Chapter Seven
A New Day

Tsufuru machines from Plum Mining Corporation were already approaching the bomb site where the Salusa sanctuary had once been, so as to survey the damage and judge where to begin mining the mountain's hidden wealth. The Saiyans there, Plum Mining Corporation had decided, were a nuisance that lingered like a stain on the land, and it had proven much easier to bomb them from the sky by surprise than to attack them by land when their approach could be detected. Cargo aircraft could be easily converted to bombers when your race was always experimenting with new technology, and the mineral-rich land of dead Saiyans could be easily converted to profit!

Knowing that she stood no chance alone should the Tsufuru from Plum Mining find her, Nori wrapped the Gateway Sphere in the fur cloak that Rhubar had given her and flew off, flew blindly from the sound of approaching machines.

Everything was gone. Everyone was gone. The Tsufuru had stolen from Nori the very right to say farewell, the very right to see her friends and foster relatives one last time, even in death. Tsufuru bombs had destroyed homes, crops, and people from the skies, so that Nori could not even be consoled by ruins reminiscent of her home. As Nori flew over the Legume River and over the other mass of mountains, similar pockmarks dotted what had once been the villages of the Crimini and Enoki Saiyan tribes, who had put up as much of a fight as the Salusa. Amidst the dirty depressions in the earth, the marks of bombing, stood nothing but the proof that the Tsufuru were tired of underestimating their Saiyan rivals.

Over the mountains, over the hills and plains along the Legume River, Nori flew for hours with the sphere, her thoughts silent, her heart numb, her soul completely empty - with everyone dead and everything gone, what could fill it? As if every ounce of life had drained from her, Nori's insides were cold and silent as she flew as far as her stamina would take her, for something deep within her had not yet realized the full horror of it all and would not show it to her yet. And yet, something inside of her wanted to scream, weep, tear at the earth with her fingers, throw herself head first, howling, at the Tsufuru machines and die making them pay for the deaths of everyone she had ever known and loved. No...the cold numbness was too great, and all Nori could do was give in to the numbness as she soared over Saiya, an empty shell in the sky. It couldn't be happening...no, it had to be a dream...but the nightmare never ended, and Nori never woke up from the horrible reality, no matter how long she waited for it all to go back to the way it had been.

Momma can't really be dead...I'll wake up and see her sleeping on her mat next to mine...and Aunt Turnyip can't really be dead...I'll wake up and go to her hut and see her, and everything will be fine...But why can't I wake up?...Sarama, I feel your power. Wake me up, please...Sarama...I'm never going to wake up from this nightmare, am I?

Nori began to understand that the nightmare was but the hideous reality of the Saiyan war with the Tsufuru, and as pain began to flood into her empty heart, everything inside of Nori began to ache with agonizing pain. The pain never stopped flowing into her, but instead gushed in, flooded in, made her soul a deluge of misery as her whole being soaked in the horror and agony of it all.

Momma...Aunt Turnyip...Why couldn't I just say goodbye?

Into the air she screamed it, howled it in Saiyan speech and wolf-speech until her screams tore up her throat.

"WHY COULDN'T I JUST SAY GOODBYE!?"

Far, far behind did Nori leave the Kohlrabin Mountains, the home of the dead Salusa tribe, for the search had begun for a safe haven with Saiyans, a place where Nori could find safety for a little whole and concoct dreams of revenge against the Tsufuru. In darks moods did Nori's grief-stricken mind dream of reclaiming the Salusa homelands from the tailless thieves of Plum Corporation, of making the greed-ridden Tsufuru pay for their atrocities against her tribe, of going back to the way things had been. Not yet, however, could she indulge these dreams, and not yet had she found others Saiyans to take her in.

For four days Nori followed the Legume River, eating plants, bathing in the waters, flying for hours by day, and resting in the seclusion of the tall grasses by night. The animal hide enveloping the Gateway Sphere never left her sight, but began to feel especially heavy as she soared with it through the plains day after day. Now, tired of the monotony of flying, Nori tread through the blue grasses of the grasslands, grasses swaying rhythmically in the warm breezes and brushing up against her knees as she moved. Spirit energy was strong in the plains, and much water and earth spirits had spoken with Nori as she sipped water from the river or lied on the ground, spirits who showed her images of the land's peaceful and harmonious past. The surroundings were idyllic, with the splashing of the Legume River and the breath of the wind as peaceful backdrops to the sunshine overhead, but despite the beauty around her, Nori's insides still ached.

Through the cloudless afternoon and night did the numbness fill Nori, into the next morning of her journey as Nori tread across the land. At first, to hear the sound of a sentient voice, Nori spoke to herself in the Saiyan tongue for hours as she traveled, and then in her innate wolf-tongue, barking and whining in her own language to keep herself company.

Sarama...You said you would be with me...Where are you now?...I can't bear to think that it's true...I would give anything to see Momma's face again...Sarama, why is this happening?...Why won't you answer?

The little girl had not realized how far the sound of her wolf-speech had traveled, it seemed, for during her travels on foot, something did hear her barks.

At first, amidst the other sensations of chi from plants and animals across the plains, Nori felt an entity approaching her from several hundred yards away, surely and silently through the blue grasses. The chi-force grew closer until Nori found herself several yards away from a grayish-black wolf, staring at her with large golden eyes from a patch of swaying tan grasses several feet high. An adolescent she-wolf she was, with long, slender legs and slim ears that were drawn back in an expression of caution.

"I thought it was a lone wolf I heard," barked the wolf. "I caught your scent downwind, and you smelled a little like a wolf. But no. You're a monkey on two legs."

The wolf, ears still back, curled her muzzle into a snarl as her body stiffened and moved away from Nori.

"I saw two-legged monkeys come out of the metal beasts in the hills. You're one of them, aren't you?" she growled deep in her throat. "Your kind knock over trees and dig up the hills so that nothing can live there. Your kind are foul!"

Nori, softened somewhat by the wolf's pain, tried to ease the creature by speaking to her in wolf-tongue.

"No, no, please, listen to me. Don't be afraid. I'm not one of them, even though I look a little like them. The people who came out of the metal beasts you saw, they're Tsufuru. They don't have tails, but I do. See! I have a tail because I'm a Saiyan, not a Tsufuru."

The wolf, noticing the difference between Nori and the creatures that tore up the hills, relaxes and uncurled her muzzle a bit as she listened to the rest of the little girl's words.

"I'm not one of them. I don't want to hurt you or tear up the hills. I just want to find others like me, because the Tsufuru...they killed my family, and I need to find Saiyans who will take me in now."

The wolf jumped at these words and barked.

"Tsufuru killed your family?"

"They did," Nori said as the numbness in her started to give way to stabbing pain in her soul. "They attacked my family and my people lots of times before. But one day I left, and when I came back, everyone was gone, and the Tsufuru were bringing their machines there, right where my people used to live!"

Nori cast her eyes down and clenched her teeth as the memories of the bombed Salusa sanctuary began to resurface in her consciousness.

The wolf took a cautious step toward the red-faced little girl.

"These Tsufuru, these two-legged monkeys without tails, they have wronged me too. My family is dead because of their machines."

Nori looked up through bloodshot eyes as the she-wolf continued.

"A few days after the full moon, I ran from the hills far over there," referring to the long stretch of the Peah hills in the far-off distance left of the river's path, "because the metal beasts came. My family and I, my parents, sisters, and brothers ran from them, but they kept coming to wherever we were. Some of the machines knocked over the trees so there was no place to hide, and other machines dug up the ground and made such unbearable noise like thunder. One evening, one of the beasts followed us, and small two-legged monkeys came out of its back with large metal reeds. Rays of light burst out of the reeds, and when the rays of light touched one of my brothers or sisters, they fell to the ground and died. The rays of light fell everywhere, and we ran as fast as we could from the monkeys, but sooner or later, my entire family fell dead. I ran and hide behind a mound, but I could seethe bodies of my parents and siblings. The tailless monkeys...they laughed at my family's bodies...they picked them up and showed them off to each other...they took their bodies away in the metal beast...they took my father and mother, my sisters and brothers...they took their bodies away...I ran as far as I could from the Tsufuru and the hills, until I came to the grasslands, where I would be safe. But I can never run from the memory of that day."

The wolf whined and bayed. "When we kill, it is for meat so that we can eat. But we never kill everything in sight, and we never laugh...we never show off the bodies. The Tsufuru didn't want to eat us. They killed my family for fun! They destroyed my home!"

Feeling the grief of the wolf, Nori arched her throat and bayed a painful howl as well.

"They killed my family too...They destroyed my home too..."

Nori and the wolf, who revealed her name as Sleek Fur, spoke and studied each other for a long time amidst the grasses of the plains, with Nori looking at the wolf and asking her questions and Sleek Fur studying Nori's scent and movements. Sleek Fur, who had never heard any creature other than wolves speak in wolf-tongue, was intrigued by Nori's wolf-speech and wolf-scent, and soon felt comfortable enough to lie next to the girl as evening approached. A waning gibbous moon appeared in the blue-black sky, and as Nori lied down next to the wolf to sleep, she managed a faint smile.

"I'm glad I found you. Would you like to travel with me?"

"I would like that."

"Tomorrow, I'm going to go across the grasslands to find Saiyans. We can talk and hunt together until then."

"That would be good. I've been so lonely, and I've missed the sound of wolf-speech all this time."

The next day, Nori and Sleek Fur set off across the grasslands, drinking occasionally from the Legume River and hunting down an old cow from a herd of blue buffalo (and although Nori explained why several times, Sleek Fur never quite understood why the girl prayed over the buffalo after they had killed it, or why she insisted on cooking the meat with fire). Sleek Fur also sniffed at the glowing ball that Nori carried with her in an animal hide, and when the girl explained that her spirit guide instructed her to protect it, the wolf was confused again as well.

Around midday, while the two were sauntering past a field of four-foot high tan grasses, Nori saw with her inner eye two chi's too strong to be those of ordinary beasts, and with narrow eyes did she stare into the grasses. Twitching in the vegetation was a shock of tall brown hair, standing perfectly erect as it moved closer out of the grass, hair attached to a pair of dark eyes staring back at Nori. With a jerk, the owner of the hair burst out of the vegetation and ran with outstretched arms at her, seizing her tail and squeezing with all his might. To Nori's surprise it was Vegeta-buru, the slender chieftain's son she had fought the summer before at the Salusa sanctuary, who had changed little in the past few seasons.

Without dropping the Gateway Sphere, Nori sank her center of gravity, turned, and struck the boy so soundly on the stomach that he freed her tail and dropped to the ground, holding his midsection and coughing. Sleek Fur, growling at the attack, leaped over to the fallen Saiyan boy and growled as she gnawed his erect brown hair, while Nori noticed a second attacker rushing out of the brush. A thick-built boy of about eight with short bluish-black hair and crazed eyes bolted out of the grasses, roaring with laughter and preparing a burning chi-blast in his hand. However, after he hurtled the chi-blast at Nori did she merely catch the flaming ball in her free hand and fling it back at him, knocking him over and reddening the impact spot on his chest.

"Nappa! Get her! GET OFF OF MY HAIR, DOG!" shouted Vegeta-buru as he struggled to get up off of the ground and shake Sleek Fur's jaws from his shock of brown hair. Sleek Fur, undaunted, shook the boy's head back and forth as she shouted until he freed himself with a sudden yank. When he was standing erect again, he glanced at Nori and recognized her as the girl he fought at the Salusa sanctuary, and with wide eyes and a tight jaw did he address her.

"YOU! The Salusa girl! You're the girl who made fun of my tribe's elite's!"

"Vegeta-buru! What's wrong with you!? Why are you fighting me!? I haven't done anything!"

"Nappa, stop! She's just a weak Salusa girl I know."

At his friend's words, the other boy relaxed as he patted the red marks on his chest.

"Weak hell! Nappa replied. "Look at this! She threw it right back!"

Nappa, clad in a bull-hide kilt and sandals like Vegeta-buru, blew on his sore chest and watched Nori with a frown.

"What are you doing here?" blurted out the chieftain's son. "Tell me now, or you'll get it good."

"I had you holding your stomach a minute ago. You don't scare me. I was looking for other Saiyans. But why did you attack me? I wasn't doing anything!"

Brushing himself off, Vegeta-buru looked down his nose at Nori.

"Well, Nappa and I were doing what elite's do. Guarding our tribe. We fight anyone who looks like they don't belong."

"Do I look like a TSUFURU to you!?"

"Well, no...not now, I mean...but you could have come from one of our enemy's tribes. I didn't know you were Salusa elite, though."

"The Salusa tribe doesn't have elite's." "But your tail didn't hurt when I squeezed it. Only elite's get taught how to ignore tail pain."

"But my tail didn't even hurt. There wasn't any pain to ignore."

"Well...um...you fought off Nappa here."

"The Salusa just made me a good fighter. But the Salusa don't have elite's."

"Well, whatever you are, these are our tribe's lands. And we've got to make sure that no one trespasses. You just go back to the Salusa, or we'll fight you again."

"The Salusa are all dead, Vegeta-buru."

Vegeta-buru and Nappa gasped at Nori's words, and even Vegeta-buru dropped his arrogant facade for a moment when surprise overtook him.

"The Tsufuru destroyed everything in the night, when I was somewhere else. And they were there with their machines when I came back. I'm the only one who wasn't killed. They killed the Crimini and Enoki tribes too. I've been running from the Kohlrabin Mountains for days. I've been looking for other Saiyans."

Nappa stuttered. "That just can't be! How'd they do it?"

"I saw a vision of a Tsufuru machine flying in the air. It was from Plum Corporation. When I got back to the village, everything looked like it had been burned away to nothing. I think the flying machine had something to do with it."

Sleek Fur, who had been beside Nori all of this time without understanding the speech of Saiyans, moved about, sniffed the air, and let out uneasy grunt-barks.

"Nori, who are these two? I can't say that I like them."

"They're other Saiyans like me. They don't want to fight us anymore," barked Nori back at her.

"What do they want?"

"They thought I was trespassing. But now we're talking about the Tsufuru. They don't like the Tsufuru either."

The two Saiyan boys stared at her with open mouths at the exchange between Nori and the wolf.

"She talks to wolves?" Nappa whispered to his friend.

"I thought it was a dog she'd tamed," Vegeta-buru replied.

"But it talks to her. And she talks back!"

"She's just a freak! She thinks she's a wolf. She even looks like a wolf. Look at her eyes. How many Saiyans have gold eyes?"

Despite his proud words, with awe in his eyes did Vegeta-buru watch Nori and Sleek Fur exchange barks, whines, and body gestures until the girl turned to him again.

"What's your name?"

"Nori."

Vegeta-buru assumed his usual proud facade again.

"You'll have to talk to my father. You'll have to tell him about what happened. He's the chieftain of my whole tribe. He'll know what to do."

"But he's busy," said Nappa. "The Kalei and Parsni tribes, remember?"

"This is important. Nori, follow me. Talk to my father."

Nori turned to Sleek Fur. "They want me to go with them." "I don't think I want to follow them. They seem so disagreeable to me," barked Sleek Fur.

"I won't be gone for too long. I promise that I'll come back to this spot tonight."

With that, Nori walked off into the grasses with the two Saiyan boys, filled with a queasy excitement at finding Saiyans in the endless grasslands.

The Tubera were a semi-nomadic Saiyan tribe who had settled months before in the warm Articho grasslands, where Tsufuru were scarce and game was plentiful. Repeated Tsufuru attacks had driven them and neighboring tribes from the mineral-rich Peah Hills, but conflict still reigned in everyday life as the Tubera and Kalei tribes warred over territory and game rights.

It was to the Tubera tribe that young Nappa and Vegeta-buru belonged, and it was into the Tubera settlement by the Legume River that the boys led Nori in the sunlit afternoon. Animal hide tents, some from dun-colored wild bulls and others from blue-colored buffalo, dotted the settlement and were tended by sinewy, fur-clad Saiyan men, women, and children. Rather than fur kilts, most of the Tubera women wore animal-hide tunics, cinctured with grass pelts over slacks made from long-shaggy white fur of an animal that Nori could not name. Other than an occasional grass basket filled with drying meat or water jug sitting outside of the tents, the village was spartan, lacking crops, domesticated animals, or almost any form of art. As Nori's appearance received stares and whispers from the men and women, the little girl wondered why there were more women than men about, a question soon answered when Vegeta-buru and Nappa led her to the largest tent in the village.

"You have to be quiet," Vegeta-buru said to Nori in his usual arrogant tone. "My father and the elite's are talking with the Kalei."

"We fight them all the time since we came from the hills," Nappa added.

The main tent, roughly twice as long as the other tents in the settlement, was marked in brown ink with the glyph of the chieftain: three arrows rising from a semi-circle marked with a point at its bottom. Even from several yards away, tense male voices rose from inside the tent and often interrupted each other.

"Your attack five days ago was completely uncalled for!"

"Think of it as a reminder to stay in your territory."

"We never left our territory! Our treaty stated that the Tubera and Parsni tribes would have free range over the upper banks of the river, while the Kalei would have--"

"You haven't kept to the treaty, mind you! Tubera hunters have been seen repeatedly hunting the blue buffalo herds in Kalei lands!"

"The herds wandered into upper bank territory. WE did not come to them."

"I have eight witnesses who say the contrary."

"I don't care what they say. You attacked us unjustly and cost us several fine elite's, not to mention second-class and--"

"We'll cost you more if you or your allies wander onto lower bank lands again. Our game is not to be touched!"

After pulling back the flap of animal hide upon the tent's threshold, Vegeta-buru peeked his head into the tent, where dozens of Saiyan men were sitting around a buffalo hide map of the Legume River and the grasslands enveloping it. Some of the men on the left side of the group, presumably Tubera, were clad in leather sandals and bull-hide kilts like the two boys, while their allies from the Parsni tribe were barefoot and wore antelope tunics reaching to their knees. Facing them on the other side of the tent was another group of men, Kalei tribesmen clad in fiber sarongs and hemp-cord necklaces, which sat close together and glared at the other Saiyans. All of the brawny men, from the young men barely into their teens to the elder warriors with gray streaks in their wild dark hair, scowled and tightened their posture as they addressed one another, but the group fell silent after Vegeta-buru opened the tent.

"Son, this is no place for children. I told you that you're not supposed to enter during negotiations," whispered a tall, burly Tubera man with brown hair like Vegeta-buru's. Adorned with a stone necklace marked with the chieftain's glyph and seated in front of the map, the older man was apparently the Tubera chieftain, who sighed a tired sigh as he waved for Vegeta-buru to leave the tent. When the boy protested, Nori eased her way beside him and peered into the tent, studying the gathered company with probing eyes.

At the sight of Nori - a dark-skinned girl adorned with Salusa stone

talismans, clad in a fur tunic stitched in the Salusa style, carrying a glowing sphere in a fur mantle - every face slackened as the men stared. After a moment, whispers rose from the elite congregation.

"What is she doing here by herself?"

"Isn't she far from Salusa lands?"

"What the hell is that glowing thing?"

"She's here for a reason. Something's not right."

Even the Tubera chieftain stared for a moment before he addressed Nori.

"You're far from home, little girl. The Kohlrabin Mountains are a good five days journey from here. But the Salusa does not send children as pages. What are you doing so far from home?"

"The Tsufuru destroyed all the Salusa. Everyone's dead. I've been looking for other Saiyans."

At Nori's words, the men drew in breaths as more whispers burst from the negotiation parties.

"How? Why? They were the best!"

"They can't be dead! They were fine warriors! They had spirits on their side!"

"Even the Salusa...no..."

"The Crimini and Enoki tribes were wiped out too," Nori added, agitating the men even more.

"Little girl," the Tubera chieftain continued, "how did the Tsufuru do it?"

"I saw a vision of a machine, a metal bird with bumps under its wings. I saw it when I was away from the village one night. It was a Tsufuru machine. Plum Corporation sent it. When I got back, everything was gone, like it got burned away. The other villages looked like that too. I think the machine did it."

With a heavy, knowing look, the chieftain drew in a long breath.

"What's your name?"

"Nori."

"Nori...Everyone here knows the reputation of the Salusa. They were wise and noble warriors, and to be attacked in such a cowardly manner...it disgusts me."

The chieftain began to look thoughtful. "The Tsufuru should have fought them face to face...the Salusa, the Crimini, and the Enoki deserved no less than to die like Saiyans, fighting, not in their beds...I just can't believe that even the Salusa fell..."

"Are the Tsufuru going to do this to other tribes?"

"They already have," said the Tubera chieftain. "Years ago, before you were born, they tried to take the Peah Hills, and the Onio tribe went down fighting them. Most of the Jalapen tribe was killed by fire from Tsufuru air machines when they took the hills for good a few months ago."

"Listen, I hate to be rude, but we're in the middle of negotiations!" hissed the Kalei chieftain. "Reminisce with the kid some other time. This is war."

The thought of the bruise in the ground where her village once stood, thoughts of the velvet-clad tailless men in the Tsufuru machines haunted Nori as the chieftain spoke, and feelings of pain and dread oozed into her heart again to fill the numb void.

"This is stupid," she mumbled.

Vegeta-buru tapped her roughly.

"You don't talk back to chieftains!" the boy whispered harshly.

"Well it is!" Nori's stomach began to ache. "The Tsufuru killed everyone I knew, and they tried to kill all of you too, and they took away your home, but you don't even care. I heard you outside. All you care about are buffalo. You don't care about your dead friends or your old home, or--"

Nappa, who had been listening outside the mouth of the tent, yanked Nori back outside.

"Those are elite's! They'll beat you black and blue if you make them mad!"

Fortunately, the elite's stayed in their tent, and after the chieftain said a few quick words to Vegeta-buru, the boy pulled himself out of the tent and led Nori back into the settlement.

"You don't have a home now, do you?" he asked her.

"No."

"My father says you can stay here," he said, adding with a proud glance, "but he wouldn't do this for everyone, you know."

As Nappa returned to the tall grasses outside the settlement to act as sentinel again, Vegeta-buru led Nori past several tents with his chin raised proudly. To Nori's frustration, she found that the boy always tried to stay a pace ahead of her, and when Nori quickened her pace until she was striding beside him, he curled his lip and took a double-step to stay in front of her. This silent competition continued as Nori remained abreast of the chieftain's son, much to his disdain, until the two arrived at a blue-hide tent with several grass baskets sitting by the threshold.

"This is where my mother's sisters live," he told her as he looked down his nose, "and you'll be living with them."

Parting the leathery flaps to the tent, Vegeta-buru and Nori slid inside the tent, where two furry sleeping mats, stone tools, a pile of animal hides, and several baskets of dried meat and marrow were all that sat on the earth floor. Seated in the tent, facing each other as they stitched animal skins into new tunics, were two auburn-haired women in their early thirties, identical twins wearing the fur pantaloons and tunics customary for Tubera women. Although both had fine, slender faces, high cheekbones, and plentiful hair reaching out in all directions, the first woman's lips were firm and serious, while the other woman's lips curled into a perpetual smile.

"You were the one!?"

"Yes! Me! I got so sick and tired of hearing them brag about how great they were!"

"They weren't so great without their kilts, were they?"

"HA! I've seen bigger worms on the ground after a rain!"

The two women burst into laughter, a loud, bawdy laughter that filled the tent as Nori and Vegeta-buru looked on. When the two women noticed the two children in the tent, however, they jolted, sprang up from the floor, and sauntered over to Vegeta-buru, waving their arms.

"What's the matter with you? Don't just eavesdrop whenever you want! Let us know when you're in here!"

"Hey, Vegeta-buru, I'll give you a piece of blue buffalo marrow if you keep your mouth shut about the, um, bathing incident yesterday."

"I knew it was you! You took all the men's kilts when we were in the Legume!" Vegeta-buru replied. "But I'll be quiet."

The boy reached up and took the marrow as the two Saiyan women turned their attention to Nori.

"Wait. You're Salusa, aren't you? No one makes talismans like that but the Salusa. Far from your village, aren't you?"

"I don't like this. Did something happen to the Salusa?"

"Scallia!"

"Well why else would she be here? She's just a kid!"

With a low voice, Nori recounted what had happened to the Salusa sanctuary as the two women listened intently, and when she had finished, the two turned to each other and shook their heads.

"That's something, you know...They even got them."

"Well that's because the Tsufuru knew that if you have angry Salusa on your hands, gods help you because the spirits won't!"

Leek, the cheerful-looking woman, laughed a light-hearted chuckle, revealing a mouthful of white teeth as she playfully punched Nori's bicep. When she noticed that the little girl remained grim, she cleared her throat and spoke in a heavier tone.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I was just making fun of the Tsufuru. Listen, I know you're hurting, and I want you to know we hate the Tsufuru too. Hey, Scallia and I fought them too. We lost our husband and our big sister when the air machines dropped fire on us. We know what you're going through. I don't know why you came here, though, given that we're in the middle of a dispute with the Kalei."

"She doesn't have a home," said Vegeta-buru. "Dad said that she could stay with you."

"And why doesn't that surprise me?" Scallia muttered as she rolled her eyes. "Did he even think to ask us? No. No one asks the women anything."

"I don't mind taking her in," Leek said with a smile. "Come on. You know you like her."

"No, no, it's not that. She's a sweet kid and all, and sure she can stay."

"You're upset because Sorrell didn't ask us."

"Yes."

"You're always mad at my father," Vegeta-buru interrupted.

"Tell him I'll stop being mad at him when he finally lets the women come to council! Maybe we have something intelligent to say about all this fighting between the Kalei and Tubera and our allies!"

"It's tradition! Elite men talk about the important things!"

"Oh, so women are good enough to hunt and fight, but not make decisions?"

"We should steal his kilt one of these days," Leek laughed.

"Oh please! Like I want to look at his..."

Remembering the children, Scallia stopped in mid-sentence, cleared her throat, and faced Nori again.

"...um...never mind. Nori, you can live in our tent if you'd like. Would you like that?"

"Yes."

"All right then. Let's go to work making a bed mat for you, and we'll have some dinner in a few hours. Vegeta-buru, go back and stand in the grasses with Nappa."

Grumbling, Vegeta-buru parted the threshold of the tent, and after a final glance at Nori over his shoulder, stepped outside.

"He's annoying sometimes, but he's our nephew," Scallia said as she lifted a blue buffalo hide from the pile of animal skins in the back of the tent. "You, on the other hand, seem a lot more likable, Nori."

"What's that you've got in that fur?" Leek asked as she inserted a finger into the fur mantle holding the Gateway Sphere.

"Don't touch it, please." Nori held the sphere close to her. "My spirit guide told me it's important."

"Spirit guide? Salusa really do talk to spirits?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

"Umm...no. Well, if you don't want me to touch the ball there, I won't, so you can keep it wherever you want."

"Wait, wait," Scallia piped up. "I've never heard anyone talk about a spirit guide. This sounds interesting. You can really do that, talk to spirits?"

And so Nori spent the afternoon in Leek and Scallia's tent, sharing her words with the two Tubera women as they worked with the buffalo fur and ate meat and marrow. Despite Leek's cheerful demeanor and earthy sense of humor, Scallia's narrowed eyes and lowered voice still revealed tension over the dispute with the Kalei, a tension that Nori sensed throughout the afternoon. Having escaped the Tsufuru, the girl came upon other Saiyans who posed as great a danger as before, an irony that made the girl's stomach tighten with tension.

Walking past the Tubera tents, Nori stopped at the river's edge a few yards from the tall grasses where she had fought Vegeta-buru and Nappa, and stooping down to the water, she dipped her dirt-caked hands ad arms in and let the moving water whisk the soul off of her skin. The sound of rustling grasses and the sensation of approaching chi made Nori lift her head and gaze over her shoulder, only to see Sleek Fur trotting toward her from the plains.

"You're back," the wolf yelped as she stood next to Nori and opened her mouth as a canine gesture of good tidings. Nori scratched the wolf's back and yelped her hello's as well as Sleek Fur lied down along the riverbanks.

"The other Saiyans are letting me live with them," the girl replied in wolf-speech. "But I don't think things are going to be much more peaceful here for me."

"As long as there are no metal beasts, how bad can it be?"

Nori noticed a few drops of blood near the wolf's mouth. "I see you found food."

"Oh, just a jackrabbit...But I found something else, something very strange after I went hunting."

Nori sat on a grassy patch of the Legume's banks and listened to Sleek Fur with eyebrows raised. "After I had eaten the jackrabbit," Sleek Fur continued, "I found a crater a long way over in that direction. Are you familiar with it?"

"No. I don't think the other Saiyans are either. They've only been here a few months. They're still probably finding out things about the grasslands."

"I sniffed the air nearby, but I smelled almost no animals there, which is odd because so many animals roam these lands. The vegetation was unlike anything I've seen on the plains - grasses that usually grow tall clung to the ground there, and trees that usually stand straight bent toward the ground, as if something were pulling them to the earth. I walked into the crater to sniff at all of these strange plants, but the moment my paws touched the crater, I felt as if a massive tree trunk had fallen across my back."

Nori listened as Sleek Fur tilted her head, perplexed, at what she felt next.

"My body felt heavy, so heavy that my legs gave way under my weight, and for a long time I could do nothing but lie in the crater. It was if buffalo jaws had clamped onto me and were pulling e downward with all their strength, but I could see no jaws pulling me, even though this heaviness was very real and wearying. For the longest time I struggled to rise to my fear, but it took all of my will merely to drag myself out of the crater. Of course, once I left the crater, the heaviness left my body, leaving me able to stand and run again, and run I did! Never again will I set foot in that terrible place!"

"Sleek Fur, will you take me there tomorrow?"

"What!? You want to go to that horrible crater? Why? So you can be pulled to the ground and lie there until sunset?"

"Please. I want to see what it is. Maybe if I talk to the spirits there, they can tell me something. It sounds neat."

The sound of rusting grasses and footsteps met Nori's ears, but the approaching chi was familiar as that of Vegeta-buru's, who emerged from the tall grasses and eyes Sleek Fur with a stare. The wolf, rising to her feet, growled at him as she bared her teeth, gold eyes flashing.

"Why don't you like him?" Nori snort-barked in wolf-speech.

"I don't trust him. He's not like you. His posture and eyes just make me feel very uncomfortable, so I'd rather not deal with him. I'll meet you tomorrow."

With a bolt to the left, Sleek Fur bounded into the grasses and ran into the grasslands, leaving Nori and Vegeta-buru by the riverbanks. The waning gibbous moon was gliding over the horizon as stars began to glitter overhead, and the silvery light reflected in strange patterns off of the boy's erect brown hair.

"Can you really talk to wolves?" he asked as he sat down a few feet from Nori.

"I've always been able to. Momma told me that when I was a baby, I barked and growled like wolf before I could speak like a Saiyan. We had wild dogs in the mountains, and I understood them when I was little."

"Is that why you have wolf eyes?"

"What?"

"Your eyes are gold. You have wolf eyes."

"You told your friend that I was a freak because I have gold eyes and I can talk to wolves! Now you're acting different."

Vegeta-buru's posture stiffened as he put up his proud facade again.

"Well...it was weird...for a Saiyan...but I'm getting used to it."

"You know, you don't have to act all stuck-up around me. I like you better when you're yourself, like you were a minute ago."

Taken aback, the boy fidgeted but eventually relaxed his face and posture.

"You always act like you don't like me," she said. "You were nasty when you came with your uncles in the summer. You always brag. You act like you're better than I am. I don't like that."

"Oh, I was just showing off. I mean, you looked strong when I met you. You fought pretty well today. And you survived the Tsufuru too. All those times I wanted to show you that I was strong too."

"You don't need to prove anything. I'm not your enemy."

"Listen...I came here to tell you something...I thought it was horrible that the Tsufuru killed all your people."

"When you and your friend found me, you acted like you didn't care."

"But I did think it was horrible. I just didn't say it because...well, it wasn't a time to be all emotional."

Nori rolled her eyes, but Vegeta-buru continued.

"Really! I hate the Tsufuru. And you're not the only one who had people die on you. My mother was burned up when the air machines dropped fire on us. That was a while ago, when we were living up in the hills. And my father's two brothers died too. They were all elite's. I thought that the Tubera elite's could fight anything. I thought they were the best. But so many died..."

The boy let out a heavy sigh. "I know you hate the Tsufuru too. I know you want to make them pay for killing all the Salusa. When everyone ran from the hills into the grasslands, I acted proud like I didn't care. But when I was alone in my dad's tent, I cried and cried. I know you can't think of me crying, but I did. I dreamed that I would kill all the Tsufuru for killing my mother and my uncles. Then, the land would be just for Saiyans, and the Tsufuru would never bother us again. My father said that was impossible...but I still dream about it sometimes. I hate them so much!"

Nori's heart softened toward the boy. "When did they do that?"

"A few days after the full moon. They sent their machines into the hills a long time before that, but we always fought them off. The Tsufuru are afraid of us when we're Oozarus, so they didn't attack. We could have gone to where the Tsufuru lived and fought them when we were Oozarus. But my father told us to stay in the mountains. He said that if we fought them when we were Oozarus, they would get angry and attack us even harder after the full moon. But they attacked us anyway!"

"When my village got burned away, everyone was asleep. No one knew it was coming. Did the Tsufuru attack you at night?"

Vegeta-buru shook his head. "Evening. That's why so many of us got away. We saw the air machine coming."

"Couldn't all of you just fly up and hit it with chi?"

"It moved too fast. I saw it. It moved faster than anything I've ever seen. You could never keep up with it if you flew. Some people flew chi-blasts at it. Some of them hit, but they weren't strong enough to blow it up. It was much tougher than the land machines."

Vegeta-buru moved around where he was sitting so that he was now propped up on his hands with his legs crossed before him.

"My father says they just wanted the hills so they could mine there, and they don't care about the grasslands. That's why they've left us alone since we left. But they took our home! I hate them for it!"

"They took my home too...The mountains were always beautiful. There were trees with these bright red leaves. The river ran through it. There was a grassy spot where yobho flowers grew in the summer. There was a beautiful cave that had crystals all through it. But the Tsufuru are going to tear that all up."

Dull aching pierced Nori's heart as her throat tightened and her eyes burned. "But I miss everyone most of all..."

Nori turned quickly to face Vegeta-buru and stared into his dark eyes.

"But my tribe loved Saiyans. My tribe only fought when the Tsufuru came. Your tribe almost got killed, but you're still fighting! The Tsufuru just tried to kill all of you, but you're fighting each other now! Saiyans aren't the enemy! Tsufuru are! Why don't your elite's know that!?"

"That's the other thing I wanted to tell you. Dad told me when he came back to our tent. The Kalei tribe isn't fighting us and the Parsni now."

Nori's eyebrows arched. "How come. They all sounded angry when I heard them."

"I think you spooked them! When you got mad and said all those things, I think you made some of the elite's think. Maybe it was just that the Salusa and the other tribes got destroyed. I don't know. But I do know that they don't want to fight right now. Now, there's talk about getting the hills back."

"How? They couldn't even keep the hills! The Tsufuru machines are too strong! They can spill fire onto you from the air, and shoot noise at you that tears you apart, and lots of things."

"I don't know. Dad says they were just talking. I want to live in the hills again, though. We'd have to be really strong warriors to fight there."

At length, the boy stood up off of the ground, brushed the dust and grasses off of the seat of his bull-hide kilt, and started walking toward the settlement.

"I'm going home now."

"I want to stay here a little longer."

As Nori sat by the riverbanks and watched the water with heavy gold eyes, Vegeta-buru looked over his shoulder, stared at her for a moment, and returned to the Tubera settlement.