[The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set]
[Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set]
[Some characters may be displayed incorrectly]
It was a cold and dreary day, with the
slate gray clouds hanging low in the sky
and there was the promise of a late winter
snow in the air. There was a group of
waggoneers traveling along a winding road
through the picturesque, forested hills
of backwoods Sendaria. They were a motley
bunch of travelers, obviously from many
different countries, of course that type
of thing was generally to be expected.
One of the travelers stood apart from
the rest. Rather than riding in the
wagons, or walking alongside the oxen
like the rest she rode a horse, and
kept a fairly good distance from the
rest of the group.
From one of the covered wagons
a woman's voice drifted out to our
rider. "Ranko dear! Come back
into the wagon with Ukyou and myself.
We can talk. You can tell us
all about Ranma, and I'll do
your hair. It would look so
much better if you took it out of
that braid."
The rider drew her cloak more tightly
about herself. And trying to suppress
her shivering turned her head to the
gray sky and moaned a quiet prayer, "Dear
Gods above, WHY ME?"
The Ranmariad
Book 1 Chapter 1 by Neplusultra
I don't own any of these folks.
Takahashi and the Eddings do.
Don't sue me. I wouldn't have
joined the military if I had
any money to give you. Don't
like it? Let me know and I'll
stop.
He didn't know what he'd ever done
to cause the gods to hate him so much.
He'd had a normal enough childhood
with his Aunt Pol. He'd had good friends,
and good memories.
In fact some of his earliest memories
were of him hiding under the table in
Aunt Pols kitchen. Trying to steal something
meant for dessert for Ukyou. Sometimes even
for Hiroshi or Daisuke. It was like a
game to him. He'd hide under the table
'till he thought no one was looking, and
then he'd make a grab for whatever pastries
they were making that day. His efforts
were usually met with a spoon in Aunt Pols
fist and resulted in his being banished
from the kitchen for the rest of the day.
But every so often he'd reach for the
tray and his hand actually came away with
some sweet delicacy or another. Then
it was a mad dash for the barn to meet
with his friends, and splitting the treat
between themselves.
Ah yes, those were the good old days.
Too bad they ended when he was six. Yes,
that was definitely the end of it. And
if he had to trace all his problems back
to their source it was a simple matter.
They all led back to the storyteller,
old fool that he is, Genma.
Oh, he was a good storyteller all right.
Probably had something to do with all those
times he had to talk his way out of doing
any actual work, and more often out of
trouble. The fact that he could make almost
any sort of wildlife sound imaginable
without even trying only added to his
prowess at impressing a dinner or two out
of just about anyone.
Not only was he good at talking his way
out of trouble, he was also quite adept at
fighting his way out of it. Being quite an
accomplished martial artist. That fact being
the whole reason that he took Ranma away from
the farm with him in the first place.
Well, teaching him how to fight and
educating him anyway. The fool seemed
to think that he knew everything about
anything. If you combine that with his
penchant for drinking you saw the cause
for about half of his problems right
there.
Anyway, Genma had come to the farm
when Ranma was about six in his usual
guise as a traveling bard. He'd visited
several times before in Ranma's short
life, and at the time he was actually
quite fond of the disreputable looking
fellow. He and Aunt Pol had a big
argument, Ranma couldn't remember what
it was exactly about, but the end result
was the ten year trip to hell that Genma
called a training trip.
Well, to be quite honest he was a good
teacher, and the trip wasn't all that
bad. But why did the fool _ever_ even
_think_ about going to the Jusenkyou
springs. How the old man ever got around
getting a curse he'd never know.
()()()
"Here sirs, at last, is the legendary
training ground of the Jusenkyou springs,"
Said the guide they'd hired at the last
village. They hadn't had the money, but
it was the only way to find anything off
of the roads in this damned jungle.
"I no know why you want to find this
cursed place customers. Acording to
ancient legend anyone who..."
In hindsight it probably would have
been better if Genma hadn't knocked over
the guide before he'd finished the horrible
tale. But what can you do right? They
had leapt to the wooden poles sticking
out of the small springs and proceeded to
jump from one to another practicing their
balance while sparing. The guide was
running about franticly trying to say
something to them about the springs, but
neither paid any attention to the man.
Finally, Genma managed to place a kick
in Ranmas gut, sending him flying into
one of the pools. At which point the
guide shrieked like a girl and fainted.
When his head broke the water of the
cold spring Ranma sensed that something
was wrong. He looked down at himself
as he dragged his body out of the pool,
and noticed that he wasn't a he anymore.
In fact, he was a she. The fact that
she wasn't a he, and was in fact a she
couldn't be right because, well, not
five seconds ago she had been a he.
Ranmas mind was caught up in this mental
maze for a few seconds when it promptly
fell on the object of all blame, Genma.
Looking up at the fool, Ranma saw
red. Stopping to brush her hair out
of her eyes she leapt at the coward in
a bout of righteous fury while Genma
fled.
()()()
By the time she'd caught up with
Genma and beaten him into the ground
a bit it was nearing evening, and
she had no clue where they were. There
was nothing to do, but prepare the
fire and wait for Genma to wake up.
The wait wasn't that long. "What's
the matter with you boy? Overreacting
like that!"
"Overreacting? In case you didn't
notice old man, I'm not a man anymore.
I'm a _girl_! What the hell did you
go to me? What kind of sick training
ground was that place?"
"I just thought that they were legends."
"Legends? Do these look like legends
to you?" she said opening her shirt a little.
Genma glanced for a second and promptly
looked away. "Ahem. Yes, well. According
to the legends if you use hot water you'll
turn back into yourself again. Simple right?
You start the fire, and I'll go get some
water." So saying he got up and went off into
the woods with a small pot.
Grumbling to herself Ranma set about
starting the fire. It took a couple
of tries but eventually the tinder
caught. At which point Ranmas eyes
grew to the size of small saucers and
she began to glance about wildly.
"Ranma," Genma said striding
back into the small clearing,
"we're in luck. There's a small...
What's wrong?"
"They're scared," Ranma said in
a small voice.
"Who're scared boy? I don't see
anyone."
"The trees."
"What?"
"The trees, they say they're afraid of
the fire."
Genma took a closer look at the boy turned
girl and poured the water he'd found over the
fire. "Sorry boy, no fire tonight. Now, go
talk to your new friends."
Ranma just stared. "What are you talking about
old man? And why the hell did you put out the
fire?"
"Boy, I did have somewhere I planned on going,
but we'll have to take a small detour. And you
don't turn into a girl.
Ranma just looked at him like he was crazy.
"I'm not a girl? What the hell do you think these
are old man?" she said, again baring her chest.
Genma just turned around saying one word, "Dryad."
()()()
Well folks let me know what you though ok.
This isn't the final draft, but this is
when your comments actually can make a
difference ya know. I'm sorry for any
grievous errors, this is about the best
I can do spelling and grammar wise on my
own. Personally I'm not completely
satisfied with the choppiness of the
chapter. Though it's just background
in this chapter mostly. Just FYI I'm
actually not really busy anymore, so I
don't anticipate a 2.5 year wait before
I come out with another chapter (heh...).
Actually it's one of my New Years resolutions
to actually write again. Anyway, enough
ramblings.
v 1.0
Draft : 1/23/2001
Released : 1/24/2001
Revision : -
Final : -
Sir Olin 'Neplusultra' Petty
www.neplusultra.org