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Hey guys, me agian! who would have thought? Well for Kandygurl4, she asked to be my beta! My first thought was sure she can...what the hell's a beta? so I looked at my login thingy and found, sure enough, beta reader. So I checked it out and my next thought was, wow does my spelling suck that bad? So I laughed at myself and thought, well I would love for her to be my beta! No one has ever offered that before and it sounds cool! So the answer is yes!...How do you become my beta?
Chapter 13: The Dead Plains
"I can't believe I'm going to the Dead Plain." Inuyasha grumbled miserably.
"Calm down, Inuyasha." Kagome smiled at him.
They had left the ship scant hours ago and were riding in a wagon Inuyasha purchased heading through the town to the horrid plain. They had all dressed in normal clothes as their pirate wear was a little too much for normal people. Kagome was wearing the first dress she had ever worn that she hadn't made. Inuyasha looked particularly handsome in gentleman's clothes with his ears hidden by a nice hat. Kagome was wondering where he had that thing stored but it made him look very nice and in it she could easily picture him as a rich lord.
Miroku, Shippo, Sango, and Rikos had come along as well. Those four were sitting in the back and had been let in on the whole secret. Sango, too, was in a dress something Kagome was trying hard not to laugh at. That was not helped by the fact that Sango kept twitching and moving the skirts and complaining.
"Sango you look beautiful." Mirkou said draping his arm across her at one piont. Ssango glared at him suspiciously but stopped fidgiting.
Shippo and Rikos were playing stones comlpetely oblivious to everyone.
Inuyasha had not wanted to go and had fought against it but as the ship was on Kagome's side and he couldn't steer it where it didn't want to go, he lost rather quickly.
"Fiercest pirate captain in all the seas and I get beaten by a girl and my own ship." he grumbled.
Kagome leaned over and kissed his cheek. "You'll be fine." she promised.
Inuyasha took a moment to admire her in the light pink, gauzy dress he had given to her. She looked alot better in it than he had pictured in fact.
But then he went back to griping. "Bull shit. You've never been there. That place is warped and twisted."
"Why have you gone there before anyway, Inuyasha?" Sango asked. All of them now knew the captian's name and he was embaressed to admit they were becoming closer friends to him for it.
"I don't want to talk about it." He said.
"Come on Inuyasha?" Kagome asked.
"If you must know, it was purely accident. I was running and found myself there." He looked off into space as if remembering. "There's no gradual fading of the forest to the Plains. The trees and grass just stop and then there is nothing from then on until the Plains end at the other side." Inuyasha shuddered against his will. "It's a dark evil place. The sun doesn't really shine there and nothing grows. Nothing lives."
"It's because of the battle." Kagome explained sadly. "So much blood was spilled into the earth, so much evil was performed there, so much death that nothing will live there anymore. Even the foulest things on earth will not go there. Singers in particular. We're the only ones who still know what happened there, and we avoid the place. I'll probably be the first Singer there since the battle itself."
After that no one talked again until they were beyond the city limits and riding along the forest trail.
Kagome threw off her hat and let her hair fly in the wind.
"Enjoying yourslef?" Inuyasha asked as she smiled.
"I love the ship and I love the ocean but I also love traveling." she asnwered happily.
"Then stick with me, you'll get everything you love." He promised noticing that his words rang with double meaning without him meaning to.
But Kagome smiled at him without picking it up. "Maybe I will."
"Hey Gome!" Rikos said. "Aint your mom gonna be looking for ya?"
"Huh," Kagome turned to him. "I haven't thought about that. Maybe I should go home for a little while. Just to prove I'm alright."
"We'll see to it soon." Inuyasha promised having an insaneurge to wipe that frown off her face. "Why with Han looking brand new, she wont even recognize the ship."
Just like he wanted she smiled at him. "That sounds great."
"So how soon will we get to the Plains." Sango asked sutiating her skirt.
"It's a little way off." Inuyasha said. "We just left the closest city to it and that's still maybe a day's travel away."
"On cart." Miroku complained.
"Do you have a better idea?" Inuyasha growled.
"No, no I do not." Miroku answered with dignity.
"I might." Kagome offered.
"You are not Singing yourself into exaustion." Inuyasha said before she could say anything. "We can stand waiting. In fact I'd rather not get there at all."
Kagome laughed. "Not all Singing knocks me out you know. Just really hard Songs, or Singing for hours on end."
Inuyasha mocked her silently but Miroku said, "So what's your idea?"
"Well this cart is made of wood. Just take off the horse and I can Sing our way there."
"Yeah. Great idea." Inuyasha said sarcasticly. "But hey genious, what do we do with the horse?"
"I'll tell him to go home." Kagome said.
Before he could stop her she reached out her mind to the horses and sang to him gently.
Without prompting he stopped and Kagome hopped out to unhitch him.
"Show off." Inuyasha complained as the horse obiediantly turned and walked back toward town.
"Shall we?" Kagome asked jumping into the back of the wagon. "Uh, Inuyasha you might want to sit back here where it's safer." Inuyasha complained but did as he was told and sat next to Kagome.
"Hold on tight." She said before whispering to the wood of the cart. Slowly the wheels started turning and then the wagon was inching foward.
"Wow, this is exciting." Inuyasha said. "You know maybe it's not too late to call the horse back."
But Kagome split through an octave and the wheels shot foward making all their hair fly behind them.
"What the....!"
"Wooohooo!" Sango said as the trees passsed them in a blur.
"How the hell can you steer this thang, girl?" Rikos asked holding onto the side for dear life.
But Kagome was still singing and couldn't answer.
Inuyasha turned around and saw a storm of dust and leaves in their wake and Miroku was squinting into the wind.
They rode in their cart for a little over an hour and by the time they were done almost everyone was singing, messily, the lyrics with Kagome. Her tongue and lips were moving so fast it was amazing any sound came out at all. And once she slowed to a stop her voice was still as clear and perfect as when she started. She was sweating, and breathing hard, but her voice was still sweet as a bell.
"I can Sing no farther." Kagome said once they stopped. "Nature stops just ahead, so I can sing nothing more."
Inuyasha nodded in understanding and jumped out. It was only mid-afternoon and he was back at the place he had never wanted to be.
"That was fun, Kagome!" Sango said happily before she tore off her dress revealing her normal clothes underneath.
"No wonder the dress was uncomfortable." Kagome laughed at her as she jumped down.
Sango pretended to ignore her and walked ahead. Kagome and Inuyasha led the way through the trees but suddenly they didn't need to.
Kagome gasped as the sight and feeling of death hit her. The trees and grass literally did stop. as if someone had drawn a perfectly strait line and declared not a single blade of grass was to cross it. The earth was deathly gray-ish black. Something sickly and disgusting. The sun, which had been shining brightly before, was suddenly hidden by a wall of clouds.
"Those are always there." Inuyasha said looking up at them "Why?" he asked.
Everyone felt the unnaturalness of the place, but none so much as Kagome. Her soul was so used to the feeling of life and vibrance around her. Even when something died something else living replaced it to eat away at it's body. But this...
Nothing but nothing lived there. The air was stale and putrid, the sky was dark and the earth around unhealthy.
"Come one Miroku." Inuyasha said. "What are we supposed to be looking for?"
"I don't know." he confessed. "There has to be some sort of clue here."
Unwillingly they started walking into the Plains trying hard to ignore the feeling of wrongess.
All but one.
"Kagome?" Inuyasha asked turning around when he noticed her not there.
She was standing right where the grass ending like a women standing at the edge of a cliff. Her face was full of fright and repulsion.
"Inuyasha I can't go in there." she said starting to shake.
"Sure you can. I know it's hard, but you can do it." Inuyasha encouraged walking back to her.
She shook her head looking around. "No...No I...I can't go in there." she started breathing heavily.
"Kagome calm down. It'll be alright." Inuyasha said. "We'll get in, find what we will, and get out. Easy."
"No Inuyasha really...I...I...I can't do that." she cluched at her heart as if to make sure it was still there and working. Kagome just shook her head.
Inuyasha walked over into the grassy zone again and held her in his arms. "Alright. If you don't want to go, you can stay here. We'll go and come back for you."
"Uh...Inuyasha?" Miroku said trying not to look as surprised as everyone else at the sight of him holding Kagome. "I hate to say this, but we're looking for an ancient Singers secret. We'll probably need a Singer."
"Miroku you can't force her down there." Inuyasha said as Kagome looked at the place terrified.
The men were glaring at each other when Kagome swollowed and said. "No I'm....I'm fine. I'll....I'll...go."
Inuyasha looked down at her surprised. "You sure? No one will make you go." but he was delighted to hear her answer.
Kagome nodded and let go of him. Except her hand. She kept her hand in his.
She took a deep breath and stared strait ahead, trying not to look at the wasteland beneath her feet, and took her first step.
She flinched and gasped as the pain and screams of centuries past hit her like a brick.
Then she did something she had never done before.
She cut herself off entirely from the world around her. Brought up as many mental barriers as possible and blocked out the resounding sense of evil from herself.
Suddenly it was alot easier walking.
"Kagome, you okay?" Inuyasha asked as they reached their friends.
Kagome nodded but increased the pressure of her hand in his. "Yes, but....just don't let me go."
Inuyasha nodded and pulled her close.
"Ready?" Sango asked her eyes shifting nervously. "I want to get out of this hell as quick as possible."
Kagome nodded and they started walking forward, into a place no one had stepped foot in centuries.
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