A young Sesshoumaru clutched possessively at the too-big-pile-of-fur thrown over his shoulder for convenience, as he stared down at the young female playing "peek-a-boo" with the end he could not take from her. She was on her knees now, holding the fur just over her head, a giant playful grin plastered upon her lips. It wasn't unusual to see her so happy, nor was it a surprise to see her expensive pink kimono laid intricately with flowers and hearts, practically torn and covered in mud. Her dark locks were pulled into loose pigtails, tied at the nape of her throat. Her hair now reached just past her shoulder blades and Sesshoumaru could not help the self-conscious glance he threw quickly to his own shoulder length silver hair. A happy giggle snapped his attention back to the girl again. She'd released his fur and now and had both hands covering her lips. "What do you find so endearingly hilarious, Girl?" He tried not to snap the words out, but gruff they came without fail, and he instinctively ducked none too soon as the striped claws of his father swiped at the air where he'd been standing before.

"Apologize." Came the barked order. "Now." His father was always striking him for insulting the girl, he didn't know why, it always seemed to make her giggle even more that he treated her like any other, bland, ordinary, annoying girl; but of course it was politically insulting of her father and his own. In a way, he did know why his father always struck him, but out of the public eye he didn't understand why it would matter if he addressed her "Princess" or "Girl", his father would reply with a same, simple, annoying, unexplained statement of; "bad habits are hard to break" whenever he inquired.

Today the punishment was worse, the day of the waning crescent moon; their fathers were hanging close and they were forbidden to leave the hidden garden in the center of the western region fortress, thus stuck under their fathers' noses. Normally they were allowed farther away and in more places of the palace; out of earshot but not sight, or out of sight but not earshot. Her father was annoyingly overprotective of her that way. When she left the lordling was all but ignored by his father, allowed to do anything or go anywhere he pleased so long as it did take him away from his studies or outside of the fortress grounds. "Sesshoumaru!" The angry bark drew back his attention to the girl, whose open grin had disappeared and she was staring worriedly at him, no, at his father. Worried the Western Lord would strike his son again, no doubt. Dutifully - and to put that grin back on her face - the young prince braced his fists upon his hips and bowed deeply at his waist. "Forgive my imprudence, Princess." He held the position, staring at his shoes until frail hands pushed uselessly against his shoulders, trying to force him upright again. He allowed her to push him and stood before the girl now standing directly in front of him. She was shorter than him by at least a head, and his father had told him he would always be taller than her, but he was forbidden to look down upon her. At the time, he hadn't understood what his father meant, how could he look at her but not look down at her when she was shorter than him? Just another annoyance, an annoyance that forced him to keep his eyes level, staring out over her head. He thought this was far more insulting than addressing her by her gender, but it seemed to please his father, and he could sense the two taiyoukai stalking back to their post at the single door that led out of the closed-in garden that no servant was allowed to enter. Overhead, the sky was beginning to darken and he knew their confined play would be ending soon, it always came to an abrupt end when the sun set, especially on the day of the waning crescent. He glanced down quickly without changing his position and his eyes locked with her coffee brown ones for only a second before the brown faded, giving way to unnaturally bright aquatic blue. He was riveted on those strange blue eyes enough to not notice the rest of her Shift. Her night black hair turned a glistening silver that looked gray in comparison to his own ghost white hair, and her human ears disappeared completely, being replaced with silver gray pointed dog ears atop her skull. Half-breed. The word ripped through his thoughts shattering everything else. Her father's blood was politically stronger than his own and thus he was supposed to her lesser, but the human blood that flowed through her veins made his instincts flare, made his instincts want to put her in her place - beneath him. As a half-demon, she was beneath him. Despite her human mother, though, she was indeed his very best friend and he could not restrain the careful smile that pulled at the edge of his lips. It confused him so much that this one little girl could cause such a giant rift between his demonic instincts and his thoughts that she wasn't anything more or less than a fellow child of the moon. Attentively, the newly shifted half-demon carefully raised her hands as if to cup his chin, but paused in her movement several inches away, keeping a careful distance between her skin and his. She had not asked to touch his markings, as was customary, but he did not mind, somewhere deep in his being, he craved those fingers to stroke against his markings. "Such sad, frozen amber." She murmured and he was struck again with the reminder that she rarely spoke, but when she did, her sweet, luscious, addictive voice filled his ears and he wanted nothing more than to keep her talking. Before he could say something to keep her talking though, her father swept in, snatched away her fingers and was all but dragging her out of the garden. He never understood the taiyoukai's need to pull her away when he shoved her at him early in the morning. He blinked a few times and turned towards his father who was staring back at him with deep bronze colored eyes. "Why does he-?" He began but his father interrupted with a shake of her head, "You're too young to understand his worry, Sesshoumaru." Was all he responded with before turning and walking out of the garden. The young prince ran to keep up, but his father was already disappearing into another room. He tip-toed nearer, curious to know what his father would tell his mother. "She's a flighty little thing, she is." His father's gruff thrum-of-a-voice echoed out to him.

"Do you expect anything less, she's a half-breed. I simply do not understand my son's fascination for such disgusting beasts." His mother's honey-sweet voice clicked coldly in response to her mate's statement. It rattled in his head and sent chills down his spine, even when she was most enthusiastic, his mother's voice dripped with cold hatred. "I still disagree with this union." She hissed now, receiving a scoff from his father, "You only disagree because she's not a Pureblood. She's the last descendant of the Clan of the Silver Dog; you should be pleased that her father agreed to a union at all." He surmised, and silence befell the room. Sesshoumaru waited a few seconds before assuming his father had taken his leave through another door, or his mother had.

The young lord began to suspect something was amiss when the Princess did not return for almost an entire month, and then, she did not arrive like usual for the waning crescent day… But he was certain something had gone awry when, on the eve of the waxing crescent, the palace burst into an up-roar. A messenger had arrived, requesting to speak to his father and no one else. He didn't know of the message relayed only that the messenger died right there at his father's feet within his study and the Western Lord was frantic. It took several days for the commotion to even slightly die down. More than a month had past since the princess's departure and so, carefully, on the evening of the first quarter moon, Sesshoumaru slipped into his father's study, careful to make sure he was not interrupting anything. His father stood behind a big oak desk, which was currently buried under a mass of scrolls. His father was turned, half away from the desk, another scroll open in his hands. "Father?" He inquired softly, drawing the attention of those intense bronze colored eyes. Instantly, he regretted pulling those eyes towards him, he began to fidget uncomfortably.

"Well? Speak, Boy." His father snapped, but did not wait for Sesshoumaru to talk as he turned back to the scroll at hand.

"Well… I was wondering when… When the princess would be returning…?" Sesshoumaru muttered, looking down at shoes. There was a fluttered of movement in his peripheral vision, a soft clatter as a scroll hit the ground, and then… Then he was being smothered. He was being embraced so tightly by his father he thought for a moment he'd made a terrible mistake bringing up the Northern Princess, until he felt a soft tremor course through his father. His father was… Trembling? All of a sudden he wanted to pull away, he wanted to run away, he didn't want to hear what his father was saying. "No… No. No!" He cried, shaking his head vigorously. But his father spoke anyways, despite his cries. "The Princess will not be returning; the Northern Fortress has fallen. The Northern Lord could not stand, the princess has been lost. The Silver bloodline is gone." He spoke the last part like it mattered the most, but all Sesshoumaru could think about was those frail little hands reaching for his face, and her soft murmur commenting on the frosty glaze to his yellow-amber eyes.

Sesshoumaru's eyes snapped open as a cold drop of water dripped from a still-wet leaf, the drop splashing icily against the purple-blue waning crescent mark formed in the precise center of his forehead. A constant reminder that he had not been strong enough to save the one who meant more than the world to him so many years ago. Frozen amber eyes slid over to his charges, Rin was asleep, tucked curtly against the hard but reassuring bulk of A-un, the ever-present annoyance of Jaken was, as to be expected, asleep as well. Seeing that no one was around to take notice of his reaction, the taiyouki narrowed his usually expressionless eyes to barely visible slits and let a quiet growl reverberate against his throat. The two-headed dragon was the only one aware of his current state, he watched as one head rose and the other merely eyed him wearily. "I was thinking about that time." He commented, quietly, so not to disturb his slumbering charges. Glancing up to the lightening sky, he caught the barest glimpse of the moon, "The day of the waning crescent." He sighed, his fingers unconsciously reaching up to touch his own marking. It was her day, her favorite day of the month, unlike most half-demons, she'd been happy and even excited to share her time of weakness with him. It had been the same, very month, the very same thing. Ever since his father had told him what became of the Northern Fortress, on the eve of the waning crescent, the same memories would flash forward into the forefront of his thoughts, refusing to let him forget that he hadn't been strong enough. That the last words spoken between them were her commentary on the coldness in his amber eyes, and for a second he was glad she could not see him now, see the utter lifelessness in those eyes once coated only with a cold sheen.

A/N:
This chapter was written while listening to the following tracks
- "Second Chance" by Shinedown
- "Say Anything" by Good Charlotte
- "Lucy" by Skillet
I do not, nor do I claim, to own any of the characters from the InuYasha series, and give full rights to it's rightful owners. Nor do I claim ownership of the songs listened to while writing this. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and hope that you return to finish the story with me.