The Road to El Shikon

~Kitty

A lonely boat drifted aimlessly in a vast expanse of sea. Two slumping figures leaned against each other in weary surrender, each lost in their own morbid thoughts grudgingly admitting complete defeat for the first time in their lives.

"How long do you think we've been floating like this, without food or water?" his voice cracked and dropped in pitch, parched lips hardly forming words.

"The brat over there can fix that empty stomach for you," the reply answered curtly, no giveaways or clues that the owner of that answer was just as parched and hungry as the man he was talking to. In fact, the lighter haired fellow was twice as hungry as the dark head, having allowed his friend to eat his share of sea rations on most of their nights out at sea.

"You wouldn't dare!" a high-pitched squeaky voice cried in fear. One silencing death glare quieted him though. Hush fell upon the gloomy vessel once again, as the swells of the sea hummed in their ears and the fiercely hot sun pounded down on them from above.

"It's all your fault you know," the dark haired man rasped, voice ravaged by wind and salt, "we wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't decided to leap into those stupid barrels."

"Aw, shove it!" his companion fired back, "Whose bright idea was it to play with loaded dice? Moron!"

"Well, you were the one that had to roll one more time, for what? That map is worth more as kindling!" the man groaned, as the energy required to shout bled from his system as easily as water flows out of a sieve. He slumped even further down into the rickety row boat, gazing heavenward, wishing for some heavenly maiden to sweep down and save him from the misery of his grumpy, short-tempered partner.

"It was a map to El Shikon! What idiot would pass up on that?" the white haired man straightened, strength seemingly bubbling up out of nowhere, "Even a greedy, conniving con-artist like you, Miroku -,"

"What? Jump at a silly children's story?" Miroku snorted tiredly, "Inuyasha, El Shikon is just a myth! There's no such thing! Face it! You'll always be half demon, neither all powerful, nor all human, admit it already. You'll like yourself a whole lot more if you'd just -,"

"Dammit Miroku! Don't say that!" Inuyasha yelled, voice cracking in thirst.

"Say what? Always be a half demon?" Miroku taunted, "It's true, you will always be, nobody can change God's decision of what you will be born as! Not even a legendary city of miracles and riches!"

"Shut up!" Inuyasha screamed, voice lost in the open water, "Doesn't matter anyway, we're both gonna die here, two losers stuck on a dinky row boat with nothing but two wasted lives loaded with regrets."

"Aye," Miroku said, smacking his lips in an attempt to wet his mouth, "full of regrets…" He held his hands in front of him, staring at the worn calluses and lines.

"Che, do I want to know what's going through your head, perv?" Inuyasha spat.

"I shall dearly regret this, dear old chap," Miroku said gravely, "I could never find one, not even one, lovely maiden to bear my child."

"I don't believe this, you talkin' to your dick?" Inuyasha exclaimed in exasperation, "Man, I still can't believe you're a virgin, sick old man."

"Oy! I'm not yet twenty five!" Miroku said quickly, "and how bout you, you white haired geezer, have you any regrets? Besides the obvious half demon thing?"

"Once," Inuyasha said longingly, "just once, I wish I could have punched that stupid proud look off of that bastard brother of mine!"

"Last time I checked, I believe that it wasn't Sesshoumaru but my dear ol'partner in crime that is the bastard of the story, isn't that right Inuyasha?" Miroku said as loftily as he could, earning himself a hoarse, feral growl in reply.

Miroku chuckled weakly at his crewmate, "You really must get your priorities straight Inuyasha, when speaking of regrets, couldn't you at least think of something less, superficial?"

The third, often overlooked passenger on the boat piped up, unwilling to be ignored, "I have lots of regrets too! I regret –,"

"Ever opening your stupid mouth!" Inuyasha finished, before promptly giving the small fox spirit a sharp knock on the noggin. Miroku shook his head, clicking his tongue at the rash demon's behavior. This only furthered the half demon's anger.

"Dammit, of all the fucking bastards in the world, I can't believe I'm gonna fucking starve to death in a fucking row boat with fucking you!"

"Well, if it's any consolation, Inuyasha," Miroku sighed, "I feel the same way about dying with you."

"Me too!" the chirp of the little fox spirit rang out, not quite learning his lesson. Inuyasha reached over to hit it again when suddenly, the boat groaned, then rocked, and lay still.

Miroku glanced up when Inuyasha face planted onto the floorboards at his feet and the fox had scampered away to safety. Scampered away? Miroku looked around mouth agape and hands trembling. He had hardly begun to cry out when Inuyasha beat him to the punch.

"LAND!"

The two remaining boat occupants leapt out of the boat, throwing themselves into the surf, sand giving way under their feet. A squeal was heard a ways off as the fox had found a freshwater stream to finally quench his thirst. Miroku's knees buckled and he braced himself on his hands, gloriously digging his fingers into the soft, wet sand.

"Land, land, land," he said to himself over and over. He and Inuyasha crawled higher onto the shoreline, weak with relief, kissing the ground and feverishly touching the earth with disbelieving fingers. Inuyasha's clawed fingertips scratched something hard and all three travelers suddenly found themselves looking into the death eyes of a corpse, flies still harvesting the rotten and torn flesh.

Miroku's bone-chilling scream rang out into the mountains, nearly ripping through Inuyasha's sensitive eardrums.

"All in favor of getting back on the boat say aye," Miroku said quickly, unnerved by the hostile welcome banner of the strange land.

Three quick 'ayes' were said and the fox rushed off to help Miroku push the boat back into the water. As Inuyasha turned to go, his eyes caught sight of a large boulder resting half hidden within a tangle of vines and foliage. There was a carving in it, a simple carving etched faintly into its surface of a running dog encircled by a ring of flames. The very same drawing in a certain newly won map. Inuyasha pulled out the old parchment from his tunic and stared wide-eyed.

"Hey! Inuyasha! I could use a little help here!" Miroku called. He was ignored, of course, and had to wearily saunter over to the friend he would not leave behind.

"Helloooooo, Inu-"

"MIROKU!"

"Gyah!"

"This is it! This is it!"

"What's that… the map? You kept the map but you couldn't grab a little more food?!"

Completely consumed by his discovery, Inuyasha continued forward into the trees, his muttering punctuating by gasps and exclamations of delight.

"The howling rock, the stream! This is it! It really is!" the dog eared man grabbed his companion by the shoulders, face so full of zeal and vigor that Miroku momentarily felt a tremor of excitement in his own exhausted heart.

"It's the map to El Shikon!" Inuyasha shouted into Miroku's face, his cracking, hoarse voice echoing off the nearby mountains. Miroku forced himself to swallow his fluttering of enthusiasm to save his friend from crushing disappointment.

"You drank seawater, didn't you," Miroku said, his face carefully schooled to reveal only bored disbelief.

"Oh fuck you!"

"No, fuck you!" Miroku cried, "Are you out of your mind? I wouldn't follow you into that death trap for a million pesetas!"

"This map alone is worth fucking millions," Inuyasha challenged, "If we get the fucking Shikon no Tama, we'd be the fucking kings of the fucking world!"

Miroku was shaking his head, frowning. "You're delusional," he told Inuyasha, "The jewel doesn't exist. It's a myth!"

"Ya willing to stake a hundred fucking million on it?" Inuyasha spat back.

"I-, what?" Miroku stumbled, "Are you being serious right now?"

"I never been more serious my whole damn life."

Miroku looked around, flapping his arms helplessly at his sides. He really didn't want to go. The likelihood of success was slimmer than he could compute. He glanced back at the boat groaning pitifully as the waves hit its sides. Likelihood of survival on that dingy little skiff was low as well. His face was not pleased when he turned back to face his friend. Miroku heaved a sigh.

"Fine!" he grumbled, "We'll follow the map and see what there is to be seen. And then we go home."

"As a full demon!" Inuyasha shouted, pumping two excited fists into the air.

"Yeah… yeah, sure thing," Miroku said with a roll of his eyes.

"C'mon, perv! Follow the trail!"

Miroku was already regretting this decision, even as he dutifully moved to follow the half-demon.

"There's no trail, Inuyasha," the young man called, shoulders slumped in defeat, "And shouldn't we be finding food and supplies first?"

"Get yer ass movin' dumbass!" Inuyasha's voice began to sound faint, "I ain't carrying you!"

"Does he realize he's holding the map upside down?" a little voice from behind Miroku piped up, now that Inuyasha was too far away to strike him on the head.

"Just a few minutes, Shippou," Miroku answered wearily, "Give him a few minutes."

The small, pointy eared child climbed up the young man's clothing to drape his little body over a shoulder and the pair sat down on a nearby rock to wait for their over exuberant companion to come bumbling back.

A/N: Hey folks! So, I love the movie road to el dorado. Not sure how fitting these characters are but in my head it was hilarious to stick inuyasha and miroku on a boat together… i'm not too sure what to do about countries and things in this universe (i already wrote out pesetas… might switch it to yen… really just not sure at this point, maybe i'll just say dollars… argh, tough decision)

Not really planning on continuing this unless it gets a lot of requests (or I randomly get hit with the urge to write more…). Just intended this to be a little blurb inspired from a rewatching of a childhood favorite movie.