InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Presence of Autumn ❯ Flowers and Feathers ( Chapter 9 )

Disclaimer: Not mine…

Chapter Nine: Flowers and Feathers

Sometime during the late afternoon Akiko and Miroku returned. Miroku was bright red in the face and sported a large goose-egg on his head and Akiko wore a smug expression though there was some color in her cheeks as well. She carried in her hands a clod of dirt and roots with a pale blue flower growing from it.

She bypassed the camp in favor of heading for a relatively large area of clear ground and began walking around it, occasionally squatting down and scratching at the dirt with the claws of one hand while still holding on to the flower with the other, and ignoring the wondering stares of the others.

Miroku steered his way over to the remains of the fire and sank to the ground resting his face in his hands.

Curious, Sango dropped down next to him. "What's going on?"

Miroku groaned. Without lifting his head he responded. "She found what she was looking for."

Sango glanced over to where Akiko had set the flower aside for the moment and was now furiously digging a hole in the ground, dirt flying out from between her legs, just like a dog. "The flower? What is it for?"

"The spell she's going to cast, I imagine."

Sango looked at him again. "Why are you blushing?"

Miroku's head shot up and he stared at her in denial. "I'm not blushing!" His face was as red as Inuyasha's fire-rat armor.

"Miroku, your face is like a tomato." Kagome advised him on her way past.

Miroku sputtered for a moment, then abruptly stopped and calmed himself visibly by taking deep breaths and closing his eyes momentarily. When he opened them again he was much calmer looking, though there was still a slight tinge of pink high on his cheeks.

Sango couldn't help it; her curiosity was peaked and on some level she was highly irritated. "What happened?" she demanded.

Miroku glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. He blinked once, and then looked her full in the face with a slightly mocking smile that both elevated Sango's blood pressure and made her stomach flutter up into her chest. "Why, my dear Sango, is that jealousy I hear in your voice? Is it that you can't stomach the thought of another beautiful woman holding my attentions?"

And just like that the tables were turned.

Sango, blushing and stuttering, did the one thing that came to her when she became so flustered, flustered as only Miroku possessed the ability to make her. She slapped him, rose and stalked off to ignore him from the other side of camp.

Miroku rubbed at the stinging red palm-print on his face resignedly, following Sango's path with hooded violet eyes. Her slap had felt empty to him; it had lacked all the passion it usually held, as though she'd only done it out of obligation, as a way of escaping a question she though was stupid. She hadn't felt anything doing it. That left Miroku unsatisfied. This time it had not been worth the pain.

He hadn't even gotten to cop a feel…

~~~~~~~

Akiko gently placed the flower and its clod of dirt into the hole she had dug, sliding the removed dirt in around it to make it at home in a snug little mound. The spell she was going to cast required there to be two things in common with the two locations, bringing them together in a way to make them the same spot for a fraction of a moment. The flower was perfect for the first item; she recognized it as being one she'd seen in the highland meadows below the eagle-demons' aeries near her father's lands. The second she carried about her person. She'd dropped many in her life traveling through her father's lands, and she knew for a fact that there was at least a few littering the particular meadow she was thinking of.

Reaching inside her borrowed yukata she plucked a feather from her invisible hagoromo and stuck it into the ground shaft down beside the flower.

The feather mantle was a `gift' from her mother. Due to her heritage through her mother it was a necessity, one she wished she could do without, but that was impossible. Instead she hid it by making it invisible and wearing it wrapped around her middle like an obi under her clothes. She'd lost it once and it had been an absolute disaster; during a fight with some wolf demons the wind had caught it from about her middle and thrown it away from her. She actually abandoned the fight right in the middle and tore off after her mantle, desperately trying to find it. She'd had to tear apart the mountainsides to find it before some doddering old human male found it who knew what it was. She shuddered to think of how that could have turned out. Enforced servitude, just because she lost her stupid feather mantle…

Glaring down at the slender iridescently green and blue and gold feather standing upright in the dirt she huffed and spun to return to the campfire.

"I'm ready whenever you guys are." She announced as she walked past Kagome, who stood at the edge of the ring of stones where there fire had been for breakfast. She swished her tail and brought it up to drape over one shoulder like a fancy clothing accessory.

Inuyasha looked at her oddly for a moment or two before rising from his crouch on the ground and walking past her to pick up Kagome's enormous yellow bag and strut out to the flower. Shippou bounced away after him, swishing his tail from side to side and trying to imitate Inuyasha's impudent stride. Everyone moved over to the place where the flower was resting in its hole in the ground, leaving the campsite none the worse for wear.

Akiko caught their attention as she came back over to the flower herself. "I just need you all to stand near the flower and the feather in the ground. Touch everything we're taking with us; this isn't an easy thing I'm going to do and if there are fewer individual things for me to concentrate on it'll be simpler." They all moved to comply, grabbing the bags, weapons, sleeping rolls, and crowding close together around the two small objects on the ground.

She walked around the group in a tight circle, drawing a ring in the dirt with her foot but staying on the inside of it herself. She put her self in a position aligned with the direction she knew the meadow to be in. After this it was all a matter of concentration and willpower.

Akiko closed her eyes and brought to the surface of her thoughts her memory of the meadow that was her goal down to the most minute detail. It was easy to remember, she'd been through it so many times. …The grass there was as green as her big brother's eyes and the blue flowers nodded like polite ladies when the crisp mountain breeze danced through, tracing delicate patterns through the emerald fields with intangible fingers… She felt her power welling up inside her and spilling out to surround her and her newfound companions. …The mountains rose high overhead on all sides, surrounding the highland meadows with strong arms of rock that had withstood uncountable centuries of wind and rain and upheaval, their gleaming snowcapped peaks lost in the misty clouds not too high overhead… She felt her power buff up against and embrace everyone inside the circle, each of them gasping at the warm blue-green and gold light cast by Akiko's increasingly visible aura as it reached out and encompassed them. …The air was cool and crisp, just slightly tinged with the scent of the pale blue flowers and imminent rain… The scene around them began to change, not disappearing or blurring, but overlapping with another scene, one of a mountain meadow, as though they were both in the same place at the same time and each were equally visible. …High overhead, lost in the mists, the cries of eagles sounded faintly, having spotted them some would report to their cousins the eagle-demons, while nearer to the ground songbirds chattered sweetly to each other… The image of the mountain meadow finally overpowered that of their campsite from last night, sliding to firmness and reality around them.

Akiko breathed in once deeply, popping her ears for the sudden change in altitude and testing the mountain air. She opened her eyes and turned to face her companions as her aura withdrew into her body once more. She was aware of their faces regarding her with varying degrees of wonderment. Her eyes were glowing goldenly, shining coruscating ripples and sparkles of blue and green light that mottled their stunned faces.

She was somewhat surprised when, as she exhaled, the world wavered in her view and went black as her knees dropped out from under her.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Inuyasha caught her as she fell, stepping forward and holding her to his chest as gently as her knew how. He was stunned to speechlessness at this display of her power, having not believed that such things were possible. The others were similarly shocked, he saw, looking at her with expressions similar to what he felt on his own face. He looked down at the she-dog half-demon cradled in his arms, noting how very pale she looked, her skin slightly waxy and lips hardly colored at all.

Miroku was the first to come to himself. He blinked and looked around them with wide eyes. They were indeed in the mountains. He glanced back at Inuyasha who held Akiko almost tenderly, then down at the she-demon herself. "She wasn't recovered enough to do this. She was still too weak, but pushed herself for our sake and the sake of her kinsmen."

Kagome nodded, coming out of her shock. Akiko looked pale as death and frail as porcelain where she lay limp in Inuyasha's arms. Stomping down firmly on the surge of jealousy that tightened her throat Kagome set her bag down and moved to make sure Akiko was okay. "She's still breathing, right?"

Inuyasha glanced at her in a slightly irritated manner. "Of course she's breathing! Don't you think I'd have a slightly more active response if she stopped?"

Frowning, Kagome replied defensively, "I was just asking, sheesh! Pardon me for being concerned about a friend!"

Inuyasha snorted and dropped to gently lay Akiko's prone form on the long grass. `A friend, huh?' He thought, brushing her long bangs aside with his claws. `We hardly know her at all. How can she be our friend? Still, there's just something about her…' Her scent rose to his attention again; it was alarmingly weak and thin, as though it weren't fresh. He supposed it had to do with her exhaustion and unconsciousness. He'd never spent all that much time around other demons and he was kind of rusty where interpreting their scents was concerned.

Next to him Kagome sighed. Inuyasha glanced at her and watched her pull a bottle of water from her bag and wet a cloth which she then draped over Akiko's forehead. So far gone was the female hanyou that she didn't even stir at the touch of cold on her face.

High above them an eagle shrieked; it was a tiny sound, muffled by the low clouds.

Slightly closer another responded.

Then another.

And another.

Alarmed, Inuyasha rose to his feet and looked up into the sky. Wheeling above them were perhaps a dozen or so eagles of varying colors and sizes, calling to each other. Inuyasha frowned and glanced at his companions.

"Let's gather everything up and find shelter. These birds are acting weird, and I think it's going to rain soon." He said.

Miroku nodded. "These mountains are likely to have many caves. I'll see what I can find."

"I can have Kirara carry Akiko." Sango offered.

Inuyasha nodded once, and then looked up at the sky again. Some the eagles were unusually large.

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(A/N) Yay! Another chapter! Finally… Sorry that took me so long, I got hung up in the middle of it with papers to write and tests to study for. But it's done at last!