A/N: My boyfriend leaves for his college today, to set up his dorm room, learn how to run his own Bible Study group, and minister at the fair up there. I'm a little nervous about it all. Last Friday my boyfriend went out to eat with these two girls that were, I guess, begging him to go with them. One of them has supposedly suffered a break up with a friend of his. My boyfriend really wanted to see his friend, but his friend always blew him off. These girls wanted to see him though, and he went out to lunch with them and then picked me up a short time later and told me about all this…well a version of it anyway. He claims, and it seemed real, that these girls just bothered him deeply. One of them tried to tell him that he should be single and he said he told her, "I have a girlfriend and that's not going to change." Though he told me about it, and though neither of these girls go to his college, it all understandably makes me nervous. Sometimes being in love, being in a relationship, sucks…a lot. Anyway, enough about me…
Disclaimer: No….no ownage.
Last Chapter: Rin was in labor, worried that she wouldn't survive. She made Yuki the miko get Sesshomaru for her. Surprisingly, Sesshomaru came into the room indeed and stayed until their daughter was born.
Saya
Tsukiyume didn't stay with Miroku and Sango very long. As they climbed out of the coastal lands and into the plateau that marked the beginning of the Middle Lands, their paths diverged. Miroku and Sango would skirt north, traveling along the border between the Middle Lands and the coast and into the mountains where the old demon slayer's village was.
They had begun a new community of demon slayers there. It grew slowly at first, but as Miroku and Sango's reputation as a team spread and blossomed, it had begun to attract attention. Spiritual priests and mikos, other demon slayers of all kinds. The village that had raised Sango up as a girl could never be remade truly, but it was still, nevertheless, something for the couple to be immensely proud of.
Shippo parted ways with Miroku and Sango as well, choosing to escort Tsukiyume until she'd reached the safety of her brother's castle.
The journey took several days at a leisurely pace. Shippo and Tsukiyume took to staying out in the nights, under the stars—until it began to rain of course. At last they reached the castle town Sakaime. It was a border town, caught between the Isei, the Nanka of the Middle Lands, and the Western Lands. The palace inside the town was often controlled by different warlords for various purposes, but the people of the town considered themselves as part of the Middle Lands. When there were no other lords residing in their midst, they would be loyal to Shimofuri and Sasugainu.
Sakaime, however, was different from when Tsukiyume had last entered it. The town was quiet and ominous. Humans were skittish and watchful. When they spotted Shippo and Tsukiyume—who were both noticeably not human—they hurried away, hiding in their homes or darting away into alleys. The businesses and marketplaces were mostly closed. When Shippo attempted to speak to one man, peddling fresh fruit on the street, he jabbered in Japanese that was so accented he was nearly impossible to understand. Shippo gave up and continued walking where Tsukiyume instructed.
They reached the wall guarding the palace. There were guards before it, watching Tsukiyume and Shippo approach suspiciously. As they came closer, one of the men gestured to his partner and muttered something under his breath. If Tsukiyume and Shippo had been human, they never would've heard the words, but with their acute ears, both hanyou and kitsune heard it clearly as the guard spoke. "What do we have here? Defectors?"
"Defectors?" Shippo blinked, stopping short and glancing to Tsukiyume. "What are they talking about?"
Tsukiyume scowled. "They must think I'm a boy too." For the journey she had tied her hair back messily and her clothes had deteriorated. It would be hard, from a distance, for humans to tell her gender. Youkai hair lengths didn't matter as far as gender went of course, whether the men had seen Tsukiyume's hair or not didn't matter.
"But…defectors?" Shippo's face twisted with consternation, "What are we defecting from? We're just kids…"
Tsukiyume's ears flattened, she pursed her lips, and strode forward without hesitation. The guards stiffened up, watching her and waiting. When she'd come a few steps closer, Tsukiyume stopped and shouted to the men, "I am Tsukiyume, Lord Shimofuri's sister."
The guards were unimpressed. The same man that had whispered the first time, now shouted openly at her. "And what proof might you have?"
"Is Lord Shimofuri inside?" Tsukiyume asked, still shouting.
The guard guffawed obnoxiously. "Shimofuri is in the Nanka, hiding. If he was here, I'd say he had a death wish."
Tsukiyume paused, frowningly, trying to think about what their words meant. Shimofuri might've chosen not to inhabit this castle anyway, but the guard's words told her that something massive had happened since she'd last been in Sakaime.
There was a small puff of air on her cheek that ruffled her hair and popped her ears. She turned, blinkingly, and saw that Shippo had appeared at her side. They faced the gate and the guards now side by side. "What are those idiots saying?" he asked.
"My brother isn't here. Something's happened to this town…"
"Well," Shippo smirked, "We'll just have to ask them."
Before Tsukiyume could as much as blink, Shippo had disappeared again, sending her ears popping and her hair flying. He reappeared between the guards, but he wasn't Shippo anymore outwardly, though he still had a tawny fox tail curled behind him. He stood between the guards as a beautiful woman in a short kimono that hung open a little too much at the front, exposing the roundness of breasts.
Tsukiyume covered her face with her hands, caught between horror and embarrassment.
The men were startled, they moved backward, gapingly. "What the…?"
"Hi." Shippo crooned, looking between them. His voice impersonations had gotten better with age. Though Tsukiyume refused to look at him, she could still hear him clearly and his voice was high pitch and demure, helpless. "I'm a little lost and confused, I'm afraid. I need some big strong men to tell me what's going on around here and…where I should go to find Lord Shimofuri?"
The men were dazed, baffled. But also adding to their befuddlement was the fact that, with age and experience, Shippo's transformations had gained a sort of hypnotic factor. In the past he needed the element of surprise to convince his enemies that he was really whatever shape he'd taken on. Now he could convince anyone, even if they'd actually seen him magically appear before them, that he was real. With every passing year he was growing more and more powerful.
The man that had been mostly quiet before bought the deception first. "Well my lady, Lord Sesshomaru's army came through here and into the Hokubo about a week ago. A contingent was left here—us, I mean, a human contingent—to watch over this spot." He grinned stupidly, his eyes drifting to the halfway exposed breasts while physically he gestured out toward Tsukiyume, "If that thing out there really is Shimofuri's sister we'll take her hostage and hand her over to our superiors."
"Is that so?" Shippo replied in a high, sing-song voice. "What would that Sesshomaru do without big strong, loyal men like you around…"
"Akio!" the other man hissed, "Shut your trap! We don't know…" he shook his head, swaying dizzily. "Don't you hear the way this bitch talks?" he faced Shippo directly with a glare, "Lord Shimofuri? And she gave Lord Sesshomaru no title at all, as if she knows him personally! Not even his wife would do that!" he grabbed Shippo by the shoulders, "Just where are your loyalties, lady?"
Shippo grinned nervously. "Gotta go!" he vanished with a pop from the guard's grasp and reappeared at Tsukiyume's side, still wearing his disguise. "Run Tsuki!"
They turned back the way they'd come and ran into the street. The heavy footsteps of one of the guards followed after them, as did his shouts for help. Fortunately for Tsukiyume and Shippo, the man was only human of course, they outran him swiftly and mere minutes later, panting harshly, they were outside Sakaime, looking back on it.
"Phew! I'm glad we got out of that one!" Shippo was still grinning and wearing his disguise. He was bent over and holding his knees. The breasts he'd assumed hung nearly out of his skimpy kimono.
Tsukiyume, also panting, turned her face away though she was laughing. She was fairly certain that Shippo had kept the disguise purposefully to see her response, and to make her laugh. "Shippo! I can see your…"
"Oh!" he stood upright and wiggled and the woman's form rippled on him like water before falling away like a layer of dust. He sneezed once and then wiped his nose with one arm, sniffling. "I think I'm allergic to men. Those guards had bad breath."
"Please tell me you didn't kiss them!" Tsukiyume laughed.
The kit grinned at her, though he was blushing as red as Inuyasha's haori. "Well, you should've been watching to save me if one of them had tried!"
They set out on the road again, noting how few other travelers there were. "Sesshomaru must've gone to war." Tsukiyume remarked, darkly. "Rin made him promise but…it was too late." Her ears drooped; her face was dark with worry and fear for her brother.
"Those guards seemed to think Shimofuri was still alive." Shippo told her, quietly. "I think that's true. I think Sesshomaru kept his promise. The army might've moved out, but the countryside isn't on fire or anything…"
Tsukiyume sighed heavily and looked up at the overcast, gray sky. It was always threatening to rain lately. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance, echoing off the trees and hills. "I hope you're right, Shippo. Without my brother…what would happen to me? I'd be all alone…" she sniffled, fighting tears at the thought of losing the last of her family.
"You still have an uncle, right? And…" he moved closer to her and nuzzled into her side, taking her hand. "I'll always be here, you're fun to travel with, and I love traveling."
She smiled thoughtfully and nodded slowly. "Thanks Shippo."
The miko worked around the room, seemingly forgetting that Sesshomaru was there. Rin might've forgotten too, for the first time in her entire life. Only the new life suckling at her chest mattered. The world had shrunken down to her daughter's tiny, but powerful, mesmerizing presence. Sesshomaru watched his mate lift shaking fingers to stroke their child as she suckled, he saw the quavering, but ecstatic smile spread widely over her face.
The afterbirth passed and the miko hurriedly dealt with it, wrapping it up with the other bloodied rags. She left the room to remove it from the whole of the castle. When she returned Sesshomaru still hadn't moved from his spot, though Rin was beginning to drift into sleep or unconsciousness. The baby had stopped suckling and had fallen asleep with her mother's nipple still in her little mouth.
Rin barely stirred as the miko took the baby from her and closed her robe to protect her modesty. The futon was ruined, soiled with birth fluids and blood, but for now Rin would be too exhausted to move, so she would have to sleep on it. She continued to bleed, and would for some time. It was entirely possible that she could die, losing too much blood and strength from the birth.
Yuki held the baby for a time, uncertainly. Rin fell into a deep, motionless sleep, perhaps never to wake again. Labor was an unpredictable thing. It might kill in the midst of the child's birth, it might kill immediately after from bleeding, or it might kill with infection days, or weeks later. There was no way to tell Rin's fate yet, and even the child, no matter how strongly she suckled and breathed now, could die abruptly in her sleep. Babies were so fragile, so new—as a miko she'd always been told that they could easily shirk off their physical selves and return back to the watery spirit world, back into the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
At last she rose to her feet and moved cautiously to sit before Sesshomaru. She bowed awkwardly, trying not to jostle the infant. "Lord Sesshomaru."
Though she didn't see his face, she did see Sesshomaru's knees before her move, shifting slightly on his haunches, as if coming awake out of a dream or from sleep. "What of Rin?" he demanded, sounding strangely as if she had offended him somehow.
"She has finished the labor, my lord." The baby in the miko's arms, alarmed at the change in position and still very new to gravity, made small mewling sounds, warning the adults that she was perhaps about to cry.
"She will live?" He demanded, impatiently.
Yuki risked glancing up at him. The nighttime was beginning to fade away. The nearest window brought in bluish light to suffuse the room and color the inuyoukai lord's face. His expression was tense, tight, but he wasn't looking at her, he was staring past her at Rin's motionless body. It wasn't impatience so much as it was worry, she realized.
"The bleeding has yet to stop, my lord."
His lips narrowed, but his eyes softened. "She will live." He repeated, but this time the words weren't a question, but a statement. Yuki wondered how certain he was, and if her life still depended on both infant and mother surviving the ordeal.
"My lord…" Yuki shuffled forward until she was nearly within arm's length, and then extended the blanketed bundle toward him. "The child…"
When she was set on the floor away from the miko's body heat, the baby began at once to wriggle and squirm. Tiny fingers pawed at the air, searching instinctually for something to grasp onto. She began to make choking noises that grew steadily into cries. Sesshomaru pulled his gaze away from Rin and slowly lowered it to the helpless shape at his feet.
Yuki watched stiffly, remembering Rin's words before she'd given birth: "He's never wanted a child with me." Those words had made Yuki hesitant in bringing the baby to the inuyoukai. What if Rin had been telling the truth? What if Sesshomaru had no interest in the child, even perhaps wished it hadn't survived? Would he kill it? At the same time she was thrown into doubt—he had told her if Rin or the baby died that she would die as well for failing. His behavior currently indicated little interest in the baby…
The baby was crying in earnest now, long indrawn breaths released in loud wails. The child's cries drew no motion from Rin. She had fallen into unconsciousness, lost to the world and to her brand new daughter and awkward, estranged mate.
Sesshomaru eyed the infant almost as if she were something that might need to be squashed, a possible threat, something that offended him. Yet that expression rippled on his face, changing as the crying increased.
Yuki, growing nervous at the crying, reached back to take the infant into her arms.
"Do not touch her." Sesshomaru ordered her, gruffly. His voice had grown thick.
Obediently Yuki apologized and scooted back from the baby and from the inuyoukai. She glanced over her shoulder at Rin, worriedly. When she looked back, she saw that Sesshomaru had at last reached out and was probing the bundle almost cautiously. Tentatively he turned her around to face him and then stared down at her, his face expressionless.
"She is very strong, my lord." Yuki murmured, trying to keep her nervousness out of her voice.
Sesshomaru ignored her. With his only hand, he pulled almost daintily at the blankets wrapped around her, exposing her body to the relative chill of the room.
"My lord—she is a newborn." Yuki protested at once, reaching out as if to stop him, "She cannot yet maintain her own body temperature, she must be kept warm…"
"Silence." He half-barked at her over his daughter's shrill crying.
Yuki bit her lip and turned her eyes to the ceiling, she wrung her hands helplessly in her lap.
Without the blanket to warm her, the baby curled tightly into herself and her crying quieted slightly. Her eyes were squeezed tightly closed. Sesshomaru's clawed; dangerous hand hovered over her tiny face and body, so small she could almost fit in his single palm. Cautiously Sesshomaru touched the baby, brushing her hair and feeling her head. The baby reacted at once to his touch, reaching out with startling coordination and grasping his pinky finger. Her fingertips were sharp with tiny claws.
Her crying stopped, though she remained tightly curled in a fetal position. Her eyes opened in narrow slits, they moved beyond the lids, searchingly though she was far too young to be seeing anything let alone understanding what it was she saw.
She was his spitting image, completely captivating. It was no wonder Rin had forgotten he was inside the room as she held their daughter. The baby's hair was downy and fair, as bright as his own with no trace of her mother's ebony black. Her fingertips had claws, she hadn't been born with dog ears, but as Sesshomaru brushed her downy hair—still wet from birth—out of the way, he saw her ears were rounded like a human's, not pointed as his own. On her forehead there was a strange discoloration, a darkening of the skin that made Sesshomaru think of a scar. It was the crescent moon, not yet developed and showing fully.
He had feared for the longest time that he and Rin would have a hanyou that would—inevitably—look and act just like Inuyasha. Loud and obnoxious, and with those infernally adorable ears on its head. The child before him now looked every bit as if her mother had been an inuyoukai woman, not a mere mortal at all. Only time would tell if this hanyou daughter would adopt mannerisms like her obnoxious uncle, but with her appearance, Sesshomaru doubted it was possible…
Tucking the blanket back around her, Sesshomaru then delicately scooped her up into his arm and tucked her against his chest. As she quieted, ceasing all crying and almost at once falling asleep, Sesshomaru glanced at Rin again, still motionless except for her breathing, on the soiled futon.
Rin didn't appear to be about to wake up anytime soon, but Sesshomaru remained uncomfortable with the thought of leaving her—especially with taking the child with him. She would need to nurse again, and although the miko would be willing of course to take care of the baby for him in that respect, Sesshomaru despised the thought of handing over his new daughter to the miko without supervision.
"Miko." He called to her. She bowed low immediately as he went on. "You will watch over Rin. When she has healed enough to be moved, you will summon me to her."
"My lord," the miko began nervously, "The child will need to nurse every few hours…"
"She will be my responsibility." He interjected, sounding almost irritable.
The miko bowed. "Yes, my lord."
As she turned away, Sesshomaru shifted, setting the baby inside her blankets onto his lap. With some difficulty, he loosened the sash on his haori. There were two layers on the top, and the collar had been stained with Rin's blood. Sesshomaru opened both layers and then pulled his single arm through the sleeve, as if he were about to take the entire haori off, but instead he took hold of his newborn daughter and pulled her inside the haori and pushed his arm back through the sleeve. He tightened the sashes again to keep her from slipping down or out, and rose to his feet. Without a second arm he was forced to find other ways of carrying this helpless newborn around. He needed his arm to open doors or perhaps handle a weapon…
He rose to his feet and moved to the door, pausing only briefly to glance back at the miko and Rin where she lied without moving, deathly calm with exhaustion. Her face was horribly pale and shiny with sweat. Sesshomaru felt a jolt of alarm for a moment, but buried it swiftly and passed out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
She found him lying on the bed on his back, holding the book she'd given to him awkwardly above his head. The lighting was dim; the hanyou was squinting with concentration and effort. Yet, when he noted her presence in the doorway he shut the book and pushed it away hurriedly, as if it had bitten him.
"What?" he snapped, as if she'd already made some impossible demand, inconveniencing him.
"Are you enjoying it?" Kagome asked, cautiously. She held a rag, dirtied and stained. She wiped her hands clean as she spoke. Originally she'd only wanted to find Inuyasha to tell him that she was about to leave to go to her mother's to visit with her grandfather and to keep close with their children, but seeing what he was doing she couldn't resist asking.
"Feh." He scoffed, ignoring the question completely. "Are you done out there?"
"What do you mean?" she blinked, uncertainly. She'd been cleaning before, trying to use the work to keep herself from worrying about Inuyasha, about Koinu, or Akisame or her grandfather…
He sat up, ears folding back and his face transforming into a glare. "All that racket you were making with the dishes and pots and whatever the hell else…" he stopped and made a small noise in the back of his throat that Kagome couldn't interpret before blurting, "What's the matter with you?"
Again Kagome blinked, taken aback. "What? Nothing…"
"Normally you come and badger and nag me when I—" he stopped, his face screwing up with frustration, "What do you call it? Putting?"
Kagome caught on at last and laughed, feeding him the correct word. "Pouting."
"Feh." He grumbled, "Whatever."
Smiling, Kagome crossed her arms over her chest and regarded her husband with fresh amusement. "I thought you wanted some alone time—but if I'd known you wanted me to come after you…what, did you want me to beg?"
"No!" Inuyasha rumbled immediately.
"Well, what did you want?"
The hanyou opened his mouth as if to speak but then paused and his face blanked, uncertainty lit the golden eyes. At last, as he caught Kagome's expectant, amused stare, he closed his mouth and scoffed stubbornly. "Nothing!"
Kagome moved toward him, still smiling, but the hanyou scowled and demanded, "What are you doing?"
He expected her to touch him, but Kagome surprised him, moving instead to grab the book from the other side of their bed and flip through it, trying to find the spots where Inuyasha's claws had dug into the corners of the pages where he'd hold it open to read. She stopped and examined a few of the pages, squinting through the dark to make out the characters.
"What the hell?" Inuyasha reached out and snatched the book from her, closing it. "Go back to rattling the pots in the kitchen, wench!"
Kagome ignored his griping and smirked at him. "You were reading about the Greeks."
"The who?" he snapped defensively, crossing his arms over his chest.
"The Greeks. The founders of Western Society."
Growling, Inuyasha reached out for the book. "Give me that…"
Kagome pulled it clear of his claws, smirking proudly. "What was that, Inuyasha?"
Inuyasha's ears folded back, his eyes narrowed dangerously, "Dammit woman!" he knew full well that she was taunting him, but Inuyasha was helpless to resist the teasing. To let her know he was interested in what she'd given him to read was unthinkable. He was pouting, it was true, but he wasn't ready to give in—not like this. "Don't make me…"
"You know I can't understand you when you growl like that, honey." Kagome murmured sweetly, bringing the book down to a point that he could reach easily again, taunting him.
Inuyasha, helplessly, reached for the book again, lunging this time. His fingers grazed the smooth cover before Kagome managed to pull it back. "That's it!" He got up, snatching her with one hand to keep her still while reaching around her with the other, trying to snatch the book from her. "Hand it over, Kagome."
She squeaked, turning and squirming, trying to get away from him, but Inuyasha was fast and strong and, with minimal effort, pried it away from her. Irritably, he moved away from her and slid the closet door open, pushing the book roughly inside and closing the door after it. When he turned back to her, Kagome had crossed her arms, the mirth vanishing from her face. Inuyasha's ears came forward and then backward uncertainty. "Feh…"
"Why are you so difficult, Inuyasha?" Kagome demanded, frowning.
Ah, yes, that was what he'd been waiting for, Kagome's anger. That was normal behavior.
"If you don't like it—bitch—why did you marry me?" he glowered back at her, triumphantly. For a moment he felt color come to his cheeks, a long-instilled caution brought on by the presence of young, innocent ears. Yet just as quickly his ears took in the silence of the house and he remembered that Koinu and Akisame were away, tucked safely away from his foul mouth in the future.
Kagome's hands curled into fists and she groaned. "Inuyasha!"
"Wish you could still say sit?" he grinned deviously and picked absently at the breads around his neck. The spell hadn't been used in years, lost when Kaede had died and unused even before that. Inuyasha still acted up occasionally, but Kagome had relinquished that control over him when they had joined as mates.
"No—I'm just going to leave." Kagome started to move past him, but Inuyasha's hand shot out, snatching her forearm and stopping her short.
"Where are you going?" the tone she'd used told him that it wasn't just to the kitchen.
"To my mother's, I want to be with Koinu and Aki." She said it without looking at him.
"You can't go without me." Inuyasha's voice was startled, almost alarmed.
"I'm not stopping you from coming." She sighed, looking helplessly toward the ceiling. "But would you please…" her voice trailed off as she froze, feeling Inuyasha's lips and nose against her neck. When she'd looked up she'd exposed the skin there and the hanyou had gone in. He breathed in deeply, and his exhalation tickled her skin. His hold on her arm loosened, shifting to her waist, slipping around it with the ease of his long years of experience.
"Inuyasha…" she murmured, her voice dropping lower with the first rippling of desire.
The hanyou responded with his usual charm and charisma. "You need a bath."
Irritation made Kagome open her mouth to protest, but Inuyasha moved faster, covering her lips with his own with surprising hunger and force. Faced with this assault, Kagome forgot his insult and melted into him, accepting his kiss, tasting the inside of his mouth, the sinewy smooth wetness of his tongue.
When he pulled away from her and pressed his lips fiercely to her neck again, Kagome smiled faintly as she stepped in to wrap her arms around his waist, pulling him closer. "I thought you wanted to go visit my mother…"
He was breathing deeply, panting as if he were in a battle with some rampaging youkai that needed to feel Tetsusaiga's wind scar. Inuyasha didn't stop attacking her neck and what he could expose of her chest just to answer her, which meant that his words were muffled when he spoke. "In a while."
Kagome started to talk again, though her words were deep and partly moaned, but Inuyasha robbed her of the words by slipping his clawed hands underneath her robe and reaching upward, cupping her breasts. When she hiccupped with a mixture of pleasure and surprise, she caught Inuyasha's golden eyes smirking up at her, warm and mischievous.
Two could play that game…
Rin hovered in a world of memories and darkness. She was trapped inside her own mind, trapped by her physical weakness.
Snatches of the real world reached her, lights, sounds, or sensations. Rin shrunk from them, overwhelmed and weak. Her body when she moved was heavy in a way she had experienced only a few times in her life, in the brief moments before death claimed her. Rin was perhaps the only human being to have escaped death, after actually having entered the realm, several times. The quiet and peace of that realm often touched her, clawing at her—but then there would be a tiny, warm mouth at her breast, jolting her back. Sometimes the jolt came from food or water given to her by the priestess.
An unknown amount of passed her by, whether it was hours, days, or weeks Rin would never know for sure inside her own mind. She knew the changing shades of light, the passage of the milky moon outside the screens and slats of her window.
In the deepest place in her delirium, Rin found herself as a girl again. She was hiding inside the Jouka palace, curled into a ball, sobbing. Sesshomaru had just left her behind there, with her teachers and the human maids. Humanity was strange and foreign to her, and to compound those troubles, she'd discovered that she was bleeding. She had no knowledge of menstruation, and the maids had spent several hours trying to comfort her and to explain the bleeding.
But in this place of hazy dream-memory, it wasn't the maids that came after Rin. Instead there was a chorus of other voices, male and female, adult and child, calling out her name, whispering inside her ear. The room was dark but there were shapes that hovered around her, moving like spirits through the air and through the walls. Rin whimpered, but in the physical world her breath was too weak to make the sound at all.
One voice at last stood out from the others. A shape materialized before her. It was female, wearing a loose kimono that only reached her thighs as well as coarse gray peasant's pants. The woman called Rin's name, sobbingly, and reached out for her.
Rin recoiled, calling out Sesshomaru's name for help. Her words barely registered in her ears at all, not above the calls of the ghosts, the incorporeal shadows hanging about her in the memory-room.
Though she tried to escape, the shape touched her and seemed to solidify. It became a woman wearing a dark purple kimono. Her hair was more brown than black, and it was wild and unruly in a way that Rin recognized. Her eyes were a dark earthy brown. When she spoke Rin froze, her body becoming heavy. "My daughter…"
"Daughter?" Rin answered her, choking on her own sobs as well as her shock and fear.
The ghost didn't answer, but in the same moment more shapes appeared around her. A man, muscular and strong, with the sleeves cut clear from his robe and a wide sunhat on his head. There were smaller shapes as well, a boy younger than she had been when Sesshomaru had rescued her, and another that was older, lither and lanky. They spoke in her ears, whispering, but their words were indistinct to Rin, like ocean waves breaking over the sand. She lost the spirits; they slipped away, back into the incorporeal darkness.
And then a different, powerful force smashed into her, solidifying before her. A dark arm shot out, snatching her by the throat.
Rin's body froze while her spirit panicked, bucking, fighting the touch of the other creature.
There were other shapes as well, shadowy but powerful, radiating hostility. Rin caught their faces out of the corner of her eye. They loomed huge, massively tall. The room wasn't big enough to contain them, nothing was. They had blue or white streaks over their cheeks—they were inuyoukai.
"Little bitch." The ghost gripping her snarled with a voice like the rasping of fall leaves. "Sesshomaru's bitch."
One of the others growled out something as well. "She is mortal, Seiyo. Take her soul, punish Sesshomaru."
"This is for my daughter, my sons, my mates—our clan…" the creature before her tightened his grip on her and Rin felt her body become weightless, her head growing dizzy, and a terrible, crushing weight on her neck that spread into her chest. She couldn't breathe, but she was too weak to fight, and the creatures in front of her were too massive, too powerful…
The room filled abruptly with light, bright and golden. "Leave the innocent alone."
The dark shapes withdrew cringingly from the light. One of them hissed out a title that had over the centuries become a most infamous name: "Inutaisho…"
Weight returned to Rin, the crushing sensation vanished as fast as it had come, leaving only exhaustion and the overwhelming feeling of sadness.
"It is not her time." The same voice spoke that had saved her and filled the room with light. Rin longed to crane her neck around to search for the source but she didn't have the strength.
"She has cheated death!" one of the dark creatures hissed.
"She has." The other answered calmly, "But she is not meant to be used as a tool for your vengeance."
The raspy voice spoke, cursing. "Damn you!"
The shapes dissembled rapidly, rushing into each other, many colors flowing together wildly. The room vanished from Rin's sight and she fell into a deep, still, dreamless sleep.
Yuki watched over the inuyoukai's mortal lover religiously. She barely ate, barely slept. Her life was tied up with the other woman's fate. She had no illusions of Sesshomaru suddenly coming to understand that she had no real control over the higher powers, over whether or not the gods decided to take his lover to the afterlife. Mostly she prayed that Rin would recover on her own, that the wide and powerful universe would see fit to spare Rin and through her Yuki as well.
The first two days were the hardest. Rin stayed unconscious, barely moving. Her bleeding continued for some time, but it had slowed. Fewer and fewer rags were soiled until eventually there was nothing at all. Rin remained deathly pale, but when Yuki tried to prop her up so she could eat and drink the young woman had enough energy to take what was given to her and swallow. When wakened she was also able to return to consciousness, though it was deliriously.
Odd as she thought it was, Yuki watched Sesshomaru return every few hours to pass her the infant. Yuki would hold the baby close to one of Rin's breasts below a sheet to preserve the other woman's modesty even while she slept, and let the child nurse until Sesshomaru called for the child back. Sometimes Sesshomaru paused in the room, keeping his daughter tucked inside his haori and watching Rin from a safe distance, other times he didn't wait at all and only vanished to skulk elsewhere in the castle.
At last Rin began to recover and Yuki breathed a small sigh of relief. When Sesshomaru brought their daughter into the room to be fed, Rin held the infant, stroking the tiny baby's silky hair, touching the crescent moon that had begun to stand out prominently on the infant's forehead. She tired quickly, but there were no fevers, and as another day or so passed, she began to be more and more reluctant to give up the baby when the nursing had finished.
There was a tension between them, but Yuki worked to ignore it and pretend that she hadn't noticed it. She had no idea how inuyoukai liked to settle their grudges, but she was certain that she didn't really want to find out.
Traditionally seven days would pass before a child was named. Rin and Sesshomaru's hanyou daughter was named a week late. Sesshomaru watched over their daughter but didn't name her. Fathers usually held final jurisdiction over their children's fate, particularly over the boys. Yet Sesshomaru wasn't human, and youkai didn't follow human tradition to the letter. Sesshomaru's father, for example, had named Inuyasha minutes after he was born, not seven days later. To Sesshomaru his daughter was a strange gift, a fragile, dream-like blessing. He didn't consider naming her, especially not without Rin.
When Rin was able to walk, however shakily once again, she began holding their daughter, almost possessively. Sesshomaru didn't fight her, but he stayed at her side, ready to take their child back as soon as Rin tired herself out.
Two weeks after the birth and the rains had stopped, yielding sunshine at last. The skies were partly cloudy, the wind had picked up, keeping the air pleasant and cool. Rin escaped the stuffy, musty atmosphere of the Insen while her futon was hauled out and a new one was brought in. Sesshomaru accompanied her, though he walked behind her some distance, almost warily. It was one of the only times in Rin's life that he had taken that position and maintained it purposefully. Usually he was always a leader, never a follower.
The pine trees on the steep mountainside shook in the wind, sighing and whispering. Rin walked with her feet bare except for the white socks over her small, delicate feet. They stood around her like giants, menacing her. When she turned to glance back at Sesshomaru, she found that he was watching her without looking away, without wavering. The wind picked at his hair, pushing it around this way and that. Rin's own was tied away tightly, but the wind caught it as well, pulling at the edges, setting a few rogue strands flying. Their daughter huddled in her blankets, whimpering when the wind touched her. She blinked against it; wide innocent eyes the same shade as her father's, a beautiful honeyed amber.
"Sesshomaru." Rin called, barely speaking his name aloud as she turned back to face the wind and the rise and fall of the mountains, hills, and cliffs in the distance. Far away she could see and smell faintly the stink of fires, of human hearths and human civilization.
Before she'd turned to look, Rin sensed his presence at her side, just behind her. He didn't speak, but she knew he was listening.
"What will you call your heir?"
He took a small breath inward, the only sign that he'd heard her at all—but it was enough. It was as good as a gasp coming from the stoic, powerful ruler. "It is not important. Do not—"
Their daughter's crying cut him off. The tiny baby kicked and squirmed, scratching vainly at the air with her tiny but already powerful claws. Rin frowned and turned back toward the Insen, only to run squarely into Sesshomaru. He steadied her instantly, keeping her from falling backward. Rin blinked, startled at how close he was to her. She tried to take a step backward but Sesshomaru's grip held her firmly in place.
"Sesshomaru…" she had stopped giving him a title, which was unthinkably bold considering she was nothing but a human, not even born properly of nobility. Yet while Sesshomaru would've killed anyone else that dared be so insolent, Rin was, at least for the time, exempt.
"Rin." His voice was deep and his gaze was narrowed with what might've been anger, but it was too complex for Rin to read in her fatigue and with their daughter's crying ringing in her ears. "You knew I would take a wife. You must forget this, it is not important."
Abruptly, Rin found herself fighting tears. Frantically she tried to step away from Sesshomaru, but his grip was firm and unyielding. "It's important to me! While I was being poisoned you left me to make your heir—you kept it secret! You lied…"
There was a light in his eyes, growing, a red tint of rage. "You left with my enemy."
Rin stammered, half shaking her head as if to deny his words, while at the same time being torn apart by their child's cries. "You lied to me! You took Tsuki from Lord Shimofuri and used her like a maid. You killed an entire clan to force your wife to…"
"Silence!" Sesshomaru shouted, nearly barking straight into her face. Rin felt the puff of his hot breath on her cheeks and cringed, her body stiffening as if readying for an attack.
In spite of his order, there wasn't silence. The baby's crying had grown several decibels, becoming barely bearable. If not for her crying, Rin might've spoken again, and Sesshomaru might've continued to try and silence her, but their shouting could never silence the child. Hearing the baby's desperation, Sesshomaru released Rin's arm and stepped backward, though he refused to take his eyes from both mother and daughter.
"Comfort her."
Rin glared at him but did it without word, rocking the infant and cooing at her. When that didn't work she sighed, realizing that the baby was hungry yet again. "I must go back inside, she's hungry."
Rin walked past Sesshomaru, her posture defeated, her steps tired and dragging. Sesshomaru didn't appear as if he would stop her or add anything else to her conclusion, but then he turned, faster than the eye could follow, and snatched her shoulder again, gently, to catch her attention. "Rin."
She stopped, her shoulders drooping and sighed, "Yes, Lord Sesshomaru?"
"You left with my enemy—and with my child."
Of all of the things Sesshomaru could've said to her, this was the single most powerful, convincing thing of all. Never before had Sesshomaru referred to the babies she carried as his, they were always hers, as if she conceived them and carried and lost them alone, as if she was the only one that desired them. Now, for the first time, he had spoken of their baby as belonging to him. He had claimed their daughter at long last.
Rin blinked viciously, fighting sudden tears. "Sesshomaru-sama…" her voice wavered almost childishly.
"Feed her." He barked, gruffly.
Rin's back was to him, she was facing the path that lead up the mountainside and to the Insen with its stuffy rooms, molding tatami mats and stale air. She moved slowly, pulling at the hem of her kimono with one arm and then lifting their daughter partially inside her robes. The baby began nursing hungrily without the slightest pause. She pawed at her mother's breast gently, avoiding the use of her claws.
A surge of fatigue swept over Rin, making her knees shake slightly. She fought it off, trying to steady her voice to speak over the wind to Sesshomaru one last time. "When will Sesshomaru-sama's heir be born?" she swallowed thickly, trying to keep her shoulders from shaking. "He is my daughter's younger brother after all…"
There was a pause, and for a time Rin was certain Sesshomaru would just ignore her question, but at the last moment he answered her almost softly, "Soon—the child is female. They are sisters. She will be called Hanone."
"Sisters?" Rin repeated shaking. "Hanone?"
"Yes." Sesshomaru answered coldly. He stepped past her, moving almost with exaggerated slowness. "You will name this infant Saya."
Rin watched his broad back as he moved away, taking his time. As the baby stopped suckling and fell quiet, Rin tried to close her robe again and moved carefully up the hill, as quickly as her exhausted feet would carry her. "Saya." She tested the name and watched her daughter's innocent, sleeping face. She might've had other names for their daughter, but Saya was a good name and well-chosen for the baby that had survived Rin's heartbreak, the travel and the early birth. And the fact that this was Sesshomaru's chosen name pleased her—it was another sign that he had claimed the child at last. Hanyou or not he would love her and raise her…
A/N: well I feel like that sucked but oh well. I'm adjusting to this new computer and the dorm room and all that, so my time and my ability to write has gone way down. But I hope this chapter (it didn't seem to want to END!!) will help make up for it…And BTW if you were confused, as I'm afraid i might not be writing up to my normal standards this time around, when Rin hovered in the room half dreaming half dead, the creatures that came to her were the spirits of the deceased Nishiyori clan, AKA Ginrei's dead family. Seiyo was her father if you recall. Also, before that, Rin was visited by her parents and brothers.