InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ To Catch a Falling Star ❯ forty centuries of thirst ( Chapter 8 )

Chapter Eight

When Sango returned from helping the blacksmith--he'd needed the assistance of another pair of hands with more training than his bellows-boy--Shippou was wielding authority in a very Inuyasha-like manner. "So if you put the baby down, we can play a game," Shippou informed Rin after giving Sango a hasty greeting. "Sango won't mind. It's her baby, so she can look after it."

"Welcome back, Sango-chan," Kagome said, smiling up at the taijiya from where she knelt next to Rin and Tenichi. Sango masked a frown. Strain was obvious in the tension around Kagome's eyes and mouth, and it wasn't usual for her to be in the house this time of day.

Sango made up her mind quickly. She'd been worrying about Kagome for some time, but it was hard, when living with seven other people, to know what one wanted to say and, at the same time, find a moment of privacy to express that. Holding her right hand in front of her face in an apologetic gesture, she said, "I'm sorry, Shippou-kun. Could you and Rin-chan keep an eye on Tenichi a few minutes more?"

When Shippou started to protest, Sango moved her hand to his shoulder and squeezed gently. With a low grumble, the kitsune subsided. "Thank you," said Sango. "You be in charge, then, and come fetch me if you need help. Alright?" At Shippou's nod, Sango smiled at him gratefully.

Sango stood, brushing her hands down her hips in a habitual dusting-off gesture. "Kagome-chan?" Unless she lost some weight soon, she'd have to alter her taijiya suit this spring: she suspected that it would be a tight fit across her hips and chest now. She felt a brief spurt of joy, glancing at Tenichi. I'm a mother now, and a wife, and my brother is alive, and I have a family again! Sango enjoyed every aspect of her new roles. The expression of wise meditation Miroku would adopt whenever she turned to him for advice or a decision was one of her favorites; and it was so liberating to know the expectations one had to meet and know one could fulfill and surpass them--no more worrying about trying figure a situation's rules and her role in it when not being required to exterminate some youkai. It was best when people knew what to expect of one, and one knew what they expected.

At Kagome's questioning glance, Sango said, "Do you have some time to spare? I was hoping to talk to you." She still didn't understand how Kagome seemed so unruffled by all the ambiguity that had surrounded her for years; the only thing Kagome was definite about was not being Kikyou--though in the past few months she had spent so much time trying to learn about being a hanyou that maybe it did bother her after all.

Kagome gave a nod of acquiescence; Sango noted, with some amusement, that the young woman's ears skewed to the sides, then perked forward: it was obvious that she was not sure what Sango wanted, but suspected it wasn't likely to involve a lot of giggling. The open nature of Kagome's expressive features had always made her a relaxing companion; after all of Naraku's deceits, having friends whom one could read, whose responses were reliably predictable, was a comfort to be treasured. Even Inuyasha's abrasive temper, even Miroku's wandering hands-they might not be the most pleasant of characteristics, but one always knew where one stood with them. Or in Miroku's case, Sango thought with a private wickedness that still felt wonderfully new, where one lay. So, just as Inuyasha's ears twitched whenever a he heard a comment that struck close to the bone, Kagome's had a distinctive way of flicking when she was uncertain about something.

Sango gestured Kagome to precede her, taking in the red haori the other woman wore over her own clothing. Had she and Inuyasha resolved their argument, then? There might be no need for her to ask. . . . Sango waited until they had settled comfortably in her and Miroku's small room to say anything. After Kagome had settled herself, Sango gathered her resolution. "Kagome-chan . . . is everything alright? You haven't been looking quite yourself lately." As soon as she'd said that, Sango wanted to bite her tongue. She'd been trying to start the conversation neutrally before moving it around to what she really wanted to ask, and here her first comment sounded like an ironic one.

"Haven't been myself," Kagome echoed, and fidgeted, her ears moving restlessly. She'd sat in a pose very reminiscent of Inuyasha, knees to the sides and hands in front. Sango wondered, sometimes, if Kagome realized how much she'd changed--not really in personality, but in the way she carried herself: she moved like a smaller, more awkward shadow of the male hanyou. "You don't know how close I came," Kagome said bitterly.

Sango's puzzled expression seemed only to add fuel to the fire; anger laced Kagome's tone when she continued, words spilling forth heatedly, "You want to know what Inuyasha's been doing? He's been keeping things from me. He's been making decisions about me. Without talking to me about them! He's been trying to keep me upset for days, all because of some plan he had--"

"Plan?" Sango blurted, all her ideas of a tactful, circuitous approach to her question forgotten. "You mean you two haven't been arguing because you're pregnant?"

"Pregnant?" Kagome said incredulously, ears pressing back. "No," she ground out, leaving Sango more mystified than before. "That's what this was all about. He thought I was about to go into heat. He thought I wouldn't want to be pregnant. He thought I'd mind wanting to have sex. But he never asked me about any of it!"

Sango thought her face had to be on fire. She knew things were different in the time Kagome had come from, but for her to so casually bring it up in conversation, and like that--surely Kagome ought to be having this conversation with one of the men in her family; she didn't have a father, but her grandfather, perhaps? Except she was on the wrong side of the well from them, and it had stopped working after Kagome had made her wish on the Shikon jewel last spring. Sango had never fully agreed with Kagome's willingness to seal herself on this side of the well, away from her family. Admittedly, Kagome loved Inuyasha and they were family for each other as a pack, but . . . well, when one married one belonged to the family of one's husband. Perhaps it wasn't so different after all. "But you two have been sleeping together all this time," Sango said weakly, still trying to figure out how to respond.

Kagome, her mouth opened on what was probably the beginning of another tirade, snapped her jaw shut with an audible click. Her face slowly suffused with color to match Sango's, her gaze dropping to the wooden panels of the floor into which she'd inadvertently dug all her claws. "We've been sleeping together, but not . . . you know . . . sleeping together."

"Kagome-chan, I'm so sorry, but I don't understand," Sango said, entirely bewildered. "You weren't . . . having sex, and you weren't angry, and now you still aren't having sex, and you are angry?" The air of the room was faintly chill, the sounds beyond the papered wall panels muffled but still audible. It sounded like Shippou and Rin were playing some sort of counting game, judging from the rhythm of their remarks.

"It's not about sex," Kagome grumbled, jerking her hands free of the floor. Sango could see the score-marks and gouges left behind, two sets of five. "It's about choice. Before, I didn't say anything because--well, because. I thought he might--but it was my decision. Then today, I found out that there were other decisions I should have made, but I couldn't because I didn't know about them. And he did, and didn't tell me. I didn't have any choice."

Sango said carefully, uncertain of the response she would get, "However, Kagome-chan, he is a man. And he's pack leader--a man responsible for you. They're usually who make the decisions."

"But it's my body," Kagome cried. "I'm responsible for me."

"Shh, shh," Sango said soothingly, moving to sit next to the other woman and putting an arm around her shoulders. "Shippou will hear you. Kagome-chan," she confessed, "We--I didn't think you wanted to be pregnant either."

Kagome's frustration was palpable even as she pressed her forehead against Sango's shoulder. "I don't. I'm barely used to myself now; how would it be good for a baby to have a mother who is still learning who she is?" I'm still learning, too, Sango thought, but maintained her silence as she listened to Kagome continue. "But he didn't ask me about any of it."

Wracking her mind for what she might say--the men of Kagome's time had to be odd creatures--Sango suggested, "You know Inuyasha worries a lot about what you think of him. I'm sure he'd act differently if he knew what you thought. Have you talked to him about it?"

Kagome lifted her head, but her hair curtained her face too thickly for Sango to see her expression. Her ears were still pinned back, though, so it probably hadn't relaxed any. "I mostly yelled," Kagome acknowledged. "And broke the rosary."

Distracted from the topic of conversation, Sango said, "That's wonderful news," enthusiasm warming her voice. "I'm sure that made him happy." Her eyes rested momentarily on the room's single decoration, a long sheet of near-transparent paper patterned with the impression of seeds, and pasted onto a longer sheet of red. On the white sheet, Miroku had painted the kanji for "good fortune." Sango only knew this because that's what Miroku had told her as he had brushed the less complex strokes of the corresponding hiragana below them: she could read the latter, though not the former. For all she really knew, Miroku might have painted "Great sex!" there instead. She blushed at the thought, deciding never to ask Kagome to read it for her to make sure it didn't.

"It did," Kagome said glumly, reaching up with one hand to push her hair back from her face. She sighed heavily. "Sango-chan," she said a little desperately. "Do you--do you think he doesn't hate me?" Sango kept a tight reign on her emotions; the question was so ridiculous that she wanted to laugh, but didn't want Kagome's sharper senses picking up on her amusement. Does he love you? When hasn't he? "I've kept having this thought," Kagome said. "What if I had gone into heat, would he have wanted me? And he doesn't really, so didn't want me to."

How mixed up they get themselves, Sango thought. She said gently, "He's by your side every night, not in a tree."

"That's just because I'm an obligation to him," Kagome said flatly, her eyes resting on the pattern of light and shadow cast on the floor by the mazelike wooden frame across the papered window.

Taken aback, Sango surmised, "Because of the wish?" At Kagome's nod, Sango said, "I don't think he thinks about it like that, Kagome-chan. He's just as responsible for the rest of us, but he doesn't spend his nights with Shippou. He hasn't spent every day trying to train Shippou, either."

"But if he doesn't think that, then why doesn't he say anything?" Kagome asked, squeezing her eyes shut.

"I don't know," Sango admitted. "I am certain, however, that he doesn't see you in such a light." Inuyasha had to have some reason for holding back this long; whatever it was, action on Kagome's part was the only thing Sango could think of that was likely to tip the balance. Sango tugged on the trailing sleeve of the red haori, leaning away so that Kagome would look at her. "So, Kagome-chan, if that's how you feel about your body, don't let him make the decisions because he doesn't see you making them." She watched the younger girl closely, trying to see if her words had any effect; she wasn't sure they would: Kagome's arguments about her own decisions and responsibility seemed rather unnatural. One's father or husband or oldest son decided these things for one, for the family's benefit. Either Sango wasn't understanding her, or Kagome's time was stranger than she supposed. Perhaps it made more understandable Kagome's decision to stay with them, however, if the men of her time didn't follow through on their responsibilities.

When Kagome's brows pulled together, a look of irritation entering her face, Sango figured she hadn't said it well after all. She tried again. "What do you want from him?" Start with that: they could formulate a plan, discuss tactics . . . it would be like when her father was talking about how to approach a formidable youkai with the rest of the taijiya in her village.

Kagome's frown deepened. "I want . . . I don't want him to view me as an obligation," she said, apparently not convinced by Sango's earlier comment. "I want him to tell me things, to include me in decisions, not exclude me from them." Her hands shifted to her thighs, clenching into the fabric there as she lowered her head, saying, "I want him--I just want him, Sango-chan. I'm tired of waiting and wondering."

"Well, if he tells you things so you can make your own decisions, you wouldn't be an obligation, ne?" Sango said, stifling the urge to stroke Kagome's head until the flattened ears relaxed. It made Sango ache with sympathetic tension just to look at her. "But how would he find out you want that or--the rest?"

"I--" Kagome began, only to fall silent and turn her face towards the front of the house. Her glance slid back to Sango, who was watching her with lifted eyebrows, curious. "It's Miroku," Kagome said with a wobbly smile, just as Sango heard the sounds of the door open, followed by a cheerful, "I'm home!"

"There," Kagome said, with an obvious attempt at lightness. "You should go greet him."

Sango shook her head. "Kagome-chan," she said reluctantly.

"I'll be fine. You--" Kagome's voice firmed, "you've spent enough time listening to my troubles."

"Ah!" came the clear, enthusiastic voice of Miroku, close upon the heels of greetings from Shippou and Rin, "and here is my son, the heavenly one. Although," he said, dropping his voice to a whisper that did nothing to lessen the volume of his words, "his mother also bears heaven within her."

Sango avoided Kagome's glance as she rocked back onto her heels and stood, but Kagome's amusement was evident when she said, "Do you want help clobbering him, Sango-chan?"

Miroku must have received a question about his comment, for his next remark was, "What do I mean by that, Rin-chan? Why," he said smoothly, "that one's children bring delight, and it is within Sango to bear many more."

With a sigh, Sango patted her kimono and apron back into order. At least she had stopped by the baths after assisting Eiji-san, so she wasn't all over soot and grime. "It's alright. Thank you, however," she said with a smile for Kagome at last. "I can lift Hiraikotsu again, so if I have need, I am well equipped."

Kagome stood likewise, looking down at the haori she wore. After a brief pause, she shrugged out of it, shaking it out and then folding it neatly. "I . . . I ought to go do something about this," she said with an attempt at nonchalance. "Thank you, Sango-chan."

* * *

As silently as she could manage, Kagome crept through the forest--but not on the ground. Rather, her heart in her throat every time she made a leap, from tree branch to tree branch as often as she could. The route was a familiar one, however: one she'd passed along often enough to have been able to build around trees that suited her needs for ones with limbs sturdy enough to bear her weight in a jump without tell-tale shaking. And with spring not yet having arrived, the trees were still mostly leafless: this way there wasn't any rustling to give her away, if she were careful.

Because of her decision to go from tree to tree, her progress was much slower than the speed she could have had on the ground; but, in this case, her preference was for stealth, not swiftness, even though the pace meant that she lost that much more of the free time she'd bargained out of Inuyasha after he realized that her having broken the rosary spell meant she didn't need to spend quite so much time at Kaede's and could use it for training instead. Admittedly, the training was valuable and she probably needed as much of it as she could get; however, being here had a purpose of its own.

Her destination was the small territory carved out by a pack of wild dogs just inside the edge of the forest a moderate distance from the village. While waiting for Inuyasha to show up in their room the night following the rosary incident, as she thought of it to herself, Kagome had considered the situation from every angle that she could. Sango's question lingered throughout. Inuyasha had said he'd tell her things, which was part of what she wanted, but if Sango was right about his helpfulness, then maybe she wasn't the only one waiting for some word or signal. Maybe Inuyasha was looking for that from her. Oh, she wanted Sango to be right! Kagome felt rather like she was grasping at straws, but Sango's straw looked much better than the ones Kagome had in hand. And Sango almost never gave advice--maybe because it seemed too presuming to her, or not her place--so for Sango to say what she did about Inuyasha meant that she had to be very certain of her opinion.

This, then, gave Kagome three choices: do nothing and hope that Inuyasha would be the one to make a move or say a word; say something herself; or do something herself. She was, as she'd said to Sango, tired of the first; regarding the second, she didn't know what to say. What Kagome wanted was to make a pass at him and see how he'd respond; if he wasn't interested, it was easy enough to claim a mistake or misunderstanding. Most of what Kagome knew of passes from having watched and talked to her peers in junior high school was along the lines of bad jokes, however; and of course those wouldn't go over well. This left Kagome with the third option: doing something.

And that had brought her here. She'd figured, as far as doing something goes, she could either do it as a human, or as a hanyou--as a dog. The latter thought left her feeling a little queasy, but the human example she knew best was Miroku. Well, him and movies and her school peers, none of which struck her as ideal models for her own behavior, let alone suggesting a gesture Inuyasha would understand, if you didn't count something as blatant as a kiss. That was when she'd remembered what Inuyasha had said about having watched wolves and dogs on his own; she decided to take a leaf from his book and do likewise.

Thus her presence in this part of the forest at this time. Since the village was so small and relatively poor, there was only one dog within it, an old mastiff who spent most of his days dozing in a patch of sunlight at the cooper's. He was no help to Kagome: she needed to see a pair. So, putting some of her training to use, she spent some days quartering the near reaches of the forest in search of a fox's or some wolves' trail. Unexpectedly, she'd stumbled into the scents of some wild dogs, a male and female marking in tandem. That had seemed promising, so she'd followed the trail. Her timing was good--of course, it only made sense that it would be, if inu hanyou and dogs mated seasonally, as Kohaku implied at least some youkai did, and she'd just scraped through having a heat of her own--for she had apparently caught the pair still in the courtship stage.

Kagome paused on a branch, ears swiveling cautiously as she listened for any sound. The freshness of the scents informed her that she was near a place they had passed recently, and up ahead was a clearing they and a couple of other dogs in their pack served to favor as a meeting or rendezvous place. Judging the distance carefully, as she had almost missed it and fallen yesterday, Kagome gathered herself and made the leap to a tree just outside those ringing the spot. The branch she was aiming for was higher than the others, and correspondingly slender; it flexed under her weight and, for a moment, Kagome swayed precariously before she caught her balance. Like a giant macaque, she thought. Or a monkey youkai. Stretching out, she bellied low on the branch and positioned herself to watch as she peered through the latticework of bare branches. With any luck, she'd be downwind of wherever the pair was at the moment--she was downwind of the clearing, but they didn't appear to be present at the moment.

A rapid beat alerted her to the direction of their appearance, and a moment later she could see rusty gray and black shapes hurtling past the trees. When they burst into the clearing and the trailing male, who looked like he probably had some wolf in his bloodline somewhere, took that opportunity to draw alongside the female and shoulder her into a tumble that quickly turned into a wrestle as the male followed after. Why, they're playing, Kagome realized, taking in the uplifted tails and relaxed ears, the yips and squeaks that sounded more like puppies than angry adults. Inuyasha and I have done something similar . . . could he have been. . . ? The pair broke apart, the female scrambling back with a springy jump before sitting, then lying down on her side, mouth open in a grinning pant. The sniffing is definitely out, Kagome thought, watching the male circle by the female's hindquarters. Besides, I'm sure that's because she's in heat, and it wouldn't make sense for me to do it to Inuyasha. Even denying that prospect caused warmth to flood her cheeks.

Really, you're not trying to seduce him! Just maybe . . . encourage him a bit, Kagome scolded herself, keeping her eyes on the pair in the clearing. They'd foregone the nuzzling she had watched yesterday; now, the male was licking the female's muzzle, his ears pricked forward close together, one paw resting on her shoulder. Kagome sighed. This wasn't giving her as many ideas as she had hoped. Licking was about equal with kissing, on the obviousness-meter; and kissing, at least, seemed a lot less wet.

Well, she'd watch for a few days more, or however long this lasted. She should pay attention to some of the other members in this pack of feral or born-wild dogs, too, to compare their behavior to this pair's: that way she would be less likely to interpret aspects of their behavior as normal that were really part of the courting ritual.