She was as much a slave to the Silence as she was its Mistress.  Because it was always the Silence that spoke the loudest.

Take for example, the morning.  Where she made her home, morning was the time of day when the sun made a hazy silver appearance through the usually dark gray skies that always seemed to surround her home, the WatchTower.  The time of day when it was at its lowest in the sky.  But morning every once in a while meant that she would wake up, and glance over to one side of a ridiculously large bed as if she was expecting someone there.

Not even just someone.

Trunks-sama.

No matter how many men fell victim to her endless supply of charms, it was always the same - none of them were [him].  And afterwards, as that fact sank into the post-coital haze she always felt, it did nothing but blind her vision in the darkest of rages as she tore out the throat of the unsuspecting man that lie next to her, his only crime not being the one man that possessed her heart, body, and soul.

It wasn't just the mornings, or after her late night 'excursions' that she felt this, either.


On this particular day, she was taking a bath.  Coral, the Associate Fury that took such good care of things while she was away, had anticipated her Mistress's bad mood and had a hot bath and a fresh silk robe ready and waiting for her as she practically stalked her way through the Mirror of Kinmokusei.  She was about to yell for Coral when her nose took in the scent of fresh lavender, and a sigh escaped her lips as she realized that Coral was already one step ahead of her and standing by the door of the bathroom.  For a rare moment, she looked at Coral with a grateful look that hid the defeat in her eyes that she had felt all day.

"I'll be downstairs with dinner, Mistress."

She nodded so that Coral could be dismissed and upon entering the black tiled bathroom, let her dress fall into a pool of silk in the doorway as the bath almost summoned her, hot and inviting, into its depths to relax the days frustrations and worries away.  Without a thought, her hair arranged itself carefully braded on her head, a few loose strands dangling in the water as she leaned back on the edge of the tub and let her thoughts drift into seemingly calmer waters.  The warmth of the water was a welcome change from all of the other feelings she felt - cold, anger, jealousy, pity.  The water was warm and it was soothing and a comfort in a world where she had so few of those things.  A haven of all the things that she didn't have.

"Sir, I know that you can go wherever you wish but I'm sure Mistress isn't--"  Coral's voice initially sounded firm but towards the end of her sentence it turned pleading.

"She's expecting me.  She always is.  It isn't as if she can tell [me] no, is it?"  The voice was flat and unemotional, but towards the end of his sentence, an edge of cockiness crept in.  Thudding footfalls echoed up the stairs as she felt his presence nearing and she inwardly shivered.

Pallad.

A Planeswalker from every dimension and none at all - they had met at a bar, chatted, drank, and sparred.  The spar had destroyed an entire planet, and the grin that crossed a corner of his mouth had said that he had met someone worthy of his time and attention.  After that spar, he had vanished.

Until now.

The footfalls came to a rest at the top of the stairs and then came closer to the bathroom door.  A pause, the air heavy with steam and anticipation, and then the door flew open, and he filled it effortlessly, wearing a wifebeater and black pants, his long black hair and endlessly dark green eyes staring at the form in the tub.  She looked at him, standing there, looking at, through, inside of her, his eyes bordering on perfect sanity and insanity, every inch of him covered in the bloody footprints that she could see led to the spot he was standing.

His body shone with blood, his breathing ragged.  Without looking away from her, he finally spoke.

"I killed them all."

It was nothing to see blood, to her.  She had seen it before.  But there was so much more than this standing in front of her.  As if he was nothing more than an animal, priding himself on his ability to kill much like a housecat brings a fresh kill to its owner.

There was something inside of him that attracted her to him.  The abillity to kill, the utter ruthlessness of it.

Slowly, as if she was hypnotized, she rose out of the bathtub, the water running off of her body as her hair undid itself and covered her, the ends falling back down into the water.  Her eyes darkened slightly as she took in the form in front of her.

"You did, didn't you?"  To most others it would be a question, but to her it was a statement and one that showed that he had in fact passed some sort of litmus test.

Faster than she could react, he grabbed her by her wrist and pulled her from the tub.  He pinned her one wrist to the wall before taking a moment to snatch up her other wrist to do the same.  He looked at her for a moment and then crushed his lips against hers, then his body against hers.  All of her senses overtaken by the scent, the feel, the taste of the blood he had spilled.

It had been so long.

At first she struggled - she didn't want to be possessed, not by any man that wasn't

--Trunks-sama--

and yet here she was overpowered by someone that [could] actually give that galloping ghost a run for his money in all of the things that she usually checked off on her list.  His tongue shot into her mouth, and suddenly the fire that raced through her body became too strong for her to resist and she returned his passion, this sweet insanity that filled her senses full of him, his hair seemingly mixing with hers as his arms crushed her against his body, wanting her the way she could finally let herself want him.

She had wanted this from the first moment she saw him in that bar and she would never admit it to herself, but she was out of her league with him.  Before, she knew that Trunks would respect her as an equal, and that he knew at any time she could surpass his power.  But now, she recognized that between the two of them, he was the stronger will and between the two of them, if destiny so chose, there would be none that would oppose them should they be together.

She hopped up and wrapped her legs around them, their kiss unbroken as without another word, he lifted her up and carried her to her bedroom.  She ran her fingers through his hair, the fire climbing higher and higher between them.  Neither one of them made a sound - every move, every touch said everything that was needed.  It didn't take long, her hunger having reached a feverish, almost unheard of pitch, before he finally sank himself into her warm welcoming depths, her eyes lost in his the entire time their bodies joined and rejoined in the space of the bed that night.

She was his.  The ghosts of whatever pasts were silent between them as a feverish night gave way to the morning.

She woke up the next morning and looked - Pallad had vanished.  She had let him go, and her spot, her home, was somehow colder for it.  She didn't want to feel that moment of sadness, of loss that came with again losing someone she had only began to love truly, but there it was again as she clutched the pillow that still carried the scent of him from the night before.