Oh, finally I start in with some explaining of some things! Don't worry, there's more explanation to be had. What did Kagura give? What's wrong with Ayame? Will Ginta's plan pan out as he hoped? Will Kouga's freedom last? Will Kanna's mistake be rectified? All this and more is yet to be known!
*****
Scarlet
Part 10
*****
I woke up the next morning with a warm ache of happiness in my chest. I was finally where I most wanted to be. Lying with Kagura, not a care in the world beyond the two of us.
Well, Kanna was still there. That was kind of disturbing. She was standing at the far end of the cave, staring at us blankly as though she could see through us, perhaps into us. I wondered momentarily if she needed her mirror to touch souls, or if it was simply a concentration device. I wondered if she could see my soul and Kagura's, how they were bound. I was sure they were bound. Otherwise, I wouldn't long for her so deeply, I wouldn't go so far to be with her as I had.
And then she opened her eyes. It was the first time in a long time that she woke after me. I tried to think of the last time I had been able to watch her sleep, to see her face twitch slightly as consciousness returned, to watch her lids flutter slightly before revealing those crimson depths that held me so fascinated. I was sure that I could always recognize Kagura by her eyes alone. They were so unique, so utterly entrancing, so viciously sinful and at the same time…they were a part of me. I could no more hate the blood she had spilled reflected in those eyes than hate myself and every past transgression I had committed. I loved her so much it hurt, and it made my eyes sting slightly to think that this was it. This was my life, my dreams, and everything I had wanted, all rolled up into one petite, graceful, elegant, viciously sarcastic, caustic, package. I wouldn't have her any other way.
"Mmm…so sleepy." She murmured as she smiled faintly at me, and I laughed in response.
"Just rest, then." I told her, my voice soft. "I learned to cook while you were gone. I could make you breakfast if you'd like, though my rice isn't half as good as yours."
"Really?" she blinked, her smile widening to a brilliance rarely shown when she was fully cognizant. "You cook? Edible things, even?"
"You want some or not?" I refused to be upset by her teasing after she'd been gone so long and only just returned to me.
"I missed you." She told me. "Don't get up just yet." And she made a sound in the back of her throat, a groaning purr of sorts that almost made me forget the pale girl across the cave. But not quite.
"Your…um, sister, is still here." I pointed out. "A guest for breakfast."
"Oh…that's no fun of her." Kagura stretched languidly. "Well then, much as I wouldn't mind you poisoning me, I'd best get up if we're cooking for more than two."
I tried to stop her, but really, there's no stopping Kagura when her mind is set. As she moved about, comfortably as though she'd never been gone, I realized we hadn't said one word about where she'd gone and why. How she'd left without a word to me, and how she had yet to apologize for such an oversight. I didn't really want to talk about it, and I don't think she did either.
"Sister." Kanna accepted the rice bowl that Kagura handed her, only after moving her mirror to a convenient loop of white rope tied to her obi for just that purpose. "Is your body tired?"
"It is." Kagura nodded slightly, though she took slightly longer than what was necessary to answer the simple question. "You must have traveled far to be here, sister."
"I did." Kanna did not elaborate. "Your head. Tell me how it feels."
"Kind of fuzzy, like it was stuffed with cotton and then all the cotton was pulled out and replaced with water." Kagura answered easily this time. "Do you like the rice?"
"Very much." Kanna nodded slightly. "Does it feel crowded?"
"Not at all. Almost empty, you know?" Kagura was cheerful enough as she ate her rice with her sister and myself. I had a feeling that I was not supposed to be participating in this conversation, so I just kept my mouth shut.
"Good." She nodded at me. "Are you angry with me, sister?"
"For what?" Kagura wanted to know.
"I told him." Kanna explained. She did not go further than that before the chopsticks fell from Kagura's hand and clattered into her bowl, totally forgotten. "He had to know what was inside you."
"You didn't…you…" she was stammering, her face white, her eyes wide, looking as though she couldn't breathe.
"Not that." Kanna told her sister, and I felt as though I was missing something important. "I left that for you."
"I can't tell that. That's not his business." Kagura was immediately defensive.
"Is it not?" Kanna blinked slowly, scooping up a very properly sized mouthful of rice. "You are too possessive by half, Kagura."
"Shut up." Kagura ground the words out. "You talk too much, Kanna."
"Do you wish me gone?" the voice was not hurt, just curious. And sad, always sad.
"No…just…shut up." Kagura went back to her rice. "You have no right to tell him."
"You have no right to keep it from him." Came the reply.
"Okay, I'm still right here." I decided that this was getting annoying. "Could you try not talking about me like I'm not in the same room?"
"I apologize for my oversight." Kanna told me. "And now. I believe I have done all I wished to do, and now I must move on. I will watch you, sister."
"Not all the time, I hope?" Kagura actually smiled, winking at me so broadly I felt myself blush. How could she say something like that in front of that little girl? Even if Kanna was older…she was just…creepy.
"I respect privacy." And she glimmered, fading away as suddenly as she had appeared the night before. I turned to Kagura.
"She's creepy." I said the first words that came to my mind.
"Eh, you get used to it. And her company is far superior to Naraku's, I must say that." Kagura picked up Kanna's empty bowl and set it in her own, holding out a hand before I handed her mine as well. My face had gone serious, and she had not noticed it yet. Not until I spoke as she set about pouring hot water to wash the dishes.
"Kagura?" I began, feeling a knot tightening in my stomach. "Can we…talk?"
"What about?" her voice was guarded, and I knew she was well aware of the only thing I could possibly want to talk about.
"Us." I started out. "I'm…did you know what I did?"
"Kanna told me, last night, when she was cleansing me. She let me see things." Kagura let out a harsh laugh. "I'm sorry I missed the rice cooker incident."
"I'm not in the mood for jokes, Kagura." My voice was like steel, and she froze before finishing her task as quickly as possible. "Seriously. I died."
"Not really, technically." Kagura turned to me, her eyes soft as her voice. "But I still appreciate the thought. It's not every day a guy dies for me and lives to tell the tale."
"Well, I just think you should know." I began, unable to really meet her eyes. "Now, I'm free to do what I want. Long as I stay away from them. And we can…"
"Live together?" she smiled. "I'd like that."
"You gave something up." I spoke nervously. "To be away from me."
"That was Naraku. He convinced me that…that you were trapping me here with you." She explained, blushing in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't…have listened."
"He's gone now?" I asked. "From…from…"
"Yeah. It's quiet now." She assured me. "He can't…do anything."
"Kagura…" I hated to do this, but I had to. It was important, and I couldn't just ignore it. "You lied to me."
"What?" she looked so shocked I almost believed that she never had. Maybe she'd forgotten.
"You were talking to it once. The inside self, Naraku, whatever you want to call it. I asked you who you were talking to, and you said you weren't." I explained. She didn't say anything. "How am I supposed to trust you?"
"I'm sorry. I just didn't want you to know…I wasn't…right. If you knew, I thought you'd leave. Naraku said you'd hate me when you found out." She had tears in her eyes. I hadn't meant for her to cry. I kissed her head softly.
"I could never hate you, Kagura. I just…want to be able to trust you." I explained. "Will…you tell me?"
"Tell you what?" she asked, fear in her eyes. She knew what I was asking, but she had hopes I'd refrain.
"Where you went? Why you left?" I licked my lips. "What you…gave up?"
"I…don't think I can." The tears spilled over now, and I lost heart. I couldn't force her to tell me if it hurt her this much.
"Someday." I sighed, hugging her close. "Promise me that someday I'll know."
"I…" she hesitated, and I thought she'd refuse, but in the end she wilted. "Yes, someday. I promise."
"I love you." I told her. "No matter what. Remember that."
"But why?" she asked, and the words seemed so foolish, I didn't know what to say. So I showed her.
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"No, no, let me get it." I reached up over Kagura with one hand for the shelf that held the teapot she was trying to get, letting my other arm wrap around her waist. "There it is."
"You aren't letting me do anything." She told me, holding the teapot in both hands as I let my other arm pull her back against me, my nose nuzzling her hair and then down toward her pointed ear. "You'd think I was a cripple, the way you act."
"Better safe than sorry." I whispered, tracing the line of her ear with little nibbling kisses. "Didn't I say I'd take care of the move? I don't want you straining yourself. Not now, especially." My hand wandered, as it always inevitably did, to her barely swollen stomach. "Not every day that miracles happen."
"No, I guess not." There was a twinge to her voice, but I didn't bother about it. "Anyway, you seem more worried about my ear than you do about the dishes. We'll never get anywhere if I leave you in charge."
"Fine, fine." I relinquished my grip on her and took the teapot away, wrapping it with several other breakable objects in a heavy fur from our bed. "Anyway, wait until you see it. I know you'll really like the cottage. I wanted it to be somewhere you could be completely comfortable."
"And you told Ginta where to find us?" Kagura arched an eyebrow, ever attentive to details. "Or were you going to scratch a map in the dirt before leaving?"
"I told him we'd still meet here, once a month, same time as usual. And that's all he needs to know." It never sat right with me, knowing that Ginta could find my mate and I so easily. And now that Kagura was pregnant…it only made sense to leave the little cave behind us. I still remembered when she told me, only two months after Kanna left us. I had nearly wept. I couldn't believe that we would be so lucky. I didn't understand how it had happened after all, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that we were together, and in no time at all, we would be a family.
"Still, it will be sad to leave here, won't it?" she sighed sadly as I tied the bundle together tightly so nothing would be jostled when I made my third and almost final trip carrying our belongings to the new home I had bought, far from these hills, far from Ginta and Ayame and their damn son and all of Kagura's worst memories. "This was always our place."
"It was." I nodded, looking up from my work and drinking in the sight of her, hands folded over her stomach just as protectively as always. "But now we'll have a new place, won't we?"
"I guess you're right." She smiled at me and followed me out of the cave as I tried to find a comfortable way to hold up the last bundle of belongings. "Shall we fly?"
"You won't get tired?" I asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"Course not." She rolled her eyes at me and pulled a feather out of my hair. "It's the best way to travel, you know." And before I could say anything else, she had swept us both up into the air with the last of our things, and I was giving her directions. We were going home. She was pregnant, I was free, and we were together, away from the world that could never understand us. Life was good.
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Something gorgeous. I had to buy the most expensive, most beautiful, most wonderful kimono ever made. I was sure that was the only thing to do. Two nights ago, Kagura had been holding our daughter, Yumeko in her arms, cradling her and brushing at her thickening black hair with finely skilled fingers, when she had said something I had never expected to hear from her once, much less twice.
I'm pregnant.
I had been cleaning out a rice bowl, and luckily, it didn't break when I dropped it on the ground, bouncing and rolling to the side instead as I ran over to crush both my year-old infant and her mother in my arms, my happiness to strong to contain. It didn't do to think about how it could be that when she was my consort, nothing of this sort had ever happened. It didn't bother me that after all, I wasn't the one who couldn't have children, and yet it had taken Ginta to get Ayame pregnant. I think somewhere in my mind, it seemed odd. It bothered me. If that was how it was, then how had Ayame ever gotten pregnant to begin with? But I liked to write it off as the power of love or a message of destiny or something corny like that so that I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.
I hope it's a boy this time.
She'd said that, blushing and darting a wayward glance at me, searching for my reaction. I smiled at her, my face still lit up from the sheer joy of knowing that we had defied all probability once again.
I don't care, as long as it looks like you.
I told her, and she blushed so deep, it looked like her face would catch fire.
Life was good. And when something this big happened, I felt like buying her pretty things, making some grand gesture, keeping the smile on her face for as long as possible. I just wanted her to be as happy as she made me feel all the time, just by being there, being herself, and trusting me.
Well, mostly.
I still didn't know the story of what had happened two years ago. The mysterious thing she'd given up, that Kanna said she could never really recover. What her compensation had been. Why she never wanted to talk about it. It itched at my mind, and it was the one mar on what I viewed as an otherwise perfect happiness.
And that's when it happened. I was determining whether I liked the green or the blue and white kimono better when I heard a shrill scream, and before I had any time to react, there were a pair of arms around my chest, and the sound of a woman sobbing and babbling incoherently against me. It took more than a moment for me to turn and discover that I had just been spotted and attacked by none other than Ayame.
"Kouga! It's you!" My first reaction was to disappear, to melt into the crowd, to run away. This was very impossible, as Ayame had a vice-grip on my body. So I decided to go for complete denial.
"Who? What?" I figured that it could, theoretically, work. My hair was about the same length, still pulled back, but I had long ago abandoned the pelts and armor for more "human" clothing. I found that it was less obtrusive and less suspicious, and though I had gone far enough from the mountains that I really believed I'd never see the wolves again, I had still felt the need for discretion. Though, apparently, that hadn't gone exactly as I planned.
"I knew, if I just believed, I'd find you again. And I did!" she was not buying denial.
I wondered how fast you died if you bit your own tongue off.
*****
The End (Of Part 10, That Is)
