1Title: When Tigers Attack
World: Inuyasha
Characters: Ryura, Jura
Words: 995
Author's Note: Tigers actually do behave this way if you give them cinnamon. They HATE it. And they also behave this way when given cat nip. I love these kitties.
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or any of the real life locations mentioned in this story.
Being trapped on a small island in the middle of the Sea of Japan does weird things to one's head. Ryura could tell anyone that. Somehow, he knew he should've killed Kanade when he had the chance, because now he was trapped on Horai Island, with no company aside from his brothers, fireflies, and a bunch of rotten hanyou brats. He'd been banished there for centuries now, and the most interesting thing that happens was when they have to sacrifice a hanyou. Each time, they got a new firefly to light the night, and one less hanyou to sacrifice. Yes, plenty of fireflies, but nothing to do.
It was times like these Ryura liked to reminisce about the times before he and his brothers invaded Horai Island. He used to do quite a bit of traveling all over Asia. His least favorite place was his native China. Why would you be interested in a place where you grew up? Ryura sure wasn't, but it was still nice, homely, if you will. He didn't take too much interest in Russia; it was far too cold for a reptilian demon such as himself. However, his most favorite place was Sri Lanka. It was nice little island right off the coast of India. Back when he actually liked islands, he would frequently visit there.
One of the most interesting things to him was the cinnamon that grew abundantly all over the island. Surprisingly, Ryura always took pleasure in the simple things in life, and the cinnamon was just wonderful to him. It had a sweet, spicy smell, and it just tasted so good! Those humans would always cook it in food, or brew it in their tea, but damn, they were ruining the savory flavor of the brownish-red spice. As a matter of fact, Ryura loved cinnamon so much, that he carried a pack of it with him at all times, and for that he was grateful, because it sure as hell didn't grow anywhere on this worthless hell of an island!
Oh no...what would happen when he ate all of his cinnamon? Ryura was very conservative of his beloved spice, but surely it wouldn't last forever. Now Ryura had entirely another problem to worry about. Without his cinnamon, his very life would have no meaning. Getting depressed, Ryura realized what he had to do, but sadly that wasn't to plant more tasty cinnamon, as that was impossible.
No, he had to give some to Jura before it was all gone. With Gora spending all his time underwater, and Kyora just being weird, Jura was like the big brother he never had, and as much as he hated to say it, Jura HAD to have some of the cinnamon before it was all gone. On that note, he went off to find Jura. He was hard to find because he stayed in dark places most of the time, but eventually, he found him.
"What are you doing here?" Jura asked Ryura when he saw him coming towards him in the illuminated forest. Ryura usually didn't come here.
"Looking for you. How are you doing?"
"Well, aside from being trapped on this island with a giant turtle, two guys, a bunch of brats, and no women, how do you think I'm doing?" Jura snapped.
Ryura held up his hands in defense. "Hey, calm down. No need to get mad. I have something interesting for you."
"What?"
"Remember I told you about India? Well look what I have," Ryura said in a sing-song voice as he pulled out the pack.
Jura just stared...and stared. "What is it?" He finally said when Ryura didn't tell him anything.
"What's it look like? It's cinnamon, and I'm giving you some."
"Are you now..?" Jura said absently; he wasn't feeling too great all of a sudden.
"Yep. You're my favorite brother, and thus the only one on this island deserving of this. Here!" On that last note, Ryura thrust some of the cinnamon at Jura, and he didn't look very pleased.
Not at all.
Jura stared at it for a while, sniffed it, then sneezed. "This smells disgusting." Jura felt like crying now.
"How can you say that? You didn't even eat any."
"You want me to eat this?"
"Sure, it might smell weird to you, but it tastes a lot better than it smells, trust me."
If looks could kill, Jura's look would cause Ryura to die a nice, slow, painful death. He looked at the stalk of cinnamon before taking a VERY small bite from the tip. He sneezed again.
"Well? How is it?"
Jura gave him another death glare. "It...was terrible. I felt like I was going to die," Jura lightly snapped, then sneezed loudly once more. He turned away from the dragon, and headed to the beach. Ryura followed. Jura was burying the cinnamon stalk in the sand. When he buried it nice and deep, he moved away from its sandy grave by several yards and fired his Thunder Cannon at it, causing sand to fly all over the place. Jura sneezed...again.
"Aw, it wasn't THAT bad was it?"
"Yes, it was. I don't want to ever see those dried up abominations again," Jura said, sounding slightly nasally. He sneezed again.
Ryura raised an eyebrow. "What's with all the sneezing?"
"I dunno, that shit hurts my nose." Jura finally stalked off.
Ryura followed him off the beach. "That's one cinnamon stick gone to waste," Ryura thought to himself.
Little did Ryura know, Jura actually loved the cinnamon. So at night when no one was around, Jura went back to the beach and dug up the cinnamon stick. Then Jura and the burned cinnamon stick got married and had lots of other cinnamon sticks that took after Jura with their stature.
...Or that's what Ryura wanted to believe. Jura actually went back to the forest, sneezed some more, rolled around in some wild cat mint, and rubbed his face several times.