The Shikon Princess

17

Dinner went off without much incident. While Kagome was more used to others preparing dishes for her and eating from a plate, she had to admit, there was a bit of satisfaction in helping cook her own dinner. Sure, it wasn't all that complicated, with Inuyasha having done the dirty work of killing and cleaning the rabbits, and Shippo made the fire, but she enjoyed her little moment of self sufficiency as she ate the primitive way with her two companions.

And now, she was carefully cleaning the fox child's dirty face despite his protests that he was old enough to do so on his own. She had attempted to pick his hair apart with the chopstick from her own, but it simply wasn't needed. It wasn't tangled and matted like hers, but almost composed of a soft fur, denser and not as silken as Inuyasha's, but free of troublesome knots all the same.

The boy scrunched up his face and she pulled the scrap of fabric away from him nodding, "There, I think you're all set." Shippo shook his tail out and smiled at her.

"Thanks, Kagome," He says, "I suppose I do feel a little better now that I'm clean." He yawned and Kagome lifted back the folded over sheep's pelt, warm and soft inside.

"Do you think you're ready for bed?" She asks, "Inuyasha will likely want to set out early tomorrow," She glanced at the haphazardly covered door, her husband having trudged out when the storm let up a little to gather firewood to keep the makeshift cabin warm through the night. The fox child curled into the soft pelt, and she gently laid it over him. She started to get up, but his small voice stopped her.

"Can you stay back here for a little while, Lady Kagome?" He asked rather timidly, and she slowly nodded, smiling, "Just until I fall asleep of course. I know you have to keep Elder Brother company." Kagome carefully adjusted her legs into a lotus position and used the wet rag from Shippo's face to start cleaning her cut feet.

"Why do you call him that?" She asks, "Elder Brother?" The child's green eyes blinked at her, a little surprised by the question. But then again, to a human it must not seem so obvious.

"Dog Yokai are cousins to Kitsune," he replies, "When you said you wanted to care for me, and he took me into his pack, he became closer family. And by avenging my father, he became my elder brother." He looked at the small wounds on the soles of the mortal woman's feet. "That looks like it hurts."

"It isn't so bad," she says softly, "I just have to keep the wounds clean, and they'll heal." She grabbed onto one of the tears in the black skirt she wore and carefully tore the hem away, making a long strip of relatively clean cloth.

Shippo lay his head down and watched intently as Kagome began carefully binding the wounds of her injured feet, almost making a sort of tabi of black cloth. After finishing one, she tucked it back beneath her tattered skirt and pulled another strip to begin on her second foot.

She was just tying it off when an especially loud clap of thunder caused the fox child to leap up and crawl into her lap, whimpering.

"Oh Shippo," Kagome replies gently, stroking his flame-colored hair, "Why didn't you say you were afraid of storms?" He looked up at her from where he clung to the snakeskin of her binding, his eyes filled with tears.

"I'm not really, but the, the, thun-" The sky outside flashed again and a rolling boom shook the chamber again. Kagome nodded in understanding and grabbed the sheepskin up again, wrapping it tightly around the kitsune child.

"I know, Shippo. I know," she says softly, tucking the wool close to his head against his ears.

"That, won't work, Kagome," He says, "I'm a kitsune. I can still hear it." Kagome frowns a little before something she used to do for Sota when he would sneak to her rooms after a nightmare would occurred to her.