Chapter 1
Rin looked at the rice seedling in her hand and then down at the ankle deep water she stood in. She then looked around at the others around her as they took the seedlings and placed it in the water. She watched as they made rows of four in front of them and then place four more in each row to make a 4 by 4 plot of seedlings. Next they took a few steps and did the same thing but making sure the plot behind them matched with the plot they were making.
Rin scrunched her face together as she bent down and placed the first one down into the muddy water. She looked back up to see if anyone was watching her about ready to yell at her, no one was. She shrugged her shoulders and continued to do the same thing as everyone else around her. She watched as the others seemed to speed up the farther up the marsh and she felt very slow.
By the time she was half way done with her row she looked down to the pool next to her and saw that the others were already working in filling that one in. "Huh?" She said as she looked up and realized that the paddy had been fully planted except for her 4 rows. She looked back down and noticed that the 3 others on the paddy below her were now doing 6 rows each and leaving no room for her to do her row.
"Rin!" Kagome called from the road behind Rin. Kagome couldn't believe this girls willingness to work. When Lady Keade had fallen ill Rin had taken up most of the jobs around that Lady Keade usually had done. Like planting her share of the rice paddies just a little south of the village.
Rin looked at the older woman who she looked up to greatly and smiled waving at her. "What are you doing way out here?" She yelled at Kagome wondering if she had come all this way to check up on her or something of the sort.
"I was delivering some medicine to a local family, come over here," Kagome yelled out to her but Rin shook her head. "Why?"
"I have to get this row done!" Rin said as she pointed out to the empty row of paddy, she was a little upset that the other workers didn't think she could plant as fast as they could. It would just take her a little while and then she would be just as good as they were, she was only 15 for goodness sakes!
"Okay can I help you?" Kagome asked and Rin smiled and nodded and told her to be careful making her way out. Kagome tried her hardest not to step on any plants and successfully only stepped on 3 by the time she had made it out to Rin. "Okay what do I have to do?"
"Well you just stick it in the mud, I guess, I mean it doesn't really look hard right?" Rin said still unsure if she was doing it right. But she couldn't look stupid in front of Kagome, she started to second guess what she had just said. She looked at Kagome who was holding her hand out and Rin handed her a bundle of seedlings and her and Kagome started to plant together.
By the end of the day with Kagome working with her they had caught up to the other workers and even kept pace with them for the rest of the day until the whole field of paddies was planted. Exhausted Rin and Kagome sleepily headed back to the village both wishing that Inuyasha or someone would come and pick them up.
"Rin are you excited for tomorrow?" Kagome said after she yawned and she looked down at the young teenager.
"Not really," Rin said remembering that the next day would be Jaken's bi-monthly visit. She wouldn't mind the visits so much if Lord Sesshomaru would have come as well but Jaken had told her that he was very busy with the wars raging in the north. In the beginning after he had left her in the care of Lady Keade he would come to see her every once in a while. Since the daimyo's uprising in the north a few years back now she hadn't heard hide no hair of him.
"Do you miss him?" Kagome asked as she looked ahead and saw the lanterns of their village.
"No, I mean, I can barely remember what he was like," Rin said with a frown on her face, at the moment she would be just fine if Jaken never showed up either. Maybe tomorrow she would tell him that, tell him that she never wished to see either of them again.
"But you miss him still don't you?" Kagome said quietly but it didn't reach Rin's ears as they walked up to a very angry Inuyasha. "What?" Kagome said looking at him with his arms crossed with a snarlish look on his face.
"I thought you were only going to deliver some medicine," he growled at her completely ignoring Rin's presence.
"I thought that I should stay and walk back with Rin," Kagome said pointing to Rin next to her but when she looked Rin was gone. Kagome looked back up at a still angry Inuyasha, "Well I did!"
"What ever," he said walking off and going inside a hut a little ways away.
"What do you mean what ever?" Kagome bickered as she followed him inside.
Rin peeked around the side of the hut she had hid behind and seeing that the coast was clear she ran back up the path. She would have been about to do this on her way back if only Kagome had not been around. She stopped and looked at the wooden fence in front of her and stooped low enough to go under and into the valley that it blocked off. She walked a little ways and found it, that beautiful orange flower she had seen this morning on her way to the rice paddies. She quickly plucked it and looked at its bright orange pedals before shoving it up to her nose.
"Mmm," she purred as she smelt its sweetness and she knew that Keade would love it. She looked around and didn't see anymore so she ran back and crawled under the fence all the while making sure she didn't damage it in the process. Once back on the path she ran as fast as she could to Keade's hut and ran through the cloth door hoping the old woman was in better shape than she had left her that morning.
To her sadness Keade seemed to still be sleeping in the same place she had been in that morning. Rin looked around and noticed that nothing had changed at all while she had been away. Usually during the day Keade had enough energy to get up and do something like a little cooking, concocting, or even a little cleaning, but today she had done nothing. "Lady Keade," Rin said quietly as she knelt next to the silent older woman, "I saw this flower and knew that you would like it." She looked down at the pretty orange flower in her hand and waited for the elderly lady to wake and look at her. After a few moments Keade hadn't even stirred a little and Rin began to worry. "Lady Keade?" She said as she shook her shoulder but still nothing, and Rin's eyes grew huge as she looked at the body in disbelief.
"No," She screamed as she dropped the flower and tore out of the hut and ran next door to Kagome and Inuyasha's hut and didn't even bother to announce she was coming in as she burst in.
Kagome looked up at the younger woman startled and then to Inuyasha who had the same expression as she did. "Rin what is wrong?" Kagome said softly but the little girl just stood and looked at them. "Rin?"
"Inuyasha did you check on Keade at all today?" Rin finally screamed at the half dog demon sitting a few feet away from her.
"Yeah I did around noon," he said defensively, "She fall asleep in some weird place again?"
"NO SHES DEAD!" Rin yelled as loud as she could wiping the tears from her eyes. He hadn't checked on her, he was only saying it because he had forgotten. Now, now because Inuyasha wasn't there for her Lady Keade had died all alone in her hut with no one there to help her.
"I swear to god I checked on her twice today and she said she was fine so I just left and told her to sleep," Inuyasha said stunned before he stood up and ran to check the body himself.
Rin fell to the ground crying and she felt Kagome's arms around her and she turned and cried into her chest. The woman she had lived with and been raised by in 5 years was gone, gone forever. Where would she go now? She had been abandoned by Sesshomaru and now by Lady Keade, was she destined never to live in the same spot for a long period of time.