Queen Burrakakure, known to most as Bura, stepped from the ballroom out onto a balcony carved from the stone of the cliffside. It was a half moon, meaning she wouldn't feel the calling in her blood to release the power of the Oozaru, which was strongly discouraged in her current state. She was heavy with pregnancy now, an uncommon thing for royalty in the current age, but as a warrior from a more humble upbringing, she had insisted on carrying her second herself. She had conceded to let her first gestate in a birthing pod, but as her mother had carried her three children herself, she insisted on carrying this one in her womb. A second boy, she mused as she rubbed her belly blissfully. Would this one be as fiery as his brother? Would he have his brother's deep gray eyes or her own deep brown? Would he get her ebony hair or his father's auburn? Only another moon cycle or so and they would know. Her first was born in a full blood moon in the heat of the summer. She wished she could have carried him like this as well. It was a great regret of hers. She already felt so much adoration for the boy she carried now and though she had felt so ill for the first moon cycle, she had felt stronger than ever since then.

It was partly the heat in the crowded ballroom that drove her outside now, but she also needed to bid her eldest a good night. He had done well in the noise of the party for a good while, but it was evident by his increasing fury that he was done with the affair for the evening. Her handmaids had escorted her out to meet with the prince's nanny. Her husband was one of the king's right hand men, so he tailed along with his wife and the young prince. The woman had a grasp on the prince, who was tiredly attempting to break away, though he was too tired to give her a taste of his full power. Queen Bura sighed, smiling warmly at her feisty son. The boy, though nearing only his third rotation of life, was staggeringly powerful. Kohla was an incredible warrior of her own right and towered over most other Saiyan women, but was selected to be the prince's primary caregiver partly from her incredible strength. She had also faced an irreparable injury on a conquest years ago that rendered her unable to participate in further purges. Her prowess and her husband's high rank had allowed her to remain in the planet's capitol, eventually securing this caregiver role once the prince was born. She was patient enough to handle the growing prince's outbursts while also stern enough to reign him in. At the moment, she was ready to get the toddler in bed so she could crawl into her own. It was well past the prince's normal bedtime and though the overtime pay would be sweet, the slumber would be even sweeter in the current moment.

"Vegeta, my son," Bura called. The boy's eyes snapped up as he hadn't noticed his mother joining them outside. He broke free from Kohla's arms at this, flying desperately into the arms of his mother. She smiled and kissed the top of his head lovingly. "You will do well to learn to be more observant of your surroundings, son. Do not be caught surprised by anyone, especially someone as familiar as your own mother."

Vegeta snuggled into his mother's warm embrace, his tail curling around one of her arms. She bounced him lightly, nuzzling her head against his own. The golden bangles on her wrists and braided expertly into her long, thick hair clanged musically. As strong as she was, it was becoming quite the ordeal to hold her first in her arms while carrying her second in her abdomen. She did her best to manage, though, as it would only be a matter of time until her dear heir wanted only to train and would consider himself too grown to show her affection. She held her young son at arms length momentarily to observe him. He was dressed in the traditional festival garb that was once the standard dress of their people, though more ornate. His soft, intricately folded robes were a deep red, embroidered with golden patterns along the hems. His tiny gold headdress was askew from his fussing and she could see that all but one of the gold bangles had long since been removed from his tail, which now flicked lazily behind him. He looked at his mother curiously though only until his serious features were overtaken by a yawn. At this, she returned him to her hip and placed another soft kiss on his temple.

"It is time for bed, my little one," she said softly, hugging him close. Her husband would have rolled his eyes seeing her coddle him just now, but she spared no love for her children to appease him. If she could spend more time with her son outside of court, she would in an instant. She rested easy knowing her son knew she loved him so dearly. She asked softly, "Would you like a short song before Kohla tucks you in?"

Her son squealed in affirmation, burying his head into the soft blue folds of her gown to rest his ear against her chest. She hummed softly, swaying back and forth rhythmically. She sang soft and low in the Saiyan tongue, "Under the moon near a tranquil sea the winds are still and the air is sweet. In one blink it will be no more, but I will still be near no matter how far. I carried you here and I will carry you home. You are my blood and my stars and my moon and my heart."

She sang this song to him most often. It was one her mother sang to her as a young girl and it made her think of times when her parents would take her and her two brothers to the Southern Sea on her father's rare breaks from his grueling labor at the Quarry. She would nuzzle up to her mother as they watched her father throw her laughing brothers repeatedly into the waves. Her mother, hands calloused from years of weaving textiles and teaching her children to fight for a better life, would take her daughter's non battered hands, moving them as she sang. A pang of morose flickered somewhere deep in her chest, missing her parents who had long since passed. Her father had died of illness tied to a lifelong stint processing metals for export buyers and her mother had passed to grief, having lost one of her sons in the ongoing plight under the Cold Force. Though her younger son had made it into the first class ranks of the military and her daughter would one day become the queen, she had never recovered from losing her son, Tarble.

Queen Bura kissed her precious son's temple. He was getting heavier in her embrace as sleep began to take him. She expertly passed the drowsy boy into Kohla's arms and young Vegeta reflexively snuggled into the curve of her neck, his tail drooping sleepily behind him. Bura rested her hand on her belly, feeling her still-growing son shift underneath.

"Have an excellent rest of your evening, Your Grace," Nappa said politely with a nod, one large hand on the small of his wife's back.

"You as well," Bura replied simply with the smallest nod of her head. "I will let my husband know I have given you leave for the remainder of the evening if you wish."

He gave a deeper bow at this, his heels clicked together as a greater sign of formality. He stated, "With great appreciation, my queen."

With this, Kohla and Nappa left with the sleeping prince, leaving the queen and her handmaidens in the moonlight, the strings and drums from the party muffled by the thick stained glass windows and black crystalline stone walls. Bura looked up at the half moon and glimmering stars before turning to regain her seat next to the king inside.

—

Some twelve turns later, Nappa and Raditz sat at the fire on some backwater planet, observing the teenage prince scarf down the remainder of his meal. The purge had gone well enough, despite the prince nearly losing an arm in the process. They had crudely sutured a large gash in his shoulder and though he may have been weak from blood loss, his rapidly growing adolescent body couldn't be distracted from his need to eat as much as possible. They had taken their time on this purge, knowing the longer they were away from Freeza's base, the less the tyrant could inflict on their sworn prince. The population on this planet was laughable and they were severely outnumbered by large fauna. The only reason Freeza wanted this planet was for said fauna to feed his armies and for fresh water, which they had to report back was a bust. It was Nappa's turn to report that failure. The inhabitants had poisoned their own water sources knowing the purge was near. Given that Freeza hadn't prioritized environmental scientists in his squadron, it was likely that they would be unable to remedy this and that all the fauna reliant on the water would also perish. They stalled here, acting as if they were trying to get information out of the remaining population, but in reality they had killed the last of the inhabitants days ago. Keeping Vegeta from the Isolation Pod for a few more days would be worth the fib.

Vegeta tossed a thick mammalian bone into the fire, having cleaned it of the last of its meat. He was mostly recovered from the wooziness now and knew it was about time they returned to base. The three sat in silence for a few moments, Raditz picking idly at his teeth with the fragment of a bone from their meal. The night was warm and the air hung thick on the shore of the saltwater lake they had selected for their campsite for the last night. Vegeta leaned heavily against a large granite boulder, his expression unreadable. Nappa, who had been lazily poking at the waning fire, observed the young prince with growing concern. Hopefully they had made the right choice on staying to get the prince a few more days of ample food and sleep and he wasn't developing some kind of sickness from his wounds.

After a long pause, Vegeta spoke up, his voice still wavering on deepening. "Did either of you know my mother?"

Of all the things Nappa expected to come out of the prince's mouth just then, this wasn't on the list. Vegeta had been beaten out of asking much about his parents around the time he had been taken away from his home. For that reason, his memories of his earlier life had been tainted, skewed, and blocked out by a barrage of pain. It had been years since the prince had asked anything about his family. Nappa imagined the sadness of the "what ifs" was too much for the young prince and if there was an emotion Vegeta feared, it was sadness. He had been trained by Freeza that the only acceptable emotions to show were those that conveyed strength in the lizard's eyes–primarily rage. Rage under strict compliance was acceptable only because Saiyans could harness rage into their purges. The prince once carried his heart on his sleeve, but that "weakness" had long been beaten out of the boy. Now experiencing the initiation of manhood, the prince swung into more moodiness, but that usually manifested as annoyance or unprovoked rage, not as wistful reflection.

Nappa snapped back to the present, his eyes refocusing on the teen's expectant glare. He considered his words carefully, returning his gaze to the flickering fire. He cleared his throat and replied, "I cannot say I knew her well. Though I was part of your father's guard, the queen had her own attendants."

Vegeta stared, his gaze unfaltering. His face was still bruised from the battle for control of the planet. The cut above his eye was mostly closed now, but the gnarly split in his lip had reopened while he ate, his blood catching in the patchy stubble on his chin that was just beginning to grow. Seeing that the prince was expecting more information from the man, Nappa questioned, "What brings this up all of a sudden?"

"I had a dream last night that felt more like I had actually experienced it," Vegeta said, his dark gray eyes now falling to inspect his tattered gloves. "I do not dream often of things I have not experienced. I am not sure if it was from a memory or if it could be signs of a fever."

Nappa continued stirring at the fire. Raditz had leaned back against his own boulder, knowing he couldn't add to the conversation but interested nonetheless. He hadn't known the queen well, but Nappa's wife certainly had. The two older Saiyans had done their best to instill pride in the young boy while sparing him of the more depressing parts of the narrative. Being raised in glorified slavery was enough as it was. Nappa resisted a sigh and requested, "What was the dream about?"

"I believe I saw my mother," the prince said heavily. Nappa felt a pain in the pit of his stomach–it had been so long that he couldn't clearly remember his mother's face? The young man continued with effort like he was trying to hold water in cupped hands. "She was crying and telling me she would see me soon and to be strong for my father. It was like she knew something was going to happen. Something bad. But then it changed to a regular nightmare."

There was a pause, filled only with the lazy crackling of the fire and the everpresent hum of insects in the night.

"Do you remember what she looked like?" Nappa asked, looking up at the prince but he was too invested in unraveling a thread from his stained gloves.

"She had black hair that was braided back. Her eyes were kind... Brown. I remember she was pretty but do not know how to describe her better than that. I remember wanting to reach out for her, but some other woman with brown hair and half a tail grabbed me and put a hand over my mouth and took me away. I think she was going to die," his voice trailed off and he shook his head slowly. "It does not make much sense. My mother was killed by Freeza off planet, but I think I was on planet in the dream."

Nappa let out the sigh he had been suppressing finally. He remarked, "It may have just been a dream, Prince Vegeta. Our experiences and our fears can get jumbled from time to time. I wouldn't think it is a fever that has you, but I do hope one more night of rest will help you recover."

Vegeta nodded in acceptance. In reality, the three of them knew the rest here was in preparation for a brutal return to base. Saiyan puberty usually meant rapid growth, voracious hunger, and an insatiable need for physical activity–fighting or any other kind of exertion–and in attempts to bend the prince to his will, Freeza would keep the boy in isolation, fed only enough to keep him alive, all while housed in a room large only enough to take a few steps in any direction and nothing else. He had taken to obsessively practicing what physical exercises he could, but the efforts weren't enough for his body's needs. When he was allowed out, it was either to go on an assignment or to be used as a punching bag by Freeza's lieutenants. Strangely enough, the fighting back he could do in those cases allowed a bit of his madness to subside, but with nearly no food in his system, he couldn't get much of his energy out before getting the lights punched out of him.

"I should retire," Vegeta said, pushing himself up from the ground and attempting to knock some of the dirt off of his uniform. He had thought as a younger kid that the suits worn by Freeza and his men were of Saiyan design and had never questioned this thought. In reality, the Saiyan army had adopted the Cold Force armor when they had been "allied" (or controlled, more like) with the larger military force. It made him feel connected to his heritage in some small way. It had never been brought up, but likely Nappa wouldn't have corrected him anyway. He watched the prince retreat to the pods, opting to take his rest in his pod instead of on the ground with the insects that would descend once the fire was snuffed out.

Nappa looked to Raditz and gestured his head toward the pods. "I can take the first watch. Go get some sleep."

"Do you think he's healing okay?" Raditz asked, a twinge of worry in his tone.

"The rest will help," Nappa replied, now getting to his feet to find some more firewood. "The gas in his pod will also help him to mend a bit more before we touch back down. We will make sure he eats plenty in the morning. It will be a while before Freeza sends him out again, even if this whole situation wasn't our fault."

Not for the first time, Raditz cursed under his breath about how if their planet hadn't been destroyed by that meteor that they would have risen up against him by now. Nappa clapped the younger man on the shoulder before sidestepping him to gather that wood.

–

Years later, mere days after the dust had begun to settle in a post-Buu world, twilight descended upon West City. Vegeta sat on the balcony where the family took meals when the weather was good. The house was settling down for the night and the prince had taken residence on an outdoor sofa for some quiet contemplation. He heard the adjacent door open and close softly with a faint hissing sound, signaling his wife's arrival. She said nothing, but took a seat next to him and handed him a beer. He gratefully took it from her and took a swig before settling more into the seat and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. She cozied up to him, resting her head against his strong shoulder.

"Trunks is asleep," Bulma said after a long, comfortable silence. He would have hated to admit at one point that he had grown to take great comfort in hearing her prattle on about any given thing, but as the wounds of his actions were still healing, a tensionless silence was welcomed. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head gently. She responded by snaking an arm behind his back to hold him closer. She began again, "I am so worried about him. I know he is trying his best to be strong but he's just a kid, Vegeta."

He wasn't entirely sure what to say about this, so he sat in silence, mulling the thoughts over in his mind. When he was Trunks's age, he was several years into his forced servitude under Freeza. He had lost his family, his way of life, and everything he knew years prior and was already calloused and scarred by three years of unimaginable trauma. Despite this, his son was a Super Saiyan at only eight years old. Trunks did this without the hardship and bloodshed that had shakily written the bulk of the prince's personal history. It hadn't been desperation and vengeance that made his son strong–it was nurturing and love that fueled the boy. After another moment, Vegeta said softly, "He will heal, Bulma. We will see to it."

Bulma shifted to meet eyes with this man, a ruthless killer turned protector, with whom she was deeply enamored. He leaned forward and caught her lips in a tender kiss. They broke the kiss and settled back into their warm embrace, both looking at what stars were visible above the city's light pollution while they slowly drank their beers. As their bottles emptied, Vegeta could feel his wife's drowsiness growing. Her grip on her drink was loosening and he leaned forward to take it out of her hand before she dropped it. This movement caused her to rouse and she sat up sleepily.

"Wow, I started to doze there. Was I snoring?" Bulma asked, yawning. Vegeta stood, offering her an outstretched hand.

"Not yet, but it looks like you were starting to drool on me a bit," he said cheekily. She shook her head and linked her arm with his, giving him a small squeeze. He led her to the door, dropping the bottles on a tray outside for the cleaning bots to retrieve. They unlinked arms, clasping hands instead as they headed upstairs towards the living quarters. As they passed Trunks's slightly ajar door, Vegeta felt his ki spike slightly in the throes of sleep. He paused and looked in to see the boy tossing in his sleep. Bulma looked over his shoulder nervously, but the prince squeezed her hand. "I can take care of the boy. Go ahead and go to bed."

She gave her husband a warm smile and leaned in to give him a quick kiss before heading off to their shared bedroom. Vegeta pushed the door open and stepped inside, quietly approaching his sleeping son. The boy's brow was furrowed in anguish, tears seeping from the corners of his clenched eyes. Vegeta slowly sat on his son's bed so as not to wake him too abruptly, but as soon as his full weight was on the mattress, Trunks's eyes snapped open, panicked. This pained look on his son's face hit him deep in his chest, but he did his best not to show it. Instead, he shushed his son calmly, reaching out to brush the lavender hair from his sweaty forehead.

"D–Dad?" Trunks asked, his bearings slowly returning from the haze of dreaming. In the dim light of the room, Vegeta visibly nodded and his son relaxed into his pillows. "I didn't wake you up, did I? I'm so sorry. I–"

"Shhh, boy. I was not asleep," Vegeta responded, reaching to his son's bedside to grab a tissue to dry his face. Trunks tensed, but then relaxed as his father wiped the tears from his cheeks and the sweat from his brow. "Were you having a nightmare?"

"I guess," Trunks admitted, looking upset. "I keep dreaming about Buu and about you and Mom dying, and…"

The boy looked away, ashamed as more tears built up in his bright blue eyes. Vegeta reached out and put a hand lightly under his son's face, turning him to meet his own dark eyes. He said softly, "Don't. Don't be ashamed of your feelings on my behalf, Trunks. You are a warrior stronger than I ever dreamed at your age. Process your fears so you can cast them aside or they will only fester."

Trunks sniffed, pushing away his fresh tears with the back of his hand. He couldn't remember his dad ever offering him comfort when he cried before. His father offered him another tissue, which he took, rubbing at his eyes and then blowing his nose loudly. Vegeta smirked at this and the following attempt his son had made to toss the wadded up tissue onto the bedside table, which missed.

Vegeta was about to stand to leave when Trunks reached out and grabbed his arm. He looked up at his father with sad hopefulness in his eyes, pleading, "Will you stay here with me while I fall back asleep? I don't want to have another nightmare."

"Sure," Vegeta said simply, eliciting the biggest, brightest smile from his son that he had seen in a good long while. Something in his heart hummed with pride. Of all the things he had done wrong in his life, his son, the Legendary at such a young age found comfort from his presence. From an upbringing of solitude, he was finding joy in the kingdom of his own creation. He stood to kick off his boots near the door as his son shuffled over to offer him a place on his bed, which he took. His son tossed some of his blankets over him as he propped himself up against his headboard. Trunks gleefully snuggled up to his dad, wrapping his arms around his abdomen to rest his head against his chest. Vegeta smiled softly, resting one hand on his son's head and leaning his own back against the headboard.

"Thanks, Dad. I love you," Trunks said, hugging his dad tightly.

"Kek mjhal, Neji," Vegeta responded, feeling profoundly at peace in the moment. This phrase in his birth language had been his preferred sentiment for his heir, meaning 'I will protect you' and a nickname similar to the term 'junior' in the Earth dialect. He sat there, stroking the boy's hair protectively as his breathing slowed. Just then, an echo floated through his mind, a memory long since lost up until then. In a language his son couldn't speak, so softly someone passing by would have to strain to hear, he sang, "Under the moon near a tranquil sea the winds are still and the air is sweet. In one blink it will be no more, but I will still be near no matter how far. I carried you here and I will carry you home. You are my blood and my stars and my moon and my heart."