What is Weakness?
A Ranma ½ fanfiction by Selene Starblade
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Ranma ½. They belong to Takahashi-sama. And don't bother to sue me- I've got nothing to give you.
Chapter 4: Lasting Impression
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Ryooga got up and walked around the fire to his pack. The clouds were still around, and it was beginning to look like rain. He needed to get out his umbrella. Ranma, he acknowledged, would be fine with the rain- he'd still be human, and able to take care of himself to some degree. Ryooga, on the other hand, had to stay human both to provide for himself, and to be able to help Ranma.
*scff scff*
Ryooga stopped short. Turning, he looked past the fire at Ranma, who was looking off into the trees.
..something wasn't right.
Thoughtfully, he walked back around the fire about a half-circle.
Ryooga frowned slightly, then looked past the fire at Ranma.
Watching the other boy, he walked around the fire again.
Went Ranma, scooting a little bit across the ground away from Ryooga, without looking. If Ryooga hadn't known better, he'd have thought that was intentional. He sweatdropped. "Why are you doing that?"
Ranma blinked and looked over at Ryooga. "Doing what?"
Ryooga STARED at Ranma.
Ranma began to sweat a little. "What?" Man, he KNEW he shouldn't have taken up Ryooga on his offer. Any moment, it would be 'Die Ranma!' again, and this time he really WOULD.
Ryooga shook his head. "Never mind." And finally got around to finishing the trip to his backpack.
The Eternally Lost Aquatransspecies Martial Artist sighed as he rummaged through his pack. There was more up here than Ranma was letting on, but it was the other boy's business, so it was up to Ranma to tell him. He sure as hell couldn't figure it out himself.
Eventually, Ryooga came up with a small set of linked plastic sleeves, like one would find in a wallet. Taking his umbrella as well, he carefully re- closed the pack, and then turned and walked a bit closer to the fire. Sitting down cross-legged, he proceeded to stare at the photos contained in the flimsy piece of protection.
A few minutes passed in silence.
"Yo, Ryooga, whatcha got there?"
Ryooga looked across the fire at Ranma. "Pictures." He deadpanned. If Ranma wasn't ready to explain anything, he wasn't ready to either. Besides, this was private.
There was a short pause. Ryooga stared at Ranma a bit more, then looked back at the photos. He wondered what his parents would think of his decisions in life recently. How many years had it-
"Of what?" Asked Ranma, completely disrupting Ryooga's train of thoughts.
"Family." Grunted Ryooga, turning his attention back to the photographs again. And there was his cousin Chou. He wondered how Manchuria was this time of year, and if his cousin was actually there right now or not. He'd have to look into it next time he was in Bavaria.
"So why're ya lookin' at 'em?"
Ryooga glared at Ranma. It was unexpectedly difficult to get introspective with someone sitting nearby asking stupid questions.
"What?? It's a perfectly good question!"
The glare intensified. Ryooga got the sneaking suspicion that this might be intentional.
In a desperate attempt to stave off doom, Ranma simply managed to shove the other foot in his mouth.
"I mean, you c'n see 'em every time ya go home, so what's the big deal?"
Reflexively, on feeling the first drops of the very light drizzle, Ryooga opened his umbrella and used it to protect himself as he stood up. He stomped over to Ranma, who was unable to scoot out of the way fast enough.
"Why don't I just go see them instead, you're asking?" Questioned Ryooga in a clipped, acid tone of voice. Ranma shrank back from the intensity of his traveling-companion's glare, far too aware that, at the moment, he couldn't defend himself from anything Ryooga could do to try and hurt him.
Ranma gulped and nodded, with the feeling that something was about to happen that he might not like very much. Why did this stuff happen to him?
This seemed to infuriate the lost boy, who loomed menacingly above his erstwhile companion. "How about, RANMA, because I can't FIND MY HOME?!? Did you ever think of THAT???"
Ranma winced, seeming to shrink in on himself slightly. He had managed to forget it, hadn't he?
"Or maybe," continued the angry martial artist, "because THEY can't find it any more than I can?!? Has it ever occurred to you that I might not GET home very often???"
Ranma, shaking, shook his head in a feeble 'no'. Actually, it hadn't. Then again, he wasn't known for having thoughts of anything but an 'eat/sleep/fight' nature occur to him, so this was nothing special for Ranma.
It has often been speculated as to exactly how much water and exactly what temperature is required to trigger a Juusenkyoo curse one way or the other. Some people go into specific detail on these things, and a number of different theories have been put forth. Percentage of body covered, percentage of body covered relative to temperature of water, water versus water-containing fluids, origin of water, etcetera, etcetera. Regardless of all of this, as the drizzle began to accelerate, it neared the point of triggering Ranma's curse.
"Dammit, Ranma don't you GET it?!? I GET LOST! MY MOTHER GETS LOST! MY FATHER GETS LOST! BOTH OF MY AUNTS AND MY COUSIN GET LOST! THE ONLY REASON MY GRANDPARENTS DON'T IS THAT THEY'RE STUCK IN A REST HOME!!! NOT ONLY CAN'T ANY OF US FIND OUR HOUSE VERY OFTEN, BUT WE ALMOST NEVER SEE EACH OTHER!!! I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I SAW MY FATHER!!! OF COURSE I'M LOOKING AT THE DAMNED PHOTOGRAPHS, YOU EMPTY-HEADED, CROSSDRESSING, MORONIC, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY NITWIT!!!!"
Taking a pause to breathe in great heaving gasps of air, Ryooga stared down at Ranma.
The small redhead was curled up in a foetal ball, eyes wide open- and blank. Hyperventilating, she stared up at Ryooga. There was a somewhat glassy quality to her eyes.
The ever-depressed wanderer blinked, failing to resume his tirade.
Something was seriously wrong with this picture. Worry at the completely off-kilter response quickly overwhelmed his anger.
He waved one hand over Ranma, noticing that her eyes failed to track the movement.
".Ranma?"
Ryooga bent down so he could wave his hand in front of Ranma's face, in hopes of getting her attention.
Before he even got his free hand halfway out, he was treated to a nearly- inhuman shriek of terror from a distance of three feet. By the time he had finished trying to clutch his ears without dropping the umbrella, Ranma was no longer where she had just been laying. Looking around, the lost boy discovered the petite redhead hiding behind his massive pack, peering out from behind it at him with a single, large, terrified blue eye.
Something here, Ryooga told himself, was not right. Something here was very, very not right.
******
Ryooga sat at the guttering remains of the fire, under his umbrella, and stared at his pack, behind which Ranma was still hiding. She had been there for hours now, almost totally hidden. Now and then, she would lean out from behind the large hiking backpack just enough to reassure herself that Ryooga was still where she thought he was.
The lost boy wondered what was going on exactly, and couldn't quite figure it out. He knew that Ranma shouldn't be doing that, weak or not. Maybe avoiding an actual fight (though he suspected instinct would get the better of the brash martial artist, easily getting past his efforts), but not this hiding thing.
Heck, even the Saotome Secret Technique didn't cover this.
Ryooga glanced over and locked eyes with Ranma for an instant, before the small girl was hiding again.
Ryooga huffed out a breath. This was getting ridiculous. (It also didn't make a lot of sense to him, but that was something he could withstand for a long time.) He had to find a way to get Ranma under the umbrella or at least under some trees too. With Ranma's current body size, she would be losing heat very quickly, especially in the cold rain.
He couldn't very well have his traveling companion suffer from hypothermia, could he?
But how to get to Ranma without scaring (currently) her?
The wind abruptly changed direction.
"Oh, ku-"
******
Ranma peered out at the camp again.
Well, not actually Ranma, per se, but certainly her (his? Her at the time.) body.
Ranma, as is made obvious by any sort of an analysis of his/her life, is generally under a LOT of stress. It has been demonstrated that enough stress will even kill a person outright, regardless of physical condition.
******
Let us examine the past day or two, shall we?
First, Ranma loses his strength. It is obvious, on watching him fight, that this is something which he relies on. A lot.
Then, any chance of a cure is stolen completely away when Happosai eats the chart.
Furthermore, Happosai ridicules and embarasses the newly-weakened Ranma, all through this.
Then, as if in demonstration of the newfound feebleness of Ranma, he (as a she) gets the shit beaten out of her.
Furthermore, the beaters (or at least one of them) try to rape her.
All, excepting the first, in one day.
This is not a way to support a healthy mind.
This is certainly not a way to support the mind of a confused teenager who not only has become twice as confused as most on who he/she is, but also regularly has to fight off people who, to put it nicely, are mostly raving lunatics who want him/her dead.
And then there's the miscellaneous, random challenges.
And the unwanted engagement with someone who has serious rage problems.
And the unwanted engagement with a childhood best friend.
And the romantic affections of two heterosexual siblings of differing gender.
And a hypersexy, quasi-nymphomaniac amazon girl, accompanied by her blind, idiotic suitor and devious, manipulative, violent grandmother.
And Genma. Can't forget the abusive, stupid, obsessed, self-centered, greedy martial artist.
And.
Well, the reader probably gets the idea.
The result of this?
Well, Ranma's mind has finally decided 'to hell with it'. It's taking a break. As a result of the excessive daily stress Ranma had to deal with, it takes surprisingly little to overload Ranma's poor brain. Whenever it gets to be too much to handle, Ranma's mind, like that of many other people, retreats, leaving basic instincts in place to fend for the body.
Most of Ranma's basic instincts were replaced with guardedness and fear by the Cat-Fist training.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled fanfiction.
******
Ranma peered out at the camp again.
This time, there was no person there. That was good.
There was no man there. That was even better.
There was, however, a circle on a stick, and a small black animal.
Putting this together, the remaining rudiments of Ranma's mind decided that it was safe, although the protector-person was gone.
Carefully, constantly glancing around in case the man came back, Ranma stood up from behind the pack.
The small black animal seemed to be having a bit of trouble trying to move the circle-on-a-stick.
Quietly, Ranma crept over to the animal and the object. To her bemusement, she noticed that the way the object had fallen meant it was keeping rain from falling in a small area. This area, incidentally, did not include the animal.
It took her a moment, with the active parts of her mind, to figure out that part of why she did not feel very good was due to the falling water.
Almost hopefully, Ranma curled up, leaning into the object in such as a way as to stay out of the falling water without having to stay tense.
The small black animal looked up at her and chuffed.
On an impulse, she scooped it up in her arms and gently held it to her abdomen.
******
Ryooga-buta blinked.
Well, he thought ruefully to himself, If I had known it was that simple, I would have done that ages ago.
He wondered how Ranma was doing. She was slowly stopping shivering, which meant that she hadn't succumbed to hypothermia, but other than that he couldn't really be sure.
Carefully, the small black pig craned his neck back slowly to try and see Ranma's face.
Unfortunately, all he got was an eyeful of the underside of Ranma's breasts.
Silk clings when wet.
Ryooga-buta lowered his eyes quickly, staring at the edge of the umbrella again. That had definitely been a mistake. He started doing the times tables in his head in an attempt to stave off a nosebleed.
His mistake was understandable, though. He was used to being held by Akane, who usually clutched him to her. ah. chest. That way, when he looked up, he only caught her face. In fact, he had sprained his neck a few times from looking up and away from Akane's. er. Those. so much.
Apparently, Ranma, in whatever state of mind she was in, did things a little bit differently.
Oh, well. He'd settle for knowing his friend wasn't suffering from hypothermia. He could worry about Ranma's mental health later.
As he was drifting off to sleep, a spare thought wandered through Ryooga's head, seeming almost as lost as it's owner usually was.
Friend? ..since when?
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And that's the next chapter. Sorry about the delay on this and my other fics, folks, but my computer recently bit the dust, and I had to wait until I could get ahold of a new one before I could send this out.
Oh, and sorry to all you people who are saying either "Make this Ran/Ryo!" or "Don't make this Ran/Ryo!", but I've already figured out that sort of thing where this fic is concerned.
No, I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to read it yourself.
After all, as I like to say, it doesn't really matter what exactly a piece of literature is about, what makes it good or bad is how and how well it's written.
As a side note, I wrote the last few parts of this chapter all in a lump tonight, the ninth of January, 2003.
Why?
I had an. unfortunate night.
Earlier this evening, I delayed leaving where I'd spent the day for about half a minute so I could borrow an umbrella- it's raining here in San Fran.
On my way home I was half a minute too late to be involved in a fatal altercation with another pedestrian and three large cars.
As if that weren't bad enough, I then returned home to the assertion of my father that I am squandering my life, and confirmation of that from the outside world, as well as the discovery that something I was trying to do to get my life in line backfired horrendously.
So, I'm not sure whether I was lucky to try to borrow an umbrella or not.
Not that I could do diddly squat about it now, anyways.
Guess I'll just keep plugging along at it, ne?
Ever quiet,
Selene Starblade, January 9, 2003
**************** Author Notes, October 26, 2003.
Looking back on my notes from when I wrote this chapter, after editing it some, I'm not sure what to think. I left the notes there, because they are an artifact of real life, and a memory- one that I would not like to soon forget.
All too often, we take luck for granted in life.
Or, at least, most people seem to. I can't say for sure.
I do know that I don't. Largely because my own luck seems to go at extremes- either everything is going completely my way, or everything is going awful.
C'est la vie.
What is, is, and it is better to recognise that and change, work around, or cope with it, than it is to try and ignore it.
With that in mind, I shall continue my work on my fanfictions- all of them. Don't expect new chapters in any particular one very often, but expect continuous progress. I'll be damned if I'll leave anything unfinished. That's the most irritating thing about fanfiction, to me. That so many people spend so long on one fic or another, and then leave off partway through, thereby wasting the effort, destroying the storyline, and basically damaging the 'fic itself.
Ah, well.
So, keeping on keeping on,
Selene Starblade, October 26, 2003
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Ranma ½. They belong to Takahashi-sama. And don't bother to sue me- I've got nothing to give you.
Chapter 4: Lasting Impression
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Ryooga got up and walked around the fire to his pack. The clouds were still around, and it was beginning to look like rain. He needed to get out his umbrella. Ranma, he acknowledged, would be fine with the rain- he'd still be human, and able to take care of himself to some degree. Ryooga, on the other hand, had to stay human both to provide for himself, and to be able to help Ranma.
*scff scff*
Ryooga stopped short. Turning, he looked past the fire at Ranma, who was looking off into the trees.
..something wasn't right.
Thoughtfully, he walked back around the fire about a half-circle.
Ryooga frowned slightly, then looked past the fire at Ranma.
Watching the other boy, he walked around the fire again.
Went Ranma, scooting a little bit across the ground away from Ryooga, without looking. If Ryooga hadn't known better, he'd have thought that was intentional. He sweatdropped. "Why are you doing that?"
Ranma blinked and looked over at Ryooga. "Doing what?"
Ryooga STARED at Ranma.
Ranma began to sweat a little. "What?" Man, he KNEW he shouldn't have taken up Ryooga on his offer. Any moment, it would be 'Die Ranma!' again, and this time he really WOULD.
Ryooga shook his head. "Never mind." And finally got around to finishing the trip to his backpack.
The Eternally Lost Aquatransspecies Martial Artist sighed as he rummaged through his pack. There was more up here than Ranma was letting on, but it was the other boy's business, so it was up to Ranma to tell him. He sure as hell couldn't figure it out himself.
Eventually, Ryooga came up with a small set of linked plastic sleeves, like one would find in a wallet. Taking his umbrella as well, he carefully re- closed the pack, and then turned and walked a bit closer to the fire. Sitting down cross-legged, he proceeded to stare at the photos contained in the flimsy piece of protection.
A few minutes passed in silence.
"Yo, Ryooga, whatcha got there?"
Ryooga looked across the fire at Ranma. "Pictures." He deadpanned. If Ranma wasn't ready to explain anything, he wasn't ready to either. Besides, this was private.
There was a short pause. Ryooga stared at Ranma a bit more, then looked back at the photos. He wondered what his parents would think of his decisions in life recently. How many years had it-
"Of what?" Asked Ranma, completely disrupting Ryooga's train of thoughts.
"Family." Grunted Ryooga, turning his attention back to the photographs again. And there was his cousin Chou. He wondered how Manchuria was this time of year, and if his cousin was actually there right now or not. He'd have to look into it next time he was in Bavaria.
"So why're ya lookin' at 'em?"
Ryooga glared at Ranma. It was unexpectedly difficult to get introspective with someone sitting nearby asking stupid questions.
"What?? It's a perfectly good question!"
The glare intensified. Ryooga got the sneaking suspicion that this might be intentional.
In a desperate attempt to stave off doom, Ranma simply managed to shove the other foot in his mouth.
"I mean, you c'n see 'em every time ya go home, so what's the big deal?"
Reflexively, on feeling the first drops of the very light drizzle, Ryooga opened his umbrella and used it to protect himself as he stood up. He stomped over to Ranma, who was unable to scoot out of the way fast enough.
"Why don't I just go see them instead, you're asking?" Questioned Ryooga in a clipped, acid tone of voice. Ranma shrank back from the intensity of his traveling-companion's glare, far too aware that, at the moment, he couldn't defend himself from anything Ryooga could do to try and hurt him.
Ranma gulped and nodded, with the feeling that something was about to happen that he might not like very much. Why did this stuff happen to him?
This seemed to infuriate the lost boy, who loomed menacingly above his erstwhile companion. "How about, RANMA, because I can't FIND MY HOME?!? Did you ever think of THAT???"
Ranma winced, seeming to shrink in on himself slightly. He had managed to forget it, hadn't he?
"Or maybe," continued the angry martial artist, "because THEY can't find it any more than I can?!? Has it ever occurred to you that I might not GET home very often???"
Ranma, shaking, shook his head in a feeble 'no'. Actually, it hadn't. Then again, he wasn't known for having thoughts of anything but an 'eat/sleep/fight' nature occur to him, so this was nothing special for Ranma.
It has often been speculated as to exactly how much water and exactly what temperature is required to trigger a Juusenkyoo curse one way or the other. Some people go into specific detail on these things, and a number of different theories have been put forth. Percentage of body covered, percentage of body covered relative to temperature of water, water versus water-containing fluids, origin of water, etcetera, etcetera. Regardless of all of this, as the drizzle began to accelerate, it neared the point of triggering Ranma's curse.
"Dammit, Ranma don't you GET it?!? I GET LOST! MY MOTHER GETS LOST! MY FATHER GETS LOST! BOTH OF MY AUNTS AND MY COUSIN GET LOST! THE ONLY REASON MY GRANDPARENTS DON'T IS THAT THEY'RE STUCK IN A REST HOME!!! NOT ONLY CAN'T ANY OF US FIND OUR HOUSE VERY OFTEN, BUT WE ALMOST NEVER SEE EACH OTHER!!! I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I SAW MY FATHER!!! OF COURSE I'M LOOKING AT THE DAMNED PHOTOGRAPHS, YOU EMPTY-HEADED, CROSSDRESSING, MORONIC, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY NITWIT!!!!"
Taking a pause to breathe in great heaving gasps of air, Ryooga stared down at Ranma.
The small redhead was curled up in a foetal ball, eyes wide open- and blank. Hyperventilating, she stared up at Ryooga. There was a somewhat glassy quality to her eyes.
The ever-depressed wanderer blinked, failing to resume his tirade.
Something was seriously wrong with this picture. Worry at the completely off-kilter response quickly overwhelmed his anger.
He waved one hand over Ranma, noticing that her eyes failed to track the movement.
".Ranma?"
Ryooga bent down so he could wave his hand in front of Ranma's face, in hopes of getting her attention.
Before he even got his free hand halfway out, he was treated to a nearly- inhuman shriek of terror from a distance of three feet. By the time he had finished trying to clutch his ears without dropping the umbrella, Ranma was no longer where she had just been laying. Looking around, the lost boy discovered the petite redhead hiding behind his massive pack, peering out from behind it at him with a single, large, terrified blue eye.
Something here, Ryooga told himself, was not right. Something here was very, very not right.
******
Ryooga sat at the guttering remains of the fire, under his umbrella, and stared at his pack, behind which Ranma was still hiding. She had been there for hours now, almost totally hidden. Now and then, she would lean out from behind the large hiking backpack just enough to reassure herself that Ryooga was still where she thought he was.
The lost boy wondered what was going on exactly, and couldn't quite figure it out. He knew that Ranma shouldn't be doing that, weak or not. Maybe avoiding an actual fight (though he suspected instinct would get the better of the brash martial artist, easily getting past his efforts), but not this hiding thing.
Heck, even the Saotome Secret Technique didn't cover this.
Ryooga glanced over and locked eyes with Ranma for an instant, before the small girl was hiding again.
Ryooga huffed out a breath. This was getting ridiculous. (It also didn't make a lot of sense to him, but that was something he could withstand for a long time.) He had to find a way to get Ranma under the umbrella or at least under some trees too. With Ranma's current body size, she would be losing heat very quickly, especially in the cold rain.
He couldn't very well have his traveling companion suffer from hypothermia, could he?
But how to get to Ranma without scaring (currently) her?
The wind abruptly changed direction.
"Oh, ku-"
******
Ranma peered out at the camp again.
Well, not actually Ranma, per se, but certainly her (his? Her at the time.) body.
Ranma, as is made obvious by any sort of an analysis of his/her life, is generally under a LOT of stress. It has been demonstrated that enough stress will even kill a person outright, regardless of physical condition.
******
Let us examine the past day or two, shall we?
First, Ranma loses his strength. It is obvious, on watching him fight, that this is something which he relies on. A lot.
Then, any chance of a cure is stolen completely away when Happosai eats the chart.
Furthermore, Happosai ridicules and embarasses the newly-weakened Ranma, all through this.
Then, as if in demonstration of the newfound feebleness of Ranma, he (as a she) gets the shit beaten out of her.
Furthermore, the beaters (or at least one of them) try to rape her.
All, excepting the first, in one day.
This is not a way to support a healthy mind.
This is certainly not a way to support the mind of a confused teenager who not only has become twice as confused as most on who he/she is, but also regularly has to fight off people who, to put it nicely, are mostly raving lunatics who want him/her dead.
And then there's the miscellaneous, random challenges.
And the unwanted engagement with someone who has serious rage problems.
And the unwanted engagement with a childhood best friend.
And the romantic affections of two heterosexual siblings of differing gender.
And a hypersexy, quasi-nymphomaniac amazon girl, accompanied by her blind, idiotic suitor and devious, manipulative, violent grandmother.
And Genma. Can't forget the abusive, stupid, obsessed, self-centered, greedy martial artist.
And.
Well, the reader probably gets the idea.
The result of this?
Well, Ranma's mind has finally decided 'to hell with it'. It's taking a break. As a result of the excessive daily stress Ranma had to deal with, it takes surprisingly little to overload Ranma's poor brain. Whenever it gets to be too much to handle, Ranma's mind, like that of many other people, retreats, leaving basic instincts in place to fend for the body.
Most of Ranma's basic instincts were replaced with guardedness and fear by the Cat-Fist training.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled fanfiction.
******
Ranma peered out at the camp again.
This time, there was no person there. That was good.
There was no man there. That was even better.
There was, however, a circle on a stick, and a small black animal.
Putting this together, the remaining rudiments of Ranma's mind decided that it was safe, although the protector-person was gone.
Carefully, constantly glancing around in case the man came back, Ranma stood up from behind the pack.
The small black animal seemed to be having a bit of trouble trying to move the circle-on-a-stick.
Quietly, Ranma crept over to the animal and the object. To her bemusement, she noticed that the way the object had fallen meant it was keeping rain from falling in a small area. This area, incidentally, did not include the animal.
It took her a moment, with the active parts of her mind, to figure out that part of why she did not feel very good was due to the falling water.
Almost hopefully, Ranma curled up, leaning into the object in such as a way as to stay out of the falling water without having to stay tense.
The small black animal looked up at her and chuffed.
On an impulse, she scooped it up in her arms and gently held it to her abdomen.
******
Ryooga-buta blinked.
Well, he thought ruefully to himself, If I had known it was that simple, I would have done that ages ago.
He wondered how Ranma was doing. She was slowly stopping shivering, which meant that she hadn't succumbed to hypothermia, but other than that he couldn't really be sure.
Carefully, the small black pig craned his neck back slowly to try and see Ranma's face.
Unfortunately, all he got was an eyeful of the underside of Ranma's breasts.
Silk clings when wet.
Ryooga-buta lowered his eyes quickly, staring at the edge of the umbrella again. That had definitely been a mistake. He started doing the times tables in his head in an attempt to stave off a nosebleed.
His mistake was understandable, though. He was used to being held by Akane, who usually clutched him to her. ah. chest. That way, when he looked up, he only caught her face. In fact, he had sprained his neck a few times from looking up and away from Akane's. er. Those. so much.
Apparently, Ranma, in whatever state of mind she was in, did things a little bit differently.
Oh, well. He'd settle for knowing his friend wasn't suffering from hypothermia. He could worry about Ranma's mental health later.
As he was drifting off to sleep, a spare thought wandered through Ryooga's head, seeming almost as lost as it's owner usually was.
Friend? ..since when?
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
And that's the next chapter. Sorry about the delay on this and my other fics, folks, but my computer recently bit the dust, and I had to wait until I could get ahold of a new one before I could send this out.
Oh, and sorry to all you people who are saying either "Make this Ran/Ryo!" or "Don't make this Ran/Ryo!", but I've already figured out that sort of thing where this fic is concerned.
No, I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to read it yourself.
After all, as I like to say, it doesn't really matter what exactly a piece of literature is about, what makes it good or bad is how and how well it's written.
As a side note, I wrote the last few parts of this chapter all in a lump tonight, the ninth of January, 2003.
Why?
I had an. unfortunate night.
Earlier this evening, I delayed leaving where I'd spent the day for about half a minute so I could borrow an umbrella- it's raining here in San Fran.
On my way home I was half a minute too late to be involved in a fatal altercation with another pedestrian and three large cars.
As if that weren't bad enough, I then returned home to the assertion of my father that I am squandering my life, and confirmation of that from the outside world, as well as the discovery that something I was trying to do to get my life in line backfired horrendously.
So, I'm not sure whether I was lucky to try to borrow an umbrella or not.
Not that I could do diddly squat about it now, anyways.
Guess I'll just keep plugging along at it, ne?
Ever quiet,
Selene Starblade, January 9, 2003
**************** Author Notes, October 26, 2003.
Looking back on my notes from when I wrote this chapter, after editing it some, I'm not sure what to think. I left the notes there, because they are an artifact of real life, and a memory- one that I would not like to soon forget.
All too often, we take luck for granted in life.
Or, at least, most people seem to. I can't say for sure.
I do know that I don't. Largely because my own luck seems to go at extremes- either everything is going completely my way, or everything is going awful.
C'est la vie.
What is, is, and it is better to recognise that and change, work around, or cope with it, than it is to try and ignore it.
With that in mind, I shall continue my work on my fanfictions- all of them. Don't expect new chapters in any particular one very often, but expect continuous progress. I'll be damned if I'll leave anything unfinished. That's the most irritating thing about fanfiction, to me. That so many people spend so long on one fic or another, and then leave off partway through, thereby wasting the effort, destroying the storyline, and basically damaging the 'fic itself.
Ah, well.
So, keeping on keeping on,
Selene Starblade, October 26, 2003