Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Dominion ❯ Chapter 11

Dominion

Author: Xero Sky

Date: July/August/September 2002

Pairings: Vejiita X Bardock, Vejiita X Kakkarot, for now.

Warnings: Lemon, lime, language, violence, and ANGST. Maybe all at once! AU, therefore some OOC is probably inevitable.

Notes:

*....* indicates italics. /..../ indicates telepathic speech

Disclaimer: All characters are property of their respective copyright owners. I intend no profit from this work of fiction.

Chapter 11

Bardock tore a leg off the creature and sniffed, then took a tentative bite. "Not bad," he said around a full mouth.

Kakkarot eyed the carcass, then dipped his fingers in the blood and sniffed.

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you haven't eaten uncooked food before," Bardock said, annoyed.

"I usually don't eat what I can't identify."

Bardock laughed at him. "Freaking liar."

Kakkarot tried to keep his face straight, but it was hard. They both knew how soldiers lived. Even here, even now, Kakkarot wasn't quite able to keep from smiling.

"Besides," Bardock said, "it's Vegetaseijin, so what more do you want?"

"Hn," the tall saiyajin said, sitting down and tearing away his own chunk of their kill.

The two saiyajins ate in companionable silence, stripping the beast down to the bones and then snapping those to suck the marrow out. They were living rough, but both had long years of familiarity with living that way, so it wasn't that much hardship, not really. Besides which, they were saiyajin, and neither had gotten as much time in the wild recently as they would have liked. The freedom of shedding technology for biology and instinct was something every saiyajin indulged in, as regularly as they could.

The last time Bardock had done this, he'd been with Vejiita and Nappa, the three of them ditching the Guards to run free for almost a week. He smiled at the memory.

Kakkarot, sitting next to him against the log, scowled.

"Knock it off, asshole. He's my friend," Bardock rumbled. "The fact that he's your mate doesn't have a thing to do with me."

Bardock silently counted to three.

On three, Kakkarot exploded. Again.

"He's NOT MY MATE!"

Bardock rolled his eyes and looked up at his now-standing and bristling son. "Grow up, will you? You may be pissed off, and I understand why, but Vejiita is most definitely YOUR MATE. Stop being such a coward, and deal with it."

Having dealt that blow, the elder saiyajin continued sucking at a bone and surveying the ground, looking for a likely place for a fire. They didn't really need a fire in this climate, but he liked them.

"Coward? You think I'm a coward? You don't understand a fucking thing," Kakkarot said quietly, kneeling down again to look his father in the eye. His voice grated out harshly, and there was a darkness in that open face that made Bardock regret his words. He had spent much of the last two days trying to goad his son into something other than blanket denial that he and Vejiita were mated at all. It was time for a different approach.

Bardock threw the bones away and reached up to lay his palm against his son's face. "Kakkarot," he said, "he isn't anything like them. They were shit, trying to prove themselves by raping my son. Vejiita was in rut; you know what it does. If I'd known he was in rut, or if he'd known what had happened to you, you never would have been there. But he was, and you were, and now you're hurt, but you've also got what every saiyajin dreams of, boy. Your soul won't let you live without him."

Kakkarot stared at his father, a sort of sick numbness washing through him. "You knew," he said. "Radditz. . ."

"Didn't say anything to me. Not a word," Bardock said, cutting him off. "But he invoked a blood debt when he killed them, and did you think word of that wouldn't reach me? Do you think I didn't know what happened to my own sons?"

"Then why did you leave us there?" Kakkarot hissed, shaking off his father's hand. This was the first betrayal, the foundation on which the other stood.

"Because Radditz did what I would have done. Because once it was done, no one took you two for victims anymore. If I'd brought you home then, you would have been branded as easy prey for the rest of your lives. It never would have stopped, Kakkarot. You grew up in the palace, boy. You know how it would have been."

Bardock's voice was gentle, and after a moment Kakkarot couldn't look at him anymore. He stared off into the distance, his heart in turmoil. There was shame that his father knew, and anger, and sorrow. Pride in what Radditz had done. Something like relief. And then something else.

"You knew," he said coldly, pinning his father's gaze. "You knew what happened before, and you knew what he did to me, and you still fucked him."

"It was rut. . ." Bardock began, but Kakkarot cut him off.

"Afterwards!" he shouted, shooting to his feet. "Practically as soon as you were out of the gods-cursed tank he put you in! Did it matter to you what he did to me?"

Bardock stood, not really wanting to escalate this, but constitutionally unable to be shouted down at. "Of course it mattered, baka!! If I'd known you were mated, I never would have touched him!"

"I'm NOT mated to him!! And that isn't what matters! You basically gave him your approval for everything he did to us!"

"He was in RUT!!" Bardock roared, finally provoked. "What is there to forgive about RUT?! You're old enough to know that!!"

He grabbed Kakkarot by the shoulders, and the younger wasn't able to shake him off, though he powered up. "You're jealous and hurt and angry," Bardock said. "You're bond-mated, and your brother's missing. . . Don't blame it all on Vejiita. Everything's just...fucked."

Kakkarot shook his head slowly, showing his teeth in an unfriendly, if not actually hostile manner. "You have no idea how fucked up, otousan."

"No? Who do you think scraped you off the pavement when you tried to suicide? Tell me all about `fucked up', Kakkarot. Let's be honest between ourselves. Vejiita scares the hell out of you."

Kakkarot looked down at his feet for a moment, his expression odd. When he raised his eyes, he was grinning at his father.

"Do you really think I was trying to kill myself?"

Bardock's blood ran cold.

*****************

Turles watched the boy take it all in. Radditz sat with one hand covering his eyes, his jaw clenched. The handsome face was drawn, but Turles knew that most of the man's emotions were being expressed through the eyes he couldn't see. You had to give the boy credit; he was a warrior.

*But he isn't a boy, baka*, Turles thought. Bardock's handsome son was fully grown. How odd that seemed. He last remembered seeing Radditz as a two-year-old, precocious and feisty. The fierce man in front of him made sense, was a logical extrapolation from the brat in his memory, but he was also a living marker of how much time had passed. And how could that be?

Radditz shivered, looking sick, and Turles grimaced slightly. It wasn't emotion, he knew, but the room. There were ki-suppressors coiled behind all the bulkheads, icejin technology at its fucked-up, nauseating finest, eternally keeping him weak, off-balance, sick. The drugs had already worn off. The tail was happily growing back. Just being in this room was enough for the rest of it.

Well, that and the surprise that Turles had had waiting for his dear nephew, after the novelty of being able to see again had worn off.

"How do you know?" Radditz asked again. Turles shoved his irritation down again. Always the same question.

"You think you're the only one with a brother-bond?" he asked, his voice even.

Dark eyes flashed up at him. "Father thinks you're dead."

"Yes," Turles said calmly.

"Why?"

"Because sometimes it's better to be dead."

Radditz' eyes narrowed, but he left it there, knowing that he wasn't going to get the rest of it yet. Turles was fairly talkative, really, for a long-lost uncle who'd taken him captive, mutilated him, and drugged him, but he wasn't telling everything.

He couldn't tell which was more of a shock, then, when Turles sat down next to him: the fact that he took Radditz' face in gentle hands and kissed his forehead, or that he started telling him what he wanted to know.

*****************

Turles had wanted to stop remembering it for years afterwards. The fight hadn't been catastrophic, or anything that wouldn't have been soothed over later by a call or mail. There had been the kind of short, bitter words exchanged that only lovers or family or friends can seem to conjure up against each other. And, at the end of it all, Bardock had told him, simply enough, that he would see him in hell.

But he hadn't.

Turles' mission hadn't been particularly inspiring or even interesting, and he'd brooded over Bardock for almost the whole length of it. Right up until the end, when his whole crew had ended up locked in the hold of an icejin transport, with Turles already bleeding from the nose and ears. He hadn't seen most of his crew again during his next decade as an icejin slave, gladiator, example, plaything. . .

A decade of torment, of revenge taken out on his body, of humiliation. They had never killed him, they only let him within sight of the border, and then denied it to him. So fucking close. . . They fucked him, spat on him, beat him. Mostly, because the icejin and their lackeys usually declined to sully themselves in saiyajin flesh, they used him as a servant, and then as a gladiator, betting on his ability to kill some other pathetic piece of trash.

It was four years before he learned why they were doing this to him. It was only a month before he cut his bond with Bardock. He remembered that vividly, too. His fingers were being broken. Dislocated and broken, bone by bone. He'd been bad. He'd vomited blood on the rare stone flooring.

*Stupid animal! How am I supposed to sell you when you can't remember your training?!*

He'd heard that voice hissed in his ear, and he'd reached out, blindly, trying to find Bardock, trying to find any comfort at all in a universe turned entirely to shit and pain. And then he'd stopped himself.

*I'll see you in Hell!*

With a shudder and a scream, Turles had broken their bond, something he'd never guessed was even possible.

He didn't want his brother, his occasional lover, his anchor, his only true friend, to know what they were doing to him. To feel his pain, his humiliation, his horror at what had become of him. To *see*. Better anything than that. It had killed part of him to cut that bond, but the rest of him was sliding down into nothingness anyway. Bardock, gods, Bardock couldn't know. Couldn't be touched or tainted by the filth Turles was drowning in. Never.

It had taken him almost ten years to escape. He'd been an excellent gladiator, winning and losing thousands for his owners, living in opulent humiliation. He'd felt almost nothing by then. Or thought he did.

Time had rolled around, and finally his time came. As he'd known it would eventually. Those who had used him, degraded him for being saiyajin, forgot what being saiyajin meant. He'd become a *thing* in their eyes. But he *was* saiyajin, and beating him nearly to death so many times *was* a mistake.

He'd left them dead behind him. His `owner'. The ones who'd cheered him on or hated him. Every one he could reach. A bit of glory, a bit of payment exacted, a bit of revenge that came nowhere near repairing the damage.

When it was done, he'd been alone. His crew was long dead. He was farther from home than he'd ever imagined being. He prepared to leave for Vegetasei, because that was all he really knew. Or, all he really wanted to know. He'd been dragged across three-quarters of the galaxy, and all he wanted was to go home.

He was so far out, and such a wanted man in the icejin domains, that it had taken him nearly five years to make his way back to the same quadrant as Vegetasei. Always he'd looked for a friendly face, for someone to help him back home. There must be patrols out, looking still. Being saiyajin, though, still had its price: where they did not hate him, they feared him. Then he'd run across a bounty hunter who was more than happy to see him.

And that was when he discovered that *no one* was looking for him. For any of them, any of the lost ones. Oh, a bounty had been put out by the House of Vegetasei for the return of any and all saiyajin slaves, alive. The hunter had been quite delighted to find him. After all, the bounty was quite high. Turles had listened to the hunter babble on, mourning the lack of saiyajin bounties anymore. At first the pickings had been rich. There were many saiyajins to be found, and the saiyajin king apparently sent none of his own forces out to retrieve them. As far as the hunter knew, they'd all just been abandoned by their own kind.

Turles hadn't believed him. Hadn't wanted to. After he'd killed the hunter, though, he'd gone through its files. There were many of them, a comprehensive library of the events of the last fifteen years, anything the hunter might profit from. The saiyajins had been a large part of his business for some time, and he'd paid them special attention.

And it was true. Thousands of saiyajins had been lost, swallowed whole by the icejin empire when Furiza was killed, and no saiyajin had gone looking for them. No one. None of his own kind. A contract had been handed out to whatever bounty hunter deigned to take it, to pick up lost saiyajins like they were trash or convicts. No crews had been sent out. No battalions. No fleets. The king had never left Vegetasei to look for them.

No one had looked for him.

Surely Bardock . . . But Bardock thought he was dead.

It had burned him. He'd taken the hunter's ship and gone looking himself, finding the saiyajin wreckage left behind. Saiyajins with their tails cut off, saiyajins with their eyes gouged out and their limbs cut off. Broken saiyajins. Saiyajin children who thought they really were the shit they'd been called all their lives. He found them. A double handful, thirty, forty. He sent all of them home, and all of them were welcomed, but no one came looking.

He saw the saiyajin empire grow, creeping from system to system, widening the cordon of protection around the home planet. In the history of Vegetasei, there had never been such glory, and still only the bounty hunters looked for the forgotten ones. They, and Turles.

He found places where saiyajins had been tortured to death and the videos of it set over their graves to ward off grave robbers going after the native crypts. Saiyajins used as fetishes. Their tails sold as aphrodisiacs. On one planet he'd found that baby oozaru meat was a delicacy. The dozen saiyajins on that planet had been the only things living after he had finished with it.

Every heartbreak, every atrocity, no matter how much it seemed like karma catching up to the saiyajin race, would be paid in blood. Turles was certain of it. Turles had vowed it. Turles left a bloody and broken trail behind him. The irony of causing so much suffering in the name of suffering didn't escape him; he just didn't give a fuck. He was a saiyajin. Saiyajins stuck to their own kind. Even if the fucking pathetic excuse for a king wouldn't look after his own kind, Turles would.

And then, when his contacts had all dried up, when he found no new leads, he finally began his trip back home.

It was pure chance that he'd come across Kakkarot in the midst of a purge on Svretik. He'd meant to shuffle off planet with the rest of the foreign species, but there he'd been, lovely, lovely Kakkarot. And Radditz. Bardock's sons. Bardock's baby boys. He'd been fascinated by them. Strong and vicious, innately talented, and enough to take Turles' breath away.

Damn Kakkarot for being the image of his father. Standing near him had made his hands shake with the need to touch him. He hadn't, because he was dead still. Dead uncle Turles, never met him, lost in the wars, so sad.

He'd followed the front lines, listening to the gossip, and heard all about the famous Bardock, about the role Bardock had played in saving in Vegetasei, and about how close he remained to the king. Vejiita no Ou. The one who hadn't lifted a finger to save all the cast-offs, the abandoned ones.

Back in the solitude of space, he had let all of this soak into his soul. Bardock's first son, he remembered, but the second was only . . . in the womb when he'd last seen Bardock. And oh, Bardock. So very close to the Ou. So very privy to the Ou's vulnerabilities.

He'd listened. He'd spun his senses out, and listened. And found Bardock right away. It had surprised him. Maybe he had never cut the bond properly. Maybe it had grown back. Turles wasn't sure it mattered. Sitting in darkness, entirely alone, he'd listened to Bardock, tracing the glowing thread of his brother's life across the parsecs. So precious, he'd hardly believed in it. He'd thought he was hallucinating at first, conjuring up images to feed his need for his brother. But it was truly Bardock he was glimpsing, feeling, knowing. Bardock, his beloved. Who *had* searched for him, but only after going to get his Kakkarot back first; by the time he had his son in his arms again, Turles' trail was cold and dead.

Bardock had devoted himself to the boy Ou. The one who hadn't cared, hadn't sent out any patrols to look. Turles understood fully that it was fear and insecurity that had made the boy keep his troops home at first. But the little shit had exploded into the perfect warrior, the pinnacle of saiyajin civilization, and he still DID NOTHING. He never looked for them.

Vejiita had taken over his brother, co-opted him, made him devoted to him, and he had done nothing to look for the abandoned.

What had to happen next was easy enough to figure out.

The royal fucker had to die.

It wouldn't solve everything. It wouldn't bring his crew back from the dead. It wouldn't bring back all the years that he and Bardock should have had together. But it would have to do. Something had to be done, some gesture had to be made. He would drink Vejiita's blood or die trying.

He'd kept his side of the bond to his brother dead. It was a trick he'd learned as the slave of a telepathic freak who'd been intrigued by saiyajin bonding. He'd learned from Bardock, but Bardock had felt nothing at all from him. He'd caught bits and pieces and every detail of palace life. And he'd seen the restlessness growing in his brother's heart.

That devotion, that allegiance to the Ou could surely be broken by reason, by his brother returning to tell him the truth about his beloved Vejiita. Just to make sure, though, he'd watched Bardock's sons. Kakkarot had gone home on leave, so he'd kept an eye on Radditz until the beautiful brat had made himself vulnerable. If Bardock remained confused, Radditz' captivity could have been used to persuade him. Turles meant neither one any harm, not as long as they stayed out of his way.

But then the king had gone into rut, and the things he'd done had made Turles incandescent with rage. Bardock, being the brainwashed fool he was, forgave everything. Turles read it from him, sickened and saddened. What good fortune that Kakkarot didn't forgive so easily. What good fortune that he and Radditz had such a strong bond now, when Vejiita had conveniently let all the worst in himself loose on young Kakkarot. Bardock might not have to cooperate at all. Not if Radditz saw reason. Turles thought he might. He knew what a brother-bond was like.

With real regret, but also real anticipation, Turles had told Radditz everything he knew about Kakkarot, the rut, and his attempted suicide, all courtesy of Bardock.

Turles turned to Radditz now, who still sat with his head leaning on one hand against the table, brooding over the damage done his little brother, his beloved little brother, and smiled like he hadn't done genuinely for years.

Then he reached outside the doorway and turned the ki suppressors off.

*****************

Blood leaked out, staining the greenish solution brown. Despite the attentions of a team of doctors, Tsuriya still bled. A fresh plume of blood appeared from behind one ear now. Her shattered jaw had been fused and reshaped, but they hadn't been able to stop the bleeding from the hinges. At least she wore a standard air mask now, a vast improvement, at least from Nappa's point of view. It made her look like a saiyajin doing tank time, healing, rather than the dismal wreckage she had been. And probably still was, to tell the truth.

*Tough little bitch*, Nappa thought. Not every saiyajin could take that much punishment from Vejiita and live so long.

"Well?" The Ou's voice was dispassionate.

"Maybe, maybe not. Hard to tell with a patient like this," the chief of Tsuriya's medical team said. Nappa stared through the glass at his lieutenant, smiling wryly as he heard the Ou take up the same discussion he himself had already had with the chief about two hundred times now.

"Why?"

"I think she's pissed off at you," the chief said matter-of-factly.

Nappa turned to look at Vejiita. This should be a decent gauge of the unnaturally calm king's real mood.

"And that's keeping her alive?" Vejiita asked simply, his eyes dark and dull.

The medical chief shrugged. "It could well be. With injuries this severe, it's usually down to willpower. We've been recording flashes in her ki that seem to indicate rage. They've been more frequent as she's improved."

"Let her rage, then," Vejiita said without inflection. He took in the tank and woman inside it with a glance, then nodded at the chief. "Nappa, come."

He left the room without turning to see if the large man followed.

Nappa followed, of course, because it was who he was and what he did. Vejiita's silence oppressed him, and he hoped that this was a prelude to something, some form of communication. He had caught only the end of the incident with Kakkarot, but the Ou's behavior, and his flat refusal to send anyone after Bardock and his brat, worried Nappa. The Vejiita he knew did not brook such nonsense, such rejection. The Vejiita he knew would never have let his mate go like that.

Vejiita's mate. It still boggled Nappa's mind. Of all the fine saiyajin flesh that the king could choose from, how the hell had he ended up with Bardock's youngest? He'd hardly seen the brat since Kakkarot had followed Radditz into the army, and at that point they were still young enough that the six-year gap in their ages made a real difference. There was also the relatively amazing fact that Kakkarot was about the only potential mate who didn't have much of anything to offer Vejiita, at least not in terms of alliances or power.

The big man sighed. What bond-mating ever took logic into account? A bond-mate called to the soul, regardless of power or position. The gods knew that saiyajin mythology was full of such stories, with powerful lords or ladies finding themselves soul-bound to beautiful low-class warriors.

Not that Kakkarot was really low class in any way; he'd rated elite recently, and Bardock's sons were automatically part of the lower nobility. He was also handsome and well-made, with a lot of potential. Still, he'd been so far off the radar . . .

Vejiita led him toward his own quarters, stalking down the hallways like no one else was there. In fact, it would have been better if no one had been. Courtiers aware of the Ou's latest mood, if not of the reason behind it, cleared to the side, bowing and getting out of his way. A persistent staff member, who should certainly have known better, paced at Vejiita's side for a few strides, diligently attempting to inform him of something. Nappa reached out and plucked the young man away from Vejiita, then heaved him over one shoulder without stopping. Neither man showed any interest in the shriek and wet thud behind them.

Doors opened and shut behind them. Vejiita said not a word the entire time, nor did he until they reached his sunroom and rose up to the clear alloy panels in the ceiling. At a gesture from Vejiita, both men suppressed their ki slowly, making it clear to the Guards at the door that nothing drastic was happening. A sudden drop would have filled the room with bristling Guards.

The slow decline only meant that they required privacy.

"Quickly," Vejiita said, sliding one of the panels aside. Nappa understood Vejiita's intent, and as soon as the way was open, he rocketed upwards toward the cloud cover with as much speed as he was capable of, which was substantial. He stopped just at the upper edge, shivering with the sudden cold. A few moments later Vejiita had joined him and was leading him west, just skimming the top edge of the clouds. It took a moment to adjust to the altitude and thinner air, but they were capable of it.

Below and behind them, no one knew one way or the other whether they were gone or not. It was unlikely that any eyes had marked their sudden ascent. As for their flight, well, many first-class saiyajins could fly, and all of the elite, and with their ki suppressed, they didn't appear noteworthy. Careful observation showed that their wake was clear.

The place Vejiita chose was high up and heavily wooded, with a rock outcropping that was fine for sitting and view the distant city. Nappa watched the unerring way in which Vejiita headed for it, and frowned. Vejiita had obviously been up here before, though Nappa had not. He knew the king need privacy as much as anyone; he also knew it was his job to be disturbed that he had any.

Vejiita touched down and basically collapsed, stretching out and leaning back against a rock. Nappa lifted an eyebrow but did the same.

"They're on the south continent, about 100 miles from Teark," Vejiita said quietly.

"Are you sure?" Nappa asked. A second later he mentally kicked himself. Of course Vejiita was sure, or he wouldn't have spoken.

The king didn't answer that question.

"We'll leave them there for a little while," he said firmly.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Nappa asked. "The fact that he's your mate isn't news that will hold forever. Besides which, as your auras merge, anyone with a scouter will be able to see what's happened. I'm sure someone's already noticed it, looking at you. He needs the same protection as your consorts and children, Vejiita."

"He's safe enough for now. There's not many that could take the two of them together by force. And Bardock won't let him go off planet. No matter how much he hates me," Vejiita said plainly.

"Does he hate you?" Nappa asked.

"He thinks so."

Vejiita closed his eyes and let the sunlight burn through them. Gods' death, he was tired. His energy reserves were certainly enough to keep him going, keep him functioning, maybe forever, but exhaustion was racking his bones anyway. He knew exactly what was wrong, but that didn't mean he could do anything about it. For the first time in his life, he was almost helpless.

"Kakkarot no Misen is going to have to pull his head out of his ass soon," Nappa said, scowling at the vista before them.

Vejiita cracked an eye open and stared at him. "You're such an eloquent bastard, Nappa."

Nappa snorted.

Vejiita laughed suddenly. "Kakkarot *no Misen*. He's going to fucking love that title."

The big man eyed him, struck by the bitterness in his voice. "He *is* the king's chosen, isn't he?" Nappa's voice was unusually gentle.

Vejiita shut his eyes tightly. This shouldn't be happening to him. Not like this. Like all saiyajins, he'd halfway cherished the thought that it would happen, someday, even though he knew it would probably cause nothing but chaos. Mating bonds were part of the privilege of being saiyajin, like oozaru, like the power he wielded. This hollowness in his chest, though...

He couldn't sleep anymore. If he wasn't up and moving, all he could think of was Kakkarot. He remembered soft kisses, the hard, teasing smacks of his tail, silky warm flesh, and talented fingers. He remembered the younger man blushing sweetly as he admitted to his fantasies. There had been something else there, something that had much less to do with sex and much more to do with the happy sweet way Kakkarot had wound his arms and tail around him in sleep, sighing and snuggling into warmth. The gentle pleasure of being cherished by his lover was something Vejiita no Ou was mostly unfamiliar with.

He hadn't been in rut long; he'd never slept with Kakkarot before that. But, gods, he hated waking up without him now.

He remembered the absolute fear and rage that he'd woken up with the morning Kakkarot had provoked Tsuriya. Rage that anyone would touch his Kakkarot. And fear, deep paralyzing fear, that he would lose him. He'd never needed anyone so badly in his life before. Not his parents, not Nappa, not Bardock. Just Kakkarot. Happy, fierce, open-hearted Kakkarot. Who he'd hurt like no one else could have. He wanted nothing more badly now than to protect him, heal him, soothe him, make him happy again. Be with him. Love him. Be loved by him.

Gods damn them both.

"Hai," he said softly. "He *is* my chosen."

*****************

Eyes opened to greenish darkness. All was numbness ringed with fire, pain ringed with cold. Memory brought nothing but pain and fire, endless variations on a theme. Images flickered in the darkness. Blood. {pain} Fighting, flesh jarring flesh. {rage} Ki raised, focused, let go. {rage, sorrow} Brightness. {fear} A god descended to earth. {rage} Broken. {rage}

Rage, then, seemed like the theme of the day.

Good. She bared her teeth at the darkness, and waited.

TBC