I did not ask for my title, or my name. But Life, cold-hearted bitch that she is, gave me both and then strutted away laughing, leaving me chained to her frigid sister, Fate.

Being a prince means that you are the one people die for, the reason they throw their lives away to die covered in their own fluids and smiling. Because while they are allowed die, you, poor bastard, have the privilege of watching them.

Watching them all leave you to the cold emptiness of space.

His hands tighten around my neck, and I wonder who is comforting who. If it is really anything more than huddling together in the snow, in vain effort to keep the biting wind at bay. Or even, if there is a difference.

I turn my head to hide my fast-freezing shame, a legacy of days that, no matter how hard I may try, never fade. I find his arm and rest my brow on it, as his nose buries itself in my hair. I know the icicles must hurt as they scrape his numbing skin, but he only nuzzles deeper, his eyes contributing to my crown of ice.

My instincts, damnable and stubborn, are already switching the mating imperatives from the father to the son. Go, they say, feel the silk of his raven-dark hair. Taste the silver-sweet frost on his porcelain skin. Find warmth in himt.

But these same imperatives fight within themselves, for they demand that I protect him with whatever I have, that I ensure that he come to no harm. Do not touch, they say, for he will shatter. He is yet too human. . .

Is he really?

It seems I am yours now . . .

Why then did he spurn his mother and run into my untrustworthy arms? Why did he whisper into my ear those six strange words?

Life, as she drains another pint from what I was once my heart, confuses, and for the moment I give up all effort to understand.

I turn away, yet hold him closer. His scent is less strong this way, less tempting. Were he completely Saiya-jin, the mating imperatives would overwhelm, and I would ravish him right where we were, in front of his mother, his friends, the corpse that was once his father. But he is all life has left me, and I will spare him his mother's ignorant disgust.

He is too human, is he not?

A small part of me notices that the body has been taken away in the arms of the Namek, and that his mother is now yelling at us, demanding that I leave, that he go with her. But we both tighten our hold, each holding on to the only other that we have.

Pride, the penname for my fear, will not allow me to do anything so lowly as snuggling, but the scion of third class peasants has no such reservations. As his sobbing quiets, he tries to bury himself deeper, attempting to find some way for my solidified hair to warm his raw, wind lashed ears.

My home is now with you. . .

My own snow bitten shells are graced with another six words, and my doubt in his humanity grows.

His mother is walking closer to us, demanding to be allowed to take him in from the cold.

Fuck that bitch. I have only one chance left, and there is no way in Hell that she will get a chance to make me fail once more.

He is my people, and I am who I am.

Poor female.

She lost both mate and only child today.