Disclaimer: I bought Inuyasha last week! ...And at 50% off.

Author's Note: I've had this fic sitting in my computer for a little while, but I decided suddenly that I wanted to rewrite it with a few changes.

Bag Your Prince~ Chapter 1

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The night sky was lit distantly by the glow of festival lamps from the town, and a soft air of music played merrily in the background. Away from the thousands of paper lanterns and crowds flew a small, raven-haired girl, across the grassy hills, happiness and life waning behind her. …Half-heartedly, she made an attempt to wipe tears and runniness from her nose. …Her hands clutched to her chest protectively.

Identical pigtails and a muddy kimono ran into the trees with sobs and racked breathing coming from the owner. …Her heart thumped rapidly as she dove in between the massive trunks.

The little girl sniffled, doing her very best to hold down the sobs, chanting her own mantra to avoid the fresh flow of tears she undoubtedly knew were going to come.  ...I'm not gonna cry... ...I'm not gonna cry..!'

Moonlight broke through the trees she ran between as she to a clearing. …A tiny body of water reflected the cheshire moon brokenly, but by contrast, brightly on a tiny white beach.

She tripped absently over the few stones littering the beach, as she slowed down, walking towards the water. ...In her arms, she gave a mournful, sidelong stare. Despite herself, another choked sob erupted.

…Meanwhile, woken from its sleep, a pair of eyes turned groggily to a noisy intruder from a nearby treetop. A tiny, fanged mouth gave a wide yawn. ...What the hell kind of youkai made such a yowling noise in the middle of the night...?

…She plopped down at the very, very edge of the water Indian style, the tide just close enough to moisten the very outer folds of her soiled pink kimono. ..Tenderly, and with the delicacy of one holding a piece of china, she put a ball of mysterious fluff in the lap of her dress. ...Her shoes, a rather nice looking pair of thronged sandals, found their way off her feet and half submerged in the water.

The little girl bent her head… a loose pigtail suddenly becoming undone and shielding her face.

A pair of yellow eyes were rubbed sleepily in the treetops. The pint-sized, white haired witness squinted down to the shoreline... Was that... a girl...? ...He wrinkled his nose in disgust…Vile. ...Girls carried diseases.

…A small, grubby hand reached out and grabbed some fruit from the leaves.  ...He passingly wondered if this type erupted nicely upon impact.

The little raven-headed girl sniffled once more. Her small frame trembled violently. She looked down at the small animal in her lap. …A kitten. …Her kitten. Quivering fingertips traced down the still animals side, avoiding a bloodied gash, and found its way to a dotted tail. Brown eyes full of tears looked up at the moon mournfully. ...A cheshire moon. ...A cat's moon.

A pair of feet slid down a tree trunk. An identical colored hand reached down and scratched his butt. ...The other took aim.

A tear ran down her cheek. She lowered her head to stare deeply at the rippled reflection in the water.

Pointlessly, she whispered again... "I'm not gonna cry… I'm not gonna cry… " And again, despite herself, she prepared to explode.

Something exploded, alright, only...it was in her hair. A cold sticky wetness dripped through her locks and down onto her kimono. ...Her hand reached up to her head, trembling. She looked to her side, half-dumbfounded at the unexpected surprise.

The pair of feet patted closer. Five feet away from her, they stopped. …To kick a rock into the water.

It bounced past Kagome and over the polished surface, doing five perfect bounces before sinking with a gloop!

…It was a boy.

...Scrawny.

…With tangled white hair. …And a hat.

...Kagome's eyes were quick to turn fierce. She jumped to her feet with the animal pulled close and gave him a look of pure hatred. "…You... you jerk!" She picked up a rock and hurled it at the stranger with all of her strength, narrowly missing his head.

"Hey!" He dodged out of instinct. "I only threw a fruit."

The girl's hand curled into a fist. "Where are they?!" She shouted.

He walked closer... His hand reached into his breech pocket, and pulled out something looking suspiciously like a candied orange. He blew on it once to remove some lint, and bit into it.

She leaned forward, picking up a slightly larger rock and preparing to hurl it. "Don't you dare come any closer! I'll smash your head in, you ass!"

He stopped and gave her a wavered stare. ...Was this... absolutely a girl...? She just threatened him. ...And swore.  The ones back home, prim, haughty, and obsessed with stitchery, never talked past a mew.

He tossed the other fruit he was holding into the lake, which prompted a repeat from the bedraggled girl a few meters to his front. "...Where the hell are they?!"

The boy suddenly found himself no longer in the mood for a confrontation. To the waterline he walked and sat, plopping on the sand and turning to her with a haughty eye. ...Perhaps, it was only the commoners? "I tossed the fruit into the lake. ...You can put your boulder away now. I'm not going to hurt you." He put the candied orange to his lips and took another bite.

Kagome's eyes narrowed in a pang of confusion. ...What..? The boy made no attempt to rush her? ...The vicious expression on her face was plastered, but her arm did lower. Gritting her teeth, she lashed. "..Screw the fruit! Where are your little friends?!"

He turned away from her face indignantly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Liar!"

...He crossed his arms. "I never lie," ...He lied, his chin up in arrogance. "And I told you to drop the rock... Are you planning to kill an unarmed man?"

Kagome's look wavered between venom and confusion. ...Come to think of it... This one wasn't in the group that bullied her... was he? ...He was a little strange, with white hair and a ratty old baseball cap. ...The arrogance seeping from his pores was detectable, though. "I don't believe you." She hissed.

"You're pretty rude, you know, for a village girl. ...You barge into my secret area, nearly stone me to death, cuss like the drunk in front of my gate, and accuse me of being a liar. Why should I care if you damned don't believe me?"

... The bold edge to his words numbed Kagome's voice for a moment, but it didn't take long to recover. "...Village girl? Rude?! ...Who do you think you are, the duke?! ...You're sure one to talk about being rude! You and your little hoodlum friends steal my festival candy and beat up my cat, and call me names, then YOU follow me here and pretend to own MY secret area?! ...I should... I should bash your head in...!"  Full of anger and emotion, her voice was had for a second faltered...She grasped the limp furry package against her chest, struggling against her cursed tears...

...He turned an eye to her, suddenly unreadable. ...Her large brown eyes were red and streaked with tearstains, and her hair was a mess, which she didn't seem to notice. The little white-haired boy took a deep sniff... Her scent a mixed with anger and mud... but mainly... fear. Her face was dirty, streaked with mud. A small tear streaked down her face, leaving another cleaner trail.

A quick mental re-take. ...Fear? ...People never feared him. Save loyalty, a type of fear in itself. ...But this was the first dirty, angry and trembling girl he'd ever seen, and she smelled afraid... Perhaps... not for herself. ...He eyed a patch of white fur concealed by her hand, smelling feline blood. ...And despite himself, he felt the strange and alien new emotion of pity creep into his head.

Without any expectation, the boy stood slowly, wiping the sand from his rear, and walked up to the girl. Against her very wide-eyed face, he held out his candied orange.

"If you want to, then. ...But I forgive you. Do you forgive me?"

Kagome was struck... again. ...This boy... he was definitely not a part of the gang... Reaction, however, caused her to jump back and shrink away, staring.

The boy didn't hesitate to follow. ...He stopped short of her by a few feet and held it out again.

"...What scares you? I won't bite. ...Don't have anymore fruit, for that matter."

She blinked, then searching his glare. "...You're... not one of the village boys, are you?"

He shook his head. "I'm better."

She gave him an eye. "I... don't trust you."

"And I don't trust you either."

"All right then."

"Fine."

...He walked back to the waterline, sitting down. He took the candied orange he'd been holding and staked it through the soft ground.

"If you want it." He looked away with mock apathy.

...The girl looked at the pair of shadows in the sand uncertainly, hesitating. ...He didn't look like he'd be any harm...did he? Still, she reasoned... what harm could he now do to her otherwise dead pet? ...Against better judgment, she walked quietly to the water and took a seat. ...Two feet away from the skewered dessert. She made no move toward it, and for a while, sat next to him in silence.

...Both stared at the rippling tide. Neither moved their head.

"So, what happened to your kitten?"

She was silent for a moment. "...Buya..." She corrected.

"Yeah, whatever.  ...Buya."

If there was any mockery in his voice... Kagome didn't seem to hear it. Tears still appeared on the girls face, but they were silent now. ...She, after all, still had her pride. Or whatever was left of it. The boy seemed to hold himself quiet.

Another long moment of silence passed between the two kids on the wet sand. The tide lapped gently against their feet and the moon had become uncovered in the reflection.

One movement placed something on the boy's lap. Then all was still again. He looked down, slowly.

Pity took him by surprise and was almost shameful. ...On his lap was the smallest beast he'd ever laid eyes on. ...Two... perhaps three weeks old. It was as bedraggled as its owner, limp, with a painful-looking red gash running from the underside of it's torso to mid-abdomen. ...Even its whiskers seemed pitiful; limp and dusty.

He heard the girl next to him choke a sob. "...Imagine... who would want to kill a kitten?"

More silence.

Then his voice came, unnaturally soft.

"I'll help you bury it." What was he saying?

She turned, wordlessly and with tears in her eyes.

"Buya... I'll help you bury Buya."

She nodded.

~*~

Two small children stood over a shallow grave in the sand.

...The one with messy, sticky ponytails bent over, and placed a crudely woven cross made of grass blades at the peak of the mound.

She sniffed once more, as the white-haired, capped boy tossed a wildflower on the moonlit, sandy tomb.

"...Do you... do you think we're done...?" Kagome's eyes were downcast.

He stood back and wiped the sand off his hands on his red haori. "For the most part... I think so."

"...It doesn't feel complete."

The boy stood back, admiring his handiwork.

"Don't you think we should pray? You always pray at funerals. The bread maker told me so."

"I don't know the bread maker. Don't care either. This is a burial. ...Just stand around and look sad."

She gave him a somewhat offended look. "...You ass. I am sad."

"...Good. You're more convincing."

"You really suck at cheering up."

The boy gave her another indignant look, crossing his arms. "...I gave you my dinner, didn't I?"

Kagome gripped the mostly-eaten candied fruit in her hand. Absently, she fiddled around with it, picking at the remains.  ...Inuyasha bent down to reshape a side of the mound.

Something was off about the object in her hands. ...The uneaten piece of sweet fruit fell off and rolled into the water, leaving the skewer in the girl's hands. ..Or, wait... what was this...? She fiddled around with the stick in her hand.  ...Skewers?

The boy stood again, looking at the grave from an angle. "We're done, now." He bowed his head, trying his very best to put on an authoritative face, like the priests often did when he was forced to noble funerals back home. "May your spirit find peace in the afterlife and may your inner fire light the way," he said in monotone. He might as well have read it.

His voice passed by Kagome. A cloud above must have moved, because a soft light illuminated the object in her hand she was squinting to look at.

"Hey... Why are there...?" The moonlight gleamed back against her sandy hand. Were these... hair sticks..? ...Her mother wore ornaments like these, sometimes, for festivals and special occasions... But these... we're *much* nicer. The moonlight reflected against the green-jewel encrusted stems she held in her hand. A phoenix carving adorned one, and a dragon, the other. Her mother had never had or sold anything this fine. She stared, absorbed. ...These were in an orange?

He looked up at her silence, wrinkling his nose. "Keh. You girls and your jewelry. ...I swiped those too."

She gave him an incredulous look. "'Swiped'? 'Too'?"

"You don't think that was my orange in the first place, did you?"  ...In fact, it wasn't. It was dessert for that evening's dinner, a special of the cook, Pierre.  The hair sticks made it all the more portable.

Kagome turned them over in her hands, not hearing his words for a second time. "...These are beautiful..."

"So? Keep them, then."

Her eyes jumped to his. "You can't be serious. You're giving them to me?"

He scowled. "Stupid. In case you can't tell underneath the hair, I'm a boy."

"So?"

"...Do what you want with 'em." He waved her off.

Kagome clutched the sticks, hiding her sudden urge to smile. ...Some part of her wanted to thank him terribly.

 "Uh..."  Kagome started. Her pride got in the way. She decided to settle for an apology.

"About that rock..."

He blinked at her, before getting the message.

"Forget it. I deserved that."

Her eyes were downcast toward the feline grave. "About the grave, then..."

"You're welcome." The boy looked away.

Around the two, twilight was beginning to wane into sunrise. ...The moon had already started to fade.

"...Keh." Taking a look upward, he spoke again. "Shouldn't you be going home? Girls aren't supposed to be out until the sun rises. You should be terrified of youkai."

The boy's present slipped into a secret fold in her kimono, she raised an indignant face to him. "...I'm not a typical girl."

Pearly fangs peeked from beneath a smile for the first time. "Don't get eaten, then."

He caught himself and turned to leave. Kagome watched him walk away, towards the cover of trees.

"....Hey...!" she found herself calling from nowhere.

He gave a backward glance with those amber eyes. A little apprehensive, she stepped around the grave and caught up to him. "...I forgot to tell you my name."

He looked at her, then shook his head. "Don't.  ...I don't need to know."

Taken aback slightly, the expression on her face suggested a soon-to-come retort.

He cut her off before then, eyes softening and looking elsewhere. "...I don't need to know because... You'll never see me again anyway. ...So, there's no point, is there?"

Kagome closed her mouth, and nodded slowly. He turned and walked into the trees, but not before adding, over his shoulder, "But... my closest friends call me Inu." ...Then he was gone.

Her fingers closed against the sticks in her kimono, and the sun proceeded to rise on her way home.

~*~

AN: Review? It'd be much appreciated. :D