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The fairyling, Strawberry Sunflower, crown princess of Strawberry Murder Kingdom (sometimes Strawberry Murder-Magic Kingdom), and her kelpie mare, Baby Doll, prowl through the snowy wilderness near West City, Earth. For no particular reason are they prowling around the snow there, certainly not because a particular Saiyan prince is cooped up nearby, there in the most hateful section of a generally cool planet.
“I don’t want to rescue him from blue haired succubi, Baby D. Certainly not. He loves being captured. Who am I to deny him that?” Strawberry shakes her bubblegum pink waterfall of hair, throwing glitter into the sunlit air. Thank God no humans happen to be around, because those things can take eyes out.
‘Huff.’ says Baby Doll, licking her long teeth with a big black tongue. She hasn’t feasted on the flesh of the unwary in like fifteen minutes.
Regardless, the pair of fae creatures continue to approach West City. The great golf ball looking structures begin to emerge over the tops of the trees, the aura of Maths & Science growing sickeningly strong. Since she spent too long in there the last time she encountered Vegeta, Strawberry Sunflower resorts to an ancient technique in order to alert her old friend to her presence.
Transforming into her bird monster form, she flutters into the air, describing a funny spiral flight path before landing on her kelpie's head, right between Baby D’s kelpy ears, where she begins a song, a lovely little song, a siren song.
“PIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPI!!”
The high pitched shriek of a lovebird carries through the frozen forest bordering the city, into the Land of Science proper, dodging between the Brutalist buildings, unerring in its mission to locate and enter the over-large ears of a certain grumpy monkeyman. He's not difficult to find, since he's chained, metaphorically, to the largest and most fancy golf ball.
“PIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPI!!”
Vegeta, resting in his small room after exerting himself pointlessly in the training room the earth woman built him as payment for his services, opens his eyes, casting them towards the window. That noise is unmistakable. Lovebirds are not native to this part of the planet, and if one ever encounters them in the wild, they are someone's escaped pet which is soon to be eaten by an enterprising cat. Besides, he just knows if a certain somebody is in the area, thanks to an unmistakable feeling similar to what lightning generates - a certain ache in the bones. He would have realised sooner, had he not been asleep.
“PIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPI!!”
Leaping to his feet from his supine position, the man hastily pulls on his old armour from Frieza Force days, quickly giving himself a once over in the mirror. He doesn't look that different, but he is suddenly tempted to lay off the protein powder and steroids. Strawberry is not a fan of bodybuilders or bodybuilding. In fact she curses them whenever she encounters them, and since the prince has had personal experience of her curses he would not like to go down that road again. She'll turn his hair pink and then he'll die for a second time.
“PIPIPIP-”
“Dammit, I'm here, girl. Relax. You're going to blow my eardrums.” he says in his smoker's voice whilst fighting his way through a dead bush. The devil horse neighs as soon as she sees him, and the bird monster flutters over, a tiny ball of pale pink and lilac fluff. Snatching it out of the air, Vegeta waits till his furious blush has settled down a little before raising his fist to his lips.
“What do you want? I'm busy,” he growls gently, flushing again. “I have no time for - ouch!” Reflexively he opens his hand, finding the bird pecking at the meat of his thumb with her tiny beak.
Free once again, Strawberry launches herself into the air and returns to her humanoid form, a da Vinci smile playing with her lips.
“You're impossible!” rasps Vegeta, now very red and breathless, his own lips attempting to throw themselves towards the sky. What a struggle it is to be grim and gloomy around certain people. It's a full time job more demanding than that of being Kakarot’s unrequited rival.
“I found an old photo album the other day. I thought we might look at it together. I also thought I might save you from Science Poisoning.” replies Princess Strawberry, fully aware of how impossible she is.
So the royal personages, like one of them is back to being the young teenager he once was, climb onto the back of the pretty death horse, Vegeta sitting up front, the three of them galloping towards a frozen lake in the centre of a great forest far into the wilderness. Swift as flying is that fae animal, but the strange superhuman riders register her speed as normal and pleasant. Especially pleasant for Vegeta, since his fairy friend wraps her arms around his waist and rests her head on his back, allowing him to pretend to be a great romantic hero from the books he'd never admit to reading.
“Remember when we rode giant ladybirds on that giant bug planet?” she says, when Baby Doll clatters onto the lake and slows to a trot.
“No…”
“Your cheeks say you do.”
“Prove it or it didn't happen.”
For now Strawberry holds her peace but if Vegeta had eyes in the back of his head, he might be perturbed by her smile. Never mind, he looks over his shoulder, notes her sinister little smile, and matches it.
Baby D stops in the centre of the massive lake of ice, nothing but eerie birdsong and the whisper of a cold breeze disturbing the soundscape. Sliding off her back, Strawberry Sunflower performs an adorable jig while her favourite Saiyan lurks beside her, desperately attempting not to die of blood overload to the face. It's always been like this, at least since he woke up one day and realised he was a boy and she was a girl. Before then they had fun destroying things together without certain considerations making things awkward.
Awkward for him, but he's a mortal and Strawberry’s a fairy. There is no such word as ‘awkward’ in her mother tongue.
On the last step of her jig, a circular crack explodes through the ice, in a mere moment encircling the three living things like a predator. With a dull boom, the ice circle collapses, falling like an elevator with a too heavy counterweight, dropping the trio into Strawberry Murder Kingdom, founding member of the Unseelie Court of Earth.
🐒🧚♀️
“It is good to see you again, Prince. You're looking well. Landing on Earth is the best thing that ever happened to you. It's a good thing you didn't manage to destroy it. We would have been....annoyed.” Intones King Strawberry Murder, the princess' father. Like his eldest daughter he doesn’t take the form typically expected of an Unseelie, but appears rather like a member of a Satan City boyband. S-Pop, simultaneously the most destructive and addictive thing to come out of the Planet Earth, and the real reason why space villains are constantly attacking.
Vegeta, who is very masculine despite his pint size, is always unnerved in the presence of the androgynous king, so is extra gruff, whilst retaining the manners drilled into him by his own father.
“Thank you, Your Highness.” He says, bowing in a manner that has all the creepy ladies sighing. He may be short compared to other surface dwellers, but he's a giant amongst the fae, something which may or may not have helped create a lifelong attachment to them in him. Likewise, though fae of all kinds are immortal and incomprehensibly powerful, they never display more than a mite of that power in front of mortals, and they even seem to forget that they could kill or turn him into a thimble with a mere thought, so they treat him like he's a god walking amongst men. All very flattering. Vegeta, however, does not make the mistake of forgetting who and what he's dealing with. Piss off the Fae and get wrecked. He's seen it too many times to count.
After dropping off Baby Doll at the kelpie pen (a huge underground lake in a huge underground forest), the prince and princess pair make their way to the palace, a huge mass of gigantic mushrooms and crystals interwoven with each other, sometimes to the extent of a mushroom becoming a crystal and vice versa. Red Cap soldiers guard the entrances, their iron boots the ugliest things in the kingdom. They bow at the duo, and wink at Vegeta.
Strawberry Sunflower’s fluffy nest of a suite matches her name, being full of strawberries and sunflowers, sentient strawberries and sunflowers. And also bunnies. Bunnies with red eyes. These creatures, the princess's courtiers and servants, greet her guest, who's known to be her favourite.
“So, you wanted proof, dear Prince?” says Strawberry, from her miniature feathered throne. She smiles disarmingly again, then snaps her fingers. A sunflower delivers a thick book bound in human leather dyed pale pink and encrusted with pieces of mother of pearl. It falls open, conveniently, on a series of photos depicting her and Vegeta riding, and racing, giant ladybirds. The latter attempts not to smile.
“Do you think the Prince of All Saiyans forgets things, girl? Of course I remember that trip. I had fun mowing down the natives from my high perch." He glances aside at a Grandfather Clock crafted of grandfathers. "I miss those days. When Freiza wasn't around, things were good.”
“Yeah. They were. So, you remember this?” Strawberry turns a page, and Vegeta, sitting next to her on a throne made of polished bones, leans closer. The photo shows a grinning young girl and boy standing either side of a Saiyan flag, a Saiyan flag planted at the zenith of a literal mountain of alien corpses.
“You did that all by yourself. I was so proud. That's the day I fell in love with you.” Strawberry says simply, as matter of fact as a supernova.
“Ack!” Vegeta makes a strange noise in his throat, even clutching at it briefly, his skin flickering between red and white, like a traffic light. However, his eyes are all aflame, wide, moist, and young once again. He's only thirty years old, but he feels five thousand. Or did, before Strawberry said what she said. He eventually replies. “That was a long time ago, Princess. I’m not the same. I'm…diminished.”
“You don't have to be. Underneath the science-based bridle, you're still the wild boy I knew.”
Looking away, looking away into the soft crystal light, Vegeta stares at the subtly spiral face of a sunflower, without seeing it. Since being trapped on Earth by…what? Why is he here? Anyway, since being trapped on Earth, he's been seeking for his old friend whenever he has the time, with the intention of bringing her into his life once again. He can't and has no intention of denying it. He may be diminished, but the old desires are still burning away inside him, that is very true. “Do you, ah, is there…” Vegeta looks around the room, looking for signs of a male fairy of equivalent rank to himself.
A sweet yet intoxicatingly dangerous voice bewitches his ears. “No. I've been waiting for you.”
The prince clamps his hands to his eyes, but tears leak from beneath them regardless.