Sesshomaru stepped off of the cloud onto the polished floor at the base of his mother's palace, leaving Jaken to scramble after him as he began to climb the stairs.
Jaken had asked why they were here, but had quickly fallen silent at Sesshomaru's glare.
When he reached the top, his mother was there to greet him with a small smile. "So you're no longer traveling with the human children," she said flatly, showing no surprise at Sesshomaru's unexpected visit. "Though you're still traveling with the little yokai, I see."
Jaken squawked in outrage but both inuyokai ignored him.
Sesshomaru suspected that his mother already knew why he was here, so he didn't bother to explain himself. "Mother," he greeted her simply.
His mother sighed heavily as she sank down on her throne. "You really do take after your father in the most unusual ways, Sesshomaru." Her tone expressed disappointment but she didn't fully conceal the pride in her eyes as she saw the new blade at his side.
"Will you take a human woman as well?" she asked, resting her chin on her hand as she gave off an aura of ennui.
Sesshomaru wasn't fooled; his mother might act disinterested, but they both knew she was interested in knowing who Sesshomaru would choose as his mate to form the basis of his own pack. "This one has not selected a mate yet." He humored her with his answer, but knew his mother already had determined that.
His mother studied him for a moment and then sighed again. "You haven't come here seeking your honorable mother's advice." It was a statement, not a question, as though she had just come to that conclusion herself.
He allowed her the pretense. "This one has traveled through Nippon, Mother, but has not found a mate he could tolerate."
His mother clicked her tongue derisively. "You are too selective, Sesshomaru," she chided him. "Any female will do for the purpose of bearing young. There is no need to look so intently. You can always discard her after she has birthed your child."
He could, and Sesshomaru had initially considered it when the urges had come upon him. He doubted that merely having a child would quell the urge, however, and as the feeling had grown in intensity, he had come to the realization that if he cast off one female, he would be driven to find another. A child did not make a pack. A child would give him purpose enough, pushing away the feeling of ennui that had begun to develop since he had surpassed his father. All of his goals and ambitions had been achieved, leaving him with no direction for the future. A child and a mate would give him something to protect, something to invest in, and it was for that reason his logical side had come into accord with his baser instincts.
But if he was going to settle with a mate and child or children for the remainder of his long life, he would not settle.
"What of the human child?" she probed, her expression carefully neutral. "In a few years, she will mature. You could always take her."
He couldn't keep the revulsion from his expression. He cared for Rin, but it was a different sort of affection, like he might feel for anyone in his pack. He felt no desire to mate her and was confident that would not change.
How could anyone desire a child they had been caring for since she was young? In his mind, she would always be the young orphan child who had cared for him when he hadn't even been bothered to care for himself. Even as she grew, he had difficulty seeing the maturation of her features as anything beyond the inevitable signs of aging.
Even if he could look past all of that—and he couldn't—Rin would die before their young had fully matured. It brought a pang to his heart, but it was an inevitable one that came with affections for beings with such a short lifespan. He couldn't stop his feelings of care and concern for the girl, but he had already begun to prepare himself for the loss he would one day endure when her life came to an end.
That thought also brought to mind the same issue he'd had with a mate to discard after young were produced. He would be forced to seek another mate and he had no desire to repeat the search later on. Once was quite enough. He wouldn't repeat the embarrassment and frustration.
"No," he said shortly, well aware of the emotion in that single word that he couldn't fully hide.
There was a quiet approval in his mother's eyes, though she didn't voice it, and he realized she'd been testing him. Whether she'd wanted to deduce if he had greater feelings for Rin than he'd let on or if he'd be content to settle for an easily accessible mate, he didn't know, but it hardly mattered. It wouldn't have changed his answer. "This one has her handmaidens here," she offered him.
His lip curled. "No," he repeated just as shortly. He had no desire for his mother's handmaidens, who often squabbled amongst themselves for her favor and for any hint of additional prestige for themselves and their families.
He would have a mate and a pack, but Sesshomaru wasn't the type to settle down into a life of political court intrigue like the one his mother enjoyed. She loved her games and machinations but they left him weary. He could yield his quiet to rid himself of these urges, but he would only bend so far. He had no desire for a mate who would try to use her own ploys to raise herself higher, nor did he wish for a home where everything he said or did must be thought through or guarded to prevent them being used against him.
If he must have a mate, then he wanted one that would suit him and fit into his life comfortably.
"Well, what do you want?" His mother's voice broke into his thoughts with an air of annoyance. "Tell your mother so that she might help you, Sesshomaru."
It was why he'd come after spending several weeks wandering following his encounter with Myoga. He'd come across many different females during that time, yokai and human alike—it was almost as if they'd known his plight and had begun to seek him out in the hopes he might choose them to be his mate—but none had drawn them in.
"Humans die too quickly." He wasn't quick to answer her as he thought through the characteristics he had been mulling over since these troublesome urges had begun.
"So you seek a yokai." His mother gave an approving nod of her head as she opened her fan and lightly began fanning her face.
"None of the yokai females have been found satisfactory." He lifted his chin as he stared down at his mother. "This one does not want a female who seeks to use him to bolster her own prowess or reputation. Very few higher-based yokai have the characteristics this one seeks and he will not mate with a lower-based yokai."
"Then choose a hanyo." His mother looked less pleased at the idea but she didn't waste her time trying to dissuade them. "There are enough of them around with humanoid forms, Sesshomaru."
"They also do not suit this one." Sesshomaru began to wonder if it had been wise to seek his mother's council after all. Yet he could think of no one else to turn to. Bokuseno had known little about Sesshomaru's affliction outside of how it affected him and though the old tree was wise, he had little experience in matchmaking, a fact the old yokai had readily admitted. "They, too, die too soon to suit this one."
"You take after your father's strangest qualities, Sesshomaru." She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them, the melancholy air gone. His mother snapped her fan shut as as she said, "So you don't want to mate with a yokai that can't take humanoid form."
At his nod, she continued, "And you also do not desire a yokai seeking a mating for prestige or power, nor do you desire a human or hanyo that will die too soon. What do you expect is left, Sesshomaru? Will you ask one of the kami to come down and mate with you?"
There was a teasing smirk to her lips. Sesshomaru would not allow anyone to bait him, not even his mother, so he ignored her last comment.
"What a pity," his mother mused with exaggerated sorrow. "This one's only son will be forever unmated while his weaker half-brother has found not one but two females worthy of mating the hanyo. What a pity indeed."
There was something odd about the fact that his mother had brought up InuYasha when she'd never spoken of the hanyo before, but it was odder still that she'd chosen to mention InuYasha's priestess. He circled back to what he knew of the human woman, but he had to admit, it wasn't much. She was powerful, there was no denying that. She alone had been able to purify the husk of Naraku's prone body, well before it had landed on the ground and destroyed several ri of land. She had been powerful enough that the Shikon jewel had feared her power enough to seal the bulk of it away and yet she had still had a vast store of it to use, he thought to himself, remembering the arrows she'd shot at him on more than one occasion. She had even been strong enough to withstand his doku when he'd attempted to rid both himself and InuYasha of her constant interference in his father's remains.
She had both courage and warmth, with loyalty to offer in spades. If she had not already been involved with his half-brother—and hadn't been human—he might have considered her, and would have at the very least investigated if she was worth pursing in the first place, but the idea of sharing a woman with InuYasha was distasteful.
So why had his mother brought up InuYasha?
His eyes narrowed as he met his mother's amused glance. She would say no more, he realized. He turned and left her palace, ignoring her soft chime of laughter as he left. He would take the clue she'd given him and see where it led. Perhaps she hadn't even been referring to InuYasha's human priestess as a possible mate, but he couldn't disregard her words entirely. His mother might speak in riddles, but she did not lie and she would not deliberately mislead her son.
He took to the air as Jaken scrambled onto his cloud after him, and began the search for his irritable half-brother.
.
Kagome sighed as she relaxed in the hot spring. She had accompanied InuYasha and Miroku on their latest yokai cleansing, but it had lacked the excitement of days gone by. Without Naraku, it seemed too easy. The entire situation had been resolved in well under five minutes, though Miroku had of course gone through the motions of a full cleansing to appease the wealthy merchant who had been plagued by a rather simple snake yokai.
That's a selfish thing to think, Kagome, she chided herself. You wouldn't want Naraku bad back just so things would be more fun for you.
She sank lower in the hot water as a feeling of depression washed over her. They hadn't even needed her help; she'd had just enough time to notch her arrow before InuYasha's claws had made short work of the yokai. He hadn't even drawn his sword and there had been an air of boredom even on Miroku's face, though he'd hidden it well in the presence of the merchant.
Still, though she didn't wish for another Naraku, she couldn't help but wish things had been livelier since she'd returned to the past. The most excitement she'd had in the last few months was whatever trouble Miroku's and Sango's twins had gotten into—and lately, it often involved their newborn brother.
"Oy! Yah bastard, what're you doin' here?"
Kagome heard InuYasha's loud growl and figured there were two likely culprits: Koga or Sesshomaru. Resigned, she hurried out of the water and quickly dressed so she could return to the other two in the clearing where they'd made camp. It had taken over a day to get to the merchant's house, even with Kirara's help, and they'd been forced to camp on the way there and now on the way home.
Just as she'd suspected, she found InuYasha standing toe-to-toe with his half-brother, growling up a storm at the inuyokai. Sesshomaru, on the other hand, seemed nonplused. If anything, she'd say he was amused by InuYasha's posturing. Jaken, of course, was present as well, but no one seemed to be paying any attention at all to his loud proclamations of Sesshomaru's might.
"InuYasha," he greeted his half-brother. "Still running rabid, are you?"
InuYasha rose to the bait, just as Kagome knew he would. "You looking for a fight, Sesshomaru?" he hissed, brandishing his sword at Sesshomaru. "'Cause if you are, I'll happily give it to you!"
"Knock it off, InuYasha," Kagome said tiredly and then wondered why she bothered. InuYasha had been growing restless since she'd returned and perhaps a fight with his brother would mellow him out. InuYasha wasn't settling into a quiet domestic life any better than she was—in fact, it seemed like he was handling it worse. It had driven both of them to take the fledgling relationship slow when their friends had all urged them to wed now and not waste time. InuYasha often wandered around the village and the forest she'd found him in and Kagome couldn't entirely blame him. She found herself wandering, too, under the pretense of gathering herbs for her training with Kaede.
"Stay outta this, K'gome." InuYasha didn't even look back at her. "This is between the bastard and me."
"Hnn." Sesshomaru seemed as disinterested in fighting his brother as InuYasha was in fighting him. "Sheathe your sword, InuYasha, before this one decides to give you instruction on holding it properly."
Kagome exchanged a resigned look with Miroku. Those words had been enough to provoke a fight and they both knew it.
When the dirt and dust had settled, InuYasha was out cold in the middle of the clearing, his sword once again transformed back into a rusty thin blade. Sesshomaru had wielded his blade Bakusaiga with one hand, but that hadn't stopped him from using his claws on InuYasha anymore than Tessiaga had stopped InuYasha from using his own claws.
Miroku coughed into his hand as Sesshomaru flicked blood off his claws. "Ah, Kagome-san?" He gave her an odd look as she looked at her friend. "Shouldn't you tend to InuYasha?"
She froze. It was the first time InuYasha had been injured that she hadn't immediately rushed over to the hanyo. She looked over that the hanyo and was relieved to see the bleeding from his brother's claws had already begun to slow. InuYasha would be just fine and since he continued to brush off any of her attempts to use what Kaede had taught her to heal him, she didn't see a reason to rush over to him now that Miroku had pointed that out.
"I'm more concerned about why Sesshomaru is still here," she whispered to Miroku, hoping the full-blooded yokai couldn't hear them.
Miroku seemed to accept her reasoning. "It is odd," he mused, absently stroking the arm where his wind tunnel had been. "Normally he beats InuYasha and then leaves."
"Exactly." Kagome nodded. "So why is he still here?"
Sesshomaru stepped directly in front of Kagome, forcing her to look up at him. If she didn't know any better, she'd guessed the inuyokai had heard them and was amused by their words. "This one wishes to speak with you, priestess."
It was not what she'd been expecting him to say but the expression on his face told her that they would speak, whether she wanted to or not. She licked her dry lips and nodded. "Tell InuYasha I'll be right back if he wakes up while I'm gone," she said quietly to Miroku.
"Kagome-san, I don't think—" Miroku began but he didn't get another word in because Sesshomaru pulled Kagome on his cloud and took off, leaving Jaken sputtering at the indignation of being left behind.
