Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Days Gone By ❯ One-Shot

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Author's Notes: I'm unimaginitive with titles. Written for LJ comm fanfic100's prompt “drink”.

Links: http://community.livejournal.com/fanfic100

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"drink with me, to days gone by..."

 

The candlelight gleams through the crystal, turning the wine to liquid garnet in the best possible cliched manner. Her nose wrinkles at the sight; she prefers white, but doesn't feel like calling back the robot to correct the mistake. She has spent too much of her life quibbling over details - correcting technical plans, reading fine print, finding the perfect hairstyle, choosing the right wine. Now, it hardly seems to matter, and she can live with a warm red instead of a chilled white. It's not as though the bouquet has to precisely compliment the food she isn't eating.

 

She picks up the glass by the stem and leaves the candlelit room to wander. Her bare feet noiseless on hardwood and carpet alike, she prowls from room to room, unconsciously echoing Vejita's way of stalking in total silence around the mansion. At sixty, her glide is no longer as supple, her hips don't sway in quite the same fashion; still, she walks with purpose, even when she has no real destination. She sips as she moves without ever spilling a drop.

 

Finally, she comes to a window where the view is unobstructed by carefully landscaped trees. City lights obscure many stars, but she has seen the night sky from Mt Paozu and the desert, and knows what the stars look like in clean air. Knows what they look like without air as well, from the depths of space. Since learning the truth about Goku, she has never been able to view the stars without wondering which one was his sun, which dark spot in the glittering display was the place where his world used to spin.

 

Without his efforts, would other beings stare at the night sky and wonder about the blank space where Chikyuu used to be? Would anyone in the wide cosmos - a place so much bigger than she used to think! - care about the fate of an insignificant little planet? Would they have escaped the dangerous notice of powerful beings if the last few saiyajin had chosen to dwell elsewhere, or would their loss have meant destruction for the entire human race?

 

Such thoughts make her uneasy, and she gulps at her wine. They'd had some fine adventures back then, and after the terror had worn off she'd remembered only the thrills, but she was too old to tag along now. In truth, that suits her fine. Her taste for adventure has soured somewhat since Bebi's takeover; in fact, she wants nothing more to be left alone to tinker with her projects. Her son runs Capsule Corp well enough; her daughter is in a fine university studying how best to run the world. Vejita trains, and still enjoys her bed. She is superfluous, and happy that way.

 

But some nights, she stares at the hazy dark of the sky, and remembers the old days with a soft pang of regret for what has passed. And she drinks slowly, to Goku's lost home, to defenders of the earth, to being important, and adventure.