LULL
There was a cicada somewhere in the tree overhead, screaming so loud and shrill it might have threatened to split his skull if he was a lesser being. He willed himself to ignore it, to train his ear on what was being said to him, to put meaning to the words and invest interest in them. A difficult task considering that most of it was nothing more than idle chatter and questions he would have preferred to live without.
A breeze, coming from over the hills, almost broke his concentration as it wove cool fingers through his hair, a welcome respite from the sun's heat. He caught himself before he leaned into it, all too aware of those around him―
―And of the disgusted stare Inuyasha was giving him.
The miko was still talking, telling him something that was most likely important, but he hadn't been paying enough attention, too distracted, concentrating too hard on keeping his eyes averted.
Once, he would have scoffed at this scene. The idea of him, the daiyoukai Sesshoumaru, the presumptive general of the dogs, standing in the center of a human village while the most powerful miko of the era ticked information off on her fingers about the human child he'd left in her care and her husband―his hanyou half brother―levelled him with such a look that he wasn't sure if Inuyasha meant to vomit or start a fight.
The latter would be the easiest choice, but they'd gone five years without coming to blows. It would have been a shame to tarnish his own record.
"Inuyasha-sama, your face will get stuck like that," Rin piped up, in a voice that was surely an imitation of the miko. His brother glanced at her, his sour face softened slightly, but then he looked back up and sniffed.
Loudly.
"Yeah, well maybe you should have a talk with your dad about takin' a damn bath before coming for a visit," Inuyasha scoffed. He pinched his nose with a scowl and gave him a long once over.
Sesshoumaru returned his stare. "I am not―"
"Inuyasha, don't be rude, I'm sure he smells fine." The woman quipped. She smiled amiably, and gave him a look as though she contemplated giving him a sniff, but their eyes met and she seemed to think better of it. Instead she gave a nervous chuckle and averted her eyes, leaned away slightly; a small comfort for his wavering ego.
Rin said something about never noticing his smell, a sentiment that Jaken echoed, the beginnings of a long winded diatribe on his personal hygiene that was unwarranted and altogether unwelcome.
Though he'd tried to stay out of the village itself, a few humans he didn't care to recognize hurried past, going about their day without getting caught in the middle of "youkai business" as he so often heard them whisper. The miko gave them bashful smiles as they passed, but otherwise did nothing as his brother and the imp continued to bicker, and Sesshoumaru had to begrudgingly admit that the spectacle was at least a little his fault.
She had tried to beckon him into bathing with her, in a mountain spring that was icy cold and only comfortable because of the growing heat of a late summer morning. The offer had been quite enticing… and he'd declined. Because he'd been growing lax, loosening his restraints and getting much too comfortable with the indolence that went hand in hand with having a lover. He'd meant to be here by the afternoon, and thought he would be later than he'd have liked if he'd given in and joined her.
Kagura had been only mildly disappointed, teased him over his "parental obligations" so he'd left in a huff with the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears.
So here he was, the sun still high overhead, and his brother grimacing and making a gagging sound realistic enough that it threatened to bring up the contents of his own stomach.
"How dare you question Sesshoumaru-sama's hygiene!" Jaken was screeching, waving his staff as if he meant to bludgeon Inuyasha with it. His brother looked less than impressed. "As if you would know the first thing about bathing! The very soles of your feet are blacker than pitch and you dare mock Sesshoumaru-sama―"
"Well then maybe he shouldn't come over here smellin' like pu―"
"Inuyasha!"
"What?!" A slap upside the head might do his brother some good, but it seemed the miko was reluctant to do so. Unfortunate. "Ain't my fault you're lucky enough that you can't smell it!"
"Inuyasha, if you are so interested in the particulars of my personal life," he said, levelling his brother with a cool stare as he flexed his claws, "you're welcome to take a closer sniff. I'm sure your hanyou senses are not as keen from that distance."
His brother looked as if he might consider it, but then he grimaced, shook his head, and turned on his heel.
"Whatever. Just don't bring whatever hell-bitch you're fuckin' 'round here."
Rin gasped, comically, finally catching on.
"Sesshoumaru-sama has a girlfriend?!"
His knuckles itched something terrible, lusting for a breakable cheekbone. He almost wished Inuyasha had taken him up on the offer.
"Ha! Like that jackass could ever keep someone around that long." He'd settle for a nose. But Inuyasha was already walking away, fingers laced behind his head as if such a slight wouldn't have cost him a scalp not so many years ago. Sesshoumaru wanted to say something about how the miko must have been a special kind of idiot to keep him around that long, but the woman in question and Rin were staring at him with eyes glittering in mischief.
A silent glare was enough to send the miko scurrying after her husband with a sheepish smile, but Rin would not be so easily deterred.
"Why haven't you brought her? What's she like? How long have you been seeing each other?" He'd expected the questions, and he couldn't fault her for voicing them, but he had been hoping to keep them at bay for at least a few more months. He'd done well enough until now, but he should have expected that Inuyasha or the kit would open their mouths eventually.
He sniffed casually, finding no trace of the fox in the village. The first time he'd returned to the village, in the spring, he'd half expected them all to know, but evidently the boy had gotten better at keeping his nose out of the personal lives of others.
Jaken knew better than to voice his own opinions, but Rin continued on with her line of questioning unimpeded as they walked to the edge of the village. He answered none of them, leaving her to her speculations and conjectures as Jaken grumbled halfheartedly, shooting unsure glances his way anytime she asked a pointed question.
"Will you bring her?!" Rin suddenly asked, stopping him as she looked up at him pleadingly, hands clasped beneath her chin. As much as she'd grown, there was still so much of the young girl she'd once been.
Will you bring her? As if he could bring Kagura anywhere. She wouldn't go if she had no interest in going, and while they'd never discussed it outright, the few times they had broached the subject of his brother, of Rin and the village, she hadn't expressed any desire in rekindling that relationship.
And he couldn't rightly blame her. The only reason he and Inuyasha had spoken at all in the last four years lay with child who was still batting her eyes at him, awaiting an answer he couldn't give.
No, he couldn't put that sort of pressure on Kagura.
Nor was he interested in explaining to anyone―least of all the humans with whom he only had a very fragile alliance―how exactly Kagura―their once enemy turned reluctant ally turned pitiable friend―had become his lover.
"Where is Kohaku?"
Rin's face fell and she heaved a sigh, knowing that the conversation was over and he would not entertain the subject any longer.
"He went out for a job," she said through a pouty lip.
"When is he expected to return?"
She shrugged, forlornly, and looked away. "He didn't say."
He almost felt that now too familiar pang of guilt. It wasn't as if he meant to keep secrets from her, but there was no reason to explain the nature of his arrangement. Especially when the subject was Kagura. While the girl had never harbored any ill will towards her, it was too close, too much history, too complicated, and there was no use in going through the trouble for something that could so easily sour―
He didn't like to think about it.
"How is your training going?"
Rin perked up a little. "Kagome-sama has been teaching me how to shoot an arrow!"
All other thoughts left him. A good skill, and yet... It gave him pause.
"―She said I got good posture, but I have to relax to aim right because I shoot too soon or something, but still I hit the target more times than Kohaku did, so I guess all that training he does ain't that good, but he said that him an' Sango-san would help me learn how ta' use a sword an' stuff once I was comfortable with a bow―"
He turned, Rin kept talking, telling him how eager she was to finally learn from the elder slayer, while he stared at the top of her head. She barely came up to his waist, and yet she was talking about swordplay…
It suddenly felt like too long since his last visit. Two weeks prior, when he'd seen her last, he had merely left the straw sandals that now adorned her feet―when had she become so accustomed to wearing shoes?―but it seemed as if she'd grown twice the size since. The girl who had found him in the forest five years ago had been a tiny thing―no less headstrong and she would most likely always be small, but he hadn't stopped to contend with the fact that human children grew up far too quickly.
"Sesshoumaru-sama?" Rin had stopped and was staring up at him. He could see it in her face too, no longer that of a small child, her swollen cheeks had given way to something lankier, almost the face of a teenager―the same way Kohaku had, two years before… "What's wrong?"
He shook his head. "Continue."
She blinked and kept going, telling him how she'd helped the slayer deal with the carcass of a youkai Kohaku had killed, gutting it and parceling out it's limbs for tools and poisons. Inuyasha's wife and the old miko had offered to teach her the ways of healing: herbs, bandages, and poultices, and while the skills were useful―and she studied them diligently―Rin hadn't had much interest in that, and instead preferred the company of the slayer and her forge, because you couldn't hurt something that was already dead, and she didn't like the responsibility of taking care of someone like that.
Odd. Considering that she'd taken responsibility for something far more dangerous once. But maybe he'd had a greater influence on her than he'd thought.
"...Kohaku is already done with his training, mostly… Gyokuto and Kin'u will probably be slayers when they grow up…" she said it as if she was testing the words out, "do you think―would you be okay if―it wouldn't be too bad if I…?"
She slowly came to a stop, staring down at her toes and sucking her lip between her teeth.
"Oh, spit it out, girl!"
Her head snapped up. "Shut up, Jaken-sama! I just―"
"Say what you mean to, Rin."
She looked up at him sheepishly, a furrow in her brow and still biting down on her lip.
"Sango-san said that she started training to be a slayer when she was my age…"
Ah. That's where this was going.
He should have seen this coming. Negligence on his part that he had never thought to teach her himself, thinking that his mere presence was enough of a deterrent to youkai and other dangers. He'd been proven wrong on that front, time and time again. He'd left her in a human village for that very reason. It was where she should have been all along, away from the dangers of the wild and those of more unsavory humans. His presence had been more a threat to her than the wolves that had first killed her.
But he'd chosen a poor choice of refuge. Inuyasha's village, while well protected, was still a target. He'd known this, but had left that responsibility with the slayer, the monk and Kohaku, and now the miko. The most powerful humans he knew of. It should not have surprised him that she would seek to learn from them.
Though judging by the glimmer in her eye, her interest in the business of slaying was not solely for self defense.
"If that is where your interest lies then so be it."
Rin inhaled sharply, surprised as if she'd thought he would tell her no. Her eyes lit up, and he heard Jaken groan as the girl practically started vibrating in place from excitement. That little thorn of concern smarted somewhere in the back of his mind as that excitement manifested in her tackling Jaken to the ground with a surprisingly strong gusto.
She would be fine, he thought. Probably.
He would just need to increase the frequency of his visits.
Rin and Jaken tussled while he kept walking, idly listening to the sounds of struggle and admonishments, childish insults on both sides until they were heading back towards the village just as the sun began to set.
By the time they returned the sun was dancing across the horizon, setting the valley in a hazy glow, the trees nearly ablaze in the orange light. A breeze drifted through the village, chilly despite the day's heat, he welcomed it, knowing the message it carried. If he wasn't just as eager he might have been irritated, but for now she would have to wait.
They followed the outskirts of the village, careful to avoid the smell of cooking fires, the strong stench of vinegar and the mold festering with their thatch roofs.
He would give his brother some credit for hindsight. He'd built his home on the outskirts of the village, far enough away that they were upwind of the village by the time they crested the small hill that separated them.
He heard the sounds of laughter before they were in view of it, the flicker of firelight through the trees, the shadows of the figures huddled around it stretched out across the dirt and into the forest. Inuyasha and the miko, the slayer and the monk and a few others he didn't care to recognize sitting casually on logs laid out in front of the hanyou's home. Someone, a traveling merchant perhaps, strummed a biwa lazily.
The slayer's children were moving―he knew they would call it dancing, but dancing it most definitely was not―to the sound of the instrument. When Rin spotted them she ran ahead to join in, taking the hands of both twins and leading them into more refined steps. He wondered where she'd learned that as he stopped just behind the fire's light, watching quietly.
Inuyasha stood amongst them, and glanced up at his approach. His brother rolled his eyes before turning his attention back to his companions and the woman that sat on a log before him, leaning against his chest. The miko had placed a hand over her belly, she was far from showing, but no doubt she already knew, the pose could be nothing but a protective gesture, for the child that grew there.
Inuyasha must have known by now, given the way his hand tightened on his wife's shoulder, the way he leaned over her form just slightly. She leaned back into him, a smile on her face. His brother just tightened his hold, unperturbed by the villagers dancing around them, or by the threat that lurked just beyond the shadows.
Sesshoumaru gave Rin one last glance. She'd grown accustomed to his leaving like this, preparation for a day that he might never return.
He turned away from the quaint scene and disappeared into the forest.
…
"...and here I thought you'd leave me hangin'."
She stood just beyond the trees, perched on a rocky outcropping overlooking a valley. Moonlight danced off her hair as red stained lips turned upwards in a smirk. It felt nostalgic, reminding him of a night that felt so long ago… Kagura gave her belt a gentle tug at his approach, her way of invitation.
"Don't tell me you missed me already?"
She chuckled when he didn't answer, and when he approached and placed his hands on her hips she was more than happy to trail her own against the lines of his armor. He'd begun to lament its presence, the spikes a nuisance, and the ties even more so, requiring so many minutes that could be devoted to other things.
The flesh beneath her robes was cool against his hands, he still hadn't gotten used to that, her temperature almost always at odds with the heat of midsummer and the thickness of her robes.
"You rarely call so soon."
She hummed, a contented rumble that reverberated through his own chest. "Maybe I still wasn't done from this morning."
He tucked his nose into the hair at the crown of her head and inhaled―her scent changed with the seasons: when spring had come that throat stinging scent of ice had melted away, leaving in its wake the scent of rain and wet earth. Wildflowers, roots, and vines had come next, blossoming from her skin and weaving their coils through her hair and latching onto him as if they'd taken root within his own flesh.
And now she smelled of the sun, like heat and that electric scent of a summer storm, the tang of sweat and the faintest trace of a ripening peach, and vaguely like the sea. He meant to ask if she'd been swimming again, but when he inhaled once more he caught the vague smell of blood.
Human.
He pulled back to look at her, one brow quirked in curiosity.
Kagura blinked up at him, waiting. When he made no other moves towards her she rolled her eyes.
"Oh, don't look at me like that." She gestured away to the bottom of the cliff. "You took so long, some drunken fool found me before you did."
He could smell it, now that she'd stopped suppressing the stink. A body down below, not quite yet rotten, but the stench of alcohol was strong, mixed in with the iron scent of blood.
"Idiot thought I passed for human."
A mistake that had cost him his life.
The corner of his mouth quirked upwards, imagining the look of terror that must have come across the fool's face when he realized his error.
"The stink isn't too bad, is it?"
He shook his head. "The wind is strong enough here."
She grinned, no reason to waste such an idyllic spot for the sake of one corpse. He leaned in again, but a hand on his armor stopped him.
"How were things?"
She asked it so casually. She kept her voice light, her posture serene, but she'd asked every other time she'd known he'd gone, too, and the question betrayed any semblance of nonchalance―the fact that she'd asked at all meant she was at least a little bit curious.
It was somewhat comforting, that they could speak so freely now. Where she'd danced around the topic while in the house of dogs, she'd begun to speak of his brother and his ilk often enough that he'd grown accustomed to the questions. Insults, mostly, but most often her conversations led towards something they had in common.
"Kohaku was not there―"
Her shoulders sagged, just a little.
"―I hear he is doing well."
The corner of her lip twitched upwards. Some news was better than no news. Curiosity assuaged, she began to tug at the tie of his belt, jostling his swords, but he continued, distracted now.
"Rin, she…" Even saying the words brought about a sense of unease. "She wants to learn the skills of a taijiya."
Kagura hummed and her hands stilled. "You sound disappointed."
No. That wasn't it.
"What's the problem? It ain't like you couldn't have seen this coming. The kid can't be runnin' around with you forever without a way to defend herself." She shrugged. "'Sides, she's probably got the best teachers you could ask for. She'll be fine."
True. Kohaku, now nearly a man, no longer needed training, skilled in his own right, and his sister was a force to be reckoned with, to be sure. While he knew that if they came to blows that he would no doubt be the victor… he doubted that he would come away unscathed.
"Anything else?"
He looked away, almost ashamed when he did so.
"The miko is with child."
She went still, barely breathing as she processed the news, her hands flat against his breastplate.
And then she laughed.
"...And here I thought your brother didn't have it in him." She had one brow raised and chuckled.. "Well, congratulations. Do you think they'll have it callin' you 'uncle'?"
Sesshoumaru sneered. His thoughts hadn't gotten that far, instead they'd been tumbling down an altogether different path, spurred by the image of his brother and his wife, small smiles pulling at their cheeks, a look of content he'd never thought to see on the hanyou's face, his wife wrapped in his arms, warm in the firelight―
A palm slapping his armor brought his attention back to the present.
"Damn. It was just a joke, you don't have to get that upset about it."
He wanted to protest, to say that he was not upset, just…
"Forget I even said anything," Kagura huffed, and she was already pulling at his belt. "Quit looking so damn constipated, I've been waitin' all damn day, so―"
She laughed when he pushed her hands away and took up the work himself. He could decipher the meaning of his own feelings later, for now, he was more than happy to just bury himself in this moment, in her, and let his thoughts wander…
…
A/N: what's up. I'm not dead. s*nr*se can pry this ship from my cold dead hands
