How Kagome Got Her Groove Back

*Oh brother, that got long, too! You lucky dogs get two chapters again, and the next should be later today, as well. Don’t forget to e-mail me if you want to know about new chapters, and as always, reviews are much appreciated. Love and puppies for all of you, enjoy the chapterrrr*

Kagome arrived at the small clearing gasping for breath. She had had to break into a full sprint to keep up with Sesshoumaru and his stupid, sparkly little cloud, and even then she’d lost sight of him, running as fast as she could to follow the quickly fading trail of his jyaki.

Wheezing, she doubled over with her hands on her knees, desperate to catch her breath and exponentially more thankful for Inuyasha’s habit of carrying her on his back. She made a mental note to thank him for it later, and made another mental note to consider thanking him by taking her top off.

After her huffing and puffing had slightly subsided, she remembered why she was so exhausted in the first place. Sesshoumaru. Kagome mentally considered a few significantly ruder names she’d liked to call him and surveyed the little field, focusing in on his white figure hunched next to a group she vaguely recognized as his traveling companions. Curious, Kagome loped over to the bunch of them, and quickly realized no one had taken notice of her.

Nonplussed, the priestess tried to bring some of the attention her way.

“So, um, what can I do ya for?”

Without so much as turning his head, Sesshoumaru motioned towards the girl slouched up against a tree, now around twelve and much older looking than Kagome had remembered her. The youth’s little face was tightly scrunched up in an expression or sheer pain, her hands clutching at her lower belly.

“You will aid her.”

The older girl snapped into action, warily stepping around the two-headed dragon to kneel on the other side of the troubled child.

“I…um, ok, what’s wrong?”

“…She’s in pain.”

Kagome’s head was spinning, the girl’s tortured cries, making her heart race; she knew that oftentimes priestesses were sought out for medical help, but Kaede had barely started training her in any form of healing, and she knew she was utterly unprepared if this turned out to be anything serious.

“Yes, I can see that,” she barked, beleaguered by the valuable input of Captain Obvious over there. The girl gave a soft cry at Kagome’s outburst, and feeling guilty, she softened her voice considerably. “I meant is she injured, or sick, or what? She’s holding her stomach but I don’t see anything. I, um, is she bleeding?”

Sesshoumaru gave a barely perceptible nod and stood up to his full height, calmly strolling to the nearest tree and sitting in front of it, cross-legged with his one hand resting on his knee, and no detectable trace of concern or worry marring his flawless features.

Kagome huffed at his apparent indifference and focused instead on the little girl.

“Hey, hi, um, it’s okay, umm…pal…” unsure of how to address the little girl, Kagome had said the first thing that popped into her mind, and cringed at how awkward it sounded, “Everything is going to be okay. I’ve done this more times than I can count.” She was lying through her teeth, but hoped if she could bolster the child’s confidence, it would do the same to her own.

Either way, her patient was unimpressed, and continued to moan as she stroked her abdomen, raking her bent fingers across her yukata as if they were fishing hooks.

“Agh! Um, okay, so, Sesshoumaru tells me you’re bleeding.” Once again Kagome inwardly seethed at her poor word choice. It sounded as if she were trying to catch up with the girl over tea and sponge-cake rather than save her from imminent death. “Um, alright, so, I know it hurts, but could you show me where it’s coming from?”

The girl let out a high-pitched and breathless shriek, briefly bringing one of her hands down slowly to gesture between her legs.

Kagome’s stomach churned to imagine what exactly the girl had to be doing to cause her to bleed down there, until, smacking her forehead in disbelief, all the pieces finally came together.

Her little patient was suffering from nothing more than period cramps.

The older girl let out a huge sigh of relief, happiness flooding her senses as she realized it was nothing seriously. Still, she felt Sesshoumaru’s ward was being a LITTLE overdramatic about the whole thing, but quickly dismissed the thought, remembering the claw marks on the wall beside her own bed from the first time she’d surfed the crimson wave.

Turning to Sesshoumaru, Kagome shared her observations.

“She, ha, um, it’s…well, um…” unsure of exactly how familiar Sesshoumaru was with the intricate workings of a lady’s physique, she set out to try and explain what was happening as simply and as clearly as she could. “Well, once a month, girl’s have to, um, they do this thing where…anyways, that’s what’s happening to her now, because it starts around this age, and, um, anyways, that’s what’s wrong except for actually nothing’s wrong because it’s totally normal.” Ah, well done, Kagome thought to herself, I’m relatively sure THAT crystal clear explanation would have confused even a highly trained gynecologist.

“I am familiar with the female reproductive system, girl.” There it was again, the frigidly monotonous voice that was simultaneously sharp as stone and smooth as silk. She was relatively sure that even ice was warm enough to at least slightly melt his frosty demeanor.

“Oh. Well, yes, of course you are.”

“Am I to understand the pain is also…‘totally normal’?”

“Well…yes, actually, it’s pretty standard for human women, actually.”

“Hn.” Kagome was relatively sure the demon lord was mentally adding another note to his list of ‘Reasons why humans blow balls about ten trillion times more than I do.’ Her breath hitched in her chest as she caught the heated stare he was giving her, and she once again felt her heart go out to those poor biology class frogs. “And so, human woman, you would have me to believe that once a month, you halt your actions to simply collapse against a tree in great discomfort.”

“…….no.” the priestess felt about six inches tall, and could feel his cold eyes scathingly tell her to get off her ass and do something about it.

She sprang to life and began digging deep in her backpack, cursing the night for making it so hard to see everything and herself for never gathering up the gumption to finally clean it out, and was struck with a thought as her fingers closed around her water bottle.

“Hot water helps, it relaxes the muscles. We should boil some water.” Sesshoumaru merely stared at her silently, which was not unexpected, and Kagome quickly decided upon finding neither a fire already started nor a pot in which to boil the water that such a plan would be both too long and too complicated. “Umm…um…oh!! Oh! The hot spring! It wasn’t too far away from here, and if we just filled this bottle, it would work perfectly as a compress…”

The demon lord intrigued gave a small nod. “Jaken.”

Kagome observed as the squat green toad demon trotted out of the nearby coppice of trees, and immediately remembered him as the insufferably annoying servant to the lord of the western lands. She recoiled inwardly, assuming someone as irksome at the little creature could only have been in the forest doing something infuriating like yelling at trees for having too much bark, and was glad he’d stayed out of her way until now.

“Yes m’lord? It is I, your humble servant, ready and willing to do what you ask of me?”

The priestess had to force herself not to ask Jaken to repeat the question as it had been a little muffled considered how closely his lips were pressed to Seeshoumaru’s undoubtedly perfectly sculpted ass. What a suck-up.

“You will take Ah-Un south to the hot spring and return to us with this woman’s water bottle filled. You will be quick about it to ensure it stays warm.”

Jaken squawked and ran towards Kagome, arms flailing, and she couldn’t help but thinking that with some feathers, he’d make a rather impressive chicken.

“But m’lord, why must we waste our precious resources on helping this human woman? Surely she may do it herself, and suffer her own consequences if it is not warm enough for her tastes.”

Kagome ground her teeth and imagined how exactly Jaken’s bumpy green skin would feel under hers as she gave him the bitch-slapping of a lifetime. Sesshoumaru let out a ferociously deep growl, and Jaken got the picture as he squawked once more, grabbed the water bottle and mounted Ah-Un, heading due south and making record time.

For her part, Kagome grabbed a small Ziploc baggie from the bottom of her bag and held it up to the moonlight to examine what was inside, smiling when she saw the dried leaves she needed, and remembering the time her Grandfather had staged an intervention after spotting them in her bag, convinced she had a rather nasty marijuana addiction.

She pulled out a small handful and crushed them slightly between her fingers, glad to see they still had sap left in them. Beaming at the girl slumped against the tree, Kagome held out the leaves in the palm of her hand.

“Here, chew on this, and you don’t taste the spice of it anymore, spit it out. It won’t taste very good, but it will help the pain, I promise.”

The child took what she was offered and made a sour face once she bit down on the plant. Kagome gave a knowing smile and stroked her forehead and hair softly, and feeling her heart swell as one of the girl’s hands reached up to grab her own.


***


Kagome’s warm glow in the aftermath of a charitable deed had shriveled away to nothing. Her foot was asleep, she really had to pee, and she was about to pass out. The girl, Rin, as she had heard Jaken called her when he returned with the water bottle, had fallen asleep at last. The priestess carefully rolled away from her sleeping form, sucking in air sharply as she felt the pins and needles burning all the way up to her ankle. She stood up and felt her eyes shut while letting out an impressively enormous yawn, and stretched her arms up over her head, ignoring the fact it pulled her shirt up to above her bellybutton as she very attractively started itching at her armpit.

When her eyes fluttered upon again, she nearly shrieked in surprise as she discovered herself with the tall form of the lord of the western lands, letting out instead a small squeak and quickly pulling her shirt back down and trying to act like rather than scratching herself she’d been doing something more ladylike, like, um, fixing her sleeve.

“You may return to your camp now.” His eyes were unnaturally bright in the inky blackness that surrounded them as the moon was shrouded in clouds.

She followed his gaze to the forest, eyes bulging as she realized he intended her to simply walk back to the village, as if skipping through the demon-filled woods in the middle of the night unarmed was a really safe and good idea, and she should be glad for the chance to enjoy such a nice stroll.

“…No.”

Borrowing one of his favorite words, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the imposing figure, who was now quizzically arching an eyebrow the small creature that stood in front of him.

“I’m not about to aimlessly charge through the forest with absolutely no way to protect myself because you suddenly decide you’re finished with me. I blindly followed you out here to help that little girl, I did everything you asked with no complaints, and I won’t be repaid by being forced to walk stupidly into my own certain destruction. If you don’t like me, that’s fine, if you don’t respect me, that’s fine, and even if you hate me with every fiber of your being, then hey, that’s fine, too. Whatever floats your freakin boat, okay? But you’re supposed to be nobility, aren’t you? And for how long has it been considered NOBLE to accept a service from someone with the only form of payment being a death sentence. How exactly is that at all justified?” Kagome was positively steaming. She realized that her little outburst had likely ensured her impending doom as much as a venture into the forest might, but she figured she might as well go out with a bang.

Sesshoumaru’s top lip curled, and for the first time, the priestess could see up close just how sharp his canines were. His eyes flashed scarlet as he lunged for her, a feral snarl ripped from his throat as she felt his hands grab around her waist, and she felt her heart tighten as she imagined the broken look on her mother’s face when she found out her daughter had failed to be careful like she had asked her. Choking back a sob as she closed her eyes, she accepted her fate.


***


Kagome marveled at how little pain she felt at her death, and reveled in the feel of the wind on her face, a sensation she attributed to her soul rising to the skies, and felt a tiny pang of annoyance as she realized that she had, indeed, died a virgin, and wondered idly if maybe one could go to the bone-zone in the afterlife.

She slowly opened her eyes, unsure of what to expect to see after her soul had passed, surprised to see the silky night sky and a path of sparkles twinkling against the stars. Upon further observation, she noticed a fluttering white hakama and an impossibly tight backside, and felt sheer elation as she realized rather than tear her to pieces, Sesshoumaru had unceremoniously flung her over his shoulder and was carrying her back to the village on his sparkly cloud of magic and rainbows.

….YESSSSSSSS! SHE WAS ALIVEEEEEEE! Kagome was so happy she could pee. She decided not to, deciding it would make the demon rethink his decision to escort her, but she was delighted nonetheless. Not only was she still among the living, she’d actually convinced her cold captor that he was being a gigantic prick! WOOT WOOT! Points Sesshoumaru: ZERO! Points Kagome: A million billion zillion. Oh it was good to be her.

She felt the wind knocked out of her as her mode of transportation landed roughly on the ground, and felt a sharp pain in her rear as he dumped her on the mossy banks by the hot spring.

Standing up again, she muttered a quiet thank you to the demon lord, who answered her only with an impatient grunt, and she wondered why he hadn’t left yet.

“You will go back to your companions, and you will tell them that for the next few days, you will be traveling with me. I will fetch you tomorrow at midday.”

“I—but—what?!?!? No! I mean, no, I can’t. Well, I mean I CAN, but, um, why?”

“You are to instruct Rin in everything she needs to know as a human woman so she can reach maturity with no repeats of tonight’s distress.”

Kagome’s resolve softened at his request. His actions throughout the evening had proved he was even more of an enigma than she had previously thought, but his concern for the girl was undeniable, and Kagome’s heart went out to them both. She knew pray little about the background of the girl, but it was clear if she traveled with the demon that her family had been ripped from her, and the priestess was unable to even imagine what puberty might have been like without the calm guidance of her mother.

“Oh. Okay. Well, um, I don’t—I don’t think Inuyasha will take too kindly to the idea.”

“I have methods of persuasion he will not be able to refuse.”

She sighed, sure he meant he’d try, like always, to slice Inuyasha into ribbons. “Okay, if you say so. Then I’ll see you tomorrow at noon, I suppose.”

Sesshoumaru merely nodded, and Kagome began to walk slowly back to Kaede’s hut, dreading the thought of having to explain to her friends why they’d have to delay their jewel hunt even further.

“Woman.” His words were pithy and terse, always sharp as they came from his mouth, and she turned, curious as to what other wrenches he could possibly have to throw in the works.

Before she could fully turn to face him, Kagome felt his hot mouth below her ear, his tongue swirling against her skin as he nibbled down the length of her jawline. His fangs scraped dangerously against her cheek as he slid his hand softly from the juncture of her neck and shoulder to the back of her head, tangling his claws in her thick black tresses. Her body caught fire against his lips, a feverish tingle pooling in her stomach and spreading in tortuously slow waves to the space between her legs as he licked and nipped at the flesh behind her ear.

By the time she could actually register what was happening, the demon lord was gone, leaving in his wake an awe-struck priestess, burning deliciously and clutching her cheek, still not altogether sure he hadn’t actually killed her earlier.