Sesshomaru stared after his brother, both infuriated and frightened out of his wits. He felt his heart slamming against his ribs like it had every time Rin had been in danger since that fateful day on the forest floor. He continued to stare as he watched her tall, elegant, beautiful, wonderful figure exit the hut and begin to walk towards him. Her head was bowed in a way unlike her, as if she was ashamed of something she had done, as if she possessed no pride in her health or her blessed fate. The Rin he knew did not shuffle her feet and slump her shoulders. Nor did she omit the occasional sniffle barely loud enough for him to hear. With a clenching feeling in the pit of his gut, Sesshomaru realized that his actions had brought these unwelcome changes in his happy Rin.
The feeling only grew as she neared. He could now see the redness around her beautiful eyes. The eyes that were always so clear and constant in their gaze now stared at the ground in front of him. His mouth was uncharacteristically dry, and his heart thrashed about in his ribcage harder than ever and his innards fluttered even more erratically around his gut.
She stopped approximately ten feet away from him. Rin still did not look. She did not raise her head and shoulders in pride and joy at the sight of him, like he was so accustomed. And her eyes. They were half-lidded, opaque, red, and fixed at the ground in front of his feet. They did not sparkle, twinkle, or crinkle at the corners with her smile. These observations caused his fluttering gut to sink.
If she hated him now, he would have lost everyone. His father had loved him, for all Sesshomaru's young arrogance and mistaken beliefs, and his mother was only interested in his power as it compared to hers. His brother could never love him, not after the years of hate. His vassals only feared him. No one asked his opinions on subjects in the innocent way she did: She asked only to know his thoughts, while the vultures at court merely wanted something to disagree with. No one looked him in the eye with a smile the way she did. No one- No one had ever bothered to care for him when he had been injured. No one had filled his journeys with a purpose the way she had and did.
He thought all this as he stared at the obviously miserable woman in front of him. He had been mistaken in his belief that she could never succumb to true sorrow. Sesshomaru smelled the salt and misery coming off of her, masking her scent and permeating his own emotions.
"Rin." Her name came out as a plea. His traitorous mouth kept talking without his consent, but he was too miserable and embarrassed of himself to care much.
"Rin." He swallowed. "Rin, please." Slowly her eyes ascended to his chest. Sesshomaru could now easily see the extent of her torment in them. Her eyes were hollow and tired and sad. And he had caused it. He was supposed to be her protector. The one she came to when she was in danger, not the one that caused her pain. Sesshomaru was the one who saved her life countless times, the one who always came running when she called, not the one who caused her to cry or hurt her. He hated himself. Sesshomaru had been disgusted with himself, he had been disappointed in himself, he had even been furious with himself. But he had never hated himself like he did at that moment.
Sesshomaru did not know it, but because of his unwelcome epiphany he stood like a deer when it smelled a wolf or some other hunter; His legs were parted slightly and rigid, his whole body was tense, and all his senses were attuned to the woman in front of him, like she was the predator that could rip him to shreds in a mere second.
Nor did he see her take a few more halting steps towards him and raise her gaze ever so slowly to his face. Rin stared at him, her eyes slowly clearing as they searched his face for the answers to her questions. It was a few tense moments before Sesshomaru noticed Rin staring at him, her eyes eerily similar to that fateful day on the forest floor. She stared him down, and Sesshomaru was oddly reminded of his father.
On the night Sesshomaru's father died, The Great Dog Demon asked Sesshomaru a question;
"Do you have someone to protect?"
Young and foolish and drunk on his own power, Sesshomaru scoffed at his father. After hearing his son's answer, the powerful and wise demon turned and looked at his son. His eyes were an odd mixture of hope, disappointment, and love. He looked long and hard at his son, as if he was trying to convey a message. Then The Great Dog Demon transformed and went to die for a human woman that he loved.
The look in Rin's eyes mirrored the one Sesshomaru saw in his father's eyes the night he died.
He saw her take a deep breath and straighten herself as she had been taught by the two priestesses of the village. There was a determination in her eyes and posture. She had made her choice, and the time had come for Sesshomaru to learn of his heart's fate.
"Sesshomaru-sama." Rin's voice was soft, but he could still hear her easily. It was only the staccato-like way she said the words that displayed her fear. Sesshomaru heard her take a deep breath, steadying herself for what was to come.
"Do you love me?" The utterance of those words caused his world to stop for a moment. Now he stood even more rigid, and it seemed that if any person should have tried to touch him, he would have shattered into a million pieces. His breath quickened, his heart hammered all the more loudly in his ears and he could not force a sound from his throat.
"Yes," he breathed. Sesshomaru could not be sure if Rin had heard; She made no motion to remove her eyes from his. She blinked once, twice. Sesshomaru made a brave attempt to swallow and lubricate is bone dry throat, then tried again.
"Yes." This utterance was barely louder than the first, and he could still not be sure that she had hear him. "I love you, Rin." Those four words were the four most important words he had ever spoken in his many long years, and he could not even say them like the powerful being he was. Oh how is parents would laugh if they knew that their stoic, never-frazzled son was trembling in fear of the human woman in front of him. If they had been told that one day, their son would stutter and quaver during conversation, they would have surely died from laughter.
Yet here he was, shaking almost imperceptibly, his mouth dry, barely able to form coherent words for fear.
Rin still stared. Sesshomaru heard her take a deep breath and proclaim, with far more courage than he possessed, "I have loved Sesshomaru-sama since I awoke on the forest floor." Her voice did not quaver, she did not stutter or clear her throat. Rin told him of her love the same way she would tell him of the village's crop. Like it was a fact of her life and his, and it was both accepted and expected by them both.
Realization dawned late upon Sesshomaru. It took a few moments for the good news to sink into his still-terrified mind. He felt joy, true joy bloom in his chest, and he felt as if the entire world had both been lifted off his shoulders and then presented to him on a fine silver plate.
Rin still stared at him, and it wasn't until Sesshomaru took the few steps over to her that she began to smile and laugh like she always had at the sight of him. Quickly, before he lost his nerve, Sesshomaru bent his head and kissed her. The feel of her lips against his made his heart quicken for the second time that day, and for very different reasons. They were soft and strong and supple and sweet and he could not stop. But he had to, for them both. She would not share the fate of his brother's mother.
Wrenching himself back into the present, he gently extracted his lips and tongue from Rin. Looking at her, he tried to find the words to ask the question that he needed to ask, and was surprised to find that they were easy.
"If we are to be in love, then we must be wed. You are not an affair to be cast aside." Sesshomaru again cursed himself for his abrupt way of speaking, but was distracted when Rin suddenly grinned at him.
"I love you, too. Of course I'll marry you. Unless you want me to get married to that farmer." Her eyes gleamed mischievously, and Sesshomaru understood her humor just as well as she understood his lack of it.
"If you wish to not live as the wife of a powerful lord, then you may go marry the farmer, Rin." Sesshomaru noticed, not for the first time in his life, that he was loosing the ability to think before he spoke to Rin.
But maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, since it seemed to make her laugh for the rest of their days.