Early in the morning, when the moon was not yet to bed, the sun began to open its eyes, a slight pink dot on the horizon. The moon fled in terror at the power of the awoken sun, folding itself deep into the dying night. The sun was angered at the moon’s insolence, and began to chase the moon, spreading its light across the lands and the people who inhabited them. The people rejoiced at the sun’s presence, and awoke to its warm glow.
In its everlasting chase of the moon and stars, the sun rose on the forests of Japan, reaching out to send soft tendrils of light to a youthful couple by a dead fire wrapped in each other’s arms. It stirred the young coyote, her bright amber eyes slowly flickering open in protest to the sun’s radiance.
She yawned silently, trying not to move. Her beau, the young wolf, had his head rested on her shoulder, his warm breath on her skin sending chills of pleasure down her spine. Last night had all seemed like a dream…a wonderful, wonderful dream. Scenes flashed before her eyes in a dizzying rush of blessed reality, her mind drinking in the incredible fact that it had all been true.
She wondered…would she wake him? Courtney slowly turned her face towards his, brushing her lips against his cheek. He mumbled a bit in his sleep, and a slight grin came on his face. To her surprise, the grin kept getting bigger until she realized he hadn’t been asleep. Blushing, she hit him playfully, and his eyes snapped open. He laughed out loud and reached around her waist, squeezing her tightly.
Laughing, she pulled on his arms, trying to get out, but secretly loving it. She broke free, and started running down the road, laughing all the way. “Can’t catch me, Koga!”
Koga laughed too, and started chasing her down the road, barely jogging to catch up with her. He didn’t catch her, staying close on her heels. This went on for a while, until Koga swept her up in his arms, and hauled her onto his back, before running as fast as he could, cyclones forming in his wake.
Courtney clutched onto his shoulders for dear life, wrapping her legs around his waist as the scenery rushed by her, the trees, sky, and water becoming a single multicolored blur. She closed her eyes in fright, but opened them again out of curiosity. After the initial shock wore off, she found the experience, quite literally, breathtaking. The country sped by her, and if she focused her eyes enough, she could make out mountains, streams, and occasionally, a large rice paddy. But one specific thing caught her eye the most. As the countryside zipped by, her ears perked at the sound of screaming, and bright orange flames jumped up before her eyes.
She poked Koga, and he stopped, questioningly looking back at her. Jumping off, he pointed out the flames. “Can’t you see that village is on fire?”
Koga shrugged. “So?”
“Shouldn’t we help?”
“Why?”
Courtney rolled her eyes and started sprinting towards the village. “Just c’mon!”
~-~
In the village, chaos reigned as the unruly fire spread quickly through the thatched roof huts, he flames leaping across rooftops, flimsy houses with paper windows going down like matchboxes. Courtney’s eyes burned from the ash, her sensitive nose going crazy with mixed smells of burned corpses and smoke. Screaming villagers ran around the village, some trying vainly to put out the fire, others fleeing for their lives. None of them seemed to notice the extravagantly dressed girl with furry ears, and her friend the wolf demon.
Courtney’s ears perked up amidst the screaming, and a lone child’s wail broke the noise. She turned sharply around, tracking the source of the noise to a burning home to her left. Her eyes got wide, and she quickly shed her kimono, revealing her fighting clothes underneath.
She started to run towards the house, until Koga grabbed her arm and gripped it tightly.
“Where are you going?”
Courtney yanked her arm away, her eyes reflecting the inferno in front of her. “There’s a kid in there!”
“You’re not going in there!” Koga bellowed behind her.
But she was long gone now, slipping through the doorway into the small shack. The house was in shambles, beams from the walls collapsing in fiery bursts of light. Her eyes grim, she called out to the invisible child, getting only a small whimper in return, followed by a shriek as another plank fell from the ceiling. Courtney guarded her eyes from the blast, and followed the sound to a small broom closet in the back area. With her lungs heaving and eyes watering up a storm, she opened the door to find not one child, but three!
They were huddled in the corner, tears and ash running down their faces in terror.
Courtney squatted down in front of them and shushed them. “Shh. Shh, now, I’m here to help. We’ve got to get out of here!”
It was to no avail. After she started talking, they simply wailed louder, clinging on to each other. Confused a bit, Courtney opened her mouth to calm them down again. The instead cringed more! Her fangs! Courtney ran her tongue over them, considering a way to get them out. As a beam crashed behind her, she started. No time! She squatted down again, and urgently addressed the frightened children, “Listen, I know I may look scary, but you have to trust me. You,” she gestured to the oldest-looking of the three, a spunky girl about 9, “can you hold her,” she gestured to the youngest, “while hanging onto my back?”
The girl nodded her eyes wide.
Courtney scooped up the middle child, and squatted low, and scooped her into her arms, and was about to grab the other two when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Looking up, she found herself staring into a pair of dark brown eyes. It was Koga. Courtney quickly nodded to him, and he scooped up the other two. They ran out of the closet right in time, and the fiery burst behind them said that the closet had completely collapsed.
Koga ran out the door with the two children, and Courtney began to follow, when the child in her arms put up a fuss. Pulling at her braid, the girl pointed to a bench in the corner of the opposite side of the room. On the bench lay a small rag doll, tattered and torn from years of love.
Courtney looked towards the doorway, where Koga was waiting with the two other children, and he motioned for her to come out. Looking back at the doll and the teary child, she gently tossed the girl out of the door to the air outside, and ran to the doll.
Outside, Koga fumed, holding the hands of the three children they had saved. What was she doing? Couldn’t she see that the house was going down? Koga could only watch and worry and it drove him crazy. Tears burned in his eyes, the drops of water making clear inroads in the caked soot on his face. Then, as if in a nightmare, he heard a large crash as a rafter from the house fell, along with most of the roof. There was a scream, and then deadly silence. Koga’s eyes went wide, and he dropped the hands of the children. He quickly sprinted to the house, and tried to enter, but was repulsed by the heat of the flames. He was helpless.
~-~
Courtney had run through the hut, and had retrieved the doll, ready to exit as soon as she reached the door. Turning back to the door, she looked on in horror as she realized that it had fallen, a flaming X blocking her way out. She ran to the windows, finding them boarded up for the window. Desperately, she tried to claw them apart. Unexpectedly, she heard a loud CRACK, felt a crashing pain, a flash of red, and remembered no more.
~-~
Courtney awoke to a pair of bright amber eyes, a gentle face staring worriedly down at her. It was so fuzzy… Courtney closed her eyes, drifting back out of consciousness again.
This happened several times over the next few days. She drifted in and out of consciousness; never remembering what she did, or where she was. The same amber eyes were always there when she awoke, although lots of times a pair of grey would be there too. She wondered who’s they were… Sometimes she wondered if she dreamed it.
One day, she woke up, and those grey eyes were looking down at her. She saw through her blur that they were filled with tears, odd enough for such the rugged face that surrounded it. Her eyes got sharper, and she could see more features that surrounded those eyes. It was…a he, and he sure was handsome. He had high cheekbones and pointy ears, and a high ponytail with bangs over a fur headband…She smiled, finally recognizing him.
“Koga…”
Koga jumped, and he bent over her, putting his hand behind her neck, supporting her head. Her voice was like a rasp, he had barely recognized it. His eyes, wet with tears, had the look of a haunted man that had not been there before the fire. He stroked her face gently with the back of his free hand, his worried eyes never taking his eyes off of her. A tear dropped on her blanket, but he seemed not to care. ‘Courtney…”
She tried to reach out to him, but pain shot through her arms, and she let out a soft groan of agony. She relaxed her body, but her face still tilted up, looking at him. Shifting her head, she looked at his troubled features, and quietly asked him, “What…happened?”
Koga hung his head, as if ashamed. His voice choked up, and more tears rolled onto the blanket. Quietly, he sat and wept over her for a few moments. Finally, he wiped his eyes, and quietly explained, his voice still tense and uneven. “After…After you stayed in to grab that girl’s doll, I tried to come after you, but the doorway had collapsed. The whole outside of the house was on fire, and I couldn’t….” he paused, a fresh tear trickling down his face. Haggardly he went on, his voice choking up more and more. “I couldn’t reach you, Courtney. A flaming rafter fell in the house, and landed on your back. You screamed, and I tried to go after you again. I still couldn’t get in, and my hands and legs were badly burned. I…I thought I had lost you, Courtney...”
Koga hung his head, the tears now sliding down his face unashamedly, and soft sobs wracked his shoulders. Courtney reached out a hand, gritting her teeth at the pain. She wiped his face, pulling it down to her before kissing him on the cheek. This calmed him down slightly, but he had now taken her hand and was squeezing it fit to burst. Courtney ignored it, listening to the words that he whispered softly, almost straining to hear.
“I was still trying to get to you when I saw this red flash. It was Inuyasha, and because of his Robe of the Fire Rat he was able to go in and get you and not get burned. After the fire burned itself out, we were still in the village. The villagers saw me, you, and Inuyasha and accused us of starting the fire. They had us surrounded when the children you saved came up with their mother and asked them to stop on our behalf, because we had saved them. The people only hesitated for a moment, when some fool suggested we did that as a ruse. They attacked us, but with you out of commission we had to keep them from killing you while you were down. We couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t run because we were surrounded. Inuyasha didn’t have the guts to use his Windscar on innocent people, and Kagome, the monk and the demon slayer also couldn’t do a damn thing without hurting you or the people. “
Gone was the tear, gone was the sadness; in its place was righteous fury. Koga bared his teeth, his fangs gleaming in the firelight, a tic going off in his forehead. He clenched his jaw, speaking almost in a hiss through his fangs. “They forced us to surrender on the terms that none would be killed until the investigation was over. We’re now trapped in the headman’s house, and guards are all around the doors. If any of us try to escape, they kill us all.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
I DO NOT OWN INUYASHA OR HIS FRIENDS OR FOES.
I do own Courtney.
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