"You should sit down. Your food is getting cold."

Kagome was unresponsive to the polite words, which were more insulting than they were comforting. She was especially in opposition to the fact that her, blatantly, rude host was keeping a straight face while being so obnoxious to her.

"Come now, you should take in my hospitality." Marlowe waved his hand in a generous fashion toward the cooling bowl of stew on her end of the table.

Kagome, who had remained standing for the past few minutes, was openly protesting her treatment thus far, even going so far as to remain silent and turn her nose up at her host's "hospitality." She stood resolute in this position.

Marlowe, upon realizing the objective intended, sighed. "Very well then," he said wearily, "if you refuse to share a bit of stew with me, then you'll be staying in the galley and be celebrated as the guest of honor there. Of course, once you leave my cabin, I'll require that you return the clothes I loaned you…" Marlowe paused, a wicked glint flashed from his eye as he gently tapped Kagome's regular clothes with his fingers, "and since I couldn't stand the thought of you going about in a harlot's dressings: I will keep those as well."

Kagome faltered from her high horse. She glared at the English.

"You wouldn't."

Marlowe remained silent. Why should he speak? The spiteful stare she gave the barbarian only drove him to simply spoon out more of his stew, while locking eyes with her. Suddenly, it became all too clear for Kagome. She was bound without chains; imprisoned without a cage. The calm eyes that quietly stared back sapped all her strength as she saw deep into this man, and realized he was, despite whatever cruelties he wielded, a man of his word, that he made no threats, only promises.

"Now. Sit."

Kagome was not a hanyo, nor did she have a rosary draped around her neck, yet she slowly obeyed. The weight on her head caused her legs to buckle, and giving herself to the same resignation as a condemned prisoner, she sat. The bowl of stew before her was cold, and, now, entirely unappetizing.

"Now, if you will behave," Marlowe continued, as if neglecting everything that had happened to this point, "I have some more questions for you."

Kagome looked up and noticed that Marlowe had finished his stew. He had devoured it.

"I've said I don't care who, or even what you are. But, what I want to know is, where you are from."

"Huh?" Kagome was roused by this direct query.

"There," he said, wagging his finger at her, "there is something different about you. You're not like everyone else on those islands out there."

"What about it?" Her question was laden with a sardonic tone. This man was oblivious of, or insensitive to, her simmering disgust. His calm demeanor was making her ill; his every word was unbearable. Yet, he continued to speak.

"You're going to be my Malinche, the key that opens more trading posts for me."

"Why? So you can sell more of your guns? So you can profit off of killing and war?"

Marlowe remained calm, aloof. His eyes remained fathomless, indiscernible. Suddenly, Kagome was blasted with another salvo of laughter. Strangely enough, it was relaxing to hear someone laughing. But, she wished, from the bottom of her heart, it was one of her friends, and not this man making merry, whose sense of humor had been poisoned long ago.

"My goodness," said the captain, a hint of mirth still in his throat, "dear girl, do you mean to jest with me, or are you being serious? I do hope it is the former."

Kagome, seeing an opportunity, ascended to a new position of moral supremacy, "From what I've seen of your guns, they're terrible weapons with nothing but evil in them."

A crocodile's smile signaled that Marlowe was ready for a third fit of laughs, but he resisted, instead saying in an obvious tone, "Silly girl! They're weapons! Of course they're going to kill things, that's what they're made for!"

From an era of peace and prosperity, Kagome hurled her more advanced morality at the captain, "And you're fine with that? Selling them to people, so they can kill each other?"

Kagome considered it a victory when Marlowe didn't respond. He turned his head away, looking toward the open window. He had a look of deep contemplation. Perhaps, she had stunned him into this silence, caused him to make an ethical introspection of himself.

Kagome shrieked as the quiet English jumped to his feet, sidestepped the table and lunged straight for her throat, clutching it in his hands. She was frozen in place, feeling the cold lifelessness in his eyes, as the rough, calloused palms that held her neck in another's hands began scratching her skin. She had no idea what to do, scream for help, fight back, or faint.

Without warning, Marlowe then dropped his hands. Kagome relaxed considerably, though shaken, shaken to the point of quivering, and calmly massaged her agitated neck. Standing over her, Marlowe was not unlike a lion regarding a helpless mouse between his paws.

"Kagome," he said, flatly, "if it were my desire, just now, I could have easily destroyed you. I could have tightened my grip, slowly, and bit by bit, deprived you of your life, leaving you a hollow shell."

Kagome was unmindful of this. She stared at him, still unsure of her safety. She continued to stare at him, absent-mindedly.

"You see, young Kagome," he was addressing her, as if they were in her era, in class, and he were one of her teachers. His manner of speaking was such that he was explaining an equation and its solution, for the third time, to a chronically poor student, "Your kinsmen, your fellow Japanese, out there, on those islands are, at this very moment, at war with each other.

"They are using, and will continue to use, every means at their disposal to murder each other, ending the lives of whomever stands in their way. Women, children, they are innocents, but they are not spared. Your kinsman, would happily use rocks, their bare hands even," he paused to show her his hands, "whatever they could, to get what they want.

"Yet, they rarely use their hands, Kagome. They have swordsmen, pikemen, archers, cavalrymen, mercenaries, spies, and assassins. No, Kagome, they will not use their hands and rocks. They have no desire for that. They desire, they lust, for power. So, to feed their lust, they will use whatever else becomes available to them. Including my guns."

A pause. There was no telling its true purpose. Was it for drama or was it an absent-minded lapse on the part of the speaker? Regardless, Kagome made her own use of it. She began to dig down deep.

"And what of you Kagome? Was it not in the personal belongings of your traveling band that you possessed an old, rusty sword and a quiver of arrows and a bow? If I'm not mistaken, those are deadly instruments, are they not?"

She was finding something, a solemn item, "We use those for self-defense. We don't go around murdering people."

"I see. And you never kill anyone when they attack you?"

"No. Our weapons don't always kill when we defend ourselves. Not like your guns, right? Those cruel things; you don't even have to hit the person directly, right? All you have to do is hit them and their bullets will poison them, or break their bones, right? Like Inuyasha?"

The English smiled, "Come now, if your friend's a strong sort, he'll pull through. If he's lucky, he'll keep his arm."

"You're a heartless and cruel man!" Kagome didn't stand up; instead, she browbeat the English from her chair. "You don't care, at all, do you? You and your guns, you're nothing but murdering monsters! You have no shame!"

Marlowe's face wrinkled, as though he had smelled something, particularly, foul. His nostrils sounded from the expulsion of a great amount of air, he slid his hands into his pockets, turned away from his guest, slowly stepped over to the open window. A moment of quiet reflection on his part prompted Kagome to feel she had, finally, scored a hit.

"It's a fairy tale, isn't?"

Kagome was mystified by the expression of disgust on her opponent's face. More so by his words, which were uttered as he was faced her.

"Stupid little girl." Marlowe paced back, his hands swinging at his sides. He came to a stop, towering over her. He leaned forward, and placed his hand on the table. They were but inches apart when he said, "You sound like one of those damned foolish lords of the islands. There are a number of them who are too haughty, too sure of their purity, to grime their hands with black powder. Even the ones who consider buying them always try to demean them, calling them 'coward's weapons.' Well, let me tell you another story, a real story.

"I remember a certain lord, some miles back down the coast, who declined to purchase our weapons. He was a very polite man, a very noble man. He treated us with great magnanimity, but stopped short of being a gracious customer. He calmly explained to me that our weapons were wrong. They were 'crude weapons.' Nasty implements that created acrid smoke, soiled a warrior's garments with their need for black powder, and even allowed a common peasant to strike down a samurai without much skill or personal greatness. Notwithstanding, though, he did send us on our merry way, with the friendly farewells of a highborn man.

"We sailed up the coast, to the noble lord's not so noble rival. He despised us, insulted me time and again, and made all possible efforts to make us withdraw from his lands, short of actually killing us, which he undoubtedly considered. Yet, it wasn't until I ordered that a salvo of culverin shot be fired from our port side that I got his attention. Initially horrified that our cannon could pierce the oak timbers of his ragged fortress, the lord of this somewhat impoverished territory soon became a great friend to us. Forgetting what our demonstration had done to his home, he became possessed with the idea of purchasing every single firearm we had."

Marlowe chuckled a moment, "Damned savage, I think he had to squeeze every drop of wealth, no matter how small, from every last peasant in his domain, no matter how poor they were, to buy everything we had. He didn't stop there either! Training for soldiers, methods of producing more weapons, trading rights for more powder and ammunition, not to mention everything else requisite for trade with England, he bought it all.

"Not all that long ago, I had heard that the great noble lord, who had treated us so kindly, was dead. His larger domain, inherited from his noble father and protected by many brave samurai, had become the property of his rival, a man who couldn't trace his lineage that far back. Perhaps to a father, who hadn't married the mother, yet had foresight enough to see an heir when he had one. So it is that the nobleman, the 'great lord,' who held himself too good to take up a gun, is now buried beneath the rotting corpses of his brave honor guard, with an ounce of lead occupying the place where his noble principles held sway over his infantile mind."

Except for his chuckle, Marlowe had remained hard, cold, during his speech. It was crushing axe that smashed its way through much of Kagome's views on the world: that which she held dear, she held close to her, like sweet, lazy, Buyo. Marlowe had, with full intention of doing so, annihilated her darling pet with his blunt axe. She didn't believe him when he said, "I'm sorry, but that's what life is all about."

"How can you talk like that? How can you be so cruel?"

"My dear girl," Marlowe seemed back on the verge of another cannonade of laughter, he then turned deadly serious, and "I intend to make a fortune on the piggish stupidity of the warlords here, for as long as I can. For all I care, the whole of the island could plunge itself into the ocean. That's how a proper merchant is supposed to behave. If I were like those incompetent Spaniards and only traded with certain people, then I would be a much poorer man. That is also why we English and the Dutch are slowly replacing those stupid Iberians in numerous domains. It's all business."

No sooner than Marlowe had finished his speech, a knock came at the door.

"Yes?"

It was the man who spoke poor Japanese.

"They say that we may return to the castle."

"Good." Marlowe glanced toward Kagome, "It's just as well."

The poorly versed man saluted and closed the door behind him.

Marlowe let out a slight sigh, and turned to Kagome, "Well, it has been a good evening thus far. But, we must be on our way."

"We? Where are we going," Kagome asked with surprised interest.

"Back to the castle," Marlowe spoke into his chest as he buttoned up his doublet, "we have a demonstration to perform."

"Demonstration?" Kagome was silent a moment or two, then her eyes alighted in grave concern, "Wait, you don't mean we're going back to the castle… to-"

"To kill that pet of yours? Yes." He had finished the statement just as briskly as he had finished buttoning his clothes.

"Kirara?"

He ignored the furtive worries in the girl's face and voice, "Whatever you call it." With cold disinterest, he calmly gathered up his cloak and hat, while speaking, "We're going to honor that superstitious old man's wishes and kill that 'demon' of yours. Satiated, he'll be quick to beginning trade with the Company, immediately. Thereafter, you'll be coming with us, to visit other domains."

There it was: Kagome's fate, decided out of her control. This man, whoever he thought himself to be, was going to kill one of her dearest friends, separate her from the rest of her friends, and her home…

"Wait," she said, panic and rage slipping into her as she realized what was transpiring against her, "you're kidnapping me?"

"Hardly," he spat, "more like civilizing. You're going to become a member of my crew and visit other domains. You'll be an invaluable asset in dealing with future clients. Aside from being a Japanese, you're also a woman, and will help to make dealing with recalcitrant lords easier."

Fearing for her virtues, Kagome snapped, "Wait, are you saying I'm supposed become a samurai's plaything?"

"I wouldn't worry about that," he coolly stated, now dressed in his full attire. "I don't run a brothel, and you won't be expected to behave as though you were employed in one. Nor will you be asked to please the men aboard. You'll have your own quarters and anything else that can be spared, just like my servant Polaris."

"Do you mean I'm going to be a slave for you?"

The acid in the words rolled off Marlowe's back, as though they were water and he was a duck. "I said servant. Now. I've had my fill of this, Kagome. You're coming with me." He stepped forward and loomed over Kagome, "Come along, now, we must be going."

Kagome stood up wearing a look of pure defiance. Haughtily, she turned her nose up, and sniffed the air, "Very well, Captain, lead the way."

"Better," he flatly stated. The door was opened and a resistant young woman stepped out on the main deck, followed by an insistent ship's captain.

I hope Shippo's managed to the others free by now…