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In the vain hope of getting out of the spring quickly enough to avoid getting cursed, Ranma put everything into maneuvering himself into a position that would allow him to jump out of the spring as soon as he plunged into it. However, once he was submerged, his feet found nothing but water beneath him, instead of the bottom of the spring, when he kicked them out. The springs hadn't seemed to be quite that deep, by the look of them... Unfortunately, instead of the few inches to a few feet that he had expected, the surface of the water above him appeared to be several dozen feet away; a depth that he wouldn't have reached even if he had fallen into the ocean. For a moment he feared that that could only mean that he had transformed into a small animal of some kind, yet the pressure of the enveloping water told him that he was still very much human-shaped. He would have checked himself out right then and there, but he now had a greater concern: drowning. Regardless of what had happened to his body, the fact remained that there was a lot of distance between himself and the air that his lungs needed, and he hadn't counted on the need to hold his breath for so long because the spring hadn't been so big before he had fallen into it. At about twenty feet from the surface, he knew that he wasn't going to make it. He tried not to panic, but his body desperately needed air and fighting against one of his body's autonomic functions warred with his need to swim, making a highly improbable venture completely hopeless. Finally, with only another ten feet to go, he gasped in water... ...And began to breathe normally, after taking several deep breathes. It surprised him so much that he forgot about swimming to the surface entirely because of the need to get a look at himself, all the while wondering if he had become a fish and that the sensation of having a human-shaped body was a phantom creation of the brain. And now that he was so close to the surface, he'd have an easier time seeing what the spring had done to him, now that he had the need to do so. When he looked down, what he saw shocked him even more than being able to breath under water: breasts. Now that his eyes registered them, he wondered how he hadn't noticed them before — especially considering their size. In open-mouthed wonder, he brought alien-yet-attractively-feminine hands to his breasts to make sure that what he was seeing was real... and they were. Then he sent one of his hands downward, hoping to eventually encounter an obstacle on its way to the juncture between his legs. She found none. Her head swam with the implications, which aroused a slew of emotions: anger, since she felt that her father was responsible for what had happened; confusion, because, despite the changes that her body had undergone, it didn't feel quite as different as she might have once expected; curiosity, in the face of experiencing something new; concern, wondering if she could accept her new body; and fear, of what she had become, and how others might treat her. Then she realized that she was naked. She wasn't about to show her new body to the world as it was, since she felt insecure about its mysterious nature (among other new yet known things), so she decided to look for her dougi. She wasn't sure what good it might do her, if she had indeed shrunk to a very diminutive size, but she felt that she could at least explore the idea, now that she didn't have to worry about drowning. In fact, now that she was a lot more calmer than she had been only moments before, she began to notice something. It was a sort of sixth sense that made her feel like she was a part of her environment, which made her feel comfortable. Yet it also gave her the sense that her environment was alive, so it also felt like a kind of companion; the kind that one could spend time with and ask favors of, as a friend might do. It was a sort of language based on feeling. While she had neither been good with expressing, arousing or reading feelings outside of fighting in the past, it now felt easy and natural to use it. What had once been a bit out of her depth, as well as a bit suppressed by her upbringing, she was now keenly accepting of. Barring a mistake in judgement, she doubted that she would ever be considered an insensitive person (or whatever she was) again. Being sensitive felt nice, which, in light of being raised to become a man among men, was quite unexpected. Once she had finished digesting the last of the new — as well as obvious — things that she had been made aware of, she cast her eyes downward and peered through the water. With a seemingly uncanny ease, she felt out what she desired and soon her dougi could be seen as clearly as if they had been laid out in direct sunlight. It wasn't that the clarity of the water had changed, but rather that the water and her eyes had come to an... agreement, for lack of a better term. She was as much water as the water was herself, and when did one's eyes ever block one's own view? She didn't even have to swim to reach her dougi: she just sort of... moved to it. While she felt the water caress her skin as she did so, it may as well have not been there; that, and gravity, too. It was weird and perplexing, but also interesting and exciting. And by the time she placed her hands on a pant leg of her dougi, she was grinning, feeling and knowing that what she had worn previously could be salvaged for the sake of her new form. Without investing any serious thought into it, she put her hands to work as she listened to a language that was fast becoming second nature to her, instinctual. Her dainty and dexterous fingers worked what could have only been considered magic on the fabric of her clothing, manipulating it in seemingly unnatural ways until her efforts produced a dougi that would comfortably — no doubt perfectly — fit her new body. Once she was dressed, she looked up at the spring's surface, anticipating what awaited her in a positive light. Considering the possibilities that her curse offered her, as well as the things that she might explore with it, being female didn't seem like such a bad thing. She still had her reservations, to be sure, but she didn't see how or why it would or could spoil everything else that had come with her new body. She was just being sensible about it, really. Again, she "moved" until she broke the surface of the water... then beyond. She stopped at what seemed to be about a hundred feet in the air to her five-inch tall body, which put her at about eye level with the Jusenkyo guide, who looked at her with a mixture of surprise and awe. What he didn't show on his face she could sense, which was a decreasing amount of confusion, a significant amount of relief, and a sizable amount of attraction. It took a moment for him to regain his bearings and, had she seen her new body in its entirety by then, she would have understood why: the pair of detached butterfly wings that appeared to be made out of some kind of energy or another, in all of their kaleidoscopic glory, in addition to the rest of the package (electric blue eyes that appeared to glow with their own light, and vibrant red hair that seemed to float as if immersed in water), were simply bedazzling. "So that what spring is," the Jusenkyo guide finally said, as he considered the sight before him. "No record of drown fair folk, so maybe this one not tragic story." He took out his pipe and began to place tobacco in the bowl, a thoughtful look on his face. "This one wonders..." Ranma felt that there wasn't a tragic story in any case. Now that she wasn't in one of the springs, she could feel that they had been fashioned by that which she now was, and mostly with the purpose of causing mischief in mind. The only exception was the spring that she had fallen into, which had been made for those worthy enough to be drawn to its waters. She could only guess at its purpose, but it seemed to have been made in good will. |
Mon May 09 17:14:18 2011