Ranma slowly came awake in the arms of her lover, eyes cracking open slightly to gaze at the bookshelf across the room she was sharing with Akane. The fur on the back of her shoulders was pressed against Akane’s chest and her tail was curled around one of her lover’s legs. Ranma’s nose wrinkled slightly, teased by the scent of the intense sex she’d shared with Akane as soon as they’d gotten home. Akane had insisted on it, with Ranma in her new natural form, saying she wanted to prove beyond a doubt that she still wanted to build a life with Ranma. Ranma had insisted it was dangerous, but Akane had rebutted that if Ranma had become that dangerous the self-proclaimed goddesses that had spoken to them the previous night would have said so. And she’d turned out to be right, though not by all that much. Ranma had remembered what that flood of energy had felt like, had managed to limit it to a trickle, but the mind-blowing orgasm that had accompanied that flood had made it very hard. If it hadn’t been for her experience channeling ki, it would have probably been impossible.
For a time the redhead simply lay there, mind running again over the events of the previous day, when she’d simultaneously ceased to be both human and monogamous, turned into ... she wasn’t sure what, yet. And why didn’t ya ask just what ya might be getting into? Not even when Nabiki had told ya you’d be dangerous around girls at first, Ranma thought. It might not have made a difference, but ya did it again — charged in, sure ya could handle anything.
Finally, Ranma sighed and gently moved Akane’s arm to the side, slipped her tail from around Akane’s legs, tossed back the top blanket and rolled out of bed. Behind her, the center of her world made a querulous sound at the loss of her bedwarmer, and Ranma turned to find the black-haired girl’s eyes open, cloudy with sleep. Sitting on the bed, she leaned over and gently kissed her even as one hand settled on Akane’s bare midsection. My child! She’s really havin’ my child! flashed through her mind, half exultant, half terrified. “Good morning, Tomboy,” the redhead whispered.
Akane’s eyes cleared, and she smiled up as she stared into the blue eyes inches away, a hand sliding over to cover the Ranma’s on her stomach. “Good morning, Baka,” she whispered back. “Why don’t you climb back in here?”
Ranma chuckled, but sat back and shook her head even as she ignored the heat building in her cleft and the crinkling tightening of her nipples as her eyes feasted on her lover’s nude glory. Sobering, she said, “Sorry, but much as I’d like that I have questions — a lot of ‘em — that need answers I should a’ had yesterday. Especially from Nabiki.”
“Nabiki?” Akane questioned.
Ranma nodded. “Yeah, Nabiki. Yesterday she told me before the meeting with the Amazons that if I did change I’d need ta feed, and that I wouldn’t be safe around girls until I did. Now I’m wonderin’ how much more she knew that she didn’t tell me.”
Memories from the previous evening flashed through Akane’s mind, of Nabiki pulling her away from a transformed Ranma, what she’d said as she pushed Ranma out the door. The exact meaning of those words had been lost on her in her fear for her lover, but now she shot upright in the bed, face twisted with anger, hand shaped as if gripping something even as a foggy red light flickered in the space between her thumb and fingers and formed into a hammer. “She knew?! You knew?!” the youngest Tendo shouted. Ranma nodded even as she hastily stood up and backed away.
“Only what I told ya, that’s all Nabiki told me — all she said she knew.... Akane, put away the hammer,” Ranma said as soothingly as she could.
Akane glared at her for a long moment, then took a deep breath and the hammer vanished as she grimaced at the scent of the room. “Right,” she said. “First we get cleaned up, then we get something to eat, and then we get some answers.”
“Okay, just let me get rid a’ the tail and horns,” Ranma said, closing her eyes, only to open them again at Akane’s half-shouted “Wait!”
“No, don’t,” Akane said softly, rising from the bed and stepping forward to hug the smaller redhead, running her hands along the strip of fur running down along Ranma’s spine. “It’s what you are, now. Sure, look human when we’re outside or with company, but don’t go hiding what you are at home.”
Ranma returned the hug for a long moment, resting her head on Akane’s shoulder. Finally, she chuckled quietly and murmured, “Sounds good ta me. So, which sister suggested that to you, Nabiki or Kasumi?”
Akane stiffened and tried to pull away only to find herself pinned in place by the smaller girl’s arms. “You don’t think I can come up with something like that on my own?” she growled.
“Did you?”
“Well ... no, it was Kasumi,” Akane finally admitted, relaxing. “But she pointed out that it’s the same thing Nabiki suggested when I wanted to go completely public.”
“You’re right, it is,” Ranma said, finally pulling back to arm’s length and looking up slightly into her lover’s eyes. “And all three of you are right, I’ll go like this around the house. So, let’s get cleaned up.”
Akane nodded, returning the gaze and carefully ignoring the two small white horns above Ranma’s deep blue eyes.
When Nabiki finished relating what she and Xian Pu had learned so far on the nature of succubae from the scrolls the other Amazon elders had brought with them from China, Ranma, still in her now-natural succubus form (sans wings), sat silent for a time, simply gazing at her across the low table the redhead, the three Tendo sisters, and Xian Pu all knelt around. Ranma’s gaze flicked over the Xian Pu, off to the side where she’d sat ever since she’d arrived with the news that her great-grandmother and Mu Tze had left for China, then across to where Kasumi sat beside the mercenary Tendo, over to Akane, wincing slightly at the strained expression on her lover’s blanched face, then back to the middle Tendo.
Finally, even as Ranma reached out to put a comforting arm around Akane and pulled her against her, the redheaded succubus asked quietly, “And how much of this did ya know, before ya shoved me out the door of the Cat Café ta maybe murder some random stranger?”
Xian Pu winced and Kasumi stiffened, turning to stare at her younger sister, but Nabiki’s return gaze didn’t waver. “I didn’t know most of it, but I did know that you were possibly lethal. But as I said, a good part of your possible lethality depends on the sexual endurance of your partners. If the Amazon Council had done its job properly it wouldn’t have been a problem — the ceremony called for a couple of male short-hitters to be around in order to ‘feed’ you if you turned out to be the new Champion. But instead, a faction of the Council chose to play petty internal gotcha politics, demonstrating Ku Lon’s lack of power by blowing us off as much as possible. So when you changed, there were no males around to protect us from you, especially Akane.”
Akane turned toward Xian Pu. “Shampoo, is that true?” A thoroughly miserable Amazon teenager nodded jerkily, staring at the floor, and Akane started to rise, face twisting in anger, only to freeze then drop back when the arm around her waist tightened and held her back.
Relax, Akane, it isn’t Shampoo’s fault,” Ranma reassured the youngest Tendo, and Akane twisted to face her.
“Ranma, you can’t just ignore — !”
“I’m not, but the Council is in China, not exactly where I can get to ‘em right now,” Ranma said, then looked over at Xian Pu. “Besides, I suspect Cologne is going to do something about it herself, right, Shampoo?”
Xian Pu looked up, still shamefaced but nodding vigorously. “Is true! Great-grandmother very angry, will get home first to tell Council what happen here, ask where men were, why Elders Pa Fum and Sah Lon were so rude, tell of way Ranma accept alliance. Her enemies lose much face, be hurt badly.”
“You see? It’s handled,” Ranma soothed, pulling the stiff Tendo against her and running her hand along Akane’s side.
For long moments Akane remained stiff, glaring at the purple-haired Amazon, but finally took a deep breath and relaxed. “All right,” she ground out reluctantly
Ranma sighed softly in relief, then turned back to Nabiki, stiffening herself. “Okay, but that doesn’t explain why ya just tossed me out the door,” she said, voice hard.
“What would you have me do?” Nabiki asked with a shrug. “Try to restrain you? Who in that room really could have? Well, maybe Cologne could,” she conceded thoughtfully, “but what then? Would you have one of us risk death or being transformed into a succubus as well? Or would you rather simply starve to death? No,” she continued, shaking her head, “Given a choice between losing my sister’s chosen mate, risking one of us dying or doubling the problem, or risking the life of some man that none of us even know, I’ll take the latter.”
She met Ranma’s glare without flinching, and finally Ranma sighed. “Okay, Nabs, ya were lookin’ out fer yer own,” she said. “But don’t be doin’ this to me again, especially when lives are on the line — if people are gonna die because of something I do, I’m gonna be the one that makes the call, got it?”
Nabiki’s eyes finally dropped, and she eventually nodded.
Kasumi leaned forward, picked up the kettle in the middle of the table, and quietly refreshed everyone’s tea. Silence reigned in the room as the five teenagers let the tension of the last few minutes drain away. Finally, Nabiki reluctantly broke the silence. “This is all well and good, but it doesn’t answer the question of how we keep Ranma topped off. Last night Urd told us that it would take at least four people of average health to keep Ranma alive.” Glancing apologetically at her younger sister, she added, “Sorry, sis, but I’m inclined to believe her. You’re pregnant so Ranma can’t change you into a succubus, so if you try to keep Ranma to yourself you’ll just end up dead — and your baby along with you. And that just covers the daily feeding, it doesn’t touch the extra feeding Ranma’s going to need to practice her new powers.” Looking around at the rest of the girls, she continued, “So, any ideas?”
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(Posted Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:06)
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