A/N-Thanks to Sehwa and In True Meanings to whom this story is dedicated...Thankyou also to my Muse Forgotten Angel...I GOT INTO MY FIRST CHOICE UNIVERSITY:):):) Now that that is over...Thanks also to kay kay who reviewed the last chapter.
Disclaimer-I don't own the concept of Inuyasha, I only own the plot of this particular story.
Eternity ch 11
Bright light pervaded her eyelids causing her to rub both eyes groggily. For a moment she couldn't remember what had happened before she had woken up but then it began to come back to her in flashes and almost dream like sequences. Souta. A snake youkai. A cliff. The sunset. Silver…falling. Waking up. It was then she realized just where she was.
The room was artfully decorated. Curtains made of a fine white silk were embroidered with silver and black thread. The bed she was lying in bore satin sheets and was one of the more comfortable ones she had ever been in. Murals covered the walls depicting many battles that had happened. A massive dog fighting a large cat…a mural of the late Inutaishou fighting against Ryuukotsusei. It was in that instant of seeing that particular painting that it all fell into place…she knew exactly where she was, there was no doubt in her mind.
"Ten months…wasted. Just to be brought back here. By him of all people." Riki said softly, almost bitterly. "What was the point?" She startled as a servant with black eyes and short black hair entered the room, bearing a tray that had on it her favorite meal-home cooked stew. The servant set the tray down and, lifting a pitcher poured a glass of milk for the young girl. "Why do you serve me? I'm nothing more than a servant myself." Snapped Riki. The serving girl merely shook her head and responded quietly "According to Sesshomaru-sama we are to treat you with all deference due to the Lady of the West." Here the young human servant bowed. "My name is Yume and I am to be your personal servant girl."
Riki could only stare. "So, anything I want…" "I am able to grant you Lady Riki." Riki walked over to Yume and looked her straight in the eye, raising an eyebrow. "Anything? Then give me my freedom. Allow me to walk out the door and pretend that you didn't see a thing." Yume looked away, unable to look into her mistress's eyes as she said "That is the one thing I cannot give you. Sesshomaru-sama said that you are to remain in your room…Milady I…" Yume's voice trailed off. Abruptly changing her tone of voice she said "I can provide companionship and anything else you might need but…I cannot do that."
Riki turned away from Yume, not wanting the young servant girl to see the pain in her eyes. Taking on a tone of voice she only used to mask her emotions she said "I really…have no use for either of these things…what I want…is to be away from this person who would have me as a replacement." Yume's black eyes fell to the ground. "Then, Milady, I am sorry I couldn't be of assistance. I'm needed elsewhere in the palace right now, if you would excuse me." She backed out of the room, not turning her back on Riki.
Riki stopped her just before she had left the room. "Yume…wait. First of all, I never want to hear you call me 'Milady' again. Reserve that title for the one who will be his mate one day-not me. My name is Riki." Yume nodded and waited to hear what Riki had ask. "Did he…say anything when he brought me in here? Were you even here when he brought me in?" Riki enquired.
Yume hesitated for a moment, just enough for Riki to know the answer before she said it. "Yes, I was. And he said…" Yume sighed. "He said 'I'll be damned before I lose her again."
These words hurt her. "Before he loses her huh? I see." Riki's chocolate eyes remained trained on the ground as she waved Yume away. "Thank you…for your help." Yume backed out of the room and out of Riki's sight. "Before he loses her…He wants her, not me. Just as it was almost a year ago. Nothing's changed." It was at this time that an idea began to form inside of Riki's brain.
Days passed. Riki was in a prison of sorts. Too afraid to let anything else happen to her, he refused to let her out of her room. While she was living in the lap of luxury, she had servants to cater to her every whim; she was restless as a caged bird. To make matters worse he didn't even come to see her once. If he had come to see her, he might have noticed what the servants did not.
She was becoming to thin. There were stretches of time, about an hour or so, after every meal was delivered that the servants left her alone at her own request. She couldn't, or so she claimed, eat when people were watching, it made her feel too uncomfortable. Being obliging servants, they all left. None saw that, every day, every meal she took maybe two or three bites before tossing the rest out of the high window from her room. This systematic starving of herself was all part of a plan to teach, in her mind, Sesshomaru the ultimate lesson for hurting her in the first place and then coming back, only to hurt her again.
About a week after Riki had been brought back from his half-brother's Sesshomaru was sitting one night in his study when, from across the castle a high-pitched scream was heard. But not so much of a scream as more of a yell. It was coming from the room where Riki was being housed. There were words mixed in with the yelling that only humans could decipher because of the distortion in the demon's ears. Soon a rhythmic pounding accompanied the screams, until-finally-Sesshomaru could understand what she was yelling. "Let me out! You cannot keep me here forever…let me OUT!" she shrieked, pounding on the solid oak door.
She kept smashing away at the door, determined to get out of the room or die trying-that way, he couldn't have her either way. The solid oak, however, wouldn't give and only wound up giving her splinters. This didn't deter her however, and she kept pounding at the door and screaming until her fists were raw and bleeding. Not enough blood. She, at this point, had made up her mind. Half crazed from grief at being broken and hurt so much at a young age, she screamed and screamed and kept pounding at the door, now leaving blood trails on the fine wood.
Across the palace, in his study, the Taiyoukai couldn't stand the bitter odor of her blood anymore. It was too much like when Rin had died…and he hadn't been able to do a thing to stop it. Pushing himself back from the desk he sat at, he prepared to go to her aid when suddenly…the air was filled with the odor of her blood. Everything in him told him to get to her now…before he lost her.
Riki was bent over, on all fours, retching. Lack of food and nutrition in the past week had made her body unable to support screaming at the top of her lungs for extended amounts of time. As she vomited, she smiled through her hacking cough at the blood that came up. That, plus the blood lost from the cuts in her hands was making her vision hazy. She pitched forward, almost unconscious on the floor. The door creaked open and she looked up into Sesshomaru's horrified gaze. "You should've let me go when you had the chance…when I was healthy…" she managed to slur out before slumping to the ground in a coma-like state.
Sesshomaru collapsed onto his knees, not moving. Thinking that she was dead, a lone tear made it's way down the demon's face…until his sensitive claw brushed a pulse point. She was still alive. It took the normally collected demon lord only seconds to get the young girl tucked into his massive bed and to summon the resident healer. The healer took one look at the ailing girl and shooed a panicked Sesshomaru out of the room, so she could care for Riki. It was after all that could be done for Riki had been done that the healer came outside to speak with Sesshomaru.
"Milord…she is very sick and malnourished. Before you can say anything…I know that you were having the very best food given to her, but as far as I can tell…she's hardly eaten anything. Not to mention the fact that she's lost quite a bit of blood. If she makes it through the night…it will be nothing short of a miracle. I'm sorry…there's nothing more I can do." Sesshomaru bore a look of absolute grief on his normally stoic face as he went inside to sit down by the bedside of his love. Her face contorted slightly and she tilted her head to the side, whispering in a barely audible voice "Who are you?"
In her subconscious world a tall Female Inu-youkai with silver hair and piercing blue eyes appeared before her. "Who are you?" Riki asked, curiosity getting the better of her. "I am the mother of the one you love." Answered the youkai gently. "But…I thought…that Kagome was Souta's mother…not that it matters because Souta is…" Riki's voice trailed off as the demoness interrupted her. "Not Souta-who is still alive by the way-but rather I am Sesshomaru's mother. My name is Kida." Piercing blue eyes rolled in their sockets. "Please…never say that Souta is your love again…it's obvious to everyone that…" Riki whispered something, causing Kida to pause and look at her.
"What's that?" Chocolate eyes, filled with pain, met Kida's. "I don't love Sesshomaru." "Oh really?" said Kida, arching an eyebrow. She pointed a clawed finger at Riki's chest which awoke a voice from within her heart that she didn't even know existed. This voice was her own, screaming at the top of it's "You love him, you're just in denial".
Riki turned to Kida and said stubbornly "Ok, even if I do love him…what of it? He's in love with someone who died many years ago." Kida smiled knowingly. "Then let the past push him into the future. I can separate Rin's essence from yours…she can go put the past to rest."
Riki considered this for a moment before nodding her consent. She felt the world spin briefly as she was split into two. The greater of the halves was herself-Riki, the girl she had become independent of the angelic being Rin. The lesser of the two halves was what remained of Rin herself. The one who was Rin herself frowned. "I need to go see Fluffy-Sama. For that is all that is currently in his head with the way he's been behaving…fluff." The spectral Rin disappeared leaving Kida and Riki behind while she journeyed into Sesshomaru's mind…and into his dreams.
In the physical world, the mighty taiyoukai held the hand of the girl he loved…while he fell into the sleep of the emotionally exhausted.
A/N-It's...(sob) almost done. after this chapter there is one more. Then i will put out an Inuyasha one shot and then...(THIS IS THE PART WHERE THE READERS GET TO DECIDE WHAT I WILL WRITE NEXT) shall it be another Inuyasha or a Naruto? u decide people...R&R