Note: I'm glad to know that a lot of folks seem to be enjoying the story so far! Please take a moment to review, or else send an email my way! (Also, here's a nod to UltimateSaiyan for doing two new banners for my website! It always makes me feel good to have folks like my stuff so much I move THEM to creativity!) And as always, the forum is there for your opinions, so swing by!

'Destined to Live, Destined to Die' was harder to write than I'd originally thought it would be... how do you impart a lesson without making it sound trite or cliche? In the end, however, most of this chapter is an homage to a story by Ree Soesbee in the 'Legend of the Five Rings book The Way of the Crane.

This is another chapter that might read a bit oddly, mainly because again, lyrics are quoted in the story that can't be used here without FF banning me. The chapter lyrics are from Chicago's "Come In From the Night," while the song that Kurenai quotes to Piccolo is the incomparable "Who Wants to Live Forever" by Queen.

And the Greatest of These

Chapter Twelve

"Piccolo?"

"Hmm?"

"I, um, I wanted to ask you for a favor."

"What?"

"Well…" Kurenai said shyly, coming out the front door of the Son house behind the tall Namek. She had just finished tutoring Gohan for the day and was waiting for Goku to take her home. "You usually go off to the mountains or the woods or something to meditate, don't you?"

"Yes, why?" He was not sure where this conversation was going, but it was obvious that Kurenai very much wanted to ask for something that she did not think he would approve of.

"Would you mind taking me along next time?" she asked hurriedly. "I know how much you value your privacy, and I promise I won't bother you, I just have to get out of the city for a little while. I'm not used to being around civilization so much, but I can't go anywhere on my own since I can't fly."

Piccolo considered the idea for a few moments. While he normally hated it when anyone intruded on his private meditation time, he also knew exactly how it felt to be stuck around people when all he wanted was some time alone. Sometimes his soul just craved solitude, but he had not realized that a woman as outgoing and social as Kurenai had the same need.

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because you're the only one I know who goes off on your own like that. Well, I take it back, Vegeta does, too, but all he does is train, and I'd rather not have to dodge flying boulders or sudden dust storms while I'm out there. Yamcha and Krillin don't have the patience, Tien spends all his time up at the temple with Chiaotzu, and Gohan has his studies."

"So ask Goku," he said shortly, and then wondered why the idea suddenly bothered him.

Kurenai fidgeted and looked down at the ground. "I… I'd rather not, Piccolo."

The Namek had a pretty good idea why. "ChiChi?"

"ChiChi."

"Thought so," he said.

"So… may I please come along?"

"Yeah, sure. As long as you give me my privacy. But fine, come along if you want."

Her smile was warmer than the sunset's glow touching her face. "Thanks, Piccolo, I really appreciate it."

"We'll go tomorrow," he said to her. "I'll pick you up at your house early in the morning."

"What time?"

That threw him for a loop, since he so rarely slept the night through.

"How about… five a.m.?"

"A chance to watch the sunrise. Five will be perfect."

Goku came out of the house behind her. "Ready to go?" Kurenai looked over her shoulder and nodded. Goku wrapped one arm around her waist and they floated up into the sky.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Piccolo, and thanks again!" Kurenai called as she and Goku headed toward Capsule Corporation.

I hope I know what I'm doing, Piccolo thought with a sigh.

Early the following morning, Piccolo landed outside of Kurenai's house only to find her leaning against her front door. Despite the cool morning air, she wore a loose summer dress and sandals, a large scarf draped over her shoulders. She seemed unfazed by the early morning chill, but instead, seemed to savor it. He could understand that. He himself enjoyed the tingle of the dawn air on his skin.

She had been gazing up at the slowly fading stars when he had arrived, then looked over at him and smiled.

"Good morning," she said softly.

"Good morning," he replied automatically. "Let's go." But he stood there for a moment longer and studied her.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," he answered, sliding one arm around her and taking off into the sky.

Her eyes are the same color as the pre-dawn sky… I'd never noticed before. Hmm… I must be getting soft.

After a short flight, they arrived at Piccolo's favorite waterfall, where the Namek often spent hours at a time meditating to its soft susurring sound.

"It's beautiful," she murmured to him as they touched down on the riverbank. As he moved away from her, she turned to look at the nearby woods, lightly hidden with the early morning mist, then at the tumbling falls before her. Even the birds had not yet begun to sing.

Then she looked toward the east, where the sun was nearly ready to rise. She and Piccolo were facing a small gap between two cliffs, beyond and below which the woods continued into the distance.

The sky continued to lighten, the night slowing shifting to a pearly gray and soft rose. Piccolo was already watching the approaching dawn, and she came up beside him to greet the sunrise.

Though neither spoke, both Piccolo and Kurenai were very aware of each other. Side by side, they watched the rose color brighten to coral, to tangerine, to gold. Then, slowly, gracefully, the sun rose over the horizon, bathing each of them with its brilliant glow. As the morning mist faded away, the sunlight slowly rolled over the lower forest, danced along the river, reflected off the dew like diamonds.

It made Kurenai's breath catch in her throat with its sheer beauty. I've missed it… I've missed this peace so much.

As the sun came fully above the horizon, Piccolo drew in a deep breath, released it, turned away and walked back toward the falls.

"I'm going to meditate. Don't wander off, I don't want to have to rescue you," he said curtly, and Kurenai nodded. He floated about halfway up the waterfall, sank into the lotus position with his arms folded across his chest, and closed his eyes in meditation.

Ahh… I love that sound, he thought in rare pleasure. I could get lost in it for days. A part of his mind was focused upon himself, learning, adapting, and preparing his psyche for the battle they would all face in two years. Another part of his mind was intensely aware of his natural surroundings, taking in every note of birdsong, every rustle of leaves, every sigh of the wind.

After a couple of hours, a spark of energy caught his attention, and he slightly opened his eyes to covertly look around.

What was that?

When he looked above him, what he saw took his breath away.

Kurenai was standing on a rock at the top of the waterfall, where the river spilled past it over the cliff down to the rapids below. She had removed her dress, scarf, and sandals, and stood naked on the rock with only her loose flowing hair to cover her. Her hands were pressed palm to palm in front of her chest in a standing prayer pose, her head tilted back as she breathed deeply. The morning sunlight shimmered in her hair and made her skin glow.

What's that on her skin? he wondered, looking more closely. It looks like some kind of tattoo, something over her heart.

She did not look at Piccolo, and he guessed that she thought he was not watching her, but was instead wrapped up in his meditation.

Then in one graceful movement, Kurenai dropped into a low crouch, brought her arms back, and dove off the rock in a perfect swan dive. For a moment, she seemed to hover in the air, a single breath where she was free from gravity's inexorable pull, then she descended toward the river below. As she fell past him, Piccolo watched in amazement as she sluiced into the water beneath the falls.

Wow…

He stared from above as she surfaced, head back, arms slightly back, her body arched. The joy of being alive was evident in everything about her at that moment, from the laugh echoing off the water to the radiance of her face.

Then she glanced up at him and immediately covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. At first, Piccolo did not understand why she had stopped laughing.

Why did she stop? Oh, of course, she's afraid of disturbing me.

Kurenai swam toward the riverbank and stepped onto the shoreline where she had left her clothes. Then she stretched out on the grass to let her skin dry in the sunlight.

I must be getting old if she managed to climb a cliff face completely naked and I didn't even notice, he thought wryly. I might be a Namek, but even THAT would have gotten my attention.

▲▼▲

Piccolo went back to meditating for a while as Kurenai lay in the sun, but he found himself distracted by her presence. As Kurenai finally got up to dress, he turned and stood in mid-air beside the falls.

"Do you do that often?"

With a start, she turned around, but she shrugged and continued pulling on her clothes.

"Not as much anymore, no. Too dangerous to go off on my own."

"Why do it?"

She paused in braiding her damp hair.

"Because… I may be immortal, and I know it can't hurt me, but it makes me feel… aware."

He floated down near her. "Aware of what?"

"Myself, my surroundings, my place in the world," she said slowly. "It's a chance to live life, not just exist."

"What's the difference?" he said with a shrug. "Living is living." But Kurenai shook her head and sat by the water, and Piccolo joined her.

Watching the falls, Kurenai quietly quoted, "'To love is to risk not being loved in return, to live is to risk dying, to hope is to risk despair, to try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.'"

"What's that?" he asked.

"William Arthur Ward. One of the advantages of an immortal life is a chance for exceptional learning."

She sighed, then went on. "To answer your earlier question, I like to think there's three ways of going through life. The first is survival, the fundamental need to continue on, getting through one day at a time, taking each as it comes. The second is just existing, taking up space and air and having all the depth of soul of a piece of plate glass."

"So what's the third?"

Kurenai watched the water leap and tumble down the cliff face.

"Living, really living, savoring each day and night in every way possible. Every day must have mystery and beauty, joy and passion and danger and sorrow, no matter how small."

He thought about that. It made sense, in a weird philosophical sort of way, the sort of thing Kami might say. He mentally grimaced as he thought of his other half, and looked back over at Kurenai.

"So you diving off the waterfall like that is your idea of an affirmation of living?"

"Yes. And don't look at me like I'm crazy, Piccolo, you do the same thing," she said with amusement.

"No, I don't. You won't find me jumping off cliffs."

"But you meditate by them, don't you? Floating there in the air, focused on the wind and the water and the energy around and within you? Isn't that living?"

She was more right than she realized, and Piccolo knew it. "This is ridiculous," he said and stood up abruptly. "I thought you agreed not to distract me from my meditation."

"I didn't ask you to watch me, nor did I ask you to come down here," she shot back, looking up at the tall Namek.

He did not answer, but instead turned away and flew back up to where he had been meditating earlier. For a while, he went back to his thoughts, but his mind kept coming back to the image of Kurenai surfacing from the water, rejoicing in being alive.

Damn her. She's a distraction even when she's quiet.

He looked down at where Kurenai sat cross-legged beneath a tree, her arms folded across her chest. In fact, she was sitting in the exact same pose as he, with her head bowed, her eyes closed, and her jaw resolutely set.

It took most of Piccolo's self-control to keep from chuckling at her imitation of him, and he finally gave up trying to concentrate.

"It's not that funny, you know," he called down to her, and she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"What's not funny?" she asked.

"You mimicking me."

"I wasn't trying to make fun of you, I was trying to meditate like you do, but it's damned hard. I feel so tense that all I can think of is how my jaw hurts from clenching it."

"All right, then, how do you meditate?" he asked as he landed beside her again and helped her to her feet.

"I find something in nature that reminds me of what I need guidance on, and then I go from there."

Piccolo shook his head.

"You really are a weird one, you know that?"

"At least I'm not the one afraid of living," she replied.

Piccolo was silent for a long time, standing and staring at the falls.

I am evil, all the evil of Kami. I'm not even a complete being, but instead half of that doddering old man. Ironic that Kami is so old, and by Earth's calendar, I'm only a child. Old and young at the same time… How can I live and find joy in my life when I don't even understand it?

"I don't know how, Kurenai," he finally admitted. "Part of why I meditate is to try and learn how."

"Is there somewhere around here with snow?"

He looked at her in confusion. "What?"

"Snow. The white stuff that falls from the sky when it's cold. Soft, fluffy, and slightly damp. Usually found on a mountaintop."

"I know what it is, why are you asking me?" he said in exasperation.

"Let's just say that nature's got a lesson for you."

Piccolo brought Kurenai to one of the continent's many mountain ranges up north. She shivered from the cold, so he conjured a cloak like his own to keep her warm.

"So what am I supposed to be looking at?" he asked, his voice muffled by the falling snow.

Kurenai raised one hand to point at the falling snowflakes.

"Look at them, Piccolo, really look at them, and tell me what you see."

He glanced at her, for some strange reason reminded strongly of Gohan. Images of the young boy chasing butterflies, laughing at something amusing, staring up at the stars, all tumbled through his thoughts. It's small wonder that she and Gohan get along so well. In a way, it's as though Kurenai somehow retained a child's fascination with the world.

He decided to go along with her foolishness and turned to contemplate the drifting snowflakes.

Snow is snow, after all. It's nothing special.

"It's just snow. 'White stuff that falls from the sky when it's cold. Soft, fluffy, and slightly damp,'" he quoted back to her.

Then he looked again.

That one looks like a diamond… and a wagon wheel… and a flower…

"Each of them is different… I'd never noticed," he said, his voice full of wonder. He leaned closer to watch the snowflakes waltz slowly toward the earth where they then mingled with the rest of the snow.

"Scientists say that no two snowflakes are ever the same," Kurenai mused thoughtfully. "Imagine that… all this snow, year after year, and no two the same. Like people in a way. A lot of us look alike, and even ARE alike in certain ways, but never quite the same."

She then held out her hand and let the snowflakes fall on her open palm. As they touched her hand, the snowflakes melted away.

"And each so fragile, so delicate, and so perfect. But you blink and it's gone. That's living, Piccolo. Being a perfect individual snowflake in this world for your brief existence."

Never in all of his meditations had a truth hit Piccolo so hard.

He turned to watch Kurenai, who had tilted her head back to let the snow lightly touch her face. Then she giggled and knelt down in the snow, gathering it into her hands.

"What on earth are you doing?" he asked in disbelief.

Or rather, that was what he had planned to ask, but when he opened his mouth, Kurenai promptly flung a snowball at him, and he sputtered on a mouthful of snow.

"What the…" He hardly had time to defend himself before Kurenai started throwing snowballs at him in earnest. "Hey, come on, knock it off… Kurenai… come on, you're being childish!" Then she moved in a blur to stand behind him, and dumped a handful of snow down the back of his gi, and the Namek howled and twisted away in a futile attempt to get away. He snarled and tried to brush away the cold, but only succeeded in melting it faster so it dripped all down his back.

She laughed. "Some mighty warrior you are! Can't even win a snowball fight!" Then she stuck her tongue out and let the soft flakes drift onto it.

Suddenly she found herself being picked up and thrown headfirst into a snowbank.

"PICCOLO!" she shrieked, just as the Namek blasted away an overhang of snow that promptly collapsed on her. She tunneled out, gasping for air, and looked up just in time to see Piccolo aiming a barrage of snowballs at her.

"Oh, shi-" She vanished again under a volley of snowballs, and it seemed that Piccolo wanted revenge, because he had mixed some ice in along with them.

"OW! THAT'S CHEATING!" She immediately scooped some ice and snow and flung it back at him, and soon an all-out war began.

She tired faster, then sprawled out on the snow to make snow angels. Piccolo came over and stood above her, watching her move her arms and legs in sweeping arcs. Her dark hair lay around her head in disarray, snow clinging to it like little white burrs, and her skin seemed almost as pale as the snow around her. Her eyes were closed and she hummed to herself in contentment as the snow angel formed around her.

"In two years, I'm supposed to die," he said quietly, and Kurenai's head snapped around to look at him.

"What?"

"In two years, the others and I will be killed in a battle against a pair of androids. All of us except Gohan will perish in the battle, and Goku will die before it from a heart virus that will probably strike some time next year."

"How… how can you possibly know that?" she said in horror and disbelief, sitting up suddenly.

Piccolo watched the snowflakes continue to fall.

"A little less than a year ago, a boy came back in time from twenty years in the future to warn us. In his timeline, all of us died as I've just told you, and the androids have been wreaking havoc in his world ever since. To try and spare this timeline from the androids' rampage, he came back to warn Goku and the rest of us. That's why we've been training so hard. We're trying to change a history that's already happened."

But I can't even tell her who he is, Piccolo thought sadly. Kurenai and Vegeta have already become involved; it would hurt her terribly to know that the boy from the future is the son of Vegeta, and not by her, but Bulma. I wonder if Kurenai exists in Trunks' timeline as well, and why Vegeta chose Bulma instead of her.

"Oh, God. And… you still think it's going to happen the way that boy said?" She slowly got to her feet, brushing the snow off her clothes and her hair, and clutching her cape more tightly around herself.

Gohan's nightmare… weeping for his father… Oh, Gohan… I didn't know…

"I don't know, Kurenai. I wish I did. I know what it will mean for the world if Goku dies from that virus. I also know that if I die in the battle, the Dragonballs will disappear, and no one can be wished back."

"But I thought Kami was the guardian of Earth," Kurenai said in confusion.

"He is, but Kami and I are linked. And we'll leave that subject at that. Suffice it to say, none of us want to die, so we're training as much as we can to try and prepare."

Kurenai opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, then summoned her courage to ask.

"Are… are you afraid to die?"

He glanced at her, at first thinking she was accusing him of cowardice. But then he saw that she meant no offense.

"A little, yes. No one wants to die before their time, and I'm no different. It's… more of the fact that it was such a waste that bothers me."

"Is that why you're so reluctant to really live? Because in two years you might die and it all would have been for nothing?"

Piccolo's silence spoke volumes.

"How awful… to be told in advance that you're destined to die," she whispered.

"How is that any different than your own circumstances?" Piccolo asked her bluntly, trying to push aside his own feelings. "Aren't you destined to live… immortal for all eternity?"

Kurenai flinched. "I didn't ask for that, any more than any of you asked to die in this upcoming battle. I don't even know how I was supposed to have died originally, but…"

She was silent for so long that he grew concerned. "But what?" Piccolo prompted her.

"But I wish I had died… long ago. Anything would be better than this… this hell I've been living for so long."

"Do you remember becoming immortal?" Piccolo asked, curious, and Kurenai nodded. "Will you at least tell me how it happened?"

With a long sigh, she reached out and touched a snowflake with her fingers. In an instant, it melted away.

"I was… somewhere in the mountains, I think. I don't know why I was there. Maybe I'd lived there, maybe I was hiding, maybe I was just passing through the area. I don't know. And all of a sudden, it was like I was standing in the middle of a cyclone, feeling every cell in my body change. I couldn't move, I couldn't even scream, and then… everything went black. When I came to my senses, I couldn't remember who I was, what I was, all I knew was my name. I had no idea what had happened, and physically, I was unharmed… except for one thing."

"That tattoo over your heart?" he asked, looking at where she rested her hand on her chest. She nodded and moved the neckline of her dress aside. "Somehow, I just know that I didn't have this before. But I don't know what it means."

Piccolo moved closer and saw the sinuous coils of a dragon tattooed just over her heart. It was intricately done, a breathtaking piece of art inked into her flesh.

Then he frowned.

Shenron, the Dragon of Earth, was green and gold.

The dragon over Kurenai's heart was black and white.

Piccolo looked at Kurenai, who stood huddled in her cape, head bowed as she watched snowflakes fade on her open palms. The falling snow rested on her dark hair like a veil of mist.

"Can you actually die?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I mean, I've never tried to fly a spaceship into the sun and see if I could survive, or stood next to an exploding nuclear warhead to see what would happen. But conventional things, those don't hurt me. And you've already seen me recover from things like Vegeta's energy blast. I don't age, I don't get sick… and I don't know why."

"Are you afraid to die?"

She hesitated, then sighed, her breath a misty vapor on the breeze. "Yes and no. In a way, I think it would be a relief. But like you, I'm afraid it will be for nothing." Then she looked up and met his gaze. "Unlike you, however, I'm almost certain that it will be for nothing."

"You don't know that," Piccolo tried to reassure her.

"See this snowflake?"

She pointed at a single flake of snow drifting lazily by on the breeze, and he nodded. It reminded the Namek of a star.

"Catch it, Piccolo."

He reached out and caught the snowflake on his open palm, and it melted away from the heat of his hand.

"Just like that, I'll be gone. Disappear as though I never existed in the first place. When you die, whether it be two years from now or two hundred, you will be mourned, remembered, and missed." She looked so forlorn standing there in the snow, with its pale flakes caught in the strands of her raven hair, her cape blowing in the breeze. When she raised her eyes again, Piccolo was startled to see the shimmer of tears.

"Will anyone remember me?"

He did not know what to say.

▲▼▲

For a long time, the two stood together in the falling snow, letting the silence embrace them.

Piccolo closed his eyes and opened his senses, feeling the snow gently brush his face, his arms, and his hands. He felt the wind softly chill him, felt his cape rustling behind him in the breeze.

Then he heard Kurenai's soft voice, rising in song. Her voice was hardly the trained voice of a professional, but in the silence of the early afternoon, it reminded Piccolo of the low, pleasant-sounding wind-chimes that hung in ChiChi's garden.

The song seemed vaguely familiar, and as he opened his eyes, he thought he might have heard it at Gohan's house. But the words captivated him, as did the longing and sorrow on Kurenai's face.

The sadness in her voice chilled him. Her eyes were wistful as she sang, watching the snowflakes drift by.

Then he remembered. The song was from a movie he had seen at the Son house a while back. He had been amused by the plot, a story of an immortal warrior that fought for some unnamed prize, and nearly lost everything he valued in doing so.

He remembered the scene from the movie where he had heard this song. The immortal was holding his dying wife in his arms, for she had aged while he had remained young. The immortal had wept for his wife as she died, swearing to remember her as young and beautiful as she had been on the day they had met.

He thought of Frieza, who had sought eternal life, having completely forgotten his own mortality in the process. And he thought of Kurenai, who had fought to hold onto her humanity over the course of an immortal lifetime. How many friends has she buried? How many loves has she lost?

He thought of Kurenai laughing in delight as she leapt into the water, Kurenai smiling at Gohan with affection, Kurenai giggling at the volleyball game at Goku's antics…

He thought of Kurenai standing on the cliff at sunrise, as vibrant and radiant as the dawn itself.

Watching her, Piccolo thought of Trunks' despair and helplessness as he told Goku of the horrors of life in his time, his halting revelations of their imminent deaths, his yearning gaze down from his hovering capsule at Bulma and Vegeta – the mother he had left behind, and the father he had never known.

Dare to love. It was something that the Namek had never once considered, not once in all his lonely life. He did not even know if he could.

He turned to look at Kurenai, who stared resolutely ahead, and then he saw the tears slowly trickling down her cheeks.

Kurenai sighed to herself, so softly that it mingled with the breeze and was lost. She wrapped her arms around her waist and held herself tightly, as she had the day she had met Son Goku for the first time.

He stood behind her to put one hand on her shoulder, then held out the other to catch one of the falling snowflakes on his open palm. Then Piccolo surprised both Kurenai and himself by whispering the last line of the song with her, amazed that he even remembered the words.

Who has forever, anyway?

To be continued...