InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Siu ❯ Methods of Drinking ( Chapter 3 )

For: iyfic_contest at lj, Week 17 theme: “Breathing” (I didn't win though. Oh well.)

Fandom: Inuyasha

Pairing: none really, just Naraku/young!Kaede interaction

Word Count: 611

 

Methods of Drinking

 

Naraku felt strangely glum at the moment.

 

He drew no pleasure out of poking holes into a small animal with his fingernails, not even when it writhed and bled him small drops red to drink. A small part of him longed to lap up the little spots of redness, wanted to run a tongue up and down along the underside of its snow white fur as it dripped out. Another thought it unfitting that the blood had left the body, claiming it too dirty to imbibe, and suggested sucking it directly out of the animal while it was still wiggling.

 

But then there was that other part, the part that stuck up its hypothetical nose at taking in blood only in drops. It told him to slash apart the animal and drink its blood by the palm full, for that was the proper way to absorb another's body fluids.

 

Watching her as she began to shoot at a tree, fingering the small, limp corpse of the unfortunate animal, Naraku wondered vaguely what method of drinking his miko's younger sister would suggest.

 

To catch the sister's attention, just as she released the bow and sent the arrow soaring across, with a precision he grown proud of, Naraku hurled the animal corpse into the clearing and straight into the path of the arrow.

 

As he stepped out of the shadows, Naraku admired the way the blood droplets splashed quietly onto the grass and the way it splattered onto the bark of the tree as the arrow pinned it to the trunk. The way the arrow burrowed into the animal's flesh fascinated him, but not so much as the way Kaede looked at him with that dark, single eye of hers.

 

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, swinging up another arrow at him.

 

Naraku thought the fear in her eye delightful, and he smiled giddily at her as he came closer.

 

“Not to worry, little miko,” he said reassuringly. When she refused to lower her bow, he continued, “Oh, I don't want a thing from you, not today at least, I just have a question.”

 

“Ask it and leave.”

 

Still smiling, Naraku held up his bloody palm and held it out to her. “How do you drink? Speak clearly now, little miko, for I am hanging on every word you're saying.”

 

The fear in her eyes was still present, but it had become quiet. “I haven't said anything yet,” she mumbled. “And I do not understand your question.”

 

“How,” Naraku repeated, “do you drink? Specifically, how would you approach a drink that would give you life and sustenance? By the drop, or the cup?”

 

Kaede rested her eye on the drying blood on his hands and then turned to look at the animal pinned to the tree by an arrow, its white fur splattered with coppery red.

 

“I would take that drink,” she began, “and give it to somebody in a state of death, for he would need it more than I would. It matters not if he takes it in drops or cups, so long as he drinks it.”

 

Naraku narrowed his eyes, smile dropping. “Foolish little miko,” he spat. “Even your own beloved sister didn't follow that drivel. She refused to give drinks to men in death, I would know.”

 

And with that, he whirled around and stalked away from the little miko, making sure to tear the small animal off the tree. Before he left completely, Naraku turned to her and ripped at the animal's flesh with his teeth, making sure that the little miko saw every bite. He only disappeared from view when she raised her bow and arrow.