Posted: 9/4/05

Previous Engagement

AN: Welcome to my new fic teaser. Yeah. Once again, I got a new fic idea. Boo! Oh well, it's one of those ones that I just can't not do. Before I go into explanations, I'll put my disclaimer. I don't own Inuyasha. Or anything I based this off of. Well, this only hints at Inuyasha, but still.

This is kind of a first for me, as I got the idea from reading another fic. While thoroughly enjoying myself reading "Comrade in Arms" by Personification of Fluff (which you should go and read right now if you haven't! Seriously. This story stinks compared to that one, and it hasn't even started yet), this idea came from the strange confines of my brain. I don't want to say much more for fear of ruining the story (cause I like feeling mysterious sometimes), but I will say that I briefly researched my settings (i.e. if you're an expert, don't get mad when I screw up).

Much thanks to my good friend Candyland for beta-ing this chapter for me. Trust me, I need it...

Chapter 1

The sun peeked over the ancient hills, soil periodically sifting into the river below. The sky was a mix of orange and yellow, shining brightly as if it was anticipating the fiery sphere that would soon be resting within it. A sparrow perched on one of the smaller branches of a flower-laden tree, happily singing to greet the coming day. The scent of the blossoms it was nestled in seeped through the cracks of the door and filled the room.

This is what she awoke to that morning. The light of the coming day quietly danced across the floor as her eyes opened, followed by a few blinks. She slowly sat up and stared at the floor, her mind still groggy with sleep.

Silently, she slid off of her bed, which was slightly elevated off the ground, with a few pieces of fabric hanging at it's edges. As quietly as she could she made her way across the floor, going to her wardrobe on the far side of the room. She bent down and dug through the seemingly dirty fabric at the bottom before finding the objects of her interest.

Just then, the door opened. A woman, dressed in much simpler fabrics than those that hung above where she looked, peered inside. "Shan Hu?" she asked quietly, causing her to sit up with a start and throw the cloth back over what she had been looking at.

"Y-yes?" she replied, regaining her composure and standing up, looking at the woman with little emotion.

"I was supposed to tell you that your father wants to see you after the morning meal. I believe he wants to discuss your... behavior as a lady."

She internally sighed. She knew what this conversation was going to be about. They'd had it several times before. "Thank you," she said, quietly, watching the woman bow her head slightly before slipping out and closing the door. She once again bent down and uncovered the objects she had been gazing at before: the clothing that was nothing like the silk dresses that floated above it, and a long sword, resting in its sheath.

As the sunlight hit his face, he slowly awoke and sat up. The thin bed rolls were not exactly comfortable, and yet all of the others seemed to still be sleeping away. He stood up as quietly as he could, grabbing the pieces of armor he had secretly taken off to try and add some comfort to the hard ground. He carefully stepped around the others, trying to find a quiet spot in the nearby trees were he could throw the rest of his things back on without anyone noticing.

"Heshang!" a voice suddenly cried. He stopped dead in his tracks, dropping the armor that he held in his hands.

"Y-yes, Captain Gangya?" he replied nervously, watching the heavily decorated soldier approach him.

"Heshang Jiu Zhu," he mumbled, frowning at him. "Once again, I find that you took off some of the most protective parts of your armor during the night! What if someone were to attack us in our sleep? Then were would you be?"

"Lying dead on the ground, Gangya, sir?" he replied, hoping that his punishment would not be too severe this time.

"Exactly!" the captain answered, his glare growing bigger. "You are failing to come up to the standards of a soldier of the emperor! I don't know if you can continue in his service like this..."

He swallowed hard. True, he didn't always follow the rules, but this wasn't enough for him to actually be lying dead on the ground, was it?

"Be warned, Heshang," Gangya began, leaning his face in close to him, "if I hear of anything that requires me to reassign any of my men, you will be there in a heartbeat!" With that, he stomped away, heading back to his tent and preparing to wake the others.

He sighed with relief. Frankly, that could have gone a lot worse. And getting away from Captain Gangya didn't sound like such a bad proposition to him.

Liu Shan Hu muttered to herself and pulled out her light blue silk robe. Her black hair hung down slightly below the bottom of her shoulder blades, much shorter than her father would have liked. She began dressing herself, her dark, glassy eyes not seeming too interesting in her outfit. Her face was not quite as round as most of the other girls, although there was nothing she could do about that. There was something, her father always told her, that she could do about how dark her skin was. She stayed out in the sun too long, he'd say, and would refuse to wear the tradition paint of a proper lady. Not like it really bothered her any, but since she was supposed to marry soon, he saw fit that she would become an ideal woman. Frankly, she didn't know what "ideal" was. She put her hair into a loose bun and left her room, making her way into the small dining room where she ate and mentally preparing herself for another lecture.
Heshang Jiu Zhu was not the usual warrior. He was the sole survivor of an attack on his village when he was a child, and was immediately sent away to study by the soldiers who found him huddling next to the bloody corpses of his parents. Not knowing what exactly the boy would be best at, he was put into school as well as martial arts training. He showed potential in both; his masters all said he should be in the army, while his teachers thought he should apply to be a government official. Jiu Zhu ended up following the path of his father as a fighter, although his spilt time in both areas seemed to be the cause of his lack of focus while with the troop. He had a strange interest in the women he would come across, although nothing much would ever come out of his conversations with them. He always seemed carefree, though. A smile could usually be seen on his face, which was a little bit longer than most mens'. His hair was a very dark brown and bound near the middle of his head, causing it to stick straight out behind him. His eyes were of a lighter brown, apparently the same as his mother, who was rumored to be a rare beauty. This was another reason why people thought he tended to specialize in them.

Jiu Zhu had finally put on the rest of his armor and returned to the camp, the other men grumbling as they woke and giving him short glares. He blinked in confusion, although something in his eyes made it seem like he knew what they were upset about. Just then, he was hit on the back of the head by a sheathed sword.

"What the hell were you doing, Heshang!" the carrier of the weapon hissed at him, frowning.

He smiled as innocently as he could while rubbing the bruising skin. "Why, whatever do you mean, Gou Yaomo?" he asked, still not wanting everyone angry with him.

"You got Gangya in a bad mood," Ban Gou Yaomo, the closest person Jiu Zhu had to a friend, replied. "Now he's gonna be pissed off all day!"

"Well, my sincerest apologies, but I could not get an adequate amount of rest with all of this jabbing into me. It's a matter of my well-being, really. Were there to be an attack, I'm sure I would fare better with enough sleep and no armor than I would the other way around."

"Would you just shut up!" he said, starting to follow the other men to where the fires had been started for breakfast. "Look, just don't come crying to me when nobody talks to you for the next few days!"

"But you talked to me," Jiu Zhu pointed out, grinning.

Gou Yaomo snorted, saying, "That's because if I didn't, no one would and you'd be going around acting like you had done nothing wrong!"

"I didn't..." he began, adjusting the armor over his right elbow.

"Yeah, you did, Heshang!" he interrupted, walking away. "Just... keep the rest of us out trouble, all right?"

He sighed. Once again, this would not be one of his days.

AN: It's over! Well, that chapter at least. This one is kind of like Fate where I know where it's going to go eventually, but I don't know how long it'll take me to get there. Speaking of which, I need to work on that one. Curse my overactive imagination! Please review so I'll know if I should bother to work on this!

And don't ask me how to pronounce their names, because honestly I have no idea. As I said, there was little research involved in this. Enough to make me feel like I wasn't completely inventing these things, but I'm sure there are many imperfections. Of course, I haven't really given the year yet (and I don't know if I plan on it ever coming up), so maybe that'll help, hee hee.