Any Way The Wind Blows

A/N: Last editededed 3/7/10. :)

Chapter 3

"Sixty-seven."

"Hm?"

The mokomoko closed around them, Kagura plopping backward with a sigh as she closed Sesshoumaru's kimono over her front once more. He lay beside her, bare skin shining in the moonlight, dressed only in his fundoshi and hakama, his juban and boots lying by their feet. "Sixty-seven sunsets I watched without you by my side, sixty-seven times the moon rose, and with me counting each progressively longer night."

Sesshoumaru shifted beside her, his right arm crossed over what remained of his left across his chest. "You could not have been that anxious for my return."

She jerked her head toward him, jaw working in false starts. "What makes you say that?"

"You pretend to know about love, profess it freely when you know no more of what you speak than I, and, yet, you fear me." His voice took on a flat quality, like that which he usually reserved for the likes of Jaken.

She turned her face up at the stars, searching the constellations for the right answer, something to say that would not immediately betray the truth in his words. "With love comes respect… or perhaps the other way around." She rolled toward him, venturing covering his hand with her own only to feel it jerk away. She lowered her eyes to nothing in particular with a sigh, propping herself up on the opposite elbow. "I do not believe one can fully respect another and fear them at the same time, and I have always respected your power."

"By that, you imply Jaken has no respect for me when he has nothing but. Do not lie; if there is one thing I will not tolerate from you, it is lying. I saw it in your face today, in the river. The water may have washed away much of the scent, but my eyes do not deceive me."

Crimson eyes lifted once more to the sky, the stars offering no succor. She silently cursed them; caught, no clever way out of this one, no flying away atop her plume—no escape. "If you only knew the nightmare that plagued me before we ever came to this path you say is written in the stars: where I bore you a child who resembled all too much your brother and you slew us both."

She heard him shift again where he lay, gilded eyes gazing at her with a strange sense of warmth when she turned to look. "You know better."

Kagura sighed heavily, wrenching her eyes from his, allowing them to settle on the distant horizon. "Is it your belief that every action has a consequence?"

"You mean a price?" She could tell without looking he rolled toward her, propping himself up on his elbow, the sound of his voice slightly closer when he spoke again in that silky tone of his. "Yes, that is usually the way of things."

Her head fell, eyes with it, a hand absently sliding across her stomach to the flutter of movement within. "I may be forgiven for the acts I committed in Naraku's name but, I assure you, for those transgressions against him, I will surely be made to pay."

The mokomoko reacted to its master's unconscious emotions, as it often did, curling around Kagura and holding her tightly in its soft warmth where Sesshoumaru could not quite bring himself to do so. "You think you have not been punished enough?"

She let out one of those wry laughs she was so prone to, clutching the pelt surrounding her to her rapidly beating heart. "Ironically enough, this human heart is hardly punishment at all. In fact, I'd like to think it an education; my own strange path to enlightenment." The laughter left her face, head hanging low. "I have a feeling something bad may become of me, Sesshoumaru," she lamented, fingering the mokomoko's fluff. "I fear I may not live to bear this child."

"Have you no faith in my ability to protect you?" That coldness returned to his voice then, something very near a glare wrinkling his brow when she lifted her eyes to his.

She turned, cupping his cheek in her hand, the hardness in his expression relenting at her soft touch. "I think there are some things beyond even your immense power, my love."

"Nothing is beyond my power." He flung her hand from his cheek, sitting up in a huff, grabbing his juban from the ground in the same manner. He dressed in them hurriedly, a seemingly awkward task for a man with only one arm but executed with the smoothness of one who had done it a thousand times, lifting his long hair from beneath the portion that touched his delicate neck, a cascade of silver falling down his back and over his shoulders. His eyes were gentler when they touched hers again, a heavy sigh leaving the youkai lord as he pulled on his boots. "Come." He took her hand. "Let us return to camp. You are shivering; the fire would do you good."

They stood, Sesshoumaru offering his assistance as before, and brushed off the dirt and grass that clung to their clothes. The air weighed heavy around them as they started back to camp, making it about halfway before Kagura broke their cumbersome silence.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, hanging back a step.

Sesshoumaru turned, her hand still in his. "No need for apology. I understand the fear he strikes in you. You will see the birth of our child, I assure you that. Now." He gave her hand a tender squeeze. "Come."

"Sesshoumaru." She halted him in his steps, the daiyoukai turning back once more. "You- You have a feeling about this child you're not sharing with me, don't you?"

He nodded slowly, lowering his head. "Naraku was right about one thing."

Crimson eyes widened blankly as they searched distant gold. "And that is?"

"Did you not notice? He referred to you as mortal but not human."

Kagura shook her head perplexedly. "I'm afraid I don't follow. What is the difference what he said?"

"The human heart he gave you may have been enchanted to bind your youkai blood but it flows in you still, even if dormant."

She shook her head again, as if to rid herself of her further bewilderment. "How- How do you know?"

"Simple." He tipped his head toward her abraded legs and feet. "I could smell it on your blood."

"So…" She looked down to her stomach, her free hand resting upon it. "What does that mean for our child?"

"I already told you." He began to turn, supplying her hand with a little tug. "It doesn't matter."