Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, any of the characters, etc.
[Rin, first person]
The first peal of thunder awoke me. Uncurling from the cradling roots of the gnarled oak I had chosen as that night's bed, I immediately scanned my surroundings for Sesshoumaru-sama. No vision of white stood out among the shadowed shapes of the other trees, but the sleeping forms of Jaken and Aun assured me that all was well.
I sat half in, half out of the hollow my body had made in the soft ground, debating whether to go back to sleep. A hollow flash of white lightening, followed by another ground shaking rumble of thunder, convinced me to give up the pursuit of slumber. Balancing against the sturdy trunk of the tree, I removed the bits of leaf litter from my kimono and straightened the way it hung on my small form. Satisfied with the neatness of the garment, I looked up as the first fat, wet raindrop landed on my nose.
At that wet signal, I took off into the forest, as fleet and sure footed as a young deer. I knew that where my lord Sesshoumaru was, there would be warmth, comfort, and shelter from the rain. Unerringly I found him, heading up and into the forest until I came to the boulder strewn clearing that crowned the hill.
There he perched upon the highest rock, looking for all the world like a pagan god as the wind raised his hair and the pelt on his shoulder whipped behind him.
I paused at the treeline, taking temporary refuge from the storm amid the limbs of an elder cedar. Breathless, I gazed upon him, my hands braced against the cedar's sticky trunk. The contact both kept me upright in the wind and also grounded me in reality.
Sesshoumaru-sama might not be happy to have me join him. Yet, I never knew when I was welcome. The best I did was to blindly grope after him, hoping to stumble upon a moment when he was in a tolerant, indulgent mood. I had had limited sucess so far, but those rare moments of kindness, of a smile not riddled by sarcasm, kept me coming back like an addict.
Such was my dilemma. Sesshoumaru-sama was aware of my presence, so if I left now, he would question me about it in the morn. But there was no guarantee that he would acknowledge me should I crawl up beside him.
I paused indecisively, admiring the gorgeous creature that had taken me in. After living with him for these three years, I had come to know the nature of the monster I had offered succor to. Was he a demon? Yes. Through out forever, that would be the way my lord thought of himself. Yet, telling glimpses of his dog side showed through at the oddest moments. Like the way he rubbed his cheek against his pelt, or the way he delicately licked the blood off of his claws. Meticulous in his personal grooming and bathing, he somehow came across as very controlled instead of fussy. As cunning as a wolf, with that spark of intelligence to make him calculating, and the very control that made him himself, all added up to a cold killer that was more than just a predator.
I shook my head. No, Sesshoumaru-sama wasn't a cold killer. Practical, yes. Very practical, to the point of removing any annoyances in his life. To my knowledge, Jaken was the only annoyance Sesshoumaru-sama had allowed to live. Perhaps because my lord secretly loved tormenting the toad. As for myself, I had no doubts that should I prove to be an annoyance, Sesshoumaru-sama would dispatch me with a swipe of his poison claws.
The constant task of killing my youkai, would-be eaters must strike him as a noble act, an act in which he dispatched the riff-raff of his race. Never does he complain of my seemingly ability to tempt all youkai in the area into thinking I am a delectable meal. Jaken, on the other hand, complains long and loud. But then, I don't have to listen to Jaken.
A shiver ran up my back and despite the thick boughs of the cedar, I was quickly soaked to my skin. Another shiver wracked through me, and belatedly I noticed the cold. Wrapping my arms around myself, I tried to still my body's trembling. Lightening flashed, illuminating everything, but the reason I looked up again was because I felt the weight of my lord's regard.
Amber pools, fiercer and more wild than I had ever seen them, met my own shocked brown ones. I froze like a deer, pinned to the spot by the impersonal, active interest evidenced in his eyes. If anything, the heat of those eyes intensified.
"Rin," he called out into the storm.
My name.
One word.
Undeniable command.
Heedless of the fury of the storm, I clamored over the rocks until I stood on top of the one just below the one he sat on. From this distance, I could see him clearly and his unearthly beauty choked up my throat. Not just a combination of dog and demon, no. My Sesshoumaru-sama was possessed of a sheer force of spirit and mind that would suit a god better than a mere physical being.
In all of my learnings, before my family's death, I was never introduced to a great entity called God, but if a man's god is the being by which he lives and dies and swears by, then Sesshoumaru-sama was my god.
I was unmoving beneath the casual study of my god, waiting with all the faith of a fanatic and all the patience of the blameless. Around us the storm raged unnoticed.
Finally he offered me his hand, and I took it, climbing up beside him. Though he looked like he had been birthed by the torment of elements that surrounded us, his hand was surprisingly warm and dry against my skin. Silently he tucked his white pelt around me, sheltering me from the storm.
It was dry and fuzzy against my cheek, heavy around my shoulders in a way that suggested that soon it would turn my escaping body heat into a warm haven. But the gesture itself warmed me, from the heart out. It showed caring, a willingness to share comfort, and meant that my presence was welcome to my lord Sesshoumaru.
There was a brightness to his eyes that wasn't usually there, and I named it emotion, for lack of any better understanding of which emotion it was that moved him. Uneasiness curled in my stomach. A show of emotion from Sesshoumaru-sama meant he had laxed his control. Usually this resulted in many violent and painful deaths.
His hand curled around my head, his fingers threading into my hair. Applying gentle pressure to my head, he bent me toward him. Then he did the oddest thing of all, and buried his nose in my hair.
He inhaled deeply several times, then rested his cheek against my hair, keeping me bent toward him.
"The scent of rain becomes you," he said at last.
I held my breath, anticipation twitching in my gut. Not only was my Sesshoumaru-sama in a mood to tolerate my presence, he was also in a mood to expound upon whatever was on his mind. If the moon was shining tonight behind all those clouds, it definitely was blue.
"My father died because of a human," he talked absently, more to himself than me.
"That might be why I hate them so much," he continued.
"Yet now I have you, my Rin," he posed as a half question, half statement. His fingers began to caress my scalp in idle strokes.
"The fates must be smiling at the irony," he said, and I could sense more than feel the puzzled, sad smile that graced his lips.
"He was so worried about outliving her, yet it was she who lived after him for several years," he reminisced. Reaching around me, he drew Tensaiga and laid the shining, naked blade across our laps. The intitial tension in my shoulders relaxed. I had nothing to fear from this sword. Recklessly he let loose the hilt and returned to stroking my hair. He took another deep breath, sighed in a mixture of bittersweet contentment, and continued talking.
"This is the sword I saved your life with," he told me. "Go ahead, touch it. It should recognize you."
Hesitant to touch the sword that was his birthright, but unwilling to risk his anger by disobeying, I placed the pad of one finger against the flat part of the metal. Accordingly it pulsed gently, humming its pleasure at the life within my body.
Sesshoumaru-sama scowled at it darkly, but there was no anger behind it, only resignation. He sheathed it again, wiping the moisture away from it with his pelt. "Can you imagine me wielding a healing sword?!" he asked, incredulousness in his voice.
I shook my head no under his hand with a tiny movement to the right, then the left. If I used my voice, he might stop talking. More than I loved being with him at moments like this, I sensed that he needed it, that somehow it helped something heal within him.
"Yet my father left it to me, and bid me protect my brother with it," he sighed, looking out into the night.
His fingers stilled in my hair, then resumed their rhythm.
"By the time I stopped resenting my father's command, Inuyasha was sealed to a tree. There was nothing I could do, and I had a war on my hands."
As incredible as it was, I heard regret lacing his voice.
"Now the last legacy of my lord father, Tessaiga, answers only to that whelp. He no longer needs my protection and never wanted me as his lord. And he steals that which should have been mine, passed down with the title of Lord of the Western Lands, leaving me to utilize inferior weapons like the tainted Toukijin."
The regret was gone, burned away by a heat that stemmed from old wounds. Wounds that must have started when his father fell in love with a human, when father and son could no longer see eye to eye. Through it all I sat wide eyed and silent, absorbing it like a cleaning sponge.
Sesshoumaru-sama turned to me, lifting my chin with his knuckles so that I met his gaze.
"Do you find me lacking?" he asked in all seriousness.
I regarded him with all the honesty of a child, looking over the features I knew so well. "No."
Abruptly he withdrew from me, casting his eyes skyward again. But I could feel him soaking in the sincerity of my tone, basking in the lack of hesitation with which I answered.
"Go to sleep Rin," he ordered me with all his usual briskness.
Reluctantly I began to rise, but his hand clamped around my arm. "Stupid girl," he chided me. He tucked me into his side, rearranging his pelt to his satisfaction.
"Go to sleep Rin," he ordered me again.
And I did, drifting off to the sound of rain and the scent of my lord Sesshoumaru.
[Rin, first person]
The first peal of thunder awoke me. Uncurling from the cradling roots of the gnarled oak I had chosen as that night's bed, I immediately scanned my surroundings for Sesshoumaru-sama. No vision of white stood out among the shadowed shapes of the other trees, but the sleeping forms of Jaken and Aun assured me that all was well.
I sat half in, half out of the hollow my body had made in the soft ground, debating whether to go back to sleep. A hollow flash of white lightening, followed by another ground shaking rumble of thunder, convinced me to give up the pursuit of slumber. Balancing against the sturdy trunk of the tree, I removed the bits of leaf litter from my kimono and straightened the way it hung on my small form. Satisfied with the neatness of the garment, I looked up as the first fat, wet raindrop landed on my nose.
At that wet signal, I took off into the forest, as fleet and sure footed as a young deer. I knew that where my lord Sesshoumaru was, there would be warmth, comfort, and shelter from the rain. Unerringly I found him, heading up and into the forest until I came to the boulder strewn clearing that crowned the hill.
There he perched upon the highest rock, looking for all the world like a pagan god as the wind raised his hair and the pelt on his shoulder whipped behind him.
I paused at the treeline, taking temporary refuge from the storm amid the limbs of an elder cedar. Breathless, I gazed upon him, my hands braced against the cedar's sticky trunk. The contact both kept me upright in the wind and also grounded me in reality.
Sesshoumaru-sama might not be happy to have me join him. Yet, I never knew when I was welcome. The best I did was to blindly grope after him, hoping to stumble upon a moment when he was in a tolerant, indulgent mood. I had had limited sucess so far, but those rare moments of kindness, of a smile not riddled by sarcasm, kept me coming back like an addict.
Such was my dilemma. Sesshoumaru-sama was aware of my presence, so if I left now, he would question me about it in the morn. But there was no guarantee that he would acknowledge me should I crawl up beside him.
I paused indecisively, admiring the gorgeous creature that had taken me in. After living with him for these three years, I had come to know the nature of the monster I had offered succor to. Was he a demon? Yes. Through out forever, that would be the way my lord thought of himself. Yet, telling glimpses of his dog side showed through at the oddest moments. Like the way he rubbed his cheek against his pelt, or the way he delicately licked the blood off of his claws. Meticulous in his personal grooming and bathing, he somehow came across as very controlled instead of fussy. As cunning as a wolf, with that spark of intelligence to make him calculating, and the very control that made him himself, all added up to a cold killer that was more than just a predator.
I shook my head. No, Sesshoumaru-sama wasn't a cold killer. Practical, yes. Very practical, to the point of removing any annoyances in his life. To my knowledge, Jaken was the only annoyance Sesshoumaru-sama had allowed to live. Perhaps because my lord secretly loved tormenting the toad. As for myself, I had no doubts that should I prove to be an annoyance, Sesshoumaru-sama would dispatch me with a swipe of his poison claws.
The constant task of killing my youkai, would-be eaters must strike him as a noble act, an act in which he dispatched the riff-raff of his race. Never does he complain of my seemingly ability to tempt all youkai in the area into thinking I am a delectable meal. Jaken, on the other hand, complains long and loud. But then, I don't have to listen to Jaken.
A shiver ran up my back and despite the thick boughs of the cedar, I was quickly soaked to my skin. Another shiver wracked through me, and belatedly I noticed the cold. Wrapping my arms around myself, I tried to still my body's trembling. Lightening flashed, illuminating everything, but the reason I looked up again was because I felt the weight of my lord's regard.
Amber pools, fiercer and more wild than I had ever seen them, met my own shocked brown ones. I froze like a deer, pinned to the spot by the impersonal, active interest evidenced in his eyes. If anything, the heat of those eyes intensified.
"Rin," he called out into the storm.
My name.
One word.
Undeniable command.
Heedless of the fury of the storm, I clamored over the rocks until I stood on top of the one just below the one he sat on. From this distance, I could see him clearly and his unearthly beauty choked up my throat. Not just a combination of dog and demon, no. My Sesshoumaru-sama was possessed of a sheer force of spirit and mind that would suit a god better than a mere physical being.
In all of my learnings, before my family's death, I was never introduced to a great entity called God, but if a man's god is the being by which he lives and dies and swears by, then Sesshoumaru-sama was my god.
I was unmoving beneath the casual study of my god, waiting with all the faith of a fanatic and all the patience of the blameless. Around us the storm raged unnoticed.
Finally he offered me his hand, and I took it, climbing up beside him. Though he looked like he had been birthed by the torment of elements that surrounded us, his hand was surprisingly warm and dry against my skin. Silently he tucked his white pelt around me, sheltering me from the storm.
It was dry and fuzzy against my cheek, heavy around my shoulders in a way that suggested that soon it would turn my escaping body heat into a warm haven. But the gesture itself warmed me, from the heart out. It showed caring, a willingness to share comfort, and meant that my presence was welcome to my lord Sesshoumaru.
There was a brightness to his eyes that wasn't usually there, and I named it emotion, for lack of any better understanding of which emotion it was that moved him. Uneasiness curled in my stomach. A show of emotion from Sesshoumaru-sama meant he had laxed his control. Usually this resulted in many violent and painful deaths.
His hand curled around my head, his fingers threading into my hair. Applying gentle pressure to my head, he bent me toward him. Then he did the oddest thing of all, and buried his nose in my hair.
He inhaled deeply several times, then rested his cheek against my hair, keeping me bent toward him.
"The scent of rain becomes you," he said at last.
I held my breath, anticipation twitching in my gut. Not only was my Sesshoumaru-sama in a mood to tolerate my presence, he was also in a mood to expound upon whatever was on his mind. If the moon was shining tonight behind all those clouds, it definitely was blue.
"My father died because of a human," he talked absently, more to himself than me.
"That might be why I hate them so much," he continued.
"Yet now I have you, my Rin," he posed as a half question, half statement. His fingers began to caress my scalp in idle strokes.
"The fates must be smiling at the irony," he said, and I could sense more than feel the puzzled, sad smile that graced his lips.
"He was so worried about outliving her, yet it was she who lived after him for several years," he reminisced. Reaching around me, he drew Tensaiga and laid the shining, naked blade across our laps. The intitial tension in my shoulders relaxed. I had nothing to fear from this sword. Recklessly he let loose the hilt and returned to stroking my hair. He took another deep breath, sighed in a mixture of bittersweet contentment, and continued talking.
"This is the sword I saved your life with," he told me. "Go ahead, touch it. It should recognize you."
Hesitant to touch the sword that was his birthright, but unwilling to risk his anger by disobeying, I placed the pad of one finger against the flat part of the metal. Accordingly it pulsed gently, humming its pleasure at the life within my body.
Sesshoumaru-sama scowled at it darkly, but there was no anger behind it, only resignation. He sheathed it again, wiping the moisture away from it with his pelt. "Can you imagine me wielding a healing sword?!" he asked, incredulousness in his voice.
I shook my head no under his hand with a tiny movement to the right, then the left. If I used my voice, he might stop talking. More than I loved being with him at moments like this, I sensed that he needed it, that somehow it helped something heal within him.
"Yet my father left it to me, and bid me protect my brother with it," he sighed, looking out into the night.
His fingers stilled in my hair, then resumed their rhythm.
"By the time I stopped resenting my father's command, Inuyasha was sealed to a tree. There was nothing I could do, and I had a war on my hands."
As incredible as it was, I heard regret lacing his voice.
"Now the last legacy of my lord father, Tessaiga, answers only to that whelp. He no longer needs my protection and never wanted me as his lord. And he steals that which should have been mine, passed down with the title of Lord of the Western Lands, leaving me to utilize inferior weapons like the tainted Toukijin."
The regret was gone, burned away by a heat that stemmed from old wounds. Wounds that must have started when his father fell in love with a human, when father and son could no longer see eye to eye. Through it all I sat wide eyed and silent, absorbing it like a cleaning sponge.
Sesshoumaru-sama turned to me, lifting my chin with his knuckles so that I met his gaze.
"Do you find me lacking?" he asked in all seriousness.
I regarded him with all the honesty of a child, looking over the features I knew so well. "No."
Abruptly he withdrew from me, casting his eyes skyward again. But I could feel him soaking in the sincerity of my tone, basking in the lack of hesitation with which I answered.
"Go to sleep Rin," he ordered me with all his usual briskness.
Reluctantly I began to rise, but his hand clamped around my arm. "Stupid girl," he chided me. He tucked me into his side, rearranging his pelt to his satisfaction.
"Go to sleep Rin," he ordered me again.
And I did, drifting off to the sound of rain and the scent of my lord Sesshoumaru.