Ranma 1/2 and all characters and situations are the rightful
creation of Rumiko Takahashi, and not myself. I have no rights
to her creations.
To Forget Tears
An incomplete addendum to The Memory of Tears
He walked, for how long he did not know. He struggled, but then
there had never been a time when he had not. And he wandered,
through city and through countryside, past lake and river and
stream and hill and mountain. Through forests both deep and dark he
walked, trying to outdistance the past. He was Ryu Kumon. His
father was dead. His father's last request rendered impossible.
Even if his father's last request was possible, he still would not
do it, not after knowing the truth.
It was winter now. The snow was blinding, and it may have been
night, though with the blizzard it was impossible to tell. A crude
set of snowshoes allowed him to keep going over the snow, but not
for much longer. Even with his endurance it was not possible.
Shelter was needed, and there were no signs of habitation near this
forest.
He sunk to his knees suddenly overcome by the elements, and
screamed frustration and defiance. "I don't want to die here!" Ryu
Kumon shouted at the world. "Not like this! Not this way." But his
legs refused to work, and the load on his back was very heavy and
he was ever so ever so tired and he could only pull himself along
the snow with his arms for so long, whispering endlessly, Not this
way," before he passed into a place of fitfull dreams and uneasy
rest. He did not notice slender arms and delicate hands reach down
and drag him into a nearby cave.
He woke up to the sensation of someone pounding on his chest.
He hacked and coughed and was about to retaliate when the woman
pounding on his chest said, "You have pneumonia. We have to clear
out your lungs." She smiled, kind and gentle, then resumed pounding
the phlegm out of his chest.
A gurgling sound came from him, almost like screaming
underwater, as he convulsed once, twice and the greenish phlegm
came up from his lungs. The woman continued to help pound it out of
his lungs.
Days passed, or they did not. Hard to perceive time under the
woman's care where everything was the same. He suffered through
her ministrations wordlessly. She spoke little, as well, though the
kindness in her smile and gentleness of her mein was evident.
On one day she stopped the poundings on his chest. Still weak,
but cured. He woke up, chest feeling clear. Bones weary and aching
from long hours of inactivity instead of illness. He stands,
leaning heavily with one palm on the stone slab that was his bed
for so long, and looks around at his surroundings for the first
time. A cave, natural or man-made it was hard to tell. Comfortable,
though, warm and furnished and well insulated from the elements. A
gas lantern stood on a shelf carved out of the rock, just above eye
level, and a fire off on the other side of the cave which had a
possibly natural chimney, provided ample lighting and warmth.
Ryu Kumon tottered towards the back of the cave. She was there,
the woman who rescued him. One palm on the back of the cave, merely
resting there, not leaning against it. She looked at him with a
smiling, expectant, and not saying a word. Without warning, without
any sound whatsoever, she pushed against the cave wall, which fell
away and beyond there was a world of green leaves and trees which
bore both flowers and fruit at the same time. She walked into that
land, smiling and beckoning him to follow with her hands.
He looked around him at the cave, which seemed suddenly darker
compared to the brightness coming from that green and growing place
before him. A gust of wind and snow blew in from the cave entrance,
ignoring the door which was now no longer there. He looked back at
the now retreating figure of the woman who nursed him back to
health as the snow swilred around his feet. Having nothing left to
lose, he shrugged and followed.
*
*
*
Ranma sat there, in a chair by the window, watching silently. A
gibbous moon streams in through the sill, gently illumining the
room. Beside Ranma there is a crib, one that he is slowly rocking
and looking at very intently. He is a man, now, fully grown. The
child in the crib, the object of his concentration, is his as he
hallf-chants half-sings a lullaby. The calming sussurations of his
voice mingle with the sensations of the cradle and his child, his
firstborn male son is soon asleep.
Neither the rocking nor the soft, quiet words stop. He sat
there, watching his child with uncommon eyes, fierce and protective
and loving. Not even his wife, whom he loved with all his heart and
all his mind and all his soul, whom he loved so deeply and so
totally that sometimes it terrified him, late at night, waking him
up, not even she engendered this look from him.
After another hour he sighs, and stops the rocking, stops
repeating the lullaby. Another night. He stands up and stretches,
yawning, but quietly so as not to wake his son. Something does,
however, something wakes Ranma's child. Perhaps it was the
cessation of the rocking motion, or maybe it was now too quiet, or
the yawn was not quiet enough, or maybe even simple hunger:
regardless, the newborn was awake and yowling.
Hesitantly, almost fearfully, Ranma turns and bends to look in
the crib. Something unusual on his son's face-- could it be? Ranma
reaches down with one finger and dabs near his child's eyes. He
brings it back up and tastes the liquid. Salty.
Ranma smiles, mouth growing wider and wider until it threatens
to split his face. He picks up his son and, now tears in his own
eyes crows out, "That's it, my son, that's right. Let it all out,
poor boy. You just cry until you don't want to anymore. Hush, hush,
it'll be okay, my handsome lad, you. Everything's going to be
alright now, and don't ever let anyone tell you that crying's
wrong."
And when his wife found them when she came to see what the
noise was all about she saw Ranma, standing in front of the three
quarter moon, cradling their crying son in his arms, and smiling
and praising the boy and crying along with him.
Author's Note: This is an unfinished work, since my objective is to
tell Ryu Kumon's story, which will explain the ending with Ranma and
his son. I have come to realize that prereaders may be useful for
this endeavor, and any help would be appreciated. Offers of this nature
should be done privately, and, while I am still technically in Vacation
mode, through the use of various archiving systems, I manage to keep up,
more or less, with what is happening.
Any C&C is appreciated. Thank you for your time.
Clearly now I tell you man
That all I say is all I can
For I am nothing but my sin
Until I learn to caste them in
--Crystal Wrists, Peter Murphy