A/N: Not much to say about this one.

"Sesshoumaru-sama, will you tell Rin a story?"

Impassive golden eyes met excited brown ones as the Lord of the Western Lands looked blankly down at the little girl he had taken in.

"About what?" Sesshoumaru asked in his normal, too-calm voice. Rin snuggled into her blanket.

"About you," she explained in her small voice. "About Sesshoumaru-sama when he was like Rin!"

Sesshoumaru remained silent, standing out of the shadow of the tree Rin was snuggled under, looking up at the nearly full moon. Why this? Why now?

"Please?" Rin begged. He looked around at her to see that she was giving him "the face." Although her huge puppy eyes and quivering lower lip had no effect on him, the effort was commendable. This had to be her strongest yet. It would probably have his filthy hanyou half-brother cooing and hugging the child. "Please tell Rin?"

Both heads of the dragon were perked up as well, bobbing up and down in agreement. Only Sesshoumaru could possibly manage to make a sigh look elegant, as he did now.

Only for you, he said silently, glaring at the dragon. Still standing with his arms folded in front of him, he began his tale.

"Maru Maru Maru Maru Maru!"

Sesshoumaru banged his head against the table he was working at as a small red-and-white cannonball zipped into the room, slipped, and hit the wall.

"Are you okay?" Inuyasha asked, tottering over and looking slightly cross-eyed.

"Yes. What do you want?" Sesshoumaru said, voice slightly muffed by the table. Too quietly for his little brother to hear, he added, "What fresh hell is this?"

"I went to see the gardeners but they told me to find someone else to bother. So I went into the kitchens but the cooks kicked me out. Then I went to the stables but the dragons were boring so I went to find Father but he wasn't there, and then I went up to the watchtower but they said it was dangerous, and I couldn't find anyone to play with me, so I came here!"

Sesshoumaru cast a glance around his plain, rather dark room.

"And you thought that I would want to play with you?" he said skeptically. Inuyasha drooped.

"Well, no," he admitted. "But I've been working on my puppy eyes with the cooks until they gave me cookies. So I thought it might work on you!"

It was all Sesshoumaru could do to stop himself from banging his head on the desk again. Would his little dog-eared brother ever learn that you can't tell somebody what you're going to do if it was expected to work? He sighed and glanced at his brother, who was predictably giving him "the face." Admittedly, it was pretty good, but not the most pitiful he'd ever seen.

"Not quite," he informed Inuyasha. He demonstrated the proper version, and his brother squealed at the "cute-ness" and hugged him. Grumbling under his breath, Sesshoumaru stood and extracted himself from Inuyasha.

"Can we go try it on the cooks now?" Inuyasha said excitedly. "We can get cookies out of it. Maybe even a bone."

"No telling Father?"

"No telling Father."

A very rare occurrence took place. Sesshoumaru, the serious older son of the Lord of the Western Lands, actually smiled. Even more astounding, it was a grin.

"Then let's go."

"Those terrors," the Chief Cook chuckled, shaking his head as he stirred tonight's sauce. His wife giggled.

"At least they're together," she said. "It's nice to see the little raincloud teaching Inuyasha how to wheedle cookies out of you."

"At least they'll be impervious when their own children try it on them," the cook agreed. "If either of them have any."

"Think they'll be as cute, though?"

"Impossible."

Inuyasha giggled heartily between enormous bites of the chocolate chip cookie Cook had given him.

"We sure showed them," he said through a mouthful of chocolate.

"Sure did," Sesshoumaru agreed, not quite laughing but not managing to keep a straight face either as he took a huge chunk out of his own cookie.

The two brothers were locked away in Sesshoumaru's room, bouncing up and down on the bed while they enjoyed the spoils of their victory.

"We're going to have to run around a lot to stop from getting big and fat, like Cook is," Sesshoumaru commented. Inuyasha giggled.

"Or you can teach me swords," he suggested. "Because Father doesn't seem interested."

Sesshoumaru's face smoothed out again.

"Father says you're not strong enough yet," he said, deadpan expression back. "I'm not allowed to teach you because you might get hurt."

Inuyasha frowned, ears drooping. "I'm strong enough!" he insisted, finishing his cookie.

"Father's orders."

Inuyasha sat glumly, watching Sesshoumaru nibbling at his cookie.

"And whatever Father says, goes," he grumbled.

"Cheer up," Sesshoumaru said, snapping his cookie in half and offering the uneaten side to Inuyasha. "As long as there are cookies, the world is fine."

Inuyasha laughed and devoured his cookie.

Hear hear! Yay for cookies! Stand by for Inuyasha's little story. Care to review? .