A/N: Chapter three! Woot woot! I am really glad that I've had so many people follow/favorite this story or me or both. But it's even better that I keep getting awesome comments. Thank you Angel, for your comments. I really appreciate them and they make me want to write more. I'm glad that everyone likes my story so far. I hope it gets even better. I am trying my best to keep Kurama and Sesshomaru in character as much as possible, though I'm sure there'll be times when they won't be lol. One would think that almost 12 pages would be longer. But here's things to come: Kurama takes Lynn back to the Silver Clan, or what's left of them; she meets her demon father; she starts training with her powers and learning how to go into her demon form without blacking out; she has a nic fit at some point; the Mating Ball is coming up; Sesshomaru begins to question his feelings; and the rest you'll find out sooner or later. Don't want to spoil the fun just yet. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Reviews fuel the plot bunnies!
Previously: Kurama looked back at Lynn, looking into her eyes, pleading with her to believe him. "Lynn. I know there's a lot that you do not understand, and I know it is disorienting and confusing for you right now, being so far away from what you've known, but please believe me when I say that you are my cousin. You are Feara."
"What…?" she asked in shock. "You are Feara. The plants showed me your demon form. What's more, your aura even feels like hers, while you're in demon form. Not to mention you have some control over plant life, as I do. As your mother and mine were the ones related, they got their control over plants from their mother, and we got ours from them. However, I do believe that you may have other powers from your father. I'm not entirely sure. Only he would know that let alone how to access those."
Lynn just stared at him shocked. She was originally from here? There's no way…but how else would she explain the oddities that started yesterday? Or even the nightmares she'd been having ever since she could remember. Now that she thought about it, she vaguely remembered seeing someone with silver hair and ears just before she saw a black haired woman flick her fan and send weird looking blades at her. And there was no way her parents could have known. If she had shown any signs of weird powers, they'd have told her. And the random voices she heard off and on she never told her parents about. She had thought at the time that they were spirits talking to her. But if she could control plants, as Kurama said, then it made sense that they could talk to her as well.
"Lynn?" Kurama questioned quietly when she remained silent for a while. When she didn't answer, he slowly walked closer to her, placing his hands on her shoulders and shaking her a bit. "Lynn?" "I don't believe it…" she said so softly he almost missed it. "Please. Come with me, Lynn, and I will take you to your father."
She looked up at him sharply. "My…father…?" "Yes. He can help you. He can also confirm all that I have told you. I promise you that everything will be ok." Lynn looked up into his eyes, surprised at the sincerity that she saw there. Somehow she knew that he wasn't above lying to get what he wanted. However, her instincts where telling her to trust him, and her instincts where never wrong. "All right," she said softly, smiling a bit at him. Kurama returned the smile and briefly hugged her to him before grasping her hand gently and leading her away from the clearing.
"Have you eaten yet, Lynn?" he asked, mostly to try to make conversation. "No. Actually, I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday." He gave her a confused look so she elaborated. "Noon. I haven't eaten since noon or mid-day yesterday. We call the mid-day meal lunch where I'm from." "Ah. You really must tell me all about this place that you speak of. There seems to be many things that are different." "Ok. What would you like to know?" "Hmm. Well, let's see. Are the clothes that you're wearing normal there?" "My clothes?" she asked, looking down at her clothes. "Well, for me they are. Everyone wears things they like. And they can all be different. If we are where I think we are, then usually the women wear kimonos?"
Smiling, Kurama nodded. "Yes they do. Though the quality usually depends on their station here." "Do you call this place Japan?" Lynn asked curiously. "Japan? No, I've never heard of it. We call it Nippon (I think) mostly. There are those who call it different things. Come to think of it, I will be going to the Western Lands in a couple of months for the Mating Ball. If you wish to come with me you could meet his half-breed brother, Inuyasha, and his friends. I hear tales of a human girl who says she's from another time. Perhaps she could tell you what you wish to know about here."
"That would be interesting, but I have nothing to wear. And what is a Mating Ball?" "You have no need to worry about that, dear. We will find you something. As for what the Mating Ball is, it is a ball that is held once a year to show off eligible noble demons. Of course, the lower class mate during this time as well, but the ball is specifically for nobles. The lords of the North, South, East, and West and their nobles try to pawn of their children on each other, mostly to form political alliances. Others just want the power that comes with mating a powerful lord. Of course, most of them try to pawn off their daughters onto Lord Sesshomaru, being as he is the most powerful of the four and also single with no heirs."
"Sounds awful," Lynn said, scrunching up her nose. "Indeed. It is rather distasteful. That is unfortunately how demon society works. And as heir to the Silver Clan, you can choose to go or not, though it's better if you do. Normally, it would just be Uncle Fury and I going, as he has no other heirs. I would be the next in line after you now, unless Uncle has any more children." "Your Uncle hasn't taken another wife?"
Smiling a bit, Kurama shook his head. "Your father was very much in love with your mother. Much of his heart went with her death, and I believe the rest of it went when we thought we lost you. However, I do believe seeing you for the first time in years will help heal his poor old heart." Kurama stopped walking and smiled at Lynn brightly, gesturing ahead of him, indicating a river of medium size. "It's not much, but we can stop here and catch some fish for us to eat, if you like. We may even be able to find some berries around as well. Unless you'd like to have something different?"
"What other things could we possibly have? I mean, I can fish pretty well, but I have nothing to catch them with, let alone something to catch any other creature with." "We could make spears to catch the fish with. We could use them to catch other animals as well, but I thought it'd be a little easier to catch fish in the stream, as shallow as it is." Nodding, Lynn agreed. "Well, as much as I don't like using my Warrier for such things, I suppose I could use it to make a spear with. Shouldn't be too hard." "Well, let's find you a couple of long sticks to make into spears, and then I'll go and collect firewood. But I must ask you to stay put while I go and find some. It is rather dangerous to be on your own in an unfamiliar place."
Snorting, Lynn waved him off. "Where else can I go, silly? I haven't a clue where I am, let alone where I could go to. And I'm not afraid of idiot demons…no offense…" "None taken, dear." "I'm not afraid of them. But I'll stay put. Besides, maybe I'll catch a butt load of fish by the time you get back." Chuckling, Kurama shook his head and ruffled her hair in an affectionate way, laughing outright at her scowl. "Sorry. You may not know this, but foxes, especially Silver Foxes, are very affectionate. Especially towards family and friends or those that they consider family. I hate to make you feel uncomfortable, but I have to say that you should probably get used to it. I haven't seen you since you were a baby and I'm more than likely going to spoil you rotten with attention."
Lynn contemplated that for a moment. That could be why she was always bombarded with guy friends and friends who wanted benefits. Other than her open affection for either of the two, her constant need for affection probably stemmed from her demon side. If she had one, that is. But that kind of made sense, in a weird, roundabout way. She also liked being around crowds of people even if she didn't know them, and made friends rather quickly. But she had yet to find one who truly cared for her and respected that she was independent and self confident. Most were intimidated by her self-dependence, and those very few that she had gotten close to enough that she fell in love with them, ended up breaking her heart in the end because of it. So she chose just to keep friends.
Shrugging, Lynn just smirked at him. "It's fine. But if you really are my cousin, there will be no funny business. I don't do it with relatives. That's just weird." "Funny…business…? Do it…?" Kurama questioned, confused by her slang. "Yeah, funny business. Sex. I don't do sex with relatives." "Oh, I see," he said, the confusion clearing up. "I assure you, my dear, there will be no… "funny business"… going on between the two of us. While interfamilial relations aren't uncommon in demon society, I have no intentions of starting such a thing between us."
"Yeah, I remember you saying something about that earlier. Though it's still odd, but if it doesn't cause problems if a child is born from it, I suppose it wouldn't matter. I mean you can't help who you fall for." Kurama had been looking for suitable spears while she talked but stopped and looked at her in confusion. Noticing, she laughed and elaborated. "What I mean is that you can't help who you fall in love with. I think that's probably the only reason why it's so frowned upon in human society, it causing problems with the babies. In my time, there are some incestual relationships, but there are many, many more same gender relationships than there are incestual. And neither really bothers me. I just prefer non-relational men, if you catch my drift."
"By "catching your drift", I assume you mean did I understand you. And that would be a yes. I myself haven't found someone, male or female that has interested me yet, but I don't think I'll be falling in love with any relatives. Course, there is only you and Uncle Fury left of my family. My grandparents and yours were killed in the attack by Naraku." Finding suitable sticks, he walked over to her and placed them in her hands. "Here you go, dear. See what you can make of those while I go find us some fire wood ok?"
Nodding, she sat down by the water to get started while Kurama wondered off into the forest for wood. She hummed quietly to herself for a few moments before she remembered she had her phone. "Oh! My phone! I wonder if it works," she muttered to herself, setting down her Warrier in her lap momentarily and reaching into her back pocket for her phone and ear phones. Tapping a button to see if it would turn on, she was pleasantly surprised to find that it still had at least half a battery left on it. Unfortunately, not that she expected it to, it didn't have any signal. But that was ok. Her music player didn't need signal or even internet to play her music.
Deciding that she would only listen to a few songs before cutting it off to conserve power, she placed one ear bud in her ear and turned it on to her current favorite song, Crazy Bitch by BuckCherry-her theme song, or so she was told often by her close friends. Humming to it and singing under her breath, she made the two sticks into suitable looking spears. Grinning, she sheathed her Warrier, held her phone in one hand and a spear in the other and stood up. Scrolling through her songs as Crazy Bitch was about to end for the third time, she decided to pick another one while she fished.
Choosing Mother Earth by Within Temptation, she placed her phone back into her pocket and walked over to the river stream, surprised to see quite a bit of fish. "This ought to be easy," she muttered, a smirk on her face. Carefully aiming the spear, she waited a few moments before she hurled the spear into the water, expertly snagging the fish she was aiming for. Laughing, she did a little dance with the spear and fish, before walking away and looking for something to lay it on where ants or other bugs wouldn't get on it. Frowning as she couldn't find anything, she shrugged and decided that she would just use the spear as a fish holder and jammed it into some soft dirt. Satisfied, she grabbed the other spear and continued fishing.
By the time Kurama got back with a good little bit of fire wood, Lynn caught a good little bit of fish. At first, she thought to catch more, but then she figure they probably wouldn't eat that many and it was still early in the morning. So she caught enough for them to eat now and a few more to wrap up for lunch and maybe dinner later, as she didn't know how far they had to go before they came another food source or to where ever it was that they were going. Kurama smiled as he watched Lynn dangle her feet in the river and watching the clouds above her, a spear of fish close to her. He tilted his head to the side curiously as he could hear faint noise that almost sounded like some kind of music but he couldn't place where it was coming from.
Deciding it wasn't important, he focused on Lynn. "I see you've caught plenty of fish. But don't you think that that is a bit too much?" Lynn sat up and smiled. "Well, I figured that we may not come across another food source anytime soon before we get where we're going, so I thought I should catch and cook some for the afternoon meal and dinner so that we'd have something to eat." "Ah. Thoughtful. But the clan lives only a day away from here. So we should be there by nightfall. Though we can cook the extra and find something to wrap them in. The little ones of the village love fish."
Lynn smiled. "That's fine. Just wanted to have some sort of supplies. I wish I had a water bottle though. It would be nice to have something to drink while we're walking." "If you don't mind drinking from a plant, then we'll be alright." "A plant?" Lynn asked confused. Kurama nodded and pulled out a seed, allowing some of his youkai to flow into it and made it grow into a bell shaped flower. "This is a bell flower. It can seal tight enough to hold the water in it. I can make a couple of them to hold quite a bit of water." "Neat," Lynn said, but the look on her face didn't show that she found it "neat" at all. "It is quite safe, I assure you."
Nodding, she pulled her feet from the water, being careful to avoid dirt so she wouldn't get her feet dirty, and walked over to him and grabbed some branches. "Well, let's get cooking, shall we?" she said playfully. "Of course," he answered just as playfully, setting down the wood close enough to be reached and set about helping her set the wood up in a way to help it burn better. Lynn wandered off after a moment to go find some dried grass and leaves to help kindle the fire and dumped it in the middle before pulling her lighter out and lighting it. She sat close for a few moments to see how it turned out before sitting back and putting her lighter away. "Lynn, what was that that you used to light the fire with?" Kurama asked, confusion on his face.
"Hmm? Oh, this?" she asked, pulling her lighter out of her pocket and showing it to him. At his nod, she put it back as she answered, "It's called a lighter. People use it as a portable flame. Mostly it's for cigarettes but some people use it for fires as well." "This world of yours is rather interesting. It seems that there's more and more to learn about this place." "Yes, there's lots of things to learn from there. Some of it's boring though." She picked a stick out of the pile to put the fish on. Once she found a perfect one, she sharpened it enough on one end to hold the fish and set it aside. Finding another, she repeated the process so they'd both have one and set about gutting and scaling the fish. "I don't really relish using my Warrier for this, but you gotta do what you gotta do," she muttered to herself.
Kurama merely smiled a bit and shook his head. Normally people here would just cook it and eat it, guts included. But it didn't seem that people in her time did the same. "Do you guys have such a thing as salt and pepper here?" Lynn asked suddenly, her mind still on her task. "Salt…and pepper?" "Yeah. Seasoning." "Seasoning?" "It's a type of seasoning. You know herbs and spices?" "Ah. Well, we do use different herbs to make the food taste better; however, I do not have any on my person at the moment. I am sorry. But perhaps I could help you locate some within the forest?" Kurama offered. Shaking her head, she said, "No, but thank you. That would take too long. As much as I would like it, it won't kill me to eat without it," and went back to work on the fish.
"Yes. The sooner we arrive at the village, the sooner you can meet your father. Would you like to hear more about the Silver Fox clan, or would it be alright if I asked more questions about your world?" "We could take turns asking questions if you like, though I think you pretty much explained everything about our clan already." Kurama smiled at her use of the word "our" which he took to mean that she was coming to terms with being a Youko. "Alright, well, we'll start with whatever you're curious about of our clan." "Hmm," she murmured as she continued her work. "Well, other than you and…father…do I have any more living relatives in the Silver Fox clan?"
Kurama's smile faded a bit. "Well, of course, everyone in the clan considers each other family, blood relation or not, but outside of myself and Uncle Fury, you have a few distant relatives. Mostly they are our cousins from either side of the family. And yes, some of our relatives that are mated to each other are related by blood," he said, letting her know upfront about it so that it would give her time to think about it. Kurama's eyes widened when she merely shrugged. "I have no problem with it. While it is strange, in any time or place, I have no problem with it, nor would I scorn them for it. As a matter of fact, I know of several people and am friends with quite a few who are openly gay. Can't say that I know anyone who is incestuous, but that doesn't bother me either. I'm easy to get along with because of things like that I think."
Kurama chuckled. "Indeed. People who are as understanding as you are very hard to come by. Not very many people would try to understand. They would merely scorn the relationship itself." "Yeah, well, those people are closed minded assholes who obviously have their heads stuck so far up their ass that they can't see that love is love, no matter what form it's in. Your turn by the way," she said, staking her now gutted and scaled fish on the small spear she made for roasting it and set about working on one for Kurama. Kurama correctly deduced that she meant his turn to ask a question and decided what he wanted to ask about. Considering he was confused by her last statement, he asked about it.
"Lynn, dear, I find myself at a terrible loss here. I'm not used to not understanding things, so I'm afraid that I must ask what you meant by your last statement before the 'love is love' part." "Oh? What part or the whole sentence before that in general?" "Well, I think I understand the… "asshole" part. It has something to do with the body I imagine and is being used in a derogatory way." She nodded her head at his deduction, letting him know he was correct. "I assume by "closed minded" you mean…?"
Smirking, she said, "Closed minded means to…let's see the best way to describe it…" She looked up with a finger to her chin as if looking to the sky for the words she was looking for. "Ah!" she said after a moment, dropping her hand and looking at him. "Closed minded is where a person or people are more or less set in their ways. Meaning that it's either the way that they see it, or no way at all. Basically meaning that it makes you an outsider to society because of how you think, act, behave, or in this case, love. I imagine you didn't understand the "head up their ass" part either, so I'll explain. Really it's just a figure of speech, not something that someone can really do-although now that I think about it, if there's many different demons out there, I imagine one of them probably could do it, though I can't imagine why one would want to-but it pretty much means to be stuck up. Kind of like how Sesshomaru acted, except he was…let's say…more civilized about it. I think. But I think you understand."
She had thought about saying "if you catch my drift" but seeing as how he wasn't used to her terminology, she thought it best to be as simple as possible. "I see. That does make more sense now that you explained what you meant. The whole thing was basically meant as a slur to those who can't accept things for what they are." Lynn smiled and nodded. "Ok, my turn." She turned back to her work as she thought for a few moments. Kurama waited patiently and was rewarded with her question after only a few moments of silence. "Is there anything that I need to know about our clan? Any special rules or powers or regulations or stuff like that? Stuff I probably should already know but don't?" (A/N: I'm not sure what exactly goes on in Kurama's Silver Fox clan, or even if he really has one, so any rules I put up are made up for this story. If you have any ideas or thoughts as to good rules, I'm open for suggestions )
"You already know that it's custom for the hierarchy of each clan of demons as well as the rulers of the separate lands are expected to go to most, if not all social functions, but there are a few key things to know. Our clan itself doesn't have very many rules itself. We have books for the history on our clan if you wish to know them. The main thing to remember, should you ever have the inclination to steal something shiny, is to not steal from the Lord of your lands. We have a treaty with our Lord to assist him if needed so that we can keep our freedom, and to steal from him, whether intentionally or on accident, is considered treason. And it will more than likely cost you your head. Right now, we are closer to the Eastern territory. However, we are part of the Western Lands. So our Lord is Lord Sesshomaru."
Lynn looked over at him sharply, surprised that she was still living if that were the case. "Wait…then why am I still alive? I didn't steal from him, and I would assume that he's mostly out of his jurisdiction around this area, but I did attack and insult him. And I know he knew more than he was letting on, so he must have known who I was possibly related to. Why am I still standing, and why did he help me after words? And didn't you say he fought me in my Youko form?" Kurama started to answer but Lynn cut him off, mostly speaking to herself at this point. "But that would mean he knows I'm from the Silver Fox clan now. That doesn't explain why I'm still alive, even if he knew of that."
Kurama waited a moment to make sure she was finished talking before he spoke next. When it was silent and Lynn was deep in thought, he spoke. "Lynn." Gaining her attention, he continued. "That is why I said that I was confused by why you were still alive. Normally, Lord Sesshomaru would never, even in his more mellowed state, allow someone to live if they insulted or attacked him. I think he may have had his suspicions before about who you were, likely, he could smell the Silver Fox in your scent, but I'm sure it wasn't until you attacked him in Youko form that he knew without a doubt who you were, or at least where you came from, regardless of whether you knew or not. The only thing I can think of is that he's…amused or dare I say…smitten…by you."
"Smitten? As in, he likes me?" "Something like that," Kurama said, nervously rubbing the back of his head. He wasn't sure what exactly stopped Lord Sesshomaru from killing his baby cousin, but it was obvious that he held some kind of interest in her.
At the thought of the insanely hot demon Lord "liking" her, Lynn blushed brightly. Her face heated up so badly that if she had been in an anime, the not so PG-13 images flying through her head would have likely caused a massive nose bleed. As it was, she was feeling rather dizzy and light headed. "Lynn, are you alright?" Kurama asked, seeing the look on her face and was rather concerned at the color of her face. Shaking her head and dispelling the thoughts and attempting to put a reign on her raging blush, she nodded. "I'm fine. Just a bit shocked I guess. I've had plenty of guys that I liked who I was sure liked me back, but none of them could compare at all to Sesshomaru if he really does like me."
"Well, I suppose we'll find out at the Mating Ball in a couple of months. I'm sure he'll have something to say then, if he decided to leave you to your own devices." He walked over to her side and sat down next to her, reaching forward and turning the roasting fish so that it didn't get overdone. "Thanks, Kurama," she said, smiling at him. Finishing, she speared the other one and got up, walking towards the river to look for a relatively big flat rock to use to hold the other gutted fish once she was finished with them. Surprisingly finding a suitable one, she walked back over to the fire and set it down beside where she was going to sit and began working on the rest, placing the gutted fish on the rock as she finished them, in between turning the fish over the fire.
She and Kurama ate in peace, joking between each other for a while before she started cooking the rest of the fish for later. Kurama went off into the forest again, both to use the bathroom and to find some leaves to wrap the fish in. Finding a couple of large leaves, he walked back to their temporary camp and rinsed the leaves off in the flowing water before shaking them off carefully. Kurama helped Lynn to wrap up the now cooled off and fully cooked fish in the leaves before using his Youkai to make some vines grow from a seed to both wrap around the leaves and keep them closed and one to make it easier to carry. Kurama somehow managed to wrap the vine in a way to where he could loop the vine around his waist and hold the tightly bound leaved fish in place to leave his hands free.
"You're pretty smart, Kurama," Lynn commented as she watched him work the vines into place. He smiled, his ego stroked. "Why, thank you, Lynn. This way, it's easier to carry, and it keeps my hands free in case I need them. Sometimes things are easier when you're a demon." "You think?" Lynn pondered for a moment as they started walking again. "Yeah, I suppose in some ways it is easier to be a demon. I mean, some demons are unbelievably beautiful. Super strength and speed. Weird powers. I assume demons live longer than humans too. Though I don't think I've ever seen any in my time. Though they probably have some kind of illusion or spell to hide their true forms from the humans."
"You may be right, but I'm thinking that it's not very likely. I'm positive that if there had been any, your Youkai would have come out a lot sooner than yesterday. At the very least, there probably aren't very many. Or in the off chance that there are plenty, they must have strong magic if they can both conceal themselves and their scent and Youkai. And yes, demons live longer than humans. Even half-demons live longer than humans…if they can survive both the humans and demons that hunt them anyway." Lynn frowned. "It seems that no matter where or what time someone goes, there's always going to be people who just don't want to accept something or someone different." "So it would seem," Kurama agreed.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, Kurama listening as Lynn hummed quietly to herself. He found himself soothed by the faint music he still heard, though he wasn't sure what it was. After a few more minutes of quiet, he realized that Lynn was humming to the same music that he was hearing, and turned to her. She didn't seem as if she heard it herself, but now that he concentrated on it, it seemed to be coming from her. 'What in the world…?' Kurama thought to himself. It was then that he noticed something small and white hanging down in front of her while a small white string looking thing traveled up to her left ear. Now he was just utterly confused. That had not been there before, or at least he hadn't noticed it before.
"Lynn?" Kurama said quietly. "Hmm?" she answered absentmindedly. "I'm sure this wasn't there before, but what on Earth is going up to your ear and hanging down your front?" "Huh?" she said, momentarily confused. She looked over at him but his gaze was elsewhere. Following his gaze she looked down. At first she didn't see anything out of the norm-well for her anyway-but then she noticed one of her ear buds just casually dangling and slightly swinging in front of her. It was then she realized that he was referring to her ear phones. It was also then that she realized that she had forgotten that she was still listening to her music. "Oh! This you mean?" she asked, holding up the previously dangling ear bud. At his nod, she merely smiled and dropped it.
"It's called ear phones. You put them in your ears to listen to music so it doesn't disturb other people. It's usually attached to a music device such as an Ipod or MP3 player or…my phone!" she exclaimed. She had completely forgotten that she had only wanted to listen to it for a little bit so as to conserve the battery. "Phone?" Kurama questioned, but she ignored him in favor of immediately reaching into her pocket and pulling out said phone, which he only just now noticed was attached to the white thing she called "ear buds" too. She turned off her phone and immediately, the music that he had been hearing was gone. Seconds later, she took the ear bud that was in her ear out and wrapped the string looking thing and all around her phone before putting it back into her pocket.
"I take it that small square black thing was this "phone" you were speaking of?" Kurama asked after a few moments. Evidently, either she hadn't heard him, or she forgot that he had asked about it. "Oh, yes! I'm sorry. I forgot that you were asking about it. It's technically called a cellular phone, but it's called cell phone or phone for short. There are actually two different kinds of phones, landline and cell phone, though they come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. A landline phone is simply a phone that you have in your house but you can really only use it in and around your house, otherwise it'll get out of range. A cell phone is like a house phone only this one you can carry with you where ever you go and it works off of towers that are all around the world in my time. Oh, and a phone is basically just something to contact people with near or far. Like letters in the mail. Well, in this time frame it would probably be just announcements or something like that from Sesshomaru or something."
"Interesting," Kurama murmured. "So these music devices are similar to this phone?" "Kind of. But really the only difference would be that you can't make phone calls with them." Kurama got lost in thought for a few moments, before he ended up just shrugging. It would seem that his baby cousin was full of all sorts of surprises and he had a feeling that he hadn't even begun to scratch the surface. They carried on in silence for a while, Kurama still lost in thought and Lynn quietly humming a song to herself, but eventually Kurama broke the silence with another question and they continued question game, even during their small stop to eat lunch and rest and continued well on until nightfall.
Kurama had insisted on setting up camp for the night, but he made the mistake of telling Lynn how close they were to the village and she refused saying she could wait to rest when they got there. "Stubborn woman," Kurama had found himself saying before he went off to find a stick. It would only be about a 30 minute walk to reach the village, but it would be pretty dark by then and he didn't want to risk travelling without some kind of light. When he returned, she offered to light it for him. "No. I thank you, Lynn dear, but it would burn down the stick too quickly and I have nothing to keep it going for a while let alone stay in one place. I have an idea though. May I borrow your knife?"
Lynn unsheathed her Warrier and handed it to him and watched as he made several cuts along the thicker end of the stick. Once he was satisfied with the depth of each cut, he returned her knife to her before reaching into his hair and pulling out a handful of seeds. "You keep seeds in your hair?" Lynn asked as meticulously went to work embedding the seeds into the cuts on the stick. "Indeed. It is easier to get a hold of them, not to mention my hair hides them very well. Some of them are quiet useful for everyday things like this, or they can be useful as a weapon. It really just depends on what I feel I'll need that day. Watch," he said as he placed the last seed into the gash.
At first she saw nothing, but a moment after he held his hand over the part with all the seeds, she saw a faint outline around his hand that she supposed was his Youkai. Moments later, the seeds sprouted into odd looking flowers. What surprised her though, was that as soon as they sprouted, they started glowing. "What the hell…" she said in shock. Kurama merely laughed softly at her reaction. "They're called lamp weed. As you can see, they glow like a flame. Just one can light a small area, but since I've put a lot of them in this stick, it's now a safe torch that feeds off of my Youkai to stay lit." He demonstrated by holding it over his head for a moment. She found he wasn't kidding about a torch. She was pretty sure that it covered way more area in light than a torch would.
"Neat. Hey, you said I could manipulate plants right? Can you teach me how to do that?" "Of course," Kurama answered with a smile. "But first we need to get you to be able to turn into Youko Feara. Once we manage that without you blacking out, we can start teaching you all sorts of "neat" things." "Ok, so how do we go about unlocking my demon form without passing out?" He gestured her to follow him as he started walking forward. "Somehow we need to get you to tap into your hidden Youkai. I'm certain if you concentrated enough you should be able to do it. Then it's only a matter of practicing." Lynn followed him as she thought. 'Concentration, huh? Man I never was good at that kind of thing. Oh well. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try.'
Lynn stopped for a moment and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate and center herself. The way she figured it, it would be kind of like a meditation thing. She had to center herself in order to find her powers and once she found them, though she didn't know what she was going to do if she found them, she'd be one step closer to turning into Feara. Kurama continued walking, not noticing that she wasn't still following at first. It was only a few seconds before he suddenly felt the Youkai of Feara that he realized that he was no longer being followed. Feeling the aura pouring from just outside of the torch light, he whipped around. But surprisingly, instead of dirty blonde with green eyes, he found nothing but silver. "Feara…?" he said in shock. She opened her eyes and looked at him for a moment but they suddenly turned green as Lynn lost her concentration, and he found a human in front of him again.
"Wow, that was weird," Lynn said to herself. Kurama stood there in shock long enough for Lynn to catch up to him and eye him curiously. "Planet Earth to Kurama, are you in there?" she said after trying to get his attention for several minutes. When that didn't work, she reached up a flicked his nose, causing the poor Fox to startle. "Wha…?" Kurama said, momentarily out of sorts. Blinking, his eyes landed on Lynn. "Where the hell was your brain at Kurama? You look like you saw a ghost." "Did you just…?" he started in confusion only to stop when she started grinning. "It worked, huh? That's good to know. But I couldn't hold it for long." Kurama merely stared at her for a few more minutes in shock before grinning himself and shaking his head. "You, dear cousin, are full of surprises. Perhaps we shall have you summon up Feara for Uncle when we arrive. Speaking of which, let us continue."
Lynn nodded and they continued walking. She was more than ready to be there. She was getting tired and her feet were killing her. Hooker boots were not meant to spend hours walking in. Honestly she was surprised that she had yet to trip over something. Normally she could trip over a flat surface no problem. Maybe that meant that her demon side was coming out more since it seemed to be rather graceful. She was so far lost in thoughts of what all she could do as a demon for quite a while that she hadn't noticed that Kurama had stopped until she ran into him, nearly falling on her ass in the process. Luckily, Kurama had fast reflexes and immediately grabbed her upper arm to steady her. "Geeze, Kurama. Warn me before you stop suddenly like that."
Kurama chuckled. "It wasn't sudden dear. I was waiting for you to catch up. That aside," he said softly, wrapping an arm through hers and leading her around a few trees towards what looked like merely more trees, "I'd like to welcome you back home to the Silver Fox clan." Blinking Lynn tried to see what he was talking about but only saw more trees. She gasped as she saw Kurama merely walk through a tree in front of him only to be startled when she was suddenly pulled through it too without the pain she was expecting from colliding with a tree. When she opened her eyes that she didn't realize that she had closed, she found herself gasping as all around them in and out of the small houses were actual foxes, both silver and red, and fox looking people, who she assumed were demons. "Kurama, this is…?" "Yes. The Silver Fox clan. Welcome home, Lynn." Kurama said with a smile. "Kurama, you're back."
At the voice, both Lynn and Kurama turned to look at whoever had been calling him. Lynn, feeling strangely intimidated by the tall male before them, subtly shifted until she was somewhat hidden behind Kurama. Kurama merely smiled at the male. "Indeed I am, Uncle Fury." "Mind telling this old Fox why you suddenly rushed out of the village yesterday?" Fury asked in his deep voice. 'Uncle Fury?!' Lynn screeched in her mind, her eyes wide in shock. He was just as beautiful as Kurama even though his hair and eyes were silver and he had fox ears on his head. Not to mention, he wore mostly white clothing. 'If this is his Uncle, then that means he's my father…' She gasped and tried to hide more behind Kurama as Fury looked behind Kurama and saw her, his eyes narrowing. "And who might this be?" he asked, lifting his head a bit and sniffing the air, trying to catch the girls scent.
"Actually Uncle, she's the reason I left yesterday. However, I think we should take this inside Uncle. You need to be the first to see this." Fury frowned at his nephew, looking into his eyes to try and see what the boy was plotting. Of course, he found no plot. Kurama had been harping at him for a while now that he needed to get mated again, so he didn't put it past the boy to attempt to find him a suitable match. So he wasn't entirely trusting of this new development, but decided to give it a chance. "Alright. But I warn you Kurama, if this is what I think it is, I'm going to hang you upside down for a day with one of my pets." "I assure you, Uncle, this is nothing like that."
Nodding, Fury led the way to his small house. Kurama smiled at Lynn and held her hand, tugging her behind him as she seemed a bit reluctant to follow. Once inside, Kurama placed his make shift torch against the wall, and the second he let go of it, the lamp weed flowers stopped glowing and reverted back into seeds. Kurama then settled himself and Lynn in front of the fire pit in the middle of the room. Kurama squeezed her hand gently in reassurance as Fury settled himself across from them. "Now, Kurama, tell me what this is all about." Nodding, Kurama turned to Lynn. "Do you think you can do it again?" Kurama asked softly. Lynn looked at him for a moment before nodding hesitantly. Turning away from Kurama, she closed her eyes again and tried to forget how nervous she was. Moments later, she felt herself changing, but didn't open her eyes. This time she tried to embrace the power as much as possible, or she would have if she hadn't heard a gasp. Opening her eyes, she found Fury staring at her in shock. "Feara…"
A/N: Woo! Another chapter done! Heh, it took me a while and various different things were flying through my mind about this part. I had thought to cut it off with a camping scene, but I decided I wanted her to finally meet her father. That, and knowing my real Lynn the way I do, if she were that close to a place, she'd want to get there as soon as possible too. Anywho, thank you to everyone whose liked/favorite either my story itself or me. I really appreciate it! Another thanks to Angel, who was the very first to comment on my story. Another huge thanks to my new reviewer Luna! I really appreciate all your support! And again, remember, reviews fuel plot bunnies!