A/N: Enjoy, and don't forget to review. If you want me to update in a timely manner, let me know you're reading this and I won't leave this for months and months and months before reviewing. Of course, vacations, school, and death are reasonable reasons (my, my, what a nice phrase) to be slow on the update, don't you think?

Pairings: Sui/Kik, Sess/Kagura, Inu/Kag

Warnings: None for this chapter.

Rated: R for violence and sexual innuendo

A Labour of Love

By CocaCola43

I: In which the heroine meets the hero, and the heroine's power is tested

"Mama?" Little Kikyou rubbed her nose and prodded the horse on with her foot. "Why do I have to go?"

"You're very good at healing, Kikyou," her mother replied, her wide mouth curving down at the corners in disapproval. She didn't want Kikyou to leave. She was helpful around the house. "And that little boy needs some serious healing," she muttered under her breath. Aloud, she sighed, "But I hope you'll heal him quickly so you can come back in time to see Kaede's ceremony. She'll be going to the temple for daily lessons from next week on." Her mother smiled, imagining her younger daughter's silly grin and squeaky voice. Such a cute little girl.

"I was Kaede's age when I started my lessons, wasn't I?"

"Hush and look for golden roses. That's where they live."

"In a rosebush?"

"No, the house behind the rosebush is where Suikotsu lives. You'll be taking care of him. Now quiet before I shut you up myself." Kikyou lowered her eyes, as was polite, and gave a small nod. Her mother stopped the horse with a violent jerk of its mane and dismounted. "Come down, Kikyou. Straighten up your hair, it's a mess."

Kikyou jumped down from the chestnut brown mare. "Bye Silky," she called to the horse, her soft voice filled with melancholy. She didn't want to leave her mother and her 'sisters,' her classmates at the temple. But she could afford to leave her little sister -- Kaede was such a crybaby.

She stood next to her mother, barely reaching her waist, and looked around at all the finery. Golden roses didn't look very pretty at all.

The door slid open, a harried-looking woman with graying hair and a large nose standing in the doorway. She addressed Kikyou: "You must be the little girl who is going to cure my son. You couldn't be more welcome right now. He's having a fit...and diarrhea everywhere...we don't know what's wrong. He can't speak."

"Bye Mama." Little Kikyou followed the strange woman to her patient's room. She could hear screaming and a thud, followed by many crashes. Kikyou winced and looked down at her bare feet, only protected by thin bamboo sandals. If there was broken glass on the floor...

They entered the room and a huge wail started up again. A small, frail, little brown-haired boy was screaming at the top of his lungs. Kikyou stared. Was he really already twelve, like her mother had informed her? He looked half that. And the way he was carrying on! If she ever got it into her head to try throwing a tantrum like that at home, she'd have every arrow in the village aimed on her in seconds. Her childish mind was in awe of the apparent power of the boy before her.

"Suikotsu, honey, your little nurse has come. Her name is Kikyou. She's going to be your friend. She's a year younger than you, so you have to be a good older brother to her. Don't act like that, be a good example! Suikotsu, baby..." His mother gave up. It was useless. The stupid little thing couldn't even understand her. Couldn't even hear her, couldn't even form words. What a waste of human life.

But tears formed in her eyes.

Surprisingly, the boy calmed down. At least, the volume of his shrieks and screeched decreased by half an octave or so. As his large eyes darted around the room and landed on Kikyou, his shouts subsided completely. He gave a grunt and fell back into his pillows, left hand, dirtied with a sticky brownish liquid that reeked of digested meat and medicine, hanging over his futon.

"He's asleep," one of the young servants squeaked. "Young master has fallen asleep."

"We'll leave little Kikyou to do look after him, then." And with that everyone in the room left. Kikyou eyed the shards of porcelain carefully and crossed the room to sit on one of the small folded blankets in the corner. It was a relief to rest her legs, which were bow-legged from sitting for so many hours on the horse. She leaned against the wall and allowed her eyelids to lower. "Good night, Suikotsu. Except it's not really night, it's afternoon and I should really call you master or something or big brother but I'm really sleepy and I can't think of a really fitting..." She dozed off, ending her rant.

In his sleep, Suikotsu smiled.

Kikyou slept all the way until late evening, when she was rudely shaken awake by one of the servants. He had a worried look on his wide, sincere face.

"Young master has been shouting for several minutes now. Did you not hear him?" he said, almost in a scolding tone.

"I'm...really sorry," said Kikyou with a yawn. "I was..." She yawned again. "Sleepy."

"Go see to young master," he ordered her brusquely, pushing her toward the huddled crowd of servants.

She stretched and squeezed through the crowd to Suikotsu, who was howling and thrashing around as if in deep pain. "What is it?" she asked, stifling another yawn.

"You're supposed to tell us," Suikotsu's mother said sulkily, like a sullen child. "That's what we hired you for."

Kikyou bit her lip to restrain a retort and tasted blood. She checked her patient's pulse. Unusually fast, but then again, he was bellowing at the top of his lungs. Kikyou rested her hands on his arm and concentrated. Whatever's bothering him...just go away. Let him say what's wrong.

A soft pink light glowed from her fingertips. Those who were watching gasped. The pink light turned to a deep blood red, a dark black, and then finally a mellow blue. The servants were wide-eyed in disbelief. Such a small girl. She was so powerful!

Kikyou fainted. The servants let out their held breaths and shook their heads at each other. Such a small girl. She was so weak!

Suikotsu stopped howling and stared at the girl, his nurse. Pathetic. It just went to show that some people were unfit for their position. He smirked, or at least tried to, but it came out more like a grimace.

And you? You're weak too, but you are the young master or a rich family. You have more position than her.

'I...I can't help it! I was born weak!'

People can change, idiot, his conscience scolded him. Kikyou's not weak at all. She's a lot more powerful than we -- oh, sorry -- I mean, YOU are.

He didn't reply. But his conscience seemed very right. He had no right to judge her. He was going to say so. He felt strong. Perhaps Kikyou had given him the power or speech. He opened his mouth...

"Ehw doutthink Ehwhae rituzhugh Keeko," he said.

It was the most coherent sentence he'd ever uttered in his short life. Actually, the first sentence. Ever.

His mother jerked his head around and stared. So did everyone else. Except Kikyou, who was out cold.

"Did you just...you just did...what?" She was gaping at him.

"Hwunguhbleh," he said. Not so coherent. He was mentally beating himself up.

His mother sighed. "I knew it was too good to be true."

Suikotsu was in deep confusion. For a moment there, he'd felt the words. He automatically knew how the lips were supposed to move, how his tongue was supposed to twist, how pressing different amounts of air would make words end with finality. But when he'd opened his mouth, nothing came out except for his usual gibberish. It was...pathetic. For all he knew -- everything, any explanation for the universe or for mankind he'd ever thought up during those lonely months shut up in his own brain -- it would be useless if he couldn't express those theories to others. It was a frightening thought, being alone with volumes of textbooks and resentful feelings in his own mind, with only the cynical and often harshly truth voice of the only friend he had -- himself.

But no. He still had other people. One of the servants, the little girl with the toothy grin was nice to him -- nicer than the other servants. And he had his nurse. Kikyou.

It was somewhat of a derogatory feeling to be taken care of by a girl younger than himself. Kikyou was a head taller than him. Healthy. Powerful. But she was someone to talk -- or at least grunt -- to. Besides, he liked her bangs. They were huge and looked like they had been chopped straight with an axe. Clunky, and yet...fitting.

There came a vibration, a particularly strong one, and a feeling of extreme heat and humidity. The heat wave passed, and one of the servants handed him a cup of hot water, seemingly forgetting for the moment that Suikotsu's tiny hands couldn't grasp anything too hot. He slopped some hot water on his blankets and howled. His leg was burning!

Kikyou rushed over and pressed a cold wet towel on the burn. The towel had some of her miko power in it, making the burn heal over in a matter of seconds. The pain faded away, to be replaced by numbness and relief.

"It should be all right now," Kikyou said. Suikotsu, over his years of staring at people while they talked, had learned that when people said certain words their mouth move in a certain way. He had often tried to imitate these movements, but he was thick-tongued and couldn't form anything. He knew whenever he made a mistake, because his mouth would twist in a way that was different from the person speaking. And then he would fume and wonder why he was so different. He would wish he had power. Like his mother and father. Like Kikyou.

But even Kikyou proved not to be as powerful as Suikotsu imagined. Now almost seventeen, during the years that had passed since she first arrived at the strange household, Suikotsu had failed to make any improvement. The haughty mistress of the house, Suikotsu's mother, blamed Kikyou as the sole reason why her son was not improving. However, Kikyou remained Suikotsu's nurse, much to the bewilderment of the servants, who had heard stories of Mistress throwing out anyone who didn't heal her son in a matter of minutes.

The only good thing anyone could say about his health was that he was growing taller. Suikotsu was now the height of his mother. He was still a bit shorter than Kikyou, who was beginning to blossom into a great beauty. Sometimes, instead of thinking about his illness, Suikotsu would wonder what would have happened if he were a normal boy and met Kikyou by chance...in his daydreams, he almost always saved Kikyou from a rampaging bear demon, or a pig demon, or a dragon demon. Sometimes they worked together to defeat the demon, and afterwards they would sit together on a precipice overlooking the beautiful ocean, discussing things in life and sometimes even matters of romance. Mostly these dreams would end when he gently asked Kikyou to marry him, and Kikyou would blush and say yes. He was too inexperienced to imagine married life, but he knew that they would be very happy together.

But he wasn't a normal boy; he was an invalid and he would be destined to be like this forever, he'd remind himself. He'd never be allowed to love Kikyou. And every time this thought passed his mind, he began to cry.

A/N: Thank you for reading. Now, please drop off a review. I only write if anybody's reading it, so...