How amusing. The girl was actually staring him in the eyes. Had she no sense of self-preservation?

The inu youkai’s claw blurred to a place beneath her chin, cradling it ever-so-gently, yet showing her that he was capable of killing her without much effort at all.

“You’d stain your haori with dirty human blood,” she said in a flat, emotionless voice. Rather like his own.

Yes, amusing indeed.

“I came here of my own free will, thank you very much, you little lizard.” She, too, kept her voice down. She wasn’t expecting the elbow that came down on her head, even though it was a bit more of a cuff than an actual attempt at hurting her.

“As long as we’re traveling together, it will be much more pleasant if we exchange courtesies, Kagome. His name is Jaken. Mutual courtesy.” Sesshoumaru continued past her as if he hadn’t just treated her like an unruly servant, and placed Rin gently beneath a

tree.Kagome rubbed her head with a confused expression.

What is WITH him?

“Don’t bother going back to sleep. The sun is almost up.” The voice startled her as she sat back down against the tree.

“I wasn’t planning to,” she said in an annoyed voice. “I’m quite fine, thank you.” What, did he think she got up at lunch every day? Inu Yasha would have had kittens...which was rather absurd considering that he was a male dog demon...

Sesshoumaru held himself back from rubbing his forehead, not wanting to give the woman the benefit of seeing him confused. He never pretended to understand humans.

Now Jakotsu was a strange lad, who was known to get into his mother's clothing and makeup and play...well...dress up. Maybe it was because he admired her beauty...or maybe it was because his father wore purple eye shadow.

"Will you help me get dressed this morning even though I could probably do it faster myself without having to sing a stupid song?"

There was a brief pause, during which, they both stared longingly into each other’s eyes because this is a sappy mushy fairytale and well, something would be wrong if they didn’t do that.

“Okay, that’s close enough. I need some cute animal things…” InuYasha muttered looking about, obviously wanting to get this done and over with so he could get himself out of the dress.

Jakotsu blinked, “Well, there’s some bees that can talk to me, will those work?”

“Yeah, sure whatever… Where are they?”

“Over there.” Jakotsu said pointing to the large ‘bees’ that sat on the various flowers.

“What the hell are those things?! Those are too big to be bees!” Inuyasha exclaimed.

The insects in question woke at the noise, and flew over to Jakotsu; one perching on his upheld finger.

“I think they’re really called Saimyoushou, but I couldn’t say that as a kid, so I just called them bees. Will they help?” Jakotsu questioned.

“May I ask a question, your highness?” Jakotsu spoke up.

“Sure, what is it?”

“When you love someone, do minor details like hair color, eye color, gender, and figure matter to you?” He dared, hoping he got an answer he liked.

“Do you think it's possible to meet someone and know in an instant that she's the one?” Bankotsu asked, looking down and blushing slightly.

Smiling, the mysterious ‘Princess’ replied, “It’s very possible. I mean, I think that most fairytales and trashy romance novels are based on that concept.”

The song ended and the two continued to stare longingly into each other’s eyes, because for some reason, inspecting the pupils of another person is extremely romantic.

“Oh, your highness, did you say something wrong to her?” The one guard inquired.

“Hakkaku, don’t ask him that!” The other whispered to his companion.

“All I did was ask his name….”

“His?!” The two guards blanched.

Bankotsu frowned and blushed, “Yeah, it was a guy.”

Ginta’s mind processed this, offering him an interesting mental image of Bankotsu and Jakotsu in a rather compromising situation in the royal bathroom’s shower.