InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Short Straw ❯ Chapter two ( Chapter 2 )

I still don't own anything, including money. Though, I accept cash, checks and all major credit cards. @---`---

The Short Straw

By Flamingwillows

Chapter two

Kagome leaned her elbows on the windowsill and looked up at the fat yellow moon. It sat in the middle of the sky surrounded by twinkling stars. But Kagome barely noticed the beauty of the view.

Today had been Kagome's birthday. She was now twenty years old, and according to her cousin Kagura, could consider herself practically an old maid. The catty remark had been the only acknowledgment there'd been of Kagome's birthday and Kagura had only mentioned it because it gave her an opportunity to say something unpleasant. Unfortunately in this case, Kagura's nastiness was nothing more than the truth. She was an old maid, Kagome admitted with a sigh, and likely to remain that way as long as she was so completely overshadowed by her younger cousin.

Kagura had just turned sixteen and had every expectation of being a wife before her next birthday. How could she not be, pretty as she was? Her hair was ebony black, almost bluish in the right light, and when she let it down to sweep her shoulders it framed her face perfectly.

Unlike Kagura's obedient locks, Kagome's waist-length hair was a mass of thick, soft waves that refused to be completely tamed. Even now, when she'd just braided it for bed, tiny curls had already sprung loose. And instead of being rich blue and black, it was dark, deep brown. Almost black, but still dull brown- mud brown, Kagura had told her when she first came to live with her aunt and uncle six year ago.

With a sigh, Kagome released the heavy braid, letting it fall back over her shoulder. It wasn't just Kagura's hair that made her so lovely. Her eyes were a bright red- the color of a summer rose, one smitten swain had told her. No one was going to wax poetic about plain brown eyes. And Kagura was tall. Not too tall, Aunt Kikyo would have been quick to point out. Just tall enough to display the elegant slenderness of her figure.

Thank heavens her Kagura wasn't a little dab of a thing, Kagome had once heard Aunt Kikyo say with a pointed glance in her niece's direction. At scarcely over five feet tall with a figure that was neither elegant nor slender (more like scrawny), Kagome couldn't even attribute the remark to Kikyo's acid tongue. She was a little dab of a thing, and there was just no getting around it.

His little chicken, her father had called her. Always fussing over him like a mother hen with only one chick, he'd tease. Every night he'd come into her room wherever they were staying and she'd solemnly inspect his person. Always, there'd be some small flaw for her childish fingers to adjust. A tie not quite properly tied, a lock of long white hair slightly out of place, a loose button to be quickly stitched onto the crisp white linen of his shirt.

The memory made Kagome smile. It was only after he was gone that it occurred to her that those little flaws had been deliberate. Sesshomaru had been just as immaculate and nit-picky as she, perhaps more so, but he'd understood his daughter's need to be needed. If they'd had a settled home, she would have fussed over the cooking and cleaning. But he was a gambler and they rarely stayed in one place more than a few weeks at a time. Since he couldn't give her a house to fuss over, he'd given her himself.

Kagome's mother had died when Kagome was six, and for the next eight years she'd traveled with her father. Sesshomaru had been a gambler by profession. He'd started out gambling on the riverboats before the war. When he'd married Rin, he'd purchased a store and settled down to try his hand at being a tradesman. Kagome had vague memories of a high ceilinged room, with sawdust on the floor and goods piled high on every side.

But after Rin's death Sesshomaru hadn't been able to stay in one place, and he'd gone back to his old profession. He'd brought his young daughter west and they'd traveled from town to town, staying in each only a short while, until he judged it was time to take his skill with the cards and move on. It hadn't been a conventional upbringing and Kagome knew there were those who'd say that he'd had no business dragging a child all over the country the way he had. But she'd never minded the travel as long as she could stay with her father.

It had been six years since he was killed by a stray bullet in a barroom quarrel, and she still missed him. Kagome's eyes grew wistful, remembering her father's quiet smile and the warmth in his gentle laugh. There was rarely any laughter in her uncle Naraku's house. When she'd first come here, newly orphaned and almost paralyzed with grief, one of the first things she'd noticed was how seldom her aunt and uncle smiled.

At first she'd thought it was because they were sorry about her father's death, but it hadn't taken long to realize that Naraku had sternly disapproved of his brother-in-law's profession. Gambling was an activity steeped in sin and, as far as they were concerned, Sesshomaru's death was confirmation that God punished all sinners, even if it did occasionally take Him a little longer than Naraku would have liked.

Kagome might have been offended on her father's behalf if she hadn't already begun to realize there wasn't much Naraku and Kikyo didn't disapprove of. Where Sesshomaru had always made it a point to find pleasure, even in small things, his brother and sister-in-law seemed to try to do just the opposite. They could find fault with anyone and anything. Over the past six years Kagome could almost count the times she'd seen a real smile from either of them, and she couldn't ever remember hearing them laugh.

Kagura smiled and laughed but her smiles were well practiced in front of her mirror and her laughter was usually at someone else's expense. Her parents doted on her, and they'd spoiled her terribly. Kagura only had to express an interest in something for them to leap to get it for her, whether it was a new feather for her hair or watercolor lessons to show off her refined sensitivity to the finer things in life.

It was no wonder she was so bone-deep selfish.

Kagura had been only ten when Kagome came to stay, but she'd already been well versed in getting her own way. At the suggestion that she might share her big, sunny bedroom with her cousin, Kagura had flushed an ugly shade of red and she'd begun screaming. Kagome could still remember her cousin standing in the middle of the parlor, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, her body rigid with anger as shriek after shriek issued from her perfect Cupid's-bow mouth.

Kagome, dazed by the abrupt changes in her life, had waited in vain to see one of Kagura's parents slap her to stop her hysteria. Kikyo's eyes had filled with tears and she'd quickly promised her daughter that `Mommy's precious' wouldn't have to share her room with her cousin. After all, she'd told her husband without regard to Kagome's presence, there was no telling what kind of manners to expect from a child raised in saloons. Best not to risk Kagura's delicate sensibilities by subjecting her to bad influences.

Kagome could have told them that she'd never been in a saloon in her life, and that she certainly had better manners than her younger cousin, but it hadn't seemed worth the effort. She'd been grateful for the privacy afforded by the boxy little room at the rear of the house- the maid's room, Kagura had pointed out with a smug smile the first time they were alone together- and the more she got to know her cousin, the stronger her gratitude had become.

When she'd first come her aunt had explained that she undoubtedly had a great deal to learn about proper living. Raised as she had been, she'd no doubt picked up many improper notions, and such notions wouldn't be tolerated in their household. Six years later, Kagome still didn't know what `improper notions' she might have had. But she did know that if this was `proper living' she wasn't impressed. Naraku and Kikyo might have been proper, but they were also small-minded, parsimonious people who took no pleasure in life.

She sighed again and rested her chin on the hands she'd propped on the windowsill. She could leave, of course, but she had no money and no way to earn a living. Though her father had done his best to shield her from the more sordid realities of life, she'd seen enough to know just how difficult the world could be for a woman on her own.

She might be able to get a job as a schoolteacher in some remote area. There was always a crying need for such. Or she could marry Hojo and become a mother to his four small children. She could do worse. Hojo was pleasant enough and, as the owner of the general store, considered a good catch, particularly for a young woman with no real beauty or expectations, as her aunt Kikyo had pointed out when Hojo began making his interest in her niece obvious. It isn't as if Kagome can simply have her pick of beaux, after all. Not like dear Kagura. This last had been said with a fond look at her daughter, who'd managed to blush and look modest, no mean feat for a girl who spent nearly every waking moment in front of a mirror.

Aunt Kikyo was right, of course. She could do worse than to encourage Hojo. It was just that. . . The thought trailed off as a cloud drifted across the face of the moon. A light breeze blew through the open window, it's chill cutting through the light cotton of her nightgown. Shivering, Kagome rose from the trunk where she'd been sitting and closed the window.

It was just that she was a silly, romantic fool, she told herself as she climbed into her bead and pulled the covers up around her shoulders. She was still clinging to the childish idea of a handsome knight who'd ride into her life and fall instantly under the spell of her negligible charms.

It was past time to put away such foolish notions, she told herself briskly. Unless she wanted to prove that little cat Kagura right and end up an old maid, it was time to stop looking for a handsome knight and start thinking of marrying a good man with whom to build a solid, dependable foundation for the future.

An image of Hojo's thin face and murky brown eyes rose in her mind's eye and she felt her determination falter. She wasn't entirely clear on just what intimacies being married entailed, but whatever they were, it was difficult to imagine sharing them with Hojo. Still, his first wife had clearly had no difficulty doing so, as witness the four children she'd given him before falling victim to consumption.

Kagome set her chin with determination. Tomorrow was Sunday and she was sure to see Hojo at church since he attended the services as regularly as her aunt and uncle. When she saw him, she'd do her best to discreetly indicate that his attentions were not unwelcome. If she was not mistaken in the strength of his feelings, she could find herself married before the summer was out.

She used the edge of the sheet to dry a tear from her cheek. It was the sensible, mature thing to do. If it wasn't the love of her childish dreams, it would certainly be better than spending the rest of her life as Aunt Kikyo's unpaid housekeeper.

Closing her eyes, Kagome forced back tears that threatened to spill over. Despite the turmoil of her thoughts, she was soon asleep. Though through her dreams drifted images of a dark haired man with a dazzling smile who swept her up onto the back of his horse and carried her off to a castle that sat incongruously in the middle of the prairie.

~ ~ ~*~ ~ ~

Whee, second chapter out the day after that first. That might be record for me… it usually takes me months to get chapters out. @--`---

I know, Sesshomaru is a little OOC… okay, really OOC. I just couldn't bear to make Fluffy-sama a bad guy!

Naraku's OOC too, but the heartlessness is still there, so it works. Naraku…pious…I had to laugh at myself for that though.

Kagome might be a little naïve but since it's set in the mid to late 1800's I feel it's justified.

Don't worry, we'll actually get into the story a bit next chapter! I just had to get the characters and everything set first… Gomen! It's boring I know.

Thanks again for reading! Ja!

Flamingwillows