Sesshomaru stirred from his slumber and opened his eyes to see the predawn light on the horizon. He was pleasantly surprised to find that his head was not pounding after how he had felt before drifting off and felt no pain despite knowing that his wounds had not yet closed completely. Sitting up slowly, he only felt some slight soreness as he looked around the clearing. Rin was still sound asleep as she was sprawled out on the ground beside him, her cheeks a slight flush letting him know that she was staying warm under the blanket that had been given to her.

Lifting his eyes up to where the blood orb had been, he only saw Seraphina being supported by as ash she was still in the same position she had been in before the ritual. Dried blood patterns decorated her body from head to toe, even on her palms and soles of her feet. Her head was still tilted back and lips parted, but despite his near proximity, he could not hear her heart or her breathing. Getting to his feet, he moved to stand less than a foot away and heard a quiet breath, almost inaudible to his ears and finally heard a beat of her heart, being ten times slower than normal.

"I wouldn't touch her quite yet," Gaki's soft voice reached him as he had moved to touch her cheek and glanced back to see the sprite flying over to hover beside him. "The gems are still red so the ritual has not finished quite yet."

"Why is her heart not functioning properly?"

"We had to slow the functions of her heart and lungs so she would not suffocate within the blood orb. Disturb her now and she will start choking on the blood that her body has not yet absorbed. Once the ash was within her radius she took full control of it and even we were unprepared for the volume of blood she took from you. For the amount of gems that were born from the ash of her pup, he would possibly have rivaled your strength had he survived."

"Because of her nymph bloodline?"

"Nymphs like her who can actually unconsciously draw in the energies around her are actually extremely rare. Many mistake water, earth, fire and air nymphs for pure elemental nymphs like her. While they do absorb the energy of any whose pupped them to produce stronger heirs, they would never be able to give birth to pure youkai heirs like she can."

"It is doubtful that she'd wish to have another," he frowned, his mind going to thoughts of how sought after she would become if word about her spread.

"That's unfortunate as there is a possibility for her pup to be reborn once her body no longer needs the ashen gems," Gaki sighed and his brow furrowed. "Does that really surprise you so much, Western Lord? Within our elements as a whole clan, we can rival even you. New fae are born from the ashes of the old, it is how we keep our populous when while waiting for the appearance of a fae queen who is the only one who can create brand new life."

"This one does not know if she would believe that..."

"Understandable that she might mistake the truth as an excuse to pup her," Gaki hummed. "Continue to care for her as you have, Lord Sesshomaru. It would be a mistake to tell her this unless she has chosen on her own to try for another pup as it would simply distort the ritual."

"You mean she would have to fully mourn and accept the loss of the one pulled from her body."

"Yes as he would still be a pure ryuu taking after the sire who pupped her, but it would not be the same soul as there is no way for us to return souls like the blade you carry."

"Hn."

"How are your injuries?"

"This one can feel that they are still open but only feel mild soreness," he admitted.

"Between the sake and the healing spells on the silk bandages, that is a benefit nor will they reopen if you moved wrong," she nodded, turning and he glanced in the direction she moved and saw the two sprites from the night before carrying another stack of folded silk bandages.

He stepped away from Seraphina and let his haori slide from his shoulders to let the sprites change the bandages. No blood escaped and the wounds were dark, giving a dark ashen outline to his stripes. They were still very raw, maybe a couple thin layers of skin but still visible indented wounds. The sprites wrapped the fresh bandages around his chest before taking the soiled ones to the river to be washed.

"With your youkai healing, it will take only a couple more days before they're completely healed due to the ash within them as long as you change the bandages twice a day."

"You have this one's appreciation," he nodded as he pulled his haori back on and fixed his clothing.

"It is a pleasure to have been apart of such a powerful ritual as most of the sprites became almost as drunk as you from just from being within the clearing. I will warn you though that due to the trust between you two as you willing bled for her and she eagerly took from you, I can feel that some bond has been created."

"She has never believed in binding herself to another, what would this mean?"

"I have never witnessed an event such as this so I am unaware of its implications. The only solace I can give is that it does not feel like a mating mark. I can only offer that to figure it out, you two should meditate together away from others to explore its meaning. She will still need to do weekly blood rituals to keep her gems fully charged but her pain should lessen and have no consequences from using her ashen abilities."

"Hn," he nodded before hearing a sharp inhale before a wet cough came from Seraphina, the blood patterns were no longer visible.

He was at her side in seconds and caught her as the ash under her disappeared. Her wet coughing became violent that he heard Rin wake up as he knelt onto the ground. She fell onto her knees, clinging to his forearm and his brows furrowed as blood started coming up and rolling down her chin. Her ryuu eyes finally opened as bloody tears escaped before she managed to cough up several large blood clots.

"What is going on?" Rin asked panicked as she jumped to her feet and hovered a couple feet away.

"Her body is expelling any blood that was unneeded any way it can," Gaki spoke calmly as Seraphina gagged at the sight before vomiting more blood onto the grass in front of her.

"Gaki," Sesshomaru growled low and the sprite focused on him.

"Had you touched her prematurely, it would have disrupted the ritual. She had to wake up on her own."

Finally, Seraphina stopped puking up blood, dry heaving several times before ending. She collapsed heavily against his knee as her body trembled from the exertion, gasping for air. Pulling her nude body back into his arms, he carried her over to the edge of the water and helped her clean off the blood before it dried. Her body was quickly cooling and as if knowing, sprites came with a pile of fabric that was an obsidian blue color with silver floral visible.

Helping her stand on shaky legs, the sprites dressed her. He noticed that the silver floral was along the sleeves and from her thighs down to the hem while a slit was in front of both thighs as the kimono flared at the waist and seemed slightly longer in the back to touch the ground. It sat at the edges of her shoulders, exposing the jade necklace and his mark as the ashen scars from Kabuto had disappeared and a obi in the style she liked went from her hips up to just below her breasts in a pale lavender with jade green embroidered floral designs to match that on the kimono and the ties were black, accentuating her wide hips. Pulling her back into his arms, her crimson eyes closed and he felt her hand resting on his bandaged chest.

"Is she okay now?" Rin asked quietly.

"She is doing great, dear little princess," Gaki smiled as the freshly washed silk bandages had been dried, folded and set on Seraphina's lap. "She just may be a bit sleepy for the next day as she used a lot of energy to sustain the blood ritual so long."

"What about me being able to touch her?"

"Unfortunately, that has not changed until she finishes healing. There is nothing that can be done about the way the gems had been created."

"Okay," Rin nodded and Sesshomaru smirked as he saw a determined look in her eyes as he used his jaki to bring his pelt to him and it attached itself to his shoulder and Seraphina snuggled into it as her hand moved to rest on the stack of bandages so they wouldn't fall.

"Come Rin, it is time to return," Sesshomaru spoke and she came over to his side and he felt her tuck her hand against his elbow as he was holding Seraphina with both arms to alleviate the strain on his injuries.

Sesshomaru entered his rooms just before the sun was about to set to see that Seraphina had not moved from the position she had been in when he set her in his bed that morning, still quietly sleeping with her head and upper body propped up on his pelt. No one had questioned their overnight disappearance, which he was grateful for and no one knew or suspected that he had been injured as he didn't have any plans on explaining to anyone how he had received them. Closing the bedroom door behind him, he saw Seraphina stir slightly before he caught sight of her crimson eyes as she woke.

"Evening," he commented and came to sit on the bed beside her and her head moved so she could look at him without much effort. "You've slept all day."

"I feel strange," she murmured sleepily as she brought a hand up to rub her eyes, careful of the piercing in her cheek.

"How so?"

"I feel no pain or any discomfort at all, anywhere in my body," she yawned and he smirked as she had no struggle talking despite her Nordic accent.

"No struggles with the language either," he smirked and she frowned, evidently surprised that she had not caught onto that.

"That makes things so much less complicated," she smiled, slowly sitting up with ease. "How are your wounds?"

"They are healing," he nodded as her hands came to his haori and he let her undress him.

Her eyes widened as she took in his chest before her hands gently started to remove the silk bandages. He kept his eyes on her as he felt her fingers drag along his skin until the last bandage fell away. Despite not liking the pained look in her eyes as he felt her touch one of his wounds, he remained silent.

"What did I do...?" Her voice wavered and he finally moved as he saw tears well up.

"This one chose where to be cut," he spoke, wiping away the tears before they fell and crimson met molten gold.

"I shouldn't have taken control of the ash..."

"So you feel it then," he murmured and she pulled her face from his hands, her eyes dropping as she grabbed the fresh silk bandages and quietly began to wrap them around his chest.

"You should be angry," she muttered as she focused on her task. "I took too much if this happened. I lost control and I could have actually harmed you."

"Seraphina," he purred bringing both hands to her face and forced her to look at him as guilty tears fell. "You took only that which was offered and what was needed. It was inevitable to have our energy merge. There is no point agonizing over what had been done."

"I've bound us together, how are you so calm about that?"

"It was not a mating as this one did not take blood from you."

"That doesn't make this right...!"

"How does a bond that has formed from a level of trust between two beings that even sprites have not seen differ from you willingly be marked as this one's pack?" He interrupted firmly and she fell silent. "Even last night, there was no hesitation from this one's inner Youkai to give what we both knew you needed. From the beginning, you have never hesitated to earn this one's trust. How could you have known what this one would have done when you first submitted and offered your neck? Had it been a less honorable being to find you, you could have found yourself killed or possibly captured and tortured for someone's pleasure."

"I could feel your intentions when I woke after that first ritual," she whispered weakly and he lowered his hands to his lap. Her eyes lowered and slid her hands into his, "It's the same feeling when I would hunt lesser Youkai to known when to strike. You may usually be a being of few words and I may not really understand why, but I have always known that you would never have harmed me."

"What do you feel now?"

"That despite this trust between us and feeling as my alpha, you have some hidden agenda. What did I miss last night?"

"This one had something to show you," he spoke, getting to his feet and pulled his haori back on.

She slid off the bed and wrapped her arm around his offered arm, willingly and let him pull her from his rooms. They walked through the corridors to the courtyard and he pulled her into his arms as he noticed the heavy snow and her bare feet. Walking to the far corner of the residence where an isolated grove of plum trees that were warded and only was accessible to the royal family. Following the dim path through the the tree, he finally reached the small clearing that held a hot spring barely large enough to fit four people comfortably.

Walking around the spring to a corner of the private gardens that was nestled against the mountainside surrounded by a half circle of trees, he finally set her on her feet before a silvery white marble carving that he had spent most of the day making, using the sharpened strength of his own claws. His hands came to her arms to stabilize her as she swayed and guided her forward. The statue was a likeness of from what he remembered seeing of her pup, the waist down being of it's true form and covered in scales while scales wrapped around his hands and horns on top his head, ears pointed while in a fetal position.

"Sho..."

"You were unable to bury him under the circumstances so here his memory is immortalized. Carving into the marble was trying while remembering what you had once shown this one."

"You carved this yourself?" She tilted her head back so she could look up at him and he hummed as he pressed a kiss to her brow, smelling silent tears fall.

"Drawing an image and have another more skilled would not have been the same. You are pack and your happiness is one of this one's main concerns. The sprites mentioned that the emotional trauma was weakening you considerable and this one hopes this helps," he murmured and her arms came up and wrapped around his neck as he moved to wrap his around her waist, pulling her back against his chest.

"Thank you."

"You are correct that this one has another agenda for doing this, but not for this one's benefit. The sprite Gaki did not wish this one to say anything, but to hide this from you and you learn later on would be more detrimental."

"What do you mean?" Seraphina asked.

"When you no longer require ashen gems to heal, a pup of the Ryuu, you once knew can be reborn of the ash that had been used to create the gems. They cannot return the same soul but it would be a pup of his blood," he spoke simply. "The ritual needed would not work if you chose to have a pup for this reason alone."

"Of death comes life," she whispered as her eyes lowered once more to the statue in front of them.

"Hn."

"So apart from this and a bond that we know nothing about, what else did I miss?"

"Unlike those more common, Water, Earth, Fire, and Air nymphs, your nymphic bloodline is much more rare."

"The sprites who cared for me had once met the woman who gave birth to me," her shoulders slumped as her hands gripped the back of his haori. "I was never told much about how elemental nymphs were different, whether due to lack of information or fear...?"

"Your pup had not simply been sterkari or hálfur púki," he murmured against her head, remembering the words she had once used when she struggled to translate 'stronger' and 'hanyou' from her tongue. "According to the sprite Gaki, your ability to absorb jaki does not come from gems and you passively took from Bjorn."

"He had been a pure Ryuu...?"

"Yes."

"So it was fear...?"

"Most likely to protect you. Hearing her explain it, this one's immediate concern was if word got out, what danger would there be for you."

"But not from you?"

"If you can feel this one's intentions, you know that answer," he spoke and she nodded silently.

"Marble doesn't fully do him justice," she murmured gently.

"No, it doesn't," he agreed and she brought one hand down from around his neck and held it out, palm facing the statue.

Sparks of lightning shot from her hand and danced over the carved scales covering his lower half, his hands and horns, turning them to an obsidian color with a reddish sheen. Then the sparks jumped to the empty space below on the marble pedestal, leaving seven Nordic runes behind. Once that finished, she brought her hand back up around his neck.

"Torsten... that was the name we had chosen," Seraphina whispered softly and he felt her body tremor as the scent of tears became stronger.

"Do not fight it, Seraphina," Sesshomaru growled gently.

"No..."

A whimper escaped her as her hands fell from around his neck. Feeling her hands try to push him away as she started struggling, he easily pinned her arms around her waist and a frustrated sob escaped her. In any other situation, he would have found it humorous that she had even tried to fall forward to break from his grip and eventually going dead weight in his arms. Her head fell forward as her agony took control and she scream out until her lungs gave out and his ears were ringing from the pitch. He knelt down with her so she was on her knees too as the gut wrenching sobs began. Her fingers wrapping into the silk of his sleeves, pulling him closer as her head was barely inches off the frozen ground.

"I... I wish... that my memories of him... where my own... That... I could have been... awake... and at least feel him... feel his warmth... and let him know... how sorry I am..."

"He knows," he murmured as he pulled her back and slid one hand up her body to cradle the side of her head as she tucked her head under his chin. "It wasn't your fault. None of it was, not his death nor anyone else..."

"I... I couldn't... protect anyone..." she cried. "They... countered my ash... All I could do... was run..."

"The only one to blame is the one that led the assault on your village," he spoke as she gasped for air between sobs. "Breathe."

"I... I can't..."

Sliding his hand down, he slid his hand around the front of her neck and applied minimal pressure. Her hand came up to cover his, despite her cries and added more pressure. Following her lead, he tightened his hand around her throat to constrict her ability to breath until air was barely passing through her lungs. Her chest slowed as it made her have to focus on breathing and her sobs died off to whimpers as she hiccuped and he relaxed his hand, but kept a loose hold around her neck.

"I'm okay... I think," she whispered as she continued to take slow breathes and brought her sleeve up to dry her face. "Tired of crying though."

"Hn," he nodded before pulling her with him as he returned to his feet.