-Theories of Relativity: A DragonBall Z drabble-
(Hey gang, Stripe here. Pay no attention to the fact that this doesn't make sense; like the title suggests, it's merely a drabble. I churned it out within half an hour so it's not the best piece I've written. Blame my brothers for this; I made the mistake of buying them Budokai Tenkaichi 2 for the PlayStation 2 and that's where I got most of my ideas from. The Altona's situation will be explained at the end of the piece. Enjoy!)
=^w^=
"Hey, um...Chi Chi?"
"What now, Tora?"
"Are you sure that this is what people wear when they go swimming? I'd freeze if I went swimming in this at home."
"What are you talking about?" The daughter of the Ox King stomped up to the curtained dressing room and threw open said curtain, stopping to stare in shock at the young woman inside it. Tora went bright red and folded her arms over her chest, which was covered by a suitable black bikini top. Expanses of pale olive skin that were her arms and stomach were bare, as well as a large area that was her back. To cover her lower regions, a black bikini bottom was covered by a pair of ice-blue shorts to fit in with her element. Her legs were lean and toned, and revealed to the eyes, the left ankle decorated with a black beaded anklet. Tora's royal torc glinted proudly from her left bicep, the markings all around it etched into the gold by a skilled craftsman.
"You can stop staring; everyone else is doing the same thing." Tora mumbled, her face going redder by the minute. The other shoppers quickly averted their gazes and returned to their own shopping.
"You have a figure to die for, Tora! How can you wear that winter stuff all the time?!" Chi Chi exploded after a while.
"Quite easily, really." the Ice Princess (1) retorted smoothly.
"Stop with the narky comments," the black-haired woman gasped suddenly, "Oh my gosh, it's Bulma!" She rushed away toward a bright blue head poring over baby clothes. Tora groaned and walked back into the dressing room.
"Do I really have a spot on my tummy?" she wondered out loud as she looked at herself in the mirror. Just above her tummy button was a small brown mark in the shape of a paw print. She'd never really paid attention to her physical structure or her appearance before, merely showering or bathing quickly then throwing on comfortable clothes to move around in. Chi Chi had discovered that one day, when she'd walked into her home and spied the Ice Princess's attire. Deciding it wasn't good enough for even a prostitute, she dragged poor Tora out to the malls and insisted on purchasing her a new wardrobe. Neither her mother Rhea nor her older sister Rune protested.
"You better not have taken off that swimsuit, Tora!" came the bellow from the Ox King's daughter.
"I value my life, thank you!" she yelled back.
"Makes one of us." a male voice said. Tora smirked and stepped out of the dressing room.
"And how did you get forced into following your mother around like a lost lamb, Trunks?" she asked the half-Saiyan desperately fighting off a nosebleed. The blue-eyed youth growled low in his throat at the comment and turned his head away to make sure her gold eyes didn't catch the redness of his face. No wonder she lived in the cold north; guys would fall over twice to just get a look at her body! There wasn't a single muscle that wasn't out of place, but there were scars that told countless stories of the world that was one hundred years ago.
"Shut up, Tora." he hissed.
"Still, it could be worse," Bulma commented, "Vegeta could be-"
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WEARING, TORA?!"
"Never jinx it, Blue." Tora mumbled as the Prince of Saiyans sprinted into the store, shock etched onto his chiselled face.
"It's called a swimsuit...layers of fabric that cover important areas so that I'm not arrested for indecent exposure." the Ice Princess told the full Saiyan.
"Dad, that's embarrassing. Now people are going to think that Tora and I are related." Trunks groaned, introducing his palm to his forehead.
"You spend so much time around the girl I'm surprised you two aren't married yet!" the Capsule Corp. heiress screeched. Both youths turned red and glared at their respective adult figures: Trunks at Bulma, and Tora at Vegeta. She'd spent so much time with the man he was almost like a father figure to her without the legalities behind the whole thing, even if he thought she was too soft to be royalty and she thought he was too primitive in his approach to life, the universe and everything.
"In case you hadn't noticed, Bulma," Chi Chi began carefully, "those two fight like...oh, now I get it!"
"You're all against me!" With a roar of fury, the Ice Princess stormed into the dressing room to change back into her own clothing: A pair of black pants underneath a short green tunic with a white belt. Shoving the articles of clothing into Chi Chi's hands, she stormed out of the store and took off into the air with the intent of venting her anger on the first unfortunate mountain that crossed her path. The temperature in the store suddenly righted itself, and everyone knew how angry she really was.
"I'll go find her, because I highly doubt she's going to listen to any of you now." Vegeta left the store and took off after the energy signature that still radiated. It wasn't that hard to find her, actually; large craters rimmed with icicles led the way for him. Landing at the last crater, he spotted a familiar head of orange and black hair and walked over.
"Piss off." Tora growled.
"No." Trust him to be brutally honest. The Ice Princess sighed and turned around to face him, half-expecting anger on his face (his usual expression). What she saw had to be a combination of respect and indifference. Either that, or he was hungry (yet again).
"Look, I know that everyone wants Trunks and I together; it's as plain as the nose on your face. Even Mum's been giving me flak for it." The prince winced at the thought of the Queen of Nature blowing her top and talking to her daughter at the top of her lungs, "But we just don't click!"
"Would you like to hear a story?" Vegeta offered.
"As long as it doesn't revolve around death, destruction or mayhem; I'm sick of that."
"Comical." He sat down and looked at the small frozen puddle in front of him, "When I first met my wife I didn't like her at first either. We argued pretty much the way you two do now."
"This was before we were wished out of our hiding places (2), right?" Tora asked, confused.
"Yes. I don't actually regret coming to Earth and meeting that woman, now that I look back on it."
"Vegeta, I'm not even related to you. Wouldn't it make sense to tell something like this to your own offspring?" He felt the shift in her energy from annoyed to depressed. Tora was the only person he knew who could do that. Even humans could tell when she changed her moods; the temperatures would vary.
"Sometimes...I wish you were related to me. Then perhaps Trunks would stop whingeing about you." With that parting comment, he took off back to Capsule Corp. Tora stood up and watched him fly away, confusion etched on her face. What the hell had he meant by that? Shaking off her thoughts in favour of sitting in a cold bath for a few hours, the Ice Princess took off for her temporary place of residence: the Son house.
=^w^=
The sun beat down on the large party as they frolicked about in the water of the ocean around the Kame House. Pan, Marron and Bra had ganged up on Tora the minute she arrived, whisking her inside and forcing her out in the swimsuit Chi Chi had bought for her. They did, however, have the decency to send her out in a dark green sarong that was tied...around her waist. She sat in one of the banana lounges that Krillin had set up for everyone with her arms folded, pouting. The only thing she'd accepted was a glass of coconut milk from Android #18, but even that was under threat of bodily harm. Rune emerged from the water, her black hair sticking to her back, and walked over to her younger sister.
"Are you sure you're uncomfortable in that? You look hot." she said.
"Rune, I'm the Ice Princess. I was imprisoned in a glacier for one hundred years; you, Ryu and Mum were imprisoned under the ocean, in a cave, and in a mountain. As the Queen of Nature, Mum can adapt to any weather pattern. I can't. I prefer cold; you three prefer hot and in the case of you and Ryu, wet." The Wind Princess sighed and returned to the action, which involved dunking Puar in the ocean and running away when she decided to get violent. Tora sighed and sipped her coconut milk.
"Hey Tora." Looking up, gold orbs connected with blue ones.
"Take a seat, Trunks." The youth nodded and eased himself into the banana lounge beside the Ice Princess. He turned his gaze to the others in the ocean, ignoring the weird urges he had to touch the olive skin of the woman beside him. Didn't she know what she was doing to him?
"This sun feels weird on my skin..." Tora commented out of the blue, "I'm not used to the warmth."
"Because of the whole ice thing?" Trunks asked. She nodded.
"I've never had an excuse to take my clothes off other than to bathe." Excusing herself, Tora dashed inside the house and headed for the kitchen. She braced herself against the sink and squeezed her eyes shut, willing the angry tears to go away. What Vegeta has told her the other day suddenly rang through her mind:
"Sometimes...I wish you were related to me. Then perhaps Trunks would stop whingeing about you."
"Yeah, like we're just going to drop our grudges and fuck each other senseless." she snorted.
"That sounds like a good idea." A pair of hands settled on her hips, the one on the right tracing over the jagged red scar that wound over from one side to the other. Tora leaned her head back onto a broad shoulder and sighed.
"Marry me, Tora." Trunks whispered. All the muscles in her body froze.
"What?" she asked finally.
"We've been too busy running around each other calling it hatred when really it was sexual tension," To prove his point, he ran a hand over the taut plane of her stomach which elicited a groan from her, "It's not too fast for you, is it?"
"Hell no." With that said, the Ice Princess spun around in the half-Saiyan's arms and crushed her lips to his. Growling in his throat, the lavender-haired youth grabbed her legs and wrapped them around his waist, spinning around so he could pin her to the dining table. A small warning signal beeped faintly in Tora's brain, but it was too soft amidst the noise her hormones were making at the same time. She ignored the warning signal and unleashed her tongue on Trunks's jaw line and ear, eliciting a loud groan from the youth. As she bit down on his ear, he hissed.
"Still having second thoughts?" she asked.
"Is this my yes?" he replied.
"Let's look at the situation. I'm pinned down to a table that people eat off by a demi-Saiyan who, may I say, is extremely attractive and very horny right now, while outside everyone's probably wondering where the hell we are."
"I would've thought that Your Highness would've chosen someone else from her pool of suitors to allow to court and woo her. Does that make me the diamond in the rough?"
"Her Highness doesn't have a pool of suitors. She's too self-absorbed." a new voice said. The two youths jumped as if shocked by electricity and glanced over at the kitchen door. Leaning against the door frame was the Prince of Saiyans, an amused smirk on his face. A small icicle embedded itself into the wood beside his head, thrown by the Ice Princess herself.
"You'd know all about self-absorption, wouldn't you?" Tora smirked.
"Dad, get out." Trunks growled. Vegeta's smirk widened slightly, and Tora growled.
"Looks like I win that bet your mother and I made." he chuckled.
"What bet?"
"Ask her about it; I don't want to have my ass handed to me by the almighty Ice Princess."
"At least you've acknowledged you can't defeat me." The growl that escaped his lips was enough to send her out of the house and into the air, her fiancé's father chasing her around the Kame House angrily. Bulma sighed.
"Looks like I owe him money now..." she said. Chi Chi grinned.
"You have to admit, that swimsuit worked like a charm." she giggled.
"Now that we have Tora's measurements, her wardrobe will be updated as soon as Trunks gets off his ass and starts planning the wedding."
"I actually saw a blue negligee that would look divine on Tora..."
=^w^=
(1): Tora: Ice Princess; Rune: Wind Princess; Ryu: Storm Prince; Rhea: Queen of Nature; Hiro: Volcano King. Basically they're the elements personified.
(2): One hundred years ago they discreetly ruled the elements until their secret was discovered by a serpentine...dragon...thing (I'm still deciding) named Age and they were locked away in the locations I've mentioned in the story. They were accidentally wished out of those places when Age broke free of his volcano prison and the others needed the power to defeat him.
=^w^=
DISCLAIMER: The disclaimer applies to the characters and settings of 'DragonBall Z' and 'DragonBall GT' – I really don't know his name, so tell me please – and the Altona family and their respective powers – me.