TIME AND LIFE

A faint red glow remained in the fire pit. The floor of the small house was, as usual these days, covered in wall to wall bedding. Miroku had had to get Inuyasha's help and exorcise a particularly virulent set of termites to get the closet cut into the wall of Kaede's home and lined properly in cedar in which to store all of this bedding. He had not received much support at the time but it did brighten their homecomings to be guaranteed good bedding without stressing their hostess.

Miroku was also the first one to see what came out of the pickle pot at just about moonset that night. He had to add it to his ever-growing list of things he simply did not want to remember.

The great old pot had been put into the coldest corner of the room. Nearest to the small spring that fed the grass outside. It was cool enough so there was no reason why the lid of the pot should make such a grating noise. All of the occupants of the little house were aroused by this loud sound and watched as the top popped off and a great glistening bulk reared itself up like some improbable tongue.

"Ayah!" Sango swept in with a short but wickedly sharp ladies dagger. Of course she slept armed Miroku sourly noted. Miroku swung to block the thing's retaliation with his staff

Shippou dug his hands furiously into his pockets and came up with a bunch of magic acorns of the wrong type.

"Hey, it's too small in here! Everybody out but Houshi-sama, the monster and me. Got it?"

Everyone got it and everyone was glad to hear Sango's contralto tones again. The door of the hut burst open and a tangle of people came out. Inuyasha appeared and attempted to both grab Kagome and help Kaede over the threshold at the same time with indifferent results. It was a very dark night.

:::0:::

Dark enough that when the now empty pickle jar unfolded spider-like legs and walked off into the darkness no one saw it go. Which is a pity since that was the very sort of thing they had been waiting for. Besides, the pickle jar was not completely empty.

At the edge of the fields, at the edge of the forest, two figures waited for their servant. They were outlined in the deeper black of the trees. The glitter of gems on one and the snowiness of the white pelt in which the other rested picked up the light of the stars.

Across the fields came the jar. Picking its way delicately on spider-thin legs, which ended in cruelly sharp claws. It was old, older than Naraku or his companions had any idea of. But it had been restored to life by Naraku's meddling and would repay this one debt before resuming whatever semblance of life pleased it.

It paused before the couple for a moment, balancing on its elegant, deadly legs and swiftly upended its body. A small, flat package fell out. Righting itself the jar headed north, much more swiftly than before and disappeared, either among or up into the trees at the north end of the field.

There was a considerable pause before the package was approached.

When it was opened Kagura sighed in wonder and the baby was pleased. It did so love misery.

:::00:::

Inuyasha sighed impatiently and stared around at the trees, stone steps, surrounding village that he had been looking at for, oh, say, the past forty minutes now. He could tell that his comrades in the house were in no difficulty just by the lusty yells they were emitting. He even understood that both of them had frustrations to work out. But he was bored and both Kagome and Kaede were on his short list of people who should have a full nights sleep.

He raised his voice. "YOU TWO! UNLESS YOU WANT TO LICK DAIKON PUREE OFF OF THOSE WALLS STOP NOW!"

There was a sudden breathless silence.

Into that silence came a breeze. Inuyasha forgot his boredom and turned his face to the waft of air that came across the fields. A familiar and hated scent, Kagura - and that evil baby.

"Kagome! Stay with Sango and Miroku. I need to check something out." He spun neatly on one foot and was off in a mighty bound. Kirara following.

"You know, this whole stay put and let me check things out deal is getting pretty old." Sango's voice sounded out of the dark. "It's my fire cat after all."

Closer to, both Sango and Miroku's scents were decidedly spicy, eye watering in fact.

"You two," pronounced Kaede "may inhabit the hut at the edge of my field. Kagome, I know that the headman will take us in for the night. He is surely awake."

Inuyasha stood in the center of what proved to be a bean field. He regarded the trees and finally zoned in on a particular area. He paced forward and then dropped to a crouch sniffing the ground with great care. "Old clay?" He sniffed some more and moved forward.

"Kagome. And those two." He sat back on his haunches. "I know where Kagome is so this must be a possession. This is not good."

He returned to the village with much to think about. It wasn't as if Naraku and his minions hadn't been to the village before. After all, Naraku's human originator had been a local bandit. In fact he rather thought that Shippou and Kagome had a point when they had drawn their maps showing the number of youkai attacks or Naraku appearances in the immediate area. They had missed quite a few of course, but Inuyasha saw no reason to tell them so. The point remained that after several months attacks in the immediate area had increased sharply while none were occurring outside of a five-mile radius.

He looked up and gazed outwards. The early moon was already setting and the breeze that lifted the ends of his hair was chill. Naraku, the baby who was Naraku's discarded heart and the death of Kikyou. He shivered, but not from cold. Kikyou had once told him in one of their strained, strange conversations after her resurrection, that Naraku could not kill her. That the human heart of Onigumo prevented that. She had been so coldly sure of herself.

But Naraku's human heart lay in the shape of a baby in Kagura's care. And the portion of that which had held affection for Kikyou was scattered in a thousand pieces, never to be rejoined. It seemed the preparation for that one event must have taken Naraku well over a year, as he progressed from one form to another. Forming and reabsorbing creation after creation. Kikyou must have told Naraku of Onigumo's heart too, and in so doing badly overplayed her hand. Kikyou had confronted Naraku one last time and fallen to have her body of mud and bones dissolved in a river of acid. He had searched, taking too much time over that searching and found only dissolved waste to come out of that accursed flow.

Kaede was right, time to put aside his guilty sorrow and let himself move forward. He could turn his face into the sunlight of Kagome's regard with a clear conscience. If she still wanted him that is. He had done as much in his blind insistence on honor and duty to ruin his chances as that idiot monk had done with his roving eye and need to father a child with any woman who would take him. Personally he rated the monk's chances as extremely low. Every time he had seen the monk go off with a girl she had turned out to be dead, or possessed, or a disguised monster, or really very ugly.

Inuyasha snorted softly then sobered a little. A bang sounded faintly in the distance across the fields. By narrowing his golden eyes he could just make out a solitary figure making her way along one of the dikes. No, he rated the monks chances poorly indeed.

He continued to watch sleeplessly from the rooftop of the headman's house. Ever after the headman's wife claimed that night as the reason why her hens failed to lay and she always ran short of egg money. Everyone knew she gambled, but that is another story.

:::000:::

Sango and Miroku trailed across the dikes of the local rice fields in silence. The harvest had been gotten in and each field lay fallow for a short time until the planting resumed again. Kaede's hut there was old and well built. It had once served as a jail of sorts for a frantic Inuyasha while he recovered from some rather spectacular wounds. The building had proved to be very easy to rebuild after Inuyasha was through with it.

Miroku led the way up the sharp embankment and unwound the rope that secured the huts door while quickly dispersing the non-invasion spells that kept the place secure and free of vermin. He pushed the door open and unhooked a lantern from the wall. "Sango, if you would please."

Sango quickly opened the small fire pot she carried and used a pair of green bamboo chopsticks to catch up a glowing coal and apply it to the wick. A quick puff of breath and it was alight.

Miroku nodded ands stepped in revealing a square room with raised racks on three sides. Implements and baskets were against the front wall and the floor had a couple of ancient tatami mats stacked on top of each other.

"That's it," Miroku said briskly. "I'll just step around back and clean up, you use the hut."

"It's nearly winter. Won't you feel cold?" Sango's warm contralto voice pinned him where he stood.

"It doesn't matter. I've sat beneath frozen waterfalls to meditate and this is just for a few minutes. Just let me in when you're ready and I'll sleep by the door."

Sango looked away from him, fingering her daikon-stained haori. "What about what you said?" Her voice was hesitant. "Do you want me?"

"Sango, you know I do."

"Why, then do you feel you must be unfaithful? Why go following after every girl of loose morals that you see?" She pressed her lips together. "I thought you said you wanted to marry me." A lone tear was visible on her cheek, but he knew she was not aware of it.

"Sango I said 'If'." That's a very big word. I said 'If when the battle with Naraku is over if the curse of my Air Rip is broken, and I'm alive, at that time...' "

"Stop it!" Her voice was imperious with tears. "I can't bear it."

"Please understand me." He caught at her only to have her cuff him away. "Sango, you know I have a mission!" She rabbit punched him in the chest, breaking the hold he had achieved on her arm. "Ow, gods, Sango!" He clutched at a wound in his shoulder that he had forgotten about.

She just stood tears running down her face. Her determined chin firm, but a tremble evident on her lips.

"I don't want you as the discarded woman of a doomed man! To bear my child without support! I want you as my wife, mother of my children. I want to have a future with you!" He was nearly in tears himself. "Someone has to destroy Naraku! If not me then my child. It seems the only way. But I will not condemn you to that. I want you in joy or I don't want you at all!"

"That is just really, very selfish. I know you will continue to be unfaithful, and continue to cheat on me until your requirements are met. Any amount of pain you cause is legitimate as long as you get your own way." she cleared her throat. "Thank you very much for making yourself clear Houshi-sama."

She left him sitting alone in the shed with the lamp for company. He swore viciously for a long while and then blew out the lamp to sit in the glooming, the shed door open, waiting for the dawn.