Exchanging Education: Chapter 3
It had been four very long days since Ash and Ferrous consented to escort the village ladies back to their home from Border Town. Ferrous spent much of that time honing her skills... In not ripping her charges' heads off.
"And another thing, Ferrous dear, your clothing is simply, well, outlandish!"
"And a trifle unfeminine, my dear," the skinny one, Perci added, upping 'Ferrous dear's' already high blood pressure.
The very much hen-pecked young Unnamed sped up slightly to walk beside Ash, fuming all the while.
Controlling his own smirk, the wild haired trainer could only offer a platitude he had heard on his travels, and more recently from his father.
"Think of this as a training opportunity, Ferrous. If they can't make you snap, then you're pretty much torture proof."
All this earned him was a pointy elbow in the side as she sped up even further to take the lead. Silence from her corner let poor Ash know that he was now in her black books for at least a day... Or until they dropped off the old biddies.
On the morning of the fifth day, the little group could see signs of the village on the horizon. This of course, set the biddies all a twitter with gossip about what they bought, how their families would react, and speculation as to what all happened during the ladies' absence.
Ferrous was still treating them with the cold shoulder, and all that Ash would see was a swirl of sea green hair as she would flick her bobbed head away from his attention.
But as the village grew nearer, she inched her way closer to her Ash-kun's side, a joyous smirk twitching across her lips. FINALLY!
While humming some tune she had gotten from her godfather, she happily sang in her mind 'Ding Dong, the biddies gone, the wretched biddies gone!'
For the entire duration of the village ladies' company, Ferrous had made a promise to herself. Within the first fifteen minutes, that promise evolved into an inner mantra which was the only thing that staved off homicidal insanity in the young oceanic trainer. 'Must not kill. No kill. Bad. Ash-kun will train me when they are gone. Gone, gone, Ranma-sama's technique. All mine. Only when they're gone.' Or something along those lines.
Upon reaching the first few houses of the village, both Good-wives, Perci and Sasha turned to thank their escorts. While the skinny one glomped onto Ash's muscular shoulder and stroked it as she said her farewells, the slightly more plump one smothered the taut and twitching Ferrous into a hug. It was only the lack of oxygen to the girl's limbs that kept Ferrous from exploding into violence and kept her quiescent as the fat and skinny one traded places.
As Sasha took her turn plastering herself against Ash, Perci gripped the young trainer with a bony strength as the lady dug into her coin purse. Handing Ferrous the local equivalent of a quarter, the old biddy took one last jab at Ferrous' appearance.
"Do something nice for yourself, eh, dear child? There's so much to fix."
Ash, who had heard that parting shot also pretty much intuited the mental snap from his charge's mind. Leaving a fast stream of 'Yourwelcome, gottago!" he whisked his frothing imouto away and ran for the hills, deciding that the small village was not big enough for Ferrous and their temporary companions to cohabit even a second longer.
Cracked maniacal laughter faded into the distance as the two biddies looked at one another before bursting out into giggles.
"Did you see the look on her face!"
"I know, Sasha. And that young man!" Perci sighed, fanning herself. "If that's the way Unnamed make all their men, sign me up for the next trade caravan!"
"Hmmm," the plump one hummed. "I wonder why the two are heading towards the Kage lands? Especially since Ferrous dear is so young!"
"A tournament perhaps? I've heard rumors about how competitive Unnamed Gym is. I suppose a child of the village would think nothing of traveling such a distance just for comparison."
The two just hummed again in thought, before another glancing at each other and bursting out into laughter again.
Crazy old biddies.