Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Thicker Than Blood ❯ Alaura's Failure ( Chapter 13 )

"Did you speak with her?" Alaura began the moment she heard the front door slam shut, knowing that Piccolo would be able to hear her easily from the next room. She was still seated at the corner of the sofa, her long legs tucked up under herself and the gypsy-style skirt the color of dried blood spread out like a blanket over her feet and legs. She still wore her hair braided down her back for conveincence as well as comfort and the book she had been struggling to read still beside her where she'd left it.

"She…I cannot help her, Alaura." Piccolo said as he stood before her, sadly, hating to cause more pain than what was already in his love's azure eyes. "Perhaps when Tae comes home again…"

Tae had taken off a little after the holidays, his troupe was to be going on another world tour soon and he needed to prepare for that. Gohan had gone back to his own family, promising to return for a visit soon. Alaura sighed and nodded. Perhaps that would help, she thought, Neko and Tae had always been like two burrs in a boot. Maybe after he returned things would go back to some semblence of normal.

"I guess we should just leave her be," She said slowly, hating the meaning behind her words more than the words themselves, "As she obviously wants to be left."

"I don't see any other way, Alaura." Piccolo agreed, "She's lost her childhood, in one fell swoop, as she watched her friend killed. Nothing can replace that. She will have to find her own way now…"

Alaura closed her eyes for a moment and heard Piccolo leave not by the sound of his footfalls, which were always silent, but by the sence that she was suddenly alone once more, in more ways than one. "As we all have to…" She whispered, and lay her head down on the arm of the sofa, curling her arms about herself in an attempt to become as small as she felt. She had failed, she knew, deep within herself, deep where only darkness dwells, deep where only she knew, her secretmost heartspot, where a little child was always dancing frantically around in circles, struggles to continue as if by stopping all shall be lost, she had failed as a mother and nothing she did or said could make it right once more.

~ End ~ (Of course, to be continued…)