Unfortunately, she wasn't certain what she could do right then. Contacting Shampoo could be a problem, as the girl had to return back to her own village, which meant that it would take a while for the letter that she and her sisters were certain to send to reach the Chinese girl. As a result, there would be some time between when Ranma's father would bring him to her house, and when Shampoo could arrive. Then again, if Shampoo wasn't in the village when the letter would get there, that would be a major problem in and of itself.
The youngest Tendo was sure that they wouldn't have the luck of having that mean that the girl was heading in their direction anyway.
Shampoo did not like her father in law at all. The man was a moron, a fool, and a glutton, to the point that she simply could not respect him. As far as she was concerned, the less that she had to do with him, the better. Of course, she knew that her great grandmother would remind her that the man had his uses, and she was certain that he did.
She just thought that tying him to a post and using him for a training dummy was a good call.
If the man would simply stop with the running, he would find out that it was totally unnecessary. Sure, she wanted to bash his head in, but that was mainly because he had been leading her on a chase across China, for no reason. But then, he had some idiot idea that she was going to try and do something to hurt him and his son, and that meant that they had to stay away from her.
Ranma was her husband, damn it, and she had wanted some quality time with him. She knew that he appreciated her charms, and that he liked her as a person. It was the same for her, and she'd been so happy to be able to find that elusive thing that she had been looking for, a boy who was not a total idiot, like that moron, Mousse.
And the odd thing was that she had never thought that she would find the love of her life on that trip to that island nation, even up to the day when a strange boy appeared at one of her training sessions....
"Ya know, ya should pull back on your right foot more," commented a voice up above her.
Upon hearing that, Shampoo stiffened and dropped out of her training stance as she turned to look up at the boy who had spoken. As her Japanese wasn't so good, even though it had been helped by being in the country, she wasn't certain that she'd heard him right. So she looked to her great grandmother for confirmation.
"He really is correcting you," Cologne told her.
Turning her attention back to the boy, Shampoo glared at him. "You make fun of girl from other country?!"
"Nope," the boy replied. "Just givin' ya some advice."
"Why? To prove you know better?"
"Ta help ya out. It ain't like ya are bad or anythin'. I've been watchin'."
"You spy?!"
An astonished look crossed his face. "Me? No! I'm a martial artist too, and when I saw that there were other people trainin', I figured that I'd check it out. I do have ta say that ya looked real cool when I saw ya."
"Many thanks. But what you want now?"
"Ta spar with ya."
"'Spar'? Is training fight? You think it good to do with Shampoo?"
"'Shampoo'? But I'm not gonna wash my hair...."
"It's her name," Cologne corrected him. "You see, the way that it's said makes it sounds like hair soap."
"Oh...."
"You no have problem with training with Shampoo then?" the younger Amazon asked. "This not you try to make with getting close to pretty girl? You no think Shampoo need to be protected like doll?"
"Why would ya need protected? Ya look healthy enough."
"You... take Shampoo seriously?"
"'Course. Though, ya were right 'bout one thing."
"What that?"
Leaping off of the boulder that he'd been laying on, the pigtailed boy landed on his feet in front of her with an easy grace that spoke of a familiarity with doing such things. "Ya are a pretty girl."
"You... no just say that?"
"Nope. It's true."
"You very nice... What name?"
"Ranma. Ranma Saotome," he said with a grin. "Nice ta meet ya."
From there, Shampoo had gotten closer to Ranma until one day she'd realized that she loved him. They were in the middle of training, and it hit her like a bolt of lightning on a cloudless day. He was the only man that she would ever want to be with, and knew that he cared about her. She didn't know how much until she had reacted badly to his reaction to one of her shows of affection. Until then, she had merely been testing the waters, but when he had actually yelled at her, it had hurt. He had seen that, and immediately apologized, sounding afraid of offending her. When it turned out that he hadn't wanted to scare her away with his deep feelings, she had been ecstatic.
Ranma Saotome was the man of her home, bed, and heart, with no reservations what so ever.
Marrying him had never been questioned, and even when she had to go back to her village, and he had to return to his training journey, she had found herself deeply saddened. If distance really did make the heart grow fonder, then it also made it ache something awful. Being with her people was one thing, but she wanted to have her husband with her as well. When they'd been reunited, she was so happy that she was certain that her heart would fly out of her chest. But when his father had taken him away, there had been no other choice other than to follow.
Her father in law was an idiot, but she wasn't about to let that stop her from being with her husband, while:
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(Posted Sun, 04 Dec 2005 05:54)
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