Thar she blows! I see land boys!
We have canon plot. Which means In The Jaws Of The Wolf does win the plot race, by a number of chapters, in fact. I still have up to chapter twelve of Miasma written and waiting to be posted. I'm not quite caught up with ITJOTW, but I hope to be within the next couple of days. Then I can start writing Miasma again, which is just about to dive into canon plot itself. I want to keep consistent with posting and see just how much of the plot I can get through in both fics while I'm still trapped in the house.
Let's find out together, shall we?
In The Jaws Of The Wolf
Chapter Ten
"Where is it?!"
All the cheerful chatter and conversation around the cave halted entirely and as one we all turned to face Koga, whose shoulders were heaving after his scream. I could hear his panting from here. This was the quietest I had ever heard the cave. There was always some chatter going on. These Wolves talked more than the gossiping old biddies in the village.
"Where's what?" I called out, apparently the only one brave enough to even ask him. There was a collective hitching of breath. Apparently this was a flare-up of Koga's famous temper. It had been mentioned before. Akari had warned me about it. He'd told me that heads tended to roll when Koga was in a rage like this. Everyone already seemed ready to bolt if he so much as twitched in their direction.
"Where's my jewel shard?!" He was growling, literally growling as he spoke, distorting his words to the point where I almost couldn't understand. I did understand, though, despite the audial handicap the growing gave. Something cold filled me. He lost the jewel shard?
I was on my feet and approaching the alcove before I even realised what I was doing. Akari snagged the back of my pelts, trying to keep me in place, but I shook him off.
"What do you mean where is it?" I'd assumed that he'd done with it whatever he had done with the last ones. Shoved them in his body or whatever, but as I approached, I only saw two faint glows coming from his body, and none in the alcove.
He was getting more and more worked up. "I left it here! Now it's gone. You can see them. Find it," he growled out through clenched teeth.
"I can't see them that well, Koga." Still, I turned my gaze over the cave, looking for a glow. Nothing. Taking a breath, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the weird feeling the shards gave me. I could feel it strongly right beside me - Koga's shards - and there was some faint feeling pricking at the edge of my mind. Something in the distance.
Eyes fluttering open again, I turned my gaze back to Koga's. "It's not here. It's on the move. I can't be sure, but I think I feel it that way." I threw my arm out in the direction I was fairly certain it was moving.
"Someone stole it," a brave voice whispered.
"Who?"
"Who's stupid enough?"
"Yuto," Akari threw out. Attention focused on him. "He was acting pretty shifty when we passed him in the way back in, wasn't he?"
A few murmured agreements echoed through the cave.
Koga's lip twitched, then pulled up into an expression that chilled me. He grinned. "Grab your bow, Dan." The anger was gone from his voice, replaced with a dark sort of amusement that tainted his speech, made his words drawl in that husky twisted amusement. "We're going hunting."
I had a feeling it wouldn't be for boar we were hunting.
Koga was a lot less angry by the time we got to the forest at the foot of the mountain. We walked together at a pretty slow pace, wolves spread out around us. He'd just bought me and the wolves with him on his hunt.
"You're settling pretty well in the pack."
It was the first thing he'd said since we'd left the den.
"Well, a lot of them are pretty welcoming." There were a couple names I could bring up that certainly weren't. Joji and his little following still weren't the friendliest, even though they'd accepted me in the face of my ability to see jewel shards. But for the most part, I'd been bought into the fold pretty well. This morning had certainly helped the situation a lot.
He huffed, hopping over a fallen log and holding a hand out to help me over it as well. "Akari seems particularly welcoming."
"He is." I couldn't help the smile that came to my face. Akari was... Well, he was pretty special. He was something I'd never really had before. A man that seemed to really like me for me, want to spend time with me, and actually treated me well. The nights were warm, and waking up in the morning to his kisses and nuzzling... I wanted to spend the rest of my life like that.
"You like him that much, huh?"
After a moment's hesitation, I shrugged. "Maybe, I guess. We haven't known each other long, and I am still married. Would Akari even want a married woman?"
Koga snorted, like I'd personally insulted him with that question. "Hey, I offered to eat him for you."
"You'd probably make yourself sick." He wasn't exactly the nicest piece of meat up for offer.
We wandered through the forest for a little while in companionable silence, following my rather untrustworthy sense for the jewel shards.
"He'll have you."
My eyes cut to Koga. "Huh?"
"Akari. He'll have you, married or not. He'd be stupid not to. You're one hell of a woman."
I snorted. Well, I wasn't too sure that was true. I was just... me. A seamstress that had no idea what she was doing in the world. I still wasn't so sure anyone would want a married woman, though. "Would you? Want a woman that someone already had?"
I was curious. Koga seemed pretty possessive. I couldn't imagine he would want someone that belonged to someone else.
All posturing, Koga squared his shoulders, hiked up his chin and smirked. "If anyone got in between me and a woman I wanted, I'd kill him."
Of course he would. The answer was just so... Koga.
"It's getting late. You're not going to be much help in the dark. We'll bed down here for the night and keep searching for him in the morning," Koga decided, turning his gaze up to the canopy. The light filtering down to us was minimal now. "Going back to the den will just make us lose time tomorrow."
I understood, really, but the idea of sleeping out in the forest was not something I was looking forward to.
Apparently he caught the grimace on my face. "What, don't like the idea of sleeping out in the open? Too rough for you, princess?"
"If I can deal with sleeping next to you in the den, I can sleep just fine out in the forest," I shot back.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
I snorted, passing by him to find somewhere I could lay out comfortably. "You figure it out."
He grumbled but followed me. It wasn't long before I found somewhere that would be okay. We'd still be sleeping in damp leaves, but at least we'd have enough room between the large trees to lay out without feeling too cramped. Minor miracles.
I dropped down into the ground, leaning back against a trunk.
"Why do you think he took it?"
Koga settled against a nearby tree, bringing one leg up and resting his arm against it. "Power," he answered simply and with total confidence. "It always comes down to power."
"Is that why you have them?"
"Of course it is." His hand clenched into a fist, then relaxed. "I was a weak pup. Always... picked on. Always attacked and left out and starved. I always dreamed of power. To be able to show them that I was so much better than they thought I was. To be able to take down anyone that dared try to attack me. When I got the shards, all that power... I didn't care about them. Why waste all this new power on people that never gave me the time of day anyway?"
That was... surprisingly mature for Koga. I was impressed.
"Then I found this tribe. Ginta and Hakkaku and Akari, all the wolves. You. I found my people, and I found a reason for the power. I will protect those I care about with these shards, and I'll take down anyone that threatens that ability."
"Me, huh?" Me? The Wolves, I got. The pack was his. I was just a human friend. I didn't think I'd be up on the same level as the pack. Certainly not on the same level as Ginta, who'd been with him since he was a kid.
"You're one of us now, Dan. Gotta deal with it."
One of them. It still amazed me. "Somehow I'll find a way, I suppose," I sniped back.
The two of us shared a smirk.
"Put your head down. I'll take first watch." Koga gestured at a couple of the wolves, who all made themselves comfortable around me. Curled up like this, I wouldn't be feeling the night's chill.
Morning bought with it a new energy, which was mostly a wish to get this damned hunt over with and get back home to Akari.
"He's closer this morning," I told Koga as we trudged through the trees. I was determined to get this over with.
"He doubted back? What an idiot."
A trait quite a few of the wolves shared. I didn't dare voice that opinion, though. Koga was getting cocky and worked up again, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause an argument right now. That'd mean waiting even longer to get home. I could hold off arguing with Koga for a couple more hours. Probably.
A familiar gnarled moss-covered tree stump had me stopping dead in my tracks. Koga, not expecting that, crashed right into my back. "What'd you stop for?" he growled.
Brows furrowed, my eyes flickered from the stump to where I sensed Yuto and the third shard.
"Dan?"
"He's in the village."
"Your village?"
"No the other village around- Yes my village, you idiot." I changed course and doubled back. Now I knew where I was, I knew the easiest way to get to the village. Going as the crow flies was damned near impossible for me, but doubling back and going around would get us there in minutes. "What could he want in the village?"
Koga followed after me eagerly. "A snack for the road?"
"Not a lot of good eating there." Maybe I was a touch bitter, but I absolutely didn't see much in the way of fine dining in the people that I used to live with.
"Maybe. Then again, they did produce you, so there's some hope."
I snorted a little laugh. If he were anyone else, I'd have thought he was flirting with that comment. "Maybe so, but I wouldn't hold my breath on anything else good coming from it."
"Good enough for a snack, at least. Speaking of, go on ahead, boys."
At Koga's order, the wolves all but melted into the forest as they ran off ahead towards the village. The only one who stayed was Nao, keeping close to my side.
The villagers were going to shit themselves, seeing wolves so confidently running through the village during the day, I thought with glee. What I wouldn't do to see their terrified faces as the wolves charged through. I hoped the wolves caught Yuto inside the village so I could see some terrified familiar faces. That'd really make my day.
Koga himself was apparently in no rush to get to Yuto. That or he was savouring the moment before the kill in this little hunt of his.
Either way, we practically strolled through the forest until we reached the treeline.
Not a single thing had changed in the village. Not that I was surprised. I hadn't been away for that long.
Around us screams erupted. Wolves had bound through, attacking villagers and searching for the defected Wolf in heir midst. There was a clear trail of wolves leading the three of us through the village. Right through it, in fact. We passed by all the huts and homes, right down to the reserve at the edge of the village.
At my side, Nao skittered away a few steps then back to my side with a sort of half restrained excitement.
"I don't know what's stopping you," I told him, nudging his side. "Go eat. Just don't get sick with bad meat."
"Cold," Koga noted with a smirk.
Cold? Maybe. "What do I care? They treated me like shit. I'm not big enough to let that go. Let the bastards suffer." I wanted them to suffer for what they did. I have no care for them. Most of these faces I recognised as people in the crowd that jeered me out of the village, casting stones as they went.
Fuck every one of them. They deserved to be eaten.
"There he is," Koga crowed, striding down the steps to the reserve.
Yuto was actually in the water. Trying to swim away from the danger we presented was my bet.
What an idiot.
Review Corner!
Guest - The main canon plot is here. Well, almost here. We'll get our first canon lines in the next chapter. I hope it's still building up to your satisfaction! We'll likely be meeting Kagome in the next chapter or two, too. I'm not planning on rushing through the episode plot, so it'll take more than a couple chapters to go through it all, I think.
buzzk97 - They're Ginta and Hakkaku. Of course they would. Dan may be on Ginta's side, but I'm totally siding with Hakkaku on that one (but that's cheating because I know what's going to happen). Who's side are you on right now? Are you a Koga or an Akari chick?
We're seeing a pretty vindictive side of Dan by the end of this chapter. It'll likely get worse in the next chapter. She doesn't have a very high opinion of her old neighbours. They're definitely in the dog house with her.
As I seem to so often point out in my fics, my characters aren't ever super sweet super good heros. Dan is flawed as the rest of the world, and with a pretty short temper at that. There are going to be times she seems vindictive, and maybe even a little bloodthirsty. Unlike Nori, I can say for sure that Dan will likely get better the longer the story goes on. Nori is gonna go downhill fast. But that's what makes Miasma such an interesting story.
Anyway, see you in a couple days!