* * *Deep in L-Space* * *

Pages rustled amongst themselves. Sometimes Setsuna wondered if the books conversed; certainly the creators of each universe did, as many exchanged ideas and universes spawned additional ones. The network of stories and lives stretched infinitely throughout the library. Many universes, like the one Setsuna was reading now, had to be crossed referenced dozens of times. The creator of this one was quite prolific, too. Three solid chapters, with the promise of much more to come later. Of course, Setsuna had noticed at least one comma splice. No doubt the proofreader had yelled at the author for posting that without letting him look at it first.

Setsuna carefully bookmarked her spot in the story and wandered over a few rows to the break room, where she poured herself a fresh cup of green tea. She also nabbed a tiny slice of cheesecake from the refridgerator, and, after peering around guiltily to make sure no one was watching, put the slice back in the fridge and took the rest of the cake for herself. No one said that the senshi of time couldn't be selfish when she wished it.

Armed with snacks, she went into the lounge and settled into a comfortable armchair, to see where the creator was going to take her now.

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The Spice of Life
[Chapter Four]
An Herb/Kodachi Fic
Commissioned by Prince Herb
Written by Cat Who
Beta read by Rezantis
Disclaimer: None of 'em are mine. I'm not getting paid. Please don't sue me.

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For daddy . . .
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* * *
Train Station, Sapporo, Hokkaido Island, Japan
* * *

"We can catch a bus to Daisetsuzan now," Kodachi said, breaking the long silence that had fallen between her and the prince. "Although it would be best if we partook of luncheon first. The bus ride takes about four hours. We should arrive before nightfall. The inn at Son-kyou I called during our break has reserved two rooms for us, so we can begin the climb to Hebereke tomorrow."

Herb nodded, although his expression was still tight lipped and angry. Kodachi didn't understand what he was so upset about. Didn't he realize she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself? Not only did she have her magic, she was a fully trained martial arts rhythmic gymnast. Anything that dared to attack her would quickly be very sorry.

Maybe it was just that his authority had been usurped. Well, the ohji-sama would just have to learn that she wasn't some simpering Chinese girl who could be stomped all over. She was Kodachi the Black Rose, and she was used to making decisions on her own.

Luggage in hand, the two left the train and entered the station, which, during the daytime, was far busier than even the Tokyo station had been in the middle of the night. Sapporo was the largest city on Hokkaido, and the bustling crowds gave evidence of the lively city life.

"I know of a delightful little French cafe a few streets away from the bus station," Kodachi said as they walked down the city street past gift shops and stores.

"I've never eaten French," Prince Herb muttered behind her, as if he were slightly embarassed.

"Don't worry, ohji-sama, everything they make is simply divine." It was much chillier up here than it had been in Tokyo, but Kodachi enjoyed the bite of cold on her stockinged legs. Herb, who was used to slightly warmer conditions in China, had pulled his cloak tightly around him. Dragon hide armor over a silk shirt wasn't very insulating.

The "French cafe" Kodachi had remembered was genuine, owned and operated by gaijin who had settled in Sapporo several years ago for the skiing season and decided they liked it. Lunchtime crowds had filled it almost to capacity. The waiter was pleasantly surprised when Kodachi spoke in his native tongue, and the two had a rather lengthy discussion that she ended only because the prince was looking impatient. He directed them to one of the last tables left, which was small and situated in a corner, after checking their bags in at the front. The table had an intimate air, and the waiter had obviously misunderstood them for a couple on vacation. Seated, Kodachi and Herb were all but nose to nose over the ridiculously tiny table.

Kodachi began flipping through the menu, which was written in both the original French and Japanese. Herb frowned at his menu.

"Escargo? Snails? And I thought you Japanese had bad taste in food."

"They taste quite nice, actually. I remember one time in Paris . . . there was a restaurant that made escargo that melted in your mouth, it was so tender."

"I'll take a vegetarian dish, thank you very much," Herb said, looking slightly green around the gills.

"If you insist. Perhaps the veloute soup . . ."

The waiter returned for their order. Next to them at another table, a few customers had started a heated argument, yelling at each other in rapid Japanese. Herb watched them, almost scandalized by the way they were behaving in public. Could the man not control his woman? Herb sighed and turned away, feeling as though the next week in this foreign land would never end. That's why when the woman angrily threw her water at the man, Herb had no idea it was coming. She missed and it hit Herb full in the face.

"I'm sorry!" the woman who had thrown the water cried. Herb sat stunned, water dripping down her chin and onto her cloak. Then, horrified, she ducked under the table just as Kodachi turned away from the waiter.

"Ohji-sama?" she asked, peering under the table. "Ohji-sama?" Herb was no longer there, as she had immediately started crawling away, her cloak tucked tightly around her lest anyone notice the two new appendages on her chest.

It was times like these she was grateful for her knee pads; the oddly tiled floor was spotless but hard as a rock. Herb peered closer since she was so close to the ground anyway. It WAS rock. No wonder. Why did it ALWAYS have to be water? she wondered bitterly as she ducked throughout the tables. She glanced back at Kodachi, who failed to notice Herb on the floor. Kodachi finally blinked a few times, but continued ordering, spilling instructions in liquid French to the waiter, who nodded and did not smile.

Herb, meanwhile, had managed to crawl across the restaurant without startling too many people. She ducked into the men's restroom, her cloak still clutched tightly around her, and was very relieved to find they had hot water on tap in the restaurant, a rarity in Japan. Herb splashed her face with water, and transformed back to himself again. "I HATE this curse," he complained to no one in particularly, and mopped his face off with a paper towel. Feeling very cross with the world, he ducked into a stall to go ahead and take care of the call of nature while he was in the restroom.

By the time he emerged, the first course had arrived, and Kodachi was the one looking impatient. Her face did brighten a bit when she saw him return from the direction of the restroom.

"So that's where you were. You just upped and disappeared."

"Personal business," Herb said ambiguously, and sat in the tiny metal chair again after checking to make sure no water had dripped onto it. In front of him on the table was a tiny dish of noodles in a clear sauce.

"Well, I took the liberty of ordering for you. Those are noodles Czekoslovakian style. We'll also be having the quail a la crapaudine, cucumbers with sour cream, some good camembert cheese, and a stained glass fruit salad for dessert.

Herb shrugged and looked around for a pair of chopsticks. Finding none, he glanced over at Kodachi, who had picked up her fork and was poking delicately at her own noodles. He felt a little foolish. Back in China, he'd eaten in a Western resteraunt a grand total of once, and even then they'd provided him with chopsticks. He sighed and picked up his own fork, and managed to eat the entire dish without dropping any.

They ate through most the small courses in silence; Herb because he was terribly hungry, and Kodachi out of reverence to the excellent French cuisine. He didn't quite understand why the small slice of cheese deserved its own course, but Kodachi explained that it was a French thing, and to skip the cheese would be all but sacrilege.

"I miss France," Kodachi said over the stained glass salad. "Japanese food is all good and well, but there's something about the rituals of a properly done French luncheon that a Japanese meal lacks."

"I'll grant you that the food is good," Herb conceded. "But what ritual? All the waiter did was hand us food on plates."

"Exactly! In a traditional Japanese dinner, the food is all arranged on the table before the diners sit down. But in the French tradition, the food is brought out only when it is the proper time. It's a very subtle, very crucial difference in the dining cultures."

"I see," Herb said, even though he really didn't. He'd known the woman for a full day now, and she was becoming more and more of a mystery to him. What did it matter that in France a servant brought the food out one course at a time? It still was eaten. And even if Kodachi HAD lived in France, she was still Japanese. Her rejection of her own culture was so typical for her people. They claimed that they wanted to keep all foreign influences away, while at the same time practicing those same foreign influences daily. It was so hypocritical that it almost made Herb sick.

Kodachi paid for their meal, and they retrieved their luggage from the front. Outside, the noontime crowd had thinned a little, and the pair had no trouble finding the bus station. "Buses leave every half hour. There should be one here soon."

Herb nodded. It was strange. Kodachi was acting as more than just a traveling companion, but as as a tour guide. His earlier anger at her had dissipated during lunch. He had a feeling that he'd have been hard pressed to do this trip on his own, and it made him feel a foreign emotion he didn't quite recognize. Finally he placed the odd sensation: gratitude. He was grateful that he had Kodachi along. He didn't like the idea of a woman being so strong-willed and forceful, but he was very glad that she wasn't expecting HIM to do all the work on this trip.

They didn't have to wait long. The buses, like the trains in Japan, ran on their time schedules exactly. They paid the reasonable fare and found a pair of seats near the back.

* * *
Bus from Sapporo to Son-kyou-onsen, Daisetsuzan National Park
* * *

Kodachi took out a map of Daisetsuzan and a pen, and started plotting points on the map and writing things down on a piece of paper.

"What are you doing?" Herb asked, curiously.

"We have to turn a copy of our planned hike into a police station before we can climb. I'm also marking the best places to stop for shelter during the hike. It'd be fastest to take the marsh route by Kuwannai, but it's forbidden, so we'll have to go around it, which will add a half a day's journey . . . there are appointed campsites we have to stay at, too. And we need to rent equipment."

"So many safety precautions . . ."

"The mountainous areas are dangerous. People have died by being stupid. We don't have to go as far as Mt Daisetsu-yama, thank goodness, but we do have to face some extreme conditions."

"In China, during our training, we climbed the mountains with our bare hands."

"Good for you." Kodachi was entirely unimpressed. Herb fumed for a bit as she carefully recorded their course, then feeling slightly bored, he picked up a magazine someone had left behind and read it for a while.

Then he put the magazine down.

This inaction was driving him mad. Never had he gone more than a day without some sort of training, and here, all he'd done for the past week was sit either on his small royal yacht while the crew did all the work, or sit in cafés or on buses or trains. His legs were getting stiff from all the sitting.

Well, tomorrow they'd be hiking in the mountains and he could really stretch again. A thought occurred to him and he glanced surreptitiously at Kodachi's shapely legs. Underneath her demure and polished exterior, there was a hidden strength. She was as physically fit as he was. Herb exhaled an unconsciously held breath. She would not slow him down during the hike.

They could not afford to slow down.

He disliked their leisurely route, but he had to admit that it would not be wise to hike during the daytime. They *had* be traveling nearly constantly, which made him feel slightly less guilty, but he still wished there was a faster way. Airplane travel probably would have been faster, actually, but then again, perhaps not. Tickets on such short notice would have been impossible. Herb didn't like the idea of flying in the air under something else's power besides his own any more than he had liked the tunnel.

At least they would make it with a day to spare before the night of the full moon. That was the most important thing.

He found himself drumming his fingers on the bus seat in front of him.

"Ten yen for your thoughts," Kodachi offered.

"I'm . . . just thinking about my friend, Lime. He was one of those struck by the illness." Herb made a fist, feeling the anger and sensation of impotence at his inability to directly help his friend return. "If he dies . . . if I lose him because I was too late . . . I'll never forgive myself."

Kodachi's wide clear gray eyes caught his, and for a moment he let himself stare into those limpid pools. They held empathy but not pity. She placed one hand over his still drumming fingers, and he froze at the contact. Every sense went on alert. Something about her touch caused his heart to race faster.

"We won't be too late." She squeezed his hand slightly, and then returned to her plans.

Herb closed his eyes and leaned back onto the seat.

Gods, he hoped this trip would end soon . . . if he stayed around a certain witch much longer, he'd lose seventeen years worth of careful training to her unintentional advances.

He could feel the heat of her, next to him on the chilly bus.

He tried to ignore it, and failed.

* * *
Soun-kyo Onsen, Daisetsuzan National Park, Hoddaido, Japan
* * *

The inn at Soun-kyo was nice, and Kodachi was glad she had picked it. An entire village had formed around the hotsprings, which were located a few miles south of the gorge for which they were named. She and Herb would be going the other way, however; further south, towards the mountain range. They had finally decided to stop at Teninn-kyou Onsen on their way, as the chilly September weather was already giving in to winter and the temperatures could plummet drastically at night. Herb had seemed please with her choice as well.

They could have shaved two days off their journey if the road to the onsen hadn't been closed due to an avalanche. Rather than make Herb feel even worse, she withheld that information from him and simply let him think the hike was the only way to Teninn-kyou Onsen.

"I have a reservation," she told the clerk at the counter sweetly, and gave him her name. Behind her, Herb glanced around the lobby nervously. He had been like that at the train station as well. Poor thing probably didn't have to deal with crowds at all in China.

The clerk handed her a key, and Kodachi waited a moment for him to hand her the second one. When none seemed forthcoming, she prompted him.

"Excuse me. I had reserved two rooms. May I have the second key?"

"I only showed one reservation," the clerk said. "Lucky you got that one, too. We're booked solid."

Kodachi narrowed her eyes. She didn't mind the prince, but she most certainly did not plan on spending the night with him in the inn.

"You mean there are no rooms left at all?"

"Nope. Sorry, miss." The clerk shrugged. "It's got two double beds though, if that helps."

Kodachi glared but there was nothing she could do. Behind her, she could feel the prince smirking. He was probably looking forward to sharing a room with her. Such a typical male. Exactly the opposite of her Ranma.

But as they made their way to the room, Kodachi realized that she couldn't lie to herself. The prince was actually more like Ranma than he was different. They both had that same careless arrogance and assurance, that same strength and utter confidence in their abilities. And there was something the same with his ki, too, although Kodachi couldn't quite place it.

Their room was a combination of western and eastern inn styles. The soft wooden walls were old and dark, and the windows were rice paper, but the floor was western style carpeting, and the beds were western. It had a private toilet and shower but no furo. Kodachi resigned herself to sharing the small main room with the prince. At least there were, indeed, two separate beds. She would have protested even more if they wouldn't have been sharing a tent at least three nights during the trip.

The prince had just better keep a civil distance.

"I'm going to the hotsprings," she announced, and entered the bathroom to change. She didn't care what the prince did with himself until the next day; it wasn't her job to babysit him the whole time.

She changed into a black two piece bikini with red roses on it, and slipped on a pair of shorts to get her down to the hotsprings in modesty. When she came out the prince had already left. Her stomach growled and reminded her that she hadn't eaten in four hours, and she decided that the prince had probably gone to eat as well.

The famous onsen was actually a collection of many hot springs, and the inn Kodachi had chosen had been built around a cluster of them. A wooden deck surrounded the largest and most popular of them, providing traction. Gratefully, she splashed herself with cool water and began to scrub the worst of the travel grime off. Then with a sigh of relief she sank into the simmering mineral water.

* * *

Herb hadn't stuck around. The vision of Kodachi changing from that French cut suit into anything else was more than enough to make him consider a hasty exit before his imagination filled in details it shouldn't be considering. He should have been relieved; he would be without the witch for the rest of the evening, giving him some much needed time away from her tempting distractions.

Their inn had a small restaurant in it, and Herb ordered a Chinese dish. The French cuisine had been surprisingly filling, but he preferred the familiarity of rice and sauces to mystery meat substances and fancy soups. And there were chopsticks, which made him much happier. Westerners could keep their forks.

After dinner, he wandered into the gift shop. A cluster of young Japanese people were arguing over the authenticity of some of the artifacts presented for sale. One of them, a young man, had the most unusual shade of red hair that Herb had ever seen on a Japanese person, and another boy had to be half-gaijin with that headful of blond hair. A girl was glomped onto the red-head with no intention of letting go.

Herb sighed. He wished . . . he wanted a girl to look at him like that, sometime. Ever since he had learned what a female was (far more than he'd ever wanted to know), he'd shied away from the opposite gender. Until the Jusenkyo curse was gone he had no business even looking at women. But like all of the Musk men, he thirsted desperately for the social contact he had been denied as part of his training. Those Japanese teenagers had no idea what it was like to be isolated from the other half of the human population, denied the human contact that they took for granted.

Although Kodachi, who was still at an all girl's school, did.

Herb frowned to himself. Why did his thoughts keep returning to that witch? He should be happy he wasn't stuck with her for the rest of the night. Instead, he found himself wondering what spring she had gone to, and if she would like his company. Probably not. She had been more than eager to leave him earlier.

He shouldn't risk going to the springs himself. Too dangerous. The water on the decks cooled rapidly, and would undoubtled trigger his curse if he slipped and fell. He couldn't go into the water with his clothes on, either.

With a sigh Herb purchased a bottle of cold spring water, and sipped on it absently as he made his way back up to the room. Only water on the outside skin triggered the curse, which allowed him to enjoy cool beverages in his male half. His thoughts wandered back to Kodachi. What did Japanese females wear when they bathed? On his last trip to Japan, he had stayed at the Neko-hanten, and fortunately Ka Lon had a single-person furo so he'd been spared having to share the bath with Lime and Mint. Still, he wondered. Surely she wasn't naked. He hoped she wasn't. For some reason the idea of Kodachi without clothing on both excited and angered him, which was odd, since he knew more about female anatomy than most male gynecologists. There wasn't any reason to think of her body as special. Yet the idea of other people -- other males -- ogling her perfect curves made him want to hit something very hard.

So distracted was he thinking about Kodachi in the nude that as he turned the corner in the hallway, he didnt't see the girl there until it was too late. He had barely recognized her as the girl glomped onto the boy in the gift shop before the cold water he was drinking doused them both, and with a flash he was a girl and she was a small pot bellied pig.

Female Herb stared down at the pig, who stared back at him pathetically.

"Oh damn," she said softly to the transformed girl. "Spring of drowned pig, eh?" She picked up the pig, who continued to gaze at her with enormous watery eyes." I'm sorry. Jusenkyo's curse is the most miserable thing to live with, I know."

The pig struggled mightily to get away, and Herb gave up. The pig grabbed the dress she had been wearing in her mouth, and her sandles by their straps, and dragged them quickly with a surprising strength down the hallway.

"How many people in this damn country have been to that accursed place, anyway?" Herb muttered, and found her room. She tried the handle but found it locked, and then remembered that Kodachi had the only key.

Then she banged on the door without thinking.

"Kodachi! Open the door! Kodachi!" No one answered, which relieved and horrified Herb all at the same time.

Hot water. She needed hot water. Now.

Wait a minute -- they were at an onsen, right? Surely not every spring had a hotel around it. All she needed was to find a private, unused spring, and she'd be fine.

She set out, failing to notice the hysterical wails that came from the room the pig had entered.

"But the one who did it was a GIRL!"

"Calm down, Kagura!"

"Kagura-chan, are you sure? Maybe it was just a really pretty boy?"

"I knew we shouldn't have come on this damn ski trip."

"Shut up, bakaneko."

* * *

Kodachi sighed and leaned back in the soothing water. Oh yes, this trip with the prince was definitely worth it. She'd needed a vacation. Hokkaido was a little further than she usually wanted to go, but this was nice. Very nice.

She thought she saw the prince scurry past, and rose from the water, which streamed down her trim body as if she were a goddess rising from the sea. Curious, she slipped on her sandles and wrapped herself around with a towel, and followed the familiar cloaked figure.

He had left the deck area and instead gone to the rocky outcrop where the smaller, unused springs were -- they were too small or too hot for the inns around Soun-kyo to use. Her curiosity increased when the prince jumped into one spring out of the blue -- with his clothes on.

She caught up with him quickly.

"Ohji-sama?" she called, and his head whipped around to face her with an unreadable expression. "Why are you in this spring?"

"I slipped," he said. Kodachi didn't believe him.

"Why were you even over here in the first place? All the good springs are over there, by the deck."

"Maybe I wanted to be alone?" he said with clenched teeth.

Kodachi pursed her lips, studying the prince. He looked so . . . sad like that; sopping wet, treading water in the tiny spring. But . . . she too had her secrets, and she really didn't want to argue with the prince.

So instead she held out her hand. "Well, come on, then. At least get out of there before someone sees you."

The prince looked as though he were about to refuse, but then he grabbed her hand and hefted. Kodachi had underestimated the weight of him and his sodden robes, however, and her sandles didn't have a lot of tread. Before she knew it, she had fallen right into the spring with the prince. He caught her before she banged her head on the other side of the tiny pool.

He was warm. The soaking wet cloak and shirt only added to the heat blazing from his chest. It contrasted sharply with the cool night air of the onsen.

They both froze like that for a few moments, until she felt his arms slide around her. The movement felt completely natural, and Kodachi felt herself forgetting to breath. She could feel his heartbeat against her own.

Chest to chest. Cheek to cheek. How many times had she fantasized about the same thing with Ranma? Only . . . when she was with the prince, Ranma became the furthest thing from her mind. Prince Herb was larger, more undeniably masculine in an undefineable way than Ranma.

Finally Herb grew uncomfortable with the silence. "I told you I slipped," he said. "I only wanted to test the temperature." He did not let her go. She did not want him to let her go.

But that was being unfaithful to Ranma, wasn't it? Suddenly confused, Kodachi pulled away, burning with shame at her behavior. She had liked being held by the prince. But she was destined for Ranma . . . wasn't she?

Wordlessly, both she and the prince hauled themselves out of the tiny spring, and walked towards the main part of the onsen, where they both dried themselves off with hot towels the inn provided. Herb had to wring out his cloak and shirt first, and Kodachi saw him for the first time bare-chested -- he really was more muscular than Ranma or her brother, but not grotesquely so. His skin was completely hairless except for his head, adding evidence to his claim that he trained daily.

"I ate dinner earlier, but when I went back to the room I discovered that you had the only key," he finally said to her, breaking the uneasy silence that had been between them since they left the small spring.

"Oh, sorry. Here it is," Kodachi said, and handed it to him without looking him in the face. He took it quickly, and was gone before she had a chance to say anything more.

What's wrong with me? she asked herself as she went to the restaurant. Why is my heart suddenly so unclear? Ranma . . . seems so far away.

And Herb is right here with me.

Feeling wretched, Kodachi ordered a random dish and picked at it without noticing to what she had even ordered.

* * *

Herb stepped out of the hot shower and quickly toweled himself off. His clothes were now hanging to dry in one of the small closets the inn provided, and for the first time in days he was wearing different clothes: still royal white, but without the dragon hide armor. He felt oddly naked without his armor on.

He was toweling his hair off some more when Kodachi knocked on the door. He opened it to let her in, and she took in his freshly washed state with a quick once-over glance that turned Herb's mind to jelly. Self consciously, he sat on the bed he'd claimed as his own and began brushing his long hair.

She grabbed a few items from her bags and went into the bathroom, no doubt doing murky feminine things that Herb still didn't understand, even after being cursed by Jusenkyo. The curse change his body, not his knowledge. He'd had no idea what to do as a female, and because of the nature of his society, he had had no one to ask.

Some things the female half had seemed to know on its own -- how to use the bathroom, for instance. But Herb had been unprepared for the roller coaster of hormones that females dealt with on a daily basis. Breasts only scratched the surface of the difference between men and women. Even now, having lived with the curse of Jusenkyo for many months, he still didn't have a clue as to hwo females survived the absurd cravings and vagaries of their own bodies on a daily basis.

Herb gave up on his hair and fell back onto the western bed with a sigh, He stared at the aged wooden ceiling, and wondered how Lime was doing. Rinse had said he would die of dehydration, not the illness itself, which gave him hope. Mint would make sure that Lime got the sustenance he needed to survive.

Kodachi finally emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, with a towel wrapped around her head turban style. She was wearing pair of black pajamas, with the usual red and silver rose motif on them.

"Just curious. Do you have ANY other color in your entire wardrobe?"

Kodachi glared at him in his royal white. The only difference between the one had on and the one he had been wearing before, besides the armor, was that the stripe was blue and not red.

"I might ask the same of you, ohji-sama," she said coolly, and sat on her own bed.

"I'll set the alarm for six. That way we can get an early start -- rent the equipment, turn in our hiking plans, and eat breakfast before the sun rises. We'll reach Teninn-kyo shortly after nightfall tomorrow."

"Fine." Aparently they were just going to pretend that the confusing interlude in the spring earlier hadn't happened.

With that, Kodachi slipped under the covers of the enormous western bed, and Herb followed suit. She shut the lamp off. Herb closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but he kept remembering the way she'd felt against his chest in the spring, her soft little body accidentally thrust against his own.

And her breasts . . . the wonderful things he hated and loved all at the same time . . . they had felt nice, too.

"Damn distractions," he muttered to himself, and pulled one of the pillows over his head, running through martial arts kata in his mind to keep away visions of Kodachi in a bikini.

* * *
End chapter four
* * *