Ch: 8

Still Trapped

(But Is It Such A Bad Thing?)

WritingWoman: I'm going to write this before I get any complaints. I don't know if someone has to be dead for Fluffy's sword to work. Sure, you can write and tell me, but it's kinda late right now, and I've already written it to my satisfaction. Sort of. Can't ever write anything to my satisfaction. But that's besides the point. No one I knew could tell me for sure, and I thought I had heard something about it being a healer, period. So, please, put up with my inaccuracy (if it is inaccurate) for the sake of my story. It didn't do anything to you, after all.

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Sky woke up in the early in the morning, the moans from the body next to her making her awaken. She winced in sympathy. Mara Rose must be feeling her wounds. She sat straight up, then groaned, trying to bite it back. 'Memo to self: stop sleeping on cold ground.' Grimacing, she flung away a stone that had been right in the small of her back. 'And watch out for rocks when sleeping outside is unavoidable.' Another moan from her patient dragged her out of her self-pity party, and scooted over to where she could reach the bandages. But she didn't touch them, not yet. She didn't trust herself when she was this groggy. Instead, she opened the bag and dug out some more pills. Sky didn't really want to drug this woman again, but she couldn't just sit there and listen to her pain, either.

"Hey, Mara Rose? Are you awake?" The woman rolled over (slowly), and glared at Sky.

"No, I'm sure this is all just a happy dream I'm going to wake up from, and be just fine back at home." Sky glared right back at her, and Mara Rose laughed. This was very scary to Sky, so she just backed away slightly.

"Um . . . you might not want any more medicine . . . you're kinda out of it . . . " Mara Rose stopped laughing.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. I'm just tired, is all. For some reason, my side hurts." She saw the other woman's face, and laughed again. "No, I didn't forget, I just wanted to know what you would do if I said that." Mara's face paled, and she whipped her head around, saying, "Where's Rin? Rin? Where are you!" Rin came stumbling through the trees.

"I'm right here, Mara Rose!" A smile was shining bright on her innocent face. "I went to get some firewood. We used a lot of it last night to keep the water hot." Putting down her load of wood, she went to sit beside Mara. "How are you feeling? Are you okay? Sky says you'll be fine." Sky mumbled something that the other two didn't catch, something along the lines of, "Putting words in my mouth . . . said I THINK she'll be fine . . . " Mara Rose looked up at the red faced woman.

"Is that your name? Sky? How nice. Did you help me last night? I do remember something about you . . . not a lot." Her mood darkened. "Where's that one guy?"

"Right here." Mara Rose jumped. Sesshomaru was right behind her. No one had seen him come up. She screamed loudly, and tried to scoot away, then doubled over in pain. Sky tried to keep her from falling over and hurting herself more. She glared at the demon.

"What'd you do that for! You knew how she'd react!" Then she talked quietly to Mara Rose, mumbling together about inconsiderate men with tails. Sesshomaru raised an eyebrow at Rin, and walked away. Rin followed.

"Yes, my lord?" She stared up at him adoringly.

"Rin, I want you to stay here and watch that new human. If she tries to run away, invent something for her to do to keep her here. I'm going elsewhere."

"Yes, my lord!" Rin skipped back to the clearing. Sesshomaru sighed. This new human was creating more problems then she was solving. Then he looked both ways, mumbled at the currently invisible Jaken to stay where he was, and stalked off. Jaken fell out of the tree. How had his lord known where he had been! He had made no sound. He snapped his fingers in frustration, and muttered, "Another day . . . " mysteriously.

Rin walked back into the clearing just in time to see Sky walking out. "Sky!" She yelled, slightly panicked. It wouldn't do for the woman to walk off, not when Lord Sesshomaru had said otherwise. "Can you help me get some . . . water!"

'Damn! Why did she have to come back now?' "Um, not now, Rin, I want to go back to Kagome and the rest, to tell them where I am." 'Yeah, right.'

"But you can't leave right now! Have you changed the bandages on Mara Rose's wounds? Should we wash them, or something?"

"Er . . . look, I've told you, I'm not a doctor, we don't even have those where I come from, so I don't know what to do. It'd be better if I . . . Never mind. I already said I'd stay, to help look after Mara Rose. Crap." She plopped down on the ground, dejected, and rested her head in her hands. "Crap." Sky repeated. Little feet appeared in her side vision. Looking up, she said, "Yes, Rin?"

"Water?"

"Oh, right, I forgot, sorry. Hey, Mara Rose, will you be all right for a while? Me and Rin are gonna go get some water."

"I'll be fine. Can't promise the same about the guy with the tail if he shows up." She called cheerfully. Sky smiled, then she and Rin went off, bucket in hand. 'Hey, where'd the buckets come from?' The woman from the future thought to herself, then shrugged it off. Couldn't get water without some way to transport it. Finally, it penetrated her mind that carrying the buckets didn't hurt her hand at all. Looking down, she found out why.

It had healed. 'Uh . . . ' Sky was confused. She was a naturally fast healer anyway, but one night for a burn? Something new. 'Maybe it's the air . . . ' (A/N: Sky doesn't think her best in the morning. Sounds like me. Why do I always have to have tests in the morning? BTW, my description of morning is anytime between when I wake up, and when I go to sleep.) 'Well, I guess I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth . . . '

The stream was not all that far away, and crystal clear, quite sparkly. After filling their buckets, they did head back to camp, but not after they stomped all over a hidden Jaken. He really shouldn't have been hiding in that bush, spying. What he was spying on them for, they didn't really know, and neither do I, in fact. And since I don't, he probably doesn't.

ANYWAY, they arrived back at the makeshift camp with no damage, water, and saw a Mara Rose in pain. Running to her, they fixed her up as best they could, filling her with pain medications, so it wouldn't hurt for Sky to change the bandages.

Where Sesshomaru had gone was back to where he had picked up the insane human woman. He found his brother and the rest of them still there, sitting wherever, being bored out of their minds while the story went on without them. They sprang to life as Sesshomaru appeared.

"Where's Sky? What did you do to her!" Kagome asked loudly. Inuyasha pulled out Tetsusaiga, not because he cared about the odd woman who felt she had to pull on his ears at every chance, but because he just doesn't happen to get along with Sesshomaru well. The dog demon barely spared his brother a glance, and said to no one in particular,

"The odd woman is unable to rejoin you for some time. I will deliver her . . . whenever it is appropriate. Go on with whatever it is you people waste your life with." He turned, and disappeared, not saying anything else.

"Hm. Well, that was vague enough. Can we go now? This one spot is really getting boring. Maybe we can visit some town, rescue them, and be very warmly welcomed be the prettier part of the population." POW "Ow! You know, all the times I get hit on the head, you'd think I'd be used to it by now, but nnoo . . . It still hurts whenever you hit me with that giant boomerang. Why couldn't you have something normal, like a fan, to hit me with?"

"Because fans very rarely are able to kill perverted monks, and never able to kill demons. Tell me, then, what use a fan would be?"

"Uh . . . "

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Whatever Sesshomaru did for the rest of the day, who can tell, but he arrived back at camp later that night, just as the sky started to darken. Rin, Sky, and Mara Rose were all sitting around a campfire, and Sky was telling them a horror story. He knew this, because he had arrived at the very beginning, when she told the other two that she was about to tell them a very scary story. If he had walked in halfway through, he might have thought that she was more insane then he had first guessed.

The horror story she was telling went something like this:

"It was a bright and sunny day, when a family of three banana's decided to go for a camping trip. There was a mommy banana, a daddy banana, and a little daughter banana. They all loaded up into their deluxe luxury-line VineX3, and headed into the deep jungle, farther then bananas' usually traveled in their daily lives. They traveled as far as they could before the jungle became so dense that they could go no further. The daddy banana hopped out of the VineX3, and said to his small family, 'Here's our campsite! Let's unload.' It was getting dark, just as it is now, when the little daughter banana was out gathering up some moss to burn, and–"

"But wait," Rin interrupted. "Why didn't they burn wood?"

"Because they lived in trees, and it's not nice to burn something that might be related to your home. Home's can be very sensitive. Be quiet, now, and let me finish my horror story." She cleared her throat. "When the little daughter banana was out gathering up some moss to burn, and she discovered an odd house, not as high up in the trees as they usually are. Curious, as all little banana's are, she decided to go and inspect the odd house. Inside, she saw a thing she had never seen before. Picking it up, she took it back to the campsite with her. 'Daddy Banana!' She said. 'Look at what I found!' The daddy banana gasped in shock and horror. What his little daughter banana held was an old banana peel.

"'Where'd you get that, Little Daughter Banana!' Daddy banana cried. 'Um, I don't really know.' Replied the little daughter banana. 'I can't remember.' She thought a little bit more. 'There were trees close by!'

"'This is a jungle, Little Daughter Banana, there are trees everywhere! Oh, well, we will sleep tonight, and try to return it to it's resting place in the morning. Goodnight, Little Daughter Banana. Goodnight, Mommy Banana.' 'Goodnight, Daddy Banana,' they both said back to him, and went to sleep.

"They were awoken late in the night by a horrifying squishing noise. 'Squish, squish, SQUISH! It was right outside their tent. 'Give me back my peel,' it said, in a tormented voice. 'Give me back my peel! Give me back my peel or become what I am!' The terrified daddy banana snatched up the old peel, and reluctantly took it outside, to give it back to what was asking for it. And what he saw was . . . was . . . " Sky paused, then, "A BROWNED, SQUISHED BANANA!" No one screamed.

"You know, that wasn't all that scary," Sesshomaru said from behind her. She turned around and glared at him.

"Were you in my head today?" Uh . . . Sesshomaru didn't show it, but he was confused. "I was thinking up this story today, while you were gone, and this guy walked into my head, and told me the same thing. But, on the off chance that you weren't the guy in my head, I will tell you what I told him. IT WOULD BE SCARY IF YOU WERE A BANANA!" Mara Rose finally screamed. Sky's shouting had woken her up, the story having put her to sleep. "See? Someone agrees with me."

"She wasn't even awake to hear our conversation."

"So?"

"It still wasn't scary, because, if you haven't noticed, none of us are banana's." She glared at him some more.

"Well, maybe you should try it sometime. Being a banana isn't as easy as it seems, you know." With that, she got up and stalked over to the other side of the fire, away from the cute guy with the tail, then lay down and pretended to sleep. Rin walked up to Sesshomaru.

"My lord?"

"Yes, Rin?"

"What is a banana?" He didn't answer, just went off in the opposite direction of Sky to sleep. Rin sighed. Today was not a good day for answers. She had asked Sky where she'd some from, that it didn't have healers, but the young woman hadn't answered, just distracted Rin with something else. Rin talked with Mara Rose until they felt sleepy, then both settled down for bed.

A long night passed uneventfully, and the sky brightened for another dawn.

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WritingWoman: But you don't get to find out what happens on this particular day, because I have no idea. So, see you when I do!