Sunlight, filtered only by the thin paper barrier, shot golden beams through her closed eyelids.
She blinked awake and smiled at nothing in particular.
Pulling herself up, she found what she had been expecting.
An outfit much like Sesshomaru's lay beside the futon, but as she pulled it on she discovered the size must have been estimated, and she was not clad in armor like Sesshomaru himself. For this she was greatful. It all looked really heavy.
The pants were slightly baggy on her but were the right length, and did not slip of her waist. She put the top on rather loosely, as underneath she wore a tightly wrapped long length of white fabric, binding her breasts, but not tight enough to prevent regular breath. Unlike the red flower shapes that patterned Sesshomaru's, instead fat golden blossoms adorned hers.
She bound her hair in a golden ribbon, which was tied in a bow at the nape of her neck, as her hair tumbled down her back like water, till it reached its end.
Dashing happily to join Sesshomaru, wherever he was, she hummed a cute little tune she had learned when she was small on her way.
She half skipped, half ran around a corner but gasped sharply when she ran into someone else and tumbled over backwards. Or would have.
Sesshomaru caught her around the waist and watched her as she kept her eyes shut for another thirty seconds before finally opening them to gaze up at him.
She wasn't sure whether his eyes were laughing at her or worrying for her, so she just smiled, being caught between that and a scowl.
"Gomen nasai Sesshomaru-sama. I should have watched where I was going- but I did find you! Next time I'll try not to run into you." She said brightly, not moving from their position, which must have looked like a move from the tango on pause.
He could have grinned. But he didn't. He wondered if she understood his predicament, why he couldn't smile at her as openly as she? She was so cute sometimes...
He showed the smallest smirk as he righted her and said, half between emotionless and teasing sarcasm, "I'm sure an exceptionally graceful human like yourself could correct any clumsy mistake in one fell swoop. It's only natural of you."
She blinked once then looked caught between a growl and a grin.
"Well Mr Perfect, I've yet to see you do everything right." She sniffed with the same teasing air.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Like- um, like... You're shy!" She said with a safisfied grin.
"I am not shy." He said, leaning still closer with an almost-smile on his lips, "Maybe you're just too outgoing." He said.
"I am not outgoing!" She cried defiantly, twisting suddenly.
In a tumble of limbs and a vague flash of surpise on their faces, Kagome found herself in an even lower dip, her body pressed closely against Sesshomaru's, himself in an impossibly low battle stance, and their lips pressed together in a most suggestive way.
They stared at each other for a few moments before Kagome finally smiled against his lips.
She planted her feet on the floor and stood up, still in his protective embrace, in a less painful position.
Pulling back she smiled sheepishly up at him.
"Gomen nasai Sesshomaru-sama- I... I think I enjoy some of my mistakes all to much!" She plushed prettily at him before dashing off to the dining room with a parting giggle.
Laughter rung momentarily behind his eyes and a slow smile spread across his face for an instant, but it might have been a mirage because only moments later his face was of lordly indifference and he was walking calmly towards the dining room, where Kagome was sitting down fighting down the blush that had accompanied her earlier comment.
*
As they set off, Jaken watched grudgingly as Kagome chatted nonstop with a slightly amused, but stoically shown, Sesshomaru, who made no comments, and a busy Rin, who was dashing ahead to have time to pick her favorite flowers from the path.
Earlier, after breakfast, Kagome had picked out a weapon that she would use as they travelled.
As would have been expected from a woman and a miko, she chose out of all the swords, glaives, and other heavy weaponry, a bow and arrows.
'She has no talent with any weapon, so she chooses the 'simplest'. After she humiliates herself in front of Lord Sesshomaru-sama, he will see straight finally and kick her out to be a bother with her own group!' Jaken's thoughts echoed in his mind. Nobody had thought to tell Jaken about Kagome's heroics as she transformed Tetsaiga back to its original state with one enchanted arrow...
The bright sunny morning had changed dramatically by early afternoon, suddenly the earth was enveloped in steel gray and blue and silver, with pale yellow filtering through them.
This did not stop them however, and the slightly overcast day did not lower Kagome's high spirits.
Their garb blew about them with frequent gusts of wind, but no rain fell.
Everything seemed to be in order, and no signs of Naraku or Inuyasha's group could be found.
"Where could they be?" Kagome asked curiously, sitting down next to Sesshomaru that evening when they deemed it too dark for a human to travel in without the moon.
He didn't reply.
"I wonder if they went back to Kaede's." She said with a yawn.
Still he did not answer.
"Sesshomaru-sama?" She asked.
He looked at her to let her know he was listening.
"If you could say one thing, and everybody in the world listened, what would you say?" Kagome mused softly, looking up at the black and gray colors that danced together across the evening sky like lovers in a dream world... without a care...
He did not answer, but stared up with her.
They sat like this for several silent moments before Sesshomaru's senses perked at the feeling of flesh agant flesh- Kagome had fallen asleep against him.
He surveyed her silently, debating whether to move her or not.
~*~
"If I could stare into his eyes for all eternity, I would never need the sun again..."
She was standing in the desert. It was so dark she could only see the shifting sand underneath her feet.
She moved forward automatically, towards a light far in the distance.
She was standing on water.
The swirling light flew over her figure once.
She stood on a branch.
She looked down curiously as they passed by underneath her.
She jumped down and walked with them.
A vacancy stood in place of their eyes, void of emotion, no purpose...
"One thing to tell the world..."
She was standing on the side of the well, dark depths beneath her.
One foot hovered over the edge.
She was falling, darkness swallowing her.
She stood at the top of the stairs, below her was her family.
"A Chinese proverb says, 'If you give a man a fish, you will feed him for a day, if you teach a man to fish, you will feed him for a lifetime...'"
Mom.
Souta.
Granpa.
They looked at her and smiled.
She tried to move. She was frozen.
"A Japanese proverb says, 'Fall seven times, but on the eighth get up.'"
She now stood on a low balcony.
A garden in front of her.
A little girl running.
Arms around her waist.
Who?
Silver hair slides on the breeze.
She turns her head slightly.
Golden eyes.
Sesshomaru.
"Live!"
A child of laughter, waiting to be released from your heart...
~*~
Kagome's eyes snapped open.
She lay curled in Sesshomaru's lap.
His eyes were closed but she was sure he was awake, aware.
She rose slightly and Sesshomaru opened his eyes to look at her.
"Ohayou gozaimasu Sesshomaru-sama." She said softly.
He nodded in response.
She smiled at him.
He smiled back.