LDD: I'm just going with what ever my muses throw at me. So here is the next chapter of this one.
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Patala-loka
by
Lady Demoonica Darkmoon
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Rin sang happily as she led Ah-un, following Sesshoumaru and Jaken. Upon Ah-un's back, like saddlebags, had been placed a pair of simple woven reed baskets, each holding two sleeping demon pups. The small children were almost unnoticeable, save the red and gold feathers sticking out of one side basket and a pair of furry white ears sticking out of the other. The fifth child, the dog demon pup Sesshoumaru had named Sharamaru, was still held in the crook of the Lord of the Western Lands arm.
"Sesshou-sama?" Rin questioned.
Sesshoumaru's golden eyes flicked back to the human girl.
"Rin wants to know why demons come in colors that humans don't. Why is that?" She asked, pointing to the teal colored hair and lavender colored tail of Sharamaru.
Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow at the girl.
"You shouldn't bother Sesshoumaru-sama with idiotic questions!" Jaken yelled at her. "That's like asking why the grass is green or why the sky is blue! It's the way things are!"
"Jaken, you speak too quickly." Sesshoumaru paused. "Rin, this Sesshoumaru does not have an answer for your question. In this Jaken is right, it is the way of the world and that answer will have to do."
"Mn." Rin nodded. "Sesshou-sama? Is your castle big? Do you have a kidnaped princess locked in the dungeons? Do you have lots of guards there? Are they demons too? Or are they human? Do you think they will like Rin?" And she continued on asking questions and never leaving time for them to be answered before she asked the next one. She looked back at the baskets again. She took a breath. "Can Rin be the big sister of Sesshou-sama's babies?"
Sesshoumaru's lips twitched up at that question, it was the first time the human girl had ever suggested that maybe he considered her family. And he guessed he did, at least on some base demon level. Rin was his pup, even if she was a human.
"Yes, Rin." He answered, not caring to explain just which one of her questions he was answering. And nothing she did got another word out of him on the subject.
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It took a lot longer to return to the Western Lands than Rin thought it would, who knew the world was so big? Little did the girl know that her world, Japan, was a very tiny part of the known world. Sesshoumaru's castle was not large and white with high towers, it was made of stone surrounded by thick stone walls and lots of guards, much closer to a fortress than a castle. Rin was slightly saddened. If not a bright fairy-tale castle, then she had hopped it to be like a rich human lords house, with paper walls and sliding doors and rock gardens and Koi ponds and...
"Rin. Hurry up and get through the gates!" Jaken snapped the girl from her thoughts. She jumped and quickly caught up to Lord Sesshoumaru.
Any snide remarks about their lord bringing home a stray human pup was silenced with a look before the words were said. Instead, Sesshoumaru called for a few maids to clean the girl and have her dressed in new clothes, the ones she had were thread bare and needed to be tossed out. She was a small child though and they redressed her in clothes that would last a demon child while being played in, simple in design but clearly of high quality.
While that was being done, Sesshoumaru had not let Ah-un be taken to the stable. Instead he asked if any of the female servants were available to be a wet-nurse. The servant who he was addressing gave her lord an odd look, before she noticed the small bundle cradles in his arm. The child was hidden, but she could only guess that Seshoumaru had taken in another human pup along with the older one.
"Yes Sesshoumaru-sama!" She said, then quickly produced two young female servants who had been weaning their own children, but were still producing milk. "These two females." She said to him. "The first is a long time servant of the house, the second is a freed slave who was hired while the Lord was away."
Sesshoumaru nodded as he looked over the two females. Both were younger, though the long time servant was better filled out from being well fed. The long time servant was a cat demon of some kind, with red-brown skin that had darker spots like the fur of a beast, and yellow-green eyes. Her hair was red-brown too, just darker and very thick like a mane. Her tail was wrapped around her waist in a sign of discomfort. The freed slave was a black fox demon, a reclusive race of the fox demons known for being peaceful and for never growing more than one tail unlike many of their kin. She had human like skin, peach in color. Dark blue-black hair was pulled back in a braid, a pair of black furred fox ears sat atop her head and a matching tail poked from under her kimono.
He had many questions for them, but right now only a few were important. "Tell me. Have either of you had to abandon any of your kits?" Both answered 'no'. "Have all of your kits lived to adult hood?" The cat answered 'yes', while the fox said that she only had the one kit, the one she was weaning now. Sesshoumaru nodded. "And you? How many are you raising at the moment?" The cat demon answered she was raising two that still needed her to care for them. "Very well, I have a job for you two, a job that will be yours for a very long time to come, as long as you do it well. Your new duties are as nurse-maids and wet-nurses to your lords children. Mess up and you will pay with your lives."
Both of the females eyes were large and frightened, but they nodded with a, "Yes Lord Sesshoumaru."
"Good. You." He pointed to the maid who had brought him the two others. "Have a large nursery set up in the castle near my room. Have it fitted for a quickly growing girl and eight full blooded demon children, and have it connected to the rooms for two live in nurse-maids. Get as many servants to help as you need, I want it finished by dinner tonight."
She yelped then with a 'Yes m'lord.' she dashed off to find servants and proper quarters for her Lords wishes.
He turned back to the two new nurse-maids. "Go fetch your infants, they will stay with you in your quarters. Bring them and your possessions to the great hall. Be quick." He tuned away from them, not caring to watch them scurry away as fast as they could. He looked down at the sleeping child in his arm, Sharamaru had not eaten and drank little water during the trip here. The child was a full blooded demon though and would recover with a ready supply of fresh milk.
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TBC...
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LDD: Next chapter will be set after a one-hundred-year time jump that will place the rest of the story well after the time of the Inuyasha anime/manga. This is due to demon children growing about one year in development for every ten years that pass. Note that this would place Shippou at fifty-years-old in human years, while being five in demon years. I would also like to note that the starting ages for the five pups range between eighteen months for the youngest and five-years-old for the oldest, their aging was sped up while in the lab, but it is now at the same rate as stated above. This pushes all known Human characters well past even the oldest recorded, that means they are all dead save for Kagome who returned to the modern world, and as such would still not have been born yet.
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