Chapter Text
The late summer sunlight danced and glimmered in the green canopy, getting lost on its way towards the forest floor, bouncing around and illuminating dots and patches, revealing wild flowers and brambles, pebbles and ferns. The afternoon breeze stumbled between tree trunks like a drunk madman, tugging at the sleeves of the person as if imploring for some change.
The young priest smiled, taking a deep breath of the cool, fragrant air, enjoying the shadow after running around for the better part of the warm day in way too many layers of his priestly robe. His feet, donning red sneakers instead of less comfortable sandals, carried him down a familiar path. He rolled back his shoulders, already thinking forward to reaching the end of it.
As he passed a particularly thick tree a shadow stepped from around it, a host of sunbeams hitting the thick white coat and creating light freckles across it before the creature stepped in tow with the young man, leaving the spot where the canopy let them fall. Golden eyes blinked as they took in the red sneakers before lifting to the smiling face of the man.
“Fashionable, huh?”
‘Gaudy,’ was the curt response.
A giggle like a cross between silver bells and a snort came from the man’s other side where a black shape materialized from behind particularly wild looking orchids, the origin of which in this place was a mystery.
‘I think they look nice.’
The priest chuckled when the dog scoffed and barked when the black fox cheekily snapped in the direction of the tip of his tail. In retaliation the white entity lunged towards the white tips of the fox tails that swished out of the way. The young man snickered at the antics of the two creatures chasing one another around him a few times before he lifted his hands.
“Hey, hey, calm down, we need to get to the Sacred Tree and the well before Kohaku eats all the sweets,” he tried to reign in the canines.
They both stopped, ears perked and golden and brown eyes looking at him from furry faces with intelligence beyond what normal animals possessed.
‘Tell me again why we’re forced to shepherd you on your date?’ Inuyasha asked. The man definitely didn’t blush.
“It’s not a date!”
‘Oh, look at him, he’s blushing,’ the fox totally made that up.
“You two are to keep Sango and Miroku away,” the priest said in a tone that was not flustered. He started to walk again, faster now, after stopping when his companions started to chase each other. The two looked at his back and then followed, falling in step with him easily, both reaching past his hips and moving with the fluid grace of predators.
‘Valid, the exterminator will flip her shit when she sees you two kissing,’ the white dog wearing a red and yellow beaded collar snorted.
The young man, definitely not red now, groaned.
‘Don’t pout, little brother, she’s better than Miroku trying to share his enlightened wisdom of flirting with you,’ the kitsune bumped his hip with her black nose, the blue and pink beaded collar encircling her neck.
“If you two won’t stop that, I’m using the kotodama on you,” the young priest warned.
The shrine guardian and the divine messenger paused in their tracks.
‘Just try,’ the dog warned, playfully leaning his head down to snap at the heels of the man.
‘Yeah, we’ll give you all the doggy kisses and let’s see if Kohaku kisses you then,” the fox joined in, pouncing after the fleeing man, who gave up his peaceful stroll and broke in a dead run towards the tree towering over the mountain forest basked in the summer afternoon serenity.
Peals of laughter and happy yipping filled the shadowy forest so accurately copied over the expanse of shimmering fabric flowing around a person reading a book in the shadow of the shrine, an ethereal glow denominating the person as something higher in rank than mere land deity, but one commanding a shiro inu youkai and a nine tailed kitsune. There was an ornamental cap perched on top of their headband adorned with braided tassels that swayed on the fresh breeze.
All in all, they thought, turning the page, it had been an eventful summer and the mountain was ready to settle into a bountiful autumn and winter promising more warmth than any other before it.