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Passport to Paradise	By : gokugirl Category: Dragon Ball Z > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 3596 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own DragonballZ, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
Chapter 14

Both of them had practically been shoved out of the room.
The healer was a stern, no-nonsense woman who refused to allow anyone to watch
her work. She claimed that observers made her nervous, which was pretty bad for
the patients. Kakarotto and Vegeta stood outside near the door, wincing at every
groan that Alain made but happy that he was still alive enough to produce sound.
That was where the king found his son. And, judging by the expression on his
face, he was not very pleased to see him.

"Vegeta." The king stopped a few paces from his son and simply stared
at him. He hadn't seen him for a month and a half, the longest time they had
ever been apart. He took note of the shadows lurking within his eyes, and how
new frown lines marred his features. He saw a young man who had seen things no
one should have ever been forced to witness, but he had survived them. And the
king was more proud that words could express.

King Vegeta looked almost identical to his son. Or, rather, his son looked
almost identical to him. He was a little taller and sported a beard, but his
hair also swept upward like a onyx flame from the widow's peak that formed the
lowermost point of his hairline and their bodies were equally as small-boned. He
wore a black tunic with silver stitching and black pants with a matching black
cape with silver lining fastened over his shoulders.

"Father," the prince returned, bowing his head slightly with respect.
He did not bow at the waist as he had before he'd left home. He now considered
himself an equal to the king. They both had been tested by life, and both had
passed. "How are you?"

He only sighed and shook his head. "They've been out there for a few days,
just watching. Possibly waiting for something or someone. Those humans you sent
to us a while ago headed here when the Kir came upon them and set fire to their
settlement. Almost all of them were able to escape."

"That's good," Kakarotto murmured. This caused the king to focus his
attention on him.

"I don't believe we've met before. I am King Vegeta. You are?"

"Kakarotto." He blinked in confusion when both Vegeta continued to
stare at him. "What...? Oh!" He bowed hastily at the waist, blushing.
"I'm sorry. I've never met royalty before." He blushed brighter when
it hit him that his lover was, in fact, the prince of Saiya. "I meant to
say that I've never met royalty who wanted to be treated in a special way. No,
that's not what I meant to say. I meant-" The prince covered his mouth with
his hand before he made an already bad situation even worse.

Vegeta suddenly felt as if his father should know exactly what they meant to
each other. While being with someone of the same gender wasn't exactly looked
down upon in Saiya-jin society, it was assumed that all sons and daughters of
noble birth would marry someone of the opposite sex and produce children
as soon as possible. He was a prince, after all, he wasn't allowed to choose his
own destiny. At the very least, he figured his father would let him have
Kakarotto as some sort of male mistress after he married, but he couldn't do
that to him. He couldn't make him feel like he was only second best. If he had
to, he would give up the crown and the kingdom to be with him.

"Father, I met someone on my journey. Someone special."

The king's eyes narrowed speculatively. "I see."

"I know you won't approve, but it's my life to do with what I wish."

"Vegeta, do you honestly think that we have time to discuss this now?"
he asked dryly.

Shaking his head, the prince said, "No, Father. Of course not." He
cleared his throat. "We came here to tell you about what's happening
outside. The barbarians are seeking a gateway so that they can free some sort of
creature?" He looked at his lover for confirmation.

"I don't know if it's really a living creature, but I do know that
it's evil and should never be allowed to roam the planet again. The Pale Ones,
who we now think are really elves, imprisoned it and the gateway is here in the
castle somewhere. Vegeta and I have to protect it with everything that we
have."

The two of them watched as the king's face transformed. His eyebrows drew
downward and his lips pursed before he spun on his heel and stalked off down the
hallway. They wondered what they should do for only a moment before the king
flicked his hand in a gesture for them follow. Feeling a lot like small
children, they trotted after him and tried to catch up.

The king led them to the audience chamber. It was large and completely empty
save for a very large and ornate throne on a raised dias near the back of the
room. A rich red carpet edged with golden thread led up to the steps of the dias
from the wide doors.

"Father, what is going on?" Vegeta asked, coming to a stop before him.
He had to tilt his head up to meet the king's eyes, something that never failed
to annoy him.

"I should have told you, but my own father never said a word about it until
he was on his death bed." The man shook his head. "What if he'd died
suddenly and I had never found out?"

His words were scaring him. His tone of voice was scaring him.
"Father...?" he asked hesitantly.

"Vegeta," his father sighed, briefly closing his eyes. "I know
what you're talking about, possibly even more than you do. It's true that the
elves entrusted us with a gateway to another realm where the Dark One is being
kept, asleep and benign. We were to be the last line of defense in the event
that our cousins in the east somehow lost the Key. Unfortunately, over the years
we, as a people, forgot that. Everyone became more and more slothful as peace
became more and more like a permanent thing. I don't know if we can repel them.
And, even if we do, who's to say that someone else won't come along and pick up
where they left off?"

"Sir, if I may speak." Kakarotto was affected enough by the imposing
room that he felt like giving the king all of the respect his station urged.

"Go ahead."

"If you talk like the war has already been lost, then it will be."

"What should I do, then, since you seem to have ideas?"

The prince spoke up to ward off the impending argument. "Father, we've been
to his home and discovered a mosaic on the floor in the council house. It
depicts the battle that the elves fought with this darkness, and goes on to
predict that one person will stand alone before it. Do you have any magic-users
on your staff that I don't know about?"

"None. You know I don't give much credence to it."

He turned to his lover hesitantly. "Kakarotto..."

"No. I refuse to believe it."

"You heard him: he has no mages. And you've got your power back now."

The teen's expression was stubborn. "That was a one-time thing. I can't
feel it within me like I used to." Vegeta blew out a frustrated breath and
opened his mouth to try again, but his father interrupted him.

"There's something I should show you." He rose from his chair and
headed to a door set into the wall behind the dias. "We've had it for a
long time, but no one has been able to read it. Time and time again one of my
predecessors thought to discard it, but something stopped them each time. It's
important, and I'm fairly sure that it relates to our current problem."

He led them down a narrow back hallway that was only lit with small lamps.
Vegeta immediately recognized where they were and knew thath is father was
taking him to his personal study. Of course the book would be there. It wasn't
the sort of thing you could keep in a publicly-accessible library, after all.

The style of the bare stone walls never changed from area to area, but they were
broken up occasionally by tapestries and by the lamps. Not once did they pass
anyone else as they walked, but that particular hallway was one that was seldom
used by even servants unless there was an audience or a banquet being held. It
was a more direct route to the kitchen from those two chambers, but not from the
small dining room that the king and his son normally used.

They entered the study. It was a good sized room, but dark from lack of windows
and lack of lit lamps. King Vegeta lit the lantern on his desk and picked it up,
carrying it to the back of the room where his bookshelves were. He held the lamp
up close, reading titles, forced to search for a book he had only seen a few
times before. It had almost faded from his mind, but its air of mysteriousness
had ensured that it would not fade entirely.

His fingers wrapped around it, sliding it carefully from between two unrelated
tomes. It was old; the leather cover that bound it was dry and cracking with
age. He handed it to his son who hovered nearby, then returned the lantern to
his cluttered desk. "I'll leave you to it, then."

He was almost out the door when Kakarotto said, "Our friend... Will you
tell us if anything changes?"

"Yes," he murmured, "of course." The door closed with a
quiet click.

Vegeta's fingers were delicately flipping the thin pages. The ink was faded, but
the words and illustrations were still legible. He recognized the Pale Ones from
the brief look he'd gotten of the mosaic, but he couldn't say if they looked
anything like what he'd expected elves to look like due to the robes all but
engulfing their slight forms. The shapes of the letters resembled the ones he'd
seen carved into the tree outside of Nohin e Kul, which meant that the book was
definitely written in the language of his lover's people.

He turned another page and gasped softly when an illustration of the mosaic was
displayed across two pages. It was more crude, possibly even the sketch on which
the detailed mosaic in the council house had been based. He silently passed the
book to the young man looking over his shoulder, knowing that he could not read
the notes inked into the margins.

"The blueprint," Kakarotto whispered, confirming Vegeta's
suppositions. He turned the page and there was a closeup of the first section on
one page with detailed information about it on the other. Eyes wide with
excitement, he turned a few more pages until he was at the picture of the first
section of the mosaic that had missing pieces. It was complete in the drawing.
Two green eyes stared at him from the darkness, the pupils a vertical slit like
a cat's, or a snake's. In the lower right corner was an androgynous person with
long light-colored hair and ears that were pointed at the tip. They were wearing
a type of robe he associated with the Pale Ones, a simple split-necked affair
with an attached hood. The figure's eyes were cast upward in an expression of
abject terror.

"He looks almost exactly like the stories say," Vegeta said quietly.
"The elf, I mean."

"Was that piece taken so that we couldn't identify the Pale Ones, then?
'The Dark One'," he read aloud, "and one of the Wiit Betholea."
He flipped a few more pages until he reached the final drawing, pausing only
briefly on the one with the portal. He could fill in the missing pieces easily
without even looking -- they were the eyes of the Dark One -- but it was the
person in the image that he focused his attention on. He didn't want to believe
it, but there was no one else with magical talent within the castle.

Somehow, he still had his power. That didn't make any sense, unfortunately.
After they removed the Key he couldn't feel it anymore. He'd thought that,
perhaps, the Key was what had given him his ability in the first place. Now that
he knew it was still there, he would have to relearn how to manipulate it.

"Vegeta, can you show me a place that will be free from
interruptions?" he asked quietly. "I need to relearn how to access my
magic at will again."

The prince nodded, relieved that he finally believed that he was the one in the
mosaic. "Is my bedroom okay? No one should have any reason to go
inside."

"It's fine." He smiled, but it trembled around the edges. "I
don't know what the outcome will be of this battle, but I'm going to try my
best. Please come get me if anything changes out there."

"I will." Vegeta took the book from him and placed it on his father's
desk. He then proceeded to take Kakarotto's arm, hoping that his touch would
calm him. "It's not very far."

***

He darkened the room by drawing all of the heavy brocade curtains. It was a very
large space with a bed big enough for three people to sleep comfortably in, a
wide mahogany desk and chair, and an armoire. The bare floor was made of stone
like the walls, but there was a large area rug made of rich greens and golds and
browns covering majority of it. Vegeta told him soon after they'd entered that
he often used the space to train when the weather outside was horrible. The
unoccupied space could easily accommodate a light sparring match between the two
of them.

After his lover left with a promise to return around dinnertime whether anything
happened or not, Kakarotto sat down on the rug and folded his legs. He had an
idea to revisit every meditation technique his departed master Totepo had taught
him from early childhood to early adolescence. It was bound to take hours to
find his center again, but he would not be of any use against the Dark One
otherwise.

Kakarotto closed his eyes.

Vegeta went in search of his father to find out what had been done already in
preparation for the inevitable barbarian attack when a shout went up from the
front gate. It was too late to check with him, but hopefully the soldiers
remembered enough of their martial training to successfully stop them from
completely overrunning the castle. He heard the distinctive high-pitched sound
of metal on stone, followed by several pained screams, and nodded in
satisfaction. The portcullis were working, at least.

As he walked the deserted hallways, his mind was busy trying to come up with
ways to aid the soldiers. The castle did not have very many men who were able to
fight, but he had a feeling that the barbarians would show up in droves and
armed for bear. Could they honestly repel an attack? Maybe the first wave, but
what about the second, and the third? They had mages, after all, and there was
no one in the castle with magical ability save for Kakarotto and he was
currently unavailable. He sighed as he exited outside onto the battlements,
making sure to keep his head down.

Thoughts rose to the forefront of his mind unbidden making it very hard for him
to focus. Distantly he could hear the sounds of battle, but did not acknowledge
them. If it was urgent then Vegeta's hands would be on his shoulders, shaking
him to bring him back. As he felt nothing of the sort, he allowed himself to
sink even further within himself, searching for his magic.

It was there. A faint tingling on the edges of his perception that had once been
a warm comfort much like a thick fuzzy blanket. Whenever he'd decided to cast a
spell before, he'd had no doubt that the magic would respond exactly the way
he'd wanted it to. Now, however, his trust in it was shaken almost beyond
repair. He wasn't sure if any spell he consciously decided to cast would
work and that was often the undoing of a mage. After all, what was a mage
without his magic?

He searched for that place deep inside of him that would anchor him to the
source of this foreign gift. For it was the same, yet different. This time it
would take a bit more coaxing to get it to cooperate.

After finding his father amongst the archers and their lieutenants, he quickly
told him about the barbarian attack on Fisher's Cove, recommending that the
soldiers retreat from the battlements. The Kir would not have to get very close
to blow up the wall and, if Ra Naga was around (and Vegeta seriously doubted
that he wasn't), then there would be a magical shield around the enemy that
arrows would not be able to penetrate. The king appeared to think about all of
this carefully, but eventually decided that the men would stay exactly where
they were. "Would you have them overrun the castle?" he asked his son.

"No, Father, I wasn't suggesting that we abandon our defense entirely, but
there's nothing to be gained from their needless deaths."

"Since you seem to know more about the art of war than people twice your
age, what would you have me do?"

Vegeta took one look at the mocking expression on his father's face and sighed.
There was no getting through to him. Hopefully not too many soldiers would die
from the king's mistake. The barbarians numbered far too many for him and
Kakarotto to handle alone.

Suddenly the shouts of the Saiya-jin soldiers stilled and an ominous hush fell
over the battlements. Vegeta shifted position so that he was on his knees and
peeked over the stone wall to see what had caused everyone to fall silent. What
he saw was disheartening.

A long line of barbarians were advancing on the castle, Ra Naga leading them. If
their chieftain was heading them he knew without a doubt that the invisible wall
he'd failed to break through a month ago was up and that nothing would be able
to stop the mages from casting the explosion spells that had done so much
destruction in Fisher's Cove. Vegeta pushed himself to his feet and dragged the
king up with him.

"Father, we have to go now," he said firmly. To the men he
shouted, "Retreat! Your prince commands it!"

A few of the men paused to see what was going on, but most ignored him. He was
not king yet and they didn't have to listen to him if their own judgement didn't
think it was a wise course of action. Vegeta growled and glared at his father.
"Command them."

"You're forgetting your place, son," the king responded from between
clenched teeth, but he did order the men down from the battlements. And none too
soon.

The mages finished chanting their spells and stone began shaking around them.
Vegeta and his father had just finished descending the stairs to the courtyard
when an entire section of the wall collapsed and the barbarian warriors began
pouring in. The king drew the ornate sword that hung at his side, but his son
darted through now disorganized clusters of Saiya-jin soldiers and vanished into
the castle.

The final battle was now upon them.
- 13
- 14
- 15
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Passport to Paradise