A/N: I've decided to take this longfic head on. I love InuDisney. And I love Tarzan. So here we are, but we gotta clear a few things up first, so take this prequel. We're starting from the very beginning, and this got a little bit longer than I expected so I cut it short and will be working on the companion to this piece and then I can finally go back to my life and blood- InuKag. Have some InuParents snippets until then. Cover art belongs to artistefish! She made it for me for my birthday :) Go check her and her fics out! They're amazing. Maybe you've heard of them *coughFreakAttractioncough* haha 3
Prologue
Put your faith in what you most believe in
Trust your heart
Let fate decide
To guide these lives we see
When the vessel jarred to the right so violently that Izayoi rolled unceremoniously out of her cot, she decided that what the captain had said earlier about some 'mild bad weather' was a complete and utter falsification of the truth.
She marched down the narrow hallway towards the bow of the ship, her knuckles turning white as they gripped onto the rails. When she reached the iron bolted door, the ship jerked her momentum forward and instead of knocking with her hands, the full force of her body hit the steel in one resounding thump.
Tears swam past her vision, but she forced the pain away when the door finally swung open.
"Izayoi!" The captain's eyes widened in shock and then he bent down to promptly help her up, before she was once again thrown forward, although this time she was caught with steady hands. "What are you doing?"
She gathered herself and flung her long black hair (drawn up in curlers) over her shoulders, narrowing her eyes at him, "You tell me, Captain. I thought I was safely on my way back to the homeland."
He gaped at her for a second like a fish out of water and then finally glanced away, his jaw locking and his mouth forming a stern line, "We had to change course."
Another bump, followed by the howl of the ship's bottom grinding on something, caused them both to fall silent, and then all the lights flickered momentarily before cloaking them in uncomfortable darkness.
"Change course?" Izayoi's lips trembled, the oxygen levels in the cockpit forcing her ears to pop.
The man in front of her motioned to the skinny boy handling the steering wheel to move it left, and then she was once again moving against her own accord, sliding to the side of the ship on her hands and knees.
"Captain!" She yelled over the roar of the waves, looking feverishly as a fountain of water spurted suddenly from the right. "Captain, what's happening!?"
He looked at her calculatedly, like he was trying to piece together parts of a puzzle, and then he moved towards her and grabbed her shoulders, lifting her like a doll.
"Izayoi, I need you to listen to me," he said clearly and his underlying tone of ice made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "I'm going to take you to the life boats. Go back to your room and pack up whatever valuables you can fit into a small bag. Be quick about it. Then meet me at the stern of the ship."
Her eyes were bulging out of their sockets at his implication and she stood there in his grasp in what felt like suspended animation, her brain processing slowly all that was about to happen. A few hours ago she was tucking herself into bed, falling asleep with the rocking of the boat. Yesterday she was quarreling over whether there was enough steak for dinner, since she was getting tired of the tilapia. The chef had a beard and a belly, and he was the only one on board that had the wits to argue with her over every single item on the menu. His name was Jiro and she recalled him mentioning having two children. Two girls.
Where was he? Would he get a lifeboat?
She was running now, sliding and slipping all the way, and barely made it back to her small cabin without a bruise on all her joints.
Balancing herself with the back of her door, she surveyed the room that was already slowly filling up with water, and without a second thought she made a dash for the nightstand. All the picture frames were knocked over, so she collected them with one wide sweep of her slim arm and dumped them onto the bed. She sloshed her way to where she kept her colorful array of bags and yanked a large purple one from the hooks.
The photos were important to her, and she wouldn't leave them behind. They were black and white and sepia, all members of her family, and members of the crew. She began stuffing the bag with miscellaneous objects, things that she was sure, were not what the captain had in mind when he told her to pack her things. Her books, her dresses, her shoes and hair ties. She reached last for her new inventive state of the art camera and threw it in, hoping upon hope that it wouldn't break.
Izayoi shouldered the bag and almost collapsed under the weight of it, wincing when the strain was almost too much for her back. She glared down at her ankles, steadily being swallowed by the sea, and put all her effort into one more tug. Confidence oozed over her fear, and she made her way as fast she could to where she knew the lifeboats were hanging safely. Whatever terror was going on outside, her captain had a plan, she had a plan, and there nothing to be worried about. She steadied herself in front of the double doors that led out to the stretch of open floor between the bow and the stern of the ship, reached for the knobs, and pushed.
Then the reality of her situation finally slammed into her with a bone-crushing wave that pulled her under a sea of foam, and for five terrible, lung burning seconds, Izayoi realized she was never going to make it to the lifeboats after all.
Heaven was cold. And wet. And brighter than anything she had ever experienced.
Even from behind her closed lids, Izayoi could feel the sun's flare, sweltering down on her like the mighty eye of God, and she frowned. The lines of her mouth ached and her limbs felt like jelly.
She felt creatures all around her nibbling at her skin, and she allowed it.
Like a drift piece of wood out in the expanse of an endless ocean, she let go of her bleak awareness, surrendering to the exhaustion, and her consciousness (or whatever little was left of it) evaporated with it.
Water.
She wanted water.
All she could process in that moment was how overwhelming her thirst for water was, making her mad, and wild, and she flopped around like an animal, covering herself with grains of sand in her effort to find it.
Her body screamed at her, her skin was on fire, but she needed water. She couldn't see, her vision was a swimming mess of colors, and her sense of smell was shot.
Izayoi opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out but a gurgled whimper and without an ounce of energy, she collapsed face first into a blanket of hot earth, uncaring as it seeped into her ears and the crevices on her back.
When she awoke, it was like bouncing back to life, and everything- from her mouth to her eyes to the nails on her toes- cried out in unfathomable agony.
She made to bend forward but a force gently pressed her back onto the soft bed that surrounded her like a cloud. Still without the ability to see anything, Izayoi lifted her hands, seeking to make purchase with whatever entity was with her.
But where she was expecting naked hands or arms, she was met with fur and what she could only assume was a long lap of a wet tongue.
"I'm delirious," she decided out loud. "I've gone absolutely mad, and there is most definitely not a giant dog taking care of me."
The creature beside her grunted, as if offended, and got up lazily. He reached out his paws and met his chest with the ground while his fluffy rear-end pointed up to the sky in a stretch. The woman eyed him critically and then glanced at the bowl of water- crafted of a very large leaf- a few feet away.
Izayoi moved slowly towards it and lifted it to her lips for a drink. Golden eyes watched her the whole way, looking at her as if she were the most fragile thing in existence. When it was obvious she wasn't going to fall apart, he settled his head back in-between his paws and licked his nose.
He had found her, half buried on the beach. And admittedly, he had seen her before the sand had covered her body, but warily kept his distance. He had been hoping the tide would take her away, but when the third day passed by, and there was a mess of black hair still peeking out from a calm plain of white sand, his curiosity stirred with guilt, forcing him to go and investigate the body.
Come to find, she was dehydrated, almost blind, mute, and sunburnt- but nothing he couldn't fix.
Now- she could see, she could walk, and unfortunately she could talk.
"So what's your name? Where do you come from? Did you get shipwrecked too?"
For hours.
"Seeing as you're just probably a figment of my imagination, I feel the need to tell you my whole life story. See it all started when I was born, a princess practically, and I had absolutely everything I've ever wanted-"
There was no keeping track of the days with her. Spending his time with the strange female named Izayoi had put him in a trance, almost as if his life was not his own.
She was small, and liked to bathe almost as often as she liked to talk.
She didn't like fish, and insisted he bring her back boar for feasting- but never infant ones. She screamed when he brought her any type of young animal that had not reached its prime.
She was a brat, but despite all the glaring flaws- like one: she was not a dog demon, and two: she had no idea how to fend for herself- he couldn't help grow fond of her.
Her laugh was infectious, and the first time he heard it, on the shore, when he had accidentally popped the ink sac of a dead squid and gotten the black liquid all over his face- he felt something strange ripple over his senses. It was like music, a calling to a part of himself that he had locked away for a long time.
The first time she touched him on her own accord, it was a soft testing of the waters. He was half awake- as he often is on most nights- and he kept completely still while she ventured her slim fingers over the coat of fur on his neck.
After that, she did it like routine. It didn't matter the time of day or the occasion, she would reach forward and scratch at his neck and his ears, and once in a while he would delight her in a content growl.
She'd ask him endless questions, in a language he could scarcely comprehend. And he'd leave her with empty answers, choosing to gaze at her instead.
But she was relentless, almost as if she knew he was no ordinary animal. She could sense his abstract thought, and knew he was not what he seemed.
So one day, under the glitter of a moonlit night, he decided to show her.
And then she promptly screamed right after.
He turned so suddenly into a man- a beautiful, gorgeous, stunning, jaw-dropping, man- that it took all of ten seconds for her mind to register that the dog that had been caring after her for months (or weeks, there was honestly no telling in the jungle) had morphed into a naked man, sculpted like a Greek god, and hung like a-
"Cover yourself up!" She stammered loudly and unintelligently, looking everywhere but him. A heat rose to her cheeks, dripping down to her neck and turning her whole skin pink.
He was cognitive, he was conscious, he was not just a dog- all the doubts that picked and prodded at the back of her mind were finally established as fact, and she wanted to shout and relish in her victory.
And then the memory of her undressing and bathing in a pool of fresh water reeled past her mind, along with the reminder that he had been sitting idly nearby staring at her.
"You pervert!" She squeaked, reaching down to pick up a hollow piece of wood and chucked it at him.
"Pervert?" He tested the word, rolling it in his mouth carefully. "Me?"
His voice was a baritone tone both elegant and wild, and her mouth went dry. An ocean of silence stretched out between them.
"Toga," he corrected smoothly, bringing his large tanned hand to his chest. "Toga."
Izayoi's trembling stopped, suddenly just as comfortable with him as she had been before when he was nothing but fur and fangs. "Toga…" she repeated.
Then smiling, she flung and pressed herself to him in a tight (and awfully inappropriate) embrace.
"Thank you, Toga."
It was gradual, but Izayoi was as stubborn as she was persistent, and he was a sponge to her teachings.
Soon enough, they were communicating back and forth as if they had been doing it since birth, and as more days and nights thread by, she learned just as much about him as she did of her.
He was cast away from his clan.
"There are more of you?" She said quietly under the shroud of a rain fall.
"Yes," he said slowly. He lifted his hands in an up-and-down gesture, "Issues."
"They are…just like you?" Izayoi traced her hands from his shoulders to his arms, then recoiled as if he were fire and blushed.
"No," he arched his eyebrow in amusement and curled a finger around the hair that hung by her ear. "Not like this." He moved down to the floor on his hands and knees and grinned, "Like this."
"Can they not turn human?"
Toga played with her words in his head, connecting the connotations and then nodding in understanding. "No, it is something only I can do."
She crouched down to his eye level, since he was still on all fours and brushed some wet hair from his forehead. Her mouth parted, ready to say something but then she just licked her lips and kept silent.
"One time."
"Huh?" She tilted her head and flickered her eyes from his mouth to his amber gaze.
"I can only turn one time. No more."
"So you can't turn back?" She crossed her hands onto her arms and squeezed, a note of confusion slipping into her tone, "Do you miss it?"
"Everyday."
She worried her teeth on her bottom lip and sighed sadly, "Then why did you do it?"
Whatever answer she had been expecting was swallowed by his mouth as he dropped it pliantly over hers, confident that she would understand his meaning.
A simple life, they live in peace
Izayoi had almost completely forgotten of her life before Toga.
It was as if she were reborn here on this island, under the blossom of a beautiful sun, dancing in the waves barefooted and free, with his boast of laughter behind her.
They built a tiny treehouse in the branches of a sturdy tree, overlooking the surf. She had stalked down the beach and collected whatever valuables she could scrounge up from the shipwreck and decorated their abode with numerous pieces of broken-glassed frames, and drapes stitched together with her old dresses. She even managed to find that state-of-the-art camera. The light for the flash was busted and there was no fixing that, but when the sun was just right it still functioned beautifully for taking photos, so she showed Toga how to utilize it. There was only enough film left for two more pictures, so she had decided to save them for two of the most important moments of her life. Whenever those may be.
And with a love so ardent that it left her both weak and empowered all at once, Izayoi for the first time in her life- felt home.
"He has ears!" She screamed so shrilly that both baby and father started to moan in protest. "Toga! Toga! He has dog ears!"
"Yes and I have eyes, woman." He chuckled and held his brand new family tight to his side. "I can see them."
"I love him so much, oh my god, I love him. He's perfect." She gushed over the infant, who would hear none of it until he was properly fed. He flung his chubby right arm out in an effort to be released- nine months in the womb made him restless.
The tall shadow that bore over them nodded in agreement, "He is without flaw."
"What should we name him?" Izayoi cuddled him tight and kissed every inch of his face, "What about something symbolic? Like…Sea Breeze. Or..oh! Ocean Wave."
"You will not be naming the child then."
"So rude." The exhaustion of the day was catching up with her, and the reminder pressed tightly against her temples. "Fine, what do you want to name him?"
Toga caressed her cheek gently and then traced his arm down to meet with that of his newborn son. His little dew-clawed fingers gripped his thumb tightly. His tiny white ears twitched and his perked wet nose trembled.
"Inuyasha."
"Where are you going?"
"I need to speak with the clan."
Izayoi curled into her bedding made of fur, her brow furrowing in confusion, "Why?"
"I just need for them to understand."
"But I thought you said we didn't need them. That they abandoned you. That they'd hate me and Inuyasha and-"
"It is the right thing to do." He whispered something quietly to the sleeping baby in his crib and then focused back on her, "I will be back."
She yanked him down for a kiss, and he hummed his delight. Letting him go suddenly, she beamed up at him with the most beautiful smile he had ever seen and said, "You better."
"I will."
But he wouldn't.
A/N: We're doing this. We're going in. The good thing is that I'm almost done with Feudal World, and I'm working on the Grouch. Now I understand why so many of my favorite authors pick up so many projects at the same time. It's fun! Enjoy and let me know how I did- if you want! Catch me on sankontesu . tumblr if you wanna chat.
