Subject: [FFML] [C&C] Waters Under Earth - Chapter 29
From: KLEPPE@execpc.com (Gary Kleppe)
Date: 11/17/1998, 1:24 PM
To: ffml@fanfic.com

"Alan Harnum" <harnums@hotmail.com> wrote:

    He was in a place he might have been before.  A small

Technically there's an "in which" missing after "place," but if this is
a deliberate stylistic thing then nevermind.

    There was water flowing.  He lay on the grass, dusky with
the scent of morning dew, just beyond the building.  Soft and
yielding, the earth beneath his body was like a bed, fresh and
slightly damp.

Y'see, he had this little problem with bladder control....

    He rose, turning at the voice.  A woman stood at one of the
open sides of the building, booted feet on the grass.  
Middle-aged, plain of face but proud of bearing, robed in black.

That last is a sentence fragment.

    "The Dark must lie beyond the Light until the end of time
itself, but the shadows it cast are transcendent of time.  In 
casts

    The serious look dropped back onto her face a moment later.  
"We are taught that water is the element most attuned to the 
soul, to the world beyond the physical.  Time can be seen as a

Geez, where did SHE take chemistry? Water's a compound! :-P

    As they turned a corner, Wiyeed paused by one niche.  It
held a jagged half-circle of flattened silver, pure and polished 
so brightly that it cast a perfect reflection.  "All these are 
artifacts that have been found over the centuries in the Desert 
of the Claw, where Wurdsenlin once stood."

Nah, they're from the Franklin mint....

    Mint and Lime had died and gone to heaven.  Or something
comparable.  They had woken up lying on their backs, surrounded
by about a half-dozen young women, all of them quite attractive.
It would have been a bit better if they could move, but for some
reason, they couldn't.

Would be more correct to say 'if they had been able to move,'

    The sixth shrugged, the lush body underneath her dark dress
moving with the motion in ways that Mint and Lime found 
distinctly interesting.  "So take it off."

"Hey! I LIKE this dress!"

    "I'm taking the paralysis off the little one," the sixth
girl said.  She waved a hand at Mint, who was surprised to find
himself suddenly able to move.  "Hello there.  I'm Xiandan.  Who
are you?"

Xiandan = "Elixir of life," according to my dictionary.

    Mint sat up and looked around, his eyes wide.  "I'm Mint,"
he squeaked.  "You're girls, right?"

    "Of course we are," the youngest girl said, glaring at him
suspiciously over a cutely upturned nose.  "Men are very stupid
creatures, aren't they?"

Well, most of them aren't as stupid as THIS guy.... :)

    The feeling in the room was comfortable now, companionable,
without any of the underlying hostility that had lain between the
two of them before.  Kima moved back to the table and sat down,
poured herself water from the pitcher.  Herb sat down across from

Should be 'pouring', or 'and poured'

    "Jinlung was the one who overthrew Ganziao and established
the roots of the Musk Dynasty as it is today," Herb explained.
"Ganziao reigned for three hundred years; the blood was purer in
those days, and more powerful.  He had only a dozen sons in that 
time, but he raised them to be as he was.  Each was sent out upon
his eighteenth birthday on a quest to... prove himself a man.  

Aha! Jinlung is secretly... Nodoka!

    Ranma saw the lake, small compared to the two that he had
seen before, beneath Ryugenzawa and Jusendo.  A few moments 
later, he would realize absolutely that size did not matter, 

(Hentai comment snipped)

    "Oh, Lady," he said.  He sunk to his knees, trembling, and
pressed his forehead to the rough stone of the floor as he bowed.
He was filled with light, with the shared grace of being in her
presence.  "Lady, Lady, Lady."

o/~ Lady, when you're with me I'm smiling....
Give me, whoa-oh all your love.... o/~

    There had been the usual procedures when she was young; the
daughter of the most powerful family in Mount Phoenix had certain
roles to fulfil.  She had taken to the lessons well enough, the
old histories and learning of her people.  But nothing else; she
could not sew, or cook, or perform any of the other proper duties
of a lady of the Phoenix Tribe.

Well, maybe being able to turn into a duplicate Akane might help... um,
maybe not.

    Ranma opened his eyes.  He stretched out legs that had been
curled to his chest, unwrapped his arms from around himself.  He
was swimming in the sea of stars, the vast galactic blackness 
marred with endless points of light.

(Snip George Bush reference)

    A voice began speaking.  Wiyeed's, yet not Wiyeed's; as if
something spoke using her voice.  "In the beginning, the world
was nothing."

    The stars began to spin around him, as if he were the centre 
of a whirlwind.  Faster and faster they spun, in a glittering 
dance.  "There was no heat."
    
"Cool! A planetarium!"

    It was Shampoo's voice; the words were not Shampoo's.  He 

Yeah... for one thing, the tenses were all correct. :)

Once again, a very enjoyable chapter with excellent descriptive work
throughout. It was a little thick on the historical stuff; good for
giving the right flavor and providing vissimilitude, but I hope you're
not expecting us to remember all the details.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics