In which Kagome learns her place in the palace and Sesshoumaru's life. Please enjoy, and REVIEW! They get me excited.

Classification

Kagome was slowly becoming accustomed to her new home. It was large, although she had yet to see the whole place. All she had seen of the palace was the recovery room as she sat there with bandages on her side and a pot of salve on the table near her. It had been like that for almost a week now, three times a day someone would come in with food and drink for her. Sometimes it was Jaken but it was usually Sesshoumaru, she was the person she saw the most of, it had been that way since the week before turning 15 though.

Right now she was having her bandages rewrapped, for some reason Sesshoumaru had been the person to insist upon doing that. He always talked to her while he did it, about what she was not sure, and neither did she care to listen. He always sat with her while she ate her meals and drank as well, sometimes he had some tea or sake for himself, but demons did not eat as much as humans needed to. He made sure she ate enough, and if she tried to eat less than half the food presented before her then he would not leave.

After the first time she refused to eat anymore when he prised her mouth open and forced mouthfuls of food down her, she learnt her lesson. Even if she was not hungry, or did not feel like eating due to thoughts about her father or just losing the will to continue looking after herself she still forced herself to. He took full care of her though, every evening he would take her to the hot springs and bathe her. After the first time of that too she learnt to stop struggling and protesting and just let him wash her.

He was not horrible to her, really, he was very gentle and didn't look at her inappropriately when he washed her or changed bandages that were close to a very private place of her. Now she was able to move a little more she started to wonder what her place was here. She had seen that lots of people were working her, either as healers, cooks, cleaners, chambermaids, personal servants – all sorts. She wondered what sector she would be assigned to, she could think of no other reason as to why he would keep her in such a nice place. She could clean and cook and even heal people if she needed to, but he never said anything.

Each day she waited for him to tell her what her job was, and every day he just gave her a meal or changed her bandages of applied more slave or bathed her and left. One day he told her that she was better now and could walk by herself. He then helped her walk around the palace showing her different areas, walking slowly to allow her to keep up, but still did not say what he wanted her to do. She caught a glimpse of silver hair and doggy ears and saw a boy her age staring at them with golden eyes. She opened her mouth to ask her host who he was and why he looked so similar, but when she looked again he was gone.

She figured he must be a brother or other close relative to Sesshoumaru seeming as they looked so similar and he dismissed it. Then one day she woke up in the healing quarters, and it had been exactly two weeks since she first awoke to find something attached to her neck. She was wearing a necklace, but it also was not a necklace, it was a thin silver chain with a blue crescent pendant on the end of it. It was a necklace, yet it was also, not a necklace, it was too custom made, it was too Sesshoumaru-like, until she realized that as nice as it was it was not a necklace at all. It was a collar, Kagome: classification: pet.

A day later she meant all that entailed.