Inspired by 'My lost Mate' by Nightfall2525
Her eyes were wary. She was just a servant girl, in a clumsily-darned, ratty kimono and a cloth tied around her hair to keep it out of her work. She had delicate features, almost aristocratic under their layer of smudges save her jutting, determined chin and the prey-like wariness that haunted her brown eyes.
At first, he had almost flinched at her face- she was so much like- like- someone. Who? He didn't know, which was quite bothersome. But her face was shocking, and servants shouldn't shock their masters, so he arranged for her to work in the kitchens, out of his sight. That was the first mistake.
Sesshomaru disliked being unprepared for anything, and her face was no exception.
That night, he dreamed of a somber temple, where his father and mother laughed in their wedding clothes and the heavy rain fell down over the oblivious couple. They were drenched within seconds, their expensive clothing clinging, but they kept laughing and laughing as the world shook and cracked in white-hot lines and fell apart around them. His father and mother tumbled down into a lake of seething lava, still giggling and hugging and stealing kisses as they blackened and crisped.
Sesshomaru awoke in a cold sweat and crept to his parents' room. Beyond the carved green door, he heard the soft whistling of his mother's sleeping, and the hearty, rumbling purr of his father's snores.
Of course they were all right. But if indeed the dream was a premonition, he remained focused on their safety and discarded all thoughts of the shocking servant. That was the second mistake.
However, fate was more stubborn than any demon prince, and a week later brushed a shuddering cough into one of the usual waiters. The girl with the wary eyes took her place in a plain, clean, blue uniform with a starched apron, supporting a glass pitcher of ruby-colored wine, and the sick girl's blue bow tying back her brown hair.
Her wary eyes studied the ground, but skipped up instinctively with any sudden movement in the vicinity.
Sesshomaru noted distantly the wine servant approaching, and thrust out his wine glass beneath her nose. Her eyes flashed up at his, and the glass shattered at her sandaled feet.
Then the spell broke as she swiftly set the pitcher on the table and dropped to her knees to gather the shards in the scoop of her apron, muttering an apology to the perpetrator.
A moment later, the glass was cleaned up, and she had vanished into the kitchen. Another servant hurried to take up the wine pitcher.
After dinner, Sesshomaru swept into the kitchen (where he had sent her to be out of his sight) and asked for the replacement wine waiter. The stuttering cook whimpered out the room number in the servants' wing, and the prince continued on his quest, intent that he would eliminate this recent weakness.
She was crouched on her mattress, scrubbing at a wine stain with rapt attention, her wary eyes fixed on it. The second he stepped into view, she was on her feet, her back to the wall, the sewing needle clutched like a throwing needle in a white hand, white as the apron in her other, fisted hand.
Recognizing him, her eyes fell to his feet, and she murmured a welcome and polite query. Rather than answering, he crossed the room in two strides and snatched her determined chin with an elegant, long-fingered hand. She drew in a breath, but there was no female whimper or gasping or fainting, and her eyes flickered too-fast over his face then directed modestly away.
Sesshomaru found this unacceptable and demanded her attention, and her wary, brown eyes blazed into his. Again, he was shocked, and his grip tightened, drawing drops of ruby-red blood. She said nothing.
An image exploded over her countenance- a young girl, her eyes confident with lax power, and her small body coated with real, miniature armor. A few human boys, in normal clothing, whimpered at the grass at her feet, sending tear-filled glances at the enormous boomerang she hefted easily above her head.
Sesshomaru narrowed his cold gold gaze and the servant returned to his vision. She was the slayer girl, the one he had seen just the once at a contest for apprentice human warriors. The one his father told him he was slated to marry, in order to solidify a valuable slayer-demon alliance. The one whose clan was brutally massacred by a vicious demon bandit group. The one who was said to have died there, such a pity, such a crying shame, such a wasted talent.
And Sesshomaru smiled, because she was alive and the one he had had the smallest of crushes on at that competition.