Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Changing Seasons ❯ Beside The Shore ( Prologue )

She stood at the edge of the water, allowing the cold waves to lap at her bare toes and send small shivers of delight up her spin and through her viens. Wrapped in a dark shawl, her hair dark as midnight blowing out like a banner behind her, Neko gazed out across the ocean, in awe that such a wonderous place should even exsist.

She had her tail wrapped around her muscular yet still feminine waist and she flicked it's end in time to the lapping water across her feet. She felt as if she could stand her gazing out at the water and the fading sun on the horizon, gorgeous hues of rainbow flame painting the water in shades of pink and red. Neko felt a lightness overcome her heart and she smiled out of soft lips and eyes.

She felt the presence behind her as sutle as the breeze which played with the dark strands of her hair. She halfway turned to see her father there, flying silently towards her, his normally stark expression softened by the tranquality of their surroundings. It was very thoughtful of her mother to suggest this little vacation for them.

"It's a beautiful sight, Father." She said, she had long ago stopped calling him `Da' and he nodded at her, also gazing out over the water. "It feels like it's been so long since I've felt so peaceful…"

"You've had to grow up fast, Neko." Piccolo said, landing softly beside her and reaching out to take her hand in his own. As always, his nearnear and protection made her feel safe and warm. "After what happened on Jalamir…"

"Please," She said, squeezing her eyes shut tight, "I'd rather just forgot about that…"

"It's hard to lose a…" Piccolo tried but his daughter released his hand and leapt into the sky, taking off across the water and ignoring his mental shouts for her to stop and return to the beach.

So hard to lose a friend. He had been about to say, Neko knew. At sixteen years she still greived for the friend she'd found and then lost when she was only six. If only they had never allowed her to go back to her own world with her sister…If only Mira had stayed with them…then she would not now be rotting behind the soil of Jalamir, food to insects and worms. If only…

Neko slashed an arm across her eyes, the shawl she wore flying out with her hair behind her. She felt the tears freezing on her cheeks and eye lashes and a hard stone in her throat that was difficult to swallow past fall down into her stomach. She knew that nothing much came of crying over the past and that she must remain strong for her family…but sometimes it was just too hard!

Piccolo watched Neko fly, almost blindly, into the sun's fading show and wondered if he should go after her. He started to take off towards her, worry etched across his handsome face and narrowing his eyes, but he paused, realizing that she probably needed some time alone more than anything. He knew that she had never really gotten over the death of Princess Jalamira, her childhood friend, and that instead of dealing with those feelings of greif and anger she had bottled them up inside and focused instead on training as hard as she could. Piccolo did not understand if her vigor for perfection stemmed from a fear of losing someone else she loved or just to please him. He had had the feeling, for a long time after Mira's death, that Neko believed it was her doing she had fallen.

Logically, he knew that was not possible. Mira had chosen her fate and met it head on, as she knew she must. Neko could not have stopped her from answering the challenge any more than he could scare the sun into not rising in the morning. He just did not now how to help her other than leaving her alone to figure things out inside herself on her own.

He heard Neko's mother approach by her steady breathing and the scent she always seemed to hold; a mixture of vanilla and sage, and she looked up towards him and beckoned him down with a small curve of her full lips. She was dressed in a pale sundress and her fair skin seemed to glow in the disappearing light. She had brought her sunglasses out with her just in case it was still too bright outside for her sensitive blue eyes.

He floated down next to her and wrapped his large hand about her smaller, more delicate one. She had a few gray streaks in her hair but she was still the most beautiful creature he had ever seen and continued to marvel at his life with her over the course of their years together. He knew, in his heart of hearts, that he would greatly outlive her and would even bury her on her deathday, but that future pain he did not wish to dwell on.

"Neko's left." He said, speaking slowly and low, as if he did not wish to tell her, "She's flown off…troubled…"

Concern and fear crossed like shadows over his beloved's eyes. "She has been moody and restrained for a long time…" She said, looking towards the sky and the tiny dark spot she knew was her daughter, "For years in fact. I had believed that this was just normal teenage angst, but it's gotten worse over the past few years…"

"Being half human and half saiyan," Piccolo said, "The bloods sometimes rest uneasily against each other and emotions run high…or very low."

"I never thought…" Alaura said, "I know she still misses that sweet girl."

"Yes." He answered, "I think she fears it was her fault that she died. I believe that Neko thinks that if only she had been strong enough it would have saved her…"

"That's ridicious!" Alaura cried, angry that her child was suffering so within for something she had had no control of, "The only way she could have stopped Mira from going was to sit on her and hold her down and I can not see our daughter doing that, much less a royal of Jalamir allowing it!"

"She needs to realize that it wasn't her doing." Piccolo said, "Everything she does suffers now. Has been suffering. I cannot continue with her until she come to grips with this."

"But, Piccolo, You know Neko's been training so hard to compete in the tournament…" Alaura said, shocked and hurt at the same time, as if she were her daughter at that moment, "You cannot stop instruct…"

Piccolo shook his head, cutting her off with a quick wave of his hand. "It's pointless, Alaura. She cannot concentrate like she used to and I do not wish to waste my time on a meaningless task."

Alaura said nothing for a long time. Finally, when she did speak her voice was filled with emotion; "You must go to Jalamir, then, Love." She went on, "And let our daughter say goodbye to her friend properly…and hopefully, on the way, you can make her understand how wrong she is to believe as she does…as she has been believing."

Piccolo watched as Alaura turned and walked stiffly back to the small cabin, her hair, which he had forbad her to ever cut since he loved the soft golden texture and the way it felt when he ran the strands through his fingers as they made love, fell in a long, lose braid down her back and her arms wrapped tightly about herself. She entered the house and let the screen door bang shut behind her, like a period on the end of a sentence.

He looked upwards towards his returning daughter and knew that the start of a new one was about to begin.