Seize the Throne

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Kayen was, for once, not working out in her Gym while bureaucrats and merchants did their best to convince her to change her course of action to better suit their aims, instead she was down in Barb’s workshop where many other Kingdom technicians were scurrying around working on various projects. She was down here because Barb had something to show her and as she stood beside the smaller Saiyan Kayen quirked an eyebrow.

“It’s a bit big, the Eclipse isn’t exactly a LARGE ship, you remember that… right?” Kayen asked cautiously, Barb got rather sensitive with her projects and it was not in Kayen’s interests to have to wait for her to get out of another funk “Ehehe, that’s the trick Kayen. It’s not FOR the Eclipse” Barb said her expression growing excited and perhaps just a bit.. Devious? As if she was excited to finally reveal some huge secret.

“So I MIGHT have kept a little secret from you, I WAS working on the new engine for the Eclipse, but then a week ago some big ship pulls into the starport. Skash was on duty and checked in with them and it turns out they are pirates. FRIENDLY pirates” Barb explained and slowly the pieces began to fall into place for Kayen.

“Some of your old crew showed up, the guy in charge talked to Skash for a WHILE to get Skash to not call in more guards to try and push them out of there and explain how they knew you and stuff, obviously Skash knows you were a pirate before so he runs some checks and finds that they are exactly who they claim to be. Skash calls me up since you were busy training to pass along the message but I have a GREAT idea, a surprise for you!”

“Your old ship, the pirate-y one, is the ship I’m working on upgrading. The crew have been spending some time… rehabilitating” Barb said with air quotes earning a laugh from Kayen who knew that it was far more likely they were making their way through every bar on Vegeta by now. “That ship of yours was already fantastic, with some modifications it’ll be even BETTER”

Kayen was impressed, and intrigued. The Stormbreaker had been her pride and joy, the only reason she had not brought it with her when she departed Raiti was to provide her crew with a means to continue working without having to put down a ton of Zeni on another ship, and one that likely woulden’t be near as good.

Having it back would be great, especially upgraded. She WOULD have to find out what had brought her crew to Vegeta as she highly doubted it was just a visit for booze and to catch up.

“You’ve done a fantastic job Barb, I’d still like to see the Eclipse repaired but this is far more than I expected” Kayen said before her scouter beeped indicting a message, one from the throne room guards.

“Uhh.. Queen Kayen, I’m sorry for calling but Commander Ramen has… uh.. I cant tell if she’s serious or not but she says shes laid claim to your throne and expects you to defend it” the guard nerviously responded earning a raised eyebrow he could not see.

“Neat. I’ll be there soon” Kayen highly doubted it was a genuine effort by Ramen to take over the Kingdom, more likely it was just her messing with the guards “I’ve got to go Barb, keep up the good work” and with that Kayen took off for the throne room.

Her arrival would take only a few moments and she was met by the nervous guard who she simply breezed past planting her boot firmly against the doorway to the throne room and shoving the massive doors open with ease.

Kayen paused briefly as she took in the image, it was far more amusing than any description could have been and threw off her effort to make a more grand entrance entirely “I’m pretty sure if he saw this now, the old King would have a heart attack on the spot, hell we could probably clear out some of the stuffier old ‘elites’ that popped back up after the wish now with this image” Kayen said with a grin.

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Kayen smirked at Ramen’s flippant attitude towards other’s opinions on her presence on the throne though she grew just a bit confused by Ramen’s assertion that she really WAS here to claim the throne, Kayen had a feeling there was a bit more to it than Ramen being here to actually declare herself Queen, it would be quite the turn from her opinion on Namek that that titles should be held by a proper Saiyan. That or perhaps Ramen had finally caved to the notion that she really did feel more ‘Saiyan’ than Earthling.

Kayen waited to see how things played out as Ramen was very clearly not done and she expected that within a few moments she would know if this was a serious change of attitude or something else.

As Ramen continued she attempted to place a ‘crown’ of flowers on Kayen’s head, if it were almost literally anyone else Kayen likely would have decked them in the face but Ramen was… different. The crown sat rather awkwardly on her head, not quite as ideal a ‘fit’ atop her hair as it was on Ramen’s. Kayen had quite a few opinions on her comment about running out of enemies but it felt better to just remain quiet for now, let Ramen do the talking.

The crown itself was strangely… nice? Kayen was not overly fond of flowers but the fact it was made for her and by Ramen made it a bit different, it was strange to realize that it was Ramen that made the difference though she had little time to think of that as Ramen raised an opinion that Kayen had also held but not really put too much thought into.

She had apparently missed Kayen more than she’d expected on her trip away from Vegeta, Kayen had realized the same thing once it became clear when Ramen had taken off the first time, that above everyone else it was the lack of her presence that distracted Kayen the most, wondering how long it would be until she made her return.

Kayen’s thought process was once more cut off as Ramen continued on and this time it was not just cut off as she was given something new to think of but rather Kayen’s mind appeared to go entirely blank at the topic Ramen brought up, Kayen had not quite properly realized until now that this was the logical progression of things. She had not been in a ‘real’ relationship for quite a while and even then she’d been little more than a stupid child.

And yet now she felt very much like she was once again like a stupid uncertain child, for once her usual confidence was drained away and replaced with an emotion that had become long foreign to Kayen, nervousness, she was unsure how to respond to ANY of this least of all the fact that she was fairly certain that it, once again, felt ‘right’.

And so the Queen stood there blinking a few times trying to form SOMETHING to say but finding herself at a loss.

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Kayen had not really realized how long she had just been standing there like a moron until Ramen spoke up again leading to her rather quickly realizing just how idiotic she must have looked, just standing there with some sort of presumably stupid look on her face over how off guard Ramen had caught her with what she had said.

Kayen shook her head to get herself fully back to her senses and shake off a bit more of the nervousness, while she HAD been caught off guard she wasn’t about to let the unexpected nature of this completely derail her for too long “Sorry, I just, I didn’t really expect that. I’m not really used to long term relationships, you’re the only person I’ve had any real interest in for longer than a day or so for a long while” Kayen finally spoke up, it did in a way help that Ramen clarified what exactly she was interested in, reigning Kayen’s thought back in to just the idea of them still being what they were, just a bit more clear that it WAS a real relationship.

“Last time I had one I ended up losing an eye” Kayen said with a half smirk, she imagined sooner rather than later it would probably be best to let Ramen know the full story, to let her know WHY she had reacted like she did even if it was not something she was overly excited to talk about. While the situation was… similar it was in other ways also very different. Ramen had nothing to really gain by doing this other than just actually making their relationship something real. She was already the second in command of the Kingdom and as much as she joked about it Kayen imagined she still held little interest in actually ruling.

“I think though that would be good, I’ve never really uh.. Did dating, but I know generally what it’s about and I think I’d like that. You also have nothing to worry about, no matter who I might look at or flirt with I’m VERY sure you’re the only one that will be putting flowers in my hair” Kayen’s confidence had now returned in full, it WAS good to know Ramen would not mind her showing at least a passing interest in others, Kayen knew for sure that she would have had a very hard time making that sort of change. But even still now that Kayen thought about it while she did still flit a bit it had lacked anywhere near as much frequency as before.

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“We can keep going more or less how we have I suppose, just now we know we’re both interested in this being.. Well being a this” Kayen said with a shrug and a smirk “though, ideally we’ll find more time to actually be around each other. Maybe next time you decide to harass the Arcosian’s give me a bit more heads up and we can both go” though perhaps not a conventional ‘date’ it certainly would be an amusing sort of way to spend time together. Providing them both with some things they enjoyed.

Kayen tried to keep a straight face but couldn't help but let out a particularly undignified snort of laughter at Ramen’s first sort-of rule or more limit “I don’t think that will be an issue, truth be told, and I mean no offense. I’m not actually sure she would realize what I was doing if I tried.” Granted Kayen held confidence in that primarily because she had actually already made some vague efforts before. She’d made an effort to see if there was any interest on Nashua’s end but literally everything Kayen had tried had flow completely over the other Saiyans head.

Everything after that had really just served to reinforce that, Nashua had a strange sort of… pure bliss to her existence. The fact she had at some point apparently gotten angry enough to ascend to Super Saiyan was still something Kayen could not quite wrap her head around.

“I doubt he could handle any more than that. Hell I doubt he could handle even that much. He’d just end up more disgruntled than he already is, Nashua might be a better fit to sort him out, balance out his…” Kayen made a vague gesture as she lacked the right words to really frame what she thought of Vocado “Vocado-ness”

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“Mmh, unfortunately you’re probably right. I’d hoped, at least after I found out what you were up to. That your trip to Arcose would spur them to centralize there, to make sure the Arcosian homeworld could not be taken, would have made finishing off this whole Fleet debocle a whole hell of a lot easier. But from what I can tell there’s not been any notable increase in traffic to Arcose.” It was entirely possible that whatever traffic to Arcose, if any beyond the norm COULD have gone under the radar, the Fleet were after all long used to the buisness of keeping a low profile when necessary. But Kayen doubted it, with an Arcosian like Chill in charge if they WERE reclaiming the ‘homeland’ they would have made a show of it, tried to discourage attack by showing they had a powerful defensive force.

But there was a whole lot of nothing, she’d hoped to avoid cleaning up the Fleet issue on Earth and the other various planets they hid themselves away on, on Arcose she had figured they would be less likely to utilize population centers as a means of defense as those would be THEIR people. But now? They would need to be clever to catch them outside of cities, at least for as long as people like Ramen and Nashua cared about that. As long as it wasn’t HER cities being torn apart Kayen only really cared insomuch that Ramen might or that it could make partnerships difficult.

Kayen rolled her eyes as Ramen continued the Vocado conversation, she had hoped that her shot at him would be the end of it but once more Ramen was hoping they would bury the hatchet “Ramen, I’m not a particularly… friendly person, I pick and choose the people I treat well, everyone else is irrelevant. Vocado is one of the few people who falls in a strange gray area, I dont LIKE him, but I lack any real animosity toward him, at least now. I won, I have no grudge to hold. If I lob any insults at him it's more out of amusement and a challenge directed at him.” She’d held some lingering resentment toward him for ‘stealing’ the honor of being the first Super Saiyan of their age but the glory of victory did much to ease any of her annoyances. Even losing her tail was ultimately worth it in the long run.

“If he’s got issues that's his problem” Kayen said with a shrug “Its also VERY disconcerting how invested you seem to be in me kissing the idiot.”  Kayen said with a smirk, while Vocado certainly had the sort of power that Kayen could respect for a possible relationship his personality held far too many annoyances for her to ever seriously consider him.

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