Wren Song by Selestia

Six of Cups

"Six of Cups"

Six of Cups. Astrological association: Water. Emotions. Living in the past; not willing to let the past go; the study of history or genealogy; a discovery about the past; meeting someone from your past; learning about a legacy; a gift from an admirer; nostalgia; the possibility of a lover returning. Actions of the past bear emotional fruit in the present; sentimental journey.

"Oi! Give that back!"

Kagome jumped up, lunging upward for the rolled paper that Inuyasha had plucked from her lap. He held it over his own head and beyond her shorter stretch, making her temper just that much shorter than it already was.

"What is this? More of that hooomework? I thought you were through with that!"

She growled and made a jump for the paper, which only made the hanyou jump back from her. "I finished high school, baka! Now gimme that!"

Inuyasha danced backward once again when she made a swipe for the paper, still unable to get a chance to take a closer look at it. "If you finished that-that school then you shouldn't have to do homework!"

"Chotto..."

Sango and Miroku stared, deadpanned, as the argument heated up for just a few moments longer--

"Osuwari!"

"Nyaagh!"

Sango watched Kagome stalk back over to the log she had been sitting on while Miroku sighed at the hanyou that was now face-first in the dirt. Shippou hopped off the houshi's shoulder, strutting closer to Inuyasha, and popped the sucker from his mouth long enough to give the inevitable running commentary.

"You never learn, do you?"

"Temee--"

"Inuyasha!"

The hanyou covered his ears quickly, Shippou jumping from his reach as Kagome glared at Inuyasha over her shoulder. She did not, however, use the word that he was oh-so fearing.

"Kagome-chan," Sango started, scratching Kirara between the ears from where the fire youkai was nestled in her lap, "Inuyasha is right, though. We thought you had finished school."

"Hai! I finished high school! This," and she held up the rolled paper at that, "is for college."

"College?"

Miroku sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I have a feeling that that is just higher high school. Ne, Kagome-sama?"

"Hai!"

"They sure do have a great need for education in your time, Kagome-chan."

Kagome turned halfway on the log at that, smiling somewhat apologetically to Sango. "Hai...it's a lot different than it is now. You have to have a good education to get anywhere anymore."

"Well, you have to be here for us to get anywhere!"

Shippou hopped back onto Miroku's shoulder when they saw the small vein pulse in Kagome's forehead at Inuyasha's untoward remark. "Ano, Inuyasha..."

"So, what exactly is that paper, Kagome-sama?" Miroku chipped in, hoping to defuse a potentially disastrous situation. Though they were still fuzzy on Kagome's time (having never actually been there), they could understand her need to maintain her time's normalcy. Inuyasha, however, rarely could.

"It's a genealogy chart."

The trio on the log blinked at her. "Eh?"

"It tells me the family history--my family tree."

Sango tilted her head, puzzled. "Why do you need to know about your bloodline?"

"Two of the professors are tag-teaming about this. One of them wants us to see how far back we can actually trace our roots, and the other is actually looking at the genealogy of our charts--the genetics and medical histories and how often different things occurred and all that good stuff."

Miroku winced, Shippou frowning his confusion. "Sounds complicated."

It definitely looked that way to them, as well. Kagome had even begun carrying a second bag, a smaller, black satchel that was swung over her shoulder to hang down beneath her arm to her hip. In there, she kept her homework. Her little yellow pack carried other essentials anymore, and there was no more room for homework.

"It is, but thankfully several of my ancestors had the 'must-know-everything' trait that Jii-san has, so a lot of it is really detailed and recorded." Kagome tapped the rolled paper on her knee. "Who'd have thought that one Jii-san's tenacious habits would prove useful? Or genetic?"

"Obviously 'useful' habits don't run in families--you don't have any..."

"Osuwari."

"Rin, nani tendaska?"

Rin stood quickly, turning around, arms falling to her sides, the parchment paper still clutched in her hands. She smiled brightly--a sure smile, one that was sure she was not in trouble. Not just yet, anyway.

"I'm writing, Sesshoumaru-sama."

"Nani?"

She held up the parchment at that, showing that several of the pages were, indeed, full of her scribbled writing. One did not get much time to practice penmanship traveling the way that they did. Not that a human girl would need to write. Though the taiyoukai had thought differently.

"I am writing about the different things we have done, and the different people we have met, Sesshoumaru-sama."

Rin had always been respectful to the tall taiyoukai--she had no reason not to be, and every reason to be respectful. She smiled pleasantly as he stared down at her, almost blankly, but having been in his company for so many years, she was slowly--slowly--beginning to read his expressions.

It was more than Jaken could say, and he had been at it for more than a century.

"Doshite, Rin?"

Why did she write it all down? She looked down briefly, then back up. Rin remembered back when she had first encountered the taiyoukai. He had been very, very scary. And very, very intimidating. She had only just recently noticed how she no longer had to crane her neck to look up at him. Either she was getting taller, or he was shrinking.

She had to be getting taller. Nothing could shrink the great Sesshoumaru!

"So that I can remember for years to come!"

That answer seemed to satisfy him, as he gave her the barest nod. Rin smiled up at him once again as he turned away from her, glancing across the meadow they had come to rest in. Ah-Un raised their heads at his attention change, waiting for their next move.

"Rin."

"Hai?"

"Stay here with Jaken and Ah-Un."

Jaken looked up at that, yellowy eyes bulging even more than they usually did. "Sess-Sesshoumaru-sama?"

Rin, too, looked perplexed, a small frown pressing her dainty eyebrows. "H-Hai, Sesshoumaru-sama."

Inuyasha carefully maneuvered Kagome around another bend before she once again ran straight into a tree. It was beginning to take a certain amount of finesse to keep her from stumbling off the road and into something unpleasant, for she had kept her nose forever in that old parchment, the odd-looking writing tool of hers tapping different places on the 'family tree' as she had called it. It was so engrossing to her that, apparently, she had forgotten to look where she was going.

Leaving that to Inuyasha.

A gentle tug on her ever-present yellow backpack made her feet turn slightly, and prevented the inevitable disaster, had she been left to her own devices. They were all just glad that Inuyasha had had presence of mind enough to make sure that nothing untoward happened to Kagome. It was almost a matter of fact that she could somehow blame it on the hanyou. Usually is was his fault, but sometimes... Preoccupation at its finest.

"So where are we going?"

The hanyou in question glowered at Shippou, who attempted to hide himself behind Miroku's hair--to no avail. It just was not as thick as Kagome's--not a good hiding spot at all.

"Kagome-chan has to drop off her...hooomework." Inuyasha made the word as disgusting-sounding as he possibly could, giving Kagome a glower in the process.

"I'll only be gone for about an hour or two. I'm not staying long."

"If you had just quit this school crap we could have had the Shikon no Tama completed years ag--"

Inuyasha stopped, ears twitching as Kagome peered at him sidelong, raising her head from the paper to give him an extremely dirty look. He swallowed, then stuffed his hands in his haori, scowling at the ground ahead of him with quite an amount of loathing.

Kagome sighed, looking back down at the paper, tapping her pencil repeatedly on a few of the oldest kanjis, then rolled the paper up and put it carefully in her black satchel. Some of them were so blurred that she really couldn't even attempt to make out what they said. Two or three of those really old ones...the names looked, well...

Familiar.

They watched from on high, the cliff overlooking a large expanse of woods, river and meadow. It was quite a beautiful sight, and for one, it was made even more beautiful by the sight of the lone white figure disappearing into the woods, heading away from their present location.

Glancing down at the mirror that one of them carried, he smirked, watching the odd miko head off on her own after they had reached the little village near the Goshinboku, hoisting her peculiar satchel higher on her shoulders. She would be completely, utterly alone...

"They just do not have the enthusiasm they had once upon a time. Let us go give it back to them, renew their flagging spirits."

Winds billowed briefly around him, and he looked up to see two of his companions disappearing off to deal with one group.

They would take care of the rest.

Glossary

osuwari -- "Sit!"

nani tendaska -- "What are you doing?"

hanyou -- "half-demon"

taiyoukai -- "demon lord"

houshi -- "monk"

Goshinboku -- "Tree of Ages" (Psst...the one Inuyasha was sealed to?)

chotto -- "chotto matte" -- "wait a minute"

Author's Notes: Yes, yes, the Six of Cups is a tarot card. I'm up to no good again! ^_^