#So aside from a few rare occasions they were entirely self sufficient

[eyeballcommander]

Say, if you like cats so much, why don't you just get one? Lord Hater has a pet, Dr. Schwarzschild has a pet...

Who? ...Wait, that's Bert.

Anyways pets-- even relatively low maintenance animd like cats-- are a lot of work. And I barely have enough time to take care of myself!

Seriously, how'm I supposed to remember to feed it when I keep forgetting to eat?

[risingsouls]

Conversations: 5

[I finally finished this. They kept wanting to keep talking and I struggled to figure out where to end it :’3. So it’s a dumb end but fitting lolol. I also got to reference the one of my favorite things I’ve written about Vegeta which I will shamelessly plug here.

Also I edited this while like half asleep so forgive me for typos and shit.

Bonus end: Vegeta returns and carried her to her bed because I’m a sap and this is my OTP. ;3;]

“Want anything to drink?” Nabooru pulled the fridge open and leaned down, considering her own options. “I’ve got pretty much anything in here: water, juice, soda, alcohol.”

Vegeta lowered himself onto one of the couches, watching her disappear behind the island’s counter separating the kitchen and the living room. He folded his arms and crossed his right ankle over his left knee. “Whatever’s fine.”

When his day began, even after the tumultuous morning he suffered at Capsule Corp., he never would have imagined he would follow Nabooru home, spend time with her outside of sparring seated comfortably on her couch, or consider staying in the guest room she offered. To spare his pride at least for the first few times (if it became something regular at all; that_ he had yet to decide), he planned to train later than her and return while she slept. However, he had every intention of ensuring she made good on her promise and explain her earlier claim, her motive behind the almost too generous offer.

“Don’t think you’ve gotten out of answering my question from earlier.”

Truthfully, she hoped he had forgotten. She fished out a few bottles of water and considered the coming task at hand. Standing, she closed the refrigerator and opened the freezer, pulling out a barely touched bottle of whiskey. A gift from Nappa.  “Of course you didn’t.” Opening the cabinet, she grabbed two glasses and filled them with the amber liquid. She wasn’t about to tell this particular story without a little help nor would she drink alone. She idly wished she had waited to change from her training clothes to the dull orange camisole and a pair of dark gray shorts; at least that would offer her another chance to stall.

She picked up each glass, holding them by the lip between her thumb and forefinger, and, after a second thought, tucked the bottle of whiskey beneath her other arm along with the pair of water bottles. “You sure you don’t want to change or something? Take a shower?” She placed one glass of whiskey and bottle of water in front of him on the circular table before taking a seat on the couch across from him on the other side. “I could probably talk to Lanu about potentially fixing your armor, too. She’s good at that sort of thing.”

“You’re stalling.” His glare slid from her to the drinks offered to him. He snorted when he caught a whiff of the alcohol. If her attempts to distract him weren’t evidence enough to it, the liquor more than solidified the fact that the story was not one she was fond of telling. It seemed to be their normal vein of conversation if the topic didn’t revolve around fighting. “I don’t have anything here to change into, and I’m not wearing your clothes or some other stupid suggestion you might come up with. Now talk.”

“Have you just been dwelling on this all day?” she huffed, disappointed her every tactic fell flat. She swirled the liquid around in the glass, considering where to begin. “I’ll have to give you a little background to how I ended up in that state of mind…”

She shrugged the stap of her tank top back up onto her shoulder. The story at hand would force her to delve back into her most painful memories. Those that started the unfortunate domino effect that forced her into tough scenarios and even tougher decisions. Many of which she wondered if she chose correctly and the potential alternates kept her up at night. Those loose ends left untied that niggled at her mind and perturbed her.

"You remember how I told you that our king had planned to overthrow Hyrule and likely take it over himself?" 

Vegeta nodded once. Though most of those who thought they knew him best would protest, the Saiyan prince remembered more details about the people around him than he let on. As long as he deemed it useful or the more rare occasions he found it actually interesting. Her story fell under both categories.

Nabooru considered a swig of her whiskey but held off. Her chest felt too tight, even after all these years. It was almost laughable, her claims questionable. A woman whose very purpose in life for as long as she could remember was to serve and protect her people, to pull them from the deepening pit they found themselves in and better their lives and allow them something sustainable that didn't rely on scavenging and scraping by. Who had pride and passion in them, who admired their ambitious but equally passionate king committing the highest crime against the two things she held most dear.

"As his second in command, he trusted me with his plans. It started as a wild dream chasing an artifact I'm still not sure exists that could grant a wish to help us to...something darker. More dangerous. I saw him change right before my eyes over those years. He became obsessed, and the line between helping our people and securing power became blurry." Now she took a drink, the burn of it easily disregarded in conjunction with the pain of memory. "Our relationship aside, it worried me. It all felt dangerous and wrong, a power not meant for us or any other mortal. He not only endangered himself on this quest, but I saw how it could further endanger our people. The Hylians believed we worshipped our kings like gods anyway, so it wasn't a far leap for them to assume that, should Ganondorf fail or be found out, that we would rise up and try to finish what he started. Give them more reason to hate us and incite violence against us with a more solid stance than they held previously.

"Had we not suffered so much in the war, if Hyrule's alliances with the other races remained more tenuous and their hate for us was a little milder, maybe I would have had his optimism in the plan, knowing we could defend ourselves if things went wrong. I hadn't yet fully seen the walls we faced in resolving our differences diplomatically, and that is, unfortunately, where my optimism had lain. We argued plenty about his obsession with the Triforce, but it wasn't until I found out that, in order to obtain whatever he needed to gain access to it, he had attacked the other races when they wouldn't comply. Such show of force when we were all meant to be unified, such violence of degrees that could severely damage whole communities, wouldn't go unnoticed or swept under the rug. That is when I knew I had to stop him." She felt as though she was back in that moment in the Spirit Temple, face to face with Ganondorf for one of the last times. The weight of her decision to defy and actively try to stop him crushing. What that decision meant by their law.

"And I did try to stop him and sabotage his plans. I gave him the impression that, at his warning and what he considered mercy, I was self-exiling myself to avoid execution. I disappeared into the desert for several days before returning to our temple which he had since closed off to use as his base of operations. I defied the orders set that all Gerudo stay away from the temple, information I gathered from Aveil when I returned to the fortress first. None of them knew I had even been technically exiled, likely so he could save face and maintain the appearance that he wasn't up to something they might not like. But, when I returned to the temple, I was captured by his mothers and imprisoned, set to face trial for treason against our king and our people, the only things that truly mattered to me."

Sipping at his own drink, Vegeta didn't miss the twisting of her expression when she uttered the word treason. The pieces of her history were clicking together far more succinctly than they had with the first telling that lacked these more...personal details. He supposed they hadn't been needed to answer his first question about who filled the role of Frieza in her life to answer it sufficiently. He employed similar tactics when he could get away with the bare bones of the information, either to protect himself or avoid discussing matters he didn't care to or found irrelevant. Though he could not relate to her dismay of betraying her king and country, as he never got the chance to do so, and betraying Frieza hadn't required much emotional searching. All he had to fear was death for the attempt, and he never particularly felt alive during that time, anyway. She faced her entire people's scrutiny and the personal shame of turning on her king and by proxy them, which likely called her trustworthiness and allegiance into question. Among other things.

“And yet you weren’t executed, obviously.”

Nabooru sensed the hint of impatience; she supposed she should have warned him the preamble was a lengthy one. It wouldn’t deter her from telling the tale correctly. “No. I was given a trial and we both told our sides of the story. My service to the Gerudo in the past and genuine concern apparently helped me avoid outright execution, much to Ganondorf’s disappointment. He and the Elite instead sentenced me to the Kavi Dorova, a cave that leads to a series of unknown challenges. No one had ever survived it, so it was as good as a death sentence. On the off chance I did survive, I could return to the Gerudo with my rank intact.”

Vegeta snorted. “I take it your king had little faith you would survive, then. Or he planned to strip you of your rank on the off chance you returned despite the judgement.”

“I never got to find out,” she replied, chewing the inside of her lip. She drained her glass and refilled it. “He was gone by the time I healed up after the ordeal. Which is where your question comes into play.

“I don’t know how long I had been down there or how far I had gotten. Each fight was harder and felt more pointless than the last with more numerous and powerful monsters each time. Half of them I didn’t even recognize. I was starving, dehydrated, had sustained more injuries than I could count, and had almost been frozen to death by some ice beast. As I tried to rest, curled around the lone torch in the room for warmth, I was ready to give up. Nothing mattered to me any more. Not my pride or my people, not fighting or my talent as a warrior. None of it had saved me down there and I was ready to just perish. It would be easier than going on. Easier than facing the Gerudo again if I ever escaped that hell."

She rested her back against the cushions. "But...I was never one to just settle for easy. I was too stubborn to let that pit beat me. Somehow, I fought on. I remembered what my people had suffered and, despite the hole they tossed me into and a fair portion of them wanting me killed on the spot, I had dedicated my life to being a Gerudo warrior and protecting them. I convinced myself I had to get back and make good on that promise no matter what they thought of me.

"The last things I remember is nearly being gutted by a Darknut, stabbing him with its own sword, and dragging myself on the ground toward a light. Aveil said they found me barely alive outside the cave and losing a lot of blood. I woke up to finding out Ganondorf had been captured and arrested and that I would have to take over as leader."

The Gerudo's laugh was short, bitter, and she took another hearty swig of the whiskey. A position she never thought she would ascend to since a king sat on the throne in her lifetime. She wanted to feel honored, but the increasingly hostile environment she awoke to made the promotion a bittersweet one. Between a split tribe at home and fighting a losing battle for the barest of scraps to help her people abroad, it was a wonder how she didn't snap and lead them into that losing war anyway. 

"It didn't take long for that confidence to waver. I quickly realized that the monsters down there were far easier to combat than those I found on the surface: I didn't feel guilty about killing them for my survival."

"Guilt is a pain, isn't it?" He smirked at her and poured himself another glass of the whiskey. "I'm sure you would have felt much more satisfied if you tore through the bastards that wronged you like you did those beasts in the pit. I may not have gotten Frieza, but I killed three of his best men who were almost as bad along with the better portion of his special forces."

To his surprise, Nabooru smiled herself, and she laughed softly. "I'm not sure there's a day that doesn't go by that I fantasize about it. That I don't play out potential strategies in my head that might have brought us success. I even drew a few up when I was bored once. Burned them but…" She trailed off and raised her hand, palm to the ceiling. An orange-to-yellow gradient ball of ki materialized atop it. "The others seem happy enough here. Safe might be a strong word, but learning ki has helped us stay protected." 

Save for the one time they all died apparently. The lack of memory of that event still bothered her. Another story she wanted to press from Vegeta if she got the chance.

"If we had this knowledge back then...for our whole existence…" She closed her fist around the glowing energy, dissipating it in a small shower of sparks. "I wonder how things would have been different…"

The prince understood those longings, the constant wondering what could have been done better, what one aspect could change the outcome of his life. Back when he served Frieza and before. In more recent memory. He knew it was all pointless conjecture, and he suspected she did, too. But it didn't stop them from wondering about the lives they, perhaps, should have had.

"Chances are some bastard like Frieza or his brother Cooler would take interest in your warrior race and forced you into their servitude. And if you were lucky, they would leave more than a few of you alive to serve in their army." Lucky. he had come to despise that word since Frieza used it in regards to him not being blasted to bits with the rest of his race. "Lucky might be a strong word, though."

Nabooru sipped her whiskey, glad for the warmth and lightness it began to provide. She should stop, if only for the risk of facing the consequences in the morning, but, as if in direct defiance of her own thoughts, she finished off the glass and poured another. "You're probably right." Shifting to the side, she rested her weight against the arm of the couch and stretched her legs out to the side of her, tracing the rim of her glass with her finger. "Tell me about those guys you killed. Like how you did it. Maybe I can live vicariously through you."

“Is that how that works?” Vegeta snorted and drained his second glass, filling it again to join her on the third round. He wondered at the strength of this liquor. Earth’s typical fare didn’t usually affect him after two drinks. He wouldn’t describe himself as tipsy yet by any means, but he was willing to blame the alcohol for silently turning their casual conversation over drinks into a contest. “Fine.That was the better half of that damn trip to Namek…”

Before everything went horribly wrong, and, when he saw her tilt her head slightly to the side and her lips part to ask what he meant by that, he drew her focus back to the first request. Strange as it was, considering what he gathered from her thus far.

“Let’s see…” He raised a glove hand, casting the bare tips of a few of his fingers a fleeting glare. “I blew up Cui and Dodoria. Blew a hole through Zarbon.” He ticked each one off on his fingers. “I decapitated Guldo, knee dropped Burter in the throat, and blasted Recoome and Jeice to oblivion.” He decided not to mention that Recoome and Burter had been incapacitated by Kakarot in an impressive display of speed and strength prior to his finishing blows. 

“Wow…” None of the names meant much to her, but she had no trouble believing those men who served a monster like Frieza so loyally possessed the same mindset he did. And if Vegeta found issue with them and he wasn’t exactly a glowing beacon of kindness and fairness, unless he was outright lying which she doubted on this, she had no reason to question that they had caused him and perhaps the other remaining Saiyans trouble while they were in Frieza’s service. “Sounds like you did have a good day, then.”

He draped his free arm over the back of the couch. “Did that satisfy you?”

Nabooru had to bite back a giggle, the haze of alcohol in her mind sliding it toward the gutter. “Not in the way I was hoping, unfortunately. But what made the rest of that trip so horrible?"

"Besides Kakarot becoming a Super Saiyan before me and killing Frieza?" He tapped his chest near his heart. "Frieza killed me. Don't give me that look. It didn't last long. Kakarot's idiot friends accidentally revived me with the Dragonballs because they wished everyone killed by Frieza and his men back to life. That included me."

Nabooru did her best to wipe the stunned expression from her face, and her gaze followed his hand. With a chunk of his armor missing, she could just make out the jagged edge of a faded scar. He really just didn't catch many breaks, did he?

She finished off the drink in her hand and set the glass on the table before slumping further into the couch to sprawl out more comfortably on her side. "For what it's worth, I'm glad they messed that up." The words left her lips before she could stop them, and, though she hated how sappy they sounded, she supposed the truth in them made them worth uttering. "I mean...we wouldn't have met otherwise, and I wouldn't have a training partner that could help me improve as much as you have."

“Hmpt, how flattering…” He didn’t doubt her words. With staging her tournament and with those who answered her call, she could have requested a sparring partner from many of the other combatants that would provide her at least entertainment if not a challenge to her unexpected strength. And with Kakarot there as well…

“Why did you ask me over Kakarot, anyway? You had the chance to ask him to train with you, and you didn’t.” 

Nabooru propped her elbow beneath her and rested her head on her palm. The question wasn't out of place; even he begrudgingly admitted Goku surpassed him in strength, so it would make sense she seek out the most powerful person to train with. Instead, she had chosen him. Second place over first.

"It was just a guess, but I figured you would be a better trainer for me. Close to the hardened, take no prisoners style of training and fighting I'm used to. I doubted Goku would push me as far as you could. And after finding out that you and I had a similar story in some ways..." She shrugged a shoulder. "Besides, I guess I'm a little biased still after watching the two of you fight that clown android. I know Goku wasn't exactly at full capacity but...well, watching you tear that thing to scrap, feeling the drastic rise of your energy when you transformed...I guess it just stuck with me after all these years. Not to mention your performance in the Warrior Games."

Vegeta had forgotten she had shown up to that fight, no matter how briefly she remained among their band of eould-be heroes. He had been too focused on dismantling a couple androids to pay her much mind. Perhaps if he had, he would have had a competent sparring partner all this time. Decent company, too. His mindset had been so different back then, more erratic and laser focused on his one goal...would he have even bothered should she have asked him to train with her before she returned to her people that day? After the Cell Games? Had she sought him out before her own tournament?

“You were likely correct. Kakarot is too soft to properly train and spar with anyone. He would be too afraid of hurting you, even though you’ve proven you’re more than capable of taking hard hits.” Nabooru stifled a yawn, and the Saiyan noted her heavy eyelids with mild annoyance. “Are you drunk already, woman?”

She stretched languidly and giggled. “No, I’m just a little tipsy.” A slight fib; she had forgotten Nappa’s warnings and her own singular experience with the liquor he gifted her. The effects of it snuck up on her and caught her off guard each time. “Mind your own business. I’m fine.”

Vegeta rolled his eyes and stood, arching his back to stretch his spine. He finished off his drink and snatched up the bottle before she could try to make herself another. She reached out a whole two second too late to stop him and he snorted. “Your shit reaction time says otherwise.” He strode to the kitchen and slid the bottle back into the freezer. “Drink your water and go to bed. I’m going back out to train and no, you can’t come with me.”

Her whine devolved into another fit of giggles and she flopped onto her back. “Training I can’t help with, huh? Just let me know if you do need an extra hand.”

Vegeta paused with his hand on the door knob, the meaning of her suggestion dawning on him far too slowly. He swiped his other hand over his face. “Don’t be crude. Go to bed.”

She flipped him off with a lazy grin. “Goodnight, Vegeta. Don’t have too much fun without me~.”

He merely groaned in response and slipped back out into the cool desert night, door slamming behind him.

[larsminute]

Coronavirus may confine us - but we can learn to explore in very different ways

Alain de Botton: how to travel from your sofa At some point in the 1650s, the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal jotted down one of the most counterintuitive aphorisms of all time: “The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he cannot stay quietly in his room.

”Really? Surely having to stay quietly in one’s room must be the start of a particularly evolved kind of psychological torture? What could be more opposed to the human spirit than to have to inhabit four walls when, potentially, there would be a whole planet to explore?

And yet Pascal’s idea usefully challenges one of our most cherished beliefs: that we must always go to new places in order to feel and discover fresh and worthwhile things. What if, in fact, there were already a treasury inside us?

What if we had within our own brains already accumulated a sufficient number of awe-inspiring, calming and interesting experiences to last us 10 lifetimes? What if our real problem was not so much that we are not allowed to go anywhere — but that we don’t know how to make the most of what is already to hand?

Being confined at home gives us a range of curious benefits. The first is an encouragement to think. Whatever we like to believe, few of us do much of the solitary, original, bold kind of thinking that can restore our spirits and move our lives ahead. The new ideas we might stumble upon if we did travel more ambitiously around our minds while lying on the sofa could threaten our mental status quo.

An original thought might, for example, alienate us from what people around us think of as normal. Or it might herald a realisation that we’ve been pursuing the wrong approach to an important issue in our lives, perhaps for a long time. If we took a given new idea seriously, we might have to abandon a relationship, leave a job, ditch a friend, apologise to someone, rethink our sexuality or break a habit.

But a period of quiet thinking in our room creates an occasion when the mind can order and understand itself. Fears, resentments and hopes become easier to name; we grow less scared of the contents of our own minds — and less resentful, calmer and clearer about our direction. We start, in faltering steps, to know ourselves slightly better. 

Another thing we can do in our own rooms is to return to travels we have already taken.This is not a fashionable idea. Most of the time, we are given powerful encouragement to engineer new kinds of travel experiences.The idea of making a big deal of revisiting a journey in memory sounds a little strange —or simply sad. This is an enormous pity. We are careless curators of our own pasts. We push the important scenes that have happened to us to the back of the cupboard of our minds and don’t expect to see them ever again.

But what if we were to alter the hierarchy of prestige a little and argue that regular immersion in our travel memories could be a critical part of what can sustain and console us — and, not least, is perhaps the cheapest and most flexible form of entertainment. We should think it almost as prestigious to sit at home and reflect on a trip we once took to an island with our imaginations, as to trek to the island with our cumbersome bodies.

In our neglect of our memories, we are spoilt children, who squeeze only a portion of the pleasure from experiences and then toss them aside to seek fresh thrills. Part of why we feel the need for so many new experiences may simply be that we are so bad at absorbing the ones we have had.

To help us focus more on our memories, we need nothing technical. We certainly don’t need a camera. There is one in our minds already: it is always on, it takes in everything we’ve ever seen. Huge chunks of experience are still there in our heads,intact and vivid, just waiting for us to ask ourselves leading questions, such as:“Where did we go after we landed?” or “What was the first breakfast like?” Our experiences have not disappeared, just because they are no longer unfolding right in front of our eyes. We can remain in touch with so much of what made them pleasurable simply through the art of evocation.and reflect on a trip we once took to an island as to trek to the island with our cumbersome bodies.

We talk endlessly of virtual reality. Yet we don’t need gadgets. We have the finest virtual reality machines already in our own heads. We can — right now — shut our eyes and travel into, and linger among, the very best and most consoling and life-enhancing bits of our pasts.

We tend to travel because of a background belief that, of course, the reality of a scene must be nicer than a mental image we form of it at home. But there is something about the way our minds work that we would do well to study when we regret our inability to go anywhere. There will always be something else that obscures that beautiful destination scene, something so tricky and oppressive as to somewhat undermine the purpose of having left home in the first place, namely: ourselves. 

We have no choice but to bring ourselves along to every destination we ever want to enjoy. And that means bringing along so much of the mental baggage that makes being us so intolerably problematic day to day: all the anxiety, regret, confusion, guilt,irritability and despair.

None of this smear of the self is there when we picture a trip from home for a few minutes. In the imagination, we can enjoy unsullied views. But there, at the foot of the golden temple or high up on the pine-covered mountain, we stand to find that there is so much of “us” intruding on our vistas.

There’s a tragicomic irony at work: the vast labour of getting ourselves physically to a place won’t necessarily bring us any closer to the essence of what we seek. As we should remind ourselves, we may already enjoy the very best that any place has to offer us simply by thinking about it.

Let’s turn to another Frenchman with a comparable underlying philosophy. In the spring of 1790, a 27-year-old writer called Xavier de Maistre locked himself at home and decided to study the wonders and beauty of what lay closest to him,entitling the account of what he had seen A Journey Around My Room.

The book is a charming shaggy-dog story. De Maistre shuts his door and changes into a pair of pink-and-blue pyjamas. Without needing to pack a suitcase, he “travels” to the sofa, which he looks at through fresh eyes and appreciates anew. He admires itselegant feet and remembers the pleasant hours he has spent among its cushions,dreaming of professional success and love.

Next, de Maistre spots his bed. Using a traveller’s perspective, he also learns to value this piece of furniture. He feels gratitude for the agreeable nights he has passed in it and takes pride that his sheets almost match his pyjamas. “I advise every man who can to get himself pink-and-white bed linen,” he writes, for these are colours to induce calm and pleasant reveries in the fragile sleeper.

However playful, de Maistre’s work is inspired by a profound insight: that the pleasure we find in new places is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination. If only we could apply a similar mindset to our own rooms and immediate neighbourhoods, we might find these places becoming no less fascinating than foreign lands.

So, what is the traveller’s mindset? Receptivity, appreciation and gratitude might beits chief characteristics. And, crucially, this mindset doesn’t need to wait for a farawayjourney to be deployed.

A walk is the smallest sort of journey we can ever undertake. It stands in relation to atypical holiday as a bonsai tree does to a forest. But even if it is only an eight-minute interlude around the block or a few moments in a nearby park, a walk is already a journey in which many of the grander themes of travel are present.

We might, on such a walk, catch sight of a flower. It is extremely rare properly to delight in flowers when one can at any point take off to another continent. There are so many larger, grander things to be concerned about than these small, delicately sculpted manifestations of nature. However, it is unusual to be left entirely indifferent by flowers when the world has narrowed dramatically and there is global sadness in the air. Flowers no longer seem like a petty distraction from a mighty destiny, but a genuine pleasure amid a litany of troubles, a small resting place for hope in a sea of difficulties.

Or we might, on a local walk, spot a small animal: a duck or a hedgehog. Its life goes on utterly oblivious to ours. It is entirely devoted to its own purposes. The habits of its species have not changed for centuries. We may be looking intently at it but it feels not the slightest curiosity about who we are; from its point of view, we are absorbed into the immense blankness of unknowable things. A duck will take a piece of bread as gladly from a criminal as from a high-court judge, from a billionaire as from a bankrupt felon; our individuality is suspended and, on certain days, that may be an enormous relief.

On our walk around the block, themes we’d lost touch with — childhood, an odd dream we’ve had, a friend we haven’t seen for years, a big task we had always told ourselves we’d undertake — float into attention. In physical terms, we’re hardly going any distance at all, but we’re crossing acres of mental territory.

A short while later, we’re back at home once again. No one has missed us, or perhaps even noticed we’ve been out. Yet we are subtly different: a slightly more complete,more visionary, courageous and imaginative version of the person we knew how to be before we wisely went out on a modest journey.

We will — one day — recover our freedoms. The world will be ours to roam in once more. But during our collective confinements, aside from the obvious inconveniences,we might come to cherish some of what is granted to us when we lose our customary liberties. It cannot be a coincidence that many of the world’s greatest thinkers have spent unusual amounts of time alone in their rooms. Silence gives us an opportunity to appreciate a great deal of what we generally see without properly noticing; and to understand what we have felt but not yet adequately processed.

We have at present not only been locked away; we have also been granted the privilege of being able to travel around a range of unfamiliar, sometimes daunting but essentially wondrous inner continents. 

- Alain de Botton

[risingsouls]

Conversations: 5

[WELP. Another I’m reposting (probably). Feel free to read if you want, but if you’ve been following either series, you probably read it already :’3]

“Want anything to drink?” Nabooru pulled the fridge open and leaned down, considering her own options. “I’ve got pretty much anything in here: water, juice, soda, alcohol.”

Vegeta lowered himself onto one of the couches, watching her disappear behind the island’s counter separating the kitchen and the living room. He folded his arms and crossed his right ankle over his left knee. “Whatever’s fine.”

When his day began, even after the tumultuous morning he suffered at Capsule Corp., he never would have imagined he would follow Nabooru home, spend time with her outside of sparring seated comfortably on her couch, or consider staying in the guest room she offered. To spare his pride at least for the first few times (if it became something regular at all; that he had yet to decide), he planned to train later than her and return while she slept. However, he had every intention of ensuring she made good on her promise and explain her earlier claim, her motive behind the almost too generous offer.

“Don’t think you’ve gotten out of answering my question from earlier.”

Truthfully, she hoped he had forgotten. She fished out a few bottles of water and considered the coming task at hand. Standing, she closed the refrigerator and opened the freezer, pulling out a barely touched bottle of whiskey. A gift from Nappa.  “Of course you didn’t.” Opening the cabinet, she grabbed two glasses and filled them with the amber liquid. She wasn’t about to tell this particular story without a little help nor would she drink alone. She idly wished she had waited to change from her training clothes to the dull orange camisole and a pair of dark gray shorts; at least that would offer her another chance to stall.

She picked up each glass, holding them by the lip between her thumb and forefinger, and, after a second thought, tucked the bottle of whiskey beneath her other arm along with the pair of water bottles. “You sure you don’t want to change or something? Take a shower?” She placed one glass of whiskey and bottle of water in front of him on the circular table before taking a seat on the couch across from him on the other side. “I could probably talk to Lanu about potentially fixing your armor, too. She’s good at that sort of thing.”

“You’re stalling.” His glare slid from her to the drinks offered to him. He snorted when he caught a whiff of the alcohol. If her attempts to distract him weren’t evidence enough to it, the liquor more than solidified the fact that the story was not one she was fond of telling. It seemed to be their normal vein of conversation if the topic didn’t revolve around fighting. “I don’t have anything here to change into, and I’m not wearing your clothes or some other stupid suggestion you might come up with. Now talk.”

“Have you just been dwelling on this all day?” she huffed, disappointed her every tactic fell flat. She swirled the liquid around in the glass, considering where to begin. “I’ll have to give you a little background to how I ended up in that state of mind…”

She shrugged the strap of her tank top back up onto her shoulder. The story at hand would force her to delve back into her most painful memories. Those that started the unfortunate domino effect that forced her into tough scenarios and even tougher decisions. Many of which she wondered if she chose correctly and the potential alternates kept her up at night. Those loose ends left untied that niggled at her mind and perturbed her.

"You remember how I told you that our king had planned to overthrow Hyrule and likely take it over himself?" 

Vegeta nodded once. Though most of those who thought they knew him best would protest, the Saiyan prince remembered more details about the people around him than he let on. As long as he deemed it useful or the more rare occasions he found it actually interesting. Her story fell under both categories.

Nabooru considered a swig of her whiskey but held off. Her chest felt too tight, even after all these years. It was almost laughable, her claims questionable. A woman whose very purpose in life for as long as she could remember was to serve and protect her people, to pull them from the deepening pit they found themselves in and better their lives and allow them something sustainable that didn't rely on scavenging and scraping by. Who had pride and passion in them, who admired their ambitious but equally passionate king committing the highest crime against the two things she held most dear.

"As his second in command, he trusted me with his plans. It started as a wild dream chasing an artifact I'm still not sure exists that could grant a wish to help us to...something darker. More dangerous. I saw him change right before my eyes over those years. He became obsessed, and the line between helping our people and securing power became blurry." Now she took a drink, the burn of it easily disregarded in conjunction with the pain of memory. "Our relationship aside, it worried me. It all felt dangerous and wrong, a power not meant for us or any other mortal. He not only endangered himself on this quest, but I saw how it could further endanger our people. The Hylians believed we worshipped our kings like gods anyway, so it wasn't a far leap for them to assume that, should Ganondorf fail or be found out, that we would rise up and try to finish what he started. Give them more reason to hate us and incite violence against us with a more solid stance than they held previously.

"Had we not suffered so much in the war, if Hyrule's alliances with the other races remained more tenuous and their hate for us was a little milder, maybe I would have had his optimism in the plan, knowing we could defend ourselves if things went wrong. I hadn't yet fully seen the walls we faced in resolving our differences diplomatically, and that is, unfortunately, where my optimism had lain. We argued plenty about his obsession with the Triforce, but it wasn't until I found out that, in order to obtain whatever he needed to gain access to it, he had attacked the other races when they wouldn't comply. Such show of force when we were all meant to be unified, such violence of degrees that could severely damage whole communities, wouldn't go unnoticed or swept under the rug. That is when I knew I had to stop him." She felt as though she was back in that moment in the Spirit Temple, face to face with Ganondorf for one of the last times. The weight of her decision to defy and actively try to stop him crushing. What that decision meant by their law.

"And I did try to stop him and sabotage his plans. I gave him the impression that, at his warning and what he considered mercy, I was self-exiling myself to avoid execution. I disappeared into the desert for several days before returning to our temple which he had since closed off to use as his base of operations. I defied the orders set that all Gerudo stay away from the temple, information I gathered from Aveil when I returned to the fortress first. None of them knew I had even been technically exiled, likely so he could save face and maintain the appearance that he wasn't up to something they might not like. But, when I returned to the temple, I was captured by his mothers and imprisoned, set to face trial for treason against our king and our people, the only things that truly mattered to me."

Sipping at his own drink, Vegeta didn't miss the twisting of her expression when she uttered the word treason. The pieces of her history were clicking together far more succinctly than they had with the first telling that lacked these more...personal details. He supposed they hadn't been needed to answer his first question about who filled the role of Frieza in her life to answer it sufficiently. He employed similar tactics when he could get away with the bare bones of the information, either to protect himself or avoid discussing matters he didn't care to or found irrelevant. Though he could not relate to her dismay of betraying her king and country, as he never got the chance to do so, and betraying Frieza hadn't required much emotional searching. All he had to fear was death for the attempt, and he never particularly felt alive during that time, anyway. She faced her entire people's scrutiny and the personal shame of turning on her king and by proxy them, which likely called her trustworthiness and allegiance into question. Among other things.

“And yet you weren’t executed, obviously.”

Nabooru sensed the hint of impatience; she supposed she should have warned him the preamble was a lengthy one. It wouldn’t deter her from telling the tale correctly. “No. I was given a trial and we both told our sides of the story. My service to the Gerudo in the past and genuine concern apparently helped me avoid outright execution, much to Ganondorf’s disappointment. He and the Elite instead sentenced me to the Kavi Dorova, a cave that leads to a series of unknown challenges. No one had ever survived it, so it was as good as a death sentence. On the off chance I did survive, I could return to the Gerudo with my rank intact.”

Vegeta snorted. “I take it your king had little faith you would survive, then. Or he planned to strip you of your rank on the off chance you returned despite the judgement.”

“I never got to find out,” she replied, chewing the inside of her lip. She drained her glass and refilled it. “He was gone by the time I healed up after the ordeal. Which is where your question comes into play.

“I don’t know how long I had been down there or how far I had gotten. Each fight was harder and felt more pointless than the last with more numerous and powerful monsters each time. Half of them I didn’t even recognize. I was starving, dehydrated, had sustained more injuries than I could count, and had almost been frozen to death by some ice beast. As I tried to rest, curled around the lone torch in the room for warmth, I was ready to give up. Nothing mattered to me any more. Not my pride or my people, not fighting or my talent as a warrior. None of it had saved me down there and I was ready to just perish. It would be easier than going on. Easier than facing the Gerudo again if I ever escaped that hell."

She rested her back against the cushions. "But...I was never one to just settle for easy. I was too stubborn to let that pit beat me. Somehow, I fought on. I remembered what my people had suffered and, despite the hole they tossed me into and a fair portion of them wanting me killed on the spot, I had dedicated my life to being a Gerudo warrior and protecting them. I convinced myself I had to get back and make good on that promise no matter what they thought of me.

"The last things I remember is nearly being gutted by a Darknut, stabbing him with its own sword, and dragging myself on the ground toward a light. Aveil said they found me barely alive outside the cave and losing a lot of blood. I woke up to finding out Ganondorf had been captured and arrested and that I would have to take over as leader."

The Gerudo's laugh was short, bitter, and she took another hearty swig of the whiskey. A position she never thought she would ascend to since a king sat on the throne in her lifetime. She wanted to feel honored, but the increasingly hostile environment she awoke to made the promotion a bittersweet one. Between a split tribe at home and fighting a losing battle for the barest of scraps to help her people abroad, it was a wonder how she didn't snap and lead them into that losing war anyway. 

"It didn't take long for that confidence to waver. I quickly realized that the monsters down there were far easier to combat than those I found on the surface: I didn't feel guilty about killing them for my survival."

"Guilt is a pain, isn't it?" He smirked at her and poured himself another glass of the whiskey. "I'm sure you would have felt much more satisfied if you tore through the bastards that wronged you like you did those beasts in the pit. I may not have gotten Frieza, but I killed three of his best men who were almost as bad along with the better portion of his special forces."

To his surprise, Nabooru smiled herself, and she laughed softly. "I'm not sure there's a day that doesn't go by that I fantasize about it. That I don't play out potential strategies in my head that might have brought us success. I even drew a few up when I was bored once. Burned them but…" She trailed off and raised her hand, palm to the ceiling. An orange-to-yellow gradient ball of ki materialized atop it. "The others seem happy enough here. Safe might be a strong word, but learning ki has helped us stay protected." 

Save for the one time they all died apparently. The lack of memory of that event still bothered her. Another story she wanted to press from Vegeta if she got the chance.

"If we had this knowledge back then...for our whole existence…" She closed her fist around the glowing energy, dissipating it in a small shower of sparks. "I wonder how things would have been different…"

The prince understood those longings, the constant wondering what could have been done better, what one aspect could change the outcome of his life. Back when he served Frieza and before. In more recent memory. He knew it was all pointless conjecture, and he suspected she did, too. But it didn't stop them from wondering about the lives they, perhaps, should have had.

"Chances are some bastard like Frieza or his brother Cooler would take interest in your warrior race and force you into their servitude. And if you were lucky, they would leave more than a few of you alive to serve in their army." Lucky. he had come to despise that word since Frieza used it in regards to him not being blasted to bits with the rest of his race. "Lucky might be a strong word, though."

Nabooru sipped her whiskey, glad for the warmth and lightness it began to provide. She should stop, if only for the risk of facing the consequences in the morning, but, as if in direct defiance of her own thoughts, she finished off the glass and poured another. "You're probably right." Shifting to the side, she rested her weight against the arm of the couch and stretched her legs out to the side of her, tracing the rim of her glass with her finger. "Tell me about those guys you killed. Like how you did it. Maybe I can live vicariously through you."

“Is that how that works?” Vegeta snorted and drained his second glass, filling it again to join her on the third round. He wondered at the strength of this liquor. Earth’s typical fare didn’t usually affect him after two drinks. He wouldn’t describe himself as tipsy yet by any means, but he was willing to blame the alcohol for silently turning their casual conversation over drinks into a contest. “Fine. That was the better half of that damn trip to Namek…”

Before everything went horribly wrong, and, when he saw her tilt her head slightly to the side and her lips part to ask what he meant by that, he drew her focus back to the first request. Strange as it was, considering what he gathered from her thus far.

“Let’s see…” He raised a gloved hand, casting the bare tips of a few of his fingers a fleeting glare. “I blew up Cui and Dodoria. Blew a hole through Zarbon.” He ticked each one off on his fingers. “I decapitated Guldo, knee dropped Burter in the throat, and blasted Recoome and Jeice to oblivion.” He decided not to mention that Recoome and Burter had been incapacitated by Kakarot in an impressive display of speed and strength prior to his finishing blows. 

“Wow…” None of the names meant much to her, but she had no trouble believing those men who served a monster like Frieza so loyally possessed the same mindset he did. And if Vegeta found issue with them and he wasn’t exactly a glowing beacon of kindness and fairness, unless he was outright lying which she doubted on this, she had no reason to question that they had caused him and perhaps the other remaining Saiyans trouble while they were in Frieza’s service. “Sounds like you did have a good day, then.”

He draped his free arm over the back of the couch. “Did that satisfy you?”

Nabooru had to bite back a giggle, the haze of alcohol in her mind sliding it toward the gutter. “Not in the way I was hoping, unfortunately. But what made the rest of that trip so horrible?"

"Besides Kakarot becoming a Super Saiyan before me and killing Frieza?" He tapped his chest near his heart. "Frieza killed me. Don't give me that look. It didn't last long. Kakarot's idiot friends accidentally revived me with the Dragonballs because they wished everyone killed by Frieza and his men back to life. That included me."

Nabooru did her best to wipe the stunned expression from her face, and her gaze followed his hand. With a chunk of his armor missing, she could just make out the jagged edge of a faded scar. He really just didn't catch many breaks, did he?

She finished off the drink in her hand and set the glass on the table before slumping further into the couch to sprawl out more comfortably on her side. "For what it's worth, I'm glad they messed that up." The words left her lips before she could stop them, and, though she hated how sappy they sounded, she supposed the truth in them made them worth uttering. "I mean...we wouldn't have met otherwise, and I wouldn't have a training partner that could help me improve as much as you have."

“Hmpt, how flattering…” He didn’t doubt her words. With staging her tournament and with those who answered her call, she could have requested a sparring partner from many of the other combatants that would provide her at least entertainment if not a challenge to her unexpected strength. And with Kakarot there as well…

“Why did you ask me over Kakarot, anyway? You had the chance to ask him to train with you, and you didn’t.” 

Nabooru propped her elbow beneath her and rested her head on her palm. The question wasn't out of place; even he begrudgingly admitted Goku surpassed him in strength, so it would make sense she seek out the most powerful person to train with. Instead, she had chosen him. Second place over first.

"It was just a guess, but I figured you would be a better trainer for me. Close to the hardened, take no prisoners style of training and fighting I'm used to. I doubted Goku would push me as far as you could. And after finding out that you and I had a similar story in some ways..." She shrugged a shoulder. "Besides, I guess I'm a little biased still after watching the two of you fight that clown android. I know Goku wasn't exactly at full capacity but...well, watching you tear that thing to scrap, feeling the drastic rise of your energy when you transformed...I guess it just stuck with me after all these years."

Vegeta had forgotten she had shown up to that fight, no matter how briefly she remained among their band of would-be heroes. He had been too focused on dismantling a couple androids to pay her much mind. Perhaps if he had, he would have had a competent sparring partner all this time. Decent company, too. His mindset had been so different back then, more erratic and laser focused on his one goal...would he have even bothered should she have asked him to train with her before she returned to her people that day? After the Cell Games? Had she sought him out before her own tournament?

“You were likely correct. Kakarot is too soft to properly train and spar with anyone. He would be too afraid of hurting you, even though you’ve proven you’re more than capable of taking hard hits.” Nabooru stifled a yawn, and the Saiyan noted her heavy eyelids with mild annoyance. “Are you drunk already, woman?”

She stretched languidly and giggled. “No, I’m just a little tipsy.” A slight fib; she had forgotten Nappa’s warnings and her own singular experience with the liquor he gifted her. The effects of it snuck up on her and caught her off guard. “Mind your own business. I’m fine.”

Vegeta rolled his eyes and stood, arching his back to stretch his spine. He finished off his drink and snatched up the bottle before she could try to make herself another. She reached out a whole two seconds too late to stop him and he snorted. “Your shit reaction time says otherwise.” He strode to the kitchen and slid the bottle back into the freezer. “Drink your water and go to bed. I’m going back out to train and no, you can’t come with me.”

Her whine devolved into another fit of giggles and she flopped onto her back. “Training I can’t help with, huh? Just let me know if you do need an extra hand.”

Vegeta paused with his hand on the door knob, the meaning of her suggestion dawning on him far too slowly. He swiped his other hand over his face. “Don’t be crude. Go to bed.”

She flipped him off with a lazy grin. “Goodnight, Vegeta. Don’t have too much fun without me~.”

He merely groaned in response and slipped back out into the cool desert night, door slamming behind him.