A/N: This story is a sequel/continuation to Runaway, if you have not read that one, I strongly recommend that you read that story first because you're going to get into this one and shout, "Who the hell is this Ginrei chick?" It's just better if you start at the beginning at least of my Sesshomaru/Rin storyline. The storyline extends even farther back, beginning at So Much For The Hanyou's Happy Ending, and then going into With Our Arms Wide Open.

Basic summaries: summaries: Naraku is dead and gone. In the years since then Sesshomaru has trained and raised Rin and eventually taken her as his mate. But their children will be hanyou, infertile hybrids. (Go look it up, I'm not kidding.) He must marry an inuyoukai to have heirs for the Western Lands. (All this was learned in So Much for the Hanyou's Happy Ending.)

(In Runaway) Sesshomaru aides in a civil war in the Middle Lands that destroys an entire clan, the Nishiyori clan, to obtain his pure-blooded wife. The one inuyoukai woman that is spared in the slaughter becomes his wife. This is Ginrei. Rin knows none of this, but she finds out…chaos ensues. Seriously, go read it I don't want to give it all away here.

Hanone is Ginrei's daughter with Sesshomaru. She is Sesshomaru's second born child.

Saya is Rin's daughter with Sesshomaru. She is the firstborn child.

A final note: the very first part of this story is foreshadow. It hasn't happened yet at all, it's a hint for where all this will lead. The next sequence, where Rin is dreaming, is "present day" if you will. I'm experimenting slightly with this prologue by using non-linear storytelling. Non-linear equals not a straight line. It will be linear basically after this prologue. Hope that isn't too confusing…


Prologue: Goddess of Fertility

They woke in the same moment in time, but hundreds of miles apart. The first girl gasped and sprang up, her body quivering. Her skin was damp and chilled, her long hair was plastered to her flesh, a few strands were caught in her mouth. She pulled them free even as she continued to suck in the air hungrily, like a fish flopping inside the net of the fisherman.

The wind blew over her body, making her hold herself and writhe away from it. She realized slowly, with childlike innocence and astonishment, that she was naked. Leaves, twigs, and beach sand coated one side of her body. She brushed the debris free with clawed fingers.

Her nose told her a story of trees, and of the salty sea…her ears brought the sound of its waves crashing up on the shore, she could feel its deep, earthly rumble in her thighs where they touched the ground. She had never seen the sea before, only heard stories of it from her mother.

She glanced upward and saw the pine trees rising above her head, high into the starry nighttime sky. They rustled as the wind passed through them. Somewhere overhead bats whizzed by, squeaking with their sonar voices.

Slowly, she pushed herself upright and began walking unsteadily. Her legs were rail-thin and they wobbled underneath her as if she was learning how to walk all over again. There was a layer of beach sand beneath the decaying leaves of this forest. The ocean was close by, somewhere to her right through the blackness. The sand slipped away from her toes and the tiny girl paused to glance down at it curiously. Beach sand was a new phenomenon for her.

There was a line of rocks ahead, and tree stumps. The forest thinned out. She toddled forward, stumbling several times but picking herself up again without pause. There was a smell from up ahead: fire and wood smoke and food. She became convinced that her mother was ahead, waiting beside the fire. Her sister must be somewhere nearby as well, she could remember running with her under the sun, laughing…

She gave herself no time to consider how she had mysteriously passed from that happy, normal memory to this strange forest in the dark. There was nothing between those memories and her current reality. It was instantaneous. One moment she had been racing with her sister, competing with her as always. Grass and pollen scents filling her nose, the warm sun on her robes, the sound of her mother's voice calling for her.

And then she'd awoken in the beach sand, beneath the trees and the stars.

She reached the end of the forest and stopped short, gasping in shock. The forest ended in a sheer drop of at least ten feet. Yet, directly below, firelight flickered from the stones. The girl could see the firelight; smell the food and the smoke. She spotted a female figure sitting near the campfire. The firelight illuminated the woman's hair just enough that it revealed the color as being dark, a deep black…for a moment she opened her mouth, preparing to shout out to the woman on the desperate, wild thought that this was her mother—but even through the food and smoke smells, she could pick out the woman's scent. It wasn't her mother. Her eyes watered and she coughed, pulling back from the rising column of smoke.

The cough alerted the woman by the fire and she called out, "Who's there?"

The voice was older, raspier than the girl's mother. The girl hesitated. She had met very few strangers in her short lifetime; she wasn't sure how to react.

"Who's there?" the woman called again, a little less loudly now.

The girl smelled the fish from the fire and felt the chill of the wind rising from the salty sea. She choked on the strength of the smoke and abruptly felt fear swarm over her. It wasn't an emotion she was accustomed to. The tears came immediately after. She sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around them and started to cry loudly.

Voices echoed from below. "Do you hear that?"

"It sounds like a child…"

"Hello! Hello out there!" these were men's voices now, loud and strong, echoing from the rocks. The girl had even less of an idea of how to respond to them. Yet at the same time, she hadn't the slightest idea how she was going to get down to the beach from the cliff. The idea of the food kept her from running as the voices continued to call out, searching for her.

The ground vibrated a few times beneath her as footsteps approached. The girl scurried behind a boulder, perilously close to the edge of the cliff. She sniffled and ducked low, hoping that the man that had come running after her wouldn't find her…

He did.

For years afterwards the people of the tiny fishing village Kagainsen would recall with awe the story of the spirit child they found in the forest at the beach. A pale child with hair as white as freshly fallen snow and a purple crescent moon in the center of her forehead.

Her name was Saya and she was only four years old.


(A few months previously…)

A wind whispered past Rin's ears, gently. It spoke to her in a deep woman's voice, almost seductively. The fine hair around her ears and on her neck prickled, sending shivers through her body, made heavy with sleep.

The time comes, Rin.

Rin moaned in her sleep and moved her head. Her lips twitched. She felt a coolness against her face, almost a wetness. She started to waken slowly at first and then rapidly with alarm. She was alone in her futon, the furs and blankets were gone. Where was Saya? Where was Sesshomaru? She searched around the room but found that the air was thick with a wet bank of fog. Had this come off the river?

They were at Jouka, a palace hidden away in the mountains where, years ago, Sesshomaru had left her after Naraku had been killed. She had grown into a woman, contained inside Jouka's walls. Elegant and educated, but unbelievably lonely and filled with longing.

"Saya?" she called out, weakly, waving one hand at the mist. "Sesshomaru?"

The wind passed through the mist, swirling it eerily. With it came the voice that had originally stirred Rin out of her sleep. Soon now, the time is coming.

Feeling foolish, Rin addressed this strange, faint voice, her own wavering weakly. "What time…?

Ginrei.

Rin felt her face twist up into a frown of confusion. She banished it quickly and forced herself to think rationally, though it was hard. Her mind was sluggish, almost immobile. Through the haze in her mind Rin decided that she was dreaming. The sensations were bizarrely real, but Rin was certain that she wasn't truly awake. The lack of coverings over her futon seemed utterly wrong to her, as did the emptiness of the bed at her side. She never slept alone since the birth of her only child, Saya.

Closing her eyes, Rin laid her head back onto the futon and willed the dream to end silently. Her empty, chilled fingers reached over the mattress, seeking her daughter's warmth. "Saya…"

The voice rose again, taunting Rin with its words. Your mate will go to her.

Her lips felt swollen and itchy when she spoke. "I'm only dreaming." Inwardly she thought: I don't listen to dream-voices. And then immediately after a different, swift thought passed over mind. It was quick and ashamed, like an unfaithful lover creeping back into his own home after-hours. Sesshomaru would consult me first. He wouldn't hurt me again.

The voice answered her darkly. He is youkai. By nature, he will be driven. In some matters there is no choice.

Rin sat up, searching the mist frantically. Her brow furrowed, troubled. "What are you?"

I am Life; I am the seeds planted in the field, the sunlight on the water. I am the earth. You may call me Koeru.

If Rin had lived among humans she would've understood the significance of the name. In the far north of Japan humans worshipped a fertility and earth goddess who was said to watch over the harvests, both in agriculture and in the hunt. Under her watchful eye deer, fish, rabbits, and other game were plentiful and easily caught. The rice flourished too, giving over its crop to the multitudes of hungry villagers.

But there were many kinds of fertility. Koeru did not simply imbibe the soil with life or the wombs and nests of the animals, her magic worked on people too. And youkai.

Rin knew nothing of this, but when the mists swarmed at her, she felt her skin prickle with the unseen power of the being hiding within them. Trying to repress the shivers of fear, she cleared her throat and called out, "Leave me!"

The mist surged in closer to her, as if ignoring her plea completely. Almost spiting her by doing the exact opposite. The voice whispered around her now, echoing through the mist. You cannot give your mate what he most desires. Your blood blemishes his heirs. I have the power to change that. He will never touch Ginrei again.

Rin swatted at the mists and covered her face with her other hand. "Leave me alone!"

I have the power to give you a son.

"I don't want…" Rin fought the sudden rush of heat in her face, the fierce pressure in her chest. She'd been about to say that she was happy with her daughter, Saya. That much was true, but she did long for another child. Although she was no longer estranged from Sesshomaru—the couple had resumed their intimacy gradually—she hadn't fallen pregnant yet. The months continued to pass and her monthly bleeding continued unabated. She adored Saya, as she was certain Sesshomaru did too, but she wanted to give Saya a sibling. Two hanyou children stood a better chance of survival if something happened to Rin or Sesshomaru somehow.

There was Saya's half-sister Hanone too of course, but although Rin didn't expect the little girls to begin fighting one another like Sesshomaru and Inuyasha, the rift of species or race would come between them. Saya would never be as close to Hanone as she would be to a full-blooded sibling. Hanone also, in turn, would grow away from her sister and closer to her own kind as she aged. Perhaps she would even begin to see Saya as a disgusting half breed.

The voice rose again, deep but powerful and distinctly female. Yes, you do. You cannot lie to me, I am the goddess Koeru. I can see right into you, Lady Rin. Your child has stopped suckling, your milk has dried up, yet there is no life growing inside you.

Rin's hands shot out, searching the futon around her for something she could use as a weapon. Her eyes streamed from the mist. It wasn't painful, but her body was reacting to the closeness of the powerful being that was, in gaseous form, enveloping her. If she had been older and recalled the incident better, she might've thought of Naraku in his final moments of deathly agony. The miasma, spreading outward, like a mist that was trying to poison the killers who had finally vanquished him with their desperate need for vengeance. Her voice croaked out a cry for help: "Sesshomaru…"

I am here to help you, the voice continued to purr, when the springtime comes Lady Ginrei will reach her time. Your mate will be irresistibly drawn to her. At that time, should you have changed your mind Lady Rin, call out to me, to Koeru, Goddess of Life. I will be waiting for you…

Squirming and writhing, Rin coughed, wiping at her eyes. "Go away!" the grayness surrounding her face, coating her skin in moisture, was blinding. "Sesshomaru!" she cried.

Another deep voice spoke then, rumbling with power. But unlike the voice of the goddess, this was a masculine voice. Rin jolted upright, blinking wildly as she realized that she had indeed been dreaming. The room around her was lightening with the first signs of dawn. The covers on the futon were lush, gray colored furs. Rin saw the outlines of her slim legs under the furs, felt the chilly early spring air around her face and entering her lungs with each swift, panicked intake of breath.

A blazingly hot touch reached her back and Rin gasped, nearly jumping out of her skin. She turned around, clutching the furs close to her body as she realized that she was naked. Lying at her side was the source of the masculine voice that had at last called her out of the strange, disturbing dream. It was Sesshomaru, watching her silently with a wide, completely alert and awake stare. Had she been calling his name aloud? She tried to read his face but the light was too faint for her to do it with any certainty.

"Rin?" he asked, gently.

She nodded and worked to calm her breathing. Slowly, Rin slipped back onto the futon with her fur covers and lied flat. She watched the ceiling, seeing the first red streaks of sunlight rising with the dawn. What did red sunrises mean? Good weather, bad weather? Good luck, bad luck? She couldn't remember.

Sesshomaru watched her wordlessly. His amber eyes shone through the dim light, intense and alert. Rin shivered at his side, trying to resist the urge to turn and stare into those eyes. Her memory returned to her swiftly as she lied at his side beneath the furs. He didn't always share her bed, but in this instance it was his way of bidding her goodbye. They'd sent Saya to sleep with the ever-trustworthy Jaken that night while they reaffirmed their relationship physically. Although Sesshomaru had no true need for sleep as a youkai, unless perhaps he was injured, he often stayed with her through the night, watching over her while she slept.

Tomorrow he was leaving, she recalled. He was going to move through the Western Lands, patrolling his territory as he frequently did to check up on the other youkai and humans living within it. At the end of his journey he would pass into the Isei province of the Middle Lands and visit the palace he'd won there through warfare. In fact the entire Isei province was actually a part of the Western Lands now. The secret palace, built over a shallow lake, was called Naishougoto. Staying sheltered away inside Naishougoto was Sesshomaru's legal wife, an inuyoukai named Ginrei.

And with Ginrei was Hanone, Sesshomaru's full-blooded inuyoukai daughter. The first and so far only pureblooded heir he had. Saya's younger half-sister.

"You are troubled." Sesshomaru observed aloud in a powerful, authority-laden voice.

Rin drew in a breath but cut herself off midway through. The breath was uneven, wavering. Irritated with herself, Rin closed her eyes. "My lord, when you visit Naishougoto…"

Sesshomaru made a small, deep noise in his throat, irritation. He was visiting Naishougoto as a dutiful husband and father. Many times over the last week he'd explained his reasons for going. He wanted to make sure that Ginrei was happy and he wanted to see Hanone in particular. The visit was not an affectionate one. It was rather like his patrolling the lands and borders, by dropping in unexpectedly on Hanone and Ginrei and seeing them with his own eyes Sesshomaru made sure that Ginrei was loyal to him and that Hanone would know who her father was.

He favored Rin, he'd always made that clear, even if he hadn't always been honest. Trust was still a delicate thing between them, despite the passage of over three years.

"I will stay there one day only." Sesshomaru told her, stiffly.

"That's not it." Rin murmured, shaking her head against the futon lightly. "I would ask Lord Sesshomaru to bring Lady Ginrei and Hanone back with him to Jouka."

The request startled Sesshomaru, he blinked and his eyes roved over her face, searchingly. Rin didn't return his questioning gaze, merely continued to stare at the ceiling and wait for his response. Rin had overcome most of her hostile feelings toward Sesshomaru's wife. It was a necessary evil that couldn't be undone now. Ginrei had no other family, just her tiny daughter Hanone. Rin owed it to Saya to befriend Ginrei for Hanone's sake. The human woman and the inuyoukai woman were mutually bound by their daughters who shared the same powerful, majestic father.

It was clear through his long pause that Sesshomaru was confused by her request and tempted to turn it down simply because he didn't understand it. Yet, at last, Sesshomaru turned away from her. "I will do as you ask, if you are certain of your request."

"I am." Rin sighed, trying to sound as though she were releasing tension. "Saya will be happy to see Hanone. I wonder a lot whether she really remembers her." for a time Rin had lived at Naishougoto with Ginrei and Hanone, but when Saya was nearly a year old they'd left the secret palace behind and returned to a palace in the Western Lands, Jouka. Years ago, Rin had been raised at Jouka. It made complete sense to her that she would raise her daughter within the same palace walls. Unlike Rin, Saya would be loved and never lonely.

"It is a good idea." Sesshomaru responded. When Rin peeked at him she saw that he had closed his eyes. It almost appeared that he was sleeping.

Rin followed his motion with her own, closing her eyes, willing sleep to return to her.

If Ginrei was in the same palace as she and Sesshomaru, Rin would know if Sesshomaru and Ginrei suddenly became affectionate, she would know if her mate slept with his wife. If the bizarre dream was right, Rin vowed that it wouldn't be a secret from her.


In the Middle Lands, Lord Shimofuri was the supreme ruler, though he was young as far as inuyoukai were concerned. Three years ago the Middle Lands had been torn apart by Sesshomaru when his mate, pregnant at the time, had vanished. Sesshomaru was convinced that Shimofuri had taken Rin away from him when the truth was that Rin had left with Shimofuri willingly. In fact she'd demanded that he take her with him.

Another ruler in the Middle Lands, Arasoizuki, had faced Sesshomaru unaware of the other inuyoukai's wrath. He'd paid with his life. His entire castle and his province were shredded. However, Arasoizuki's wife Yamome and one of his sons had escaped with their lives. Now they huddled in the far north of Japan with Yamome's clan. A marriage had been suggested between Yamome and Shimofuri as a way for Yamome and her clan, in Arasoizuki's memory, to continue ruling the Itou province in the Middle Lands. The marriage would connect the clan in the north with the Middle Lands and give them a shoe-in to ruling the whole of the Middle Lands because if Shimofuri and Yamome had children they would become the heirs of the capital province, Nanka.

Shimofuri had turned the marriage down, however. The Itou province remained officially leaderless, waiting for Arasoizuki's son to grow old enough to claim his birthright.

Shimofuri remained a notable bachelor. For three years he'd resided peacefully in the Nanka province, inside his castle hidden away. His half sister, a hanyou, stayed with him, his only real company aside from advisers.

In the northern Hokubo province Shimofuri's uncle, Sasugainu, unofficially left his wife and two daughters to watch over and rebuild the empty Itou province. He'd ushered in a successful era inside the Itou. Humans prospered, demon attacks subsided, crops were abundant, disease rare. Throughout the Middle Lands the damage was gradually healing…

And then news arrived to Shimofuri that his aunt, Sasugainu's wife Hokinsha, had died. Shocked, for he hadn't known that Hokinsha was ill, Shimofuri and his sister, Tsukiyume, left the Nanka to console their uncle and offer their respects to their aunt.

When Shimofuri and Tsukiyume arrived Sasugainu's castle didn't seem grief stricken as Shimofuri had imagined. The servants and priests carried about their business dry-eyed and soberly, but when Shimofuri sat in his uncle's audience room, he thought the guards and the maids acted as though they were bored. Grief was usually a tangible thing, making the air heavy and forcing people and youkai alike into a slowness…Sasugainu's court behaved as if no one had died at all. It was true that Sasugainu had been estranged from his wife, blaming her casually for his lack of sons. He claimed that she'd deliberately denied him heirs because she'd never cared for him. She'd loved a cousin and despised her arranged marriage.

Sasugainu greeted his niece and nephew cordially. The maids served tea and then vanished. There was a long moment of silence and Sasugainu tapped his clawed fingers against the tray that his tea rested on. He was distinctly irritated.

"Uncle?" Tsukiyume asked, curiously. She was a small girl with long, straight black hair. White dog ears crowned the top of her head. Her eyes were a light brown with a ring of orange around the pupils.

Sasugainu made a sniffing sound, "We're waiting for my daughters."

It was rare that their uncle allowed his daughters to entertain guests, even family, with him. Tsukiyume and Shimofuri had almost never seen their cousins.

Shimofuri cleared his throat. "Uncle, I am deeply sorry for your loss. Lady Hokinsha will be much missed. She was a powerful, intelligent woman…" the words were formal and proper, but Shimofuri felt his face redden as he realized that there was a lump growing in his throat of true grief. Hokinsha had been related to Shimofuri distantly, through his father. She'd shared Shimofuri's gray eyes and his blue-black hair because she came from Nishiyori's family. Nishiyori had ruled the Isei province, during war his entire clan had been slain and the Isei turned over to Sesshomaru. There was only one pureblooded survivor of that atrocity and she was married to Sesshomaru.

"I anticipated Hokinsha's death." Sasugainu told them, gruntingly. "She'd been ill for some time."

Tsukiyume and Shimofuri blinked together with surprise. Shimofuri bowed apologetically to his uncle. "You had not mentioned her illness when you met with me this fall or in the winter."

"She was sick for two years." Sasugainu mumbled, staring off into the nothingness. "I did not hear of it until she was deathly ill two months ago. By that time logic told me that she would not recover from so long and so stubborn an illness."

It would be rude for Tsukiyume and Shimofuri to ask what illness had caused Hokinsha's death, but the desire to do so was great. Inuyoukai were felled by only the very worst of diseases and fevers. They could succumb to bacterial infection like every other life form, but debilitating human illnesses like cancer or cholera or polio didn't affect them. If an illness killed an inuyoukai it was often sudden and brought on by a battle wound. Hokinsha was a wife, pampered inside the palace. It didn't seem likely that a paper-cut could've killed her.

Abruptly the door open and a servant knelt and announced the arrival of Sasugainu's two daughters. "Lady Amagumori and Lady Soeki." He called in a high, flowery voice.

Two inuyoukai women flowed into the room. The eldest was Amagumori who more closely resembled her father with his white hair, but unlike Sasugainu's who had green eyes; Amagumori had her mother's gray-blue eyes. Soeki was the younger daughter and appeared nearly identical to her mother. Her hair was almost the same shade as Shimofuri's, a deep blue-black.

The girls were solemn. Of everyone in the castle it was they who mourned Hokinsha's passing the most. Both girls were of marriageable age, but Sasugainu had kept them rather than marry them off, not as treasures, but more as if he'd forgotten they existed. Amagumori and Soeki sat just behind their father, one on each side of him, and kept their eyes downcast, their hands folded in their laps demurely.

"Finally." Sasugainu barked. He shifted in his spot and stared at Shimofuri, pinning him with his green gaze. "Without my wife to look after the Hokubo province, I am forced to return to my position and leave the Itou unguarded. There is still work to be done there, much rebuilding. Occasionally one of Arasoizuki's kinsmen from the north comes down to meet with me. As I am their normal contact, I am loath to turn over the Itou to a human samurai or an adviser. I am glad you are here, Nephew, I have much to discuss with you."

The smile on Sasugainu's face was so happy, so pleased, that Shimofuri felt a queasy jolt pass through his body. He fought the desire to scowl at his uncle and say, your wife has just died, her spirit can still be felt in this palace. You can only think business? Your daughters are grieving…

When Shimofuri didn't answer readily, Sasugainu went on, assuming that his nephew was ready and listening to his proposals. "I have often thought that you, young Shimofuri," the aforementioned young ruler bristled at his uncle's term young as it were a threat, "…are in dire need of marriage. You must secure the Nanka with male heirs. Arasoizuki's kin in the north are keen on our territories. You have too much time on your hands at any rate."

Shimofuri bowed to his uncle. "I am honored to be in your thoughts, Uncle, but I must insist that there are no suitable matches currently…"

"Nonsense!" Sasugainu exploded, grinningly, "There are two matches sitting directly behind me."

Everyone within the room except Sasugainu gawked stupidly for a moment. Amagumori and Soeki glanced up, their eyes wide with shock. For a moment Soeki opened her mouth and started to speak in protest, but Sasugainu anticipated her interruption and raised one clawed hand up so that she would see it. The sharp motion made her flinch and snap her mouth immediately closed.

"Uncle…" Shimofuri shook his head and allowed his face to twist into a deep furrowed frown. "Lady Amagumori and Lady Soeki are related to me through you and through Lady Hokinsha both. My father was from the Nishiyori clan just as Lady Hokinsha was…"

Sasugainu was still smiling triumphantly. "That is true. My daughters are your cousins, but the relation is distant enough. You will keep the bloodlines purer than you know, Nephew. Your mother was the firstborn, so it was she that inherited the Nanka and became supreme ruler."

Shimofuri nodded, "Yes, it is the firstborn's right if the father sees fit…" and Shimofuri's grandfather, Sasugainu's father, had preferred Shimofuri's mother over Sasugainu, his second born. Shimofuri had never given any thought to the situation. His grandfather, Koshoshiro, had been dead for centuries. Shimofuri's mother, Lady Taikokajin, had been dead close to a decade. The pain of that loss, however, still made him swallow hard and blink to banish any thought of tears.

"She was a woman," Sasugainu continued hurriedly, "And our father's favorite. It was his favoritism that won her the Nanka. I have no qualms with my sister for our father's choice—but Shimofuri, your grandfather picked Taikokajin over me because she was the only pup of his favorite wife. Lady Taikokajin and I had different mothers. My daughters are more than distant enough for a marriage to be conceivable."

The new information had shocked both Tsukiyume and Shimofuri. They stared almost uncomprehendingly at their uncle, flabbergasted.

But Sasugainu wasn't finished yet. "I propose that Amagumori as the firstborn become your wife, Nephew. She will be a dutiful wife and give you the sons Hokinsha never gave me." he chuckled once, but without bitterness. In fact his green eyes seemed to dance with glee.

His eldest daughter was crying softly, her shoulders shaking. Only the smell of tears and her gentle quivering gave away her tears. Even so Sasugainu turned and glared at her, but said nothing.

"Once you and Amagumori are married, Nephew, you can send Tsukiyume to stay here and act as your informant in the Hokubo, or she could stay in the Nanka if you wish while you stay here in the Hokubo. You will watch over my territory while I continue to protect the Itou from our cousins in the far north." Sasugainu frowned when he saw his niece and nephew stiffly sitting before him, silently disagreeing. "It is a perfect plan!"

"I will not be parted from my sister." Shimofuri announced, fiercely. Tsukiyume had been used as a hostage against him far too many times. Shimofuri kept her near now out of paranoia.

"It will not be for long, and she would always be free to come and go, Shimofuri." Sasugainu's tone had dropped, becoming placating. "She will not be a hostage. If she is here in the Hokubo she will be an honored guest, the sister-in-law and my new daughter."

Tsukiyume was trembling near Shimofuri, her white dog ears flattened on her flowing black hair. "Uncle, please…" her tone was begging. Her eyes searched over her cousins, who she'd never seen before that she could remember, but she was filled with empathy for their situation. Their uncle was mad with his wife's loss, that could be the only explanation.

"She could stay in the Nanke, Shimofuri. You would stay here in the Hokubo with Amagumori and make the Nanka's heirs."

Shimofuri shook his head. "Uncle, you are young, you may remarry. If you give Lady Amagumori to me in marriage then our children would become your heirs too. Surely there is another way for you to—"

Sasugainu laughed once, short and harshly. "Don't imagine Nephew that I'm giving you my daughter so that you can make my heirs through her. Nonsense! Of course I will marry again, I will have sons the same age as your sons. It will be a blessed time."

"Father!" Soeki shrieked behind him, her face was bright red, her eyes clouded with angry tears.

"Shush!" Sasugainu snarled. "You'll get your turn but I'd never burden Shimofuri with you pest."

"You can't do—"

"Amagumori!" Sasugainu shouted, peeking at her over his shoulder. When his eldest daughter looked up, exposing her tear-streaked face, he scowled and ordered, "Take Soeki out of here, now!"

Obediently Amagumori got to her feet and crossed behind her father, grabbing her sister's shoulder. Soeki growled like a dog as she followed Amagumori out of the room. The sisters disappeared and the door closed behind them.

"So," Sasugainu crowed, "What do you say?"

Shimofuri's lips were pursed tightly; Tsukiyume meanwhile stared at the floor. At last Shimofuri spoke, quietly. "Have the plans drawn up, Uncle. I will return to the Nanka to leave Tsukiyume there. When she is safe I shall return to you to discuss this further."

Sasugainu beamed and clapped his hands. "Excellent! Scribe! Get in here now!"


A/N: all of this had a purpose, which will be revealed later, I assure you. For those of you, hopefully all of you, who've read Runaway and the other stories in this universe if you will, consider the epilogue of Runaway. In that chapter Shimofuri was faced with marriage to Yamome and he had a dream where a goddess spoke to him as well…so, what's going on with that?