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A.N./ I post the art from each chapter on my Twitter/Tumblr @fifthdimensionr / @livinginthefifthdimension . Feel free to make requests if I don't draw the scene you're most fond of. Other than that, I hope you enjoy the ride :)
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InuYasha sat in the grass, watching as the birds went about their way overhead. The sun was warm on his face, soaking into the skin as his family lounged around him on a soft, pale blanket.
"Your choices are brilliant and accomplished young women," father seemed to be trying to negotiate with his stubborn older son as InuYasha listened on. Maybe he didn't understand why he and Sesshomaru had to be out in society at the same time, but he was not as displeased as his brother seemed to be.
Watching their parents made him long for the days when his woman would run her fingers through the ends of his hair while their sons ran amuck amongst the gardens.
He grew up watching and following along as Sesshomaru ripped roses from their bushes and dug up the tulips in righteous protest. Maybe if he'd known that the cause of his brother's protest was his own existence he'd have been less content to follow along.
Still. Those days were precious to him and he was eager to watch his own silver haired spawn do as he had.
"Princesses are often not to my tastes. Concubines make fine heirs," Sesshomaru would not look upon the paintings sent for his review. Instead, he kept his eyes planted firmly on the book in his grasp. "As shown." That last comment stuck InuYasha in the face like a bee sting.
Even growing up together had not taken away Sesshomaru's disdain for halfbreeds.
There was a heavy silence that made a peaceful day uncomfortable as their parents struggled to navigate the minefield he'd dropped them in. Without a care in the world, he returned to his reading.
"Scared no one will be able to tolerate you?"
"I am not a kind man," Sesshomaru murmured, lazy as a cat in sunlight. He wasn't an entirely hideous man when he let the light of day reflect off his sleek, silver hair and alabaster skin. Sometimes, when he was quiet and reading and keeping his mildly prejudiced comments to himself, InuYasha found himself envious of his otherworldly beauty. "But even I have the good sense to not add one more…" he silence spoke louder than any slur ever could, "consider it charity that your unsightly race will die with you."
Mama Izayoi flushed red with justifiable anger, her hands stilling in Mama Kimi's hair as she grappled with her ever present, overwhelming emotions.
"Why must you be so nasty?" Everything in her stance betrayed the tears she couldn't stop from falling. Delicate, kind, loving, to make Izayoi cry -no matter how effortless it may be- was a universally recognized crime.
Sesshomaru scowled at her, helpless when she clutched the pendant she wore about her neck every moment of every day of her life.
The mangled head of a budding tulip had been the gift Sesshomaru had given her after years of pissing in her shoes. He couldn't only vaguely remember the day she'd received it, but he knew she held it tightest when she wanted to remember the boy she'd held that day, when he was being particularly hard to love.
"InuYasha started it."
She seemed to wither, like a sunflower with no sun.
Mama Kimi was brazen where Izayoi was timid and -while he dodged the shoe- he could not dodge the book that smacked him in that stupid looking crescent on his forehead.
"Apologize or you'll be crossing the river with coins over your eyes, you mean spirited dog."
"Pot? Meet kettle." He dodged the second shoe she hurled in his direction, "I will not apologize when he started it."
"It was a joke!" InuYasha insisted finally, "you've insulted all of me for a joke."
Sesshomaru shrugged as he gazed at the woman he would not call mother, "and it's somehow my fault that you're not funny?" With a long suffering sigh he tugged one of his brother's twitching, white ears, "Apologies for insulting your very existence."
It was hardly a sincere apology, but if it would stop Izayoi from sniffling into their father's chest then he would accept it.
"Still not marrying a human." When a third shoe came flying in his direction, he added, "for personal reasons."
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"Mother," InuYasha sat perfectly still as Mama Kimi presented him with those he was allowed to choose from at the upcoming ball. "There was a princess in Sesshomaru's batch that looked my type more than his."
Which was a bad attempt at impassivity.
He'd seen a glimpse of her raven hair, accented in blue and something clicked into place. To be brought to life by a rendering of a person was surely a sign of the phenomenon that his parents spoke so fondly of.
Bonding. Mating. Imprinting.
Whatever it was called he was sure that if given the chance she would be his million yen ticket.
"You know how your brother can be. It's not worth the fuss."
"But he hasn't even agreed to get married! Shouldn't I get first pick since I'm being cooperative?"
She ruffled the hair between his ears, "it does not, because -while your brother is a prick- he is also a power hungry prick. If the only way he takes the crown is taking a bride then he will."
"Betrayed by my own mother." Sesshomaru scowled at the both of them, "a prick am I?" He placed one clawed hand over his heart in a low effort show of distress. "To think… I came here at Izayoi's behest to deliver this aromatic bundle."
The smell of cinnamon and sugar hit InuYasha like a bag of rocks.
"Maru. My love, my son, hand over the cookies."
"What a different tune you're singing, mother. Your loyalties waver a touch too easily for my liking."
He glanced at the bundle again, "if you can catch me then you're free to take them, but if you can't then I shall feed the koi."
"You rotten child, koi can't eat pastries."
"I'm not seeing how that's any of my business."
He was faster than InuYasha by a landslide, but that didn't stop him from lunging for the lavender wrapped treats. "The koi were a gift for me. You'd better not kill them."
The stone floor bit into his shoulder as he caught his brother's foot in his chest.
"If you're so fond of them, then I suggest you stop moving in slow motion."
Mama was a demon just as her son was, but she did not spend her days honing her agility or playing swords with Toga. He danced around the two of them with a condescending kind of boredom.
It wasn't until their father came around the corner, led by his nose, that Sesshomaru's face lit itself with a special kind of glee.
"Toga, tell your son to hand over the sweets." Mama Kimi took a shuddering breath, swearing to herself to go on a run one of these days.
"Father, I'm well within my rights. My own mother called me a prick."
"Son," his eyebrow quirked as he watched him toy with his mother and brother, "you are a prick."
InuYasha nearly caught the cloth, but found himself gripping empty air as that bastard man began to float.
"Didn't ask if it was true or not."
"How about this," Toga began stretching his tired joints, his golden eyes trained only on the moving parcel that had drawn him out of his room to begin with. "If I can take that from you in less than a minute then you get married to a human woman without another complaint."
Sesshomaru considered that, his hubris clouding the lines of possibility. Their father was a King to a Kingdom with a military so thorough -so universally feared- that it realigned the way the world saw demonkind as a whole, but Sesshomaru had always been overly confident.
And -on very special occasions- very stupid.
"If you can take this from me in under thirty seconds I will not complain about taking a human wife, but I will choose whoever I'd like. No interferences and no compromises."
Mama Kimi was at her mate's side as she whispered her hopes into his pointed ear. "In return you will give me three grandchildren."
"So… if I am to pick a woman to please me, I have to allow her to please me?" She grimaced at the crude way he'd put it, but didn't argue with him, "what a deal."
Kimi pushed for an answer.
"I will do as the heaven's intended as many times as is necessary to create your heirs, but if it takes you more than thirty seconds then I will not marry at all."
Toga scoffed at his son, "ready?"
He said he was, but it was over before it began. InuYasha was unhealthily giddy when the parcel landed in his hands and Sesshomaru went slamming into the stone so hard it sent a crack up the wall.
"Break his pride, not his face." Mama Kimi pushed her husband away and pulled her limp son into her arms. Her gentle fingers brushed away the blood that dripped down his forehead and slid between furrowed brows.
InuYasha couldn't bring himself to feel too bad for him.
"If I didn't knock him out he'd have kept trying to fight. It was an act of self preservation." Unmoved, she hooked her hands beneath his shoulders and the curve of his legs.
"Your point?" The chill in her eyes silenced her husband once and for all. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Izayoi and I are going to fuss over our baby."
She was long gone when Toga sighed, "even when he loses, he wins."