His One Regret
A demon, Sesshomaru was taught, does not harbor regrets. If one is of true impunity "regret" isn't even in his vocabulary.
Yet worm its way into Western Lord's diction it had. His regret confronted him everyday.
Sesshomaru entered the clearing and Rin pranced up to him.
"Oh, you've returned, Lord Sesshomaru!"
There it was.
No, not the girl. He had no reservations about her. It was what spilled out of her mouth.
It seemed ages ago now, but Sesshomaru remembered with pristine fidelity the beginning of it all.
After reviving her, Sesshomaru decided straightaway not to grow attached to this urchin. She was a human, after all, and had merely been Tenseiga's test subject.
But she followed him. Like a second tail wherever he went, she trailed.
Well, a daiyokai of his stature couldn't have a scruffy whelp tagging along looking like her. The child was provided with new garments by morning. It had never quite occurred to Sesshomaru to dump her in the next village.
Then came the day she opened her throat.
"Sesshomaru, where are we going?"
The dog-demon had been too lost in his own contemplation to realize he had just been addressed as a familiar. If anything, he had been shaken out of his reveries from just hearing this mute child talk.
But nothing got past Jaken.
"Impudent brat, where are your manners?!" the little imp snapped with indignant fury. "You ought to address Lord Sesshomaru with his proper title! He isn't some peasant kith of yours!"
"I'm sorry." The girl stared downward in humble apology. "Forgive me, Lord Sesshomaru."
Until his retainer had made an issue of it, Sesshomaru hadn't cared how this girl spoke to him. There were more pertinent questions.
"Child, what is your name?"
She brightened. "I'm Rin!" Then, Jaken's glower reminded her, added, "Lord Sesshomaru."
His face still the same phlegmatic mask, Sesshomaru called, "Let's go."
It wasn't necessarily his doing; he hadn't imposed the rigid formality on her.
But he had done nothing to stop it. The apathy that was supposed to save him the pain and agony he sought to transcend only threw open the door to what would fester into internal despair.
The incident would have been swept clean of Sesshomaru's long memory were it not confoundedly persistent – a wound reopened again and again.
Like right now.
"How have you been, Lord Sesshomaru?" Rin's inquires held only sweet cheerfulness.
A demon, however, tasted sour bile in his mouth.
Seasons since had danced away, orchestrating everything from salty tears to joyous laughter to heart-stopping perils to menial moments of travel. All this had transpired and cemented a bond Sesshomaru could only recall feeling two hundred years ago with another dog-demon he'd known.
Still he knew it was a moot point now. She'd never make it, the adjustment out of formality. Never would Rin use the word that had meant so much to Sesshomaru, that his very ears prayed to someday hear from her.
Chichi-ue. Father.
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Author's Note: Although I prefer the way I introduced Rin's over-coming-her-muteness in my first fic "Rin's Words," I decided that wasn't the true focus of the story and cut to the heart of the matter.