Chapter 45. Abdication
The King's face went through a vast array of expressions while the meaning of Vegeta's words sank in. His brown eyes analyzed the two people standing before him, the two people that had come to demand his surrender. The torches in their brackets sputtered every now and then, hissing with bellowing flames. Apart from that the throne room was silent.
Vegeta observed his father going from defiance to defeat, to shame and pity and back to pride before relapsing to hopelessness. At some moments the madness seemed to want to swoop in and take over again and his father's eyes became dazed, yet gradually the intelligent sparkle in the man's stare won over. With it came a bitter acceptance.
It took the King a long time before he was ready to answer Vegeta's uncompromising demands. Vegeta hoped his father would see reason, but he was prepared to deal with his unwillingness to step aside nonetheless. If he had to be taken down in shame, then so be it.
"I cannot step down, son." the King finally said. His voice was dark and determined, though the look on his noble face was not altogether hostile. "Not yet. There are dark times ahead. We had a vision of our doom. While I do not normally put believe in such nonsense, I cannot ignore it. We all had this vision. Every man, woman and child in my Empire had the same dream of our destruction. Frieza is coming. I cannot give you my throne, not until we have repelled this doom."
So that was the dream the people had been talking about with such fear. It was their destruction and it hadn't been a vision at all. It had really happened.
Vegeta dismissed his father's words with a mere shake of his head and held him with a wrathful glare. "I do not see how having you on the throne might help us do that. You have done nothing to prevent this doom so far. Your people have left the city. Your men are standing guard outside in dishonouring condition and the dead walk the halls of your palace. It was not the dream that brought them suffering, father. It was you." he took a cleansing breath. "The threat has passed. There will be no destruction. Frieza is dead and so is Cold."
"Dead?" the King repeated in utter disbelief. "But how…?"
"There is no time to explain it now. I have to take care of our people first." Vegeta said in a forbidding voice. "They have suffered enough."
The King looked up at him silently for a long time as if he was estimating Vegeta's determination and deliberating if he dared to challenge it. At length he sighed and sat back on his throne, making a theatrical gesture with his hands as if to indicate the whole palace. "If you are to assume the throne we have to make a formal statement. You cannot simply take this seat and…"
"A formal statement to whom?" Vegeta cut across him and he couldn't keep the wroth from his voice. He was incensed by the grand air that mantled his father, even if it was solid evidence that the man was coming to himself again. Grandeur did not fit the piteous state their planet was in. The one responsible for it should be cowering in shame.
Vegeta chose his next words carefully to make sure that his mildness towards his father was not confused with approval of the things that had happened. "My people need help. I have no time for formal statements or arguments with you. I want your full surrender now. After that you may assist me in any way you deem fit to right your wrongs and help my people back on their feet, but you will have no more authority, not over my forces and not over my people."
Strangely enough the King did not look offended as Vegeta had expected. His father merely sighed again and stood up from his throne. He gave a backward glance at the proud seat. "Very well, son. If that is your wish."
He waited, apparently expecting Vegeta to take his place on the now empty throne.
Vegeta didn't so much as look at the seat. It was nothing but a hollow declaration of power. He had no use for it. Action was what was needed, not him planting his arse on the throne. Instead he looked to Tragus who was now positively beaming with pride at him from his spot beside the throne.
"Tragus, send messages to the leading houses and the tribes that the war with Frieza has ended. Once they have restored peace, I want all the lords to come to the palace at once. I wish to speak to all of them in person. When you're finished, meet me back here."
"Certainly, my King." Tragus saluted with a heartfelt fist on his heart and strode off sure-footed to execute his commands. Yet he halted just outside the throne room and turned back to Vegeta. He hesitated and squeezed his hands together in a nervous and very un-Tragus like gesture. "My King?"
Vegeta had to be prodded by Akane to understand that the man was addressing him and not his father. Being the King was going to take some getting used to. He raised a brow at Tragus in the door.
"Yes Tragus?"
"Welcome home. It is good to have you back." No one who knew Tragus would ever believe it, but tears gleamed in the hard man's eyes as he said it.
"Thank you, Tragus." Vegeta said, taken aback and not even trying to hide it. "It is good to be back."
Tragus gave another nod, conjured a satisfied crooked grin on his marred face and disappeared into the hallway.
Vegeta's eyes were drawn from the empty doorway by Akane's fingers on his arm and he looked down to meet her hard gaze. She looked uncertainly up at him, guilty of the feelings he had sensed in her and determined to brave his wrath might he decide to set it loose on her. To her obvious surprise he did not approach her with anger.
"I want you to talk to the staff left inside the palace. They are little better off than the people outside. Tell them what has happened here. Let them know that they are safe. After that I want you to take care of the men at the gates."
"You should be the one to tell the people of the palace. You are giving them back their lives." Akane said. Her fingers were still on his arm and she gave him a squeeze, a simple but effective declaration of support.
"I have other things to take care of." Vegeta put a hand to her shoulder in return, jogged her a bit and smirked. "Besides, it was your metldown that gave me the idea to use the dragonballs. You deserve to tell them that this nightmare is over."
"Where will you go?"
"I'm going to get Aina." Vegeta looked over his shoulder to his father who was still standing a few steps from the throne watching their exchange. "I want you to come with me, father." and hearing the severity in his own voice he clarified on a milder note: "Perhaps if you see what I have found upon my arrival, you will understand my actions better."
"Oh I understand them perfectly, lad." his father replied and he tried his first attempt at a smile. It was a rather woeful shadow of the genial smiles Vegeta remembered of him, but it was something at least. "You have shown a blinkered fool the error of his ways."
Relief washed over Vegeta. He had not dared to hope his father would give in so easily. It almost seemed as though the abdicated King had been waiting for someone to release him from his kingship and that he had been looking forward to this moment. Perhaps he felt that now that someone had taken over his reign, he could finally have the death he wished for and be released from his unending sorrow. That thought made Vegeta ill at ease, but he seriously had to keep the possibility in mind. After all his father had admitted that he only longed for death.
"My lord, is my brother… Do you know what happened to him? Is he safe?" Akane asked the abdicated King as he joined them down the dais.
She had evidently waited with this question to give Vegeta the room he needed to establish his authority, but she could not keep her worry to herself any longer.
"I'm afraid I do not know, wee'un." the abdicated King said. He contemplated her piteously. "But he is probably still in Bethar. I received a message from him some time ago that he planned to remain there should the war come to his lands."
"But there was no war. Not really. We made it undone. That means he should be fine." Akane said hopefully. The look she gave Vegeta was pleading.
Vegeta honestly couldn't tell whether her assumption was right. Who knew what had happened during the moons of impending war? He had seen enough planets on the brink of war in his day and he knew only too well that panic could disrupt a nation just as effectively as war itself. In fact it had been a much used strategy within the WTO forces to invade a planet and set up camp in the field near the capital for weeks before commencing the actual war. A nation in panic was much easier to conquer because anarchy had already set in. In the face of war people tended to develop a strong sense of individuality. With their freedom and self-determination on the line it would soon become every man for himself, which ultimately resulted in a disregard for the life of others. How often had he witnessed people bringing horror to their own kind in anticipation of the horrors he would execute in name of the WTO?
He didn't tell his little mate this though. She knew this as well having served as a soldier in the WTO army. The fear in her eyes said that she understood.
"It is reasonable to presume that he is safe. We will find out from the messenger Tragus has sent soon enough." Vegeta said carefully.
She knew reason had little power in times of war, but there was always the hope that sound judgement would prevail over panic. If her brother had a stance like hers, he would have kept it together. He basically just told her that there was absolutely no certainty about her brother's fate and that guessing about it was useless. He felt sorry that he couldn't give her the comfort she needed. He wasn't about to lie to her even if she longed it of him. Handing out lies was senseless in any case, with their bond she could simply pick his brain for his thoughts if she wanted to.
Akane nodded sadly at his candour and blinked away her tears. "You're right."
Now that his mate had taken the moment to give voice to her worries, Vegeta set out to address an annoyance of his own and it truly couldn't be helped that he sounded so severe when he pointed out to his father: "Until my mate is formally introduced to the people as my Queen, adressing her by her title as Princess will do."
Having his father address his little mate by the pet name he had given her was not something he was going to stand for. It was repugnant and suggestive of the carnal history between them. Vegeta rather denied that such had ever occurred.
His father looked at him with mild surprise and then to the woman that had been his concubine once. The fondness he nourished for her was quite obvious in his face, something Vegeta couldn't appreciate much.
"And a magnificent Queen you will make." he returned to look at Vegeta and said: "Forgive me, son. Old habits. I commend you. You made an excellent choice."
Vegeta slammed down the territorial urge to lunge for his own father's throat at the blatant adoration in the man's voice and he also declined the notion that he might have to kill the abdicated King after all. Vegeta couldn't bear to give thought to the memories his father possessed and surely cherished about Akane, memories he might even be recalling at this very moment. His father was bleeding well going to seize giving thought to them as well.
Akane put much effort into calling forth a smile. She bared her teeth in a fashion that made her look like she was vexed by a rather persistent itch somewhere. Perhaps she felt through their bond how his hands were itching to ram the lingering smile from his father's face. If the situation was awkward for her, then it was no wonder that it was nigh intolerable for him.
'Leave it in the past, Vegeta. Your father understands.' Akane put across through their link, her rough voice resonating in his head.
'My father is giving you the glad-eye!' Vegeta objected incensed.
'Well what would you have him do? Ignore me where I stand for the rest of his days?'
She shouldn't be sounding so sarcastic because that was exactly what his father should do.
'He should indeed!' Vegeta thus shouted, struggling not to call out aloud.
He observed dourly how his father was watching them in their voiceless exchange. Did he know they were having an argument? There was something suspiciously entertained about the smile on the man's face.
'Blood, Vegeta.' his little mate sighed in his head.'You get it sorted then. I trust your father will still be among us when I return. And will you please let your daughter suck her fingers if she wants to. She doesn't even have teeth yet and she will be in high dudgeon all night if you keep fagging her during her kips. Something I will end up having to deal with since you just roll over and go back to sleep.'
"I will go see to the people of the palace now." Akane announced out loud then and with a last hard look at Vegeta she left them behind in the throne room.
"Is she giving you hell, lad?" his father asked rather too ribbing for Vegeta's fancy. "I bet she is. Never met a lass in my life with a temper quite like hers. I wonder what happened to her face. She has enough scars to match that fire of her now. It is very becoming of her."
"I honestly don't appreciate you talking about my mate like that." Vegeta growled.
"I bet not. I reckon you feel like having a good old piss in all the corners of the palace to mark your territory." His father let out a belly laugh and thumped Vegeta on the shoulder fatherly. "I had a mate once. I know what it is like. Agreed then, no more talk of your Queen. I understood what it meant when I sent her off. I have no rights to her nor the mind to restate them. She deserves to be a Queen and you deserve to have her."
"You're making it sound like you're bleeding well giving her to me, but she was already mine. I took her for my mate. There are no claims to restate, old man." Vegeta abhorred that he sounded so childishly moody in the face of his father's good humour, but the fact that the man made a joke out of this impossible situation vexed him to no end. That his father had been with his mate wasn't funny. Not funny at all.
Calling his father old man wasn't very sensible either as he was younger than Vegeta now. A man of six-and-thirty couldn't exactly be called old. Vegeta had over a decade on him. Still, given the fact that Vegeta had spent many years of service to Frieza travelling the universe in hyper sleep brought them to about the same age in reality. And that beard made his father look like an old man all the same. Vegeta was never getting one of those.
His father held him back when Vegeta started out of the throne room teeth grinding in indignation. The man faced him with noble sincerity as he pulled the chain worn by all the Kings of Vegetasei over his head. Handling it with much respect, the abdicated King placed the chain around Vegeta's neck. He smiled and took his shoulders in a firm grip.
"I believe this is yours now, son."