deep voice, all of this gave the inhabitant of the house despite his young one Age an unmistakably masculine species, which she magically attracted, as there was no man near her age in her village that she was interested in.

"You must be cold, you hardly have anything on! Come in, it's warm here," he offered her in a friendly manner.

"Thank you, sir, but I'm not cold," the young woman whispered with a trembling voice, while she rubbed her hands and small puffs of breath from her mouth penetrated the cold air, not noticing that the man's eyes closed for a few seconds before he got up resignedly, stepped over to her, took her cold hands in his and, shaking her head and with gentle force, maneuvered the hesitant woman to a chair near the fire, on which she finally sat down after he had closed the door.

"What story is it this time?" He asked sadly, pulling his own chair over to hers and sitting on it. "Are you bewitched as soon as you cross my doorstep or do I turn into a wolf and tear you apart if you stay in my house too long?"

"Both, sir," the young woman muttered silently and tried to blink the tears that were collecting in her eyelashes when she was startled by the sudden, toneless, barking laugh of the man next to her, which died away after a few seconds.

"I'm not your master, so don't call me that," he smiled at her and held out his hands to the warm fire, into which he stared so intensely that he almost seemed to have forgotten the presence of the young woman. "I am Ranma, Ranma Saotome, and who are you?"

The young woman tried to answer him, but did not succeed; she had expected everything in this house, the horror had been described to her personally by her parents and friends, yes, she had even expected to have to die here, and all that would have made the following easy, but the young man was kind to her , treated her like an equal. Slowly the tears ran down her cheeks, tickling her velvety skin and falling like white snowflakes that winter would bring on the wooden floor. Before she knew what she was doing, she fell into the arms of the wizard and wept on his shoulder, wept the fear from her heart, wept for her fate, wept because it gave her new strength, while the young man kept her silent, the anger cried from her soul, the anger at herself, the anger at the friendliness of her host, the anger at her parents, until she had calmed down again."Are you all right?", Ranma asked cautiously when he felt her sobbing on his shoulder, but no longer crying.

"Yes, sir," she mumbled and looked up at him briefly before he was interrupted.

"Ranma!" He said sternly and smiled gently at her.

"Ranma," she repeated with a shaky smile that lit up her features and made her look even more beautiful. "It, I'm sorry, I, I didn't mean, I mean, I was expecting, but, I don't know."

"Take it easy, otherwise I don't understand anything," said the young man, reminding her that he didn't know who she was or why she had come to him in the first place. "Why don't you start telling me who you are and why you are here? Then maybe I can understand what you mean!"

"I'm Akane Tendo," said the young woman after a few moments of calm in which she had dried her tears, freed herself from his arms and calmed her breathing. "I'm here to pay off a debt my parents took on you a year ago."

Without answering her with a word, the black-haired man got up from his chair, went to one of his shelves, stopped in front of him, turning his back on his guest, and took an old scroll from him before silently gesturing to her, one To pause for a moment so he could study the characters in peace. Finally he turned back to her, took the scroll with him to his chair, and sat down across from her again.

"Tendo?" He asked with a sidelong glance at the scroll. "I saved your harvest from an angry boar at your parents' request, didn't I? Was that a year ago? Time goes by quickly."

"Yes," she replied with a pained smile. "And I'm here now to pay the debt. This year's harvest was bad and we're poor. We can't pay you, so I'm here because my parents sent me."

"Enough!", He snapped at her, to the surprise of the young woman threw the scroll into the fire and sternly looked into her eyes. "The debt is paid. Go to your parents now and tell them that."

"But how?", Asked the astonished woman hesitantly, but still, following his wish, got up. "I haven't done anything!"

"You did more today than you might expect", he answered her gently, while he led her thoughtfully to the door. "Not many dare to wander through my forest, not many dare to come into my house and speak to me, not many would sacrifice their innocence at the behest of their parents. I reward courage, and you have shown more courage today than many people raise in their entire life. The debt is paid, go! "

When the young man opened the heavy wooden door, which opened the view of the forest, which was friendly to her, but which, in the dark of the night that had fallen during their conversation, made her shudder over her sparsely covered back, with a casual flick of his left wrist pushed open to show his guest out, he noticed how the young woman hesitated for a moment before stepping over the threshold and finally turned back to face him.Smiling, he closed his azure blue eyes and gestured with his raised left hand not to go yet, but to wait for him. With quick steps he disappeared into his house before he returned with a simple, white cloak.

"Here, take this," he said and carefully put the warming cloak over her shoulder. "And don't be afraid of the forest. All the animals that live in it are my friends, they won't even show themselves to you."

"I am, I, you, I cannot accept this," whispered the young woman and reached for the cloak to give it back to its owner when she felt his strong hand on her shoulder; At that moment, unnoticed by the young woman, crept next to the wonderful feeling of relief that had spread in her heart and the great burden that it had carried, piece by piece like a large stone that is perfectly carved by an excellent stonemason , smashed, and the inexpressible gratitude for his deeds, an unknown tingling sensation in her stomach that led her lips to an embarrassed smile and breathed a delicate red on her cheeks.

"Don't argue," he warned her cheerfully and smiled at her as well. "It's bitter cold and you still have a long way to walk. Just promise me you won't lose it, because it belongs to my mother."

"Yes," Akane nodded gratefully, wrapped the cloak tightly around her slim body to protect herself from the winter cold and after a short pause added, embarrassed: "The most terrible stories are told about you in the village. You are seen as a monster and you are so normal and even friendlier than everyone else! I'll tell everyone! "

"Don't do that," she thought she heard his beautiful voice sadly whispering over the creaking of the wooden door slowly falling between him and her, which cast his features into deep shadows before hiding them completely from her view. "You'd just expel yourself because they wouldn't believe you."

After the door fell in the castle, the black-haired man turned around hastily and tried to calm his irregular breathing, as the long accepted bitterness about the exclusion from the village suddenly tried to find its way back into his heart, to darken there Casting shadows as they danced on the walls of his stone house in the flickering light of the fire that fed on his hatred; but it was not his iron self-control that banished the bitterness from his heart, but the image that he saw in his mind's eye when he closed his eyes to consolidate his concentration: the shy smile of the young woman, whose cheeks shimmered so red in the firelight like her ruby ​​red lips.

Like a fantastic beast from his thousand years of sleep, a confusing, unknown feeling of affection and trust awoke in his chest and haunted him in his dreams, all of which took on the silky white face of an embarrassed young woman, until he was in the middle of the night bathed in sweat and jerked out of his sleep, clutching the sheets tightly, and longing for morning to be able to escape the realm of dreams for a short time before he had to face his wish and his fear."Why did I just let her go?" He mumbled sleepily into the darkness of his house, without waiting for an answer to his question, but from the depths of his being came wave after wave of knowledge that he had never had to look for because it had already been within him, like the high-lapping, foaming waves of a choppy sea that had been thrown up by a storm raging far from the safe shores, but which would not leave the shore untouched either. "Because she wasn't here for me."


Late the next day the young man awoke from his troubled dreams and tried to distract himself from their meanings with the usual tasks of the day, but he always toyed with the idea of ​​stocking up in the village, a thought that made him think again . When the waves of his heart finally settled and he was preparing lunch, he felt with horror a mighty fire that went through his forest, but did not burn a single leaf there; only after a few moments did he realize that the fire was nothing but the projection of his heart on the young woman who was on the way to him, and although it was cheering with excitement, the black-haired man forced himself to wait by the fireplace.

"Come in," he asked kindly and let the door open with a flick of his right wrist when the young woman raised her hand sadly and exhausted to knock. "What brings you back here?"

Without being astonished at the opening of the door and without hesitation, the young woman crossed the threshold of the wizard's house, took the warming, gray travel cloak that she had borrowed from him from her weak shoulders, which are now just one A dirty brown shirt that reached her knees and hid parts of her brown