Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Velvet Gloves ❯ New Beginnings ( Prologue )

All right before I go any further in this message: YES, VEGETA IS A GIRL IN THIS STORY. A FEMALE. If you don't like it, you can leave.

This is written as a warm up for the sequel to `Orange Star High School', which I'm having a bit of a writer's block on.

I own no identifiable characters… they probably belong to Funimation and Akira Toriyama… I do own, however, Prince Tabooleh… but no one will want him… he's a cad.

This story is part Moulin Rouge, part Memoirs of a Geisha, and yet neither… they've had an influence though.

And finally, for the love of God, review… intelligently if you please.

Velvet Gloves,

Quaxo

Dark eyes scanned the rapidly shifting countryside, watering slightly at the intensity of the red sun on the white sand.

Vegeta turned her head toward the other occupant of the cabin: her father's mistress. She was pretty she supposed, for a human. Miyako was tall, pale, and very thin, unlike the Queen, Vegeta's mother, who was short and dark, with deep auburn hair as opposed to Miyako's black.

She missed her mother, but there was no point in wanting to return to her. She was dead, and there was no carriage that could take her to her…

Her thoughts turned darkly to her father, who was undoubtedly proudly announcing the birth of his son. Now that he had an heir there was no use for her… not that he'd had much of one for her in the first place. Most females were drowned or bargained off, her father, it seemed, chose the more humanitarian of the two choices.

At six years old, Vegeta was quite mature for her age, as well as a little jaded. She knew the only reason she hadn't been married off to one of the clans was at her mother's request. Now that her mother was dead, and a male blood heir had been born, her father could do what he wished with her.

Apparently this did not include marriage, as her father would never make the faux pas of sending his mistress to deliver her to one of the clan heads.

What fate awaited her she did not know, and she was too proud to ask Miyako.

////OOOO\\\\

Her final destination, it seemed, was a stately, if small, little house on the outskirts of a village. Whoever lived in this house was rich, as dark green Earth grasses grew around the house, separating it from the desert landscape.

Miyako stood beside her outside the motorized carriage, supervising the driver as he removed her small satchel from a compartment and freed it from its capsule.

The house was old, much like the one she and her mother had lived in back in the capitol.

"You must be Vegeta."

Vegeta turned, startled, to stare at an elderly Saiya-jinn woman. She was not bent, though, like the old advisors in her father's court however, and she even had all of her teeth. She stood tall, making her seem larger than she actually was, and she had somehow tamed her gray hair back into an elaborate styling similar to Miyako's.

"It is rude to stare, girl." The woman chastised, cuffing her on the head as her mother had done when she was naughty.

"Vegeta, this is Lady Ruutabegah, she is your new teacher." Miyako said in her soft even tone that rarely had any inflection.

"Of what?" She couldn't help from asking. Lady Ruutabegah glared at her, and Vegeta felt herself flushing.

"I am going to teach you the art of entertaining, princess." She raised a sculpted eyebrow high. "But first you will be scrubbing the kitchen, for your impertinence." Lady Ruutabegah raised a delicate hand and pointed to the house. "Bulma will tell you where to go."

Vegeta nodded, feeling that any protestation of the unfairness of it all would not be well received, and headed inside the house.

"She walks like a boy." Ruutabegah scowled at the back of her latest pupil.

"She was raised by the late Queen Brokkoli, who was not well known for her femininity…" Miyako said mildly.

"Yes, I remember the stir when that impudent little squad captain made it into the King's marriage bed." Ruutabegah let out a harsh bark of laughter. "Queen Brokkoli did not spoil the girl too badly… there is something there I can work with." She nodded to herself and bowed to Miyako.

"Good day."

Miyako bowed in turn and climbed back into the carriage.

////OOOO\\\\

"So you're the new girl, Lady Ruutabegah said someone was coming today." The blue haired girl babbled as she pulled Vegeta into a hug as soon as she got in the door. "What's your name? Mine's Bulma, I'm from Earth." The girl grinned at her.

"I'm Vegeta." She said slowly, never having met someone her own age before. While she had lived outside the palace, she was very confined as to where she could go and what she could do, as the only blood heir of the King. "Where is the kitchen?"

"You Saiya-jinns are always hungry…" Bulma said with a giggle.

"No, Lady Ruutabegah told me to clean it, for impert-impert-well she thought I was rude to her." Vegeta sighed.

"Oh… well it's right along this way… I'll show you where everything is…"

In no time Vegeta had a pail of soapy water and a scrub brush. Fortunately, it seemed that Lady Ruutabegah had the kitchen cleaned often, and there was little actual scrubbing that to be done.

Still by the time Vegeta had finished scrubbing the kitchen (which was much too large for just two, now three, people in her opinion…) Bulma had reappeared.

"You're done much sooner than Lady Ruutabegah said you'd be. She'll be pleased." Bulma said cheerily.

Vegeta doubted anything could please a sour woman like Lady Ruutabegah.

"You'd best get cleaned up, tea is in twenty minutes, and Lady Ruutabegah likes it when you're prompt."

Sighing, Vegeta threw her scrub brush into the empty bucket and wearily trudged up the staircase. It was only three o'clock in the afternoon, and she felt like she could go to sleep right now and doze until daybreak.

////OOOO\\\\

"Vegeta, if you touch your nose again, I'm not fixing it." Chichi said sharply, smirking at the young woman across from her, whose mind was fixated on the landscape.

Vegeta jerked, and saw her finger poised to scratch her nose, which would ruin the thin layer of pure white makeup on her face. She scowled unprettily.

"I hate this makeup, it itches." Vegeta scowled as she crossed her arms over her chest and returned to the gazing outside.

It had been ten years since her father had sent her away to become a Geisha. Now he was demanding that she return to the palace, along with her fellow trainees Chichi and Bulma. Lady Ruutabegah had been displeased to have them go, but was unable to refuse her King.

Bulma was the most polished of the three of them, having spent two more years with Ruutabegah than Vegeta, who had a three-year seniority on Chichi. Chichi was second place… and would have been tied with Bulma if it hadn't been for her firecracker temper.

Vegeta found herself on the bottom for a variety of reasons… Ruutabegah always despaired that she was far too masculine, and had spent endless hours trying to correct her stance, her walk, and even the way she talked. She'd improved, but Ruutabegah always claimed not by much.

Another was that she was too skinny and flat chested. While the breast-less look might have worked for Earth Geishas, Saiya-jinns were into curves… things her companions had, but she did not. Ironic that the transplanted Earthlings (whose parents came as part of the peace treaties between Earth and Vegeta-sei in 18098.15) should match the Saiya-jinn ideal of beauty, while she of royal blood failed miserably.

Bulma was a marvelous singer, and Chichi an even better dancer, which left Vegeta plucking at an earthen Sitar.

Vegeta had one advantage over the other girls: her strength. She had more than once tossed out a rowdy drunk from one of the teahouses they visited. She was unofficially Bulma and Chichi's bodyguard, and with all the high powered elites that hung around the palace ---

"Vegeta don't you dare touch your hair!" Bulma scolded.

Vegeta snarled and pulled her hand down into her lap. Was it HER fault everything about this stupid costume itched? The makeup itched, the kimonos with their silver threads itched, and even her hair, which was regularly coated in wax to make it manageable, itched. She hated it.

"I wonder what the palace is like?" Chichi sighed.

"It's big," Vegeta said frankly. "And there's a lot of rooms…" She couldn't recall much of the palace, she'd only been allowed in once or twice.

"I figured that." Chichi said turning up her nose. "We'll finally get to meet the prince." She said with a starry-eyed look that made Vegeta roll her eyes.

Prince Tabooleh was attractive, she supposed… but any lustful fires were drenched with the knowledge that he was a) her brother and b) the reason her mother was dead.

She could see the spires of palace drawing nearer, and she sighed… she was going home.