The morning brought a bloody sight to the traveling group of humans and beasts. The wolverine remains were stripped and buried and hides were taken. Mononoke had a mouthful of freshly dried furs and Kenshin and the rest of the human travelers were awoken by a bruised, but now wholefaced Misao who was going from person to person with offers of a peaceful breakfast. She had to reassure them all that the wolverines would not be eaten, but then explained to the group that the wolverine'shides would be taken as proof against Enishi and as the group observed with rapidly lost appetites, Kaoru forcefully ripped out, cleaned and dried a satchel full of retractable wolverine dew claws, they would be taken as a reminder and as proof that someone had conspired with the wolverine clan and dosed their poison to a phenomenal level. The thick black nails were razor sharp and Kaoru wrapped them in patches of the wolverine's own fur so they wouldn't tear through her pack.
Kenshin and Hiko strode a little ways away to run through morning exercises and came back when a now conscious and fully healed Yahiko shouted for them to return on orders from Kaoru. He was still soaking wet having just walked out of the river bed. When the pair returned, swords in hand they watched in amusement as Megumi fawned over the recently healed teens, so amazed at the speed of recovery by all the formerly injured, wolves included, there. She was in near shock before Kaoru took her to the side and with a serene smile that Kenshin felt his stomach squirm at seeing, touched Megumi's forehead and let her take a new healing ability into her own power reserves, scolding the older woman as she did so.
"Megumi, you cannot survive in this forest with just a residue of sprite healing power. Is that what you've been working with for so long?" Kaoru teased as she removed her finger tips from a dazed Megumi's forehead.
"You can have my extra reserves for now. I can give you fresh personal ones when we reach the estate. You'll be the best yet my friend." Kaoru grinned at the taller woman and walked away to roll up some more furs. Megumi touched her forehead gingerly and felt the energy run through her veins and into the chambers of her heart. Her power was phenomenally strong now, she could feel the extra kick Kaoru had sent into her. Shuddering, she knew she would never be able to repay such a debt.
"Thank you Lady Kamiya" she murmured in honest gratitude.
"Please, you can all call me Kaoru." The younger woman smiled. Megumi felt herself smiling in return.
The start of their trip was uncharacteristically slow for the wolves. The human group moved on their beasts at a languid yet slightly hurried pace that had Kaoru practically humming beneath her skin with unspent energy by late afternoon. She was regretting giving Megumi her last reserves that she could have used against her yearnings
'but oh well she thought it'd happen eventually and Megumi needed them more'. When the sun turned to the west over the great oaks rich foliage Kaoru finally slipped a little in her meditative control and snapped.
"I am going on ahead." She spoke in the stillness of the small group.
Yahiko snorted somewhere to her left and Misao chuckled. Kaoru glared at them before turning on Ayumi's back to look at Mononoke.
"Master, I cannot keep this pace any longer. I need to run." She spoke quietly so the group behind them could not hear her.
"You need a run? Didn't you go through one some days ago?" Mononoke watched her daughter closely.
Kaoru was bouncing in her seated position. Ayumi wasvibrating with an annoyed air.
"Mother just let her go. We're almost at the estate anyway. She can run ahead to there." Ayumi said rolling her eyes at Kaoru's childish actions.
"You will go with her Ayumi. Her fur is still young, still pliant. She can still be injured more easily." Mononoke watched Kaoru shift once more in her seat, her eyes glowing irridescently,with thoughtful eyes of her own. Kaoru must have used her last reserves. Sniffing she located the answer in the lady healer. Kaoru was too nice sometimes. Mononoke sighed in her thoughts.
"I'll be careful mother. I'll stay on the cliff path. It goes right through to the southern walls." Kaoru looked at Mononoke with a pleading expression and the great wolf held back another sigh.
"Very well. We will stop for a short break and you can start your run. Leave your clothes and pack with Misao."
Mononoke couldn't help but smile inwardly at her daughter's delightful exclamation. She watched as Kaoru dropped back with Ayumi to flank the younger demon and wolf. Misao seemed delighted as well and The two stopped in the shade of a cluster of birch trees. The group halted a little ways away curious as to what was going on.
Kaoru was trying to control her breathing. If she didn't change soon she was going to go crazy. Her energy levels were going ballistic and she needed to feel her skin rippling familiarilyand change with the forest's blessing. Ever since she had been given her final gift by the forest spirit and the council she had been enthralled with the prospect of running with her pack family on hunts after the problem with Enishi was settled.
"Mother?" She looked at Mononoke expectantly.
Mononoke watched her a moment, her tails flickering behind her. She nodded albeit, reluctantly and Kaoru grinned brightly as she began to strip off her tunic and leggings. She was so intent on her run she had forgotten the company with them wasn't the usual family. Her modesty wasn't very important to her, whatwith her family changing between forms as natural as breathing, and having been naked around them for years as a child and young teen, but she murmured for Misao to stand in front of her while she undressed. She may have approved of this little band of travelers she was leading, but she didn't trust them with her battle scarred body and strange wolfish qualities she had acquired over the years.
Kenshin and the others were all blushing fiercely as they whirled around as one to face the other way when they realized just what Kaoru was doing. As her tunic went flying to a patient faced Misao they were all embarrassed to see such blatant openness. Kenshin himself was looking very intently at the trees around them so he could shut down his mind and not focus on the now naked goddess behind him.
"It's alright you can turn around now." Misao's voice broke through Kenshin's silent mantra of such lovely trees-such lovely trees. Turning back to the wolves the humans all blinked at first, and then Sano swore quietly from his mount. Misao was contenting herself by brushing out a rumbling wolf pup, a little smaller framed in size than the three that had been accompanying them the past few days. It was a strange gold brown color as well not the hereditary white between mother and triplets. It was the color one would see on the early autumn leaves. The pup had large sapphire eyes that were slightly almond shaped and a shade darker on the bottom half almost like...
"Kaoru?" Kenshin whispered, his own amber eyes wide with shock and awe. The large wolf swung her head up at him and her tongue lolled out in a wolfish laugh.
Misao was giggling at their surprised faces as she folded Kaoru's tunic and leggings into Kaoru's now disregarded pack. The gold wolf stood and stretched languidly across the ground. Her long tail curved over her back with instinctive authority before she trotted up to a patiently watching Mononoke and yipped up at the larger female wolf with the same playfulness she had shown in human form the night before.
"Hn, child that took quicker than the last. You were showing off." Mononoke teased and arced her neck so that her face was level with the smaller wolf. Their eyes locked and then the gold wolf was trotting away with a crooning laugh in her throat, her tail waving tauntingly behind her.
As the group traveled on after the golden pup Kaoru, whohad disappeared into the trees, the group had been practicallyroiling with unasked questions. Ayumi seemed to have taken pity on them because she dropped back out of nowhere from ahead to deposit a fat dead hare into Misao's arms as a peace offering and to speak with the humans. Her deep honey eyes watched with amusement as they all squirmed and tried to hide their immense curiousity.
"Kaoru is the heir to Mukuro as you know, and the Council gave her her wolf form when she turned 20 years of age. She isn't old enough yet for the annual hunt, Haru, Suzume and myself all qualified for it last year, but she gets her own practice in enough times over."
Ayumi chuckled trotting away to let them all take in this small amount of new information. She was pleased, as was her mother, with their ability to accept unnatural things as the way of life. In her life she had seen that for humans to accept anything out of the ordinary that didn't connect in their own vapid lives was very difficult. This group was nature-bound, Ayumi could feel it in her bones, her instincts and she respected them for their underlying strength in their friendships and loyalties that helped them stay together so closely knit. Their auras mingled almost lazily between each person and though they each had phenomenal individual strengths together they were magnificent.
"The next ridge will allow you all to see the Estate's northern most walls. It is a vast sight so we can take a short stop there and probably be able to call in Kaoru. She should be tiring soon. Her form isn't mature enough yet for her to stay in it at all times like myself." Mononoke instructed quietly from the front.
Hiko nodded watching the surrounding areas. After the battle with the wolverines the trip had turned taxingly docile, he would have liked his fighters to have participated in the killing of the wolverine clan. A clan Hiko himself never personally got along with.
"Anything out of the ordinary Mononoke?" He asked coming to stand beside her. The large wolf looked at him out of the corner of her slanted eye.
"There is nothing you can detect Crow. The screams of dying land to the north are so vast and so prominent that I can feel the ache in my breast from the brutal treatment of my home. Nothing new and nothingchanged in aura or range however since the first disruption by Enishi." She continued her slow cantering pace through the underbrush. Hiko watched her as he followed and then turned his thoughts inward.
Hiko sighed mentally. So long it had been since he had last looked upon the wolf god's beauty and since being back in his old realm of influence and power he had not seen her in her human form, the form he had loved and still loved even now.
When Moro, Mononoke's mother, had convened the Council at the base of the Gaius Canopy (the Council hall for the last two thousand years) when San had been blessed into the wolf clan as an infant, she had asked the council for permission to tap the forest spirit's well of power and retrieve the spell to change the young babe's form to carry on her position of power after Moro's death or renouncement of power.
San became the Mononoke and fought against the early human settlement to the east banks of the Kyuryu Ocean. Iron Town was after the war with the wolf clan, prosperous and in union with the forest it lived at the edges of especially after the assassination of the forest spirit's mortal form. The humans were pardoned by the council when the forest spirit contacted them through the regrowth of the forest in the span of one morning. Though they had been forgiven Iron Town did not last long in their reign of the eastern borders before the town died out completely, the Council had taken no responsibility for the decline, Akoto washed himself of the humans for good it had seemed. Hiko was inclined to believe otherwise.
The ridge came faster than any of the group expected. They came upon it just as the sun was waning over the western tree tops. Adagio of all shapes and sizes could be seen littering the trees vastness on the horizon, their clicking sounds of life coming to the little groups ears easily. Mononoke had stopped on the ridge's edge just before it's other side sloped downward in a vast grassy knoll that had the famous greenest fields of the southern towns the group had visited over the years paling in comparison. Looking back at them she let herself sit a moment. Her chest heaved before she threw back her head and let a rolling howl blow out across the open field. It seemed to reverberate through the trees themselves and the ground beneath their feet. It was a howl with a mission and the group somehow knew it was announcing their arrival to the estate.
A vibration in the ground beneath them all had the horses prancing and whinnying nervously and Mononoke grunting in agreement to whatever it is she had heard.
"We are expected already. Come, Kaoru has already announced us to the Lord."
When Kenshin and the group entered the vast fields of the Kamiya Estate they were completely taken aback. The open fields were emerald with healthy grass. Acres of beautiful gardens and natural watering springs could be seen as far as the eye could go. Beasts of all species and types lazily grazed and birds were thick as storm clouds above them. The sanctuary was protected all around the 600 mile border of the forest by a viciously protective and magically alive garden wall and grand wrought iron fence.
When they had ridden up to the three story high black painted, scroll shaped, iron gate with a large scrawled K upon it's center bars Kenshin had thought for a moment they were in the wrong place. Such fine craftsmenship and obvious wealth could not be in the keeping of such a strong nature loving figure in the magical realms. However, when he saw the spirits and living beasts all content in their existence behind the slightly growling brick wall he knew this was no ordinary rich man's home. The air behind the wall was charged subtly. Kenshin could feel it lapping at his skin, his temples were fuzzy with magic and he had to shake his head to clear his mind. The air blurred his vision, swept through his nose and mouth and flooded his ears and mind with light and sound. He was standing in the fields, the beasts all content around him and for one split second Kenshin felt unending peace. A feeling of elation that swept over him was almost tantalizing and he wanted to simply lay down in the grass and the ruby light of the setting sun and sleep from now until the end of time.
"Boy, you will stay on this plane oif existence. Kamiya is just playing around with you. Try and stay focused hm?" Hiko's gruff voice cut through Kenshin's reverie like a sharp barb.
Blinking Kenshin shook his head roughly and retied his long blood colored hair back at his nape. It had come undone in his daydream.
"What was that?" Megumi asked after she experienced the same situation as Kenshin and Hiko had roused her just as easily as he has the redhead. Her eyes were wide and unfocused with excitement and slight fear. Hiko didn't answer, just kept moving straight through the fields they were now in. He needed to see Kamiya now, as soon as possible.
Beasts with good natured muzzles and intelligent expressive eyes looked up as the group passed them. Their long slender haired tails flickered against their shimmering chestnut hides at unseen insects in the humid dusk air. Hiko grunted at them and they whinnied their greetings to their older lord. The entire winged herd seemed to be on the property he noted in mild surprise. All seven hundred stallions, mares, foals and that didn't sit well with Hiko at all. Hiko knew that Kamiya wouldn't keep his entire herd of Aethonan demon horses behind the walls of protection unless something malignant had spread far enough to touchthe northern Okara Fields, fields which were supposed to be protected by the Well of Light itself, which was an untouchable magical source within the forest, residing at the last home of the Forest Spirit's mortal form from centuries before. As Hiko rubbed the long face of a winged female who was closer to his mount than the others as they passed Hiko's worrying only increased to massive heights.
The estate reared into view. From the east it was a grand old building with white washed stone walls and thick tall elegant windows. Many were bay windows and the group assumed were bedrooms or sitting rooms with window seats. The house seemed alive as they came closer. It's shining front seemingly glowing at their arrival. It almost looked as if it were moving in the wind, dancing to a song they could not hear. It was all very strange and very unnerving for some of them. Kenshin felt a rush of excitement light in his stomach. He was still trying to figure out why they were all here exactly but the more exotic and unnatural things he saw on this journey the more his mind resolved to protect all of it. He wanted to help with whatever it was that Kaoru and her family were fighting against. Such passion in a life like this could not be misleading. Kaoru and Misao alone proved that.
The doors at the front entrance of the estate were two gigantic ebony wood slabs with thic iron bands and well taken care of hinges and frames. Carved upon them was the grand seal of the Kamiya clan that had been spied earlier on the old fence and gateway they had entered through. The seal on the fence though had been quite plain and simple compared to the one they all now looked at upon the door.
As they stepped up onto the wide flat smooth stone steps leading up to the tall cathedral doors, the group dismounted and stable hands of varying ages all came up to take the tired mounts away. Kenshin thanked one boy with sandy hair who took his mount from him. The boy grinned at him, missing teeth prominent, not from poverty or neglect, but from growing age Kenshin noted with mild approval at that small fact. The doors swung silently and somehow elegantlyin their eyes, as two beautiful ethereal seeming women in long pale satin dresses appeared before the tired group, one wrapped in a soft hue of lavender, the other in a soft daffodil yellow. The taller and older looking one had soft kind brown eyes, here long curly black hair was held back simply with a set of expensive looking gold pins and allowed the rest to tumble down her back freely. It was a very different style, almost insulting in high society from back in the south where the group had traveled from. Kenshin realized that Megumi was the only woman to ever defy the society ethics of the southern country openly by wearing her long black hair unbound and uncrowned atop her head like the high class women did.
"My Lord!" She chirped happily and the group watched as she gracefully strode forward to hug Hiko like a sister.
"Tae, I see you haven't changed." He rumbled hugging herlittle frame inwardly happy at the contact with his old friend.
"Oh your so rude, as always. How have you been, you never write to us here? Twenty years may not be long for you, but for us fey it's awefully long and dreadfully boring!"
The woman Tae was scolding Hiko for being gone so long. Kenshin blinked a moment 'did she say fey?'
"Tsubame come here and help our guests up to the library. My Lord Kamiya is already waiting on you all. Kaoru is out in the herd somewhere still. Probably rounding them up and scattering them about just for kicks. Naughty child she is still, so like her father and uncle." She stared pointedly as she made them move up the large steps. Her emphasis on unlce not going unnoticed by the group. The young girl Tsubame, who had pretty soft green eyes like worn sea glass from the shore, clapped her hands shyly and the bags levitated easily before her. She waved her hand at them all and they flew to the doors where they waited for, it seemed to the group, further instructions, shocking the little group a little at the suddenness, although to Hiko's pride they were coming to accept more and more of this place, he could tell by the way they no longer flinched or went wide eyed at every little thing. He figured the herd had something to do with it,meddling creatures they were. Mononoke trotted through the door, followed by a yawning Yahiko, a bouncing Misao and a gang of triplets, as if she lived there. Hiko could only do one thing then, and that was to follow after them.
Tae clucked her tongue like a mother hen at their apparent exhaustion and unfilled stomachs, and with the help of her young, pretty assistant Tsubame, herded them all inside, floating bags and all.
