(Actually, I'm not certain of the protocol.  Can you spamfic your
own work?  Ah, well.  Here goes, anyway.  Spamfic, teaser,
feeler, one-shot, whatever you want to call it.  ^_^)

Ashes: A Cinderella Story can be found at: 
http://www.wanderway.com/cinder/ashes.htm 

In 'Ashes,' Hiroshi found a friend, resulting in Daisuke feeling left out.
This tale relates what could have happened afterward.


Daisuke:

"I'm leaving for school!"

I released a long, drawn-out sigh and glanced morosely down the
street after securing the gate.  When I headed down the street
toward Furenken High School, my steps were slow and measured.

Ordinarily, I would be in a hurry to chat with Hiroshi before the
teachers began their carousel of educational offerings.  Ordinarily,
we could hope to see Ranma get into trouble, or we could find
some way to splash him into girl-form, but since Hiroshi had found
his own girl friend, the joy had gone out of my morning.

I came upon another student, one who was peering over the fence
at the river below.  Uncertain of the meaning behind the boy's
expression I said, in as cheerful a manner as my grumpy demeanor
would allow, "Good Morning!"

The boy glanced up from the river to him to ask, "What IS that
stuff down there?"

Seeing nothing unusual after searching the surface below, I
asked, "Water?"

"Is that what it looks like?  Awful tame, I must say."

I trained a hooded eye on him. "You were expecting, say, seltzer
water?  With synchronized swimmers?"

The boy made a sour face.  "I've always imagined it would be
more...daunting. You know, free in its natural environment to maul
and rampage as it wished."

"So, where have you been that you don't know what tame water is?"

"Oh, I've seen water, only not in this condition," the boy
gestured grandly at his school uniform and seemed disappointed
when nothing happened. "I've never been human, before...I mean,
REALLY human."

"Odd coincidence, neither have I," I said in my driest tone.
"Hang around.  It grows on you."  I looked closer. Except for
extremely ice-bluegray eyes, my new companion appeared
average. "Why should you be surprised?"

"Oh, I have a perfectly...acceptable explanation," the boy said.
"You see, I pissed off this old bat, and...." Thunder rolled
nearby and he broke off with, "All right!  All right!"

I scratched his head and tried to interpret, "You urinated on a
baseball bat?"

"That is the WRONG word-picture, I must say," the boy said as he
edged nervously away from the fence.  "Let's move on down the
street.  We are entirely too close to that river, which may look
placid but contain a hundred dryad elements of the unfriendly
persuasion."

"I don't follow," I said as I followed the boy toward school.

"Let's just say I played a prank.  Yanked someone's chain, so to
speak.  Or thread. Her old man was not amused, I might say."

"Aha," I nodded.  "Her father was protective."

"More like he didn't want to listen to her complain. Okay, okay!"
the boy said as thunder muttered distantly.

We ambled along as I chewed on my own thoughts. I was
calculating.  Thunder equals rain.  Time for school means haste.
The route they were on was highly recommended for this time of
morning when there was a chance for transmorgrification
sightings.  "You might want to stand to one side," I said,
motioning the boy out of the center of the street and under the
shelter of a store awning. "Ranma's due any minute."

"Now, I'm a mortal," the boy was saying, mournfully. "A student.
The lowest of the low.  There is no way I could sink lower on the
social scale of influential people."

"What were you before you were a human?" I asked. "I mean, it's
difficult to imagine starting out as something else before you
get to where you are, now."

The boy hung his head.  "I was a god," he mumbled.

Blink.  "Really."

"Really.  I mean, what did you think?"

"Oh, I don't know.  Marsupial, or something on a higher order."

"I got canned.  For, you know, pulling a prank.  On
'you-know-who.'"  He indicated the still-present thunderclouds.

"Really." Another blink.

The boy pulled a sullen face, chewing his lip as he stared at the
sidewalk.  I began to feel sorry for him.

"Okay, I'm starting this off all wrong," I extended my hand. "We
got off on the wrong foot.  My name is Daisuke Daitome."

The boy finally accepted the handshake. "Loki," he answered,
"Loki Murphy."

"I'm surprised.  Murphy isn't Japanese."

"Well, neither am I!" insisted Murphy. "Born and bred Norwegian.
I was just dumped down here as part of my punishment."

We stood in companionable silence for a while until I added,
"Murphy isn't Norwegian, either."

"Oh, can it, will ya?"

We both looked up at the sound of fast-approaching footsteps. Two
students, a boy and a girl, approached.

I shouted, "Here they come!  And here comes the rain!  It's going
to be close!  They're neck and neck, the rain's closing and
...whoosh!"

Two students, both girls, sped on past toward the school
building.

"Didn't you see that?  One second a boy, the next second a girl!
Another spectacular feat of timing by the one and only me!"

Murphy yawned.  "Old stuff, to a god."

"Oh, yeah," I gave him a studying look.  "Right.  Who were you,
anyway?  I mean, which god?"

"I told you," Murphy said, petulantly. "I am...was...Loki. The
Norse god of mischief.  Then and...I hope...in the future."

"You don't LOOK mischievous."

Murphy rubbed thumb and forefinger together, his brows knitting
as he grieved, "They took it all!  Robbed me of my powers.  Made
me mortal.  Normal.  NORMAL!"

"Shower's over. We better make class before we're late.  And you
probably need to get registered."

"Crap!" Murphy suddenly looked nervous. "Can you help me?  I
mean, I'm a stranger, but...."

"No prob.  I'll have to check with my teacher to see if I can
guide you around, but I was bored today, anyway."


Murphy showed me his digs after school.  He was downcast after
his first day, and I couldn't blame him.  Everything seemed
difficult to him - he didn't recognize simple rules and kept
making mistakes, although the way he got away with claiming he
was 'confused' when he wandered into the girl's locker room
just plain rocked.

"What's this?" I asked, pointing toward what looked at first
glimpse to be a stone box.  It was a book, the cover polished to
a satin finish and some weird doodling about the borders.  We had
been pawing through an old trunk that was the only piece of
furniture in his room except for a desk that looked truly
ancient, because he said he had some 'refreshments' stored away
in it.  I thought he meant juice.  Boy, was I wrong.  He
apparently lived alone, for I saw evidence of no one else in the
apartment.

He tried the clasp on the book but was unable to open it, so he
handed it to me.  "Just some old wooden panels with runes on
them."

"Runes?  Like old buildings and such?  This isn't as heavy as it
looks.  What's it made of?  It looks old."

"Old buildings." Murphy snickered.  "Right."

The clasp clinked loose at my touch.

Murphy assumed an expression of wide-eyed alarm.

"Hey, let's open her up," I said.

-Whoosh-

The book cover slapped open and glowing flat plates whirled up
out of it, spinning around the room until they converged into a
blazing mass in the center, then exploding outward, flying in all
directions, straight through the walls without harming them.

"Cool fireworks!" I congratulated Murphy, but he still had that
look of ghastly fright and was still trying to get his breath.
"Murph?"

"You released them!"

"I must have set them off, yeah.  How'd they glow like that,
without burning anything?  What were they?"

"My collection of pranks, practical jokes and party favors!"

I shook my head, trying to comprehend his anxiety. "And this is a
bad thing because...."

"You may have very well destroyed the world!"

"Huh?"

"I said, you...."

"I heard THAT part!  What did I do?"

"You released the clasp!  You opened the book!  I thought that
was impossible!"

I held the empty book up where he could see it clearly, letting
the loose covers dangle.  There were wheels turning inside his
head as he thought.

"They have to be returned before I get blamed for the terrible
damage they are going to cause, and you have to help me!"

"Yeah, right." I felt his forehead for fever.  "You say you're a
god or something, right?  Okay, just twinkle your eyes, wiggle
your nose or say the magic word."

"I can't do that now!  I can't fix it until I return to my god
state, and I can't return to my god state until the runic panels
are restored!"  He gave me a somber look.  "Only you can do that.
The book will only open for one person at a time, and only that
person can control the runes, I must say.  You have to bring them
back.  The magic in this book will give you the power to locate
them."

"Heh," I said.  "I just had a disconcerting thought.  This isn't
going to turn me into a girl, is it?  I don't want to be parading
around in girly things like Hiroshi did."

"Of course not!" Murphy exclaimed, although something in his eye
should have warned me.  He grabbed my hand and pressed it to the
doodles on the book's front cover.

There was a swirl of disorientation as I watched my reflection change
in the window pane.  A golden headband, resembling a tiara with a
gleaming red jewel, wrapped itself tight across my forehead.  My
shirt and shorts morphed into crimson crushed leather with
fire-engine red boots, complete with white piping, rising above
my knee-caps.  A waist-length velvet demi-cape fell off my
shoulders as I clutched the majorette's baton in my damp right
hand.

"You mean...." I whispered.

"Yes," he said.  "You are now....

                  RUNE CAPTOR DAISUKE!"

I looked myself up and down, took in the garish costume,
and expressed my optimistic outlook of the situation:

"Ho-boy!"


xxxxxxxxx
James and the Bluejay
www/wanderway.com

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