Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Piccolo and Alaura Saga, Episode Four: Children Of The Dawn ❯ Surprises! ( Chapter 1 )

The twins were five months old before Alaura began to realize that there was something extra special about them. It was not merely the fact that they were part saiyan or even that they were twins, however unidentical, it was something more, something subtle at first but which grew until she could ingore it no longer. Piccolo, however, had felt the infants' growing inner strength for far longer than his mate had, though he'd kept his feelings to himself.

Tae was visiting, on vacation from his dance troupe who were taking a breather so everyone could touch base with their families and loved ones before the start of the summer season which would go for another six months as they toured Japan and part of the U.S. Tae had grown into a very handsome namekian with a gracefulness that belied the strength of his limbs, made muscular through constant dedication to his choicen path, the classical dance.

Alaura was very proud of his achievements and thought, not for the first time, that he hardly resembled outwardly the determined little child who'd come as a student to her dance class years before, before she'd given up teaching to the raising of her family instead. She thought of Tae, whose other natural gift was that of healing and his gentleness fit that part of him perfectly, he had a hard time keeping himself from helping a being in pain, as her son and Neko had called him her "Big Brother" ever since she could talk.

They were outside in the grass, Alaura wore her dark glasses and a hat with a wide brim to sheild her eyes from the brightness of the mid-morning sun. Tae had helped her spread a blanket out upon the grass and she held Asere in her lap as Eresa sat and pulled handfuls of grass up from the ground and scattered dirt and grass all over herself and her area of the blanket. Tae said across from her, the two babies between them. Piccolo floated in the air above and a bit to the side of them, half in meditation, half in watch over them.

Alaura and Tae's conversation became involved and she set Asere down on the blanket to momentarily shove her hair, which had grown past her shoulders again, behind one ear. All at once, Tae's ears pricked and he stiffened, she could tell by his posture that he had heard something her own, dull human ears could not have picked up.

Piccolo's eyes were open and he stood up in mid-air from his mediation pose, all alert and focused. Alaura reflectively reached for her children and felt the blood flowing through her viens turn into ice water as she realized only Eresa was accounted for. She was still digging smalls holes in the lawn, making little happy gurgling sounds in her throat.

"Where's Asere?!" She cried, looking around frantically for the baby, who could all ready crawl at a pretty swift pace once she could going, tears flowed from Alaura's eyes as her mind played on all the horrible things that could befall a helpless child alone in the wilderness which surrounded their house on all sides, "Asere!" She cried, running around in cirlces, calling and searching for the little one, "Asere, where are you?!"

"Piccolo!" Tae called up to the older namekian who'd helped rear him after they'd taken him in years ago, "Do you hear them?"

Piccolo nodded, struggling to sort out his daughter's ki from everyone else's around him, to pin-point the subtle star of energy that was like her signature identification for him. He found it, and focused in on it's location, not liking where it led at all.

He could see her now, in his mind's eye, sitting surrounded by trees in the shade of the forest, not too far into it, but she wasn't alone. Warm fur-bounded, sharp-nosed creatures whose hearing was nearly equal to that of a namekian crowded in on her from all sides. Piccolo could smell and feel them through his daughter's senses as if they were his own.

"Yes," He said, "The wolves have her surrounded."

"Wolves?!" Alaura cried, holding Eresa tight, the little girl starting to feel uncomfortable in the midst of her mother's fear and began to whimper, "Piccolo! Don't let them hurt my baby!"

"Hush, woman!" Piccolo snapped, hating her hysterics, even if she really did have an honest reason to become hysterical, "They're aren't hurting her. They seem to be…treating her as one of their own pups…"

"She's not a wolf pup!" Alaura fairly screamed, Poor Eresa began to wail and both Tae and Piccolo covered their ears at the peircing sound, "She's my daughter! Go get her away from them! Please!"

Piccolo ignored her and flew to where he knew the infant would be. He saw that the animals were too close to her to send a ki blast at without harming the baby as well, and honestly, he really had no desire to hurt creatures who hadn't tried to harm him or his family first. So far, they hadn't tried to hurt either him or Asere, only licked the infant across her face a few times and nudged her with their noses.

Asere giggled and patted one grizzled grey's scar-mottled muzzle. Piccolo watched as she looked into the wolf's yellow blazing eyes and the wolf turned away from her, flashing the bit of white from his throat at her as he did so. Did he just see a full-grown battle-and-hunt scarred canis lupis flash submissive to a five month old infant?! Impossible! The gasping noise he'd made in shock at what he was witnessing drew her attention and the wolves.

Just as Piccolo was trying to figure out a way he could get to her without upsetting the very unperdictable wolf pack, the leader, a still young alpha female whod'd obviously just taken over the pack not too long ago, raised her muzzle to the sky and gave a short barking howl. She lopped off, followed by her pack, and slide like oil through the shadows of the trees.

He was bending down to pick her up from the ground in an instant, holding her close, his own heart pounding with fear for how close he'd come to losing her! She wriggled in his grip and pointed a chubby finger in the direction of the trees, "Woofs!" and giggled, as he carried her into the air and back to her frantic mother and sniffling sister.

"Asere!" Alaura cried out, tears glistening down her cheeks where they'd fallen from her eyes, taking her from Piccolo and cuddling her close with her twin. She buried her face into the baby's thick golden locks. She looked up at Piccolo and her eyes asked a silent question. He looked at the back of their daughter's head and a worried expression passed over his handsome features.

"I can't help but think that she called them to her," He said in a low voice, "That she called them to particular spot where she could find them."

"But why?" She asked, "She's just a baby! She could have been hurt!"

"Maybe she just wanted to play with them," He said, "She called them `Woofs', isn't that the name she gave to the picture book you read to her and Eresa? The one about the german shepards? Perhaps she just wanted to play with some dogs and they looked like dogs to her…They didn't hurt her, they…seemed to accept her."

"Piccolo, if what your thinking is true," She said, "What if she'd called them to her when it was just me and Eresa! You said that they seemed to accept her, but what if they did not do the same for me or her sister? We could have been torn to bits!"

"I always had a feeling there was more to them than meets the eye," He said, by way of answering her fear, "We'll just have to watch Asere and what she does even harder than before. This could, however, be just a one-time thing, a fluke of nature that we don't have to worry about repeating…" Even as he said so, Piccolo did not believe his own words and looking over his daughter's heads, one dark and one light, into their mother's blue eyes told him she didn't either.

Alaura murmered something about getting the girls some lunch and she handed Eresa over to Tae. He followed her back to the house after sharing a glance with Piccolo. As he followed behind Alaura, he felt something furry rub up against his leg as he walked, and nearly trip him as it darted inbetween his feet. His natural dancer's sence of balance kept him from going sprawling. He paused and bent down to pick the creature up.

The dark furred creature squeaked and looked at him with large, unblinking liquidy black eyes. It was long and seemingly boneless with a long fluffy tail, powerful hind legs that he assumed were used for gaining speed while running and dainty front paws that were good at gripping things, he noticed as it grabbed at his annetae playfully, batting one with a paw.

Eresa giggled as the creature's tail flicked across her face. It's large, rounded ears flicked back and forth as it listened to sounds too far away for either human or namekian to pick up, it's little dark nose twitched and his whiskers moved as it tasted the breeze around them.

Then, suddenly, it scrambed over Tae's shoulder and raced, quick as spit, up Alaura's back and over her shoulder, squeezing head-first inbetween the area between Alaura and Asere, popping it's head up just under the child's chin and licking her on the nose making Asere giggle. Alaura gasped and nearly dropped both child and animal and looked down at it.

After a few tense moments when she realized that the small animal was not being hostile towards either herself or her child, a flicker of a smile quirked the corners of her mouth as she watched her daugher's eyes sparkle as she petted the little beast.

"Well, isn't this interesting," She murmered, "First the wolves and now this…I wonder…"