Just a Sunrise.
A Ranma 1/2 Challenge fic by Nemesis Zero
Disclaimer: Just so you know, I don't own Tatewaki Kuno, Saotome Ranma, or
the sun. There, that's done...
In the early morning haze of Nerima, the entire world seemed to stand
still. The everyday noise of people and cars and every other modern convenience
were not yet begun, save for the slight rumble of early morning trains, just
pulling into the station eight blocks to the north. Soon all the busy people of
the workday world would emerge from their homes, crowd into the streets on their
way to work and destroy this momentary pause in nature. A slight wind, rich
with moisture from last night's downpour, made the otherwise comfortable
temperature seem suddenly quite cool to one Tatewaki Kuno. Pulling his jacket
just a little bit tighter against the wind, he returned his concentration to the
eastern skyline.
It was early enough the majority of the sky was still cloaked in a dark
indigo, with only a few traces of lighter blues and reds peeking between the
many apartment and office buildings of downtown Nerima. The same clouds that
served to make the previous night dreary and dank now acted as reflectors to the
early morning light, catching traces of light against the still darkened sky.
For a moment, Tatewaki was very excited, and immediately set to work with
ink and brush to capture this moment of nature. Try though he might, though, he
could not capture the moment all in one glance. Thus, a poem that began
praising the contrasts of color and the resemblance of one particular cloud to
himself fell apart immediately upon his second glance. In the brief moment it
took him to inscribe his opening lines, the winds had conspired to drive all the
previous forms of the clouds into new shapes, and the sun had progressed to the
point that the previous contrasts of red and indigo were replaced by a swath of
warm orange.
"Damn this infernal wind!" he cried as he toss the piece of paper barring
the words 'Cerulean sky / Garnet light and self-same clouds / All is...' onto a
small mound of similarly crumpled paper and half-written lines of wit.
Looking eastwards once again, his eyes were drawn to a single white seabird,
venturing far from shore, as it crossed the now brighter sky in slow, effortless
arcs. Through a break in the clouds, he could see just the faintest glimpse of
the sun itself now, blindingly white amidst a sea of yellow and orange light.
Again, with nearly as much enthusiasm, he returned to his paper.
'Solitary bird / Drifting towards the light of day / Eastwards...'
But now the clouds had closed again, obscuring the once brilliant sun behind
walls of soft gray, allowing only traces of orange and golden light to trace
outlines upon their forms. The bird was nowhere in sight.
"Damn, damn, a thousand times damn! How can even a genius such as mine contend
with the very flow of time to capture the timeless beauty of just one moment of
the dawn?" He shouted as he sprang to his feet, throwing his brush and ink
aside with rage to bellow his frustrations at the offending party, the
constantly shifting sunrise.
"Yo, Kuno! What's up? We gonna fight today or what?"
Tatewaki turned to regard the intruding voice of his bitter rival, the dark
sorcerer Saotome Ranma, who stood nearby, perched on a tree branch in a
typically arrogant fashion. "Nay, it is not to be today, vile one. The mighty
blue thunder is this morning otherwise occupied with an assignment in verse, on
a topic that continues to elude my wit. Tis the morning sun, fickle in it's
form and display, on which I must expound a haiku that encompasses the full
glory of one single moment. A task which proves exceedingly difficult, despite
it's deceptively simple construction."
"So you gotta write a poem about the sunrise? What's the problem? That's
easy!"
"And so I believed, at first. There is a cruel trick to the assignment,
however, in that one must capture but a single moment of the sunrise. The
dastardly clouds continue to move before the moment has been committed to the
page, and even as they stay relatively still the sun continues to rise! This is
an impossible task!" declared Tatewaki.
"Honestly, it's just a sunrise, Kuno. It happens everyday, and each one is
different. Ya can't just have one bit of a sunrise! That would kinda ruin it,
ya know? It's the fact that ya can't nail it down and make it last that makes a
sunset worth watchin."
Tatewaki seemed to freeze at that last statement, eying his daily foe for a
moment with suspicious eyes. "Indeed? Is it possible that beneath such a
deplorable skin lies the heart of a true warrior poet?"
"Nah, I just like ta watch the sky alot."
Taking on last fleeting glimpse at the eastern sky, Tatewaki retrieved his brush
and ink from the ground and began to fashion his final draft:
The moment has passed
One view must yield to the next
In sunrise
"Behold! Another perfect grade for the Blue Thunder, as all would expect of one
so grand in the arts of man as I! Come, fiend, Battle awaits you!" called
Tatewaki as he set his creation aside, and joyously welcomed his daily beating.
Author's notes:
As I first sat down to attempt this challenge, I had a really hard time
deciding how to start. It seemed like as soon as I had one idea of how to
describe the scene, another one popped into my head. Then I had the bright idea
of giving Kuno the same problem!
A Ranma 1/2 Challenge fic by Nemesis Zero
Disclaimer: Just so you know, I don't own Tatewaki Kuno, Saotome Ranma, or
the sun. There, that's done...
In the early morning haze of Nerima, the entire world seemed to stand
still. The everyday noise of people and cars and every other modern convenience
were not yet begun, save for the slight rumble of early morning trains, just
pulling into the station eight blocks to the north. Soon all the busy people of
the workday world would emerge from their homes, crowd into the streets on their
way to work and destroy this momentary pause in nature. A slight wind, rich
with moisture from last night's downpour, made the otherwise comfortable
temperature seem suddenly quite cool to one Tatewaki Kuno. Pulling his jacket
just a little bit tighter against the wind, he returned his concentration to the
eastern skyline.
It was early enough the majority of the sky was still cloaked in a dark
indigo, with only a few traces of lighter blues and reds peeking between the
many apartment and office buildings of downtown Nerima. The same clouds that
served to make the previous night dreary and dank now acted as reflectors to the
early morning light, catching traces of light against the still darkened sky.
For a moment, Tatewaki was very excited, and immediately set to work with
ink and brush to capture this moment of nature. Try though he might, though, he
could not capture the moment all in one glance. Thus, a poem that began
praising the contrasts of color and the resemblance of one particular cloud to
himself fell apart immediately upon his second glance. In the brief moment it
took him to inscribe his opening lines, the winds had conspired to drive all the
previous forms of the clouds into new shapes, and the sun had progressed to the
point that the previous contrasts of red and indigo were replaced by a swath of
warm orange.
"Damn this infernal wind!" he cried as he toss the piece of paper barring
the words 'Cerulean sky / Garnet light and self-same clouds / All is...' onto a
small mound of similarly crumpled paper and half-written lines of wit.
Looking eastwards once again, his eyes were drawn to a single white seabird,
venturing far from shore, as it crossed the now brighter sky in slow, effortless
arcs. Through a break in the clouds, he could see just the faintest glimpse of
the sun itself now, blindingly white amidst a sea of yellow and orange light.
Again, with nearly as much enthusiasm, he returned to his paper.
'Solitary bird / Drifting towards the light of day / Eastwards...'
But now the clouds had closed again, obscuring the once brilliant sun behind
walls of soft gray, allowing only traces of orange and golden light to trace
outlines upon their forms. The bird was nowhere in sight.
"Damn, damn, a thousand times damn! How can even a genius such as mine contend
with the very flow of time to capture the timeless beauty of just one moment of
the dawn?" He shouted as he sprang to his feet, throwing his brush and ink
aside with rage to bellow his frustrations at the offending party, the
constantly shifting sunrise.
"Yo, Kuno! What's up? We gonna fight today or what?"
Tatewaki turned to regard the intruding voice of his bitter rival, the dark
sorcerer Saotome Ranma, who stood nearby, perched on a tree branch in a
typically arrogant fashion. "Nay, it is not to be today, vile one. The mighty
blue thunder is this morning otherwise occupied with an assignment in verse, on
a topic that continues to elude my wit. Tis the morning sun, fickle in it's
form and display, on which I must expound a haiku that encompasses the full
glory of one single moment. A task which proves exceedingly difficult, despite
it's deceptively simple construction."
"So you gotta write a poem about the sunrise? What's the problem? That's
easy!"
"And so I believed, at first. There is a cruel trick to the assignment,
however, in that one must capture but a single moment of the sunrise. The
dastardly clouds continue to move before the moment has been committed to the
page, and even as they stay relatively still the sun continues to rise! This is
an impossible task!" declared Tatewaki.
"Honestly, it's just a sunrise, Kuno. It happens everyday, and each one is
different. Ya can't just have one bit of a sunrise! That would kinda ruin it,
ya know? It's the fact that ya can't nail it down and make it last that makes a
sunset worth watchin."
Tatewaki seemed to freeze at that last statement, eying his daily foe for a
moment with suspicious eyes. "Indeed? Is it possible that beneath such a
deplorable skin lies the heart of a true warrior poet?"
"Nah, I just like ta watch the sky alot."
Taking on last fleeting glimpse at the eastern sky, Tatewaki retrieved his brush
and ink from the ground and began to fashion his final draft:
The moment has passed
One view must yield to the next
In sunrise
"Behold! Another perfect grade for the Blue Thunder, as all would expect of one
so grand in the arts of man as I! Come, fiend, Battle awaits you!" called
Tatewaki as he set his creation aside, and joyously welcomed his daily beating.
Author's notes:
As I first sat down to attempt this challenge, I had a really hard time
deciding how to start. It seemed like as soon as I had one idea of how to
describe the scene, another one popped into my head. Then I had the bright idea
of giving Kuno the same problem!