((Author's note: Heh, I'm gunna start making my chapter's longer and this one has more dialogue...evil evil dialogue...my weakness! -twitches- Aw, well, at least I got the chapter done! Woot! ))
Ch. 6 Revelations
As she sifted through the foggy layers of sleep, Bulma was surrounded by the soothing scents of herbs and candles, a gentle warmth flooding the room with a feeling of safety and contentment. She burrowed more deeply into the softness of the silken pillows, reveling in the feel of the soft fur blanket and futon as it rubbed against her skin. Her skin? Her sapphire eyes snapped open as she bolted upright in the bed clutching the fur blanket to her breasts. The blue strands of her hair were on end as her gaze focused and locked on a man grinding herbs into a small clay bowl in a patient manner.
He was an aging man. Not too old but there where lines etched into what she supposed used to be a rather handsome face and strands of gray streaked his dark hair. He was tan from long days in the sun although it was his eyes that caught her attention. Intelligent gray eyes that knew many secrets yet knew the ring of laughter. He sat poised at the far side of the rather large tent working intently, a look of knowledge and good humor on his face. Her tension subsided a bit at the sight of him. Those lines had been carved from good-natured laughter.
"I'm glad you are finally awake, little one. I trust you are feeling better?" It seemed to Bulma that he didn't even have to ask. It was as if he already had the answers.
"Yes... Yes I am." Her voice sounded low and withdrawn even to her own ears.
He finished grinding the herbs and sat up, diligently mixing it into a small clay bowl of water, his slight smile thoughtful as he moved over to her and handed her the bowl. "Here drink this. It will help with the minor burning sensation in your stomach that you are experiencing."
"Burning sensation?" She blinked a few times as she cupped the bowl in her hands, her mind focusing on her body. Yes there was a slightly uncomfortable warmth spreading in her stomach, making it churn but she hadn't even noticed in the midst of her own thoughts. She brought the bowl to her lips and tipped the liquid down her throat. It was good. And abnormally cold as if the concoction was some sort of liquid ice lava, cooling the heat twisting in her stomach.
Bulma blinked up at the man in amazement. "What was that?" It was... She didn't quite have the words to describe it. The taste had been slightly minty but the sensation itself was like magic.
"Cold?" There was amusement in his voice. A genuine humor that made her want to smile with him. "Yes, of course its cold. How better to fight fire but with ice."
An answering grin tugged at her lips and she found it amazing that she could do so without pain. All the cuts and bruises that she had sustained from that abomination were no where to be found. Not even the faintest ache of a soar muscle. The smile faded from her face as she looked up at him with a mask of seriousness.
"How did I heal so fast? Where am I and who exactly are you? What was that thing that attacked me? A vampire? What exactly is going on here?" Her questions rushed out of her like an avalanche of confusion and demand for answers. Her deep blue eyes held his with that blazing determination that everyone back home had known her for. More like feared her for. She maybe a weak little human in comparison but there was no way they could ever stand a chance against her temper or her brains. Most of the time it was that temper that would override any trace of fear for self-preservation.
The old man was surprised by her amount of spunk. Even after all that she had been through and the horrendous tortures that the dark one had subjected her to, she was still demanding and fiery without the slightest a trace of fear. Little did she know that he had spent a great deal of his energy healing her wounds. The poisonous toxins secreted through the blood, seed, saliva and nails of a demon severely impaired the healing arts and would have continued to spread and infect without aid.
Sadly the damage had already been dealt with the demon forcing of his tainted blood into her body. One tainted blood exchange would have been possible to fight against but two was just too much of the contaminated substance to destroy. Even now it was spreading in her stomach, forcing her body through the Change. There wasn't much time
He settled down on his knees beside the little bed of pillows and fur blankets on which she sat waiting for his answer. More like fuming with demanding silence. She certainly was a brave little thing. "Perhaps you should tell me exactly where you are from, Little One, so that I may be able to answer your questions with a little more insight." He kept his voice calm and persuasive, purely genuine and logical to keep her at ease.
Almost at once Bulma's dark lashes swept down to hide the expression in her eyes. How could she tell him that she was from a different planet, an entirely different dimension for that matter? She was having enough trouble coping with the idea herself. How could he possibly understand? He would think her crazy. And what about everyone else back home? Trunks was already well off in his career as the president of Capsule corp. but Bra still needed her, didn't she?
And what of Vegeta? Her heart lurched at the name. Did he even miss her? The thought of him just getting up and going on with his life without her, forgetting her, sent a heavy stone crushing down on her heart, her chest tight with pain.
Sensing the young woman's sudden distress, her withdrawal, the old man placed both of his roughened, tanned hands on her shoulders to draw her attention back to him. "I know you are a stranger to this place, little one, to this world. You are confused and afraid but, for now, you must learn to trust me and the people here. Do not underestimate my capability for understanding, little bird. I have seen much in my long existence."
Her brilliant blue eyes snapped back up to his face, forgetting the wrenching in her chest as she searched his faded gaze for the sincerity of his words. "You know what happened to me? Such a thing has happened before?" How could he possibly know? If it had happened before, perhaps he had the answer to get back to her world. Bulma nearly fell off of the make-shift bed in the midst of her excitement.
"Calm down, little bird. Yes, I have an idea of what has happened to you. I can faintly recall stories passed down in legend speaking of beings falling from the skies, entities of different worlds reborn into this one. I have lived long in the world and the stories are ancient ones, hardly taken as anything but myths told at campfires to amuse children." His eyes were pale and steady as he relayed her the information, a lifeline to reality when her mind was racing a hundred miles an hour to put the pieces together.
"Reborn? That makes sense. I was killed on Earth first Bulma–" Her body shivered at the fleeting memory of the painful heat consuming her body. "then on the heaven planet. It is said that once you die twice, your physical and spiritual bodies, you cease to exist. I never thought you got shot into an alternate universe or anything." Her soft voice was musing as she turned over the information in her head, piecing everything together. But something was slowly drawing her attention away from her revelations and questions. That heat in her stomach was surfacing again and starting to move through the muscles of her abdomen, growing hotter at an alarming rate as it spread and churned.
Sensing her discomfort, the old man pressed a callused hand to her abdomen over the fur blankets, centering his mind on the heat the tainted blood was creating as it grew and spread through her organs and tissues, forcing her body through the Change despite his best efforts to delay it.
Frowning, he opened his steady gray eyes and looked at her. She was clearly distressed, her expressive eyes pleading for an explanation to the alien heat growing painful and spreading throughout her bloodstream. "What's happening to me?" Her voice was a thread of sound, tinged with real fear. Her mind was actually thumbing through a list of diseases and their symptoms for an answer.
"The Dark One has given you his blood and it is spreading and altering your muscles and tissues into that of its master. There was too much of it for me to remove from your system but if you exchange blood with me, we can shift its course enough so that your soul can remain intact through the Change." He was very still as he watched for her reaction, his voice powerful and soothing.
"I'm going to be a vampire! I am NOT gunna be a blood-sucker!" Her voice was a shrill scream, enough to make anyone cringe in fear and her sapphire eyes were blazing with a mixture of outrage and fear. This was the notorious temper Bulma was known for and it was a powerful thing. "There is no way I'm drinking your blood!"
The man blinked several times to clear his shocked expression, nearly falling over at her reaction. He hadn't been prepared for that one. Tears, yes. Hysteria, absolutely. But the explosive, outraged scream in his ear was definitely a first. He almost had the audacity to burst out laughing. This young woman didn't just have spunk, she had it in spades.
"A blood-sucker? You needn't worry, little one, an oral transfusion will not be necessary although it can be done that way as well. The linking of two freely flowing wounds is an equally powerful transfusion." He was clearly amused by her fiery spirit and her colorful dialogue to say the least but he remained careful of her delicate emotional state. This was much for someone to absorb and time was quickly running out.
Her breath hitched at the unspoken meaning in his explanation. Freely flowing open wound. He meant a fresh cut. As alarming as the thought was, the heat had already turned into a full fledged fire, torching her insides and making her hunch over with the intensity it. The pain took her breath as it raked through her muscles and veins. She didn't want to become a vampire and she didn't have much of a choice. It was this or bloodsucker and the second just wasn't an option. The pain was tearing her thoughts away from her and Bulma wasn't sure how long she would be able to think clearly. She had to make the choice now.
Bulma choked back a scream of pain as she remained hunched over on her knees against the waves of fire tore at her insides. "Fine, damnit, just give me a fucking knife! I refuse to be a vampire."
The man nodded solemnly and unsheathed a small dagger from his boot, handing it to her with concern evident in his steely gaze. "Just slice a thin line over your palm. I can do it for you if you are unsure."
"I'm more sure with me slicing my own hand open while I shaking and swamped with the menstral cramps from hell rather than with you hovering over my hand with a sharp knife, alright!" She was on the last of her nerves with the waves of pain clawing at her, scattering her sanity and her inability to control any of it. She needed some control over what was happening to her body. She bit down hard on her lower lip and she squeezed her eyes shut, slicing the blade across her open palm quickly.
The healer immediately took the knife and dragged it down his own palm in one swift motion before linking her hand in his, his free hand easing her back down onto her side into the comfort of the soft furs. Already, his potent blood was racing through her bloodstream, diluting the tainted blood into something closer to the elemental composition of his own.
The painful fire in her bloodstream dimmed with the mixing of the two sources, but the heat didn't entirely leave. Warmth pulsed and spread light and energy throughout her body so that her muscles relaxed and she drifted on it, her hand remaining linked with the old man , her lifeline in the eye of the storm. She felt drowsy, her body growing intensely achy and lethargic as if she had trained inside the gravity machine like Vegeta. Her mouth curved in a slight smile at the thought.
The Change was sending a relaxing sort of warmth coursing through every cell of her body, every muscle and organ, doing something inside her that Bulma was just too tired to examine too closely. Even her skin felt overly warm as heat spread over it, lingered and seeped into her very being. The entire sensation felt odd but strangely soothing, like relaxing in a nice hot spring. Bulma didn't even bother to open her eyes as she felt the healer shift away from her to start grinding up more herbs. The sounds of him bustling about, pouring the herbs into various bowls and heating up assortments of mixtures so that the drugging scents seemed to fill the air of the tent and find their deep in her lungs, managed to send her into a somnolent sleep.