INTERLUDE 2: DEMONS CANNOT DANCE
"I will not have you
Without the darkness
That hides within you.
I will not let you have me
Without the madness
That makes me.
If our demons
Cannot dance,
Neither can we."
(The Dance, Nikita Gill)
He loves his parents.
He loves them as fiercely as a child can love their parents.
Sesshomaru is their only child, something not uncommon for high ranking demons. Pregnancies are hard – when you are carrying a child with such a strong level of power. It is draining, both physically and mentally, hard on the body, dragging the mother's own power down for months and months and months. It is dangerous for her, dangerous for the lord that has to protect both her and his lands during that time.
So a first born child, a first born son, is something to be cherished and adored.
He is not coddled, no, there is too much riding on his young shoulders for that. He must learn courtly etiquette and graces, he must learn to wield his poison and utilize the weapons his body has before he is taught to use a blade. He must learn to be stoic and graceful and strong. How to run a country, a castle; how to care for its people and the very land itself.
It is a lot to put on the shoulders of a young child.
His father would be the harsh one, one might think. But his father was an heir, too, the only son of Sesshomaru's grandfather. He knows what a burden it is to know exactly what your future holds. To know that there is already a path chosen for you, laid out for you. And there is no room for failure.
So his father knows and his father is stern, strong… but perhaps more lenient than one might expect. He wants his son to grow and blossom and come into his strength with verisimilitude – not to crack and shatter and fall apart under the weight of his inevitable title.
And Sesshomaru adores his father for that. He looks up to his father and tries to imitate him, the way he fights, the way he governs, the way he trains to be stronger every day. His father teaches him to love the very land he walks on because it is a part of him.
His mother was not an heir.
His mother and father were mated long, long ago. Her training was different – she learned how to become nobility, how to be loved by the people and the court and everyone she met, how to be good and kind and beautiful and light. She tried to teach Sesshomaru to be elegant and lovely. But he wanted to be strong and proud, and she did not understand why he could not be both.
"Your people need to love you, dear one." Her voice is smooth and melodic. "If they do not love you, they will never help you."
"This Sesshomaru will never need their help."
"Everyone needs help sometimes."
But his father never needs help, so he knows that he will never need help. And it breaks his mother's heart to see him turn so stoic and cold to those who come to the castle for aid. It makes her cry. And that is the worst thing in the world for him, to see his mother cry. He begs her to stop, asks what he did to make her sad. She cries harder tells him she is sad that he will close his heart and his life will be sad and lonely and empty because of what he is making himself into.
The way she says makes it sounds like she'll hate him if he becomes what he thinks of as strong and he tells her so.
"No, little one. I could never hate you. I might be disappointed, or sad, but I could never hate you."
Tears well up in his eyes, no matter how much he tries to stop them, and there's burning in his throat as sobs well up in his chest. To him, they mean the same thing. He can make his father proud, be the perfect heir. But in doing so he will disappoint his mother, and not be a perfect son. He could have one and not the other. Either or. He didn't want to disappoint his mother, he wanted her to look at him like he was the perfect. At least in her eyes.
He doesn't even say anything, because he knows when he opens his mouth the only thing that will come out is a sob. So instead of saying something, hurling insults or pleas or tantrums, he turns and runs. His mother calls out behind him, urging him to come back, but he doesn't slow, just runs through the palace. He dodges around servants and visiting dignitaries, upsetting a maid carrying a tea service tray, almost tripping one of the minor lords from the eastern lands down the grand staircase. There are muted shouts behind him and a few people call out his name, but he is deaf and blind to them.
He runs down the stairs, into the foyer, out the back door. There are less people in the gardens at this time of day. There is almost no one venturing near the entrance to the maze, which is renowned for being nearly unsolvable. It is one of Sesshomaru's favorite past times, to see who can solve the maze faster, himself or his father. He stumbled towards it, eyes burning with salty tears.
The center is easy to find, he thinks, so he makes turns from memory, left, then two rights, than another left, a right, and the center should be behind a cleverly placed side path, placed to look invisible. But it is not there. He runs directly into a mess of thorny vines and falls back, uncomprehending. His mind whirls, thinking, at first, that he made a wrong turn. But no, he remembers the way, remembers the way he came today, even in his blind panic, and he did not make a false turn. The center should be right her.
He is suddenly unsure, afraid, thinking of all the horror stories he has heard the servants whisper about how the maze swallows people alive, about how they are lost forever, wandering until they die, their bones wrapped in thorny vines for others to find years later. He sits down on the ground, uncaring of the dust and dirt. His bottom lip trembles as a fresh wave of tears surge to the surface.
"Sesshomaru?"
His head snaps up at his father's voice and, when the great lord comes around the corner, eyes searching for his son, Sesshomaru doesn't waste a moment of time before he springs forward with a sob, wrapping his arms around his father's leg. His head barely reaches the hilt of the sword strapped to the taiyoukai's side.
"There now," he says, crouching down to be eye level with his son. It is a side no one sees but his son and his wife, this soft side, the fatherly side. "What are these tears for? Surely you are not afraid?"
Sesshomaru shakes his head, swallowing back the tears, trying to steady his ragged breaths and racing heart. "The center is supposed to be here," he says, after several long moments, when he is sure his voice will come out sure and steady.
His father's eyes soften. "Not always."
Sesshomaru crinkles his brows in confusion. "But it's always here."
"I have always been with you, and so the center has always been here. Because I willed it so."
"But what – "
He settles himself more comfortably on the ground, pulling his son into his lap. "Remember, that as lord of these lands, the land is a part of you, and you are a part of the land. That is more than mere poetic waxing, son. The stronger your strength of will, the more you can feel your lands. And these grounds are your seat, the very place from which that power stems, so you can control it with that same power you use to protect it." With a wave of his hand at the hedge wall behind him, it shifts with a susurrus of sound, like green things growing, and through the new gap Sesshomaru can see the courtyard and fountain at the center of the maze.
His golden eyes big and wide, Sesshomaru crawls out of his father's lap to inch closer, to peer around the edges to make sure that what his eyes see is truth and not illusion. "When will I be able to do that, father?"
His father laughs. "When you are much, much older son. And you have mate at your side, to make this place a home and to ground your power to this place, you'll be able to harness the power of the land."
"Wow…" He grins up at his father. "I can't wait! No one is ever going to get through the maze when I'm lord!" His father laughs boisterously as he stands to his feet and reaches out for Sesshomaru's hand. Together, they walk back to the palace, his father showing him all the tricks of the maze.