She followed them for days, like a silent shadow. She stayed as non-threatening as possible. Even this respectful gesture managed to irritate him. The way she had spoken to him, looked at him or down on him rather, said one thing. She was true royalty and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Demonic ethics are one thing but bloodlines were something else entirely.

If demons had a collective religion as the humans they preyed upon, the Spirals would be the equivalent of the priestess' or temple defenders. Or healers, of both human and demon. They were very pure, yet their powers were dubbed demonic. By who, he wasn't sure. There was nothing truly demonic about her.

"Lord Sessho-maru?" Her voice pulled him from his thoughts. It was the first time she had spoken directly to him and not Rin. She feared him.

Good.

However, her questions would come, he knew. He stopped his constant stride and looked back at her.

Keeping his face unreadable. As if not to encourage her, but at the same time give her permission to talk using minimum amount of words. Her motions were submissive but not her eyes. They kept a steady gaze on his, not breaking contact. He could tell, she would die before she looked away.

Prideful wrench.

No not wench, that was a most disrespectful thought. Thankfully he hadn't said aloud. Otherwise, he would have felt somewhat obligated to apologize. That was just something the Lord of Demons did not do.

"What is your sword made of?" She did look away from his eyes, only to see the scabbard that shielded his father's last gift. But instantly her piercing brown eyes locked theirs to his. He could sense a great deal of anger, but she kept her body calm.

"Bone." He watched as her eyes widened. She could no longer hide the rage she was feeling from him. It was a pure rage. Like that of a vengeful mother.

"Bone? From what?" Her voice was low, almost a rumble by the time it made it to his ears. Full of painful promise.

"From a demon fang." He explained casually as if she wasn't giving off waves of heated anger. He did not feel she should know any more than that. Her anger subsided in a rush and was being replaced by disbelief. She shook her head.

"Impossible." Stubborn tears clung to her lashes and twinkled as her body shook. "But I know you speak true." Uana crossed her arms over herself and kneeled in the grass. Sessho-maru looked on, passively and made no move to comfort her.

Rin, however, did.

She had been watching them intently from the side. Sessho-maru kept his eyes on Uana now. Knowing in the back of his mind, Rin was completely safe. Uana did not have it in her to break even an unspoken truce. He watched Uana's eyes go lax. It seemed the mere closeness of a child was enough to enrapture a Spiral. Even a distraught Spiral.

Uana made no movement to feed. She only seemed to bask in the unseen warmth that Rin had given to her. Rin bent over Uana and touched her white blond hair. The Spiral made no movement. It was as if she were a statue made of white stone, chiseled to perfection. A look of bliss crossed over Rin's features as she put her arms around the Spiral.

Sessho-maru looked away. The scene too tender for words. It tugged in the back of his mind even as he turned his back to them. It reminded him of younger days. When he was not yet an adult and his mother was still alive. He could almost remember what the pull had felt like. What the Spiral embrace left behind. And it didn't hurt.

Far from it.

He turned to face them again, and saw Uana resting her head on the child's lap. Rin was placing blue and yellow wild flowers in the Spirals hair. Giggling like little girls were supposed to giggle.

Sessho-maru struggled within himself. A part of him wanted to stop it, a part of him wanted to be holding the Spiral with innocent power as Rin was doing. And a part of him, his darkest part, wanted to corrupt the Spiral. Pull her down with the rest of the dirty demons. He only knew one way to do so. He banished the later from thought when he began to think how easily he could snuff her life.

Her death would be meaningless. Her life was but a fraction more than meaningless.

She had knowledge he did not.

Silently he strode up to the pair, Rin had stopped braiding the long white strands and looked up at him. She dropped the unfinished braid as though she were caught doing something wrong. The disapproval must have slipped past his stoic facade and Rin picked up on it like a finely tuned lute. She scrambled from beneath the entranced Spiral. It wasn't until Uana's head thudded lightly on the ground that she woke from her daze. Rin took her place beside him and starred at the standing Spiral. Watching her stretch like a cat from a nap.

When Uana directed her lazy gaze towards the piercing golden orbs, she visibly winced and shrunk into herself. It was obvious she saw the anger growing in his eyes. She hadn't done anything wrong, but he still felt she came too close to doing so.

"Forgive me, Lord Sessho-maru." She bowed, but not low, and she kept her eyes level with his. He realized that she had to put aside quite a bit of pride to even bow.

He gave the barest of nods. He had gotten his point across. Good.

He turned on his trail and walked on. To where ever it led. He really hadn't thought he was going to a destination. He nearly laughed at the Spiral who followed faithfully behind. For he was leading her nowhere and she hadn't noticed. Perhaps she did notice, perhaps she didn't care. It wasn't everyday a Spiral learned that she was not invincible against demon kind. Human kind perhaps, but never demon.

He, for all his arrogance, had never thought himself invincible. Battle worthy, but not invincible.

He felt tension behind him as he lead the trio through the thick forest. He resisted the urge to look at Uana and see what he knew was there. The blunt challenge she seemed to exude with her piercing brown eyes.

That gaze unnerved him more than he would ever admit, but it didn't mean he would have to suffer it. He was Lord Sessho-maru and he refused to be outmatched by a forgotten demon race.