Chapter 1
"Akami!... Akami!" An annoyed voice called out the name over and over again no matter how loud the voice had gotten, the one who was calling it out, could not seem to wake the person sleep. Yawning, the figure who was sleeping rolled over, hidden under the pile of fur, attempting to go back to sleep. "Akami, I know your awake!" The voice got closer now, a hand shaking the figure hidden under the furs, only to receive an annoyed growl in response. "Don't make me pour water on your head." The voice said with anger, as the hand hit the shoulder it was shaking once, before turning and walking away. Only when the sound of the foot steps moved away, did the one under the fur move once more, rolling over and moving the furs that covered it's face, to glance out a small hole to see, that that person was indeed gone. With a smirk ending short with a yawn, the figure fell back into a blissful sleep.
A sleep that did not last long, as the feeling of cool liquid being poured rapidly upon the figure, shocked it out of its sleep, and out of the hiding of the fur. The fur fell around the startled figure as it shot up into a sitting position. A lose dirty pale white kimono clung to the form a famine body underneath, the cloth becoming translucent, revealing pale skin underneath, from the liquid pored upon it. Dark brown hair stuck to the exposed, now wet arms, and stood up at every angel, and clung to the face in a mess, before the feminine figure moved the strands from its face. The face was soft and round, a light pink of shock covered the cheeks, and pale green eyes stood out from behind the dark locks, the pale pink lips turned down in a frown, as it glared at the one who was standing across from her.
Another female, much older looking, with silver streaks woven through out her long black braided hair. Her face a bit fuller, and her body a bit more plump then the young female who sat across from her, looking more like a bean pole, the kimono she wore, clung to some areas, and other areas it drowned out the frail figure beneath it. The older female adjusted the white apron around her waist that sat above a dark green kimono. Her hands then where placed as fist upon her hips as she scowled down at the younger female. "I warned you. Now get up. You can clean the main bath for waking up so late." The Older lady barked out,a s she turned on the ball of her heel and left the room, and up the stone stairs that where behind the door.
The younger female groaned as she pushed her self from the mass of furs, and crawled out onto the cold stone floor. Standing slowly, she stretched out her arms above her head, and the rest of her tall thin frame, before twisting her back this way and that, popping sounds echoed with a content sigh, as she yawned once more, and went about looking for the kimono she usually wore when it was time to work.
Slipping the now wet think kimono from her body, she then pulled on a darker blue one, one that wasn't so large and fit her thin frail frame. Braiding her long waist length hair, she moved to walk bare foot across the stone floor and to the stone stairs that would lead up her up to the main floor, where she would be forced to do her daily duties of maintaining the castle above.
The castle above belonged to a "great", or rather what her fellow workers called great, Lord who was actually a strong demon. Though the castle wasn't by any means actually his, it was his late father's and had been passed down to him upon his father's passing, or so Akami was told when she had entered into the servitude of this castle. The story seemed grand and the father seemed like an awesome Lord to work under. Everyone talked great things about the Late Lord, and Akami wished she was around to met him, but alas he died around three hundred years ago, before she was even born, and given she was nothing more then a meek human, who by the way worked with nothing more then demons, would have not lived to tell his tale anyway. Now she was stuck working with the son. A demon with a quick temper, and a cold heart He hardly seemed to talk to anyone, and always looked to her with disdain and hatred. She always wondered how she came to work under him anyway, given from what she heard, and saw, he hated humans with a strong passion. Minus one demanding little ward of his.
Sighing, Akami yawned once more, and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, moving quickly towards the main hall and the bath she was to clean. The bath was nothing more then a room built around a natural hot spring, that was actually built along a hill side where the water leaked. She found it convenient that they had such a thing in the castle, where from what she understood, not many other villagers had that, and were forced - if they did at all - bath in a river or collected rain waters.
Rounding a corner, she paused and quickly steeped to the side, bowing at the waist, her long hair fell around her like a curtain as she watched dark boots pass by her. She always tried avoiding the Lord she worked for, the looks of hatred and menace that came her way from him, always made her skin crawl, and knowing better to stay away to survive, she did what she could to avoid him. But as she rounded that corner, heading for that bath, he had just happened to be leaving said room and headed her way. So she took to watching his feet pass, and waited to the count of thirty before she chose to stand and quickly walk to the bathing room and set about her job of cleaning.
The room was rather small, the natural spring, blocked around with stone wall to hold the water, took up more the half the room. Simple wooden racks sat against the stone walls and held simple bottles of smelling salts one would add to the water to make it smell more pleasant. Though she never favored theses scents, they always seemed to weak in their scent, and left her skin feeling itchy and dry. 'What I wouldn't give for a bottle of shampoo.' She sighed out the thought, the image of a simple bottled container appeared in her mind, for a quick moment, before she shook the thought from her head. "I gotta stop think of these things.. They are strange and don't even exist." She cursed her self out, this seemed to be a random habit of hers. Images and names of things she had never seen before, or let alone touched, would pop into her mind with such clearance, she was sure that they where real, but when asked about them, she would be laughed at, or called a demon for thinking of such things. So she would often keep her thoughts to her self, already feeling like an outcast as it was.
Turning to the stone wall behind her, she lifted the dying torch, and replaced it with a newer one she had grabbed from the shelf upon entering the room. Lighting the new torch with the dying one, she dipped the dying ones tip into the water to put out the flame, before placing it at the side. She then went about moving around the room, replacing simple stones that fell from the back natural wall of rock and dirt that the water shot out from, and made sure the room was clean. Moving towards the dirt wall, she over looked it, making sure all the rocks around the source of the water was placed perfectly, but as she looked it over, she noted that some of the higher rocks was lose, and the water was dripping down the side and causing mud to form near the base where the water was held in a stone pool.
Sighing, Akami removed her kimono, and nude, steeped into the warm water. The warmth felt relaxing against her strained muscles, muscles that where used to clean and survive from sun up to sun down, and ached easily, but was easy to ignore. Though she had to ignore the warm water, the way it felt against her skin, for this bath was only met for the Lord and his ward, and guest to bathe, not for some lowly servant. Moving slowly, as not to slip, she made her self to the natural wall and reached up to placed the rock back into it's place. It was closer up that she noted an odd plant was growing the from the wall as well, and went about straightening the rocks, as well as the plants that grew out of the earth.
Being lost in her workings, she did not hear the foot falls behind her, till she felt the uncomfortable feeling of eyes upon her bare back. With her eyes going wide, she quickly moved, nearly falling into the water below, and turned to see no other then her Lord staring at her, and what was once her back, a plain look to his emotionless face, like a mask, it rarely moved to show any emotion, other then the quick glare of his eyes. "My.. MY Lord." Akami quickly said bowing, her right arm moving before she turned to cover her small chest, as she stood waist deep in the water which would cover most of her lower half. She felt uncomfortable standing nude before the male, her skin crawled as she felt her eyes on her.
Though she knew what he saw, when he would enter he would only see her back, her back that was scared from the base of her spine, all the way up to the back of her neck. White lines darted and danced and zigzagged up her back towards her skull, a result from her accident she had, that had landed her here in this castle, with nothing but a name to her person and no memories of her past. Along with the complex scars, black designs covered her whole back and danced down the back of her thighs, and the back of her arms. Words written in strange symbols, strange runes covered and danced along the lines of her scars making it seem like they where popping out of her skin.
Her body to match was thin and frail, her ribs where easily seen against her pale skin, her legs and arms unnaturally long and thin, her chest was small, and her stomach was flat, and was also marked with a jagged scar that ran from hip to hip. Small black specks doted and covered most of her cheeks, and some of her arms. She was not a pretty sight, she knew that, she was below commonly and knew the female demons she worked with out shone her, with beauty that was obvious.
Though she knew this, his eyes on her still made her skin twitch with wanting to quickly cover her person, but she held her bow. "I.. I was only fixing the rocks, and cleaning the wall. My Lord." She explained, hoping that for some reason he did not think she was stealing a bath, his eyes on her felt other wise. When he said nothing, she shifted her wait from left foot to right. "Is..Is there something I can help you with?" She asked quickly, taking a quick glance at the demon Lord standing before her, who only seemed to look at her with some form of disgust? It was hard to tell, his eyes where not easy to read. He hardly spared her another glanced as he spun around his back towards her. "Dress and Follow at once." He demanded and left the room in a flurry.
With her heart beating rapidly in her chest, Akami stumbled from the hot spring like pool, and quickly dressed into her kimono, cursing when the cloth stuck to her wet skin, as she quickly tied her obi and ran out of the room. She found the Lord waiting outside, but somewhat down the hallway. She ran to catch up to him, her head bowed forward as she went about to following after him in silence.
She let him lead the way, following after him in obeyed silence, as they turned a hallway here, and another there, heading towards the back doors, that would lead to the eastern gate. She begun to wonder what he was doing, what he wanted, Hoping that he was not going to demand that she would leave. Fear clenched her heart, and caused it to race, as she stole a glance at his features. Nothing seemed off, he didn't see angry - any more then normal actually - and lead the way in quick silence. She just kept hoping that she could stay here, it was the only home she had. Though it was hard work, and she worked for someone she disliked, she still liked working with the female demons, as they took her in, Injured and confused, and taught her everything she knew now, and treated her with some form of kindness since she had no memory of anything but her name. Now she was afraid of being tossed into a strange dangerous world that she knew nothing about to fend for her self. "My lord.. What.." She paused when they came to the large doors and he threw one opened and he waked out, and she followed after him quickly.
Momentarily blinded by the sunlight, she was not aware of the ones who standing around her at first, till a familiar babble entered her hearing and she tuned her gaze towards the lord and the small child that ran up to him. Wearing a simple purple kimono and had her hair up in a half pony tail on the side, bounced up to the Lord with a smile. "My lord! " She cheered, then looked to Akami and gave a smile and a wave, before looking back to her lord. "What is it that you need?" She asked with curiousness.
The Lord took that moment to spare Akami a glance, causing her to bow her head quickly. "She is now to be your personal maid." He informed the little girl, making Akami and her gasp in surprise together, as they both looked to him, he looked back to Akami with a warning glare. "You must attend to every need Rin demands." He basically commanded, before he turned and walked away. Akami blinked and looked down at the little girl who bounced over to her, staring at her as if thinking about something then smiled. "Akami right?" Rin asked, standing on her tip toes to look up at the much taller girl. Akami simply nodded, to shocked to say anything. "Good! Then I want you to help me pick out flowers!" The girl demanded in a grin, before running off.
Akami blinked "Is this really happening?" She asked her self aloud, having thought the worse, she did not expect this simple thing, of being the maid to a little girl, that she was still shocked, that when the girl ran off with her demand, Akami stumbled after her in an attempt to catch up, and so now Rin had a personal maid to do what ever with, or make her do what ever she wanted, for who knew how long. 'I know this wont be easy' Was Akami's thought, as she was suddenly filled with slight dread, as she knew something was not going to be easy about this.
AN: Not really sure where this story is going yet. It was just a last minute thing I thought up of, on the brink of sleep. Could be a SesshomaruxOC, or even a KogaxOC, Since I have yet to do one of those and thought it would be different.
But something to deal with Rin having a new friend, that is for certain. I want to hear some thoughts! Please R&R