Hmmmm, Still don't own Inuyasha after all these years. Oh well. My flying monkeys failed me, what shall I replace them with?
I hope you enjoy, it was a struggle to write, but here it is. Also, I know how the series ended after seeing Inuyahsa, the final act. I am not rewritting to make this more cannon and am going to end this along the same vein I was planning to end it. Call it AU if that helps.
They wasted no time waiting for Naraku to form a new plan. They went straight to the village, they needed to get Carolina back down the well, he was sure to come after her. Carolina could not return until the hanyou was dead. It was simply to dangerous to her and the child.
Once they reached the village Carolina said her farewells to everyone incase she was never able to return. As she climbed up on the well she turned to Sesshomaru, who was preparing to follow with Rin. Kagome and Inuyasha were right behind him.
"Sesshomaru, when you tell my mother about Naraku, please don't tell her I was ever captured by him." She let her eyes drift over the others. Sesshomaru planned to talk to her mother about Naraku, the others didn't but she made the request with them present so they also wouldn't let it slip.
"Carolina, she needs to understand why you cannot return. If I..."
"I know! I know, tell her everything else. But she can't know I was captured."
Her voice trembled just slightly, and there was a look in her eye he didn't like. Finally he nodded. Everything but her capture was permited, but if keeping her capture secret was so important to his mate he had to do it. The others also nodded, they'd keep the secret too.
Sesshomaru, Carolina, Aislynn, and Toru where gathered around the kitchen tale with mugs of coffee later that night. Sesshomaru had told them he had something to discuss once the children were in bed. True to his word he hadn't told Aislynn that Carolina had once been captured, but he had told her about Rin's abduction and that Naraku wouldn't think twice about using her or the baby in a similar fashion.
As he spoke he noticed a dark look creep over Aislynn's face and Toru fidgeted with his coffee mug. He saw Carolina shiver, then she got up abruptly and went to her room. A moment later he followed after her, but she'd locked the door.
"Leave her." Aislynn was standing behind him. She was rubbing away goose bumps and had a haunted look on her face. He now understood why Carolina had asked him not to speak of her capture. What he didn't understand was why it should trouble the family this much. Yes, it was a disturbing idea, but should not be this disturbing. Had something happened in the past?
"When you return to your home to hunt this Naraku, would you consider leaving Rin here? We'd be happy to look after her. I'd certainly like to know she's safe." The unicorn asked.
Sesshomaru nodded. "I would be greatly relieved to know she is where no harm can befall her."
That settled they returned to the living room. Toru was watching a late run of the news, something Aislynn would not allow him to watch when the children were up because she said their was simply to much violence and corruption in the world. Aislynn sat besie him flipping through a thick book with a smile. Toru turned in after just a few minutes but both the youkai stayed up.
"What sort of book is that?" Sesshomaru asked looking at it closely. It didn't seem to have that many pages, but the pages were thick and looked colorful from where he sat.
"It's a photo album, come look." She told him patting the cushion Toru had just vacated. Sesshomaru did not move right away, he wasn't sure he'd understood her. Her Japanese was getting better every day, but she still had a tendency to mispronounce words, and her accent was much stronger than Carolina's.
She patted the cushion again and he came to sit next to her. From his new seat he could see that the pages were covered in photographs. Not photographs printed on the paper, but added by Aislynn after the fact. Carolina's photos were mostly of her parents and sister, she just happened to be in some, these photos focused on Carolina as a small child.
The first couple of pages had photos of Carolina as a tiny infant. Usually held by her father as her mother was the photographer, though a few were of her and Aislynn. She was so very tiny.
"She was early." Aislynn informed him. "But she was always very healthy. Very strong. Alaric believed she didn't need as much time as other foals because she was strong."
Carolina had once said she never left her father's side, from these pictures it appeared to be true. He seemed to be in every picture, or part of him at least. His lap, where she struggled to read a book that looked as big as she was. His legs behind her as she sat in the grass playing with a bunny she'd caught. Him holding her up so she could pick a piece of fruit from a tree Sesshomaru was not familiar with. Once or twice there were pictures of her with her mother and one with her playing with a girl Aislynn said was a wampus cat.
She was so happy when she was small. He didn't think he'd ever seen her smile like she did in all these pictures. He hoped he could see her smile like that someday. Why had she quit smiling? As soon as that question formed he knew the answer, that smile had died with her father.
Aislynn decided to take this opportunity to get the answer to a question that had bugged her since she learned her daughter was pregnant. She pointed to the picture with the bunny. "Can you guess when this was taken, Sesshomaru?"
She looked about 5. So it was taken about a hundred... a hundred and what years ago. He realized he never found out her exact age. But she couldn't be much older than a hundred. He decided to take a stab at it, "A hundred and twenty years ago?"
"I had a feeling you did not realize how young she is. She does not act her age. She only just turned 90."
