Animal

"Mama, why does that boy just stand at the edge of the forest and watch us? And why does he have white hair like grandmother?" The young boy pointed at Inuyasha, whose small ears twitched briefly in their direction. Wide golden eyes followed a moment later and he stared back at the young boy.

The mother of the boy followed his finger. She saw the dog ears on top of Inuyasha's head and screamed, clutching her son to her body. "A demon! There's a demon in the village!" Her shouts drew the attention of the surrounding villagers, whose shouts in turn drew the attention of those near them until almost all of the men gathered in front of Inuyasha. Many of them had farm tools in hand.

"Begone, demon!" One particularly brave, or stupid, human walked forward brandishing his pitchfork.

Inuyasha, newly orphaned and not yet wise to the ways of a frightened mob of humans, only took a small step back. A part of him still hoped they would see that he was only a child with no parents, hungry and tired. He only wanted someone to smile at him and say that he was safe, that he didn't have to run anymore.

"That's right, you animal! Run away because if we catch you we're going to skewer you and then hang your body out as a warning to the rest of your kind!" the foolish human in the front taunted, spearing the dangerous dirt in front of him with the tool.

Inuyasha took another step back, glancing briefly where the young boy had stood, but he was gone.

The man in the front ran forward a few steps. Without another thought Inuyasha vanished behind the tree line and continued running until he could no longer hear the jeers of the villagers.

"Mama, why is that man standing underneath the tree? And why is his hair so long and white?"

One of Inuyasha's ears twitched in response to the sound. He didn't turn to look at the boy, he didn't have to. Though one ear stayed pivoted toward him.

The boy's mother looked up from mending her husband's shirt, shielding her eyes from the sun. "That's just Inuyasha, dear. He protects our village." She went back to her mending.

The boy was not more than five, and as curious as children tended to be. In this case, his curiosity overwhelmed his desire to stay near his mother and he padded up to the inu-hanyou shyly, his hands behind his back.

Inuyasha tracked the child's approach as he grew steadily closer, but didn't show any outward signs of it. Village kids often liked to play the game of 'See-who-can-get-closest-to-the-inu-hanyou-before-chickening-out'.

This one seemed to have something else in mind, though. He kept walking until he was close enough to touch him, which he did, reaching out and tugging on Inuyasha's hakama.

Inuyasha could ignore him no longer. "What, runt?"

His gruff voice didn't seem to faze the boy. "Why is your hair so long and white? You don't look old."

Inuyasha lifted his chin up slightly. "Why's yours brown?"

This seemed to give the boy pause, and he stood there contemplating his answer.

At length, he spoke: "my papa has brown hair." His tone suggested that he was almost asking Inuyasha if that was the correct response.

"Mine had white hair."

The boy suddenly smiled, pleased he'd been able to figure out the appropriate answer. "That's great! I wish my papa had white hair!"

"I'm sure he will eventually." Inuyasha shrugged.

"But not white like yours, because my grandpapa has grey hair. So if my grandpapa has grey hair, then my papa will have grey hair too, right?"

"Probably. When he's old."

There were a couple of minutes of silence, and Inuyasha thought he might have satisfied the boy's curiosity.

"My name is Hiroshi."

Inuyasha looked down at him. Apparently not. The boy barely came up to his hips, and he was small. His eyes were dark and his brow was slightly furrowed.

"Inuyasha."

"My mama says that you protect our village."

"I guess so, if I'm in the area."

"Do you protect other villages too?" This particular question caught Inuyasha a little off-guard. Human children, in his experience, tended not to care about anything beyond their tangible world.

"Yeah, if I'm around when they're in trouble."

"What about travellers? Do you protect people that aren't in a village?"

"If I'm around," he repeated.

"If I were outside of this village, would you protect me?"

Looking down at the kid again, Inuyasha could tell he was almost at the end of his courage, and from the resolutely still expression on his face, a lot was riding on his answer to this last question.

"Yeah, I would, Hiroshi."

Hiroshi grinned, "thanks!" That seemed to be all he required from the inu-hanyou. Then he ran back to his mother, who seemed startled to see him running back to her, as if she hadn't realised he'd been gone.

She looked behind him at Inuyasha and held his gaze. He stared back at her, then she smiled slightly, nodded at him and turned back to her mending.

He closed his eyes and turned his face away, lapsing back into the half-doze Hiroshi had interrupted.

A few minutes later another set of footsteps approached.

"Sorry, that took longer than I anticipated. Apparently the child's brother was sick too, but did a better job of hiding it. Do you think we'll still make it back home before sundown?"

He pushed off the trunk with his usual easy grace and began walking in the direction of Kaede's village. "Yeah."

"Something wrong?" He hadn't complained at all.

He tilted his head until Hiroshi was on the edge of his vision. The boy stood slightly straighter under his stare.

"Nah."

Kagome looked too. "I think that boy is the headman's son."

His eyes softened. Good.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Rumiko Takahashi. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This disclaimer applies to all subsequent chapters.

Author's Note: This is, yet again, another piece to introduce another series. The good news is that this one will have 26 chapters, because it will be a prompt for each letter of the alphabet. :) I do like to work within word limits, but I'm not sure if this entire series will be have the same limit. This one had 1000. We'll see how other prompts work out. The words I'm using are just words I plucked out of no where, so if you have a word you think would be interesting, please drop a review and let me know. :)

-case