Disclaimers: Ranma 1/2 and the Valdemaran characters are not mine...
I wish I thought of them first, but I didn't. ~_^
They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Viz communications,
Valdemar and everything in it belongs to Mercedes Lackey.
Notes:
I'd like some comments on this fic please.
I want to see if I should continue writing it.
Temporal Corps Production
Presents
Last Updated: June 20, 2000
Date Started: June 19, 2000
Once a Horse...
Prologue 1:
A portal opened parallel to the ground. The young man who fell
out of it hit the ground hard. He had black hair done in a pig tail, he
wore a red shirt, with the sleeves rolled almost up to his elbows, and
loose black pants tied at the ankles. The pig-tailed young man stood up
and brushed himself off, showing no signs of being hurt from the fall.
The pig-tailed young man looked around. He was in a field, or a
farm. There were some sheep a few meters away from him, grazing on the
fields. He wondered where he was now, then cursed himself because he
was sounding like Ryoga. Instead, he thought back to how he got where
he was, thinking of ways to get home.
It had been a normal day, he fought Kuno on the way to school, he
almost got drained by Miss Hinako, but she got Kuno instead. He ended
up spending his first class standing by the door with a bucket of water.
Well, maybe it wasn't what most people would consider normal, but it was
normal for him. At lunch, Shampoo showed up with some delicious ramen
from the Nekohaten, he was glad that it wasn't drugged. Shampoo has
been giving him un tampered ramen for lunch since a week after the
failed wedding. Unfortunately for him, Akane had decided to cook for
him on that day and she didn't take it well when he told her that he
couldn't eat her cooking because it would only cause him to loose what
was already in his stomach, Shampoo's delicious ramen. She reacted as
she usually did and he was flying out of the school ground and over
Tokyo in a second.
He landed on a part of the city that he was unfamiliar with,
mostly because when Akane hits him he usually landed in Furinkan High,
the Nekohaten, Ucchan's or at the Tendo dojo. And it wasn't one of the
usual places where martial artist hang out in.
He was walking home when he noticed a shop with a sign that said
that they were selling all purpose magic items and/or spells. He only
thought for a split second before deciding to see if they had any cures
for curses.
There were a lot of stuff in the store. The shop keeper, an old
man with graying hair, claimed that everything in the shop was magical.
When he asked for a cure for a curse the old man showed him a bunch of
stuff that he said were cures for different curses. He asked for a cure
for Jusenkyo curse and was disappointed when the shop keeper told him
that he didn't have any.
"What kind of shop is this anyway?!" he shouted. He was angry,
the old man had raised his hopes up, showing him cures for curses, then
ruined it by telling him that he didn't have any cure for Jusenkyo
curses. He was about to leave when the old man stopped him.
"Wait! wait! don't leave!" The shop keeper called out to him,
while ducking under the counter.
He stopped before he reached the door, he walked back to the
counter, curious to what the old guy was doing. He didn't have to wait
long, as soon as he got to the counter the shop keeper stood up from
under the counter.
"Ah! here it is." The old man put a rolled scroll and a pendant
on the counter.
"What is it?"
"It's a magical pendant, the scroll is the instructions on how
to use it. With this you can wish for any item you want. Do you want
magical underwear? Just wish for it. Or in your case, want a cure for
Jusenkyo, you can get it. The only problem is that this is expensive."
"I'll take it. Here!" He hand over all the money he had to the
shop keeper.
The shop keeper looked at the money on the counter and grunted.
"Not quite enough, but..." he looked to his costumer's hair,
specifically his pigtail. "If you give me some dragon's hair it's
yours."
He reached with hand to touch his pigtail. "Um... you want
dragon's hair?"
"Oh, I don't want all of it. Just some, an inch or two."
He didn't bother going back to the school after he left the shop
with the pendant and the scroll. He went straight to the Tendo dojo,
making sure that Mr. Tendo and Oyaji didn't see him enter the dojo.
He followed the instructions in the scroll. He drew a pentagram
in the dojo floor, set up five candles on its points. He was sitting in
the middle of the pentagram ready to make his wish when Ryoga burst in
through a wall, saw him and started to attack.
He quickly read the trigger phrase out loud hoping to finish
before Ryoga could mess things up. Unfortunately just before he
finished, Ryoga had stepped on the outer line of the pentagram. Next
thing he knew he was falling through the floor of the dojo.
Now he was in a field somewhere with no way to get home and he
didn't know where he was. It was almost enough for him to give up
looking for a cure to his curse, every cure that he found has been
blotched. It was as if some kami didn't want him to be cured.
His thinking was interrupted by the sound of hoof beats and the tinkling of bells coming fast towards him. At first he thought that
it might be a cow, a bull, charging him because he was wearing a red
shirt. He was in a field so it was a logical thought. Well he was
Saotome Ranma and no cow will scare him into running, he turned to wards
the source of the noise.
What he saw coming towards him was a beautiful white horse, with
almost silver hair and hooves. It's eyes, as blue as his own stared at
him as it got closer.
****
End Prologue 1
****
Prologue 2:
He had been searching for his Chosen for almost eight days now.
There was a lot of magical interference because of the mage storms, and
it was wrecking havoc with his senses, making it harder for him to find
his Chosen. Although he had been gone from Haven for almost eight days
now, he was only about two days ride from Haven, well two days ride for
a Herald on a Companion anyway.
The reason why he had been gone for this long was because the mage
storms were making it hard for him to pin-point where his Chosen was.
He had been ridding around in circles for the last four days and two
days before that he had spent totally confused because he couldn't sense
anything at all.
Right now there was a lull in the storms and it was easier for him
to track down where his Chosen was. Hopefully, he'd be able to find him
today and they would be back in Haven by noon tomorrow. It might take
other Companions two days to reach Haven but he was unique amongst them.
He was nothing special like the Grove born, but he can do things that
the others couldn't because of the kind of life he had lived when he was
a human.
He saw a boy standing on a rise on the field and he immediately
knew that his search was over. He had found his Chosen. Suddenly his
senses became a confusion of warnings of danger to him and to his
Chosen, and the by now familiar buzzing that the mage storms
interference caused, but this time stronger.
As he started galloping towards the boy he realized what the
warnings of danger meant. The boy was standing right in the middle of
where a change circle will appear. He started racing towards the boy
faster, hoping that he could get him out of the circle before the storm
hits, even if he had to knock him out of with his own body. As the boy
turned towards him he started to shout with his mind for him to move, to
run. The boy either didn't hear him or was frozen with surprise or
fear. He made himself go faster, tapping reserves of energy within him
and the nearest ley line.
He made it in time to push the boy out of the change circle's area
of effect, unfortunately he wasn't so lucky. When the storm came he was
still inside of the circle. He felt his body being torn apart and he
screamed in pain with his mind voice before he blacked out.
He heard a voice trying to get his attention from out of the
darkness. Slowly, as the memory of pain ebbed away from his mind, he
began to understand what was being said by three different voices.
"This is really for the best for him, My Lady. We of Valdemar did
promise to send him home. This way we can fulfill that promise." Said
a masculine voice.
"Yes, it is." The voice that replied priced deeply into his very
being. It had the essence of eons of knowledge and wisdom and caring.
He recognized it as the voice of the Goddess of Valdemar.
He made a little noise as he felt a wave of dizziness go through
him.
"Van, he's awake." The third voice called out, it sounded like a
young man with a very musical voice, a bard perhaps.
"How is he Stef?" asked the other male voice.
"He's fine."
He opened his eyes and saw two men and a woman shrouded in an aura
of brilliant white light. His vision blurred as another wave of
dizziness went through him.
"What happened?" he asked, keeping his eyes closed to fight of the
dizziness. "And is that you, Vanyel? Stefen? where's Yfandes?"
"Yes it's us, 'Fandes is in the Forest of Sorrows, keeping guard.
What happened was, you got caught inside of a change circle." He heard
Vanyel say. "You would have died or been changed into something
horrible if the Goddess and I didn't interfere. We couldn't stop the
changing process, but we did the best we could."
"What did I change into?" he asked his friend who was once his
pupil.
"We changed you into a human, you're not a Companion anymore. You
have almost the same body as when you first arrived in Valdemar." He
didn't what to think of what he had been told and they also didn't give
him a chance to think of a reply. "We have to go, our time here is
short. We only stayed to tell you that we can at last send you home, if
you want. The choice is yours."
He felt another wave of dizziness, his world spun about and went
dark. When he recovered he felt a hand on his right shoulder, shaking
him. He opened his eyes and saw that he was back at the field with the
boy, his Chosen, looking at him with concern and a little wariness.
"Wake up. Please, wake up." The boy kept saying.
"Urg... I'm awake...," he started to say as he started to get up.
Then he saw his body, his human body that he hasn't seen in his years as
a Companion. He fell back to the ground, and closed his eyes. What
Vanyel had told him came back to him, he wasn't a Companion anymore, and
also he couldn't feel any connection to his Chosen. It was another proof
of his current state other than his now human body.
"What is it? Are you hurt?" He heard the boy asking him, and
felt the boy lean closer as he tried to see what was wrong with him.
"I'm alright," he reassured the boy, and stood up. He looked down
and saw that he was wearing the same clothes that he wore when he
arrived at Valdemar, he also saw that the tack and saddle that he had on
when he was a Companion was gone, except for the bridle of bells with
his rune on it. "Thank you for looking after me."
"I... I didn't know what else to do. After you pushed me I saw
get surrounded by light and start changing. I knew what you were, you
were a Companion, a Herald's Companion. B... but I don't know what
happened to you."
"Yes, I was a Companion, in fact I was going to be your
Companion," he said, seeing that the boy was almost crying. As he
expected the boy cheered up quite a bit. "But now you'll have to go to
Haven with me to get another. What's your name?"
"I'm Adren, what about you? What's your name?"
"Ranma Saotome."
****
End Prologue 2
Authors Notes:
This idea came to me yesterday and I just had to write it down.
Then I decided to write the Prologue instead of just the idea.
Some things that the reader should know.
1) Ranma arrived at Valdemar at Vanyel's time, about 748 AF.
2) Ranma couldn't get home because he died in a battle with Karse
demons just before he was about to go home. I might write
something to show that on later chapters.
3) The time of the Prologue 2 is 1376 on the Mage Storms trilogy.
Somewhere at Storm Rising to be more specific.
Any comments? Like the idea? hate it? or what?
And if any of you could think of a better tile please send me your ideas.