A/N: I wasn't actually planning to write anything with Sesshoumaru's mother in it, I don't really have any clue about how to write her, but a couple of people mentioned in reviews that they wanted to read the meeting, so I wrote just a quick little thing….not very good at all, but oh well…

Thanks to everyone for the awesome reviews! :D

Kagura was chewing her nails. Sesshoumaru found it both irritating and somehow endearing. He reached to take her hand, squeezing gently as he touched her neck with his lips, trying either to reassure her or distract her; he wasn't quite sure which.

"Mother is proud and perhaps slightly eccentric, but you needn't be so nervous, Kagura. You have no need to feel insecure, for even if Mother doesn't approve, it will not change anything. You are my mate, and mates take precedence even over family. If she dared try to make me choose between you, I would choose you in a heartbeat, and she knows that. She will respect my choice. Hopefully, however, there will be no choice to begin with."

Kagura nodded, but she still looked jittery, and kept squeezing his hand nervously. He took in her appearance with a certain pleasure. She'd been ready to ornament herself ridiculously in an attempt to impress his mother, but he'd insisted she not go too far, and instead had chosen what she should wear himself. Her first garment was plain white, followed by a blue floral pattern kimono, and her uppermost kimono was dark crimson with thin white line designs tracing over it in places. Her earrings were the same design as those she usually wore, but were made from adamant shards….diamond, the miko called it, a word he found somehow more appealing and fitting for the beautiful stone…and she had a bracelet of gold set with the same stones, as well. Her hair was tied up as she'd commonly worn it during her first life, but her feathers had been left tightly locked in a box in InuYasha's house, and instead her hair was ornamented by two tiny but exquisite pearl combs. The pink shade of paint she usually wore on her eyelids had been replaced with a slightly darker, redder shade, but other than that and her customary paint upon her lips, he'd insisted she not alter her face.

"Kagura," He'd said as she fretted over the lack of ornamentation in the outfit he had chosen. "if you make yourself into a fake; a painted, finely clothed doll, Mother will see right through you and think less of you for hiding your true self. Go as you are; nicely dressed but still looking yourself, and she will be pleased with your honesty, and drawn to you, as I am. It is Kagura; fiery and independent and yet soft and sweet, who I will mate; not some perfectly mannered and clothed, but completely fake, court lady. And it is Kagura; fiery and independent and yet soft and sweet, who my mother can not help but be drawn to."

Sesshoumaru let the cloud they'd been riding on dissipate in the meadow below his mother's palace and smiled at Kagura.

"Mother and I have a tradition. We always greet each other in our true forms…We find it hard to express any kind of affection otherwise. Watch, if you'd like."

Kagura watched him as he leapt into the sky, morphing even as he did so. She had expected him to be large; but the size of the huge white dog leaping through the sky stunned her. He was gigantic. He was frightening and beautiful and exotic, and she watched him wide-eyed as he suddenly turned his head up to the heavens and howled, a long, somehow melodious sound, like a song in a canine language. Suddenly another, slightly smaller InuYoukai, with longer ears and less abundant fur, bounded towards him, and the two circled each other several times, rubbing their heads together in what appeared to be a gesture of affection or greeting. Then they became blurs of light, swirling around each other towards the ground at startling speeds, and suddenly there stood Sesshoumaru, his humanoid form regained, a beautiful woman standing before him.

Kagura took in the other woman with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. Her silver hair was pulled into four separate parts; two tails behind her head and two parts resting forward over her shoulders. She was clothed in her fur and a heavy, rich silver-white robe trimmed with dark blue butterflies at the edges. She had a magenta stripe down each cheek; but they had a sort of rippling design, unlike Sesshoumaru's perfectly curved lines.

"Sesshoumaru, you've come to see me again? Twice within five human years? The world must surely be ending!" As the InuYoukai woman's eyes landed on her, Kagura noted that they were a cold but sparkling light blue rather than the amber shade shared by Sesshoumaru and InuYasha. Kagura forced her fear aside and met the other woman's eyes; not confrontationally, but confidently. She wasn't sure if the tiny smile that invoked was a good sign or not. "What's this? Those human children are gone…Don't tell me you decided to eat them after all, when I went to all the trouble of bringing the little one back for you?"

"Mother, will you never find another way to amuse yourself? Eating human children would be distasteful, not to mention unsatisfying." He was obviously amused, and Kagura smiled slightly at the apparently running joke between mother and son, before Sesshoumaru continued. "I've come to speak to you about something important."

Ignoring her son, the lady addressed Kagura.

"Come here, girl."

Kagura approached gracefully, stopping a couple of feet before the older woman, feeling slightly amused at being called girl.

"Hmm….A Kaze-Youkai, yes? Young…very young…a child even by human years, but a woman in body, mind, and heart. You have a strong bond with the Wind…stronger than a normal Kaze Youkai would…You are not just a Kaze Youkai, are you? You are Kaze. Turn around."

Kagura turned around slowly, meeting Sesshoumaru's vaguely amused eyes half way round before facing the older woman again.

"You're beautiful. Strong willed. Independent. And Kaze. An embodiment of an element itself. That's a very strong kind of youkai, and very rare. You're more than suitable. Alright, Sesshoumaru, you have my blessing. Now, would you care to come up to the palace? You may as well let me get to know the girl who will bear my grandchildren."

Kagura stood staring, stunned, as the lady formed a cloud around her feet. Was that it?! Sesshoumaru had a cloud forming beneath him as well and she was about to step on with him when his mother's voice halted her.

"Ride up with me, would you girl? Don't worry, I won't insult you behind Sesshoumaru's back; even if I wanted to, I know his hearing's too good."

Kagura caught Sesshoumaru's eyes and he nodded slightly. She stepped onto the cloud with his mother.

The interrogation began almost immediately.

"So then, what's your name?"

"Kagura."

"Who were your parents? I'm assuming they're dead or they'd be the ones arranging things with me."

"I didn't have parents, not really. I was created by Sesshoumaru's hanyou enemy, Naraku."

"Ah, now there's a lovely twist! The daughter of his enemy...beautiful!"

Kagura was somewhat surprised by that reaction.

"You are not angry about that? True, I'm a full demon, but my creator was a coward, a weakling, and a hanyou. You…don't mind that?"

"Ha! Hardly. As long as you're fully youkai, I couldn't care less. Besides, it's a sweet sort of revenge. Breeding an enemy's bloodlines into our own, that is. Naraku's grandchildren will belong to Sesshoumaru. Thus the enemy is conquered in every way; even their bloodline taken over by ours."

"As much as I hate to mention it, wouldn't it be better revenge to kill off the enemy's bloodline?"

"No, that's too simplistic and brutal. Instead, your children will live and hate your 'father', as I suspect you hated him. He will not find rest even in death, for there will be generations of his own kin left bitter against him."

Kagura found herself strangely delighted by her future mate's mother. Normally, such a view would seem overly harsh. But in Naraku's case, in Kagura's mind, nothing could be too harsh. She met Sesshoumaru's eyes from where he was sitting cross legged on his own cloud watching them. He smiled slightly, wryly, and shrugged, apparently amused by his mother.

"Truly, I'm pleased at Sesshoumaru's choice. I was afraid he would take that little human thing to mate and ruin our line forever. She was a rather endearing creature…an amusing pet, I'm sure, but hardly worthy of breeding with."

Sesshoumaru spoke from where he sat.

"Really, Mother, I understand your feelings on the matter, but Rin is not a pet. Could you not at the very least see her as an adopted grandchild, considering that in that capacity she is no threat the purity of our line?"

"Oh, I suppose so, if it will please you, my son. As long as that is all she is, and as long as you provide me with some true, pure grandchildren soon. I'm very glad you chose an elemental youkai, Sesshoumaru. Heavens save us all if you'd picked another animal. Inu Kaze Youkai is a purely acceptable breed. Imagine the monsters that would be created if you mated with a cat!"

Kagura found that her nervousness had disappeared at some point, and spoke up.

"Has that ever been done?"

"Yes, actually…one of the Black InuYoukai on the continent mated with a cat demon…and though I wish them no ill, I think most of us were relieved that she never carried a litter to term."

"A litter?"

"Yes, animal demons, especially cats and dogs, frequently have two or more children at once." She noted Kagura's slightly wide eyes and smiled. "No need to worry, girl, you'll have twins at the most. The only common way in which to have more is if both male and female are animals, and they breed while in their true forms, after which the mother must stay in her true form her entire pregnancy, otherwise the litter will be killed in the transformation. More commonly we choose to conceive in our human forms and so only bear one or two children, like I myself did. You do not have an animal form, so there won't be any litters for you, which I'm sure comes as a relief."

Kagura nodded emphatically, laughing.

Eventually, they came to the palace; a stunning, beautiful castle so high up that clouds surrounded it, built on top of a mountain that seemed to have had the entire peak chopped off to make way for it.

There, they spent several hours of discussion as Sesshoumaru's mother taught Kagura the most important things she would need to know to be his mate, and by the time they left, Kagura's fear had been replaced by admiration and a purely delightful sensation of being accepted, just as she was.