Taurus flew along rather lazily, paying little attention to the ground but looking ahead to the mountains in the distance.  Nenai was on his back, her arms around his neck in a nervous embrace.  She was not used to flying without her wings, and had been afraid to fly the long distance by her own power.

    "What's the matter?" Taurus had asked her as they went up in the air and started flying westward.

    "I would never fly this high," Nenai had explained, somewhat shakily.  "I'd stay near the cover of the trees."

    "Ah, then you'd better get used to heights, m'dear," the man had replied with a grin, grabbing her and holding her tightly before jetting off at a high speed.  She had squealed in fright at the time, but after a few minutes she had scrambled up to his back to get a better hold, then relaxed a little and tried to enjoy the flight.

    Now Taurus chuckled to himself and swooped low over the trees in the shadow of the mountains, looking for a clear spot to land.  Nenai pointed at a small clearing, and Taurus nodded, aiming for the break.  As soon as he touched the ground, Nenai leaped free and checked the short knife Karii had lent her, sheathed at her hip.  For this expedition, she had chosen to wear her civilian clothes, loose trousers and a long, sleeveless tunic.  The loose clothes, Taurus thought, made her look even more alien.

    He tried to hand her a flashlight, but she gave it back.  "I don't need it," she said, shaking her head.  "I can see fine.  Come on!"  She gestured for Taurus to follow her, and set off at a trot.

    "Wait--!  I can't see..."  The Saiyajin fumbled to turn on the flashlight and jogged after Nenai, barely managing to keep her in sight.

    After about a quarter of an hour, the arrived at a hillside riddled with caves.  Nenai looked back at Taurus quickly, then ducked into one of the smaller cavelets.

    "Nenais'u!" Taurus cried in a strangled whisper.  He ran to the cave mouth.  The opening was too narrow for him to easily enter, and the cave passage twisted to the left, preventing the Saiyajin from seeing further inside.  Frustrated, he leaned against the rock face and waited.

    A few minutes later a thin cry of surprise echoed from within the cave.  Taurus leaped up and called down the tunnel.  "Nenai?!"

    There was no answer, and the Saiyajin could imagine hearing a scaly, slithering rasp...

    "Shit!"  He quickly started using his power to crumble the rock around the cave mouth until the opening was large enough to let him crawl through.  He clambered down the passage and almost fell into a small drop in the floor.

    A moan came to him from deeper in the cave, and he threaded his way over the rocks as quickly as he could.  "Nenais'u!  Hold on!"

    After what seemed like hours fumbling in the near-darkness, he finally arrived at the edge of a broad, shallow depression in the rock floor.  There was Nenai, every few moments moaning softly, surrounded by dozens upon dozens of the small, poisonous, black-red-and-purple snakes.

    "Ne--Nenai...!" Taurus breathed.  Had she been bitten?  What was wrong with her?

    The snakes formed a sea of scaly flesh filling the depression, suspending the girl's weight with their bodies and swarming over and around her.  Now that he looked closely, their behavior seemed more fawning, even affectionate, rather than aggressive.  But Nenai had her eyes closed and was still moaning softly.  Had she hurt herself?

    Taurus didn't dare wade into that sea of snakes, so he tried once more to call the girl.  "Nenais'u!  Are you all right?"

    "Come...come here," the girl said in a breathy voice.  "It's safe."  Indeed, the tangled snakes began to part before him, clearing a narrow path.

    Gathering his nerve, Taurus stepped down into the basin and quickly walked to Nenai, where she lay suspended in the coils of the serpents.  He gasped when he saw her face -- her eyes were half-lidded and her lips slightly parted in an unmistakable expression of ecstasy.  Feeling completely out of his depth, the Saiyajin shuddered, curling and uncurling his tail in confusion.

    "Taurus..." Nenai whispered.  It was the first time she had actually spoken his name, and he looked at her sharply.

    "Nenai, are you all right?"  The snakes were starting to surround him, and he fidgeted nervously.

    "I'm...wonderful," the girl replied distantly.  She looked up at him and grinned wickedly.  "These kurusie [aliens] are...most responsive."

    Taurus looked at her in confusion, wondering what exactly the snakes were doing to her, and then wondering if he really wanted to know.  They had closed up the narrow aisle they had made for him, and now swarmed about as before.  "Well, do you want to, er...ask some of them to come with you?"

    Nenai suddenly sat up, but her movement was slow and fluid; she looked much like a rising snake herself.  "I'm not ready to leave yet," she said in a voice approaching a purr.  "But yes, there are many who would gladly come with me..."  She took Taurus' hands and pulled him down quickly.  Somehow the snakes saw the movement coming and all moved out of the way as the man fell to his knees.

    The Saiyajin was scared now.  This was by all means the strangest situation he had ever been in, sitting in a pit of venomous snakes with an alien girl who looked rather...aroused.  As soon as that thought crossed his mind, he realized that it was true.  Something about this setting had brought her out of the apathy she had sunk into since her capture, and had pushed her a bit farther than that.  She indeed was not ready to leave, and he had a pretty good idea what she wanted to do first.

    "Nenai...are you mad?!" he demanded.  "What if I get bitten -- they seem to like you well enough, but..."  He tried to turn the flashlight to look around at the snakes around them, but she grabbed it from him and switched it off.

    "Consider yourself under my protection," she said softly, pulling him close.  "No harm will come to you here."

    "We...Nenai, we can't do this--"

    "Why not?"

    "..."  He grasped onto the first excuse that came to mind.  "You're just a child, Nenai, don't be unreasonable.  You don't know what you're getting into..."

    She laughed in his face.  "A child?  What are you talking about!  You're going to have to come up with something better than that..."  She slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss, and he didn't have much heart to resist.  The snakes were starting to slither over them, and Taurus shuddered violently.

    "This is madness," he whispered, looking into her eyes.  She was completely serious about her intentions, and he didn't want to deny her, but something seemed wrong here.

    "What is madness?  This," the girl said, gesturing vaguely to the snakes all around, "is completely natural, to me..."  Her voice dropped to a whisper as well.  "Trust in me, Taurus..." an enigmatic smile touched her lips.

    "I do...I do trust you, Nenai..."  He shivered again, not from the snakes, but from the sound of her voice.  He understood nothing of what was happening.

    Nenai seemed to catch his thought.  "Don't worry about understanding this...you may never completely understand, because...you can't...can't...arristhri-teneikiya...you can't feel the snakes...but don't worry about understanding...don't think, Taurus...feel...give yourself up entirely to feeling and instinct for once..."  Her hands were trying a slightly different type of persuasion, and Taurus couldn't hold off her words and her curious touches.  He gave up with good grace, giving her the kisses she wanted, wondering in the back of his mind where this madness would lead the two of them.
 
 

    Zarbon paced back and forth in Freeza's stateroom, his soft boots making no sound on the plush carpeting.  Dodoria and X’erat sat watching the man try to determine Admiral Vejiita's motives.

    "X’erat!  You said he took the girl and claimed he would continue all studies himself?"  Zarbon snapped finally.

    The science officer nodded.  "Yes, and he tried to threaten me when I objected.  He can't do that, he doesn't have the resources--"

    Zarbon waved him silent.  "He threatened you?  Isn't your power level higher than his?"

    "Not anymore.  he gets stronger after every battle, Zarbon.  Soon he'll have surpassed you and Dodoria."  X’erat grinned sourly.

    "There's no way he'll ever be stronger than we are," Dodoria blustered.

    Zarbon looked at him in disgust.  "He's got a good chance of it.  Now...why would he take control of the Amon, and then begin to train her...?"

    "He's doing what?" X’erat exclaimed.  "Train her how?"

    "Oh, basic things like hand-to-hand combat, mechanics, astrogation, little things like that."

    "That's pilot training!"

    "Exactly.  So, what does it look like to you, X’erat?"

    "It's not possible!  He's training her as a pilot?"

    "The application for ensign in her name has already hit Freeza's desk."

    The room fell silent for a long moment.  X’erat and Dodoria were staring at Zarbon in disbelief.

    "He wouldn't dare," X’erat finally said.

    "Dared and done," Zarbon spat.

    "What's so bad about enlisting her?" Dodoria asked.  "I mean, she is powerful, and Freeza's orders would supersede anything the Saiyajin told her..."

    Idiot, Zarbon thought.  "Haven't you noticed the little circle of insubordination that surrounds Vejiita?  He's already taken the other Saiyajin out of Freeza's control.  The Amon is more powerful than any of them, save, possibly, Vejiita himself.  He's building them up for a confrontation with Freeza."

    X’erat groaned and held his face in his hands.  What is the matter with those damned Saiyajin, anyway?!"

    "Vejiita is what's the matter...he's influencing all of them, and now he's drawn in the Amon girl as well."

    "But what can we do?" Dodoria said uncomfortably.

    "Nothing, as of yet," Zarbon replied grimly.  "We have to wait and see what Freeza decides."