Note: The characters depicted below are not mine, nor am I in any way legally associated with Dragonball Z, Akira Toriyama or their respective companies' shareholders.
Chasing the Sunset
by Lady Eldaelen
Gohan was born in the spring of a long awaited peacetime, barely a year after the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament. His father had walked away from that particular tournament as the victor, but the fact that he had won at the relatively young age of nineteen was hardly much of a surprise. Gohan's father had already been creating quite a stir throughout the world for years. The legendary Son Goku was, in fact, one of the main reasons that Earth had not yet been lost to some would-be tyrant.
Gohan's fondest memories involved sitting on his father's lap, looking up into bright eyes that were always laughing. His father was a born storyteller; he could still recall entire monologues, wonderful stories woven from real events that he never tired of hearing. His father always started out with a little history, insisting that Gohan appreciate the past at least as much as he enjoyed the present.
Their planet was still young in the eyes of the rest of the universe, Gohan recalled his father saying, and back at very beginning of their place in universal history, it was considered even more ambitious and reckless. This idea had been bolstered throughout the years by many thoughtless decisions of the world's leaders. What else but an adolescent civilization would make war with itself? Indeed, just about all of Goku's accomplishments, before Gohan was born, had been dealing with the threats that had come from within Earth's own boundaries. Gohan's stomach had always lurched when his father spoke of those First Adventures; he never understood how his father had survived everything. Goku agreed that by all accounts he should not have lasted as long as he did through some of the more dangerous battles, but somehow he managed to walk away. And he always spoke with the utmost respect about the One he believed had direct involvement with those outcomes.
Most people weren't certain that He even existed as more than just a fable like holiday sprites or monsters under a bed. He remained rather invisible to the lives that He guarded, although He was as real as they were. It was Kami's prerogative as Guardian of the Earth to do as He chose. Gohan had loved hearing about the god of their planet more than anything else his father talked about. How He watched over every single person and living thing, taking interest in the smallest details of life. Above all, his father emphasized, Kami looked out for the best interest of not just the earth, but of its individuals as well.
Gohan was four years old when the universe finally decided that Earth had matured enough to be allowed to play her hand on a galactic level. Goku stopped telling new stories after that time, but Gohan hardly noticed the change. He was now taking part in writing Earth's history, too.
The first trial came in the form of a long-lost relative, and Earth and her defenders did not fare well. With his father gone, Gohan was left to take his place. He had never met the real Kami, but from his father's tales, he knew that Piccolo, the one who began training him, was somehow related -and connected- to Him. In Gohan's mind, that was close enough; like his father, he trusted Kami would make sure he was ready for anything. And when his own test came a year later, he was not disappointed. He didn't like the actual fighting, but on some level, Gohan felt honored and privileged to be considered an equal among the people that he had spent his whole life looking up to, the heroes in his father's stories.
Earth passed her second trial, not with flying colors, but well enough to formulate a small renegade counterattack. Her inhabitants took to the stars, to pick their own fight off-planet. The journey was unknown to all but the few warriors who fought in it and the One who sent them there. After a terribly brutal affair, the survivors returned, once again victorious. Word quickly spread that Earth was quite the formidable power. There were a few new stories about others who had tried to assert their dominance, but they all had happy endings, for Earth always managed to defend herself.
And life continued on once more.
2/14/2005