Kagome looked down at the dead bovine that had been lain at her doorstep for her to find that morning, at a complete loss.

Kagome did not hunt animals. She was not going to kill cute, fluffy animals for food. She would fish, if needed, but she would not hunt.

InuYasha had learned long ago not to kill animals around her, let alone skin or gut them in front of her. She had enough blood and guts around her from the yokai slaying he did, anyway, even if she'd been in the mood for meat—and she rarely was. More often than not, even when he hunted, she tended to stick to fish, much to InuYasha's annoyance.

But fish, to Kagome, didn't quite seem as alive as other animals. They were scaley and slimy and their glassy eyes didn't scream 'don't eat me!' at her and so she never really felt as guilty for eating fish. But seeing the animal, full-bodied, that she ate her meat from, looking almost as if it could get up and run... It was too much.

She wanted it gone as soon as she saw it, but she wasn't sure what to do with the dead cow. The villagers ate meat without the same compunctions Kagome had, but there wasn't enough cow to split fairly amongst everyone and she really couldn't afford the appearance of favoritism as a priestess. There was always InuYasha, who could eat an entire cow—if they let him—but somehow it didn't seem right to give the carcass to him when it had clearly been meant for her.

After Kaede had died last year, Kagome lived in the hut alone. She had shared it with Rin before Kaede's passing, but Rin had shown an interest in traveling with Kohaku a few months before and, now that she was fifteen, Kagome really couldn't stop her. After all, she'd been the same age when she'd started traveling with InuYasha.

InuYasha, on the other hand, didn't have a home. He claimed he preferred sleeping out in the stars, but when he returned to the village after traveling or slaying minor yokai, he more often than not bunked with her. Still, she doubted the cow had been left for him since he'd been gone for a week—and InuYasha knew better than to leave it for her himself.

Kagome sighed and then decided there was no other option. Though she hated to leave them with all the work, at least it would help their foodstore for the winter. She gingerly stepped around the bloody carcass and made her way over to Miroku's and Sango's, unaware of the eyes trained on her that narrowed in displeasure.

.

Unfortunately, the 'gifts' didn't stop at the cow. Over the next few weeks, Kagome found herself on the receiving end of an increasing number of odd gifts. The heifer carcass had been followed by a large and equally dead horse. And while Kagome knew people ate horse, she wasn't one of them, and neither were Miroku and Sango. They'd gotten rid of that carcass, discretely.

After that, the gifts had changed, but they didn't get any less dead. A few days after the cow, she found a large snake yokai, the biggest she'd ever seen. That had been swiftly followed by a large boar yokai which had been followed by an overgrown dragon all too eerily similar to the one InuYasha had slain. After that, Kagome stopped trying to keep track of all the death, consoling herself with the knowledge that the yokai she found all seemed connected to the rumors she heard of yokai terrorizing nearby villages.

At least whoever was tormenting her wasn't off killing random peaceful yokai. Still, she really just wished whoever was doing it would stop, but she never caught sight of her mysterious benefactor and neither did anyone else.

She hadn't been able to hide the dead yokai, either. They'd needed the villagers' help getting the bodies to the well and rumors had already begun revolving around the odd circumstances. Everyone had their own ideas about what was going on, from the inane to the insane. All Kagome could do was hold her head up and hope that the gifts eventually stopped.

But as the weeks turned into months, she had resigned herself to the fact that they never would.

And all the while, the eyes that studied her carefully after each gift had been lain at her doorstep continued to glower in frustration.

.

"It's been awhile," Sango remarked one afternoon as Kagome helped Sango with her family's laundry. "Since the last gift, I mean."

Kagome considered that, thinking back to the last 'gift' she'd found. "You're right."

"It hasn't been this long between gifts before." Sango handed Kagome the end of one large blanket. "Do you think that means they've stopped?"

She helped Sango toss the damp blanket over the line to dry. "I don't know," she said, considering the thought. "They haven't stopped yet. Maybe whoever it is just haven't found anything worth killing in awhile."

Sango met Kagome's eyes over the other side of the clothing line, her brows raised at Kagome's tone. "Do you... Like the gifts, Kagome?" she asked, speaking in that slow, cautious way of hers that told Kagome she was carefully considering each word.

"No!" Kagome held up her empty hands. "I wake up each morning hoping that today was not the day I find another bloody corpse!"

Sango stared at her friend and Kagome had the feeling she was about to say something Kagome wouldn't like. "But you like the attention," she said, confirming Kagome's suspicion. "It's okay to feel that way, Kagome. It's been awhile since—"

"Since InuYasha," Kagome finished for her, grabbing for the first piece of laundry she could get her hands on and throwing it haphazardly on the line. "I'm not still pining for him, Sango. It's kind of hard to, when he's never really here."

The look on Sango's face told Kagome that her friend didn't believe her. "It's okay to still love him, Kagome," she said quietly as she fixed the shirt Kagome had just hung up. "But," she added before Kagome could persuade her friend otherwise, "Miroku and I were glad for the gifts even if you weren't. They give you something else to focus on. Maybe it's selfish to think that, but I feel like you've been more open with us again since they started appearing."

Suddenly Sango sported an impish smile. "But maybe you should leave a scroll for your admirer and tell him about the gifts you'd rather receive. Perhaps he can procure some of those bath oils and shampoos you like so—"

"Sango!" Kagome reached out to cover her friend's mouth but she could still feel her friend's smile beneath her palm. She doubted very seriously that whoever was leaving her the growing amount of dead bodies would suddenly switch to something so completely different, but she also didn't want to tempt fate. The last thing she needed was a different sort of dead bodies and for all she knew, if they'd overheard her, she'd suddenly get pretty smelling dead yokai instead of just dead ones.

But Sango didn't stop grinning, even when her toddler son threw a mud bomb at her fresh linens.

.

Kagome left her hut the a week later and stopped short.

There, in the morning sun, was what she would have called a gift basket if it had been in her own era, but this one was practically overflowing, as if whoever had prepared it hadn't quite been able to figure out how to throw everything in the woven basket and so had haphazardly tossed everything in.

She knelt before the basket to look through it, still reeling that it wasn't a carcass, but there was no doubt that this had been left by the same individual. Evidently they'd overheard her conversation with Sango because the basket was full to bursting with every sort of bathing product, many of which she suspected hadn't been made by human hands.

Kagome carried in the basket into her hut, humming. She didn't care who left it; she'd run out of her future products long ago and she'd missed them. The cleansing products Sango had to offer didn't get the job done nearly as well.

She rifled through the basket, sorting out which ones she'd want to use first and already planning on when she could sneak away from the village to go use them.

And the eyes on her, though thoroughly frustrated, were relieved when she finally accepted a gift they'd left.

.

Kagome was submerged up to her chin in hot water, enjoying her peace and quiet in the cool night air. Her damp hair fluttered around her in the hot spring, beautifully cleansed and as silky as it would have been back home, and her body was the cleanest it had ever been. Whatever her mysterious benefactor had gotten her was more effective than anything she had back home, let alone here.

All in all, Kagome was very, very happy.

But between one blink of her eyes and the next, she realized she wasn't alone. She could feel a dark, ominous yoki pressing against her. She searched her surroundings but on first glance, saw no one.

"So this is what you prefer," a low voice rumbled, familiar for all its dark promise.

"Sesshomaru!" She searched again, but her eyes couldn't find him. There was no denying the familiarity of his yoki, though, so she knew he was there. Her clothes were nearby but she doubted she could get out and get dressed before he would notice. Likely he had already seen her but had dismissed her nudity as human and therefore beneath him.

But then she realized what he said.

"Those were from you?" She ran a hand through her hair, unable to believe that Sesshomaru of all people had left her dead bodies and bathing products. "Why?"

"Still, this one supposes it matters not. You accepted."

Kagome faltered. The way he said that, it sounded like she'd accepted a lot more than the bathing supplies but what? What if she'd accepted to do something horrific? Was there a way out of this?

"Ah," Kagome began, trying to find a way of asking without offending the daiyokai. "Sesshomaru?"

He suddenly appeared before her, standing at the other end of the hot spring. He was fully dressed, armor and swords and all, but there was a curious redness to his gaze that she wasn't quite comfortable with.

What did he want with her?

He nodded to the bathing products on the rock beside her and her brain almost shut down at the thought that he might want to bathe with them as well.

Surely he wouldn't do so with her here?

"I-I'm done," she squeaked, shuffling in her rush to get out of the water as she tried to preserve her modesty with a towel. "I-if you want to use them, too, be my guest!"

She had every intention of turning around and running off, leaving behind the items she'd been so happy to have just minutes before, but it seemed that was not what Sesshomaru wanted. "You will not leave," he commanded, his tone as every bit imperious as it had been that day in his father's remains.

"Right." She sat down on one of the rocks, her feet still in the water. It didn't seem wise to argue when she stupidly hadn't brought her bow and arrows with her.

But to her surprise, he moved to stand before her on the ground as his hands undid the ties of his armor. He set it down beside them, his movements unhurried as he carefully laid it out. His swords followed, placed with the same degree of care, and it should have relieved Kagome that they were now out of his immediate reach, but it didn't.

He was just as deadly without his swords as he was with them, after all, but that wasn't the problem. No, the problem was that she could only come up with one reason why he'd be disrobing in front of her and she wasn't sure it was one she'd like.

His sash was next and though Kagome wanted to look away, she couldn't as his lapels parted, showing hints of a very toned chest—possibly the most toned she'd ever seen in this era. If it had been anyone else, she'd have happily ogled it for a moment or two, but the person it was attached to had her more than a little uncomfortable.

Her mind still struggled to accept that Sesshomaru was stripping for her, but there was no mistaking the crimson heat brewing in his golden eyes.

And then the white silk was removed, leaving his torso completely bare.

"Sesshomaru." She stopped at the sound of her own hoarse voice and licked her dry lips. "You—"

"Quiet." His command was short but she swore there was an undercurrent to it that she'd never heard from him before.

She shut up, not daring to speak again, even when he removed the last layers of his clothing and stood before her in only his fundoshi. His bare feet stepped back into the water and he gave her an expectant look.

She swallowed but didn't move. She was positive that her legs wouldn't hold her up.

"Come," he beckoned when she didn't move.

"Sesshomaru..." When had her voice become so breathy? It didn't at all sound like she was trying to protest. "I don't think that this is a good idea..."

"Then cease thinking," was his immediate reply and it was so thoroughly arrogant that it suited him completely. From anyone else it would have sounded ridiculous, but Sesshomaru pulled off ridiculous surprisingly well. "And come here."

She had a number of protests on the tip of her tongue—she was human, she would die, he was a daikyokai and what's more, InuYsasha's brother—but voiced none of them as his hands moved to grasp her elbows and pull her to her feet to stand before him.

In this position, he suddenly seemed far taller than she'd ever suspected, his body dwarfing hers as she was maneuvered into his embrace. And for all his coldness, for all the arrogance that seemed innate within him, the hands that held her were gentle and his embrace soft.

And when he kissed her, the soft, beguiling kiss he gave her was enough to wipe her mind free of any protests she might have had left.

.

A few hours later, Kagome sat on the rock, dressed only in his white kimono top while Sesshomaru wore nothing at all save his sashinuki hakama. Without his boots, the billowing affect was lessened but she hardly noticed for Sesshomaru hadn't let her out of his embrace since he'd pulled her within it.

"Why me?" she finally asked, her brain still a little foggy.

She felt his surprise more than she saw it. "You are worthy," he said and she figured that was the closest she'd get to a confession from him then. Later, she decided, she'd work on that, because if she was going to spend the rest of her life with him—and he had made it abundantly clear that she would—then she was not going to spend wondering what was going on in his mind.

He was going to have to work on his communication and that was that.

"Okay," she said, accepting that for now, "but what happens next?"

His gaze flickered down at her, far softer than it had been earlier. "Whatever you require to happen before departing here."

From that, she guessed she wouldn't be living in the village by the well any longer. She accepted that; it wasn't a fight she had any interest in winning, not when she could come back and visit. She suspected there would be bigger fights ahead of her and as her mother had always tried to teach her, she was going to pick her battles and save the fighting for what really mattered.

"Okay," she said again, wondering where he intended for him to leave.

"Now that you carry this one's heir, you will be removed to a place of safety," he continued, as if understanding she'd want more of an explanation than what he'd already given.

Her eyes widened as she flushed but it was such an obvious consequence that she couldn't argue. "Already?" she asked, staring down at her abdomen. "How do you know it's your heir?"

"The heir is always first." She met his amused gaze. "It is the way of this one's line."

"It could be a girl," she countered, thinking that was awfully arrogant of him to assume.

"It won't be," he said confidently.

She clicked her tongue but gave him persuading him otherwise. In the end, it didn't really matter, as long as the child was healthy. Still, it was odd to think she'd be a mother within a year; things were blasting ahead at lightning speed and within the blink of her eye, her entire life had been turned upside down.

"And after that?"

"What will happen will happen." His reply was cryptic and she pushed down her annoyance—for now. But then she caught the tiny smirk at his lips he couldn't quite hide.

Yes, she was definitely going to have to work on his communication skills, she decided. His definitely sucked but at least he'd proven he could learn, evidence by the bathing products that surrounded her now instead of dead corpses. It was a good first step but if he thought that was the only change he'd need to make in this mating, he was going to be in for the surprise of his lifetime.

She let him pull her to her feet and they both redressed fully before he led her into the village to pack.

Idly, she wondered to herself what had possessed him to start leaving them on her doorstep in the first place. Some day, she decided, she'd get the answer out of him.