|
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 Two: Interlude -----
Magic is more than tricks, more than pulling rabbits and pigeons from top hats and sawing long legged ladies in half.
Magic is more than Myth, more than a convenient explanation in legends and stories for things that their authors didn't understand.
Magic is more than coloured lights, bursts of fire, and tongues of lightning.
Magic is more than power.
There is no clear consensus as to what magic is. Sometimes it is described as being an overt and obvious force, sometimes it is depicted as a subtle agent, only seen by those trained to recognise it, and sometimes it is said to be the fundamental base upon which all else is built. One of the most notorious magicians of the current age has been known to say that the cornerstone to real magic is very similar to that of Sleight of Hand: being able to convince people to believe what you want them to.
Perhaps it is this simple: something which we can comprehend and can calculate we call science, things which we cannot we call magic. Science divides all that which works upon us into two states: matter and energy. Those who work in 'magic' recognise many more forms and states, ones which cannot be easily quantified, and which cannot be fitted into any formulae, no matter how complex it might be.
In our current age of reason, many of us would consider The Endless magical or mythical beings, but they are more a natural part of the order of things than the machines which dominate our lives. Reason, as Destruction once said, is no more reliable a tool as instinct myth or dream.
Reason certainly played little part in Delirium's actions. When she acted, it was usually without much thought for what consequences might be generated. Certainly when she placed her mark upon the forehead of the human known as Ranma Saotome, she had not envisioned what it might eventually lead to. Ranma was her kitten, that Delirium knew, and if most of the time he walked on two feet, and acted and thought exactly as a human, then that made little difference to her; it didn't change the fact that he was also her kitten.
When the mind of a cat rode in Ranma's psyche, then Delirium was with him, as a touching upon his soul, if not in physical incarnation. Ranma saw less of Delirium when his mind was unaffected by the Cat Fist training, but she was no stranger to him, and her touch upon him was still apparent to those who knew what to look for, for no mortal can receive the mark of an Endless and remain unchanged.
The mark did not steal Ranma's self, but it did affect him. He no longer saw the world in quite the same way, and he began to ask questions of his father; some of which confused Genma, and others which Genma merely wished he had left unasked. The mark didn't give Ranma any new knowledge (though the occasional conversations with his mistress sometimes did), but Genma found that the seed of madness buried within his son prevented him from having as much control over the way he thought and acted as he had before.
Other changes were more baffling, but less worrying to the older martial artist. Ranma now gravitated to the softest and warmest spot, whenever they stopped. He devoured fish with a passion that he had never shown before. Wherever it was that they stopped, Genma would find that his son somehow managed to seek out and befriend one of the elderly. Genma always found it very uncomfortable talking to those whose faculties had been addled by age, but his son seemed to delight in it. He could talk to them, and exist in their world in a manner which Genma found impossible to understand. Whenever Ranma went into the Cat Fist, Genma would invariably find him curled up in the lap of one of the old, unless that creepy girl turned up again, of course.
This was all before delirium remembered that her kitten was supposed to be training to be a sun.
It was hard to be sure how well an idea would stick in Delirium's head. Sometimes ideas would pass through her mind faster than <electrons through copper wiring>, sometimes she would obsess on an idea, focussing all of her attention on it for a time, and other times the ideas would lurk inside her consciousness, waiting for the right time to rise to the surface and float upon the sea of her memory where they would be noticed.
This particular memory surfaced in Delirium's mind shortly after her kitten visited the cursed springs of Jusenkyo. Her kitten, sixteen by now, was knocked into one of the springs by his father, and when she emerged, it was with a curse that transformed her into a short, redheaded girl whenever she was splashed with cold water. The confusion and anger which filled the kitten's mind called to Delirium, and she visited him, or her, or whatever.
They sat down together, bathed in the orange glow of late afternoon sunlight, the two of them sitting side by side, with Barnabas curled up nearby. Ranma was still not sure what to make of her new body, and was examining it perplexedly. The change really didn't seem that strange to Delirium. Her body was changing all the time, and it almost seemed right that her kitten should have different bodies too.
Ranma was touching the two large swells that now rose sharply beneath her shirt, prodding them and lifting them with her hands.
"It feels like I have jelly in me," Delirium's kitten commented, "Feel it. It's really weird. How do girls manage not to be distracted all the time when they've got jelly on their chests."
Delirium nodded, remembering the chocolate lovers with jelly in the centre that she had once eaten in the realm of Dream. The bright red hair falling from Ranma's was tickling at the back of her mind, trying to remind her of something. It was such a vibrant red that it drew to mind thoughts of fire.
"I burnt something yesterday, Foramen Magnum. It all went up in fire and then down to ash. It reminded me about my brother, because he isn't here, but Barnabas was really nice to me and so it was okay."
No that wasn't it. Delirium had been trying to remember something else entirely. Sol. She clapped her hands excitedly, suddenly remembering her promise. "Your training Kitty! I was going to ask Sol to help. Do you still want to be a sun? I bet he could help you sparkle and burn and hang in space for ages. I like space. Especially the bits with nothing in them between star systems."
Ranma turned to Delirium, a very serious expression occupying as he spoke on something that was very important to him. "I think I want some Jelly, with cream on top, or maybe some ice cream. Do you think there's anywhere with jelly near here? If there isn't, then maybe I could have some ice cream on its own."
In the background Barnabas snorted, and muttered to himself. He loved the two ladies in front of him with as much affection as his more-or-less canine body could muster, but it was very hard to take them seriously sometimes. Ranma had only just been turned into a woman, and already her thoughts had turned to food. It often came down to food, when Ranma was concerned.
Delirium sprung upwards, hopping from one foot to the other. "Then Barnabas and I will go straight to Sol and we'll ask him straight away if he can help you, and maybe he'll have some jelly for you as well."
As it turned out, Sol didn't have any jelly for her kitty, which was sad, but after musing on her confusing stream of words for a while he did have a suggestion for Delirium. Hearing her request, Sol saw not only a chance to help Delerium, but also a chance to correct his past mistakes.
When his children had still been in their infancy, and had freshly bloomed on their surfaces, Sol had made what he considered his greatest mistake. He had allowed his inexperienced and untested children to interfere with the life that walked upon their crusts. Each child had chosen a human who intrigued them, spoke to them, and granted gifts of power to them and their descendants. The humans had not been ready for the gifts, and the planets had not been ready to guide them. Peace prospered for a time, but the eventual result was war and destruction.
He should have known better. The lives of sentient beings are best left to grow wild. If they are pruned too frequently they are likely to either wither and die, or grow too fast and smother the earth upon which they grow. Now, as a result of his folly of all his children, only Gaia was left unharmed and able to bear life.
Recently Sol had detected the power of his children once more being used upon Gaia's surface, and he feared for what might come of it. His fears were worsened by missives from the new incarnation of Dream. It seemed that the guardians of his children's powers were endangering more than his planets this time. Delirium's request provided him with what might be his best chance to help heal the damage he had caused.
For the first time in the history of his system, Sol gained a Senshi of his own.
----- Part Two: Banksias and Bedding -----
In Tokyo it was never truly dark. In the busier areas Neon lights adorned nearly every building, advertisements for Coke, karaoke lounges and Gurico confectionary burning themselves into the retinas of passers by. Even in the far-flung suburbs, it was hard to find an area that was untouched by the frequent streetlights. It made no difference anyway, because there was so much light it was in the air. Light pollution made the skies lighter than black for miles around, making stargazing difficult to impossible; only the brightest of stellar objects were visible.
In Juuban, shift worker Tatsuki Hiroyama's last dream before he woke up for his midnight shift, was of the light. In his dream they kept on building and building, until the city centre was so bright that it was like a sun itself. Day continued, eternal and interrupted. He still worked the night shifts, so he was able to stay home, spending time with his family until the light completely suffused his body, and lifted him up to the heavens, where he played Go with the angels.
As Tatsuki threw off his dreams, and struggled into his overalls before quietly padding downstairs to cook himself some toast, the head of another family was settling down to sleep. Kenji Tsukino could feel the warmth of his already sleeping wife beside him as his mind began to wander. He thought about work; about his son, who was doing so well at school these days; about his daughter who wasn't doing well at school at all, but whom still managed to shine so brightly. His daughter never seemed to be particularly good at anything in particular, but she was so caring and he was proud of her. His daughter was... His daughter... Kenji slept.
Upstairs his daughter had been sleeping for more than an hour. Her cat and closest advisor was curled up on the foot of her bed, her small warm form nestled against Usagi's ankles. The snores that filled the room were loud, but somehow delicate and almost cute. In no way did they betray what was passing through her sleeping mind.
Usagi dreamt of her boyfriend.
The room was large and opulent, but inside her dreams it seemed the most natural place in the world for Usagi to be. Every piece of furniture was decorated with red velvet, and the large bed in the centre of the room was draped in pink satin. Gossamer curtains hung at the windows, thinly veiling a view of almost unparalleled beauty. Usagi had no eyes for the view.
Her lover stood over her, so close that Usagi could feel the heat radiating from his body. He was so powerful, his scent so intoxicating and alluring. He stooped down towards her, his lips capturing her own and pulling her upwards towards him, as if they gripped her as tightly as the arms that wound around her waist. The touch of his lips to her sent thrills racing through her body, but even had she detested it, she doubted that she could have broken the contact, for he owned her, body and soul, just as she owned him.
They were in the bed, the dream taking them there without need for movement. The sheets tented over their naked bodies as they pressed against each other. He was between her legs, a red hot presence against the insides of her thighs. She gazed deeply into his eyes, loving his every movement against her, watching the way this mouth grew into a smile to match hers, wider than hers, a grin that threatened to split his face open. A grin that did.
His mouth peeled back away from his teeth, and insect like mandibles pushed themselves out from beneath his flesh. His eyes split, changing from solitary orbs to many sectioned, alien things. Saliva dripped from his gaping jaw onto the bear flesh of her shoulder. Usagi thrashed, trying to push of the half human thing which she had thought was her boyfriend.
Its body was heavy and unmovable, impossible to escape from beneath. Its skin was darkening, hardening, and Usagi knew that in moments she would be lying beneath something completely insectoid, and that then it would eat her whole.
She struck out wildly at the creature, her limbs ricocheting between its unyielding flesh, and the surface of the floor upon which she lay. The creature bowed its head towards Usagi, its neck stretching and twisting unnaturally, its jaw gaping wide. It was going to eat her head, going to rip her face off if it got even a little closer. Her fist rebounded off its chest carapace again, but this time it sunk into the floor, as if it were sand. Her whole body was sinking, in fact, as the floor beneath her body crumbled.
And then she was falling.. .. .. .
Above her, where the ground had been, was the hole through which she had fallen, through which her assailant was now dropping too. It was a dark silhouette against the light which streamed through the hole. It was far above her now, and indistinct, but no less terrifying.
Around her as she fell, was darkness, not the pitch black variety, but instead a formless and vaguely brown darkness. She could not see past it, but she could somehow feel that there were things in it that she was whooshing past. Part of a rock cave wall? Ghost ships sailing through the murky darkness?
The ground hit her with an impact that robbed her of the ability to move, sent clouds of dust billowing up in the air, and that really should of hurt. She lay there, panting, fear growing with every second, and waiting until she was able to roll over and start to sit up. She was on hands and knees when the creature landed.
It touched down on the ground as lightly as if it were but a feather, barely needing to crouch to absorb the impact. It was fully insectiod now, not a shred of its former humanity remaining. It hand six limbs, and none of them bent the ways that human limbs were supposed to. Its skin was back, very black. Even the highlights, where the light sparkled off it were merely a brighter shade of black.
Its head was already turned towards Usagi, and with a strange shuffling of its feet, its body was aligned to face her too. She whimpered, trying to get up and run, but found that the best that she could manage was to shuffle backwards on all fours. She couldn't even turn away from the thing as is scuttled towards her.
It seemed to grow as it approached her, towering above her, blocking out her peripheral vision in every direction. Growing until all that filled her vision was a single plate of its carapace. All that there was, was gleaming blackness, and a terror that overrode her ability to act and to think.
She could feel it pushing in on her. Crushing her. Suffocating her. She pushed out at it, but her hands slid forwards, finding co purchase, nothing to press against. She couldn't touch it, but it was against her anyway, filling her body; binding itself around her limbs; squeezing and constricting her. She held still. It was slower when she was still, but even so she knew it was going to destroy her eventually.
"Why?"
It started as an itch at the back of her head, a pulling upon her brain stem.
llllllett us out
The voice was oily but dry like old parchment. It was smooth and scratchy, and it trickled up into her consciousness from the base of her skull.
pulllll uss up p pppp
we willlll crawl upp p p you
The voices came up, from inside her, but they were so alien. They weren't her. They weren't. It hurt. It hurt to hear them think inside her. If she had no skull, Usagi would have scratched at her brain with her fingernails. She wanted them out. Out. Out of her. Out of her now.
pullll us up annndd we wo ont deVour you
we promise
we wonttt't eat yourrr miIIInd
or your flesh
Then they were retreating, sliding out of her mind as abruptly as they had come, hissing in anger.
The darkness split open, a long rectangular patch of brightness, and Usagi realised what she had been thinking of as an oppressive force, was just a closet, and now the door was opening. Slowly, oh so slowly.
She leant forward to peer through the crack between the door and the frame. She could see bookshelves. A corridor, made entirely of wooden bookshelves. There were voices, originating from somewhere just out of her sight. They weren’t the disturbing kind from before, just normal voices. Pushing the door open further, she stepped out onto wooden floorboards. It was a library, Usagi realised.
"I don't know loosh, It just doesn't seem right to me, some skirt coming in here to fix it all up for us." the voice had a strange reverb to it, almost like the speaker had his head inside a plastic bucket, "No disrespect for the boss, but since he died he's been off all over the place helping everyone else, but when something goes wrong here its someone else's problem."
A second person sighed before responding. This one sounded a little more cultured than the first, and more than a little old fashioned, "If you really think that you have a better idea about how to run the Dreaming than he does, Mervyn, Then I'm sure he'd be happy to listen to your suggestions."
"Hey, that’s not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that all this makes it real hard the ordinary working guys like you and me, ey loosh. I mean, do you think he has any idea how hard it is for the rest of us. Me an' the boys haven't been able to get a single thing built since it started. I mean I'm in the middle of putting up stars and bam the sky's all black blood and falling down on me again..."
The voices drifted off, sounding as if the speakers were moving away from Usagi. She tried to follow, but the bookshelves weren’t positioned the way she had expected, and every twist and turn that the row of books took forced her further and further away from the voices. She was starting to feel like she wasn't just in a library, she was in a maze. The feeling grew inside her, and as it did it seemed to affect the shelves around her. They became more and more green and leafy, until they were close-set, towering rows of hedges which she was walking between.
And then there was sunlight.
She was stepping from between the hedgerow, and out into an open and beautiful garden. There was grass, hedges, trees, Banksia plants, and - dominating the centre of the garden - a white marble ornamental pond, around which were clustered a number of stone benches.
One of the benches was occupied.
Usagi didn't recognise the girl who sat there, her bright red, sun-drenched hair moving in the slight breeze that run through the garden. The costume, though, that was something which was far more than familiar to her. The colour of the skirt and collar of the seifuku was no more familiar than the girl wearing it, but the design of it was one well known to Usagi. The girl was wearing the garb of a Sailor Senshi.
Like many other girls her age, Usagi had dreams about being a princess from a magical kingdom, but unlike most she had to contend with the burdens of being a princess in the real world too. In Usagi's experience, which although limited was not insignificant, dreams of new Senshi or new adversaries often turned out to be more than mere dreams. With this in mind, she approached the girl with a friendly smile upon her face, but with caution in her thoughts.
The sensation of a miniskirt moving against her leg alerted Usagi to the fact that she was now wearing the garb of her alter ego, Sailor Moon. She had been aware on some dim level that she hadn't really been naked for quite a while now, but it wasn't like she had been wearing clothes really either.
"Do you know what's the worst part about being here," The redheaded senshi announced suddenly, "It’s the sunlight. It's not real. Feels warm, it's bright, but when I sit in it I can't feel Sol there."
"Sol?" Usagi asked. Now that the girl had spoken, she felt more at ease in her company, despite the fact that the girl had yet to make eye contact with her.
"Sol, you know, the Sun. I can really feel that he's not here while I'm here, and it’s a bit... well, I miss it anyway..." The girl trailed off again, and shifted over on her bench, making room for Usagi.
Settling down onto the space that the senshi had made for her, Usagi looked around the garden. "It seems like a nice garden," she hazarded, "I mean, it's pretty."
The strange girl snorted at Usagi's response, and finally turned to face her. "Yeah, sure. Its nice right here, with trees and flowers and stuff, but there are storm clouds gathering in the Dreaming now."
"The Dream? Is this just a Dream?"
The senshi shrugged. "It's hard to say. This is a dream, but some of it is real too. I'm really here, but I think you are probably just dreaming. They said you might remember this, or you might not. If you don’t remember it, I'll just come back and talk to you again."
"Who are you?" Usagi asked. She should have been feeling worried by the things which the girl was saying, but instead she found herself utterly calm, although still confused by the girl's words. "Who told you that? Why are we here."
The redheaded senshi reached behind her head with her right hand, but when it got there, she seemed unsure what to do. The hand returned to her lap, and the senshi blushed and gave a small forced giggle. She shook her head instead, and her loose, curly hair spilled forwards over her shoulders with the motion.
"I'm Ranma. Shit, I wasn't supposed to say that..." she trailed off, noticing that her hand had started to creep back up towards her head, "This is stupid. I hate having my hair out; it feels so strange. Errr... yeah, so I'm Sailor Sol. They are Delirium, and Dream and Sol, and they said I should come and talk to you because they don't want everything to be devoured, well at least Dream and Sol don't. Sometimes Delirium doesn't seem to even notice that sort of thing."
It took a moment for Usagi to completely sort out what it was the girl had just said, but when she did she wasn't at all reassured. "Can that happen, I mean can everything really be devoured?"
The redheaded girl's lips lifted upwards into a small smile, and she leaned towards Usagi, as if she were imparting a secret that was dear to her heart.
"Oh yes, they are very good at devouring things. They get into your mind and everything you see, they can eat it from inside you, and all the time they are doing it to you too, until you are just a husk on bones, like you are a dried mummy and a slimy thing all at the same time. Then they just let you go and you are gone completely, even Death doesn't get to see you."
Usagi shivered. It was probably just the other girl's words, but Usagi's skull was itching like nothing else now. Images of a fat, black, little goblin thing sitting inside her heads and eating everything kept on flashing through Usagi's mind. She swallowed, and leant her shoulder up against the shorter girl, finding comfort in her warmth.
For her part, Ranma didn't seem to mind the contact at all. She started humming beneath her breath. She stared at Usagi, seeming to know that there were questions that Usagi was too afraid to even think.
Instead Usagi asked a question that seemed less worrisome. "How do you know about them?"
"It's because of Delirium. She knows a lot of things, some of them things that even nobody else knows. Because of her, sometimes I know things too. They should be in her realm, but they aren't, that's why she knows about them. They came both before and after The Endless so, she can't control them or touch them. It's outside the rules."
Ranma's smile broadened as she talked about Delirium, but aside from that and the occasional blink she remained almost motionless. Her eyes bored into Usagi, not threatening in the slightest, but definitely disconcerting. Was the Ranma unaware of the effect her frank and open stare was having on her? Usagi wasn't sure, she just knew that she couldn't hold the silence while she was being watched like that. It didn't matter that she was afraid of the answers, it didn't matter that she had no reason to trust Ranma; her eyes compelled Usagi to ask the questions she wanted to shirk away from.
"Can I stop them?" her voice sounded very quiet, even to herself.
"Only if you stop dreaming."
Panic filled Usagi at the words, followed quickly by irritation. That wasn't fair! Everybody dreamed, all humans. Her eyes were stinging with tears that threatened to spill.
"But I always dream when I sleep." There was a slight whimper to her words that Usagi didn't like at all, "It's not like I can just not ever sleep or anything."
The smile evaporated from Ranma's face, leaving her looking as serious as Setsuna or Miss Haruna.
"It doesn't matter if you sleep or not anyway. You and your friends carry your dreams with you even when you are awake. I understand that, so do I. I want to be the best martial artist in the world. But your dreams are different. They are too real."
Ranma seemed to have transformed from a teenager to an ageless Oracle in mere moments, and Usagi listened spellbound as she continued.
"Your friends are trying to make your dreams real. You are trying to force imagined possibilities to become reality. You are distorting existence. They can feel you bending it, and if you don’t stop they will use your dreams to climb through into our world. You can't fight them. You dream of making a better world but you could destroy it instead."
The garden felt colder now, thoughts of the terrors that Ranma spoke were draining the warmth from Usagi.
"But, I," Usagi closed her eyes, breathing in a big lungful of the chill air, "I can't help dreaming about it. It's destiny. I know I'm going to cleanse the world and marry Mamo-chan."
"No." Ranma's retort was so emphatic and assured that it seemed to leave little room for argument, "Crystal Tokyo has nothing to do with Destiny. None of your friends have ever glimpsed what he knows. Your dreams don’t come from the book of Destiny, they come from the garnet of Dream. Your dreams of the past, they pass to you through the Gates of Horn, though only Death knows whether it is your past life or another's, but your dreams of the future are from the Gates of Ivory. They are the story that is more believable than the truth.
"The time of the Senshi is long past. A thousand years it lasted, and when it ended it was in flames and war. Every planet in our system used to have life on it, but the war destroyed every one of them but Gaia. Can't you feel it, Usagi? Can't you feel the soul of Luna calling for you to stop? Your boyfriend can. His dreams are the same as yours, but every moment he spends with his feet on the soil of Gaia he can hear her whispering to him, telling him to leave the mistakes of the past behind him."
Usagi's feet were tingling, almost painfully, but the redheaded girl continued on, even as she began to fade away, "Dream has a message for you. The Key-Holder must return the Garnet to him. She is meddling with things not meant for mortal kind."
By the time Usagi realised that the other girl was fading, she was almost completely gone. The garden was disappearing too, all normalising into a static off white field. The girls voice continued for a few heartbeats, sounding like the dying last echoes of a powerful thunderclap. "...return it..."
Usagi blinked slowly. White gauzy curtains moved lazily in the slight breeze that blew through the window behind them. They seemed out of place. What was she doing dreaming about curtains? Her mouth was dry, but her pillow was wet. She'd been drooling in her sleep again.
Morning.
It was morning.
She was cocooned warmly and mostly comfortably beneath her sheets and comforter. She was only mostly comfortable because her feet had pins and needles. Luna had at some part of the night, curled up on top of her legs. A few weeks ago, waking up before Luna had been a novelty; in fact waking up before school had pretty much been a novelty. Since the dreams had started though, Usagi, along with the rest of the senshi, had been sleeping fitfully and waking earlier.
Tonight had been a little different though. For the first time in days she had woken feeling something other than nameless dread. She could remember the dream too, that was unusual.
Most of the dream was fading rapidly, but the redheaded senshi, Ranma, was lodged firmly in her memory. Her words had possessed such power; Usagi couldn't help but feel that they could be nothing but the truth.
But the light of day was shining on her now, and it was foolish to take the words of a dream as truthful reflections of the world, wasn't it?
'The Key-Holder must return the Garnet to him. She is meddling with things not meant for mortal kind.'
But it was only a dream.
Only a dream...
----- to be continued... -----
|