Disclaimer: I do hereby disclaim all rights and responsibilities for the characters, as I have in all previous chapters.

~Chapter 7 - Ashchild and Introversion~

Sesshoumaru sat in the darkness and scowled. All his attempts to break free of the kimono that bound him to the strange stringed instrument had been in vain. His youki still broiled around him like a mist, no amount of willpower could wrestle it back to where it belonged: tightly restrained at the core of his self.

Lacking anything else to do with himself Sesshoumaru settled down to brood.

He had first regained consciousness from his encounter with the tall lady to find himself lying sprawled on a finely manicured lawn.

Sesshoumaru had launched himself to his feet ready to face whatever enemy had temporarily incapacitated him. He had immediately stepped on the hem of his outfit and had to stagger to regain his balance. A glance informed him that his customary kosode and hakama were gone – instead he was wearing some strange pale grey silk outfit that fitted his torso but flared out into skirts that trailed on the ground. He ran a claw across the fabric, intending to cut it higher so he could move freely. The fabric slid unharmed beneath his talons. He tried grabbing bunches of it and tearing, the fabric resisted easily. Sesshoumaru was uncertain whether the fabric was enchanted or somehow his strength sapped.

Frowning he had kicked off the ground, intending to take to the sky to find his way home. And he fell. Not since he had been a very young child had he been unable to maintain flight. A surprised noise caused him to turn snarling. A small woman, a very small woman, who bowed hastily before turning and running away.

She had returned with the rest of the dwarves shortly and so had begun the month and a portion of his incarceration in The Orchard.

Any time Sesshoumaru had so much as thought of harming the small people the air around him had thickened and weighed down on him until he was unable to stir. These fits had distressed the dwarves and they had taken them for spells of fainting, carrying him back to their cottage each time and bathing his wrists and face.

His fury against them had dissipated within the first few days. They, for their part, had treated him with utmost reverence. At first they had offered him food and music, then had respectfully stopped as quickly when he had showed his disinterest. They left him to himself then and he had found himself at leisure to wander the gladed areas of the Orchard.

As with the endless forest he found could not leave the area. Trees and ground he destroyed by hand would return to their former state as soon as he looked away. He was trapped in illusion. And then one of the ever-blossoming apple trees had fruited. The rich, amber warm fragrance of the apples had tweaked at his nose invitingly. He had not eaten in over a month, youkai of his caliber rarely needed to eat. Sesshoumaru usually drew sustenance from the wild surrounding him… but he was trapped in a cultivated place and the apples smelled so very appetizing. So at last he had plucked an apple, green and red, and set it to his teeth and taken a bite…

The juice had been tart and sweet, the flesh crisp. But no sooner had he tried to swallow that first small mouthful than he felt it lodge in his throat. He had no chance to draw breath or attempt to cough. Spots had flickered before his eyes then nothing until that candle flicker of conciousness and the human woman's face, then her thump of fist dislodging of the apple.

She had guessed the horse was the key to escaping the orchard. Or had she. She had not smelled of deceit.. And yet…

After the horse bolted he had, failing in his attempts to rein in the beast, attempted to leap from the saddle. His skirts had again hindered him. Somehow becoming caught beneath the saddle.

Then the rain had come. Rain so heavy he could not see the horse's neck before him, and with those waters the horse seemed to fade under him, sinking with him into the mud of the road, an invisible weight pressing down on him as relentlessly as his own youki had quelled lesser demons in the past.

There had been the hum of voices around him but the strange fatigue of limb had kept Sesshoumaru prone, at first too tired to summon strength from anger. Then the force had lifted and he finally managed to push up himself up onto his hands - only to find himself lying on cobbles in a grubby kitchen, clad in rags. A bucket of soap water steamed next to him and scrubbing brushes were arrayed beside it, awaiting use.

"Haiko!*" A foot had kicked and he snarled in response, had half risen ready to lay open the leg that had touched him. A sharp spasm had run through every muscle, making him briefly and painfully rigid before passing, leaving him weak. Even as he began to draw breath to attempt again to rend his foe another convulsion ran through him, squeezing the air from his lungs and leaving him weak, trembling and furious. The thickening of the air that had hindered him with the dwarves had been kind in comparison to this.

"Haiko – scrub the floors," a human woman's voice commanded. "I want the kitchen done, then the main room, then the bedrooms and taproom. When you are done the beds must all be made, the water drawn for the kitchen and the cellar swept for cobwebs. Get to it."

A brush had been kicked before Sesshoumaru and, against his will, he had found his hand take the object, dip it in the water and begin scouring. He had had no more control over his actions than he had over his youki. He had fought the compulsion with all the success of a newborn kitten in the hands of a young child. It had not been kind to him. Had he been human he would not have been able to finish the work the woman, the innkeepers wife he learned, had set him.

As it was he was not permitted to rest, to sleep. The woman had even informed Sesshoumaru he would not be permitted to eat nor drink until the tasks were done. This had not mattered to him at the time, when his rage against the compulsion had blinded his attention to anything but his hatred of her.
And the bucket, and brush.

He had no desire for food, nor water, only to rend the base humans who walked around him, tracking in mud and filth as, against his will, he scrubbed floor after floor after floor. He had no pause until the innkeepers wife returned late in the night and told him that could drink from the well bucket when he next fetched water if he liked and then that he must eat the strange stale lump of "Pan*" she threw before him. Her command meant he was forced to tear into the dry stuff, even as he knelt at her feet, damp and filthy from the cleaning, even though he did not wish to eat it.

The foreign food had dried his mouth and nearly made him cough, the coarse seeds in it catching in his teeth and irritating his tongue. He had been almost grateful when she sent him out to fetch more water for the kitchens for it meant he could finally drink. He had lapped down the stale well water, sluicing his mouth and the taste of the 'pan'.

Trapped in the kitchen, as he had been once the Inn's customers had begun filtering into the common room, Sesshoumaru had almost missed the familiar scent of the girl. It was the innkeeper that carried her spoor it in with him, wet and uncertain but distinctly present, along with the remaining scent of that wretched horse. The same human who had been in the glade with the dwarves.

He had not expected to find her so easily the next morning. The kyousei had kept him scrubbing through the night until all of the inn's kitchen utensils, blackened and caked from years of use, were chipped and scoured back to their original shine. The grit from his work having covered the kitchen floor in muck once more he had been forced to collect more water – and then she had fallen at his feet almost as if placed there.

Having the human girl find him in such a state there in the kitchenyard had burned Sesshoumaru with humiliation. Even hatred. None should be permitted to see him so powerless and yet her presence had immediately lead to his escape from the kitchen and from the kyousei. Quietly he admitted that being trapped in the darkness he currently found himself was far preferable to being forced to eat that 'pan' substance again.
She had said that these traps were all from stories, that she knew them and how to defeat them. Sesshoumaru had known her as a wielder of miko like powers from his encounters with Inuyasha's party but could she use kotodama* as well?

She had know what to do both times he had encountered her. Had understood what was expected. But why?

And she knew his name… while he could not recall hers. That left him at a disadvantage. Even more so as he only had a vague knowledge of what a kotodama wielder was reputed to be capable of. If she had the ability to manipulate their circumstances by words alone it stood in his interest to know her name – if only to find some way to defend himself from her.

A noise from somewhere outside the paulownia* wood panels of the cupboard he heard a noise. Muffled but familiar – a female voice, raised in challenge… She had found him again. And he found himself unsurprised.

~o0o~

*灰子 (はいねこ) Haiko – Ash Child ^_^ My japanglication of cinderella. Imagine it said with contempt.

*Pan (パン) Bread ^_^ Sesshoumaru would not be familiar with it because it wasn't, to my knowledge, present in japan at the time. Benten would have had to create it from Kagome's memory. Kagome obviously isn't too fond of bread. Probably because her mum cooks good traditional food in my universe.

* 言霊 (ことだま) kotodama - refers to the concept of the power in works and names. This is also true for a lot of old western faerie stories where knowing a persons true name gives one control over them.

* 桐 kiri or Paulownia tomentosa wood is used in a vast number of Japanese objects, from shoes and instruments to furniture. Traditionally one would plant a Paulownia tree when a baby girl was born to be made into dowry chest as a wedding gift when she gets married.