January 16

There's still a lot of snow on the ground so we took full advantage of it today and had some more fun. The snowball fight wasn't as crazy since Kohaku has gone home and Sesshomaru wasn't around today. Our main focus was instead on building a snowman army which now guards a portion of the river running alongside the village.

This evening I was sitting by the fire doing some sewing. Suddenly Inuyasha came through the door with some meat for dinner but he looked half-frozen.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

"It was all supposed to go well," he said shaking the snow off him. "I got the food and was heading back. Then some weird-ass demon wanted to pick a fight with me. I hit a tree, and then all of the snow on the tree fell on me."

"You get into the craziest situations," I said as I went over to him. "You can't just go hunting and come back without something happening, can you?"

He put the food on the table. "I can't seem to avoid it. Things always come to find me."

I pulled off his scarf along with his fire rat robe off his shoulders to hang it up on the coat rack by the door. "Come sit by the fire and warm up."

He sat down on the couch and pulled me down with him. I put a blanket over us to warm him up. He buried his face in my chest and put his arms around me then sighed deeply.

"Feel better?" I asked as I rubbed his ear.

"A soft, warm woman is the best thing to come home to after being out in the snow."

"Should I go make dinner?"

"Don't get up yet."

Clearly, he was comfortable, and he seemed to be enjoying burying his face in my breasts. I was fine with sitting there holding him for a while. It was super relaxing.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to stay like that very long. We heard someone knocking on the door. Inuyasha grumbled. I kissed his ear. "I'll get it."

I went over to get the door and found Shippo there.

"Hi Shippo," I said, letting him in.

"What are you doing here?" Inuyasha asked from where he was sitting on the couch buried in the blanket.

"There's a demon coming for the village!"

That certainly got us more alert.

"Where did you see it?" Inuyasha asked.

"I saw it near here just as I was coming from my fox demon exam. It was big and scary. It said it wants to destroy the village."

Inuyasha jumped up from the couch and put his robe and scarf back on. I also put on my coat to go with them.

"Show us exactly where you saw it, Shippo," Inuyasha said, as he put his sword into his belt. "I'll be damned if some demon thinks they're gonna come in and destroy anything."

We went outside into the biting cold. I immediately missed being by the fire under the blanket but this was important.

"It was around here," Shippo said, leading us past our house to the outskirts of the village.

We went for a while but couldn't find anything.

"Are you sure the demon is around here, Shippo?" I asked.

"Yeah, this is where I saw it."

"I don't smell anything," Inuyasha said.

"I don't sense anything either," I said.

"I was just out here and I didn't see any other demons besides the one I fought."

"I swear it was out here! I heard it say it wanted to destroy the village and eat everyone."

We continued to look for a little while longer. It was so cold outside though and I was starting to get hungry.

"Shippo, if we don't find this demon in the next five minutes we're going home," Inuyasha said.

"Fine, but when the village gets burned down don't come crying to me!" Shippo said in frustration.

Despite Shippo's insistence that there was a demon, Inuyasha and I were becoming more and more unconvinced. At least, until we heard a roar coming from our right.

Inuyasha pulled out his sword and I was ready with my arrow for whatever came at us.

"I told you! I told you there was a demon!" Shippo said as he cowered behind us.

As we got closer to the demon, Inuyasha and I were ready to strike...until we saw the demon.

It was a scrawny lizard demon that wasn't much taller than me. It didn't even have sharp claws.

"This is the demon?" Inuyasha said flatly.

I put my arrow away. "I was expecting a lot more."

It roared again. "I'm going to destroy your village!"

Inuyasha sighed. "Yeah right." He put away his sword and simply punched the demon in the face knocking it out cold. Then we turned to Shippo waiting for an explanation.

"It sounded a lot bigger than it looked!" Shippo said defensively.

"I can't believe you got me out of my nice, warm blanket for this," Inuyasha said as we headed back home.

"Well, it could have been bad!"

"I could have gotten rid of that thing in my sleep."

The two argued like this all the way back home. Luckily the rest of Inuyasha and I's evening was much less exciting.