Ok, so maybe that doesn't make much sense. This story is a little rough, *I*
haven't quite finished smoothing all of the edges and my editor hasn't
gotten through with it {that silly girl!} Forgive grammar and spelling
mistakes, pls -- I'll work them out later. Mostly looking for opinions. Worthy??
"In Celebration of Lammas Night"/Ranma 1/2 Crossover [1A]
"Ranko's Heart"
Author's pre-notes:
Yeah, yeah. You really hafta read 'em. For those of you who don't know, the
idea came from Mercedes Lackey's collection, _In Celebration of Lammas
Night_. Those are stories based on a poem written by Lackey -- if anyone
wants a copy of the poem, I have it somewhere in this wreck I call a desk
{You know, that thing covered by disks of Ranma fanfic and copies of my own,
the lemon my boyfriend demands I finish, the Victorian thing my sister is
threatening to beat me up over...} Check the notes at the end for more.
*****************************************************************
Ranko muttered to herself as she walked along in the overwhelming heat, the
humidity so high that she thought surely she would collapse before she moved
another step. Thoughts of what she'd left behind drove her onward, trudging
step after step, the smooth oak of her staff aiding her as she stumbled
along the red clay earth that formed the road. She could hear a breeze
stirring the summer green leaves of the treetops above her as she took note
of the sight just over the next hill. She could see a village there,
picturesque in its sudden appearance.
Ranko paused. It was almost dark and the humidity would turn into rain
soon. Ranko hated the rain, she had always hated it. Being wet was one of
the most disgusting things that could occur. Pulling her cloak more tightly
around her, she lifted the hood and continued down the road. Perhaps there
would be somewhere to shelter for the night and pick up something to
eat....she was HUNGRY!
*****************************************************************
She settled down at a nearby table, snapping her fingers for service as she
placed her walking staff nearby. The staff retained its upright position,
never toppling from its spot.
Everyone in the inn's small tavern watched the young woman, her red hair
spilling out from under her hood as she shoved the heavy material back from
her face with a grimace. Ranko recognized the leery looks being cast her way
but she ignored them. She could take care of herself, magik or no magik and
if some small-time country bumpkin thought that he could take advantage of a
woman alone then perhaps he had best think twice. She certainly hoped so.
She'd hate to spill blood all over this lovely hardwood floor....
Ranko waved her hand, and a plump girl with chestnut hair wearing a
pleasant blouse and an ankle length skirt covered by an apron came by. They
spoke for a few moments, Ranko smiling as the girl fairly bounced towards
the kitchen, her smile the only sunny thing about this day. Ahh, Ranko could
remember feeling the kind of light-heartedness that girl did, long long ago,
before the death of her father and her mother's "accident" while practicing
with her sword in her greedy uncle's stable. She shook her head to erase the
bitter thoughts and smiled as a second girl returned, this one a slender
blonde who set down her rich vegetable stew and hard cider with a smile
before returning to serve behind the bar, watched lasciviously by several of
the boys nearby, none of them daring to reach out and touch. That made Ranko
curious but she shrugged it off. It was none of her never-mind.
It was to her surprise that the person who finally approached her was not
one of the young men who had been seated along the bar quaffing mead.
Instead, he was an older man with a face that had been permanently burned by
the wind and the sun, his hands rough with blunt-tipped fingers as he placed
them lightly near the glass that the tavern wench had brought only moments
before.
He spoke simply, without preamble. "You're a sorceress, ain't you?" He
folded his hands before him as he seated himself in the chair across from
her. She could see the dirt beneath his fingernails and the grease lightly
smattering one wrist as she nodded silently, her own fingers wrapped
delicately around the wooden spoon and lifting a bite of corn and okra.
He smiled slightly. "My wife does a wonderful job, doesn't she?" The man
paused, one of his hands rising to rub his chin thoughtfully. "She can work
magik with food like that. My oldest daughter can, as well. But they can't
work the kinda magik you do, and we need someone who can."
Ranko raised an eyebrow, wondering precisely what this had to do with her
and why this man was seated here at *her* table. It seemed obvious to her
that it was some kind of offer, but for exactly what, she couldn't tell.
"Y'see, our last sorcerer met with a mishap. Just what kind, no one can
tell because none of us are any good with magik aside from the kind that's
every day and a gift from God, somethin' that nobody should ever discount.
We just went into his cottage one mornin' and there he was, dead for all the
world to see, surrounded by a circle of salt on the floor. We ain't figured
out if he was conjuring something he couldn't hold or if he just died of
natural causes. My middle daughter," he waved towards the blonde at the bar
with one hand, "has something of a healing touch. She says it weren't
anything natural that killed him, but we can keep hopin'." The man frowned.
"Unless we get somebody in here strong enough to protect us,
though, I don't think any of us'll last the winter. It'll be cold around
here in another couple o' months, and times're hard around here since the
gov'ment fell and those crazy people that want to take over the world
started up. We get raiders here, sometimes, and sometimes other things,
magikal things...it's hard to keep everything going. Hard to keep all of the
mouths fed -- especially without someone here to magik up charms and
protections." He sucked air in through his teeth and settled back in his
chair, crossing his arms across his broad chest.
"What are you offering?" Ranko asked softly, shoving a sleeve back. The
more she ate of this soup, the more she liked it. For that matter, the more
she heard of this man's speech, the more she liked it, as well. Ranko was
getting tired of the road, tired of running away from everything that had
happened in her far-away homeland. The idle thought came that there might be
something more to this small village than she had originally thought as she
looked into the unique gold-green of his eyes. The man chewed on the edge of
his thumb nail for a moment before answering.
"We ain't got much, but what we've got's yours. We can provide you with a
good strong roof over your head, don't get rats or such around here much so
even though nobody's been living there for a while, things oughta be pretty
clean. There's a good well there and an herb garden out back. My youngest
daughter's been tending it while it's been empty. We're good folks here, for
the most, and we'd be willing to pay you in food and firewood for your
magiks and any medical knowledge you might have. As headman, I'd make sure
of it."
Ranko pretended to think it over half-heartedly. Deep in her soul, she knew
that this was what she wanted, what she was going to *need* to get over the
recent traumatic events in her life. With a deep sigh, she closed her
eyes.......
.......and accepted.
A smile broke over the man's rugged face. "Well, all right, then, Mistress.
My name's Cason, and if you'll come with me, I'll introduce to you to my
wife, Celia, and my daughters Leighara, Lynnete, and Leslie. What did you
say your name was again?"[1]
"Ranko Saotome," she replied with a smile. With that, Ranko rose and
followed the man into the kitchen. Yes, she was definitely liking this place
already.
******************************************************************
The cottage was a bit ramshackle in appearance but sturdy in its actual
build, somehow seeming to keep out the heat that radiated outside. She hoped
that it would keep out the cold as well as it did the heat, or she'd be in
trouble come fall. There were three rooms, one of which was a large area for
cooking and entertaining, a second smaller room with a rope bed and a cotton
mattress and a third that held a variety of leather bound books --
seventeen in all. Ranko's eyes had swelled with wonder at the spellbooks
(as well as one historical text and a book showing a variety of highly
entertaining drawings that young ladies most likely shouldn't know about)
and it had taken all of her willpower not to latch hold of one the moment
that Leighara and Lynnete had shown her into the room. The eldest had smiled
knowingly and winked at Lynette, addressing her speech to Ranko, "We'll
leave you here for a few moments now, to acquaint yourself with things.
They're yours now, you know, and some of them we've even seen, before, when
Sorcerer Mousse was here. He couldn't see very well and so one of us would
come to help him with things. He taught us to read, so that we could see the
really tiny print that he couldn't.." She broke off and glanced at her
sister. "We'll start workin' on the cleanin', now. You can come out whenever
you're ready," Lynnette added and with that, the two girls left the room to her.
Ranko ran her fingers over the bindings, looking for the writing on them.
She could feel the worn impressions of lettering, a sort of brail, and
beneath that the spidery silken feeling of magikal labelling, defining the
books by category, by this type of magik or that type of magik -- with the
exception of the three she now held in her hands.
Undoubtedly, it was the first one from which the girls had learned to read
and, despite the fact that it was a historical text, it did look reasonably
entertaining. The second was somewhat incidental, in her own
opinion, but perhaps she should ask around and try to discover what kind of
person this "Mousse" had been before she decided whether or not this thing
was really harmless. From what she had seen of the small cottage and the bed
big enough for no one more than a grown man, or perhaps a woman and a small
child, he wasn't the sort of man to pay a great deal of attention to those
particular things. {Another wizard so wrapped up in his sorcery that he
forgets about all other needs and wants,} Ranko thought grumpily...
The third was something with which she was unfamiliar entirely. It seemed
to be a book of spells for the dead, quasi-religious in nature and dangerous
in the extreme. As she flipped back and forth, several of the spells caught
her eye. Ranko slammed it shut, temptation great as she realized how easily
it would be to allow such a collection to corrupt her. The spells seemed so
simple, and then one became wrapped up in them and then one was claimed by
them. No, Ranko wouldn't allow that to happen. With a sniff of disregard,
Ranko laid the book down on one of the lower shelves, near the Sorcerer
Mousse's summons stones and dried herbs. She would look at it again later --
if she got the time.
With that, Ranko stepped into the next room and joined the girls in
replacing the old rushes with lavendar-fragrant ones.
******************************************************************
It was late, and she was weary to her very bones. Birthing was a tiring
occurance for everyone, and Ranko had just attended the arrival of a baby
boy with black hair, a sweet smile and what appeared to be tiny fangs. She
smiled at herself for letting her imagination run wild in such a manner. As
if a baby would have fangs, anyway...even though it *was* terribly cute, she
had to admit. With a relieved sigh, she saw her cottage in the fading
moonlight, backlit in silver and black as she approached.
Ranko gave the door a weary push and slipped inside, barring the door as
she sat down at the small table there for meals. Breathing deeply, she
smiled and glanced around until she found it and then lifted the wooden lid
-- ahh, yes. Celia or one of the girls had brought her dinner this evening,
chicken and broccoli and snapped beans with huge, fluffy biscuits and
something that the girls called 'tea cakes' for desert. Despite her
overwhelming exhaustion, the food was good to her and filled her, making her
sleepy with the warmth and the overwhelming incomparability of it.[2]
Ranko stood and put the wooden plate near the "sink" (a large basin for
washing dishes that someone had left on the counter), opening a cabinet and
removing a dish, cup and utensils for her breakfast the next morning. With
delicate precision, all of her belongings were put back into her place
before she moved to open the back door. As she stood and stared out into the
moonlit pasture, she felt something brush lightly against her ear. It took
several moments of the soft brushing for the thought to occur to Ranko that
there *was* no wind that night.
With a soft shriek, Ranko fell back against the door frame, looking around
wildly for someone, anyone, to be close enough to touch her.
There was no one there.
{You're spooking yourself, girl!} Ranko chided herself with chagrin.
{There's nothing there, there *was* nothing there, nothing for you to get so
uptight about.} She brought her chin up defiantly. It was ridiculous to let
something silly like that get underneath her skin. She was one of the
premier martial artists anywhere (that she knew of), a reasonably able
sorceress and a big girl, besides. She could take care of herself.
Feeling ridiculous, Ranko turned and moved back into the cottage and,
despite the full heat of summer, she locked the door behind her anyway.
******************************************************************
It was the dream, the dream that had been plaguing her for weeks on end.
Ranko knew, somehow, that she was in a dream, but she couldn't force herself
to wake. She was standing in the very center of her cottage, and before her
stood the most beautiful naked man she could recall having ever seen. His
eyes shone hazel-gold beneath dark eyebrows, night-black hair with streaks
of pure silver hanging down his back to the firmness of his waist. She
watched breathlessly as this beautiful specimen knelt down at her feet and
bowed his head, saw the tips of his hair brush her feet....and then he
rose[3]. He was taller than her 5'3" and he looked down into her face with a
half-tender, half-sheepish sort of look. His hands settled on her hips and
he drew her against him; she could feel the steel of his body against her
own, brushing against the thick velvet of the crimson-maroon robes she wore.
He leaned down and she tensed before his mouth settled against her own,
light as butterfly wings.....
.......and the dream.......changed. She could feel the tension in his body
as he turned, hair flying outwards with the quick force of his motions. It
was almost as if he were protecting her from something by hiding her there
behind him, and she shuddered as she felt the change in the atmosphere, in
the very air that she was breathing. Sulfur and smoke and slime, a smell of
decomposition, and she closed her eyes tightly. Ranko knew in her heart that
she didn't want to see whatever was on the other side of him, that if she
turned she would see the monster and be unable to move or to fight it. The
unfamiliar emotion of cowardice seemed to fill her and she didn't know what
to do! Then she felt its claws scratch her skin as it ripped through the man
who had been kissing her so tenderly only moments before....
.......and she woke, gasping for breath and shaking in her bed, a flood of
emotions and thoughts running through her, her body wanting whatever the
dream man was going to give her, her heart pounding in terror as she moaned
and dropped back into the softness of the mattress.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would look into this mystery of "Sorcerer Mousse".
******************************************************************
Leslie arrived early the next morning, wearing boy's pants and a bonnet to
protect her face from exposure to the wind and sun. Her cheeks already
looked a little windburned, as if she'd taken off the bonnet somewhere and
left it for a while on her way to Ranko's cottage. Cason's third daughter
was unlike the eldest two in many ways. She stood up for herself more often
and was never afraid to voice her opinion; however, to add balance, she had
a shorter attention span and a lower comprehension level. Still, she was
fairly reliable, Ranko thought. She came every Veraday to help Ranko weed
and toil in her herb garden. It was nice to have the companionship, and
today she would do her best to get information out of her.
Ranko listened for a while as Leslie talked about her sisters, about the
cute boys in town she and her friend Ashleigh had crushes on, about how her
grandmother's hand was doing better and how did she ever manage to cut it
that often, anyway?, before she saw a chance to get a word in edgewise.
"Leslie," Ranko began, "what did you think of the sorcerer who was here
before me? Mousse, wasn't that his name?"
Leslie looked up at her, settling back on her haunches, a fistfull of weeds
in one dirty hand. "I liked him. We all liked him, at home, but other
people...well, they didn't seem to. Ashleigh thought that he was creepy
'cause he was always doing things with pretty stones and stuff. He'd wave
'em around and talk in some other language, magik, I guess, and then he'd go
off again. I think most people around here are a little insecure with magik.
Used to, we didn't have to deal with sorcery or anything like that around
here. Things were really quiet and nobody ever came around and there wasn't
so much evil in the world, Momma says. We liked him," she reasserted, "but
nobody else really did."
Ranko nodded thoughtfully. The fact that these people had seemed to like
him said a lot for him, but what about everyone else? She had met Ashleigh's
family, and they were nice, and Gwynyth and her daughter Lucille, how did
they feel about him? Perhaps, as the headman's family, the sorcerer had
fooled them for his own uses. Yes, she would have to ask further...but for
now, it was enough to know that he was liked by someone. She felt the same
as Leslie; for some reason, she liked the man in her dreams... more
than liked him. This bore watching.
Upon that conclusion, Ranko turned once again to the rosemary and began to
root around. Leslie's light chatter filled the heat of the afternoon and it
was almost dark before she knew it.
******************************************************************
Ranko blinked herself into wakefullness, sun shining through the
mosquito-netted window vibrantly. She couldn't believe that she'd slept this
late! It had been years since she had slept much past dawn, and she could
tell that it was almost nine! This July month had been a strange one thus
far; only another week until Lammas Day and the harvest was upon them.
Ranko stood from her bed and stretched, her cotton nightgown rising to
tickle at her ankles as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes; she moved to the
corner of the room and poured water from the pitcher into the bowl to wash
her face and began to come to life. She stripped away her nightgown and
pulled on the light shift that she wore around the house, pulling her
vibrant red hair up into a ponytail with a white ribbon. Humming softly, she
walked into the main room of the cottage...and stopped.
There on the plate that she'd set out the night before, on the plate that
she sat out every night, lay a frail boquet of bridal wreath[4], the tiny
white flowers bunched carefully and still wet with dew. Her hand trembled as
she reached out tentatively to touch the stiff branch, setting the little
blooms quivering. Ranko breathed in deeply, her hand going to her chest in a
calming motion, her eyes darting to the doors. No, the latches were still in
place, and the only window that had been open last night had been the one in
her bedroom. These were fresh, still damp, and she couldn't credit their
existance. A light brush came against the small of her back, and Ranko
jerked around, looking behind her for someone, anyone, a way in which to
discredit the notion of the flowers just showing up.
Much as had happened days before, no one was there. Her heart pounding,
Ranko spun on her heel and ran into the room she had designated for study
and work, dropping to her knees and fumbling for the grimmoire, fingers
shaking as she dropped her throwing stones and his, mingling them into a
confused tumble before she slammed the book down on the floor and
frantically began to turn the pages. Not the one for the living dead, not
the one for necromancy, not the one for.....ah! Here it was! Right in front
of her, a spell for banishing the living souls of those who have died... A
trembling finger followed the lines of the spell, allowing her to read more
carefully. Yes, she had the thyme, the henna, the wolfbane...there were
crystal quartz stones lying at her feet, and all of the other ingredients..
Yes! She had them all! And then she noticed the final line..."To be
Performed on Lammas Eve, at the Darkest Hour, when Light flees from the Land
and leaves All in the Hands of the Old Ones."
The sound of that phrase sent shivers down her spine as she closed her eyes
tightly. Another six days until she could perform the rites...oh, gods,
could she wait that long? It was then that she felt the light brushing
against her body again, barely pressing her shoulder, and the page turned as
if a draft had brushed past. Ranko looked down and she noticed that it was
the same spell, changed by only one word of the incantation. Her eyes
widened as she read the title and the note, "To bring Spirits back to Life
from Untimely Death." Ranko looked up at the ceiling, the only one in the
entire cottage, put here to protect the books. "Is this what you want?" she
whispered tremulously, casting about for anything to which she might address
her question. "Is this what you want?"
Only the soft buzz of a fly answered her.
******************************************************************
It was time. Harvest Day Festivals began tomorrow, but tonight the wind was
wild, blowing through the high grass outside and whipping the branches of
the oak that stood outside of her front door in a frenzy. Ranko pushed the
hood of her crimson velvet ceremonial robes back and whispered a soft prayer
to her goddess[5] that this was the right thing to do. The dreams had
plagued her continually, waking her to screaming only last night, the heat
in the room oppressive, reminding her of the smell of brimstone that
pervaded her dreams, making her shudder in horror. Now, she knew that it was
time to start. The choice must be made, one way or the other. Ranko stepped
into the circle of salt.
She took a deep breath and began the kata. Hers was a unique mixture of
martial arts and sorcery, the soft chanting coming with her graceful
motions, hands gesturing, tossing the specially mined stones and the
gathered herbs in the prescribed direction, west, south, east, north, and
then back again, robes swirling around her as the doors burst open and the
shutters flew outward and the wind entered the tiny cottage, tossing objects
around as if they were nothing. The breeze didn't even ruffle Ranko's robes,
much less her circle. Finally, she came to rest upon her knees, hands held
upwards as if pleading with the gods.
It came. It came in rainbow light and silver streaks, a light so piercingly
bright she must turn away or be blinded. Ranko threw her arms across her
eyes with a loud cry of pain, protecting her face from the glare. She
trembled violently as it settled down, hearing movement, but somehow afraid
to look. In the end, her curiosity won out and she did, and it *was* him,
the beautiful man in her dreams, fingers outstretched as he knelt outside of
her circle and moved forward slowly, crossing the line with ease to kneel
once again and touch the hem of the robe with his fingers. Now that she
could see him alive and real before her, Ranko blushed furiously. Seeing a
man naked in one's dreams was one thing -- to have that man stand before you
without thought for his nudity was quite something else.
Her fingers trembled as he stood and looked down into her eyes for a
moment, sapphire meeting hazel-gold in a clash and then an understanding of
wills. His voice sent shivers down her spine as he spoke, low and soft, with
firm intent. "You know that it's coming, don't you?"
Ranko's eyes widend. "What? What's coming?"
The sorcerer shook his head, his jaw firmly set. "The beast. It can only
attack on Lammas Eve, and it always comes here. It never goes into the
village..." He broke off, listening intently before reaching up to lightly
brush his knuckles across her cheek. "A little more power, and I would have
had it." A rueful smile crossed his lips. "That seems to be the story of my
life..." With that, he leaned down and brushed his lips across her own, as
if irresistably drawn.
Ranko made a little noise of approval, shivering beneath his touch as his
hands settled on her waist. She opened her mouth to him, wanting him as much
as he wanted her, easily. Ranko's surpressed emotions, fear and anger and
love and desire, all in a confused tangle, rose to the surface as she tried
to press more closely against him, trembling violently. Her thoughts cleared
as he drew away, leaving her mouth swollen and bruised. Yes, it was coming.
That was what the dream meant, that it would come and try again -- and if
she weren't determined enough to help stop it, then this man, this beautiful
man with whom she had fallen in love in her dreams, would be lost to her
forever for the beast would not stop until they
were both vanquished at its feet.
They smelled it before they saw it -- that sulphur and decomposition smell
that frightened Ranko so, her eyebrows arching wide as she turned towards
the front door. She could almost see the outline now as she stood before
Mousse, hands held out in the beginnings of her kata. She could feel Mousse
moving behind her, the inexorable draw of power as it came into her and
flowed into him, coalesceing somewhere behind her in what felt like a ball
of pure energy.
She could see details, now. The scales across its shoulders, the teeth
sharp and sticking out at so many angles that it was a wonder the creature
didn't bite itself, the yellow mud color of its eyes gleaming in the dim
glow from her single lantern. She could feel the dark energy, the pure evil
of it, reaching out as if to touch her.
And then it came, flying past her ear in a glorious swirl of blue and gold
and green and red, chi made life somehow as it slammed into the hideous
thing. She could hear it roar in pain as several smaller globes followed the
first, seeming to disentigrate into its body and eat it alive from the
inside out. Ranko shuddered violently upon hearing its screams, seemingly
screams for mercy.....and then it was gone.
The wind died down and she turned to look at the man behind her. He
appeared to be on the verge of pure exhaustion and she was sure that she
must look equally as tired. She broke the circle carefully and stepped
outside of it, moving to a small trunk against a corner and lifting out the
hunter green satin robes and the black pants, watching soundlessly as Mousse
pulled them on, buttoning the Chinese style robe up the front with little
wooden buttons.
"And what now?" Ranko asked softly, tilting her head to the side. "You with
your goddess of earth and mine of fire. What now, Sorcerer Mousse?"
He waved his hand to the right and bowed his head, a silver lock falling
into his eyes as he leaned forward and handed her the perfectly shaped white
orchid, a mischevious smile crossing his face. "I don't know....I think
there would be plenty of room in this village for two sorcerers. What do you
think?"
With a dimpled smile, Ranko stepped forward and into his arms, wrapping her
own around his neck. "Absolutely."
******************************************************************
[1A] Lammas Day is on August 1st, thus Lammas Eve would be July 31. All
characters aside from Ranko and any other Ranma 1/2 characters are Southern
in general demeanor and deportment -- all be it, a fantasy/elseworlds sort
of Southern. =) The theme is from a collection of stories called *tada!* _In
Celebration of Lammas Night_, stories based on a poem written by Mercedes
Lackey. She didn't give the poem an end, so no one knows whether the
sorceress chose to revive the dead sorcerer or not...tho most of the writers
had some really great ideas ^_^
[1] Hehe.. *sheepish grin* Cameo appearances for my whole family... Err..
well.. I needed SOMEBODY to fill in the non-Ranko parts, now didn't I? .......
[2] It's my cooking, it's my mother's cooking, I AM ALLOWED TO EXAGGERATE...
except I'm not, but you've never eaten it, so how can you know? ^_~
[3] Perverts :P
[4] Bridal wreath really is a flower -- we have them in the front yard. They
grow on bushes, and there are usually 15 or more tiny blooms making up each
flower. They grow along the "stalks" or branches so that there's a wreath
every few inches, like so, except curved: -,-*-*-*-*-,' (with leaves and all).
[5] The goddess of her choice, naturally. What kind of girl do you think I
am!? ;) Yes, there are several different references here -- the expletive
gods, the talents God gave us, her goddess. I realize that this looks
confusing -- let us say that these people have a pantheon. Ranko chooses to
serve a goddess whereas the members of the village serve a God, as a whole.
Perhaps we'll find out what Mousse served later on.
Final notes:
Well, you say, why Mousse? I mean, really, that's preposterous... Because
Mousse was well suited to the role. I like his sense of devotion. I like his
sense of chivalry. I like his sense of romance.... Heck, I just
like Mousse, period. ^_~ Since this is Ranko (and not Ranma, yes, I realize
they are one and the same, that it's just a nickname for his female side)
(what's that word, btw? The one for nickname? All I can think of is
nomenclature.... wrong word. *shrug*), I didn't figure that anyone would
find this to be a fic in immitation of others in which Ranma(male) falls in
love with another male(usually Ryouga). I'm partial to Ryouga and all, and
if it were going to be a romantic Ranma/another male story I'd go for Ryouga
first off -- BUT, seeing how it isn't, I chose Mousse. He just seemed
appropriate. Sorry this isn't more of an actual Ranma-fic, but... ^_^
tzigane
***************************************************
* If I die let it be with you... *
* Hold me close while the world falls in on me.. *
* Whisper my name as the darkness rises... *
* And I fall into the dream that never ends... *
* From:"The Scarlet Letters" by Scott Urban *
***************************************************