Author's Note: I am pretty sure I'm going to get flamed for this chapter. But I enjoyed it. Hopefully you did too. Now believe me when I say, at the beginning I had every intention of writing a beautiful, fluffy story concerning Rin and her Youkai Lord. Thank you for all your reviews, and in responding to DPM's question, in Birthright, I mentioned Sesshoumaru had a love of birds. Because this story is was meant as a way to explore his nature (perhaps more so then Birthright was,) it seemed fitting. There's also a vague connotation with the bird and the general feel of the chapter, ("Dove" being hopeful, "Falcon" being bold.) Take what you will from this chapter being named after a scavenger. R/R
"I told you I don't need anything from you.
Where did you get those bruises?
You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.
What are you smiling about? I simply asked a question.
I don't care, I'm just curious."
- Lord Sesshoumaru
Chapter Five: VultureSesshoumaru inhaled deeply before opening his eyes and was surprised to feel the maid still sleeping beside him. He pushed himself to one side and shifted, creating a cradle for the woman without disturbing his slumber. Then, he opened his eyes to watch her. She was on her stomach with her hands pushed under his mantle, curling it to pillow her head. He smiled a little. Looking beyond her, he saw the flower she had adorned herself with now withered and tossed aside on the floor with her robes. Sesshoumaru reached over, drawing his claws over her smooth ivory back, idly in thought. For a moment, he was tempted to end her pathetic life.
It was then he heard Kannon.
"I don't know what should upset me more." The God drawled, in a smooth voice. "The fact you refuse me your bed, or that you give it freely to a mortal."
Sesshoumaru slid to sit up and watched him. Kannon stood in his gold robes, with his black hair was braided and slung carelessly over one shoulder. His face was a cool façade of only minor disturbance. He wore a weapon.
Sesshoumaru inhaled again and pushed a little from the woman. The morning was bringing sounds and smells to his sleepy mind, "You play games to humor yourself, Kannon. Why should you be upset I find my own entertainment?"
"Is that what this is, entertainment? And I thought the Western Lord was made of stronger blood."
"Do not speak of my blood." He warned, shutting his eyes. The woman moaned a little and curled towards him. Sesshoumaru felt his skin coil as her skin caressed his. He stifled a sneer. He feeling a little sick now, as the memories of last night replayed through his mind but he kept his face stony. He could not react now.
"Then what other fault is to blame if not bad blood?"
Sesshoumaru scoffed. He wished he could leave the bed, and dress. He wished to rouse the girl and send her from his rooms and his thoughts. But pride stayed his actions. He could not allow Kannon the vision of him reeling from this…debacle. "You seek to find fault, and why, Kannon?" He asked, adding cynicism to his words till it dripped like honey. He even added the smallest of grins. "Because I have taken one of your vestal virgins."
Kannon laughed then, his voice booming like a hurricane. It was a low and insidious as the ocean, perhaps even more deadly. To wrong a god was to invite calamity, Sesshoumaru knew this from his father's dealings, and to wrong this particular god was suicide. Compassion was a cold then when turned to stone. As Kannon gave, for he was love and compassion, he could also take with terrible brutality: so was the way of storms, of seas, and the childless.
Sesshoumaru felt Zen's death rise up inside of him and shivered.
"You sad little fool." Kannon spat. "Despite it all, you only see them as servants; as target practice or toys for your amusement. You see them as things to be cast aside or kept by your whim. They are more then that. She is more then that."
Sesshoumaru turned, meeting her eyes. "Your kind is defined by the humans, adorned and feared, and worshipped by them. You, great Lady Kannon, are nothing without the humans. I am Sesshoumaru. I will existed, and flourish without their consent or company."
"Yet it is you, great Lord of the West," Kannon purred, his brow twisted in pseudo-concern. "Who cannot bear to be without his human for even a moment. See how you keep her by your side even now."
Sesshoumaru frowned a little and reared back.
"Or can you not trust your senses, Sesshoumaru Lord?"
He looked back to the woman on the bed as he pulled away from her. He had been so deep in his musings, his concerns for Rin that he had not noticed before the woman's scent. He'd so upset by seeing Ryuhoji, by feeling Zen's pains, and his death dancing again and again through his mind that he had paid no attention to the curve of her body, the shape of her chins. He had been so disturbed, and determined to abandon his thoughts of Rin, his longings for his child-ward that he never saw the pale scars that adorned her stomach from a wolf bite long ago.
Or worst, he realized, he had ignored them.
Sesshoumaru made a movement towards Tokijin then, and looked for a moment as if he would use the sword, preferably on himself. He inhaled deeply, and let the sword fall limp, before looking up at Kannon. "She…what magic…this is not…my…"
"Consider her an echo, as real and tangible as Rin but nothing more then an illusion." Kannon brushed her hand aside lightly, and the woman on the bed disappeared.
Sesshoumaru was reeling; he tightened his grip on Tokijin and drove it into the ground to steady himself. "What…purpose does such magic serve?" He demanded.
"To prove a point. You will surrender not to God, Youkai, infirmary, or death, but you will bend your back in submission to a wisp of mortality."
"No…"
"Sesshoumaru," Kannon pleaded. "My love, oh my love, please. Tama was right. You have changed…the Hunger who never found peace, never found contentment…finds it now in a small weak vessel." The god took a step forward, trying to smile. "He only has to take it."
Sesshoumaru turned and stared at the bed. He felt sick to his stomach. "I do not desire her in such a way."
"Only a human would think in such extremes. This is about love, not dominance."
Sesshoumaru continued to stare at the bed, and gradually his eyes fell upon the flower that rested in ruins on the floor. He thought for a moment of his father and the night he died. He could still his father standing there, cradling the useless stump of an arm he had with one hand and still shining with a childish determination to rush forward into another battle, and why? For Izayoi and a half-breed son he'd never met. Sesshoumaru thought of Izayoi, that woman who ruined his father. He thought of Kikyo who had killed his brother.
A human child…
He thought then of Ryuhoji, of Tama, of Tajomaru. He missed them. He missed them beyond words. His heart felt like it was breaking. He had done so much in name of never being controlled, never being harnessed by allies, or lovers, or friends. He had sacrificed his friends in that crusade. He would lose all for power. That's why he needed Tessaiga, wasn't it? That's why he had lost his arm. He was willing to lose everything for his goal of conquest. He was willing to sacrifice all in the name of power.
What made Rin so different? And how, how could he withhold Rin when he had not done the same for Ryuhoji. It would shame Ryuhoji, and Tama, and himself if he did spared a human where he would not spare his ally.
Sesshoumaru shook his head. "No…" He rose. "I love nothing. I protect nothing."
Kannon withdrew as if he had been struck. His hand fell to the sword at his side. "What are you saying?"
"You have asked what I seek from you time and again, and there it is." Sesshoumaru rose slowly, turning to catch his gaze. Kannon flinched. "I am the Hunger. I will not be contented by a mere mortal. You give love and you can remove it. That is my request. Take from me this child's pull."
"Think what you ask."
"I do." Sesshoumaru whispered. "All else was surrendered, Kannon, why should she be any different? I have given up everything for power, sacrificed everything for conquest and now you wish for me to abandon them for a girl? I cannot do that. For a time perhaps, I wished to do so. Perhaps, I had…" Sesshoumaru turned away, his eyes staring out, beyond those walls. "For a time perhaps I had wished to take Rin away from all the cruelty placed on her small shoulders, but I cannot. We are all defined by our natures, and I cannot shrink from mine. I am the Hunger." Sesshoumaru bowed his head, "In my pursuit of power, how can I promise all but withhold Rin? How could I ever face myself if I did that?"
"There are things beyond our nature. People change, Sesshoumaru."
"And sometimes we change back." Sesshoumaru was heartened only by the fact that if he feared losing his goal for the one minor detail that was Rin, maybe he wasn't so far gone that he couldn't make his way back to what he was. Maybe he could reclaim the titles that had once made him feared. He closed his eyes. "You offered me my heart's desire, Goddess. Would you go back on your word now?"
Kannon looked pained. His dark eyes dimmed and swam like the ocean but he knew Sesshoumaru was right. He could not betray his word. "Ask of me, and I shall give freely."
"Take her from me. Remove the pull she has on me, and give me back who I was." Sesshoumaru shut his eyes. "Give me back the hunger I was once claimed."
"Oh my love," Kannon whispered, his eyes were searching Sesshoumaru's for a long time. The Youkai Lord inhaled and turned away first. Kannon began to move but then stopped himself. Slowly he closed the distance between Sesshoumaru and him. "Close your eyes."
Sesshoumaru felt Kannon press his lips onto his, and then became aware of the reeling sensation of being pulled…
He was in the forests, following the scent of familiar blood on the air. It was thick, everywhere and entangled with the smell of wolves. He ignored Jaken's trudging steps behind him, and the Imp's pining over if he had or had not meant to truly kill Jaken with the Tenseiga. Sesshoumaru followed the scent till he came upon the origin.
It was the girl from the village. She was thrown across the path, her face turned upright in death- her brown eyes staring pass him. Her matted red dress clutched to her body, torn from age and more recently the bite that had pulled her from life. He saw the blisters and cuts on the soles of her feet, she must have been running to him when they got her. Somehow, Sesshoumaru knew innately, that she had been seeking him. He looked at the hands that had offered him food, the knees that had fallen in respect to him. Then, finally, Sesshoumaru returned his attention to her face and the bruises whose origin she would not tell him.
"What is that?" Jaken droned, pushing pass his Lord to stare at the child. He was looking at the body as one would stare at any dead thing in morbid curiosity. Sesshoumaru wanted to hurt him for his careless words. "Oh she's a goner. That's for sure. She must have been attacked by wolves. Look at the teeth mark; do you recognize this pathetic human?"
Sesshoumaru took a step forward, unsheathing Tenseiga as he did so. Jaken, in an uncharacteristic move, jumped in front of the body to protect it. Perhaps Jaken had some respect for honoring the dead by keeping their bodies. Still, he would not deny Sesshoumaru anything.
"What? What are you doing sire?"
Sesshoumaru felt Tenseiga pulse in his hand. He narrowed his eyes as the scene before blurred and he began to see those fat, gray skinned harvesters scramble over the dead corpse like ants. They would wean the soul from the body and release her: for Kannon, or the Tatrimokke, or the Un-mother or countless other demons that would love to devour the soul of one so pure.
"Interesting." Sesshoumaru mused, idly. "I can see them. They're from the underworld…"
And then Sesshoumaru stopped. He felt oddly familiar with this scene, as if it had been played over many times, perhaps in action or mere thought. Tenseiga pulsed again, imploring him to act but Sesshoumaru did not move. He stared down at the human girl for what felt like eternity, wondering why she clung to his memory. She had offered him a few boons that was all, why should he feel so inclined to her.
He was Sesshoumaru.
Sesshoumaru brushed aside the thought and returned Tenseiga to its scabbard. The sword hissed angrily, but he ignored it. He didn't even call to Jaken to follow, knowing the Imp would come. Turning wordlessly on his heels, Sesshoumaru walked away from the body, leaving the girl to the demons that cared for such things.
He was Sesshoumaru.