In the early light of dawn, Akane quietly let herself into her home and exchanged her shoes for slippers, stifling a yawn. Between the sex and just talking while resting up for the next round, she and her two best friends hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. When it came time to clean up (and erase evidence, at least enough to allow Sayuri’s father to continue to ignore his daughter’s ... lifestyle), she’d decided to simply head home and sleep it off in her own bed.
Slipping out into the hallway, she listened for a moment and smiled at the sound of her oldest sister in the family room. She tiptoed up the stairs, and down the hall to the room she shared with Ranma, careful to avoid the spots that creaked — not that she was worried about disturbing anyone, Nabiki wasn’t exactly a morning person and her lover definitely wasn’t a light sleeper.
Stripping off the T-shirt and shorts she’d worn to the “sleepover,” Akane slipped on clean panties, then paused and gazed down at her sleeping lover, eyes lingering on the tiny horns on Ranma’s forehead before shifting to the bit of fur she could see on the redhead’s shoulder, feelings of guilt and vindication at war in her heart. Stop it! she ordered herself sternly. It was Ranma’s idea in the first place. And besides, why shouldn’t you take your pleasure where you find it? It’s what Ranma does, isn’t it?
Ignoring the whisper in the back of her mind that, no, it wasn’t the same, she slipped around to the other side of the bed, cautiously pulled back the blankets, and lay down to spoon up against her succubus. Reflecting again that it was a good thing they’d rearranged the room so that the side of the bed was away from the wall (though it was usually Ranma that snuggled up against her in the early morning hours, and the unfamiliar feel of Ranma’s strip of fur against her breasts and stomach tickled a little), she pulled the blankets over the both of them, and instantly faded off the sleep.
Ranma lazily cracked her eyes and gazed at the bar of mid-morning light from the window that fell across the bed and onto the floor, smiling contentedly at the feel of a warm body pressed against her back and an arm draped around her chest under her breasts. Wait, warm body?
Eyes flying open, she twisted in the bed to find herself face to face with a sleeping Akane, and slowly relaxed muscles gone suddenly tense — she didn’t think Nabiki or Kasumi would slip into bed with her, but Xian Pu was another matter, and if Akane had come home to find them like that the result would probably have been ... unpleasant. Though perhaps not as unpleasant as it could be, the succubus thought to herself as her nose picked up the faint whiff of sex from the other girl. Seems the Tomboy took my advice, after all.
The redhead slipped out of the bed and stretched, then gazed down for a time at her lover, red spade-tipped tail angrily flicking back and forth behind her, confused at the jealousy roiling inside her. Come on, Ranma, what’s wrong with you? she thought as she turned away from the bed and headed for the door. It was yer idea, after all. It’s not like ya can fuck strangers every night, and enjoy it, and not let her have some fun on the side, too. But as she headed for the dojo and her morning workout, at least as much as she could while limiting herself to purely physical techniques with no ki involved, something inside her was insisting that it wasn’t the same.
On the roof of the Tendo home, a carefully cloaked Mara sighed with relief as she sensed the only demon within the compound moving out of the room below her. When she had returned to Niflheim after her visit to Nyucheizu, she’d had no problem at all finding the significance of the names ‘Nerima’ and ‘Ranma’ — unfortunately. Ranma was just the type of mortal Asgard recruited, and she couldn’t understand why those slaves to Fate hadn’t. But he did have his weaknesses, and finally, it was time to put her hasty plan in motion. From Ranma’s file, it was doubtful he ... she, now ... would simply accept help getting her heart’s desire (whatever it was), but she both had a strong noble streak and couldn’t resist a challenge. So call her out, slowly ramp up the fight until the untrained succubus had drawn heavily on her stored energy. Of course, Ranma was only an earth demon, and so no sort of threat to a demon first class, but the cute redhead Mara had seen through the window wouldn’t know that (she pushed away thoughts of what she’d read about the fights with Herb and Saffron). Once Ranma was drained to the point that she was in danger of losing control and a threat to the humans she lived with, her heart’s desire was bound to shift to getting ‘fed’ without threatening anyone, and Mara could offer to help her out. Even though as a demon Mara herself couldn’t supply what was needed and so wouldn’t be servicing the needy succubus (unfortunate, that — she had been busy for awhile even before being handed the Alanya mess and could use some stress relief, and the sleeping redhead really had been cute), she had more than a few men in the Tokyo area who owed her, and one of those favors could be called in. And she knew from personal experience that some of them were short-hitters, so there wasn’t any risk of Ranma accidentally killing one. And then Ranma would owe her....
Rising to her feet, the blonde demon crossed over the peak of the roof and floated down to the lawn shared by the house and the dojo. Sensing Ranma coming toward her, she waited until she saw the succubus walking along the covered walkway leading to the dojo (completely naked, apparently Ranma didn’t have her new urges completely under control, yet). As the succubus disappeared inside the dojo, Mara stepped forward to follow her, then gasped as she felt another cloak drop behind her just enough to let her sense the presence of a goddess without alerting the newborn.
Spinning around, Mara found an unfortunately familiar goddess standing behind her: purple hair hanging straight to her shoulders, three small purple circles in an upside down triangle just above the bridge of her nose, a larger circle under each eye, none of the seeming tattoos detracting from her healthy attractiveness. At least, the lean, white body-suited goddess would be attractive if she were smiling, instead gazing sternly at the blonde demon while holding her axe-bladed polearm at the ready.
“Nah-ah-ah!” Mara taunted, wagging a finger at the goddess. “You might as well put that away, Lind, you know you can’t kill me.”
“No, but I can hurt you,” Lind replied calmly, though she did release her grip with one hand, bracing the butt of her polearm on the ground.
Mara carefully didn’t reveal her relief at the goddess’s change of posture — a false relief, she knew, the valkyrie was just as capable of abruptly chopping her into dogmeat from her relaxed posture as her previous one. The change was simply a show of intention, rather than a reduction of capability. “I must say I’m a little surprised to find you here,” she said with studied nonchalance. “I would have thought it would be Belldandy or Urd, given Ranma’s history and new nature.”
Lind shrugged. “Normally, you’d be right. But considering how many of your problems would just go away if Ranma just happened to die, it was decided that I’d be the better emissary ... just to make sure there weren’t any ‘accidents’.”
Not to mention how your dedication to both service and the martial arts would appeal to the self-image Ranma’s carried over from her previous incarnation, Mara thought, suppressing a grimace — though she hadn’t considered the possibility, she had to admit that the choice of the driven valkyrie had been an inspired one. “And just what is your role as bodyguard, excuse me, emissary?” she asked.
Lind shrugged again. “Simply to make certain that Ranma knows the possible consequences — the full possible consequences — if she were to accept any favor you offered her,” she replied, matching Mara’s show of nonchalance.
Mara gazed at the valkyrie for a long moment, mind racing. Her only chance of getting Ranma to accept her offer of a favor was if the newborn succubus leapt before she looked, and with Lind there to add the voice of caution, possibly even offer alternatives, that possibility had vanished. Certainly, she could still go through with her plan, but when Ranma turned her down the succubus would have to either risk killing some man or converting some woman into a succubus, and in either case she was unlikely to just forgive and forget. If anything, she would be even more driven to overthrow her avatar’s mistress than she was already.
And there’s no chance that you’ll be able to slip in later and meet Ranma without them intervening, either — Asgard is taking this a lot more seriously than we’d expected, she thought with well-hidden disgust. Mara shrugged, and managed a light-hearted tone. “Well, if you’re going to crash the party, I’m going to take my ball and go home. See you around.” She floated up and away, mind running down the list of lesser demons that owed her favors, considering which she should assign to watch the newborn. While she would have preferred her own direct observations rather than depend on another demon’s second-hand report, she needed to give Ranma’s file more attention than the cursory once-through that she’d had time for before arriving at the Tendo compound at dawn. As well, she needed to review her assets in the Tokyo area, consider which might be of use.
Lind chuckled softly, a rare smile on her face as she watched Hild’s disappointed lieutenant fly away. “Yes, Mara, I’m sure we’ll meet again before this is over. Perhaps we’ll even have a chance to dance.” Once Mara vanished from sight, Lind again strengthened her cloak to the point that it would be the rare demon indeed that could detect her presence, then floated up to the roof of the dojo, alert for the coming of the watchers she was sure would soon arrive.
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(Posted Wed, 26 Jan 2011 06:12)
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