InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Of Fire and Fairytales ❯ Snow Angels ( Chapter 3 )

A/N: Siren says sorry: It's been too long, but the next chapter isn't far behind 'cause I was kinda alternating working on them so don't stone me okay? I don't own Inuyasha, bla bla bla.

By the way: WATCH MAD MAD HOUSE ON SCIFI CHANAL! Don the vampire is hot and normal people cry… a lot. It's fun.

NOTE: It has been noted that I have been spelling Wiccan wrong in my fanfic. I can't be hung or hated for my stupidity though because I didn't know! And I'm not apologizing either 'cause it's not my fault. Yet, I would hate to use magic incorrectly so this fact has been noted and spelling changes will gradually be made over previous chapters. Please believe me when I say I really don't know what I'm writing about, vampires are my specialty, not Wicca.

Of Fire and Fairy Tales

By Angelic Siren

Chapter Three: Snow Angels

Evil hung in the air like a dense fog, silent and unmoving, obscuring all other feeling and all other senses, pressing down with force to stop breath and break ribs. Deep within it there were shadows. They sat together not even so much as breathing, just waiting to see what the world as its stage and its actors would do next. There was no script, because it was simply more interesting that way.

The snakelike locks of the shadow from which all the others sprang were for once pulled back into a lose ponytail as he watched the movement of all things as they passed through his domain with a silent smirk of amusement.

Sesshoumaru slid the door of his chambers open and stepped into the hall. A few of the servants paused when he walked by, having nearly forgotten what their lord looked like during his long withdrawal. He carried himself only half as heavily as he felt, choosing to keep the rest of his mourning and bitterly justified self-hate to himself, allowing it only to interfere with his dreams now, the only place where he decided he had no control, all else still bowed to him if he demanded it, he would make it, even death.

The child was lost. He accepted that much and would have to accept it every day for the rest of his several hundred years. His thoughts now had to be on his kingdom and those that threatened it, revenge was something he could focus on later in life, when things where more secure and any injury to himself was of less concern. For now, he finalized as his reason, he could not die or shame would return to his family as the power and rule of the western lands shifted back to his mutt bastard brother, and he would sooner live through hell, die, and then go through it again more literally then see that happen.

He gripped the boa that graced his shoulder at the very thought of having a hanyou ruining the empire that he, his father, and his father's fathers had worked so hard to build and keep stable. That brat could rise to power and topple the whole pyramid of state in Japan in the same day. Sesshoumaru thought within himself. The western lords were a legacy, one that he was determined not to have crumble at the hands of a human female, not his father's… nor his.

Rin…

Sesshoumaru sighed as he entered his study, scrolls piled high around his low desk, all of them letters of mock concern of the condition of his lands from other lords, along with offers of help… for a price. He withheld the growl that burned in the back of his throat. If there was any down fall to being a great lord, it had to be putting up with the other ones.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Sango gripped her arms against the frosty November air. No Snow. Yet.

With a sigh she stopped and glanced down at Shippo, who was short of frozen solid. "You know, you'd be warmer on my shoulder than walking on your own." She stated as the little kitsune continued to trudge on shivering violently.

"Ah, shows what y-you k-know. I'm too tough to f-feel the stupid cold!"

Sango rolled her eyes. "Well, I'd be warmer anyway. Guess I'm selfish."

Shippo's cold-drooped ears picked up and he stopped, sticking his nose high in the air. "Well, yeah, but, it's okay. I'll help you." He immediately turned and bounded back to Sango and hopped to her shoulder easily, settling there with a content sigh.

"I wish I were as tough." La Fay said, her eyebrows raised too high to be serious, but Shippo was too tired to notice. She glanced around at the small clearing that was slowly being blanketed by a fog that was uncommon for such an early afternoon. "You know, I'm not entirely sure this is the meadow where we're supposed to meet the others."

"But I am sure that it looks damn similar to the last three we've been through." Sango added with a quick look around. "Something doesn't feel right…"

La Fay settled one hand on her knife belt, inspecting the surrounding trees scrupulously. "I know what you mean. Ghost fields back home have an eerily similar vibe. It makes your stomach drop, huh?"

"Just what I was thinking. Know what I'm thinking now psychic?" Sango began to mentally measure how far the fog was rolling at what pace.

La Fay was already doing the same thing with the simple conclusion: the fog was moving too fast. "I read auras Sango, not minds, but if we're thinking anything alike you think we should get moving."

Sango began to cross the thick green carpet of grass to the far side of the clearing. "Exactly." She said with a repressed shudder.

"It's strange," La Fay said, following slowly after her, looking over her shoulder at the advancing mists. "But I don't feel a presence in this place, nothing living at all, not even something evil enough to spook everything else off." She stopped for a moment beside the upturned roots of a freshly fallen tree, which should have been teeming with life, but all such was conspicuously absent. "There aren't even worms here…" La Fay said to the frosty air. She looked around, suddenly aware of her self, standing in the glade alone.

La Fay gritted her teeth as the fog reached the toes of her boots. It seemed almost alive and eager to climb her faded and muddied jeans. Unable to stand the quiet nor see any tracks through the dense fog, La Fay gripped her dagger's handle until her knuckles turned white. "Sango?" she called warily into the trees. Silence answered on for miles. "Sango, really, I can't see you!" Not even your aura's footprints.

She allowed herself a moment to gather her thoughts before panic set in. She had been alone in strange places before, this was little different, she just needed to think clearly, but even her mind was foggy. La Fay felt her chest tighten, this was worse than being claustrophobic, this was being confused and helpless where self-assurance had always reined.

La Fay tugged the arms of her thin coat down over her fingers as she turned to inspect the forest behind her, beside her, until it seemed to spin in silent mockery. She tried to force the world to focus but with no success. Blindly, she began to wander in the direction she assumed Sango had gone, stopped, turned uncertainly, and altered her course. Her path ran anywhere but straight for hours as several snowflakes dared to slip away from heaven to instigate the first snow.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sesshoumaru rubbed his shoulder where the latest replacement for his fallen flesh met what remained real. Disgusting He thought within himself. He turned into the cool air of the lengthening Fall with a stiff glare. There was snow in the low lands and it was not showing signs of stopping, yet he had his duties and he would traverse the worst storms to be sure his lands were secure.

There was an empty coldness in him that was more frozen by far than the weather around him. Trudging on through the snow Sesshoumaru kept his thoughts on his specific task, memories of his lost foster-child playing in the first snow would not help him to accomplish anything. He gritted his teeth and allowed his pace to speed up.

Approaching the edge of one of the wild forests that had no distinct boundaries from which to mark territorial lines and borders Sesshoumaru suddenly halted, eyes wide, ears alert. The thick mist that obscured everything on the forest floor was… unusual, to say the least. He sniffed the air for a source, a powerful and ambitious youkai perhaps? But to no result, either the snow had blanketed the demon's scent or he simply did not exist. In any event, he would press on and meet what would come. Without hesitation he continued into the forest.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Kagome sighed with relief as Sango and Miroku came into view through the intensifying snowstorm. Miroku had volunteered to go look for their late companions while she and Inuyasha remained in the designated clearing. Inuyasha remained close to her to avoid letting the brunt of the wind and slush hit her. Wrapped tight in the fir-lined cloak he'd made from a demon bearskin, she was still very thankful for his attentiveness.

At Inuyasha's gesture toward the approaching snow-laden friends, Kagome was suddenly aware that they were short a member. She jogged forward to meet them, slowed by the snow that was nearly knee deep. "Where's La Fay?" she yelled over the wind.

"We lost her before Miroku found us an hour ago!" Sango reported. "Must have been lost in the fog!"

Kagome glanced back at Inuyasha whose brow was knitted with suspicion. "What fog?" He barked through the icy howls.

Sango looked struck, looking around desperately for proof. Miroku took her arm and tugged her towards the others as Shippo clung fast to her shoulder. "We can't look for her now! We won't even be able to find our tracts in a minute! We have to go back to the village!" He yelled as he steadied the huntress when she stumbled.

Kagome turned back to Inuyasha, about to protest for support when he lifted her off her feet and nodded to Miroku before heading toward Kaede's village.

Kagome punched his shoulder as he turned into the wind. "Inuyasha, you baka! We have to find her! She could freeze!"

"And so could we! We're heading back, we'll look once the storm dies down." He shook his head, sending puffs of collected snow into the wind behind them. "La Fay will manage so shut up and keep warm! You're no good to anyone as a Popsicle!"

Kagome bit her chapped lip, biting back her retort. If anything happened to La Fay it would be her fault for having brought her to the past to begin with. She turned into the warmth of Inuyasha's chest with a groan. How could a near psychic get lost? Something was very wrong.

* * * * * * * * * *

La Fay sat under the snow bent branches of an old pine, trying desperately to distinguish anything around her to get home by, but through the sheets of snow there seemed to be nothing. She drew her knees to her, silently praying for a miracle, a sign, anything!

Oh, Gods unnamed for millennia forgotten, freeze not thy last child of Era and the Green Isles. Kind spirits, I pray…The last of the prayer was lost with her consciousness as blackness out of the freezing white fell upon her, bidding her to sleep. Whatever saints or spirits she had been trying to call failed to hear her, the snow whipping relentlessly through the little protection she had.

La Fay struggled back to consciousness now and then, aware that if she remained, she would freeze, but her blood seemed thick in her veins and the warmth of her dreams was so inviting… Waking brought her no feeling at all, not even cold anymore, and she surrendered, lying on her side, head pillowed on one arm, she waited for the hypothermia to set in. It would.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Sesshoumaru paused to wipe the snow from his tangled silver bangs only to have the wind drive replacement flakes back in again. He huffed a silent surrender and turned to head back to his winter palace, the inspection could wait a day or two, if there were force enough here to trouble him before then he would have found it.

In mid-step he froze, finding the body of a half frozen human half buried in the snow at the base of a large pine. It wasn't dead, he decided, watching the pitiful creature shudder against the buffeting wind. A small twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth, suddenly reminded of the last human body he had found. Sickened, he pushed forward, back to the entrance of the forest and the palace grounds.

A stirring behind him made Sesshoumaru hesitate, but he set his jaw and continued in spite of it.

"H-hey… Is s-someone there?"

Ignoring the voice of the half frozen human, the White Lord continued into the white stained brush.

La Fay struggled to sit up, cramped and weighed down with snow. She blinked several times, unable to tell if the retreating figure was real or not, partially from the blanketing snow and partially from the snow fever settling in on her mind.

"Please! Don't j-just…" She scrambled to her feet only to have her knees buckle beneath her. She grunted and stood again, finding reserves from the prospect of being saved. She leaned back against her tree for a moment. Am I really frozen enough to follow a ghost through a blizzard? The absence of thought that echoed for a moment in her frozen skull answered. Yes, yes I am.

Stumbling forward into the full force of the storm, La Fay dragged her feet in the quickly disappearing tracks of the shimmering silver figure barely visible ahead of her. Athens, I hope the Grim Reaper didn't just get a new look in time to confuse the hell out of me.

Sesshoumaru growled and forced himself not to look over his shoulder at the pursuing human. If I could fly in this mess I could lose it easily… It's half dead already, it will fall to the storm long before I have to worry about it. He would have moved faster on that thought but his legs were like lead even in the trail he had forged on his way to the clearing.

* * * * * * * * *

The icy air felt like glass in her lungs as La Fay picked her way through the treacherously rocky path leading up the steep incline. She guessed through her blind eyes that the trail was little better at any other time of the year but it was only this bad for the ice. Her silent savior continued to ignore her completely as he picked his way through the pass.

La Fay coughed and fell to one knee but the silver figure ahead still refused to look back. Even she could feel the fever burning in her head but still she pushed herself to her feet, only to fall again. I'll not die this way. She swore, grabbing a nearby tree branch to pull herself up by. I'll at least make it to the gates of hell, 'stead of freezing in Purgatory.

Sesshoumaru glanced over his shoulder briefly before the human could see him do so. He growled. It follows. Climbing the last stretch of slope he slipped just slightly but caught his balance and made it to the crest of the steep incline, not a mountain but nearly. There was a faint curse in the wind and Sesshoumaru paused and looked back. The nearly lifeless creature hung on a low branch of a tree trying to stagger away to return to the trail. The thought of creating a minor avalanche did not escape him but he passed it off, it wasn't worth it.

La Fay swore again, getting sick of following ghosts and climbing hell's boundaries. "Hey!" She yelled up the pass. "You! Phantom Jerk! Uh-" she stumbled away from the tree. "There's no such thing as a neutral ghost… they either help or harm…" La Fay grumbled and straightened. Snow whipping her shoulder length blonde hair around her swiftly paling face was weighed down with snow making it impossible to see at all.

Delirium pressed heavily on her mind, pushing sense from her consciousness, which was also failing fast. La Fay stepped forward, growling audibly.

Live.

She shivered. That voice was real, dead but real. She didn't like talking to spirits that much so she didn't answer, her head drooping with exhaustion.

Live.

The voiced ordered again. She tried to place the spirit's voice but it was no one she knew. A child? A girl, maybe five… La Fay stumbled another step, shoved by the howling winds.

Live!

The voice commanded. La Fay felt a surge of last strength and cried into the frozen darkness, magic rippling off of her in waves she'd never thought she possessed. The world was suddenly silent. The wind was stone and snowflakes hung as ornaments in the unmoving air, as if time itself had yielded to the wiccan's cry.

Sesshoumaru stared; there was nothing else he could do. He had honestly never been shocked in his life, yet this pitiful creature, a human, had astonished him. He could feel power ebbing from her weak body as she silently climbed the pass, the world parting to let her through. He stepped back away from the lip of the crest suddenly struck, unsure, not frightened, but unsure of what the thing actually was. He turned and barked a command as he reached the gate of the palace compound.

"Let me in! Keep that thing out!" But the guard didn't respond, frozen along with the rest of the universe he heard nothing, saw nothing, not even the creature staggering up the ridge of the mountain. Sesshoumaru gritted his teeth and swiftly jumped the gate, feeling the magic barriers undone to their smallest incantation. As soon as it was over the top of the pass the world resumed its deadly blows on anything foolish enough to move.

La Fay fell to beating on the gates in the growing darkness of twilight, shouting at the guards who remained out of her sight at their posts. Still she ranted a cursed and barked orders to forgotten spirits to kill the guards and open the gates but in her delirium half of the ancient words were slurred together, distorting meaning and merely pooling earth bound minions in a confusing knot around her until the last of her strength was gone and…

Her cries ceased. Sesshoumaru glared toward the front of the palace with distaste. The, thing, had died, he hoped, and it was about time, clamoring on the door for well over an hour after miles of dragging itself blindly through the deadening cold. A shiver shook him violently. The last of her curses must have sent a confused spirit past the reformed barriers after all. He pushed his tea aside, its steam no more comforting than having a frostbitten witch lying dead on his stoop. Straightening, he ordered the small servant woman in the corner to tell the guards to drag it inside and give it a proper burial; he had enough troubles without having a curse on his head.

"Sire, the woman, she yet lives."

"Impossible!"

"Nay, Lord. I have seen her breath, though she be weak…"

A growl. "Tell no one of this but the healer. Help him tend her until she can be put back on the frozen rock she materialized from. I want no more part of this than what I have been, understand?"

"Sire."

La Fay touched the surface of her consciousness cautiously. When neither bitter cold nor hellfire exploded through her she allowed herself to rise to the skin of her waking mind slowly and carefully, avoiding waking totally for her own sake. By the blade of Merlin's sword, where the hell am I? She thought darkly. She still dare not open her eyes, afraid of the answer.

Try though she might she could not stand the quiet of wherever she was physically and couldn't seem to submerge her thoughts entirely again. With an inward sigh she let her curiosity grip her and force her lids open slowly. It was dead night in a foreign room she'd never seen before, nor could she see well now. There were no shadows because there was little light to begin with but there was still heavy unease in the air, and not just because she knew not where she was. La Fay sat up, her body promptly responding by dropping her back on the warm futon again under her mountain of fine blankets. She groaned softly, only too aware now that she was too weak to move. She felt her mind cloud and she turned slowly into her pillow and let them fall, sending her back into her dreams. There was nothing to fight now but whatever death might still be trying to cling to her.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Kagome watched the edge of forest with a beseeching look as she stood in the growing dark outside of Keade's hut. She rubbed her arms and looked up at the unlit, snow laden sky where no moon shown through the dense clouds that persistently bombarded the world with icy flakes of doom for anyone foolish enough to remain outdoors for long. The black haired and violet eyed Inuyasha stepped out next to her, ready to reprimand her for trying to freeze herself with her vigil, but a course cough was dragged out of her suddenly and he stopped, taking her by the elbow and motioning for her to go inside.

"I'll stand watch, you get some tea in you before you keel over." Inuyasha mumbled, pushing her toward to door.

Kagome planted her feet and turned on him. "I'm not leaving her out there." She stated flatly.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "Well, duh! That's why I volunteered. Now get your butt into bed it's late. We'll look again in the morning, you can't even see anymore."

She hesitated. "You sure you'll see her then?"

"Probably sooner than you would. Now go! Kaede still has some hot stew waiting so go!"

Kagome concealed a small smile as she turned and entered the small hut. She paused to see Inuyasha take his stance leaning against the side of the house, head turned in the direction of the forest. After a moment she emerged again with a blanket, which she threw at him with a grateful nod. After an unsuccessful hour of night watch, Inuyasha slipped back inside, half frozen, and curled up on the mat beside Kagome's thick sleeping bag with an irritated and weary sigh.

* * * * * * * * *

Sesshoumaru grimaced at the smell of human in his home, it was too soon for that, not that he ever wanted it there again. He watched the healer retreat silently down the halls as he stood outside of his study. He rubbed his temple. She wasn't human, there was no way one human could have such power, not even in folklore, the only place that they had ever been strong.

The healer had been tending the… thing, whatever it was, for two days until the fever finally broke. It would recover. Sesshoumaru chided himself for his curiosity and desire to at least know what to call it. It didn't matter because she'd be leaving soon anyway. Maybe that was the part that bothered him most, a woman, having so much power in such a weak body. If she had been male he would have killed her, curse or no, yet for her femininity, his hand was unexplainably stayed.

Why did it make a difference? Because women in his realm didn't even read, power made them independent, dangerous. It was his own fault for thinking because of her sex she would be nothing more than a parasite, much as admitting it was painful. He returned to his study. It didn't matter, there was a thought indeed.

Sesshoumaru sat down at the desk but barely glanced at the map in front of him. He rubbed his left shoulder. The phantom pains had been intensifying, probably because of the cold. Somehow just the thought of the ice outside made his mind fall to the memory of the woman's eyes when they had snapped open as her half dragged form was taken past him and into the guest chambers he'd prepared for her. She had gasped and murmured something in a strange delirious tongue and gone limp again. Unnerved, Sesshoumaru had immediately turned and strode away to wait for news in another part of the castle. Those eyes had been wild, piercing, captivating… the only explanation for their color had been her use of magic, which undoubtedly also caused her ivory skin and exotic gold hair. She was something out of legend, and yet still only a woman, no matter how powerful.

With a sigh, the Lord of the Western Lands took his saucer of sake and drowned it in one swallow. The alcohol actually reduced his headache over the events of the last few days. Though he was probably drunk by the time he allowed himself to think it Sesshoumaru did acknowledge the idea of keeping the woman until he at least had idea of what she was an some assurance that she would return to whatever hell had sent her to plague him.

* * * * * * * * * * *

La Fay had spoken to the healer for nearly a quarter of an hour before fatigue made her lie down again. She'd slept through a hypothermia fever and an additional day but it had left her drained of strength, her body ravaged.

The healer's soft voice had been stiff as he asked, nearly demanding, answers from her, as though seeing to a human was a waste of his time. What was she? Where was she from? Did she have companions with similar powers? The questions were rushed and stupid in her opinion and she stumbled over her answers, only getting half way through before he cut her off with a question only more idiotic than the last.

When he'd gone a small young youkai woman had come in with a tray of food for her. Her speaking rhythm was paced and sweet, practiced to keep patients calm. She explained to La Fay where she was but couldn't say how she had gotten there. La Fay had only asked because she couldn't remember. After eating and sending the woman away La Fay laid back to think over her situation:

She was in the house of a noble and powerful youkai lord, that for one reason or another had saved her from the cold. He'd commanded her cared for to be sent on her way when she was well or when he saw fit.

The last part of the message had alarmed her slightly. If the servants of this lord were so distasteful of humans than certainly he was of a similar mind. The reason for her safety and well being remained unspoken behind one of the hundreds of thin screens in the castle, and she hadn't yet the strength to go looking for it.

One last thing the small nurse had said at a passing on her way out was, "If the snow keeps up it won't matter and we'll be snowed in for the winter anyway." La Fay pulled her blankets up with a shiver and closed her eyes, feeling as though someone else's were upon her.

* * * * * * * * *

"Miroku," Sango said quietly as she walked next to the monk as they swept the ice-laden forest. "Do, you think she's still… alive? It's been nearly a week and…"

Miroku glanced behind them, trying to make sure the troubled Kagome didn't hear his real opinion. He pursed his lips. "…No."

Sango lowered her eyes but didn't stop. "I still hope, but I think it has little foundation if she didn't make it to a village, but then she'd have been back by now. Oh, Miroku! What if Naraku found her before we did?! That sick bastard would've-"

"Shh!" Miroku warned as Inuyasha and Kagome looked up from their inspection of the trailside momentarily before returning to work. "Give her another week at least, before we start talking like this in front of Kagome. She already blames herself, if La Fay is dead… we must, have faith."

Sango looked at Miroku, surprised by the out of character comment. He usually only talked like that when he was getting them a free meal but he actually sounded like he meant it. "I suppose so…" Sango said quietly.

* * * * * * * *

Ebony hair and white snow, such a combination the shadow mused. Lifting the shards from the frozen addition to his pains had been easy, and watching her stagger off into the woods to die alone was simply grand! What a lovely tool she had been, but alone and frightened her powers had failed her, otherwise she would have made a fine addition to his… team. Wherever she was, her usefulness was over and she had done her part unaware and well. Sitting back in his latest throne from his latest palace, Naraku raised his sake glace to the snowflakes falling outside the open shoji scene. A toast, to a snowy grave. It was such a beautiful night.

One Last Thing: WATCH MAD MAD HOUSE ON SCIFI CHANAL!