Zucchini and Celery [Zuqetta]

So Zuqetta was apparently from a clan of dragon slaying Saiyans. Which was only extremely awesome. Sure, the spunky Saiyan had never slain a dragon herself, but what did that matter? She had a pretty cool family name. It was definitely a better claim to ancestral fame than coming from a family of farmers. There were so many colorful and interesting people in the universe. Celerous wondered how it was they kept bumping into him: a country bumpkin with no real fame to his name, and nothing extraordinary to claim.

Her tail was removed from his sight, which was nice, because at least now he couldn't be caught staring red-handed.

"My folks were mercenaries too, before I was born."

Celerous had no problems with mercenary work. How could he? He was the product of two merenaries meeting on a job, and beating each other to a pulp. Then they got married. Celerous didn't exactly understand how that happened, even now. That was probably the most noteworthy thing about him: his parents. Well, that and being born with a tail, but that was normal for Saiyans. Plus, Ma had ripped it out of his butt when he was a baby, so it wasn't like he could prove he had one.

Zuqetta also mentioned a "crew." So, was she some sort of gang leader? No, she seemed too nice to lead a gang. Plus, gangs didn't usually refer to themselves as mercenaries. Then again, what was a mercenary band if not a nicer, and more legitimate gang?

As Zuqetta kept talking, Celerous found himself paying more and more attention. It was like she was enthralling him. Everything about her -her upbringing, her job, her enthusiasm, and even her kindness- seemed larger than life in a way Celerous had never experienced before. Like just about everything else he'd encountered since leaving the farm for the first time, it was a good reminder that the world was so much bigger than he gave it credit for.

It was also a reminder that a person shouldn't be judged by the circumstances of their birth. Yeah, Zuqetta was a Saiyan. Sure, she admitted to liking fighting. But it didn't mean she was out to brutalize people like Celerous had first worried. He, of all people, ought to have known that you can't judge an alien simply for being an alien.

"Wow," was all Celerous could think to offer, as Zuqetta finished, "that sure beats pulling beets up out of the dirt. I can't even imagine what life as a mercenary would be like. Ma doesn't talk about those days much. Can't imagine life among other Saiyans, either."

Life on Plant sounded... harsh. Which, considering that it had just been through a war, sort of made sense. Celerous supposed that he'd been spoiled in a way, growing up on the relatively peaceful Earth, as opposed to a Saiyan warzone. Zuqetta's claim that living with his father's kind required adaptation made sense: fighting was a way of life for the Saiyan people, and fighting was all about adapting. Cel couldn't help but wonder how different his life would have been, if he'd been raised on his father's home world instead of his mother's.

He was glad to be an Earthling, though.

"Man, that sounds rough," Celerous said, finally opening his hetap, "maybe a boring life on Earth isn't so bad, compared to some of the things that happen on Plant."

Still, a part of him didn't feel satisfied with where he was at. That new feeling, sparked in him by Zuqetta still hadn't faded into embers just yet. Celerous wondered if he could be content with just being a farmer, now that he knew he had a choice to be something more. Probably not, he knew. That was just as much of a curse as it was a blessing.

Celerous found his eyes drawn briefly to Zuqetta's tail again, as she used it to grab a hetap. He hadn't considered that the extra appendage she had would actually serve a practical purpose. Gramps had made it sound like a Saiyan's tail was nothing more than a liability, although one a Saiyan ought to learn to deal with, as opposed to just outright removing it. Ma had told him his tail would only have caused him trouble as he grew up, turning into a giant monkey every full moon. He could understand why she'd removed it: she didn't want him to step on the house.

He wouldn't say that he missed his tail, considering that he didn't have any memories of having one. But he wondered what it would be like, if his hadn't been removed.

His pondering was interrupted, as Zuqetta placed a fancy looking scouter down in front of him. Celerous blinked for a moment, taking in her words. Was she... recruiting him? Cel almost spoke up, and declined, but stopped himself before the words could come out. There was no harm in leaving the offer open, right? Maybe one day the farm wouldn't need him, and he could dedicate time to exploring the galaxy as his parents once had.

"Wow, that's uh," Celerous rubbed the back of his head, "I didn't expect you to take that kind of interest in me. I'm not really sure I could add anything to your crew. But thanks. I'll... keep it in mind."

Zuqetta was right: he did know a thing or two about farming. Cel thought he could grow food on any world, or even in a ship, so long as it had hydroponics. And traveling the galaxy with Zuqetta definitely wouldn't be a bad way to spend his time. There'd be plenty of sight seeing.  Plus, well, it was an excuse to be around her more, right? Celerous wasn't going to pretend anymore: there was definitely something appealing about spending time with the spunky girl.

Maybe she could even introduce him to Saiyan culture. When did that become something he wanted? Celerous wasn't sure. But for the first time in his life, he was starting to feel like something more than just an ordinary farmer. Well, an ordinary farmer who could also fly and punch holes in rocks.

"I gotta ask though: why? You've only just met me. How do you know bringing me along would be a good idea, and not a bad one?"

"Well, I suppose that's a fair enough answer."

Zuqetta had an outlook on life that Celerous had only started to come to understand recently. You missed every shot you didn't take, or something along those lines. Regardless of what was quote was used to convey the idea, the point was: life was about experiences. Don't miss out on them, because the memories are all you really have in the end. It had taken him the first twenty years of his life to realize that, and so he'd be damned if he wasted one more day.

He had to tie up a couple threads back home, but once he did... well, traveling the stars like his old man had? Sounded like a damn good idea.

"Oh, the storm cleared up?" Celerous honestly hadn't noticed, "good. I was worried we'd miss the light show."

Though, it was a little bit of a shame that they didn't have more time in the cabin. Cel had about a hundred questions about Saiyans that Gramps would never have bothered to answer. Some about culture, but most about Saiyan anatomy, if he was being honest. What was it about Saiyan bodies that allowed them to hold so much power? Was his body different from a full-blooded Saiyan? Because it was certainly different from a full-blooded Human. His muscles were certainly denser. But were they as dense as Dion's, or Zuqetta's?

Celerous supposed all the questions and more could be asked later, though. He'd certainly have the time.

Zuqetta threw the door open, and cold air billowed in. Celerous stood from his seat, finished his hetap, and prepared to follow the Saiyan back outside. To his surprise, Zuqetta... literally threw herself into the nearest snowbank. Cel stood in the doorway, blinking. There was a spunky, plucky, and general genki quality to her that he just wouldn't have expected. Not because she was a Saiyan, but because he very rarely met anyone so... animated.

He smiled, shook his head, and looked up at the sky. It was dark out, almost pitch black, but Celerous thought he could see a hint of green light in the sky. It was almost time. And, now that the wind had died down, he could take to the skies without being blown around by the breeze.

So he did.

"I don't think we'll have to wait long." With the snow blanketing their surroundings, it was so quiet that Celerous could hang twenty feet in the air and still not have to yell for Zuqetta to hear him, "I'm gonna try and get a better look. You coming?"

Zuqetta's laughter was infectious, and Celerous found himself smiling once again. Out of all the people he'd met since leaving the farm, Zuqetta and Dion were at the top. They were a whole lot better than people like Ruby, or Kamae, or Fukushu. They were, as far as Celerous could tell, good people. He thought he ought to introduce them to one another, one of these days. They'd probably enjoy each other's company. Or, at least Celerous hoped they would.

"I don't know," Celerous replied to Zuqetta, not really much of an astronomer himself, "do red suns produce less solar wind, or somethin'? I'd imagine they have to produce more, right? They're, uh, bigger."

That was truly the best theory he had to offer on the subject. Maybe he ought to educate himself a little more.

Celerous let his ki take him a few hundred feet from the ground, his surroundings silent save for the gusts of wind. Those little wisps of green became more clear, slowly, as the last of the storm finally died down and stilled. For a minute or so, he saw no change in the sky, and Celerous was worried that he'd come all this way for nothing.

Then it started.

The sky grew alive in twisting rivers of swirling green light. They billowed easily, swirling almost as if they were part of the breeze, and not far above the atmosphere.  It was a gentle thing, quiet and unassuming, but breathtaking all the same. Then the pattern twisted, and suddenly green light became green and pink, filling the air with the beauty of a painter's pallet in a way that Celerous didn't think he would ever be able to put into words.

"Wow." Was the best he had. But maybe it got the totality of his enthrallment across. Cel wasn't sure that he'd ever seen anything so breathtaking in his entire life.

Though she hadn't read any books on the subject matter, Zuqetta seemed to know a lot more about stars than he did. In truth, that was probably the case with most things. Celerous really only did one thing well, and one thing only. Well, he supposed he was good at fixing the truck or tractor too, but mostly his thing was growing plants. He'd been educated, of course, and he did have to do a lot of math in his line of work. But outside of that... book studies had never really stuck in his brain.

One might call him stupid, but Celerous preferred the term "simple." 

Celerous looked over and found Zuqetta as stunned as he was. Well, at least he wasn't the only one awed by something as simple (or maybe not so simple) as the Northern Lights. There was beauty in the small things, Celerous though. He was happy to see that Zuqetta, a full-blooded Saiyan from Plant, felt much the same. Maybe Humans and Saiyans had more common ground than they thought. Then again, Celerous supposed that was an already known fact: that Saiyans and Earthlings could live in peace.

He was proof of that, after all.

Maybe someday, Tuffles and Saiyans would come to the same conclusion. Their war might have ended officially, but that had only brought about a sort of cold war, where both sides eyed each other warily. Neither government really trusted one another. Celerous didn't know the first thing about politics, and certainly didn't the slighest idea as to how they could overcome their differences. But... he hoped that someday, someone far smarter than him would figure that out. The Tuffles and Saiyans deserved peace. Even if the Saiyans didn't want it.

"There is something special about this planet," Celerous agreed, "even if it is kind of an unassuming mudball."

Zuqetta spoke his name, in a sort of firm tone, and Celerous snapped his attention to her. It seemed out of the blue, the way she'd said his name, but the young hybrid presumed she had something important to say to him. Maybe about the whole intergalactic mercenary offer she'd put on the table.

But then she made a noise in her throat, and when she spoke again, she was that same jubilant girl he'd spent the last fifteen minutes with. It was a little odd, but Celerous dismissed it. He didn't understand women even on his best of days. It'd probably be rude of him to ask why her tone had changed so drastically, and Celerous was anything but rude.

"That's all right," Celerous patted the odd scouter, safely secured inside the pocket of his parka, "I reckon I ought to be getting on too. Like you said, I've got a farm to run."

For now.

Celerous watched her rise above him, a small smile on his face. Wasn't everyday he made a new friend, especially one that was actually amicable. Most of his acquaintances were prickly at best. Fukushu, Kamae, Celeste... The list went on, but he didn't care to recite it. Better to focus on what was in front of him.

Zuqetta offered him one last chance to satiate his curiosity, something neither of them had time for him to do. He had more questions than he could count about Saiyans, all things that Gramps had never explained to him. One of these days, he'd have to write out a list, and give the Saiyan girl a call on that scouter. Maybe then he'd come to understand his father's people. At least a little bit.

"I've got about a hundred different things I want to ask you about Saiyans, but I suppose those can wait. I've thought for most of my life that your..." Celerous frowned, his next words coming out slowly, "our people were vastly different from human. But I figure, outside the tail, we're pretty much the same. Two arms, two legs, a head. Ten fingers, and ten toes-"

Celerous blinked for a moment, considering an odd gap in his knowledge. He quickly looked down at his boots, and snagged one off, "wait! Wait, yeah I've got a stupid question! Do you have ten toes? I mean, I do, but so do humans, and I'm half, so maybe that's why I... do..."

He trailed off as he realized how silly his question was. It was pointless, and now his foot was exposed to the arctic winter. Celerous flushed, hoping Zuqetta would think the rosy color in his cheeks was just from the cold.

Okay, yeah, it was a stupid question.

As Zuqetta laughed at him, Celerous chose to think that she was laughing with him, not at him. And while it was almost definitely the opposite way around, he figured pretending otherwise was the best way to shield his small, but fragile male ego. Though, he did suppose it could be worse. Zuqetta could have been offended instead of amused. Or someone far less nice than Zuqetta could have been laughing at him. Someone less amicable.

Zuqetta came close, and clapped him on the shoulder. She told him that Saiyans had tentacles for legs, and for half a second, he almost believed her. He then, of course, realized she was ribbing him. She clearly didn't have tentacle legs, Gramps didn't, and Celerous would have remembered if his father had. They were monkeys, not squids. 

A fact that he was reminded of, as Zuqetta's tail wrapped itself around his leg for a moment, spreading snow along his shin. The cold left a shiver running down his spine. It was... softer, than he'd expected. Celerous had thought the hair would be coarse and irritating, much like actual monkeys in the wild. But then, monkeys didn't have hair products. Or even soap. So it made sense that Zuqetta's tail seemed to be much better groomed. Great Ape or no, she wasn't an animal. Not like some would believe.

She made another joke, about their kind having horns, and Celerous let himself smile at that one. Alright, asking if Saiyans had ten toes was stupid. Clearly they must, otherwise Zuqetta wouldn't be ribbing him like this. With an amused sigh, Celerous replaced his boot. He looked up in time to see the young Saiyan give him a wave, some parting words, before taking off back into the sky.

"Until we meet again..." the smile on his face grew, "I sure hope that's soon."

With one last sigh, fond rather than exasperated, Celerous Fark took to the air in the opposite direction of Zuqetta Dreadwyrm.