Chapter 8: Exploring the Cosmos
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Goku's eyes widened. "You mean you didn't know what friendship was?"
"I had an idea." Beerus sighed. "You must remember that Whiz was the only one I had any personal connection with, and he was but a teacher to me."
"Didn't he tell you about friendship?"
"No. There was no need for it, considering the path I was on to become a destroyer god."
The Sayin quirked an eyebrow. "But… gosh I'm sorry." He chuckled nervously. "I guess it's a little weird knowing there are people who have no idea about friendship. I mean… it's a pretty basic concept on Earth."
"Perhaps, but I did not originate from Earth, now did I?"
"No… I guess not, but wow. So, did you and her become friends?"
Beerus waved a hand. "I'm getting to that."
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It was peaceful until he felt a push to his shoulder.
"Wake up." The voice said.
Beerus groaned and turned away from the voice, but it ceased to speak.
"C'mon sleepy head, wake up! We have another lesson."
Oh, her.
Beerus's eyes slowly opened. He turned back on his other side to see a rather large silhouette of the female fair's luscious white hair. Noreen smiled. "It's about time you got up. I was afraid you fell into an eternal slumber!" She pulled his left arm. "C'mon! I think you'll like this lesson."
After a long period of pulling on Beerus's tail, he agreed to get out of bed and join her for a meal before they proceeded with the days lesson. Noreen set out two plates of smoked fish and fried noodles in front of the both of them.
Beerus sniffed the air in delight and smiled. "It smells amazing, Noreen." He then went straight for the fish.
Noreen grinned. "Thank you! You always seem to like my cooking."
"That's because it's delicious!" He failed to speak while fish occupied his mouth.
Noreen shook a finger at him. "It's rude to talk with your mouth full, silly. Swallow first, then speak. The dish isn't going anywhere." She scolded.
Beerus looked down in embarrassment, but swallowed and spoke as she instructed. "Sorry. It's delicious."
She laughed. "You're so funny! It's ok. Just don't do it again."
He nodded. "So what lesson are you teaching me today?"
"Oh, you'll love it!" She exclaimed. "I'm gonna teach you all about galaxy collisions!"
Beerus groaned. "Not that that doesn't sound intriguing, but how many lessons are there? Did Barron assign you a specific number?"
"Nope!" She shook her head. "I'll teach you whatever I see fit that your mentor would want you to learn, along with the topics I personally enjoy." She explained, getting off her chair to place her empty plate elsewhere. "If you like hanging with me, you'll love what we're going to learn."
Noreen turned her head away from the counter table and grinned at him.
Beerus huffed. "Wonderful."
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"I suppose I wasn't the most patient child back in my younger years." Beerus said, downing a glass of fruit juice. He chuckled. "Whiz thinks that I still am."
Goku shrugged. "Everyone gets impatient."
The god of destruction laughed. "You have no idea. However, Noreen somehow put up with me."
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"Many galaxies are members of groups or clusters." Noreen began, showing Beerus around the clusters as they flew across space. "The collisions can take anywhere from five hundred years to four million years to happen. I've seen a few when I was young, but I can't really remember all of it." She paused as they closed in on a particular cluster of galaxies that were Noreen's favorite because of the vibrant blue color. She caught a glimpse of two galaxies interacting and pointed to them. "Over there!" Beerus followed the direction she was pointing in with his eyes to find what appeared to be two masses of stellar energy tangled up with one another. "Those galaxies over there are interacting right now."
"Interacting?"
"Yes! You see, when this happens, they get distorted and want to swirl together because of the gravitational pull between them. If those two keep it up, they'll collapse on one another, exploding in a fiery light show and make a whole bunch of new stars!" She said, smiling widely.
Beerus looked at the two interacting masses for a moment longer before they flew inside the galaxy cluster. Everything was so bright and colorful. Different galaxies had shape names, he learned: Elliptical, Spiral, and Irregular. Before long, he forgot all about his complaints of all the lessons he had to learn and focused on the illuminated galaxies that zoomed past them as they flew.
He was having fun, whether he knew it or not.
Noreen glanced to the side, watching him admire the stellar masses. Her wide grin dimmed to a soft smile. She knew Beerus and her were friends. He just had to figure it out, and Noreen was more than willing to give him hints and clues.
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"And the way the Spiral ones look! Those ones were my favorite." Beerus told Noreen as they landed back on Barron's planet. She grinned.
"I'm glad you had such a good time."
Beerus made a toothy smile that lasted only for a moment as he realized how stupid he must look all gleeful and hyper. "I mean… yeah. I guess it was alright."
She laughed at him. Beerus had gotten used to how much the female fair tends to laugh. Honestly, he began to like the sing-song tone of her laughs as well as the smile that went along with it. Sometimes, he even laughed along with her, like now.
The laughter quieted and Noreen flew off the ground and beside him, ruffling the tuff of purple fur on his head.
"Silly." She said.
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A/N: All information about galaxies that Noreen talked about was found at .org
Got my first college paper out of the way, so here's a chapter to celebrate! *throws confetti in the air*