~ A Feudal Fairytale ~
Hello, all, time for chapter three. Aren't we all excited? Hmm!? Well, if you have read this far I certainly hope you are. Anyway, as always: BOTH PATIENCE AND I LOVE INUYASHA AND KAGOME AS A COUPLE, WE WERE JUST BORED ONE DAY AND DECIDED TO EXPERIMENT, ALL RIGHT!? NO FLAMES, PLEASE!!! And neither of us own InuYasha or Ranma, 'cause Rumiko Takahashi is stubborn. : ( Oh well, can't always get what you want, 'ne? We do, however, own Serenity Ikari and Patience Galloway. Sooooo . . . on with the story!!! Yay!!! Let's all do the writing dance! *dance, dance with the pencil* Yeah . . . *sweatdrops* Yeah, I'm nut escaped from the padded room. I like it there, so, nyah, nyah! Hey, stop looking at me!
Chapter Three: Meetings . . .or Reunions?
The first thing Serenity heard when she came to was a high, child-like voice asking fearfully, "Is she dead?" and she was also being poked lightly in the knee, which was annoying, but she didn't want to talk or move enough at the moment to put a stop to it. It would have been too much of an effort.
"Nay, child, she'll be fine," came another voice, a woman's, and an older one, too.
"Oh. She doesn't look fine . . ."
"You need to move over, Shippo," said a third voice, a girl's. She sounded as if she was near Serenity's age. "I need to bandage her leg and you're in my way."
Where was she, anyway, and how did she get there? Had Patience gone for help like she had said? She could tell she was laying on a bed or a mat with a light blanket thrown over her for warmth; the sharp, pungent, earthy smell of herbs filled the air, calming her down a little; and she could feel someone gently wrapping her ankle - the girl, probably, judging by what she had heard. Well, at least it wasn't hurting that much anymore and she was out of the forest, which was a big relief - she could breathe again and the overwhelming sense of power was gone.
Good.
A moment later she felt a slight weight of some kind on her chest and opened her eyes.
Serenity found herself staring into a pair of large green-blue eyes. A small child - an unusually small child, actually, but he had to be at least seven - sat there, cross-legged, gazing at her, concern pinching his small face. His ears under his shaggy light brown hair were oddly pointed and he had a . . . bushy tail? Strange. But, then, the boy pinned to the God Tree had dog ears, so she guessed that shouldn't surprise her. People here in whatever kind of crazy, mixed up dream world she had apparently fallen into somehow were weird.
She refused to think about the fact that she had somehow dreamed about the boy, too.
"Ah, ye are awake."
She glanced over at the other two people in the room: the girl looked as if she were only a year or so younger than her. She had long black hair that was tied back and dark reddish brown eyes, but the strangest thing was what she was wearing. Some kind of strange pink and red kimono that looked as if it had come from an ancient painting. Where had Patience taken her!? Some kind of fair ground or something? The old woman stood on the other side of the room, bent over a pot which sat atop a small fire in the floor, stirring whatever was inside, but her sharp eyes were on Serenity. It gave her the unsettling feeling she could see right into her soul. Serenity also had the strangest feeling of deja vu, as if she had not only seen the woman before, but knew her.
That was enough to snap Serenity out of the comfortable, drowsy state she was in; at least enough to realize that although her ankle wasn't hurting her that much, almost every other part of her was.
"Are you feeling all right?" asked the little boy with a small bounce.
She pulled herself into a sitting position with a groan. Her head ached as if she had been hit by a truck . . . her ankle was still throbbing slightly . . . her back hurt . . . "Yeah, sure, kid. Never felt better."
The boy looked considerably relieved; the old woman's mouth tightened into a thin line. "Hmm. Ye speak a strange dialect. Where are ye from, child?"
I speak a strange dialect? Serenity thought. You just said ye, and I'm the one that speaks strangely? Well, if Patience had, for some reason, taken her to a theme park of some kind, it was an amazingly thorough one.
"Nerima," she answered. "Tokyo."
"Ne-ri-ma? Tok-y-o? Never heard of them."
Serenity raised an eyebrow. She hadn't heard of Tokyo? The capital of Japan? She said it with such a straight face that was a little much, even for an employee at some park or whatever this was.
She was about ready to ask if the woman was joking, but then she looked around once more and the question died on her lips. She was in a hut, a one room hut, made out of uneven, unsanded wood. She, the little boy, and the girl were on the raised part of the floor, which had nothing on it but the mat, the only window above their heads, the dull light of sunset seeping through; the other half of the room had a small table, her book bag and Patience's piled on top of it in a disorderly heap, and the fire pit the woman was cooking over, but that was it. Small bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling filling the room with their scent and on the wall hung a long, beat-up, rusty sword with something glowing on the hilt. She couldn't help thinking it looked very similar to the one she remembered the young man having . . .
She couldn't believe it.
Suddenly she felt more awake and alert than she had before than in her entire life.
She was not in Tokyo anymore. Definitely not. She wasn't even in her own time. No theme park she had ever been to was this detailed. There wasn't anything remotely like this . . . this hut in 1997 . . . and . . .
And the old woman . . . She looked closer at what she was wearing and almost cried out. It was too perfect, way too perfect to be a fake or replica . . . She was dressed like a priestess from the . . . the . . . what was it!? Oh, what had Mr. Toriyama called it!? Ugh, she should have paid more attention in history class . . .
Wait!
The Sengoku Jedai. The Warring States Era. Yeah, that was it!
Oh God. What was she going to do!?
Kaede could see the panic written clearly on the girl's face. Her eyes had gone wide enough to see the whites and she went from merely being pale to being a sickly gray color in a matter of moments as if she was going to be sick, and she looked as though she would start screaming at any moment.
"Shippo, kindly go fetch me some water."
She gave the young kitsune a wooden bucket and motioned for Sango to follow him. Sango nodded her understanding and with a last curious glance at the girl, ushered Shippo out the door, a small white and black kitten Serenity hadn't noticed before following closely at her heels.
Kaede turned to study the girl herself as soon as they had gone. She looked nothing like Kikyo, with her lighter hair and strange colored eyes, yet the old priestess could sense the same energy, the same immense spiritual power coming from her. Her dark eyes narrowed. Could this strange girl truly be the reincarnation of her dead sister?
She wondered.
She ladled some of the herb broth from the pot into a cup for the girl and handed it to her. She stared at it fearfully for a long moment before taking it, although she still didn't raise it to her lips to drink. Kaede then sat down on the edge of the raised floor and looked into the girl's eyes, glad to be off her aching feet.
"What is wrong, child?" asked Kaede, concerned. "Ye look as though ye has seen a spirit."
The girl's eyebrows shot up, her hands clenching around her cup. Kaede sighed. This looked to be harder than she had at first thought, since she didn't seem inclined to talk.
"Very well, child. May I at least have your name?"
The girl relaxed somewhat. "Serenity," she said.
"A strange name," Kaede mused quietly, more to herself than Serenity, then said, "I am Kaede, priestess of this village. Tell me, child, what were ye doing in the Forest of Inuyasha?"
Serenity looked thoughtful, then her eyes, a captivating color falling between gray and green, lit up with interest. "Inuyasha?" she repeated. "That boy pinned to the God Tree?"
"Aye. What were ye doing there and how did you remove the spell?"
"Spell? What spell? Oh, you mean the arrow?"
Kaede nodded and the girl continued: "Well, I, um, tripped and it just kind of came out in my hand. Sorry if I did something wrong." She grinned sheepishly.
The old woman wondered at Serenity's unconcerned tone. Had she no idea of what could come of this?
"How did I get here, anyway?" she asked, her smile fading as she looked around the hut worriedly. "And, Kaede, where is Patience? My cousin. She was with me earlier."
Kaede was tempted to ignore the girl's questions in light of the more important matters at hand, but she looked so anxious she felt compelled to say something.
"Patience? Nay, child. I'm sorry. Ye were the only one Inuyasha carried back."
An expression of mixed fear and curiosity crossed Serenity's face, her lost cousin temporarily forgotten. "That's how I got here?" she said, barely masking her excitement. "Inuyasha carried me?"
"Aye, child."
She let Serenity sit in thought after that, as she needed to think herself. It was obvious that the girl knew very little - if anything - of what she may have unwittedly put in motion by setting Inuyasha free of her sister's spell.
Ever since Kikyo's death Kaede had kept the jewel and protected it, taking great pains to convince everyone in the village she had burned it with her sister's body; it hadn't been hard, as everyone had heard Kikyo ask her to do so before she died. She just hadn't been able to bring herself to actually do it. It was the only thing of Kikyo's besides the bow she had to remind her of her dear older sister. Demons, assuming it had been destroyed and not being able to sense it themselves, had forgotten it or given up searching for it long ago, never dreaming it was right under most of their noses the entire time. But now, with Inuyasha free and still hungering after it's power in a extremely vocal and violent way, the village might soon have some unwanted visitors. Inuyasha not in the least. He was powerful for a hanyou and more than stubborn. The command rosary she had place around his neck when he had, for some unknown reason, brought Serenity to her would work for now, but she couldn't be sure how long that would last. It couldn't be removed by him, but besides being determined, he had his own brand of intelligence that often made him quite cunning and creative. She remembered all of Kikyo's battles with him quite well.
She had to be prepared. Kikyo had given her life for this village, she couldn't let anything happen to it now, and to protect it from the likes of Inuyasha she would need all the help she could get. She was all too aware that Miroku, Sango, and Shippo might not be enough, but this girl . . .
Kaede turned back to Serenity.
"Have ye ever heard of the Shikon no Tama?" she asked.
"My grandpa told me about it when I was little," Serenity said, "but it's just a legend. It's hard to believe anything Grandpa says, anyway."
She trailed off, shaking her head, a small, sad smile touching her lips.
Kaede sighed. She had much to explain to this girl if she was to be of any help and it weighed heavily on her.
"A legend it may be, but a true one, child," Kaede began in a weary voice. "It exists. I have it my possession as we speak, unbeknownst to any other."
~ * ~
Serenity shivered. Inuyasha had attacked Kikyo to get the jewel to become a full demon, even after he had said he loved her and promised to live with her as a human man? That . . . that . . . She remembered his cold, heartless eyes and shivered again. Maybe it shouldn't surprise her as much as it did . . .
She shook her head slowly, sadly, and looked at Kaede. "Did he really do that?" she asked.
"Aye, and afterwards he attacked the village to steal it. It was then that Kikyo bound him to the God Tree." Kaede gave her a smile meant to reassure her. "Ye look surprised. I admit, I was too after it happened. Even now I can't scarce believe that he would do such a thing. I told him this afternoon when he brought ye here that Kikyo was dead, and had been nigh on fifty years. He laughed it off, his usual brash, arrogant self, but his eyes were sad. I believe he feels guilt for his deed. I have no doubt he cared for Kikyo once."
Kaede ended her tale there, telling her there was nothing more to say about it. She got up and began to bustle around the hut, busying herself with her herbs and potions. Serenity watched her, thinking about all she had heard. So many strange things had happened in the last twenty-four hours she would be lying if she said she didn't believe Kaede. There was something about the old priestess that she couldn't help but trust - and she had been through enough to know that anything was possible. Kaede had no reason to lie, either.
She also had a sneaking suspicion that Kaede had told her all this for a reason. Why, she could only guess, and all the things she came up with only served to scare her even more.
She shook her head with a deep sigh. She had never asked for any of this, so how exactly did she get dragged into it? The day had started out so normal, so, so normal and now she was on the other side of a well in the Sengoku Jedai. If it hadn't been so freakin' scary, it would have been one of those, "Hey, let me tell you about my day," things that you can laugh about later with your friends and forget after that.
Serenity couldn't help but smile wryly. Yeah, as if anyone would believe her except Patience.
Hmm . . . Where was Patience, anyway? She had forgotten all about her. Lord, I hope she's okay, Serenity thought. I wonder if she knows exactly where we are yet . . .
She pictured Patience, out alone in the middle of that stupid, creepy forest hurt or . . . or . . . God . . . something even worse. That was the only reason she could think that Patience wouldn't have come back for her. She and Patience fought a lot, but they were closer than sisters and would never abandon each other.
Oh God! What in the Hell have I been doing just sittin' here!? I have to find her!
"Kaede," she said, "are you sure Inuyasha didn't bring anyone else back?"
"Aye," Kaede answered, pausing in her work.
Serenity winced. If anything happened to her she would never, ever forgive herself. "Then, where is Inuyasha?" she demanded. "I have to find my cousin. He might have seen her."
I can't imagine why she would let him take me without coming with him, but . . .
A frown creased Kaede's forehead. "Outside, child," she said slowly. "In a tree, most likely."
Serenity pulled herself to her feet, wincing again, this time in pain, as she put her sore ankle down, testing it, but she gritted her teeth against the pain and began to make her way to the door. Her earlier fear of the hanyou was forgotten in her concern for her cousin's safety.
"Are ye sure ye can make it?" Kaede asked in concern.
"I'll be fine," Serenity replied roughly through clenched teeth.
Kaede hesitated with uncharacteristic indecision, then called, "Wait, child."
She saw the girl tense, but, to Kaede's relief, she stopped and turned to face her. "If on the chance that Inuyasha tries to attack ye, all ye need to do to stop him from doing harm is call 'osuwari.' Miroku and Sango will also be out there to stop him if he should try anything."
Serenity's eyes widened, but then she merely nodded and disappeared out the door.
Mayhap she is more like my sister than I thought, Kaede thought. The girl has courage, however hidden it may seem. She went back to her potions, silently going over how she was going to explain her suspicions and expectations to the girl when she came back; and she had no doubt she would.
a/n: Once again, both Serenity and Patience are advocates of the couple of Inuyasha and Kagome. Flames are unnecissary and will be ignored, so don't be morons and leave them for us to read. If you do, it will prove nothing except how low your I.Q. is. I wouldn't want to do that if I were you, so . . .
Yeah.
