Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Live Well ❯ Wedding Preparations ( Chapter 1 )

Live Well

Chapter One: Wedding Preparations

While she kept herself as still as she was able given her circumstances, Kakarotto clutched her arms over each other, feigning to be bothered by the chill of the night.

She pondered over the girl still sleeping soundly back in the Lord's estate. They - herself and the real Kakarotto - had only met a few times in the past. The two of them were to pretend to be sisters. Though she had been born after her, the Lady Kakarotto was to fake being a younger sister so that they could fool the Royals.

Naming a younger daughter after the elder when she had been betrothed to a prince was done often in history, and sometimes expected of Nobles. As such, it was normal that the Lord's daughters would go about having the same names.

Those betrothed to Royalty were not meant to meet their destined spouses until the wedding ceremony. Thus, whenever the Royal Family had come to visit, Kakarotto had always been `out on holiday' or `training' or - Kakarotto's favorite - `purifying her spirit for the upcoming wedding.' She had never been doing such things, of course, except perhaps for training. Kakarotto had simply been at home, and sometimes had never even known that the Royal Family had come to visit.

The city she had grown up in, Afafal, had flitted away an hour ago, and so all she had to gaze out on was the vast desert between it and the capital, Talji'Be. Night cloaked the red sands from view however, and all she could see was mauve and violet shadows flitter about. She knew them to be hunters and their game. Kakarotto sought to watch the pursuit for their next meal, but the skiff was too fast, and, other times, the figures were too enshrouded in the darkness to be seen - as was their purpose.

She longed to join them.

When she reached the Palace, Royal Guards entered the skiff, and blindfolded her. She panicked only for a moment before she remembered the traditions of a Royal wedding. While Saiyajin were not overly enthusiastic about the joining of two people, it had proved rather important for the forming of alliances between families. This was especially true if said families were once bitter rivals.

The new bride had to show that she trusted the bridegroom's friends - or in this case, bodyguards - else she was saying she didn't have confidence in her new husband. She didn't dare reveal any more nervousness to the guards because she didn't know how they would view her first bout of apprehension.

Kakarotto couldn't help being worried however. If she displeased any of the Royal Family in anyway, she might be feeling the heat of an iron searing into her back, and the cool metal of handcuffs around her wrists and ankles.

A common divorce practice was that of putting either the husband or wife into slavery by discreetly selling their mate to the highest bidder. In slavery, all legal bindings, except that of ownership, were nullified. This way, the seller was single once more, and had the bonus of their former mate not interfering.

It was the fate of many undesired mates, and it truly was a sort of death. Everything was stripped away, name, title, and possessions. These things were binding, and thus many slaves went naked unless it pleased their owners to clothe them.

She played with the thought of stomping on someone's foot, and running again.

The trip was worsened when she began to ascend and descend multiple sets of stairs. As the weight of the dress became more and more apparent with each step, so did the length of her steps become more and more short. Sweat trickled down the length of her back, and she felt her lovely, but cumbersome gown, start to dampen.

She took deep breaths, hoping that they didn't seem arduous, and her fists clenched into her skirts, straining to keep upright. The corset, which was constructed with reeds, didn't seem to help anymore because it added to the weight. While moving up the flights of stairs was difficult, she swore that walking down them was nearly suicidal for she had to strain to not pitch forward and break her head open.

When time began to stretch on, she chewed on her tongue, wondering how long it would take them to reach the room put together for the wedding preparations - they would later become her new suite if she and her new husband so wanted. As the thought crossed her mind, she realized that she didn't really have to be quiet and obedient around the guards because they were there to serve her now.

Trying to make that sink in, she spoke up in a hoarse voice, “How much longer will this take?”

A male's voice chuckled, “How long will what take?”

“To get to my chambers,” she elaborated with a bit more confidence. “How long will it take to get there?”

“You never told us to take you anywhere, my lady, so we've been walking you around in circles,” another voice said, and the men around her burst into laughter when her cheeks colored.

Finally understanding the practical joke on her expense, she snapped, embarrassed and trying to make up for her slip, “Take me to my chambers right away!”

Their mirth died completely when they heard her, and their pace quickened - though she could have done without that tidbit. Kakarotto found the strength to keep up with them however, and one mere upward flight of stairs later, they all stopped. Keeping the flaming blush from her face when she realized that they had likely been circling her room this entire time, Kakarotto merely stopped with them.

She heard a door open up, and a woman's voice came flowing out what must have been her new suite, “I wasn't expecting you for another half hour or so, but that's fine. Don't just stand there. Bring the Lady Kakarotto inside.”

Swallowing as they practically picked her up, and set her just inside the doorway - as was custom - she curtsied her deepest, and, as she waited for permission to stand up straight, she hoped that she would be able to rise. Custom also dictated that the queen herself would be the one to greet her into her new suite.

The prince was scary enough by himself, but the thought of Kakarotto's new in-laws was bloodcurdling. Her new husband was only the future king, and the current king and queen had been in power for all of her life.

“What's this? Bow lower,” when Kakarotto went as low as she dared while keeping on her feet, the queen became silent, and grabbed a fistful of the back of Kakarotto's hair. She winced hard as her face was shoved to the floor, her balance completely lost as she landed in a heap on the floor, “Bow lower. You're in the presence of your soon-to-be mother-in-law, Lady Kakarotto, and, as your mother-in-law, I shall always demand the utmost respect from you. Noblewomen like you must act in a manner that does not offend me, the prince, or the king at all times. Understood?”

Swallowing hard, all she could manage was a nod, and then her face was smashed into the floor more.

“What was that?”

“Yes, your majesty,” Kakarotto said breathlessly.

“Good,” she felt her hand leave her hair, but she didn't dare to relax just yet. “You may rise and enter the room when that ungainly thing allows you to.”

Swallowing nothing, she took a deep breath before she attempted to heave herself up, and she congratulated herself when she got onto her hands and knees on the first undertaking. She stayed there a moment to suck in heaps of air before sitting up onto her knees gradually, careful of her back, which felt like it might split in two. Kakarotto then pushed down onto the ground to give herself an advantage, but the action required her to bend forward to touch the floor from which she wanted to push away. Cringing as her back and thighs buckled, she fell forward only to catch herself with her elbows.

Releasing a tired snort, she waited for her trembling body to calm for the most part. After Kakarotto felt like she could endure her protesting muscles, she sat up again, and instead of pushing off from the floor, she lifted a knee up so that her high-heel was as flat on the carpeting as it could tolerate.

With a soft grunt, her calf burned hotly while she strived to get onto both feet. Her hands braced themselves on her thighs, making an effort to keep them steady. Kakarotto wobbled a few times, but was then standing straight, albeit her legs were shaking uncontrollably when she realized it.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped in further before she heard the door shut behind her. She took another heavy inhalation for good measure, and took the blindfold off.

A woman, who was standing a few meters in front of her, pinched her lips together tautly, and then snapped her fingers. Wearing what looked like a mammoth version of her traveling garb she held herself as if she were a legend that had been reborn, “Get that sweaty thing off of her. She must be cleansed completely. Wash her face, her neck, her hands, her feet, and her tail - scrub down to the bone if you need to in order to get her clean. I will not hear my son complain to me about a stinking, clammy princess.” She snapped her fingers again, and Kakarotto finally saw the other women in the room whom had been unnoticeable up until she had stopped talking.

The treatment was not so much different from other times that the maids of the Lord's estate had to wash and clean her. Kakarotto had learned quickly that if she squirmed or resisted, the unpleasant acts would just take longer, and thus, she kept quite still.

Since they were just stripping her at that point however, she inspected her surroundings during the few minutes it took for them to unclothe her.

The rich blue carpets covered the entire floor of the atrium - the size of which seemed like the size of her parents' house. She had never seen a room covered in carpets with such extravagance. Some of the rooms of the Lord's estate had carpeting, but those rooms were smaller, and the larger rooms - like the dining and ballrooms - had only hardwood or even marble floors.

Buttressing her psyche for whatever shocks were in store for her, she looked at the walls of the foyer, and ended up turning a gasp into a somewhat more heavy breath of air.

She did not have walls, but portraits. All three frescos were stunning depictions of what court life must really have been like. The largest wall - which curved outward into a half-circle - showed two Noblemen dueling, and the remarkable colors of their energy beams seemed to give life to that point of time in their battle.

Abruptly, her view was blocked by an alien woman with soft lavender skin and a shocking pink mane of strange skin flaps for `hair.' As the slaves were still undressing her from all of the hefty petticoats, she could only tilt her head to the side questioningly.

“I'll order the walls scrubbed clean for a fresh look of your choosing. Do you want the carpet ripped up too?”

Her stomach nearly leapt out of her mouth upon hearing her talk about ruining a carpet that nice. At her parents' house, there was one rug, and it was given the best treatment. It was taken out of the closet only on feast days and holidays, and it was one of her family's treasures, “Ah - no. No, the carpet is fine.” She glanced over at the mural of the fighting Nobles, “And … and I like that painting.”

The alien looked at it as if she hadn't realized it was there in the first place, “It's so old-fashioned now. That was painted back when the Queen Consort had been the Princess Consort. That was what? Twenty years now?” She looked at one of the maids who chirped an affirmative, “Yeah, the little prince is twenty now …”

She looked for any sign of the queen only to find that she had skipped out of the atrium some time ago. Sighing, Kakarotto lowered her head more, and watched a slave peel off her lace gloves, “Was she in here long?”

“About three years, I believe, the time it took to conceive and birth him. It was only a few months later when the king's father crowned him.”

“I see,” she said, lifting her head up with some measure of difficulty. “Perhaps I'll keep the one wall, and have the other two changed. I want something simple so that I will have the time to enjoy it.”

“Don't you mean that you want time, my lady?” Startled by the odd question, she turned to the alien who tried to soothe her, “My lady, don't fret so. You will have plenty of time to enjoy yourself when you're here, so don't worry about-”

Though she had no real pompousness or noble pride about herself, she did feel her pride as a Saiyajin sting, and it reared its ugly head as she listened to the strange alien slave, “Are you” - she nearly spat her next word out, disgusted - “pitying me? Get out. Get out!” The alien had only hesitated a lone moment, but Kakarotto's patience had broken into pieces when the guards had played their joke. At least, they had been of her species!

After the alien dashed out of the suite, she realized that the maids had paused in their orders to stare at her while others were looking at the door through which the alien woman had left.

She waited a while before she murmured faintly, “Well?”

They nearly leapt to finish their orders, and no one bothered to talk to Kakarotto about the imminent wedding again. Going back into holding still for them, she was soon in the nude, and they led her deeper into the suite, leaving the atrium to enter a type of sanctum. While she would greet visitors to her suite in the foyer, this room seemed to be where she would entertain. The room was as large - if not larger - than the public bathhouse that she and her family would frequent.

Passing this room, the maids brought Kakarotto into an adjoining room, which she immediately realized was her sweat bath. While the sweat bath of the Lord's estate encompassed her old house, the gorgeous sweat bath in front of her took in the house and their yard. As they sat her down in front of the steaming pit, she wondered if she would ever have to entertain in the sweat bath chambers.

Unable to relax even while on the bench, she just watched the maids tend to the small fire. It seemed to have been prepared ahead of time for her so that the stones positioned over the burning wood would be hot enough. The room was actually already filled with a sweet smelling steam. She recognized the scent as a rare tree that grew in the desert in the far northern region of the planet, and she curled her toes in delight. Finally, when all was in preparation, one of the maids took the task of keeping the steam about by pouring the scented water onto the rocks to make the vapors. The several other slaves gathered around her, asking her to stand - which she did - and started to scrape away the sweat when it appeared with flat crescent-shaped gold pieces. After a while of this, a maid picked up an exfoliating bar and began to scrub her fingers while another had her sit so she could do the same with her feet.

The tickling sensation of her feet caused her to smile a bit, but she kept herself still as they rubbed off rough dead skin. Someone took a softer bar, and rubbed her face, searching for any dead skin that had compiled there. A larger soft bar was used to scrub up and down her body, leaving almost no skin untouched. After they were done scouring her dead skin, she was asked to stand again before they scraped away the skin and the sweat on her body that had accumulated since they started.

Kakarotto saw two of the maids standing to the side, and murmuring to themselves as they looked over her nude body as if trying to decide something. After some kind of debate, the two departed only to return with the queen.

The older Saiyajin woman took one look at her, and claimed, “Yes, wax off that undergrowth down there. And make sure her legs are bare as well.” Her lips twisted in distaste as she seemed to think of something, “And any other hair lower than her waist. It's unbecoming.”

`Wax?' She yelped in shock when the maids pushed her down, and yanked her knees apart. Her eyes nearly took in her entire face when she felt the maids apply something hot to her nether regions, and then it was ripped off. Biting down onto her tongue, she bore through the ungodly torture, wondering when they were going to start interrogating her.

They put her upright when they finished, and she swallowed nothing when she saw that the queen had been watching the whole thing, “Good job.” Snapping her fingers, the queen then pointed at her, “Now finish scraping off that sweat. She must be fitted for her wedding gowns before the tailors can make them. Then we'll have her bundled up in time for the ceremonial dreaming.” She tilted her head just so, and, despite the queen looking straight at her, Kakarotto knew that she wasn't really talking to her at all. The whole manner about her was too haughty, “And you will inform me of your dreams upon your waking. The deeds of your reign will be determined there.”

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Kakarotto had not slept. After they had laid her down into the huge bed of her new bedroom, she just stared at the ceiling as her mind raced. The two sweat baths she had taken that night served to expel most of the toxins that made her ill in the first place. Yet this new sickness was caused by the anxiety that had begun to grip her.

She had already determined that if it were the queen giving out the orders, the slaves would have no problem causing Kakarotto any and all discomforts. Whenever the queen was gone, they did as they were commanded while keeping the bride cozy.

This unsettled her deeply given that she didn't believe that the queen liked her very much. She assumed that she wouldn't like it either if her own son were being given into some other woman's care, but this odd form of initiation was grating, and Kakarotto was certain she was failing in some manner.

The bed was soft, and, on any other night, she probably would have dropped immediately into slumber, but this was not just another night. Kakarotto didn't think she would be able to sleep ever again after this.

Her eyes went straight to the door when she saw a line of light enter the room. Swallowing nothing, her eyes went to the timepiece to determine the time. The queen had said she would return to hear of her dream in three hours, but the hour on the timepiece was merely an hour away from that third hour. She sat up, and her heart - which had already been hammering away - was beating so erratically that she knew the entire palace could hear it if they listened.

“Who's there?” She whispered.

A man entered.

Going very still, her arms tightened around herself, keeping the blanket close to cover her bare body aptly. She was not embarrassed by nudity by any means; however, she doubted that she could freely show herself off since she was to become a prince's wife and concubine.

He slipped in near to her, even going so far as to kneel onto the bed, and then he leaned over her. Kakarotto's hand that was hidden in the blankets gripped into a fist as she waited for the intruder to make a move.

“So you're my bride.” If anything, his words made her fist become tighter as her stomach went through a dozen loops at once. “You're supposed to be sleeping, you know.” Her mouth creaked open, but her throat was abruptly parched. She could only manage a soft exhalation that made him grunt in repugnance, “How do you expect to be able to stand next to me as my wife if you can't even speak to me? I knew it. You're as worthless as they come.”

“No,” she said finally, her anger surfacing, “I'm not. I'm not worthless.”

“Excuse me? If I say something, then you should view it as fact.”

“Get out,” she saw his eyes widen in the scant light from the other room since he had not shut the door. Clenching her fangs together, she waited for him to leave her alone. Instead, his eyes narrowed into slits before he straddled her lap. Terrified, Kakarotto wrenched him off her, her whole body pulsing with blood that had just run cold, and drained from her face. “Stop it! No! Get off of me!”

He landed on the floor beside the bed with a growl, and he sat up to grab her face, almost tearing her head off when he made her look at him, “You will respect my word. You are worthless, and always will be. It's a good thing you aren't the slut I envisioned too though. After all, your little sister spread her legs quickly enough for me.”

She supposed that was intended to be an insult, and she did become motionless in shock due to his words and their phrasing, but she almost laughed.

After all this time, the money and tutors that Lord and Lady had invested in her to protect their daughter had come to naught in the end. The prince had apparently moved in on their cherished daughter during one of the visits made by the Royal Family.

There were several ways to avoid breaking the virgin's seal, and still allow the prince the luxury of having the real Kakarotto spread her legs. For one, the oral pleasures were wide open to them, and for another, if he had only entered her just far enough to not tear her hymen. She finally snickered, and would have covered her mouth with her hand if his hand hadn't been over it already.

“What?” He asked, and his grip tightened, but she pulled away, stifling her laughter with her own hands. “What's wrong with you!? … What - what did she tell you?”

Shaking her head, she then looked at him before her giggles increased, “No … no, nothing …”

The prince snarled, large fangs snapping as he seethed, “She must have or you wouldn't be laughing! You two bitches were making fun of me, weren't you?”

“No,” she said hurriedly, trying to appease him, but the smile wouldn't go away, “No, we weren't. I mean, I'm not … We never did!”

His growl intensified, serving to make her smile vanish, and she truly began to dread her part in the whole affair. After all, her husband-to-be really did appear to be what everyone had informed her of - a monster. His claw of a hand clasped over her shoulder, shaking her hard, “How dare you! You and that stupid bitch of a sister will pay for your insolence! You will not mock my prowess in the bedroom. What dirty whores you both are! I should check right now to make sure that you're still a virgin since you're so filthy.” His fangs gleamed in an unholy smile then, “But the testing in front of the entire Royal Court will show whether you're a slut or not.” She was pushed back onto the bed, and he spat out, “Sleep well, my princess.”

Kakarotto was still trembling when the queen entered, and she looked the younger woman over several times before she grimaced, lips pursing in thought. “So did you sleep well?” She nodded automatically, mind racing for what she might tell her, but all she could think about was of the testing in front of the Court with which the prince had teased her. “Well? What did you dream of?”

Shaking her head that time, she clutched herself tighter, “It wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare. A monster came in and raped me.”

The older woman's eyebrows lifted several centimeters up her forehead before she descended down onto her, slapping her, “I am not telling the council that, girl. Have another dream.”

“What?”

“Do it, have another dream. Tell me another dream.” When Kakarotto could only gape at her, the queen stood up straight, glaring down at her, “Tell me something, girl, or you won't see moonlight again.”

“He …” she lowered her head, which was swimming with confusion over the events of the past few hours. How did one simply have another dream while they were still awake? Was the prince supposed to have been there? “A man … went to a palace, and he asked … he begged for money to feed his hungry family. That was my dream.” Please, let me wake up now.

“That's it?” She asked, uninterested in anything else, “That was your entire dream?”

“Yes, that's all the dream was about. He wanted food for his pregnant mate because he didn't have anymore options before she wasted away.”

“An interesting dream for the heralding of a wedding, but we'll see what the Court thinks of it.” She glanced down at Kakarotto's lap before she tore off the blanket, “… Good, there's no blood. Come now. Your first wedding gown is complete, and you must have another sweat bath before you put it on. You got your sheets soaked almost entirely through.”

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In response to all the people wondering when I'm going to update “Up for Interpretation,” I have this to say …

XP Whenever I damn well feel like it.

So yeah, it's definitely not over yet, and this story isn't something else that I'm writing because I'm done with “Up for Interpretation.” I'm not done with that one yet. I'm still trying to think of a good way to end it.

Oh, and, Suisheu, if you take out all of the commas, how much sense do you think that this whole thing would actually make?

Exactly.

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