Love and Honor
Sunlight slanted into the room, the paper windows muting its glare. The air was still, and Kohaku breathed the subtle smells of expensive tea and old paper, freshly-ground ink and burnt-out candles. And beneath all was an underlay of something else entirely, a scentless scent, cold and clean like newly fallen snow.
The man, no, man-form on the other side of the low table raised his gaze from the paper he was writing in. He put his brush down and set the sheet aside without a sound. Gold eyes gleamed in the morning light as they looked across to Kohaku kneeling before him, and once more the young man was reminded that he faced nothing human.
"You wished to see me, tajiya?"
"Sesshomaru-sama." Kohaku bowed his head respectfully, fists clenched in his lap. He looked up after a moment and tried to meet the youkai's eyes without fear, that cultured and haughty gaze that appraised him and found him lacking like everyone and everything else.
The silence dragged on as Kohaku grasped for the words he had practiced for days on end, until his sister had laughed at him and said he might recite them in his sleep. He wondered if the youkai could smell his fear, then knew there was no way he couldn't. The thought calmed him, somehow, and he recalled the words.
"My lord, I humbly beg your ward Rin's hand in marriage." His throat stuck on the rest of the words: That I may honor and cherish her, and bring her happiness to the end of our days... He had a sudden feeling that saying them might make him burst into hysterical laughter, not a good thing at all under the circumstances.
The youkai lord did not so much as raise an eyebrow, his form perfectly composed. But Kohaku suddenly became aware of the aura of power in the room becoming thicker, a tangible pressure on his eardrums. The air became oppressive, and even the sun seemed dimmer.
He's perfectly nice once you get to know him. he remembered the light, sweet voice suddenly, on the day Rin had told him to ask her hand of her guardian. Silly Kohaku. The apple trees had been in full bloom, then, the day so fragrant he felt his lungs would burst. Ask him. Please? I love Sesshomaru-sama and honor him, and I won't steal away from his house like I've done something wrong. And how could he have refused, even if he was pretty sure Sesshomaru was presently going to leave him a red smear on the wall?
But Sesshomaru still did not move, and the youki filling the room grew no stronger. It stayed constant, however, a warning and reminder.
"I see." Sesshomaru said at last. "I knew of your liaison, of course. I cared little if she chose to amuse herself with you before I could find her a proper match... And now you wish to wed her."
Kohaku felt his face grow warm at the dismissive way the youkai spoke of the...liaison with Rin. Of course Sesshomaru knew. Damn inu youkai and their noses, Kohaku thought miserably. "I know I am not deserving of such honor, Sesshomaru-sama, yet I..."
"Yet you come alone to beg my ward's hand, like an outcast from clan and pack." Sesshomaru's eyes became half-lidded, his voice languid. "Why is not your father here to arrange the match as is proper, tajiya?"
Red and black flashed before Kohaku's eyes and a deep, dark pulse throbbed through him. He felt himself freeze up, his thoughts roaming the old dark paths.
I'm scared, Ane-ue...
Shudder.
Do you wish to forget, Kohaku?
A little girl lay very quiet in the grass, and it wasn't like her. He'd known her for hours, enough to know she would never shut up on her own. Moonlight glinted off a sharp steel edge.
I don't want to.
Deadly youki behind him and he knew he was saved, maybe the white youkai would even deliver him to death. He turned away from the girl to die.
Back away very carefully, Rin... Like it made up for anything. Like it made any difference. The mass of youkai before him seethed, mocking him, even as light footsteps pattered away behind him back into the light outside.
Sharp pain at the base of his neck as a claw dug into his back. He saw the tiny shard of light flicking into the air, felt the long-held body dissolve as he fell. And he welcomed it, the freedom. I'm sorry, Ane-ue. But he wasn't scared anymore.
Whiteness, pure and keen, flashed across his field of vision and he hit the ground incredibly, indisputably, unwantedly alive. The world screamed into being, an explosion of pain and color and helpless tears. The white youkai was already walking away, a little girl looking over her shoulder and waving cheerfully good-bye as she followed.
He came back to the smell of tea and dry paper with a rush. It was always the memory of a white blade and a waving girl that brought him back, that ended the train of recollections. He sat for a long moment, trying to get his bearings, then raised his eyes to meet Sesshomaru's.
"My father is not here, my lord, because he died by my own hand. I was ten." How old was he now? No more than twenty-and-one, he was sure, but the eyes that gazed back from mirrors told a different story. "As I have killed everyone who showed me trust and love...as I would have killed my own sister... and Rin."
Sesshomaru fixed him with a direct, unhostile gaze. "You are a slayer of kin, the lowest of the low. The filthy hanyou's puppet."
"Yes." Here, in this room and this presence he could be perfectly candid. He didn't have to try to forgive himself, or tiptoe around Sango's feelings, or go boldly forward and leave the past behind. He could be what he was, for once. He met the white youkai's eyes for one long moment, then respectfully lowered his gaze. He took a deep breath, released it. He felt light and empty, and a little sad. No more than you deserve, he reminded himself. "Do I have your leave to go, my lord?"
"No, you do not." And maybe Kohaku imagined it but the taut thrill of youki in the air lessened a little. Maybe still more illusory, he thought he saw something like approval in the elegant arch of a silver brow. "Inform me of your prospects, tajiya," said the youkai lord, an imperious command.
"Yes, my prospects." Kohaku blinked, thrown by the incursion into mundane ground. "My sister and I, and friends...We dwell in the old tajiya village, to rebuild." A town with more graves than living beings at the moment, but it was a start. "I will have work soon, and-"
"And the ward of the Western Lord will toil at stone-choked fields and wear roughspun, bringing up squalling pups in a meager home." Sesshomaru rose in one fluid motion and went to the door.
And Kohaku knew he had no right yet he stood furiously to face Sesshomaru's back, with unreasonable and quite possibly suicidal thoughts of pleading, shouting, of fighting for him and Rin--Ask him. Please?--but Sesshomaru slid the shoji door open, and the words died in Kohaku's throat.
A slender form sat on the floor just outside the door, huddled without regard to the expensive kimono she wore. Long raven hair fell away from a face that was almost a woman's, now, as she looked up and gave her guardian a bright smile.
"However," Sesshomaru looked on his ward with dispassionate eyes, "since her upbringing in my household has quite failed to make her a lady, I trust that such ignoble life will suit her better."
Before Kohaku had quite processed what was happening Sesshomaru was disappearing down the hall, Rin bent in profound obeisance at his retreating form. Trusting her judgment better than his befuddled mind, he followed her example and stammered out something that resembled gratitude.
They straightened up once the youkai lord's light footsteps disappeared down the hall. One moment they were in sitting position, looking wide-eyed at each other, and the next Kohaku found himself attacked by a swirl of raven hair and rustling fabric and the sweetness of wild roses. He ended up in a highly indecorous sprawl in the middle of the hallway with Rin on top.
"He said yes, Kohaku! Sesshomaru-sama said yes! I knew it, I knew-" Kisses rained on his brow, his hair, his lips, and her laughter surrounded him, held him in warmth. He would gladly have stayed like this forever, but with wrenching effort managed to sit up with an arm around her.
"Rin. Listen--listen to me." He reciprocated with enthusiasm when she kissed him full on the mouth, then had to cover her lips with a hand before he could lose himself. "You heard...everything? From the start?" She nodded against his hand, eyes dancing with joy.
"Then I guess there's nothing more to hide." The simple candor in Sesshomaru's accusation, no statement, was inescapable. It was both terrible and liberating. "You know I was Naraku's creature. You know I would have killed you." He took his hand from her mouth and looked away, because he couldn't have said what needed to be said, looking into her eyes. "You see me before you. Kinslayer, traitor, a butcher of men...I-I'll understand if you-" he clenched his eyes shut.
"Silly Kohaku."
He dared open his eyes to face her, daring to hope. She reached out and smacked his head lightly, and the tears brimmed in her eyes even as she gave a quiet smile well beyond her years. "How hard was it, suffering all alone? Oh, Kohaku..." She held him close, hugging his face to her breast. And ngulfed in that warmth, her familiar scent, he knew he would have fought every youkai lord ever spawned just to be here, in this moment, in these arms. "You'll never hurt alone again. I promise. I promise." She rocked him and stroked his hair as he stopped struggling against the tears, in the wanly-lit silence of that long afternoon.
It was snowing. Fine flakes swirled on an icy wind through open shoji windows as Kohaku and his wife rose from obeisance to kneel side by side on the floor. He sat looking upon his wife's guardian, ageless, impassive, and wondered what words could do justice to the parting of a human woman and the youkai who had raised her. Their impossible bond, the years they had shared against all odds... He could not imagine how they felt, on this day that the married ward left her guardian's household.
Normally the guardian would be the one to give benediction, but Kohaku knew that would never happen with Sesshomaru. After a long silence it was Rin who spoke.
"May you enjoy long life and health, Sesshomaru-sama, and your lands and home be ever prosperous."
Uncharacteristically somber for her, perhaps, but Kohaku could tell every word came from the bottom of her heart. Sesshomaru gave a curt nod in response. Rin stood and, after a deep bow, turned away. Her steps and the rustle of her layered traveling clothes were loud in the snow-muffled quiet of the winter morning.
Then suddenly she spun round and fell to kneel by Sesshomaru, throwing her arms around his neck. "Farewell, Chichi-ue." Father. Her choked whisper echoed in the room long after she stood and went from the room, while Sesshomaru sat perfectly still for long moments, even his eyes frozen.
The room was still; Kohaku dared not speak, for the look on Sesshomaru's face...If the inscrutable youkai lord had ever been vulnerable it was right now, in this moment of loss both sweet and grievous.
At last Sesshomaru looked on Kohaku, calm fury in his eyes. "Give the child-" my child, heard Kohaku, "-grief, tajiya, and I shall rend you limb from limb."
"It would be richly deserved if I did," Kohaku said seriously. He considered adding 'father-in-law' or something along those lines, but decided he was much too attached to his limbs to take the risk. Wisely he rose to his feet without another word, gave a bow and took his leave of the Lord of the Western Lands.
He emerged into a grey winter morning, Inuyasha's loud complaints breaking the snow-muffled calm as he approached his little group.
"Keh! It's about time. Let's stop wasting time and get going!"
"He's right--for a change." Miroku ducked Inuyasha's glare to fuss over Sango and the baby for the umpteenth time. "Are you feeling all right, dear? Is Shinju warm enough?"
"For the fifth or sixth time, yes," laughed Sango. She shared an exasperated smile with Kohaku. The way his brother-in-law acted, one would think no woman in Japan had had a baby before.
"And remember, Rin. You represent Sesshomaru-sama and his household. The dignity with which you hold yourself shall reflect upon him always." The pompous voice squawked out as Jaken, Sesshomaru's toad-like retainer, waved his Staff of Faces to emphasize his point. "Human child though you are, I have taught you all I could and you must not give Sesshomaru-sama occasion to regret his generosity in taking you in and raising you!"
"Hai, Jaken-sama," Rin answered happily, the affection unmistakable in her smile.
"Hmph. In one ear and out the other as always, I expect." Jaken's muttering sounded suspiciously tearful.
Rin knelt to face the imp on eye level. "Stay healthy, Jaken-sama, and take care of Sesshomaru-sama."
"Like I need a human to tell me...ack!" Jaken struggled frantically as Rin gave him an impulsive hug. "Impertinent human!" He turned his head, obviously desperate for escape, and caught sight of a youkai crew loading the carts. "Wait! You! You'll upset the cart before you're out the gates if you don't balance the load properly-" Jaken bolted from Rin's embrace to run over to the annoyed workers. Kohaku hid a smile when the little youkai wiped a sleeve surreptitiously across his eyes as he ran.
"Kohaku." Rin rose and they simply stood together like that in companionable silence, watching as Jaken berated the work crew and Inuyasha shouted at him to shut up. Then it was back to how the noble Sesshomaru-sama's household was overrun with humans and ungrateful hanyou.
All the while armed guards, thirty strong, went over the last minute details of hauling five full carts through the snow. They were the youkai who would escort them to the village of youkai exterminators with Sesshomaru's gift of supplies and provisions. Bales of grain, seeds for planting, bolts of plain, sturdy cloth; enough salted meat, smoked fish, dried fruit to last them through several winters. No porcelains, silks, or jewelry were in sight among the bridal gifts, only the gifts of survival and even a little comfort for folk who faced a grim, hard rebuilding. (Kohaku did not doubt that Jaken had sneaked some manner of finery into one of the carts; the fussy old youkai had all but wept, squawking something about propriety and standing, when Sesshomaru forbade silks and gems.)
"Let's go, Kohaku." A shy, warm hand found his and they took the first small steps of their journey together, toward a new home and the hope for a new life in the face of all odds. Kohaku felt warm with her so close in the cold winter morning, a happiness in his heart so poignant it almost hurt.
He looked back for a moment as the procession moved beyond the gates. He gazed at the open shoji windows in the eastern wing of the great house and imagined the lord alone in his workroom, losing himself in work, perhaps, or lost in thought. And silently Kohaku blessed him one last time before he turned away, the youkai whom he and his beloved would love and honor for the rest of their days.
A/N: There simply aren't enough stories where young people do things the proper way, I tell you. :) I don't pretend to know much about medieval Japanese etiquette--it was probably a good deal more formal than I've depicted here--but I supposed I had some creative license when the setting already had demons and such. Sesshomaru's comment about his not caring if Rin amused herself before he found her a match; well he's a dog demon, so I imagine his sexual norms aren't quite like those of humans of the same era.