To my anonymous flamer (heehee) 'i hate you': Its all in the author's notes! I have irrefutable logic and you know it ;) Plus, if you think this is bad, try reading a yaoi with the pairing as Sess/Inu...almost scarred me for life!
Still short, but look at all the growth!
And totally sorry about the wait...
00
"My apologies; I didn't mean to startle you," he stated.
"Its ok...I just...well, its ok." He threw her off balance when it was just the two of them.
"I waited until you finished practicing." What was he talking about? Kagome felt as though she was in the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong conversation...everything.
"What?" her voice was hoarse and a bit choaked.
"Your practice. Your performance," he elaborated with a wave of his hand and Kagome felt a wildly uncharacteristic urge to grab it and kiss his palm.
Inutaisho noticed the glassy look in her eyes that contrasted with her furrowed brow.
"Your dance," and he said it with such finality that Kagome had to look up at him once more.
"Oh...OH!" she shrieked with realization and Inutaisho winced slightly.
"Sorry, Sorry," she murmured. "I wasn't practicing, I was just...umm...feeling the music?"
He quirked a brow at her and she was embarassed.
"It was a compelling thing to watch."
She beamed at him.
"How did you create all of those sounds?"
And she was glad that she had a chance to sound knowledgable, instead of like a deranged woman.
"It's from my time," she said, gesturing to the CD player next to her, then held up a disk. "These are called compact disks. They have little codes on them for the music and that box deciphers the codes and plays the music."
"Is it hard to code your music on the disks?" Kagome smiled at the careful way he worded his question, trying to get everything correct.
"It's easy to put songs on the disks, yes, but they aren't mine." Inutaisho looked at her questioningly.
"I didn't write the songs and I'm not the one singing on the disks," she explained. "I just liked it, so I brought it with me."
"From the future," the inuyoukai said shrewdly and she nodded.
"You speak so bluntly...it it surprising." Kagome's face took on a mortified expression, but he held up a hand to stop the oncoming apology.
"Will you speak so candidly to me now?"
"Hai," she said softly.
"There is a saying in the western world, 'Curiosity killed the cat'," Kagome nodded to let him know she had heard it before. "I have always thought that strange."
Silence before she realized he wanted her to say something.
"Why is that," a pause. "Inutaisho?"
Quiet once again as the intimacy of his name on her lips permeated the clearing.
"Everyone knows that dogs are more curious than nekos."
"You want to hear about the future," Kagome realized. He gave her a small smile reminicent of Sesshomaru's smirk.
"There is something you said by the fire; that you were only nineteen," he paused. "Were you not afraid of becoming a spinster?"
She looked at him blankly, shuffling through her knowledge of the Sengoku Jidai and what the hell he could possibly mean.
And then it hit her.
Kagome's sudden outburst of hysterical laughter both startled and amused him.
"Gomen, in my time it is not unexpected for women to wait for marriage until they are older and have set careers...jobs. Women are equal to men for the most part, making their own decisions, supporting themselves, sometimes even choosing to stay single when they have children."
Inutaisho nodded, taking all of this in calmly, but Kagome could sense the amazement almost radiating from him. She giggled and he gave her a small smile in return. They spent the rest of the night trading stories, the female of the two not even realizing how much time was passing.
He told her of the fight to save Izayoi and she explained electricity to him.
She told him about television and he related a tale of a very young Sesshomaru acting out a fairytale for his father and mother.
He told her how he acquired the three swords and she told him about power in the 20th century and how it wasn't based on strength.
She told him about her family back in the future and he spun stories of his kin that were over thirty thousand years old.
He told her that he had done things that were less than honorable and she took his hand and told him sometimes it couldn't be helped.
Kagome asked him why he came back and he didn't answer.
Kagome wondered why he looked at her like he was waiting.
Kagome wondered why he looked at her as if he knew something she didn't .
Kagome wondered why the sun was rising.
Inuyasha came over the crest of the hill looking irritable and annoyed to see his father and Kagome laying next to each other and conversing as though they had known each other for longer than a few days.
"Oy! Wench! Time for Ramen!" he called, knowing that she would become angry. But she smiled at him and got up.
"Sorry, Inuyasha. I lost track of time," Then she turned to the elder inuyoukai. "Ramen is food from my time. You should try some."
Inuyasha's expression was mutinous as he stomped loudly back to the campsite, not waiting for Kagome, and trying not-so-subtly to let her know he was pissed. But her eyes were on his father, not realizing he was vying for her attention.
Inutaisho picked himself up off of the ground and followed her, discussing the merits of chicken versus beef, and seeming for all the world like he belonged.
00
(Once upon a time...)
Benzaiten listened to the miko that had singlehandedly stopped the world from being destroyed in an Apocalypse. She listened as she was told of a little girl who had been so selfless that a wish for her happiness had granted her friend's wishes as well. She listened to the trials the girl had gone through and the trials that she would still go through. She listened and recognized the girl that had somehow been chosen by a power higher than her own. She listened and learned that she could help. She listened as the miko made her case for the girl. She listened and agreed.
00
Hmm a twist?
Benzaiten (as far as I could tell) is the Japanese goddess of love and one of the seven gods of happiness...er something like that. Suffice to say she's in charge of love and somewhat involved in the distribution of happiness.
