Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Inuyasha has not become mine between the writing of this chapter and the last one. ;_; I wish it was so, but it is not.
Chapter Two:
The first thing Kagome thought when she awoke to wailing screams and groaning crashes was that the trial was over and they had come to hang her.
The second thing she thought was that she smelled smoke.
"What the..?" She rolled out of bed abruptly and landed on the floor, ignoring the aching protests of her back from sleeping wrong to scramble in the dark for a candle or a match. Another scream sounded, and she quickly ran to the window instead. And stared.
Night had fallen, but the clouds were cast an unnatural, flickering orange that gave the scene an almost dreamlike quality. Smoke roiled angrily, the foundations of houses moaned and gave, and people flooded the streets in a panic.
The town was ablaze.
"Oh god.." Kagome pushed back from the window, but then a wild, eerie cry cut the air and she rushed back again. The ululating howl rose to an almost inhuman pitch, shrieking in the night air, and then was joined by other voices to create a single haunting sound. And in that surreal moment, a figure moved into her view.
A mane of wild white hair falling around blazing eyes glowed in the firelight, his cheeks streaked in war-paint, a burning torch in his hand. He wore a string of beads around his neck and a pair of fringed leather pants, and aside from a few feathers in his hair and a tomahawk at his side, nothing else. He strode forward with an almost animal grace, then suddenly threw back his head--and out came that eerie, howling war cry again. The other voices answered, and he waved his torch ahead and charged towards a new house, followed by a group of other men.
He was the leader, she realized in almost awe, unable to pull her eyes away.
They were being attacked by Indians, she realized after that. Suddenly she was more than able to pull away.
"Mom!" Kagome yelled fearfully, her voice catching. All thoughts of the trial were gone from her mind--she'd heard the stories about what Indians did to their prisoners. And she'd thought things were already bad-why did her family have to come here? When she got no answer, she realized her mother must still be out. Her next thought then was that she had to get out of the house. Now. Maybe I can escape, run and find mom and we can get away.
She threw open the door to her room, bolted down the stairs, screamed, and bolted back up.
Her house was on fire.
She quickly shut the door and collapsed against it in a fit of coughing, gasping from the lungful of thick smoke she'd just gotten. The entire first floor was in flames; the old, dry wood of the house catching like kindling. The man with the torch had apparently been very busy.
Covering her mouth with a handkerchief, she did the only thing she could think of and ran back to the open window. She had nothing she could make a rope out of--really, bedsheets can only go so far--so she was going to have to jump. It was only the second floor though; couldn't be that bad, right? She looked down hopefully.
Wow, those farm tools were really poorly placed.
"Okay, jumping is out.." Kagome said to herself nervously around the cloth, beginning to panic. She leaned as far out the window as she could, looking desperately for a way to escape. The fire hadn't reached her floor yet, but the smoke already was, stinging her eyes. She could just make out more figures running though; this time familiar ones--people from the town trying to get away. Her hopes lifted. "Hey--someone help! Please help me!"
They didn't even look up.
Her heart fell..she was going to die here, burned alive in her own house. "Please..help?" Another fit of violent coughing overtook her as a flock of Indians came running in the same direction the townspeople had went; no doubt the reason they were running so fast.
One of them suddenly stopped below her window, looking around in confusion. The dark haired man's eyes finally fell on her--he must have heard her coughing. Then, to her amazement, he flashed a look of complete surprise, and began shouting and waving his arms wildly in the direction that he'd come from.
Apparently they hadn't expected someone to still be in the building when they set it on fire, she thought wryly.
She nearly fell out the window in shock as the man with the blinding white hair suddenly came back into view, landing beside dark-hair. Dark-hair began gesturing and chattering wildly in some native language, and then pointed directly at her. White-hair followed his hand and met her eyes...and blinked.
It seemed white-hair hadn't expected the house to be occupied either.
Dark-hair started speaking and gesturing again, and white hair snapped his gaze away from her, his expression quickly shifting from one of 'Oops' to 'Hell, no!' Dark-hair pointed at her again, white-hair shouted vehemently and folded his arms. She couldn't understand a word of it, but it was pretty clear what they were saying: 'Go get her,' dark-hair gestured. 'Go get her yourself,' white-hair snarled. More posturing and arguing ensued. The entire scene would have been almost funny actually, if it hadn't been her they were talking about, and if her house hadn't been on fire with her in it.
"Oh, for the love of..would someone please get me down from here?!" Kagome yelled exasperatedly, interrupting their debate. She didn't know how she expected them to do that with the entire first floor in flames, but that didn't really matter to her at that point. White-hair looked guiltily up at her again, obviously reluctant, then continued to shout angrily at dark-hair-man. She couldn't believe this--heck, she was even started to get offended. Was she that unworthy of saving?
Dark-hair said a few more words, then gave white-hair a look that clearly read: 'You started the fire, you go get her!'
Snarling, white-hair impulsively threw his torch away, spun around, and leapt twenty feet straight into the air.
"Oh my god--!" Kagome stepped back from the window and fell back onto the bed; just in time as the white-haired Indian landed gracefully on her windowsill. No one can jump that high, she thought in a mixture of awe and panic. She also realized that he was actually quite young despite the color of his hair, probably only a little older than her.
He crouched there and glared with eyes that were strangely cat-like, shining amber in the dark.
Kagome's fear quickly gave way to indignation. What did he have to be mad at her for?! "Wait a second--not you," she said angrily. "I don't want to be rescued by you--you're the one who set my house on fire in the first place!" Not to mention that escaping the fire to end up in Indian hands really was just a stroll right into the frying pan.
"Keh," the Indian snorted with a roll of those strange eyes, stepping down from the sill and striding irritably towards her. "Mahe tik' tsu."
She tried to scramble backwards but got tangled in the quilts. "Hey...hey! I said not you!" In two steps white-hair had reached her and lifted her clean off the ground, heading back to the window. Kagome screamed but found his hand suddenly covering her mouth. She bit it hard.
"Gyah!" he yelled, snatching back his hand and shaking it. Narrowing his eyes, he hefted her up with one arm and unceremoniously flung her over his shoulder.
"Eeep!" she yelped, mostly in surprise. He ignored her kicks and screams of protest and was two quick strides back to the window, where he paused to shift her weight on his shoulder and give her a seething look.
"A're tehamaou," he muttered darkly, then added a sulky: "Feh."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm not happy about this either you know," she grumbled. With that he simply stepped out the window and dropped to the ground. Kagome lost her breath in the fall, and found herself being carried swiftly into the dark forest before she even found the voice to scream.
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It was a few hours before dawn before they finally stopped to rest.
The night had rushed by almost like a dream for Kagome, or a nightmare if you like; around her she could vaguely hear and see dim figures moving--other captives like her and their captors--but it was too dark to make them out. They had been running for hours, trying to put as much distance between themselves and English territory as possible. Kagome had spent a good part of it in a half-conscious daze, dizzy from the smoke she had inhaled and from the fear and chaos. She was in shock. The only thing she could really remember was the steady, strong pace of the man carrying her, the softness of the long white hair brushing against her face..and the strangest sense that there was something wrong about his ears.
The tribe finally slowed and chose a site to camp for the night however, sensing that some of the captives wouldn't be able to hold out much longer. Kagome realized that most of the others had spent the night walking, and other than a few children and elderly people, she was the only one being carried. She flushed with embarrassment.
"Excuse me, um..you can put me down now." But he didn't put her down; in fact, he didn't even acknowledge that she had spoken. Instead, he went around to each and every one of the other tribesmen--her still draped over his shoulder--to check up on them as they secured their prisoners and set up for the night. Kagome recognized a few faces among the crowd; most of them ones that had scorned her the past few weeks. Well, at least they're in this too, she thought glumly. But she was relieved that her mother wasn't among them.
Her attention turned back to her captor, and in the light of the torches some Indians were carrying while he did his rounds, she could finally get a good look at him up close. She noted with amusement that he only glared at dark-hair sourly and didn't bother to approach him. Quite similar to the flood of glares she'd been receiving; when she was paid any attention at all. Kagome found herself strangely fascinated by that glare though as she studied his features best as she could from her vantage point. It was a lambent, brilliant gold. Not brown-gold, not hazel: gold. She'd never seen such an unnatural color.
But then she caught sight of his ears.
White-hair seemed to have finished with the others, and began walking a short distance away from the main group, when dark-hair called something out that sounded like a cheerful good night. White-hair grimaced and laid his ears back. Laid them back. Kagome found herself abruptly and intensely focused on them. They were pointed, covered in soft, downy white fur, each one alive and moving to follow sounds, like a cats or a dogs.
They weren't human.
The panicked thought would have arisen that this was some sort of ungodly demon or devil beast, if she wasn't so captivated and so dazed. As she began to be lulled half-asleep again by her captor's smooth gait and the quiet of the night, she found herself hesitantly reaching for them, just brushing one lightly.
White-hair froze. His entire body stiffened and tensed, and Kagome realized with a start that he had not only stopped walking, he had stopped breathing. Then he dropped her where he stood.
"Ow!" she cried, waking up fully as she hit the ground--hard. White-hair had already stepped away and was laying out some sort of woven blanket or mat on the ground, oblivious to her pain. The moment she got her bearings again though, she leapt to her feet and ran--and was jerked back by someone grabbing her by the collar.
"Kyeh." White-hair looked at her firmly, let go, and began busily ignoring her again while he straightened out the mat. So she bolted again.
And again he caught her and put her back.
"Kyeh," he ordered. She tried to run a third time, and was pulled back with an exaggerated sigh and much eye-rolling. "Kyeh! Kyeh!"
"Alright, alright, I'll stay," she sighed, sitting down in defeat. She found it sort of insulting that he didn't even bother looking at her; he knew exactly when she was going to run. It made her attempts at escape feel pathetic.
But he had to sleep sometime, she thought with a mental smile. He has to sleep sometime, and then she'd slip away into the night and make her escape. She could make it back to town before they even knew she was gone. She was fresh since she'd been carried.
White-hair pulled out a rope--and her stomach fell and turned cold. He'd already anticipated her move.
Nonchalantly stopping a fourth attempt to run, he forced her to stand up straight, stretched out the length of rope...
And looped it loosely once around her waist.
Kagome stared. "...This is it? This is supposed to hold me?" she asked, dumbfounded. Her hands were free, her legs were free--heck, it wasn't even wrapped tightly. A week-old baby could have gotten out of it.
Her tone had apparently conveyed her skepticism, because he smirked lazily at her before slumping down heavily on the blanket, the two ends of the rope underneath him. "Mana sahoe." He pat the ground next to him. The meaning was obvious.
"I'm really not tired," she said politely, eyeing the spot nervously. A lump of panic arose in her throat at the thought of lying down next to him--she'd never slept next to a man before, and certainly not a shirtless savage. And..and what if his intentions were..? She wasn't some village whore!
"Ma-na sa-ho-e," he enunciated slowly, as if to a child.
"No." She folded her arms with as much dignity as she could muster. "If you're looking for a bedmate, you can look someplace else. I'm quite fine up here."
He sighed in frustration and yanked the rope. She yelped and fell, landing on the blanket beside him. Before she could even move to get up again however, he rolled over so his back faced her, still lying on top of the two ends of rope. "Mana sahoe, chi'taio." The last word sounded suspiciously like an insult.
It wasn't long before his breathing turned shallow and slow, asleep.
Kagome lay awake for a long time, perfectly still. A flood of relief washed through her that his intentions weren't impure, mingled with some surprise. According to other accounts, she should have been raped, scalped, and hung on a pole by now. The details were quite gruesome; scalping didn't always kill quickly, in fact, you might even survive it if they didn't tomahawk you after.
The thought of scalping made her redouble her determination to escape.
Almost a full hour passed before she began to move, excruciatingly slowly. As she shifted on the blanket it rustled slightly, and one of those dog-like ears turned towards her. Her heart nearly stopped.
It turned around again without event, but it was several moments before she was able to breathe. The scare left her trembling slightly. They must still listen and move on their own while he's asleep, she realized, steadying herself. She waited a few more minutes to be positive he was still sound asleep, and began to move again, climbing shakily to her knees.
Everything went well until she tried to move the rope.
In half a heartbeat she was flattened down against the blanket again by his hand. A hiss of breath escaped her in sharp surprise, and by the time she took in what happened, he had rolled back over and was fast asleep again.
Any movement of the rope, and he wakes up! Suddenly his way of keeping her there didn't sound so silly after all.
Fourteen more tries followed, each one resulting in him shoving her back down. No matter how she twisted or how carefully she moved, she couldn't wriggle out of the rope without stirring it. On the fourteenth attempt he opened one eye and looked at her hard before rolling back over with a mumbled curse--one that sounded suspiciously like 'wench', which she must have misheard since that was English. She found she didn't have the energy or the nerve left to try again after that, considering it was pretty futile. With a sigh she lay back and gazed at the milky pathway of stars dusting the heavens above her, wondering if her mother was alright, or if anyone would ever rescue her. It was unlikely--the colonies didn't have the resources for it. It finally began to sink in that this was it. She had been captured by Indians, and now she was at their mercy. God knows if she'd even survive.
She wanted to cry.
Despite such troubled thoughts, exhaustion claimed her at last. And the last thing she was aware of before drifting into fitful dreams was the soft, steady breathing of the man beside her, and the thought that he looked much more peaceful when he was asleep.