A/N: Aaah! My first review! Thanks so much pumpkinpi! Thanks for the encouragement. As soon as I read it I felt like posting another chapter. You can't imagine the motivation a word from the reader is to me. I hope you enjoy this installment! The next one will be out soon.
I grunted as noise began filtering through the darkness. Birds screaming and wind whipping through the grass. What sounded like a million feet stomping through the undergrowth assaulted my ears. I felt like I had been hit with a bulldozer. And then the bulldozer had parked on top of my head. I squinted my eyes open and white light stabbed at my eyeballs.
"Geez, could you not stand there? The reflection of the sunlight off those God-awful, white clothes is horrible!" I grumped as I sat up and tried to get my bearings. We seemed to be in the middle of nowhere (again), surrounded by trees and shrubs on all sides. Sesshomaru stood silently leaning against a convenient tree as if waiting for something.
"Where are we?" I asked more docilely as I noticed our state of isolation. Sesshomaru remained silent. Where were the others? Kagome and the rest? What had he done to knock me out? Had he… hit me? I teared up as anger filled me.
"Did you hit me Sesshomaru? Did you actually…" I choked and continued, "You hit… woman-beater!" I screeched and hurled the bits of dirt and twigs fisted in my hands, angry tears scorching their way into my hairline. The shock of my sudden screech seemed to startle the demon for a moment but not long enough to keep him from dodging the clumps of dirt.
"This Sesshomaru is not a woman-beater girl. However, I have no compunction about silencing impertinence."
"That is the definition of a women-beater demon," I answered scathingly. "Someone who thinks themselves above women, someone who thinks they can control a female's actions through violence."
"Trust me ningen, this Sesshomaru does not confine his contempt to only women. I treat females who are impertinent the same as I do males of the same. Silence, your tears wench, my pack approaches."
"I'm not crying you bastard!" I blubbered through my anger hurling a handy rock as his big fat head.
"Cease!" he growled, "This entire outburst is pointless besides. I did not hit you."
"…What?"
"I knocked you out with poison."
"Aagh!" I hurled another rock at his head just as his packs approach sounded through the trees. I watched as the rock flew wide of it's mark. Then a whirling dervish tumbled out of the bushes.
"Lord Sesshomaru! You're back! I brought you a flower!" the little girl did in intricate little dance around Sesshomaru's legs as a another rustle accompanied the arrival of two (three?) more pack members. A grumbling, green creature tumbled out after the girl and a lumbering two-headed dragon… horse… thing followed after. I eeped as one head swung around to sniff my crouched form. I scrambled to my feet. The girl startled.
"Oh! Who's that?" the girl hid behind Sesshomaru's legs.
"Rin! Do not bother Sesshomaru-sama with your filthy human self!" the toad squealed. I frowned, took the cane the creature was waving in the air and clocked him in the head with it.
"Don't speak to children that way," I ordered flatly. I ignored the dragon head that lowered itself to rest on my shoulder.
Sesshomaru seemed determined to ignore the whole thing, "Jaken, I will be gone for a few weeks. You will care for Rin and Ah-Un in my absence."
"But my Lord! A few weeks? Where are you going? If there is anything this lowly Jaken can do to help…" I twirled the stick in my hands and frowned at the grotesque carved heads at the end. Jaken pauses in his groveling to glare at the stick out of his reach. "Would you care for me to remove this human filth from you presence?" I frowned down at the ugly toad and ignored the nearly wistful look on Sesshomaru's stoic face.
"You will care for Rin in my absence," he reiterated. "We will stay here the night and leave in the morning. Kodi return the staff of two heads to Jaken."
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"And then Lord Sesshomaru said a really bad word!" Rin squealed in barely suppressed glee. I laughed along with her, trying to picture the pompous man swathed in flower necklaces. Rin was proving to be veritable fountain of knowledge (and blackmail material) and I was trying to wring every drop of it out of her before the man in question returned from wherever he had gone off to. He probably had demon-y stuff to do, like ransacking villages and… he was a dog demon right? Maybe he was doing something suitably evil-doggy-ish, like digging up gardens and killing chickens.
Jakens grumbles turned louder as Rin and I proceeded to shred Sesshomaru dignity with our giggles. He had been banished to sit on the other side of the little meadow as soon Sesshomaru had disappeared. Despite the whole kidnapping mess I was currently content to sit with Rin. After all I had no idea where I was. I had been unconscious on our journey here after all. A small sigh escaped me. It was hardly flattering to have someone so desperate to be rid of me.
Rin chose that moment to pause in her retelling of the time Sesshomaru had been caught 'wrestling' with a female demon, "And she didn't have any clothes on!" and yawn big enough to crack her jaw.
"I think it's time to go to sleep Rin, it's getting pretty late," I cut in softly. The girl nodded agreeably enough and got up to skip over to Ah-Un. She tugged a blanket from what resembled a saddle bag there and curled into the dragon's side. The blanket was obviously made for a young child and was barely big enough for her. It was going to be a cold night for me in only my jeans and flimsy tunic. I sighed and set about trying to gather wood for a fire. I didn't have any matches, but I had seen movies where people had rubbed sticks together, or struck stones against one another to start a fire. I'm sure I could manage.
I was still telling myself that two hours later as I shivered over my little pyramid of sticks, furiously rubbing sticks together. I just needed smoke! A spark would do! Any spark! It was so late already. It had to be one or two in the morning. I was so tired. My hands fell still (save for the shivering) as I drooped. Fine the fire didn't really matter. It wasn't as if I couldn't survive an uncomfortable night.
I threw the sticks one more petulant glare as I moved to curl up at the base of a tree. It seemed like the most likely place to rest; the roots formed a sort of seat and the branches swayed gently around it. It was almost private. I curled into as tight a ball as I could manage and shut my eyes to wait out the night.
Sesshomaru stepped into the clearing around midnight. Contrary to what Kodi had thought, it was barely eleven when she had gone to sleep. He had been avoiding the girls company. She was provoking in the extreme and Sesshomaru was not used to being forced to withstand provocation without retaliating, or at least leaving. But he could not leave the girl completely without endangering himself. After he satisfied himself that Rin was content in her sleep Sesshomaru walked through the gently swaying grass toward his own resting place.
The moon hung full and shining, casting silver light the bathe the meadow. Had Kodi been awake, she would have been disgusted to find that Sesshomaru's hair shone more silver than the moonlight under the nearly cloudless night sky.
Sesshomaru flicked an annoyed glance at Jaken who was mumbling in his sleep. He pushed a low hanging branch aside to reach his chosen spot. He stood in indecision as he looked down at the interloper. She was curled up in his spot. How she had managed to choose, out of all the space in the meadow his favored tree Sesshomaru was loath to contemplate.
How was he to handle this? He could leave her there he supposed but his baser instincts warred against that option. It was his territory after all, and he would not be ousted from it by someone so obviously weaker than himself. Just as he open his mouth to order her away a breeze blew through the grass and the girl whimpered and shivered. He could see that her lips (which were much too full and pink of all the disgusting colors, certainly pinker than was normal for this part of the world) were now tinged blue.
He supposed it would be cold for her, being human. Her clothes were completely impractical. He looked down at the pile of sticks that had been erected in the grass. Jaken usually took care of the fires. Jaken should have done so tonight as well. A well aimed rock soon rectified that oversight and the fire crackled merrily as Jaken stumbled dizzily back to his blanket, alternately rubbing the growing lump on his head and offering mumbled apologies to his Lord.
Sesshomaru sat before the little fire, crossing his legs smoothly, his fur pelt trailing slightly behind him. He wouldn't quibble with the girl over her choice of resting area tonight. That would require waking the chit and he felt no desire to listen to her brazen disrespect anymore this night. He was finding it difficult enough already not responding in his usual matter of silencing such individuals.
The girl made a snuffling noise behind him (completely unattractive and not at all akin to a puppy or cub or any other cute small animal) and shifted closer stretching along the length of his pelt and sunning herself in the fires heat. Sesshomaru sighed a martyrs sigh as she curled up next to him. His face darkened and he wished for nothing more than the ability to at least maim her. His scowl transformed itself into what was unmistakably a pout, reminiscent of the one his brother often wore, although neither brother would have ever admitted any such similarity, when the girl had the audacity to actually tug the pelt over her shoulders. Her hands smoothed over the fur and Sesshomaru's head snapped around toward the girl.
The Taiyoukais frown had dissolved, leaving a dazed, blank look that quickly shifted to horror. The girl sighed and stilled, apparently now comfortable. Sesshomaru stared in dismay at the little hand that had cause such unexpected upheaval in his Youkai. His eyes leaked red and his markings appeared decidedly more savage. He whipped his gaze sternly away from the ningen, ignoring her presence entirely.
"No, absolutely not," Sesshomaru growled firmly, seemingly talking to himself. There was nothing but the rustle of the trees and the night bugs to answer him.