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Dreams Left Unopened A Ranma 1/2 | The Sandman | Sailor Moon piece of fanfiction.
"All wound up "On the edge "Terrified
"Sleep disturbed "Restless mind "Petrified
"Bouts of fear "Permeate "All I see
"Heightening "Nervousness "Threatens me"
"Run "Try to hide "Overwhelmed by this complex Delirium" --excerpts from 'Panic Attack' by Dream Theater.
----- Part One: MaDness and mArkings -----
It was well past the hour of noon, and the sunlight cast long shadows as it broke through the foliage of the woodland. A single form flitted through it, never visible for more than a moment, leaping from branch to branch, skipping deftly from one area of ground cover to another. Speed, unpredictability, concealment; the form displayed each of these qualities, in quantities that only ever came to those who had trained long or who were innately suited to it by their very nature. It stopped for a moment, crouching close to the base of a tree, nearly entirely swallowed by the shadow of a nearby bush.
It was large for one of its kind, but it was still young yet; just a kitten really. Its eyes darted back and forth, sweeping the ground which it had just covered. There was no sign of the one was hunting him, but the kitten knew that Its hunter was a canny one, and should not be underestimated. It had injured the hunter before fleeing, but it knew the hunter wouldn't give up so easily. It hadn't smelt any fear. The hunter had been irritated and wounded, but not for a single moment had he doubted of his eventual success. The hunter was a predator, of that the kitten had no doubt.
Having caught its breath, the Kitten broke for cover again, moving further away from where the hunter had tried to catch it. The kitten was stronger than most its age, but its body was already taxed from its race through the woodlands, and its muscles were beginning to burn from the strain it had been putting upon them. Its pace slackened. It had no way of knowing whether the one who hunted him was still on his tail, but it couldn't keep up his former pace indefinitely. At the very least, it had time. The hunter was not as fast as it, even if it still had its trail, the kitten had some time.
A slight breeze was blowing through the woods, cooling the kitten's skin, and tugging at the grass, fish and blood stained Gi that it was dressed in. The woodlands around the kitten were quiet, but the sounds of distant bird calls were faintly audible. With a slower pace, the kittens thoughts began to wander. It knew it should be concerned with the hunter, but with the immediate danger long past, its heart rate slowing down to normal, it was becoming far too easy to be distracted by the small things; the way a leaf caught the sunlight, the feeling of the soft earth beneath its paws.
The rich and earthy smells were almost overpoweringly distracting. For such a young kitten there was so much to experience and to smell. A passing cockroach provided some few minutes distraction, but as tired as he was, the kitten was still far faster than the roach. It didn't take long at all to corner, catch and eat it. The butterflies proved far more elusive prey.
They sat together, hundreds of them resting along every branch of a single tree. Thousands of sets of wings fanned slowly, so that the sea of colours that decorated the tree seemed to shift with every second. The kitten cared little for the breathtaking visual display, instead seeing thousands of games, all waiting to be played with and caught. He darted across the ground and straight up the trunk of the tree, transforming the resting butterflies into an expanding, multi-hued cloud. They were far more agile than the cockroach, and even when the kitten was sure that he had one it seemed to escape his grasp. They seemed to melt away into nothing beneath his claws.
The butterflies led the kitten further through the woods, their numbers dissipating as the chase continued. By the time he had lost track of the last of the butterflies, the chase had led him to a small clearing, and to further distractions. Someone crouched near the centre of the clearing. She was female, of that there was no doubt, but the kitten found himself unsure as to exactly what species she was; she was neither quite kitten nor quite human. All the kitten could say was that the girl 'fitted'. Something about her made him feel that as strange as she was, there was no one more natural in the world.
"doGgY. Here DogGy," The girl called out, lifting up a stone with one of her hands and peering intently at the spot on the ground on which it had been resting. The girl obviously didn't much like what she saw, because she shook her head abruptly, the motion caused a slow wave to pass along the length of her hair.
Her hair was strange, the kitten realised, it was standing up on her head and leaning to the right, trailing above her as if her head had its very own field of gravity, or as if her hackles were up. The kitten sniffed the air. She didn't smell scared or angry though; strangely enough she smelt like warm days, disjointed lines, and upside down and right side out.
The girl was coloured oddly too, the kitten noticed. For the most part it was orange, but some of the time parts seemed to shimmer with different colours, red, vibrant blue, pink and purtle (which in itself is not quite purple, and not quite turtle with anchovy patches).
The girl had now turned her attention to the rock in her hands, turning it back and forth, examining it as if it were a precious gem, rather than an unremarkable brown pebble. After a moment or two she cast the rock aside, and spun around on one heel until she came to a wobbly stop facing the kitten. The girl blinked, her eyes catching the kitten's own. Both her eyes were primary colours, but her right eye was only a primary colour of light, and not of pigments.
The girl's eyes were amazing, full of so many things, and the kitten started padding across the clearing towards her. They were as deep as a jumping E flat, and they pulled at him, drawing him forward. They were more amazing than fish heads, more comfortable than a warm spot in the sunshine. They were wide, and they opened up around him, wrapping the kitten up inside them.
The kitten began to purr.
----
Humanity, like every manner of mortal creature, is limited. The Universe is a many faceted thing, but we only ever see one face. We sail across what we perceive as its surface, never able to dive its true depths. We are locked into our own flawed, mortal perspective.
Some talented few can catch glimpses of facets outside the human ken, and others can feel otherworldly things tugging through the veil, affecting our own existences. Many find themselves unable to cope with their insight, or perhaps just unable to stop themselves from sharing it with the rest of the population. In the western world we lock them up, and we ignore their stories, denounce them as works of fancy or fiction. We cannot understand what we cannot touch, and our very humanity prevents us from touching so very much.
The Endless, like the Universe, are complex constructs, too big for a human mind to comprehend. They are Ideas, concepts cloaked in the vestige of flesh. Those of us who see them at all see a human-like figure, not so very different from us in appearance, but there is far more to them than what our flawed eyes can perceive.
In what we call the beginning, a word summoned the universe from the void, but before it was ever spoken, this word was written down in The Book of Destiny, penned by his own hand.
When the first star was born from clouds of hydrogen, Death was there to greet it to its life, and when the last star flickers and dies, she will be there to honour its passing and usher it to the sunless lands. Every living being has met her once, though we remember it not, and we each will meet her again.
There are others too. Dream; Destruction (now retired); Desire; Despair and, youngest of all, Delirium.
Of all the Endless Delirium was the most mutable, both in appearance and in manner. To mortals she appeared as a teenaged girl, but most of the rest of her appearance fluctuated dramatically. One thing could always be counted on to remain stable, however; her eyes were always mismatched, the left a deep eye catching blue, the right a sparkling emerald green. There had been a time when both her eyes had shone with the same colour, each flickering a delightful blue at those she gazed upon; but that had been long ago, back when she had been another being with another name.
Things had been hard for Delirium, ever since she had stopped being Delight, but recently they had been improving somewhat. Together she and Dream had found their missing brother. Delirium had hoped that he would come back, and maybe he would live in her realm with her and sing songs, and laugh when she danced her little dances for him, and although he hadn't, Delirium had not gone home alone. She had returned to her own realm accompanied by Barnabas, formerly her brother's faithful hound.
Life with a doggy was much better than life without one, and whenever Delirium wasn't distracted by other things or thoughts, then she was very happy to have her doggy with her. Only she had lost him. One minute they were together at the It’s a Small World After All Place Boat Ride, and next thing she knew, she was being all fishes, swimming through the air, and her doggy was nowhere to be seen.
Now she was searching for him. So far she had only found one clue, a tongue stud, she had put it in her pocket, and forgotten about it for the time being. Delirium had asked a few people if they had seen her doggy, but no one had yet been very helpful. Perhaps, Delirium thought, this new arrival might be more helpful. A boy, was padding silently across the grass of the clearing on all fours, his eyes watching her with every sign of curiosity. His body was that of a human but Delirium could feel in her being that this was not a normal child, not a boy at all really. Delirium knew a cat when she saw one, and she could feel a connection to the creature. This was one who walked through her realm.
Delirium stooped, dropping to her knees as the kitten closed to within her arms reach.
"Oh! You are one of mine, aren't you?" She leaned forward, a smile lighting up her face as she reached out to pat the kitten on the top of his head.
The kitten continued to purr, Its head pressing up against the fingers that slid along the fur on top of his head. "Have you seen my doggy anywhere? I've been looking and looking for him, and searching too.
"He was a very nice doggy, but I don’t know where I put him. I thought maybe he had slipped under the cushions on the sofa, but he wasn't under any of the cushions anywhere, and so now I am looking to see if he is in Japan." Delirium's kitten cocked his head to the side, and stared up at the girl, not seeming to have a great deal to add to the conversation.
"He wasn't in the tree-house either." Delirium added after a moment, before seeming to temporarily lose interest in the subject as her kitten pushed harder up against her hand.
"Meow?" said the kitten.
"You ow?" Delerium asked, leaning down to look closer at her new kitty. It wasn't really acting like it was in pain, but scratches criss-crossed its flesh and it had just told her that is was ow. She touched a finger to one of the scratches, and in a twinkling of multicoloured candy canes the injuries were gone, replaced by rows of tiny little arms that all waved up at her. Delerium waved back at the arms as they melted back into her kitten's skin.
Of all the Endless, Delirium was perhaps the least bound by rules, but even she was aware that there were some things that you were supposed to do, and she was beginning to feel that there might be something that she was forgetting. A thought struck her and she searched about her, looking through all the places she put things. At last she fished out a paper back, which she looked at guiltily, before turning back to her kitten, who was now trying to squeeze onto her lap.
"I do not have any fishes for you to eat kitty, but I do have a bag of frogs trapped in small pianos." Delirium held out the slightly damp paper bag in the general direction of her kitty, hoping that perhaps his offering would be good enough. The kitten didn't seem to be the least bit interested however. Delirium, his mistress, was far more interesting, and so too was the prospect of being scratched behind the ears.
Delirium lifted the paper bag up to eye level, opening it a crack to peer inside. She shook on the bag, hoping that the frogs had learnt to play the pianos from the insides by now, but they only started to sing again, their baritone voices filling the area with a cacophony of different and unrelated songs. Delerium closed the bag, which didn't stop the singing, but did serve to shut the frogs away in her mind, even if in no one else's.
Delirium scratched her kitten behind his ears. He was a gorgeous little thing, even though he looked like a person and not a cat. A kitten couldn't ever replace her doggy, but Delirium was still happy to have one. The thought was almost enough to make her feel delighted. She wasn't though. She hadn't been delightful for a very long time now. She didn't dwell on the thought, because it was a sad one, and she had a kitten now after all, even if it didn't seem to be a very small kitten, and even though it wasn't small enough to fit under her hat. Delirium stopped, her eyes lighting up.
She'd look for Barnabas in her hats next.
----
Genma might not be the first to admit that he wasn't a particularly good man, but he certainly wasn't unaware of the fact either. Genma was quite comfortable with the fact that he was a thief, liar, scoundrel and coward. These things were unimportant. What was important was his son; his legacy. Genma had given up the comforts of hearth and home, and the certainty of receiving three home cooked meals everyday, all so that he could help his son achieve the highest pinnacle of skill and excellence that was possible for him. Genma had always wanted his children to carry on his legacy in the Martial Arts, but it went further than that. His son, Ranma, had displayed an amazing ability at the art from the time of his first steps. At the age of five, Ranma had mastered the basics more quickly than Genma had managed when he started learning in his late teens. Once Genma had realised this, he had decided to devote his life to the single goal of helping his son become the best Martial Artist in all of Japan.
Unfortunately one of the many traits that Genma lacked was patience. Certainly he couldn't expect his ten year old child to be as physically capable as a fully grown adult, but he did wish that his son would grow up a bit faster; there were skills which he was desperate to train Ranma in, but the boy just wasn't ready for it yet. The Catfist, a technique said to be invincible, had seemed to be the answer to all of Genma's hopes and dreams.
Well yes, he probably should have read all that the manual had to say on the technique, but just the first few paragraphs had filled him with such an all consuming enthusiasm that he couldn't help but rush off to start preparing his son for the training. It had taken a while to find a house with a suitable basement, and longer still to collect a suitable number of cats from the surrounding neighbourhoods. After that, it had just been a matter of starving the cats for several days while his son had meditated, preparing himself for the ordeal ahead of him.
Genma had wrapped him up in fish sausages, then dropped him into the dark basement of cats, just as the manual had instructed; but his child had emerged cut and scared, not the invincible warrior that the martial arts manual had promised. At first Genma thought that perhaps it was the boy's meditation techniques that had not been strong enough to allow him to learn the technique. Ranma's technique had seemed sound, however.
It had left Genma at a loss. The author of the manual was a respectable and reliable source, and Genma simply couldn't think what was preventing the boy from learning the technique. Genma starved the cats again, before trying tying his son in other food types. Perhaps there was something out there that would incite the cats to be even fiercer, even more desperate for the food. He tried using dried sardines; then salted sardines; and last of all fish cakes. Finally something had seemed to happen. It wasn't what Genma had been hoping for or expecting though.
The fish cakes seemed to make little difference to the training, for the weak mews from the cats were the same; the whimpers from his son had been near identical, right until the moment when they stopped. The panic that had filled Genma was near complete; had he killed his son? The training had obviously not been without risk, but Genma had been confident that his son was strong enough, good enough, to triumph over it. He had rushed forward, ready to tear the trapdoor open, and rescue his son from the ravenous cats.
His hand was inches from the trapdoor when it exploded outwards, pelting Genma with fragments of wood. Bodies of small cats were flung bodily from the pit, hitting the interior walls of the house hard. And finally, Genma had seen the sight which he had been dreaming of for the last few weeks.
His son had landed lightly next to him upon all fours, hissing at Genma like a real cat, and he had known that his son had mastered the technique. It was a joyous moment. The gods had finally answered Genma's prayers. Ranma had learnt the technique, and Genma had succeeding in helping his son become a truly fine martial artist.
Perhaps Ranma had been less filled with joy than his father, because when Genma had opened his arms to embrace his son, tears of joy falling freely from his eyes, his son had clawed him. Ranma's fingers never connected with his fathers body, yet deep parallel cuts had opened across Genma's abdomen. Having wounded Genma, Ranma had turned tail, fleeing upon all fours with all possible haste.
It was only then, while checking the manual to see if it could explain this behaviour of his son, that Genma had discovered the true tragedy of the Cat Fist technique. The first page detailed in brief the awesome heights that those who mastered it could achieve, and detailed the methods of training. It was the second page, the page which Genma had missed in his excitement, which told of the Technique's fatal flaw. It drives its users insane.
To draw on the power and agility of the common housecat, its users must first become the cat. Some users, the manual said, had never regained their sanity, and had spent the rest of their lives chasing birds and being waited upon by a monastic order which had been dedicated to Bast. The order was gone now, and it was irrelevant, anyhow. There was no way that Ranma was weak spirited enough to have his mind destroyed like that, was there?
When Ranma had bolted from Genma, he had headed out from the town, straight towards the nearby woodlands. Having discarded the manual, and hurriedly grabbing their bags, Genma had followed his son, making as best time as he could burdened by both of their heavy packs. Ranma wasn't likely to find anyone in the woodlands to savage, which was a good thing, but on the other hand there was no one to ask if they'd seen his son, and Ranma was proving to be surprisingly hard to track. Compared to most, Ranma was light on his feet, but even so, he normally left trails that an experienced traveller like Genma could follow without too much difficulty. Today the signs of Ranma's passing were both scarce and close to imperceptible. Genma found that he was spending more time searching randomly than he was following tracks.
Genma wiped sweat away from his brow. It was too easy to loose the trail. He could see it now, the letter to his wife: Dear Nodoka, my love, my darling, I have lost our son. He ran away after escaping from a basement full of starving cats, and I haven't been able to find him. P.S. He is also insane now.
He could imagine the outcome too. Years on the run followed by ritual suicide when his wife finally caught him. It wasn't the end that Genma wanted for the story of his life. He had higher ambitions than to end up cutting his own belly open.
Genma grunted, trying to shift the two backpacks he was wearing into a more comfortable position. It wasn't so much the weight as the difficulty of having each of the large packs precariously balanced by one strap from different shoulders. When he was younger this sort of activity had seemed so much easier. He would never willingly admit it to his peers, but in the privacy of his head he was aware that he had let himself go just a little bit. There were just a few pounds on his stomach which hadn't been there back in the days when he had courted Nodoka.
Trudging further forward, and watching the ground and foliage intently for any signs of his son's passing, Genma gradually became aware of a strange sound that permeated the forest. It was just on the edge of his awareness, and Genma wondered how long he had been hearing the sound without realising it. Filtered by the trees and other foliage, the sound was distorted, almost formless, yet somehow it still managed to evoke feelings in Genma. To him, the sound was beautiful yet somehow melancholy.
A few snapped twigs and the faintest of impressions on the leaf covered ground showed Genma that his son had been this way. The tracks continued for a few metres before disappearing again. This was getting stupid. In his current state, there was no telling what Ranma might do. Genma had to find him soon. The tracks were hardly the most linear that Genma had ever followed, but they did seem to head vaguely in the direction that the noise seemed to be coming from, and Genma decided to take a chance and head in that direction. Genma pulled the white bandana which covered his bald patch of his head, and tied it around a branch. If the sound was nothing but a red herring, then Genma would be able to resume his search from this place relatively easily.
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Setting off at a jog, Genma travelled towards the noise as best as he was able. Pinpointing it was a little difficult, as the trees distorted the sound, adding echoes and false reverb. He had to change course a couple of times, but the sound grew closer, more distinct. As he got closer Genma realised that it wasn't just one noise that he was hearing, but rather a host of different voices, each singing a separate song.
Every now and then Genma could pick out a word or two from one of the many songs he was hearing. They disturbed him, but filled him with sadness and sympathy for whatever strange creatures were singing their sad songs.
They were loud now, seeming to fill not only the forest, but also his head. Genma continued, imagining that the sadness was his own. Only his male pride stopped Genma from weeping tears for his lost and insane son.
Genma stepped through a break in the trees and out into a clearing. Perhaps it wasn't his son who was insane, perhaps it was him, Genma wondered as he took stock of the clearing. He was now standing in a field of broad, waist high mushrooms each a bright colour, and each at least a subtly different colour from all the others. They swayed back and forth, as if caught in a strong, imaginary breeze. In the centre of the clearing a single brown mushroom, almost half again as tall as the others, stood stationary. Upon it sat an odd looking teenaged girl, and curled up in her lap, just like a housecat, was his son, sleeping soundly. The girl seemed to be completely unaware of Genma, knocking an old battered top hat upon her knee and kicking at the stalk of the mushroom with her heel.
The music faded to the background a little as Genma became accustomed to its odd fluctuating movement. It was still loud, but it no longer pressed so heavily inside his mind, and Genma was now able to think past it. Genma walked carefully towards the girl, pushing through the mushrooms. They did not push hard enough against him to cause much difficulty but powder rubbed off them, staining his Gi in various different bright colours.
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When Genma had approached to but a few mushrooms away from the girl, her eyes sprung upwards to hold his gaze, and for a moment Genma stood paralysed. Meeting her gaze felt much like meeting the gaze of his old master. The feeling broke a second later, and Genma scoffed at himself internally. There was no way that a girl, even a strange girl like this one, could have anywhere near as much power as his old master. The hat that the girl had been holding dropped from her fingers, forgotten for the moment in the face of new stimuli. Her eyes probed Genma, as if she was searching his face for answers.
Genma swallowed, and wet his lips. "Excuse me miss," he started, managing to affect a relatively polite air, "I need to take..."
The girl spoke up, her words quieter than Genma's but somehow still managing to cut through his.
"I'm looking for my doggy," Delirium announced to the aging, balding, martial artist, as if it was the most natural way to open up the conversation between them, "I was looking after him really good, but then I forgot, and I losted him. I've been looking everywhere that I can think of. I thought I'd look for him in my hats, but I couldn't find them and then I thought maybe I didn't have them or maybe I gave them to my sister, she likes hats, but I think she'd tell me if I'd left my dog in one."
It took Genma a moment to realise that Delirium had stopped talking for the moment. "I don't know anything about a dog, I just..."
"But I did find a piece of paper in this one," Delirium interrupted, pulling forth a yellowing and cracked piece of cardboard, "It says seven and three quarters on it. I thought maybe it was an address, and someone had left it in the hat for me to find, but I don't know anyone who lives at seven and three quarters anywhere."
Genma was sweating now. Increasingly angry at the lack of attention she was giving, but also inexplicably terrified. He wiped his forehead with the back of his palm.
"I just want my son back!" The words spilled out his mouth much faster than he had meant to say them, and his voice sounded hoarse. Damn it, he needed a drink or something.
For the moment Delirium's eyes found Genma's again, her mind briefly locking onto what it was that he was saying to her. "Your sun? You already have a sun though. What's wrong with Sol? Isn't he bright enough for you?"
It wasn't the line of argument that Genma had been expecting. If she had of said 'Of course you can have your son back, but before you go, why don't we think about engaging him to my young and beautiful daughter' then Genma would have know exactly what to do, but her current strategy eluded Genma. Who was Sol? It didn't sound like a girl's name.
"Look, he's my son, and I need to take him to continue his training."
Delirium blinked at the man, and as she opened her eyes, they seemed to be for the briefest of moments a pair of daisies rotating on her head. "You are training him to be a sun?"
"Yes..." Genma lied. What was wrong with this child, he wondered. Perhaps her mother had dropped her on her head when she was young. Maybe she was an evil water spirit, which would explain why she made him feel so jittery. "What is your name, child?" he ventured.
"I don't have a child to name," Delirium confided to the fat ugly man in a loud whisper, "But I do have a nice doggy called Barnabas, but I don’t know where I put him. And now I have a kitten and I am going to call him Foramen Magnum. Can you really teach Foramen Magnum to be a sun?"
The idea seemed to fascinate the strange girl, for she peered down inquisitively at Genma's son, stroking his hair and poking him lightly with one finger. "He doesn't look much like a sun," She said looking up at the martial artist, "he doesn't resonate right, but maybe kitten suns are different to normal suns. Are you sure you can teach him on your own, because if you wanted I could ask Sol, and maybe Sol could teach him to be a sun better? I think Sol has probably got more experience."
Genma just wanted to get away from the creepy child, and by now he was prepared to agree to just about anything. "Yes, I'm sure I can do it. I've had lots of experience training Suns. But if you wanted to ask Sol, perhaps he could give me a few hints or advice. In fact, why don’t you go and ask her now."
"Oh I can't go now," Delirium said, "I still have to find my doggy. But as soon as I've found him I'll go and ask Sol. You'll look after my kitten, won't you?" She demanded, her voice losing some of its dreamy edge and hardening. Genma nodded mutely, wondering how such a small girl managed to evoke such nervousness in him.
Delirium bent her head over her kitten, and planted her lips on his forehead. "Don't worry kitten, I wont forget you. I've put my mark on you now and if I ever need to I'll be able to find you."
Soon afterwards Genma found himself back in the custody of his son. By the time Ranma woke, Delirium had long departed, and the mushrooms had withered away to nothing, and Genma was feeling more certain of himself again. Ranma woke with very little memory of what had happened, and without the slightest inclination to act like a cat. Genma was very glad to have his son back more or less intact, and if his son sometimes acted a little odd, then it was something that he managed to overlook.
----- to be continued... -----
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