Darkening Revelations


The next master arrived, and Ranma went with the Lady to greet him. The
new master was tall and lean, and stepped about with a jaunty air,
walking easily amidst the gardens as they approached him. Just as they
reached him, he finally turned to face them, and Ranma saw his eyes...
shrunken skin covering empty sockets. The master had no eyes.

"Greetings, Master Kagano. May I present your student? This is Ranma
Fey." The Lady put her hands on his shoulders, and pushed him forwards. 

"You have a kind face, young man," the master said, then turned to the
Lady, "and is it matched by a kind heart?" 

"It is," she smiled back proudly.

"B-but, Sensei..." Ranma spluttered.

The master put a finger to Ranma's lips, with not the slightest pause,
or unease in his movements. His arm's motion was direct and simple,
taking the shortest path. He clearly knew exactly where Ranma was in
relation to himself. 

"You wonder how I can see you so clearly, without sight? Well, boy. You
will learn. He tapped Ranma's shoulder lightly, but in a complex rhythm,
and Ranma's world turned black. Ranma gasped. "Don't worry, child. Your
eyes will take no permanent harm. But you will learn to do without them
at need. For one with such strong ki as you, there is no need for sight
for anything beyond color. All else will come in time."

He led the boy into the garden. "Now, concentrate, and feel the ki
around you. Don't reach out with your ki... Just let the ki around you,
the ki of all that lives about you, wash over you. Feel it."

As they walked from the garden, Arkus finally looked in on Ranma again.
When the Tai Chi master had come, Arkus had discovered that the wrinkled
old man could somehow tell that he was watching, and had done something
with his ki, and broken Arkus' mirror. It had taken several months
before Arkus could replace it, and then he had been loth to look again,
and lose another mirror. It was only after he learned that another
master had passed through Farallon on his way to Fey Castle that he
decided to watch again. 

Arkus watched the master lead the boy towards the house, and wondered
what he was doing. After watching the boy being led from place to place,
Arkus finally realized that the boy was blind. Arkus dropped the scry,
and raced from the room. This was a perfect opportunity. Within ten
minutes, several pigeons had left the castle, bearing notes to the homes
of several powerful individuals whom Arkus knew to covet the lands or
Lady of Fey, informing them that the boy had been blinded. Within two
weeks, at least one of them should show up at Fey Castle, issuing a
challenge. Whatever had caused the boy to go blind, it would be his
downfall.

Two days later, Ranma and Master Kagano were in the garden, repeating a
very similar exercise. The Master was talking softly. "Sensing auras is
easy. You must move beyond this, and sense the tiny flows of ki that are
being generated to form the aura. Concentrate on these tiny flows, and
you can begin to see the surface of anything that is generating ki."

Ranma sighed, then asked curiously, "Sensei... I think I see now... but
why aren't you wearing any clothes?"

The master fell from his stone, stunned. It had taken him five years to
reach this stage, working alone, fighting his blindness. It had taken
his first student two years, with a master guiding him every step of the
way. It had taken this boy two days.

"Sensei, why'd you fall over? And why do you have that funny look on
your face?"

The master pulled himself upright. "Just a bit surprised, Ranma. You are
progressing faster than I expected. To answer your first question, I am
wearing clothes. You simply cannot see them. What generates ki,
student?"

"Everything that lives, Sensei," Ranma was quick to reply. He knew his
theory fairly well.

"And are clothes alive, student?" Kagano asked with a sigh.

"Aaahhh! No, Sensei, they aren't. I see." Ranma answered. Ranma shivered
with delight. Even though his eyes could not see, it was like he could
see all about him, nearly fifty yards out. The paths of the rock gardens
were like roughly dimpled ground, pressed down deeper in some places
than others... the rocks themselves were invisible. He could see the
grass, waving gently in the wind. He could see the master, sitting
beside him. He could see the trees, rising tall, and reaching down into
the ground... but they seemed smaller, and thinner than he expected, and
almost perfectly smooth. He realized with a start, that their bark must
not be alive. How strange. Then he realized that the Master looked bald.
How strange. It was a very peculiar thing, since unlike normal sight,
this seemed to reach all around him, even above and below.

The master told him to wait, and went away. He returned shortly, and
when they went to eat, the Lady did not join them. "Where is the Lady
Alana, Sensei? She always eats with me."

"I have sent her and the other women away, student, until you can learn
to see clothes again," the old man replied, grinning at the wild blush
that appeared immediately on the young boy's face. "Don't worry, it
won't be long now. A few more days to master your sixth sense, and we
will start on the seventh. The sixth sense, that you are using now, is a
passive sense. You are simply accepting the information that other
creatures are putting out. The seventh sense is an active sense. You
will reach out and bathe an object in your ki, and the way your ki
reacts will tell you about it."

Only three days later, the Lady returned, and Ranma could see her as
well as he could when he had his eyes... though he could see no color.
He took her about the garden, delighting in his new sight, and
wanting to show her how well it worked. He showed her exactly where
spots of disease or decay had begun to set in in the plants. He told her
how deep the bark of the trees were before the life began. He found a
bird's egg, and described in exacting detail the tiny life within. He
demonstrated his range and accuracy, by picking up two stones from the
dry bed, and tossing one high in the air, then throwing the other stone
at it, knocking it out of the air with a loud crack. He walked to a
freshly turned spot of earth, and showed how he could see the worms
beneath the surface, and reach out and tickle them with his ki, causing
them to rise to lie wriggling on the surface, before they squirmed back
within the damp earth. He stopped by a rose bush, and teased a closed
bloom with his ki, standing several feet from it, and it twitched, and
then opened smoothly.

A short while later, the master rejoined them. "Lady, I must apologize.
I could scarcely credit the speed of learning you described to me, and
so I accepted the three months as a minimum. I have taught him, in this
week, all that I can, all that I know. He is now a master of the Shining
Darkness, but his sight will not return until the three months have
passed. I am sorry."

"It is quite alright, Sensei," replied Ranma happily, "I can see fine
anyway." He bowed deeply. "Thank you, Master Kagano. I will always
remember your gift of sight." The Lady bowed with him, and then the
Master left them.

They stood alone now, in the garden, and Ranma turned to the Lady, a
curious look in his sightless eyes. "Lady, if I may ask... why is your
ki shaped like a dragon, circling about you? Is that why you were
announced at the court of Farallon as a dragon lady?"

So she told him, finally, pouring out the truth, and as she did, she 
cried inside. She felt hopeless. She knew that he would be hurt that she
had not told him before, but she had so loved him. She did not want to
see his child's love for her fade. She told him who she was, and how she
had been trapped. And she waited. She waited for the realization to show
in his eyes, in his face, that she was not a beautiful lady, but a
powerful and dangerous beast. That he held her in chains, a dragon, and
he did not dare release her. 

Instead, she beheld a tear streaked face as he looked up at her, and he
hugged her tightly. "I'm so sorry, Lady. I will free you, I promise I 
will find a way. I swear it." Tears fell from sightless eyes, as the 
young boy failed to marvel at the power he held in his hands. Instead,
his grief for her had grown even greater. He had believed her a human
woman, held against her will, and his heart had cried out against it.
Raised Japanese as he was, by an honorless father, who drilled into
him the weakness of women, and their proper place as the old fool saw
it, he knew it was her place to serve a husband, and he weeped for her,
forced to love a child, who could not love her as she deserved. 

Now, he knew the truth. In her bondage, she had lost far more than a
human woman could possibly have lost. She had lost her true power, her
glory, her body, the freedom of the skies, and the company of her
brethren, and he wept for her loss. She found herself once again stunned
by the beauty and purity of his soul.

Suddenly he looked up at her again. His tears stilled and stopped. Her
heart caught in her throat, as she looked at the sudden determination on
his face. "I cannot free you yet, Lady, but I will. But until I can free
you... at least I can be your wings!" He stepped back, drying his face
on his sleeve. He took her hand then, and launched them both easily
into the sky. 

Thereafter, he took her flying at least once a week. At least once a
week, he entered the kitchens, and learned from the cooks, and made for
her a special dish. And each week, he went to the library, and found a
new song, and played it just for her, on the golden flute he had
discovered the Dragon Fang could become. As each day passed, she felt
her love for him grow stronger, leaving the love Fey's chains laid on
her like a pale shadow of her love for him. She loved him as the son
she never had, and knew that she could ask for none better.