[Ranma] [fanfic] ranma.in-my-dreams

Disclaimer: All Ranma-1/2 characters and plot elements used here are in fact the property of Rumiko Takahashi and her assigns, and are used without their knowledge or permission. This is fan-fiction: an open fan letter in prose. Thanks go to Joni Mitchell for the formant theme of this story.

He has never realized. And, of course, it's for the best, for all of us... all of us.

My Lord Saffron knew that He had received mercy. In His infant state, with such a frail flame, it would have taken but one more killing blow, the work of a few moments for such as Saotome, to extinguish His fire forever, to send Him to the spirit world to await rebirth as a mere mortal. None other could have withstood his fury in that hour: we were beaten and our King was once-killed and helpless. We were beaten by teamwork, to be sure, by his small army, but Saotome's power and fury had grown during the course of that battle until it was only by his choice that the war ended and we lived.

If the woman had not survived, if Saotome's spirit-cry had not called her back to her body and urged her to resume breathing... we of the Phoenix would be extinct now.

Once the Jusendou waters were flowing again, my Lord, who, even in His infant form, retained His memories and far more awareness than He allowed to show, bade me seek audience with the Joketsuzoku and the Musk. We needed to know whatever there was to know about this young man that we had so badly underestimated, this Saotome Ranma, this shrew-among-dancing-rice-maidens. There was much to know. We learned his anecdotal history, we pondered, and we worried.

This mere youth already carried another soul, a cat soul, within him, since early childhood, yet his strength of will was such that its animal nature had not and would not claim him. Boy and girl both and more besides, he still thought of himself as human, but we already knew from experience how illusory that limitation would be if there came to be any threat to any whom he considered it his duty to protect. As an outcome of his battle to overcome a Cat-Tongue Strike, he already held Phoenix energies at his core, now quickened by the forces used in his battle with us. He returned to the land of his birth unaware that he in time could supplant our Lord Saffron if he so chose; that, even as an unborn Phoenix, he could set himself up now to rule our lands. Instead, he held to his code of honor, and sought only what he considered to be fair treatment, in ignorance that fair treatment is normally something which a warrior will never have.

So we watched him live his life as if our lives depended upon it, because ultimately they did.

There was a failed wedding. It was none of our doing; we wanted him married and happily settled on his islands. We had stationed a small eyrie of our warriors on his island, with which we now began to silently remove any threat to his peace which might cause him in some way to threaten ours.

He sensed our watchful eyes, I'm sure. While our patrols watched over him, he watched over her... but he could not protect her from her own choices, not when he had committed to trust her, and after the failed wedding her choices changed.

Some months later, this same woman, the one he killed a god to save, left him, to travel the breadth of China with the pig-man. When we caught them at Jusenkyo, we could see why. She was bearing the man's child, begot in secret while Saotome slept with cold honor, waiting for a wedding that would never come.

The Joketsuzoku were frantic. They had known of this pairing, knew of the rivalry between these two men, and knew that Saotome would follow; the portents were as clear as they were bleak. With nothing to keep him in Japan, he would be a new presence in our midst, basing his operations at Jusenkyo, for years. There would be war, and we would be drawn into it, all of us and then China itself, and it would be our ruin. Something had to be done to appease this man, to give him reason to go home peacefully.

So it came to be that the pig-man never found the Nannichuan, never rid himself of his pig shape. Instead, two pigs were given permanent shelter by the Joketsuzoku: one black boar with the tattered remains of a bandanna quietly removed, and one off-white sow with black markings. They lived out their animal lives in peace, producing many litters, and none were the wiser.

Saotome came, as expected, and found his woman, victim of an accident in the cliffs, being carefully tended by the healers of the Joketsuzoku. He took her home to his islands and tended her injuries, helping her to remember those things which her head injuries had caused her to forget. He helped her to learn the airborne skills of his Ryu. They married, they raised their children and taught their students and their society, and it was good.

They. No, it was we; in the quiet of my own nighttime thoughts, watching him or her sleeping at my side, I can be honest with myself.

I have learned to love this man. I have borne his children, I have been his true partner now for forty years and more, and I do not regret it. I have served two Lords with two natures; He of the Mountain, who knows the ways of both mortals and gods, and he of the island, who knows the ways of both man and woman... and what began as a mission has become a passion; I am well rewarded for my work. The man loves like no other, deeply and fiercely and completely; the first wearer of this face was never worthy enough to recognize it.

One small thing I miss: the sky... I had to give up my wings for this mission. When the two pigs received their baptism with the ladle, so did I; there must be no fatal disclosure, no feathers left in the furo, no bird-eyed young. I who had once been His captain, I who was the only one to receive that pool's change during its brief existence, I had to leave the rivers of air behind and learn to swim the rivers of people.

Longing for the air even as I finished my second childhood, I took eagerly to Saotome's leaping school of the Art, surprising and delighting him with my dedication to its deadly grace... and in my dreams I still fly.

Thanks to FFMLR's for beta C&C: Echonymph, Allyn Yonge, Firethorn, Amberion, Laith, Kathryn Grover, DB Sommer.

C&C welcome: siaru@stormbringer.org