Chapter 36. Royal dispute
It had been a struggle but gradually Vegeta and Akane learned to live with their bond. They found ways of sifting out the important feelings and thoughts from the usual ones and only tuned in to each other when they felt like it. Everything else was successfully ignored and existed as a mere distant hum within them. They spent much time withdrawn from the goings on of the Marauder, soon becoming completely engrossed in each other now that Akane had given up on remaining Captain and Vegeta found that he was unwilling to miss a second of his little mate's progressing gravidation.
What exactly it was that they did all the time spent in isolation in their chambers was a question Vegeta had been ashamedly asking himself more than once. They didn't really do anything but arse about, something that wasn't too befitting a Prince and he wouldn't have dreamed of doing before he met Akane, but he was enjoying it and the days went by like a heartbeat.
Still some days his conscience would play up and ask him critically if this strange frenzy he was engaged in served any need other than his own and if this really was the type of leader he wanted to be. Surely there were more important things to occupy him. His people needed guidance from their Prince while he was in his bed chamber with his mate detached and acting like a lovesick hound.
Today was one of those days.
"You might be bad for me after all." Vegeta said more playfully than he intended.
Akane towered over him standing at the foot on the bed and was spiritedly showing off her protruding stomach from every possible angle, taking on a variety of battle poses. She halted with her arms still stretched above her head.
"Why is that?"
Vegeta folded his hands behind his head lazily, high on the voluptuousness of her body in plain view before him. "Well, I'm not being much of Prince to my people, am I? We haven't left this room for days."
"We haven't left this bed for days." Akane corrected him. She bestowed him one of her special smiles and resumed her flaunting. "So what?"
"So, don't you think it's about time we got up?" Vegeta retorted still not capable of taking his own objections seriously. He only had eye for the fierce beauty of his little mate.
She simply shook her head and smiled so roguishly that Vegeta braced himself quickly and held up a warning finger. "Don't do it." He said even if he already knew that it wouldn't stop her.
As expected Akane raised her rough voice and yelled: "Belly squash!" as if launching an attack and let herself fall forward right on top of him.
Vegeta caught her in his arms emitting a combination of laughter and grunting when her big stomach crashed hard into his gut. The little life within failed to notice the impact and he was certain that even a Final Flash attack wouldn't be enough to bother his daughter considering the strength she now possessed.
"Akane," Vegeta admonished when she continued fooling around. "Be serious for a moment. I can't keep pissing about like this."
She sighed and relaxed on top of him. "Lush, there is nothing to do except wait until we reach our destination. The Squadron Ardians are keeping the men busy with training to pass time, that old gaffer is probably spending his days in a drivelling sleep and Ruirdo is most likely getting jizzed on by her new bed mate. I doubt if anyone is missing you at the moment. You'll be longing back for this once Vegetasei is restored. Just enjoy it while it lasts."
"You're making me into a bleeding skiver." Vegeta muttered gruffly.
Akane took his face between her fingers, squeezing his cheeks to make his lips pout and she put a teasing kiss to them. "Poor man." She turned to her back on top of him before he could return her kiss. "Watch this."
Vegeta wiped her hair from his face to be able to see what she was doing. Then his hands automatically slipped around her warm form to rest on the fair swell of her stomach.
Akane traced a slender finger in the air leaving a trail of red energy lingering above them which spelled a single word.
"Yui?" Vegeta read aloud.
"Yes. Or..." Akane added a couple of flowing streaks. "Yuina."
"How about this?" Vegeta erased the first two letters and replaced them with one written in his own yellow energy.
"Aina." Akane read, her finger following the characters thoughtfully. "That sounds kind of nice."
"Kind of nice?" Vegeta echoed finding it more than just a kind-of-nice name for their daughter.
Akane flipped to her previous position to nip at his throat playfully. "You know what, I like it. Princess Aina. It has a nice weighty ring to it."
Her body grew rigid on top of him all of the sudden and Vegeta was instantly alerted by the rapidly building power in between them. His daughter was testing her strength. It wasn't the first time this had happened, but it frightened him nonetheless, mainly because Akane always went out of her way to try and pass it off as something insignificant while he could clearly sense the fear fluttering throughout her. He didn't stop her when she made an effortful attempt to claw her way off of his chest knowing she would start clawing at him instead if he tried to assist in any way. She finally curled up at his side heaving groans of pain which she tried to muffle by biting her lip. Her arms came up as if to protect her face, though he knew she merely wanted to hide her pained expression from him.
"Either she doesn't agree with the name, or she must really hate me." Akane panted, trying in vain to make light of the situation.
Vegeta was already crouched at her side with his hand pressed against her stomach hoping it would help calm his daughter as it had done the last time, but the whelp was disinclined to simmer down and twirled about spiritedly inside.
"This isn't a ruddy joke, Akane. She is hurting you."
"It's nothing." Akane gasped from behind her drawn up arms.
That was what she kept saying, that it was nothing, that it was all just part of the gravidation and up until now Vegeta had taken her word for it because he didn't know the first thing about these things, but he couldn't think of it as nothing any longer. The whelp's power kept increasing madly with every passing day and Akane's pain was getting worse every time his daughter put that power to the test. She had already surpassed her mother and it was likely that she would continue developing at this rate, if not faster.
"I think you should see the medic."
Akane snarled in either pain or irritation, it was hard to tell because most of her face was still hidden behind her arms. "I don't see why you should worry about this so much. She is only trying out her strength." She spoke between laborious breaths.
He pulled her arms away and found her golden eyes filmy with pain. "Because this frightens you more than it does me."
"Well this isn't a blooming picnic, is it?" She hissed through clenched teeth. "She just startled me, is all."
Vegeta knew that she was lying and though he had learned that this was just her way of coping with difficult situations, he wasn't going to allow her denial this time. He thus told flat out what his thoughts were because his concern kept him from coming up with a delicate way of putting it. "She will end up killing you."
Akane sat up with such force that she nearly knocked him over and she drew herself up in his face quivering in pain with beads of sweat glistening on her forehead. Nevertheless she uttered a rough laugh. "You question my strength? Surely I am better fit to bear your offspring than that pitiful Earth-woman."
Aghast as he was due to the strange turn their conversation had taken Vegeta could only utter an unintelligent: "What?"
"Your son." Akane clarified insistently. "The Earthling managed to bear him just fine, didn't she, even if he was so much stronger?"
"No! Trunks' power didn't start developing until after he was born!" Vegeta was about ready to loose it. "I can't believe this is about her. You could be in serious danger and all you care about is being better than the Earthling? Are you barking mad?"
"It is not about her!"
"Yes it is. This is about your fucking pride. I'm getting the medic."
Akane tried to stop him from getting off of the bed by hanging onto his arm with all her weight, but Vegeta brushed her off like he would a fly, her strength wasn't even a fragment of what it had been before the whelp's little power-testing-session. On his way out, hopping from one foot to the other in the process of tugging on his boots, he barked at her to get dressed and slammed the door to behind him to cut off the stream of objections she yelled after him.
.
.
Akane sat on the bed, arms folded in a huff when Vegeta returned with the medic. She should have been flattered that her mate worried for her so, but all she felt was contempt. Who would have ever thought the Prince could be such a craven? The way his face snapped up to meet hers told her he had picked up that particular thought and the frustrated grinding of his teeth was mute testimony that he wasn't too pleased with her at the moment. Good, she wasn't that pleased with him either.
The medic greeted her reverently and she nodded at the man with the neatly trimmed black beard and the huge scar running down the right side of his neck which made clear that even though he served as the Marauder's physician, he was foremost a warrior. The man had taken care of her injuries countless times and Akane knew him to be a good doctor.
"There was no need for you to come here, doctor. The cramps have passed and everything is fine." She told the middle aged medic as he followed Vegeta to the side of the bed.
"We'll have a look anyway." The doctor replied politely after a quick glance at Vegeta's inflexible expression.
Well who could blame him? Of course the man would follow his Prince's orders above those of the Princess. Akane felt the urge to strangle him nonetheless. She drew away the sheets from herself with a flurry revealing that she had failed to follow her mate's orders and was still as starkers as he left her. Her mate did not like sharing anything and that included the sight of her naked body. Her contempt for him now vanished for he seemed ready to sort her out soon as the medic would leave and she had been banking on it, to her likes he had been far too tolerant with her the past weeks.
The medic, clearly unsure whether he should feel uncomfortable about seeing his Princess naked, sat down at the edge of the bed and searched Akane's stomach with his hands, quickly adopting the professional attitude of a doctor as he grew absorbed in examining her.
"How often have you been experiencing these cramps?"
Akane shrugged carelessly. "Every other day or so."
From the corner of her eye she could see Vegeta chewing on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from exploding. "It can hardly be called cramps and she has them at least twice a day."
"My kitten is just a bit enthusiastic. I told you before that it is perfectly normal." Akane rebutted over the doctor's head. She then looked at him for support, but before the man could say anything Vegeta cut across him.
"It surely can't be normal for her to be in such pain." He demanded.
The medic's eyes were now darting from one to the other. He looked more oppressed with every passing second and Akane started to feel sorry for the sad bastard who had found himself caught in the middle of a royal dispute.
"It ah… It is not uncommon." The man said swiftly continuing his examination, probably to escape Vegeta's scrutiny. " The charging may seem dangerous and it can be rather painful for the mother, but it usually does little harm."
Akane threw Vegeta the most self-satisfied smile she could muster but he ignored her completely.
"So it isn't dangerous?"
"Your daughter will test the Princess's limits, but she isn't likely to push too far." The medic replied quietly. "Let's see how she is doing."
He whipped out an oblong object from his surgical coat and Akane snickered at Vegeta's eyes that seemed ready to pop out of his head at the sight of the thing. The medic turned on the silver device and, to Vegeta's obvious relief, used it to scan Akane's stomach. A shaft of green light crept up and down her skin until there sounded a short bleep to indicate that the process was finished and the medic read the results from a tiny display at the top of the device.
"Heart rate and blood pressure are both normal. Her temperature is a bit high but that's probably because of the earlier charging. Your daughter seems to be in perfect health." A look of awe now crossed the doctor's face. "The amount of power she possesses is… She is very strong. I have never seen a battle power that high."
"Blame him." Akane motioned at Vegeta loosely. "But that shouldn't be a problem, right? I will be able to tap into her power without trouble?"
The medic was still frowning and absently drew the sheets back up to cover Akane's body. "With a difference in power this large I always advise an abdominal delivery. The risks…"
"Absolutely not." Akane interrupted him curtly. "I am damn well going to give it a try before even considering such a procedure."
"What risks?" Vegeta half snarled at the medic.
The man stood up from the bed, this time likely to avoid Akane's fierce stare. "If the Princess is unable to generate enough power by taping into that of the babe upon delivery, she could die."
Vegeta now turned to Akane pointedly. "And you were trying to keep this from me?"
Akane was out of bed within the blink of an eye, the sheets clutched to her chest. She grabbed the doctor's arm urgently. "Since we're being so frank, doctor, would you also be kind enough to explain why most mothers rather die than agree to an abdominal delivery?"
The man now looked sincerely intimidated. Every inch of his rigid being proclaimed how desperately he wanted to get out of there, but Akane was pitiless. "Doctor?"
"Because a mother gains strength after giving birth, while with an abdominal delivery she will not." The medic explained carefully.
Vegeta sighed defeated and Akane could hear him admitting to himself that if that was the case there would be no way of talking her out of it. She would want to do it on her own and no matter how much he disliked it, he couldn't deny that he understood.
Reassured by the fact that nobody had exploded in rage, the doctor now spoke in his professional calm voice again: "We will keep a close eye on the babe's development during the remaining weeks of gravidation. If something goes wrong, we can always decide to go ahead with the procedure. I'll come back to check on you in a couple of days. If you'd like, I can give you some pain relievers to get you through the chargings."
Akane shook her head resolutely and saw the medic out after his respectful bows to both her and his Prince. When she turned she found Vegeta sitting quite still on the edge of the bed.
"I won't do it."
He waved her decisive announcement away with a simple flick of his hand.
Akane was half relieved, half angry that there wasn't going to be a fight about it. Before she could stop herself she was stomping her feet like a child that wouldn't get its way and she threw the sheets on the floor.
"I'm not frail!" She hollered.
She hated how he was now. The dominance she so loved in him had been lacking ever since her gravidation started to manifest itself clearer and she hated how her struggle made him grow soft on her. If she had wanted a damn sympathetic man she would have mated Turles! Still, at the same time it was heart warming how openly he expressed the love he felt for her by worrying so much and trying his best to spare her, especially since this wasn't in his nature. It actually made tears come to her eyes… And then again, this soft approach wasn't very manly of him.
"Cursed blood." She sighed as she gathered the sheets from the ground and flopped onto the bed behind him.
Likely she was just apt to being dissatisfied and nothing he did could manage to please her right now. Those bleeding hormones…
"You're hopeless." Was all Vegeta had to say about her thoughts.
He remained seated at the edge of the bed and Akane made herself small against his back, closing her eyes as his hand found its way to her face to reassuringly cup her cheek.