Name: Anne Packrat E-mail: akane@erols.com [Ranma 1/2 created by Rumiko Takahashi and copyrighted by a bunch of companies like Viz Video and Kitty Films. Macbeth created by Shakespeare. Shakespeare created by his mother and father and possibly God depending on your beliefs.] Doc Traver's Studios Presents: Perchance to Dream - A Ranma 1/2 Story -...- = thoughts of a character -I could have picked ‘Beckett’, ‘Tommy’, ‘Cats’ or even ‘Romeo and Juliet’. I'd be good at that one, I performed it before (well, kind of performed it). But, no, I had to pick Macbeth!- Akane sat her desk studying a play for her Drama class. The assignment, to choose a gaijin play and write a report on it, had seemed like a rather easy one, but Akane was having trouble with it. She closed the textbook angrily. -I hate this play!- she thought, -It's so stupid!- Her expression softened. -No, it's actually a good play. I just have other things on my mind...- She sighed and opened the textbook again. -I just can't stop thinking about that nightmare...- The night before Akane had a dream about Ranma. He was fighting a demon and then... She shivered at the thought. -I don’t want to lose that idiot. Even in a dream!- She'd woken up sweating and gasping for air. Luckily she hadn't woken anyone else in the house up. She’d remembered the dream for the rest of the day. -I just can't shake the thought that it might be a premonition of some kind...- She sighed again. -It was just a dream, baka, nothing more.- She scanned the page to find where she'd left off. -Hmm... Act 5, Scene 6...- As she read her eyelids began to close. It was late at night, and weariness was also interfering with her concentration. She drifted into a kind of half-sleep where Shakespeare's crafted verse entered her mind and wandered around for awhile, poking at things. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...." The dream had started off like a typical day. She'd woken up and had her bath. Ranma had found some reason to call her a tomboy; she pounded him; he called her uncute; she kicked him into the pond; Ranma-chan had climbed out and taken a bath. "Creeps in this petty pace from day to day...." The day had pretty much been normal. Ranma insulted her, she whomped him, etc. Even other people had pretty much followed their roles. Shampoo glomped onto Ranma, Akane pounded him, Kunou attacked Ranma, demanding he free the two goddesses, and Ryouga showed up. He and Ranma fought for awhile. "To the last syllable of recorded time...." Ryouga led Ranma away from the school. Akane followed, yelling at Ranma to stop picking on Ryouga. "And all our yesterdays have lighted fools...." Neither Akane nor Ranma noticed that Ryouga didn't seem to be himself. For one thing, he wasn't getting lost. He seemed to know where he was going. This inattention would prove to be Ranma's undoing. "The way to dusty death." Ryouga stopped at a mountain trail that had seemed to appear out of nowhere. As Akane and Ranma watched a black dot formed next to Ryouga's head. The dot grew bigger and bigger until it was seven feet high. It reformed into a vaguely man-shaped figure with wings. Akane and Ranma stared on in horror at the formation of this "shadow demon". "Out, out, brief candle!" Ryouga flickered then faded away, naught but an illusion. The beast was fully formed now. It was midnight black, eight feet tall with huge wings spread out behind it. Two glowing red eyes and a white row of fangs were the only color on the creature. The demon grinned insanely and swiped at Ranma with a claw. "Life's but a walking shadow..." Ranma dodged the attack. The creature roared in frustration and swiped at Ranma again. Ranma avoided the claw. Tired of playing with a creature it couldn’t hit, the demon turned its attention to the stunned Akane. "A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage..." Seeing the demon's new target, Ranma cried out his fiancee's name and leaped toward her. The creature slashed at Akane. "Then is heard no more." The claw connected with Ranma, piercing his chest. Akane screamed her fiancee's name. Blood flowed from the wound. Ranma looked down at his fiancee, his face transfixed with horror. The light left his eyes. The creature laughed maniacally. "It is a tale told by an idiot...." Suddenly the creature disappeared, his laughter ringing throughout the mountain. Ranma's limp form dropped to the ground. "Full of sound and fury...." Akane ran to her fiancee's side. Desperately she felt his neck for a pulse. An anguished cry escaped her lips when she found none. Tears poured from her eyes, feelings poured out of her heart, and words out of her lips, for her dying fiancee. "Signifying nothing." ============================== "Akane! Yo, Akane, you okay?" Akane jolted awake. She was still at her desk, the textbook opened to Act 5 of Macbeth. Ranma was standing over her, a hand on her shoulder, his concern etched on his face. "Ra- Ranma? I-I..., yes I'm fine." -It was just that nightmare again. Ranma's fine and here with me.- Ranma still looked worried. "You sure, Akane? You were almost yelling." Akane blushed. "I’m sorry. It was just a nightmare that’s all." Ranma seemed to accept that. He glanced toward the textbook. "This that play you’re reading?" Akane nodded. "I think you were reciting parts of it in your sleep. Yeah, you were saying this here," he pointed to a passage, "I think you’ve been studying way too hard if this stuff ends up in your dreams. Go get some sleep." Akane yawned. "Hmm, I think I will. Ranma?" the boy looked up at his name, "Thank you for worrying about me" "It is a tale told by an idiot...." Ranma flushed. "I wasn’t, uh, worried. I, uh, just thought a clumsy tomboy like you might have knocked something over..." "Full of sound and fury...." Akane felt the familiar emotion of anger well up in her. -Clumsy tomboy?!! Where does that pervert get off calling me a tomboy?!!!!- Her fists and teeth clenched. "Ranma....." she growled. "Signifying nothing." The words echoed throughout her mind, haunting her. The words drudged up the nightmare from her memory. She remembered the end of the dream, and the despair that accompanied it. The anger hurriedly drained out of her. She slumped in the chair. "Signifying nothing...." she muttered to herself. -No. I won’t let it end that way!- Ranma waved his hand in front of his fiancee’s face. "Akane! Yoohoo! Akane, anyone home?" Akane looked up at the boy and smiled. She stood up and headed for the door. "I think I do need some sleep, Ranma," she said gesturing toward the door. Ranma, unnerved at this abrupt change of attitude in his fiancee, reluctantly followed her. Half-expecting to be pounded as soon as he got in reach, he was surprised when he entered the hallway uninjured. Akane leaned out of her room, and took his hands in her own. He could feel her breath on his face. Ranma gulped and willed his nose not to bleed. "Whatever your reasons for checking on me," slowly she stood on her toes and kissed him softly, "thank you." Then she turned and closed the door. Ranma stood in the hallway, dumbfounded. Slowly he put his hand to his slightly tingling lips. -Wow,- he thought, -That sure was something.- ################################################################### Author’s Notes or Author’s Indulgence A knocking came at my study door (no I’m not getting into Poe!). I opened it and was quite surprised to find the lost boy standing in middle of my apartment. "Um," Ryouga asked sheepishly, "Can you tell me the way to the Tendo Dojo?" I shook my head. "Sorry. Say, can I borrow you for a minute?" Ryouga nodded, and followed me into the study. "What do you need me to do?" I handed him a piece of paper. "Here read this." He studied it for a minute. "What the heck is this? 'Author’s Notes'?" "Oh," I grinned, "I thought people might find the Author’s Notes more entertaining if I had someone from the Ranma cast read it." Ryouga looked at me strangely then turned his attention to the paper. "Um, I guess that makes sense... Let’s see. You’re thanking Rumiko Takahashi for creating Ranma 1/2, various fanfic writers who inspired you.... Why don’t you mention some specific ones?" "Like who? Biles?" He pondered for a minute. "No, not him. I ended up with Ukyou in the Furinken Summer series." "But you end up with Ukyou in nearly every sequel fic!" "Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it!" I sighed. "But Biles did put you with Akane in Elseworlds 1...." Ryouga thought again (takes him awhile to think, maybe it’s the bandanna). "All right, we’ll thank Biles. Let’s see... Oh, we’re thanking Mike and Todd for introducing you to anime and Ranma.... They introduced you to that coward Ranma?" I nodded. "I hope you punished them properly for it." He continued, "Hmmm... Thanking 'Knights of the Anime ‘Round’? Who are they?" "Oh, it’s that group I’m in, you know, Sir Fireball the 13th, Sir Collin, Sir Ryoga...." "Sir Ryouga?" "No, Sir Ryoga." "Guess he can’t spell then." I ignored that comment. Ryouga (with a u) continued... "And thanks to Dr. Traver even though she made us memorize that speech. What speech?" "The ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,’ one that I used in this fanfic," I replied. "She made you memorize that?" Ryouga grimaced, "How evil. Okay, we’re thanking Shakespeare too, guess that’s good to do. Comments and questions should be e-mailed to akane@erols.com. Your fanfics are available at your homepage of http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/8094.... What’s this note on the bottom mean?" I looked where he pointed. "Oh, nothing at all." The lost boy looked at me strangely. "It says ‘Sorry if I got Ryouga out of character in the Author’s Note....’ You’ve been writing me out of character?!" I cringed. "Um, yeah, kind of. By accident...." Ryouga glared at me then sighed. "Well, even the best author gets someone out of character at one time," he grinned, "and now I can do something I never got to do in the anime or manga!" Cautiously I asked, "What?" "Eat a ham sandwich!" I facefaulted. Ryouga blew the audience a great big kiss. "Goodnight everybody!" ----Anne "Lady Akane" Packrat akane@erols.com 2/7/97