Chapter Text
The woods were lovely, dark and deep. Ryoga considered that odd, since he was pretty sure he’d been in a tropical bamboo grove in sunny Kagoshima, devoid of the thick old-growth trees covered in moss and lichen.
“I knew I should have had that pizza delivered.”
His stomach joined his moaning at the mention of food. Somewhere after the third hour of walking, he’d become too stubborn to stop and make the instant noodles rattling around the bottom of his backpack. It had been pepperoni, olive and onion or nothing, damn it. Grunting, he set about finding a spot to camp, ready to swallow his pride along with the forty-yen bargain brand soy flavor.
It was slow going: where the roots weren’t plentiful and gnarled, rocks strewn haphazardly among the leaves poked and prodded him when he tested anywhere big enough for his tent. His fang tickled his skin as he chewed his lip, but persistence won in the end. A circle of mushrooms made a clearing of sorts- whatever fed them from below seemed like it wasn’t to the taste of the bushes and trees, which halted and gave way to pillowy-soft grass within the ring. Even their branches bent politely away where they should have reached over the circle’s edge. That was unusual.
“Good thing I’m not a tree, I guess,” he quipped, his voice swallowed by the woods as he tossed his pack down in the circle and laid out his campsite. Besides, even if whatever had their leaves shaking was bad for people, he was only staying one night.
--
His single burner camp stove’s ignition clicked plaintively but refused to light. He recognized the empty weight as soon as he unscrewed its tank, and crunched it flat against his head with a grunt of irritation before moving to plan B.
By the time moist deadwood had been converted into a flickering fire, his temper had largely cooled. The upside of natural surroundings: it was hard to dwell on his shortcomings or the responsibilities he was failing by his absence when the serenade of birds, bugs, and wind tripped some secret reset button deep between his ears.
Ears that perked up as the leaf litter rustled from a weight greater than any squirrel or rabbit. He smirked. Whoever they were, it was impressive they got so close before he heard them.
“Who’s there?”
Springing to his feet, he kept a nice, relaxed stance and smiled into the trees - no need to be uncivil yet. The bubble of adrenaline burst when she cleared the treeline into his camp. All of one and a half meters tall in a baggy overcoat of green swirls, with gray hair corralled in a messy nest on the top of her head, it seemed like one of the local shrubs had elected to say hello. Even her face, browned from the weather and wrinkled like old bark, sold the impression.
“Hello, sonny,” she began in a mild voice with a willow’s sway. “Awfully far out in the woods, aren’t we?”
Chuckling over his embarrassment, he rubbed the back of his head.
“I may have gotten a bit lost.”
“Is that right? Well, I’d be happy to show you a way out. It’s not safe out here for an unprepared hiker.”
“Ah, I can handle myself,” Ryoga assured her; and from the stone-cut muscle under his shirt and the unyielding aura she could see spilling out of his skin, she believed that he believed it.
“What about you? If it’s not safe, shouldn’t you have someone looking out for you?”
The elder waved her hand, a wry smile shifting the wrinkles around her face as she came closer to the fresh meat.
“I’ve been roaming these woods for a very long time. I’m perfectly safe. However, at my age, all this exercise makes me terribly… terribly… hungry.”
“Then you couldn’t have had better timing. The water for my noodles is just boiling. Want a bowl?”
The elder paused; the rucksack lying empty on the grass beside him plainly said it was all he had. Suddenly her aspect shifted, radiating an autumnal glow.
“Are you certain? You have so little to share.”
Flopping back down cross-legged to tend the flame, Ryoga shrugged.
“It’s nothing, really. I can just… forage for berries and stuff tomorrow to keep my strength up for the way out. Besides, this is one of my favorite things about traveling,” he began euphemistically, “getting to meet all sorts and share a meal with new friends.”
The fey smiled.
“Isn’t that just the truth of it?”
--
Hunger and companionship made excellent seasonings. The forest-dweller’s ramen sloshed down her gullet rapidly. The sample of the modern world brought to her doorstep was a salt bomb and its desiccated green onions made a mockery of anything that grew around her. She shivered with guilty pleasure.
“Boy, you’d give my friend Ranma a run for his money,” Ryoga observed, slurping his own dinner more slowly. With every calorie counting, it was wise to savor what he had.
The fey scrutinized him quietly, eyes sharp behind heavy bags. The rules were simple, really. The trespasser fed her of his own accord, without influence from knowledge of her power. She now owed him a boon; but since her form had not yet been revealed, she couldn’t just offer him a wish and be done with it. He needed to shape his desire for her magic to scaffold. The game had been simpler in her youth, of course, but this was more fun; especially when she had so few visitors to play with now. She stewed. Power was usually a strong gambit.
“This friend of yours: a rival, perhaps?”
He countered her first move with an amiable guffaw.
“Oh no, we left all that behind us last year. Mostly.”
Not that there wasn’t still a certain tension between them.
“Always nice to see young people getting along,” she replied, voice as sweet as sap. “Any girls back home?”
Ryoga’s chopsticks halted their rhythmic journey, mechanically prodding the broth’s surface as he looked away and mumbled indecipherably. His guest’s smile grew raunchy.
“Or boys? I won’t judge, honey, I’m just making conversation.”
“No!” Ryoga boomed, his head shooting upright. “No guys. Definitely girls… I’m sorry, it’s just, you said ‘at home.’ And… look, I just met you, you don’t need to hear my drama.”
“Come now, petal, it’s all right. Lending an ear to young sprigs like yourself is a privilege for us old folk.”
Steadying himself with a deep sip of soup, Ryoga shrugged.
“Home is a touchy subject for me. I mean sure, I have a home. There’s an address, with a house, and in that house is a room that is mine, personally. Only I pretty much never get to see it. My getting lost today wasn’t some kind of fluke.”
I beg to differ, she thought coyly.
“It happens almost every time I try to go somewhere on my own. So yeah, what ‘home’ means to some people… that’s just a mirage to me.”
His chest tightened thinking about what else home meant; family, friends… love. Which he might have two out of three of if he squinted real hard.
Cooing sympathetically, the enchantress turned her concentration to the fine strands of magic woven through the boy’s life. The pig curse was a bit of a surprise- but if he travelled as unpredictably as he claimed, maybe he’d had a run-in with Circe. She could weave in something to fix true North on that pesky internal compass of his. While she fell quiet, Ryoga worked through the rest of his food, laying the empty bowl on the ground and wiping his lips dry on a sleeve.
“Where are we by the way?”
“The black forest,” she murmured.
Ryoga nodded sagely. “Ah, yes, the ham place.”
The thread of magic the fey was spinning snapped.
“Not that Black-” she nearly tripped over herself to clam up when she heard him go on.
“I should pick up some as a souvenir for…”
She could have turned him inside out for trailing off like that after interrupting her.
“For?”
Ryoga’s sigh was heavy: it left him flopped back on the ground, eyes shimmery.
“Oh, nevermind. I’m clueless with women. Sure, there’s this one girl back in town. But she… she may as well be another species for all I understand her.”
The eyes on him waited with a predator’s hunger.
Ryoga sighed again, more wistfully.
“I wish I understood girls better.”
The elder fey grinned, the golden aura fizzling around her blending into the campfire, shadow and smoke. This she could work with.
“Well, not like a mindreader. Ha, that would be creepy. Just like, how they feel, you know? What makes them tick.”
When he sat back up, he knew he’d made a mistake. The harmless old lady he’d been spilling his guts to grinned wider than a mouth should go. He could see her eyes turning slightly goaty, the teeth bared behind her lips too long, too sharp. Her face smoothed, hardening into inhuman reality. And he couldn’t move.
Instead of jumping away, swinging a fist, anything, he simply floated away from the ground, shirt riding up in the same unnatural breeze that mussed his hair. It had been an awfully long time since Ryoga had felt weak. Longer still since he could remember being powerless. He formed an eloquent demand for an explanation.
“Whu-whu-whu-”
Delighted laughter rang through the woods, as enveloping as the cries of the cicadas.
“I have just the trick for you, my lost little piggy. Oh, it’s fortunate that you met me, most fortunate; most modern covens would find a succubus brand too unfashionable.”
“A what-”
Symbols dance around her hand and coil forwards, emblazoning his skin. There’s no piercing pain, no burn. The ink simply takes root, entwining itself to him, drawing nourishment from his very being to work its magic. The sensation is unlike anything he’s ever experienced, and despite the punishment he’s able to take, the barbarian willpower that carries him through fire… everything goes dark.
---
Yet again, Ryoga stared at his stomach in a public bathroom mirror. Unsurprisingly for something called a brand, the strange design remained: stubbornly defying a week’s worth of scrubbing that left his skin raw. It wasn’t ugly like the ultimate power calligraphy he’d once borne. Still, a tunnel of curved lines leading up to an elaborate heart shape, flanked by two curling wings that ended in tiny flower buds? Nothing he’d have picked on his own.
Curiosity beckoned; fishing a pocketknife from his trousers, Ryoga dug its tip into his flesh across one of the tattoo’s curly arms. Not that he’d seriously consider cutting it all off; the scar would be massive. He dropped the knife in shock as the thin trickle of blood bubbled, sucking itself back into the wound, leaving both skin and ink in unblemished perfection. As cool as it had been to see, thinking of it eating his blood to heal itself was too unsettling to linger on.
If physical removal wasn’t an option, maybe the name held a clue. Succubus. As he wracked his brain for mentions of the uncommon word, little bits of lore floated to the surface, accompanied by a buzzing energy. It was western mythology. Something primal, medieval. Closer. A monster? Magic? Closer. There was some kind of sex thing involved… Closer. A sex wizard! The buzz imploded.
Armed with this new wisdom, he inspected the markings again, cursing himself for hyping up his problems with women to a crazy forest witch. He let his shirt drop before meeting his own eyes in the mirror. Desire and poor social skills had made him do some mighty strange things in the years since chasing Ranma to China. Who could say where the lines were drawn now that he was possessed by ancient sex magic? He’d just have to watch himself like a hawk today, make sure he didn’t turn into some sort of charismatic, womanizing playboy. As long as he avoided any temptation, what could go wrong?
--
Avoiding temptation was harder than expected. He’d ended up in some crowded beach town (Miho? Atami?) surrounded by sunkissed bodies in swimsuits. But the worst that had happened was that he’d had a panic attack on the beach attempting to block out the local womens’ volleyball tournament. He’d been rescued from that when some buxom seaside Aphrodite had asked for his help lotioning her back.
Sure, the angel on his shoulder collapsed from heat stroke when he’d put his hands on her bronzed flesh, and the whole time he dissociated into the fear that he’d trigger the sex magic and she’d turn around and jump his bones on the beach and he’d get arrested by a sexy cop who would also jump his bones, but still take him to jail because public sex was illegal, and then everyone in the holding cell would- well, none of that had happened. They’d both simply left each other a little oilier than when they’d met.
Now, moving vaguely northeast, Ryoga couldn’t help laughing. He’d blown everything out of proportion, wasted half a gorgeous day worrying for nothing.
It was odd, though. Since then, there had been this pinching in his stomach. Something he ate, or maybe his frayed nerves still playing on him. But hours later, as a gorgeous orange sunset painted the sky over the canal he was pitching his tent in, the feeling persisted.