What Would You Give?
Based loosely on the Rumpelstiltskin tale; A 100 years is a blink of an eye for a demon, Inuyasha and Sesshomaru are intent on keep their mates alive and well no matter what the cost. Kag/Sess Inu/San
Chapter Two: How you have grown
"Aren't you the cutest little thing?" The voice was that of bells, soft, sweet and soothing.
"I swear you might become a beautiful demon one of great skill and power." The voice continued as the six year old heir to the western lands sat near a river crying.
His mother had just passed in to the next life and he Sesshomaru who had loved his mother was devastated. So much in fact seeing his father treat his mother's death as a chore had ran off. It had been about a week and now tired, hungry and all alone Sesshomaru did not mind this beautiful women stroking his slivery mane and giving him words of praise.
Slipping her long nimble fingers under his chin she forced the young western prince to look at her, tears fell from his golden eyes and the women gently rubbed them away using her thumb. She the traced his crescent mark on his forehead and smiled.
"There, there what ever could make a strong young demon like you cry?" She asked she picked him up and Sesshomaru who was to sleepy to fight her off let her. She started to walk.
"My mother…she…she is dead." More tears came as he closed his eyes.
The women uttered a single word, "Sleep" and Sesshomaru did just that.
Sesshomaru had no idea how long he had been asleep but when he woke up he wished to the gods he had not. The stench of the cave assaulted him and he had to fight not to gag.
The dim lighting from the torches illuminated the place enough for him to see. The cave he was in was covered in blood and bones from all types of demons and humans, a huge cauldron was set in the middle of the cave where above it was a cage suspended by a thick chain, inside were the skeleton remains of human children. Sesshomaru noticed he was sitting on a stone slab piled with the furs and skins of demons and humans and next to him sat the woman with a cynical smile on her face.
"Tell me young prince what would you give if I gave you back your mother?" She asked her long golden hair falling to the side as she tilted her face, her red eyes cold and calculating.
"Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha yelled from his perch on a high tree. To the hanyou it felt like they had been walking in circles for days on end and he was getting tired of it. "Where the hell are we?"
Sesshomaru did not answer instead continued to follow along the river and not look back. Inuyasha made a small growl but jumped down from his perch and followed behind.
"This is a load of crap." Inuyasha mumbled but loud enough for Sesshomaru to hear.
They continued to walk in silence and the occasional insult and order thrown to break up the monotony. Then suddenly Sesshomaru took a graceful leap over to the other side of the masses river and took a delicate sniff of the air.
"This way." Sesshomaru said and Inuyasha nodded taking in the sent of the air and finding it to be stale old blood.
"Are you sure this thing can help?" Inuyasha asked covering his sensitive nose with his hand to lessen the stench as they walked on through the thickening forest.
Sesshomaru stopped his even pace and turned to his younger brother with a look that was not cold just empty. "I sincerely hope so." He turned toward the smell and continued his even pace as if he had never stopped.
Twenty minutes later the two Inu-brothers stood outside a cliff wall. There was no opening but the stench that they had followed since the river was pungent and Sesshomaru knew there was a way in the cliff.
"Well if there aren't no ways in then I'll make one!" Inuyasha said unsheathing the Tetsusaiga and getting into a fighting stance when Sesshomaru stepped in front of his brother.
"Hey what the hell you doing?" the Hanyou yelled thinking his brother had gone mad but Sesshomaru just pointed to a large tree behind Inuyasha where a dark smoke almost like that Naraku used to make hovered in the tree.
"What the hell is that?" The Hanyou questioned now turned around and standing next to his brother and his grip on Tetsusaiga not at all relaxed.
"It's what we have been looking for." Sesshomaru answered stoically his honey gold eyes never leaving the dark purple smoke.
"My, my have you grown Prince Sesshomaru or should I be calling you Taiyoukai of the west now?" a childlike voice asked from the smoke and it slithered from the branches of the dead tree to ten feet away from the brothers and circled around a bolder before the smoke began to take form.
The smoke had change to a female child with long blue hair and elf like ears and an unearthly color of green eyes, the child smiled showing her fangs of pearl white as she sat on the bolder. Her kimono was white with black flowers and swans floating around the hem and shoulders, she was totally innocent looking that Inuyasha was not sure Sesshomaru was thinking clearly.
After a few moments of silence the child spoke again, "Still not the huge talker I see." The creature stood up and skipped over to the brothers but stopped short of being to close to the Tetsusaiga.
"You come asking for my help again ne?" The creature asked going around the brothers and straight into the cliff wall which melted away at her approach reviling the entrance to the cave, she turned to the brothers. "You coming or not?" she continued to skip not wanting for an answer but she did not need one as the brothers began to follow.
The smell of the cave almost made Inuyasha vomit but he did not want to seem any weaker to his older brother so he held the bile back although he was pretty sure Sesshomaru was doing no better then him.
The cave was just how it was when Sesshomaru was brought as a child only more bones and several rotting carcasses of demons littered the place. The child hopped on the stone slab and sat down a smile on her face as she looked the two brothers over in the dim lighting.
"You are mated now." The creature stated her tone flat and board although she kept smiling. "Your mates however are human; I know the smell anywhere, A bit low for you Taiyoukai."
"Enough of your insolence, you know why I have come here can you do what I will require of you or not!" the Taiyoukai said his tone was of complete impatience. Inuyasha ears went against his skull he could tell Sesshomaru was beyond pissed.
"I can but like before what would you give? Nothing is for free Taiyoukai and what you gave me last time is not what I am interested in nor is it enough to keep both of your mates alive." The child turned into smoke and moved in a deformed cloud to a cauldron in the center of the cave and this time reformed as a young fox maiden a lot like Shippo only taller, full of grace and very odd coloring.
"Whatever it takes to keep my mate, ward, and brother's mate alive I will pay." Sesshomaru replied stoically and Inuyasha just nodded to the creature showing that the price required he was willing to pay as well.
"Are you sure of that Taiyoukai and Inuyasha?" the creature moved close to the brothers and turned the bottom half of her body to smoke and encircled the brothers; Inuyasha was about ready to attack when Sesshomaru held out his hand in a message to hold still.
The Taiyoukai merely nodded and the creature moved away from them back to the cauldron.
"Very well at least this time you should get your bargains worth." And with that the creature disappeared.
"What did she mean?" Inuyasha asked but Sesshomaru growled slightly in order to drop the subject, Inuyasha did and the left the cave to wait outside as the smell was too strong to hold out against for long.
Few things did Sesshomaru regret in his long life and one was ever making his first bargain with the creature in the cave but when he looked at his first meeting of the creature subjectively he could find no one to blame but himself. He let the memory pass and went back to waiting and listen to his young brother whine about the smell.
It was night fall when the creature reappeared this time as little boy dressed in a white kimono and deep red hair and red eyes and fangs. In his chubby little hands he held out three vials. The liquid inside was black as Indian ink and odorless Inuyasha spoke first.
"If you think I'm going to serve that to my mate you got another thing comin'!" Inuyasha shouted over to the young child but the child laughed and pulled a knife from his kimono sleeve and attacked Inuyasha cutting him on the cheek, and then vanished in smoke before reappearing in the dead tree.
The child let a few drops of Inuyasha's blood fall into the vial and the black liquid turn a soothing white.
"You little shit come back here!" Inuyasha growled holding his cheek, although as he pulled his hand away there was no blood.
"Big baby." The child scoffed in a voice that did not belong to an little boy but a man and then once again vanished and reappeared before the Taiyoukai, the creature bowed his head and with a tone of fringed respect spoke again, "My lord if you please." The creature held the vials up but only reached Sesshomaru at the waste as the child was no bigger then his ward Rin.
Sesshomaru with his talon cut his index finger and let three drops of his blood fall into each vial and then licked the cut in a manner that seems completely dignified. The creature then went back to the tree taking a seat at the base and sealed the vials.
"How come you get asked?" Inuyasha complained and his brother ignored him as he was giving his full predator attention to the creature.
The creature stood up and turned into an eagle demon and took to flight and hovered over the brothers smiling at them. Holding the three vials in (a now her) talon claws, the wind whipped around her long golden hair, she spoke in a soothing voice, the same voice that Sesshomaru first head at the river when he was a child.
"My lords you both have nothing I want at this time however when the time comes and at my choosing you will repay your debt agreed?" The creature asked and both the brothers knew that once they agreed there would be no going back but for their mates they would risk what ever price to be paid.
They nodded their heads in union.
The creature smiled and tossed the vials to the brothers who caught them effortlessly.
"Till the next meeting my lords." The creature turned to some and evaporated a laughter filling the space around then silence.