Stolen Hearts Chapter Twenty Five
Bulma paced about the cold room in yet another sleepless night. She hated being stuck out here away from all the action, but somehow her husband had convinced her that it would be the safest for Trunks. Silly thing actually believed Trunks was his child, Bulma had managed that much, and although he was no outstanding father (Yamcha was hardly outstanding at anything) he showed the proper care for the child's welfare. She wondered if he would have shown the same concern had he known the true fraternal origins of the child.
It was the March ten years after the birth of Bulma's only joy and the first of the plum blossoms were scattered on the black grass before dawn in the country palace of the royal Fey, far to the northwest of the kingdom. The sycamore, the lime, and the tall pine trees inhaled the first pale hints of sky, waking yet another iron day.
The dazzling light would soon come, rising from the bellies of leaves and pouring down the cups of burning poppies. A nightingale squawked from his perch, welcoming the new day. The wind seemed to sigh through the meadow, barely even causing a tremor in the delicate petals of hundreds of various wildflowers, all equally brilliant and fragrant in the early air.
It was incredible how peaceful nature could be even when there was such tumult in the world around it. The feud between the Fey and the Elves that had once lain dormant was now in an all out uproar that had been continuously rising and swelling like a gathering storm since the death of Volsung. Despite Bulma's efforts to maintain some fragment of peace, it had become an unstoppable beast, and now she was tired and shut away for the royal families safety because things were quickly growing out of hand.
Bulma sighed. Ten years. Ten long years. The summers had died one by one; they flew quickly on in the flow of life. There had been the incredible happiness of watching her son grow and flourish, but nothing could completely heal the tear in her soul that made itself painfully obvious on lonely mornings like these.
The stars and her family had often aligned to make her life miserable. By simple spiteful determination had Bulma escaped her mother's attempts to make her a "fine" lady- dumb, docile, and complacent. That beast of a mother always roared especially ugly roars. Bulma never seemed to please her; though it was true she never tried. Bulma hated her still for what she had done. They simply never spoke anymore. Trunks would visit his grandmother every now and then, but his mother would never accompany him. He never asked why.
The sun shone, but weakly, as if it held a grudge. Bulma noticed how hard, cold and shut up the ground was. Sometimes she wished it would just open up and take her in she felt so bad, but it seemed as if she did suddenly drop dead from despair even the ground would refuse her.
Yet without fail, every time in her darkest hour, the thought of her son, Vegeta's son, gave her the strength to go on. He was all that was good in her life; all that was worth living for. She would be the best mother for him that she could possibly be. She would hide the wounded side of her heart from him in a hope that he would never have to know pain like that.
A late frost threw the morning light upward into the chamber, shining on the ceiling more then the floor, so as to alter the usual shadows. They were blue, and in the wrong places. The great lady was sewing, sitting rather formally in the high chair; she stitched with the half blank mind of a needlewoman, the other half of her brain moving idly among her troubles.
She wished she was not in this dismal castle. It was too near to the north, to far away from the securities of civilization. She wanted to be in the center of activity where her mind would be busy and not left to wander over the dreary expanse; away for her 'safety' in this time of upheaval. To be put differently, she was simply shoved out of the way.
Bulma let out a small growl as this thought came upon her and her stitching was ripped. She'd show them who was easy to get rid of! But with a sigh she calmed herself. She mustn't be so quick to jump to conspiracy. Sometimes things were exactly what they seemed.
Yamcha was not so horrible a husband. She was sure there could have been worse. He allotted her proper freedom and power and was often quiet understanding. It hadn't all been peaches and cream, but they had learned to survive. They had to learn so to keep their people safe. They had worked together over the years to fight against the powers that would have all Fey destroyed, for it was what was required of them in such desperate times. That was why Bulma had married him, for that and for the safety of her child. They had to think it was his, or…..or…… she didn't want to think what might have happened to him. It is amazing what a mother is willing to give up for her child.
Much of this surviving was due to Bulma's new acceptance; a state of being her aging had brought her. There is a thing called knowledge of the world which is a thing that cannot be taught, because it is not logical and does not obey the laws which are constant.
It has no rules. You cannot teach a baby to walk by explaining the matter logically, it must learn by experience. Such is this seventh sense of knowledge. You must be left to experience the years, and then, when you are beginning to hate your used body, you suddenly find you can do it. You can go on living-not by principle, not by deduction, not by knowledge of good and evil, but simply by a peculiar shifting sense of balance which defies each of these things often.
You no longer hope to live seeking truth, but continue henceforth under the guidance of this seventh sense. Balance was the sixth; knowledge of the world is the seventh.
The discovery is not a matter of triumph, we only carry this knowledge with us, riding the queer waves in a habitual, petrifying way, because we have reached a stage of deadlock and can think of nothing else to do. We begin to forget, as we go stolidly balancing along, that there could have been a time when we were young bodies flaming with the impetus of life. It is hardly consoling to remember such a feeling, and so it deadens our minds.
But there was a time when each of us stood naked before the world, confronting life as a serious problem with which we were intimately and passionately concerned. There was a time when we wondered with all our souls what the world was, what love was, what we were ourselves.
All these problems and feelings fade away when we get the seventh sense. The seventh sense indeed slowly kills all the other ones, so that at last there is no trouble. We cannot see anymore, or feel, or hear about what we once sought. The bodies we loved, the truths we hunted, the gods we questioned: we are deaf and blind to them now, safely and automatically balancing along to an inevitable grave under the protection of our last sense.
This is the best explanation for Bulma's growth over that decade. She had lost the passion of her youth, and the reasons to be upset slowly faded away into monotony. The chaos of her mind and body that had once afflicted her had slipped away. The time for weeping at sunsets and at the glamour of the moonlight, the confusion and profusion of beliefs and hopes-in god, truth, love, and eternity- the ability to be transported by the beauty of physical objects, a heart to ache or swell at a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful that oceans could lie between, that time was over.
Yet the broad and uncertain lines that defined her character still remained, dulled, but still present. Change is not a choice. It happens to you, and you are different. The only thing you can do as a human, is lie about it, and Bulma was never much for deceit.
Bulma's hand danced in the memory of a million vanished stars. The years had made her stronger, wiser, harder. She was no longer the weeping girl she had been, but a stalwart matron with an icy unshakeable disposition. She had become a grand Queen.
Bulma always knew that there wasn't glue strong enough to hold her roots together and now that she'd wasted too many years, she'd lost track of where she started. She had to dream of who she was as a girl and why after 30 years, they said she is what is left. Bulma had often said she would like to go back there, so she could scream to the world, and be a brick so she wouldn't feel. She'd lift herself up, she'd throw herself at that house, break windows smash walls, just to keep time where it was and where it should be.
She had never hidden from her past, a past that was her own and over which she had the final say. There was many a time when all she wished was to change it, to be a baby again, to be new, and to have a fresh life.
But there was always the damned reality. You can't change the past. And it is the families not the lovers that rot the mind. It is that which condemns the tragic character to his walking death. The heart of tragedy does not lie in stealing or taking away, it lies in giving in, in putting on, in adding, in smothering without pillows.
Being robbed of life or honor is nothing to these people who have been robbed of themselves- their soul stolen, overlaid, wizened, while the family lives in triumph, superfluously and with stifling love endowed on them, seemingly innocent of ill-intention. They existed in them like a vampire. When they moved, they do it with the family's movement. They are lost and unreal. They are acting, reading from a script.
Higher in the sky the sun rose, the great wheel of life spinning in the heavens, fruitlessly speeding after her divine consort, the dark son. Bulma had been betrayed. She had been wronged. She had lived through a black and cold time. But she had lived all the same.
Her thoughts wandered and came back to the name that it always came back to.
Vegeta.
Never having been a high-handed or demanding person, Bulma had been able to make a little go a long way, his memory consoled her aching heart, but Gods how she missed him. Ten years and she was still pining. It was a need you never get used to, so fierce and so confused, and it was a loss you never get over. She lived in a quiet sorrow, knowing she would never have a love like she had with Vegeta.
Her marriage was one of convenience, and there was little or no affection between them. Peace and respect, yes, maybe lust on Yamcha's side, but never love.
Bulma had given in long ago, deciding not to tack against the wind. She did not mope for Vegeta, nor did she weep for him upon her pillow. She did not allow herself to think openly of him, for if she did she would break apart.
He had worn a place for himself in the corner of her heart, like a sea shell, always booring against a rock might do. The making of the place had been the pain, but now the shell was safely lodged and ground not longer.
The silence of the gloomy room was broken with a yawn, and Bulma turned her head to see her pride and joy, her son, with lilac hair so fair that it almost seemed to capture some of the white radiance of the Valkyrie part of his mother.
A smile was immediately on her sorrowful face, and her headache lifted. If only the world could maintain his beautiful innocence, then there would be no such thing as war.
Luck was with them in his birth. He had all the features of a Faerie so he could pass as Yamcha's son. Trunks was a water spirit like Bulma, with big bright blue eyes that stately observed everyone from a distance. Even as a small child he seemed more mature and intelligent then all the other youths. He could empty you with those eyes. Make you feel nothing more a speck, or the most important thing in the universe. The mysterious force that kept the cosmos moving.
Bulma knew he had gotten that from his real father.
Another thing he had gotten from his father was his sharply pointed ears. This posed a definite problem for that feature was certainly applicable to an Elvish nature, but this was solved as simply as a hair style. Bulma kept his hair just long enough to cover his ears, hiding his secret.
Trunks never understood exactly why he had to always keep his ears covered and never let anyone see them, but he was an obedient child when it came to the desires of his mother. His silence couldn't last forever though, for he was extremely astute and soon his questions were too close to the truth. Bulma could never quite bring herself to tell him the truth, maybe he was old enough now, maybe soon...
Yamcha and Trunks had never been that close, not as a father and son should be. Although they were loving to each other, and Yamcha would not hesitate in the slightest when it came to the boy's welfare, she often wondered if some part of him knew that Trunks was not his child. Whatever the distance was, Trunks was definitely his mother's child, and no one questioned that.
Trunks had been beautifully brought up. In him all of Bulma's failures turned into successes, such was the perfection of the child she had raised. As close to a perfect being as one could be. He had been protected by love. The effect of such a youth was that he grew without the hard accomplishments of living- without malice, vanity, suspicion, cruelty, or selfishness, and jealousy to him seemed the most ignoble of vices.
He had lived his entire life in love, trust, and respect. He was after all the heir to the kingdom, and a fine one at that. No one dared question his lineage or shed light to the strange events surrounding his existence, but dear grandmother Harmonia had done a wonderful job of hushing things up as well.
Yet despite his shroud of love, his being a prince and the whispers of controversy had left him on the alienated side of society, though he was still too young to think much of it. He did, though, want everyone to love him, and it weighted upon his pure heart when they did not.
Bulma smiled, he was such a wonderful person they would be able to do nothing but love him, and he would be the greatest leader they had ever seen.
"Come here Trunks. You are such a lonely child, how pensive, how aloof you seem to me. Tell me what is bothering you my love?"
"You know I'm fine mother," Trunks answered in a voice beyond his years.
"Yes you are always fine, but I want you to be more then fine," Bulma said smiling and pulling him onto her lap.
"Mom, why are my ears different from everyone else's? I need you to tell me," He said bluntly when he was situated, his eyes serious and contemplative. Bulma's brow furrowed under his questioning gaze.
"I guess you are incisive enough to know the truth, and you deserve to," she started slowly, not knowing how to tell him the story of his origin, and wondering if she should. How would he react? Bulma didn't want to cause him pain or confusion, but it seemed he had that affliction anyway, and he did deserve to know his true father. Vegeta deserved it as well. With a sigh Bulma closed her eyes and continued, "……..A long time ago your mother fell in love with an Elf and his name was Vegeta."
"Really, My father was an elf?" Trunks interrupted immediately, with eyes wide and bright, "That is awesome! I knew that Yamcha guy couldn't be my father."
Bulma stared at her son in shock for a moment. Was she that transparent? But she couldn't help smiling again despite herself, and let out a small laugh. Only Trunks would be overjoyed at the fact that his father was an Elf. Most would have been horrified and ashamed, but not Trunks. Obviously the poison of the world had not reached him, nor did Bulma intend to ever let it.
"So what happened?"
Bulma's smile faded and she felt her grief afresh. To talk about it she had to think about it. She tried to keep herself under control as silent tears traced their way down her cheeks. They were not tears of passion, but tears of time. They had worn grooves in her face.
"Well Trunks, although we loved each other very much it was not proper for us to be together in the eyes of the world and... unfortunately…… he…..he was killed before you were even born."
Trunks said no words, he knew words would not change or help his mother's pain so he simply conveyed with his eyes and his embrace the condolence he felt. Bulma began babbling the story out to him, she had never said these things aloud and the words felt strange on her lips. Of course the story had to be edited somewhat, for even though Trunks seemed older he was only ten.
"I would have warned him, but it is difficult to say things in plain English without hurting people. I was a fool too, I didn't want to be conscious of it. I hoped that if only I was not quite conscious of everything, it would come straight in the end. Do you think it was my fault? Do you think I could have saved him if I had done something else? Saved us?"
"You did all you could."
"When I was young I did something horrible, and from it had sprung the misery of my life. Do you think you can stop the consequences of a bad action, by doing good ones afterwards? I don't know. I tried to stopper it down, but it went on in widening circles. It will not be stopped. Maybe this war is a consequence too. It is my fault. I am weak, I could have done something. I could have left with him. But it is too late for that now, too late for everything. You always can see your mistakes so clearly afterwards. "
"Mother don't talk like this, you have done all you ever could, you are a beautiful person. It seems to me the thing that needs to be done is that someone needs to change the eyes of the world."
Bulma stared wondering at this child in her hands. Just a child, but he had said something so simple, yet so right on, it shook her core. Yes. Someone needed to change the eyes of the world. But who?
"Now there I go fretting you with my rambling," she said shaking her head, "Go, a child your age should be out in the sunshine and fresh air, not inside with your borderline psychotic mother. We'll talk more later and I promise I will tell you anything you want to know about your father, but now go. Go play," Bulma said giving him a kiss on the forehead and shooing him towards the door.
"Don't worry mom, we'll always have each other," Trunks said pausing in the entryway and looking thoughtful, "It sucks I didn't get to know him though."
"Yes dear," Bulma said with a pale smile, like the gleam of cold sun on a winters evening, "It does suck."
AN: Some big jumps happening aroundabouts, so hope you like! Thanks always