Declaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of their characters.
She breathed in the air and for a moment she was sure it was the clearest air her lungs ever tasted. Everything seemed to be at peace. The grass under her feet seemed to whisper secretes and in return they will tingle as if giggling at their strange stories. The wind ran cold hands around her scalp, brushing her raven hair in all directions, never deciding what to do with it. The birds sang to trees tunes that made them freeze and root on the ground as if moving would cause the enigma to end. And from a short distance she heard the steps of someone approaching.
"My lord, I don't ever want to leave this place," her voice sounded nostalgic and for some reason she felt something in her chest, some kind of fear that she might never see this place gain, she just wanted to live in this one moment forever. After all, these were the pinkest skies she ever seen.
"No, Rin," said her Lord, taking disinterest in what she'd said, "we must go, Jaken has already set camp."
Rin looked around the enthralling clearing as if she were about to say farewells to a long lost friend. "Can't we stay a little while longer, my lord?"
"If that's what you wish," Sesshormaru started.
"It is," she admitted.
"Then a few minutes."
She smiled lightly since it wasn't going to be the rest of the day but considering he spoiled her, she was fine. She still couldn't understand it though, everyone always talked about how cold and menacing her Lord was but she never saw it. He was always kind and considerate to her. That at times she was sure Jaken was even jealous of her. He was a whole different person, she could say and it is very true. She had seen and witness how roughness he can get and how he can treat others. She sometimes wonders why he does that. Sometimes she wonders if, maybe, in time, he would stop treating her like he does now.
"Would you ever leave me, Lord Sesshomaru, if I said I wanted to stay a little bit more." She said quietly, bending over and picking at the grass from the ground.
She wasn't sure if time was passing in a rush or in small steps. She wasn't sure if she was breathing or if she wasn't taking in air. She wasn't sure if she had gone deaf seconds ago or if the world had just stopped talking. But one thing she was very sure of: he hadn't answer.
She'd counted to a million, or she guessed she did, before she spoke again. "My Lord, why do you keep me here? Why, if you can just drop me off or strand me in wherever place there is? Jaken said you can and I wait every day fearing you would, and why haven't you? Why let me live with the suspense?"
She wasn't deaf. She heard her own voice. Now she was sure he was just ignoring her. He would do that sometimes. After she concluded that she had nothing to lose, for in that moment she lost her dignity, she turned to him. He was staring at something from the blank pages of empty space. It seemed that it was more important than her.
"But in a way you have," she said, "Am I not baring pain now? At least if you'd drop me off at a village I would be aware of our status and be done with it."
"Don't say such naive things, Rin," was his only reply.
"I'm not a child my Lord. I'm twenty summers' old… I can handle the truth." She didn't know why she was growing defensive when all she did was trust him. It was something that was burning in her throat which made every word she verbalized wobbled with uncertainty. Rejection. The hard tons of rejection she bare in her ribcage, prisoner of every miss glance and every grunt and sigh. And it hurt more knowing that maybe the only place she didn't feel unwanted was becoming a detachment. A small echo of what could be the past.
"This Sesshomary would never do such things. Don't believe everything Jaken says." He still looked at nothing and if anything else he appeared miserable.
"How can I believe you, if my lord doesn't even look me in the eye when he tells me this?" she almost said indignantly.
He then did very slowly, his yellow eyes piercing, almost trying to confess her something. "The truth is this Sesshomaru enjoys your company. I apologized if I was unaware that I somehow misled you."
"It's just," she persisted, "why do you treat me differently from everyone else?"
"You're different from everyone else."
"What makes me different?" she urged her body rigid from everything that was left unclear. "If anything, my lord, what makes me different from any old rock?"
"You hold more value to this lord than a rock." He clearly seemed uncomfortable saying this. She realized immediately that it was because he was telling the truth and she was more irritated that he was locating himself in an uncomfortable position just to hear what she wanted to hear even if it held some truth. What did he care in spoiling her?
"It's just," she repeated, annoyed that she did. The backdrop became blurry and the world seemed to tear up. They were whirlpools in her eyes. "I'm nothing. Everybody in the past had treated me like nothing. And you, my lord, do not. Why am I special? What do I have?"
Some moments passed and she viewed this in a new different stand point. She bit her lips instantly because she knew what was coming and she whipped her eyes because she knew that she had lost her chance.
"It's running late, we should leave," he said already turning and moving.
In some instants she recovered, breathing in air and thinking that this was the most suffocating air she had ever drowned in. The patches of dead grass looked as though gossiping with every step she took, and even though she stomped on them they never silenced. Her hair stayed still in her head. And in her chest she felt something release. The world went on mute…
But she was sure she heard the words, "You have my heart."
