Chapter One
Sleeping Angel
"Inuyasha! Where are you going?". Kagome stood in the doorway of Kaede's meagre hut while questioning the hanyou walking out of said door and into the white wonderland just beyond the threshold.
"You mean you don't feel that demonic aura?" he asked without so much as turning or pausing in stride.
"No". Kagome's blunt answer reflected a face strangely devoid of any emotion. As Inuyasha turned to question her again her face startled him, the shock evident in his eyes. When had Kagome become lifeless. For as long as he could remember Kagome's face had been painted with nothing but smiles and unbridled joy.
"But it's huge! And what's wrong with you anyhow?".
Almost as quickly as he asked her blank look was replaced with one of those sunshiney smiles and with eyes that sparkled the color of the cerulean blue sea. "Nothing Inuyasha, I just want you to be careful. Don't go getting yourself hurt. We need you, you know?".
"Uh, ok" he replied. Inuyasha really didn't know what else to say.
Having decided that the conversation was over Kagome walked back into the hut she had been occupying leaving Inuyasha to discover what the deal was with this demonic aura. It was extremely strong, but it didn't seem evil. And that was the weird part. Kagome was the miko, she should be the one sensing demons. He didn't even know how he knew it was a demon, something in his head just told him it was so. And as for being able to discern between evil and well, non-evil auras, that was just unheard of. Besides, there isn't any such thing as a pure demon, right?
As Inuyasha flew through the trees in his normal fashion of travel his mind began to wander elsewhere. Once again his mind went back to the look that he had seen upon Kagome's face. For some reason he had the feeling that the sunshiney after look was just that, an after look. Like it was meant to hide something. And if it was meant to hide something, then what was it she was hiding? Did he know Kagome or was the cheerful, pure person he knew as Kagome a lie?
Because Inuyasha had his mind in such heavy places he nearly missed the fact that the aura was right in front of him. Stopping to perch on a branch he decided to scout the area and make sure it was perfectly safe. Looking down he realized that he was perched in front of a fair sized clearing in the middle of the Inuyasha forest. As he scanned the clearing for a demon he spotted what looked like a woman lying in the middle of said clearing wearing some kind of loose flimsy dress. The puffy sleeved arms lay out to either side of the mysterious woman and her golden, honey blonde hair was fanned out all about her like some sort of halo. She appeared to be sleeping very deeply, and the tempest of snow surrounding her did not seem to intrude upon whatever dreams she might or might not have been having.
Inuyasha leapt out of the tree and as he got closer to the maiden he realized two things, first that the odd dress the woman was wearing was much like the dress Kagome sometimes wore to bed in her own time. What did she call it? Ah yes, a nightgown. Second he noticed that whilst there was snow all around her, there appeared to be a circle of some sort around her where snow did not lay. Upon closer inspection he realized that the wind that was bitterly biting into his face did not seem to touch her features at all. He began to get closer and closer to the sleeping woman and that was when he noticed that he was feeling some strange sort of pull towards this strange lady.
When he was less than an arms length away he reached out to touch the beautiful woman and felt his hand slide through some sort of barrier. Ah so it was a barrier protecting her was it. What was strange was that the woman herself smelled no more than human. It would seem that it was the barrier that had given off the demonic aura, yet he could not smell the scent of a mate upon her, so who would go through such great lengths to protect such a being? Stretching his hand forward he stroked her cheek in what anyone watching would have called a loving manner. It was then that he realized that this beautiful, mysterious, human woman was near death.