Hey there everyone! My first fic. Well, my first fic on this site. I've written a few but never published them.

So.

So I'm a little nervous.

Please don't be too harsh, okay? Promise? Yes? Okay. Good. This will be a multi-chapter fic, so bear with me while I write it.

I don't own anything. Sadly.

Now, please enjoy!

Chapter One

Love

Jaken had noticed Rin occasionally stopped using "Lord" while referring to Sesshomaru. This was not as unusual as he would have thought, since she had used it off and on since she had turned thirteen. Eight years had passed since they first met her and Rin had left childhood behind. She was not what humans considered to be beautiful. She was a pound or two too thin, too small, and even eight years later, her eyes were too large for her face. She took to wearing kimonos she could easily work in and she still shied away from shoes, insisting that they got in her way, but wore them despite her discomfort in order to keep away from Jaken's nagging.

Rin sat, leaning, against A-Un's side as she sewed one of Jaken's robes he had torn almost in two on a thorn bush. She hummed a tune she had heard years ago, knowing full well how it bothered those around her, but continued to do so because the two-headed dragon liked it.

"Rin!" Jaken snapped, looking lost in his least favourite robe, which he tugged on mercilessly. "Stop that noise and concentrate!"

"Sorry, Jaken."

She had stopped calling him "Master." Unlike with Sesshomaru, whom she somehow forgot to call "Lord" once or twice, Rin called Jaken by his title only when she could tell he was upset or when she wished to calm his ire at something unfitting she had done.

Jaken was quiet in his own thoughts, Rin noticed. A-Un nudged her with one of its muzzles and, with a smile, she started to hum to it again. The dragon let out a soft cat-like purr and laid both of its heads, contently, on the grass.

"What's that disgusting song about, anyway?"

Rin could not help but giggle a little at the absurdity - Jaken never asked her questions. She choked it down quickly, though, when she saw his frustrated expression. Placing her sewing aside, she took a breath and explained that it was a rather old folksong the villagers in her town had sung while they went about their work. It was a story, of sorts, of two trees planted side by side on the edge of a forest. They had developed a love for each other, but were inevitably separated after they were consumed in a fire.

The song had always made her sad since the first time she had heard the people from her village singing it. It was an obscure folksong that she had only heard performed once in passing and, after that, never again. In fact, the song was so old that it was known by a handful of villages in the entire country. It was perhaps one of the only memories Rin still had of her life before she met Sesshomaru.

After she had finished telling him, Jaken folded his arms indignantly. "Trees?" he scoffed. "Feel love? What a ridiculous story. Trees don't love."

"People say the same about demons," she reminded him softly.

"Demons don't love either," he said, flabbergasted that she would think of such a thing.

Rin's eyes widened and she jumped forward, her face inches from the frog demon's. "That can't be true, Jaken! What about Lord Sesshomaru's father? And Inuyasha?"

"Bite your tongue, silly girl! Don't speak of that half-demon in Lord Sesshomaru's presence!"

Sesshomaru was a grim, white-clad statue amid the bending stocks in the field, staring at something, though, not for lack of trying, Rin could not figure out what. Only an irritated twitch of his hand, the flick of his index finger, on Tenseiga told that he had heard her. He would not say he had heard - he would not say the mention of his father and brother had bothered him.

She fell back, again picking up the cloth she was sewing. After a thoughtful moment of staring at her uneven stitches, the girl said quietly, "But, Jaken, surely they love."

"Humph. Silly human sentiment." He waved his hand and the conversation was dismissed.

Rin stayed where she was, sewing and humming, until the sun had begun to fall from its place in the noon sky. With her mind whirling, she tried her best to concentrate as Jaken had told her. She had never been skilled with the needle and, being raised by two male demons, she had not had the chance to improve. Finally, she was finished and she stood, her limbs aching, and dropped the robe in Jaken's lap.

She glanced around, noticing that in the long hour she had spent sewing, he had not moved. Rin walked slowly out to where the demon stood, her fingers brushing absent-mindedly over the wildly growing weeds, and stopped hesitantly a few feet away from him. She stared at his back, praying for him to turn, however, when he remained still, she sighed.

"Lord Sesshomaru? I saw some herbs at the other side of the forest." When he did not answer, she whispered, "A-Un likes them."

"There is a human village nearby."

He would come no closer to warning her, no closer to showing his concern for her safety, but Rin knew it was there. The knowledge made the side of her heart tug. "Yes, Lord Sesshomaru. I'll be careful."

With a grateful smile and her tattered basket on her arm, Rin sped off into the nearby forest. Only Jaken saw Sesshomaru turn then. Only Jaken saw the intensity in which his master watched her go, staring long after she had faded into the trees, and he clutched his staff nervously to his chest.

Rin passed one last bush before she caught a glimpse of a small village nestled in the middle of fields of sprouting grains. A few houses dotted the flat countryside behind the village, but was otherwise covered in a blanket of trees and bushes. There was a soft murmur of activity, a sound that could only be when there were humans nearby: laughter. It was pleasant to stand in a noisy place without Jaken. He took delight in bossing and directing, enjoyed nagging, and revelled in controlling others. Rin usually accepted his criticism with her gentle grace, but today she was tired. He drained her much like no one else had.

So she stood and relished the sounds of the village children, most likely all under nine years of age, playing in the field for a few minutes, waiting for their parents' work to be done, before they would start on their many ways home. The rain had let up completely, allowing some sunlight to peek through the fading clouds.

The laughter and play did not last long, for it was interrupted by a soft crying that slowly escalated into a wailing that drew Rin near it. The warnings of Sesshomaru rang dully in her head, making her wary of her decision, but the crying led her forward with concern. A little girl stood at the base of a tall oak tree, her chubby fists pressing into her eyes. Her face was growing redder with each passing moment, the on-looking children watching nervously as they tried to think of what to do.

Rin dropped to the girl's level, gently pulling her fists away from her so that she would look at Rin. She did, startled out of crying for a moment. Rin took that chance to speak to her.

"Hello there," she said in her happiest voice, though she was anxious from being so close to another of her kind after so long. "Are you all right?"

"I was playin' with the doll that Mama bought for me n' Haruko n' Jaru took it away from me n' started runnin' around with it n' then threw it as hard as they could n' it went up in that big ol' tree!" She had started to hiccup by this point, making her words harder still to understand. "If – hic – I d – don get th' doll back Mama's – hic – gonna punish me good 'cause it – hic – was 'spensive . . ."

So her doll was stuck up in a tree. Rin could see it if she squinted, quite a bit up probably one of the tallest oak trees she had ever seen. The girl's toy must have been very special to her judging by the way she was acting. For a moment, Rin gazed over to the child. Her little grey kimono was dirty and she had no shoes to speak of, so it was painfully clear that her family would not be able to afford another doll for a long while, if ever.

Rin sighed, knowing what she had to do and feeling very hesitant at the idea. She looked back down at the girl.

"You know what?" she asked, pulling out the string she had used to tie her hair back. "This is made of magic. It'll get your doll down."

It was a lie, and Jaken had told her seriously that she should never lie, that it was unbecoming of a lady, and only to do so if Lord Sesshomaru commanded it. However, Sesshomaru was not around to command it and this little girl reminded Rin of herself when she had been poor, frightened, and alone.

The girl stuck her bottom lip out. "There ain't no such thing as magic."

Rin was dumbfounded. She had grown up surrounded by magic. How could a child live around demons, fear demons, and not believe that the very thing they were apart of existed?

"W-well," she stumbled, "there is not magic every day, but this string is an amulet. It will give you magic just for today."

"Really?" She eyed Rin doubtfully, yet there was a touch of wanting to believe in her stubborn gaze.

"Yes," Rin said as confidently as she could while lying. "But you have to close your eyes and wish very hard or else the magic won't work."

The girl gave Rin a look like she suspected she was being tricked, but she closed her eyes all the same. Her fingers clenched hard around the string and her mouth moved, silently forming her wish. All of the children had left for home by now, fascinated by the strange woman with a basket of herbs, but not one was willing to risk their lives on the possibility of her being a kind demoness who would spare children.

Rin put her basket down onto the grass. She removed her shoes, deciding that it would be less difficult to climb without them, and, placing her hand on the first branch, pulled herself up to begin. Even without her shoes, the ascent was much harder than it had been in her memories of tree-climbing as a child. Rin supposed she was not as agile as she had been back then, and not nearly as light. She had been gaining weight recently, her kimonos noticeably fitting tighter around her middle, causing increased frustration as she tried to climb.

The folds of her clothes also hindered more than helped, flying in her face when there was wind, tangling around her legs to almost send her spiralling downward, and catching in branches. She was sweating practically everywhere, another thing Jaken had told was unladylike. Her hands and feet were full of wooden splinters and her back ached with the effort of reaching, pushing, and pulling herself up the tree. The hair that had taken her ten minutes to braid properly that morning was flying everywhere in wild tufts, falling prey to sap, leaves, and clinging sticks. The one thing that kept her climbing was the image of how the little girl would look when she had her most prized possession tucked in her arms.

After what seemed like hours of climbing, Rin could finally see the doll, barely a rag and some horse hair, swaying in the branches a little ways up. If Rin stood on the tips of her toes and reached with all of her strength, she reasoned she might be able to knock the doll loose with her fingers. If she could only stretch a little higher, maybe push up a little farther, she could grab it.

There was a defined cracking noise as the branch beneath her feet gave out, followed by the terrible clenching in her stomach that only the moment of stepping off a ledge and realizing nothing is there could give. One moment she was on something solid that held her weight, the next she was falling fifteen feet to the ground. Rin was too afraid to think, too startled to scream. Her hands flew out by instinct in order to protect her face. Her arms and legs curled up against her, preparing for the blow that would inevitably kill.

Instead, something soft but sturdy wrapped around Rin and for a few moments she felt she was floating in thin air. Rin pinched her eyes shut and, suddenly, she was safely sitting on the grass with the little girl's doll resting in her lap. Confusion whirled around her as nausea from the fall and the shock rumbled in her throat.

"Can I open my eyes?" the girl asked, sounding so hopeful that Rin's mind surfaced quickly from its muddled haze.

"Um, y-yes," Rin replied unsteadily.

She popped her eyes open and, when she saw the toy Rin was holding out to her, she began to squeal, chuckle, and dance around the field, swinging the doll around over and over. The sun was fading in the distance, lighting the small housetops orange. Even the girl's hair looked as though it were on fire.

"Thanks, miss," she said to the older girl with a little wave. "Thanks for th' magic."

There was no time to wave back. With a big smile and a quick bow, she was gone off down the road towards her home. Soberly, Rin moved to collect her basket but it slipped from her fingers and turned over. She pressed her hands against her chest, shaking so hard that her whole body was quaking. She felt numb down to her toes. Rin was so uncertain as to what had happened that she was in disbelief. Had it actually been magic to save her?

Drops of sweat dripped down her face though it was cool out. Rin knew that if she could see herself, she would see a sickly pale girl in a torn and muddy kimono with wild, brown hair clumping in places, stuck by tree sap.

"That was unwise, Rin," a rich baritone said evenly.

Seeing her Lord step out from behind the oak she had just climbed, Rin turned to a bush beside her and threw up her breakfast.