X.
Medicus Curat
Kagome sits wide-eyed and silent, listening to herself being discussed like a sack of flour. She is silent only because of the strangeness of this situation – because the old woman who is tending her looks like she came to life out of a history book – because it is daylight, and she is no longer half asleep, and she is still seeing a youkai. A wolf. Gleaming eyes and sharp fangs and tail lashing with impatience – a wolf.
She almost wishes she could faint again, just so she won't have to try to understand, but the kami are not as accommodating as she would like. She is forced to be still, because Kaede's hands, skilled though they are, are working on the wound in her side that she would like to forget exists. She saw it in the first light of dawn, when the old woman unwrapped the bandage and poultice that had been put on the night before.
The flesh is clean and without sign of infection, and the bleeding is stopped – but it still is deeper into her body than Kagome desires to see ever again. The wolf – Kouga, she reminds herself, Kouga – comes closer to her and peers down at what Kaede's hands are doing. He leans across her body to sniff at the herbs that Kaede is putting into the poultice, one by one, and his nose wrinkles. Kagome smiles despite herself; he might be youkai, but he's not threatening in the least and he's unmistakably handsome – cute even, especially with that crinkle in the bridge of his nose.
She contemplates where he wants to take her, and whether she should try not to go – but the old woman who is tending her is as unfamiliar as everything else. Her eyes fall on the pair of boar sitting by the fire; Kouga is paying for her care, for her presence...
And where am I? Where? I can't – I can't possibly be where Kaede says I am -
The question had been the second thing out of her mouth this morning, when she had woken to the touch of Kaede's hand on her shoulder.
"I'm Kagome, Higurashi Kagome; I'm sorry, but could you tell me where I am?"
"Why, this is the village of Edo, Kagome-san, and I am the miko here; where have you come from? How did you end up in Kouga's care?"
She had been forced to shake her head, to claim amnesia; it isn't far from the truth, anyway. She is from Tokyo, but if this is Edo then Tokyo doesn't exist; Tokyo is Edo, or what it became, anyway...and she has no better idea of how Kouga has come to be in possession of her than the old woman does. She watches the hands moving at her side, two pairs as unlike each other as any two things that bear the same name can be – Kouga's youthful, slender, inhuman, glittering with deadly claws, Kaede's elderly, wrinkled, the veins blue and prominent, the nails blunt and human and clipped short.
Kaede's hands are steadier, more accustomed to this sort of work. Kouga's fingertips and claws brush Kagome's skin as he learns, and each touch sends trembles of ticklish heat streaking across her abdomen. By the time they are done, and Kouga knows what he needs to know, Kagome is holding her breath, trying not to laugh and mostly failing.
Kouga smiles at the sound; it pleases him that she is capable of such lightheartedness. It pleases him that she doesn't fear him; that she has no problem with his closeness – she is growing stranger all the time, for he has never seen a human woman who didn't run in fear from him before. Kagome trembles, but it isn't terror that moves her, or could; the first time he touches her it is an accident but after that he does it on purpose, breathing deeply a new warmth in her scent, listening to the pounding of her heartbeat as the rhythm grows rapid. Her cheeks are flush, and perhaps that is from the laughter she is holding back – only a few giggles escape – but perhaps...
Perhaps it is not?
While he listens to Kaede explain a last few instructions, his eyes turn up to meet Kagome's watchful gaze. His grin grows, and her smile widens to match it, and then her eyes flicker away, downward, uncomfortable, embarrassed – awkward. This time he knows the red on her cheeks is for him, and thinks to himself that there might be more for him in her than just a beautiful mystery; there might be the woman herself.
He returns his attention to Kaede, and takes the bundle she holds out to him – herbs, ointments, and clean bandages, all neatly wrapped.
"If you will wait just a little while, I will have some of the men carve these boars up and you may take what you wish for your journey."
"Good. It's already later than I wanted to start, hurry them up, will you?"
A/N: It seems like it was a few hours ago that I was here...oh wait! I was! But it's midnight here and that means its the fourteenth, so here's an update for today! I'll be out all day so I didn't want to wait and miss one; the title, 'Medicus Curat' means 'the doctor cures'. Until tomorrow, my dears!
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