All right, I'm terribly sorry I didn't post last week without some kind of warning. I didn't remember I should have put one up until after I had already posted, but I don't feel too bad about as I did let you guys know quite a ways back that regular posting was no longer guarranteed. Actually you're lucky you're getting a post this week too, as I just JUST finished typing this ten minutes ago.
Last weekend I went out of town...And saw WICKED on stage. Mmm, it was soo good! I really enjoyed it, though walking into the emotional mine field that was my second family's house was a bit of a surprise. ah, it just made things more interesting.
I came back home...reluctantly and went to work. Thursday came and I got upset with my boss, so I called into work on Friday and spent the weekend cleaning for the company coming next weekend. Hopefully I manage to write the chapter for next week sometime during the week, but if I don't, there won't be a post next weekend, sorry but that's just the way it is.
WRiting is not my life, much as I sometimes would love for it to be.
Rumiko Takahashi doesn't seem to have this problem though. oh well, maybe I just fall short as an author.
The Broken Pack
A feral, by nature of being feral, couldn't help but amaze and impress all observers simply because there was so much incorrect and missing information concerning their social behaviors. The non-feral world's sum exposure to the Feral youkai it produced was limited to the moments these poor abused and unbalanced souls took to flee from society into the wild and the rare cases when they returned to it again in desperate need of food. The fact that Akemi did not attack upon deliverance of a verbal threat was enough to leave those around her in awe. That she managed to remain coherent and still when she had been wrongly incarcerated and restrained stunned them even more without her even trying.
This was only because no one knew a nervous Feral was always still. A non-physical threat meant nothing to them and could be easily dismissed. Ferals simply didn't know the rules of society and cared not for the petty disrespect that would send a non-feral into a violent fit. Insult meant nothing and it was the same for adulation. A Feral simply didn't care.
The Broken Pack, on the other hand, was well acquainted with the expectation and behaviors of the society that barely held them in.
Moreover, they truly idolized their lost alpha, the inu Feral Akemi.
It wasn't that the Broken Pack didn't have perfectly good reasons for their general adoration of Akemi. She was, in essence, their hero. Akemi had been the one thing that stood between them and worse abuse trapped as they all had been in the school chosen by their supposedly loving families. In a dark time when most of them could do no more than retreat and cry out in pain and despair, Akemi reached out to shield as many of the others as she could.
Ultimately, Akemi's acts to save the others lead to her own fall, but prevented the others from following suit.
Yes, the Broken Pack had ample reason to admire their "Lost One" in all the ways any group ever admired any one person in the world. The would continue to worship the ground she walked on until she failed to meet their expectations and then they would turn on her in true zealous fashion. The years since they lost sight of her had only added to the things they remembered and attributed to her character such as would happen with any other legendary figure not present to defend the reality of themselves.
It was why celebrities' lives were generally considered so dangerous. The mob as a living, unmanageable entity was unpredictable. And history was littered with the times when the crowd's exultation turned lethal for the one towards whom it was directed. And Akemi was one of the more endangered celebrities, her fame was established by a set of selfless actions, making it all the easier to upset the hordes' expectations. The minute she refused to give something of herself, to insist on keeping something from the masses, her number was up. They would attack her for selfishness. But if she never did so, she would spend herself fatally someday.
Sesshoumaru and company were well-aware of this fact. It was what they were worried about when they'd first spied the crowd gathered to welcome Akemi back into the fold and back into her former position of hero and martyrdom. The last thing a pregnant female needs to be.
Akemi had summarily dismissed these concerns in her temperate Feral fashion, striding right into the danger without visible care or worry.
She had been told they were pack, been claimed as their alpha. As such she would take the responsibility.
She wasn't a fool. Being pack didn't mean they wouldn't hurt her. After all, if pack never hurt other pack members, half the Ferals in the wild wouldn't have found their way out there. Still, she was determined to face this as she had faced the evils of that strange metal beast and the smelly white building, head on. One could only decide how to deal with a situation properly once immersed in it. And a Feral didn't hide from a problem that had to be dealt with.
If Akemi was going to be staying in this non-feral world, this problem had to be addressed. The sooner the better. Regardless of what her beta and present protectors thought, it was now or never. She either dealt with this now or she might as well just run back to the wild and take her chances there.
Much as she would prefer to do that, she'd made the decision to stay and stay she would.
"This is not a good idea," Miroku murmured as the entire group neared the gathered members of the abused and traumatized Broken Pack discovered upon Akemi's escape into the wild.
"You think we do not realize that?" Kikyou murmured back at him.
"Look you guys it's probably not as bad as you think it's going to be," Morenda tried to soothe their worries. "The Broken Pack is not likely to hurt her on purpose."
"Oh I don't doubt they intend her no harm," Sesshoumaru growled uneasily. "Their intentions were never the issue."
"They can hear you, you know," Inuyasha approached them from wherever he'd been in his attempt to hunt down Miroku's brats. "Every last one of them."
Akemi glanced up at him before pointedly directing her gaze to the child trailing in her wake. "Found something of yours," she told him before moving past him nonchalantly.
"Hi, Papa," Takara greeted her father meekly and cringed at the look he gave her.
"Where have you been?" Inuyasha growled sternly. "We've been looking everywhere for you. Do you know what kind of trouble we all would've been in if your mother came home and you still weren't there?"
"Akemi found her up by the house," Kikyou answered for the retreating pup. "She apparently went there to calm down after an argument with the Monk's boy."
"Apparently, Hiro couldn't be concerned with following the rules we established about staying away from here. Takara tried to talk him into staying at the house like we told them too," Miroku sighed wearily. Truly, his boy was an absolute brat sometimes. "And wherever he goes, his sisters always follow."
"Still," Inuyasha gruffly refused to let the issue drop altogether. "She should have told us where she was going, and with Shin."
"What? And be labeled the squealer, Inuyasha?" Miroku smirked at him. "She did what she could to keep them from breaking the rules."
"The only recourse she had after that to keep them from getting in trouble was to keep her mouth shut," Kikyou continued for him.
"Reminds me of Kagome," Morenda added in the concerted effort to keep Takara from getting into too much trouble. "Amazingly enough, Hiro's more like Inuyasha than Miroku."
"Don't be too sure of that," Kikyou shook her head. "Miroku shows a pointed distaste for following the rules of Monk hood on his own. He was rather given to lechery in his younger days I understand. And he certainly was not above lying to gain what he wanted before Sango took him in hand."
"Really," Morenda gazed at the flustered monk pensively. "I always thought he was just a terrible flirt."
"Oh no," Inuyasha smirked. "When we first met him he was a fairly legitimate conman and he tried to scam Sango out of the cash to pay for his bar tab and her underwear. She wound up smacking him so hard he saw stars for day. The damage she caused to the bar made the cost of his standing account at the Bone Eater's Well negligible by comparison. And we were stuck with his concussed carcass for two days before Sango could get anything out of him to pay her back."
"I was not a conman," Miroku protested.
"So very true," Inuyasha mocked the upset father of three. "You just lived from one conned pocket of money to the other."
"I never sold anything," Miroku insisted. "I can't help that others felt the need to generously offer a meal here and there. And it would be rude to refuse such kindnesses."
"Especially when there was still a skirt to get under and pants to get into," Inuyasha added for him.
"This topic is inappropriate in front of children," Kikyou declared. "And aren't your children still missing?" she pointedly glanced at the monk.
"Hey yeah," Miroku nodded and glared at his hanyou friend. "Why haven't you found my kids yet? We found yours."
"You forget," Inuyasha grumbled. "Hiro's been spending time with Kagome. He hasn't quite mastered the art of hiding his scent, but he's got it down well enough to make it impossible to track him down in that mess."
They all glanced back at the crowded Broken Pack to find that Akemi and her beta had long ago preceded them. "I'm beginning to wonder if we should all admire her focus," Morenda pondered aloud. Akemi smoothly wandered in and out of the ranks of her pack carefully insuring she made at least passing acquaintance of every member present. "Oh wow. Even Grace made it." Morenda hurried forward to help Akemi with the poor blinded Kuma.
"Papa," Takara moved forward to tug on the sleeve of Inuyasha's red shirt. "We need to get something for her to eat."
Inuyasha glanced down at her a second before her words fully registered in his brain. He well remembered Kagome's last pregnancy as he was certain, Takara did. If his little girl was bringing it to his attention that Akemi needed food, she probably did. "All right kiddo," he swung he daughter up into his arms careful of her hold on shin. "Let's go see what the Broken Pack has to offer for a breeding alpha."
"Come along monk," Kikyou spurred Miroku into movement before following after Morenda. "You still have children to find."
As they finally braved the last small expanse of ground left clear of bodies Akemi made it to the youkai Morenda had been so surprised to see.
The female Kuma was of a larger bone structure than most the youkai gathered on the green grass. All members of the Broken pack had suffered under all the forms of abuse ever imagined. Verbal and emotional and physical, they suffered until some broke and became mere shells, creatures with no independent will at all, hardly more than a heap of fears. All had various things they feared quite rationally, though the strength of the emotion had all the Psychology professors and practitioners terming them as phobias.
Grace had been sent to the Northern school to learn the refinements necessary for a female destined and promised to fill the role of mate to relatively powerful male in the Kuma clans of the central territories. Her future mate was to assume the head of council position when Narumi stepped down and needed a female proficient in the various required diplomatic gestures needed to compliment him in his work. Kuma, by nature were not overly aggressive, they were fairly calm and a bit placid making them ideal for mediators with their power and size to enforce their decisions and a strong desire for domestic peace. She hadn't needed to be taught submission. Hadn't needed it to be forced upon her.
She did however have a indomitable sense of right and wrong, and abusing the weak rang false with her. Grace, as would occur with any kuma, protested the abuse of others smaller and more vulnerable than herself until eventually, after multiple merciless beatings, the whip landed off its mark and took her sight, permanently.
Many of the Broken Pack feared strangers, feared males, suffered severe claustrophobia, or simply remained completely unable to self-initiate any personal thought of their own.
And some, like Grace, suffered a severe form of Agoraphobia. She didn't handle open, unfamiliar spaces very well, and feared crowds even more. And without her sight her fears were compounded a great deal more.
"You fear me," Akemi observed.
"She can't see you," Morenda explained gently, holding onto Grace's hand comfortingly. "Grace was blinded up North and with you hiding your scent and your youki..."
"I understand," Akemi studied her frightened pack mate consideringly. The female was afraid because she couldn't sense where Akemi was. And, the feral imagined, she was also afraid of the numbers around her because she couldn't keep track of them all. Blindness was not an injury common in surviving ferals, but the Feral way was to survive against all odds, and Akemi as her alpha would do what she could to ensure the continued survival of all her pack.
"I'm actually surprised you had the courage to come out here," Morenda told her pack sister in admiration. The kuroneko was practically the only pack member friendly with the reclusive kuma. And that was only because Kagome insisted on visiting the Kuma several times a week. "You wanted to meet her that much."
Grace nodded with terrified tears in her eyes. Her heart was pounding painfully in her heart and she wasn't sure how much longer it would sustain her at such a pace, but she wouldn't leave. The kuma well remembered the pink inu that had protected her along with the others after she was blinded. Akemi had taken more than one beating in her place. The least Grace could do was over come her fears to meet the only one of them to fall completely.
A ripping sound cause the kuma to jump and Sesshoumaru jumped at Akemi's elbow in surprise as the feral yanked the sleeve off her borrow shirt. Before he could prevent it, his alpha dragged a claw over the palm of her left hand and rubbed the bloodied wound into the now unsalvageable cloth.
"Extend your hand, please," Akemi gently asked of her terrified pack mate.
Grace's blind eyes gazed confusedly in the Feral's direction without moving to comply with the strange request.
Morenda silently urged the kuma to extend her right wrist in Akemi's direction and watched carefully as the Feral wrapped the torn sleeve around Graces arm carefully. The minute the kuma was allowed the retract her extended arm the scent of Akemi flooded the local area, potent as the small amount of blood left on the fabric tied around her wrist.
Grace visibly calmed, before her face contorted in concern. "You should not be bleeding yourself for us any more," she attempted to scold the feral despite the noticeably visible comfort she took in her impromptu gift. "You are breeding."
"And you are pack, as no Feral ever had before," Akemi dismissed her concern. "It would be remiss of your alpha not to do something so small to calm you."
"But you are carrying and in need of food," Sesshoumaru interrupted her.
Akemi shook her head at him, "Before that my pack needs shelter. The weather is going to change, and they cannot all fit in your den."
Sesshoumaru blinked down at her.
"We would not want to stay in there with you," Grace declared firmly. "It is safer if Kagome's barrier remains in place, something that cannot happen if you open it to all of us. We are content simply to stay near you."
"Where will you stay then? Where shall you take shelter from the cold that comes?" Akemi demanded.
"We brought our own portable houses," another pack mate insisted. "We'll be fine."
Akemi glanced over the flimsy looking domes they were trying to pass off as shelter dismissively. "This will not do."
Sesshoumaru could easily see where this was going. It was instinct for an alpha to insure the needs of all those in their care were met properly. Most youkai nowadays did this through the use of negotiable currency and political clout. Akemi had neither and wouldn't know what to do with them if she had.
"Well, what about putting them all up in the big house," a rather bold boy spoke up from behind the large kuma he'd been rudely trying to sneak up on and scare in true boyish prank fashion. "The only person living up there right now is the Taishou."
"Hiro," Miroku addressed his now found son sternly "where are your sisters?"
"They are right here," The unrepentant male replied. "I don't know what you are so afraid of, these girls haven't so much as tried to get closer than a foot from us."
"You were forbidden to come up here more as protection for them from your bad behavior," Miroku declared firmly. The lie rolling so easily off his lips it was almost impossible to detect it as a falsehood. "Kaoru and Mari," he called his girls out from hiding. "You knew you weren't supposed to come out here. Just wait until your mother finds out about this."
Kaoru's lip trembled with upset and Mari just started bawling at the mere threat.
"I see we found your wet-nosed girls and that brat you call a son," Inuyasha called tauntingly to Miroku.
"I don't want to hear the from you," Miroku grumbled.
"You must be losing your touch," Inuyasha teased the monk mercilessly. "You didn't used to make all the girls cry like that."
"Shut up," Miroku replied.
"Hey can we get back to my suggestion to moving all the scaredy girls into Taishou's big house before we all die of boredom here?" Hiro impertinently interrupted the grown ups nonsensical arguing.
"What's that?" Inuyasha demanded.
"Akemi has expressed concern for her pack camping out on the lawn," Sesshoumaru explained.
"And I said they should just move into the big house," Hiro added, determined to get credit for the idea, especially for the part where it put the great annoying Inu no Taishou out. Hiro had a problem with grown ups in general, but with the Taishou especially.
"It's not a bad idea," Inuyasha acknowledged. "Except the part where dad would have to stay with us. No way would Kagome trust him to stay around the Broken Pack unsupervised."
"It's certainly large enough," Morenda observed.
"Then we'd better get everyone moved in before the Taishou comes back from council," Miroku suggested. "It'd be harder for him to protest and kick out fifty plus bodies when they've already been established."
"See," Inuyasha said to the side Morenda was standing on with her hand wrapped around Grace's arm, "that's a professional conman for you."
Takara giggled despite not knowing exactly what was said. She just knew her papa was teasing her uncle.
"Then go do it," Kikyou advised. "While you pack them up to move, see if anyone has something handy to feed Akemi." Takara, Inuyasha, Morenda and Sesshoumaru glanced back at the miko startled once more that the reality of Akemi's hunger had escaped them yet again.
Typed and Written: August 31, 2009