But she could ride on Ah and Un if she got tired, and she spent the day alternating between sitting on their back and walking. Lord Sesshoumaru seemed to be following some trail that only he knew the path of, for Rin could never see anything that told him where he were going. They stayed along the edge of the forest, never entering the trees, but with them always near. Rin stared into the woods as they went along. Parts seemed nice, like woods that she had been in before, but other parts seemed shadowed and scary.

Right now Lord Jaken was leading Ah and Un, and Lord Sesshoumaru was walking a little bit in front of him. Rin ran around, sometimes behind him, sometimes ahead. She picked flowers as she went along, for no other reason than that they were pretty and it gave her something to do. She looked into the woods again. It seemed that they were at one of the scarier looking sections. Out of the corner of her eye, Rin suddenly saw something move toward her. There was a thing coming from the woods. She took a step back and started to move, but it was coming at her too quickly.

"Lord Sesshoumaru!"

Suddenly, the thing was stopped in its advance, and fell to the ground. Rin looked around just in time to see a string of light coming from Lord Sesshoumaru's outstretched hand. It retracted and disappeared with a quick movement of his wrist, almost faster than she could see. Rin suddenly realized that she had dropped her flowers, and reached to pick them up, but stopped when she saw the dead thing. She stared at it with a sort of morbid fascination, unable to look away. It had been alive, and now it was dead. He had killed it. She didn't really like seeing things die, because it reminded her too much of something that she had almost forgotten. But at the same time, she registered that there was a certain amount of logic to it. If he hadn't killed it, that could have been her lying there. Then Rin realized that its tail was still moving, and that there was a growing puddle underneath it. She had a sudden urge to get away from the thing. She looked up to see Lord Sesshoumaru pausing over her.

"You should stay closer today."

Rin wordlessly got on the back of Ah and Un, and sat there for the rest of the day. She thought about Lord Sesshoumaru. He didn't seem bothered by the dead thing at all. Maybe demons didn't care about such occurrences, but Rin didn't want to be near the thing. He had also killed it without even moving from where he stood. It was almost as if he had extended something from his hand. Something that had easily cut the thing in half, and just as quickly vanished. His words about demons being able to do things that humans couldn't came back to her again. Rin wondered once more what else he could do. The day before, he had jumped very high to get some fruit for her. But she hadn't really seen him do anything else.

People said that demons were scary because they could get people. People never said exactly why demons could get people, but only that they could. She thought back. Lord Sesshoumaru had said that demons were faster and stronger than humans. That would make sense then, she supposed. She suddenly wondered if some demons were stronger than other demons. They had seen other demons, and the other demons had seemed reluctant to get near Lord Sesshoumaru, seeming very afraid of him. Well, except for the scary dog man, but he had done exactly what Lord Sesshoumaru said. Rin wondered if maybe he was a very powerful demon. The villagers never talked about differences in demons, but she thought that maybe there were some. She also began to think that maybe the villagers didn't know everything about demons.

Rin stayed on the back of Ah and Un all day, except when she got off to get some mushrooms. She ate that and some more of the fruit, and then she combed her hair. Rin realized that she was tired of sitting, but she didn't want to get down and walk by herself again. Anyway, he had told her to stay closer. So she lay down and stared up at the sky as Ah and Un walked. She watched the clouds, and played the game of picking out shapes among them and making up stories about what she saw. As the clouds changed and moved, so did what Rin could find. As the day went by, there were clouds that looked like a swimming fish, a flower, a bird, and a lady in fancy robes. There was also one that looked like a dog. It reminded her a little of the scary dog, but the one in the clouds didn't seem scary. It was big and white and seemed to take up almost the whole sky overhead. She imagined that the other dog would have run away if this dog were real.

Lord Sesshoumaru stopped in the evening and found a place to rest for the night. After the sun went down, the air had turned cold, making Rin shiver. She told him, and he asked her if she could see.

"Yes," she said.

"Then get some firewood."

She did, and then Lord Jaken lit her pile of sticks. Rin sat next to Lord Sesshoumaru, even though he was a little bit away from the fire. She suddenly remembered that he had asked her the same question the night before, when she had said that she was cold.

"Why do you keep asking me that?"

"What?"

"If I can see?" she asked.

"Demons can see in the dark."

Rin wished that she could see in the dark. Then it would never really be dark, and there wouldn't be anything to be afraid of. She had always tried to spend the nights somewhere at least inside the village, and on nights when she was forced to sleep outside of it, she slept very uneasily, or not at all. Though Rin still didn't like the dark, she was learning to get used to it, especially since he was always in the wilderness, no matter what time of day it was.

Then Rin remembered something else. She pointed to his hand, and asked him how he did the thing earlier. He said that it was just something that he could do.

"What else can you do?" she asked.

He didn't seem to have an immediate answer, so she spoke again.

"You can jump higher than me."

"Yes."

"And your eyes can do that thing," she said, suddenly remembering.

"That too."

"You're a lot stronger than me?"

"Yes."

"And faster?"

"Yes."

"Are all demons as strong as you?"

"Absolutely not!" Lord Jaken suddenly said. "Lord Sesshoumaru is one of the strongest demons, if not the strongest! Other demons are nothing to him!"

"Really?" she asked. So Lord Sesshoumaru was stronger than the other demons that they had seen. And maybe stronger than lots of other demons. No wonder he was never scared or afraid of anything--everything was scared or afraid of him. Except her. Rin thought that she was very lucky to have someone like Lord Sesshoumaru be nice to her. She asked what else he could do, but Lord Jaken told her to leave Lord Sesshoumaru alone. Not sure of what else to ask anyway, Rin then asked Lord Jaken what he could do. He showed her the fire stick again, but she told him that she'd seen that. It seemed that Lord Jaken couldn't do much. He must be one of the demons that Lord Sesshoumaru was stronger than.

"Hey, Lord Jaken, let me see the stick!" she suddenly said.

"Staff of Heads," Lord Jaken informed her.

"Let me see the Staff of Heads. Please, Lord Sesshoumaru?"

Lord Jaken finally handed her the staff, and she tried to make the fire come out like he had, but she couldn't. It really must only work for demons, like he had said. She handed the staff back to him, and then went to sit next to Lord Sesshoumaru again.

"I wish that I could do things like you and Lord Jaken," she said. He said nothing, but Rin had had a feeling that he wouldn't reply. He tended not to unless she asked a direct question.

They sat that way for a while, before she lay down and fell asleep.