Disclaimer: InuYasha is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, not me.
Feudal Ornithology
"Did you hear that, InuYasha-sama?!" came the excited voice of the small girl at said hanyou's side. He looked down to see a bright smile spanning her face from ear to ear, her eyes wide and sparkling with wonder as she walked alongside her guardian through the forest. "I think it's a new bird I haven't heard before!"
Her eyes darted from tree to tree. "Where is it, InuYasha-sama? Can you see it?"
"I think you were too loud and scared it away, Rin," he answered.
"Oh," she said, dropping her head and dragging her bare feet dejectedly. "I wonder what it would have looked like…?"
InuYasha sighed, feigning exasperation as he picked up on the girls leading tone. Without a word, he began scanning the forest floor and surrounding trees, gathering several small pebbles, twigs, and leaves. He was beginning to think that Rin scared the birds away on purpose because she enjoyed his silly drawings even more than she enjoyed seeing the birds themselves.
"Okay, sit down," he said as he plopped down onto a fallen log.
Rin took a seat next to him and removed a small leather bound journal from under the front panel of her kimono. "What is this bird called?"
"It's called a titmouse," InuYasha answered as he began dragging one of the sticks he'd gathered through the loose dirt at their feet.
"A titmouse?" She furrowed her brow. "But it isn't a mouse, it's a bird."
"Yeah, I know that, Rin, that's just what it's called," he said. "It has a tuft of feathers right on top of it's head, like this," he said as he drew the birds pointed crest.
Rin removed the paper wrapped charcoal pencil from the leather tie of her journal, opened to a blank page and began to follow along with InuYasha's instruction. "Is it a colorful bird?" she asked.
He shook his head in the negative. "Not really. It's this color," he said, opening his left hand to reveal the handful of grey pebbles he'd gathered. "But sometimes they have a light red spot right here." He used his drawing stick to point to the side of the bird outline he'd drawn. "Right under the wing."
He placed the lighter pebbles along the belly and the darker grey stones over the back and tail, filling in the outline. Using his claws, he sliced a chunk from end of the twig he was using as a drawing utensil and carved a tiny beak. "The real bird would have a black beak," he said.
"Here." Rin reached out for the carved wooden beak.
InuYasha placed it in her hand, and she proceeded to blacken it with her charcoal, before placing it into the bird mosaic on the ground. "Perfect!" she chirped, looking on the image with pride. "InuYasha-sama is a very good artist!"
InuYasha chuckled at her comment. The ten-year-old girl clearly didn't have very lofty standards. He took some young red maple leaves he'd gathered, tore them into strips, and placed them under the twig that marked the line of the bird's wing. He then sliced some thin strips of bark to use for the legs and added a tiny black pebble for the eye. "There," he said with finality.
"How do you know so much about birds, InuYasha-sama?" she said with childlike adoration.
"I've spent a lot of time in these trees..." he answered. "Listening and watching."
"But how do you know their names? Did they tell you?" she asked, completely sincerity in her tone.
"Keh!" he scoffed. "I can't talk to a bird. Besides, the birds don't know their names. Those names were given to them by humans."
"Did your human mother teach you the names?" she asked innocently.
He nodded. "She knew all about birds and flowers and trees."
"What kind of tree is this?" she asked, pointing up to the tree above them.
"It's a pine tree." he said as he glanced over at her journal and watched her draw a small sketch of the tree in the corner of the page and label it 'pine'. The girl reminded him so much of his mother it was uncanny. The irony that his brother would come to care so deeply for such a girl wasn't lost on him, but he didn't allow himself to think on it too often. It only served to solidify the bitter feelings he held toward the man, and he'd been working diligently on letting those go, if only for the girl's sake.
Rin continued to draw her own version of the bird in her notebook, all the while humming a tune that InuYasha recognized as a song he'd heard Miroku sing to his daughters. When Rin had become interested in birds, Sesshomaru had brought her blank journals and scrolls, charcoal pencils and watercolors. Being the bastard that he is, he had also told her that InuYasha would be willing to take her bird watching whenever she pleased.
"InuYasha-sama?"
"Hm?"
"Do you think the new baby will be a boy or a girl?" she asked.
"I already know what it will be."
The girl's brows raised in surprise as she turned to look at him. "You do?"
"Sure," he nodded. "I can tell by scent. At least, I can now that it's so close to being born."
"Can you tell Rin, InuYasha-sama?" she said, falling into the old habit of referring to herself in the third person.
"You ain't gonna run your mouth, are ya?"
"No, I will keep it a secret."
"You better, 'cause if it gets back around to Sango she'll beat me to a pulp."
"I promise, I won't tell," she begged, clasping her tiny hands together in front of her.
"It's a boy."
Rin let out an excited little gasp. "A boy!" she squealed. "Oh! I wonder what he will look like?"
InuYasha snorted. "Just like every other baby; a wrinkly little pig monkey."
Rin giggled. "That's not very nice to say, InuYasha-sama. You won't think your own babies look like pig monkeys."
InuYasha gave another snort, but otherwise ignore her comment.
"Will you have babies one day, InuYasha-sama?"
"You know men can't have babies, Rin."
"No, I mean, when Kagome-sama returns home, will you have a baby with her?"
Suddenly InuYasha's cheeks felt unusually warm, even on such an unseasonable chilly spring morning. He knew that Miroku and Sango had told Rin not to talk about Kagome around him, like he was some child who needed protecting. But that didn't stop her from bringing up the subject of Kagome, in one form or another, almost any time the two of them were alone. Much like the topic of conversation, Rin seemed to always be full of all sorts of invasive questions.
"I don't know, Rin. It would depend on what she wanted."
"Would you give her a baby if she wanted one?"
InuYasha face then flushed an even darker shade of red. "You aren't supposed to ask people questions like that," he snapped, a little more harshly than intended.
The girl flinched, her cheery disposition quickly melting at his scolding. "Rin's very sorry," she pouted, her quivering lip and glassy eyes causing InuYasha to feel a swift surge of guilt. "I was just thinking it would be so wonderful-"
"Are you about ready to head back home?" he cut her off as he abruptly stood from the fallen log. The kid sure knew how to make him feel guilty...
She nodded as she carefully closed the journal, tied it closed with the leather cord, and tucked it back into her kimono.
"Do you wanna walk, or do you wanna ride on my back?" he asked, already knowing what her answer would be.
"Oh, ride please!" she chirped as she stood alongside him and gave a little jump of excitement, her melancholy fading in an instant.
He crouched down in front of her. "Okay, hop on, and hold on to that book; I ain't scouring the whole damn forest looking for it if you drop it again."
"I won't drop it again, InuYasha-sama, I promise!" she said as she climbed onto his back and they sailed off into the trees, toward home.