Chapter Ten: The Western Keep

They arrived at the Western Keep in the late afternoon. The sun had been warm on her back as she had flown on Ah-Un with Rin, and the breeze had been gentle and pleasantly cool. Rin sang the entire flight, undaunted by Jaken's protests. They had followed Sesshomaru's trail in serenity for the better part of the day. The Taiyoukai did not look back even once, and his cold aura was the only damper on Ayami's spirits.

Though to be fair, it was an enormous damper.

The Western Keep was a well-placed fortress. Its position high on a hill nestled between two mighty mountain ranges made it a daunting feat to reach. The only path on land to the fortress was through a pass so narrow that in some places there was not room for two grown men to stand side-by-side. The terrain of the hill on which the Keep was perched was treacherous; the ground was loosely packed earth that often gave way, and the slope was near vertical in places. A mountain river wound its way around the front of the Keep; a natural moat on the side that was not backed by mountains or sheer cliffs. The easiest, and maybe the only, way in was by flight.

"Is this Lord Sesshomaru's castle?" Rin asked as they flew above the fortress and began their descent, eyes gleaming with excitement.

"It must be," Ayami said. "And it suits him well." Indeed, the fortress appeared nearly as strong, cold, and impregnable as the Taiyoukai himself.

The Keep was as lifeless and cold as a winter's gale. Everything was stone. When her feet touched the ground, it was on marble that she stood. The walls surrounding the keep were immense. At either side of the only gate stood statues: as terrible as they were large. Two great dog demons had been carved in the blindingly white stone, each poised mid-strike, with one enormous paw extended. No detail had been spared, and it seemed that every hair on the great monuments had been chiseled to perfection. The great guardians in all their horrible glory terrified Ayami, but she did not dare to say so.

She was led through a door of iron: four times as tall as Sesshomaru, the width of ten men or more, and as thick as another two. Walking through that entrance, Ayami felt very small. As she passed into the shadow cast by the stone walls of the fortress, she felt a strong chill nearly overtake her. It seemed that her blood ran icy despite the fiery poison in her veins.

She imagined that the place to which she would soon be closely tethered would be very much like the home in which she had been raised. After all, she and Sesshomaru were both royalty, in at least the barest sense of the word. She pictured gardens in full splendor and finery—perhaps scrolls of calligraphy, delicate needlework, or perhaps heirlooms of retired blades. Naturally, there would be nothing too extravagant, for it was not like Sesshomaru to be heavily ornamented, but she assumed there would be enough to display the prestige of Sesshomaru's bloodline.

She was wrong.

The inner palace was a plain structure: interconnected rooms formed into a rectangle with only three sides and a courtyard in the center. The pillars that supported a vaulted ceiling were a black-veined stone; which was very unlike the wooden palace she had known as a child. The peaked rooftops were shingled with a dark gray stone that glimmered ominously in the sunlight. Bordering the rooms and the inner courtyard was a stone walkway, which was how one traveled from one room to another. A few of the rooms were left open, without any walls at all, and the ones that were kept private from the rest of the world had unadorned shoji screens.

"This is your ancestral home, then?" Ayami asked Sesshomaru tentatively.

"Yes." He walked forward, and Ayami followed in his shadow.

He led her silently along the stone walkway, sliding the door to every room open and letting Ayami take a quick glance inside.

The rooms were nothing like she had imagined.

In several rooms there was a futon on a tatami mat squarely in the center of the room. These were bedrooms. In one room there was a small bath above an oven so the water could be heated. Many of the rooms had even less to reveal as they were opened. Most were completely bare. Almost every room's fine wooden flooring was covered in a thick, uniform blanket of dust.

In the entire palace, Ayami saw not one hint of greenery or gardens, art, heirlooms, or means to make music. With every door to a barren or barely furnished room that was opened, Ayami's spirits sank.

"My Lord," Ayami began just as he had pressed his hand to another door to slide it open. He did not respond verbally, but looked slightly over his shoulder to peer at her.

"I—I am not used to such…"

"You will make the accommodations suit you, woman." His eyes were cold as steel.

"No, My Lord. It's not that. There is…enough. Enough to live on. But I wonder if you would permit me to—". Belatedly, she remembered the warnings of Sesshomaru's mother earlier that day and bit her tongue hard. She trailed off, wishing that she had not spoken at all. She looked down at her feet and shuffled them nervously.

"You have already begun to speak, girl. Have the decency to finish."

"Is there anything more to this place? Something like—home? Art…music…something of beauty?"

His eyes narrowed.

"Forgive me, Lord Sesshomaru. It was not my place to say. Your fortress…it is a fine place."

He turned his eyes back to the shoji screen before him. "Home?" he asked. "It is a human word."

They surveyed another two or three rooms in silence, until Sesshomaru completely passed over one room. Surprised, as Sesshomaru had been extremely thorough, Ayami stayed behind and slid the door to take a peek inside.

Sesshomaru slammed the door shut before she had a chance to open it enough for even the smallest glimpse. He didn't have to say anything to express his intense displeasure. Ayami cowered under his glare. "Forgive me…I didn't mean to pry. It's just, you've been so open about all the other rooms I thought for sure you must have passed over it by mistake…"

"Impudent woman." And he turned and continued, silent as before.

But Ayami took note of that room. Beneath her embarrassment for being caught, her curiosity had been piqued. From the shadows she saw behind the shoji screen, she thought for sure that she saw the outline of something large inside.

"Was that your private quarters, my Lord?" she asked.

"No."

She received no further answer, and to be honest, Ayami hadn't expected even that.

They continued to survey the grounds. There was a kitchen, modest in size for so large an estate, a large meeting hall that could have been impressively regal had it been properly furnished. Separate from the main structure were the servant's quarters, a wash room, an empty armory, guard towers, a storehouse, and even stables. With every peek into an empty room, Ayami started to imagine what the room had been meant to be, because unless the InuYoukai were fond of accommodating entire villages, those rooms could not simply have been meant for guest lodging. Her attention began to slip as she imagined private studies, libraries, art studios, tea houses, music rooms…

Once, this place must have housed many. She could only speculate as to the splendor that the Western Keep had in days now past.

"Ayami." The word jarred her from her thoughts.

"Yes, My Lord?" she smiled uneasily, hoping she had not done something stupid while she had been absorbed in her daydreams.

Sesshomaru frowned his disapproval. "Am I boring you, Ayami?"

"Not at all. I was just…thinking."

"Hn." Thankfully, he did not inquire as to what she had been fantasizing. "This is where you will stay." And he slid open the door to the last room.

It was as plain as the rest of the bedrooms, with only a futon and a tatami mat. Ayami had half the nerve to ask why this one as opposed to any of the others, but decided at the last minute to hold her tongue. She had questioned enough today, and she could tell that his patience with her was wearing extremely thin.

She stepped inside, leaving footprints in the dust. Sesshomaru stayed firmly rooted outside.

"I'll need to shop, my Lord."

He raised an eyebrow skeptically. "What for?"

"For starters, there's no food here, my Lord," Ayami replied. She understood that youkai needs were different than a human's, and he was probably not used to considering them. "And no pots or pans to cook with. There is not enough bedding to keep us warm through the cold nights."

Sesshomaru did not seem put out by her request. "Make a list of the things that Rin will require, and I will see to it that they are brought here." The fact that he was not considering her needs was not lost on her.

"I have no paper or ink, my Lord."

He pressed his lips into a thin, disapproving line in his annoyance. "Very well. We will lodge here for the night, and I will take you to a human village tomorrow for the supplies."

"You are most gracious, my Lord." It was the wrong compliment to pay, and they both knew it, but Sesshomaru let it pass.

"Get your rest. We will leave at dawn and I do not want you to slow me down because you are weary."

"As you say, my Lord."

Rin was wandering in the courtyard, jumping from room to room in excitement, examining her Lord's keep with enthusiasm. Sesshomaru soon joined her, pointing her toward the rooms that she needed to be familiar with.

Ayami approached Ah-Un and patted the dragons' noses. She took the reins gently and guided the beast toward the stables. When they were situated, Ayami took what few belongings she had from the saddlebags and then went to her room. She changed in silence, listening to Rin's laughter and Jaken's endless protests and chidings for the girl.

She smiled softly, but felt very grave as she laid on her futon. This place was a wasteland. How Sesshomaru expected her to raise Rin without human companionship in this cold and desolate place was beyond her.

And she was to be locked in. No matter how grand the grounds were (and in the most important areas they were sadly lacking), she was sealed in. It was a cage; a prison.

The poison in her blood flared, as if in reaction to her thoughts. She groaned and tried to rub the fire away, but it would not relent.

The word "prisoner" would not leave her mind, and it haunted her dreams.

"We have another job for you," the red-faced man gulped. "It's…urgent."

She almost didn't even consider the offer. With her last mission completed, she now had wealth enough to feed several households for a month or more. She had been paid in gold, this time, which was extremely rare these days. The bag with the coins sat just inside the threshold of her home, casually tossed there upon her entry earlier that morning. The more courageous of the villagers eyed it, but only once, and they all knew better than to expect so much as a second glance.

She sat against the wall of her hovel, examining her fingernails, trimming them with the tip of a short dagger. She hummed, then held her hand before her. As she observed their length, she replied in voice as dark and velvety as midnight, but with the sting of a whip. "Why should I? You still haven't paid me that rice we agreed on for that last demon I took care of."

The man gulped. "N-No, lady. The planting season—"

"Then call when the planting season is over. I tire of the loans."

"You don't understand!" one of the younger men burst out. "It's not just any demon, it's Lord Sesshomaru!"

Now picking her teeth with the dagger's tip, her eyes glanced upward, intrigued. Her voice did not show it. "A lord?"

"A Taiyoukai. Son of the Inutaisho, Lord of the West."

"A Taiyoukai," she repeated. "In this filthy hovel of a village?" She chuckled dryly. "What, did he come to buy rice?"

"But I'm sure it's him!"

"No mistaking it."

"If he is so great, then why bother with prey like you vermin? His pride must be writhing to have to sink so low." She sighed. "A petty demon noble that has sunk so low as to rely on the likes of you for sustenance is hardly worth my time. I find myself intensely disinterested."

The villagers began to sweat. "Half of the treasure in the shrine," one offered with gritted teeth, "for his head."

"All of it," she said. "In advance."

Her declaration turned the men's faces from red to livid purple. "All of the treasures in our sacred shrine…"

"It is a pittance to ask, especially for a Taiyoukai." Her eyes gleamed with dark laughter. "The profits from it all might feed me for three days."

The silence held for several minutes, but the villagers had known from the beginning that they could never have won. "Agreed."

"Pleasure doing business with you." She smiled, catlike. "As soon as the treasure is brought here, I will rid you of this…Lord Sesshomaru."

"But lady, he's here now! Perhaps payment can wait…"

"And if you leave out so much as a gold button, I will know it."

The villagers left, disparaged. They knew firsthand that she wasn't lying.

A/N: Before anyone flames me for giving Sessh a castle, it's not a castle, it's a keep. And really, he doesn't spend much time there. At all. As I will explain later.

Also, I know nothing of feudal Japanese architecture other than what I see in InuYasha. (What a source, I know). Anyway, if anyone could critique me for validity, I would be most grateful.

Next chapter we meet "her". I think you'll find it highly amusing. Chapter title: "A vassal and a guard" or something thereabouts. It will probably be something that sounds less lame.