NOTE: In the Brothers Grimm version, the wicked queen tried to kill Snow White herself three times: first with a bodice with laces that tightened on their own, suffocating her; second with a poisoned comb that Snow White put in her hair; and third with the poisoned apple.
Edited: 11/23/11
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or Snow White.
Black as Night, White as Snow
Chapter Three: Seven Odd Friends
"Hi ho! Hi ho! It's off to work we go! Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum! Hi ho! Hi ho! Hi OW!"
SMACK
"MIROKU! Could we go to the Shikon no Tama mines at least once in our god forsaken lives without that song?"
"But Sango, my love, it's so heart lifting that I couldn't work without it!" Miroku cheerfully answered the fuming brunette.
"By the way you're talking, I don't think anything about you is working!" Sango retorted before stomping off to catch up with their five friends.
The violet-eyed man pouted for a split second before rushing after his favorite coworker.
Shippou giggled as he skipped in circles around his group members. "It's -ahh- almost -ahh- over -choo!" he sang while sneezing (obviously). The pollen from the forest was irritating his sensitive fox nose.
"Yes, my child. Thy curse is soon to be over," an ancient woman, donning priestess robes, drawled slowly to the redheaded kitsune around an enormous yawn. "Finally," she added under her breath as an afterthought.
Another demon, part-demon to be exact, with an evil, dark aura surrounding him, cackled darkly. "Yes! And then I'll be able to set forth another one of my brilliant plans!"
THWACK
"You idiot!" Sango roared, her hiraikotsu clutched firmly in her hand. The giant boomerang seemed to be sporting a new dent where it had collided with something extremely solid; specifically, his head.
Naraku narrowed his crimson eyes as he rubbed his aching temple. "That was uncalled for," he grumbled.
A demoness, firmly clutching a fan, laughed lightly. "Anything you get, you deserve, Naraku," she spat at the red-eyed man. "It is your fault after all…" She allowed her sentence trail off, because everyone present knew exactly what she was referencing without her finishing the thought out loud.
"Come now! People, as Shippou delightedly pointed out," here Miroku smiled at the young kit, "the curse, our punishment, is almost over!" He laughed merrily, marching on ahead of the others.
"Dur?" a sandy-haired boy asked. His face was split into an idiotic, foolish grin.
"Ah! Since you asked, Hojo, the curse shall finally be lifted in exactly…" Miroku's purple gaze drifted toward the eldest of the group.
The gray-haired priestess quirked an eyebrow (the only visible one since the second was hidden under an eye patch) at the monk. "Three weeks," Kaede finished for him.
"Thank you, Lady Kaede." Miroku smiled kindly at her.
"About damn time, too," Sango muttered darkly, her eyebrows knotted in frustration and anger over livid eyes.
Hojo nodded enthusiastically.
Suddenly, Kagura stopped walking, her red eyes darting around the clearing with suspicion. "Something's off," she muttered, snapping her open fan out to her side before sweeping it slowly across her front. Her power over the wind brought an odd aura quickly flowing back toward the group on the draft she'd summoned.
Shippou stopped to sniff the air and smiled slightly at the soft, feminine scent. Naraku scoffed at the odd power the aura carried but clearly didn't find it threatening… the egotistical bastard. Kagura's eyes narrowed in instant distrust. Sango's sharp senses from growing up as a demon slayer made her tense in anticipation.
And Miroku grinned. His 'natural' woman-sensing instincts told him that whoever the owner of this new power was, it was female.
Yay!
"Kirara?" Sango whispered softly, poking her head into the cottage and peering around at her pitch-black surroundings.
"Mew," was the soft answer. The cat walked out of the shadows of the kitchen and began to rub up against her mistress's legs. Miroku sneaked in behind the demon slayer, his hand accidentally bushing something that earned him a new bump on the head.
"Lady Sango, I do believe you are getting stronger," he said casually, rubbing his hairline, already feeling a lump forming.
"Be quiet ye two, thy power ye sense comes from inside thou home," Kaede told them sleepily, her drowsy voice mixing with her strange way of speaking in a way that made it extra difficult to decipher what she was saying.
"It is," Kagura agreed, as she let herself in behind the others.
"Only one way to find out who it is," Sango stated bravely as she unsheathed her katana. The sharp sword glittered in the dying light of their lantern. Miroku merely shrugged as he held tightly onto his golden staff, and Shippou gently took out his spinning top. Hopefully, the fox cub thought, this person was extremely idiotic and would fall for the trick. (No one ever did.)
They began to lead the way for the rest, and the odd group crept up the stairs. Opening the door a crack, the flickering light fell onto the face of the intruder of their home.
"Oh," Sango squeaked, surprised.
Kagome's dreams were interrupted, and she was slowly dragged out of unconsciousness. After taking her time getting her bearings, she allowed her blue eyes to flutter open. And seven pairs of eyes met hers: green (Shippou), magenta (Sango), purple (Miroku), brown (Kaede), dull blue (Hojo), crimson (Naraku), and scarlet (Kagura).
"Oh, uhm, hello…?"
"Who are you?" the young woman, the owner of the magenta eyes, demanded sharply. "And why the hell didn't Kirara stop you?" Kirara, sensing hostility toward her new friend whom she led to their home, leapt up onto the bed. The cat crept over and curled up on Kagome's chest, hoping to convince Sango to calm down and trust the new blue-eyed woman.
"Mew," she meowed pitifully.
A look of hurt flashed on Sango's face at her friend's actions. "Kirara!"
Kagome smiled down at the ball of fluff. "She's sweet," she commented. "She brought me here. I wouldn't have stayed, if I'd known I was trespassing."
"Don't worry about that, my dearest lady! Please forgive your rude awakening," the violet-eyed man stepped forward, gallantly sweeping his arm in front of him in a bow.
Kagome raised an eyebrow at his purple and black robes, a style she immediately recognized. He was clearly a monk. There had been quite a few of those back at the palace.
"Forgive us?" Naraku growled, outraged. "She is lying in my bed!"
Kagura chuckled. "And she'll probably be the only woman to ever do so, Naraku."
Kagome frowned, forcibly letting that comment go over her head. "I'm sorry… Naraku, was it?" She unsteadily stood up and reluctantly moved away from the bed she'd been sleeping in. And that's when she noticed something. She was looking down at the six adults (and the one child) in the room, not up.
And then she fainted.
Something felt very cold and…
Wet?
Yes, that was definitely wet, Kagome realized. Something crept slowly down her neck, and she giggled involuntarily at the ticklish feeling. She reached up and pulled a cool rag off her forehead, more droplets of water following the first one.
"I see ye are awake," here Kaede paused to yawn, "my child."
"Hmm?" Kagome asked groggily as she sat up for the second time that night to look into the old priestess's brown eye. She yawned into her cupped hands and then frowned thoughtfully as the past twenty-four hours rushed through her mind.
"Ye fainted," Kaede explained.
"Really? I hadn't noticed," Kagome answered dryly, smiling weakly.
Miroku chuckled from where he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. "Sarcastic, are you? Just what we need, another one of those."
"Yes," Sango huffed. "We don't get enough of it from Miroku and Kagura already."
"I am not sarcastic." Kagura glowered from her position at the table in the corner of the bedroom. "I am simply very witty."
Naraku laughed harshly. "You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart," he told her coldly as he looked down at his cards. "Got any threes?"
Kagura smirked. "Go fish."
Discreetly, Naraku stuck his tongue out at her as he bent over to grab a new card.
THUNK
"Oof!"
"I saw that, Naraku!" Kagura snapped, bringing her foot back down from under the table.
"I noticed!" he growled right back at her.
"Will you two shut up!" Sango roared before turning back to the now-conscious young woman, her pink kimono swishing with the dramatic movement.
Miroku smiled kindly at his friend. "Calm down, Sango."
"Five years, Miroku!" Sango said in a strained voice. "I've had to listen to this for five years!"
Miroku shrugged. "I certainly didn't mind listening to you for five years, my lady."
Sango flushed pink and turned away quickly, scowling in a knee-jerk reaction of denial.
"So," Kagome dragged the word out, trying to figure out why these seven completely different… people… would be together for five years in such a remote cottage in the middle of the woods. "Uhm…"
"Yes, child?" Kaede asked kindly from Kagome's side.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but… what are you?" Kagome blurted out before she could stop herself. The seven other occupants stopped whatever they were doing to face her.
Miroku stood up to face her. "A monk, a demon slayer, a fox cub, a priestess, a human, a part-demon, and a wind sorceress."
Noticing she'd been moved back to the bed she'd fallen asleep in, Kagome looked down at her hands. "I kind of figured that. I mean…" She desperately searched for some words that wouldn't be taken the wrong way.
"Why do we look so normal, except for barely being three feet tall?" Sango asked gently.
"Yeah," Kagome said.
"Dwarves," Sango answered. "We're dwarves. We weren't born dwarves, but we are them now."
Silently, Kagome eyed the seven 'dwarves' critically. Sango was right, she figured. If they were dwarves, natural ones, they'd be stockier. But all of them, except for the child, just looked like they had been shrunk to half their normal height. They had the same proportions as they would if they were the size of an average height adult. "So, then, what are you?" she echoed, perplexed.
Miroku took a deep breath, "A monk, a demon slayer, a—!"
"I got that already," Kagome interrupted while rubbing her temples. "I mean, if you aren't 'natural' dwarves, what kind are you?"
Miroku pouted. "Well, you could have just asked that!"
Ignoring the hurt look on the monk's face, Kagome turned to the redheaded child tugging at her sleeve.
The cub smiled widely. "I'm Shippou! You kn-fftttf?"
Not quite catching his question through his surprisingly loud sneeze, Kagome quirked an eyebrow. "What was that?"
Pausing to make sure he wasn't about to sneeze again, Shippou twitched his nose in concentration. "I said, 'You know what'?" Then he did a little cheer and dance when the sentence came out without being interrupted by another sneeze.
Kagome smiled down at the fox. "No, what?"
Grinning, Shippou answered, "I used to be the same size as they are now, but," here he paused to sneeze, "now I'm only this tall." He tilted his head toward his tiny body. He was less than a foot and a half tall. Kagome could easily hold him in her arms.
"You know what?" she asked, leaning forward with her blue eyes twinkling.
"What?" Shippou answered promptly, his own green eyes sparkling in a similar manner. Two of kind, they were.
"You are the cutest thing I've ever seen!" she announced and welcomed the hug Shippou launched at her.
"Thank you!"
"Aww," Miroku cooed. Sango's frown twitched a little, but stayed. Still, she looked closer to smiling than she had all evening.
"Ugh," Naraku groaned, turning away just in time to spot Kagura using her fan to tilt his cards her way for a glimpse. "HEY!"
"…Oops?"
"So, my lady, you have yet to explain why you are in the middle of the forest all alone," Miroku pointed out as Kagome scooped the soup she'd whipped up into everyone's bowls.
Uncomfortable, Kagome shifted a little where she was standing. "And you have yet to explain why you are dwarves, but not really dwarves."
Now Miroku was the one who looked uncomfortable. "Well, you see… Anyway!" He clapped his hands together, obviously ready to change the subject. Turning to Hojo, he gasped. "You have my cup!"
Kagome eyed the monk strangely. "How can you tell?"
Sango switched her gaze to the newest member of their weird group. "Kagome, when we first came here to live together, there was exactly eight of everything. Shippou," here she stared stonily at the fox cub, "went around and wrote nicknames on everything."
"Including the backs of chairs, plates, brooms, beds, lanterns, forks, spoons, and even onto every tag of our clothes," Kagura listed coldly.
"Nicknames?" Kagome echoed, her eyebrows arched in slight confusion.
Naraku snickered. "When we arrived, seven of the cups already had seven names written on them, the eighth one was blank."
Kaede sighed. "Thy child felt thy need to assign us each one, and then label everything else with everyone's new nicknames."
Shippou's nose twitched as he thought carefully about how to word his explanation so the others wouldn't get mad at him if he spilled too much information about their situation. "Each of the nicknames fit at least one of us, so it wasn't that hard. When we were sent here, it was almost as if that woman knew our characteristics and—"
Sango shuddered. "Shippou!"
Immediately intrigued, Kagome leaned forward, hoping they were finally getting somewhere. "What woman?"
Miroku muttered quickly, "No woman."
"Sure," Kagome answered slowly, eyeing them all carefully. Deciding she could weasel some information out of them later, she changed the subject. "What names do you all have?"
Obviously proud, Shippou straightened up, already forgetting that he'd slipped up earlier. "I sneeze a lot with my sensitive fox nose, especially in this dump, so I got 'Sneezy!' Kaede-bachan is always so tired, so I named her 'Sleepy.'" The little boy broke off his explanation for a timely sneeze.
Sango cut in. "And I got 'Happy,'" she muttered darkly, as her pinkish eyes glinted with malice.
Miroku chuckled. "I talked Shippou into that one." Sango eyed him coldly, but Miroku simply shrugged of her dark look. "You are positively sweet, Lady Sango, when you aren't worked up."
Sango blushed, and Naraku sneered, looking at the color heating her face. "And I was the one that got 'Bashful!'"
Looking ready to fight, Sango glared at him, but Shippou piped up, his fit of sneezes having passed. "There wasn't a 'Quiet' or 'Disdainfully Silent' nickname, so I thought 'Bashful' would do!" Shippou huffily defended himself.
"Right," Kagura said. "And I got 'Grumpy,' and I simply don't know why!" she complained. "Sango should have gotten it. But at least I don't have 'Doc'!" At this, she cast a sneer at Miroku.
In response, the monk looked perplexed. "I guess I got the name since I'm a man of the cloth and know some healing," the monk explained.
Kagome ticked off on her fingers. "So that leaves… Hojo?"
Kagura and Naraku sniggered, and the demoness commented sweetly, "Shippou said that by the time everyone else was assigned a name, only 'Dopey' was left. Poor Hojo had no choice."
Hojo was too busy blowing bubbles in his stew with a straw to notice the obvious insult.
"That bastard! Damn Sesshoumaru! Just because he is the 'Lord' or king or whatever, he thinks he can control me," Inuyasha shouted, outraged as he stomped through the forest. He charged through roughly, snapping off branches and crunching leaves in his wake.
He had gone back home and had talked to his brother to try to clear up the 'misunderstanding' of him being the fiancé of Kikyou, but Sesshoumaru insisted it wasn't a 'misunderstanding' at all. The union was needed to unite the Western and Northern Lands. Sesshoumaru was certainly not going to marry a human, so Inuyasha had to be the one to do it.
"I don't want to get married! I want to stay single! I don't even know Queeny! How can Fluffy just expect me to marry her?" Every statement was sharply punctuated.
And so Inuyasha did the smart thing… He left his home and ran away into the forest— without food or water or directions.
Oh, yeah. It was the smart thing to do.
"You are so dead, Sesshoumaru!"
Kikyou's nose twitched as she stared deeply into her foggy reflection. Suddenly, the fog began to swirl, and a lone figure walked up to the front of the mirror to face the queen. "Kanna, you're late," Kikyou snapped, her cold voice hardened. Her steely gray eyes flickered over the keeper of the mirror, the young demon child. It was the morning after Kagome had disappeared.
"Sorry, my Queen, but I was… busy…" the white haired female whispered.
"Whatever. Tell me where my lovely sister is." The words seemed to burn in Kikyou's mouth, and she spat them out as though they were poison.
Kanna slowly lowered her own round mirror from where she had it clutched to her chest. Whispering a few words, her magic showed her images of part of Kagome's evening the night before. Doing some quick thinking, the young girl responded:
"Five years ago, seven very different people came together,
After a mistake, a curse was laid, one without a cure.
In three short weeks, the curse shall lift, but until then,
Help to the maiden Kagome, they shall lend."
"So now my sister has help?" Kikyou demanded. "How? She's in the middle of a forest between two kingdoms! There is nothing there but the Shikon no Tama mines, and those have been shut down for decades." Kanna remained silent as she watched the queen's perfect, porcelain skin turn red with frustration. "Show me them," Kikyou commanded after regaining her calm. Kanna sighed and lifted her own small mirror up so that the queen could spy on her sibling. In the mirror, Kikyou watched her sister sitting down in the morning light, handing out bowls of rice and some eggs.
"My lady, Kagome, what are your plans? Where are you staying in this forest?" a man in purple asked.
Kagome hesitated. "I guess… I don't have any place to go," she admitted reluctantly.
"So sorry to hear that," a man with long, wavy hair cooed. His voice dripped with sarcasm.
Kikyou watched as her sister merely shrugged at the insulting tone.
"Then, you can stay here with us, but on one condition," a pretty brunette announced as her pink eyes flashed with seriousness.
"Anything," Kagome agreed. "Hopefully I'll be able to go back home in a short time."
Kikyou snorted as her stepsibling's optimism. "I wouldn't count on that," she hissed to the image, although of course no one in the mirror actually heard her.
"Well, you see…" The brunette trailed off as her eyes swept over the many layers of dust and piles of dirty dishes surrounding them.
"…We need you to do us a favor," the monk smoothly cut in. "If you keep this home clean, you are welcome to stay as long as you'd like."
Kagome eyed him warily. "Why is it so dirty here?"
A demoness blushed with obvious embarrassment. "We aren't tall enough to wield the brooms."
Kagome giggled before sticking out her hand to seal the deal.
Oh, how Kikyou detested that giggle. It was almost as if it magnified the beauty of the young woman. But soon— yes, very soon— she wouldn't have to worry about that despicable loveliness. Kikyou walked away from the mirror, slowly descending the spiral steps of her tower to make her way to the dungeon.
"It's time to step in and do this myself," she muttered darkly.
Kagome smiled as she dug into the breakfast she'd made in honor of her new friends allowing her to stay the night. But these seven odd friends unnerved her a little. Not because of their appearance or even the evil auras coming off one or two of them, but because of the secret they seemed to hold. For the life of her, she couldn't figure it out.
So far Kagome understood that somehow a monk, a demon slayer, a fox cub, a human, a priestess, a part-demon, and a wind sorceress had been turned into dwarves. Kagome had also overheard Miroku and Sango talking in the garden when she'd woken up within a nest of blankets on the bedroom floor. They were saying something about a curse being lifted in three weeks.
Shippou had happily told Kagome that the group had lived together in the cottage for five years. Well, it would be five years in three weeks. Kagura and Naraku had explained (tersely and in as unhappy a tone as possible) that during the day they all mined some type of jewel nearby. Kagura had specifically used the words, 'To pay off a debt.'
Scooping up another forkful, Kagome sighed.
Who had cursed these seven people… and why?