Chapter Two:
A joyous past.

Disclaimer: I do not own Inu-Yasha, or any of the characters in it. Though I wish I did.

Author's note: It's been longer than I would have hoped. But I had a project to do, and my computer continuously is crashing on me. Anyways, I do hope you enjoy this chapter. It was a bit rushed, but I'm trying my hardest to work in typing up fanfics into my schedule. Hopefully with all my projects out of the way I will now have time to post up chapters more often.

Watching from a window, a little boy saw smoke billowing in the Eastern sky. He'd been watching it for a long time now. Almost all day, and the day before. His sharp senses allowed him to smell faint traces of smoke, even from where he was.

A loud clatter from another room caught his attention. As he turned, his gaze was level with someone else's. It was a little girl, probably his age. The young boy looked past the girl and at his father, staring up at him as he was stationed behind the girl.
"Sesshoumaru, this girl is Fiori. She will be here for a while." He said. "I want you to be nice, alright?" He asked him. Sesshoumaru looked at the girl, Fiori was it? Her eyes were very bright, happy, even excited. She seemed to be a bit…energetic. Possibly a bit too much to his liking at the time, because he was bored to a state of placidness. Hopefully he could change to fulfill his father's wishes. Looking back to his father, he raised an eyebrow in an inquiring way that was not often seen in children at such a young age.

"Why is she staying?" He asked, not partial to having a girl around. No doubt she would only get in his way. Plus, she'd probably want to do stupid stuff to him, like braid his hair, or play with dolls. He couldn't stand stuff like that. It was too boring. Plus, though he didn't know it, it required a type of imagination that had yet to develop in him.
"I'll leave that for her to tell you. Just try to get along. She's been through quite a bit, but I think once she settles in, you two will get along well. I'm going back now." He said and smiled at Sesshoumaru and pat his son's shoulder lightly, then left. There was a while of silence, until Sesshoumaru broke it by asking a question.
"What did father say your name was?" He asked with a sullen, dark tone. He had hardly forgotten, but it was the only way he thought to break the silence that was making him feel oddly uncomfortable. Fiori grinned wildly, her eyes glittering with mischief. She began to jump up and down with excitement, her red hair tossing about lightly.
"Fiori. My name is Fiori. And I'm from the East." She nodded happily. Her voice was happy, but he heard the faint traces of what made her a prankster and a sharp little girl. Fiori stopped jumping. "Can you say it?" She asked, a bit breathily from all her jumping. Something that had at first confused Sesshoumaru, having no clue what she was so happy about. As she asked the question, her head gave a little tilt to the side.

"Fiori..." He said dully. He could hear bells jingling from the deep blue colored ribbons that she was wearing in her hair. It was odd for him to see someone wearing such a thing. It was uncommon in the west, because most of the people would not want to make themselves such easy targets with the loud bells. But maybe things had been different in the East.
"I don't exactly know your name. But your father told me that you were his son. And a dog demon too." She grinned happily. "In the East there were no dog demons." She said. Sesshoumaru stared blankly at her. She was too easily amused with what he was, in his opinion. She smiled. "Well, may I know your name?" She asked. Sesshoumaru shifted. "It's Sesshoumaru." He said with the same dull tone.
"Se…Sess…" She looked a bit frustrated as she struggled to pronounce his name. He looked at her. "Sesshoumaru." He repeated it very slowly for her. She struggled once more, and Sesshoumaru sighed. It should not have been that hard for her to learn his name. "Call me what you will, until you can learn it." He said. Fiori nodded wildly, her hair tossing about again. "Alright!" She said happily, and then laughed. "Hey, do you want to play a game?" She asked excitedly.

"Maybe…First I want to know just why you're here. Father never took another demon in before. You must have done something that peaked his interests. Whatever the case, I want to know what happened." He said, and sat on the floor, looking at her. Her expression changed a bit and she looked down. "Alright. But then you have to promise something." She said. He sighed. "What?" He asked, not liking to make promises that he wasn't going to keep. But if it got him to know, he might as well. "Just don't hate me afterwards." She said. He glanced at her, a bit surprised and confused. What kind of promise was that? "Alright." He said, though it was just to get her to start talking.
"Well, first I think you should know that I am a fire demon. The powers I have are hard to control, especially since I'm young. I'm normally under close watch or I have special beads that keep me from losing control. But I didn't have either two days ago. I'd been walking from my home, since I wanted to go for a walk. But my brother followed me. He'd been getting on my nerves all day." She said softly, looking down all the time as she spoke.
"Well, after a while he got on my nerves. I got really angry. I went to throw just a fireball at him…but my anger got the better of me. It flared up and covered the ground. Since I couldn't control it, the fire was spreading. Within a day it had destroyed everything in the East. Most of the demons had run. They came back when the fire was gone. All of them were mad at me. They decided to chase me. I did what I could to run away." She said. "I'm pretty fast on my feet, so I was able to find a good place to hide away from them. But I didn't know I'd run all the way to the Western lands." She said and looked at Sesshoumaru. He was looking at her, paying attention. She glanced back down.
"Anyways…that was when your father found me. I told him my story, and he sad he would help me. He killed the demons that were chasing me…and then we came here, though it was a long walk. It took a day to get here." She said. "But I told him a lot about myself on the way. And…that's pretty much all." She said and shrugged, looking at Sesshoumaru. He stared up at the ceiling for a while. After a minute, he sighed. "Well then…do you want to play now?" He asked, standing up and smirking a little…

P.S. This is how I've decided to do my fanfics. One chapter is the present, one the past. That way you will learn about what's going on with Fiori and Sesshoumaru in the present, and what their past was like.

Fiori is my copyrighted character. Nobody is to use her in any story, fan fiction, etc. without my consent. Thank you! –Ravenwolf Naginata.