Chapter 26
Author Note:
Soooooo, I hated my previous chapter (chapter 26, in case you needed help with that) and so I wrote a new one and swapped em out. I suggest reading it so you can be up to speed, unless you like being lost. Its sort of like an adventure that way.
Do you know when you're in a dream, and everything is just absolutely, impossibly ridiculous? Like the walls are oozing purple cheese and the floor is made of jello, all while you're taking a history exam, but you don't even bat an eyelash?
Well, Kagome was experiencing a level of strangeness that could only mean that she was dreaming...except that she realized that it was strange, which meant she wasn't dreaming...but this was all too weird to actually be happening. Wasn't it?
Oh for petes-sake, it's way to early in the morning for this type of confusing dilemma! For once she was just going to get to the point and put her questions at rest so that she could go back to sleep...or wake up...whatever.
"Sesshoumaru, why are we in bed together?" She asked blandly, her voice muffled by the pillow she still buried her face in.
She opened one eye and squinted at him, rebelling against the fact that she was eventually going to have to sit up to participate in this conversation. Her bed - well, his bed - was too warm to leave just yet.
"I am not in the bed, miko," he said in his aloof manner that usually expressed its annoying nature most avidly in the mornings. Kagome always figured this was because during the night he had too much time to spend in his own head, and his head must be an icy jerk that undid all the thawing she had accomplished during the day. "I am on it."
Groaning at her misfortune - because getting out of bed had to be the most unfortunate thing to happen to anybody ever - Kagome leveled him a glare that quite obviously said 'hahaha...not funny'.
Raising an aristocratic brow at her grumpy countenance, Sesshoumaru shrugged. "It is you who is the intruder in my bed."
That should spark her temper for a few minutes, he smirked to himself. He always did find mornings more entertaining when breakfast was preceded by a show.
"WHAT! You put me here!" She fumed.
"You asked to be put here," he corrected.
Throwing off the covers in a flurry of anger and clumsiness, the miko managed to get her foot tangled in the bed linens and fell to the floor with a thud. Quickly jumping to her feet, her face red with embarrassment and anger she threw up her hands. "I can't imagine why! You're impossible! What possibly possessed me to want to spend the night in your room?"
Winded by her indignation, there Kagome stood. At the foot of Sesshoumaru's bed. Hair tangled, clothes wrinkled and askew, her face pink, and her eyes wild as she panted for breath. In the silence that followed, Sesshoumaru sincerely considered the chances that he would remain un-charred if he were to poke fun at her current state. They were not good.
"Miko, calm yourself," he commanded. "I am here because you would not sleep were I anywhere else."
Her wild expression fading into one of confusion, she eloquently muttered, "erm...what?"
"You thrashed in your sleep," he explained quietly. "If I walked away, you would toss and turn and call out. You settled if I was near."
"O-oh," she stammered, her face flushing again. "Sorry I went all crazy and yelled, I guess I should have been thanking you, not questioning you."
He flicked his fingers in an uncommitted sort of way and turned his gaze from her, as if trying to declare the insignificance of his actions.
But Kagome knew better. Isn't it funny that someone so imposing could be bashful?
As morning began to wane into the undeniable brightness of the afternoon, the priestess found herself at a loss for what to do. Sesshoumaru had wandered off somewhere to do...whatever it was that he wanted to do she supposed, and the others hadn't come to find her yet.
"I think I should get out of this room and try to find everyone," she muttered to herself, her brow furrowed. "Only trouble is...there's a 99 percent chance that I'll probably get lost."
"Talking to ourselves, are we?" A mocking voice came from the balcony behind her. She spun to find Izanagi's back turned to her; he was seated placidly on the banister, his feet dangling over the edge and kicking at a wisp of cloud.
"You must be a couple billion years old, are you telling me you've never talked to yourself?" She countered, sauntering over the god and confused when she realized she was glad for his company. Stranger things have happened, I guess.
"Of course I have, I just did not realize you had achieved the same level of madness."
"Sometimes I think I'm a whole new level of madness," she chuckled, his cheery laugh joining hers.
The two settled into an easy silence as they watched the clouds whip by.
"They're so fast up here," she mumbled in amazement. "From down on the ground they look like they're moving so slow."
"Things often pass us by much faster than we think," he nodded sagely. "But then again, for a being whom time does not hold any sway, I am hardly one to mutter words of wisdom."
"No, you're right," she sighed. "We just tend t o overlook it because we wish things moved as slow as we think they do. It's sad to realize that all those insignificant seconds that no one notices slipping away do add up, and before you know it a day is gone, or a week."
"Or a moment done wrong you can never get back,?" He added. "Yes, perhaps time affects us all more than we think."
"Yeah," she agreed glumly. "But if everything stayed the same, untouched by time, that would be as unbearable as time moving ahead. It's not fair that there's never a happy medium, we're always being pulled this way or that...and I'm tired of being stretched."
"As am I, Kagome," he sighed, the wind picking up and clearing the sky of its puffy white inhabitants. The blue sky taunted her with its newly found perfection, and she turned away as her resolve fell into place.
She didn't want to be stuck her anymore, she wanted to get away from this place, she wanted to get away from the confusing mess her emotions and life had become. She needed to move forward, because it was true: there was no going back, it was either stay exactly as she was right now, or let everything change and hope it was for the better.
"I think we should leave soon, I don't feel right just sitting around when we have everything we need."
"Ready to end our engagement so soon?" He chuckled and then quieted, his face falling into an impassive mask that reminded her too much of a certain taiyoukai. "Yes, as soon as the inu returns we will depart, I have waited long enough."
"Wait...Sesshoumaru left? Where? Why didn't he tell me?" Kagomes jaw dropped. I can't believe he just left me here without even saying goodbye or anything! The nerve.
Izanagi brought her back from her angry internal rantings with his deep chuckle. "It seems you keep the dog on a short leash. Perhaps I should have kept a closer eye on on my bride to be for it seems she has been led astray."
And with a small pop he was gone.
Kagome made like a suffocating fish for a few minutes while she suffered the indignity and indecency of what he had just said to her.
"I DO NOT HAVE A TAIYOUKAI LEASH!" She yelled at the sky and then sighed. "I really need to work on my come-backs."
Somewhere, in a field safe from Kagome's nonsensical screeching, a screeching of a different kind filled the air.
"Sesshoumaru-sama!" Rin squealed, running towards him at full speed, but stopping just before collision, her arms pinwheeling in an effort to remain upright. Finally grasping her balance, she smiled. "Rin has missed you! She has been picking flowers for your return."
Letting his eyes lazily drift to Ah-Un, he could clearly see the fruits of her labor. There was not a single spot on the beast that was not covered in flowers. Resisting the urge to sigh, he placed his hand atop her head. "Thank you, Rin. Now, come."
Turning on his heel he missed the astonished looks that his retainer and his ward exchanged.
But Rin's astonishment quickly turned to joy. "See Jaken-sama? Sesshoumaru-sama does like flowers."
Chapter Notes:
There was a spider on my wall
As I was writing this in bed
I couldn't kill it myself
because it might fall on my head
True life, guys. It was out for blood, you don't even know.