AN: Just a warning, I tried my best, but this chapter still sucks in my mind. Mebbe you'll disagree.. I considered combining it with the next chapter, since it's actually got some important content in it... And is a lot better than this one. But either way, this cruddy chapter was needed. So just.. deal with it and wait for the next chapter. Besides, you might get all confuzzled if you skip this one. We don't want that.

DISCLAIMER (yep, I remembered it..): I don't own Inuyasha.. or Sesshie-sama. Sigh. I own Maina, though.. and whatever's associated with her, which I list every once in a while bc disclaimers are a pain in the ass and I don't feel like writing good ones all the time. Or even half the time. Whee, yeah.

Chapter Twelve - Unusual Routines, but Routines Just the Same...

The next two days were largely uneventful, passing in much the same way the second day had, with Maina changing Sesshoumaru's bandages in the morning and the old miko taking a passing glance to see how the wounds were healing, followed by a small meal, which now included a bowl of herbal soup that was made to help him heal, or so Kaede told him. And he was indeed healing, but both Kaede and Maina demanded he remain in bed nevertheless.

There was not much for him to do between this late morning meal and dinner. Maina always left him after he had eaten, leaving him with the options of doing nothing or accepting the company of his half-brother's human friends. He would have rather enjoyed killing them, simply because he had encountered them all on so many different occasions and had his fun ruined in so many battles by the pests. Needless to say, he'd begun to develop an certain aversion to all of them.

Maina, however, couldn't seem to get enough of their company. Every day her pure foresty scent became more and more tainted by human civilization. The humans themselves stank to no end, but there were also the various offensive smells of their cooking experiments and of the horses, cattle, and other animals they kept. But it didn't matter to her, obviously, because each day she would leave the hut and spend the daylight hours with them. Sometimes she would follow Kaede around in her daily duties, learning about the herbs she picked or lending a helping hand to the old miko when she had physical chores to do. Often she would walk carelessly with the younger miko and the taijiya, talking for hours about trivial things. Of course, they would sometimes wander far away from the hut, out of Sesshoumaru's hearing range, and only they knew what their conversations turned to then. Once, she even stopped and talked to Inuyasha, who was patrolling around the hut, as he had become accustomed to doing since his half-brother had arrived there. The hanyou spoke loudly, so that even a human in Sesshoumaru's place could have heard him. And she seemed happily engaged in all his talk, even laughing heartily over his rambling and badly told stories, which were obviously half-truths. The battles he spoke of - no, they couldn't have worked out the way he said they did, even if he did have the Tetsusaiga.

As for Sesshoumaru, he would have been content to spend his days just thinking. He was used to being alone with his thoughts - they suited him better than the trivial talk of the humans surrounding him. However, the monk came to him yet again on the third day. He thought it would be wise to 'compare notes' about Naraku so that both his troupe and Sesshoumaru would have all available information on their mutual enemy and thus be better prepared to face him. This was a reasonable idea, so the taiyoukai accepted his company. He, at least, spoke business, whereas the others either made some flippant greeting as they passed or put on a false smile and asked about his health. Miroku, however, proved himself to be an acceptable human, which was a rare thing. He actually got along quite well with the monk, as he was a logical and reasonable man, much like Sesshoumaru himself. He was also the most respectful of Inuyasha's group, unless there happened to be an attractive woman around, and actually treated Sesshoumaru like the powerful lord he was. The rest didn't seem to respect or fear him at all - he expected the insolence from his half-brother, but had not been prepared for the human women of the group, who spoke to him as if he were equal to them, one of their own. He, the great Lord of the Western lands, equal to a couple of human women? It was enough to make him want to jump up and tear the damned wounds open in the process just to punish them for it, only they tended to pass by in the mornings and evenings, when Maina was there to stop him.

He and the monk spoke of Naraku's past habits, the miscellaneous clues they had picked up about him along the way, and where he might have run off to this time. The monk had obviously been moving about during Sesshoumaru's stay in the village, for he recounted some talks he'd had with travelers to see if anything out of the ordinary had been happening, but he had found out nothing of substance. He reasoned that Naraku might have gone into hiding yet again, as he needed to repair his body, adding that he was sometimes gone for quite a long time in such cases. He based his theory also on the basis that no one had sensed Naraku's demonic aura anywhere near the village, and neither Inuyasha nor Sesshoumaru had detected his scent since the battle.

Having expounded upon the subject of Naraku as much as possible, Sesshoumaru assumed that the monk would leave the hut as the others did every day, but he did not. Instead, he turned the conversation to battles in general. Once again he convinced the taiyoukai with reason - discussing past battles would give each an edge in future ones. It made sense.

And so for the third and forth day in the village, Sesshoumaru spent the daylight hours in such conversations with Miroku. In the evenings, everyone gathered in the main room of the hut for dinner, all of them sitting in a circle and speaking of some trivial daily happenings as they ate, after which they continued these conversations with empty plates before them. Maina was perfectly content to sit with the taiyoukai during dinner, usually staying by his side until the others decided to retire. He had begun to notice, though, how the humans tended to watch them when they were having a conversation. Of course, they all believed him a heartless youkai, and he had no problem with such opinions. But this opinion created an odd sort of awe in them - they seemed amazed to see that a creature such as he could hold a civil conversation at all, staring at him when they thought he didn't see them, looking at him as if he were a deaf-mute who'd begun talking all of a sudden. It was not as if the two of them discussed anything personal in the evenings - he would do no such thing anyway - but still it bothered him to know that they were eavesdropping on him and probably not even considering what he might do to them for such an offense..

He slept throughout most of each night, but no more than that. His body wasn't in a critical state anymore, so he only slept for a few hours at night, usually rising before any of the humans, but sleeping just a bit longer than his half-brother.

He had begun to get restless by the fourth day. He was accustomed to roaming his lands, not lying all day in bed. Jaken irritated him, but he at least feared him. And he could always injure the imp if he was angry. Here, no one seemed to fear him, and he was prevented from injuring any of them by the sense of honor that bid him, so long as he was their guest, not to harm them without direct provocation, despite his great desire to do so. Granted, the tiny kitsune that was always hanging around the improperly dressed miko did remind him of his Rin, but that did not help much to ease his frustration. The fox child, if he did not fear him, at least did a thorough job of avoiding him, sleeping in the room where the women stayed and riding on the miko's shoulder when she left the hut, keeping far from Sesshoumaru's place on the floor, watching the taiyoukai with a mixture of curiosity and awe as they passed. He could often hear this Shippo child crying for his surrogate mother, usually followed by some threat by Inuyasha. He would smirk at hearing this, having come to anticipate the vehement "SIT!" that almost always accompanied the kit's cries. He had seen this command at work before - the thud following it only made the images in his mind concrete. Yes, he could see in his mind's eye the idiot hanyou crashing to the ground, and idly wondered if perhaps the kitsune found the same satisfaction in it that he did.

It was to Rin that his thoughts drifted at random intervals during the uneventful days. Jaken wasn't the best of babysitters, but he knew that Maina's wolves would look after the child and would sound the alert if something was amiss in the forest. There really was no sense in worrying.. No, he wasn't worrying. He was simply trying to work out the logistics of his situation. It was preposterous to think that he was worried about anything.

But just as his dreams focused on his ancient past, his waking thoughts could not be torn for long from his recent past, particularly his memories of the recent battle. He'd replayed it in his head countless times, always scolding himself for being so careless. It was just irrational, all of it. He knew that even Naraku didn't have the power to hurt a being such as Maina, and he had overreacted in the most idiotic of ways - he'd let his guard down. Never mind why he had done that, the important thing was that he had and could not afford to let himself do the same again. Besides, the implications of the word 'why' were not pleasing to the taiyoukai. He'd decided long ago that he hated that word, and now his ill feelings toward the seemingly simple question were renewed. She was an important ally, one of the few left who was still able to hold her own in battle - the rest were ancient, even by youkai standards. And of course he couldn't afford to lose her protection of the southern border. This alone provided enough justification for his rash behavior during the battle.

But there were two sides to the coin - he had been foolish, of course, but Naraku was the one who'd injured him. A month or two ago he wouldn't have cared in the least about the arrogant hanyou, but now he'd made the mistake of making Sesshoumaru his enemy. He'd captured Rin some time ago, then proceeded to capture his ally, then had attacked him in a most dishonorable and sneaky fashion, and would have killed him if not for Tenseiga. Naraku would pay dearly for his unwise actions against the great taiyoukai of the Western lands..

For her part, Maina was having a wonderful time in Kaede's village, aside from having to put up with Sesshoumaru's behavior. She hadn't been outside her forest, or at least not this far outside it, since the last war, which was about fifty years ago. And it had been even longer since she'd had a close friend - since Miharu's death she hadn't had any regular visitors other than Sesshoumaru. Travelers were nice as temporary companions, but travel took so long that most were never seen again after that first journey through her forest, content to remain in whatever place they'd journeyed to. She'd almost forgotten how nice it felt to be able to confide in other women, though of course she'd never reveal anything deeply personal to Kagome or Sango - chiefly because her deeply personal issues involved Sesshoumaru, and she didn't want to go around behind his back talking about such matters.

She could, however, relate to them her recent conflicts without revealing too much. Both of the women she'd befriended were conflicted, not only over how to go about the inevitable confession of love each of them would have to make to her respective partner, but also because they weren't entirely sure of their feelings in the first place. They knew what they desired, but until they knew for sure of their men's feelings, they could not be entirely sure of their own - at the same time, they could not confront their men about it until they were sure of their own feelings. It was quite a vicious circle they'd found themselves in.

Maina's conflict was somewhat different. While they were, in a way, in the middle of their circles, having realized that they did have those sorts of feelings, she was just starting, even though she'd already reached a level of intimacy neither of them had with their men. She was going about all of it backwards. It hadn't bothered her this way before. Their relationship had always been of a strictly sexual nature, as had most of her previous ones. She'd had many youkai as lovers in the past, but she'd never loved any of them - that is to say, she never mated with any of them. Hell, they'd mated other youkai after her affairs with them had ended - she'd even kept in contact with some of them, gotten to know their mates and seen their children grow into adulthood. This relationship had been the same, only it had gone on for far longer than the others. But that was attributable to Sesshoumaru's personality. Not only was he a man of routine, but he had never been one to really care for anyone outside of his family. She had thought even when he was young that he would probably remain a bachelor for a very long time before taking a mate, just as Inutaishou had done. Of course, having been through what he had, she knew that when he found a mate, he would be staunchly loyal. Even if he inherited some of the perversities of his father, he was too honorable to ever act upon them. He was a man of strict self-discipline, unlike Inutaishou. He would probably force himself to remain loyal to his mate, if nothing else.

But all at once, it had become something more to her. She'd seen so many people die, lost so many of those close to her because of her own immortal life, but never had it so pained her, so… traumatized her. And this feeling was making her rethink everything in new terms, no matter how she tried to suppress those thoughts. She didn't want to dwell on these things, because they all led her down the same path - that of asking herself why. And that was a dangerous question to ask. It was bad enough to ask it within her own head, but even as she tried to suppress her subconscious answer, her new confidante decided to voice it on her fourth afternoon in the village. Placing a supportive hand on her shoulder, Kagome said what Maina would not allow her mind's voice to.

"Do you love him, Maina?" Drawing her legs up to her chest, Maina attempted to bury her thoughts in her knees, but the question lingered in her mind, demanding an answer. Sighing in defeat, she looked back up at Kagome's kind face - and actually laughed.

"These days, Kagome, I really don't know…"

AN: Oki... I have some serious issues with the latter half of this chapter.. compared with it, the first half is fine, but don't be fooled, I don't like it either. My main issue is... I hate it. I just hate it to death. (beats it with a spoon) Unfortunately, I haven't been able to fix it up any better than its current form. Grr. I swear, if it didn't have a greater duty to fulfill as far as the storyline goes, I'd just delete that section altogether. I've read it countless times, and tried to fix it every time, but it just won't let me. It's got a crappified mind of its own and wants to undo me. Someone kill the part of my brain that motivated me to type that in the first place...

(slash.. followed by the bubbly sound of flesh being burned by a certain muse's poison..)

Ow! I didn't mean that literally...

My apologies, authoress, but it is my duty here to do as you say, is it not?

...You and your rationale.

You could always order me not to obey you..

Not happening, Fluffy.

(death glare) It's Fluffy-sama to you.