Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Inuyasha cast. But Shesta is mine.

Past Forgotten

Chapter 2

The fire cackled happily, throwing its light onto the three faces surrounding it. Rin held a piece of half-eaten, burnt deer meat in one of her small hands.

"Rin full!" she announced, holding it up for her companions to see.

Shesta sighed, and took the chunk of meat from Rin. "Ok. Go wash up."

Rin jumped to her feet and skipped down to the nearby brook.

"Wasteful human." Jaken sneered.

Shesta gave him an evil look, and threw Rin's 'wasted piece of meat', hitting him squarely between the eyes. Jaken squawked as he fell off the rock he had been sitting on.

"Hmm, I don't think it went to waste" she smirked.

She got up from where she was sitting, grabbed the dead buck by the horns, and dragged it into the woods. When she got back, Rin and Jaken were arguing.

"Sesshoumaru is to coming back." Rin pouted.

"You stupid human, he is not coming back." Jaken shouted back.

"He always comes back to Rin." Rin's eyes started to tear up.

Before Jaken could make the situation worse, Shesta's voice broke in. "Rin, time for bed."

"Rin not tired. Rin wants Lord Sesshoumaru." Rin pouted.

"You still have to lie down. Jaken's going to tell us a story."

"But Jaken tells long stories. Rin doesn't like long stories" Rin whined.

"The longer the story, the better. Now come over here and let's listen to Jaken." Rin crawled into Shesta's lap and snuggled close.

"What would the Lady Shesta like to hear?" Jaken asked.

"Tell the story of how you first met me." Shesta demanded. "And start from the beginning."

Jaken cleared his throat and began to tell the story.

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"Lord Sesshoumaru, where are you going? Your father told you to stay here." Jaken squawked as he ran after the teenage demon.

"I want to watch the battle." Sesshoumaru answered, not bothering to look at his lackey.

"But your father…"

"I am going to watch!" Sesshoumaru glared down at the toad demon.

Jaken decided he might live a bit longer if he let Sesshoumaru do what he wanted, so he gave up. Sesshoumaru kept walking out the door and toward the battlefield. Jaken scrambled after him; after all he was supposed to be watching the young lord.

The ring of metal against metal let the two know that they had finally reached the edge of the battle. Sesshoumaru and Jaken stopped on a small hill. Looking down, they saw that the two armies had already clashed.

"Lord Sesshoumaru, isn't that you father over there?" Jaken pointed with his staff towards two fighters. Sesshoumaru didn't answer; he just watched. He loved watching his father fight. He made it look so flawless. Every swing of the sword was executed with ease. It was so….

"Well, well, well, look what we have here. It's Lord Inutaishou's brat." a voice startled both of them out of their daze. While they had been admiring the fight between the two great Lords the enemy soldiers had surrounded them.

"General Dramian is going to be pleased," said a rather large, scaly demon, as he sneered at the young Lord. Jaken clutched his staff tightly, ready to defend his lord.

"Haha, look the imp is going to fight, haha." Another demon laughed.

The old man's head on the staff opened his mouth, and a stream of fire bellowed out, incinerating two of the demons. Jaken could hear Sesshoumaru fighting next to him. They might actually get out of this alive. But his hopes were quickly dashed, as more of the enemies were noticing that Inutaishou's son was on the battlefield.

Jaken closed his eyes as the enemy troops fell on them like a tidal wave. There suddenly was a flash of bright light. Jaken slowly opened one of his yellow eyes, and let out a yelp. A young woman stood where the enemy had been. She had long straight black hair that came down to her waist, and was dressed in black from her neck down. Her red eyes were dancing with merriment as she laughed silently at their shocked faces.

"You dare to laugh at my Lord Sesshoumaru," demanded Jaken, as he waved around his staff threatening.

"I am sorry, I just couldn't help it. You should have seen your faces." The girl took a moment to compose herself.

Without warning she stuck out her hand to Sesshoumaru. "Hi, I am Shesta" When he didn't take her hand, she let it drop back to her side.

Without missing a beat, she dropped down to her haunches so that she was looking directly into Jaken's large yellow eyes. "And who might you be, O holder of the staff of heads" she said, her voice full of mirth.

"I,I," Jaken stuttered; no one had ever asked him personally for his name before, let alone given him any respect. "I am humble Jaken who serves his Lord Sesshoumaru." Jaken finally managed to squeak out.

"Lady, who exactly are you?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"I thought I told you. My name is Shesta." Shesta stood up to answer the young lord's question.

"I already know your name. I meant, what are you? You smell like a human, but it's intermingled with the scent of other things, and I have yet to see a human with red eyes." Sesshoumaru asked.

"Wow! You must have a strong sense of smell." Shesta said, totally ignoring his question.

To Jaken's amazement his young lord let out a frustrated growl. "Tell me NOW!" Sesshoumaru demanded.

"Or what?" Shesta said, daring him to do his worse.

A sound behind them made Jaken peer over his shoulder. What he saw frightened him. He turned back to the two bickering in front of him.

"Lord Sesshoumaru." Jaken said, trying to get his attention.

"Not now, Jaken." Sesshoumaru said without taking his eyes off the strange lady standing in front of him.

"Please forgive this humble servant, but we have company."

"Good, now I can see how well you fight with a sword." Shesta said, as the first of the enemy soldiers came into sight. She turned her back to the growing mob of black clad dragon demons and took a step forward, disappearing from sight, and leaving Jaken and Sesshoumaru to once again face the enemy mob alone.

Jaken could see their allies running towards them, but knew that they were too late to do anything. And Lord Inutaishou was too busy with his own battle. Jaken saw his master shift to attack position, his hands glowing green from the poison that dripped off his claws. Jaken griped his staff tighter.

A dragon demon leaped high into the air, his sword above his head. He brought it down in an arc, and the sword shattered into pieces as it hit an invisible barrier.

"Now where did I put it?" Shesta's voice came from behind them. "Ah, here it is." Shesta slowly phased back into view. "O good, they're here." She exclaimed upon seeing the mob of dragon demons.

"Here, you take this." She said as she stuffed a sword into Sesshoumaru's hand.

Sesshoumaru looked down at the sword. He was rather disappointed to find the sword to be rather plain. Taking a few practice swings, he discovered that the sword was well balanced, and rather light. When he looked up, the odd human had grabbed one of the tougher looking demons by the wrist, and was dragging the demon toward him. When she was a couple of steps away from him, she dropped the demon's wrist and stepped back, as to get a better view of the fight without being in the way.

"All right, you may begin!" she announced as though she were refereeing the fight.

The dragon demon grinned, showing very sharp and very yellow teeth. "My pleasure" he growled, just before he leapt forward his sword, ready to strike. Sesshoumaru stood still, his sword at his waist. Jaken was off to the side, clutching the staff. The fight was over in a couple of seconds with Sesshoumaru as the victor, his sword through the demon's heart.

"Not bad, not bad," Shesta said. "but you could have ended it much sooner."

"What!" squawked Jaken. "Are you insinuating that you could do better then Lord Sesshoumaru?"

"Me! Do better?" Shesta said in mocked shock, her hands flying to her chest. "I don't know the first thing about swordsmanship. I just like to watch. But I do know a great trick that allows me to be on par with the best of them. I could even beat you, Lord Sesshoumaru." Shesta said as way of a challenge.

Without waiting for a reply, she bent over the very dead dragon demon and wretched the sword out the stiffening claws. Sesshoumaru snorted as he watched her get into what he presumed was her fighting stance. If it was, then she really was telling the truth. Her stance was all wrong. In fact, it couldn't get any worse. Sesshoumaru allowed a small smirk to pass over his face as he pulled his sword out of the corpse. He glanced at the sword in his hand, and back to the woman. She looked so confident. He decided to test that confidence and swung at her. He had just started his swing, when two clangs rung through the air as her sword hit his, and his sword was flying through the air, only to land a few feet a way.

"How?" Sesshoumaru asked as he held his aching hand.

Shesta opened her mouth to explain, when a roar rang through the air. The three of them glanced to where the sound had come from. While Shesta had been busy "teaching" Sesshoumaru her sword trick, the battle with the two great lords had come to an abrupt end when Sseshoumaru's father had managed to find an opening in the other demon's defenses and killed him. He must have looked around to see how well his troops were doing, when he spotted his son on top of a knoll in the center of the battlefield, surrounded by the enemy, and just having his sword knocked out of his hand by a black-clad person. He did what any father would have done. With a roar, he turned himself into his true shape, that of a 12 foot tall, pure white dog. He crashed through the demons on the ground, not caring if they were friend or foe, in his race to get to his son.

"Sesshoumaru, you may want to try and stop your father before he runs into my shield." Shesta said.

"Then why don't you drop your shield?" Sesshoumaru hissed, not taking his eyes off his very large, and very angry, father.

"You think I am stupid enough to get run over by a 3 story tall cocker spaniel?" Shesta yelled back at him. The demons that surrounded them were in a panic. Most of them forgot that there was something in front of them, and they kept trying to run away from the great snarling dog demon, only to crash into an invisible wall. They would get up to run the other way, only to notice the demon lord had gotten closer. Forgetting all about the wall, they would again crash into it. After watching the third pathetic demon do this, Shesta started laughing.

"Lord Sesshoumaru, I think she has lost her mind." Sesshoumaru nodded his head once in agreement, as he and Jaken watched the girl who was laughing so hard she was holding her sides.

There was a large boom that shook the ground as Lord Inutaishou hit the shield full force and was flung back a couple of yards. It took him a couple of seconds to get up. The large dog shook his head trying to clear it, his large ears flapping from side to side. This made Shesta lose it completely, and she fell to the ground rolling, tears streaming down her face. The lesser demons had taken the small respite and high tailed it out of sight.

The dog demon regained his bearings. The shock of hitting something solid must have jogged his mind from the madness that had seized him, and his rational mind started working again. He walked up to the spot where he had crashed into the invisible wall, and he cautiously walked forward until his nose bumped into it. The black clad human was still laughing, but she had managed to get herself more or less settled down, and was no longer rolling on the ground. Lord Inutaishou growled, letting his son know that he was not pleased with him, and at the same time hoping to jar the girl out of her hysterics. It took a full minute before the girl finally got herself under control. She stood up, and proceeded to brush the dirt from her clothing. Sesshoumaru's father brushed the shield with his nose, seemingly testing it. Sparks flew from between his nose and the shield. Lord Inutaishou transformed back to his human form.

"Release my son at once!" he demanded. His voice held no room for argument.

Shesta got a rebellious gleam in her eye, and all the humor in her voice was gone. "What if I don't want to?"

At that moment, Jaken realized that this very dangerous girl was a teenager, a teenager going through her rebellious stage. And she probably got away with what ever she wanted.

"If you do not, then I will be forced to take you as a prisoner of war."

"You can try." Shesta said, her arms crossed in front of her.

"My father is very angry; it was not wise to anger him further." Sesshoumaru said. Jaken knew he was probably thinking that maybe he should have stayed home like his father had told him.

Lord Inutaishou glared at the human. He reached out and touched the shield. A bright light flashed for a split second, blinding everyone in the area. When Jaken could see again, Lord Inutaishou was glowing. He heard a gasp of surprise from the girl. Looking toward her, he saw fear on her face just before her eyes rolled up into her head, and she fell to the ground in an unconscious heap.

Jaken looked over at the two humans that were now fast asleep. Rin had snuggled even closer to Lady Shesta, and one of her small hands was clutched tightly onto the lady's shirt. The lady must have gotten up sometime during his story and grabbed a blanket from that mysterious closet of hers. The blanket had fallen from her shoulders, and was laying half in her lap, the rest in the dirt, doing its owner no good. Jaken crept forward and, careful to not wake them, replaced the blanket so that it covered both of them. He then climbed onto the rock that they were leaning on, and sat down. He wrapped his arms around his staff as though hugging it, and watched over the two sleeping humans. It didn't take long before he too succumbed to the blessed nothingness of sleep.

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I would like to thank my beta Niamha.