Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue

Chapter 7

"Father?" Akane asked, pausing at the door. He was hunched over in a chair by the fire, his shoulders shaking. She took a hesitant step towards him. "Father, what's wrong?"

There was no answer. A choked sob wrenched itself from his throat. Akane crossed the room to his side, kneeling at the arm of his chair. He didn't look at her. He just stared into the fire, tears streaming down his face.

"Father?" No reply.She touched his shoulder, gently. He felt warm to the touch, almost as if he were feverish. "Father, answer me!"

The King simply stared straight ahead into the flames. Akane jumped to her feet, calling for servants to help her get her father into bed. He didn't resist their manipulation of his limbs, and his eyes never focused, or closed. He stared at the ceiling, with tears streaming down his face, occasionally muttering about the end of his line, the creation of monsters.

He stayed in his bed for three days. The wise men said it was an illness caused by a curse. The people spoke of it being an evil omen. The church men claimed it was punishment for the decadence of Akane's courtship.

As for the Princess, she stayed by her father's side, hardly sleeping. And almost always, a little redhead sat with her, watching as Akane told stories to her ill father, stories of gypsies, adventure, and magic.

--------------

"And then, with the Prince's kiss, Sleeping Beauty awoke from her long rest," Akane said, placing another cool cloth on her father's face. As usual, he didn't respond. "They were married immeadiately, but the Prince feared to bring his bride home, for his mother was the daughter of an ogre, and was in the habit of eating pretty young women."

"She was in the habit of what?" Ranma interjected, blue eyes wide in shock. Akane smiled at her friend, reaching out to ruffle Ranma's red bangs.

"She ate pretty girls. I think she would have found you quite tasty. She had a thing for children too," Akane grinned. Ranma rolled her eyes.

"Let me guess, the ogress eats their kids."

"Don't get ahead of me. Anyway, a few years go by. The Prince snuck out to visit his wife every few weeks, saying he was going hunting. They had two small children. The first was called Morning, and she was very pretty. The second was called Day, because he was even more beautiful than his sister. Day was four when his grandfather, the king, passed away.

"Well, since he had to go home and rule a kingdom, the Prince, who was then crowned king, made his marriage public and brought his family home. All was well until war broke out. The new King had to go lead his troops, leaving his wife and children in the hands of his carnivorous mother.

"As expected, one day the Queen, the ogress I mean, decided she wanted to eat little Morning. She told the cook, and he went into the royal nursery to kill the child. But when he got there, little Morning threw her arms around his neck and asked him for sweets."

"He couldn't do it," Ranma interrupted. Akane nodded.

"No, he couldn't. So he took little Morning home to his cottage at the edge of the garden and served the Queen a lamb for dinner. The same thing happened the next week, when the Queen wanted to eat litte Day. A month later, the Ogre Queen asked the cook to prepare her daughter-in-law for supper. The cook figured he could do that, as the younger Queen was a grown woman and not a child. So he went into her chambers and explained everything to her, without softening the blow.

"She told him to go ahead and kill her, because she believed her children to be dead and she wanted to be reunited with them. She pulled her dress apart and bared her chest to him, telling him to strike at her heart."

"This really, really doesn't sound like a story for kids," Ranma observed. Akane just shot the little redhead a 'shut up' look.

"He found he couldn't bear to kill her either. . . ."

"Probably had a nosebleed," Ranma muttered.

". . . . so he took her to be with her children in his cottage at the edge of the garden, and served the Queen a deer for dinner.

"All was well for a year, and then the Queen was walking in the garden and she heard the voice of her daughter in law, coming from the cook's cottage. She realized at once that she had been decieved, and ordered the cook and the royal family arrested. She prepared for them all a huge cauldron of snakes and other venemous creatures, and told them that at dawn they would all be thrown into it.

"At dawn, the cook, his family, the young Queen, and her little children were all chained in a line in the throne room, waiting to be thrown into the cauldron."

"Then the King comes home, and the Ogress throws herself in instead?" Ranma guess. Akane blinked at her.

"How did you know?"

"There are themes in all of these things. I've been listening to you yammer about fairies and witches for three days now, don't you think I've picked up a few things?" Ranma scoffed. Akane blushed a little.

"Well, no one said you had to stay. If my 'yammering' bothers you, you could always leave," she replied. Ranma rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Jeesh, what is it with you and pushing people away? I'd almost think you want to be alone."

"What do you mean by that?" Akane asked, frowning. That sounded a little too much like what the black-haired young man had said.

Was it obvious to everyone that she was an emotional train wreck?

"Nothing," Ranma muttered, looking down at her callused hands. "Have you heard from that weird guy with the pigtail since I beat him up?"

"I. . . well. . . " Akane had been reluctant to mention that meeting, especially to Ranma. After all, he'd only pretended to be beaten, and she didn't want to hurt Ranma's pride. "Just once. Breifly. It was more like we passed in a corridor, really."

"Do you think he's going to force you into marriage?" Ranma asked, her voice biting, harsh. Akane smiled at her friend, thinking the harshness was protectiveness.

"I don't know. He's strange."

"Strange how?"

"I don't know, strange. Why do you ask?"

"I . . . no reason," Ranma muttered, blushing a bit. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Akane cast about in her mind for something to say, but it was Ranma who spoke first.

"What are you going to do about your father?"

"I. . . I wish I knew what to do," she whispered, bowing her head. So stupid. She couldn't even think of a way to help her father. She didn't even know what was wrong with him. If only Kasumi were still here. Heck, if only Nabiki were still here. She was the strong one, the fighter, not the brains of the outfit. How was she supposed to figure this out?

She felt a hand, light and hesitant, on her shoulder, and glanced up. Ranma's face was only a few inches away, she was leaning over her father's bed to comfort Akane. Akane smiled and squeezed the hand on her shoulder, knowing what that had cost Ranma. Casual touch never seemed to come easy to the petite girl. Every brush of the hands was a cause for a crimson blush, every offer to fix her hair in something more interesting than a braid turned down with stammering words and maroon ears.

"I'm so glad you're here," Akane whispered. Something flitted across Ranma's eyes, something she wasn't used to seeing on the face of a girl, and she drew back. Ranma sat back down, folding her arms over her chest.

It was still weird, to know that Ranma liked girls. That Ranma might like her. If only she could find someone for Ranma to love that might love her back. There was that girl in Kuno's entourage, the one who dressed like a boy. Maybe she might be receptive to the idea. What was her name? Uruka? Ukyou? Urumyou?

"Seems to me the first thing to do is figure out what's wrong with him. You've got doctors, don't you?" Ranma asked, keeping her voice brisk to cover up the slip. Akane sighed.

"They're all stumped. We had a really good doctor by the name of Tofu, a wind wizard's son, but Kasumi ran off with him. . . I wish I knew of someone who could. . ." a light went on in her head, and shone out in her face through a brilliant smile. "I know exactly who to talk to!"

"Who?" Ranma asked, staring as Akane jumped out of her chair and ran over to her father's desk. She pulled a blue notebook out of one of the drawers and turned to Ranma, exuberant now that she had something positive to do.

"No time, to the kitchens!" Akane shouted, running out the door. Ranma stared at her for a moment, then sighed and followed.

No one was there to hear Soun protesting weakly.

-------------------

"Let me get this straight," Ranma growled, pushing his red bangs back out of his face. He was trying very, very hard to ignore Ukyou, who had insisted on helping them in the kitchen. She kept accidentally bumping into him, smiling down at him and batting her eyelashes. So what if his father had engaged them when they were children? They were both exiled from their kingdoms, she because of her father, himself because of his curse. Weren't contracts like that sort of null and void if niether party is in a legal position to call it in?

Worst of all, Akane kept walking across the room, away from them. She was always smiling encouragingly at Ukyou when the chef flirted, as if she approved. As if she wanted to foist me off on Ukyou. If she thinks that's happening, the girl has another thing coming.

Feh. You'd almost think she knows I'm a boy.

"You're going to make some cake, take it to some monsters guarding some witch, and then ask the witch—the one who has monsters to guard her so she won't be disturbed—to help you out of the goodness of her heart?" Ranma asked, quirking an eyebrow at Akane. She glanced at the recipe book, then added a fistful of cumin powder to whatever she was making.

Whatever it was, those monsters must have weird taste to like it.

"Well, I was going to offer her money, but I don't think she likes shopping," Akane said, perfectly serious. Ranma blinked at her. Shopping? What does shopping have to do with a witch? "Do you think she'd like my firstborn or something?"

"You wouldn't!" Ukyou gasped. She had been avoiding talking to Akane the entire time the blue-haired girl had been in the kitchen, but apprently the latest statements shocked her out of her silence. Ranma narrowed his eyes at Akane, who was blinking at them both in confusion.

"It's not like I'm ever going to have kids, anyway. What's wrong with that?" she asked. Ukyou's eye twitched.

"Don't you think, that with all the guys trying to marry you, you'll probably one day have at least one kid?" she asked, drumming her fingers on the countertop. Akane grinned at the exiled princess, adding some oregano and cornstarch to the mixture.

"Don't be silly. I'm not getting married to any of those losers," Akane announced. Ukyou blinked at her for a moment, then a mischevious grin spread across her face.

"What about that guy with the pigtail?" she asked.

"What?" Akane and Ranma snapped, in unison, staring at the chef.

"Well, I hear you two are very close," Ukyou continued. A slow blush crept across Akane's cheeks before she huffed and turned away.

"Yeah, very funny. He's the worst of them all. He's an insensitive jerk, a manipulative bastard who isn't above using people's own desires to achieve his ends," she snapped. She glanced back at Ukyou and Ranma, a harsh frown on her face. "If you see him, trust me, you want to run in the other direction. Don't let the innocent demeanor fool you."

Ukyou gave Ranma a triumphant smile before she left the kitchen. Ranma, for his part, felt as if he were frozen in place. A manipulative bastard?

----------------

Akane set out early the next morning, armed with her special cakes. They were more suitable to being used as projectiles than eatables, but she figured that was the way the monsters liked them. After all, she had followed the recipe, hadn't she?

She was almost to the witch's castle when she saw an old gnarled tree. The grass beneath it looked soft and inviting, and after all, she hadn't been sleeping much lately. She sat down on the grass, tucking her cakes between the roots next to her.

She woke up some time later to the sound of an old man crying. She opened her eyes slowly, still fighting sleep. What she saw upon waking was an old, withered man in a purple gi, crying over the handkerchief she'd packed her cakes in.

The cakes, however, were nowhere to be found.

"Hey! You ate my cakes!" she cried, rising to her feet. The old man turned tearful eyes to her.

"You call those cakes? What were you trying to do, poison me?" he retorted.

"No! Those cakes were for the monsters. . ." As soon as the word left her lips, she heard what sounded like a thousand cats meowing. She looked up, her blood turning to ice in her veins.

The monsters.

They were coming.

"I can save you, if you promise to marry me," the old man offered, a greedy glint in his eyes. Akane jolted as if shot with a crossbow.

"No way! There's no way I could ever. . . ."

Then the monsters were upon them. The giant duck reared his head back, his bill snapping open like the gears of a machine. It was flying towards her, bill wide open. It was going to crush her, eat her. . . at least it would be quick. . . . Akane closed her eyes and waited for the blow. . .

That never came.

She opened her eyes to see the old man sitting on the bodies of the giant cat and the giant duck, smoking his pipe. He turned sunken eyes to her.

"You sure about that? I think you ah, he he, owe me something," he said. Akane took a step back.

"You have to be kidding," she muttered. The old man's eyes darkened.

The world followed.

---------------

Akane woke up in her own bed, wearing nothing but a pair of lacy underwear and a matching bra. Written across the underwear were the words: You'll marry me, willing or not.

And as hard as she tried, she couldn't take either article of clothing off.