Bulla

They didn't make it back to the guard tower before a fresh wave of heavy rain was pouring down on them. From their vantage point in the sky, they spotted the ruins of an old stone gazebo beside a rushing river to take shelter under. There was a crack in the domed roof where a small drip of water steadily leaked in, and thick tendrils of green climbed the cracked spiral pillars supporting it.

A towering statue flecked with moss and dirt stood amidst the gently flowing waters, standing roughly ten feet tall. Its form was humanoid and female, of a species Bulla didn't recognize. She wore a simple shift with a long, flowing skirt. A crack ran down the stone forming the bridge of her nose. At her brow, three large horns curved over her head like flower petals. In her claw-tipped hands, she grasped the remains of a spear and a large ornate shield.

The hazy image of a similar statue her father had commissioned of her mother's likeness, displayed in the royal gardens, came to mind as she studied it.

Bulla couldn't help but notice the stark contrast in structure compared to everything else they'd seen. Perhaps these were the leavings of the planet's original inhabitants.

Not that it mattered now. They were gone. Lost to time.

Much like the Saiyans themselves would be one day, she supposed. Perhaps this was the universe's way of righting itself, after all the destruction they'd wrought upon it.

Her dark-haired companion was unusually quiet, as he set to work gutting fish before the fire he'd built in the center of their temporary shelter. Good, she wasn't in the mood for his incessant chatter.

He threw the occasional tentative glance her way, as if he expected her to dissolve into a shaking, sobbing mess at any moment.

Bulla busied herself picking the dirt from beneath her fingernails. A poor attempt at distracting herself from the knot of shame building in her chest at the memory of utter pity written plainly on his face as he'd attempted to, of all things, comfort her.

It left a taste akin to ash in her mouth.

Of all the times for such a thing to occur… it had to happen in front of him.

She felt so exposed. Weak.

Neither of them said a word as Goten passed her a skewer of grilled fish before settling down in front of the fire with his own.

The rain continued to beat against the domed roof long after they'd consumed their meal and night fell. By the time Bulla laid down on the hard stone floor, the gentle orange glow of the campfire was the only source of light. The rest of the world was hidden beneath a shroud of black.

Bulla did what she could to make herself comfortable, resting her head atop her stacked arms as she listened to the soft pitter-patter of rain. An exercise in futility. Her neck and back were going to ache something fierce in the morning, but there was nothing to be done.

She forced herself to close her eyes, to will herself to sleep. She'd nearly succeeded when Goten broke the silence between them.

"Brasha, are you… alright?"

The sound of that name on his lips stung, she was beginning to truly despise it, she smothered the urge to snap at him.

She knew he would bring up what happened eventually. The insufferable male couldn't seem to help himself. Always poking and prodding at her. Testing her defenses.

She decided to ignore him. If he wanted to lie in the dark nattering on to himself, that was fine by her, but she wouldn't provide him with further ammunition to use against her when it suited him.

Goten fell silent for a time. Bulla thought perhaps he'd finally take the hint and leave her alone. But of course, he didn't.

"Do you… remember when we first met, and you asked me to tell you my story?"

Bulla whipped around to face him, fully intending to tell him to go to sleep and leave her be. The words died in her throat at the sight of him gazing back at her, hands cradling the back of his head, the orange glow of the firelight dancing across his scarred face. He wasn't looking at her with pity or condescension.

Just a strange, disarming sort of gentleness.

"I was distracted, and I gave you some bullshit answer." He paused, his lip curling faintly. "But, the truth is, I remember that day perfectly." As if he somehow sensed her unease, he broke their gaze, his dark eyes drifting toward the domed roof.

"I remember waking up to the smell of my mother cooking breakfast downstairs, the way my father ruffled my hair before heading to the palace, sparring with my brother in the yard after we finished our chores for the day… it was just like any other day, really… until it wasn't. The next thing I knew, everything was on fire. People were running and screaming in the streets. We could see the palace burning from our house. My brother Gohan begged my mother to run, but she was holding out hope that our father would come back. He didn't."

Her chest tightened uncomfortably at the flood of images that drifted through her mind. Thousands of ships descending from the sky as the palace fell into a maelstrom of chaos and panic. The look on her father's face before he bid her mother farewell one last time. The peculiar embrace he'd enveloped her and her brother in, when he'd never done so in the past. The strange, indiscernible look in his eyes that she couldn't quite place...

Now that she was a woman grown, she recognized it for what it truly was.

Resignation.

He knew precisely what fate awaited him as he ascended into the sky above the city, unleashing all the ki in his body in a blinding flash that should have rattled the stars.

A last desperate attempt.

Then he was gone, a whisper of ash on the breeze. Frieza had scarcely sustained so much as a scratch.

Madness ran rampant on the battlefield in the wake of the King's death.

Looking back, Frieza could have taken them all out in one fell swoop. But he hadn't. No, that wasn't enough for him. Instead, he had opted to humiliate her father and terrorize their subjects first. To make an example of them.

She still heard the screams and smell the smoke as the world burned down around them.

Why bring all of this up now?

"One of the Imperials broke down our door." The light in his eyes dimmed ever so slightly. "Our mother lost her life defending us. If my uncle hadn't arrived at the last minute, that soldier would have killed us too. My brother was never the same after that day, eventually he started getting these… 'attacks'. For a long time, actually."

And there it was.

He was attempting to comfort her, to connect with her. But why?

"He hasn't had a bad one in years. He usually sticks to the ship. He handles the funds, the maintenance on the Nimbusand any repairs or upgrades I need for my prosthetic. I think if he had his way, he would give up corsairing altogether. The first time I can remember was…" He wrinkled his brow, scratching at the dark scruff shadowing his jaw. "When this happened." He gestured to his cybernetic arm. "It was a pretty close call, to say the least. It was right after we left home, we landed on this really shitty planet, the whole place was just one big wasteland. There wasn't even water to drink, just a bunch of huge, alien bugs. My Uncle and Gohan went off to find food, I was supposed to stay with the ship. But I was a…" He paused, letting one of those smiles that she was becoming irritatingly familiar with spread across his lips. "Let's just say I was a curious kid, and I didn't listen."

Somehow, she didn't have any trouble believing that.

"I went exploring. I came across this huge patch of soft, bright green grass. But it wasn't grass, it was fur. Fur that belonged to this massive beast of a thing, bigger than any ship I'd ever seen. I don't know if it thought I was dinner, or it just plain didn't appreciate my being there. The next thing I knew, there was a massive set of teeth coming right at me and I was just… frozen. My body just wouldn't move. My Uncle showed up out of nowhere but before he could get to me, the thing clamped down on my arm and tore it off. Things get a little blurry after that. I passed out as my uncle was applying the tourniquet to what was left of my arm. But I remember seeing my brother's reaction before everything went dark…"

She couldn't stop herself from picturing the bold, carefree man before her as a small child, starving, broken and bleeding. She couldn't imagine how utterly terrified he must have been in that moment.

She didn't ask for more details, but he provided them, nonetheless.

"We didn't have enough credits to pay the chop-shop that handled the work on my original prosthetic. There weren't many places Saiyans could go for help… and I was already knocking on death's door by the time we got there. My uncle offered the small ship that got us off Vegeta-Sei… it still wasn't enough. The brench running the operation had enemies causing trouble for some of his other…business ventures… My uncle made them disappear to work off the debt. After that, we got by taking on small bounties here and there before eventually moving on to corsairing."

"What would you be doing instead… if you had the choice?" The question was out of her mouth before Bulla could stop herself. But in that moment, against her better judgement, she was curious about him.

"I don't know… I've never really thought about it... When I was born, I had a decent enough power level, it was assumed that I would join the royal army like the rest of my family."

"… Your Uncle was in the royal army?"

He nodded, allowing himself a tentative glance in her direction; and Bulla found herself, not for the first time, wondering what it would have been like to know this man under different circumstances. A simple nudge of fate's hand and he could have just as easily wound up on one of the palace's evacuation ships. They could have been allies. They might have even been friends.

He'd been little more than a child when he was robbed of both his parents and plunged into a life of uncertainty.

Just like her.

She supposed it was some small mercy that she hadn't witnessed the event up close as he had. It allowed her to pretend that perhaps her own mother had somehow made it out alive, that she was out there somewhere looking for her. He hadn't even been afforded that.

"Hmm."

"What?"

"After all that, you're still so…"

"So what?" He quirked a brow.

"Irritatingly… optimistic."

"I could have died a hundred times over, but I'm still here. Death comes for us all one day, right? I'm just trying to make the most of each day until that happens."

Bulla didn't quite know what to say to that, so she said nothing. Every morning she awoke with one aim: survival.

It was endlessly, consumingly exhausting, though she would never say so aloud.

"What happened back there, in that place… It's nothing to be ashamed of. I just need to know if it was a onetime thing or if it's… something I need to look out for. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I just… If I had known that place would upset you so badly, I wouldn't have put you in that situation." His words tugged at her, as if she were a loose thread on a tapestry. On the surface they seemed so sincere, and he was looking at her so earnestly in that moment.

It would be so much easier if he were cruel to her. At least then she would have a shot of anticipating his next move; it would give her a semblance of control over the situation. Or at least the illusion of it.

Anything would be better than this unsettling, unprovoked softness.

But still…

He'd had every opportunity to do her harm… and yet he hadn't done so. He could have left her to die, and yet he hadn't done so.

He'd freed her, knowing full well that she would likely turn on him.

Which meant he was either very, very stupid, or… maybe he wasn't as awful as she had initially perceived him to be.

A small, pathetic part of her desperately wanted to consider the possibility.

She tore her gaze away from the dark-haired Saiyan toward the steadily growing puddle on the stone floor, toward the crackling fire, anywhere but his face.

She was a fool.

She was forgetting herself.

She couldn't allow herself to fall into this obvious trap he was laying.

To sympathize with him, to see him as anything other than what he was.

The enemy.

"My well-being is none of your concern." She replied before turning on her side and closing her eyes.