So hath your beaute fro your herte chased
Pitee, that me availeth not to plaine.
Alas! that Nature hath in you compassed
So grete beaute that no man may attaine
To mercy, though he sterve for the paine.
(Your beauty has chased Pity from your heart,
And it does me no good to complain.
Alas! Nature has bound in you
Such great beauty that no man may attain Mercy,
Though he hungers for the pain.)
-Geoffrey Chaucer
Chapter 6- Misconceptions on a Chrysanthemum
Shippou found himself wishing he had some of that bagged stuff Kagome had brought a couple weeks ago. What was it called again? Oh yeah, popcorn.
He was the current acting wedge between Miroku and Sango, the little kitsune barrier that allowed Sango some peace of mind when they sat down to watch the show. Finding their way out of Kigiku's garden was rather hazardous to a person's health, at least in Shippou's most expert opinion. Though the tunnel indeed led the way out, it grew narrow and twisting, roots rising to trip them and spidery branches reaching out to snatch at clothing, hair, and tail. He'd spent the last few minutes picking burrs out of his tail instead of munching on the buttery flavored popcorn stuff. Having reached the relative safety of their empty artists room, Kagome was finally allowed to explode.
Sango, Miroku and Shippou were settled in a line against the wall, watching the two argue. Miroku and Sango with bored expressions of acceptance, Shippou with curiosity punctuated by winces of pain as he discovered another sticker in his bushy tail. Kirara was sitting beside Sango, her twin tails twitching as Kagome's voice pitched upward again.
"We were finally finding out some information, Inuyasha! We knew Naraku was here, you were the one to go chasing his smell." Kagome stomped her foot in frustration, balling her fists. "Kigiku-sama is in the middle of this, and she could have told us more about why Naraku would be trying to target this place...."
"She's fucked in the head!" came the crude response from an equally irate Inuyasha. "All she's doing is talking about how everyone thought she's so beautiful," he sneered sarcastically. "She's a pain in the ass!"
"Sometimes you have to put up with people who are pains because they can help you!" Kagome shouted back, raising a finger warningly as the two of them faced off.
"Ha!" Inuyasha snapped triumphantly. "Then you do agree with me! She is a bitch!"
Kagome smacked her forehead, holding it there for a moment before she looked up at him through narrow eyes, suddenly taking on a very scary aspect as her eyes seemed to gleam red in the candlelight.
Shippou, Miroku and Sango backed away, Sango grabbing Kirara and pulling her back as well.
"That...is not...the point!" Kagome began through clenched teeth, ending up with a shout. As she finally met his eyes, he had a second's warning before she finished with a resounding, "Osuwari!"
Splat.
A low growl began to emanate from the cracked floor, and Inuyasha lifted his head to see Kagome watching him imperiously from above, hands on hips. Lowly, he growled, "So I'm just supposed to accept her calling me a damn mongrel?"
At that, Kagome hesitated, her anger beginning to dissipate. Kigiku had been at least as cruel to Inuyasha as Inuyasha had been disrespectful to her. Apparently he dealt better with being slammed into the ground than taking insults at his bloodlines. She sighed, then bent down as he began pulling himself up, offering a hand. "Gomen, Inuyasha...I just wanted to try to find out what happened here...."
He examined her offered hand for a moment, a bit uncertainly. A small hand, with slim fingers slightly dirty from having been set against the soft ground of a flowerbed. She never offered to help him up after sitting him. But if he didn't take her hand, then he'd be rejecting a peace offer, and this would be endless if he did that.
"Feh."
She finished pulling him to his feet.
"Kagome-sama does have a point though," Miroku interjected, taking the peaceful moment to switch directions in the conversation. "Kigiku-sama seems to be the only awake person here. She is the best chance if we wish to discover whatever Naraku's original plans were."
Kagome tilted her head to the side to look at him, sitting on the floor. "You think the plans were changed?"
"Portions of Kigiku-sama's story seem valid," a wry smile formed on his face, and he continued dryly, "despite her view of things. Though the fact she was presumably brought here by Naraku seems out of character for him, at least without a reason. Sleeping doesn't seem to be a very effective way of revenge, even if this was a weaker Naraku from many years ago." He lifted his right hand thoughtfully, watching the beads of the rosary clatter softly against each other. "Other than encountering my grandfather, we don't really know much about what he was doing in the fifty year gap between then and now."
"So this was part of some old haywire plot to get himself stronger?" Kagome surmised, then blinked, realizing that during Miroku's explanation, she had failed to release Inuyasha's hands. Not that either of them were noticing the fact they were standing there casually, with their hands entwined. With the abrupt realization, she jerked her hands out of his, blushing slightly and edging away, talking rapidly to cover her embarrassment. "He's been trying to do that a lot lately and it would make sense if he tried to do that in the past the way he is now."
Sango arched an eyebrow as Kagome busied herself with her sleeping bag, and then turned her eyes to see Inuyasha going into his usual 'feh' expression as he moved to the corner of the boy's side of the room, arms folded and face scowling, though in her opinion it was more his version of Kagome's chattering reaction. A moment later, he was obscured by the divider screen. While she listened to Miroku talk, she'd watched the naturalness of their pose. A wry smile formed on her face. "That seems likely, Kagome-chan. But what I'd like to know is why Kigiku-sama is still awake, if everyone and everything else is sleeping."
"It's not exactly like Kagome's story..." Shippou told her, thinking of the fairy tale Kagome had told him earlier in the evening. "The princess isn't asleep, and she's not in the tower either."
"Princess?" Miroku asked, perking up a bit at the mention, looking first at Shippou, then Kagome, awaiting an explanation while Sango gave him a dirty look.
Kagome was sitting on her sleeping bag now, removing her knee high socks, shaking out any dirt that had ground their way into them while walking. "There's a western fairy tale that reminded me of this place. I was telling it to Shippou and Inuyasha-"
"Feh!"
She rolled her eyes and ignored the hanyou, now unseen from their side of the room, except for a jumpy shadow cast by a candle, the light filtered by a paper hurricane. Vague moonlight was pressing through the lightly stenciled outer wall, revealing a pattern of graceful reeds. "I was telling it to Shippou and Inuyasha," she continued firmly, "before we found Kigiku-sama. A princess fell into an enchanted sleep, in the highest tower of her castle. It was surrounded by roses, to keep people out. All the flowers and the wall of roses reminded me of that. Though the princess in the fairy tale wasn't a youkai flower living in the garden, and I don't think she had any dealings with the one who cursed her to sleep, the way Kigiku-sama seems to have known Naraku."
"She must have some kind of power if Naraku thought he could manipulate her," Sango added thoughtfully, deciding to get up. The movement seemed to signal a breaking of the small group council, and Miroku got to his feet as well, first moving towards his own futon, then hesitated, going to the pile of half stacked drawings in the corner of the room and picking up a sheaf of them before getting ready to turn in. Seeing the houshi was safely on the other side of the separating screens, she turned down her futon and sat on it while Shippou made a little nest for himself next to where Kagome was situating herself.
"Youkai plants don't usually attack humans unless they're provoked somehow," Sango rubbed her eyes a bit blearily as she felt Kirara's weight suddenly pounce on her feet, then move upward, looking for a comfortable spot to settle in for the night as Sango lay down. The little firecat decided the crook of Sango's arm was best this evening, and her mistress patted her on the head lightly as twin tails covered her nose, signaling a wish to not be disturbed. "Kigiku-sama seems to just want to be paid compliments. I don't understand why she would want to hurt anyone if they just fed her enough praise for her looks."
"So maybe someone didn't give her enough compliments." Inuyasha's caustic tone floated through the room. "That'd probably piss her off."
"Inuyasha," Kagome sighed, getting exasperated. "Just let it go. She probably doesn't want to talk to you anymore, either." She hesitated as she pulled the sleeping bag up to her chest, tucking Shippou in as she went. The kitsune already looked sleepy, eyelids drooping as he yawned. "If she wants to talk to any of us anymore. She did kick us out."
"Feh."
"Oyasumi, Inuyasha," stressing the word
and hoping he got the idea that it was late, she wanted to sleep, and not
to argue anymore. When no reply came other than the shuffling of papers,
she assumed he had, and lay her head down to rest.
The sound of paper rustling filled the room as the candles burned out. Steady, Kagome eventually began to wonder what Miroku was looking for. The light sounds were white noise, filtering out the usual creakings and groanings of the aging, neglected castle and its slumbering occupants.
In the quiet, Kagome could feel the little bottle containing her precious few shards of the Shikon no Tama. Cool, it pressed against her skin with an unusual heaviness. Careful not to disrupt Shippou, who was snoozing away, she withdrew it from the inside of her collar, seeing the splinter shaped shards, and heard them ring against each other and the glass as she tilted the bottle to the side to look. They felt the same as always with her, pure and clear as crystal within their fragile container. Such small things could create such large amounts of trouble. In her slim hand, they pulsed lightly, as though reacting to her worry over them, their feeble light stronger than she remembered, and reflective in her eyes.
They pulsed, as though warring with themselves.
And she could not tell why.
~o~O~o~o~O~o~o~O~o~o~O~o~
la...I know, I know, the chapters of this fic are
so sporadically short....forgive me? ::gives puppy dog eyes:: Just a little
discussion this chapter, and then things will begin to roll again, promise.
^.~
Til next time.
~Queen
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