"You know, Inuyasha...you've told me all the things everyone knows about you. I want to know about you—your childhood, the life you had before you ruled the...well, the world." Kagome said to him as he helped her off the boat. The innkeeper had been so nice as to carry them across himself, but he was probably just eager to be rid of the noise-making couple. Last night, they hadn't had sex, but Inuyasha found so many new ways to pleasure her, sex seemed overrated to Kagome now.
Of course, that didn't mean she didn't still want to do it.
"No one ever wants to know about that part." Inuyasha chuckled, not relinquishing his hold on her hand even when she was safely on land. He liked the feel of her, warm and soft and...trusting. When he turned god last night, he thought he really would rape her, and if he did that, he could never forgive himself. But the trust in her eyes...he could have cried. This wasn't his first realization, but he was so lucky to have found a woman like this.
"Well, no one's ever been your mate, from what you tell me." She grinned, nudging him playfully. "Come on, tell me. I want to know."
"Okay, but wouldn't it only be fair for you to tell me about you as well?" Kagome blinked, apparently not expecting this.
"You want to know about me?"
"Sure." He shrugged. "There's a history behind you, I can tell."
"Well, you're right about that." Kagome muttered, and realized that he was holding her hand. They'd been walking this entire time, holding hands. It was such a simple gesture, yet so romantic...especially after last night. To be honest, Kagome felt somewhat liberated to be able to be with him without fearing that Bankoutsu would find them out, and with that liberation came guilt. She knew she shouldn't think of Bankoutsu as a conquered impediment, but deep down, she knew that was just what he had been. A fateful distraction. Her true destiny had obviously been to obtain Inuyasha...
Or so she hoped.
"Do you really want to know the dark past that surrounds me?" She asked him, very seriously, and Inuyasha stared back at her, just as solemn.
"I do."
"Okay, fine...but when you start feeling all depressed, don't try and throw the blame on me."
"I'm the god of night, Kagome. I was born depressed." He smiled slightly, and Kagome returned the smile, before sobering up to begin her story.
"I was born in a small village in Muroran to an Ainu priestess and a young prince who'd fallen from grace when he fell in love with my mother. Our people don't recognize what we called the "outer government"; the only people we followed were the gods. So the prince wasn't fawned over because of his lineage. He was treated as a normal man. Soon, he became a significant part of our community, and a few months after his initiation into the Ainu world, my mother was pregnant with me. I was her only child.
"I grew up amongst what you might call an active bunch. We never went a day without playing around outside, soaking up the fresh air as bestowed upon us by the gods. We caught fish and hunted with our bare hands; we wrestled very often, even the girls. Our people didn't want to raise prissy, weak-minded girls, so they had us wrestling at very early ages. We were taught everything we needed to know in life—writing, reading, history, that kind of thing.
"Kouga was the god even when my mother was a child, so you can imagine how life was in my childhood. But our race lives long, and one of the Old People could no longer stand Kouga's rule. His name was Tetsujin, meaning wise one, and he was my grandfather on my mother's side. He would openly blaspheme Kouga, denouncing his piss-poor ruling methods, until the rest of us began to see exactly what he was talking about.
"I was too young to understand what everyone had been talking about before, but then again, I was too young to care, either. I had always thought nature's hue to be a bit strange, but I think that was just Ayame-sama's influence within me. Well...I think that Kouga heard the rebellious cries of our people, and needless to say, he didn't like them very much." Kagome began to twiddle her thumbs uneasily, rehashing the events in her mind, and Inuyasha's brows furrowed suspiciously.
"What happened?"
"He torched our lands. I wish I could say everyone died, but I don't think that's true. I managed to escape, and obviously, so did Bankoutsu, but I don't know who else escaped, if anyone." Kagome sighed dismally, hating to remember these things. Like a shot from one of those Western dangan—weapon projectiles—Inuyasha immediately felt his mate's pain, and he embraced her tightly.
"I'm sorry, Kagome. I shouldn't have forced you to bring that back up..."
"It's okay. You didn't force me. It's not like their deaths can be changed or anything." Kagome's words set his heart aflame and he growled lowly.
"This is all the more reason that lazy, bigoted tyrant should be dethroned." He declared firmly, glaring up at the skies. Though his powers were muted, and not very reliable, he didn't detect Kouga up there. He was no doubt gallivanting with a bunch of human maidens, as he was so prone to do. "How dare he smite your people?!"
"Don't be angry, Inuyasha."
"How can I not?!"
"Because you're biased. If it wasn't my people, it wouldn't matter anymore."
"That's..." A protest died on his lips when Kagome's eyes bored into his. He sighed, his anger fading from him quickly. "That's true...but still. He didn't have to burn you all up."
"If someone blasphemed you when you were god, Inuyasha, what did you do?"
"What could I do?" He shrugged. "An opinion is an opinion. It doesn't make it true, but it doesn't make it false, either. I was rarely blasphemed anyway. People will think what they want to think, regardless of what you want to do about it, and because Kouga killed off your people, generation after generation of Ainu people will hate him now."
"If we live that long." Kagome mumbled.
"Why wouldn't you?" Inuyasha frowned slightly.
"Inuyasha, let's get honest here. There has never been a lot of us. We're on our way to extinction."
"Not if I have anything to say about it." Kagome blinked in surprise at the firmness of his voice, then she smiled a little wryly.
"Since when did you get so intrepid? I thought you were the shy type." She teased him, and he smiled back at her, his eyes glittering with something she'd yet to see—something she didn't quite recognize, but she knew she'd seen it before somewhere...
"I was. And then I met you."
"My, you must specialize in unoriginality." Inuyasha sighed pointedly, rolling his eyes.
"Really, Kikyou, are you this bored? Must you follow me around like this all the time? First you call me pathetic—which still hurts me—and yet you seem to always be here on my "pathetic" escapades."
"Is it my fault you're using such overused drivel just to lure a human girl up into the heavens?"
"I don't need the "drivel". She already likes me."
"And that, Inuyasha, may be where the problem lies." Kikyou linked her fingers together, staring intently at Inuyasha.
"What problem?"
"I don't think this relationship is very one-sided. I think you like her back."
"And what if I do? I told you, I don't lie. I've told her nothing but the truth." Kikyou shook her head.
"Exactly. This is a crucial point in the mission. You can't afford to be distracted by this girl—stay focused on the goal at hand."
"I am focused. And Kagome is not a distraction. She is my goal. Once I regain my powers, she will be my queen."
"That's not how it's supposed to go!" Kikyou startled him a little with her vehement declaration and he blinked.
"What does that mean?" He demanded.
"You can't have a human for a queen, Inuyasha."
"Why not?"
"Because it exceeds her purpose. She is only a technicality, nothing more. When you are king again, she is to be discarded." Fire worthy of the star god blazed within Inuyasha's eyes and it was Kikyou's turn to be startled when he snarled out, "How dare you, Kikyou?! How dare you write her off as something so trivial?! Kagome means more to me than just a means to rise to power. And about this whole "supposed to go" thing...aren't you the one who told me I "tie myself too tightly within destiny"?"
Suddenly, Kikyou got rather tight-lipped and Inuyasha smirked. "Oh, I see. Certain things don't apply when they're in your interest, but when it's my business, you see fit to give me all kinds of advice that only benefits you. Let's get something straight, Kikyou. Until I seek your advice, please, don't give it." Kikyou narrowed her eyes at him, her fists clenching.
"Fine." She hissed. "Be a fool. But even my duncical brother would be able to see that the human is just using you for her own gains."
"And has he seen that?" Both of them knew quite well that Kikyou was the only one of them who thought as much, so neither was very shocked when she vanished. Inuyasha sighed. He didn't like fighting with Kikyou, especially not over something like this, but she could be so intolerable sometimes...
He settled back against the tree he'd been resting on, glanced fondly over at Kagome, and closed his eyes.
Kagome's ears, stinging with embarrassment, drooped with her sadness.
Black Ice: Ooh...trouble!
Blood Rain: I agree. For once.
Today's Rant (and Lord knows it's long overdue): The Government. 'Nuff Said.
Blood Rain: Um...wow. Where do I begin? Heh...I think I'll start with a generally unrelated anecdote about the car. When they created the car in the twenties or whatever, they thought they'd have flying cars by the eighties. They were wrong. What's peculiar is, they had planes by then: large aircraft just buzzing all over the sky. How in the hell do you get something that big to fly, but you can't even make a car fly?! It makes no sense!
This is my point: if the government would devote the time and money to the right thing (instead of considering "sexting" a national crisis), we wouldn't have such a fucked up economy. Now, I've been in U.S. History for some time now, and I found something out: the president really doesn't control everything! Gasp! It's all Congress! I hate to go educational on you, and I've always hated Bush, but it turns out that even though he's a bonafide idiot, he was just passing Congress's laws! He can't even make laws!
Black Ice: Well, this is my point: people need to get off Obama. It's not his fault things seem to be tanking right now—it's Congress's fault. In fact, they're probably passing all these stupid-ass laws just to make him look...stupid.
Blood Rain: This rant wasn't particularly interesting, but next time, we'll have a better one.
Black Ice: Then again, the government ain't all too interesting either.
Blood Rain: Ooh! Ooh! Let's talk about these crazy people in the news next time!
Black Ice: Such as OctoMom...and that homicidal, rapist Sunday School teacher...oh, it's gonna be fuun.