InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Of Fire and Fairytales ❯ Enter the Wiccan, Stage Right ( Chapter 2 )

A/n: Siren Says Hi: This chapter is mostly about introducing La Fay, which is my main concern. From here on out chapters will be longer, plots thicker, so get cozy this could take a while, though I hope to post again very soon. Okay, soon as school year permits anyway. Remember, as much as I love Sesshoumaru and all those other characters that are only here because they make things easier to write about, I do not own them, which breaks my cold unfeeling black heart.

Enjoy!

Of Fire And Fairy Tales

By Angelic Siren

Chapter 2: Enter The Wicken, Stage Right

La Fay looked up at the sky from between the leaves of the trees surrounding the clearing. She pulled a few stray gold hairs from her forehead and sighed tucking them behind her ear. "So, Kay, is this suppose to be the first of our many little scrambles while we're here?"

Kagome pulled herself over the side of the well and plopped down on the lush grass to breath. "Please don't be a smart ass La Fay. You know how much is riding on this working out."

"I'll do my job, no big deal. You just look so stressed." La Fay held out her hand to her friend to help her up.

Kagome took it and stood. "Thanks. I am kinda tweaked, I guess. If it didn't put the world in danger I'd take a vacation."

La Fay shook her head with a smile. "You need it as much as you deserve it girl. Trust me, you are a mess."

Kagome was about to respond when there was a crash from in the bushes from the direction the village. There were a few shouts and a small orange tailed child ran out from the brush and jumped at Kagome, latching onto her leg with a happy greeting.

"Kagome-chan! You're back! Did you bring me anything? Candy? Huh? Huh?"

"Kagome," La Fay said pointing. "There appears to be a squirrel on your leg."

Kagome lost her balance and landed back on the ground with a soft thud. She began to laugh as the little Kitsune attached to her attempted a frightening growl at La Fay.

"You're a baka! I'm a fox demon, shows you! The Mighty Shippo!" He gave a child's equivalent of a growl.

La Fay raised an eyebrow at the cub. "Don't make me bite you." She said baring her slightly filed canines as she spoke. "And when you growl, you have to pull it from way down deep or it just sounds like a Hummer backing over a frightened chipmunk. Go from the diaphragm, like this," She lowered her head and managed a fairly convincing and definitely unnerving cougar like growl.

"What was that?" Kagome said, staring at her friend as if she were crazy.

"That was me doing my babysitter thing. Your little brother knows all about it. Shuts 'em up every time."

Kagome glanced down at Shippo, who had gone stiff, his tail poofed out as if he'd been struck by lightning. "I see."

"Well you certainly took your time getting back." Inuyasha said as he crossed the clearing toward them. La Fay blinked. Kagome had told her about the hanyou boy but seemed to have forgotten a few details, like the fact that he was this attractive. Kagome had half sighed half giggled her way through a brief description that she had probably thought wasn't too obvious, but then again Kagome was kind of naive. La Fay was hardly awed by the golden glared male, but perhaps taller and if he groomed his hair a little differently…

"Preparing takes time, Inuyasha. We needed a few days." Kagome said pulling the still stiff Shippo off her leg and interrupting La Fay's thoughts. She looked the Kitsune over before setting him down beside her. La Fay shook off the thought and stooped to help Kagome up again but Inuyasha pushed past her and pulled the teen miko to her feet. "Thanks Inuyasha." She mumbled as he took her big yellow backpack from her.

He slung the bag over his shoulder. "Neh."

La Fay followed behind as Kagome semi-jogged to keep up with the white haired hanyou on their way back to the village. She smiled to herself, thinking it was about time Kagome had a boyfriend of her own instead of just nodding politely when she talked about her own short term relationships. La Fay carried the rigid Shippo by the tail and lifted him to eye level only once when she was sure Inuyasha wasn't paying attention. "Is it just me, or do these two totally need to get a room?" She asked the unconscious child. Up ahead, Kagome shouted angrily before commanding a swift "sit" and Inuyasha hit the ground. She took her backpack and began to drag it the rest of the way as the hanyou struggled to free himself from the earth that apparently wanted to eat his face. La Fay rolled her gray tinged blue eyes. "That's a yes in the form of modern dance, I'm guessing. Now on to meet the other freaks of the ages."

* * * * * * * * *

"Okay, first encounters very rarely go well but I think that takes the cake." Kagome said inspecting the damage La Fay had done with Miroku's help.

The monk lay face down several yards away under a large, formerly stacked, pile of firewood, nearly unconscious but breathing. Pity La Fay thought to herself. "Boy trouble always was my specialty, if you didn't know."

"You mean, if we couldn't tell." Sango corrected. "And nice distance by the way. Most girls can't hit him that hard the first time he pulls something."

La Fay shrugged. "Like grandma always said, "When it comes to Mr. Wrong, it's all in the wrist.""

Even Kaede nodded from her place in the shadows of her hut. "Old women are wise, and so are the young women that listen to them."

Inuyasha rolled his eyes. "That's all we need, the young brats sounding like old broads! Will you shut up and stop poisoning what's not that great already!"

"Ye should watch your tongue, boy." The old lady said with a twitch of a smile.

"Neh?"

"Sit!" Kagome barked, and down he went. Inuyasha slammed into the ground with painful impact at Kagome's feet. "Poison what's already- you baka! Uh! I swear all men are trash!"

"No comment." Sango, Kaede, and La Fay said in unison.

* * * * * * * * *

"So Kaede is little sister miko, to the dead miko, that's like you in a past life, that's back from the dead, to kill your boyfriend that was her lap dog first, and she's a zombie working with Naraku to…. Oh god, I had it straight this morning!" La Fay said pushing her fist to her forehead as she and Kagome peeled potatoes for dinner.

Sango controlled a laugh from the pot she was stirring in the hearth. "So let me try this again: Naraku is a hanyou that was a vengeful human with a bad past, bad heart, bad soul, and bad ideas rolling around his head before he decided to put them to use stealing the Shekon jewel."

"Uh huh." Kagome said picking up another potato.

"He impersonated both Inuyasha and Kikyo to turn them against each other, pushing Kikyo into a life threatening battle and Inuyasha into stealing the jewel. Ticked, dying and confused, Kikyo seals Inuyasha to a tree, dies, and has the jewel burned with her, there by causing it to reappear when she's reborn as you?"

"That's right, keep going." Kagome said without looking up.

"So you wound up tangled in your dead self's aftermath fifty years after the whole tree thing, and broke the jewel into the tiny shards that we're trekking around for, collecting strange friends, a diary of your freaky adventures as you fight Naraku, and an assortment of other evil characters to reclaim the shards before Naraku can take over the world, … or something like that."

"Pretty much." Kagome nodded.

La Fay stabbed the potato she was working on. "That's really screwed up you know."

* * * * * * * * *

Sesshoumaru stood on the edge, staring into the inky darkness below, deeper than the darkness around. And yet all he saw was a pinnacle of light shining up from the depths where anyone else would have seen nothing. He saw freedom. Freedom just a few hundred feet away, not that far, even with the less than soft, even jagged landing - there it was. It was waiting for him. He could hear whispers of "come, …jump," He smiled into the dark pit. "…Fall…"

His gold eyes drifted on the shadowy sea, looking for Rin. She'd be waiting for him, a fist full of flowers in hand at The Gates Between, ready to take his hand and lead for the first time, into… where else?

Sesshoumaru cocked his head when he didn't see her. The waves far below became a little clearer as the moon blinked from behind a cloud for just a moment and he stopped his step towards the edge. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two young humans, lovers he guessed, heading for another part of the cliff farther down shore. They reached the edge and stopped for a moment in silence and threw their arms around one another, weeping as they did so. They pulled away and joined hands, nodding one last time before running at the edge of the crag… and jumping into the sea.

As they fell they were torn for each other's grasp and cried out, before disappearing into the rocks and foam below. Sesshoumaru hissed a sigh. There was nothing more satisfying or as pathetic as a human's last cry, but this confused him. The irony of trying to die together, only to be pulled apart at the last second, ruining eternity for them both, he was sure. It was almost funny.

He looked down the cliff side again to the shallow water below. There was no use in it, he surrendered. Rin wasn't waiting for him now nor would she be anytime soon he guessed. He would wait a while and try again later, maybe she'd be back from conversing with the other dead by then and ready to see him come. He had no intention of wandering the next world looking for her - she was much too good at hide and seek. So he'd wait. Maybe she'd stop playing games in a few months.

Sesshoumaru shook his head and began to walk back toward his seaside manor. If she ever stopped playing games, she wouldn't be Rin and if he ever stopped thinking as a lord, he wouldn't be much of anything…

* * * * * * * * *

La Fay sat up listening to the distant sound of the waves driving themselves against the cliffs in unsettled comfort. She stretched and opened her backpack to find a book to study from for a while, seeing as she wouldn't be sleeping tonight, she knew it. Inuyasha shifted in his light sleep on a branch somewhere above Kagome's pallet with a sigh while Kagome and Shippo remained fast asleep below. Sango breathed evenly across the fire and Miroku kept a respectful distance after a particularly bad bruising earlier that evening.

Everyone seemed to be at peace but her. La Fay shook it off and took out an old Celtic book of healing Wicca, opened the old binding, and began flipping through in the light of the fire. She tried to convince herself she was really reading for several moments before looking up with a sigh. She felt as though there was something happening that she was missing. She was about to put the book away when she swore she heard a far off scream, maybe two. Everything was silent for a long time.

I must be imagining things. Everybody knows the Banshees haunt moors, not seacoasts, and Salties can't scream if there's a moon. She assured herself it was all imagined by reciting a few other creatures of the dark and their habits so she would calm down. Besides, she continued, Sleeping Beauty in all his glory up there would be wide-awake if there was anything really dangerous around.

* * * * * * * * *

"Alright," Kagome said slinging her pack over her shoulder. "We'll split up today and meet back here in this glade in one week."

La Fay looked around carefully, taking in every detail of the clearing. "Right, I should know where you are the whole time. Sango and Shippo will come with me; Inuyasha and Miroku will go with you. There are five, maybe six to the south west-"

"And three or four to the north but the shadows are stronger there, so we'll take those." Kagome jumped in. Inuyasha and Miroku took their places at her side.

"Hey!" Shippo popped up on Sango's shoulder. "Don't I get a say in this?!"

"Do not worry Shippo, we will be just fine. Besides, I think you need a vacation from fighting with Inuyasha, don't we all?" Sango added under her breath.

"I heard that!" Inuyasha barked.

"Good for you." La Fay said raising her eyebrows and turning away. "Let's move out, people. I feel snow on the horizon. It's an early winter, no doubts, so let's go before we're too cold to move."

* * * * * * * * *

"Giant rats, yeah, this is entirely why I'm here." La Fay mumbled as she ran under the cover of a large tree, away from the elephant sized rodent demon attacking them. Shippo clung to a branch overhead for dear life while Sango was busy trying to free her boomerang from the base of a large stone sticking straight out of the ground several yards away.

La Fay pulled out the line on her throwing daggers and began to quickly rewind them. Oh Athens I hope this works! She heard Shippo scream and instinctively looked up, just as he fell from the sky and landed at her feet.

"Ow." The child groaned.

La Fay turned around just in time to see the huge rodent demon pull up the tree by its roots with its over grown incisors. "Oh damn…"She muttered.

The beast tossed the tree away threw its head up in a victorious roar, giving La Fay a clear shot at its main artery. She took the shot, sending three Druid blessed blades into the animal's throat and out the back of its neck, killing it instantly and pulling out the two shards as it fell on its side suddenly silent. The daggers landed blade down in the earth a few feet away just as Sango managed to free her bone weapon.

La Fay trotted over and took up the daggers and shards. "I want a bath. There can't be anything more gross than rat's blood." She said looking over her blood-drenched clothes.

"Nothing directly comes to mind." Sango agreed. "Where did you get those?" she asked, pointing at the daggers La Fay was cleaning.

"These?" La Fay held one up. "They're my granda's, back in the old country. Very old, very powerful magic. Takes a sage to handle them right, I don't even come close."

Sango replaced her weapon to its sheath on her back. "I think you do alright for yourself, and this is coming from a hunter so you know it's true."

"Thanks Sango, but anyone can toss a sword around. These hold potent Celtic magics, back from when men didn't know the mainland God or His Son. See these?" She pointed to several symbols that showed through the blood. "Runes, the only script that magic ever acknowledged. When I can pen runes that magic bends to, then I am a sage, and then I can use my granda's daggers as they haven't been used in a millennia."

"Pressure?" Sango asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Not really." La Fay laughed. "No body in my family has been able to work them right in generations, nobody actually expects me to be the one to do it, especially having only seen the mother isle once."

"Pity, you'd be more helpful if you could."

"Oh right Miss "My weapon was stuck in a rock and I was of no assistance whatsoever"!"

"Oh, shut up!" Sango barked sarcastically.

"Shut up, both of you!" Shippo slurred, stumbling over towards them uncertainly. "No more rats, no more trees, no more talking! Uh," he fell back on his butt with a yelp. "Make the ringing stop…" He slumped over onto the grass unconscious leaving the two women silently amused.

A/n: Alright, I am so sorry it took me so long to post, it isn't fair to have kept you waiting, so if you want revenge I'll get my History teacher's address and you can go (ahem) "take care" of her for me so I have less homework and more time to devote to you and my stories. Don't get me wrong, if I didn't understand history I wouldn't be able to write the way I do but the woman is psychotic and thrives on my suffering, and through mine, yours! Suffering is my business so I know. Anyway, I'm far more motivated when I have fresh reviews, so god damn it, review! And if anyone wants to really syke me up to write, e-mail information about any good (preferably fairly tasteful) fan fictions that you've found to Gothic-Tinkerbell and she will notify me. It's a complicated thing but to make it short, hate my mother for me to help encourage her to get me my own e-mail address, please!

And remember boys and girls, Inuyasha good, Sponge Bob Square Pants eats your brains and makes you gay and preppy like him. You know it's true so don't flame me for saying it because somebody had to.