The air was crisp, and full of scents, both benevolent and malign that morning. It was early; she didn't know what time it was exactly, but something inside her told her that it had to be around 3 AM, a few hours before sunrise.

Kagome Higurashi was wearing a badly wrinkled pair of miko's robes for her jaunt through the forest; her wild mane of hair flowed down, slapping her in the butt with each step. "This hair can be so annoying!" She thought, frustrated with its constant slapping and the few snags in very low branches. She couldn't sleep, even after a long, "hard" night with Inuyasha. She needed to get away from him for a bit, for what, she didn't know. She sat down on a greenish-grey boulder, feeling the moist moss on its surface beneath her fingertips, next to a softly simmering hot springs. "Yeah, I just need to think! That should tell me why I left his warm side for this cold rock!"

So she thought, and thought, her eyes absently peering into the pearly depths of the hot spring, her right ear softly twitching, rotating to sense for any danger. She remembered a song, a song that she had heard once not exactly too long ago. She remembered the soft guitar in the beginning of it; making her close her eyes and focus on it. Then she remembered the sharp increase in volume, and then she started to softly sing the lyrics of the song. "Hello my friend, we meet again! It's been a while, where should we begin? Seems like forever! Within my hollow memories, the perfect love that you gave to me, oh I remember! When you are with me... I'm free! I'm careless, I believe! Above on your words, we'll fly! Which brings tears to my eyes! My sacrifice!" Her voice trailed off as she hummed the a little bit of the guitar after this, then shook her head. "This is getting me nowhere!" She thought angrily, a small scowl on her face.

She was about to get up and shrug the song off her mind when a sudden word struck her, making her thoughts come to an abrupt halt, her expression going from one of anger to sudden epiphany. "Sacrifice..." she thought, "yes, sacrifice. We've all made sacrifices for each other in this group. I parted with half of my humanity to be with Inuyasha..." She felt a tear form in her eye, and it gently sliding down her cheek. "That had to be the best thing I ever did for Inuyasha and I, besides releasing him from the God tree!" she smiled, pondering over the white haired hanyou who had taken her heart and whisked it off to wonderland.

One pleasant memory of giving Inuyasha a good sitting for punching Shippo for one of his countless transgressions against the ticking time bomb of a half demon crossed her mind then, and a pained look crossed her face came with it as she thought about the little fox kit. "Shippo, you lost your entire family, and had stood up to protect me..." she suddenly giggled, interrupting the thought. Yeah right! Shippo! Protect her? Please! "Shippo would more likely hide under my shirt begging for ME to protect him!" she laughed gently at that thought, as she almost always would have if the situations they were in when they happened weren't as serious as they were.

Then she thought about Sango, and how she always complained about that "damn houshi!" all the time. "Ah, Miroku," she thought, grinning evilly, "you had to sacrifice the freedom to grope! HAHA!" A luscious look of victory came across her face. She had never exactly quote, forgiven, unquote the monk for the first day they had met. One, he had tried to kill both she and Inuyasha, and secondly, he had groped her not once, but twice! The nerve of him!

Her thoughts went back to Inuyasha, thinking about every kind word, every little thing he had said to her that still made her heart jump into her throat. She could hear him, in the back of her head, see the sweat on his forehead on the first of his human nights that she had witnessed saying them, "Kagome, you... smell kind of nice..." She smiled, thinking, once again, about the day they first met Miroku. She remembered it well, on the mountain road where Miroku, the wily devil, stole their jewel shards, only to join up with them after the day was done. On that day when Inuyasha had actually been concerned about her well-being. She smiled wider and thought, "and he tried to write it off as being concerned over the jewel shards. He honestly is so transparent, you can see right through him, know exactly what he's thinking!"

Another verse suddenly hit her then, bringing the deep electric guitar and drums back into her memory. "We've seen our share of ups and downs, oh, how quickly life can turn around... in an instant!" She stopped there, and thought about all of the little disappointments and major tragedies to befall she and the group. She remembered after defeating the king of the spider heads, when they found out how little of the jewel really had collected, when they thought they had collected so much more. Sometimes, the journey was scary, sometimes throwing her into hysterics, (like Inuyasha trying to make out with her in the opening weeks of it), and others that brought out the spirit of leadership from her, making her take a stand in more situations than she could remember. She remembered how Inuyasha was always smacking his neck, or scratching it, right on time when they needed some critical information about the jewel, its creation, or about Tetsuiga.

Then her thoughts turned upon the their tome of information on demon history, Myouga. That little flea knew more than Kagome could learn in a century! It was absolutely incredible that a flea could know so much. "Speaking of fleas..." She thought, feeling a torturous itch at the side of her neck. She brought her bare foot up and scratched at the spot and with her keen eyes spotted the familiarly well dressed flea, in his miniature traveling clothes, which actually made him... a bit cute in her eyes, flying off her skin and plopping onto the ground with a detectable thud.

"Myouga! What are you doing here!" she said, an eyebrow quirked. "Well that's good, no evil auras could ever be around if Myouga still is!" she thought, internally chuckling at the little flea that always fled at the first whiff of trouble.

Myouga looked a little affronted by the questionable look Kagome was giving him. "I'm here to assist you, Lady Kagome, with your first heat!" He said in his sage-like tone as he bowed low, till his sucker touched the ground, and unfortunately for him, got stuck in the moist earth. Kagome watched as Myouga flailed pointlessly, trying to right himself. "Lady Kagome! Please! I require your assistance! HELP ME!" he howled, begging for her assistance.

Kagome chuckled, bemused as she took her index finger and thumb and plucked the flea out of the ground, setting him gently on the moss next to her. She looked straight down at him, trying to figure out what he meant by "heat" it seemed by trying to bore straight thought his head for answers with just her eyes. She raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean, "heat," Myouga?" she asked, a little fire in the back of her mind burning with sudden curiosity.

Myouga blushed deeply, "Well, uh... erm... I... ugh!" he gave a small whimper of pain as he was suddenly flattened by Kagome's index finger.

Kagome looked a little ticked, as thought she were a dog that really wanted to know something, but someone was keeping it from her, driving her nuts with interest. "You're going to tell me right now or I'm going to squish you into Inuyasha's ear canal, then all you will be is mere earwax! Do you understand me, Myouga?" she said a little too sweetly, pushing down on the flea a little harder. "NOW START SINGING FLEA!" she shouted harshly at the little flea, which was trying his best to resist being squished to a pulp. She honestly had no idea, where in left field stuffing Myouga into one of Inuyasha's ears had come from, but she thought it good at the time, and that was good enough for her.

Myouga was shocked to say the least, this sudden violence from such a sweet young human, "no, half demoness," he mentally corrected himself. "Right, I'd better tell you before I'm unable to, so stop crushing me please Lady Kagome!" he yelled up at the half dog demoness who squishing his body to the thickness of a sheet of paper.

Kagome smirked as he let the pressure off of him, letting him pop back to his normal dimensions. "Start talking Myouga, what's going on?" Kagome gave the now fearful little flea a gentle nod, as if to urge the desired information out of his little sucker.

Myouga sighed, and started, "well, every demoness has a cycle, as you well know. Human females also have cycles, but much closer together than yours are now. The normal half dog demoness' cycle for her heat is around every three months, with a 6 month gestation period before birth, give or take a few days to a week for each. By the smell of you, Lady Kagome, I believe you'll be feeling it in a mere few hours." He paused for air, having not taken a single breath out of the fear of being squished once again.

Kagome knitted her brow; she didn't like the idea of having huge "half-demon" sized cramps every three months. "So... what happens when I'm in heat?" she asked. She was really curious about this, and kind of relieved that she wouldn't have to deal with her period every month. "Another plus!" she thought with sudden glee as she watched the flea start to calm down and go into the next subject.

"Lady Kagome, I cannot tell you exactly, but seeing as this is your first heat, it might be good for you to stay in your..." Myouga suddenly clapped a little leg to his sucker, and then quickly tried to play it cool. "I mean, stay with Inuyasha and OOF!"

Kagome heard the slip-up, and for some reason, she felt the urge to find out more. "What is mine here, Myouga? What exactly are you talking about, 'Stay in my?'" She gave a small, barely audible giggle. She was enjoying the hell out of herself, milking the flea for all the knowledge he had.

The flea was not taken by surprise this time as he dodged the incoming finger. "LADYKAGOMEICANNOT...TELLYOUORLORD...INUYASHAWILL.... KILLMEANDIREALLY...DON'TWANT...TODIE!" he said in a stumbling rush of words as he dodged prod after prod of Kagome's index finger.

Kagome sighed, "All right Myouga, about the heat?". She really didn't want to get Inuyasha upset by knowing about a now obvious upcoming surprise, so she decided to drop it... for now. Honestly, she felt just the slightest bit uncomfortable at first about talking about something this "intimate" with Myouga, but still, he was the only one who had the knowledge, so she thought it best to take some information from the knowledgeable and trustable source.

Myouga wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead with one of his little legs and continued his explanation. "You should stay by Inuyasha, because your behavior is most likely going to become extremely unpredictable, and we don't want you to do anything rash during your heat, and watch what you say, always keep in touch with your brain, or Lord Inuyasha may have to punish you for stepping too far out of line, but moving on..." Myouga concluded in another rush of words, to try and see if Kagome would miss the part about "punishment". He looked up to see Kagome giving him a blank stare of fear and apprehension.

"P...punish?! What... what kind of punishment?" she stammered, looking at Myouga with pleading eyes, scooting closer to the wee flea on the rock. She did NOT want to go into this not knowing what could happen.

Myouga cleared his throat, "well, several ways, Milady. He could go from showing dominance, to the silent treatment, even to the extreme of collaring you!" Yes, it was true, he had seen many males collar their rowdy mates in his time, and oh, how he did howl with laughter at the poor females.

Kagome's ears twitched innocently, as her eyes widened in fear at the thought of having a collar with a bell on it around her neck. "Myouga?" she said a little too high-pitched to seem normal. "Wh... What exactly is... 'collaring'?" She asked, sounding a little nervous. "Actually, now that you think about it," she thought, "a collar might be kind of cute!" a grin quirked up the edges of her mouth at the thought of seeing Inuyasha's reaction seeing her wearing her bathing suit, along with a new bright red collar. "You know, just to complete the "dog" look," she concluded mentally.

Myouga's eyes brightened, as though this was his favorite thing to talk about. "Collaring goes back a long time. Collaring binds you within a certain distance of your mate, so where he goes, you go. Simple as that." he said with a casual manner that one would use to invite someone to afternoon tea. "But I think you need not to worry, I don't think he would have the heart to do that to you. If you keep your head on straight, and don't say anything silly to make him thinks that your leaving him, then there should be no need for it." He paused for a moment, wanting to end there, but one little thought came to him and he spoke up again, causing Kagome's mane of hair to swish around behind her as she turned her head to look back at him. "Oh yes, one more thing, Lady Kagome, then I would wish to turn in, for it is very late. Keep your guard up against other males, like Sesshoumaru, and the mountain wolf prince Kouga is bound to show up, and that may mean trouble. If he touches you, you tell him to back off and do not show any submission whatsoever, do you understand me, Milady?"

Kagome simply nodded at the little flea, and the flea nodded back, seeming satisfied with his dolloping out of information, and hopped back up the leg of her kimono, where she let him feed for a while as she sat, pondering all of this new information until the sun cresting over the distant mountains, and a loud, dog like bark cracking like a gunshot through the trees. She snapped out of her thoughts, just as she felt a familiar cramped feeling in her stomach. "Shit! This is a lot worse than human cramps!" she groaned in aggravation, then walked towards the source of the bark, where, most likely, her mate was going to be waiting for her, as he always did, with a smile and an embrace, and the "Good morning, mate!" that she had grown so used to over the past weeks.

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Well, there's chapter 15! I hope you like it! Well, I hope everyone is partying hearty, so caps off to the good old boys out there! Please review! Ja!