It's been a long time since I've written anything other than academic papers, so this project has so far been both frustrating and freeing. While I have the general plan for this story mapped out, I've only written about 25 pages worth so far so updating may be slow-going. I'm not using a beta for this, so any mistakes, mix-ups and plot-holes are mine. It's all for fun, though, right?

Enjoy!

"[Columbus] and his men fell to their knees to kiss the sand, 'thanking God who had requited them after a voyage so long and strange.'"

Bulma swished her feet in the clear water of her pool, watching the liquid swirl around her ankles in small whirls.

"It's too dark," Goku said.

"What are you talking about? It's the perfect day!" She replied, tilting her face towards the sun.

"Just because the sun exists doesn't mean that the clouds don't." He stared into the trees at the edge of the yard without looking at her.

She knocked her heels back against face of the cliff, gripping the edge with white knuckles and shivering. "When did it get so cold? I wish Kami would turn the air conditioning off."

"This wind came from the stars," Kami answered, putting his hand on her shoulder and rocking her back and forth. "I have no control over it, Bulma."

"Some god you are," she snipped. "You can't even close your own windows."

Kami's mouth moved, but someone had put cotton in her ears, and he kept shaking her, trying to talk to her, but his face was getting too fuzzy—

She jerked awake, sitting straight up in bed. Vegeta dropped his hand from her shoulder and narrowed his eyes at her.

"What?" She asked after a moment, pushing her hair out of her face and tugging at the neckline of her shirt.

"You were talking in your sleep," he replied, turning away from her and slipping his boots on.

Bulma rolled her eyes at his back and flopped back against the pillows. The sun streamed through the window and against the side of her face. "So sorry to have disturbed you," she muttered the ceiling. She closed her eyes and let the heat of the daylight seep into her bones.

"I was already awake," he told her. "It was disrupting, however."

"My apologies, my Prince," Bulma snipped, turning onto her side and tugging the sheets back up over her shoulder. She snuggled her face into the pillow, impatiently waiting for her body heat to cocoon her against the chill of the room, but only a second later, the warm covers were whipped down and away from her. "HEY!" she shrieked, "what is wrong with you?"

Standing at the foot of the bed with the sheets grasped in one gloved fist, Vegeta raised an eyebrow at her. "How did your company survive with such a lazy woman at its head?" he mused. Bulma stormed around the bed and snatched the sheets away from him, wrapping them around her shoulders.

"It's cold in here, jerk."

Vegeta shrugged and turned away from her, walking towards the door. "Wait, where are you going? What am I supposed to do? Hey, answer me—" The door to the room slid shut behind him, and Bulma glowered at the steel. "I cannot believe I am married to such a Class-A prick."

The ship had appeared in a flash in Earth's orbit two days earlier, breaking through the atmosphere before anyone even realized what was happening. Bulma and her father watched the ship's glowing hull descend from the roof of Capsule Corp. A phone call for Dr. Briefs from the National Security Bureau broke their stupor—the feds wanted him downtown immediately, and Bulma had followed to assist her father from the wings in whatever way he needed. He had been swept off to the landing zone soon after arrival, and Bulma spoke briefly to a worried Goku, telling him to stay calm and at home until they figured out what the aliens wanted.

Through official reports and the media, Earth jarringly absorbed the fact that humanity was not alone in this universe. On the TV, in cafés, in classrooms, FriezaFriezaFrieza echoed like a mantra, cut through with rumors of probes, domination, even assimilation. A riot nearly broke out in the streets when cameras first caught some new arrivals flying—as in, like, Superman flying—away from the ship soon after it landed. By then, though, flight was the least of Earth's concerns.

These aliens claimed to be part of a galactic empire called the Planet Trade Organization, lead by Frieza's father, King Cold, and they stated in unambiguous terms that their objective was to bring Earth into that circle. When Dr. Briefs had relayed this to Bulma earlier in the day, she had been full of energy about the prospect of technological trade with beings that had been able to accomplish inter-system travel. However, her father's clenched jaw and worried frown tempered her joy, and she realized that Frieza did not have those particular interests in mind.

To put it simply, Vegeta's bedroom certainly wasn't what Bulma had been expecting. When the hazy fog of 'oh shit I'm married to an alien what is my life coming to?' lifted, she had spent some time in her room at Capsule Corp—where she had been blockaded in a mimicry of solitary confinement by Frieza's warriors—thinking about what her new life would be like. When she imagined her new living quarters, she thought she would be living in a steel box with a cot shoved against a wall, but she had been wrong. The walls and floors were certainly gray and cold, but a massive picture window took up nearly the entire length of the far wall, and a wide bed covered in crisp linens and a heavy blanket stood in the middle of the room in lieu of a soldier's cot. A few rugs covered the floor, varying widely in shape, color, and design, telling Bulma that Vegeta had acquired these pieces from several different places. The room was large enough to have space for a modest desk in one corner, covered in papers, and a chaise-type piece of furniture in another. Needless to say, Bulma was pleasantly surprised.

She had peeked around in the washroom when she had been led to the rooms after her "wedding" and her luggage had been summarily chucked into the closet. It had a oddly familiar set up: sink and counter, toilet, shower stall, and a large soaking tub, much to Bulma's delight. Vegeta had looked down his nose at her (which Bulma found amusing as they were very close to the same height) and haughtily informed her that the tub was used for ice baths.

Now, Vegeta was gone, and Bulma settled herself on the floor of the closet, shoving her luggage around and sifting through the contents. Her mother did a good job, but that was expected; Bunny always did her best work while under stress. Hangers were sparse, so she carefully created stacks of neatly folded clothes along the shelves and saved hangars for the dresses that her mother had sent with her. Her thoughts drifted uneasily as she unpacked. She thought of her parents, and if she would see them again—doubtful, if she was being completely honest with herself. What she was supposed to do when Vegeta came back; what she was supposed to do for the rest of her life? Was everything going to float around when they left Earth's gravity? And what was she supposed to do to entertain herself? She wondered what was going to happen to her designs back home—if her father would finish them, or if he would even be able to bring himself to go into her office. Fat load of good her degrees would do for her now, since she was now a member of an alien royal family.

Speaking of, what exactly was she supposed to do now? It was crystal clear that even though Vegeta was a prince, he had absolutely no power relative to Frieza. What exactly did it mean to be the prince of the Saiyans? What did it mean to be the princess of the Saiyans?

This random and endless string of questions filled her mind as she wandered around her new home. In the wall by the bed, she found a set of buttons, and another by the door to the main hallway. The scientist in her wanted to push them and see what happened, but the rational side of her knew to wait—she was surrounded by alien technology and should proceed with caution.

She leafed through the mountain of paperwork on Vegeta's desk, but it was all in a script she didn't recognize and without any diagrams or graphs for her to try to analyze. She thought briefly of settling into bed with her tablet filled with digital books, but she squashed that thought down, wanting to save those for truly boring times.

When the sun began to set outside, a woman brought a tray of food to her. It took Bulma a few minutes to figure out how to open the door, but when she did, the woman—tall, muscular, and with thick black hair; one of Vegeta's "subjects," Bulma presumed—brought the food inside and set it on the small table in front of the sofa.

"Where is Vegeta?" Bulma asked, looking at the food. It appeared to be a mix between alien food and Earth food—Bulma knew that Frieza had already started replenishing the ship's supplies from the planet.

"In the mess with the men," the woman replied curtly. She nodded at Bulma and left, shutting the door behind her.

Bulma frowned. "Everybody here is soo pleasant," she mused, picking up her fork and poking at her food. She began with the Earth food, and delicately moved on to the alien food. It was spicy and hot, and Bulma could only get a few bites down before giving up and draining her glass of water to ease her scalding throat. She debated putting the tray out in the hallway like she would have at a hotel, but she didn't want to offend anyone on her first day, so she left it on the table and watched the sun over the mountains through the window.

Even after she showered and got into bed, Vegeta still hadn't returned. She ordered the lights off and pulled the covers up to her chin, turning to look at the night sky through the window. She watched the stars come out in the night, and began counting.

From the void, a hiss. And again: the sound of metal sliding against metal; it had been the door. The moon must have moved while she slept, because now its white light filtered into the room. Clothes hit the floor in muted whispers, and the mattress dipped down behind her. Sighing, she rolled onto her back and turned her face away from the jarring white brightness. Fingers brushed against her arm, then the weight of cool sheets.

Then: quiet.

Just a bit of an introduction this time around. I tried to make this first bit longer, but I couldn't find a comfortable breaking point, and the longer it got, the less it felt like a "first chapter." Ah, the woes of pacing and writing~~~