Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Low-Status ❯ Low-Status ( Chapter 1 )

Thwack. Thwack. A young girl sighed loudly, most likely to annoy her companion, and watched with little amusement as yet another arrow embedded itself into the soft bark and was soon followed by its partner. Scuffing her bare feet against the ground, the girl sighed again and began to twist her violet hair around one finger. ;Little Shampoo desperately wanted to leave the shooting grounds and go to her Great-Grandmother's hut. Her elder had promised her great grand-child that she would begin the preparations for learning a new skill. Thwack. Unfortunately, Great-Grandmother had not said when she would begin preparing to learn it. Thus, her mother had felt it alright for her to drag her daughter to the shooting grounds for the morning. Thwack.

 

It was just so boring watching her mother practice with her bow! It wasn't at all like the fighting she was used to participating in the village. Her mother simply stood there, as still as could be once she had drawn, and the only movement afterwards was concentrated in her bow and drawing hand. The arrows didn't even strike each other and explode in tiny fragments of broken wood. Apparently it was too much of a hassle to make new arrows, so Shampoo's mother instead concentrated on placing the arrows in a small lump side by side. Thus, Shampoo was terribly bored.

 

“Mother, may I leave now?” Shampoo tried to ask respectively and waited until her mother went to retrieve her arrows. Unfortunately, respect was not going to make her mother grant her wish. Shampoo's mother replied a negative and left Shampoo to sulk some more. She should have been observing her mother, so as to better her own archery skills. The bow and and arrow was the very first weapon all Amazon girls were taught at a young age. It was not the ideal weapon for combat, but it taught valuable lessons. It taught one concentration, patience, and control over the muscles of the body. The last lesson it taught was that all the muscles and points of archery needed to work as a cohesive whole. An Amazon could not forget one aspect without the shot being messed up. Boy's weren't taught archery, because they could never posses the concentration, patience, or fine control.

 

Thwack. Thwack. Shampoo had quickly abandoned her mother's favorite weapon early on during her training. You couldn't fight up close with your opponent if you used a bow and you couldn't really perform any hand-to-hand combat. If Shampoo had become an archer like her mother, than all of Great-Grandmother's training would have been useless. It was near impossible to become the leader of the village if you were an archer, not to mention it was pretty damn hard to get in the Tribal Council anyway.

 

Besides, the bow was too noisy and inconvenient during battle. The wind could knock the arrow out of place and cause it to clatter against the bow. There was always a soft twang no matter how quietly you tried to knock the arrow to the string. Even the container, wrapped around one's waist, would clatter if it wasn't held in place or if she did not take light, small steps. Either the archer had to be damn good with her aiming or she would waste precious seconds retrieving her arrows once she has shot them all. Your hands were never free. One had to hold the bow, even when it was not in use, and the other either had to quiet its container or hold an arrow. If an Amazon was caught off-guard she would only be able to use her feet, unless she discarded her weapon and arrow container first.

 

Shampoo's mother was not greatly respected by the rest of the tribe. She performed poorly in hand-to-hand combat. It didn't matter that she had no equal when it came to long-range combat with the bow and arrow. The pain had been great the day she had realized her own daughter had little respect for her either. Shampoo had been sent to train with her Great-Grandmother, due to the elder's own insistence, not long after she had been weaned from her mother. Cologne had always been ashamed of her granddaughter and did not want Shampoo to be corrupted by her granddaughter's foolishness and low status. Nearly every day the little violet-haired girl had heard of her mother's disgrace through the village's gossip. It wasn't long before she felt the same way.

 

Shampoo wanted to prove herself stronger and less foolish than her mother. She took to Great-Grandmother's training enthusiastically and with dedication. Cologne was very pleased by her great-granddaughter's efforts and made sure to fill each day with training, so the child would be to busy to see her own mother. Shampoo's mother was smarter than the village gave her credit for. That day she had been aware of the lull in her daughter's schedule with Cologne. Truthfully, it was not a lull in Shampoo's schedule but rather an unsupervised time for further training on her own. Shampoo's mother had found her daughter and had lied, saying that Cologne wanted Shampoo to rest her body in preparation for the new training. Shampoo's mother had coerced her daughter into an archery lesson, thus her body would be rested, more so than usual, but her mind would stay sharp. However, once the two had arrived at the shooting grounds Shampoo refused to take part.

 

Shampoo's mother had wanted her daughter here that day for a reason. She was going to be leaving soon as a self-imposed exile from the village and would travel to the city. There were so many opportunities in the city and few of them required skill in martial arts. Her opportunities in the village were few, especially with her low-status. Low self-esteem had troubled her for many years and seeing her daughter rise in the ranks without her and while disgracing had done nothing to help. Shampoo was receiving a lot of praise from the villagers and all was attributed to Cologne, not to Shampoo's mother. In fact, the blood relationship between Shampoo and her mother was hardly ever mentioned. They might as well have never been mother and daughter.

 

Despite all this, she still wanted her daughter to know and understand her reasons for leaving the village. Shampoo would tell Cologne, but by the time she did her absence would have been long.

 

Shampoo's frown quickly turned into a mischievous smile as she noticed how absorbed her mother was with her archery. Why, she sincerely doubted that her mother would ever notice her absence for a good five minutes. It wasn't like she had ever been attentive enough in the first place. Slowly getting to her feet, the violet-haired child crept away from the clearing. Once she was satisfied that she was out of her mother's hearing-range, Shampoo took off as fast as her little legs could take her to the children's battle ground. She giggled with glee.

 

Shampoo's mother went to retrieve her arrows again. Placing them into the container strapped around her waist, she turned to where her child had sat moment's before. “Shampoo, please listen to my words.” No one was there to listen. She stood there silently, straining to listen for the soft patter of her child's footsteps. Not a sound reached her ears. “Goodbye, my daughter. Please look for me one day without shame or anger.” Bending over to retrieve her bow off its resting place, Shampoo's mother turned away from the village and began her long journey to the city.