InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Once Upon an Inuyoukai ❯ Molasses ( Chapter 14 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Empatheia 
WAFF alert. A break from angst and gore, at last.
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Hentai / Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.19.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.3K | Visits: 254 | Status: Completed
WAFF alert. A break from angst and gore, at last.
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Hentai / Romance | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.19.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.3K | Visits: 254 | Status: Completed
A/N- The wonderful General Grievous Broken Warrior has pointed out a few discrepancies in my work (thank you!) so I'd like to quickly address them.
Q: Izayoi was a princess, wasn't she?
Yes, in those tantalizing eight minutes of the third movie, it's clear that she is the princess of the castle depicted. However, I am taking advantage of the fact that they never said she was born a princess, and am instead choosing to make her earn the title. As will be revealed later in the story, there is nothing in those eight minutes to contradict what I've written. Just wait for it...
Q: Inutaisho doesn't have a moon mark on his forehead, so Sesshoumaru must have gotten it from his mother.
Good observation- this one did slip past me. I'll be going back to correct that in the edits as soon as possible.
Q: Jaken never met the Inu no Taisho, he died a hundred years before Jaken came into the picture.
That would be true if I was going with the theory that Inuyasha is over two hundred years old by the time he meets Kikyou- however, for the purposes of this fiction I've decided to go with the other theory, in which he is 17 when he's pinned to the tree. This would allow for Jaken being alive during Inutaisho's reign. I'm not sure what the facts are, since I'm out in the middle of nowhere in Canada with no manga source readily available, so just for this fic- that's the way it is. Bear with me, please.
Okay! I think that's it for now! If you have any questions or observations like this, feel free to bring them to my attention! I always feel like people who take the time to point these things out care enough to make this fic better, and I'm always overjoyed to get reviews like that. So don't be afraid of making me angry or anything, unless your criticism is pointless and needlessly cruel I promise I won't be upset. Phew! Sorry for the long rant! Enjoy the chapter!
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Chap ter XIV: Molasses
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Neither of them knew just how close it had been.
He woke like molasses to find an exhausted miko draped across him, and a miraculously alive seer curled at his side. The lion king sat a distance off, afraid to enter the circle of healing. Inutaisho looked down at Naruka's pale face, tearstained and tight with worry even in sleep. Dark shadows had moved in beneath her eyes, giving her a haggard appearance. "Naru-chan," he whispered, and caressed her damp head. "Thank you."
Then he turned his attention to the seer. Izayoi lay flat on her back, knees bent as though trying to hold her stomach in. Which, he supposed, she had been until Naruka had healed the gaping wound he'd created. Her hair was spread messily around her, tangled and matted with soil and plant life. Her hands were dirty from scratching at the ground in her pain. Any other person would have looked filthy and unappealing, but not she. It just made her look like a dryad or some other fae child of the woodlands, crowned with leaves. Eyes deep as forest pools and the same colour, wood bark with flecks of verdant growth. She was a thing extraordinarily natural in every way.
She should have been dead.
But she wasn't, and all he could feel was relieved.
It was then that he discovered his own pain, halfway to sitting up. Crying out, he fell back and writhed, throwing Naruka unintentionally away from him. Every nerve burned as though flayed and bathed in salt, or dipped in acid. His demonic aura was nearly extinguished, exhausted in the effort of dragging them safely out of Hell. There was hardly enough left to best a strong human. Even a hanyou child could soundly trounce him in his current state. He had not been so debilitatingly weak since he was a child. Possibly not even then.
It was yet another new feeling. They seemed to crawl out of the woodwork the longer he traveled with the woman. New feelings, that was. However, all the other emotions she'd made him discover- protectiveness, lack of clarity, anger, admiration- those he had all felt before, just never towards humans. But this sensation of total helplessness was truly new.
Is this how humans feel all the time?
Of course not, logic said. They are accustomed to it, since they have never experienced your strength they have nothing to compare it to.
So logic said. Experience was a different matter. It felt disgusting, and he began to pity the poor crawling things that were bound to the ground like this. Pity, he felt, and a mix of others regarding himself including shame, disgust, and the slightest tracing of fear. If anything were to happen on them at this time....
Sakenmaru would protect them. He remembered suddenly the lion's presence and relaxed, just a little bit. The old and powerful taiyoukai had the strength to protect them until Inutaisho regained his strength. There was no need to worry.
But, a naggling worry spake, he was defeated once before.
He was caught unawares, unprepared. This is different. But to his dismay, he could not convince himself. In his mind's eye, the lion had already been defeated once- it could happen again. He was not adequate protection.
Inutaisho turned his formidable will to healing as fast as demonically possible. Be damned if he'd be caught with wilted ears and his tail dragging! He wished he had the human ability to draw energy from the surrounding landscape with green magic- rebuilding energy stores was a long, tedious process with no known shortcuts. He would need food- a lot of it.
"Sakenmaru," he wheezed, aghast at the weakness of his voice. The demon stood and walked over, strong and hale. The only one of them still possessed of all his capacities. Inutaisho repressed a sick wave of envy and concentrated on the task at hand. "I am hungry."
"Ah!" Sakenmaru said with a smile. "Your energy stores are depleted, yes? Wait here, I will hunt." And with that he was gone, bounding away into the underbrush, before Inutaisho could open his mouth and remind him of the folly of leaving three wounded and exhausted people defenseless in the middle of nowhere.
A growl sounded off to the side, and he remembered Ah-Un. Well, not completely defenseless then. But he still felt vaguely uncomfortable with the whole situation.
Naruka stirred. Even when he'd thrown her off, she had not woken, being too far into recuperative trance sleep to notice. But now, it seemed, she was recovered enough to stand being conscious for a little while. Her quick bright eyes scanned the tableau before her, and finding everyone alive and seemingly free from major complications, she heaved a sigh of relief. She murmured a soft prayer of gratitude to some obscure goddess he'd never heard of, and then bowed low, pressing her nose into the earth.
He raised an eyebrow. Humans were so strange. In his experience, deities were usually satisfied with a simple prayer, or little offering. This groveling display seemed overbearing to him.
And then he realized she was thanking them for saving his life, and suddenly it did not seem to be too much after all. Suddenly, he felt like bowing himself. He was alive thanks to the power of these kami she'd called upon. And because of her unfaltering efforts.
Naruka crawled tiredly over to Izayoi's side and laid a hand on her face. "Aneue," she whispered, tracing a sigil on the pale skin of her forehead. Izayoi groaned, and rolled onto her side in the fetal position.
"Ouch," she moaned.
Inutaisho winced. He knew she would have been dead if not for his actions, but he still felt obscurely guilty about... well, nearly disembowling her. She was damned lucky to be alive, and it was all thanks to him, but the guilt would not go away. After all his rage at the ferret and Ryuunomei, all his posturing protectiveness, in the end it was him who came nearest to killing her.
She was going to die, and she knew it. She went anyways to save my people, as well as her own. It would have been a good, honorable, clean death. But no, I have to go jumping in their like an intoxicated rabbit and start punching holes in her gut and dragging her around. I stole her honourable death, and now she is alive and suffering. My fault.
It was a highly illogical ramble, and he knew it. But the little voice in the back of his mind yammered on and on and nothing he could do would stop it. Though he tried, summoning images of various highly amusing or engrossing images, like the little triangle of flesh at the base of Mai's curved spine, or his son's cold eyes and indigo markings, or singing elephants in formal kimono carrying paper umbrellas.
My fault, my fault, my fault! sang the maddening little jabberer as a backdrop to the titillating slide show.
He wanted to claw his eyes out, tear his hear out, anything, anything to stop the flagellation. Logically, he knew that he had done the right thing and that he should be proud of himself for saving her when it seemed to impossible. But logic, it seemed, had totally deserted him for that night.
Dark eyes met his, and he could not look away. There were crystalline tears limning her eyelashes. Izayoi reached out as though to touch him, hand hanging in the air between them, before apparently thinking better of it. She let her hand fall back into her lap. Her eyes never wavered from their death grip on his.
"I don't have the words to thank you," she whispered.
"Do not bother. I do not need your thanks."
She shook her head, hair flying. "I would not feel right if I let you go unthanked for this. But I cannot find the words."
"Hn." He turned away, feeling glad that she was not angry with him for hurting her.
She was silent for a moment. Then... "Since I cannot find the words, may I express my thanks in another way?"
His eyebrow twitched. Another way? What? "Er.... I suppose so..."
A massive smile split her face. "Thank you!"
"I thought you couldn't..." ... Oh. So that is what you meant.
He stared up at her, and time screeched to an inelegant halt. She was hanging in the air above him, halfway to reaching him, arms akimbo and crystal tears spilling from her eyes. Her glorious hair streamed behind her in a sable banner, woven with greenery like a witch's. Those pale, slender fingers were so close to his face... time resumed, though slowly. She landed so slowly, so softly... yet he was nearly overturned by the force of it.
Pale arms wound around his neck, chill and silken. He shuddered, unsure as to whether he was repelled or attracted. The soft curtain of hair fell around him, its normal meadow fragrance intertwined with the forest's earthen one. His eyes fluttered shut and he inhaled involuntarily. Where she pressed against him, she was warm, he noted. Only the skin exposed to the elements was so cold. She will catch cold if she continues running around in those rags.
The concern shocked him. Since when do I care anything for the health of ningen?
Since you met this one, and she wormed her way into your heart. You weakminded, overly sentimental fool. Push her away, if you have any honour left.
Yes, that was it. Push her away. No human could be allowed to affect him so, the great and mighty Taiyoukai of the West. No human should be allowed to touch his royal person without retaliation. No human, not even her. Push her away. He was, he was pushing her away, cold-eyed and indifferent... he was pushing her... he was...
...settling his fingers into her hair and pulling her closer so he could lean his face on the top of the mass of perfumed locks. Shit. What happened to pushing her away? Push her away! Away, damn you!
He could feel her little fingers curling into the back of his haori, feel her trying to draw closer yet. He could hear the gentle thudding of her strong young heart, hear her breath ebbing and flowing as it sighed past his neck. And he could smell her. It was his nose, as usual, that was the greatest traitor. It had betrayed him all the way back in her village, when he'd bathed in her brethren's blood. It should have been easy to kill her, but with his nose buried in that impossibly sweet feast... and now here he was again, face plastered to her hair as though nailed there.
"Thank you," she breathed into his shoulder. "Thank you so much. I don't care why you did it, don't tell me. Just thank you."
Her words were butterfly wings in his ears. The fine hairs on his neck stiffened. Words, words... words, words, where have they gone? What do I say?
"You are welcome."
Thank the kami for instinct and habit. He sighed in relief. Saved...
A few moments later, something came to his attention that was rather disturbing and certainly not permissible.
She was not letting go.
"Ano... er... hmmm." Words! What are the words! "If you are quite finished molesting my person, perhaps you might..."
"Oh!" She jumped back as though scalded, face burning. "I'm so sorry. I just... well.... er."
Compared to her, he was downright dignified. Glad to know I am not the only one the God of Verbosity has abandoned. The knowledge made him feel a little smug- if she had to have the power to reduce him to little more than a grunting Neanderthal, it was somewhat satisfying to know that he had the power to do the same to her.
"Apology accepted. And thanks accepted, also."
She stared at him, eyes wide and brimming with tears again. Blasted mortal women, always weeping. They are worse than midges, worse than backstabbing servants, worse than children, worse than... His entertaining train of thought was interrupted when he noticed her shivering in the wind. Winter was very close, he knew. There was frost in the air. Humans are disgusting when they are ill. With that as his rationalization, he pulled off his deep red haori and draped it around her shoulders.
"You will fall ill. That would be inconvenient," he snapped at her look of wonderment and the beginning of a warm smile.
"Of course. Thank you."
She didn't have to sound so damned...! So... what? It wasn't smug, wasn't superior, wasn't really anything negative or offensive. She was just flattered, and thankful. Damn it all.
"What are we going to do next?" Naruka asked from the sidelines unexpectedly, making them both jump. "We can't stay here, they'll be coming here first thing when they feel the barrier fall."
"And going north would be very unwise since that's just going deeper into enemy territory," Izayoi mused.
"I don't particularily feel like going to China or Korea or Taiwan at the moment," Inutaisho jumped in, grateful for the distraction.
A crashing in the underbrush made them freeze. A moment later, Sakenmaru, dragging a dead deer behind him casually, burst through into the clearing. "Well then!" he bellowed, "Why don't you just come down into my lands for a while? I know of a nice little winter palace in southern Kyushu..."
They sat dumbstruck. The answer was... so obvious...
"Er! Yes, of course! If it's no imposition, that is! If you wouldn't mind!" Sakenmaru dropped a heavy, bloodstained hand affectionately on Izayoi's shoulder.
"Of course it's no imposition! Wouldn't have offered if it was! Come on, it's very nice down there this time of year..."
Inutaisho abruptly stood up and bowed. "Thank you. We will." He straightened, and then in truly comic fashion keeled over as the blood rushed to his head in a vertigal spiral. "Ohhh..." he moaned, lying dizzily on the ground.
"Inutaisho! Are you all right?" Izayoi cried, rushing to his side.
Stop the world, I want to get off! Gods, he was so weak! He felt terrible.
"Perhaps you should ride on Ah-Un?" Izayoi suggested gently. "We'll be needing your strength later, when it comes time to strike back. You should conserve it now."
That rankled. Very much. He knew she was right, but to be carried around like an ailing grandmother...!
"No!" he blurted. "I will walk, thank you!"
Izayoi covered her mouth with her hand, and he got the uncomfortable impression that she was desperately suppressing a laugh.
How dare she laugh at me!
"I'm sorry," she murmured in a low, mellifluous voice when she saw the growing thunder of his face. "It's just... you looked so very proud, just now, even... even sprawled in the dirt." And then she did giggle, helplessly and quietly at first, then as it took over her, she began to laugh outright, hand still uselessly clapped over her mouth.
Inutaisho did something he hadn't done since he was a child- he blushed.
And that only made her laugh harder. Damn her. This is so humiliating. But I will not be toted around on dragonback like an invalid! I will not!
He pulled himself to his feet and this time, prepared for the onset of vertigo, remained upright. Though he did sway, just a little.
She stopped laughing, though he could tell it was only through a great deal of effort. Damn her! Damn her! Why can I not kill you? It would be so satisfying right now to delicately remove your intestines while you watch. But that would just waste all that effort I gave saving you, wouldn't it? Damn you, Izayoi!
"Well then!" Sakenmaru exclaimed brightly. "I've got fresh venison. Any takers?"
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
All right, a little bit of light-heartedness after last chapter's gloom and doom. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Q: Izayoi was a princess, wasn't she?
Yes, in those tantalizing eight minutes of the third movie, it's clear that she is the princess of the castle depicted. However, I am taking advantage of the fact that they never said she was born a princess, and am instead choosing to make her earn the title. As will be revealed later in the story, there is nothing in those eight minutes to contradict what I've written. Just wait for it...
Q: Inutaisho doesn't have a moon mark on his forehead, so Sesshoumaru must have gotten it from his mother.
Good observation- this one did slip past me. I'll be going back to correct that in the edits as soon as possible.
Q: Jaken never met the Inu no Taisho, he died a hundred years before Jaken came into the picture.
That would be true if I was going with the theory that Inuyasha is over two hundred years old by the time he meets Kikyou- however, for the purposes of this fiction I've decided to go with the other theory, in which he is 17 when he's pinned to the tree. This would allow for Jaken being alive during Inutaisho's reign. I'm not sure what the facts are, since I'm out in the middle of nowhere in Canada with no manga source readily available, so just for this fic- that's the way it is. Bear with me, please.
Okay! I think that's it for now! If you have any questions or observations like this, feel free to bring them to my attention! I always feel like people who take the time to point these things out care enough to make this fic better, and I'm always overjoyed to get reviews like that. So don't be afraid of making me angry or anything, unless your criticism is pointless and needlessly cruel I promise I won't be upset. Phew! Sorry for the long rant! Enjoy the chapter!
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Chap ter XIV: Molasses
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Neither of them knew just how close it had been.
He woke like molasses to find an exhausted miko draped across him, and a miraculously alive seer curled at his side. The lion king sat a distance off, afraid to enter the circle of healing. Inutaisho looked down at Naruka's pale face, tearstained and tight with worry even in sleep. Dark shadows had moved in beneath her eyes, giving her a haggard appearance. "Naru-chan," he whispered, and caressed her damp head. "Thank you."
Then he turned his attention to the seer. Izayoi lay flat on her back, knees bent as though trying to hold her stomach in. Which, he supposed, she had been until Naruka had healed the gaping wound he'd created. Her hair was spread messily around her, tangled and matted with soil and plant life. Her hands were dirty from scratching at the ground in her pain. Any other person would have looked filthy and unappealing, but not she. It just made her look like a dryad or some other fae child of the woodlands, crowned with leaves. Eyes deep as forest pools and the same colour, wood bark with flecks of verdant growth. She was a thing extraordinarily natural in every way.
She should have been dead.
But she wasn't, and all he could feel was relieved.
It was then that he discovered his own pain, halfway to sitting up. Crying out, he fell back and writhed, throwing Naruka unintentionally away from him. Every nerve burned as though flayed and bathed in salt, or dipped in acid. His demonic aura was nearly extinguished, exhausted in the effort of dragging them safely out of Hell. There was hardly enough left to best a strong human. Even a hanyou child could soundly trounce him in his current state. He had not been so debilitatingly weak since he was a child. Possibly not even then.
It was yet another new feeling. They seemed to crawl out of the woodwork the longer he traveled with the woman. New feelings, that was. However, all the other emotions she'd made him discover- protectiveness, lack of clarity, anger, admiration- those he had all felt before, just never towards humans. But this sensation of total helplessness was truly new.
Is this how humans feel all the time?
Of course not, logic said. They are accustomed to it, since they have never experienced your strength they have nothing to compare it to.
So logic said. Experience was a different matter. It felt disgusting, and he began to pity the poor crawling things that were bound to the ground like this. Pity, he felt, and a mix of others regarding himself including shame, disgust, and the slightest tracing of fear. If anything were to happen on them at this time....
Sakenmaru would protect them. He remembered suddenly the lion's presence and relaxed, just a little bit. The old and powerful taiyoukai had the strength to protect them until Inutaisho regained his strength. There was no need to worry.
But, a naggling worry spake, he was defeated once before.
He was caught unawares, unprepared. This is different. But to his dismay, he could not convince himself. In his mind's eye, the lion had already been defeated once- it could happen again. He was not adequate protection.
Inutaisho turned his formidable will to healing as fast as demonically possible. Be damned if he'd be caught with wilted ears and his tail dragging! He wished he had the human ability to draw energy from the surrounding landscape with green magic- rebuilding energy stores was a long, tedious process with no known shortcuts. He would need food- a lot of it.
"Sakenmaru," he wheezed, aghast at the weakness of his voice. The demon stood and walked over, strong and hale. The only one of them still possessed of all his capacities. Inutaisho repressed a sick wave of envy and concentrated on the task at hand. "I am hungry."
"Ah!" Sakenmaru said with a smile. "Your energy stores are depleted, yes? Wait here, I will hunt." And with that he was gone, bounding away into the underbrush, before Inutaisho could open his mouth and remind him of the folly of leaving three wounded and exhausted people defenseless in the middle of nowhere.
A growl sounded off to the side, and he remembered Ah-Un. Well, not completely defenseless then. But he still felt vaguely uncomfortable with the whole situation.
Naruka stirred. Even when he'd thrown her off, she had not woken, being too far into recuperative trance sleep to notice. But now, it seemed, she was recovered enough to stand being conscious for a little while. Her quick bright eyes scanned the tableau before her, and finding everyone alive and seemingly free from major complications, she heaved a sigh of relief. She murmured a soft prayer of gratitude to some obscure goddess he'd never heard of, and then bowed low, pressing her nose into the earth.
He raised an eyebrow. Humans were so strange. In his experience, deities were usually satisfied with a simple prayer, or little offering. This groveling display seemed overbearing to him.
And then he realized she was thanking them for saving his life, and suddenly it did not seem to be too much after all. Suddenly, he felt like bowing himself. He was alive thanks to the power of these kami she'd called upon. And because of her unfaltering efforts.
Naruka crawled tiredly over to Izayoi's side and laid a hand on her face. "Aneue," she whispered, tracing a sigil on the pale skin of her forehead. Izayoi groaned, and rolled onto her side in the fetal position.
"Ouch," she moaned.
Inutaisho winced. He knew she would have been dead if not for his actions, but he still felt obscurely guilty about... well, nearly disembowling her. She was damned lucky to be alive, and it was all thanks to him, but the guilt would not go away. After all his rage at the ferret and Ryuunomei, all his posturing protectiveness, in the end it was him who came nearest to killing her.
She was going to die, and she knew it. She went anyways to save my people, as well as her own. It would have been a good, honorable, clean death. But no, I have to go jumping in their like an intoxicated rabbit and start punching holes in her gut and dragging her around. I stole her honourable death, and now she is alive and suffering. My fault.
It was a highly illogical ramble, and he knew it. But the little voice in the back of his mind yammered on and on and nothing he could do would stop it. Though he tried, summoning images of various highly amusing or engrossing images, like the little triangle of flesh at the base of Mai's curved spine, or his son's cold eyes and indigo markings, or singing elephants in formal kimono carrying paper umbrellas.
My fault, my fault, my fault! sang the maddening little jabberer as a backdrop to the titillating slide show.
He wanted to claw his eyes out, tear his hear out, anything, anything to stop the flagellation. Logically, he knew that he had done the right thing and that he should be proud of himself for saving her when it seemed to impossible. But logic, it seemed, had totally deserted him for that night.
Dark eyes met his, and he could not look away. There were crystalline tears limning her eyelashes. Izayoi reached out as though to touch him, hand hanging in the air between them, before apparently thinking better of it. She let her hand fall back into her lap. Her eyes never wavered from their death grip on his.
"I don't have the words to thank you," she whispered.
"Do not bother. I do not need your thanks."
She shook her head, hair flying. "I would not feel right if I let you go unthanked for this. But I cannot find the words."
"Hn." He turned away, feeling glad that she was not angry with him for hurting her.
She was silent for a moment. Then... "Since I cannot find the words, may I express my thanks in another way?"
His eyebrow twitched. Another way? What? "Er.... I suppose so..."
A massive smile split her face. "Thank you!"
"I thought you couldn't..." ... Oh. So that is what you meant.
He stared up at her, and time screeched to an inelegant halt. She was hanging in the air above him, halfway to reaching him, arms akimbo and crystal tears spilling from her eyes. Her glorious hair streamed behind her in a sable banner, woven with greenery like a witch's. Those pale, slender fingers were so close to his face... time resumed, though slowly. She landed so slowly, so softly... yet he was nearly overturned by the force of it.
Pale arms wound around his neck, chill and silken. He shuddered, unsure as to whether he was repelled or attracted. The soft curtain of hair fell around him, its normal meadow fragrance intertwined with the forest's earthen one. His eyes fluttered shut and he inhaled involuntarily. Where she pressed against him, she was warm, he noted. Only the skin exposed to the elements was so cold. She will catch cold if she continues running around in those rags.
The concern shocked him. Since when do I care anything for the health of ningen?
Since you met this one, and she wormed her way into your heart. You weakminded, overly sentimental fool. Push her away, if you have any honour left.
Yes, that was it. Push her away. No human could be allowed to affect him so, the great and mighty Taiyoukai of the West. No human should be allowed to touch his royal person without retaliation. No human, not even her. Push her away. He was, he was pushing her away, cold-eyed and indifferent... he was pushing her... he was...
...settling his fingers into her hair and pulling her closer so he could lean his face on the top of the mass of perfumed locks. Shit. What happened to pushing her away? Push her away! Away, damn you!
He could feel her little fingers curling into the back of his haori, feel her trying to draw closer yet. He could hear the gentle thudding of her strong young heart, hear her breath ebbing and flowing as it sighed past his neck. And he could smell her. It was his nose, as usual, that was the greatest traitor. It had betrayed him all the way back in her village, when he'd bathed in her brethren's blood. It should have been easy to kill her, but with his nose buried in that impossibly sweet feast... and now here he was again, face plastered to her hair as though nailed there.
"Thank you," she breathed into his shoulder. "Thank you so much. I don't care why you did it, don't tell me. Just thank you."
Her words were butterfly wings in his ears. The fine hairs on his neck stiffened. Words, words... words, words, where have they gone? What do I say?
"You are welcome."
Thank the kami for instinct and habit. He sighed in relief. Saved...
A few moments later, something came to his attention that was rather disturbing and certainly not permissible.
She was not letting go.
"Ano... er... hmmm." Words! What are the words! "If you are quite finished molesting my person, perhaps you might..."
"Oh!" She jumped back as though scalded, face burning. "I'm so sorry. I just... well.... er."
Compared to her, he was downright dignified. Glad to know I am not the only one the God of Verbosity has abandoned. The knowledge made him feel a little smug- if she had to have the power to reduce him to little more than a grunting Neanderthal, it was somewhat satisfying to know that he had the power to do the same to her.
"Apology accepted. And thanks accepted, also."
She stared at him, eyes wide and brimming with tears again. Blasted mortal women, always weeping. They are worse than midges, worse than backstabbing servants, worse than children, worse than... His entertaining train of thought was interrupted when he noticed her shivering in the wind. Winter was very close, he knew. There was frost in the air. Humans are disgusting when they are ill. With that as his rationalization, he pulled off his deep red haori and draped it around her shoulders.
"You will fall ill. That would be inconvenient," he snapped at her look of wonderment and the beginning of a warm smile.
"Of course. Thank you."
She didn't have to sound so damned...! So... what? It wasn't smug, wasn't superior, wasn't really anything negative or offensive. She was just flattered, and thankful. Damn it all.
"What are we going to do next?" Naruka asked from the sidelines unexpectedly, making them both jump. "We can't stay here, they'll be coming here first thing when they feel the barrier fall."
"And going north would be very unwise since that's just going deeper into enemy territory," Izayoi mused.
"I don't particularily feel like going to China or Korea or Taiwan at the moment," Inutaisho jumped in, grateful for the distraction.
A crashing in the underbrush made them freeze. A moment later, Sakenmaru, dragging a dead deer behind him casually, burst through into the clearing. "Well then!" he bellowed, "Why don't you just come down into my lands for a while? I know of a nice little winter palace in southern Kyushu..."
They sat dumbstruck. The answer was... so obvious...
"Er! Yes, of course! If it's no imposition, that is! If you wouldn't mind!" Sakenmaru dropped a heavy, bloodstained hand affectionately on Izayoi's shoulder.
"Of course it's no imposition! Wouldn't have offered if it was! Come on, it's very nice down there this time of year..."
Inutaisho abruptly stood up and bowed. "Thank you. We will." He straightened, and then in truly comic fashion keeled over as the blood rushed to his head in a vertigal spiral. "Ohhh..." he moaned, lying dizzily on the ground.
"Inutaisho! Are you all right?" Izayoi cried, rushing to his side.
Stop the world, I want to get off! Gods, he was so weak! He felt terrible.
"Perhaps you should ride on Ah-Un?" Izayoi suggested gently. "We'll be needing your strength later, when it comes time to strike back. You should conserve it now."
That rankled. Very much. He knew she was right, but to be carried around like an ailing grandmother...!
"No!" he blurted. "I will walk, thank you!"
Izayoi covered her mouth with her hand, and he got the uncomfortable impression that she was desperately suppressing a laugh.
How dare she laugh at me!
"I'm sorry," she murmured in a low, mellifluous voice when she saw the growing thunder of his face. "It's just... you looked so very proud, just now, even... even sprawled in the dirt." And then she did giggle, helplessly and quietly at first, then as it took over her, she began to laugh outright, hand still uselessly clapped over her mouth.
Inutaisho did something he hadn't done since he was a child- he blushed.
And that only made her laugh harder. Damn her. This is so humiliating. But I will not be toted around on dragonback like an invalid! I will not!
He pulled himself to his feet and this time, prepared for the onset of vertigo, remained upright. Though he did sway, just a little.
She stopped laughing, though he could tell it was only through a great deal of effort. Damn her! Damn her! Why can I not kill you? It would be so satisfying right now to delicately remove your intestines while you watch. But that would just waste all that effort I gave saving you, wouldn't it? Damn you, Izayoi!
"Well then!" Sakenmaru exclaimed brightly. "I've got fresh venison. Any takers?"
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All right, a little bit of light-heartedness after last chapter's gloom and doom. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!