A/N: some dissention among the reviewers. Too soon? Is Sesshomaru really that cold? I think so. I'm always worried about his character being right. Let's face it, Sesshomaru is NOT human. This is a guy that, when his father is dying and they see each other for the very last time, he asks for his father's swords. When his father says, No, will you kill me for them? The hint is there rather firmly, the tension is sky high. Sesshomaru would kill his own father for power? Wow, what a jerk! Maybe I'm reading it wrong and Sesshomaru never would dare to do it, but in that moment, rather than lamenting his father's approaching death, Sesshomaru is concerned about power. So it's this Sesshomaru that I find myself returning to when I write this. He is NOT my boyfriend who tells me all the time that he loves me. He's Sesshomaru. His smile makes Jaken crap himself. Of course, so does almost everything else. Anyway, that's my small rant.
Rest assured though, it isn't perfect yet. There's still lots of crap waiting in the wings. Ginrei hasn't popped yet…
Disclaimer: Nope, no owning. I only claim Akisame, Koinu, Kohimu, Tisoki, Kasai, Masuyo, Shimofuri, Tsukiyume, Saya, Ginrei, and Hanone when she's born…
Last Chapter: Tsuki and Shippo reached the Middle Lands and met with Shimofuri. Sesshomaru's armies have stopped their advance and are camped out in the Hokubo with Sasugainu, waiting for orders that will never come, not for attack anyway. Rin and Sesshomaru switched locations, going to Jouka. At Jouka Rin tried to go horseback riding but Sesshomaru stopped her and then acted very strangely for him. Reminder: At the secret palace a healer has been hired, an old grizzled inuyoukai woman called En.
En
"My lady's scent is changing." En grunted at her one morning as she waited in the back of Ginrei's dressing room. The maids scurried around the young inuyoukai woman, adjusting her robes, tying sashes and obis.
Ginrei turned her head slightly, trying to see En out of the corner of her eye. "How?" she asked, her voice heavy with fatigue. The second half of her pregnancy had been draining as the child within her grew most rapidly, in more ways than physically. The white marks on her cheeks, thin and elegant, which marked her as high nobility, had faded recently, almost disappearing. Keeping her arms outstretched for the maids to dress her at times seemed more draining then any dance lesson or fighting exercise.
"My lady's heir is coming." En made a half-coughing, half-growling sound, hacking a little at the early morning phlegm in her throat. She was anciently old. Only her power, probably once very formidable, had kept her alive for so long. "You have lost your appetite?"
Ginrei glanced back at the mirror at her sallow face, her dull silvered eyes. "Yes."
"With my lady's permission I will summon her husband."
Ginrei bit her lips, her fangs nipping at the delicate flesh there. The maids finished securing her obi and clucked at her like hens, trying to get her to sit while they combed out her hair. Ginrei gladly followed their wishes, kneeling on the floor. She stared at her hands in her lap, sighing as she considered En's suggestion. Her belly had swollen so much, it was like a mountain encroaching on a river. Finally she lifted her eyes to En's grizzled form behind her in the mirror and nodded faintly. "You may."
"You believe he won't come?" En growled out with her raspy voice. Her face wrinkled up like an elephant's hide.
"It was his wish that he be here." Ginrei frowned as one of the maids pulled too hard on her long, flowing silver hair. "I do not care if he comes or not." Her shoulders sagged and she lowered her eyes. "I have done my part."
En bowed low. "My lady."
A day later, early in the morning, Sesshomaru found himself summoned unexpectedly to the small audience room in Jouka. He expected some messenger or other frail human to be inside bowing before him and begging his pardon. Then they would tell him something about the armies in the Middle Lands, still pleading for orders to advance or retreat.
As he approached the audience room, however, Sesshomaru felt something tingling at the back of his mind. The visitor inside the room wasn't human, it was youkai—inuyoukai. After he was announced by a servant, Sesshomaru stepped inside and stopped, not even bothering to sit down.
An ancient, grizzled old hag was sitting about ten feet from him. She hadn't bowed as was proper for her to do. Instead she sneered up at him through the thick wrinkles on her face. Her eyes were alive despite her gnarled appearance, a bright glowing green. She pinched her lips together as she examined Sesshomaru and then made a small grumbling noise in her throat.
"Inutaisho's son." She grunted and grinned, showing stained, chipped teeth.
Sesshomaru felt a crawling sensation in his spine, as if he'd suddenly been infested with worms and they were using his backbone as a highway. "Who are you?"
En made a smacking noise with her thinned lips, sucking on her teeth. "Currently I am employed as a healer, but I've been many things in my day, young one."
Now her disrespect was beginning to grate on him. Sesshomaru's lips moved slightly, trying to curl into a snarl or a sneer. He stifled it and settled for glaring at her, narrowing his amber eyes. "You would do well to learn manners, old one."
"So would you!" En croaked, laughing. Sesshomaru blinked as if she'd slapped him rather than laughing at him and his expression made her laugh all over again.
"What business brings you?" Sesshomaru demanded, at last giving in and snarling a little.
En sobered up and regarded him for a moment, almost pensively. Her expressions were made harder to read by the massive amount of wrinkles she had. At long last her green eyes narrowed and she said, "I have come to summon you to your wife. Her time has almost come."
Now Sesshomaru's demeanor changed, becoming bored and detached. "How long?"
"A day or so, I believe." En sniffed and sat back on her haunches, gazing around the room searchingly. "Of course you aren't very much interested in this news, are you? There is already an infant here." She turned back to him and her wrinkles face curled into a vicious, ugly snarl. "A disgusting half-breed. You are more like your father than I had imagined."
"Hag." Sesshomaru's voice dropped, warningly. "I could kill you for your insolence."
"And I should do the same to you, young one." En snarled, baring her ancient fangs at him. "You destroy our kind on two fronts! Nishiyori-sama's whole clan, and then like your father you sully your own bloodline." She hawked, as if about to spit. "Disgusting."
Normally Sesshomaru would've killed her on the spot, but there was something in the old inuyoukai woman's voice, in her eyes, in her scent that stopped him. Sesshomaru glared at her silently. The tension soared in the air as the two eyed one another, considering each other. Her words revealed a lot to him. She held respect for Nishiyori and his clan, now all deceased. She spoke of Sesshomaru's father in a familial way, as if she'd known him as well. And when Sesshomaru stared at her long enough, through the wrinkles and discolored skin, he thought he could see faded, almost vanished marks on her cheeks, the mark of nobility.
"Who are you?" he demanded, controlling his voice again deliberately.
"I've said what I've come to say." En muttered. She rose to her feet and turned away from him without bowing. Her robes were tattered, dragging behind her, dirtied.
Outraged, Sesshomaru strode after her but as she slipped out of the door and into the hall, very briefly out of his sight, Sesshomaru felt her aura vanish, like a puff of smoke or a scent fading away. Snarling silently he left the room and gazed down both left and right halls. There was no sign of her, though her scent continued to linger, stinking of age and dirt and herbs.
Defeated, but invigorated with frustration, Sesshomaru reentered the audience room and slid the door shut clatteringly. Nishiyori-sama…you are more like your father than I had imagined…
Sesshomaru lifted his head as he heard, distantly, elsewhere in the palace, Saya beginning to squall hungrily. He turned and headed in that direction, his face grim and cold.
Rin woke at once when Saya started to cry. Blearily she moved toward the source of the crying and reached over the side of her bed, touching the sleeping mats that had been set up for Saya. The infant was squalling, her cries growing steadily louder until Rin's fingers found the child's skin beneath her blankets. She quieted then, only whimpering as she registered her mother's presence.
Carefully, with her tired, thick fingers, Rin grabbed up her tiny daughter and hushed her, checking the linens that swaddled her, acting as a diaper. (A/N No Huggies in Feudal Japan!! AHHHH!) A maid slid open the door and bowed at the entrance. She was holding more of the scrap linens under one arm.
"My lady."
Rin sighed and began to unwrap Saya's blankets and the loose robes they'd dressed her in. "She's wet, Miki."
"Of course my lady." The maid moved beside Rin's bed and began to help her but Rin did most of the work herself, only accepting the linens from the maid and then passing the dirty swaddling to her as well.
"Hungry too?" the maid asked, smilingly as she gathered up the linens in her arms, clean in one, dirty in the other. Her sleeves were tied back to free her forearms for just this kind of dirty work.
"Of course." Rin returned the smile tiredly and cuddled Saya close, shifting her night robe a little to expose one breast for her daughter. The baby suckled quickly, pawing at her mother's chest hungrily. She was only a few weeks old, but already she had at least doubled her weight. Every scrap of nourishment that passed into her she kept, putting everything into growth and development.
There was a faint sound at the door, the floorboards shifted and creaked. The maid and Rin glanced up in the same instant and Miki fell into a bow, still holding the dirtied linens. Rin nodded her head respectfully but didn't move into a full, proper bow. Instead she observed her mate's face, not liking what she saw.
His face was stiff and cold. It reminded her, slightly, of the time before she had become pregnant with Saya, before he had brought her to Jouka from Nejiro. Now she realized that during that time Sesshomaru had been going to visit his wife. Instinct that she didn't know she had as a human whispered in her ear and a chill of foreboding swept through her.
"Lord Sesshomaru." The maid excused herself, leaving the room. She knelt to slide the door shut, but Sesshomaru glanced at her over one shoulder and she stopped, seeing some silent meaning in it. Mumbling something that was probably an apology, the maid walked away, her footsteps receding down the hall, leaving the couple alone.
"Rin." He started, his voice deep and cold.
She interrupted him, meeting his gaze with her brown eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You're going to tell me you're leaving, aren't you?"
He stiffened, his lips thinned and his jaw tightened. "I have been summoned elsewhere."
"Where?" Rin demanded. She sat up, moving as if to get to her feet and approach him challengingly, but she stopped when she heard Saya whimper and hiccup, trying to burp. Rin paused and adjusted her robe, covering herself. Her breasts had been bared for nursing. Saya squirmed in her arms.
"It is not important." Sesshomaru answered blandly, as she had anticipated. It confirmed her suspicions at once.
"Your wife has called you, hasn't she?" Rin bit out. Emotion that she'd thought she'd buried started to well up in her. She snuck glances at Sesshomaru and knew he would perceive those glances as glares, silent snarls of protest. His wife was inuyoukai, Rin couldn't compete with her as a human. She would age long before Sesshomaru did, his wife would stay young at his side. And she could bear him a hundred heirs in those years…
Her shoulders shook and her stomach seemed to swell, crawling into her throat as if it had something to shout at Sesshomaru too. But no words came, no sound, nothing.
"She has summoned me, yes." He answered truthfully, his spine stiff, his eyes cold and distant.
There was a pause. Rin's eyes drifted about the room unfocusedly. She saw the small table near the door where she'd studied and written poems before Shimofuri had come and told her the truth about her mate, about his campaign in the Isei, about this inuyoukai wife. Did Sesshomaru care for this other woman? He claimed over and over that he didn't, and Rin understood supposedly how he'd come to possess this wife, essentially stealing her from the clan. But she had never seen the inuyoukai woman—and Sesshomaru had wasted no time in producing a child with her.
She stared at Sesshomaru's feet as a cold feeling entered her bones. What if the other woman was a prisoner? What if she was forced to join with Sesshomaru to create a child? Could her mate, the creature she so loved, that she had followed unquestionably as a child, thinking of him as her entire world—was he that much of a monster? Was he a rapist?
"I must leave." Sesshomaru started to say and his feet shifted on the floor, turning to go…
Rin lifted her eyes and her face. "Wait!"
The inuyoukai lord paused, though his back was already facing her. "What is it, Rin?"
Frantically, Rin pulled her robes tightly around her and clutched Saya close to her chest. She slid from her bed and fell to her knees behind Sesshomaru. The change in position startled Saya and she began making tiny, low-pitched sounds. She was growling.
Over the sound of their daughter, Rin said, "Sesshomaru-sama—take me with you."
There was silence from Sesshomaru at first. Rin stared at his feet, remaining in her bowing position. Sesshomaru's feet shifted and moved, turning partly back toward her. Rin felt her mate's eyes on her back, on the top of her head as he looked down at her. "I cannot."
"Rin wishes to know why not? Is it not fair that she meets Sesshomaru-sama's wife?"
His answer was swift this time. "Another time perhaps."
"Rin wishes to meet her now." She broke with the formal language and made the words, the request, more personal. "I want to meet her now because now is when she is birthing our daughter's sister. I would very much like to meet the mother of my daughter's sibling. I would like to know every member of my family."
She swallowed, aware of the tightness in her chest, the flutter of her heart inside her, and Saya's little sounds of frustration against her. Even the puff of the baby's breath on her neck. One fist was on the ground, supporting her in her bow. She was certain Sesshomaru could see that it was a fist and not her flat hand, palm pressed to the floor. It was a fist, a motion of anger, of upset.
"It is a long journey." Sesshomaru told her, making excuses. His voice was hesitant, stiff.
"I'm strong." Rin replied. Saya squirmed in her arms, making baby noises, fussing slightly.
"There is Saya. You must stay with Saya."
"She is strong, Sesshomaru-sama. She is your daughter. She has already survived one journey." Two actually, if the journey that Rin had undertaken while Saya was still in the womb counted. This argument would be difficult for Sesshomaru to dismiss. If he did it was as if he was refuting his own strength.
Sesshomaru drew in one breath and when he spoke there was a fresh sharpness, irritation. He was running short on excuses. "I will not permit you to risk illness, you or the child."
"Please, Sesshomaru-sama." Rin frowned at the way her voice had grown higher and more plaintive, outright begging. She refused to be left behind, her will set and hardened against the thought, her composure was rigid and heavy, but like glass it could be easily shattered around her.
Perhaps Sesshomaru sensed that he could not win, perhaps he noticed her fist on the mats, perhaps there was a quiver in his lips, a crinkling at the edges of his golden eyes. The mighty inuyoukai lord took in his mate, clasping their child to her neck and chest, bowed before him, and considered his wife in one of the first times he'd ever seen her. Prostrate before him, cowed, shivering and quaking. Rin was not Ginrei, and if she shook it was from physical weakness or, more likely, rage and determination.
Lifting his chin into the air, Sesshomaru resumed his usual stoic, almost arrogant coldness. "You may accompany me. Ready yourself, we must leave swiftly."
Rin's shoulders moved as if she was laughing or sobbing, jittering. She lowered further into her bow, completely obscuring her face from him. "Rin thanks Sesshomaru-sama for his kindness in granting her this request."
But Sesshomaru had already left her room, leaving the door standing open. Maids rushed in after his departure, hurrying to wait before Rin even before she'd recovered from her bow. They would dress her and Saya for the approaching journey; they would give her warm tea and any meal she wished. But inside as Rin faced this mess of servants; she was cold and as distant as the moon.
(A/N: If you take that last sentence, it's currently how I feel about my writing. No idea why, only that I've been emotionally troubled lately…for various reasons.)
The weather turned warm and humid. Dampness clung to the leaves and grasses. The air was alive with wind, but it offered little relief from the hazy sunlight overhead. Insects swarmed over the paths that Rin and Sesshomaru travelled. The road wasn't well-traveled any longer. In some day centuries ago perhaps it had been a road for human or youkai, marching between one city and another. Yet whatever reason had originally created the path had long since expired and the path was now fading into the forest.
It seemed to Rin that this path might've been made by her mate and its upkeep was also solely his responsibility. Her suspicions were brought on by the way Sesshomaru slashed at the small trees that encroached on the pathway. Without pausing he would send out his whip and slash at the bases of the saplings, cutting them down and flinging them violently out of the way. Tiny stumps were all that was left, poking out of the weeds and grasses.
It was only when Rin spotted the distant, ruined huts in the overgrown forest that she realized this path was actually ancient. Centuries before warfare or disease, any number of tragedies, had cut down the villages that bordered this pathway. Perhaps destruction had even marched right over the path itself, and destroyed all life along the way.
The trees had grown overhead, closing in the canopy. Only occasionally did Rin spot the open, hazy sky. In the afternoon when Saya began to shriek with hunger, Rin was forced to stop along the side of the path, pushing her way through weeds and flowers and grass. She sat awkwardly at the side of the road and fumbled with her robes trying to nurse her baby.
Ahead some distance Sesshomaru stopped. He didn't turn to look back at her directly, but his head was cocked at an angle, indicating that he was listening attentively to what was going on. At his side his ghostly glowing whip was waiting. The grass it dangled and curled on was withering pathetically, sensing the poison in his terrible power. After a moment he took another step and let the whip fly. The gleam of the green tendril wrapped around a small, bushy pine at the base. The little tree shuddered once and, as Sesshomaru gave a sharp jerk with his one arm, it was torn free and tossed carelessly across the path, into the dense foliage on the other side.
Saya's cries stopped as she got what she'd wanted and started to nurse eagerly. Rin avoided looking at Sesshomaru, of what she could see of his rich, white haori and hakama through the forest ahead, and instead glanced at the darkness underneath the trees on the opposite side of the road. Something was there, a stone structure, no doubt carved by intelligent, nimble human fingers. It might've been an ancient alter to some forgotten spirit or god. Now it was overrun by proud trees and vines shooting up from the ground. It was another part of the forest now, its human history forgotten and lost to time.
Rin turned her gaze to her daughter, shuddering. The baby was innocent and happy, nursing with her eyes shut. The warmth of the day was making her sleepy and content. She stopped suckling a few times in a row, falling momentarily asleep and forgetting exactly what she was doing. Then her little body would snap taut and her golden eyes snapped back open. Her claws flexed and pawed at Rin then as she resumed her vigorous suckling.
Something caught Rin's eye, on the ground beside her feet. Curiously, Rin reached for it, poking at it with her fingertips. It was an oddly shaped stone, colored a light gray. As Rin pushed it, maneuvering it, she saw what it was clearly and pulled her fingers away as if it had bitten her.
The little stone was carved into a face, rounded. There were grooves in the back, hinting at a rich, flowing head of hair. Yet it was the front that captured her attention. The gray stone was painted, or had been once. Time had worn and chipped it, but Rin could still see it was there, pink-red marks like ocher over the cheeks of this face…
It was a carving of a demon, perhaps even an inuyoukai, one that had the same markings as Sesshomaru. It was female, Rin could see from the shape of the face, the pout of the lips. A characterization of feminine beauty.
"Rin."
She gasped, startled, and looked up at her mate with her wide, earthy brown eyes.
"We must keep moving."
As if she feared what Sesshomaru would do to their child, Rin clutched Saya closer out of instinct for a moment and then, with effort, hauled herself to her feet. The movement made her sandaled toes brush against the carved stone, moving it. Sesshomaru's golden eyes flew to the motion and narrowed briefly, then, inexplicably, his face softened.
Rin gazed at his face covertly when she saw the change, following his line of sight to the carved stone. She cleared her throat and hazarded a question. "Sesshomaru-sama? What is this place? The ruins along the path…?"
He didn't remove his attention from the carved stone when he answered her. "This is the Kosetsu province." Without further word he turned his back on her and began walking again, the fascination with the carved stone forgotten at once.
Rin followed him, frowning with confusion. Saya had fallen into a restless sleep and Rin tucked her child protectively into her robes, grimacing at the heat. It was too warm to carry her daughter, like a little space heater, close to her skin, but the forest was a dangerous place. Rin could almost feel the ancient eyes watching her, the ghosts of the dead pondering her passage on their road. The sight was an unusual one, the shimmering, immortal inuyoukai Sesshomaru leading the way, clearing the path, stoic and exuding power with every step and breath. Behind him was the ravenous, slightly cranky Saya, carried by Rin, the fragile mortal woman. Unarmed, dressed richly, and covered in sweat. She was dressed for chilly fall weather but it seemed summer was not yet truly gone. Weakness still made her joints shake and tremble, and if she moved quickly, sitting up or kneeling, stars swarmed across her vision. Yet, unerringly, she followed behind Sesshomaru, as she always had.
The eyes of the dead watched silently, their judgment unknown and meaningless.
The Western Lands had not always been united under one leader. The change had come, as had a lot of other renovations, with the powerful Inutaisho. Long ago small, feuding provinces had made up the Western Lands. Like the provinces in the Middle Lands, they were ruled by youkai that warred amongst themselves. War and destruction were the only constant for the creatures that lived there, human, animal, and youkai alike. The threat of invasion had changed that at last. As Inutaisho rose to power and almost single-handedly pushed back the invaders, he united the Western Lands under his power. Other leaders submitted to him, died in the war to fend off the invaders, or as in one case, married him.
The Kosetsu was remote and small, hardly habited even in its own time, yet it had been successful. Its people were not warlike, and their destruction had come when invaders swept through, burning and killing. Their protectors, for uncountable generations back into the depths of time, were female. Once mankind had worshipped femininity for its fertility, holding them as holy. One line of female inuyoukai had stepped in and become a figurehead of such beliefs, nurturing them into the future long after those around the Kosetsu accepted patriarchy. This line had eventually sired Sesshomaru's mother. She ended the Kosetsu's separation from the other provinces and, when she bore a son, she buried the faith that her ancestors had long protected, in order to give her son and her husband reign over a wide, unbroken expanse of land: the entire Western Lands.
But that decision had sealed the doom of the humans living under her power. Superstitious, angry youkai and humans had passed through the unprotected Kosetsu, punishing them for their long-held and cherished beliefs, scattering them to the wind.
Somewhere, in the ruined forests and mountains of the small Kosetsu, was the palace where Sesshomaru himself had been born to a mother longing for the next female heir. Though her hopes had been dashed as she found herself holding a son, she saw his likeness to herself and her long line of female ancestors, and her heart was stolen and transformed. The future lied with the sons of her line and Inutaisho's, or so she had believed.
Now she would laugh when she heard the news on the wind. She was a grandmother, though she didn't look it, and Sesshomaru had extended her line with daughters, not sons.
And the ruins that Sesshomaru passed, burned and charred and overgrown even as he had barely tasted meat for the first time, stood as a mockery to him. They had only been humans—his mother never cared anything for them really—but although Sesshomaru would profess to the same lack of feeling, it was impossible to deny that the woman with his firstborn child in her arms was only human, Like his father Sesshomaru carried the same, odd weakness for them.
The path would have long since filled in. The ruins would've been shrouded permanently in forest darkness. Yet Sesshomaru had walked this pathway for years, always clearing it of saplings with each pass. If he had been female, the Kosetsu would've been his territory first, and the Western Lands as a whole would come second. He hadn't forgotten this responsibility, though no one, not even his own mother, expected him to hold true to it.
He loosed his whip and sent the whispering, green glow into the saplings again, and pulled them free, cutting them down, expanding the path.
Ginrei sat on the lush grass beside a shallow, blue-green pond. The sun was bright overhead, the haze clearing away as the afternoon matured. There were koi fish in the pond, lazily swimming about, their mouths opening and closing as they swam, like friends in continuous, casual conversation. The koi were brightly colored, white, orange, gold, and black. The light of the sun dazzled the water, throwing sparkles off it and onto Ginrei's face.
Compared with the bright, cheerful fish, Ginrei was like a stone. Her face and hair were pale, lacking any luster. Her robes were dark today, a purple-red. This only worsened the washed-out appearance that Ginrei had. Her body was round and her face plump. If her color had been better one might've called her prosperous and healthy. Yet this wasn't the appearance she had at all.
"Lady Ginrei!" a high, panicked voice shot out over the garden and she looked up, slowly, without energy or enthusiasm.
Jaken was rushing toward her, scurrying over the curving bridge that crossed the little flowing stream, trickling from the little lake to where the koi were housed in their little pond. He panted and flung himself before Ginrei in a bow but didn't wait for her to acknowledge him before he announced what had brought him in such a panic. "Lord Sesshomaru has come!"
The toad was grinning, merrily. Of course he had missed Sesshomaru. He was antsy, eager to rush away from her and greet Sesshomaru himself. It was startling, in fact, that Jaken had taken himself away from that to tell her of his arrival. A thought came to Ginrei: where is En?
"My lady! You must come!" Jaken shouted when she didn't at once answer him or hop up to meet Sesshomaru herself. Of course the toad couldn't understand that moving anywhere was a struggle for Ginrei. Her balance had disappeared, her girth unsteadied her. The child inside her had drained her of all energy and had been doing so for quite some time.
As a youth, when she'd lived with her many female relatives, Ginrei could remember a woman joining them that was not a sister, a cousin, an aunt, or a grandmother. She was someone's wife, recently brought into the clan, and pregnant. The pregnant female had seemed horribly dull to Ginrei, barely moving, sickly, and always tired. She'd thought that the other woman was weak, a poor choice to carry offspring for the Nishiyori clan. Yet now she understood this weakness personally and found a new empathy for the woman in her memories.
"I am very tired, Jaken." Ginrei murmured, sighing slightly. "Would you be so kind as to bring Lord Sesshomaru to me? I will meet him here."
The toad nodded happily. "Certainly, my lady!" he scampered away, breathing roughly, though whether it was with excitement or exertion was anyone's guess.
Ginrei gazed around the garden, searching for En. The old inuyoukai woman had returned late the previous night, but Ginrei only knew of this because the maids had told her. En hadn't appeared, hadn't come in and woken her, hadn't examined her. Worry nagged on Ginrei, but she pushed it away as movement caught her eye.
Passing through the gardens in the distance, Ginrei could see the shimmering white of her husband's head. The bushes and trees he moved past also offered glimpses of his white hakama and haori. Once she even caught the glint of his gray, metallic armor. She changed her position with an effort and lowered herself with a grunt into a deep, formal bow as her husband approached.
Jaken was jabbering and she could hear footsteps on the bridge. The confident thump of Sesshomaru's boots, the scraping, clapping sound of Jaken's bare toady feet, and a third set. Small, light, like that of a female or a child. Ginrei strained her nose, wishng she hadn't dropped into the bow so quickly. Now she would be unable to see the third creature—was it En?—that had come to her with Jaken and Sesshomaru.
"We're so pleased to see you, my lord! Lady Ginrei has been very tired lately!" he huffed and Ginrei smiled faintly to herself. "That old witch we hired as a healer says it's completely normal though!" he chuckled nervously, "Certainly we've done everything we could…"
"Silence Jaken." Sesshomaru's voice came at last, smooth and deep, full of calm seemingly.
"Yes my lord! Of course!" Jaken's words were smashed and smothered as he fell into a submissive bow.
"Ginrei." Sesshomaru called her name gently and Ginrei sat up slowly, letting her eyes travel over her husband's fine, exquisite features. The smooth jaw, the high brows and refined cheekbones. The crescent moon in the center of his forehead, the elegant markings over his cheeks. Their child would have to be beautiful, but would she carry her beauty with the same coldness as her proud, distinguished father? Ginrei let her gaze fall away from him, troubled.
And right onto the mortal woman standing a few feet behind him. Ginrei wasn't certain how she could've missed the mortal for as long as she had. Sesshomaru, for all of his stoic perfection and beauty, was not the centerpiece in that moment.
The woman was young, perhaps not beyond two decades of life, though Ginrei wasn't well-versed in the life-spans of mortals. Her robes were bright and rich; autumn colors worn just a bit too early. They marked her as royalty, a rich woman, a favored wife…mate. Ginrei realized with a small jolt that this was Sesshomaru's mate, brought now at this most awkward of moments, when Ginrei was at her weakest.
The mortal woman was beautiful. Her face was oval, her lips full and heart-shaped. Her eyes were deep brown, like fertile earth. Apparently for their journey she had left her hair down, flowingly long. It was a coarse hair, unlike Ginrei and Sesshomaru's. The woman, Sesshomaru's mate, was staring at Ginrei fixedly, her gaze riveted on her. As Ginrei lifted her own eyes and met this gaze, the mortal woman's expression twisted into a small but fierce frown. Her eyes revealed consternation, as if she didn't know what to feel or how to react, but her lips were downturned and her eyebrows were furrowed, like hairy caterpillars kissing over her neat nose.
Ginrei might've felt something akin to insult, or perhaps embarrassment, but then her nose and her eyes at once fed her a new suspicion. The mortal woman was holding something. Ginrei had been so engrossed by the woman's face and clothes that she hadn't noticed the awkward position of her arms, or the lump that was now moving, squirming. In the same moment she inhaled sharply and picked out the scent of lactation, milk—not an inuyoukai's, but the human woman's.
Her thoughts skittered wildly, flicking to Tsukiyume. Hanyou. The cross between youkai and mortal human beings. Ginrei's hands in her lap twisted and twined on one another and she felt the desire to drop into a bow again to hide her reaction, to hide her face.
"Ginrei." Sesshomaru called her name again, more sharply this time. "Walk beside me."
She ducked into a small bow, hiding her face and consenting to his order in one motion.
"Jaken." Sesshomaru summoned the toad, "Take Rin inside. See that she is made comfortable."
"Yes Lord Sesshomaru! It will be done immediately!" the toad hopped to his feet and energetically moved toward the mortal woman with a stiff gait, as if she could do nothing to dissuade or slow him down.
The mortal woman held her ground. "Sesshomaru-sama…" her voice was tight.
Sesshomaru ignored her and moved to stand at Ginrei's side as she pulled herself upright, grimacing unsteadily. The grass was soft, it sighed beneath her feet in their simple white socks. Ginrei glanced to the mortal woman, taking her in again, seeing the frown that had deepened, the displeasure at her mate's orders. She tried to smooth her own face into a sympathetic expression, tried to show the other female empathy, but when the woman spotted her looking at her she blinked and her face seemed to flush red. Not with embarrassment, but rage.
"Rin!" Jaken called hoarsely, half-pleading. His terminology with her was unthinkably familiar. Ginrei couldn't have known that Jaken and Rin were actually very well acquainted after all. "Please! You must do as Lord Sesshomaru commands!"
The toad pressed against Rin's legs and she took a step back, almost stumbling. Rin stumbled slightly and the infant in her arms squirmed, crying out its—her—protest.
Another daughter. Ginrei thought, staring openly at the mortal woman. In spite of the frowning, the jealousy she could feel flowing from the other woman, Ginrei felt her own heart hammer, picking up speed and strength for the first time in months. Her blood ran warm and energetic. The mortal woman was kin now, and she had a daughter—Sesshomaru's daughter. As uncertain as her feelings were to her husband, the draw of blood was powerful. Her unborn daughter was linked unquestionably with the child squalling inside Rin's arms. They would be sisters, and because of that, Ginrei felt a connection, no matter how much of it was imagined, to the other woman.
"Come." Sesshomaru ordered her, stiffly. His arm closed over her shoulder, but it was cold, it brought her no joy. Ginrei obeyed, turning away from Rin and Jaken and the screaming infant.
They began walking. They left the grass and the koi pond behind, ascending a small hill to reach a stone path. It was narrow and winding through gardens that had not yet recovered from the war that had passed through them some time ago. Ginrei could feel the texture of the stones through her socks. She considered asking Sesshomaru to take a detour and return indoors, but her own enthusiasm at the sunshine, the sweetness of the late summer air, and the beauty of the grass, the stone path, and the trickling water, kept her silent.
They walked without touching, but closely nonetheless, more as cousins or siblings might walk beside one another. With their shared features, the fair hair—Sesshomaru's white, Ginrei's slightly darker true silver—they looked more like family than husband and wife.
"You are well?" Sesshomaru at last asked her, his pace slowing slightly.
She wasn't certain how much he wanted to know. Did he want to hear about how their daughter kicked her insides at night, keeping her awake? Did he want to hear about how her breasts hurt as they grew pendulous and swollen with milk? Did he want to hear about how, as her stomach was squished by the child's growth, Ginrei's appetite was monstrous and then just as quickly food would repulse her, making her vomit if she as much as smelled food.
"I have suffered fatigue." She told him, sighing slightly. "But I am well."
"The child will come soon?" he asked, staring straight ahead. His face was unaffected and unlined, absolutely unmoved by her news.
"En told me that she would come soon, yes." The previous energy that had infused her leached out of her a little then, as if speaking were too strenuous for her.
Sesshomaru paused then, making Ginrei stop as well and stare at him, confused. "Who is she? Who is En?"
"The healer." Ginrei answered blandly. She looked at the ground, as if distracted by a fluttering leaf or a bird hopping over the grass. Ginrei didn't know where En came from or who the old inuyoukai woman was loyal to. She seemed so old that her allegiances had vanished into time, buried as bones deep in the earth.
"You know nothing else about her?" Sesshomaru asked.
"Nothing." Ginrei didn't look at him when she responded; she focused on the blades of grass that shifted in the wind. She had her suspicions about En, but she wasn't going to reveal them.
Sesshomaru, if he deduced this, seemed fit to leave it be. He began walking once more, his steps slow and small. Ginrei moved after him, keeping pace. There was more to be said, but innately Ginrei knew that Sesshomaru wouldn't say it, wouldn't even start or hint at it. She would say it or it would remain unsaid, forgotten and buried.
"You brought your mate?" she asked, prompting him at last.
"She is called Rin." He replied, stiffly.
"I would enjoy talking to her. She has a daughter as well."
"You must not strain yourself." Sesshomaru told her, dismissively. His golden eyes were set forward, scanning the gardens like a hawk, as if anticipating danger or his next meal.
"It wouldn't strain me." Ginrei insisted, firmly. Before her family had been slaughtered, partly at Sesshomaru's bidding, Ginrei had enjoyed a massive, extended family of women. Rin was her first chance to get a tiny slice of that security again and she was eager to do it. And aside from that, Rin was a mortal woman that had captured the affections of the most powerful inuyoukai around currently. How could speaking to her not be interesting?
"Do not pursue her." Sesshomaru was glaring, but the look wasn't directed at Ginrei, as if he'd forgotten to turn his face toward her.
Ginrei pursed her lips into a tight, narrow line, but she said nothing. The silence dragged onward, relentlessly. Their path circled onward, eventually reaching back to the palace, reaching the wooden bridge that crossed the lake to where the palace was perched atop the waters. At the edge of it, Sesshomaru halted and faced her.
"For as long as you are able, you will join me for meals?" he asked, stiffly.
Ginrei guessed, staring at him, that this was Sesshomaru's idea of obligation to her. He would eat with her in this time before their daughter was born. He would stay while she labored and perhaps after she recovered, long enough to see their child, to see her still alive, and to go through the ceremony of naming. Perhaps they would discuss when they would try again to conclude their "business transaction," when they would try to conceive a second child, hopefully a son. After that he would disappear again, leaving with Rin and the hanyou daughter, and she would be alone again.
She nodded slowly, trying to conceal the strange emotion trying to bloom inside her. Was it exhaustion or…regret? Loneliness? She thought of the redness on Rin's face, the anger and resentment. Perhaps Ginrei inhabited the better position as the cold wife bound by a bribe for power, rather than the mate, bound helplessly and hopelessly by love. How hard it must be, she thought, to love the cold being before her. She could not name her own feelings toward him, but knew that it wasn't love. Not by far.
"It will be my pleasure, Husband."
Sesshomaru turned away from her and crossed the bridge swiftly, leaving Ginrei standing outside in the late summer sunshine, the lake water glistening brightly, cheerily back at her. Again she felt the strength leaching out of her bones. Her shoulders fell, sagging, before she too at last crossed the bridge back into the palace.
As Sesshomaru walked around the palace gardens with Ginrei, Rin found herself being served tea inside the little, foreign palace. The maids were interested in her, full of compliments. They had heard her name here before, but never laid eyes on her of course. Really it wasn't Rin that drew their attention—it was Saya. Even Jaken stayed with her probably not because he was interested in her, but because she had a baby—Sesshomaru's baby.
The toad wasn't as gifted as far as sense of smell went when compared to an inuyoukai, but he had, at many instances, been able to recognize that Rin had been pregnant. Of course he knew the babies growing inside her were Sesshomaru's. Her miscarriages had ended his excitement about them, but now those times were over. A real, living, squirming, screaming bundle of baby lied in Rin's arms now.
Saya fussed, she was hungry yet again, but the tea, the maids, and Jaken seemed unwilling and perhaps unable to see that. Rin was torn between their attention and compliments and pulling away into privacy to feed her baby.
"She looks just like Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken kept repeating over and over again, squawking with shock. "I was terrified it would look like that fool Inuyasha!"
"Lord Sesshomaru is a father twice over." One of the maids murmured, quietly. The humans, although polite, were understandably wary of Rin and her baby. They were accustomed to Ginrei's pregnancy, an inuyoukai carrying another inuyoukai's child. But Rin was human, her baby, no matter how adorable, was still something of a taboo.
Abruptly the door slid open and a very old, very wrinkled woman stepped into the room. Her face was twisted and snarling; her green eyes were set firmly on Rin and the baby in her arms. At first Rin thought the woman was human. The youkai that she'd seen were always beautiful and fair, young and stoically beautiful. This one was ancient, gnarled. She parted her lips in a sneer that might've been a smile, and revealed sharp, yellow teeth, chipped and uneven.
The maids shifted uneasily at her appearance and Jaken moved suddenly away from Rin's side. "En! Where have you been? Lady Ginrei was alone in the gardens! Have you even bothered to check on her today?" he demanded, indignantly.
The old inuyoukai sucked wetly on her teeth and released a breath with the sound that had become her namesake. "Ehn," her gaze skidded from Jaken and toward Rin where it narrowed. "I thought I smelled the stink of half breed scum."
The maids made a few noises of shock and alarm. When En looked at them, hearing their dismay, she snarled and gestured violently. The maids scattered, hurrying out of the room meekly. Jaken was huffing, trying to recapture En's attention.
"How dare you speak…!"
"I'm sick of you little toad." En growled out, her words barely recognizable. She lifted one of her clawed hands. The talons were discolored, not bright and clean any longer like Sesshomaru's, but they had yellowed and grayed. Even so they remained strong and sharp and En had experience with using them.
Her hand descended, slashing at Jaken. He screeched, shrilly. His body flew against the wall. A bone snapped audibly.
"Jaken!" Rin called, shocked. Her mouth fell open, she moved, trying instinctually to go to the toad's side, but En was there, moving faster than her ancient body should've been able.
Rin stumbled backward, her eyes wide and terrified. Before the wrinkled face with its feral green eyes, she had become a child again, mute, defenseless. The wolves were descending on her, baring their white, glistening fangs, sinking them into her flesh…
Saya gave a shrill howl. Rin had left her on the table for the others to view her more easily. Now the baby kicked with her tiny legs and clawed at the air with her clawed hands. That sound snapped Rin out of her shock.
En raised her hand again, sneering, but Rin moved quickly with desperation, moving back to Saya and scooping the baby into her arms. As En moved away from Jaken more in pursuit of Rin and Saya, the toad whimpered and called Rin's name faintly. He was alive and trying to get to his feet already.
Rin tried to rush for the door—the maids had shut it!—but En was fast, changing direction and blocking her.
"You human waste!" En snarled thickly between her chipped teeth. "Little bitch!"
"Who are you?" Rin demanded, clutching Saya to her and frantically searching for some sort of escape. Where is Sesshomaru? As En advanced Rin backed away, trying to keep the flimsy tea table and the cushions between herself and the ancient inuyoukai woman. It was not truly a barrier; it wouldn't keep the woman away for long.
En ignored her question and, growling viciously, lunged for her, sending the tea table and the teacups flying. The room smelled abruptly of herbs. Rin screamed but evaded her, racing for the door. She pulled it open and found herself in the hallway. Which way led out? Confused, panicked, Rin chose one direction and started that way, running. Saya was clutched to her chest with both arms.
There was a solid, wooden door before her. As she raced to it, microseconds from reaching out to slide it open, the door opened on its own. Bright light from the afternoon outside flooded inward, assaulting Rin's eyes. She gasped and cringed, squinting. There was a shape in the doorway that she would recognize anywhere. Strong, powerful, with long, flowing haori sleeves and fine, elegant fair hair.
"Lord Sesshomaru." She panted, filled with relief. Her knees wobbled beneath her.
He passed through the door, staring down at her with a small frown on his face. "What is going on?"
Rin turned to stare down the hall, searching for the old, gnarled and wrinkled inuyoukai woman. "There was a…" she paused, taking a deep breath as she realized that the corridor was empty and there was no sound other than her own rough breathing. "An old woman…"
Sesshomaru's small expression deepened into a fuller show of his displeasure. He glided past her smoothly and moved down the hallway until he'd reached the tea room. The door was open and he paused, peering inside slowly. His gait stiffened slightly and Rin heard him speak, calling, "Jaken."
The toad moaned loudly and Rin made out the faint sounds of the little youkai moving, trying to walk. Apparently his attempt failed because he cursed violently after clattering to the floor loudly. His leg had smashed against the wall at an awkward angle, splintering the small bones.
Sesshomaru moved back out of the door way and faced Rin, staring at her through the space of the hall. But then Rin saw his eyes change, focusing on something behind her. She turned quickly to face it and found herself staring at Ginrei, Sesshomaru's wife. The young inuyoukai woman smiled at her, though the brightness of the light outside leached the colors from her face, casting it in heavy shadow.
Rin stepped backward, grimacing as if she'd been hit. Saya squalled in her arms, upset.
"Find the maids." Sesshomaru called, speaking to Ginrei.
The inuyoukai woman blinked, her attention brought gradually from Rin toward her husband. "What?"
"Find the maids." Sesshomaru repeated, shortly. He glanced to Rin and called her name. "Rin. Stay beside me."
Stiffly, Rin moved past Ginrei, avoiding looking at the other woman. As Sesshomaru stepped back into the tea room and Rin took a position in the doorway, Ginrei followed her, cautiously.
"What happened?" Ginrei asked, gently whispering.
Rin was caught off guard by the question, by the other woman's directness. She found herself staring at Ginrei openly, examining her. Her eyes were warm and a startling silver color that Rin had taken for blue from a distance. Gold and silver, Sesshomaru and Ginrei. The match was oddly perfect, despite the strangeness of its origins. Again Rin felt the bubble of unpleasantness, of jealousy and resentment, flowing through her.
"Someone attacked Jaken." She answered, stiltedly.
Ginrei's face twisted with alarm and confusion. "Who?"
Rin turned away, staring at the floor and feeling Saya's little breath on her. "I don't know. Get the maids." She ordered, tersely.
Ginrei disappeared without another word. Knowing the palace well, she swiftly brought the maids back to the tea room to help splint Jaken's leg.
The old woman, En, had disappeared.
A/N: Well finally! I updated!!! wWOOOT! Sorry for my unusually long absence. My excuses? Writer's block. I didn't touch any bit of writing for at least a week or maybe more. My reasons for that? I had a fight with my boyfriend two weeks ago, then saw him a few days later...of course while there I didn't write anything either, but for different emotional reasons...eh yeah...and then this past week I was anxious and mildly depressed because I came back from seeing my boyfriend to my room and my roommate who doesn't shower much or brush her teeth and her armpits rival a man's at times. So yeah, and I am slightly OCD, so I like to believe the ppl around me are clean and knowing that her toothbrush is in the closet...that bothers me...a LOT... So that is why I was late. I hope that my description of my suffering makes up for it a little...maybe? please?