Thank you to Stella, for being so quick about editing these chapters! 3
"Kagome!" Came the shrill voice of her mother, shouting from the closed in shoji porch overlooking the river.
"Coming!" Kagome called, dropping her worn out rag into the makeshift wooden bucket filled with soiled water, standing up slowly. She sighed, looking to the floor that she had been scrubbing for almost two hours now. Her mother was stern, and once she had found out that her daughter had stayed out longer than permitted, had forced the poor girl into scrubbing their home spotless.
Kagome's hands throbbed with pain as blisters started to form from her vigorous sweeping earlier that day. She was also sure that her knees were busted from crawling on the floor for such a long time.
Terrified, she hurried to her mother, who was lounging carelessly on the patio. One arm was over her eyes, sheltering them from the light, the other arm laid on the deck, holding an empty sake bottle.
Kagome's face twisted with sheer disgust.
"Yes, mother?" Kagome asked, feigning sweetness.
"Be a dear and run over to Kaede's for me. I'm having a terrible headache," her mother sighed, dropping the sake bottle and letting it roll to her daughter's feet.
"Is that all, mother?" Kagome sighed, bending down to pick up the discarded sake bottle.
"Fetch me another bottle from Koichi, as well."
"Yes, mother." Kagome bowed her head, turning from the drunken woman and walking back into the house. She couldn't bear to look at her sad excuse for a mother any longer. She left the house and began walking towards Kaede's village, looking to the sky.
She heard a loud yelp and stopped in her tracks, looking towards a hedge of bushes where the noise came from.
'Is that… that dog?' She ran, dropping the sake bottle onto the cold ground.
