For The Fairest

The evil goddess of Discord, Eris, was naturally not popular in Olympus,
and when the gods gave a banquet they were apt to leave her out.
Resenting this deeply, she determined to make trouble-
and she succeeded very well indeed.
At an important marriage, to which she alone of all the divinities was not invited,
she threw into the banqueting hall a golden apple marked
For The Fairest....
-The Judgment of Paris, retold by Edith Hamilton









Chapter 1- The Veil of Thorns

Once Upon a Time, as all true fairy tales must begin....

A young girl stood in the red afternoon sunlight, watching the agitated motions of one of her companions. She understood his perplexed expression and halting movements, an attempt to appear confident in his decisions, though the faint taste of confusion made his feints at certainty lie. None of them could quite place the oddity of their situation- though odd situations were not uncommonly found amongst them.

Opening her eyes once more from a moment of silent contemplation, Higurashi Kagome drank in the vivid colors of the deep forest, sipping on the richness of the vibrant hues. Maple trees, their lacy limbs interlocked, were afire, a cathedral of translucent, living stained glass arching above them and creating the illusion of being within a floating, many colored dome of heaven. The leaves clung to their branches, the tree sap not yet having entirely left, allowing the group of passerby to see them in a rare moment before they fell to the ground and became little more than cinnamon scented forest litter, ready to crunch underfoot, dead and robbed of their beauty.

Into the autumn display, the noise of cicada clacked.

This, of course, was unnatural.

The insects that hid themselves amongst the gnarled depths of tree roots and tufts of high grass...they were the creatures of warm summer, not blazing fall, and the clash of brilliant, death touched color fit uncomfortably with the somewhat obnoxious summer song.

This same clash grated on her delicate miko powers, obvious signs of supernatural tampering, and though it did not feel quite expressly evil, it was unnatural and wrong, and she wished to find the source, as did their currently- and fairly frequently- annoyed fearless leader.

Inuyasha set their strange start-and-stop pace, drawing them all to a halt and then charging forward again, occasionally switching directions slightly, adjusting as he chased down and invisible trail traced through the air. When the bizarre chase began, they had been moving at the usual, steady pace down one of the forest roads, working off a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Cheetos on the side, conveniently brought to the feudal era by the local time traveling schoolgirl. Inuyasha had suddenly stopped, lifted his head, and said a single word that had them all chasing after him a moment later.

"Naraku!"

Picking up on that particular scent so abruptly was somewhat unexpected, though they were hardly going to just pass on by. The chase was on, and seemingly growing endless, as the trees grew denser and the ground became padded with soft moss. Kagome attempted to tread lightly, seeing her footprints and bike tracks appear damply on the earth below. Miroku and Sango were moving quickly just ahead of her, the group strung out in an almost single file line, while Kirara, untransformed due to the pressing closeness of the flora, was keeping pace with the taiji-ya. Kagome was beginning to feel tired, more so from carting her awkward bike over rougher patches, and she wondered if maybe she should grab Shippou out of the basket and leave the bike against a tree, coming back for it after they found whatever it was that smelled like Naraku. Did that mean they were close to his castle? To just stumble across it at random like this seemed a bit anticlimactic, and she didn't hold out much hope for that being their destination. Where then? It was too dense with forest around here for there to be a village, though with the bizarre out of season autumn, there was clearly something going on in this area.

Glancing down, Kagome noticed that Shippou was hanging from the basket of her bike, expression shifting between childlike wonder at the unseasonal display of tree foliage, and boredom over the silent chase. Nothing had happened for too long, and since he wasn't really running with everyone else, the immediate panic and alarm of hearing the name 'Naraku' had begun to wear off for him.

Just ahead, a clearing began to break through the thick tree trunks, and unfiltered yellow sunlight streamed dustily through. If there was a chance to stop their running for awhile and ask Inuyasha to be a bit more specific in what they were chasing, this would be a good opportunity. She opened her lips to speak, but was interrupted by Inuyasha's announcement as he slid to another halt.

"Here!"

Sango and Miroku, concentrating more on their footing on the uneven forrest floor, lifted their heads and picked up the pace for the last few lengths, since it seemed their goal had finally fallen into the view of at least one of them. Perhaps now would come some answers.

Just ahead, Inuyasha was craning his neck back in an attempt to see to the top of what he had reached. Sango, a bit confused as she stopped and recognized what their destination was, managed in a puzzled tone, "Roses?"

A prickly green and vermillion wall lay before them, soaring high into the air and stretching wide to either side of them, continuing past their sight and curving before vanishing into more forest, indication that something lay inside the barrier. Sharp and hand sized, the wicked looking thorns would be a strong deterrent to almost any predator who attempted to breach it. Though the spikelike, jagged dark thorns were immediately menacing, they contrasted sharply to the deep crimson shades of fragrant roses buried within them, the blood color standing out brilliantly against the deep velvet blackness of the vines and the shadows they contained. Both beautiful and deadly, the pale stood silently, seemingly impenetrable.

"This is not quite what I remember of Naraku's castle," Miroku commented, voice polite but with a touch of dry humor that earned him a dirty look from the hanyou. "Unless Naraku has recently taken up gardening as a hobby."

Folding his arms, Inuyasha sniffed the wind, trying to trace the scent that led him there, but made a face as the heady natural perfume of living red roses pervaded his senses, blotting out everything. He resisted the urge to sneeze at it all. "It's not Naraku's castle. But he's been here before. Something's wrong with his stink though." A grimace formed on Inuyasha's face as he tried to place what was wrong with it. It was slightly off, though unmistakably Naraku's. Kagura and the other detachments, with the exception of the scentless Kanna, reeked of their 'parent,' but even then there were very tiny, subtle differences, particularly with Kagura, who seemed to also have a trace of a wind-scent to her. In a wrong way, he supposed that made sense. This, though, was definitely Naraku. The same clashing of youkai smells. All the damn smelly flowers were stinking up the place and interfering with his nose, and he didn't like it. He was never sure of how to describe that kind of stink- an uncomfortable clashing of many different smells, provided from many different youkai, all jammed into one horrific stench he hated to have to identify, though ended up trying to follow all too often. If snakes smelled like anything other than dirt and whatever they were crawling through recently, he wondered if that would be something like what Naraku smelled like. A viper.

Why was this vaguely different? Naraku was made up of a lot of youkai, and his smell was from a lot of youkai. Sometimes he got rid of them, replacing them with stronger ones.

Asking no one in particular, he said, "If Naraku switches around youkai to get stronger, that'd change his stink after awhile, wouldn't it?"

"Youkai should all have their own scents, the way all youki is slightly different, even in the same breed of youkai," Sango offered, trying to remember what she'd been taught. "Though we can't usually distinguish them, being human. Inuyasha, are you trying to say the smell is old?"

"I don't know. I just followed the stench," Inuyasha sniffed, but was feeling a bit more certain of it.

With a frown, Miroku took the end of his shakujou and poked it into the thorns, intending to measure out their given depth. Small fragments of light filtered through the uppermost of the heavy floral weaving, unlike the darkness of the lower portions they faced at eye level. It clicked faintly against something solid before the still vines moved, snapping outward and wrapping around the staff, grabbing at it in attempt to break the intruder in half.

"Sankontetsusou!"

Inuyasha's claws ripped through the rose vines, and Miroku freed his shakujou with a jerk, almost stumbling backward from the sudden lack of force. "Strange," the houshi commented thoughtfully as he righted himself and clasped the staff in both hands, quickly checking to see if it was damaged. A few scratch marks were gouged into the surface, almost halfway up the pole. He hefted it a bit for the others to see. "It seems to go fairly deep."

With a frown, Inuyasha's next motion was to go for the hilt of Tetsusaiga, ready to blast the thing apart in order to break through as it settled back into its former position, leafy vines curling more thickly where it had been prodded.

"Inuyasha, wait!" Kagome interrupted, moving forward to stop him. "We don't know what's on the other side of that thing!"

"So?"

Kagome sighed, trying to think of a way to convince Inuyasha to not simply blow the thing away. It was Sango who suggested something more reasonable. Glancing upward, the trees provided only a narrow expanse before the wall began, and she looked at Kirara with a thoughtful frown, considering the firecat's blinking red eyes before turning to Shippou, who was wide eyed and staring at the wall on Kagome's shoulder. "Shippou, do you think you could float up there and see what's inside? It looks like there's more light coming from the top. There may be no dome, or at least enough space to see through. Think you can handle it?"

The kitsune blinked as he considered the request, eyeing the barrier nervously and wishing he was on the ground so that he could edge away. Still perched on Kagome's shoulder, he was at the level of everyone else, and had to look back at them. Get accusing glances or try to float up over a living wall of sharp pointy objects that might want to kill him? His mouth went dry as he agreed and reached for a leaf in his jacket. "I...I can try...."

Half unsheathed, Inuyasha stuffed his sword back into its scabbard with a grunt as Shippou poofed into a pink ball and began to work his way upward parallel to the wall. He almost disappeared into the thin stripe of bright sunlight that came between the treeline and the barrier of thorns, the light colors melting together. Topping the wall, he hovered for a moment, then below they heard a shriek as he popped back out of the transformation and fell, caught by the tail by Inuyasha. Not even bothering to protest the pulling, Shippou was squirming in Inuyasha's grip and shouting rapidly in a shaky voice, "There's a castle and a bunch of people, and they're all dead!"

His tail was promptly released, and out came Tetsusaiga. Taking a step back as Shippou scurried back to the relative safety around Kagome, Inuyasha aimed for the tangle of thorns in front of them.

"Kaze no Kizu!"

Lines of golden light raced forward from the swinging arc of the sword, shearing apart the suddenly overwhelmed barrier and tearing through it. There was another sound as it impacted on something other than plants, and a cloud of stone chips exploded upward and out, blotting out the light for a moment and causing them all to shield their faces until the dust settled and the pulverized rocks finished raining down. Coughing, Kagome lowered her sleeve from her eyes and saw Inuyasha doing the same, moving forward through the gap he had created.

They hurried forward through the archway of flowers, moving quickly to avoid the rustling vines that writhed to their sides, crackling as they shifted. The breach was wide enough, though narrowed as rocks began to slip down into the newly created gap. To Kagome's surprise, they emerged into what seemed to be a blind alley, the slope roofed buildings to either side of them with blast marks scarring the outsides, paint chipped away and in some places, the wood had buckled. Both structures would have been flattened if not for the thick wall they had run through to enter.

Kirara had turned around and was hissing at the way they came, though not transforming yet. Inside, heads turned to see the cut Inuyasha had placed in the roses steadily weaving itself back together more tightly, black vines growing anew and meshing with the scarred ends that had not been ripped apart in the blast. New red blossoms unfurled as the fencing grew thicker and darker, disallowing any light to creep through, to keep the patch of covering where the stone wall behind it was gone. After a moment, it grew still.

"It fixed itself," Kagome realized aloud, voicing what they were seeing and backing away slightly, withdrawing. If Inuyasha could blast his way through it once, she was sure he could again, but couldn't help but hope they weren't trapped inside the thorns.

With a frown, Inuyasha tried sniffing the air again. There was nothing unusual, other than the enveloping scent of pungent flowers, now manifold and not merely roses. The scent of chrysanthemums lay lightly atop other fragrances, delicately. Wisteria and poppies, violets and snapdragons. If everyone inside this place was dead, he should be picking up on the smell of spilled blood or decomposing rot, even with the strong flowery stink interfering. Trying to trace what Shippou claimed to have seen, he turned away, leaving the regenerating wall for later. "Oy, Shippou, where are all these dead people?" Inuyasha demanded, drawing their attention away from where they entered. "I don't smell blood or..." he trailed off, looking around the plaza area he had just entered.

Across the space, there was a line of coniferous trees, green since their needles remained that way year round. No scent reached him from these, since there was no wind. Buildings, most appearing to be houses, formed a ring expanding in the circular- or even spiral- pattern the outer wall suggested. Mosses had grown over many of the homes and workplaces, and winding vines had snaked their paths upward from the ground, crawling into windows and onto roofs, some flowering, others merely displaying broad leaves. Not only were buildings surrounded and covered by the runaway flora, but people.

On the ground, beneath verandahs, laying in the open space of the plaza with foodstuffs spilled and rotted on the packed dirt, taken over by mushrooms. Two children lay near a lichen covered pond, a brown ball discarded not far away. An old woman sat in the doorway of her little house, sewing resting in her lap, her withered head bent as though concentrating on needlework.

"My god..." Kagome breathed, a hand straying to her mouth. "So many people...." All across the plaza lay others, periodic rises and falls in the contour of the spreading plant life. Men, women, children...all lay at their their daily tasks. Whatever caused it, it had happened in sheer moments, catching people unaware and at work, inattentive to whatever spell was cast on them. It had to be a spell. There was no blood, no sign at all of a struggle. Only one man in light, slightly rusted looking armor lay among the fallen here. Most seemed to be working class men and women, going about everyday business. It had been fast, whatever it was, and unexpected.

The sound of Miroku's shakujou was heard, ringing faintly in the broad silence as he moved, bending down over the nearest body, a plump young woman, and moving to make a small sign of reverence for the dead. However, he hesitated and looked more closely. She was pale, one hand curled up under her pink cheeks. Though a bit round, she was quite pretty, and it was odd that had remained even in death. Curious, he pressed two fingers against her throat, just under her jawline. After a moment, his eyes widened, and he turned to the others, calling out, "She's alive!"

Heads lifted from their silent watch. "What?"

"Alive," he repeated, holding a hand over her mouth and feeling a faint breath there. "She's breathing."

Sango moved first, to one of the children playing ball, turning the boy over and holding a hand over his lips, feeling a faint, fluttering breath against her palm. "This one is too!" she added, looking around as Kagome and Shippou joined the checking, Miroku moving onto another person.

One by one, every fallen person in the immediate area was checked, and one by one they were calling out that the unconscious person was alive. Several minutes later, they uneasily formed a loose circle amid the scattered people to talk.

"They appear to be sleeping," Miroku concluded.

Inuyasha snorted, folding his arms and frowning while looking around and not liking the situation. Naraku's scent had been strong enough to follow outside the walls, even if it was old, but inside there were more flowers than he had ever seen at once in his life. He recognized the scent he was following, but this did not exactly fit the usual pattern of how Naraku worked.

People sleeping. No trickery, no betrayals, no manipulations, no attempts to corrupt the tama. "They're asleep? People don't just fall asleep all at once in the middle of the day."

"This all feels really weird," Shippou added, looking around again. To him, this place felt like a tomb, even if they were just sleeping. "Are they all under a spell?"

Sango's lips drew thin as she watched one of the nearby patches of flowers. Busy with the people, she hadn't noticed it before, and she, like the others, found the place eerily quiet, eyes darting around and half expecting a trap. "They'd have to be under a spell. Everything alive would have to be. Look at the flowerbed there," she pointed out, gesturing to a small field of tightly closed violets, clover hemming the edges of the deep purple petals. "Closed, as though it were night. That's not natural either."

Taking a half step towards the patch of sleeping violets, Kagome hesitated, not wanting to get too close. Why here? Was this recent? If it was, again, why here? She didn't sense any shikon shards. There was nothing here for Naraku to want. Judging by the half-completed look of some of the more distant buildings in the plaza, it had been a growing town. Glancing up the forested hill at the town's center, the tall, multi-storied donjon of a castle rose above the tops of the pine trees that covered the gentle slope. She knew that in the sengoku jidai, the daimyo were interested in building fortifications against one another, with all the wars and fighting. Whoever this one was must have managed to gather a fair amount of money and power to him, if he was constructing a castle on the hill. However, no one in any of the towns outside the forest had even mentioned that there was a castle in there, much less a town springing up within its protective range.

The people of the last village they had stopped at gave warnings about straying from the path- the woods were haunted with youkai! It was rumored that those who left the main road often disappeared, eaten up. That warning didn't particularly faze anyone, seeing that they were used to dealing with youkai, and the way the story was told made it sound like local superstition. Nothing to take too seriously. Until now.

Still. There were no trails, no paths, no roads to this place. Just dense forest. People didn't build castles in the middle of forests. They built them close to trading roads and plains for crops. The entire situation didn't make any sense, not just the fact everyone inside had apparently dropped at once.

"There must be some clue as to what happened here, somewhere," she mused aloud, keeping an eye on the donjon on top of the hill. She couldn't tell how many stories it rose, with the trees going up the slope. Overgrown footpaths could be seen not too far away, on the plaza's farther side, arches standing watch over the walkways. "There could be someone awake, or something written down somewhere. Entire towns don't just disappear into the forest without a trace, especially if Naraku's involved. There has to be some reason they're all asleep like this."

"Don't you think it's a little too convenient that we just happened to find Naraku's smell, and then just happened to find a sleeping city in the middle of nowhere?" Inuyasha asked her, a bit of irritation in his voice.

"You're the one who went running off chasing the smell, Inuyasha," Miroku reminded him, causing the hanyou to give him another dirty look. "Now that we're here, we may as well try to find out what Naraku thought he could accomplish in cursing these people."

"They look like they've been asleep for a long time," Kagome said as she knelt down beside one of the boys playing ball, not far away from where they had stopped to talk. She picked a strand of moss away from his shoulder, trying not to smile at the sleeping child. "Even if these plants are youkai plants, or a part of the spell somehow like the roses on the wall, it would take a long time to cover everything as much as it is here. Even the outside area is acting strange. It's not autumn, and all the maple trees are red. It's not completely contained inside the walls." She stood up and glanced back at Inuyasha. "We should at least try to see if there's anything we can do."

Fifty years, he slept pinned to a tree, an enchanted arrow sticking from his chest. Anything they could do? Was there really anything they could do? Sleeping, sealed...how different were they, unconscious and dead to the world? He couldn't pull that damn arrow out of his chest. Kagome did that. If Naraku was the one behind all this, then it was probably a curse...and wouldn't it just piss him off if they did find a way to break it? No arrows sticking out of anyone's chests. What else broke a sealing spell other than pulling whatever started it out? He glowered. "Feh. Fine. See if there's anything you can do. But if we don't find anything, we're leaving tomorrow."

For a moment Kagome was surprised at how quickly he gave in...she'd expected stalling and helping people to be something he'd dislike. Though again, perhaps this reminded him of their rather strange first meeting. In a somewhat veiled manner, Naraku had been behind that, too. She nodded firmly, clapped her hands together and smiled. "Great. Then let's try heading up to the castle."



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Konnichiwa, minna, and welcome to a new story.
I'd always wanted to write a fic using fairy tales as a base- For the Fairest is the result. To make things even more interesting, as I was working on the final chapter of this story, Sango-sama issued a fairy tale challenge. So, I suppose this is my entry. ^_^
This fic was written mainly for fun- a lite fic, one calorie, with a tiny dish of mystery to the side.
I do not own the fairy tales of the world, as I could only dream of doing so. I do own a cute pair of Inuyasha and Kagome plushies, which are sitting on my bookshelf looking very cute while holding hands. Unfortunately, I do not own their show.
Enjoy the tale.
~Queen

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