#include "stddisclaimer.h"

				Final Attempt
				Aside:  Tanya

	      A story by Suika Roberts, Saint of Eris Discordia
		  (Want to be a saint?  We still need more)
  Based on the manga by Takahashi Rumiko, without the permission of anyone,
		  And public info on a real person, but hey.

	I stare at the woman, unable to believe my eyes.  I'd read the
stories, seen her on TV, but the reality is . . . impossible.  No one can move
with that much grace, that poise, be that arrogantly sure of her own
perfection.

-*-

	`Congratulations,' I tell her, envy coiling in my gut.  She, and her
wife, and her adopted daughter, took all three medals in women's figure.

	`Thank you,' she smiles, oggles me, `You did really well for someone
with so little training.'

	`Little training?' I ask, anger momentarily bubbling before I squash
it down.

	`You spend, what, better than 72 hours a week practicing figure, but
haven't really trained in anything outside of it.  That limits one severely,'
she smiles again, holds one hand out, palm down, fingers stretched, and cracks
her knuckles, somehow, without using her other hand.  She laughs softly at my
flinch.

	`So if I took up martial arts I'd do better?'

	`You don't "take up" the Art,' even through her slight accent I can
hear the capitalization, `You become a student of it, let the study of it
control you, until you are the Art, and the Art is you.  Then you are the
world as much as it is you,' she looks down, for a moment, `One needs a good
teacher for the first bit, though, to pound the basics into one's thick skull,
or, alternatively, mold the unformed mushware, if one begins young enough.'

	`So you are volunteering?'

	She frowns, contemplating, `I guess I could manage another student at
this point.  Are you willing to work harder than you ever have before?  To
push yourself to the accepted limits of human strength and endurance, and then
beyond them?' she gazes at me, and suddenly I know she is deadly serious.

	`Yes,' I tell her.

-*-

	`I can't,' I gasp.

	`Quit whining.  You can,' she tells me, not even breathing hard, her
hands once again loose at her side, one leg wrapped around her tree, the other
bracing herself as she looks at me, `You've only been up for eighty hours, and
swum sixty kilometers.  The only thing holding you back from being able to
finish this, is your own belief that it is impossible.  Once you let that go--'

	`I'll let go of this tree and fly the rest of the way home,' I say
sourly.

	`Pretty close, actually.  Or are you going to tell your husband and
daughter that you can't match the prowess of a fifteen year old girl who'd
been training for a good six weeks less than you have been?'

	I growl at her, and leap, determined to wipe that annoying, cocky,
arrogant, grin off of her face.  She isn't there when I get there, and I look
up, one arm wrapped around the slim trunk, braced with my foot on a branch.
She smiles that smile, and leaps to the tree I was supposed to climb, a little
higher than I was, holding herself up with her feet clamped to a branch,
pinning it between the top of her right foot and the bottom of her left.

	After a moment she brings up her hands, pressing her thumbs to her
ears and wiggling her fingers.  She sticks out her tongue for good measure.  I
growl again, and leap, chasing her, knowing, somehow, just where she is, and,
almost, where she's going.

	At last I catch up to her, and she smiles, but it is a different smile
this time, `Where are you?' she dodges my quick, hard blow, strong enough,
I've seen, to shatter reinforced concrete.

	I blink, my focus receeding, and stare.

	`Told you you could do it.'

-*-

	I shift, uncomfortable in my costume after so long, and Ranma smiles
at me.

	`You can do it,' she smirks that superior smirk, `Unless the judges
decide to be fair this time.'

	`You,' I growl at her, annoyed.

	`You know that I should have taken the gold last time, don't you.'

	`Yes, but . . .'

	`You are a better choreographer, and a little smoother of a skater,
but I'm more skilled, and, unless I end up in a coma for a few months, I
always will be.'

	`So, I'm that close?' I smile, suddenly, and poke the smaller woman in
the ribs.

	`Yeah, I think so.'

---
log:
2000/2nd half:		thunk up.
2001/Feb/8:		written