Warnings:
Daughters of Destiny
Chapter 08:
"The Lord"
Sesshomaru was, without a doubt, the prettiest person I had ever seen in either of my lives.
It wasn't just because of his exotic coloring or the cut of his clothes, nor the length of his shimmering hair or even the shape of his sculpted jaw. No, the appeal came from the quality of his carriage, from his high head and straight spine, those shoulders set so confidently back and the look of quiet determination on his face. Sure. He'd just threatened me with his wrath. But he didn't look murderous, exactly—more like unwavering and intense, those golden eyes burning like hot moons against his pale skin. He was the prettiest, most attractive, most magnetic thing I'd ever laid eyes on for the sheer poise he possessed.
Not that I was acting like I found him so utterly beguiling, of course.
I was still laughing in his face, held tight by the grip of hysterics, as he stared at me from above. This was not a man—no, a demon who took to being laughed at kindly, and this horrified giggling of mine needed to stop, fast. Only when his eyes narrowed and he took a step toward where I crouched did I find the willpower to bite my tongue and quiet down. His stilled, placated, but before he could ask me any more questions, the bushes over his shoulder rattled.
"M'lord, have you found—and who is that?" said a high, reedy voice, and then a figure emerged from the brush.
He, much like Sesshomaru, was nothing I'd ever seen before, though not nearly so attractive. Short and clad in a mauve robe, wearing a pointed black cap on his bald head, he was a tiny little imp with skin like sickly seafoam. He looked a bit like Dobby with his tennis-ball shaped eyes the color of old cream, but that's where the resemblance stopped. From his beak-like snout came an indignant squawk; he scampered over to us, the staff he carried bobbing through the air several feet above his head. And speaking of heads, the staff had two of them—two human heads severed at the neck and hung at the staff's tip, one belonging to a pretty young girl and the other to a bearded old man. These were way more intimidating than the creature that carried them, though as the imp ran up to me and gave me the once-over, I tried not to pay them any mind.
This guy. This thing. I remembered him, though not his name. Sesshomaru's loyal servant or something. But what was his name?
Bulbous eyes narrowed into thin slits, the imp looked me up and down, up and down, humming under his breath in concentration. Sesshomaru regarded him with cool, distant eyes before returning his gaze to me.
"She reeks of him, Jaken," Sesshomaru said.
Jaken's eyes popped open as they looked up at Sesshomaru. There was that comment again, that I reeked of someone, a male someone—but who? I didn't have time to wonder beyond that. Jaken leaned toward me and drew in a long breath through the slits of his nostrils. Um. Ew? I tried to skirt back a bit, but Sesshomaru's cold gaze froze my feet.
"Indeed she does, m'lord!" Jaken said, staring up at Sesshomaru in awe. "How keen your nose! How advanced your senses!" He didn't afford me any of the reverence he afforded his master when he muttered, "Is she his pet, then?"
"Whose pet?" I demanded, but my question was not to be so easily answered.
Jaken drew himself up to his full height, so basically up to my hips, only since I was still on my knees we were at eye level. He raised one skinny green finger to my face. "Do not play with the great Sesshomaru, girl, denying what you clearly know! Tell us where he is at once! My lord seeks him out to chase him from the Inu no Taisho's lands!"
"Where is who?" I said. The only person I could think of was Inuyasha, since we'd interacted with him earlier and he was the only dude I'd met in this world (aside from Sesshomaru and Jaken), but Inuyasha was still in his tree-coma. Head shaking, I said, "Dammit, I don't know who you're talking about!"
Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed, and in a move too fast to follow—a move of speed supernatural, of nature demonic—he blurred from sight and reappeared before me, bent at the waist, face mere inches from mine. I stopped breathing; he leaned down until we came nose to nose, and when he spoke, teeth flashed behind his lips.
"This Sesshomaru," he said, "does not believe you."
"Yeah, well, I hardly believe that regal affectation of yours, either, but you don't see me complaining."
I'm infinitely, infinitely lucky that I said that in English, reflexively using my native tongue in a moment of peeved panic. Sesshomaru blinked, and had he not been so unflappable, I'd say I surprised him. Jaken, meanwhile, I definitely managed to stun. He stammered a bit before darting over again.
"What language does she speak?" he asked, but at a sharp look from Sesshomaru, he shook his head. "I suppose it matters not." Addressing Sesshomaru, not looking even once at me, Jaken declared: "She is a pet, then. And a loyal one, to keep her mouth shut despite your commanding presence, m'lord."
Sesshomaru's eyes closed for a moment. Though he didn't smile, he features softened a touch, like he wasn't actually carved from white jade after all.
Too bad for me, his words were anything but soft.
"This Sesshomaru will enjoy killing her to spite her master, if nothing more," he said—and then his eyes fastened tightly onto me.
They gleamed like bullets of gold, as precious as they were deadly.
"What?" I said, stupidly, and then the dire moment sank home. I was on my feet in seconds. "N-no! You can't! I—"
Turns out Jaken wasn't such a little shrimp, after all, because before I could even think about running for my life, the staff with the severed heads spun in his tiny hands. My legs went out from under me again, sending me flat on my back, and when I tried to scramble up a hand closed tight around my wrist. I shrieked and yanked as claws pricked my delicate skin, but fighting Sesshomaru was like fighting a brick wall and he hauled me to my feet like I was nothing but a sack of dandelion fluff.
This is where I die, I thought, words loud beneath the sound of my won screaming. This is where I die again, for real, and—
But the killing blow never came.
Hand around my wrist, claws sending trickles of bright red blood down my pale skin, Sesshomaru…he paused. He frowned. And he stepped into my personal space and bent his face to the top of my head, nose brushing my hair, breath misting across my scalp.
"Um," I said.
"M'lord?" Jaken asked, uncertain.
Sesshomaru stepped away from me, brow furrowed below the purple moon adorning his forehead. His claws pulled free of my skin with a spark of pain (I hissed between my teeth at the feeling) and then traced upward to my hand. He took my hands in his and turned them over, not caring that he smeared blood across my palms and wrists. Slowly, tips of his claws delicate and inexplicably gentle, he traced my hand from wrist to fingertip, touching every digit, eyes intent on his work.
"Um?" I repeated.
"What are you doing, m'lord?" said Jaken.
Sesshomaru didn't look up. A lock of silver hair fell from his shoulder to brush my arm, silken and cool.
"Smooth," he murmured.
Jaken appeared at my side, neck craning upward. His huge eyes widened, if that's even possible. "Indeed, my lord! How keen your eyes! Her hands are as though they have never seen the pull of a loom or shuttle." Jaken drew back to look at me with another frown. "And her bearing. It's regal. Not like that of the common farming people."
I scowled at him. He turned up his nose.
"And she meets one's eyes so boldly," Jaken said. "What impertinence!"
Sesshomaru decided to try his hand at impertinence, then, and closed his fingers around my jaw. At my protest, his claws pricked me, so I stilled and allowed him to turn my face this way and that, eyes raking across my features as if they were a map he needed very much to read. Talk about undignified, but right then, my life mattered far more than my pride.
"This skin," Sesshomaru said, "has never seen the rays of the hard sun."
"My grandma was big on sunblock," I snarked—once more in English, thank my lucky stars. Still, Jaken gave a snooty huff.
"Smooth hands, bold bearing, porcelain complexion, with command of a second language," Jaken said. "Though her verbiage be coarse, and though her hair has been shorn so short, she must be a favored pet indeed, to be kept in such fine condition, and to be reeking of him the way she does." He reached out and grabbed a fistful of my robe, bringing it close to his little green face. "And her clothes, m'lord. The cloth is of fine weave. Exceptionally fine." Again his yellow eyes widened, tennis balls fresh from the can. "In fact, it's like nothing I have ever seen!"
"Yes," Sesshomaru agreed, hand still commanding my attention. His lips barely moved when he murmured, "Like nothing this Sesshomaru has ever seen."
I didn't like the cool, appraising look in his eye—that look butchers wore when sizing up a fine cut of roast. My body jerked of its own accord; to my surprise Sesshomaru let go, hand dropping from my face. I walked a few feet away and smoothed my robe. The demons watched, and though I kept my face composed, I wondered if they could sense the way my thoughts thundered behind my eyes like a falling avalanche. Soon I lifted my eyes to Sesshomaru's, took a deep breath, and tried my best to sound like an actor from a Kabuki play. Like Sesshomaru himself, even, with lofty pronouns and third-person verbiage. To mimic Sesshomaru was to affect an old-fashioned way of speaking, one that might make me seem just a touch less anachronistic.
"I would appreciate it, my lord," I said, "if you stopped speaking about this girl as though she cannot hear you."
Though Sesshomaru didn't blink, Jaken squawked. "You dare address the lord directly?"
"Be quiet, Jaken," Sesshomaru said, and Jaken obeyed with a frightened squeak. Sesshomaru took one gliding step in my direction. "You will take this Sesshomaru to him."
At that, I bowed, low and long and supplicating. "I understand you think I know this person you speak of. But I do not, and for that, this girl most humbly apologizes."
Alas, Sesshomaru's eyes merely narrowed with suspicion. I bowed again.
"I truly, truly do not know of whom you speak, my lord," I said. "This one is new to this land. I know the names of precious few who reside here. Please have mercy upon me." Yet another bow, even lower than before. "I am but a silly girl, after all."
"Due deference at last!" Jaken said. "She has manners, after all." He approached Sesshomaru's side with a bow of his own, although the lord didn't even look at him. "Perhaps she would make a fine pet for you, m'lord. Though I know how you detest humans." Jaken's face lit up with eager glee. "But to think what a slight it would be to him if you took her for your own!"
The color drained from my face, if my clammy skin and beating heart were any indication. Luckily Sesshomaru didn't cleave to Jaken's idea. He spared the imp a cursory glance, frowning, then favored me with another of his appraising looks. Soon his molten eyes cleared, resolve settling steely behind his irises.
"No," he said. His chin rose, haughty. "This Sesshomaru has a far better idea."
Jaken made a noise of protest, but he didn't say anything as Sesshomaru turned in place, lifted his nose into the air, and inhaled. His broad chest rose and fell beneath his spiked armor, slow and sedate as his eyes fell momentarily shut.
I considered turning tail and running for my life, just then—but even with his eyes shut, he looked like a spring coiled to strike. Was it even possible to outrun him, if I worked up the nerve to try?
Soon his eyes opened in a shower of gold. "The one this Sesshomaru seeks is close," he intoned. "His minions did little to disguise their trail."
Minions? I thought. Did he mean the tsuchinokos? Before I could ask, one clawed hand rose, gesturing the way Jaken had come earlier.
"Come, girl," he said. "Walk ahead."
I hesitated.
His claws caught a shaft of sunlight straying through the forest canopy, glimmering like a surgeon's steel.
I started walking.
Docile compliance was the name of the game, now. Play to his lordly statue, demure to his command and wait for a moment to strike. To survive, I had to play the long game, lull this powerful creature—whom I could neither outrun nor outmatch—into false security, until I spotted a chance to escape.
When that chance might come, I was at a chilling loss to say.
Sesshomaru and Jaken herded me through the woods in silence, even the chatty Jaken minding his tongue as we made our trek. True to my plan, I played coy while scoping out the woods for an escape route, but none ever came. No handy distractions to draw Sesshomaru's attention or ravines I could shove him into. I kept my eyes straight ahead, mindful of his footsteps at my back and occasion tap of Jaken's staff against my calf when they wanted me to change direction.
Once, when I allowed my head to turn too far to one side, skimming the trees for a way out of this mess, Sesshomaru placed his hand on my shoulder. Heavy fingers curled, pricking my skin through the kimono in clear warning.
Behave, he was telling me.
He didn't need to speak to give such clear, unassailable warning.
We didn't walk far before the scenery changed and Sesshomaru bade us halt. The edge of the woods stretched dark and long on either side of us; before us lay an open field rippling with golden grass the height of my waist. It sloped gently downhill, toward the distance where the river that ran near the village gleamed like a sleeping silver serpent. The little cup of field between the river and the woods felt like a small, golden Eden, grotto hidden and perfect for a summer picnic.
The river, though, caught my attention more than the pretty glen. If we were near the river, that meant the village was close, probably downstream by only a short distance, and—
Sesshomaru stepped past me, out of the shadows of the woods. Sunlight turned his hair nearly white, dazzling in its purity. He lifted his nose again, inhaling as a wind stripped by. "Upwind." His lips lifted in an infinitesimal smile. "That foolish creature."
Jaken concurred, "A fool to tangle with the likes of the dog clan!"
Sesshomaru's smile grew—but then it faded. Once more he lifted his face into the wind, hair falling around him like a curtain of starlight.
"But wait," he said, eyes narrowing. "There is another, coming ahead of him. Interesting." He turned and pointed back into the woods. "Jaken. Retreat. This Sesshomaru and you will observe from afar."
Jaken bowed and muttered a smattering of honorifics and praise before vanishing back into the forest. I started to follow, because I figured that's what was expected, but Sesshomaru pinned me with a golden glare.
"And you, girl," he said. This time he gestured at the pasture. "Walk twenty paces, but no farther, and stop." Another luminous glare. "And do not think you could ever hope to outrun this Sesshomaru."
The chill down my spine was not born of the cool breeze. "Never," I said. And I meant it.
Sesshomaru believed I meant it, too, because he turned and walked back into the trees without further threats (and he definitely didn't need more of them to keep me in line—like I said, my life mattered far more than my pride when the odds were stacked so high). Breathing deep to gird myself, I headed for the field and waded into the grass, fighting as it tangled with my feet and tried to trip me. Definitely no outrunning him when I had to battle this crap, that's for sure. I counted my footsteps in my head, intent on honoring his command of only walking twenty, but I wondered if the grass was tall enough to conceal me, if I could duck below its surface and scramble away on all fours away from—
The cry of "Eeyore!" sliced through the air like Sesshomaru's claws through flesh.
I froze where I stood at the sound of that name, turning as if underwater to the north, and to the curve of forest in that direction. Like excited lightning Kagome ran from the trees and into the grass, her face barely clearing the top of it, bobbing along like a fishing float on a wave, and at the sight of her humongous eyes and flying hair I broke into a run. Well, as much of a run as I could considering the terrain, but still. Sesshomaru's threats evaporated as Kagome swam through the field; fuck that guy, I had a friend to get to, and although it took a minute, soon Kagome and I collided in the middle of the field like a meteor hitting the earth. Her arms latched around my neck in moments, girl launching off the ground to wrap her arms around me.
"Eeyore, Eeyore, thank fucking Christ it's you, I'm so sorry for running off, I'm so fucking sorry," she babbled, but I just buried my face in her hair and held her to me. Sticks and leaves tangled in her locks, poking me in the face, but before I could tell her to take a bath and stop being such a gross little kid (and kid whom I'd missed and resented in equal measure this past hour, you fucking brat, you left me behind in that ravine, but oh my god thank my lucky stars you found me) she shoved away. The girl danced from foot to foot like a dryad in need of taking an enormous leak, but I was doing the same thing, and as one we started talking.
"You'll never guess who I found!" we cried in tandem. Then we blinked at each other, mouths agape before sputtering our shared confusion.
"You first," Kagome said.
"No, you!" I said.
But that wasn't happening. Her elfin face paled as she looked over her shoulder, and then she latched onto my arm and tried to drag me forward, down the sloping ground to the river. She said, "There's no time! We have to run!"
I dug in my heels. "Run? But wait, Tigger! Why?"
"I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count." The girl rounded on me, eyes as wild as her bedraggled hair and stained kimono. "Silver hair and golden eyes ring a bell?"
I stared at her, taken aback. "Wait. But I already found Sesshomaru."
Kagome stilled. "Sesshomaru?"
"Yeah, Sesshomaru!" I said. "Who else would be here with silver hair and golden eyes and—oh."
I froze, because Kagome's lips had split into a smile, huge and manic, and in it I read that there was definitely someone else I should have thought about.
"Think about it," she said in a sing-song voice, but the command was moot, because I already was thinking about it, and oh my fucking lord—
"But if you don't mean Sesshomaru," I said, but I stopped when the horrible implication—the only implication—sank home. The him Sesshomaru had refereed to, Yu Yu Hakusho and Inuyasha mixing, and now this, it was all too much to not connect in a flurry of panicked thought. My hand clapped over my mouth. "Oh. Oh no."
"Oh yes," Kagome said, and behind her—like a ghost or an angel and definitely a demon—Kurama in all his Youko glory stepped from between the not-so-distant trees.
NOTES:
Shit's about to pop off.
Next weekend, on the 9th, Lucky Child returns. Hopefully I'll have time to get back to DoD soon and not leave this cliffhanger too long.
Thanks so much for reading! LadyDV011, Saj te Gyuhyall, Lady Ellesmere, Miss Ideophobia, EmmieSauce, Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, xenocanaan, Anime Pleasegood, Sesshomaru's Luvr, Kaiya Azure, Lady Hummingbird, Counting Sinful Stars, sousie, Kyrie Twilight!