A/N: Saturday teaser chapter for the first week of june!
Potential feels but nothing as heavy as the last few chapters.
Please review! I feel like you all hated this last chapter bomb last week because I got NO feedback on it! If you liked it, please tell me!
If any of my regular readers are fanartists, I'd love a drawing of Rin as a hanyou if you want a project! You'll find a description of her appearance in this chapter.
Rin wandered into the main room with her nose in the air, smelling rice and beans. Her nightmares were already forgotten. Hideoko smiled in greeting and offered her a bowl with a spoon once more so she could eat one-handed, for which she was grateful. They ate in companionable silence, and when Rin was finished she looked up at him. "is there any place nearby that I can bathe?"
Hideoko nodded. "of course. There's a bath house behind this main building. It's nothing fancy but I can get a fire going out there to heat some water for you."
"really, you are too kind!" Rin said with a shy smile.
"'to give kindness is to receive it from the gods'," he quoted, getting to his feet. "I shall fetch you that spare kimono so you can wash your clothing too, if you wish." Rin nodded and he headed off. She sighed and looked at her left arm in its sling, grateful it no longer hurt but frustrated that it was still completely useless. Still, a week until it was fully healed was quite something. She frowned and started thinking of Sesshomaru…she'd been dreaming about him, if she remembered correctly, but it had been some sort of confusing nightmare…
Hideoko returned a short while later with the spare kimono in hand. It was certainly nothing fancy, just something a village woman would wear. Rin hadn't worn something so plain since before she'd met Sesshomaru all those years ago. She took it with a little bow and headed to the bath house. There was nothing like a bath to relax oneself, and Rin knew she was probably grimy, or she felt like it even if she really wasn't. it was another modest but nice building as she stepped inside, much smaller than what she was used to but very fine. She frowned down at her broken arm for a few moments, trying to work out how she was going to get undressed without help—because she was certainly not going to ask a man or a relative stranger to help her undress!
After thinking for a few moments and coming up with nothing, Rin let out a sigh of resignation and carefully pulled the sling away from her broken arm, deciding it was going to hurt. She worked as quickly as possible and managed to get herself undressed without too much awful pain. Panting, she put the sling back on so she could wash herself without having to hold her bad arm. Once she was scrubbed, she walked over to the slightly larger tub full of warm, faintly steaming water, and looked down into it, surprised to see her reflection. She looked so different than she always had before…her face was still fine-boned, which made her eyes look childlike and big, and she supposed they always would. Her thick lashes now framed eyes of bright gold rather than mild cinnamon, but the pupils remained round, unlike Sesshomaru-sama's, which had thinner, narrow pupils more like an animal's. the wet hair that framed her face looked like shining silver ribbons now, and it was a silvery-white when dry, and the doglike ears atop her head seemed to suit the color perfectly. She was reminded once again of InuYasha with his long hair and ears. Last of all, she turned her attention to the purple marking above her silvery brows. it was Sesshomaru-sama's crescent moon, there was no denying it now like they could with the potion before. It was perfectly formed and positioned. Rin was suddenly overwhelmed with sorrowful anger. However she had become a hanyou, she hated that it had separated her from him, and turned her beloved against her. She struck the water, making the image disappear, before allowing herself a brief soak to relax. She didn't feel up to cleaning her clothing one-handed, and was glad to have fresh clothing to change into.
When the water went from steamy to lukewarm once more, she reluctantly climbed out, drying herself before eyeing the new kimono. Taking her clothing off hadn't been too awful, but getting dressed once again would be challenging. She considered and dismissed the idea of leaving her injured left arm inside the robe. That would look ridiculous and solve nothing. She sighed in resignation and took the sling off once more, unfolding the kimono and stretching out her arm to put the sleeve on. As soon as it was on her shoulder so she could let the fabric go, she bit her good hand to muffle her scream of pain, tears leaking from her eyes. Finally, after a few minutes, she recovered enough to put the sling back on and finish dressing, tying the sash as best she could. She was surprised to see that she'd actually bitten through the skin on the back of her hand with her dainty fangs. She'd have to let Hideoko look at that.
Hideoko was busily starting to cook lunch by the time Rin came back and he looked up at her with a smile that quickly disappeared at the look on her face. "Rin, are you all right?"
Rin sniffled again and shook her head, cradling her bad arm with her good one and wincing at the stinging sensation that was starting in her right hand. He quickly got to his feet and stepped over to her, gently checking her over with careful hands as she winced and hissed in pain. He hummed softly in concern and grabbed a different bundle of herbs from before, dropping them in a pot of water to brew them. "sit down, Rin, and rest. This brew will ease your pain."
Rin sat beside the fire, trying to relax. Her hand was stinging even more and she finally looked down at it again, gasping in surprise. Hideoko's head snapped up sharply. "what is it?"
"I…I bit my hand earlier to keep quiet, and now it burns," she explained. The back of her hand was shiny and red, like a nasty snake bite, and it was burning like she'd stuck it in acid. He had a look at it, barely more than a glance, and hurried into the next room, digging through a storage chest with pots and vials of special herbs. Finding the one he wanted, he added it to the boiling herbs he already had, making the water smoke and causing a foul odor.
"what is it?"
"you're venomous, apparently," he commented. "although, I'm quite surprised you're not immune to your own poison. It must be your human blood reacting. Did you not know you had poison?"
Rin shook her head in confusion, wincing again as she looked at her bright red hand. "I never did before, obviously. But I know my Lord does. I suppose it's fitting that if I got anything from him it would be his worse qualities." With his back turned to her, Hideoko smirked a little. Good. Though he hadn't been able to permanently alter any of her larger memories, he was already influencing the way she thought. As soon as the herbs were done, he took the pot off the fire and poured a cup of it, then soaked a rag in the brew also. He took a small healer's knife and stepped back over to her, gently taking her injured hand. Rin looked away, shutting her eyes, and he quickly reopened the wounds she'd caused before wrapping her hand in the soaked rag. He took the cup of herbal remedy and held it to her mouth so she could drink quickly.
"there," he said kindly, patting Rin's head. "that should be better very soon. Poison is a terrible way to die- you're very lucky I know how to treat it." Rin shivered slightly at his words, not meeting his eyes. He cheerfully went back to making lunch, and once it was settled into the hearth to cook, he dusted himself off and headed for the herb garden.
When Rin was left alone with nothing much to do, she sighed and decided to find a way to make herself useful to the man who'd taken her in. right now she felt like nothing more than a burden to him. She checked her good hand, surprised to find it already completely healed with no mark left behind. She spotted a broom in the corner of the room and got up to fetch it. Surely she could sweep one-handed. As she started to clean the floor, her mind wandered to Sesshomaru once more, wondering where he was, and what he was doing. Was he out looking for her, even now? Surely she hadn't managed to lose him so easily when she couldn't be much more than ten or 12 miles from home. The InuYoukai had a nose like no other, and she'd seen him track things much farther with older, fainter trails than she would have left behind. She sighed softly, wishing he were there…
Hideoko was picking and tending his herbs, making sure he had fresh stems of the herb that allowed him to alter her memories through her dreams, as well as some other herbs that would simply help treat her until her arm was healed. By no means could the sorcerer read minds, but he could sense the general trend of her mind through the bond he had formed by her curse. He gritted his teeth in anger as he sensed her thinking of that filthy youkai once more, and he nudged her mind, testing how much of the last night's alterations she'd kept.
Rin was starting to hum cheerfully when a whisper intruded on her happy daydreaming. He doesn't love you…forget him…he never cared… she growled and swept much harder, pushing the whispers and her thoughts both out of her mind.
When Hideoko returned to the house with an armload of various herbs, Rin's ears perked up and she started sniffing curiously. "wow! I've never seen so many different herbs before. And I only recognize a couple of those." He set the bundles down and dished up lunch before starting to prepare them. Rin's nose was still wiggling and she picked out one of the sprigs of herbs, holding it to her nose and smiling. "mmm…mint…"
He smiled slightly as he prepared the various herbs to be dried and preserved or crushed immediately to be stored in sake or oil. As she kept sniffing the mint with her eyes closed, he picked up a sprig of the dream plant and offered it to her. "here, smell this one."
She set down the mint and started sniffing at the new plant, which was just as pleasant. But after a few whiffs of it, she started to get drowsy and set it down again as she yawned. He smiled gently. "perhaps you should rest, Rin- a nap is certainly allowed while you have a bone that needs healing." She sighed reluctantly and went back to the futon in the spare room, barely making it before she was unconscious.