Learning to Love

Disclaimer: Don’t own it….never will, oh and i make no money off of this either.



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They both walked through the dense foliage in a comfortable silence. Kagome relaxed, knowing that the demon in front of her couldn’t hurt her, and decided to take in the scenery.



The tall palm trees had sheets of green moss growing off of their branches, and on the moss grew delicate little flowers in shades of pink, purple and blue. Upon closer examination she could see coconuts and bananas growing high in the trees. The bushes that they were wading through also had many pretty flowers growing off of them, and many of them also had little red and purple berries growing on them.



Ericka hadn’t been joking when she said that there was plenty of food on the island. She vaigly wondered what kind of game was on the island, she was all for fruit and all, but even she needed a little meat every now and then. Also Sesshoumaru would require meat in order to survive, because he couldn’t eat fruit. Well she didn’t actually know, all the demons she had ever met were always eating meat only, so this was just an educated guess.



Realizing the path that her thoughts had taken, she pushed them back onto the scenery that they were passing. Soon the forest transformed into a bamboo grove with a good sized hot spring in it. The rocks surrounding the spring had a soft looking green moss growing on them with little pink and white flowers growing on it. It also had rocks on the inside a little ways under the water that would provide a good place to sit on. Both made a mental note to come back here later.



Kagome had developed a habit of washing in the morning and evening, which was very unusual for a human, princess or not. She used to wash once a day at most, normally every two or three days. One day though, a demon she had cornered told her that humans had a very strong scent, and were easy to find and kill because of it. It had also told her that while her scent was not as strong as the others it was still pretty potent to a demons nose. After it had told her that she had slit its throat to put it out of its misery from the mortal wound that she had inflicted upon it. From that day forth, she washed morning and night, and as a reward for her efforts, her hunts became much easier because her prey couldn’t smell her until it was too late. She had also found out that she enjoyed bathing; the thought of actually being able to get clean and relax in the hot water caused her to giggle on the inside.



Sesshoumaru also took note of the spring. He enjoyed relaxing after a long day, and though the day had just begun, he could already tell it was going to be a long one. Being clean was a bonus too. Although he did enjoy the occasional blood bath, it was nice to smell clean and fresh.



Moving farther in to the forest, the grove turned back into a lush forest. A few minutes later they came upon a medium sized waterfall with a crystal clear pond at its base. After a quick inspection, they found out that it was safe to drink, so both knelt down to quench their thirst. Once both had satisfied their thirst, they once again moved on.



Very close to the waterfall, about 10 yards, there was a large cave. It was about ten feet tall, eight feet wide and about thirty feet deep. They checked for signs of life, finding none, decided that this would do quite well for a shelter.



Once inside the cool cave Kagome realized that she was really hot!!! The sun had been beating down on her all morning, plus the fight had gotten her system warmed up. She was also covered from head to toe in black!! She quickly began removing her armor. Minutes later, her armor was neatly stacked against a nearby wall. She stretched and turned around to see Sesshoumaru with a raised eyebrow.



“What? The armor was really hot!! Plus we both know that we can’t hurt each other, so why be uncomfortable to keep up appearances?” Kagome said with a hint of relief in her voice. ‘Plus I feel a lot better now!’ she thought.



His only reply was a curt nod, and then he started to try and remove his chest plate. He stood there fiddling with the complicated knots for about ten minutes with no success. The person who had put his armor on had been new, and apparently used a new kind of knot. One that he, unfortunately, was unfamiliar with.



Kagome watched him, and had to stifle a laugh at the site of this “Mighty Demon” fighting to get his armor off. Finally she decided to offer her help.



“Look, I’ll help you get your armor off if you want.” Kagome offered, but Sesshoumaru sensed the underlying amusement in her voice at his situation.



“I do not require you help, nor you pity. I am perfectly capable of removing my armor on my own.” Sesshoumaru said with a building fury toward his cursed armor.



“Don’t look at it as help, nor will I ever show you pity. Look at it as a favor, one that you can return whenever you see fit. Ok?” Kagome reasoned.



Sesshoumaru pondered this for a moment, and then decided that what she had said earlier was right. There was no use in keeping up appearances. He might as well be comfortable during his imprisonment here. Though he loathed it, he decided to accept her offer. His answer to her was simply raising his arm and looking at her intently. She took that as her sign, and cautiously stepped towards him until she was standing beside him. She quickly inspected the knots and smiled to herself. Within moments she had untied the knots, removed, and placed his armor on the ground beside hers by the wall. When she turned around she saw a very shocked looking Sesshoumaru.



“What? Did I do something wrong?” Kagome asked, now confused herself.



“How were you able to untie those knots and carry my armor so easily, it weighs at least 150 pounds?” he let slip before he could stop himself. “Damn curiosity!” he thought


“Oh is that all? I thought it seemed a little light. You see my armor all together weighs about 400 lbs, 350 without the helmet. It has taken me most of my life to be able to wear that much weight. It is a necessity though, because I’m sure you have noticed that demons have rather sharp claws. And to answer your question about the knots I made it look easy because I use the same knots for my armor. It is a very sturdy knot that very few know how to undo. It was created to prevent bandits from stealing the armor of fallen warriors. Whoever tied your armor on was very skilled to be able to tie it like that. If you want I could teach you how to tie and undo the knot so you won’t have this problem again?” Kagome finished her little speech and watched for his reaction to her question.



He just stood there, now even more shocked that a human could carry such a heavy burden and still move at the speed that she did on the battle field. This little woman was a perplexing creature indeed. Then her question registered in his head. It would help to be able to tie and untie your own armor, but he had to wonder what her motive was for helping him.



“Why do you wish to help me? As I recall I was trying to kill you not all that long ago. What is your motive for helping me?” He asked with suspicion clearly written in his voice.



“I have no hidden agenda, and if you will recall I was also trying to kill you. It is simply not in my nature to be unkind all of the time, and if I see somewhere my talents can be useful, I try to help.” she said with a hint of sadness in her voice at his accusation.



“You hunt down and slaughter demons, and you say that you don’t like to be unkind?” He was confused, again. Damn it, this was becoming a habit fast and he didn’t like it one bit.



“I believe you have misunderstood me. I don’t just go around senselessly killing demons. I only hunt down the ones that have been causing trouble near the villages in my province, or the ones that try to kill me first. I had heard rumors of a demon causing trouble in the forest near my grandmothers’ village. I suppose I wrongly assumed that it was you. For that you have my apologies.” She said with a slight bow of her head to emphasize her apology.



Again he was shocked! She had apologized for attacking him! He swore to himself that if he was shocked or confused one more time today he would end both of their lives be dammed with the consequences. He then nodded his acceptance of her apology.



“Well we might as well start making this place livable. Shall we go?” Kagome said



“And what are we supposed to do?” Sesshoumaru asked. He could easily live in this cave just the way it was now. Then he remembered that humans have slightly different needs than demons.



“Well first we need to gather firewood, and then I can make some baskets in order to hold food and water. I can also weave some mats to sleep on from palm leaves.” She said, while making a mental check list.



“And what, pray tell, am I to do?” Sesshoumaru asked.



Kagome laughed realizing that most of her chores were one person jobs and considered woman’s work.



“You can help me gather supplies, once that is done you can meditate or see if you can find any game in the woods. I can make jerky out of it later.” She said.



He nodded with a look of mild irritation shinning in his eyes; he was still upset about being stuck in this whole situation. They went and gathered firewood first, which turned out to be a quick task with Sesshoumaru’s long arms being able to carry so much. While out, they discovered that the hot spring was only about five minutes away. After they had neatly stacked the wood in the cave, the headed out again.



Sesshoumaru easily jumped to the top of the palm trees, and began to break them off and toss them down to Kagome. She stacked them in a pile, and started to tie bamboo shoots into a sort of sled with vines. She then moved the palm leaves onto the sled and then went about collecting as many large bamboo shoots as she could carry. After securing them to the sled, she noticed that Sesshoumaru was missing. She was a little curious as to where he had gone, but she just shrugged it off and started to head back to the cave.



Suddenly he emerged from the bushes with a deer slung over his shoulder. She gasped in surprise at his sudden appearance, but then reclaimed her usual calm face. A slight smirk appeared on his face before he could hide it, but he quickly returned to his emotionless expression. Not a word was said between the two, just nods of acknowledgement, as they made their way back to the cave; Kagome pulling the heavily loaded sled, and Sesshoumaru carrying the dead deer.



When they arrived back at the cave, Kagome set to work immediately turning the long pieces of bamboo onto several canteens, about an hour and half later she started to work on weaving the palm leave into sleeping mats. About two hours later she had two thick sleeping mats made, and still had enough leaves left over to provide some cushioning against the hard stone floor of the cave. She then went back to work on the bamboo, turning them into containers to hold food, some were even sealed well enough to hold liquids.



She gave several of the containers to Sesshoumaru so he could clean his kill. He had been meditating by the entrance to the cave when she brought him the bowls. He decided to humor her and started to clean his kill and divide it neatly into the containers. When that was done he returned to the entrance to see the girl smashing the bamboo with a club made of a stick with a rock on the end. He watched her for a few minutes as she picked up the long stringy remains of the once hard and strong bamboo and stuck them into water to soften them. He was impressed by her ingenuity. She definitely knew how to survive on her own. He watched her with interest as she took some of the strings, which appeared to have been soaking for a while, and she started to expertly weave them together, soon the semblance of a towel appeared. Once she seemed satisfied with her work she hung it over a branch to dry. Then she when to work again pounding the long reeds into softer strings, soaking them in water, taking ones that had been soaking a while and turning them into some type of towel used for washing. When she started again, he lost interest and decided to return to his meditating.



When he came out of his meditation, the sun had almost set. He looked over to where the girl had been working and found out that she had finished. Where there had once been a large pile of bamboo and palm leaves, there stood what appeared to be a clothes rack to dry clothes on. Draped across the surrounding tree limbs were the fruits of her labor; four towels, at least a dozen washcloths, another dozen hand-towels, and four sleeping mats. Two were even large enough for him! He hadn’t spotted the girl yet though. Another quick scan of the area revealed her in the shadows of the trees. She was fast asleep, no doubt from exerting all of her energy on her tasks throughout the day.



He went to check and see if the sleeping mats she had woven were dry. The heat of the day had dried them quickly, so he took them off of the branch they had been on, took them inside, and placed them over the palm leaves that had been laid out to provide some comfort from the stone floor. Again one set was longer than the others, showing that she had thought about his comfort when making them. There was also plenty of room between their new “beds.” It seemed she had thought of everything, except how she was going to get to her bed that night. He sighed realizing he would have to carry her in, or risk her getting sick or injured during the night. Resigning himself to his task, he walked out of the cave and over to where she sat propped against the tree. He saw that she had shed several of her shirts; he saw five hanging over a tree branch. They were all black.



“What is it with her and black?” he thought.



She was still wearing one black top over her white inner one.



“Seven layers to her kimono and she didn’t complain once. She also had no trouble fighting, interesting.” Sesshoumaru thought.



He knelt down and slowly reached out to touch her arm, not wanting to repeat the incident that had occurred that morning. Feeling no pain this time he felt it safe to proceed, and gently picked her up.



Without the extra layers of clothing in the way, he could feel the hard muscles of her arms and thighs, as he quickly took her to her mat. He laid her down very gently; then when to retrieve one of her other tops, and covered her with it. She immediately snuggled into the warmth that the black top provided; it was very warm from being in the sun most of the day.



As he watched her sleep for a moment, he reflected on his meditation from earlier. While meditating, he had pondered the puzzle that was this strange little human woman, who now slept so peacefully before him. She was like no human he had ever met or heard of. He had thought about her during the whole time that he had meditated, but had come no closer to figuring her out than he had before he started. Now he was wondering why he was still standing over her, watching the steady breathing of this slip of a woman who had been forced into his life, and was now an enigma that he couldn’t figure out, no matter how hard he tried.



He desperately needed a distraction to avert his thoughts from the warrior princess. He then remembered the meat that he had cleaned earlier. She had never gotten to it before sleep had claimed her. He had eaten that morning so he wouldn’t require nourishment for a week to a week and a half, depending on how much he had to do. The girl, however, would require nourishment on a daily basis. She also required her meat to be cooked, unlike him that required raw meat, and the blood from it, to survive. He looked over at the meat in the bamboo bowls, then over at the fire wood in the corner. He decided to turn most of the meat into jerky, and then cook the rest for an evening meal, if the girl woke up. If not, she could eat it in the morning. It suddenly dawned on him that he hadn’t noticed her stop to eat all day. She had been so preoccupied with her tasks throughout the day that he figured that she had forgotten to stop and eat. He grabbed one of the empty bowls and headed out to look for fruit for later. He found that he could go farther than thirty feet now. Ericka was right again, surprise, surprise.



He quickly returned with a bowl full of berries. He set them down and prepared to start a fire. He threw some dried leaves under the small pile of wood for kindling, and then proceeded to strike the flint, he found while he was out, against each other, to gain the desired sparks onto the dried leaves. After bowing on the embers for a few moments the wood caught as well, and soon the fire was crackling merrily. He set a clean smooth rock by the fire to get hot, and grabbed a nearby bowl of meat and started cutting it into thin strips. He threw some more wood on the fire to increase the temperature, then set the strips on the hot rock and soon they were done, he removed them then put another set in their place. In between switching the strips of meat, he made a turning rack out of what was left of the bamboo rods, and soon had two medium sized chunks of meat cooking over the fire.



The smell of meat cooking awoke a very hungry princess. She yawned and stretched out her sore muscles, and when she was finally coherent, she discovered that she was in the cave, on her mat, and using one of her tops as a blanket. Confused she looked over to the fire to see Sesshoumaru turning the raw meat into jerky, and turning two roasts to another side over the fire. It was then that her stomach decided to make a very loud protest from not being fed all day. The grumble that her stomach produced could have been heard by a human at least ten feet away! Kagome blushed, and snuck a peek at Sesshoumaru. He only raised an eyebrow at her then went back to his tasks. She stood and went over to the warm fire, sitting on the opposite side from Sesshoumaru. He was munching on a bowl of berries at his side; well there went her theory that he ate only meat. He used his tail to push the bowl over to her. She looked at it for a moment, still a little groggy, and then gave him a look of gratitude. She snacked on a few of the berries, and watched as he turned the meat every now and then. About fifteen minutes later, he announced that it was done, and then went back to making jerky. There was a lot of meat because it was a very large deer.



Contrary to belief, demons don’t just eat raw meat, they only require it once every week or so to remain strong. Other than that they eat pretty much the same things humans eat, but unlike humans they don’t have to eat every day. They can go for up to three days without any kind of food, but like humans they require water on a daily basis.



Kagome took out her dagger and cut a strip from one of the chunks of meat. She blew on it to bring it down to a reasonable temperature, and then took a little nibble at it to see how it tasted. Her eyes grew wide at the subtly sweet taste it possessed. He had crushed some of the berries and spread the juice over the meat giving it a wonderful flavor.



“This is delicious! Thank you so much for cooking it and for carrying me inside. I really didn’t mean to fall asleep; I guess everything that has happened today finally caught up with me.” Kagome laughed.



“I simply didn’t want you to become ill from sleeping outside all night. The food is a favor in return for what you did for me earlier and everything else you have done with me in consideration. Now finish your meal and return to your rest. You have earned it today; we may talk in the morning.” Sesshoumaru stated.



He was a little surprised that she had like the roast so much, not many humans would appreciate the simple sweetness added by the crushed berries. He had thought that because she was a princess she would have complained about the way it was cooked, but instead she really seemed to enjoy it. It was a treat that his mother used to make for him before she died. She couldn’t make it often because of all of her duties, but every once and a while, and always on his birthday, she would chase the cooks out of the kitchen and make it from a deer she had just killed herself and from berries she had picked from the garden. Finally after much coaxing, she taught him how to make it. Though he never could make it like her, it was a close substitute, but he couldn’t figure out what had caused him to make it for her.



“Oh, alright, I suppose you are right, thank you Sesshoumaru.” She said with a little bow of her head to emphasize her thanks. She quickly finished her meal, then stood and stretched her sore muscles. Shortly after she had regained the necessary blood flow through her limbs, she returned to her mat.



“Sleep well, Sesshoumaru.” She said with a yawn, before she closed her eyes and drifted back into the comforting embrace of sleep.



When Sesshoumaru finished with the jerky about an hour later, he saw that there wasn’t much left of the two roasts he had made. He wondered how could she eat so much and weigh as little as she did. He finished what remained of the last roast and pulled the bamboo rack away from the fire. He pored all of the blood that had collected in the bottom of the bowls, which had the meat in them, into one bowl, and then proceeded to drink it down like water. He wasn’t one to waste nourishment, and the blood of the kill had the most to offer. He had decided not to do this in front of the girl to save himself from having to explain anything. By this time the fire was dying down to a safe level at which to leave it at. So he rose, stretched, and walked over to his mat. He was surprised at the comfort and quickly fell into a light slumber, waiting for the sun to rise and greet a new day.