Ch.11:

The Tavern

Rayanne fell to earth many miles away, in the middle of a small village. She jumped out of the crater, screaming about being an executioner. The fall had knocked her head a little. And, unfortunately, the village was in full market-time swing, so there were plenty of people to witness both her fall and her miraculous rise from what should have been her grave. Then the whole screaming about being an executioner . . . it was just more then they could take. They let out a collective scream and ran as fast as they could out of there, not to come back until nightfall.

The would-be executioner regained her wits, and started off the way she had come. For this, that woman would pay. And the demon too, for breaking her katana, and flinging her halfway across the country! Yes, the demon too! On the long walk that she took to find her prey, she thought of many ways to exact revenge.

Oh yes, they would pay . . .

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Suddenly Sesshomaru was there, and he had snatched away all her trays of food.

"How did this get here?" He asked, in his very calm voice.

"Uh . . . I found it?"

"Final answer?"

"Sure . . . "

"Wrong. I saw what happened. So," he continued, still very calm. "...you are from the future, then. You're not crazy."

"Or . . . you could be crazy. Wait! No, I didn't mean that! I'm not crazy! You're not crazy! Let's just go with that one, okay?" Sky could have kicked herself for giving him a possible second answer. He didn't seem to have heard her, though. He was staring at the trays with those inscrutable eyes. Sesshomaru took so long to say anything that she even thought he might have fallen asleep with his eyes open, so she started waving her hands in front of his face. Nothing. His eyes remained glassy. Sky snuck up real close to his face, and started making very absurd faces at him. When nothing else happened, she decided to reach out and make faces with his face, but she had barely touched him when he disappeared. Screaming, she fell backwards, landing in the dirt. Then, just as suddenly as he had vanished, he reappeared, standing above her.

"What happens in the future?" He asked her. Sky's eye twitched.

"YOU COULD AT LEAST HELP ME UP!" She yelled at him. Sessho raised an eyebrow. "You want me to tell you, right? Well, you could at least be nice about it, and help me up. You weren't raised in a barn, were you?" She continued to mutter as he helped her up, but he did it so swiftly she was still complaining before she realized she was on her feet. "Oh, yeah, well . . . thanks, I guess. You know, you're bad luck. I keep falling to the ground when you're around. Do you think you're jinxed?"

"Now. The future. What happens?"

"Same thing as in the past, really. Wars, destruction, invasion, and meeting new peoples. Not much new at all. Technology, yes, but other then that, the human race is majorly the same."

"What about demons?"

"Well, several thousand years ago, my time, they were proven to exist, though they had, as a species, died out. This was LONG after they lost their religious status as punishers of the sinful. Then, on this one planet, discovered not more then three hundred years ago, there was a species that greatly resembled the demons in the tales, with the powers and stuff, but they were rather peaceful." Sessho looked like he was going to puke. "What? I'm only saying the truth. Did you know that truth was also a species? Some people say that a few are still hiding out on their home planet, but I think the rest of the universe twisted them all into Falsehoods. The Falsehoods are an okay people, if you're just looking for a good time, but you can't trust them with anything."

"Trust isn't a species as well?" Sky snorted.

"Of course not. Why on Station would you think that?" She shook her head at him. "Sometimes I worry about you . . . " Then she noticed a fact that had previously escaped her attention. "Oh, shit. I knocked over the food when I jumped, didn't I? Thank you so much, Mr. Sesshomaru! You know what, because this is all your fault, you have to find dinner now. And, I won't stop annoying you until we get to some place with some form of bed or another." She went into this really annoying routine that I can't explain without annoying the crap out of you.

It took a while (really only like five seconds; seriously, it was so annoying, and now she won't stop doing it whenever she wants something. Does anyone have a spare tranquilizer gun?) for her to wear Sesshomaru down, but eventually he cracked, and went off to go find a place to spend the night.

"Stupid, bitchy human . . . " He muttered as soon as he was out of hearing range; he didn't want the routine to start again.

Sky went back to where the others were waiting.

"Hey, Sky, where's the food?" Mara Rose asked her. "You promised me food."

"Did not! And we're getting something better then food. Well, we're eating, too, but we get a bonus! We get to sleep in real beds! I don't know about you, but I was so sick and tired of the ground . . . "

They were really starting to be hungry when Sesshomaru finally came back, and the sun was setting.

"I have procured lodgings for the night. Rin, you and the women will have adjoining rooms. Jaken, you will sleep in the stable. The innkeeper insistseverything is on the house, so order whatever you want for dinner. Don't Attract Attention To Yourselves. Human, with silver eyes–"

"My name is Sky, you condescending old fart! Use it!"

"–you will change into these clothes to be less conspicuous." He tossed them at her, and continued to speak while she inspected them. "This is the only place with beds that is reachable without walking for the next few days, with as slow as you humans go. Do not destroy anyone or anything without my consent." There was a moment of silence, then,

"You CANNOT be expecting ME to WEAR THIS! There is no way this is less conspicuous then my clothes!" Sesshomaru didn't even bother looking at her when he answered.

"You will, and where we are going, at your insistence, I might add, this is most common. Much more common then what you have on." It might have done him good to look; Sky attacked him, at first jumping over his head, then grabbing onto his tail to keep herself from going beyond him. He grabbed the other end, so it would be easier to get a hold of her. When she discovered that this was his goal, she decided to do as much damage as possible before he could, so Sky viciously pulled out whole handfuls of fur.

While this squabble was going on, Mara Rose examined the outfit; Rin and Jaken watched the fight with interest. Sesshomaru, oddly, was trying to get rid of the human without hurting her. 'How unlike my lord.' Jaken thought worriedly. 'Maybe he really IS ill . . . ' 'Hee!' That was Rin. 'They like each other!' She smiled happily, and didn't hear Mara Rose's gasp of shock.

Mara Rose's cheek burned with embarrassment as she gazed on Sky's new outfit. 'Oh. My. Um . . . ' The outfit was that of a common prostitute, very short, blood red, with a cut on both sides of the skirt. The top was hardly there, merely a corset that pushed up the breasts, and the smallest strip of cloth possible to cover the breasts themselves. It was only held up by two thin straps of fabric that would ride low on the shoulders.

The fight was over.

"I'M NOT WEARING IT!"

"Then you're not sleeping in a 'real bed' tonight, are you?" Sky looked at the hard ground, then lowered her head.

"Fine. I'll wear it. But I want someone to lend me a coat or something to wear over it!" Mara Rose already had one in hand. Sky would have worn one of Mara Rose's clothes, but being a once upon a time slave, Mara didn't have more then one set of clothes, and a coat.

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W.W.- No, I don't know it they had coats or not, or how they treated their slaves, if they had any. But Mara Rose has a coat, she's close to Sky's size, so . . . yeah. And it's a biggy, like my favorite types of coats: almost a trench coat, it's so long, but it doesn't cost as much. Anyway, this is good for Sky, because I guess . . . she's not comfortable in a whore's outfit. Again, I don't know if their prostitutes wore stuff like I described, but for my purposes, they do.

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It took a few hours to get to the tavern, but get there they did. The whole trip was very tense, because there was a gloom pervading the group, coming from Sky. It was weird, to not have her talking all the time . . . Sesshomaru seemed not to notice.

When they did reach the tavern, the mere sight of it made Sky have second thoughts. Even with the dress out of the equation, the tavern was still bad enough. It was run down, and there was a lot of noise coming from inside, lots of shouting and drunken laughter. The sign hanging outside it was almost nonexistent, but what was left read: 'The Tavern'. Someone, whoever owned it, she supposed, didn't have a lot of imagination. Sky was looking at it with despair when suddenly Sesshomaru was right next to her, and he whispered,

"Remember, you wanted to come. We can still turn back, if you've . . . changed your mind." She threw a disgusted glance at him, then straightened her shoulders and walked right in, in front of the rest, with Sesshomaru in the very back. Sweeping inside, she didn't look right or left at the vicious cutthroats lining her path, just made her way to a table in the corner, and sat down. Her friends joined her, and soon a 'waitress' (quotations because she was dressed a lot like Sky) came up to their table, and asked what they wanted.

Pulling Mara Rose's coat closer around her, Sky said, "I'll have a blembem of Greffen Stew, with a StromtaJinx to drink, and a small salad." The waitress just looked at her oddly, then turned to Sesshomaru.

"She means she'll have beef stew, and rice balls. I'll have the same, but with a bottle of your best sake, and everyone else will have the same thing the woman is." The woman nodded, and walked off, not paying any attention to the beating her rear took from various men as she made her way to the kitchen.

Sky glared at Sesshomaru, who was sitting directly opposite her, with his back to the wall. "I could have ordered for myself, you jerk."

"Yes, but not food known to anybody here."

"Does she live that far away, my lord Sesshomaru?" Rin asked. She sat right next to him, with her eyes averted from the rest of the room.

"Yes, Rin. The woman lives very far away indeed." Rin turned to Sky.

"So, where do you live, Sky?"

"Rin."

"Yes, my lord." Rin shut up, and asked no more questions. The food arrived, and, after making a face, Sky was soon gobbling down the food she had never seen before. Except the rice balls. Those, she didn't like at all, so she merely contented herself with bowls of soup.

They were halfway through their not half bad meal when the door opened again, and everything stopped for a minute, as all the people inspected the new arrivals, then went back to whatever they were doing. Hey, you can't be too careful when there are people after your head. Sky stared a bit longer then the rest, and so the next sequence of events.

The men in the doorway were better dressed then the rest of the people there, and their eyes were full of mischief as they took stock of the room. The owner of the tavern himself jumped up, greeted the four men, and booted some other men out of a table to give the better dressed men the best seat in the house. Then, walking away, he sent four of the 'waitresses' to serve them, one per man. Sky watched this in fascination. What was this strange ritual's meaning?

While she was busy staring at the newcomers, one of the more handsome men just happened to look over (A/N: I had nothing to do with it!), and spot her. She was turned around, and the coat was gaping open. Before she knew it, he was kneeling in front of her, holding her hand, and pouring out all the sappy words he thought she might want to hear.

Sky blinked.

Well, this . . . was . . . unexpected . . . She looked down, and noticed the coat issue.

"Shit!" She blushed furiously, and jerked her hand away from his to shut the coat better.

"Wondrous lady, why do you hide such eye-dazzling beauty? For one so beautiful as yourself, to hide would be a monstrous shame! Please, lady, come and join me at my table for a drink. Please grace our humble table with your brilliant light!" Sky just sat there for a minute, then Sesshomaru stepped in between them.

"She's staying." That was it! Sky was SO pissed at his high-handed attitude.

"Sure, Mister, I'll come and share a drink. It'd be nice." She stepped past a baffled (though he didn't show it, of course) Sesshomaru, a silently laughing (though slightly horrified) Mara Rose, and took the man's hand. As they walked away, she quietly asked him, "What's your name, sir? You can call me Sky."

"A gorgeous name for a beautiful lady! I am Rame Tashino. I have a modest estate on the other side of the forest . . . where do you hail from, Lady Sky?"

"Oh . . . very, very far away, in a different country. The man with the tail and the others are my friends that I'm staying with on my journey . . . " Sesshomaru stared at her back as she walked away, and disappeared before she even sat down at her new table. Mara Rose gathered up a sleepy Rin, and together they went up to their bedrooms.

It was almost midnight when Sky walked away from Rame's table, and stumbled up to her room. She had disinclined his invitations, to either go to his place or to walk her up to her room, by pleading exhaustion. Tiptoing past Rin's and Mara Rose's rooms, she entered hers as quietly as possible. But instead of going to bed, she looked out the window, and gazed on the stars. They were so pretty, but there were so few of them, compared to what she was used to seeing, back in her own time, from the Station windows. A wave of homesickness washed over her, and in her hazy condition, she decided to get closer to the stars, by climbing up onto the tavern's roof. Thankfully for her, the very topmost area was flat, and easy to sit on, not to mention close to her window (A/N: Again, I had NOTHING to do with it!).Struggling slightly, she nonetheless made her way safely to the flat spot.

Someone was already there. It was Sesshomaru, and he already had the best place on the roof, right next to the chimney, where it was warmest. Sky staggered over to where he was, and sat next to him, not noticing that he was ignoring her. Well, he ignores her so often . . . (lol) (A/N: Sky is drunk. All her words are translated for easy understanding)

"You know, the stars really aren't that bad here. They just look better from space!" She turned to look at him, bleary eyed, expecting him to know what she was talking about.

"You lived in space?"

"Yep! A lot of us do, in the future. We live in space because it's sure to have oxygen, the right foods, and all that good stuff that keeps us alive."

"I thought space was empty."

"Oh, it is."

"Then how does it have all this stuff?"

"We live in Stations."

"Which are?"

"Big houses in space."

"Ah." Silence. "What did you do, in your time?"

"I was an archaeologist, studying anything I could find that was left on Earth."

"Left?"

"Yeah. We all blew each other up, those that didn't escape into space."

"In the Stations."

"Yeah." Sky laughed a little. "My Family, though, rejected my family." He just stared at her. 'That doesn't make sense.' He thought, in the same unemotional voice that he spoke in. "Here, I'll explain. My family is the skeleton in the closet for the bigger Family, all because of my dad. Wanna know why? There are five Families on the Home planet for my dad, okay? And they all take care of dead bodies, hold all the sacred knowledge for burials. My Family, the portion still talked to by the other five, ruled over burial by fire, so the Pyre's. The rest are the Aerials (where the body is consumed by birds, ALL of it), the Mumms (who mummify bodies), the Riptides (who prepare the body before it is shipped out to sea, to be eaten by fish and sea birds, eventually), and the Burials, who just bury bodies in the dirt.

"But see, my dad decided not to go into 'the Family business', so he was disowned. He hadn't learned any really important stuff yet, so he wasn't put to death or anything. Just banished from the Family. Stupid stuffy bastards." She said, but she smiled. "That's where the eyes come from, my dad. Something about seeing the souls of the dead. He told me all the legends, once, but I forgot most of them. They are basically useless, because I'll never be in the Family. I never see him anymore. My mom, I saw her too much. Yeah, you gotta love her, but boy, does she ever get on your nerves! Anyway, we're not part of the Family because my dad gave up the job, and then he married my mother, who wasn't even from the same planet, so he gave up all hope of anything that included the Family, and he gave up any hope his children might have had too." Sky spoke, but she wasn't paying attention to the words coming out of her mouth. She was watching her hand swing back and forth in front of her face, making the stars disappear and reappear. Suddenly, she stopped, her hand still in the air, and pointed to a spot just left of it.

"You see that star? Right there, next to my hand? That's the star my father's home planet circles. And that one, over there? That's where the Station would be, if you looked at the sky in my time. I figured that out, first day here." She sighed. "I kinda miss them sometimes. My older brother, especially. He was a really nice guy. He also told me Family legends, because he was going to be a mortician, no matter what the great Family said. Legends concerning why we live so long, why we're all so cheerful all the time, though of course we go through our depressions, not being full-blooded Family." She whispered now, as if telling him a big secret in a crowded room. "You see, they say that the Family are all very cheerful people, and that's why, at the very beginning of time, they were chosen to take care of the dead, because they could handle the grief without going mad. But, they don't live as long as we will, me and my brothers. We will even have longer life spans then even my mother, because we have two peoples with very long lives to draw our DNA from."

"What's DNA?"

"Huh? Oh, just what makes us . . . us. What makes us have black hair, twenty eyes, or a big fluffy tail!"

"How does that make you live longer?"

"Dunno. But that's another reason my father's former Family was chosen. They seemed to defy death with their long lives, when seen in the eyes of the primitives of their home world. My mother's people just live a long time, and have all these other genetic advantages, like getting stronger as you get older. My mom, she's as thin as a twig, but if she and my father, who's almost grossly strong looking, got in an arm wrestling match, she would win only too easily. I think she's turning 327 this year." She giggled slightly. "Hm, I talk a lot . . . "

"Yes, you do." She giggled a little more. The tavern door banged open under them, causing her to squeal and jump. Sky would have fallen if Sesshomaru hadn't caught her about the waist, and brought her back to the roof. Rame and his buddies stepped out into the small glow of light created by the open door. Their voices floated up to the pair on the roof.

"Haha! What a night! I knew it was a good idea to come here!" The man who said this pulled the prostitute next to him closer and nuzzled her neck. "Wasn't it, dearie!" She laughed a little.

"Yeah, but that stupid bitch in there backed out on me at the last minute . . . What was the big idea, wearing a dress like that if she wasn't looking for some! And what was with the coat!"

"Aw, poor Rame! Can't even get a whore . . . " The rest of the men laughed at him.

"Yeah, right. Shut up! I bet she was only stringing me along, hoping for a couple extra bucks, before going up to her real customer for the night." Here Rame snorted. "Bet it was the guy with the white hair. Bet that's why he acted so weird . . . "

"See, I tell you, Rame, you can't try to sweet talk 'em! You just got to go and tell 'em what you want!" Sesshomaru was having issues above them, trying to keep Sky from jumping off the roof and killing the men below. She whispered fiercely at him,

"Let me get them! Can't you hear what they're saying about me! About you! And you're just going to sit there!" He pinned her at his side, keeping her arms from flailing about and attracting the attention below. Finally, they were out of sight, and Sky quieted, so he released her. She turned to look at him.

"You're kinda weird, you know that?"

"Like you can talk."

"Well, I got my reasons to be weird, and I'm sure you've got yours, but why wouldn't you let me go kill them?"

"Because I didn't want to have to deal with it, and I'm sure you don't really want blood on your hands." He looked at her too, but Sky wasn't looking at him anymore. She was looking back out at the stars. Then, sighing, she dropped her head onto Sesshomaru's shoulder, and wound her fingers into his tail. Sesshomaru said, "You're drunk, aren't you?"

"Eh . . . just a little."

"You reek of sake."

"Thaz nice . . . " Sky yawned, and started to drift off to sleep, but Sesshomaru didn't move. Instead, he said,

"Sky, you didn't really like that Rame guy, did you?" Another yawn.

"No, not really. He was being really annoying and sappy. I just did it to piss you off, because you keep making my decisions for me. That's really old fashioned, you know. Then again, I guess, you are too . . . living in the past and all . . . but no, I didn't really like Rame. Especially not after what he just said about me. I told you–" Bigger yawn, "–that this dress wasn't a good idea. Hm. Did you know you're cute?"

"I believe you already told me that."

"Well, you're still kinda cute. Annoying, and scary as hell sometimes, but cute. One of my favorite Old Writers said it best. 'You're a scary son of a bitch, Mister. Cute as hell, but scary.' Neil Gaiman, voice of Ruby in the Sandman series. Really good . . . " She was almost asleep. "Sesshomaru?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a family?"

". . ." He was relived she had fallen asleep, so he didn't have to answer her. He looked

down at her, and was startled. The moon had risen, and was shining brightly on them. Her hair had changed color again. It was black with gold streaks through it. Sesshomaru shook his head, and picked up the woman, intent on taking her into her room. He had gone through the bother of scaring the owner into giving them free rooms here, after all. Seeing her in his arms, though, he saw just how fragile and easy to break she looked, how small. But when he tried to put her down on her bed, he discovered how false the impression was. He had to wrestle a moment, trying to get her hand out of his tail. It had a death grip on him. While he tried to do that, she slept on, with an innocent look on her face. 'Damn. What is it with her and my tail!' He thought to himself. This was really baffling him, her odd fascination with his tail. 'Even in sleep, she wants to possess it . . . ' He finally got free, then exited the room via the window without a backward glance.

Okay, maybe one, but you can't tell Sky about it.

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W.W.- Hey, sorry that this chapter was so long, but I haven't written in a while, and I had to get it out of my head while I could, before the words went away again. It's really weird, I'll have this idea about where the story's going to go in my head for the longest time (if I don't forget it, that is), but I can't find the words to write it with. I'll try to get the next chapter up soon. Bye!