge to grind his teeth even as he spoke with her, in frustration at not being able to do the thing the gods of war had wrought him for.

"Go with him tomorrow and begin your training," he told her quietly. And…God of gods….She smiled at him. A real smile.

* * * * *