(Edited 27 September 2020)
Dying to Live
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi, but as always, I do claim all the unique plot and original characters as mine.
Rin sat with her back against the wall, feeling vaguely ill. They had already been locked in the village hall for at least five hours. It was nearing what we in the modern age would call "11 pm".
Despite the high ceiling and wide floor space, the building was overcrowded. Every inch of the dirt packed, straw-strewn floor was taken up with people sitting. Children dozed half-slung over their mother's and grandparent's knees. Small dogs lay down with their heads on the ground, and chickens pecked aimlessly here and there. In the corner stood Kurumi-chan the cart horse with a bony looking cow and a couple of rough looking goats.
With all of these warm, wet bodies perspiring and exhaling under one roof, the stench and temperature were getting suffocating. The stale air stirred only when someone rose to go to the make-shift toilet. Dug in a far corner of the hall beside the space for the livestock, the nasty little hole was the only place the occupants gave a wide berth, though the odor was vaguely obvious everywhere after only about the third hour. Besides that, everyone sat in tightly packed, glassy-eyed silence, moving and talking as little as possible, hoping to nod off for a few minutes if they could.
Trying to push the feeling of mounting revulsion from her mind, Rin shifted her sweating, achy body around. There was no room to lie down, so she settled on repositioning her back against the hard wood of the wall. A little draft of cool, night air slipped between the cracks in the planks. It made Rin long for the expansive, open sky she was so accustomed to sleeping under after years of constant travel.
She let her head loll to one side on her tired neck. Unconsciously, her eyes drifted once again to where Sesshomaru sat several meters away. Too exhausted to care, Rin no longer felt the slightest bit embarrassed as her vision bored into the right side of his slightly curved, broad back. His back was the only part of him she could really see from where she sat.
There, right there, she told herself picking out the exact spot between his body and the second body right beside him. Rin imagined what it would feel like to burn a hole with her eyes into that spot where the village girl's flesh met Sesshomaru's.
How good it would feel.
Yes, Rin was jealous, very jealous. She knew it was ridiculous, given the situation and their surroundings. If the girl and Sesshomaru didn't lean against each other, how else were they to remain upright all night at all comfortably? Plenty of other people had done the same; not everyone had arrived early enough to get a spot along the wall like Rin and her new companions.
Still, she hated it, seeing someone else in such close proximity to her lord. Rin herself had rested against the former Lord of the West's knee for years when she'd been a child. She remembered Sesshomaru neither encouraging nor discouraging her to do so. It had just seemed natural at the time. Now, Rin had not occupied that space at Sesshomaru's knee in ages, but she felt distinctly that this woman had intruded on her spot.
She wondered if Sesshomaru despised having the girl against him. She had to be hot and sweating all over him, Rin imagined. Rin told herself that the girl's body and clothes had to reek too. Having smelt them all day, she'd concluded that most of the Harumura villagers had not recently had the nerve to stray far enough from the village to bathe in fresh water. Though she hardly blamed them for their fear of what lurked in the forest, it didn't make their body odor any more pleasant. Soon it wouldn't make a difference she realized: dripping with sweat now, she too would smell ripe by morning.
Still, to Rin's disappointment about an hour ago when the girl had wordlessly closed the space between herself and Sesshomaru, he hadn't moved a bit. Not a bit.
Rin looked away suddenly as the memory burned fresh across her mind's eye. Thinking of it made the sweat pour out of her face and underarms more profusely, and she willed it to stop. She needed to calm down. Her blood was pumping hard like it had been when she'd first watched him enter the village hall with the girl.
She and the local girls she sat with had been among the first to enter the village hall, even before the call for curfew began. It had been easy for them to get dinner early, as they had sat by the fireside all afternoon, mending blankets and clothing. Rin had helped them because they seemed nice, and there didn't seem to be much else to do, but it had really been a very tiresome afternoon.
The girls were younger but not terribly far off from Rin's age. She determined from their conversation that the eldest girl, named Yumi, was sixteen years old; she had been wed last summer to a slightly older boy who also lived in the village before all the men had gone away to fight for Lord Kagimoto.
As the only wife among this clique of girls, Yumi seemed to be their leader, though Rin didn't feel very impressed by the simplistic grains of wisdom she shared about married life. Much of it seemed very common sense. Rin wondered how much time Yumi had actually spent with her husband before he'd left. It didn't seem like she really knew much about cooking or living alone with a man and even less about surviving on her own. When she talked a little bit about her relationship with her in-laws, with whom she and her mother now lived, Rin had been a little more interested. Family was something Rin didn't know much about. Although for the most part she found Yumi and the other girls' lives boring and insular, so Rin remained politely quiet. She listened as the girls had tittered away for hours about their marriage prospects after all the young men returned, of course, and how many children they would have with whom.
When, the time came for them to enter the village hall, Yumi had helpfully showed Rin and three of the other girls a good place to sit against the wall. Then, Yumi went off to join her elders against the wall on the opposite side of the building.
For the next hour, the girls' meaningless conversation prattled on as more of the villagers filtered into the hall. It had soon grown crowded and Rin began to look around for Sesshomaru, wondering why he had not yet come inside. One of the girls beside her sweetly passed around dry seed cakes to snack on, but Rin couldn't eat hers. Through the big double doors at the front of the hall, she could see the light quickly fading to darkness.
Where was he? Her eyes had nervously scanned all the unfamiliar faces around her. Fear hovered around Rin's heart as she worried whether Sesshomaru might pull another stunt like he had at the wedding. Would he really be dumb enough not to seek shelter? she had asked herself.
"Ooooh, who's that with Tsukiko-san and Kei-kun?" the voice of one of the girls rose coyly beside her, startling Rin. She looked at the girl and followed her line of vision to the front end of the hall.
At first glance, the girl beside Sesshomaru struck Rin as nothing special. She had a round, wide face; an indelicate, uneven hairline; and dirty smudges across her cheeks and forehead.
"He's handsome," one of Rin's companions cooed loudly beside her. They didn't know she knew him.
"He's a catch! Lucky Tsukiko!" another exclaimed practically in Rin's ear.
She turned and found hungry looks on the faces of the girls beside her.
They found Sesshomaru desirable. For a moment Rin was stunned, but then she rethought it.
To them, he was just an older, good-looking man they hadn't seen before.
To them, he was a still possibility: a potential mate.
And that was why they envied the girl who was beside him now.
Rin's heart jumped into her mouth. She had half a mind to tell the girls he was unavailable. This wasn't totally false considering his prickly character, but she would have awkward questions to answer about his status and thought better of it.
Instead, she looked back at the girl, Tsukiko, walking in front of him. She looked a bit older than Rin herself, judging by a certain roundness to her body that made Rin suddenly conscious of her less well defined anatomy. Rin's hands flew to her face to hide her blush. At the same time, Tsukiko turned to say something to Sesshomaru.
Holding her breath, Rin anticipated that Sesshomaru would draw away as she seen him do before, but he actually leaned forward to hear the strange girl more clearly. Rin clenched her teeth as several locks of his long hair tantalizingly brushed Tsukiko's shoulder briefly, as he calmly listened to her. She was obviously pointing out a place for them to sit.
No. No. No.
For a moment, Rin considered inserting herself into the situation. How wounded would her pride be if she did that after weeks of consistently ignoring Sesshomaru, working (albeit likely futilely) to extract an apology from him? Perhaps it was more important for Rin to stake her claim over him. It doesn't mean I can't go back to being hard on him later, she reasoned, ready to run to her lord's side.
A moment later though, it was too late and Sesshomaru had settled down beside this new woman with his back to Rin. Dizzily outraged, Rin immediately jumped to the ridiculous conclusion that he'd done it intentionally.
One of the girls beside Rin leaned in close, breaking her concentration and saying with sicky-sweet curiosity: "Rin-chan, d'ye know 'im, tha' han'some man?—Oh! Rin-chan, yer seed cake! It's all fallen t'pieces!"
Numbly, Rin looked down at her lap. Crumbs covered her trousers and finger tips. She had worried the little snack to pieces.
"N-not well," she had replied emptily.
As a child, I once thought I did, she told herself now, hours later, as she sat wondering why she was not the woman whose shoulder Lord Sesshomaru had most likely fallen asleep on.
Why not? What's wrong with me? she thought hopelessly, as she pressed her fingers to her eyes where tears threatened to escape onto her cheeks.
She sat like that for several minutes, in the vacant darkness behind her closed eyelids. She would've pretended no one else was around her at that moment, except for the whispers that started filtering back from the front end of hall.
"It's them. They're here. They're coming now. Quiet. Don't make a sound. They'll hear," voices hissed in low-toned, dissipating waves. Rin's eyes snapped open and she looked around. Mothers protectively hugged their children to their breasts. An elderly woman a few feet away ducked her silvered-haired head low, the prayer beads moving between her fingers pressed to her quivering lips. Ahead of her, Sesshomaru and the girl had parted and were now looking around just like everyone else.
Though grasping at the last of her control, Rin soon lost her view of Sesshomaru and Tsukiko, as the room began to swim before her eyes. Uninvited, cold terror had already reflexively started to flow from the pit of her stomach into her veins. Practically shivering now in the choked silence that had quickly seized the whole congregation of villagers, Rin buried her face in her arms. Her palms leaked damp, icy sweat all over her shirt sleeves, where she gripped them. She didn't want to be like this. Rin wanted to be brave and not fall apart at the feet of past terrors. Hadn't she vowed months ago to protect herself and take control of her life, whether she had to do it with or without Lord Sesshomaru?
All that courage she'd built up, where had it gone she wondered. It felt like watching her resolve and independence collapse like a house on fire, as she tried to comfort herself while the one person who had made her feel safe sat only strides away with another woman. She wanted to stop this old and too familiar sense of despair from overwhelming her, but suddenly she felt so weak.
Like a lone hunter's arrow, a single, chilling howl pierced the through the thin wooden walls into the stillness. Then one after another, the wolves' feral call repeated again and again. The intensity and number of their different, chilling voices multiplied swiftly after the first one like rain drops turning into a torrential downpour, becoming an immeasurable force.
Rin's blood rushed and pounded oppressively loud in her ears as each howl tore into her consciousness, pulling up images that she had prayed she had forgotten long ago. The fear she had felt at nearly being raped by horse thieves several weeks before was nothing compared to the horror that unstoppably engulfed her now.
Hot tears like fire blazed a trail down Rin's cheeks. Her throat constricted tightly, but before any sound could escape, she bit down fiercely on the collar of her kimono.
You mustn't scream. You mustn't scream,she heard her own voice repeating the mantra. They were words that had echoed over and over in her childhood nightmares that were really only fragments of visions, but she had never denied that they were real, that they had happened to her and against her. Confused, blurred images of her parents' deaths as men with unfamiliar, unclear visages in Rin's memory yelled and bore down on them with already blood-slicked, steel weapons. What followed was only the remembrance of the slack weight of her dead mother's lifeless arms around her. Then there was Rin's own death, which had bubbled up repeatedly and vividly in the girl's subconscious right down to the flash of white canines in at least half a dozen mean maws and hot, putrid wolf-breath smothering her until the beasts shook the last breath from her then-small body. Though it was something she had pushed to forget, these were the images that had filled her nightmares frequently in those early days of her second life even while her fascination with her savior, Lord Sesshomaru, and his movements filled and lifted her energy by daylight.
She had not awoken from one of those terrible dreams in almost five years. For years she had been able to rest in the understanding that her death had brought her back to life, a life with Lord Sesshomaru.
That was, until the night before when she'd heard the wolves howling so near to her once again. Now, those familiar words of self-control, also the last words she could remember her mother breathing in her ear, came to Rin's lips as impulsively as if she had said them to herself every day for the last six years.
After years of growing up feeling so secure under the protection of her Lord Sesshomaru, Rin had never anticipated having to face this kind of threat alone again. Desperately, she hugged her own arms more tightly around herself.
Outside, the distant sounds of scratching, scraping, and snarls drew closer with every passing minute of the night. With no one else to calm or command her, Rin would hold and speak the order to herself all night long, even if her lips and tongue grew dry as the summer grass.
If this was the only way left that she could be brave, she would not break. She would not scream.
You mustn't scream.
You mustn't scream.
You mustn't scream this time…
:::
Note: Yay, fast update this time, ha! Though it's a bit of a mini one, I know. Not to worry, we'll definitely be getting into meatier stuff in the coming chapter!
Now on to the promised review responses! (By the way, we are right on the cusp of the big 100— wonder who's it gonna be? :D)
DaniHime86: You're still out there! Your last review a while ago had seemed slightly flame-like, and I wondered if I had lost you. Glad to see your still here! I feel excited reading your reviews knowing that I've made Sesshomaru's short comings real enough get to under readers' skin. I want this fic to be something different and bring about deep emotions in readers. Some of my favorite fanfics have made me mad at my most loved characters in ways I never knew possible, so I understand your frustration with Sesshomaru! He really is being maddeningly ineffectual, at this point, so I'm afraid the tension between Rin and Sesshy's gonna leave you in suspense a bit longer! When they get together though, you can be sure that all those bottled up feelings of attraction are gonna make it all the more exciting and worth it ;)
inuyashaskitten56: It's my pleasure to mention you in the fic! It's good to hear that the OCs like Tsukiko the village girl and others are positive additions to the story. I think I've commented before that I don't want to drown you all in OCs, but I think additional characters are important to the development of Rin and Sesshomaru as a couple. In the show and in so many fics, they are frequently not presented with other new options, romantically or friendship-wise, besides mainly each other. Their world seems limited, so obviously they wind up together. But in this fic, when Rin and Sesshomaru finally do choose each other—yes, this is definitely a SessRin fic—I want it to be clear that they have chosen to be with each other after many experiences and over many other possibilities.
Silver Shiko: Thanks for taking the time to review! Hope you keep enjoying! :)
Yuri-Ishtar: Sesshomaru's thoughts are definitely meant to be entertaining, so it's good that you found him humorous! His outlook is definitely in a process of major change, like I keep pointing out in an effort assure everyone he won't remain stuck in self-pitying, jerk-mode forever. With time and practice, and even some luck, he can slowly shed that difficult demeanor.
ArizonaBay: Thanks for the review! While the relationship between Rin and Sesshomaru really got me started with this fic, I couldn't resist exploring the half-brother bond. Really, while Inuyasha and Sesshomaru are so different personality-wise, what's more interesting is how similar they also might be given their attraction to Kagome and Rin, respectively. It felt natural to key into both brothers and their relationships with each other and their friends throughout the fic, though it has made it a more challenging undertaking than I initially realized, haha!