Fear was something Sesshomaru was well used too. The fear of others towards him was a constant. Only a few choice people had not had fear of him directly... InuYasha, his half-brother, had no fear of him, but he had feared for the life of the priestess re-born... Rin had feared aspects of him, but those had all faded in so short a time is was most curious.
Rem had been the same. If anything, she had not feared him as the other had. She had fear of his temper, his option, his rages and later his love, but never towards his person. She was afraid for him...
A foolish notion... But the thought had already struck him. The woman, no, the soul of her had already once despised him as she over-lapped his image with the lord of the south and now it out right rejected him in fear for the mindset of the living body.
"Ren." He lowered to a bent knee and tried to catch her eye, but the damage was done. She was inside herself in a place he could not reach. The scent of fear and damage washed over him and angered him, but not towards her. She had reasons to be afraid.
Both Rem and Ren have had their battles and anguish. Both have woken from pained dreams and rancid fears and both can turn their emotions like a switch of the tide to one extreme and the other.
When she would not come out of her mind he stood and stepped out of the room. Jaken stood outside the door and for once was not called out of his own mind to pester Sesshomaru. He watched Ren curled on the ground staring at the grains in the wood floor. Sesshomaru could smell the scents from him as well. Confusion, fear, love and concern. His little servant was lost in the riptide of his own thoughts as Ren was.
I must do everything myself...
After Rem's death Sesshomaru had taken to a main-land way of dressing. It had helped distance himself from the pain to Rem's demise in some small way. Although all that may have been true he had bought things that had never seen light of day since their purchase and inside the hidden room below the castle where once a useless Tenseiga rested, were those same clothes. He was grateful in the moment that they were not in fact native Japanese clothing, seeing Ren in clothes such as that would be odd, but the grab of a priestess did not suit her or his likings.
.
When he returned Jaken stood within the threshold of the room and had managed to removed Ren from herself. She still remained on the floor, but she was speaking again. Oddly enough the scent of fear did not return when she noticed him. Only confusion.
"Jaken. These are for her. I would see her out of those priestess clothes, they are not acceptable." Sesshomaru placed the wrapped up bundle on the sheet less bed and left to his room down the hall.
"Ren. Lord Sesshomaru would like you to change now." Jaken stood and waddled over to the clothes that had been set aside and shook them out. "These are from the mainland..." He held them out and she took them and eyed him.
"I can get dressed without you... these are simple enough to piece together." Jaken removed himself from the room and she walked over to the window again. Her hand touched the sun warmed railing and forced her mind on something other than the days' excitement so far.
This is ridiculous. He doesn't even care! He acts to touch and cruel and when I try and move he is there to shadow me... It's my soul...
She pulled at the white priestess garb over her heart and wondered if that was even where the soul resided.
"I am not Rem. I am Ren and you cannot make me do what you want." She said that and pushed away from the railing and closed the window before pulling the blinds closed. She might have been the only person in the world and she would have still closed the blinds for privacy. It was just odd to change in front of an open window.
.
When she had changed she made mental note of the difference of this world and hers. The clothes were styled differently and so much better in quality that the mass produced machine made clothes of her time. The colors even seemed brighter.
This isn't Japanese though... Maybe I'm not in Japan after all.
The idea passed quickly enough when she thought on it. The residence spoke old Japanese and the clothes on her now where like Sesshomaru's. It was simply his preference.
Women's clothes are not his preference. Pay attention. These were not for you. They were for his wife.
She took them back off the moment she thought of it. She wasn't going to wear a strange woman's clothes. Same soul or no and sure enough as soon as she had changed back into the priestess pants Jaken had returned.
"Ren... What are you doing?" He scurried over to her and yanked on the pant leg.
"Hey, let go!" He yanked again.
"Lord Sesshomaru told you to change!"
"No! I won't wear clothes bought for some dead girl! You can't make me!" Jaken stepped away and eyed the clothes in a new light. He hadn't even noticed. He had taken the women's clothing for granted.
"They were bought after she had died... She never even knew of their existence... you have no fear of that."
I can't catch a break!
She looked at the now open door and of course Sesshomaru stood in the frame.
"Do you enjoy sneaking up on people?" She glared and picked up the pants she had already once removed. "You do it a lot. You sneak up on people and you show up at the least opportune moments. Have you nothing better to do?..." She said that and suddenly he was gone and standing next to her. She had started to move away, but he gripped the back of her neck and propelled her forward. "Let go of me!" He forced her to walk out the door and down the hall to another room.
The room was bright if not dusty and as all hell... dark wood, red walls and two pictures hung on the wall on either side of the door. One in white while the other was purple.
"These are the only two people in my life who mattered. You do not reside on the walls of my estate so stop being an insolently human and do as you are commanded." He released her and she shifted away from him while holding her neck. "You are an asshole." He turned his head and glared at her, not understanding the words, but knowing enough to know they were insults. "You know what? I don't' want your help and if you ever touch me again the first thing I will do is jump from some cliff and splatter everywhere just so you can't even have her soul, you creep!"
The room had grown so very cold then and time stuttered. Ren's body had begun to almost hum... the spirit so energized by her hatred that it made sound. Next the vibrations began as they had twice before. This time they were strong enough to make him brace himself. The glow on her body pulsed in time with the air and her hair fanned away from her as the sun emblem blazed in gold, copper, bronze and silver.
"Don't leave me just yet…. Stay with me…" Her eyes did not become dull, instead a small sliver of them changed into a hue Sesshomaru knew very well. "I am so sorry… for everything…" Her voice changed just slightly and it was enough, the girl was not Ren in this moment. "Sesshomaru... what are you doing?" He looked wide eyed as the body of another became, piece by piece, Rem. "You are killing this body and soul..." He didn't quite hear her.
"Rem." The girl smiled and he knew for sure. "What is happening?"
"You are confusing the body and the soul within. The body which is attached to this mind is bouncing back and forth between what was and what is. I am dead, Sesshomaru." He walked to her and held her so tightly and the pain in his chest was the mirror image.
"What happened to you? I could not find your body. I found Kohaku and brought him back... he died only a week later. I could not save you!" Tears ran down her face and onto him freely.
"I am not sure. But it was not hell, heaven or even death, yet... It was peaceful, even if you had not been there. The pain was little at that point, but for the pain in my heart... I have missed you." The pulsing air made it hard to hold on to Rem. It tried to push him away. "Sesshomaru, the body is calling back my soul... I cannot stay. Not like this." He almost wanted to tell her to try, but he knew what souls brought back did. What they were like. He had seen the same happen in his brother before.
"I have loved and missed you..." She pulled away to see his face and kissed him, his heart nearly breaking then.
"Sesshomaru?" He glanced at his wife and his love, her voice was changing back. "Do not forsake the girl..." Had Rem been alive he might had looked at her oddly, instead he could only give her the love she had commanded in life.
"My Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken held onto the door frame, fighting the push of souls coming from Rem.
"Master Jaken... You look well." Jaken stuttered and as the first tear pulled from his eye; he was blown out the door.
"L-let... go of...me..." Ren was fighting to get back and she was strong willed enough that it pushed the last remains of Rem aside. The humming in the air hit high notes and almost sang before the pulsing returned to the body. It slammed threw Sesshomaru and into Ren almost taking her out of his arms. The next knocked them both off their feet to the floor. He grit his teeth against the shock of the vibrations and Ren could only scream while he watched at close range.
"I will do as you have asked..." The words had been to Rem, but the effect had profound effects on Ren. As the last bits of soul returned to her body he released her and she shuttered on the ground, breathing heavily. Almost ten minutes passed in a silence neither seemed willing to break.
"You want to know why I don't fear you?" She continued to heave in breaths. "It's because of this soul... I know it. That and because you are really easy to look at... Has anyone ever told you that?" She looked at him and he marveled at the wonders the world held.
Ren's voice had returned, the emblem gone, Rem's soul subservient, but the sliver that had returned to the color of Rem's, remained. He didn't know what to do with what she had told him, but he nodded.
She does not fear me because she believes me attractive?... Humans are odd creatures indeed. That fear can be overridden based on such a thing...
He said that, but in his head it made a kind of sense. Rem had loved him and stayed, Rin had come back despite him telling her off and now this girl.
"Please change. We will stay here for a short time and then I will return you to the village and the Well." She nodded this time as Jaken crawled into the room.
"Master Jaken. It's good to see you..." She smiled weakly at him and his disheveled presence and he crawled up to her and took her hand while nodding. "Even if you look like a toad..." She grinned and closed her eyes and fell asleep.
