LXXXV

Clavis Aurea

The more Kagome talks, the more Kouga is reminded that she has no relationship with the human world, at least not in the here and now. All along, he's been waiting for her to want to go back and live among them – back to that village, maybe, where he found her. Not just waiting for it, but afraid of it. Instead, she's shown absolutely no desire for human company, and instead makes friends with his Wolves, with Tanuki who run onsen and Foxes who bite her fingers.

Now, he thinks he understands a little bit better. Living among these humans would be as foreign to her as her life here in the Wolf den. But it would be twice as disturbing, because other humans should be like her, but aren't.

Kouga knows that best, maybe better than she does. Hasn't he had centuries to learn what they're like? All the same, forever the same, each house like the others, each family like the others, so little difference between men and women that sometimes he can't be bothered to tell them apart. Every village is full of dirty, timid little minds, all nodding along in the direction of the strongest wind, no different from the rice they grow. Ten thousand planted in the muddy spring, a million devoured in autumn.

Only Kagome is unique. Among yōkai anything unique is something precious, but humans… What is it they say? 'The stake that sticks up gets hammered down.' They will never be able to appreciate her, and they will never understand why all her differences make her so exquisite. He almost pities them, but he thinks it will be a better use of his time to memorize another few inches of her skin.

"I'll give the message to Ginta and Hakkaku later and let them argue about what we should do about it. If you don't want anything to do with her, or with it, I'll tell them to keep that in mind. I'll never ask anything of you that you don't want, Kagome." He kisses the flat of her stomach and the side of her hip, wraps both arms around her and pulls her closer.

Kagome touches his cheek, and smiles for the first time all morning. "I know. You've been sweet like that since we met. Was it love at first sight?"

She's teasing and he knows it. It's a poor and obvious attempt to change the subject, but, he thinks, why not? Why not answer truly? "Yes, it was." He says it as seriously as he can, sees her breath catch in her throat and cheers internally. "When I turned you over that first moment and saw you wounded, still bleeding… The moment I saw your face, I think I loved you. I was so afraid you'd die before you could tell me your name. I wanted to know who you were, wanted to know everything about you, but what if you were gone before I had the chance to find out?

"I knew there was a village nearby, humans are everywhere these days. I took you to that old woman – did you know she tried to keep you? But I wouldn't let her. I knew you had to be mine, knew I couldn't let you go. That whole first night, I held you sleeping in my arms. Listened to your breathing, your heart beating. Good sounds, promising that you were still alive. Then you woke up and showed me your beautiful eyes. Gave me your name." He leans closer, and nips her earlobe gently. "Even pet my tail."

Cherry red cheeks peer down at him while she covers her eyes with her hands, as if she can't bear to look in his direction. "Kouga."

She can't see him, so he smirks at her. "What? You asked, why shouldn't I tell you? If anything has changed since my first sight of you, it isn't that I love you, but that I love you more. The more I learn about you, the more you give me… How could I not love you, then or now?"

She says nothing, doesn't even squeak. Heat radiates off her skin, a full-body blush that turns the tips of her ears and the tops of her feet the same chili pepper red. "Are you so embarrassed? I'm not ashamed to say it, why is it so hard for you to hear? Have humans still not learned how to talk about love, even by your future?"

There's a half a gasp in her giggle, but she still won't meet his eyes even when she drops her hands. "Well… no. But it's not all humans, anyway! It's just Japanese culture - "

"What Japanese? It's not yōkai culture. Not our culture." It's a tender rebuke, but he's pleased with himself for understanding that she'll appreciate it.

She pats his head, and shifts to get the pillows behind her back more comfortably. "I can see that. Don't worry, I'll get used to it eventually. Someday."

"I'll help."

"Kouga-"

She says it warningly, so he touches her lips, smiles and swallows more than half his words. "I will! I love you, Kagome." More than many things, if not everything. I understand their weakness, all those humans, why they won't say the words. It's terrifying to love you. But even understanding, I can't resist. I will love you more today than yesterday, more tomorrow than today. Yes, it was the day we met you sealed your fate. And mine, Kagome.

He can think these things, but he knows he can't say them. Not yet – not when it will scare her, pressure her, make her fumble up half-truths and unfortunate not-quites that he doesn't want to hear. He knows that she's even less ready to put her own feelings into words than she is to hear his.

But her heart is still beating; there is still time. It's a miracle that she's even here with him, so how can he be impatient? He knows this more every time he contemplates just how far she's come to be at his side. When she's ready, when the words are hers and she wants to say them, then Kouga wants to hear them. Not now, forced out by the weight of his adoration. Oh, but I do adore you –

"-ga? Kouga? Are you listening?"

Shameless, he shakes his head and touches her cheek with the tips of his fingers. "No, I was thinking about how best to love you. But I am now."

She scrunches her face at him, feigning irritation, then rolls her eyes as if that will stop him from seeing her renewed flush. "I was saying, just read the stupid message. If we have to deal with it, I'd rather just get it over with."

It's not the change of topic he was hoping for, and Kouga frowns at her. "I already said you don't have to-"

"But I do!" Her fingers dig into the fur. "You told me I… if I agreed to be your mate, I would be your partner, your equal."

Kouga nods slowly, one hand reaching for both of hers. He hates if, refuses to say it. "Yes. You'll be Alpha to my Alpha, my equal-but-opposite. My other half."

He untangles her fingers from the fur, and she squeezes his gently, but her smile has an edge. "Then that means we work together, Kouga, even on the bad stuff. Especially on the bad stuff. Besides, even if it wasn't expected, I just… I want to help." Her eyes are very blue as she looks up at him, blue and guileless and full of the many things she didn't say. "I care, Kouga. About all of you. So let me do what I can, okay?"

What he says, as he picks up the paper, is "Okay."

What he thinks is that there have always been lines between gods and spirits, demons and ghosts. Lines between mortals and everything that is other. Kagome is crossing them all, not without knowing what she's doing, but without caring what anyone else might believe.

What he thinks is that she's becoming a guardian spirit; for him, and for his pack, and for the lands they call their own. He wonders how long it will take her to notice it herself.

Slowly at first, and then more fluently as he gets used to the characters, Kouga reads out the message. His enunciation is fine, but he's frowning before he gets very far in, and Kagome realizes before he's read half a dozen sentences that this type of sly, say-nothing words is absolutely foreign to him.

"To Kouga, Wolf Alpha of Echigo, and the Lady Miko who is his companion, greetings. I am Hitomi Kagewaki, son of Hitomi Nagasaki. First, for the actions of my servant, Kagura, I must apologize, though she no longer answers to my commands. She has become yōkai through unknown means, and now she cares for little else but destruction. Having heard of her offenses against you from those who captured her and brought her to me, I thought it wise to reach out to you, Alpha of Echigo, seeking to erase any grievance between us. If you would come yourself to take her, I would not resent the requirement, and indeed welcome you with all due honor. I will give Kagura up for your justice, considering the kindness of your nature made evident by your choice of companion.

"I seek an answer from you, and the miko who accompanies you, before I turn to other hands to aid me. Though I regret the necessity of her destruction, yōkai cannot be allowed to run rampant in human lands. Further, though I wish no conflict with you, I must warn that my consideration in this matter can only be extended so far. Proper mikos in their shrines and temples will not look lightly upon my dereliction of duty in seeking peace with you. They will not appreciate my reasons for making this offer, nor will the priests that command such women. If I am ultimately forced to seek their aid, with what means am I to explain my delay?"

Kouga pauses, frowning. "I'm not sure I know what any of that means. So many words and it's all just -"

"Nonsense. It's nonsense!" Fury burns in Kagome's gut. It's a kind of rage with which she has little experience, but she's felt it twice before, both times because Kouga was in danger. First, when Miroku had tried to burn him with that ofuda, and again when he'd stood alone against Hiten, and she'd been afraid he would fall. But she didn't blame him then, and she doesn't blame him now. That she's angry definitely isn't Kouga's fault. "I don't understand this era, or the people in it."

"Kagome?"

"Yōkai make perfect sense to me, or at least you and your Wolves do." She pushes herself up from the bed, snatches one of the furs off of it to wrap around herself and stalks back and forth, pacing around pups without really seeing them. "What you do, why you do it, it makes sense. What's born from nature takes from nature, then returns to nature."

She can hear her heart beating in her eyes as she whips around again to look at him. "It's the humans in Sengoku Jidai who are terrible beasts!"

Kagome isn't a politician, isn't even old enough to vote. She has never sat in on court sessions, or studied the judiciary, or even wanted to do any of those things, but she's a top student – or she was – and she excels at reading comprehension and critical thinking. That letter, being delivered in Kouga's precise, firm tones, sounds just like an analysis chunk from a history test, full of posturing and pompous nothing language, mixed with excessive demands worded like reasonable requests. And just like a history test, she can see right through it.

"This letter isn't a letter, or an invitation. It's not an apology, either, though on the surface it half claims to be." But she stops, hesitating. Hitomi Kagewaki's message is a threat, amplified by the hands that brought it, and though the greater portion of that threat is aimed at her, the danger to Kouga and his Wolves is implicit.

She reminds herself of her own words to Kouga. That means she can't keep things from him, either. "He's telling us that if we don't go, or at least, if I don't go, he'll have to look for someone else to clean up the wind witch. He'll have to tell them why he waited so long, which means telling them about… us."

"No." His rejection is complete, total, and surprising because of that. "I'll kill him first, that's easy."

"Kouga." She almost laughs, but catches herself at the last moment, more out of a sense that she shouldn't than anything else. Since when does she laugh at threats like that? It's not like he's joking. She can see it on his face, clear and open in his blue eyes. They're always so bright when he looks at her, and now that brightness is darkened by the shadow of how serious he is.

"He's not like the Taijiya, that's not fair… and it's not a good idea. Daimyo are connected, and I don't think it would end well if we murdered one and then ended up with all the ruling powers of Japan chasing us down. You might be fine, but I don't think my arrows can purify samurai, can they? And the pups, what would they do?"

"You think anything less would come if he sent word to the shrine and temples that the Alpha of Echigo has perverted a miko to his whim? You think they would let me go, or this den full of Wolves? You think they would let you go?" The words spill out of him; his fist clenches the paper until his claws put holes in it. "You most of all, they would want to destroy. Don't you know that when I brought you to that old woman, I did so because it was that, or your death? That I went into that village knowing I might have to kill them all just to leave again?"

Kagome swallows tightly. Her thoughts of that time are very dim, and very thin. She remembers thinking how sweet he was, and how cute, and how strange, with his bright eyes and bright fangs, and his tail. She remembers thinking that it was kind of him to go hunting and use his kills to pay for her care, then ask for nothing. He hadn't even insisted she accompany him, though he could have. Kaede-san surely wouldn't have prevented him, or been able to even if she tried.

"I hadn't thought about it. I should have. I'm sorry." She bows her head, but Kouga shakes his violently.

"No. Don't be. Humans being humans, how can that be your fault? I just want you to understand. Maybe I've sheltered you too much from the realities of the era, keeping you here with me. I thought that before, when you were so confused about how everyone reacted to my defeat of Hiten. But I don't know how to fix it, I won't send you to live among humans. You would hate it, and it wouldn't be safe, and I can't go with you."

"I would hate it. I don't want to live among humans, at least not ones like these. And I don't think I'm sheltered; I think we just don't have much opportunity to interact with them. If we wanted to -"

"Which we don't."

"… Is there even a village within a few day's travel of here?"

Kouga glances at her from the corner of his eye, then puts down the paper. "No. At least, there wasn't in autumn. By the end of spring, who knows? But if they come too close, we'll chase them out. We always do."

Kagome winces, and Kouga reaches out a hand for her. When she takes it, he pulls her back toward him slowly, until she's leaning against the ledge that is their bed, and it's easier to sit next to him than lean over. He slides one arm around her shoulder, and squeezes gently.

"I won't kill them, Kagome. Not unless they attack us first, or there's some other, worse danger. I can do that, for you. I never cared one way or another about them. But some things…" He shrugs, not wanting to say more.

"I know. I've known since the beginning. You didn't hide it. And I like to think I would've known anyway, since Wolves are Wolves, not rabbits. But I'm grateful, anyway, that you've been thinking of me. Since the beginning."

"Since the beginning." He smiles as he says it, and she is incongruously reminded of that other thing.

Love at first sight. I had to say it – The thought doesn't belong in this conversation, but she flushes anyway, and Kouga's laughter is that low, dark sound she associates with the most Wolfish aspects of his personality. "A-Anyway, was that the end of it? Of the message, I mean?" Kagome gestures at the paper still sitting by Kouga's leg, though looking rather worse for the wear.

"There's more." But the amusement in his voice is at odds with what he reads when he picks it up again.

"I was recently forced, with the aid of the woman who serves as my messenger to you, to kill and bury my own father. He had been possessed by a terrible demon, one of great power, who slayed vast numbers of taijiya. It is even possible that this demon is responsible for Kagura's current state.

"The circumstances of my assumption of my inheritance are unfortunately well known, and lead to the occasional check in by the local shrine masters and their mikos. As I'm sure you are aware, such an arrangement as exists between the two of you is rare, and unlikely to be looked well upon by those who oversee such matters. By attempting to keep secrets from such individuals, I risk my own safety and that of my position, a thing I'm sure you can understand I am unwilling to do.

"If you are willing to meet with me and do this thing, solving our joint problem, then be welcome in my lands. I invite you to accompany my messenger. Or, being that this invitation is sudden and the preparations necessary for those of your stature unknown to me, send her back with a message in turn, informing me of the date of your expected arrival. With sincere hope for our future cooperation, I await you, or your reply."

Kouga turns to look at her, and shrugs. "That's it. His family history and the proper part of the invitation." Curiosity gleams in his eyes as he looks at her, and he waves the paper in her general direction. "But I want to know what it really means."

Kagome makes a scornful sound, but it's directed at the letter, not at Kouga. "What it means is a lot of whining and excuses. He's only a young lord, recently ascended. There are so many eyes on him, so many threats, so, sorry, he can't hide anything from them, or risk them thinking that he's been possessed by his father. And isn't that an unpleasant story to put in the middle of everything. Why is it necessary for us to know about his dirty laundry, anyway?"

"Dirty… what?"

"Sorry. It's an idiom, it means… uh… the things that people try to hide? No, that's not it exactly. The things that people hide because as much as they don't want other people to see them, other people don't want to see them either. But the rest of it… is tricky."

She closes her eyes, thinking it over like a tough exam question. "Maybe, this Kagewaki is wondering whether or not I, as a miko, will believe in him, and he feels the need to make his allegiances clear. But…" She pauses, frowning, and feels Kouga's hands lifting the weight of her hair from her back, then his fingers rubbing her neck. "That doesn't quite add up. He knows about me, and you. Knows something about what it is that's between us, our… our relationship."

She frowns, wishing she could reread the page, but she doesn't want Kouga to read it again. Whatever it is that's bothering her, it's between the lines, winking at her like a painted eye, a truth Kagewaki knows but doesn't dare to say outright. It comes off as if he's uncertain, as if he doesn't want to insult her – which in and of itself is insulting, but in a way she can't call out. Wouldn't a normal miko from this time period be ashamed and confused by others knowing of her yōkai lover?

Probably. Kikyou was. The memory is there inside her, and though she doesn't draw it up on purpose, she can't contest it. Inuyasha gave her a shell full of lip color. She wore it once and then hid it, the gift forbidden twice over. He kissed her once, but she thought her body was sacred, and… she belonged to the shikon no tama. But even without it, she knew the taboo. She wanted a human Inuyasha.

Kikyou had grown up in the long halls with their longer scrolls, with the exhortations of priests buzzing in the background of her daily life. Would another woman, some other miko, do something differently? Maybe. But what would an outsider think about the likelihood of that? "So Hitomi Kagewaki doesn't want to insult me, but he's drawing my attention to it anyway. Doesn't want to shame me, but then why is he reminding me of the proper mikos in their shrines?"

And on top of that, his stories, taken all together, don't make sense. Something isn't quite right, and she can't put her finger on what. Something tangled about the relationship between Kagewaki's claims about his father, what Kouga told her about the dead Taijiya clan, and what the woman's presence, thick with death, means about both those things.

"Kouga?" She leans against him, rubs the top of her head against his chin. "I have to see her. That Tajiya. I have to talk to her to figure out what he's getting at here. There's something wrong, and I think she can tell me what it is."

His fingers slip away from her neck, down her back, until he's embracing her with one arm around her waist. "If it's something about this Kagewaki, she might not be willing."

"I know. But I'll worry about that if it happens. She might not… hmm." And she smirks a little smirk that echoes Kouga's favorite expression. "Maybe she won't even know she's helping me."

"That would probably be best." His sigh is heavy, but she can see on his face before he says anything else that he knows she's right. "All right, I don't like it, but I'll bring you. She certainly can't hurt you while I'm there. And this is as good a chance as any for me to give you a gift." Gentle, he nudges her aside. "I've been saving it for later in the season, but it's warmer further south."

"A gift?" And, as the rest of his words sink in, "Clothes, then? But I have lots of clothes now, even if you don't count the things I borrowed from Shiori that she won't take back."

He rubs his cheek against her cheek as he slides out of bed. "Not like these, you don't. Wait here, I'll bring them. Then you can dress and we'll go."

A/N: Do not burn all your fingers, not even just on one hand. Trust me on this one. In less painful news, the title of this chapter means "golden key". Not just any old golden key, but as Wikipedia says, "The means of discovering hidden or mysterious meanings in texts, particularly applied in theology and alchemy." Now, on to Wolfish fashion, circa 1550, and then we have some dogs to check in on!

Please Review!