A/N: Wow, writing this is a lot different from Kagome and Inuyasha. I find it pretty addicting. It's a whole new and different world. The harshness that Ginrei is put through may seem a little…wrong. You might read it thinking OMG NO way! But according to my Art and Architecture of Japan professor last semester as nations and cultures are ranked on different things Japan is NUMBER ONE in masculinity. I'm not entirely sure what that means but for the most part we are all aware that in most cultures it is better to be a man than a woman. Sociology preaches that women are the largest minority out there, (a.k.a. WE are the largest single group that's mistreated/abused out there.) Also I write this knowing a lot of Japan's history was spent rebuilding things after someone else came through and burned it down. And in a series I highly recommend called Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn, the women in a conquered castle, relatives of the noble that ruled there before the invading army won, are expected to kill themselves out of honor. Anyway, that's just a note about where Ginrei is coming from.

Disclaimer: No I do not own any of them.

To Hinata-chan I'm not sure if you've read my other stories, but in them I explain that even if Rin has children with Sesshomaru they cannot inherit the Western Lands. So even Rin understands that Sesshomaru must at some point sire full-blooded heirs for his kingdom. The real problem here is that Sesshomaru cannot bring himself to tell her what he's done, he has not been open with her about it. Just to reiterate that Sesshomaru has not done this because Rin has been unable to carry a baby to term, though I believe psychologically that is indeed a factor for his choice to do this now. Anyway, just a note.

Meeting and Marriage

The army had moved into a valley several miles away from Nishiyori's burned out palace. Tents were pitched made of deer and horse hides for the men, the inuyoukai soldiers dispersed, some quietly leaving after telling their generals of their plans, others lingering in the shadows of the forest, contemplating the Isei province and the new land they had just conquered.

None of it was supposed to go to the Middle Lands—and that was mostly a good thing since many of the soldiers were not from the Middle Lands, they were loyal citizens of the Western Lands and they wondered just what Sesshomaru would do with the new province added to his territory.

Sasugainu and Shimofuri had commandeered a nearby temple as their quarters. They sat between statues of the Buddha and the Kannons (A/N: MS word does not recognize that word but I believe it to be spelled right. I think if I recall correctly, that's like saying a different spirit/image of the Buddha, a representation of his many different forms…there are a LOT of Kannons.) surrounded in luxurious bronze and gold. Human monks chanted in the spaces around them, hardly disturbed by the warring clans. Commanders and soldiers and many messengers, came and went through the temple meeting them in their strangest, and likely grandest audience hall.

It had only been a few days since Shimofuri had sent the human messenger to seek Sesshomaru. The messenger could barely have reached the Western Lands in that amount of time and only just passed along the message to the demon lord. And yet, near dawn, Sesshomaru appeared, apparently eager to claim his reward.

"Lord Sesshomaru," Shimofuri greeted him that morning, "I see I will not have to escort your betrothed into your lands to meet you after all." Again he wondered, narrowing his eyes at Sesshomaru, what did Rin think of all this? Humans were notoriously emotional. He doubted, with as much passion as Rin had, that she had simply nodded and allowed her mate to do this. Especially the means…the spoils of war? It was gruesome…

"Where are you keeping her?" Sesshomaru was heading straight to business, no messing around at all. His amber eyes stared with a deceiving blandness between Sasugainu and Shimofuri.

"She is safe." Sasugainu answered, "In a back room of this temple. We have locked her there and hired women to tend her."

Shimofuri cleared his throat uncertainly. "She has not spoken since the night we burned her castle."

"You have injured her." Sesshomaru did not pose this as a question, and there was no sign of emotion in his face either. That drew a small shudder out of Shimofuri.

Sasugainu hurried to answer his question, "No, not that we are aware of. We had a physician examine her. She has no broken bones, her lungs sound well enough…" he paused, throwing Shimofuri a nervous glance, "She can fight and move well enough."

Sesshomaru had noticed the look. He narrowed his eyes on Shimofuri warningly. "You fought with her?"

Shimofuri shifted slightly, tense and stiff. "She took her true form and fought me. I was wounded." He gestured at his shoulder. "I did not harm her. I was well aware that she is your bitch now." he lowered his head in a bow, feeling the sweat on his brow thickening. "Lord Sesshomaru."

There was a moment of silence that was filled with the toll of bells in the distance, counting out the early hour of eight in the morning. The monks began to chant their sutras, solemnly. Their voices filled the room with the Buddhas. Shimofuri felt suddenly sad again beneath them. He wanted to finish the entire gruesome business. And he never wanted to see the girl again.

"Lord Sesshomaru," Sasugainu spoke up again, "Your army. They have been disbanding since out latest victory. The humans have mostly stayed but the demons you have employed beneath you—they have been leaving of their own free will. This province is yours now. What, if I may ask, will you do with it?"

Sesshomaru appeared to very slowly focus his gaze on Shimofuri's uncle. His eyes were almost narrowed with annoyance. "I will develop it. Tell me, have any of Nishiyori's castles and palaces remained intact?"

"One—to the south of here. It was secured by your army a few months ago without a fight. There were only women in it, they were killed." Sasugainu answered.

"Is that where this bitch came from?" Sesshomaru asked; his voice was distinctly cold.

"No, she was in Nishiyori's innermost palace. It was where he kept his closest womenfolk."

Shimofuri pointed his gaze elsewhere while his uncle and his cousin talked. The conversation disturbed him and his weakness for that bothered him even more. There was only one thing he cared to know about Sesshomaru's plans, and when the silence came once again, letting them hear the latest chanting by the monks, Shimofuri asked it.

"What have you done with my sister, Lord Sesshomaru?" the young lord and the older lord stared at each other with the beginnings of dislike. "You have no further need of a hostage; you have gained all that we agreed upon. The Isei province is yours. You have the bitch you requested. She is unrelated to you. I hired an expert in the clan's genealogies just to be certain of that. So tell me, cousin, what of my sister?"

Sasugainu was frowning beside Shimofuri, irritated in the audacity of his nephew for having spoken so frankly to someone so powerful as Sesshomaru. "Shimofuri…" he warned, growling.

Both Sesshomaru and Shimofuri ignored him. Sesshomaru answered his cousin's question swiftly. "She is keeping Lady Rin company. I am educating her as your mother never bothered. You may visit her at any time you please, Shimofuri, as I have told you before."

"You're going to keep her with you?" Shimofuri demanded, openly frowning now.

"Yes—she is a member of my household now. One day I will release her to move freely between either household, when she is fully trained and can defend herself, of course." Sesshomaru's patience was beginning to wane. His single hand twitched once at his side and then withdrew into the sleeve of his white haori. His voice was cold, hollow. "Lead me to the bitch you have secured."

Shimofuri sneered now, openly, filled with frustration and disgust with the other demon lord. "Uncle, please take Lord Sesshomaru to see his betrothed." He offered the beaten girl a title of respect. Crossing his arms he turned his body slightly away from Sesshomaru and proceeded to have nothing more to do with him.

Sasugainu's face was tight with the underlying tensions of the room. He bowed once a little to his nephew and then rose to his feet and walked toward the temple doors. Sesshomaru moved behind him wordlessly, stiff and with a noticeable downturn of his usually expressionless lips.

There were guards following behind. They were not merely human guards either, they were inuyoukai. In the light of the day Ginrei could see that their armor was a style that reminded her of the wide Western Lands. When she looked to them they had cold, almost hostile expressions.

The maids had heated water for her. She'd had bathes almost daily now. Not even in the castle had that expense been taken every morning. Some days were dedicated entirely to studying. There was no time for a bath. But now there were only baths and sleep, and teas brewed by the monks to keep her calm and sedated. She knew, faintly, that they were waiting for something, or someone. She had been spared while everyone else was killed. It wasn't because she was deserving, or because she was more beautiful or intelligent, it was simply because of who her parents were, or weren't.

And that morning as they took her out to the bathhouse in the small village yet again, Ginrei saw the blood red halo in the sunrise and she knew the time had come. Her fingers shook when she handled the soaps. The women that had been hired to be her maids handled it for her, scrubbing and humming quietly to themselves. Ginrei could feel nothing but a looming doom, waiting for her just outside the bath.

They presented her with the usual bland robes—on the battlefield there was nothing elaborate. The women tied her kimono closed, smoothed the wrinkles. They combed out her hair in the moist, damp bathhouse, and then coiled it and pinned it high on her head. They pressed fresh, flowery scented oils into her skin. She could only frown and try not to cry at the headache they gave her.

In a bronzed mirror by the doorway Ginrei caught sight of herself and stopped, fighting the maids as they pulled at her, trying to drag her into the frigid winter morning air. Her face was clean of the grit that the fire must have left on her. She could see strange, bright white line over each cheek, under each eye. Marks of her demon heritage. The blood that had splattered on her face the night of the fire had been washed away. Her nose could only find the scents of the bathhouse. Warm, moist, comforting.

But inside she felt no comfort. She wished she'd died with Kanbi and her sisters, or suffocated in the fire and never had to go beyond it, wondering why she had been spared and what for…why she should be dishonored as she was, pulled away from her mother, her sisters, all of her protective male kin…

Though the face in the mirror was young and healthy and even beautiful—Ginrei saw nothing good there. She turned her eyes away, feeling how heavy they were with her shameful, unshed tears. The human women chattered around her, reaching out to wipe away the tears, saying she would mess up her make up and wash away the scented oils they'd perfumed her hair and body with. Ginrei pushed them away, walking on ahead of them, resigned to returning to her cruddy little room in the back of the temple, to hearing the monks tolling the bells and chanting the sutras endlessly…

The inuyoukai guards were leering at her in their own quiet way. They had seen the fuss about her tears; they could still smell them on her. Perhaps they were disgusted with her for not having died with the rest of her kin in the fire and the execution. She slipped past them, trying to hold her head high.

She was on her way back to the temple, the maids trailing behind her, clucking like hens, when she spotted several inuyoukai ahead of her—two of them. They were lithe and tall, dressed in armor and wearing rich, flowing kimono. They were both fair like she was, fairer than her actually. Almost white-haired. One she faintly recognized as having seen before, one of the generals that had lead the army that massacred her family. The other was foreign to her and—more powerful. He had armor that she again recognized as being from the Western Lands…

The maids flocked around her, having caught up, and—seeing the approaching inuyoukai—immediately fell to the snow on their knees, bowing. Ginrei remained standing, fighting the sickness that suddenly swelled within her. She hunched her shoulders, not because she was possessed by the urge to bow to these lords, but because she felt as if she might puke.

The demon lord with the western armor waited just behind the other that she recognized. She could almost pinpoint who he was, this general that had helped murder her family and burn her castle. He was from the Middle Lands…she searched her mind as he approached but no name came to her.

The lords paused, there was a moment of tremendous awkwardness as both realized that Ginrei was not about to bow to them. There could be no nice, neat, formal introductions. Ginrei lost interest in the lord with the Western armor; her only desire was to lash out at the lord from the Middle Lands for his part in her family's defeat and dishonor. She tried to run through the provinces in her mind, their leaders. Taikokajin, the crazed female leader of the Nanka province, Nishiyori of course of the Isei…the other two escaped her mind—but wait, Taikokajin had been dying and out of her mind. Who was her heir? Ginrei had never paid attention to the politics, and not she wished she had.

At last the moment of tension ended when the lord from the Middle Lands gestured to her with one hand. "This is the bitch." He was frowning helplessly, "She hasn't spoken—we don't know her name…"

Ginrei bit her lips and fought to hide her rage from them. Part of her mind reeled. Is this really happening? Am I really the only one that's been left alive? Am I really here before these strange demons being called "bitch" like I'm nothing more than…

And then it hit her, full force, like a fist in the face. Nothing more than breeding stock. She knew why she had been spared. She knew why they had gone from girl to girl, asking one question that most of the girls failed, all but her…

She looked to the two lords, first to the one from the Middle Lands and then, slowly, to the lord from the west. He was staring at her with a narrowed gaze; his eyes were an alarming amber.

It was then that she knew who he was—golden eyes. He's Sesshomaru, the great lord Inutaisho's heir…

The two realizations made her sway, losing her balance. New tears sprang to her eyes as the fresh shame, the fresh stinging insult, rose to the fore. I am their object, to be bought and traded. She stumbled, falling to her knees as if she was bowing, but really she was full of a despairing rage, a helpless bitterness. Her clawed fingers clutched and the snow as the first tears fell, careening away from her and melting into the snow invisibly.

She didn't see the grimace on both lords' faces. Sesshomaru spoke first, "She's fair. You have the wrong girl."

"No." Sasugainu replied shortly, "Lord Shimofuri hired a scholar, an expert in genealogies. He assured us that she is unrelated. Her father was Seiyo, not Nishiyori like all the others. Seiyo was unrelated to you…?" Seiyo was dead now, of course, but it was still a relevant question.

"That is correct." Sesshomaru answered blandly. "But what of her mother's side?"

"Those roots go back to the mainland as I understand it." Sasugainu frowned, "She certainly doesn't smell like a cousin of ours."

The girl was still shaking, cowering seemingly beside her maids. It was pitiful, Sesshomaru thought, and yet something stirred within him. He thought, disturbingly, of Rin when he'd first seen her as nothing more than a girl, frightened and still mourning the loss of her family. This inuyoukai girl was much the same, young, fragile, and in mourning.

And in spite of himself, Sesshomaru had a soft spot for that. He searched inside, digging for his coldest thoughts, distancing himself from the inuyoukai girl and her plight.

"I have brought gifts for her." he told Sasugainu boredly. "There are fine robes that she may wear at the ceremony."

Sasugainu dared to raise an eyebrow and he smirked, quirking one lip with amusement. "Lord Sesshomaru wastes no time."

Sesshomaru threw Shimofuri's idiot uncle a glare. "If you speak again with such disrespect I will have you killed."

Sasugainu blinked and promptly bowed, mumbling swift apologies. "Many apologies, my lord." He deferred to Sesshomaru easily, even amiably, despite the other demon's harshness.

Sesshomaru was again staring at the shaking girl. "Get her inside. Have her dressed and ready for the ceremony by midday. We will be leaving immediately after."

"Yes, Lord Sesshomaru." Sasugainu bowed low and stayed that way until the lord of the Western Lands had walked away, his neat boots barely crunching on the crusty snow.

She was ready for the ceremony much sooner than midday. The maids had already washed her, covered her in perfumes, and put her hair up. When Sasugainu brought them the rich silken kimono robes Sesshomaru had brought as gifts for the marriage ceremony, they hurriedly undressed Ginrei out of her simple robes and helped her into the new ones. It had multiple layers and was very thick. Ginrei was thankful for that, despite its heavy weight.

Throughout the day she kept her eyes downcast, helpless but enraged. Occasionally shameful tears coursed down her cheeks and the maids scolded her. She turned her face away from them, wiping the tears away with her own hands, even though it smeared the makeup they were trying to decorate her with. Ginrei felt as if it was al happening to someone else. It was all a horrible nightmare.

She would wake up at any moment and find Kanbi, Giniro, Chiwa, Ransou, her mother, all of her littlest sisters no more than pups, all of her cousins…

But the day wore on and she never opened her eyes to find anything new and different than the nightmare her life had become overnight.

Before they painted her lips they offered her rice, trying to get her to eat. It was bland human food, Ginrei turned it away. There was no hunger in her stomach, though she had hardly eaten in days. The monk brought her more of the calming tea. She tried to refuse it but he insisted. He was a kind old man and she had grown attached to him faintly. She took the tea and drank it all. She tried to find the words to thank him but nothing came.

The sun rose higher outside the wooden walls of her tiny room. The maids painted her lips, just the lower one, to give her lips a distinctive pout. Ginrei scowled at them as they bustled around. She brushed fingers across her lips, across her face, mussing the make up they had worked on so diligently. They fussed over her, cursed her under their tongues. She was glad to cause them trouble, though they didn't deserve her difficulty. They were innocents, hired to help the inuyoukai lords do this horrible dishonor to her, and yet rebelling in the childish, spiteful way that she could, pleased her.

When they finally left her alone for a short time, Ginrei stared down at the rich kimono the lord from the west had provided her. She sneered at it, considered tearing it apart with her claws…and then sighed. It was not the kimono's fault that she happened to be unrelated to the word of the Western Lands. It was Fate that had seen to it that things happened in just that way. It could have been Ginrei sitting beside Kanbi or any one of Ginrei's sisters. They had all met the same single prerequisite for survival. But Fate had seen to it that Ginrei was the survivor, Ginrei was the one.

For a moment she wondered if perhaps Sesshomaru would prove to be caring, a noble, caring husband who would be gentle with her. He might not love her, and would never expect it of her either, but they might live cordially. She thought of becoming a mother to his pups…

Her stomach tightened; there was a sour taste in her mouth. She would never be so lucky! She was a spoil of war, a funny thing for the inuyoukai lords to leer at and chuckle over. How dare they? She thought; Uncle Nishiyori and Father were good leaders, wise and strong. They would have married me off in due time, after educating me, training me. They knew my worth, they respected all of their daughters…Nishiyori and Seiyo had had many, many daughters in their time, and they had made each a powerful figure before sending them to arranged marriages.

Though Ginrei did not know it, one of her older cousins was married to one of the generals that had helped murder her kin. Sasugainu's wife and mate was one of Nishiyori's granddaughters.

She thought of her true form, how it had come to her in her moment of terror and rage on the night her life had been turned upside down. If she could take that form again, run through the temple and escape…

Closing her eyes, she reached inside herself, looking for the inner beast. It was there, waiting. But when she tried to rouse her the beast was unresponsive. Dizziness swarmed in Ginrei's head, but the girl kept trying. Finally she tipped over, knocking her head on the floor and crying out. There was a smudge of red from her lips on the floor, a dash of white from her painted face. She sneered at it, baring her fangs.

The monk had given her the tea steadily. She had scented the herbs and felt their calming effect, but she hadn't dreamt that they might be drugging enough to stop a transformation. She sat very still, listening to the walls of the temple creak and groan as a wind started up outside. And then the sounds became footsteps, thumping over the floorboards.

Ginrei rose to her feet, her spine stiffening. One of the maids opened the door, admitting a servant carrying a tray with sake and cups on it. Behind him came the old monk that she had thought of—previously—with fondness. Now she turned her eyes away from him, bitterly. Beyond these humans there were the inuyoukai lords. Ginrei saw the lord from the west, regal and cold with his pale skin and frosty hair. For a moment she admired the purple-red slashes on his face, demon marks.

And then the demon in front of the western lord caught her eyes. He was younger by far, and as his scent wafted to her she recognized it doubly. Not only was he the male that had fought with her when she had claimed her true form under stress, but he was also a cousin of hers. It was distant, but the relation was there. She could even see it in his darker features, his handsome blue-gray eyes, the turquoise stripes on his cheeks. She remembered who he was then, Taikokajin's heir. He looked nothing like her but for the color of the markings on his cheeks…

She watched as both the young heir and the older Sesshomaru entered the room stiffly. They were all cleaned and dressed more elaborately than she had seen so far. Clearly it was time for the marriage ceremony.

She felt abruptly sick. It was a moment she had always doubted would truly come, and yet here it was. She looked down at the lavish robes she was dressed in again; at the sake on the tray with the cups…this was never how it was supposed to happen in her dreams!

"Sit, child." the human monk ordered, not unkindly. His face was warm and sympathetic.

Where were her relatives to represent her? Where was her mother in attendance, where were her brothers, her father, her cousins? She felt warm wet touches running down her cheeks, pooling at the corners of her lips. She sat as the monk commanded and the chanting began, the blessings. How can they bless this ceremony? It is nothing but cursed!

Shimofuri had taken a spot behind her, and she realized with a jolt that he was representing her dead family. She glared at him, aware that he had helped kill the ones he was now standing in for. The young lord refused to look her in the eye, but Ginrei felt a thrill of victory when she noticed his hands in his lap were fidgeting nervously.

When she looked back to Sesshomaru she started, realizing for the first time that he had only one arm…but she stared a little too long as her husband to be made himself comfortable, sitting almost knee to knee with her. His golden eyes narrowed with disdain as he realized what she was looking at. Ginrei flinched away from the press of his knees against her own. Why do you flinch? Her thoughts tormented her, you will need to share his bed tonight and every night afterward…

She felt sick again.

The monk's chanting had reached a certain place that had signaled a change in the ceremony. Sake was poured. The acrid scent made Ginrei nearly choke. Sesshomaru eyed her like a predator, coldly, calculating, the entire time. She could barely look at him. When the servant handed her the cup full of sake her hands quivered and shook. Sake spilled a little onto her lap, damping the kimono.

As she set the cup down on the tray again, hands and fingers still quivering, Sesshomaru looked at that moment more as if he wanted to kill her rather than marry her. Ginrei hated the disappointment and fear she felt at such a thought. What should she have expected? It was probably wiser to wish for death. She stared at his side, at his sword, wondering how it would feel to die, and faintly she remembered the split second when she had believed that she was dead…

And then there was another cup of sake, and another. She felt tipsy, sick and queasy. The ceremony pained her, she hated it. She thought happily that it would soon be over, and then dreaded it. When it's over I am his. The golden eyes reminded her of a hawk, conniving, cold, and hungry. This isn't how it was meant to be…

She felt the tears start up again. Sesshomaru's form wavered in her blurred vision. The monk's chanting was momentarily something different, a far off, sweet dream. Her mother, stroking her hair as she fell asleep with the other women in the palace. Her mother singing a song about all the different kinds of love in the world, of all the beautiful things in the world. Ginrei latched onto that dream and felt her body grow heavy as sleep consumed her, freeing her of her problems.

Exhaustion took her, letting the dream sluice over her like rainwater, and take her away…

She fell forward into Sesshomaru's lap, unconscious.

A/N: And that's a wrap! Here's the clip for the next chapter because I happen to have it written:

"You may not." Sesshomaru responded, blandly again. He felt her hurt gaze on him but he ignored her and once again started to eat. The rice was dry and tasteless on his tongue.

Rin sighed, slowly. "Maybe Sesshomaru-sama should consider giving Tsukiyume her request."

He didn't even bother dignifying Rin's request with words. He threw her a glare over the rim of his cup as he drank to wash down the thick, lumpy rice. He needed to find their chef and fire him.