Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Reciprocity ❯ What's Missing Is What's Plenty ( Chapter 8 )

Disclaimer: I disclaim it.

_____What's Missing Is What's Plenty

“What's missing is...

some care once denied

now dissolved inside

what's plenty is

one god

six tongues

five breaths

four lungs

what's rhythm is...

steps taken, lips kissing

new harmony on an awesome scale

meat against meat

under sail”

Bonnie “Prince” Billy

Bulma kneeled on the cool white sand, surveying the stars as they flickered, hung against the deep black sky. She shut her eyes against them as the breeze ruffled her hair and caressed her face teasingly. Her fingers twitched behind her back. Dogs bayed behind her as the Eeyuris unpacked their things, the sleepy camp waking slowly as the first burnt orange fires of dawn lit the horizon. Vegeta lay in a heap beside her. The binds on his wrists were really doing a number on him. He was a fighter, in his bones, running with his blood; he would normally be giving consciousness and competition his all. That he couldn't meant the ki suppressors were doing some seriously dirty work on his nervous system. She glanced at them with loathing as two Eeyuris approached them. As she turned to receive them with as much dignity as she could muster, she caught Vegeta's eye. He was staring at her blankly. She stared back, the southerly wind ruffling her hair.

“Don't worry,” she murmured solidly. “I'll take care of this.”

He just continued to stare.

The Eeyuris bent and hoisted him up by this armpits, hauling him away.

“Where are you taking him?” Bulma snapped, alarmed.

The Eeyuris didn't answer, only continued dragging him across the sand towards the camp.

Bulma worked to slow her galloping pulse. They wouldn't hurt him, she reassured herself, not if they had so much money invested in him. She watched them disappear in the darkness, her chest tight.

An Eeyuris shoved her shoulder, barking at her to rise. Bulma scowled and managed to stand up fumblingly. The Eeyuris ripped her capsule case off her thigh, sliced the rope at her ankles and made short work of the rope at her wrists, although he gave her no time for relief as he pressed the same knife against her throat.

“If you have any plans for escape, bury them in the sand. There is no one but us for miles. Try anything still, and your mate falls,” he threatened, pressing the blade deeper into her neck. She felt a quick, sharp pain and then wet, trickling down her collar. She gulped, making the knife sink even deeper.

“Yes,” she answered hoarsely. “But what are your plans for us?”

“You will help the women work until the Gourd Moon.”

She frowned at his term of phrase. Full moon?

“What then?”

She met with his silence. Understanding there was something he wasn't telling her, she pressed from another side. “What about my companion?”

l

“He does his own work, too.” He cuffed the back of her head. “Ask no more questions.”

Bulma was getting pretty fed up with these Eeyuris already. She glowered and held her head high as another Eeyuris approached her. Only this one was dressed in a shapeless, sooty gray robe and veil, unlike the men's khaki, close-fitting robe and pant. The new one bowed to the man, who ignored it and turned on his heel, following the Eeyuris who took off with Vegeta.

“Follow me,” commanded a soft tenor, turning and shuffling toward a large tent. Bulma followed, observing the camp in the gray morning light. She listed, tripping over her own feet, and frowned. Her vision was obstructed by a creeping blackness around the edges, too, and she was worried she was nursing a concussion.

The figure, its gender hidden in the folds of the robe, led her into a tent, where two other figures in gray hovered over a long, wood burning stove. A small figure hovered in the corner, clutching a broom.

“You will start the laundry,” a firm, feminine voice came from the robes, peeling back the veil to reveal a worn, gaunt face. “Breakfast is at dawn. Men eat first. After breakfast, you will wash up. Then we sweep camp for snakes. After that, we will skin and cure the meat the men bring back to camp. We then prepare lunch and wash dishes, launder clothes, beat out the men's prayer rugs. When the sun is five fingers from the horizon, we begin supper. After the tent is tidy, we go to bed.”

“That's a huge to do list,” Bulma announced, shocked.

“You're lucky you're an alien, or you'd be on your knees after a hard day's work, as well,” one of the women snarled.

The first woman hushed her. “Eeyuris men are sacred to Zojeerma-Yarowmeen. They give us life in our wombs. They allow us life outside of it.”

“Without you, men couldn't help you make life. Without the miracle that is your body, you couldn't carry or bear a child. Without your strength, you couldn't complete this ridiculous laundry list every day,” Bulma contested.

“Women are born flawed. It's with the men's blessing that we are able to work for redemption,” she lectured in her toneless voice.

“Why are you educating her, Rauwen? It's not like she will be staying with us for good,” the other woman chided her bitterly.

There was a heavy silence as Bulma began feeling the now familiar wave of apprehension. “Wait, what do you mean? Where will I be going?”

Rauwen only pivoted and gestured at Bulma to follow. Glancing back at the women's rough, tanned faces, their glares framed by heavy eyebrows, she followed Rauwen out the back tent flap. Rauwen led her to another tent a few paces away, where a wooden tub sat.

This was to be one of many lessons for Bulma in the following days. Bent over the tub, she scrubbed and thrashed the Eeyuris clothes in the stale water, water which she had painstakingly hauled from the well and poured into the tub, ringing the clothes dry and hanging them on the twine line at the back of camp. The lye in the soap dried her hands out, and before long, her knuckles cracked and bled. She was careful to keep the robes clean of any blood stains. Then she was escorted to the edge of camp with a dull machete to sweep the camp of snakes. Finding one curled languidly under a thorny bush, she at first let out a small shriek, and then stalled. She didn't want to kill the poor creature, until Rauwen appeared behind her, pinned the now spitting snake to the ground by its neck with the handle of a broom, and hacked its head clean off, eyes meeting Bulma's as she picked up the two halves of the limp body to burn. Then they hurried into the big tent, where the men had arrived, already dumping lifeless, still animals onto the sand before them. In horror, she watched as the women began skinning the creatures, pulling the skin over the heads, slicing the bellies open and hauling the guts out. After one of the women barked at her to get to work, Bulma sunk to her knees, grimacing, and began fastidiously pulling the guts out of what looked like a fox. When the animals were only skin and bones, the women went to work rubbing salt rock into the brown muscle, and then hauled the carcasses to a nearby tent to hang on a hook to store. Bulma's arms and legs shook as she tried over and over to loop the beast onto the hook, its dead weight taxing. Finally, it sunk cleanly onto the hook, and Bulma sighed heavily, wiping sweat from her brows.

When Bulma sarcastically asked why the women weren't also washing their pack animals down, she was informed that the Saiyeths, too, were sacred, and the women weren't allowed to touch them.

By the long day's end, Bulma was worn thin and dead tired. For better or for worse, she was too tired to worry long about her predicament, her aching head, her cracked and bleeding hands, her raw wrists and ankles, or even Vegeta's well being. After the men had filled their bellies and filed out of the tent, the women shoveled down the remaining stew, scrubbed the kitchen, and then disappeared one by one to their own tents. When the kitchen was clean, Rauwen led Bulma out the door.

“You will be sleeping with the children. I have robes for you to wear. It's not appropriate for you to wear that while in supplication.”

“Supplicating!? What exactly are you atoning for? You should be worshipped for all the work that you do,” Bulma exclaimed resentfully.

“That's not respectful,” Rauwen said firmly, but gently. “This isn't like your home.”

“No, it's not. There are many women there whose work and effort and choices and feelings are valued.”

“There's an old adage which says Eeyuris women aren't only born flawed, but also with a stone for a heart. Feelings are not the same to us.”

“Only because you cannot afford to hurt,” Bulma whispered.

Rauwen, with haunted eyes, dropped the robes into Bulma's arms. “Your veil must be on while you're outside or in a man's presence. Please do not speak to the children. Just sleep. I will wake you before dawn.”

Bulma wanted to ask her more but kept her mouth shut, following the woman to the area that the women peed in, and then to the children's hut, where little sleeping bodies lay in a circle, snoring softly in the darkness. There was a rag on the floor boards where she was told to rest, and when Rauwen left her, Bulma achingly stripped off her boots and sprawled on the thin, pilled blanket. She stared up at the tent, vaguely thirsty. She was so exhausted she could only flutter her eyelids and ponder the colors behind them in the darkness. But right before she drifted into a heavy sleep, a little voice on her side broke the silence.

“Are you an alien?”

Bulma turned towards the child. The little girl in the corner of the kitchen. Even in the dark, Bulma could see she had startling gold eyes under thick dark brows, beautiful lips, and a thin, delicate nose. She was striking.

“I suppose I am,” Bulma whispered, considering. She cleared her throat. “I'm not supposed to talk to you.”

“That's because children are but styes in the eyes of Zojeerma-Yarowmeen. But I am often beat for not minding,” the little girl informed her innocently. “I am not good at listening.”

“Me, either,” she chuckled lightly. She threw her arm over her eyes. “I'm surprised you get away with it.”

“My mistress says it will come to a head once I get my first blood. Then the men will not tolerate me.”

Bulma rolled over to face her, starkly perturbed at this child's merciless, dark reality.

“I'm sorry that it's like this for you. Not all girls are treated so cruelly in the galaxy.”

“It's my fault, though, for being a girl, and a bad omen,” she responded naively.

“No. No, it's not. That's what the men tell you to justify the way they treat you. The only thing a girl like you should be doing is catching fireflies, blowing bubbles, climbing trees.”

The girls molten eyes were wide in the darkness. “That sounds unreal. It's too bad you can't take me home with you and show me fireflies,” she said, stumbling over the word.

“Yes, it is too bad,” Bulma murmured sincerely, settling on her back again to stare up at the inky blackness of the tent's peak.

“It's too bad they're going to feed you to Zojeerma-Yarowmeen. I wish you could stay here with me.”

Bulma's eyes widened. There was that dread in the pit of her belly again.

“What is Zojeerma-Yarowmeen?”

“The Exalted One,” the girl said, like Bulma was dumb. “He's the Lord of the Desert.”

Everything hit her with painful clarity. Bulma ran her hands through her hair, gulping.

“I'm to be a sacrifice to a god?”

The little girl nodded timidly. “I shouldn't talk about him though. He doesn't like little children to talk about him.”

“How horrible,” Bulma commented, stupefied. Panicking, Bulma sat up abruptly. “What about my companion?”

The little girl nodded. “Zojeerma-Yarowmeen hasn't been gifting the men with children, and the Eeyuris are dying out. It is said Zojeerma was a powerful warrior who landed on this planet with his mate, Yarowmeen, and created the Eeyuris to pastor this realm. The men say a sacrifice of an alien warrior and his mate can convince Zojeerma-Yarowmeen that they are dedicated to him. If they spill your blood on the Gourd Moon, the men will be blessed with children again.”

Absently, Bulma realized Zarbon hadn't called in Vegeta's ransom to anyone out in space. He had, instead, heeded the call from the Eeyuris and dumped Vegeta and Bulma into their laps. Why would he choose to hide Vegeta?

The little girl recoiled as they heard a noise outside the tent, but when nothing came of it, she sank back into the blankets, rubbing her eyes. Bulma did not have a blanket, and the desert night temperature was dropping rapidly. She tossed the robe Rauwen gave her over her legs.

“Please don't tell anyone I told you. I will be beat,” the girl asked from the dark.

“Never,” promised Bulma, rubbing her crossed arms anxiously.

Two weeks. That's all she had before they were consumed by a god.

___

The days passed, and Bulma was no closer to a practical plan. Every morning, she told Vegeta out loud that she would take care of them. She tried finding satisfaction in keeping her head down, as Vegeta had advised her to do. And then, every morning, she scrubbed the Eeyuris clothes and dishes, skinned and cured their meat, clumsily killed the poisonous snakes lingering too close to camp, and finally, sunk into an exhausted, anxious sleep each night. Her heavy robe and veil made her sweat more than the hot sun was already guilty of, and it took a lot of self control not to throw them off in defiance. But she had Vegeta's safety to care for. Things couldn't go on like this. Her and Vegeta's fate rested on her shoulders, and for once, she had nothing.

Until she stumbled over the storage tent.

Rauwen, which Bulma learned respectably meant “mother” in Eeyuri, had asked for her help with something before they prepared dinner, taking her to a tent a few dozen feet from the kitchen. As Bulma's eyes adjusted to the dark tent, her stomach dropped. Inside, were piles and piles of tech. And on top of a tower of it lay her capsule case.

Rauwen explained. “The men pick this stuff off of traders when they get stranded outside Tent City. None of it works. I'd like to clear this stuff out and use this tent for--”

“Rauwen!” Bulma protested. “Are you crazy!” Bulma plucked through the jumble, grabbing a few spare parts. “Rauwen,” Bulma said seriously, leveling a gaze at her mistress who, in her own way, had been kind to her, in light of her alien-ness and expendability. “Rauwen, if you let me, I can build you things from these parts that will make your tasks easier. Think of, of machines that will wash your clothes quicker and cleaner. That will wash your dishes for you--”

“What are you talking about?” Rauwen snapped.

“Rauwen, I build tech on my planet. That's my job. If you just let me, I can put all this stuff to work for you,” she encouraged. And find something that can disable Vegeta's cuffs.

“That's enough. I don't want to hear it,” Rauwen demanded harshly. “Did the men put you up to this? If you are trying to trick me--”

“No! Let me help you--”

“Silence! Go help the women make dinner. You are no longer permitted in here.”

Bulma was crestfallen. Despondently, she stepped out of the tent. Vegeta was right. These people didn't want her enlightened help.

She could sneak into the tent tonight anyway.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans for her.

___

As Bulma loped into the tent to help with dinner, slicing into meat and desert onions with single minded thoughtlessness (six more days, six more days), she began to consider some of her most desperate ideas. Steal an animal, gather up Vegeta, cut down any Eeyuris in her way...she'd break down into silent, dry sobs, seeing the plan as it was: full of holes, too vulnerable to trouble. She was no martial artist. She could see herself clunking through the dark, and if she wasn't hacked down then, she would be soon enough. How was she going to defend herself against men accustomed to killing? Escape men accustomed to the desert? How was she going to carry a Saiyan warrior, packed densely with muscle? There were too many what ifs. Bulma was at a loss.

Six days. Her only chance hinged on deactivating Vegeta's cuffs.

Maybe then, he would just stand up and stretch and say, “C'mon, Onna, let's blow this popsicle stand.” Maybe it would be as easy as that, and they would stand up, and he would fly them back to the ship, and they would just take off...

“That's why they don't need him, he said. He's no warrior, he won't even put up a fight,” she overhead one of the women saying. She turned her head emptily toward her.

“My husband said he won't eat. No warrior just lays down and dies. He thinks it was a foolish investment. They'll kill him before the sun rises,” she informed the other woman smugly. “Some sacrifice.”

“What did you say?” Bulma asked sharply, causing all of the women to jump as she put her knife down on the cutting board deliberately.

The woman sneered. “It's no business of yours, you alien slut--”

Bulma launched herself at the woman, tackling her to the floor and shaking her. “Tell me! What's going to happen?” She felt Rauwen's hands pulling at her, trying to dislodge her, but Bulma's grip was steadfast. “What's happening to him?” She interrogated.

“He's starving. They are going to slay him like the animal that he is. He is not fit to represent Zojeerma--”

Bulma let go of her roughly, knocking the woman's head on the floorboard, and turned toward Rauwen, who startled and fell back onto her haunches.

“Why didn't you tell me he wasn't eating?” Bulma cried out, her eyes gathering up frustrated, desperate tears. “Food is very important to a Saiyan's health! I can help him! He could die!”

“You aliens all deserve to die! Plundering our planet, displeasing--”

“Shut up!” Bulma yelled viscously. The woman's mouth clamped shut, but her brown eyes held a wary anger.

“Do you think you could get him to eat?” Rauwen asked cautiously. The other woman scoffed at her concern.

Bulma nodded.

“I will speak to my husband. Maybe he will find it favorable to maintain our camp's investment.”

Bulma's head bobbed slightly in agreement, her eyes imploring Rauwen, who simply stood and began chopping desert squash like nothing had happened.

The younger woman took the cue and dislodged herself from Bulma's grip, turning back to her work station, casting Bulma a look of stinging malevolence. Bulma stood painfully and picked up her knife, listlessly.

“After all,” Rauwen spoke, breaking the silence. “They are mates. Zojeerma-Yarowmeen prizes mates above all else. Zojeerma and Yarowmeen were mates, who held each other up in turns when the flash flood descended on the realm. It is better that she take care of him, in supplication, to satisfy Zojeerma-Yarowmeen more at the Gourd Moon.”

Bulma chopped unseeing. Vegeta was dying, and she was helpless to stop it.

__

She was surprised by Rauwen, who, after they had eaten and cleaned up, had pulled Bulma aside as she walked dolefully to her tent.

“I want you to do something for me,” she said.

Bulma stared at her cautiously. She remembered the last request Rauwen had made of her.

“I want you to go to that tent.”

Bulma's eyes widened. She knew which one she was talking about.

“I want you to build these things you said you could help us.”

Rauwen looked at her carefully, like she was administering some kind of test.

“I've also talked to my husband about your mate. He is allowing you one visit. He wants you to convince your mate to eat, or he dies. He has not decided your own fate, should he succumb to his weakness.” Bulma nodded, understanding what wasn't said. She would either die with him, for nothing, not even an alien world's stupid fanatical cause, or she could be stuck out here forever, serving men who valued her less than an animal, guilt ripping her apart over Vegeta's death until she died, an expatriate.

“First feed your mate. There is an extra bowl on the table,” she gestured back at the kitchen tent. “He is in the Exalted's. Then I will meet you at the tent. I am to oversee you.” Bulma barely got out a thank you before she was high tailing it to the kitchen, picking up the cold bowl and bustling to the place of devotion for the Eeyuris. Rauwen had done her a kindness that she couldn't forget. How many times had she daydreamed about making her way here? How many times had she stopped herself, in fear for Vegeta's life? This couldn't go on any longer. Vegeta was being killed nine ways to Sunday and if she didn't take a risk, it was going to be her fault, regardless. She had to act quickly.

As she neared the doorway, she was overcome with butterflies. Suddenly feeling shy, she pushed the curtain aside and walked in hesitantly. There were rows and rows of candles lit in the mud house, and crudely woven, storytelling tapestries covering the walls. Beaten base metal and rock carving figures pantomimed on a devotional slab of rock in the back.

And, in front of it, lay a bruised, filthy, lean Vegeta.

She walked swiftly to him, throwing off her veil, setting the bowl carelessly on the rock slab and falling to her knees beside him. He was pale, the skin beneath his eyes was dark and puffy. His skin had a sickly sheen to it. She felt a tear slip down her nose and she touched his sallow skin delicately, finally breaking down into sobs and cradling his head in her lap.

“I'm so sorry, Vegeta,” she sobbed. “I've failed you.” She touched the thick coarse hair behind his ear, slid her fingertips down his throat, and then gripped his shoulder. In this dwelling place of a god that desired them dead, she pressed her lips against his forehead, her tears falling into his defiant hair.

“I have failed you,” he contested hoarsely. She gaped, taking his head in her hands and peering at him.

“Vegeta?” She whispered reverently.

“I failed...to be the strongest under Frieza. I failed to take his life...at avenging my people. I failed to be...wary of an attack against Zarbon. I have failed too many times to deserve to live.”

“No! Don't say that! You're judging yourself too harshly. You have always persevered, when others would have just laid down to die. You can't give up now,” she pled. “Not when you have so much to look forward to. Beating up...Ka-Kakarot...tasting my mother's tiramisu...yelling at me for not fixing the gravity room at an impossible speed....” Not when I'm falling in love with you.

“I regret...I regret not kissing you within an inch of your life, that day you came home...covered in snow. Erase everyone but me from your memories that night...in your, in your lab,” he murmured, his eyes downcast. “I should have at least made you mine before we died.”

“You stupid Prince,” she choked out, lying down beside him and pressing herself flush against him. “You are obviously out of it if you're acting like a gentleman. You can make love to me just as soon as you stand up for yourself. I need you whole. I need you stubborn and resilient,” she pled into his chest. She wrapped one hand into his hair and laced her fingers in his own. “I'm going to get us out of here. They're going to kill you if you don't eat. I think I can uncuff you soon, but I need you to survive until then. Eat, regain some of your energy.”

“Bah. Energy...” he rumbled scathingly. “I am so much more powerful than these worms, but snap a piece of metal onto my wrists, and I am nothing.”

“They are worms, and I need your help stomping them!” She scowled. “I need the Prince of All Saiyans.”

“The Prince died...with his planet.”

Bulma felt like she was definitely at the end of her rope. “I need Vegeta, that cocky asshole who came to my planet and laughed as he took down every one of my friends! I need that price who punched poor Gohan in the gut for just being so gosh darned cute and who laughed at the Nameks wondering where their brothers were. I need that total jerk who knocked me on my ass instead of politely declining my romantic interest!”

Vegeta let out a few sharp laughs and finally looked at her, his black gaze a little delirious.

“Your Prince of Assholes,” he smiled, “won't make a clown out of himself anymore.”

A deep frown settled over her face. “You're abandoning me. Again.”

“Why stand by you as your man if I am not worthy?”

“You are a fool.” Her name calling had no effect on him. “Stubborn as always, and, like usual, totally back assward!”

“I will save your ass or die trying,” she seethed harshly into his face, her gaze burning, “and you will spend the rest of your life feeling like a fool because a human woman bested you.” He gazed up at her, but she was beyond frustrated now, standing up and jerking the veil back over her face.

“If you failed anyone,” she grit as she strode out, “it's yourself.”

__

Bulma marched out of the hut and made a beeline for the storage tent. She kind of stumbled upon Rauwen, who was sewing quietly outside the door. Bulma was glad her face was concealed. She didn't want Rauwen asking questions.

“The machines that can help with dishes and clothes. I would like to see you make them.” They moved inside together, removing their veils.

There was something going on, and Bulma couldn't put her finger on it. She started rifling through parts and glanced back up at Rauwen, who had drew inward, a troubled expression on her serious face.

“What is your name?” She asked Bulma rashly, as if it were a madcap question.

“Bulma,” Bulma softly replied, puzzled.

“Bulma, my daughter is...the last in a line of children born with an ungodly condition.” Rauwen rushed to kneel beside her, placing her hand on Bulma's knee importantly. “No more babies since her. From me, or anyone. The men believe she is a sign. She is a girl, foremost. Secondly, she has golden eyes.” Pieces clicked as Bulma recalled the young girl in the corner with the vibrant eyes, daring to talk to her in the dark. “The eyes of an omen. The men believe Zojeerma-Yarowmeen is displeased with us women. They would kill us, and some they have, if it didn't mean the end of Eeyuris. We are not working hard enough. Not quiet enough. Not pleasing enough,” she blushed. “There are only so many of us left. This camp is small, but the other camps are doing just as poorly. We...need help,” she confessed, uncertainly.

“I would be happy to make tech that can make your lives easier,” Bulma affirmed.

“I do not think a sacrifice is what Zojeerma-Yarowmeen needs,” Rauwen said harshly, gripping Bulma's knee. “I think He is ailing because She is suffocating. You are right, we work very hard for the men who abuse us. They separate us from our children!” Rauwen's voice thickened and cracked, like dough over-kneaded. “But it's when you showed up, looking my husband in the eyes defiantly, reminding me we are two parts of a whole, that I knew you were our true omen. A sign telling me our women are dying, and we have to stand up for ourselves because no one else will.” She vehemently held Bulma's gaze, nearly spitting the words at Bulma just so that she wouldn't choke and die on them. “Make me these machines. And take what you need. Tomorrow is a new day.”

Bulma measured her grim ferocity and put her hand on Rauwen's.

“If regime change is what you want,” she said firmly, “than I would be happy to help.”

“The Eeyuris cannot survive while their women are being smothered. It's a disgrace. Tomorrow, when the moon rises before dusk, the men will get stupidly drunk as they begin preparations for your sacrifice.” Rauwen looked at her uneasily then, but Bulma nodded, showing that she knew. Rauwen continued. “The men may likely kill your mate, or at least have their fun with him. Many of them are not...civil when intoxicated. And they forget about the purity of our race.” Bulma paled a little but nodded for her to go on. “Then is your chance. The women will reign tomorrow at midnight, in time for the Gourd Moon, reminding the men that we are fighters, too. Or we will at least die by our own choice. For your mate and your safety, you need to be out of here before then. We cannot protect you.”

“Right.”

“We need a lot of healing, I think,” Rauwen confided, mostly to herself. Bulma was reminded of Vegeta's taxed, candlelit form.

“And you will time to do it.”

It was a promise to Vegeta she wasn't backing out on.

__

Bulma walked back to her tent in the bright light of the setting gibbous moon. It was late, and she'd at least like an hour of sleep before she began her last day in the Eeyuris camp. She fingered the tools in her pocket.

She walked carefully into the children's tent, not wanting to wake the half dozen kids sleeping restlessly.

She laid down stiffly, taking the veil off but leaving her robes on for warmth. She couldn't wait to take a shower. The women here had thick, coarse hair, and didn't need to wash it very often, but Bulma's fine blue hair lay matted, itching against her head. There was no grooming or beautifying in camp, except twice weekly, when the women got to at least rinse their hair and privates. Bulma was feeling like a dirt ball. Where once that may have been enough to send her into an uproar, she was filled only with a quiet, implacable determination to see a bubble bath once again.

As she was beginning to question whether or not she would even get any sleep, she shifted onto her side and saw the little golden eyed girl looked at her sleepily but intently. Bulma gave her a small smile.

“Soon you will feel love,” Bulma whispered, tiredly.

“Zojeerma-Yarowmeen doesn't want me,” she yawned. “I am forsaken.”

“Things change,” Bulma commented simply. “Never give up hope.”

__

It was hard for Bulma to focus on her chores. It was like every time she turned around, her eyes met Rauwen's in paranoid camaraderie. The other women too seemed ill at ease, restless. Though the men seemed to suspect nothing. They didn't bother talking to their women anyway, and they were as transparent as any savage, anyway. She felt that if they knew, they would have nipped it in the bud by now. The women were still breathing, and that was all the comfort in their relative safety that she needed. Her tools and her capsule case rubbed against her thigh encouragingly.

At breakfast and dinner, she had eaten what little she could get away with, and capsulized the rest. She knew Vegeta needed as much food as he could get, and although she was hoping for a quick flight to Tent City to get food, and an even quicker flight back to the ship, she wanted to be prepared. That was Vegeta's mantra, wasn't it? He was a man who kept all his cards up his sleeve. She couldn't imagine that an orphan like him who crawled up the ranks of Frieza's command could have gotten far without learning a thing or two about survival. She could learn a thing or two from him....But not from his corpse, she reminded herself bleakly.

After dinner, when Bulma was nearly trembling with anticipation, Rauwen released her, giving her a quick hug.

“Take care,” she said into Bulma's hair. “Thank you for your gift to us.”

“I wish I could give more.” Bulma nodded toward the other women, who stood rigidly and silent behind her, as she turned out the door.

It was nearly dusk, and she could hear the men hooting and hollering on the other side of camp in the men's tent. Bellies full and bloodshed near, she imagined that they were quite stupid right now. As she passed a tent, chewing her lip in worry, a man's rough hands pulled her inside, clamping her wrists painfully behind her back as he grinned down at her toothlessly. Bulma's heart jumped into her throat. He backhanded her hard across her cheek, sending her sprawling. He kneed in her back before turning her over, leering down at her as she laid gasping on her back, stars in her vision, her cheek and back smarting.

No, no, no, I've come too close!

He was fumbling with the button on his pants, his robe getting in the way of his stumbling fingers as Bulma's mind raced.

That's when she saw it--a short sword hanging from his belt loop. As he finally unbuttoned the last button, Bulma closed her eyes and summoned her courage, sending a quick prayer to Vegeta. As quickly as she could, she drew the sword from its crude leather sheath and plunged it into his stomach. Bulma's mouth hung agape as his blood spilled out of him, christening her. Shocked, the man croaked out a denial, feeling dumbly at the wound, until he fell backwards. Bulma watched in slow motion as he open ed his mouth to yell for help. Without thinking, she yanked the sword out of his belly, which gave a sick, sloppy disapproval, and straddled him, slamming it into his chest. His eyes stared up at her, vacantly.

Quickly, she rolled off of him in revulsion and lost her dinner in the corner. Her mind was dumbly blank, but her heart was beating up a frenzy. She had never, ever expected to be in the situation where a man's life rested in her hands...and she chose his demise.

Wiping her wet mouth on the back of her hand, she stumbled over to the door flap and peered outside. No one was around. It looked like no one had heard their scuffle, thankfully.

She gripped the sword. Although she knew she couldn't take any chances, she ran recklessly to the Exalted's, screeching to a halt once inside. There, to her relief, lay Vegeta. She whisked the tools out of her pocket, kneeled beside him, and got to work, racing against time. Her still trembling, sweaty hands kept slipping on the locks, and it was hard to see which tool was which. Sweat dripped down her face, stinging her eyes and running sourly into her mouth, until she angrily slammed the tool into the last hole and twisted. With a click, the cuffs fell benignly from Vegeta's wrist to clatter onto the floor.

Vegeta's eyes snapped open. With one, firm nod of approval, Zojeerma-Yarowmeen christened Vegeta a black hole. All of the energy of the desert began vacuuming into his body in a torrent of life around him. His muscles bulged and he roared as his body, in reaction to the stress of the ki suppressors, violently sought balance to his ki.

The mud hut trembled, cracked, and broke into bits, chunks flying in a cyclone around them as he powered up to tremendous heights.

There was a reason he was this drained. He turned toward the sound of Eeyuris men and took a step in their direction, raising his hand, a ball of blue energy roiling against his palm.

A small white hand closed around his wrist, and he looked down at the slight, robed figure beside him. In the cold glow of his energy, he could see the blood splashed across her, her torn, dirty fingernails. The force of his energy didn't seem to dissuade her.

Just as she crooned his name, her feminine, familiar smell hit his senses, and the animal inside him drew comfort from it...only for his energy to stutter and flicker out and his knees to give way.

“Vegeta!” She cried, kneeling beside him. “Fuck!” She cried out in anguish.

She walloped his shoulder, shook his face frenetically. “You have to wake up.” She gripped his shirt in her fists and called out to him, finally beating wildly on his chest. She was at the end of her rope, her sanity suffering and fracturing under the sleeplessness, assault, hunger, distress of the last two weeks. In the back of her head, a voice kept telling her to keep calm and pull herself together, but she was too engrossed in the lifeless body beside her.

A familiar, small voice called out to her.

“Hold on,” the little girl urged her. “I'll get a Saiyeth. Just hold on!” The diminutive figure raced off, Bulma blinking at her through a fog of despair.

It wasn't long before the sounds of fighting reached her, and she began to worry for the girl. The little girl came rushing back, what felt like forever later, leading a saddled Saiyeth.

“How am I going to get him on?” She asked the girl obtusely. The little girl shook her head helplessly. Bulma stared at her and then at Vegeta, who lay unmoving in the rubble.

“If I never have to see you knocked out again, it would once too many,” she snarled at him.

Bulma bent down and, with all her strength, drug Vegeta over to the Saiyeth, wincing as his head knocked against bricks of broken clay. When she was right up on it, she lopped his arm around her shoulder and, with all her might and stubborn determination, stood up to carry his weight. Her knees nearly buckled and her quads protested jerkily.

“Vegeta,” she grunted. “Help...”

Vegeta grabbed weakly onto the reigns and pulled himself, cruelly slow, onto the Saiyeths back, Bulma pushing from behind. Once he was on, clutching the reigns to avoid slipping, she helped him get his foot out from under him and to dangle on the other side. Finally satisfied that he was firmly on, Bulma ripped off her veil and turned to the little girl. The sounds of fighting were drawing too close for comfort.

“Come with us,” she said, surprising herself . “Please. You'll like it on Earth. You'll have an easy life. You can go to school, play with other children. There will be no adults who want to hurt you.”

“I can't,” she whined, her eyes wide with fright. “My mistress is here. I can't abandon her.”

“I can't speak for your mother,” Bulma declared, “but, if your mother doesn't...survive...she'd want you to be safe.” She owed her that. Rauwen's serious, lined face surfaced in her vision.

The girl shook her head frantically. “I can't. I can't leave her! My brothers and sisters were killed because of me! She was punished because of my eyes. I can't leave her alone.”

Bulma's heart sank, and wiping once more at her eyes, she nodded.

“I respect your choice. Stay strong!” She urged her. “Don't let anyone walk all over you.” Glancing at Vegeta, she uttered, “Only then will you find love.”

The little girl nodded, and Bulma waved goodbye.

“Follow the desert mouse tail!” She informed Bulma, pointing to a small constellation cluster. The little girl hit the Saiyeths haunches and hollered at it, and it lurched forward, making Bulma a little sick. Clutching the reigns from behind Vegeta's prone form, the Saiyeth led them across the star strewn desert, toward Tent City.