2/8/06
For: iyficcontest – "Inupapa"
Characters: Inupapa and young Sesshoumaru
Notes: 1. Although I have shamelessly stolen the names "Touga" and "Izayoi," anything else that the third anime Inuyasha movie claims is canon is completely ignored. No, I don't think Inupapa died in a fire fighting Takemaru. Not that it makes a difference with this fic. 2. This fic is a companion to my ficlet "Combing," which is chapter 13 in this collection. It takes place after it, but you don't need to read it to understand it.
Summary: Inupapa and Sesshoumaru take a stroll.
Word Count: 649
Facing
"Who is that woman, father?" Sesshoumaru asks him one day as they stroll away from the practice grounds. Other than the occasional grunt or attacking yell from the grounds behind them, the air around them is calm.
"Which woman are you talking about?" Touga questions back. Of course he knows precisely whom his son asks about, but it wouldn't hurt to drag it out of him. None of this implicit stuff.
Sesshoumaru forms a look that Touga is sure he had gotten from his mother. There is that familiar drawing of the eyebrows, the slight wrinkle in between, the narrowed, slit-like eyes, and that mouth! Such an unhappy mouth, like a razor blade hanging just above the skin on the neck. Touga can tell that his son is trying to lighten the look, to maintain the cool, bland facial expression he had taken to adopting the past few months. Apparently, Sesshoumaru belongs to the school of thought dictating that the fearsome youkai must not show emotion. Or perhaps he thinks he looks more adult. Whichever it is, that particular look on his face somewhat amuses Touga.
"You know perfectly well which woman I speak of, father," Sesshoumaru tells him, with the barest hint of a snarl in his voice. His eyebrows slowly separate. Touga is idly impressed by his self-control. "That woman, that human, who is pregnant with your child.
"Now why do you assume it is my child?" Touga wonders, smiling innocently.
That look resurfaces, just a little, on his son's face.
"She smells like you, all the time," Sesshoumaru snaps in exasperation. It occurs to Touga that his son might be embarrassed about the subject.
Taking pity, he relents with an answer. "Well, in any case, she does happen to be carrying my child, your half-sibling."
Sesshoumaru stops walking, and Touga politely pauses mid-stride for him. His son's face has cooled away from the Look into a blank slate.
"Her name is Izayoi, and I think it will be a son," Touga muses.
"Is she the reason Mother left three months ago?" Sesshoumaru inquires, voice eerily even.
Touga frowns. Sesshoumaru's mother is not a topic he enjoyed entertaining, even in the privacy of his thoughts, much less with his son. "Your mother does what she likes," Touga answers, waving a dismissive hand. "Who am I to attempt at guessing her motives?"
Sesshoumaru brushes a piece of dust off his shoulder, mouth set in a soft line. He resumes walking.
"Don't be so sullen," Touga says. He wonders if patting his son's shoulders would be appropriate, but decides against it. His mother still combed his hair up to the time she left, but then again, Sesshoumaru was practicing with the guards, and beating them as well. "She's taken her little journeys before. Don't you remember? Once she was gone for half a year."
It is only the slit eyes this time that Sesshoumaru gives to him. He peers at Touga from the side. "You are correct, father," he remarks.
"Thank you," Touga accepts graciously.
"You are ill-prepared to predict Mother's actions, and you have always been this way," his son continues. "And you are not good at it, no matter what you think."
Touga quirks up an eyebrow. This is a new development. If it were anyone but his son, Touga would have slashed his face for insolence. But as it is, he only says, "Oh?"
Sesshoumaru withdraws his gaze, and Touga watches his eyes flicker up toward the impending clouds.
"She is not coming back," he states simply. "She will never return to you."
Touga has no answer to this. He observes Sesshoumaru's face and for a second, he thinks he sees a sliver of her dash across its surface and slip off into the air.
"I am sorry about that," Touga replies, trying to glimpse it again, and despite the past, he means what he says.