LXXXI

Augusta, Angusta

Kouga's wounds will heal quickly in the comfort of the den, but their magnificence when he returns earns him admiration and respect, which Kagome both understands, and doesn't. That it might mean less to them to see such wounds when they heal so fast, she understands. That they don't seem to realize that it was so bad when it happened that it could have killed him, she doesn't. That this is their way, to look at their leader, injured and bloodstained, armor battered and broken, and howl their approval of his wounds, she understands. That they seem to envy him the suffering that came before the approval, she doesn't.

More than that, she knows that they're all aware she's the one who asked him to go, the one who made Shippou's problems the problems of their Alpha. How could they know that she had brought him into it, and not blame her for how close Kouga had come to death? She doesn't think about her own mortality, or how she had put herself in the line of fire beside him, protected him and fought for him – it doesn't occur to her that for these wolves, everything that concerns her are just reasons for them to include her in their approbation. All she knows is that she came out unscathed, because Kouga had turned and seen her frailty, had taken the bolt of Hiten's lightning head on. She came out unscathed, but he has not. He has not.

The whole way back from the plain where they had arranged a tomb for Shippou's father, Kagome has felt this confusion growing, feeding on her guilt and fears. The closer the terrible wound in Kouga's shoulder has come to healing completely, the less attention he's paid to her concern, and to thinking about what had happened, unless it's to brush off her worries and grin through any pain. And now? Now that they're home, and his kin are close to him, sniffing at him, rubbing against him, making pleased sounds when he displays his remaining burns and bruises so proudly, three days' worth of uncertainty bubbles up in Kagome's chest like she's been holding her breath underwater.

Daisuke and his sons make promises about how great the celebration of Kouga's victory will be when he's well enough for wine and dancing again. Word passes back through laughing, smiling wolves, about Kouga's battle and who he has defeated, and how much more powerful he is than they knew.

"Our Alpha's the strongest!"

"When the tribes come together again, he'll be Alpha of Alphas for sure!"

Kagome's confusion and horror grow ever greater, watching them grin and taunt him about how fast he is versus how fast he thinks he is, and if he's learned the lesson now, or if he had just forgotten to dodge. My fault, my fault. Why doesn't he say something? Why doesn't he tell them?

"Did you kill them both, Kouga? Both of the Thunder Brothers?"

"Only one, Kagome got the other one – pain in the ass he was, too."

"Kagome?"

"Kagome?"

"She is a miko-"

"Didn't you see her when we were fighting the harpies? Saved me twice, and I was supposed to be her guard!"

The Wolves include her in their smiles, but she is frozen in place, unable to respond the way they want her to, and in their excitement they don't even seem to notice.

"How bad was the lightning, Kouga? Did it burn or was it like a sword?"

"More like burning at first, but then just how flesh wounds are, you know?"

"But was that better or worse than how loud the thunder was in your ears?"

It's a joke, and they're laughing, and Kouga with them, even though he still winces as he does so, with a hand pressed against his chest. She endures until he starts talking again about how she purified Hiten, then flees before they can turn the questions they have for him, wanting to know the expression on Hiten's dying face in detail, to her instead. Aware though she is of how necessary it was, she still has dreamed Hiten's disintegration more than enough times since she killed him, enough that the thought of laughing about it is enough to make her feel sick. Only listening to Shippou express his own wild portion of the tale, seeing the pups crowd close around him, begging for details as he shapes the story out of firelight, is worse.

She could ask Ginta (or would it be Hakkaku?) for explanation, but the questions feel sharp as knives on her tongue, and she bites them back, as she retreats through the den, trying to chew them into something understandable. Something that won't break apart the dream of her new life and show her that it was really a dream, and could never be real. It is, she thinks, something to do with being yōkai, something tied with the same dark strings as the day Miroku had attacked, and Kouga had bitten him, and she had tasted something more terrible than iron in Kouga's bloody kiss. Something to do with being yōkai –

But the winding halls of the den lead her in circles, back to the main hall where Miroku is snickering among the wolves, Saya pacing behind him as always, the two of them peering together at what remains of the hole in Kouga's shoulder. "Well, Kouga-sama. That's impressive, do you put your survival down to the armor or how quickly you healed? Or maybe I should be asking how many hits like that it would have taken…" Kagome stares. The strength of Kouga's armor and the regenerative power of Kouga's flesh. Not the horror of the wound, or how unnecessary the fight had been – what kind of monk is he? What kind of Buddhist? What kind of priest?

The night is slow in coming, and when it does Kagome races for bed and lies there, turning restlessly, waiting for Kouga to come to her. It's not long, as she knew it wouldn't be, and she turns into his embrace when he climbs in beside her, but can't hide her tension. "We need to talk, Kouga." She expects some tension in him, like there would be if she'd said such a thing to a man in her own time, but instead he grins and turns enough to kiss her, the faintest brush of his lips.

"Sure. You've been running away from me all day, we can talk as much you want. But I want you on my good side first, this is awkward." He shifts her with one arm, in a way that should be impossible, just reaches around her body and lifts her over himself to lie in the curve of his uninjured side. His strength impresses her as always, but she's more concerned with the way he's still talking about a good side, even though she can see the terrible wound has finally healed over.

Carefully, she strokes his chest with the tips of her fingers, marveling at the smooth, scarless skin everywhere but that one place. The burns are gone, the bruises all but disappeared, and even that deepest injury, the lightning burn in his shoulder, has become a tender patch of pink flesh, the only thing left to remind her of how horribly he'd been hurt. Kouga presses his lips against her hair, then jostles her a little with the arm she's on top of now and raises an eyebrow. "So? Didn't you want to talk? I'm not used to this…" And he traces the downturn of her lips with careful fingers. "What is the frown for, Kagome? Tell me so I can fix it."

"Can you fix it, Kouga? I'm afraid I'm starting to understand things that I don't like, and that I didn't know before. I'm afraid that when I get them, really get them, something might change between us. Or about me. Or –"

"Slowly." Now he's frowning, too, but if anything his hold on her is tighter than it was a moment before, and despite her doubts, it comforts her. "Slowly. One thing at a time, from the beginning. What do you think you're starting to understand?"

"Something about yōkai? Maybe? Or I thought it was something like that, but Miroku isn't yōkai, and he was doing it too."

"Miroku." The frown becomes a scowl, and Kagome snickers despite herself. "Why is it that every time you say his name there's some kind of trouble? You make me wish I'd sent him out into the snow."

"Saya would be sad if you'd done that."

"Saya would be angry if I did that. More trouble than it's worth." He bent close to her face, brushing his nose against her nose. "But you haven't answered my question, Kagome."

He's too near for her to say it, to think it, being a beautiful boy instead of a terrible beast. She has to sit back a little, stare at his chest and not his face, that patch of angry pink skin, the only marred bit of flesh on his entire body. "I… It starts with how badly you were hurt, Kouga. You were hurt because of me. Because I wanted to go and save Shippou's feelings, and his dead father's dignity." She glanced up at him sharply, as if daring him to deny it, but saw only the same bright acceptance as always in his blue eyes. "I did it, Kouga. For…for selfish reasons, because I thought it was the right thing to do and I always have to do the right thing. And you were injured so badly-"

"I know. I've known that about you since you came with us to fight the harpies. I wouldn't love you if you didn't. You wouldn't be yourself. And that's how it was, and what happened, but now I'm better, and there's nothing for you to worry about."

"And next time?"

"Next time?" The words aren't confused, but bemused, as if there's something surprising about her even needing to ask the question, and she sits up abruptly, shoving at his hip to make room for herself in the furs.

"See! That's just it, that's what I mean! You're – you're – you're just acting like it's totally normal that you almost died, and spent the last week healing a giant hole in your chest. Ginta and Hakkaku didn't make a fuss and act like you were going to die like they should, they howled about how great you are, and set off all the rest of them, and nobody said anything about what could have happened if you – if you – if I – "

She stops to take a great, gulping breath, her eyes fixed on Kouga's, willing him to understand her point of view. "And Shippou, Shippou acting like it's totally normal that he was fighting for his life, and avenging his father, and that now he's wearing his father's pelt and talking to his father's ghost – and Miroku! I thought it was yōkai, because you heal so fast, or like to fight, or just… just something I couldn't understand because I'm not one of you, but he's just the same, just as ridiculous, poking at the giant hole in your chest and asking how many more of Hiten's bolts you think it would have-"

"Kagome." The sound of her name doesn't stop her, but how soft and warm and laughing and sorry and sad and sweet his voice is. "Kagome, my woman, never let me forget how far you've come from to be with me, how lucky I am to have you, how strange and perfect you are. Be just like this for a thousand years, and I promise I'll teach you the rest, show you everything you need to know, remind you of all the things your people forgot. What is this time to you, Kagome? What did you call it? I can never remember."

But she thinks he does, and is just being gentle about reminding her. The truth comes to her with the words. "Sengoku jidai."

He must see something on her face, because he nods slowly and pulls her down to lie by his side again. "The war is forever, precious Kagome. The war is everything. It's been five hundred years since there was peace among men, and do you think that there is ever really peace among yōkai? We live the law of the forest, the rule of nature, fang, fur, and claw. For us a wound is a promise of retribution. For us a battle fought and won is a battle worth it. This is because the world is a war, and because the winner gets everything. Your future must have been so soft and tame; I wonder if I would be able to survive it."

Nothing he's said is comforting, but it's all true, negating the terrible fear that she'd found some unapproachable truth about him and his Wolves. Even being reminded of the past she'd found herself in, even being reminded of the future that was lost, for some reason her heart beats calmly in her chest. The smile Kouga wants comes easily to her now. "I don't think my future would survive you." And she almost said our future, but didn't dare hint at that commitment. She could tease him with anything else, but not with that.

"It's my turn to say I want to talk, Kagome."

She tenses a little and him. "Are we taking turns? I'm sure I could come up with something else for afterward…"

"I want to know why you're blaming yourself, when I made my own choices." And then, when she said nothing, "I was the one who didn't move out of the way."

It is very much harder to meet his gaze when he's staring at her so steadily, so intently, waiting as if he knows whatever answer she gives won't be good enough. "I asked you to go, Kouga. You wouldn't have on your own. That's all it-"

"That's wrong." He's as serious as she's ever seen him, narrows his eyes at her a little then sits up against the furs, drawing her into his lap. "I answered you and said yes without thinking, is that what you assumed? You can't think about me like that, Kagome. It's not good for you, and it's not good for us. Little things I can do for you without thinking. Running to the south to bring you limes from trees that don't know winter. Sharing gems I've no use for, if they don't adorn my most precious treasure. But my life belongs to the pack, and I won't risk it without reason."

"Shippou was a reason?"

"How do I explain? Hmm…" He brings her fingers to his lips, kisses them one at a time, then gnaws gently at her index finger like a distracted dog, though she knows he would never forgive the comparison. "It's like this, Kagome. Shippou could have been anyone, any yōkai, but especially any canine. If he'd been a Wolf, it would be easier to explain. We're not like mortal packs, we don't fear outsiders. We don't shun new blood, not even males. But especially such a little one… He's a kit, and without protection of a pack, and what was done to his father…"

"It was terrible."

"It was evil. Worse than evil." The statement is abrupt, almost angry, but he relaxes almost at once, shaking his head. "Sorry. I know you won't see it that way, but it breaks all our traditions, steps on all the things yōkai keep sacred. The furs I gave you to wear for the celebration of our courting promise, those were my mother's pelt, Kagome. The fangs of the necklace you wore were her fangs and my father's. We esteem our ancestors in two ways – the funeral rite of the plain of bones, which you saw and helped with for Shippou's father. And we keep their pelts, so that the scent and presence of them is near us. We treasure them until time wears them thin like all other things. For those brothers to steal the pelt of Shippou's father, to skin him like a beast and leave his bones in the ground – what is the human equivalent, Kagome? Is there something? If there is, I don't know it, but is that enough for you to understand why even without you, I would have gone?"

"It's that important. Enough that even for a stranger…" She swallowed, fighting back sudden tears. "I'm sorry, Kouga. I misjudged you. I was thinking you were… Well, kind of a hothead, and only doing it for me."

"I am a hothead. Mostly." And his smile is the one that had caught her breath in her chest the day they met. "But I wouldn't have been accepted as Alpha if I couldn't think, too, silly woman."

She winces, and squints at him with one eye half shut. "I'm sorry. I am, really, I just… I guess I was horrified, and not really thinking, and then I was scared and not thinking even more. And I haven't thought much about what it means that you're Alpha, except for what I know about ordinary wolves."

"Time for more lessons, hmm?" He's only teasing, but she nods, serious.

"Definitely." She tucks her hair behind her ear, looks up at him more clearly. "Are… are we okay?"

"Okay." It's the only one of the modern words she's brought him that he understands, and likes the shape of. "We're always okay, or at least, we always will be. What you don't know, and what I don't know, we'll teach each other. Haven't I told you before? As long as you want me beside you, that's where I'll be."

"Even when I'm an idiot?"

He draws her close to his body, gathers her against him and sears her lips with the heat of his kiss. His hands slide slowly from her shoulders up the back of her neck and into her hair, holding her with both tenderness and desire. "It was a promise, Kagome. And I don't think you're an idiot. Now, come here. I have another promise to keep, and I've waited long enough."

"Oh… Yes."

"This is the way to the den of the Wolf, which I learned from the one who is lost to me. You will cross seven valleys south of us, and follow the river into Echigo, under the shadow of the Ou Mountains. I do not know how long it may take you to find a valley where a waterfall hides a city of caves, where the river long ago bored its way through the rock and chose a new bed. If you find it, be careful. You will already have been in the territory of Wolves for some time then, and they do not take lightly to trespassers, or to humans, and especially, I imagine, not to Taijiya women. The snow is no longer so deep that I feel terrible sending you, but make sure you provision yourself well, Sango-san. And remember my message. I wish no ill will between this domain and those wolves. If they require revenge, I will give it to them, as long as their Alpha is willing to offer me enough respect that he comes to do the deed himself."

Three weeks into her journey, at the edge of the Ou Mountains, Sango stops in the foothills to pick a direction, and contemplates the hard, black strength that had shown itself in Kagewaki's eyes at the last. He had given her directions and message, wished her good luck and sent her away, and he had been right about many things, but not about the snow, which is still heavy here in the mountains, and weighs her steps. It's as if the land knows that she doesn't belong, that she's an outsider, and is pressing back against her, but she clutches her hood closer to her face, and squints against the wind, and trudges onward.

It's been years since she's had to walk alone like this, no fire in the dark, no warm body against the wind. If she doesn't find shelter before nightfall, she won't live until morning, even if this storm blows out before noon like it looks like it will. As she walks, she plays the terrible game with herself that she's been playing since she first woke up in Kagewaki-sama's care. Who is she missing most at this moment? Father? Brother? Comrades? But this time the answer is Kirara, whose strength and power had aided her on missions many times. Sango wonders if Kagewaki-sama is right, and the nekomata is alive somewhere, having fled the terrible defeat of their village, or if she, too, had succumbed to the terrible ambush that had stolen all Sango's kin. Her thoughts run the loop of events over and over, a single frame of reality stuck on repeat.

White spiderwebs turning red, silk stronger than steel and twice as deadly. The blank brown glare of Kohaku's gaze, like a stranger's eyes in her brother's face. Gore streaming from the blade of his weapon, mingling the blood of her kin with the blood of her comrades, and then that first puncture, almost without feeling, spreading into a slash that had ripped her back open and dropped her to her knees in agony. The tiny details that stand out to her are unnatural – the tiny motes of dust that had moved with her breath as she fell, the exact way in which every object shifted as her view rotated ninety degrees and her head came to rest against the ground. The soft earth sticking to her face, the smell of wet dirt plugging her nostrils, clinging to her hands… And then she is waking beneath a white futon, soothed by the yellow light of Kagewaki-sama's lanterns, and the shining red glow of his eyes in the dark of her sickroom.

So red. How odd it is to see a man with eyes so red. The crimson color brings her back to the beginning of the loop, always at the back of her mind, as she stumbles alongside a rocky wall, and steadies herself against the stones. White spiderwebs, turning red. Silk stronger than steel and twice as deadly. There's a dark hole just ahead of her, opening like a black mouth into the rocks, and she fishes her flint out of her back and strikes it against her knife for sparks, peering into the shadows for an unexpected owner. The blank brown glare of Kohaku's gaze, like a stranger's eyes in her brother's face. Nothing, just a shallow, narrow cleft in the rock face, scooped out by time and with no inhabitants but an errant boulder streaked with water, and moss feeding on the drips. Gore streaming from the blade of his weapon, mingling the blood of her kin with the blood of her comrades, and then that first puncture, almost without feeling, spreading into a slash that had ripped her back open and dropped her to her knees in agony.

Sango crouches, slips quietly into the cave and considers the safety of building a small fire in the entrance. Will it keep away the night's predators, or cause more trouble? How far do these wolves patrol? Where are the borders of ōkami territory? She shakes her head, puts her pack down and unrolls her futon on a dry patch of ground, then settles to watch the last of the day's flurries dying down to the occasional gust of windblown snow. The tiny details that stand out to her are unnatural – the tiny motes of dust that had moved with her breath as she fell, the exact way in which every object shifted as her view rotated ninety degrees and her head came to rest against the ground. She blinks, and for a moment the inner monologue and the overlay of her sight are so close together, she can no longer place herself in time. The soft earth sticking to her face, the smell of wet dirt plugging her nostrils, clinging to her hands…

But then she is waking beneath white frost, soothed by yellow sunlight, blinking away sleep and staring back at the shining red glow of many wolves' eyes, peering into the dark of her cave.

A/N: Another chapter, another nugget of doom! This chapter's title, "augusta, angusta", means narrow roads, high places. Which doom now? Sesshomaru's! Because he was not a happy doggo when last we saw him, oh no he was not… Next Time: Hunter meets Wolf's Woman, and Fuzzy Wuzzy's Not A Bear, But He Does Have Perfect Hair!

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