Disclaimer: I don’t own DBZ or any rights to it. Maybe in an A/U I do, but not here.

Chapter 10

Bulma stepped out onto the dais and looked down into a cavern packed full of Fey, they stretched as far back into the cavern as she could see and many more fey clung to rocks in their animal forms. There were hundreds of them, more Fey then she had ever known existed. There were fey of all kinds of animals, half horse fey, lizard like people, bat like people, cat like, dog like, snake like, almost every animal she knew of and many more besides.

“Wow…” Bulma’s eyes widened and she nervously played with her dress and looked down, expecting them to boo her for being half human. Instead they roared with approval, howling and cheering and dancing around gleefully. The noise and applause only intensified when Vegeta stepped up to her side and acknowledged their praise with a nod and slight wave of the hand. Apparently, even being a changeling was better then being a full human to them.

“People of the Fey, People of the underground and people of the night, I stand before you today with your first queen in over a thousand years. She may have once been human, but she, like many of us saw the error of her way and, eventually,” Vegeta snuck Bulma a look, “embraced the underground that our people flourish in. She will be a great queen and a mighty ruler, and so it is with a happy heart that I formally announce your queen; Lady Bulma, as my Namree now and forever.” Vegeta took Bulma’s hand and brought it to his lips, he kissed it gently and then gave her a smile as the crowd once again roared into an excited frenzy of clapping and cheering.

“Oh my…” Bulma blushed, but couldn’t help but smile and wave to the fey below. A strange feeling swept over Bulma, and it seemed for a moment as though all the shadows in the room swept towards her and covered her for a heartbeat…she felt a surge of power and suddenly she could feel the life pulses of all the fey beating inside of her. It was as though she was joined to them all, or as though part of them as living inside of her.

Vegeta gave the crowd one last evil grin before he pulled Bulma back through the doorway and into his throne room, “I’m not one for the formal scenes – and there really isn’t enough of us left to warrant it.” Vegeta traced Bulma face. “Well Bulma, you are now officially my Namree and their queen.”

“Namree?” Bulma raised a questioning eyebrow and tilted her head to the side. The feeling of being joined stayed with her and Bulma shifted nervously as the power crackled inside of her, desperately wanting to be let out. Bulma felt amongst the threats of life inside of her until she found Chichi, then she tugged upon it and called to Chichi…

“It is like a wife but the word itself if closer to ‘mate’ or ‘partner’. So if you like, you are now my mate and nothing but death will ever come between us.” Vegeta’s evil looking grin widened,

“That’s so sweet.” Bulma laughed happily and then sobered as her eyes hardened purposefully. A glimmer of something ran through her wonderful grey-blue eyes and she drew in a deep breath. “Now, my dear, it is time for me to leave and to go and avenge my pride by striking down the man who calls himself…Lord Kendal.” Her voice dripped with scorn and mockery and for a minute her eyes blazed with a hatred that burnt with the same ferocity of the fires of hell.

Chichi strolled into the hall, her crossbow slung over one shoulder, apparently indifferent to her queens glowing eyes. Vegeta looked at Chichi curiously, however the raven-haired woman ignored him completely and had eyes only for Bulma.

“Chichi? What is it? I didn’t’ summon you.” Vegeta frowned as Chichi still ignored him.

“I summoned her. She will accompany me on my journal to the moral world.” Bulma gave herself a small shake ad the power seemed to flow back out from her eyes. She and looked at Chichi with a smile, “We’ll leave if you’re ready.”

“Oh, yes. I’m ready.” Chichi smiled, showing a row of neat and sharp teeth.

“You can summon already?” Vegeta growled under his breath as he dropped into a chair and struck a pose of deceptive idleness, Chichi merely tossed her hair and gave Bulma a grin and mouthed the word ‘jealous’.

“I don’t know how I know…I just do. It is as though the shadows are talking to me.” Bulma tied her hair back with a leather strap and blew her lover a kiss. “You were right Vegeta – now that I’ve let go of my mortal form I find that I no longer care what happens to those in the world above.”

Vegeta sat up again with an inhuman grace and nodded slowly. “The power of the underground always wins in the end.” His eyes met Bulma’s and he stared deeply into them, a strange look playing in his shadowy orbs. “Go and find your lord and do as you wish to him, but return well before daybreak. A celebration will be held in your honour tonight.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t demanding to come with us.”

Vegeta watched as his wife and his best friend’s wife for a second and then he ‘huffed’. “There’s no point. This is your revenge and it is quite obvious to me that you’re gaining the powers of the Queen with each moment.” When Bulma frowned at him Vegeta signed and spread his hands as he explained. “Fey Queens have always been powerful creatures, however since it has been so long since we’ve had a queen no one really knows what powers they have. We only have myths and whispers to go on.”

The king and queen watched each other for a moment and Chichi felt quite left out. Finally Bulma smiled brilliantly at Vegeta and turned. “Come Chichi, the time to leave had come.”

Vegeta watched them leave, feeling the tingle that had been vibrated through his body fade as Bulma left. Making love with the woman had been better then anything he’d ever imagined or dreamt of – perhaps it was because she was truly his queen or perhaps it was because he was in love with her. Watching her leave to go after her old keeper was hard, indeed he wanted nothing more then to follow her to keep her safe, but it was common for newly changed fey to feel a strong sense of power and vitality and to go after old enemies. It probably hadn’t been wise to allow her to go, but she had Chichi with her and there was something about Bulma that had changed.

Her aura was vibrating with a strange kind of power that Vegeta had never felt before. He knew from his child hood memories that his mother had been an almost unstoppable force – and indeed every queen before her had ruler the kingdom with an almost nightmarish power. According to legends Queen fey had two functions within the fey community, firstly their encouraged more fey to be born. Vegeta had no doubt of this because since the death of his parents the fey people had dwindled in numbers and births had become a rare occurrence. Chichi had been the first half fey born since the death of his parents and one of only five fey born in the last few centuries. He was hoping that now that he had taken a new queen the fey numbers might once again flourish.

The second function of a queen was to act as a homing beacon for the fey armies. The books and tomes that mentioned the occurrence gave little to no details about how or why the queens had this ability. The queen that had ruled before his mother had described it as ‘a cobweb’ inside of her that linked her to every fey. While Vegeta could summon single members of his host, he was unable to summon all of them to a single point at once. It wasn’t for lack of power – it was imply because he did not have that kind of power.

Vegeta signed and summoned the librarian to him – he wanted to learn more about what he could expect from Bulma.

“The labyrinth is actually the only way out of the underground.” Chichi led the way up a shard sloped tunnel of solid rock; the sides and the floor were glassy and more then a little slippery. “Usually leaving is quite easy, however Vegeta often changes the tunnels around to confuse those who try to leave – which is why it took you hours to find your way through.”

“Why’s the floor so slick?” Bulma panted as she struggled to keep up with the older Chichi. “I don’t remember the floor being this slippery.”

“Well, Vegeta had steepened the exit to try to stop you. Normally the tunnel out looks this. Its slippery because after hundreds years of thousands of Fey coming through here night after night, sometimes in animal forms that are so big they only just fit, like Vegeta in his dragon form or another Fey woman you haven’t met who is a giant eagle, anyway the walls and floors just got polished, its as simple as that.”

“Oh…I thought maybe whoever made it had melted it through the rock.” Bulma managed to blush as she staggered after Chichi and finally emerged into a right starry night.

“Well the maker probably did…I can’t remember, as far back as I can remember it was always polished looking.” Chichi managed to give her a reassuring smile, “Don’t worry about all those weird things you find down there, they make sense eventually.”

“They already are.” Bulma breathed a sigh of relief at being outside again, she hadn’t even realised how much she had missed the outdoors. Being underground had been good but she had missed breezes and stargazing.

“Feel good to get out huh?” Chichi stretched out her own arms and laughed, “I might not have been born above ground like you, but even I feel a little cooped up down there sometimes. Its so good to get above ground and run free sometimes, of course things aren't as good as they used to be, there are far more humans then there used to be so we have to be careful were we go, the last thing we want if for any of us to be captured humans and put into those travelling ‘zoo’s’ you hear so much about.” Chichi shuddered in horror.

“That would be the worst thing that could happen to a Fey. You see if the Fey who are shape changers like me spend too much time in our animal form we start to take on characteristics of that animal and eventually if we stay in our form too long we may find ourselves stuck as that animal. Vegeta is a classic case with his teeth. When he was younger he spent days at a time as a dragon and eventually one day he changed back and he had fangs, plus if you look closely you’ll see that he has tiny spikes down his spine.”

“I hadn’t noticed…” Bulma it her lip and tried not to imagine what Vegeta’s back must look like in bright light.

“It isn’t that bad, you can’t really notice them unless you look carefully, but they are there. Nothing to worry about though, although Vegeta was quite horrified when he got them. As I remember he threw quite a little tantrum, said they marred his perfection.” Chichi cackled and through back her head, “He’s turned his life around now, back in those days he though that shape changes were better then the other fey, but he’s different now, what with there being less and less shape changes born, he’s really had no choice…” Chichi paused as she Bulma’s down trodden expression, “Oh I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it like that! Vegeta loves you Bulma, it makes no difference to him now what you look like…well that isn’t true, and he’s probably more turned on by you now more then ever. Just because Vegeta thought shape changers were better once upon a time, and let me stress this was over 700 years ago, he still preferred to take animal fey lovers. You were the first human looking person he ever loved.” Chichi gave Bulma a right smile and slapped her on the back, “Trust me, he loves you and he will forever, you’re his dream woman…”

“Okay! Okay! Stop raving about Vegeta.” Bulma couldn’t help but laugh a little. Chichi was acting like a salesperson, trying to sell Vegeta’s good points to her. “All I want to do is find my good lord and then tear him to pieces.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me!” Chichi took Bulma’s hand and together they slunk into the darkened woods and begun there search for Lord Kendal of Baldwick.