Happy Birthday to the lovely WitchyGirl99!
It should go without saying that one should never get on the wrong side of a witch. After all, they are wise and cunning, and often will exact the punishment upon the unfortunate soul who crossed them that is most fitting of their crime. This is one such tale. It is a tale of a half-demon prince, so loved and coddled by his lordly parents that his mind grew fat with knowledge, but not with common sense. For Inuyasha, the second son of Toga, the Inu no Taisho, did not heed the warnings, and paid for his hubris, a price set to completely alter the course of his privileged life.
On a pleasant autumn night, Prince Inuyasha found himself frolicking and teasing with his friends, gallivanting down the streets of Kyoto, without a care in the world.
"Betcha I can!" Inuyasha barked, causing one of his companions to scoff. "Everyone in this town knows who I am. No lady with half a brain will refuse me."
"Whatever, muttface. Show me. Whoever you want. Pick a woman and make her kiss you," Inuyasha's companion scoffed.
"And what do I get fleabag?" Inuyasha smirked, his eyes already searching for a willing victim.
"Bragging rights," the obsidian-haired wolf-demon answered.
"Whatever Koga." Inuyasha folded his arms. "You don't get to call me muttface anymore."
"Deal," Koga agreed.
And so the bet was on. The half-demon prince would find a willing victim and his friend, the Lordling Koga from the wolf tribe, would cheer and jeer his attempt to make a woman kiss him on first sight. Inuyasha glanced around until his golden eyes found worthy prey. She was wandering the edge of a park, alone. Dressed in a neat black dress with her hair tied back in a white tie. To all the world she was innocuous, but to Inuyasha, she was perfect. Even in her attempts to look outwardly drab and stern, Inuyasha sensed an inner fire. Unfortunately, it was in his mistake at placing it that led to what happened next.
"Oi! Hey beautiful!" Inuyasha bounded up to the plain woman with fire in her eyes. "How about a kiss?"
"I'm sorry?" The woman narrowed her eyes, and Inuyasha then saw that she had a deep, classic beauty below her plainness.
"A kiss. For a prince," Inuyasha smirked, blocking the plain beauty's pathway.
"I am sorry. I have no desire to…" the woman continued, attempting to edge around Inuyasha, who then stepped one more time into the woman's way.
"Come onnnnn…. One little kiss might just change your life." Inuyasha took a step forward, boxing the woman further in. "Just a peck. A peck for a prince."
It seems that on that day, Inuyasha had made a grievous error: he had attempted to steal a kiss from a woman who did not want to give it. A woman, who, through her body and her words, had made this fact very clear. Perhaps, if he had accepted her polite decline, things would have been different. Unfortunately, Inuyasha lacked the common sense to back away, and Kikyo, the woman he was harassing, lacked patience.
One thing that Kikyo did not lack, however, was power to change Inuyasha's fate.
Before Inuyasha could so much as take another step toward the angry witch, he was engulfed in a bright pink light. The light of Kikyo's rage. Koga, for his part, fled to find help, but no help would arrive. Not before Kikyo had had her say.
"Vile prince, your manner is unbefitting your station," Kikyo bellowed. "To steal a kiss is a grievous sin. To do so under the guise of your princeliness, more grievous still."
"I-I'm sorry," Inuyasha stuttered, but it was too late. For he had crossed a witch.
"And sorry you shall stay," Kikyo continued, then with a careful flick of her fingers, the spell was cast.
Inuyasha felt like he had been lit on fire as the painful transformation took place. His hair shortened, and his skin sprouted fur. His nose elongated into a muzzle, and his hands and feet gave way to paws. Then, like a bamboo shoot sprouting from the earth after a long winter, a fluffy bottle-brush tail sprouted forth from his backside, curling into a corkscrew. For Kikyo's wrath had turned Inuyasha into a fine-furred Akita.
"Now you will hear me, Inuyasha," Kikyo commanded. "This is your punishment for acting a dog in the shell of a prince! You are now a prince in the shell of a dog. It is up to you to determine which fate belongs to you: that of a prince as a prince, or that of a dog as a dog. You have seven years to earn the selfless kiss of a woman you love, who loves you in return. Only that can break my curse."
"You bitch!" Inuyasha barked, only to realize that his voice was no longer that of a man, but instead the feral growls and utterings of a common dog.
"It is a great irony for you to call me such a name," Kikyo smirked. "For that, I believe my punishment must grow deeper. It will no longer be Kyoto that you will live out your sentence, but instead, a new place, a strange place that you have never encountered. A place that you will only ever be a dog to those who look upon you. A place where no one will ever cry about the missing prince."
"Wh-what? No. Please don't do this…" Inuyasha whimpered, fully aware that it indeed was a dog's whimper coming from his maw.
"Your destiny lies in your own hands, Inuyasha." Kikyo twirled her arms in a more and more complex pattern, "But you must come out changed, too, if you are ever to succeed in being a prince as a prince once more."
Inuyasha was then engulfed in light, and his body felt squeezed as if in too-tight a tube. When the light abated, he was no longer surrounded by the serene trees of that Kyoto park. No longer was Kikyo standing above, waving her arms and scolding him.
He was somewhere new, somewhere strange. Somewhere he did not belong.
There was a stench to this place: metallic and noxious, with only the slightest whisper of something earthy underneath it. The whir of engines caused Inuyasha to yelp, barely avoiding the grotesque red automobile that rushed past him, uncaring about who he was. Or whether he would live or die by its indifferent wheels. He closed his eyes and concentrated his hearing, listening desperately for any clue as to where the witch had deposited him. The trickling of a river caught his attention, and he took off on his four paws toward the sound, hoping desperately that it would lead him… somewhere. Though where he could not say.
The people that lined the streets of that strange place looked nothing like the people at home. Their hair was not pin-straight and black, but instead all variety of colors: blonde and auburn and brown and black, straight and wavy and coiled in tight curls against their heads. Their eyes were not uniformly almond-shaped and dark brown; instead, they were green and gray and blue, and shallow and bright or deep and soulful. It was a land of humans, though their heterogeneity was more akin to demons, and yet, there was not a single demon among them. He, in his demon stature, was alone.
"Fuck." Inuyasha may have been a dog, but his vocabulary was still very much that of a half-demon prince. A half-demon prince, it seemed, who needed to find a way to break his curse and discover exactly where the witch Kikyo had transported him, so he could find the swiftest way home.
It took time, but eventually he gained enough clues to his whereabouts to place himself. From the lazy river and the boundless lake, and the sweet scent of beignets in the morning and the sultry sounds of jazz at night, Inuyasha surmised that he was now in New Orleans. In America. And never before had he been so grateful for his extensive education of the world.
"So all I have to do is earn the selfless kiss of a woman." Inuyasha shrugged his shaggy shoulders. "That should be a cinch. Then when I get back I am going to find that fucking witch and tear her to pieces, bit by fucking bit."
So Inuyasha set off, in search of a woman he could make love him. For most of his life, this task was simple. Being a prince came with advantages, after all. In the game of wooing, Inuyasha was the self-declared master. The line of women hoping for his hand was endless, for his charm, for his looks, and for his station. So… he was confident, that even as a dog, it would take him no more than a month to set things right. And then, he would have his sweet revenge.
But fate has a funny way of humbling the proud, especially those on the wrong side of a witch. And for Inuyasha, it took less than a day for him to truly understand the predicament he found himself in. Three mean junkyard dogs, with nicks in their ears and scars across their muzzles, snarled and snapped as he attempted to use their stronghold as his shelter for the night. Forgetting he was no more than a white Akita, Inuyasha took the challenge with the pride of a half-demon prince. One well-placed lunge at his throat, and Inuyasha felt his windpipe crush, and then the sensation of warm blood, his own, trickling into his fur. Had the largest and the meanest of the dogs aimed its teeth only a little bit higher, Inuyasha's curse would have ended that day, along with his life. But he was lucky, and he came from that fight licking his wounds, with nothing more than a harsh lesson about his own newfound mortality.
"Fuck," Inuyasha thought, as he curled himself tightly into a ball, covering his nose with his tail.
He was safe (for the moment) in a discarded cardboard box, protected from the elements, in a forgotten alley. As he fell asleep, he cursed his poor luck and the witch who ruined his life.
A month, he thought, a month is all I need.
So the next morning, he set off, certain he would be able to find some doudy working woman, or half-brained belle, to undo his curse. But to no avail. The women looked upon him with pity, or fear, or sometimes even disgust. They had no time for stray dogs with blood on their fur.
"I have no food for you," they said.
"You poor thing," they lamented.
"Jim! Call the dog catcher! What if it has rabies?!" they shrieked.
But all this was said in English. And Inuyasha had paid woefully poor attention in his English classes, boasting 'if I need to speak English with someone, I can call for the finest translator to be by my side.' And that would be true, were Inuyasha a prince, and not a dog. It was a lesson, though, he quickly learned. The high-pitched screams of the women or the growls of the men, especially when paired with the words 'dog catcher,' meant that he needed to run and hide.
And so, Inuyasha wandered. Days became weeks, and weeks became months. No one (woman or man) seemed to have any interest in a mongrel such as he. Inuyasha learned to scour the garbage cans at night for scraps of food: discarded bits of meat and moldy bread, so different from the pheasant in yuzu sauce and aged miso broth he feasted upon in Kyoto. He learned that children would often take pity on him if he lowered his ears just so, and if he widened his eyes just so, but even this was a risky endeavor. To take food from a child, but not be caught by their hawkeyed parents.
When months turned into years, Inuyasha was truly lost. He wandered the city aimlessly, hoping for scraps of food and pitying looks, ever aware that his hold upon his freedom was tenuous. Every offered morsel could be laced with poison to a dog. The other animals all seemed to know that he was not like them, and so he was unwelcome in any place others frequented, leaving him to survive without a single other companion. Every summon of a person's hand could come with a heavy chain around his neck and a pile of dogs attacking him and leaving scars upon his ears and face: a "bait dog" he was called. And often it took the entirety of his half-demon intelligence to escape those cages with naught but his paws and jaws and muscles.
His feet had grown tough, his fur had grown dull, and his eyes had grown wary. He only frequented those restaurants whose food he watched dumped directly into the bin (and for that he often had to bite and snap and scratch and growl, to earn his meal). He trusted only the innocent eyes of children, only the food from their hand, only the pity in their hearts at his sorry state.
Perhaps that was why, six years, six months, and six days past the day he was cursed, Inuyasha was finally ready to give up. The winter had been harsh, and the scraps of food had dwindled. Children it seemed, had been warned of the danger of stray dogs after something called a "rabies outbreak." He'd learned to run with all his might when he saw beasts with frothing mouths. Without morsels of food he'd depended on, his legs had turned weak, his coat did not protect him from the indifferent shifts in the weather, and he could no longer outrun the snatchers, the catchers, or the beasts who would tear out his throat.
And so it was, on that night, he lay his head on the cold and wet pavement, and closed his eyes, ready to give up. A shell of a prince in the shell of a dog. Paying the ultimate price for attempting to steal a kiss.
"Oh, you poor thing." So soft was the voice he almost did not hear it. Yet, for some reason, every word echoed in his mind, growing louder and more musical as he replayed them.
"Kagome, that dog looks diseased!" A high-pitched shriek so like all the others.
"It's okay, Yuka. You go. I'll catch up with you later," the musical voice replied—Kagome? "I don't think you look diseased. I think you look beautiful—you just need to find the right home," she continued in a whisper, her delicate hand coming in contact with one of Inuyasha's triangular ears.
With all others, he would have jumped and snarled and put up his heckles. He would have fled to the box under the overpass that made him feel safe. But on that night, with that girl, he did not. Maybe it was because he was too tired. Or maybe it was because he thought he had died and must be in heaven. But, whatever the reason, he let this slip of a girl pet his ear and stroke his tattered fur. And when she giggled and told him to wait there, that she would be right back, he waited.
She returned so quickly that Inuyasha hardly realized she was gone, a handsome loaf of bread in one hand and a rope in the other. She handed him the bread first, which he gulped down so quickly he was worried one of his sharp canines had nicked his rescuer's hand. But all she did was giggle once more—the sound of bells emanating from her magical voice.
"You must be starving," Kagome muttered, running her hands now through his mane. "And you certainly need a bath." Kagome then held out the rope, which she had fashioned carefully into a loop. "What do you say? Would you like to come home with me?"
Inuyasha let himself whine and yelp, and he wagged his tail with the strength that had returned to him from Kagome's gift of bread. Had his prayers been answered? Had he truly found the one who would change his fate?
He allowed himself to hope. Allowed himself to dream of returning to his station, to his family, to all that he once knew. Whisked away from the wretched life of a dog, away from the toxic fumes and vile ways of the humans of New Orleans. So he let Kagome gently loop the rope around his head, and he let her lead him home.
"You walk so easily on a lead. Did… did someone abandon you?" Kagome asked, causing Inuyasha to turn his eyes toward her.
She had wavy black hair, and soulful brown eyes. She wore a skirt that was bright green and a white satin blouse with an oversized collar. On her feet clacked a pair of shiny saddle shoes, the same green and white as her outfit. With a tentative sniff, Inuyasha could smell the slightest sweet scent of bourbon on her lips. But the smell of her, the one that no amount of spirits or perfume could ever cover was more pleasing still—cherry blossoms and vanilla—infused the very air around her as her skirt swished and her saddle shoes navigated the pathways of the New Orleans eve. He had never smelled anything like her before. It was a smell he was all too willing to follow. A smell that, were he a prince, would almost certainly lead to his trying to get to know the woman whom it belonged to better.
"Oh! Sorry, I don't have anymore food for you," Kagome said, a small smile on her face while watching Inuyasha's nose twitch. "But when we get home. I will make you some rice and maybe some chicken."
Inuyasha's tail wagged. He had been saved from this wretched fate on the day he thought his curse would end with his life, because of this strange and beautiful girl. He believed, in no time, he would be gifted the kiss that would set him free.
Kagome's home was austere, with no more than a living area with a single table and a kitchenette in the corner, and a door to the bath and bedroom. It was worse than servants' quarters in Kyoto, but… when one has spent the last six years of one's life living in a cardboard box, it was a palace. Inuyasha jumped around the space, letting himself yip with glee. And Kagome delivered on her promise that first night, boiling him a meal of rice and chicken, which Inuyasha appreciatively gulped down.
"Tomorrow, I will get you a leash and collar. And find you proper food. And oof! Perhaps also a bath," Kagome said, sitting on the plain wooden chair at her dining table. "But tonight, I think there is only one thing for us to do."
Inuyasha wagged his curled tail, his ears focused solely on her. Kagome leaned down again and ran her fingers through his ragged hair, massaging the base of his ears so gently he nearly went limp from the sensation.
"I need to give you a name," Kagome said. "How about…"
Inuyasha, Inuyasha whined. But as like all the other times, his words were those of a dog, and the only one who could understand that strange language of his was Kikyo.
"...Lucky," Kagome finished. "Because I am lucky that I found you."
As Kagome laughed, Inuyasha could not help but grumble. 'Lucky,' it so happened, was the very thing he most assuredly was not. But he would take it. For the warm bed and the shelter, for the food and the safety, for the smell of cherry blossoms and vanilla, and for that musical voice.
When Kagome settled herself to go to bed, Inuyasha placed his paws on her bed, and gently licked her nose, wondering if today, he could break his curse. Surely with such an invitation she would be helpless but to refuse him, and surely, to rescue him as she did required selfless love.
"Oh Lucky, I feel the same," Kagome giggled, ruffling the hair between Inuyasha's ears. "But dogs sleep on the floor. Oh!" Kagome bolted out of the bed, pulling out the drawer of a well-worn wardrobe, a loose-knitted blanket in her hands. She folded the blanket carefully, and placed it on the wooden floor directly below where she slept. "You deserve something soft."
Kagome then climbed back into bed, pulled the covers over her, and clicked the pull string on the night table lamp, extinguishing its glow. "Goodnight, Lucky."
Goodnight, Kagome, Inuyasha thought, then pawed at the blanket his new owner had supplied him, settling into its lush woolen folds.
For the first time in so many years, Inuyasha had the hope that perhaps he would be able to change his fate after all. He had not been able to break the curse tonight, but he could always try again tomorrow.
When tomorrow came, Kagome stretched her limbs and yawned, the light dancing on her black hair. "Good morning Lucky! I must go and pick up your collar and food—Oof! And dog shampoo! I promise to be back soon."
Kagome was not gone long. The leash, collar and food under her arm.
"How does a walk sound?" Kagome laughed, kneeling down to attach the collar around Inuyasha's neck. "Then… bath time!"
With a lowering of his head, he let Kagome slip the collar around his neck. Like that, Inuyasha accepted his new life, his new station, his new friend. And hopefully, the one who would break his curse.
That day passed with Kagome, who told him of her life—she was a senior at Tulane University, graduating with a degree in English. She did not know what to do with her life, but she knew that the 'ideal' of a 60s housewife did not fit her. It made her sad, that she would never be what her family most wanted for her. That living her dream (which was to be a writer) came at the expense of her chance at love. For no man would want a wife so set on her own dreams.
Kagome, it seemed, had been as in need of a friend as he. The days passed, one after another. She would take him for a short walk before she had to leave for class, putting a bowl of kibble and fresh water down for him on her way out the door. He would sleep through the day waiting for her, content to chase the warmth of a sunbeam as it traversed the wooden floor. Then in the late afternoon, he would hear her say goodbye to her 'friends' from school. When Kagome would open the door, she would sigh, and the mask of politeness she wore through the day would slip away, and he would see her true face. One that did not hide its sorrows; indeed, it was the face of the woman who poured her sorrows into Inuyasha's waiting ears. She would hug him as she asked if she was beautiful, kind, and witty. And he would wag his tail, because that was the only way he could tell her that yes, she was beautiful. She was kind. She was witty.
In the evenings, he would walk on the lead and sniff good-heartedly, always aware of the cherry blossom and vanilla that accompanied his mistress, letting her tell him of the professors who hated her essay on the French Revolution. Of Ayumi's newest boyfriend who sometimes left bruises on her arms. Of the boy Hojo (Inuyasha hated Hojo) who would absentmindedly give Kagome strange remedies for unseen ailments and ask her to go to church with him. She would lament that she did not want the life that Hojo seemed determined to give her. A life without her dreams.
And every night that passed, Inuyasha would paw up and onto the bed, and he would kiss Kagome's nose, hoping desperately that this night was finally the night she too would kiss him back, and his curse could be broken.
"Lucky! You know you don't get to sleep on the bed!" Kagome would always giggle and ruffle the hair between his ears, then say, "Goodnight."
When the weeks turned to months, Inuyasha became more forward, more desperate. He knew that Kagome was supposed to break his curse. That she, and she alone could do it. Yet, the harder he tried to compel her to kiss his nose, the more resistance he felt. Stealing such a kiss would never break his curse, and he would never be Inuyasha again.
So his days stayed the same.
Waking up by Kagome's side.
Watching her stretch and yawn.
Accompanying her on their walks.
And listening to all her dreams and sorrows.
He never could remember when it happened, but at some point, he stopped trying to get her to kiss him.
Maybe it was that time she looked at his collar and saw the name 'Lucky,' and commented, "I still remember the day I saw you. I didn't know then that I needed you as much as you needed me."
Maybe it was the time that she ran in the door, sopping wet from rain and tears, and threw herself into Inuyasha's fur, trembling.
"They stole my purse, Lucky. But I ran and I ran and I ran, and I made it home," she'd cried.
I will always protect you, he'd promised.
Maybe it was when Kagome told him that she loved him. He'd laid his head on her bed, letting her rub his ears and ruffle his fur. She'd turned to him, and in the moments before sleep had simply said, "I love you," instead of her normal "Goodnight."
I love you too, he'd thought.
And maybe it was none of those times. Maybe it just happened.
So it was, six years, eleven months, thirty days, twenty-three hours, and forty-seven minutes since the moment that Kikyo had cursed him for attempting to steal a kiss. Kagome was tucking herself into her bed, as she always did, stroking Inuyasha's ears as he looked into her eyes, as he always did. He knew it was coming, knew soon he would be a dog in the shell of a dog for the rest of his life. Knew that he'd failed to break his curse.
He would always be 'Lucky.'
He would always be Kagome's.
And he realized, he was okay with that.
I love you, he whimpered, closing his eyes to hide the tears that were forming.
"I love you too," Kagome whispered back, and gently she brought her lips to Inuyasha's nose, and placed a tender kiss upon it.
With mere minutes to spare, Kagome had broken Inuyasha's curse.
There was a flash of pink, and warm tingling spread through Inuyasha's body, from the place Kagome's lips had touched his nose. He felt his snout recede, his paws elongated back into hands and feet. His yōki swirled around him, flaring his eyes to amber and returning his hair to the moonspun silver mane he'd had the day he was cursed. He was free.
"L-Lucky?" A trembling voice broke Inuyasha out of his glee.
"Kagome." Inuyasha tried his voice, swallowing down the joyous sob that wanted to escape him at hearing his human voice once again. "Thank you."
"What... what is…" The tremor in Kagome's voice had grown more pronounced. But her hands were reaching toward him. And he could not help but lean into her touch.
"You broke my curse, Kagome." Inuyasha brought his hand to hers, relishing the feel of her fingers on his skin, and his fingers on hers. "I am Inuyasha. The half-demon prince of Kyoto. And…"
Would he say it all? To this woman who had made the idea of his being a dog for the rest of his life livable, because he would get to be with her?
Yes. He must.
"I love you," Inuyasha said. "As Lucky, I love you. As Inuyasha, I love you. In any form I am in, cursed to live as a dog or saved to live as a prince, I love you."
"B-but…" Kagome stuttered, still looking upon the ethereal man now crouched at her bedside, still wearing the collar she bought him. The collar that called him 'Lucky.'
"I was cursed for trying to steal a kiss from a witch," Inuyasha explained, taking no heed of his nakedness, nor of the wide-eyed disbelief on the face of the woman he loved. "A curse that could not break without the selfless kiss of a woman I love, who loves me in return."
"I-Inuyasha?" Kagome uttered. The first time she had ever said his given name. And it was all he could do not to cry.
That night, all the two did was talk. Inuyasha had changed into an old pair of Kagome's pajamas to do so, as propriety was a human characteristic and he arrived in New Orleans clothed only in his fur. Inuyasha told Kagome of his life in Kyoto. Of his family and his friends. Of the spoiled opulence of being a prince. He told her of the day, seven years prior, that he'd met a witch. About the years of wandering scared and alone as a stray not-quite-dog in New Orleans. And for the first time in all their time together, Kagome was able to listen.
"Then, on the night I was ready to give up, to go to sleep on that wet pavement and not wake up again, you found me." Inuyasha flicked the tag on the collar that he still refused to take off. "Lucky."
It was Kagome's tears that came first, as she threw her arms around her half-dog demon prince and cried into his long silver hair. They cried together that night, so lost and grateful to have found one another, even in these the unlikeliest of circumstances. Then, in the moment that the sun crested the horizon and winked through her window, Kagome pressed her lips to Inuyasha's: another selfless kiss from one lover to another.
And so it was that the missing prince of Kyoto was found, in the arms of his fiancée, Kagome Higurashi, an english major at Tulane University, in New Orleans, who had broken his curse, and changed his life for the better.
The wedding was resplendent, western in the tradition of the bride, but with the wealth and stature of the Inu no Taisho. The Higurashis laughed at the over-politeness of their Japanese hosts, who struggled and succeeded in speaking to them only in English (a skill now Inuyasha appreciated the importance of), and they cried as they gave away their beautiful daughter to the returned prince, who so loved her that he promised to never leave her side. The wolf tribe howled their congratulations and Koga in particular serenaded his friend, and King Toga and his Queen Izayoi, looked upon the blissful couple with tears in their eyes. It seemed that they were not only gifted with the return of their beloved son, but also the confirmation that he too would know deep abiding love, like they had found. For no one could look upon Kagome and Inuyasha and not see two who were utterly and entirely meant to be.
And on those nights, away from the crowds, they whispered their secrets and their dreams between kisses and lovemaking. Kagome, a writer never forced into the shell of a housewife, and Inuyasha, a prince who truly was a prince once more.
In a small mountain cabin in Hokkaido, a witch looked up and watched as a single strand of silver hair burst into flames.
"So, it appears he has succeeded in changing his fate," Kikyo said, then smiled, and took a small brush and dusted away the ash.
So there we have it. Inuyasha and Kagome lived happily ever after, and Kikyo, for her part, was pleased to see one of her spells succeed in changing someone for the better. For everyone else, there are but two lessons to be derived from this tale.
The first is that true love has the power to completely alter the fate of not one, but two people's lives.
And the other is this: never ever get on the wrong side of a witch.