Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. I want Sesshoumaru though.
IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE: This takes place before the previous chapter. I thought about posting it seperately an making it the prequel story, but I decided to post it with it. IF you want me to continue the story then you let me know and I will tell the story of how they got to be as they were in Winds of Change.
Some months before . . .
"You shouldn't stare into the sun."
Kagome jumped, surprised to hear a voice behind her. She hadn't known anyone was there. "Why not?"
"It will damage your weak human eyes."
Kagome 'harrumphed' quietly to herself and went back to her contemplation. When he sat down beside her at the base of the tree she asked "How do you do that? Sneak up all quiet like I mean. How do you do it?"
Sesshoumaru regarded her with cold amber eyes, seeming to think about whether or not to reply. Just when Kagome had given up hope that he would ever answer, he said "I do not know."
Kagome looked at him blankly for a minute, her mouth slightly agape.
Sesshoumaru gestured to her open mouth, "If you are not careful, you will catch a fly." Her mouth closed with an audible snap.
Deciding to ignore his last statement, she asked one of her own. "How do you not know?"
"I just walk. I hear the grass bending beneath my feet, the insects scurrying away. To me it isn't silent. How it is so for you, I do not know. Except to say that your ears are inferior to mine and can not pick up the sounds."
"I may not be able to hear you coming, but I am not inferior to you." He found it funny that she could look so miffed, even though she admitted to not being able to hear him approach.
He studied her silently for a moment, noting how she didn't back down from his penetrating gaze. "Perhaps, you may be right."
She sputtered "I may be right? Of course I'm right! Prove me wrong, how am I inferior to you?"
He smirked and Kagome knew that she was either going to be very depressed when he was done, or very angry. Maybe both. "You obviously know by your own admission that your sense of hearing is quite lacking, so I will not go into detail about that. Shall we discuss your eyesight next?"
When all she did was glower at him he continued. "You are nearly blind compared to most creatures that roam this earth. You see passably well during the day, but at night your vision is horrendous. As for your sense of smell-"
Kagome decided to let anger run its course, it was preferable to depression. "Okay, okay, I get it. Your senses are better than mine. That doesn't make me inferior."
"Then what does it make you?"
"It makes me a human and you a youkai. Youkai have better senses. You can see, hear, and smell things better than me, but it doesn't make you better than me. It doesn't make me or other humans inferior. The strength of your senses doesn't make you more powerful does it? If you were suddenly blinded, would your poison become any less potent?"
"Hmm. An interesting point." Kagome smiled. "But you forget an important detail." The smile wavered and then faded altogether. "Humans don't have poison either. Therefore, they are the inferior species."
Kagome exhaled heavily. "That wasn't the point I was trying to make. It isn't your abilities that matter. It's the person you are on the inside. The person you are without them. For example, if you look at me and see me only for my abilities, you see a miko. If you look past those abilities, you would see someone who cares deeply for her friends. Someone who would give their life for those she loves."
When she looked at him he could see wisdom that he wouldn't have expected from someone who had lived so short a life. "If someone were to look at you, and see beyond the title, beyond the youkai strength and abilities, what would they see?" She smiled softly at him and he couldn't help but think she looked lovely, if only for a moment, with the sun shining through the leaves of the tree that she had freed Inuyasha from. "Would they see just another impassive face in the crowd? Or would they see someone that fiercely protects those that follow him? Someone who cares for a little girl that needed to be cared for, even when they didn't need to?"
"And you, Miko, what do you see?"
She saw a startlingly beautiful creature that hid behind a mask. Someone who watched over those he cared for, and someone who believed in honor, and would die for the beliefs that he held as truth. Someone she had grown to care for in the short amount of time she had spent with him. But she couldn't tell him all of that. So instead she said "Everything I said earlier. I see that. And I see someone with honor, who keeps his word and would die for what he believes to be right."
She sighed and continued to watch the sun as it went on its daily path to set in the west. Dreaming of things that couldn't be, but wishing they were true nonetheless
She startled when he spoke again, not thinking he would wish to speak anymore. "Do you know what I see when I look at you?"
Her heart pounded against her ribcage, beating a steady rhythm and she shook her head no.
He kept his gaze on the sun and she kept hers on his face, watching him as he spoke. "I see a mortal with foolish hopes and dreams." She felt the hope that was buoying in her chest sink like a stone in water. "One who wishes that the world was at peace and tries to make it so. You see equality where others do not."
She lowered her gaze in hopes that he wouldn't see the tears brimming hers eyes, knowing that it was a lost cause. After all, he could still smell them.
"And I see someone that others should look up to." Her head snapped up and the hope returned to her eyes. "For there should be more people like her in the world."
Kagome smiled and leaned back against the tree as she watched the sun finally touch the horizon, happy to sit with the demon lord in silence. She knew then more than ever that it had been a good choice to join forces with him. He would be a major force in the fight against Naraku. And maybe he could be her friend as well.
Sesshoumaru sat lost in his thoughts long after the sun had gone down and the girl beside him had fallen asleep. She was a strange creature. She was human but not show the same fear and prejudice towards his kind that the others of her race did. She was intriguing. She dressed differently, indecently even, though she appeared very modest like other humans when it came to bathing and such. She bathed more than the others too. She was always clean.
She was surprisingly pretty for a human too. He stopped that train of thought before it went too far. But looking at her bathed in moonlight, he admitted, only because he was Sesshoumaru and Sesshoumaru was above lying to himself, that she was a sight to behold. Standing with the grace and fluidity that his demon blood granted him, he stooped to pick up the girl lying against the base of the tree.
She was lighter than he expected and he noted that he didn't mind having her this close to him. He snorted at his thoughts. He had been around Rin too long. He walked away with the human girl in his arms as the moon shone upon them, and as he watched her sleep that night in the odd bedroll he placed her in, he knew that she was the cause of a change. What change he didn't know. His brother was calmer and thought more in a fight. Was this the change he sensed? Or was it in himself?