InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Forest Embrace ❯ What right? ( Chapter 4 )

“Hey there” He heard the voice even before his eyes adjusted to the light. The smell from before… honey and apples, and…and the smell the human. Slowly the firelight became clearer, the figures gathered around him more distinct. Groaning he tried to sit up, only to have a gentle hand push him back, restraining him with its tenderness.

 

“Father,” the blur of colors whispered, a hurried excitement barely restrained within the tone. “He is awake.” Her scent caught him with a right cross to the esophagus. She smelled of limes and passion flowers warming on a vine in the summer sun. He breathed deeply. An indulgence. One he could ill. This woman…she was the one from before. He tried to growl, but the sound caught in his parched throat.

 

A man came into his ever clearing sight; he had a gentle honest face framed by shoulder length black hair, silver streams swam through the darkness like moonbeams in the night sky. His eyes, such a hypnotizing grey. Inuyasha didn't know if it was from exhaustion or those eyes, but the tension in his body drained away, leaving him feeling dizzy, but relaxed. Slowly his breathing deepened, the throbbing pain coming from his chest sending rhythmic pulsations throughout his entire body.

 

“Hello young fellow,” there was a pause as the man looked over him, “glad to see you've regained consciousness.” Another pause, the man was studying him, trying to see if the boy understood what he was saying. “Can you tell me your name?”

 

Inuyasha tried to get the words out, to tell him to go away, to warn him off. Again he tried to growl, but it stuck inside him, like it didn't want to leave.

 

“Kikyou.” The man said sternly.

 

“Yes Father?” The figure beside him had gone from blurry colors to a clear discernable figure. Her long black hair was pulled back into a heavy braid that she tossed over her shoulder, awaiting her father's instructions. Her bonnet, which she had warn the first time he saw her, was now scrunched up and tied into knots in her agitated hands.

 

“Water, for our guest.” The man's gaze never left Inuyasha's, his expression apprehensive, InuYasha tried to sit up, wondering if the man would push him back down like the girl did, but he didn't. Now propped up against the wall behind the cot InuYasha took notice of his human state. The look of alarm must have been obvious because the man's solemn expression turned to a grim smile. “My daughter told me everything, she's not good at keeping secrets, and her fear of god keeps her from lying often.”

 

Inuyasha's shock at shifting in front of a human ebbed, replaced by reservations. Why didn't this man just let him die? What would a human want with a shifter? All the humans he ever met had wanted to kill him, and all of their kind.

 

Kikyou returned with a new jug of water, dipping the ladle in she went to give it to him, only to have him grab it from her hand. Tension filled her as he sniffed the water carefully, weary of the poisons and potions humans often slipped into the rivers to chase his pack from their territory. Slowly he bent his head and sipped, allowing the cool liquid to sooth his burning throat. Kikyou relaxed, a smile curving her lips as he handed the ladle back to her. All the while her father sat, off to the side of the cot, observing the boy's encounter with his human daughter. Though he seemed to be mistrusting, he accepted her offer of help.

 

“Will you tell us your name?” he asked again. Inuyasha turned to face him, pulling his legs across each other and resting his hands in his lap.

 

“Inuyasha. My name is Inuyasha,” he said after a moment's contemplation. A name wouldn't hurt, and it was all they had asked of him so far. If they wanted to kill him, they would have let him die.

 

“Inuyasha.” Kikyou said with a nod.

 

Her father nodded as well, it pleased him to know the boy, Inuyasha, could speak, and understood their language. Well, Inuyasha, I am Father Oryon, I'm the minister of this town's church, and this is my eldest daughter Kikyou.”

 

Inuyasha managed a week but depressive smile. “The only member of the church I ever met took one look at me and ordered my death.”

 

Kikyou gasped “Why was that?” Inuyasha turned his attention to her.

 

“Because I born half shifted.” He looked down at his now clawless hands, he had been unable to revert to either form for the first three years of his life, and when his father had refused to kill his son for being born between forms, a common feature when mating with non-shifters, they attacked his village, searching for him. “They trapped me and my brother in a hayshack…and set it on fire. My brother barely had the strength to escape himself, but he wouldn't leave me behind…we're all that's left of our village.”

 

“Yes…I heard of the demon village.” Father Oryon stated.

 

“We're not demons.” Inuyasha snarled. “They tried to kill us because we were different from them, but there were villages around here that held non-shifters and we treated them equally. Why do you, who were not born upon this island, come here and kill its inhabitants and call us the demons?!” His breath was coming in ragged again, he clutched at his chest, the pain from the wound becoming too much to bear. White light explode across his vision, before the darkness swept him away again.