maternal instinct

chapter 2

The next day they decided to press on again, because Kagome's keen miko senses had not detected the presence of a Shikon shard anywhere near them. The days passed endlessly like that; occassionally they would loop back to Kaede's village to let Kagome visit her own world for a few days, but after a while they'd strike out again in a new direction.

Sango had made a makeshift sling from her kerchief, which she tied around her neck, and the three bunnies were snuggled up warm against her body. They moved around occassionally, and they tickled. Kirara kept a perch on her shoulder, watching the tiny animals with interest.

"Sango-chan, I've never seen you look so happy," Kagome commented as they walked along.

"Kagome-sama is right," Miroku commented. "There is a sparkle in your eyes that I haven't seen before."

"I . . .," Sango was horrified when she started to blush. Miroku rarely gave a compliment that wasn't accompianied by a groping hand, but the houshi was on the other side of Kagome and her bike and so couldn't sneak a feel when her guard was down.

"Sango shouldn't have weighed herself down with those rabbits," Inuyasha complained from the front of the group. "What happens if we encounter a youkai, or even Naraku? You can't fight with those things around your neck."

"What good is fighting if it isn't to protect something?" Sango countered, surprising herself.

"Inuyasha, don't be such a bully." Kagome walked her bike up to Inuyasha, put her hands on her hips and started waggling her finger at him. "If you had paid more attention you would have realized the rabbit had a form she was protecting. Even Sango says she smelled it."

Shippou rolled his eyes from Kagome's bicycle basket, and Sango shared his sentiment even if she didn't make the same gesture.

"Here we go again," Miroku said, suddenly next to her as Kagome and Inuyasha started their daily fight. He had filled in the gap left by Kagome's bicycle.

"Some things will never change," Shippou said, hopping out of the basket to watch the fight with the others.

The bunnies inside her pouch squirmed at the noise, and little Genki popped his head out, looking at the fight with bunny interest.

"Jeez, Kagome, rabbits are breeding all the time! If she wasn't a mother now she would have been pregnant! It's early spring. For those three babies that were in the form, another hundred rabbits in the field are still there."

"So you knew she was nursing and still you killed her? That's just cruel, Inuyasha!"

"I -- Kagome, listen, I--"

"Osuwari." Slam!

At the slamming noise, Genki squirmed all the way out of the pouch and tumbled out of Sango's arms, trying to run away in fear. Sango's cry was punctuated with a lighting fast move from Shippou, who carefully caught the rabbit in his tiny hands before it hit the ground. Sango let out a sigh of relief at the same time as Shippou.

"Kagome-sama, Inuyasha-sama, when there are children present, you must learn to stay quieter," Miroku gently scolded, and Kagome stared at him, blinking in surprise. He and Shippou were fussing over Genki, making sure that the bunny hadn't been hurt in the fall. Even Kirara was nosing at the bunny from Sango's shoulder.

Inuyasha recovered from the "sit" and looked up at Kagome, fully intending to turn the full force of his potty mouth upon her. He then looked to where she was staring, and he too blinked a few times.

"Ne, Inuyasha," Kagome whispered. "I think . . . I don't think they're paying attention to us."

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

Kagome ignored the question. "Don't you think Sango and Miroku would both make good parents?" Kagome had taken on her sparkling dreamy look, the one she wore when she was fantasizing Miroku and Sango's futurastic wedding.

"What does that have to do with anything too?" Inuyasha knew there was no reasoning with Kagome when she had that expression on her face, and he started off again down the road.

"I'm leaving you all behind. I'll find the damn shikon shards myself."

"Wait, Inuyasha!" Kagome called, snapping out of her daydream and jogging to catch up with them. Shippou leapt ahead and landed in her bicycle basket once more.

Sango and Miroku started walking again, but stayed behind, fussing quietly over the rabbits.

"Genki would have been fine if he fell. Bunnies are quite strong and grow up quickly," Miroku said, tickling Hiyoko behind his tiny bunny ears.

"I'm still glad Shippou caught him," Sango murmured, and cuddled the sling of bunnies in her arms. "I'd hate to lose even one of them now."

The three bunnies, still just over a week old, fell back asleep as they walked, lulled by the gentle rhythm of Sango's gate and the soft beating of her heart.

They stopped at a village that evening, and Miroku went through his usual "exorcise a demon, real or imagined, and get us a place to stay" routine that always worked so well. In this particular village headman's case, a very minor demon had taken up residence in his roof, but a few ofuda and one good dash with Miroku's staff cleared it up quickly.

She was grateful for the warmth and relative safety of indoors. The bunnies were already getting restless, and they'd more likely than not hop out of her scarf sometime in the evening. They were eating ground grass mixed with just a little water now, since Kagome had only had one can of goats milk, but they seemed to be doing fine.

Rabbits, even baby ones, didn't require a lot of water, and folklore held that they shouldn't drink any at all. Most sensible people knew that all animals required water, though, so Sango made sure to give them just a little, out of the palm of her hand.

As the group settled in for the night, the three baby rabbits hopped around the floor in front of her, eliciting a faint half smile from even Inuyasha, and laughter from everyone else.

"They're just so tiny!" Kagome exclaimed as the three babies tumbled over each other. "I would never have imagined that rabbits that small could be covered in fur."

"It grows in after a week or so. Some types of rabbits, or at least rabbit like creatures, are born with fur, but these ones are born naked, like most mammels."

Kagome nodded. "I learned that in biology class. The other rabbits are called hares, and they're not really rabbits at all, they just look a little like them. They're stronger and have longer legs. I didn't know that they were native to Japan, though."

"I've never seen one, but the demon hunters have a lot of knowledge that most other people don't, like the knowledge of how to properly make weapons to fight youkai."

"Knowledge is dangerous, but ignorance is even moreso," Kagome quoted, picking up a bunny and letting it sit in the palm of her hand. It tried to hop up her arm. "Speaking of which, I need to study some math . . ." She set the bunny down again, and it scratched absently at its ear.

Inuyasha had fallen into his usual sulky silence while Kagome worked out trigonometry equations. Sango, Miroku, and Shippou continued playing with the bunnies for a long time, before the fox demon finally tuckered out and curled up in a ball on the floor. The fire burned low before Kagome gave up and turned in as well. Even Inuyasha napped a bit, leaning against the wall with Tessaiga carefully held in his arms.

Miroku and Sango stared at the low firelight, while the bunnies hopped around them on the wooden floor of the house, playing their own game. They were too young to continue hopping for long, however, and Sango gathered them on her lap. She sat cross-legged, and her yukata apron gave them a gentle sleeping place much like their mother's form.

"You'd make a good mother, Sango," Miroku said. Sango winced. He was within groping distance, too.

"You don't have to ask me to bear your child, houshi-sama. We've been through that before."

"Yes, but you never answered me that time." Miroku's voice verily purred throughout the darkness. "Anyway, what I gave you was a compliment. Can't you just accept that?"

"Rabbits and human babies aren't the same at all. Bunnies grow up in two weeks. These ones will be ready to leave me in just a few days. A human child takes fifteen years before it's really ready to stand on its own. Don't you ever realize the sacrifice you ask of girls, beyond the fact that their child will be cursed?"

Miroku was silent for a moment, and then he shrugged slightly. "I always ask pretty girls that, in the hopes that they'll agree to let me ma --"

"I didn't need to know that for sure!" Sango snapped loudly, causing Kagome to mumble in her sleep and Inuyasha to lazily open one eye for a moment before returning to his own rest. In a much quieter voice, Sango hissed, "But you just confirmed everything I always suspected about you."

"Such as . . .?" Miroku pressed.

Sango looked away, blushing. "That you're a good-for-nothing pervert, deep down inside, and that you really don't care for anyone except yourself, especially when it comes to . . . gratification." She blushed even harder and scowled angrily at herself. Miroku was a lot more than that, and she was being unfair. He was also good and kind, and followed the ways of Buddha, more or less. A truly bad person wouldn't have his spiritual powers.

Miroku seemed rather amused, however. "Surface appearances mean very little when it comes to the heart," he said calmly, and reached over to her lap. She nearly screeched until his hand left again, with a soft fuzzy bundle of baby rabbit in his palm. He hadn't even copped a feel. "These rabbits, for instance. I never would have guessed that you'd be the sort to raise wild animals who lost their families."

"I couldn't just leave them to die."

"They may die, anyway. Rabbits live on the bottom of what Kagome calls the 'food chain.' Predators abound. Only a fourth of all rabbits ever live to see their first year."

"Now you sound like Inuyasha," Sango muttered, and stroked one of the sleeping bunnies still on her lap. "I don't know why I decided to save them. I think . . . it's just a way of fighting the injustice of life. I've lost my family because of that injustice. You lost your father, Inuyasha lost Kikyou . . . we've all lost so much. Every little thing that I do to fight that evil, that injustice . . . that darkness in the universe, makes me feel a little better about myself."

"Is that the reason you became a taiji-ya? From what I understand, most of the women in your village chose to stay at home rather than following the proffession themselves."

"That's part of it. It's also a tradition in my family. Mother had been one of the best hunters in the village, until the accident that happened when I was ten. Kohaku was only four, and we lost our mother . . . I decided then that I'd be a hunter too, just as good as she was, and that he'd have me to follow instead of her."

"You were a surrogate mother to your brother, just like you are to those rabbits," Miroku clarified, and placed the bunny back in her lap. Then, casually, he rested his hand on her knee. Oddly enough, Sango didn't feel like slapping him away. She felt the tears slipping down her face, and knew why. He was comforting her this time, instead of randomly groping.

She sniffled and wiped the tears off her face. "Is it so wrong to try to fight the darkness like this? I've b-burdened the group unnecessarily. You and Inuyasha both told me that they'll probably die anyway, so what I've done is all in vain."

"It isn't wrong at all, Sango-chan. It is, perhaps, the only truly right thing to do. You're lighting a candle in that darkness, to fight against it. If every human being lit a candle like you do, then there would be no darkness left at all to fight."

For a moment the sound of the fire filled the room, its snaps and crackles the only thing breaking the silence.

"I wish I could light a bonfire," she said after a while.

"We're only human. We can only do so much. But doing a little is better than doing nothing at all."

They fell silent for another few minutes, until Miroku's hands started their slow, inevitable journey up her thigh, at which point the sharp crack of palm against cheek echoed in the room.

Miroku sighed, and Sango scooted away from him, burning with outrage and embarassment. That . . . that . . . damned priest! One minute saying exactly the right thing to make her feel better, the next doing exactly the wrong thing!

"I'm going to bed," she grumbled darkly, and tucked the bunnies in her kerchief, curling up on the floor with her back to Miroku and the fire. She called over her shoulder, in case he was still listening, "Sometimes doing nothing is also the best thing."

Why? she asked herself desperately. Why is he the only one who understands? Why does he always have to ruin everything?

End chapter 2