Beauty And the Pig: A Fractured Fairy Tale

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"This boy-dressed-like-girl's room. You like, yes?" The door was opened by unseen hands to show an elegant looking room furnished in red and gold. The massive bed could easily hold four people with room for extras, a fire was roaring the fireplace, the light from it dancing off the rug and deep red armchairs. Paintings and weaponry decorated the walls. Ranma was struck speechless.

"You no like?" Shampoo inquired worriedly, "I suggest flower room for girl, but Master pick this room. But you no girl, should like this one…"

"No, no, its perfect!" Ranma overrode her, stepping into it. The gentle warmth of the space surrounded him like a soothing blanket. He spotted an open door to his right. "Oh, cool! There's even a bathroom! Great, now I can get clean." There was a loud shuffling directly behind him and he twisted around. "Shampoo?"

"Yes?" She spoke from the direction of the door.

"Never mind." He dumped his travel pack on the bed, the mattress bending slightly under the weight. "I'm going to wash, I'll see you in a little bit."

"O-kay!" The door closed. Ranma hesitated, approaching the door and waving his arms around it, not quite certain that the girl had left. After investigating the entire area around the door, Ranma nodded, satisfied. He quickly striped off his clothes, gathered his washing materials and headed to the bathroom.

~~~

Sadie & Hope: Shower scene!!

Crew Members: Whoo-hoo!

~~~

Crossing the threshold, Ranma felt something give under his foot and heard a muffled sound. He jumped back quickly and looked around. There was nothing that he could have stepped on---the bathroom was empty. Frowning, he continued in and began to wash.

But lets ignore that for a moment and move to a different angle.

You see, the various inhabitance of the castle had been invisible for a few years now and in addition to being invisible to others, there are invisible to each other as well. Which meant sex involved a great deal of caution on the part of each member, not to mention a great deal of prat-falls. But that is neither here nor there. The point being, none of them had seen a naked person in quite a long while.

So there was now a fairly large gathering in Ranma's bathroom. Even Ukyo had turned up, despite having sworn on her father's grave (utterly ignoring the fact that he's not dead yet) that she only liked girls and had no heterosexual tendencies what-so-ever thank-you-very-much.

Back to our regularly scheduled point of view.

Ranma sighed in delight has the warm water poured over his frame, soothing away the minor aches gathered by traveling. The clear droplets slid over his firm muscles, tracing a pattern down his broad back to curve upward over his tight, lovely, hot.....

~~~

(Hope hits Sadie over the head with her plushie.)

Hope: Stop describing his ass and get on with the story!!

Sadie:*drooling over the illustrations* But that's the best part!

Hope: That is beside the poi....*Sadie shows her the picture*....of course you are the one reading the story and it's entirely up to you.

Sadie: Thank you.

~~~

Once thoroughly soaked, Ranma bent over to grab his soap from the basket (causing a few nosebleeds), but the water on his hand caused the bar to slip from his grip and go flying to the side. There was loud yelp as it impacted…several feet from the wall. Ranma, however, missed this event, snagging the soap has it skidded back to him.

He started to sing, loudly and off-key.

"In the Jungle, the mighty Jungle, the lion sleeps tonight....."

The large group sharing the bathroom with him began to wonder if this was such a good idea after all.

Ryoga paced the confines of his room, hooves clicking on the wooden floor. The window was uncovered, letting in the dim evening light. His thoughts roared inside his head, causing him not hear Kuno's incessant raving and realize that he had gotten lost on the way to his real chambers.

[This is not working out the way I hopped.] he worried, [The curse says that someone has to fall in love with me. Does it matter if it's a boy or a girl? He's seems to be interested enough, could I get him to love me? Do I want to?]

That bothered him, but not seriously. Its not like he would have to *marry* the person who freed him from the curse or love them in return. Feeling a bit of a heel, Ryoga spent a minute convincing himself that it was worth being free of the curse.

Feeling much better now, Ryoga finally noticed where he was.

"Damnit!"

Another invisible servant arrived to show Ranma the way to the dinning room. The table was laid out with plates, silverware, crystal glasses, and candles. A group of instruments played softly in the corner. Only the host was absent.

"Chose a seat and wait a moment while we locate the master. It shouldn't take to long." the unnamed servant informed him. Ranma shrugged and sat down. The candlelight reflected pleasantly off the crystal. It was little under five minutes before the pig made his appearance.

Ranma smiled at him, noting he had changed the yellow bandanna around his neck for a dark green one. "Hey, you made it! I was getting bored." He stood up. Ryoga paused, staring in surprise. "What is it?"

"I just, I never imagined a guy could look so good in a dress." Ryoga blurted out, surprised. Ranma blinked and blushed slightly. He'd chosen a dark blue dress with gold embroidery around the collar. The bodice was sung enough to make it quite clear this was a male wearing it, yet still managed to look just right. The skirt feel sleekly around his legs, a knee high slit up the right side giving delightful glimpses of those same legs. For jewelry he wore only a gold chain necklace with a blue-crystal pendent and matching bracelets.

"Oh, thank you. I've been told that before but…that was very sweet." he smiled. Ryoga looked flustered and babbled for a minute.

"Yes, well, I've never seen another guy in a dress before and I thought only girls looked good that way and it just surprised me and....."

"Okay, okay! I got you!" Ranma waved him silent and just stopped himself from rolling his eyes. This guy was seriously out of touch with society. Well, you couldn't blame him, he was a giant pig after all. "Shall we sit down?"

"Oh, um, yea. That sounds good." Still somewhat flustered, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out why, Ryoga chose a seat at the other end of the table.

It was a very long table.

"So...nice weather we're having."

"What?"

"I SAID VERY NICE WEATHER WE'RE HAVING'!!"

"Oh, yes, very nice indeed."

"Little louder, I can't hear you!"

"WHAT?"

"YOU NEED TO SPEAK LOUDER!"

"'EAT CHOWDER'?!?"

"NO, SPEAK LOUDER!"

"OH!"

Brief silence.

"SO, DO YOU THINK IT'S GOING TO RAIN?"

"NO, I DON'T...oh, fuck this." Ranma gathered up his skirts, shoved back his chair, and stomped around the table to where Ryoga was. "That was getting stupid." He sat next to Ryoga. The pig had to agree.

A floating wine bottle approached them and filled their glasses. "Dinner will be along shortly."

"Good, thank you."

Ranma sipped at his glass. Ryoga sipped at his.

The fire burned.

The candles melted.

Somewhere else in the castle, someone came out of the closet, figuratively and literally.

[This boy isn't much for conversation is he?] "Sooo.....what do you do around here?"

"Hmm? Oh, well, I read, play 'Guess the Servant,"

~~~

Sadie: A vastly entertaining game, I've heard. Sadly, it can only be played in magical castles with invisible people, so it hasn't quite reached the national level.

Hope: So much the pity....

Sadie: You're mocking me, aren't you?

~~~

"---and I train a lot...."

"'Train'? Like Martial Arts?" Ranma inquired eagerly, leaning on the table. Ryoga nodded, seemingly pleased with the subject.

"Yes, all the time."

Finally finding something they both agreed with, the two talked enthusiastically for the next ten to fifteen minutes when the food arrived. The plates were pushed in on a rolling tray, quickly filling the room with appetizing aromas. Ranma started to drool and wiped at his mouth. Soon has the plates were on the table, he attacked them.

Ryoga watched for second before realizing he wasn't going to get any unless he moved. A moment later, he was fighting Ranma for food possession.

"That's my plate!"

"You snooze, you loose!"

Missed bits of food went flying in the air, but most of it went down their throats. Ryoga started on the second course before Ranma had the chance to. He was just lifting the first bite up to his mouth…

When it was slapped out of his hand. The plates themselves were also snatched away before anymore could be eaten.

"Hey! What's the meaning of this?!?" Ryoga demand, an angry aura turning the air around him red. There were audible swallows.

"Aww, and that was my favorite too...." Ranma mourned, licking the tins of his empty fork.

"S-sorry, sir. B-b-but Kodachi put potions in the food again when Ukyo wasn't looking." Someone stammered. Ryoga sighed in defeat and rested his hoof against his forehead.

"Why me?"

"What's up? Whose this Kodachi?"

"The cook. Or one of them at least. She keeps on poisoning the food."

Ranma made a face and pushed one of the empty plates further from him. "Why don't you just fire her?"

"It's rather hard to fire someone you can't see. So far I've fired three candle sticks and a dust mop."

"That's harsh."

"Yes, the dust mop had been with the family a long time too."

"Umm...." Ranma coughed lightly into his hand. [Well, I've eaten, time to ditch this mess.] He opened his mouth to tell Ryoga it was time for him to go.

"Sh-sh-shall we g-g-g-go for a w-walk in the-the-the....." Ryoga stuttered hopelessly, glancing frantically around him. Finally, some servant took pity on him and whispered in his ear, "...garden?"

"Well, I...." [Oh, hell, why not? Its not like I've got anything else to do and he is kinda sweet...in a dorky, giant pig way.] "Oh, all right. For a little bit."

"Good!!" Ryoga yelped, a little loudly. He blushed and motioned for Ranma to follow him out to the back of the castle.

~~end part five