Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Little Slave Girl ❯ Kidnapped! ( Chapter 8 )

"How is the little one, Ryven-san?" Piccolo asked his adopted daughter and student, as they sat, side by side, upon the ground outside the cave, the darkening of the light of day making the shadows grow longer and the entrance to the dwelling seem gaping and just a bit scary.

Ryven looked up from her task of re-plaiting the feathers into her braid, her azure eyes shadowed with worry. "Something bothers her, Papa," She said, twisting the piece of leather at the base of the braid, securing it into place beside her ear, "She won't talk to me. Everytime I've tried, she gets this look in her eyes...horribly afraid...and runs off."

"Hmm," Piccolo mused, closing his eyes for a moment, "I've felt something...cold...within my meditations recently. Perhaps the child..."

"I don't know," Ryven said, gazing out at the trees before them, at the crimson and blue dripping horizon, "But I have a really bad feeling," She touched her stomach with a closed fist, "Here."

Piccolo looked at her and nodded. "Me too, Ryven-san, me too."

Ryven began to stand, her dark cloak flowing about her in the breeze with also tickled her hair about her temples, looking off into the distance.

"I'm going to go check on her..."

Piccolo stood up as well, a shiver that was not born of any wind coursing through him, making him shiver outwardly as sensations of dread flowed through him like waves upon the ocean.

Suddenly, without the slightly hint of warning, the ground around them began to shake. Caught off guard, Ryven found herself being flung backwards, caught by Piccolo's swiftness and set to her feet once more. Keeping their balance, the ground about them began to heave and move, as if the earth itself were breathing deeply, being roused from a horrid nightmare.

"What's happening?!" Ryven shouted, having felt nothing like it in her entire life, it felt a little like an earthquake, but different.

Piccolo floated into the air and Ryven followed suit, in the air they were less at the mercy of the shifting ground and as they flew higher into the air, they could survey the land below them and find out what, exactly, caused the sudden shifting of earth's soil. Piccolo spotted it first and pointed, eyes wide, as he caught Ryven's attention a mere scant second later.

~*~*~

"W-what...what's going on, Goku?!" Chi Chi and Goku had been in bed, having retired early after supper, in order to start the day fresh in the morning with housework and shopping for her and Rowyn and training for him, she had been laying with her head pressed against his bare chest, his hand moving lazily through her dark hair nearly asleep when they felt the shuddering of the ground below them.

Chi Chi clutched at her husband, her nails digging into the side of his muscular body, fear making her hold on much too tightly. Goku sat up with her and looked around, dumbfounded. His first thought was that it was some new powerful enemy like Freiza or Majin Buu....

"I don't know!" He cried, as Goten, and Trunks who was staying the night, cried out from the hallway, "Dad! Mom! What's that?!"

The boys raced into the bedroom and flung themselves between Chi Chi and Goku, burying themselves under the covers. "My whole bed was shaking off the ground!" Goten cried, tears in his large eyes, "I...I'm mean...Trunks was scared so we...we...came in here..."

"I was not!" Trunks cried out, smacking Goten over the head under the covers, "Y-you were the scared one...!"

"There's no reason for either of you to be scared, boys," Goku said, taking fatherly control, as usual, Chi Chi reached out and pulled her son to her, kissing his brow and smoothing back his hair from his face, she nodded in agreement, "You've just never felt an earthquake before. That all it is. It will go away after a few moments, you'll see."

The little ones missed the look which passed over their head between the adults. A look which clearly said that they thought this was more than just a mere earthquake and did not wish to upset the children any more than they all ready were. Goku disentangled himself from his son's and his friend's strong grips and slipped from the bed, still wearing a pair of black satin pajama bottoms that belonged to a set Chi Chi had bought for him last Christmas because she secretly thought he looked dashing in black, and stumbled to the doorway, looking back he said; "I'm going to check on this...you three stay here."

"No way, Dad!" Goten cried, leaping up into the air and speeding after his father, "I want to help!"

"Goten!" Chi Chi shreiked, "Come back here this instant, young man!"

"Aaaw, but Moooom!!" Goten whined, as a dresser was pitched forward, knocking him backwards back onto he bed and into his mother's waiting arms.

"Mind me!" Chi Chi said, as Goku placed his fingers to his temples and vanished from sight, "Help me and Trunks move the mattress from the bed and get under it, both of you..." She got up after the deed was done and ran, clumsily for the door, her thin nightgown doing it's best to trip her up, "I have to get to Rowyn!"

~*~*~

Rowyn sat up in her bed, her pale pink sleeveless gown did little to keep the draft from biting at her sensitive skin and gooseflesh burst all up and down her bare arms and legs as she felt the house shaking and moaning all around her.

She had heard the little boys scream and run for the adults' bedroom, envious of them for having someone to run to and cling to when frightened. For far too long, the only one Rowyn had to run to when she was afraid was herself.

She gripped her arms tighter and waited, knowing that this was no mere earthquake. Chi Chi cried out from the hallway outside her room, worried about her. She stumbled from the bed and opened the door, Chi Chi gathered her up against her, pulling her down the hallway towards the mattress she and the boys had all ready placed against the wall just within the threshold of her and Goku's bedroom.

"Quickly!" Chi Chi cried, shoving her down, "Under there! Boys, make room! And no fighting! Keep still and it will pass quickly, I promise!"

"I hope it doesn't," Goten murmered, "Maybe I'll get to miss school..."

"Don't even think it, young man!" Chi Chi said, as she made sure all the children were safe and accounted for, "Even if you miss school, you'll still have a perfectly good day for studying and catching up on what you did miss."

Goten groaned and Trunks snickered. Rowyn merely watched out of the cornered side made from the mattress being braced against the wall, waiting for something she did not know how to explain, her heart pounding fiercely beneath her small breast, afraid to speak of her fears lest she be laughed at.

Besides, there was all ways the chance that she could be wrong. This could really just be an ordinary earthquake. Perhaps.

"Rowyn?!" She heard the voice of the pale-haired elf girl as she searched the house, Rowyn started to crawl out from the mattress, heedless of the shaking still going on all around her, "Rowyn, where are you?! Where is everyone? Chi Chi? Goku?"

Ryven flew into Chi Chi and Goku's bedroom and saw the mattress against the wall, Goten had grabbed Rowyn's ankle and was pulling her back under, "Mom said you have to stay put, Rowyn!"

"Let me go!" Rowyn cried, jerking her foot, yet unable to free it from the boy's strong grasp, "You don't understand! Let me go!"

"Let her go, Goten," Ryven said, kneeling down and peering into the opening, she waved at Trunks, "I have a feeling she knows more about this than she's letting on. Rowyn?"

"Ryven..." Rowyn gasped, at last having crawled out to grasp onto the older elf to keep from falling over, "You have to get out of here! They are coming for me...but if they see you...!"

"What? Who?" Ryven asked, realizing that the earth had stopped moving, the stillness was nearly as bad in comparsion. The children had all ready crawled from beneath the mattress, "I told you before, no one is taking you anywhere you don't want to go! Not without a fight!"

Rowyn shook her head. "That won't matter...They only want me, but, the Princess, she has a thing for...for elves...if she sees you, she will stop at nothing to gain you...!"

"I'm not some trinket to be given to some brat as a plaything!" Ryven fumed, fists clenched, the weight of her sword at her back never felt so comforting, "Don't worry! If they've really come for you...they'll be leaving without either one of us and with some new broken limbs and black eyes for good measure!"

"Is that true?" Both girls turned, gasping, as the air shimmered around them, the voice they heard seemed all around them and inside their heads all at the same time. Goten and Trunks cried out and tried to leap towards them, flying instead, right through their now transparent insubstantial bodies, "I think not, young ones..."

** Rowyn...what's going on..? ** Ryven sent, using her mind only, afraid of who might be listening, ** I can't break free...something...pulling us...up...**

** I'm sorry! ** Rowyn cried, ** I tried to warn you! Why didn't you run when you had the chance!? Why didn't you?! **

** This isn't over! ** Ryven said, just before the strangeness of losing one's gravity and substance overcame her and she could not help falling backwards into her mind to escape the sensensation.

The last thing Rowyn heard before she, herself, blacked out, was Piccolo's voice screaming in rage and fear below them as his daughter and her little where abducted. She thought she had felt his hand passing through her leg as he tried, in vain to grasp that which could no longer be held, right before they vanished completely.

~*~*~

It was hours...days...years...she couldn't really tell for certain, later, when she felt herself gaining conscienceness once more. She felt a hard pallet upon the floor beneath her, which wasn't so bad, considering she was used to roughing it out of door. But the noxious scent of overpowering floral perfumes were nearly enough to make her start gagging. She wished for the clean, crisp scent of the morning breeze outside her and Piccolo's cave.

She realized, but the scents around her, some more subtle than others, that she wasn't alone in the room, where ever the room was. But, one thing was certain, she had grown used to Rowyn's scent, however little she had actually had to get to know the younger elf, and she couldn't smell her anywhere. Her heart raced in her chest.

She opened her eyes as she felt a hand, small, cold, caress her cheek and turn her head roughly from side to side. A shock of white hair fell across the child's features as she gazed back at her with chill sapphire eyes, regarding her like a merchant surveying her wares. It was hard to believe such a gaze belonged to a little girl who looked to be around six years old at the most.

Without thinking, Ryven snapped like a cornered wolf and bit the child's chubby fingers, tasting blood. Lashing out, the girl slapped her hard across the face then screamed so loud and piercing Ryven flinched away in pain as the sound stung her ears.

"Mother! This one's mean! She bit me!" The girl backed away, glaring down at Ryven, who, having realized she was bound hand and feet to her pallet but cuffs of some odd metal clasped about her ankles and wrists and chained to the floor, could do no more than snarl, blood from the girl's injured finger dripping down her chin.

A taller, paler version of the child snapped an order at a guard standing nearby and Ryven saw a large weapon pointed and shining in the dim light of the overhead lamps gripped within his strong hands, striding forward, a purposeful look in his dark eyes, a cruel glint to the half smile upon his face.

The child flung herself in front of Ryven, screaming; "No! Mother! Don't you dare! I want to keep her! Look at her hair...it's so pretty...."

"But, Darling," Her mother said, "She bit you. Look at her. She's a wild beast. It would be a mercy to end her suffering..."

"No!"

"But..."

"I said no!"

"Yarrah...I..."

The child glared until the mother finally turned away, sighed and gestured for the guardsman to pull away his weapon. Dejected, the guard hid his sigh of frustration and took up his stance beside the bedroom room next to his partner on the other side.

What have we gotten ourselves into? Ryven wondered to herself, What have they done with Rowyn? I hope she's all right...

She just had to pray that the other elf could hold on until she could think of a way to get them out of this...

Hold on, Rowyn...hold on...