Wow, I got my first review for this one faster than my Ranma/YYH fanfic. O.o Cool! :D Please remember, this story does use some very crude language and will have the occasional scene of brief non-sexual nudity. Not that I bother to describe anything besides 'walking without clothes'. Use your own imaginations. ;P
Chapter Two.
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"Do you have to keep doing that, you thrice-bedamned cocky little fox?" Aisling hisses angrily from somewhere near the ceiling of the small room. Yoko still stands where he was when he snuck up on her to lean over her shoulder and whisper 'boo' in her ear. He grins up at her now in open merriment at the sight of her short hair practically standing on end, the fur trim of her outfit puffed out in shock, cat-like claws sunk into the rock of the ceiling, and her turquoise eyes glaring at him with something akin to hatred.
She carefully dislodges her grip and pushes at the rock, sealing her fingerholds as though the rock of the ceiling is nothing more than wet clay, before dropping light as thistledown back to the floor, baring her small fangs at him and resuming the work of cracking the combination lock on the safe.
"It's so much fun watching you jump," he whispers back amusedly. She just starts muttering a long list of uncomplimentary things and names at him while she listens with one softly-pointed ear to the gears behind the combo's lock, describing his mating habits and the circumstances of his conception and birth with intricate detail. With every name and insult his smile just gets broader and broader, until he's practically grinning ear to ear. "I didn't know you were part Arctic Fox. Or so creative."
"Why don't you go bite your manhood off?" Aislin mutters in frustration at him, about ready to whirl and rip his throat out when the lock clicks and the heavy safe door starts to swing open. She stops it and gingerly reaches around it, disarming the trap attached to the door that's set for when the door is opened fully and only then letting the door swing open. With her usual care she sweeps the safe's contents into her backpack and swings the bag onto her back with a breathless grunt at the weight and shuts the door, spinning the dial around until it rests on the number she'd found it on and turning to go.
Yoko blocks her way. "Move, baka kitsune."
"On one condition."
"That I don't gut you where you stand?"
That grin that she's starting to despise somehow manages to get bigger. "That you go out on a date with me."
It takes every drop of self-control not to screech 'what??' or to take out one of her special blades and shred him on the spot. "Why the hells would I go and do such a stupid thing like that?" she hisses in fury.
"Because then I'd leave you alone. And 'cause if you don't, I'm gonna trip an alarm on purpose and watch you try and escape."
"You'd get caught much more faster," Aislin murmurs firmly. One silver eyebrow just rises in curiosity.
"And why do you say that?"
"Because I can just do this." After flipping him off, she simply dissolves into a whirl of snowflakes that spin around him mockingly before sweeping out the door, leaving him with an empty safe and five or six alarms screaming for security.
"One of these days," ha says at a normal voice, "I'm going to win her over." Then he simply blurs into invisibility and is gone, leaving a frost snowflake on the floor and a white rose petal on top of it.
===
"I didn't know you were capable of something like that, Aisuhana-chan," he tells her later when he catches up with the petite koorime outside of a nice sidewalk café. She's sitting quietly in one of the ironwork chairs, sipping on a cup of hot chocolate and reading a hardback book.
"Like what? Leaving you to hang or turning into snow?" she returns calmly with one eyebrow raised, hardly sparing him a glance.
"Both," he admits, settling into the chair across from her and shivering when an early snowflake floats onto the tip of his nose. "Brr, it's cold!"
"Only to everyone else, maybe," she purrs, taking another sip of her drink. "This is actually on the warm side for me."
"According to my sources, your internal thermometer's backwards on everything."
"I'll let you keep on believing that." Getting to her feet, she swallows the last of her drink, closes the book and hefts her bag onto her back, leaving a silver coin on the table as payment. Whistling faintly, she starts walking off into the growing blizzard.
"Hey, wait up!" Yoko calls, running to catch up with the startlingly quick Aislin. "You never said yes or no."
"To a date?" She looks at him from with corner of her eyes, incredulous. "Do you ever give up?"
"Nope! So, yes or no?"
"Let me put it to you in ways you might understand. Were I the last female in the three worlds, and you were the last male and looking like the Adonis himself with twice as much wit and wisdom, I would still refuse to share even so much as your company. To put it bluntly: not now, not in a million years, not ever, will I enjoy your company. Fuck yourself, Yoko. I won't be doing it for you." And she vanishes into the falling snow.
"Damn, I wish I could do that," he says cheerfully to himself as he turns and strolls back to the café while visibility is still good.
===
"Look, I don't feel like fighting right now. So I suggest you all just turn around and leave me be," Aislin says in that dangerously soft voice, looking at the numerous slavering demons that have surrounded her. It's now deep winter, and she's resorted to wearing that knee-length sleeveless kimono. This one is in much better shape than the one Hiei had first found her wearing, and is pale blue in color with a white obi. She's caught a cold while wandering--gods only know how--and she knows fighting will only make it worse. But it seems she has no choice.
"Pretty meat," one hisses greedily. "Tasty meat," another agrees, taking a shambling step forward. Aislin sighs, and places the palm of one hand against the fisted thumb of the other.
"I didn't want to do this, but you've signed your own deaths today," she sighs, pulling her hands apart and letting the blade glow with rei in the gray light. "Take your time, I'm in no hurry." Screeching in bloodcurdling voices the whole group launches itself at her, intent on doing many painful and unpleasant things to her pale flesh.
The first one impales itself on her blade, the next has its neck broken when the wiry thief-fighter slams the impaled demon into it, slinging both bodies away from her and into their comrades at the same time. Falling snowflakes begin to burn into the skins of the horde like acid, and pain-filled screams start replacing the hungry ones of those still coming. "Fools," Aislin scorns, dancing around the group and leaving chaos and death in her wake.
It is a matter of minutes before the world falls silent once again, save for the sound of one person's heavy breathing. Aislin stands in the middle of a circle of destruction, scratched and bleeding in a dozen places, more blood soaking her kimono and skin. Aislin looks down at herself and lets the blade fall into the snow to vanish, chuckling weakly. "Damn, and this was one of my favorite outfits, too."
"I'm surprised you lived through it," a voice scolds her from a few feet away. Through blurring vision she looks over to find Yoko stepping neatly through the carnage, concern marring that incredibly handsome face as he approaches with his silver coloring and white clothes making him harder to see against the snow. Only that perfectly tanned skin and the vibrant amber eyes are easily seen. "You've got a fever, I can feel the cold off you from here."
"Fuck off, fox," she rasps with a throat suddenly coated with sandpaper, pride making her straighten her spine to glare at him with what little energy she has left. "I don't need…" Her traitorous knees buckle, and the damned perfidious world begins to tilt as the light starts disappearing, "…your…help." She barely feels him catching her as her mind is swept up in a snowstorm of her own making.
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I can still remember some of those fever dreams, and I wish I couldn't. I'm beginning to think that precognition, or at least dream-sight, really is one of my gifts, which would explain a couple of things. Most of those dreams were images or brief words, and I shall try to write them down as best I can, because they turned out to be very important.
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An empty plain covered in snow. A white smile in a tanned face.
A blood-wine jewel held in someone's palm, now hung in the ear of a silver fox mask that opens amber-bead eyes and blinks.
"I promise I'll be back by morning."
"You've always been too stubborn, both of you!"
A tower standing against the backdrop of a full moon above a quiet sea. No, a light-house. No, a white fox that keens a song of pain and sorrow.
Laughter, the sounds of a fire and food cooking. "Love to."
"Fire and ice."
"Apologize to Koenma for me when you wake up."
A silvery snowflake spread on a cool grey surface, with words on it. A white rose growing from a once-stunning brooch. A broken chain lying in a glittering silver coil half in, half out of a puddle of blood. Blood. So much blood. All the world seems bathed in it. The sun turns a crimson smile filled with fangs towards a tiny blur of white.
"…your dreams have become the Void…"
The Void, a place where taste becomes sight, hearing becomes taste, sight becomes hearing, where there is no up or down but what you make it. Serenity itself. Nothing to bother a weary traveler, as weariness melts away. It's so quiet.
"Aislin." The Dreamer turns peaceful eyes the color of a tropical sea towards the violet-black dragon sitting in the nothingness in front of her, and smiles.
"Hello. Am I Dreaming?"
"Why are you here?" The question binds her with itself, tiny threads that knot and wrap themselves around the wondering Dreamer. From within and without, a voice the Dreamer knows as her own, and her Truth, speaks into the star-filled night.
"Because I have always been here. Because I am looking."
The dragon seems startled, for it blurs a moment into a crimson-eyed young man with hair black as sin and spangled with the outline of a single nova, and then resolves back into the dragon. "What are you looking for?"
The Dreamer smiles; she likes this game. "I don't know."
"You need to go back, Aislin. Your body dies while you are here."
"Body? You are silly. A Dream doesn't need a body. Come taste silver with me."
"Wake up, Aislin." The words are nothing short of a command this time, and the Dreamer cries out when blue-white bands snap around her wrists, her ankles, pulling back to a reality she doesn't care about anymore. "I'm still keeping an eye on you, you know." Before darkness claims her again, her mind is filled by a single eye with a iris of glimmering violet, with a reassuring black-clad boy smiling at her from the pupil.
"Come on, Aisuhana, wake up," a worried voice pleads from very far away. The still white form on the pile of furs groans and reaches up with a shaky hand to bat away the folded cloth chilling her forehead.
"'S cold," comes the faint grumble. The faraway voice chokes and the half-awake koorime is swept into a fierce hug by tanned arms.
"Oh, thank Inari! You are still alive!" A warning growl, however weak and thready, warns him to lay her back down before her fangs find purchase in his chest.
"Of course I'm still alive, you damned fox," Aislin rasps hoarsely, staring at him with fogged turquoise eyes. "I feel too terrible to be dead." Yoko gazes at her warmly, drinking in the sight of her fever-thinned, flushed face giving him that precious glare that he thought he'd never see again. Without even looking, his hands move to a green bowl beside him and retrieve a cloth, wringing it out thoroughly before attempting to place it on her forehead. It too, is batted away in irritation, and the look now clearly says 'next one's going to be teeth'. He finds himself chuckling weakly as worry and stress just flow away.
"I'm not surprised about that," he tells her, scooting a bit closer to attempt feeding her with a lukewarm bowl of broth. "You've been out for, let's see, about two weeks."
"Two weeks?" she squeaks in dismay, staring at him. He takes the opportunity to pop a spoonful of broth into her open mouth. She bites the bowl of the spoon in half, swallows the broth, and spits out the remainder of the spoon. "Don't do that."
"I'll have you know you were easier to take care of half-dead," Yoko grumbles in annoyance, grabbing another spoon that he had ready. To his surprise, his unwilling patient snorts, attempts to restrain anything else and fails, and breaks down in a fit of helpless giggling. Confused, her gives her his best uncertain smile and she starts giggling harder, rolling onto her side under the top layer of furs and clutching at her ribs.
"Your face!" she gasps when she catches a breath. "I think that's the first time I've ever seen you annoyed! Oh, that was so funny!" She starts calming down, catches sight of that uncertain smile with his ears tilted different directions, shoulders hunched like a pup expecting to get scolded, and is overcome with another giggle-fit. It takes her a good four or five minutes to get herself to stop, and that mostly because she ran out of breath and the energy to giggle.
Encouraged by this new reaction, Yoko plumps a couple of pillows behind her and helps her sit up, settling the bowl in her lap and handing her the spoon while he picks up the half-dozen or so emerald-green tears gems that had leaked out during her giggle-fit and putting them into a small pouch. "If you can get even one bite of that on your own, I won't try to feed you unless you ask. But if you can't, I feed you without having to worry about the loss of another spoon. Deal?" He politely drops the pouch onto the furs next to her hip and cocks his head to one side, waiting for her answer.
"Can I complain about it?"
"Yes."
"Deal, then." She makes a good try at it, but ends up spilling most of it onto the towel he's spread across her front. Deftly he plucks the spoon from her trembling fingers and refills it with the broth.
"Say 'ah'," he tells her teasingly.
"How about I tell you ah--mphf!" She glares at him weakly while swallowing. "--shove it," she finishes grumpily and frowns, rolling the taste of the broth around in her mouth before asking, "What is this stuff? Deer?"
"A human creature called a cow. The meat is called beef. One of my men brought it over last week, and we've decided to smoke most of it."
"Not bad," is the grudging comment. He just looks at her expectantly. Giving in, she opens her mouth and says, "Ah."
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It took me another week to get any kind of strength back, and even then I couldn't walk to the bathroom by myself. Yoko would scoop me up now and again and take me on a tour of his caves and the band of thieves who lived there, all of them under his command. I think either he threatened them or the ready-to-bite expression I wore whenever he carried me around scared them off, for not a single interested glance was sent my way. Of course, just because I couldn't walk on my own didn't mean I was going to stop being as stubborn as hell.
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"You should still be in bed, Aisuhana," Yoko scolds his 'patient' while trying to support her without making it look like he is. The two are traveling slowly down Aislin's street, heading for her apartment that had been guarded by some of the silver fox's band while the ice apparition was recovering. "You can't fight in your condition."
"Fuck it, fox, keep your voice down!" she hisses at him, pulling off the illusion that she supported him much more convincingly than he did. "You want the whole neighborhood to hear??"
"So what?" His expression is mulish, ears flattened back in serious disapproval and the stubborn streak she is starting to respect.
"Use that so called brilliant brain of yours, bakayarou!" she snarls under her breath. "This is a town of thieves, brigands, and cutthroats. They aren't above coshing you over the head and robbing you clean, and I want to get out of here in one piece."
"This fox botherin' you, Aisu-san?" A man she recognizes as the fighter she'd given a gold chain and a jewel-setting to (and later befriended out of boredom) walks up, looking to be in much better shape than he used to be and rather annoyed at the causal way this silver stranger seems to be manhandling his benefactor. "I'd be happy to send him on his way, if'n you want." This is accompanied by a popping of knuckles and a rather hopeful and bloodthirsty smile.
She gives the man a wicked grin as his name surfaces in her memory. "Actually…" Yoko makes a very unhappy sound from beside her and she relents. "No, Mizu-san, he's not. Well, he is, but nothing I can't handle. Thanks for the offer though, I'll remember you made it." In thieves' cant that means that she'd remember and offer him a good turn if such an opportunity presents itself. "How's business?"
The man's face breaks into a crooked smile. "Own it. My own merc company an' everythin'. I got married last month to this pretty little thing that worked at Tik's and we're expectin' sometime roun' August."
"That's great to hear," she tells him warmly, reaching out and giving his wrist a congratulatory clasp. "Just see you don't end up on the wrong side of me someday, ne?"
He laughs and nods, cat-green eyes sparkling with health and humor. "Aye, that! And it's all thanks to you, Aisu-san. If the chance t'do you a good turn comes up, and it ain't somethin' I won't do, look me up. Desu ne?"
"I will. Jya ne, Mizu-san." And the cat demon walks away, whistling casually with his hands in his pockets. Yoko is staring down at her in disbelief.
"By Inari, you can be nice!"
"I'm nice to people I like," she retorts as they resume walking. Well, he walks, she gets half-carried. "You are a stubborn pain-in-the-ass that doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'no', and who always interrupts me in the middle of work to be even more of a pain in the ass."
"I helped you, didn't I?"
"Did I ask for it?" she counters coldly, and is abruptly let go. She quickly locks her knees and glares at the hurt-looking thief glaring right back at her.
"If you think you can walk back to your home alone, fine. If not, you can call that fighter back. I've tried being annoying and I've tried being nice. I've even tried being myself and still you reject me. I've had enough. I'm going home." And he turns and stalks off, tail lashing to show all the world his distress. Snorting, Aislin looks around and narrows her eyes at the apparitions and demons staring at her and the retreating Yoko.
"Don't you all have some business to take care of?" she asks icily, and abruptly the bystanders all find something that they've forgotten to do that must be done right now. Within seconds, the cramped little street is empty, leaving Aislin to grumble quietly under her breath and begin slowly making her way home.
She gets about fifteen feet before her legs begin trembling and she starts to fall over. But before that can happen, a hand firmly catches hold of her elbow and braces her illness-weakened body. Her startled turquoise eyes find Mizu standing beside her, looking amused.
"You really are a snake-eater at heart, ain'tcha, Aisu-san?"
"Takes one to know one, I suppose," she sighs back. "Maybe you'll be better at playing the pretend game than that stubborn fox."
"The I'm-not-up-to-snuff-but-damned-if-I'm-gonna-look-weak game?"
"Yeah, that one."
"Might be. Played it a time or two meself. Your place's this way, ain't it?"
"Sure is." They start 'walking' together, neither seeming to lean at all, though a good deal of Aislin's weight is supported on the elbow he still holds. "Hey, Mizu-san, do you know a good place to train?"
"Why don't you wait 'till you're walkin' on your own before you go back to the sword, eh, Aisu-san? It'd make things a lot easier," he suggests with calm ease, though he does grin at her dagger-sharp glare. "But when ya do get that far, you c'n come and train at my company's yard. We're thinkin' of making this town our permanent base." With the ease of practice he helps her take the stairs two at a time, and she glares the two young tiger apparitions away from her door. Gesturing for him to come with her inside, she lifts a snowy eyebrow at him and smirks.
"Baggit's Town become a merc haven? That'll be interesting to see." She heads over to her chair and plops down, reaching into her belt-pouch and pulling out a small bag. Opening it, she tosses something small and sparkling at him which he catches reflexively. Looking down at the item, he finds an emerald green bead clear as water rolling around his palm. He holds it up between thumb and forefinger, quizzical.
"What's this?"
She gives him a careful glance before replying, stuffing the bag into the space between cushion and chair-arm. "That's a koorime tear gem. A laughter one. It's yours."
"Aisu-san, mine?" He looks at her with understanding dawning on his triangular face. "Payment?"
"Call it a gift for helping without wanting something back. That's even rarer than me laughing 'till I cry." She gives him a crooked smile and a wink. "Or think of it as a down payment for renting your services as a trainer when I get back on my feet. Either or, it's up to you."
He just shakes his head ruefully as he tucks the gem away into a pocket, a tiny smile showing the tips of snowy fangs. "You're wasted on the underworld, Aisu-san. If you ever think about joining a good merc band, think o' me first. I'd love to have you as co-captain."
"As far as I'm concerned, Mizu-san," she responds as he walks out the door, "the day I become a real merc is the day all three worlds totally freeze over." She thinks about some of the demons she's met and adds, "For more than a year." Still shaking his head, chuckling, the cat demon closes the door firmly behind him, letting her wards and traps spring back into place. Sighing as the irritation she'd built up while at Yoko's caves melt away, she uses furniture and walls to get to her small icebox and pulls out a nearly-frozen drink and a bowl of leftover soup from inside and gives up on dignity. Sitting down and facing backwards, she simply scoots back to her chair and climbs back into it, looking pleased with her progress and the total silence enveloping her senses. Setting the drink to thaw on her endtable, she carefully cradles the near 'scalding' bowl in her lap and digs in.
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Two weeks, I think, passed without incident and my strength returned in leaps and bounds. Strange, though, that I hadn't returned to that strangely comforting place in my dreams, that place Hiei had described to me as the Void and a realm that takes more than mere physical strength to survive in. Everyone knew about the Void, of course, but not many knew that much about it. He told me he'd been studying about the place for years, and the image that conjures up--him crouched over a scholar's desk, dusty books piled around him and spectacles perched on the end of his nose, a ball of rei-light hovering over his shoulder--still makes me smile. Not long after that, I came into physical contact with him for the last time before I met a human boy named Yusuke Urameshi.
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Aislin looks up when her alarms begin to vibrate warningly but do not activate, the petite koorime curled on the floor in an advanced Yoga form in an effort to retone unexercised muscles. Then she recognizes the taste of the approaching rei and races for the door, throwing it open and pouncing joyfully on the startled kajihenge about to knock.
"Kikan! Holy hells, it's been ages! Wh--what in the nine circles happened to you? Hang on, wait a second…" Before he has a chance to respond, she hauls him into her apartment and shuts the door. "There. Now we're aurally, physically, and everything-else shielded. So tell me why my closest ally has gone from A-class to D-class in less than two centuries."
Hiei settles gingerly down into the chair she leads him to, rubbing worn hands over a thinned face in exhaustion. "I went back."
Her gaze turns sharp. "Back?" Comprehension dawns. "Back? To the Island?? For aisu-kami's sake, why??"
"I had to know," he rasps, "know about everything. My mother, any family, whatever I could." Sharpness turns to wariness and she sits back on her heels, watching him.
"And?"
"My mother's dead, Aislin. And…and I have a sister."
"Mm. Yukina-chan. I knew that." She leaps backwards when his hand darts out to grab her, easily evading those slender fingers. His face is filled with anger now, and he stands to take a step nearer.
"You knew??"
She stands, rock-solid in the face of his emotional hurricane. "Yes, I knew. Honestly, Hiei, I lived there for seven years with the perfectly good hearing of a child. You think I didn't listen?"
The anger turns to anguish, and he drops bonelessly back into the chair. "Then why didn't you tell me, Aislin?"
"What would have been the point? They'd have killed you instantly if given the chance, and Yukina didn't know either. Does she now?" He silently shakes his head and she continues. "I also didn't want to sign the koorime race's death sentence when you only grew stronger, Hiei. I may not love our race, or respect it that much, but they are still our people and I will not see a single one harmed." One hand reaches out and gently ruffles the spiky hair/fur in a soothing gesture. "That does include you, mirror. Telling you would have done nothing but cause you pain, but not telling caused you just as much. I decided to err on the side of caution, like always."
The motion to escape that lulling touch is half-hearted at best, and she takes that as a Hiei-style invitation to move closer and run her fingers through the shorter hairs on the back of his neck. Reluctantly, he bows his head until the top of his head is resting on her breastbone, and lets go. Tears fall with soft plinks onto the thick rug, blues and greens and pastel rose all mixed together into a random design on the maroon rug, his thin shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. Humming softly, Aislin just keeps petting him, eyes drifting shut.
"Ow," Hiei mutters a few seconds later, pulling away and rubbing the back of his skull. Aislin blinks when he holds a grey gem out ruefully to her. "Guess we both hurt, mirror. This one's yours."
"Ah, sorry," she apologizes, turning pink and taking the gem. "Hope it didn't hit too hard," she adds, wiping away the last bit of water from her cheeks and automatically catching the three new grey stones that drop into her fingers.
"Nah. 'S okay, I guess. I still haven't answered your question, though. You wanted to know why I'm not A-class anymore." He bends down and starts picking up his tear gems without looking her in the eyes. "I went and did something after I found out about Yukina."
"What did you do?" she prompts him gently, and he straightens, pulling his white headband away and letting her see for herself. Gasping, Aislin remembers the eye that reflected Hiei in her fever dreams, and she involuntarily reaches towards his forehead and the violet eye that stares unblinkingly at her. "Hiei…you got a Jagan?"
"Yeah." He flinches at her gentle touch, but allows her to trace the skin around the brilliantly-colored orb set into his forehead above his real eyes. Sealed power pulses against her touch, and she draws back as though burned.
"Yeowch. It's sucked all of your power into itself, the greedy thing!" Remembering her lore about the Jagan, she amends hastily, "And I'll bet it'll put it to good use, too." The malignant edge the eye's gaze had taken fades back into neutrality, while Hiei's brow furrows at the insult and compliment in one breath before clearing as he too, remembers. 'It is dangerous to insult the Jagan, for it has a mind of its own and takes revenge on those disrespectful to it.'
"I've already accepted the loss of most of my power, Aislin," he says quietly. "Because this lets me watch her." He looks abashed. "And you, too."
"So that was you, in my dreams a month or so ago. You were the dragon."
"Am the dragon." A reluctant smile.
"Are the dragon, then. And that…that really was the Void?"
"Yes, and I'd like to know just how you got there in the first place. As far as either of us knows you don't have Oracle youkai in your bloodline, and they're the only ones who can go in and out of the Void of their own free will."
"That would make two of us, Kikan, because I have no idea how I went there in the first place. It was…nice, though."
"Bet you felt like hell after I got you properly reattached." Hiei's expression could be called nothing but a smirk, and Aislin sticks her tongue out at him in reprimand.
"I couldn't tell you," is her prim response. "I got knocked flat on my ass by that fever, and I felt like shit anyway."
"You always did have pretty vulgar language for a female."
"Want me to really start cussing?"
"No." A snowy eyebrow rises in curiosity in a 'why not?' gesture and he shrugs in response. "I'd want to take notes, and I lost my notepad and pencil somewhere."
"Ah. Well, I bet you're hungry, and with the little I've been needing to eat, my icebox is pretty well stocked. Want me to get you something?" His stomach chooses that particular moment to insist that Hiei feed it, letting out a very loud, rather long growl. "I'll take that as a yes," she laughs, heading towards the kitchen on her much-stronger legs. "Oh, and Hiei? Don't take offense, but you really, really need a bath. Use the shower while I cook you something."
"I don't have anything clean--"
"Nonsense. You're about my size, you can wear some of my gear while we get what's left of your clothes into decent shape. Or," she pokes her head out of the kitchen, a wicked smile blooming across her face, "you could just walk around starkers. It wouldn't be the first time I've seen you sans clothes."
"Perverted koorime!" Hiei laughs, giving in and heading for the small bathroom in the back of her home.
"Sensible koorime!" she calls back, laughing just as hard as he while she bustles around the tiny but well-kept kitchen. "At least I know how to stay clean!"
====
"It's nice to be clean and full again," Hiei mumbles sleepily, his head resting on the arm he's stretched out on the table. A grey towel is wrapped firmly around his waist, his damp hair gleaming in the apartment kitchen's bright light. Aislin looks over at him sympathetically, able to see clearly how much months of poor diet and constant fighting have pared away fat and the first layer of muscle, and having a perfect view of the new scars he's picked up in those fights.
"For a while there I thought I'd have to run out for groceries," she teases gently while finishing her own small meal. "I've never seen you put away that much food."
"Hungry," he grumbles in defense, and she just smiles at him over the rim of her hot chocolate.
"I'm not making fun of you, porcupine-head, calm down. I'm just saying you should have visited me sooner if you needed a bolt-hole to rest in. Speaking of rest, I can take the couch for a couple days. You look like you're about to conk out for a solid week." Eyes already half closed, he nods a couple of times without lifting his head before letting his eyes shut entirely.
Getting out of her chair, Aislin helps him to his feet and braces the barely-conscious kajihenge against her own slender frame, steering him towards her bedroom. "You'll have to wake up long enough to help steer a path to the bed, silly," she chuckles, "my room's a mess like it always is." Hiei snorts softly but rouses long enough to help pick a way over the piles of clothes, books, scrolls, and the odd weapon before allowing himself to tumble onto the bed with zero grace, already asleep the second Aislin let go.
Shaking her head and smiling, she tucks the exhausted fire apparition in under a heavy quilt and brushes back the rebellious bangs with a gentle hand. "Sweet dreams, mirror."
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Baka kitsune: Stupid fox
Aisuhana: Ice-flower
Inari: Japanese goddess. Foxes' patron goddess, uses them as messengers.
Bakayarou: Idiot
Mizu: Water (I know, odd for a cat demon, but there ya go.)
Jya ne: See you later/good bye (casual)
Koorime: Ice Maiden
Kajihenge: fire apparition
Kikan: mirror
Jagan: evil eye, grants clairvoyance and several other abilities to user
Youkai: demons/apparitions
Aisu-kami: Ice God
