Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Slave Tender ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

 

 

 

 

The slave tender had never before had the care of a mother and child pair; though Radditz told her that the proper term for him was `sebba' rather than mother. She had quickly grown attached to both the parent and child, and was fascinated by the way this rare creature cared for his infant.

 

Radditz had somewhat shyly confided in her that Sage was his first cub, but for all that, he gave the baby expert care, in her opinion. The babe never fussed once they'd adjusted Radditz's ki-restraint; as Radditz tended to his child's needs long before they reached the fussing stage.

At first, Sage only ate and slept, recovering from the long slow decline he had been in previously. The slave tender knew how resilient babies could be; still she was slightly astounded at the quickness at which the infant recovered. Within two days, he was eating strongly and recovering his color. In another two days, he would reach for his parent's tail, dangled tantalizingly above his fists. In two more, she heard him laugh for the first time.

 

She had been slightly hesitant at first to offer her feeding services, but once broached, Radditz eagerly accepted her help. He explained that on his home planet, he would have found a nursing female with a child around the same age as Sage to act as a surrogate milk mother. Well off and high powered sebbas could afford the special milk replacement, but lower classes made do without. When she expressed curiosity about the blood, he smiled. Blood makes babies grow. All Saiyajin were fed milk and blood as babies, and even up into childhood at times.

 

She found herself growing even more attached to the pair as the days went on, Sage's early infancy was a joy. Radditz said he referred to himself as Mama which was one of the typical names that babies gave to sebbas and that he had asked in a baby's way if she was his papa. It was hard to understand sometimes, and she had been floored at the thought of a baby expressing itself in words barely a month from the womb, but Radditz explained that a baby's bond speech was more emotion, images, sensations merged into something that only one bonded could decipher. Every baby “spoke” differently, but slowly he would incorporate words as he grew. Mama for example was strong, but flavored with intense emotion and color. She told Radditz he could call her Kani; which meant surrogate mother (in a way anyway) in Tajarl-go, her native tongue.

 

When Radditz was stronger, Master would come and take him away for a few hours or a day. Sage would howl indignantly even if he had been calmly nursing at the slave tender's breast when the Master came for his Mama. Nothing could soothe him, and she became an expert at riding out the baby's terrible temper. He was never rough with her, but even a weeks old baby can throw toys about. He shredded the cushion in his safety pen, gummed a plush toy into nothingness and bloodied his hands and feet clawing at the walls of the safety pen in order to try and get out. She held him as much as she could when Radditz was away, but certain chores had to be done. Clothes had to be washed and mended, bedding had to be aired, and she could not do these things with Sage howling in her arms or the back sling.

 

As soon as Master returned Radditz, Sage would instantly transform from the yowling, screaming spitting demon to a cooing, trilling, chirruping baby again. She was always amazed at the rate in which he executed his reversals; not a sniffle or a wail to be heard once his Mama was back. She on the other hand usually had to take to her bed with a headache and apologies for leaving Sage with Radditz after he had been used so vigorously by the Master and or his friends and business partners. Still, in those instances, Sage only wanted Mama, and Radditz only wanted his son, so it worked out in the end.

 

Sage would sit on her lap for hours, watching her sew. Radditz explained he liked the disappearance and reappearance of the shiny needle as it went in and out of the fabric. His intensity amused her. As a tiny baby, he would focus entirely on what he was doing. If he was nursing, that was what he was doing with a fierce will. If he was sucking his thumb, then that thumb got good and sucked. Even his temper was strangely focused. When she asked Radditz about it, he only shrugged. “That's just how he is,” was his only answer.

 

She grew so comfortable in this arrangement, that it was a shock to her, a month or so into it when the Slave Master entered her domain without preamble or permission.

 

 

Evil Cliffhanger…