I don't own Inuyasha or the characters there in.
Streams of the Heart Section 1
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Jinenji looked out over the field, the dry, brown, faded field. He sighed. Ever since the new moon a cycle and a half ago the sky had been clear. No clouds shaded the poor herbs from the burning intensity of the sun. He lifted his huge muscular arm up and grabbed the buckets up again.
It was time to gather more water for the herbs. The poor little plants were so faded and brittle and some had turned several shades of brown. Others had collapsed under the weight of their own leaves. Jinenji sighed and stood. His hulking frame was barely contained by the roof of the house.
The horse hanyou lumbered from his family's new house. It was the same house that the villager so graciously had built after the appearance of that worm demon. He walked passed the herbs he so carefully tended.
His tanned, saffron skin glistened under the heavy beating of the sun's scorching rays. He knew many of the villagers were suffering from heat sickness, and more came each day searching and asking for herbs to cure it, but Jinenji's mother had turned them away. The two of them just didn't have any herbs left. They only had that which was in the fields and unfortunately that was insufficient for anyone's needs.
He came to the stream in the forest. It was a small stream that was not used heavily by the villagers. It was good that they did not use it; because contrary to what he let his mother know, he still feared the villagers. He knelt down and lowered his head to the water gently and took a long drink. It was so cold and fresh. They were lucky. The stream came directly from the headwaters up in the mountains, so it very rarely dried up completely. Suddenly his ears picked a sound. Bushes were rustling. He looked up.
It was a young woman. She had brick red hair, almost brown, with red armor. A large white wolf stood next to her. He looked very elderly. She carried a katana on her hip.
Jinenji jerked up from his kneeling position. His hands clenched around the buckets, ready to wield it like a mace.
"I'm sorry," said the woman. She stepped back a bit. "I don't mean you any harm..."
Jinenji's body relaxed a bit and took on its regular soft tone. He bowed gently. "I am sorry; I am not used to being snuck up upon."
"Oh it's ok..." The young woman smiled pleasantly. She knelt down to the stream's edge and cupped her hands into the water. She took a drink of water from the stream and shivered. "Oo, this is cold."
"It comes from the head waters in the mountain," said Jinenji quietly as he silently admired the young woman. Most women were afraid of him, and often the village women sent the men of the village to his mother and his hut to gather the herbs they wanted. It was then that he noticed them. Two pointed ears, and then he noticed her claws and the fangs, in his surprise he hadn't noticed that it was a youkai woman that was in front of him. He looked at the wolf next to her. It was a large, elderly creature. "She must be a wolf youkai." Jinenji thought to himself. He wasn't sure how to proceed. "Was she going to attack the village? Maybe she's going to attack the farm...or the villagers' livestock...but if she was, why was she being so nice?"
"You are a horse hanyou aren't you?" asked the girl suddenly. Jinenji looked up; shocked out of his thoughts.
The large man looked down and nodded, "I am a half breed, yes. My father was a horse youkai..." The young woman nodded with a smile. She crossed the stream. It wasn't deep, barely going half way up her calf. "I met a hanyou once...when I was searching for a certain friend of mine." She narrowed her eyes in annoyance, but then shook her head and continued, "Anyways the hanyou I met was a dog hanyou..."
Jinenji's big blue eyes turned to the young woman next to him. "Did he have any companions?" asked the mountain of muscle.
"Yes..." said the woman quietly. "Let's see, there was a monk, and a young kitsune, and a little feline thing, and a tajiya...and an odd girl..."
"Did she carry arrows with her?" Jinenji turned his long drawn out face to her, "and did she wear odd clothing?"
"As a matter of fact..." the young woman looked up at Jinenji, "she wore a very short skirt for a mortal female...she had long black hair and she did carry a bow and arrows with her! How did you know?"
"The hanyou's name was Inuyasha, am I right?" asked Jinenji. His face brightened. It had been so long since he seen Kagome or Inuyasha.
"I believe so," said the girl. She blinked twice and thought, "As a matter of fact yes that was his name, he knew Kouga...Did you know Inuyasha?"
"Aye, I have an herbal farm back there outside the village," replied Jinenji. It was so odd, he wasn't afraid of this youkai woman. He felt as comfortable with her as he was with Kagome. She was so beautiful. "They saved us from a demon...it had been eating the villagers..."
"Saved you?" the woman looked up at the large hanyou. "I can't believe some one as big and strong as you would be in need of saving..."
Jinenji blushed brightly. "I-I do not fight. Well, not very much...I killed the demon that Inuyasha and Kagome saved us from, but they gave me the courage to do so..."
The girl smiled. "See, I knew you were strong, you were just being modest...Not like that Kouga...Hmmpf.."
"Kouga?" asked Jinenji. His heart sank.
"Stupid wolf prince; thinks he's too good to honor a promise he made me," grumbled the young woman.
"Oh..." said Jinenji.
"JINENJI!" the familiar voice of his mother yowled. Even though she'd grown much older, her voice seemed to only get stronger.
"Oh, gosh..." whispered Jinenji. He stood and then leaned down to dip the buckets into the stream. "I have to go; the poor herbs are probably dust..."
"Can I help?" asked the young woman. "I mean...my companion and I...well it would not be unpleasant to have a little companionship for the night..."
"Oh I don't know..." Jinenji squirmed. He looked back in the direction of where his home was, and then back at the young woman and her wolf. "Ma, doesn't trust a lot of strangers..."
"We won't, be any trouble," said the young woman, "My companion and I will even hunt for some meat for the evening meal..."
"I will see," said Jinenji. He looked up at the wolf youkai with his large blue eyes, "But Ma will wish to know your name..."
"I am called, Ayame," said the young woman. She smiled.
Jinenji nodded and gave a weak smile, "Ayame. I will ask if it is ok for you to stay..."
"Thank you very much," smiled the young woman and hugged the large mountain of horse hanyou. Jinenji blushed deeply. No woman had ever been so close to him since Kagome and then it was when Inuyasha was around, and thusly he would not have impeded on the feelings he had picked up between them. Ayame released him and he smiled and turned to go back to the hut.
"I will return here with news," called Jinenji. "If she will not let you in the house, I will bring blankets out for you to make camp near by, and I will come to talk with you more."
Ayame smiled and then nodded. The large horse hanyou smiled in return and then lumbered off into the woods.
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AN:
Before anyone complains, I took the original version down, most of the errors were nasty punctuation, lack of finished sentences and just plain lack of detail, so I fixed it, not astronomically but enough that it would have been annoying to replace each chapter with a new one.
Basically this is a fix it. I felt that after rereading this story that it needed help, because it was my first story and I didn't really take it seriously when I wrote it. So those who have read it before, I'm sorry to have gotten your hopes up, those who haven't read it before; I hope this is fixed up so that it is at least slightly superior to the original.