Of Snowstorms and Annoying Old Women by Mysticangeldust

Prologue

Note: This is planned to be a rather short story, and I don't even expect the individual chapters to ever go much beyond six pages.

Disclaimer: Inuyasha is the property of Rumiko Takahashi.

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Prologue:

It was the night of the new moon, and the small group of shard hunters had stopped for the night to set up camp in a clearing Inuyasha had deemed safe earlier that afternoon. Stopping so early in the day to rest for the night with the hanyou's approval was unheard of under normal circumstances, but the night of the new moon hardly counted as anything normal.

"Inuyasha, ramen is ready." Kagome called from her place by the fire, carefully holding said ramen so it would not spill and burn her hands. When the hanyou did not move the girl from the future let out a frustrated sigh and made her way over to the tree that Inuyasha currently resided under, "Look Inuyasha, I know you're bummed about the new moon and losing your strength, but at least eat!" she said with a little more venom in her voice than she had intended.

The recent snows had blanketed the countryside, and finding anything dry enough to make a fire out of was hard enough to deal with. Not to mention her soaked socks and cold feet from trudging through the mess all day. She didn't need a grumpy hanyou to ruin her already foul mood after trying to set up camp. "Fine, you don't want to eat I'll just toss it," She said and made a move to toss the cup of ramen into the bushes behind her, but a firm hand caught hers before the cup could so much as spill water.

"Thanks," came a gruff voice from the previously immobile hanyou as he took the cup from the girl's hands. He couldn't help it that he wasn't hungry, but he was not about to let a good cup of ramen be thrown into the forest. He wasn't looking at her, but he knew she was staring at him expectantly. Slowly he brought the cup to his lips and began to slurp up the noodles in his normal uncouth manner.

Kagome sighed, "Yeah, sure" she said finally after watching his less than attractive eating habits, then turning to make her way to her backpack to set her sleeping bag up for the night. She certainly wasn't looking forward to sleeping on the wet ground again, but it really didn't look like she had much choice.

Looking around it seemed as if she was the only one of the group that had any real issue with the wet snow. Sango and Shippo were both using Kirara as a sort of pillow and Miroku was already long passed out under a tree not far from them. Though Kagome could have sworn that the monk's unconscious state had less to do with the need to sleep, and more to do with Sango throwing her boomerang at him earlier that evening.

Resigning herself to her fate Kagome lay her sleeping bag out on a clear spot of grass, and dug through her bag for her winter pajamas. "Inuyahsa I'm going to go change," she said. Looking over after no response came she realized that he too had fallen asleep; his cup of half eaten noodles on its side next to him. "Great, fine. I'm just going to go change and go to sleep," she huffed as she threw her arms up in the air in defeat.

Stomping off into the trees Kagome tried to find a somewhat dry place to change as she didn't want the clothes she was wearing to be soaked when she had to put them in her backpack for the night, and back on in the morning. She hadn't gone far when she felt something large hit her from behind, and everything went black.