How Sesshoumaru and Aoife first met.


The Midnight Well

00: The Goblin Market


"Are you mad?" hissed a voice in his left ear as a hand—presumably belonging to the owner of the voice—snapped around his elbow. "Coming to Market just radiating like you are? Not even the humans that want to get in here are this stupid and unprotected!"

Sesshoumaru merely raised one silver eyebrow as he slid his eyes to the left, leveling the coldest and flattest stare he could deliver on the unfortunate creature speaking to him.

...it was a woman. Or at least, it appeared to be a human woman. Sesshoumaru inhaled evenly through his nose; she certainly did not smell like any human woman he had ever seen before. In fact, she did not smell like any kind of human at all.

She continued hissing at him, "Yes, yes, very nice glare there but if that's the best you've got then sweetheart you are in so much trouble here."

The other eyebrow joined the first, yet Sesshoumaru kept the focus of his gaze unmoved. It would not do to give away anything to this strange female creature—that much, at least, her scent did confirm—but the only reason that she was not in pieces was that Sesshoumaru could sense no threat from her. Or at least, not any more threat from her than from this place in general.

Wherever and whatever this place was remained yet to be seen by him. She had hissed about a Market, and that much, at least, he had known even before she came and attached herself to him. It was an unusual market; the stalls and the wares unlike anything familiar to the taiyoukai, but the bustling air of buyers and sellers was unmistakeable.

Her reaction to him, however, was not. Sesshoumaru was not a taiyoukai merely by the status of his birth. One did not rule the whole of the Western Lands by mere inheritance. All that Sesshoumaru had inherited from his father, the late Inu-no-Taisho, was simply the chance at proving his worth in succeeding the old beast after his death.

And Sesshoumaru had indeed proved himself amply worthy. So to have this female show no fear or even respect in her low handling of his august personage irritated Sesshoumaru—and intrigued him, loathe as he was to admit such a thing. There were few creatures of any kind who would handle him in any way, much less a physical one, with such carelessness.

"Hnn," was all he offered in reply before simply planting his feet and refusing to move another inch. She, however, continued moving—and so did he.

Golden eyes widened minutely as the woman dragged him after her, his legs refusing to obey him. Then those same eyes narrowed as he reassessed the woman holding his elbow. A low, rumbling growl began to issue forth from his throat as streaks of red began to bleed across his eyes. The stripes on his cheeks were still as they were, but his tail began to bristle and twitch menacingly.

"Oh stop it, you overgrown puppy," the woman snapped, dropping Sesshoumaru's elbow and whirling around to face him. She seemed completely unaffected by the rumbling warning coming from Sesshoumaru.

"This Sesshoumaru is no 'overgrown puppy', woman," he said frostily, flashing the tips of his fangs for a mere second as one corner of his mouth pulled back in a minute sneer.

"Well he's definitely acting like one, walking into the Goblin Market with iron on his shoulders and no guarantee of return!"

The growl grew in volume.

"The Market is no place for the unaware," she continued, just as unconcerned by the growling. "It's barely a place for those who serve it! And you come prancing in the way you do, radiating what you do…" She shook her head, then looked him straight in the eyes, her head raised and chin squared stubbornly. "You'd be pretty enough, I suppose; some Fae would take you home. You wouldn't be pretty for long, though, depending on which Court you ended up in."

"And who are you to offer such unsolicited advice to one such as this Sesshoumaru?" Holding his temper in general was easy for Sesshoumaru; holding his temper when it came to his dignity was another matter entirely. And this woman had just run roughshod all over his dignity.

She snorted, the sound high and fluttering and somehow reminding Sesshoumaru of, of all things, an exasperated horse. "Who am I?" Suddenly she was even closer than a moment ago, her face mere inches from his own. Hadn't he been taller than her a moment ago? "I am the one who led you from the Goblin Market. I am the one who kept you from being noticed by its Lords, Ladies, and Masters. I am the one who brought you home." A grin crawled its away across her lips as she stood there before him. "You owe me," she drawled lazily, the predatory gleam in her eye chasing away Sesshoumaru's earlier thoughts of horses.

"Hnn," Sesshoumaru nearly grunted. "Then this Sesshoumaru thanks you, however unnecessary your trouble." He, at least, had manners in situations like these. Unlike the lack of them in others.

That grin grew bigger and wider, and an inexplicable chill began to slither up the taiyoukai's back as she stepped even closer.

"Poor puppy," she said, looking up at him through the fan of her eyelashes. "So used to being the biggest power around, with the baddest, nastiest bite." That smile grew ever wider, more like a grin now for how much tooth she was showing. "You may have a truly nasty bite, puppy, but definitely not the nastiest one out there." Her voice was like silk, wrapping around him, soothing away his irritation with her interference—which only caused a different irritation with her to rise in its place.

"You owe me your life," she continued, "and you thanked me for it. That's two debts to collect from you, poor puppy." Her eyes flashed wickedly, and for a moment Sesshoumaru thought that they were as golden as his own. Then she was up on her tiptoes, her body pressed along his, her lips at his ear to whisper, "I'll be around to collect later."

Then with a laugh, she was gone.


A/N: Fae are not nice to you just because! In fact, the Fae are never 'nice'! Always check for the pointy teeth. They're there. Somewhere. If a Fae ever tells you that you "look good enough to eat", THEN RUN THE HELL AWAY.

Sesshoumaru is not going to listen to this advice. He can be a bit of a dummy... oh well.