AN: Merry Chirstmas and a Happy New Year ( all of this rather belatedly). I'm getting lazy, the break between winter and spring semester is reallllllllllly long. Hence my slightly longer and somewhat annoying chapters. Ah, thank you all, as always. Go ahead and read, i'm really not to happy with this chapter but you be the judge...
0000
Somewhere, in the faraway land of China, Sesshoumaru felt it as sharp as if were human. Something was wrong in the castle he knew this because he was in a way connected to the old mansion. His strongest memories of both birth and the death of his father happened there.
"Sesshoumaru-san?" a voice made him turn back to the table, a sack of natural pearls scattered in a small earthenware dish. The small frail human bodies of the merchant brothers came into his view. They were rich beyond word, but would only live so long to enjoy it like all mortals, expect his beautiful Rin.
"I apologize"
Sesshoumaru was buying these for Rin, which once strung together by Kin would make a beautiful gift for her. He wondered if something had happened to the baby… Another feeling hit him, this time stronger… The mansion was calling to him…
He had to return home…
0000
Rin lay in a fetal position at the bottom of the sloping wooden stairs, Kin and Lin were crying out for the village doctor who had stopped by to check on their ailing seamstress.
There was warmth, so much warmth… Rin wondered how the air could smell so much like flowers now that it was fall and all the peonies had died…
People were running, their wooden sandals echoing from a place far away. Her eye lidsfluttered, tears slipping from her eyes.
Someone was opening her red kimono, she lifted her head to see who it was. It was Wakujiki-sensei, the doctor that had checking on her pregnancy…
"My b-bay" she cried weakly, the doctor did not look up as two of the larger bodyguards picked her up and were carrying her before darkness...
0 Two weeks later 0
When Sesshoumaru entered the mansion, it was like entering a dark ocean of water. His breathing was ripped from him because of the sheer iciness of the rooms. No fires had been lit, all the paper lanterns were dark. There wasn't a sound in the corridors of rice paper screens and wood.
Until he came to his bedchamber, there was a blast of furnace like air, an air that smelt faintly of sickness... And as he opened the screen Lin came into view her ashen face and uncombed hair another surpirse.
"Lin?"
She pressed a finger to her lips and politely moved him to the hallway where she finally spoke.
"Rin fell down the kitchen landing stairs two weeks ago, she miscarried your son…" Lin paused her eyes hollow.
"She gave the power of that jewel to make him survive, but I fear that without the Shikon Jewel in her possession Rin is gravelly ill."
Sesshoumaru didn't hear the last few words because he had passed the pale girl and moved swiftly into the room to see all of the medical staff of the sensei's clinic arranged around Rin's bed. Wrapped in his wife's arms was a small baby, almost full term. His hair was a shock of pale silver and skin as white his mother's. Walking over he bent and kissed Rin's cold forehead, he felt her stir.
"Ah, Sesshoumaru you came back." She began slowly her eyes opening to slits. A small wan smile playing over her dull rosy lips.
He didn't know what to do, what to say, other then nod.
"I want to be alone with my wife." Sesshoumaru demanded turning his pale golden eyes to the people around them. Quickly they all left and finally he sat beside her taking the bundle wrapped in the crook of her arm. Uncovering the small life, he drew the jewel away from the babies chest and waited. Closing his eyes, he listened for the slow of a heartbeat the wail of a child about to die. But this infant was pink and healthy even without the presence of the jewel.
He then pressed the jewel to Rin's body and softly kissed her lips.
"Why did you fall Rin?" he asked
Rin grinned "Because…" he thought she saw her flush
"Because my water broke."
Despite the situation Sesshoumaru chuckled "You have always been such a stupid girl Rin"
"I resent that" she coughed and lay back taking a few breaths, Sesshoumaru unwrapped her blue kimono and pressed the jewel to the place above her heart. He could feel it slipping from his fingers and melding into her flesh…
"Sleep now my dear"
Kissing her forehead he pulled the fur over her body and then lay beside her and fell asleep…
0
In the coming weeks Rin slowly regained her strength, and the baby thrived as well. Though for the oddest of things he had no name.
"Sesshoumaru" Rin called nursing the baby underneath a warm fur, Sesshoumaru walked in his dark dragon yukata glowing in the stark bareness of his room.
"Yes dear"
"The baby has no name" she purred watching the wide honey colored eyes of her baby. His hair was growing at an alarming rate, she could already braid it with her small fingers.
Sesshoumaru's brow furrowed taking a seat beside her "I thought…"
"Well you thought wrong" she cut him off staring bluntly into his face.
"You shouldn't be so vexed with me"
Rin continued to glower at him, and a somewhat awkward silence settled in the room.
"You shouldn't have gone away" she whispered seeing that the baby had fallen asleep. She stood and walking into the other room placed the baby in the small wooden cradle. Where she tucked him in before returning. Sesshoumaru had lay down on the western bed his brows drawn together.
Rin knew this face well…
"Sesshoumaru"
"Hhmmm"
"Tell me again why you went away during my pregnancy?"
"Because the Chinese do not wait, they invaded our borders for the first time… I wanted to make sure that no harm would come to this village."
She snorted and paced the room, Sesshoumaru was trying hard to ignore her. Starting a fight was something he did not want to do. Rin shouldn't be asking him such silly questions, the world didn't entirely revolve around her.
Sesshoumaru sat up "You still disagree with me leaving!" he cried out of sheer frustration.
"Yes!"
Rin stood there like a stubborn child, her arms folded her white shoulder exposed to the coldness of the castle.
"I shall not be going back, and if you weren't in such a foul mood I would have found other ways to make you feel better."
A look of faint shock registered on her features and then she sighed "You know I still do not feel well"
He laughed "I have never seen you this angry before."
Rin did not answer him, instead she stood there unable to speak. Her weak knees, due to her fatigue and not to her handsome husband who lay seductively before her. For some reason the very sight of Sesshoumaru made her incensed.
For the last month now, she could not stop this deep anger that welled up for her husband of less then a year. Rin hated him, hated him for leaving her, for her worst fears as a woman had been realized in the last four months and...
Rin now had to sit down because the tears had begun again, they poured down her cheeks in great torrents. She felt a warm hand wrap around her shoulder, Sesshoumaru had pulled her into his embrace. Surrounding her cold body in his warmth,
"I hate you for not being here, know that this was my first child. Sesshoumaru if I had decided to go back to my village I would have had almost seven children now. Don't you understand that I was..." she trailed off hiding her face in his yukata.
"Afraid" he added gravely
"I am a fool after all" he began kissing the top of her head.
"I almost lost you and my son because of some treaty..."
Sesshoumaru sat there for a long time as she wept, he could only try and understand what she was feeling. He was a demon and therefore had a limited range of emotion, especially one so profound as what Rin was experiencing.
"I still do not understand everything about you Rin as a woman, as a human. Please, do not be so vexed at me. I went away because I was afraid what had happened to my mother and father would happen to us as well…"
Rin shocked looked up at him, her face sunken and wet with tears. Sesshoumaru's eyes were half closed and wistful. His grip on her waist slackened, as he lay down. Rin stared at him for a long moment drinking in his now cold façade. One she had always seen as a child… This is where that pain came from…
Something terrible must have happened to him as a child…
"Sesshoumaru-sama" she muttered laying down beside him, he pulled her close and whispered just as she slipped into her dreams
"I think we should name him Arashi"