Disclaimer:I do not own Dark Jewels or DBZ, misfortunately.

Priceless Jewels
Chapter 15-The Family

Vegeta tensed, getting ready to deposit Bulma as gently and quickly as he possibly could into the arms of…he took a quick glance to his side…Krillin, before killing this annoying pest that stood between Bulma and medical treatment. Big Bang or Final Flash? This idiot male obviously deserves to suffer greatly before he dies. Perhaps I should just rip him limb from limb. Very messy, yet very satisfying on a personal level. Before he could decide…

"Daemonar!" an angry feminine voice snapped just when the winged man was about to launch himself at the Terreillian males, who were already themselves prepared for battle. The strange warrior faltered, looking over to where the voice came from just as ChiChi pushed herself to the front. His blade disappeared as she approached.

"ChiCh-Ow! LET GO OF ME!" the offended male howled as she twisted his ear.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT! JUST WHY WERE YOU GOING TO ATTACK THEM YOU MORON? THEY WERE HELPING A QUEEN! WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN THINKING?!"

"OW! HEY STOP THAT! THEY'RE STRANGE MALES FROM TERRIELLE AND THEY JUST HAPPENED TO BE HOLDING MY UNCONSCIOUS COUSIN, JUST WHAT DID YOU EXPECT ME TO THINK?!" he roared back, still trying to dislodge her grip from his ear.

"OH YEAH? WELL I DON'T THINK YOU WERE THINKING AT ALL!!! NOW GET IN THE HOUSE AND TELL AUNT MARIAN THAT WE'RE GOING TO NEED LOTS OF FOOD FOR BULMA AND THE GUYS AND ASK HER IF SHE WOULD BE WILLING TO START WORKING ON THAT WHILE WE START UP SOME HEALING WEBS. NOW GET MOVING!!" she screamed at him, giving his ear a final pull so that he was standing in the direction she wanted him to go before releasing it to give him a shove to get him going. Daemonar beat a hasty retreat under the irritated ChiChi's watchful eyes, holding his now red ear as he went to relay the message he was given. "Males, they never think. You have to just about yell at them before you can get them to do anything practical. Come on, Draca should have a room already prepared for her. We need to start examining her so we can decide what webs we need to set up." ChiChi didn't notice the stares she was earning from the males.

"Such a loving cousin," 18 mocked her gently.

"Bite me. Bulma's more important than male pride."

They soon had Bulma laid on a bed in the Keep. The two women turned her onto her stomach so they could examine her back after shooing the males from the room. Goku, practically had to shove Vegeta out of the room, and that was only after the women had insisted that negative emotions would be more harmful to Bulma than his cooling his heals in a nearby room would be for him.

Vegeta prowled the room, glaring at anyone else when they dared to move and thereby draw attention to themselves. Krillin stared at the agitated prince. Man, when did that happen and why wasn't I informed that he's almost capable of emotions? He glanced over at Piccolo who watched the Saiyan Prince out of the corner of his eye with a sort of sympathetic amusement. Gohan was out in the garden playing with the wolves, which left Goku, the only male willing to become a target for the angry saiyan's leashed rage.

"Aw calm down Vegeta, they're taking care of her. You know she'll be fine. She did wake up long enough to give them the regen tank and between that and their healing web thingies they said they could have her up by tonight and fully healed within the next couple of days."

"I am calm you ignorant fool. I'm just concerned and reasonably so. I won't be able to get her father to make me new inventions to train with once we get back to Japan if he thinks that I wasn't able to keep his loud mouthed daughter alive," Vegeta snapped at the innocent fighter.

"Yeah right," Krillin snorted, deciding if Vegeta attacked him that Goku would back him up enough that it would be worthwhile to risk riling him. "You know if I didn't know better I'd say you were in love with her Vegeta." He grinned impudently when Vegeta snarled at him.

"I. Am. Not. In. Love. With. That. Damned. Woman. So get that thought out of your head you little-

"Uh uh uh," a softly chiding voice broke him off before he could say something exceedingly profane about the bald little man. "You must be Vegeta. They said I'd know you right off since you were the prickly one. They were right. And you'd be Goku; my you do look boyish don't you? Krillin I take it? 18 told me about you. And you have to be Piccolo, I'm fairly certain I couldn't have mistaken you from the description my niece provided. And that darling little boy I met in the garden was Gohan, another nephew. How wonderful!"

"Uh yeah, you know us but I'm afraid we don't share your advantage," Krillin spoke before anyone else could decide how to respond to the strange woman's observations.

"Oh how rude of me! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Marian Yaslana; I'm Bulma and ChiChi's aunt and Daemonar's mother. I'm sure you met him earlier? He's very protective of the females in the family. 18 and ChiChi said you would probably be hungry about now. Your food is ready if you'd like to come and eat. Bulma is still in the, I believe they referred to it as a tank, so she won't be out until later this evening."

They followed the pretty older winged woman through the huge halls and down a winding staircase until they reached the dining room. Eventually they were all settled at a long table, fine cutlery and raven glass goblets with what appeared to be wine in front of everyone, except for Gohan who had juice. There was a large sidebar covered with food, and the males quickly settled themselves in for a feast with plates heaped full of the delicious smelling food. When the male, Daemonar, joined them he stared at Goku, who had all of the table manners of a five-year-old child, before shaking his head and turning his attention to his own plate.

"So why do you have wings and mom doesn't?" Gohan asked the dark warrior. Daemonar's body jerked before he turned to look at the little boy to answer.

"I'm a full blooded Eyrien, Chi's only a quarter." He saw the question coming and went ahead and answered it, "Mom's sister's daughter married Surreal and Falonar's son. They had a kid and she married a human from Terreille. They had ChiChi. Surreal is a family cousin and since ChiChi's my aunt's granddaughter then she's my cousin either way. And Bulma's my cousin through my dad's side. Her grandfather is my father's half-brother, and her grandmother was dad's sister, so again, either way…"

"Bulma's grandmother married her brother?" Gohan asked his brow wrinkling in confusion.

"No Jaenelle adopted the family, so she was related by choice not blood. Then she married her adoptive brother's half-brother, my Uncle Daemon. Clear?"

"I think so," Gohan said, frowning as he went over what Daemonar just told him. "Oh by the way I'm-

"Gohan, I know. The wolf pack liked you," he added smiling at the younger version of his cousin's husband. Then he turned his attention to the older males and his voice cooled considerably as he added a stiff apology.

"I'm sorry about earlier. I should have thought more carefully about what your presence meant, but I saw Bulma and I started slipping toward the killing edge too quickly to control myself. She's a queen and she'd be a strong one if we could ever get her to establish court. Kaeleer needs strong queens."

"So what's the big deal with them being queens? They said something about not establishing court so doesn't that make them, um not queens?" Krillin observed as he reached for his wine glass.

"No. They are always Queens. It's a bit complicated so maybe you should ask our grandfather to explain it better but the essential idea is that a queen is the moral center of a community, whether it's the village or territory, she has absolute power within her court. If a queen doesn't establish a court she's still a queen because she will still serve as a ground for the males in her presence, she can still heal the land, and she's still more important to our society than any other kind of witch. Besides even if she refuses now, Bulma could still decide to establish a court later. So can ChiChi and 18, for that matter.
It's like being a countryless royal in your Terreille. You still are royal, you just don't have a kingdom. Look, the only thing not establishing a court means is that she doesn't have a territory in which she has absolute power in, which shifts her rank to slightly lower than the ruling queen of a territory. Of course that's only as a queen not as just a witch. Depending on the situation you might also have to factor in their jewel rank."

"What difference does that make?"

"Quite a bit. It's a very intricate dance, and there are too many different rules for given situations. There's a very thick handbook on court protocol alone that outlines a males rights and duties and a queens powers and responsibilities in return to the males who serve. For now my best advice to you is to try to relax, take everything in, and if one of the coven tries to explain anything to you… try not to beat your head against a wall afterward because it won't help."

"Personal experience?" Piccolo asked from his side of the table.

Daemonar glanced over with a lazy arrogant smile. "Why don't you go pay a visit to the Geoffrey, the Keep's Librarian, and ask him to lend you a book written in female?"

Before any of the z fighters could decide how to respond to that they heard a noise at the door. Every one of them, even Daemonar turned as one… and stared.


~Meanwhile in Terreille~

He woke up with a mouth that felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton. Perhaps it had been to muffle the screams that resulted from the horde of stampeding elephants that had obviously been set loose in his brain since there was still some milling around, stomping through his head. He blinked painfully at the light that cascaded through the unfamiliar window before looking around trying to remember what had happened the night before. He propped himself up on his elbow and it bumped into something. He glanced over to see what it was. As his eye landed on his bedmate he leaned closer to get a better look at her… and started screaming.


A/N: Poor thing, mwahahahaha! I am SSOOO evil. At any rate, here's my shameless plugs of the day: Icia hasn't been able to update her story lately, but Raksha and Iceis still have stories up. If you're interested in the Dark Jewels series, Raksha's will give you a better idea about that world since her story is lot more like Anne Bishop's and doesn't add anything of the DBZ style in. You should check it out since it's really well written, and it features more about the characters from the series that I just kind of glossed over. Hm, I think that's it. Wait no, there's also this story call Pleasures of Payback by Bouzi Neo, so if you are avidly dislike Yamcha and don't mind lemons you might want to check it out. All right, that's really it. I'm for reals finished this time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Thanks for Reviews~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

manga: Glad you don't disapprove of the rankings and thanks for reviewing.

Raksha: No you can't get rid of the annoying ones, 'cause then you won't have anyone around to push the others to the violence that will be upcoming. But that is not the point.^_^ Lol, besides I love totally weird and unneccessary twists to plot lines. Hope you liked this chapter.

Inei Tenshi: Glad you like the story, I'm sorry you won't be able to read this for a couple of weeks after the first. By the time you get back I may have the story finished. But that's okay cause I have a new idea that goes with this story, but I can't work on it till I finish. I really appreciate your reviews.

Silverstar: I don't really think I do action very well so it pleases me that you liked it. Hope the lack of action in this chapter wasn't too disappointing. Thanks for the reviews. Oh BTW, I plan on covering the vegeta/Bulma telepathy thing in the next chapter or so ok?

Bulma: No problem, but did you read chapter 13 before that? I took down my little note and just stuck a chapter up instead, not quite sure why though... Oh well, thanks for reviewing anyways.

Daniela: Gracias. I'm glad you're liking it. I hope my little explanation about how he's related didn't throw anyone too much.

Roya: Ok. Lol, You're very enthusiastic aren't you? Well I hope this chapter met with your continued approval.

Empress Sarah-sama: It's ok, I'll forgive you this time. lol, thank you for reviewing.

Sailor Purgatory: Sorry Geoffrey has only been mentioned so far, he and Saetan, and Draca, and yea even Lorn shall have a bit of the action later. Can't let them get too comfortable, they might fade into the Darkness, which we will not tolerate. Your reviews are duly noted and appreciated.