Disclaimer: I do hereby disclaim all rights and responsibilities for the characters, including the Sea Witch, though dibs on some seahorses to wear in my hair.
Note d' Authoria: Thankyou to RosieB who nominated my tale for the IYFG quarterly competition.
Benten's Lesson ranked a third in the Comedy section this quarter and I was both surprised and delighted that my tale had been brought to the attention of the powers that be.
Reviews: Let me know what you think, wordy reviews make my day.
~ Chapter 14: A Second Exchange ~
Lithely twisting in the water Sesshoumaru tasted the water as he followed the rolling pearl. Now and then it would be lost from sight as it bounced beneath coral overhangs but always it reappeared, a pale gleam on the seabed. Sesshoumaru searched for the scent of power or some youki like taint in the water. The sooner he found the 'seawitch' the girl mentioned the sooner he would return to normal, on so many levels of existence.
As if hearing and rebuking his impatience the pearl rolled into a crack in the seabed and vanished. Sesshoumaru circled, prying at the ground with his fingers to see if he could follow it, when he could not he tried dropping another pearl. This one rolled hastily away in the same direction the first had before it fell.
Down. Down. Down. Pearl after pearl rolled and fell, leading the way.
The water became darker and heavier as the Taiyoukai swam on. Around him now the fish were leaner, their eyes larger. Flashes of luminescence beguiled or warned from the spines and sides of long thing eel creatures that eyed him in passing the sank back into their hiding holes.
Ahead the anemone's them selves glowed in pale golds, pinks and blues, forming and lighting a rich garden bed around a dais formed out of coral. Seated there was a woman, her skin as pale and smooth as abalone shell, her eyes pale as a corpse.
She was tall and elegant, but without a fish tail. Her throne was wrought of giant branches of moro coral*, red as safflower paste. The Sea Witch, for who else could it be, was dressed in silk kimonos that billowed about her in shades of kelp green. Her long black hair rose like smoke and was the hiding place of tiny slate-coloured seahorses and the occasional octopus that coiled in and out of the locks. Foreign gold coins, round and struck with a cross shape, thickly littered the ground around her. As did human bones, picked clean and gleaming pale in the flickering ocean light.
The water tasted of power. Godly power, the same as the Lady and, to a lesser extent, the deer Youkai. This aura was heavy with lightning, salt and incense. Sesshoumaru repressed a shiver and warily approached.
The woman turned to focus on him with her dead eyes and a cruel little smile foxed the corners of her mouth.
"You have come slower than I was expecting little hound. Did the delights of the sunken palace turn your head and distract you?"
Sesshoumaru schooled his face to show no expression. "Hardly," he replied. The Sea Witch did not like his casual response. The water around her roiled slightly and Sesshoumaru gasped for air a moment as the the water momentarily ceased to be breathable.
"You will address me as O-Toyota Mahime-sama, dog, if you address me at all. I will not be toyed with. You must exchange something of equal value for my assistance, that is the rule here."
Sesshoumaru's eyes widened fractionally in fear at the realization that his ability to breath could be robbed so easily. He nodded fractionally and the water returned to normal. The sea-witch steepled her fingers and gazed at him hungrily over them. Her teeth were very white when she spoke.
"I know what you seek."
Sesshoumaru's lip curled. "Better than I do…"
The woman stiffened, the water darkened slightly and Sesshoumaru stiffly added. "…O-Toyota Mahime-sama"
Toyota Mahime's eyes narrowed and her fingers flexed, displaying her long ivory nails. "You want your freedom little hound, Every movement in this realm shouts your wish louder than any voice could. Would you have me grant that desire?"
Sesshoumaru's brow furrowed. "I do not consider the mindless state of the other Youkai here freedom. O-Toyota Mahime-Sama."
The goddess waved her hand dismissively. "Of course not. Those Lotus-eaters are no freer than any other being who is reliant entirely on another's power for happiness. And the girl O-ka-sama* sent you has barely a part in the key to your freedom from all this." She waved at the watery realm about them.
Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed as he listened. There was something about how the Sea Witch was being so blatantly dismissive of Higurashi Kagome that sounded false to his ears. But he was also beginning recognise who these beings were, that toyed with him so. Human gods differed from the primal gods of the Youkai, and he was not familiar with them, had never needed to be familiar with them. He had not realised that human gods had become so powerful in the last few decades. He would question the girl when next he saw her who these deities were.
"O-ka? Your mother is the cause of all this?" Sesshoumaru flexed his talons. "What reason has she for…" The water thinned again as the goddess expressed her displeasure and Sesshoumaru gasped despite himself as his lungs were robbed of oxygen.
"Silence dog. Be still your yapping and do not seek to blame others for your failings. I know of your faults and irreverance. Mother is far too generous, for all that you are the end of your line. She has always been too sentimental about your family."
Sesshoumaru writhed and coiled in the water like and eel, trying to control himself as a claustrophobic fear seized him along with the spasms as he tried to breath. The water and the darkness was closing in on him and he felt the fear of a child, helpless and unable to save himself.
"Enough of this," O-Toyota Mahime stated sharply. And Sesshoumaru was free again, coughing and shivering still from the fear. An angry resentment that any being could do this to him glowed like an ember in his heart, renewing his strength.
"To the bargain, little hound. I will return your legs, that you may walk on land, even grant you the power to return to the ocean, should you chose it, but in return…" The sea-witch leant forward, her words an eager hiss. "I want your voice. That is the original trade, so I have learned."
Sesshoumaru frowned. A voice he barely used for the ability to come and go as he pleased here, on land and water, and so the ability solve the task of this place. "Take it then O-Toyota Mahime-sama."
The witch reached into her sleeve and drew out two glass bottles, one a deep blue, the other glowing amber. Pulling the stopper from the blue vial she gestured at Sesshoumaru.
"Speak then little hound, and forfill your part of the exchange."
Sesshoumaru frowned slightly. "What would you have me say…O-Toyo-" Even as the words fell from his lips the sound was drawn away into the vial in the Sea-Witch's hand, his last words were torn from his throat, leaving it raw in the salt water, and his tongue silent.
The water above began to boil.
"Hah. I thought that would get her attention. You had better leave now little hound. O-Ka-sama should not be crossed lightly. Though you should know that by now." O-Toyota Mahime threw the amber vial to Sesshoumaru. "drink this when you reach the surface. It will restore your legs, step back into salt water to regain the form you wear now. You have until the new moon to solve this… trial. Otherwise…" The Sea-Witch shrugged negligently. "…Well perhaps death would be preferable. Go."
With a dismissing flick of her hand a jet of water hit Sesshoumaru, tumbling him far away from her cave and pelting him with coins and old bones.
~o0o~
"You would dare thwart me!" Benten's kimonos were alive with embroidered eels and they fluttered around her furiously as she approached the 'Sea Witch'.
Toyota Mahime quit her throne to bow before her mother, polite but unrepentant.
"He would not have used it any way mother. Let him miss it. Perhaps absence will make your little bird's song be the sweeter when it finally returns." Toyota Mahime shrugged, not without some deference. "If it ever returns. You knew the story when you set me this role and that I would choose to follow my part to the word."
Benten remained silent, but the water around her calmed.
"So be it."
~o0o~
* Boke coral is rose coloured, moro coral is a deep red.
Corallium japonicum is a red coral found in the Japanese sea and used in jewelry making. It has become increasingly rare due to over-harvesting.
* Toyota mahime (or Toyo Tama Hime) is a japanese sea goddess. While Bentzaiten is believed to have fifteen disciples or sixteen daughters but I couldn't find any names or descriptions of the latter. Thus I decided to cast another ocean goddess from the Shinto Parthenon as one of her offspring. Toyota's tale is similar to that of Melusine, one of my favorite lesser known fairytales. However I've made her a little less friendly and a lot more willful than my sources describe her.