Just in time for 2000, it's the epilogue of WUE. Commentary is
very welcomed; author's notes at the end.
Woohoo! Wow, you just snuck in under the wire...
Waters Under Earth at Transpacific Fanfiction:
http://www.thekeep.org/~mike/transp.html
Epilogue : Riverrun
INTRODUCTION
{oh, cute. More on this at the end... or, rather, the beginning. :) }
As I can begin at neither the beginning nor the end, I will
begin with the passing of my father, as told to me by his friend,
Ryoga Hibiki. I cannot tell it as I myself experienced it, as I
was not yet born at the time it occured, and had, in fact, been
occurred
conceived only a few hours earlier.
{Ha. Thought so. It's the mythic thing to happen, of course.}
To begin the history of a man's life with the facts of his
passing may seem inappropriate, but the story began for me when I
grew old enough to understand the existence of fathers, and
question as to where mine was.
{suggest perhaps} inquire as to where {or even just} inquire where
The common answer, from those who knew him, was: he passed
away.
Never died, because, of course, there was no body. The way
Ryoga tells it, there could not be one, and I do not think he
{"The way" seems too colloquial in tone; suggest (the narrator uses this
phrase later)} As Ryoga tells it,
would lie about such a thing. Nevertheless, I cannot say, and
neither could he, that his account is entirely accurate - such
events tend to transform themselves within the mind, and, no
doubt by recording it as I have here, this account shall spawn an
mind and, no doubt, by {I think; it's tricky...}
infinitude of permutations, for stories pass into history, into
legend, into myth, and finally into amnesia - only to become
stories again. My father's story was one of new clothes from old
threads. Such is the conundrum of the river, ever changing, ever
the same.
As Ryoga tells it, after a long and untraceable passage
through the tunnels beneath Mount Phoenix (1), he entered a
high-ceilinged cavern that appeared to have undergone a recent
earthquake, for it was heavily littered with rubble apparently
fallen from the ceiling.
{Most caverns are; the mechanisms of cave formation are erosion and
infall, both proceeding concurrently. One finds clear floors where
erosion dominates (the rubble is swept away) or where the rubble is
filled in with sediment. Both are the action of waters under earth,
oddly enough. :) However, the difference between old rubble and new
rubble can be discerned, so I suggest}
apparently freshly fallen
In places high above his head, a violet
light that he described to me as both "alien" and "cold" poured
down, illuminating the cavern and making the small lantern he had
brought with him unecessary. The following is a transcription of
unnecessary
a verbal description of what occured next, given to me by Ryoga
shortly before his own death:
It was so big I didn't see him right away. He was in
the dead centre of the cavern, and even though I had to pick
my way over all that rubble to get to him, once I got within
about ten feet, there wasn't any at all... there was a clear
circle all around him, and I saw why when I got closer,
because it was all full of water, like a moat, so dark that
I almost stepped right into it without seeing it. I only
saw it because it was moving, very slowly, in a circle, like
there were tides driving it from far beneath the surface. I
couldn't see any bottom, maybe because it was so dark, maybe
because there wasn't any bottom.
{The shift between Ranma's child's (son or daughter? You appear to have
carefully avoided specifying :) voice and Ryoga's is effective.}
"Watch over them." He meant you and your mother, I think,
and his mother... maybe everyone. That's what I've tried to
do, though, because I promised him I would.
{Birth of a paladin... and Ryoga's often-unsuccessful struggle for
nobility of spirit is finally rewarded.}
As Ryoga relates it, after he had made his promise to my
father (3), the circling water that surrounded them began to
grow, to change; he had the sense, impossible though it seemed,
that it was remaining a circle while becoming a straight
line. (4)
{Ha, nice description: simple yet opaque.}
As Ryoga described it, the boat became visible first as a
black speck at the edge of the horizon, and travelled fast enough
that he was clearly able to distinguish details within a minute.
It was long, and draped all in tattered black cloth that
fluttered like banners. Two women, dressed in gold and green,
sat in the bows; a third, dressed in black, stood in the stern
and drove the barge with a long pole.
{Oh, of course it would be them. How... Arthurian.}
Even from a distance,
Ryoga could see how beautiful they were; he always described them
as the most perfect women he had ever seen (5), although never in
front of his wife.
{heh.}
Once Ranma was placed within the flat bottom of the boat,
{suggest} within the boat, {or} upon the flat bottom of the boat,
Ryoga describes the following as happening:
The one in green touched her hands to his body, and his
wounds stopped bleeding. The one in gold touched her hands
to the rags of his clothing, and they became whole again.
{Interesting... since it was the one in black who made the clothing and
gave it to him, wasn't it? I certainly wouldn't suggest that she
couldn't, though.}
The one in black put her pole back into the waters, and
pushed off. I watched the boat recede into the distance,
waving goodbye until it was out of sight. A lot of people
have questioned why I didn't say anything; why I didn't try
to take Ranma back, after the one in green healed him. I
can only say that the thought never crossed my mind at the
time. (6)
{Good thing, too. It would have been... wrong.}
Once they were gone, I sat down, and then saw that two
broken pieces of wood, apparently once a single piece, had
lain beneath Ranma.
{I have the comic image of Ryoga springing up in surprise, but it
doesn't seem incongruous... :) }
This, then, is the end of my father's story as I can tell
it. And, so, from the end, I shall go back to the beginning, the
real beginning of my father's story.
***
Footnotes to Introduction
(1) Incidental research during the compilation of this history
over the past twenty years has established that these tunnels
are, in all likelihood, the remnants of a colony of the First
Ones. Archaeological evidence is inconclusive as to whether
they were of Pan Qu's tribe, or of the one they call only the
Queen. I am indebted to Lougui of the line of Mengyua for
nearly all of the information on the First Ones throughout this
work.
{Aha. Was wondering about Lougui's fate.}
(2) As I cannot ascertain just how badly my father was hurt from
my conversations with Ryoga, I cannot say whether anyone, even
someone with training in the healing arts, could have helped him.
Had healing him been possible within this world, I believe that
someone other than Ryoga would have been called to his side.
Whether my belief is justified, I cannot say with certainty.
There are patterns to these things, and the Lady (Ladies?) is/are
bound to them in ways I cannot yet comprehend.
{No... he had to leave. His life wasn't big enough to contain him.}
(3) While this history can only concern itself with Ryoga's
character to the extent that it intersects my father's life, I
will state that I believe this promise to my father shaped his
life from that point onwards, and accounted for the actions he
undertook during war against Shen Bai-Gu that led to his death.
With the final publication of this history of my father's life,
I can now undertake to write a history of the war against Shen
Bai-Gu, focusing especially upon Ryoga's prominent role within
it.
{Alan, you might want to be careful about leaving threads like that--
you may find yourself dangling from them. :) Do you own the story, or
does the story own you? Sometimes it's hard to tell, I would imagine.}
(4) This perception might well have been entirely true from
Ryoga's point of view; in the same way that a sphere of enormous
size (such as our planet) appears flat to an observer, a circle
of enormous size (a great river, sourced by its own self) could
appear as a straight line to an observer unable to see the whole
of it.
{I think you can omit this note without harm, but perhaps it fits the
narrator's idea of what's proper.}
(5) That each of the three is described as perfectly beautiful
is, I believe, good evidence for a synonymous nature. This is
not hardly unique to their aspects as detailed here; see, for
example, the Maiden-Mother-Crone aspects of the lunar goddess
among the ancient Celts.
{I think the comparison to the Norns or the Fates is more apt, myself,
but he might very well think that.}
(6) I do not think it would have been possible, either. Ryoga
was needed to pass Ranma from this world into the one from which
the boat came - the world in which his wounds could be healed.
The parallels to the Arthurian legends should be obvious to any
schooled in basic mythology. Arthur says to Bedivere, in Chapter
VI of Book 21 of Le Morte Darthur (Malory), "Comfort thyself...
D'Arthur {? punctuation was a bit iffy back in those days...}
and do as well as thou mayst, for in me is no trust for to trust
in; for I will into the vale of Avilion to heal me of my grievous
wound..."
{Like I said. :) }
***
CHAPTER 1
Once upon a time, there was a mighty and terrible king, and
he had three beautiful daughters...
{ ! Right. Okay, that's good. I wasn't expecting this particular
mechanism-- in particular, I wasn't expecting the dry, pedantic tone of
Ranma's child's introduction-- but with this tie to the mythic tone of the
prologue, it works, satisfying my previous comments on where and how the
last chapter ended. The circle is completed. Applause. Hell, standing
ovation.}
{It's also the perfect excuse to go reread WUE from the beginning, or,
rather, the end, of course. :) }
FIN WATERS UNDER EARTH
{I can only imagine the satisfaction that it gave you to type that.}
**********
Author's Notes:
I suppose after nearly two years, forty chapters, five vignettes,
a prelude and an epilogue, these are more or less obligatory.
{Well, you probably could have escaped unharmed without them.
Probably. :) }
I had originally intended (and, had, to an extent, prepared) a
lengthly annonation of all the parts of the series, pointing out
annotation
certain undercurrents or symbols within the narrative that might
not have been immediately obvious. Over time, however, my view
of what role an author should take in interpreting his or her own
work has changed significantly, and I have lost the desire to do
so.
{I think they're there, for those with the perception and background to
notice them... and if an exhaustive reference were available, there
might be less to urge seekers to find deeper currents, perhaps even
deeper than you consciously charted. As it is, there will probably be
discussion and argument on the matter, and that's a good thing. Heck,
other people may even compile their own references, concordances,
annotations, etc. Keep a sharp eye out for deranged grad-students. :) }
There is a lot of mythology - Japanese, Chinese, Norse and
Celtic, to name some of them - in WUE, and, also, a lot of
homages to fantasy literature, particularly the works of Guy
{suggest} also, many homages
Gavriel Kay.
The original genesis lay in my idle attempts, one day, to come up
with various explanations for the unexplained things in the Ranma
series: How does Jusendo cause the magic of Jusenkyou? Why does
the body of the Orochi create the healing water? How did Saffron
come into being? What links exist between the various peoples
who live in the area around Jusenkyou?
There's much more to the story than just answering those
questions, but the story really began for me with an image of a
dragon lying bound beneath Jusendo, suffusing the waters with the
magic of her blood.
{Thanks for these two paragraphs; they're very evocative of the process.}
Knowing myself, though (I hate revising - I'd rather write new
stories), it will take all my remaining energy just to revise the
20+ chapters that I haven't sent to RAAC for posting.
I know that many people, daunted by the size of WUE, have been waiting
for it to end before reading it... and I suspect that many people who
read it as a serial will reread it now, and some of those will send you
comments that may aid in that effort. I will try to do so.
Thanks for writing and sharing!
Vince Seifert Fanfic Analyst FFIRC Frog
Prime: seifertv@csus.edu
Backup: seifertv@myrealbox.com
Techie: http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/
Fanfic: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/
Ideas are worth their weight in gold.