Author's Note: Another SessRin one-shot! 😍
I hope you like it and leave a comment telling me what did you think! 😊 ❤️
A Tale of Sengoku Jidai
One-shot
One of the mother's favorite moments of the day was tucking her twin daughters into bed and telling them bedtime stories. When alive, her mother told her many tales about gods, youkais, sacred beings and many other legendary creatures in bedtime. Years later, it was her turn to put her beautiful daughters in bed and tell them the same stories she heard before and new ones.
And she knew her twin daughters wanted to hear it too. The eldest was physically like her father; the youngest had her face, and each one had a bit of the personality of their parents. Lying on an extremely comfortable futon of highest quality, she patiently waited in seiza for them to behave under the sheet before starting that nocturnal tradition:
"Which story you want to hear today?"
The two looked at each other.
"The one about the girl that met the youkai in the forest," the eldest was fast to answer for both.
"The Inu-youkai,", her young sister corrected.
"Ahh…" she gave them a smile. She already expected it would be that their choice. They've been asking for months to repeat that tale at least once a week. "But that's a long story."
Outside, passing through the rice paper doors, she saw a movement in the shadows, but she didn't care who was on the other side. She knew it was her husband waiting for her outside their daughters' room.
"But she wants to hear it." The eldest daughter pointed to the youngest.
"She wants to hear it too." the youngest pointed to the oldest.
"Okay, okay..." She gave up stalling. The two would only close their eyes after hearing their favorite story. "You both want to hear it again, right?"
"Yeah!", they answered at the same time.
The mother adjusted her robe over her sleeping kimono, sighed deeply and began:
"Once upon a time, there was a very small girl who lost her parents during the war and lived in a poor and miserable village."
The girl lived there alone in a poor house and had to look for food to survive.
One day, she walked through the woods and found a...
"Youkai", the eldest interrupted in a firm voice.
"An inu-youkai", the youngest added the information.
"The girl didn't know she was an inu-youkai, she thought he was a god and noticed he needed help."
He was very beautiful, majestic and proud, but he was very injured, dirty and missed an arm in a battle, and the little girl did the only thing she could do at that moment.
The two held their breath, attentive to the next part:
"The little girl splashed water on the youkai's face to clean him."
The daughters laughed. That part was definitely funny.
"Then she started visiting him every day to bring him food, but he wouldn't accept it."
"Why?", the eldest asked.
"Whyyy?", the youngest also wanted to know.
"Well…", the mother placed a finger on her chin as if she was choosing the right words before continuing. "He said he didn't eat human food. So the little girl thought he could at least eat some raw fish and went to the village fish reserve to catch one."
But she was not allowed to take anything from the village reserve. She always did that during the night so nobody could see her stealing, but the villagers found her on that day and beat her a lot.
When she paused, she saw the tears running down from her daughters' eyes.
"Why are you crying?", she wanted to know.
"Did they hit her?", the eldest asked.
"They couldn't hit her! She's a small girl!", the youngest spoke.
"She had a very difficult life, she was alone. And she was also sad because she couldn't get the fish to use as an offer to the youkai. So she went after some grains and found some wheat to offer him."
When the youkai saw her, he wanted to know what had happened to her, because her face was hurt.
"And he hit who did that to her", the eldest commented.
"He hit them a lot", the youngest completed.
"He was still recovering, so there was not much he could do." A drop slipped down the side of her face.
That was the girl and the youkai's first interaction. And soon after, when she returned home...
The mother paused and saw the anxiety on her daughters' faces.
The little girl was very happy meeting the youkai because it was the first time someone had talked to her and treated her well. Then she returned home distracted and found everything destroyed. The village had been attacked by wolves.
The twins widened their eyes.
And the little girl died in the attack.
When she paused, she saw the tears running down freely from the corners of the two girls' tiny eyes. The eldest was biting the sheet to contain herself and the youngest sniffled incessantly.
But the great inu-youkai recovered just in time and found her in the forest, and got for the first time a great skill, so strong ability that he could bring her back to life.
"Did he really do that?", the two asked at the same time.
"Yes." The mother nodded her head.
The girls smiled with satisfaction.
The little girl became part of the inu-youkai's group and they had many days of wandering and adventures together... She was a companion who wanted to live forever with him. She even made a wish on a shooting star during a starry night.
Sometime later, the inu-youkai thought it the best to leave the girl in the village where his brother also lived. She could be safe there while he traveled to other lands, visiting her often to see how she was and if she was happy. It was like that for many years. He always returned from his trips for her and brought beautiful kimonos and other elegant things as gifts.
"Like Mom's kimonos?", the eldest asked.
"And Mom's hairpins and perfume and makeup?"
The mother smiled, instinctively raising the hand to her head to touch the delicate silver pin with a metal flower she had on her hair and nodded.
One day, several wealthy men came to visit the inu-youkai's young friend in the village.
"And the inu-youkai ate them all. " the eldest interrupted.
"Everyone", the youngest spoke emphatically.
"No", the mother gave a forced smile and felt again a drop run down the side of her face. "He couldn't do that."
She stopped for a few seconds as she heard again someone passing along the corridor and saw a shadow slipping through the rice paper doors. It was another sign that the husband had moved closer to the door to listen in, walking away some seconds later.
"In the village was known that the young woman was very beautiful and that was why several men began to visit her bringing gifts and marriage proposals. Men were expecting she could choose one of them to live and have children in another village.
"Noooo! She didn't want any of them." the eldest protested and the youngest vehemently shook her head.
"But I haven't finished telling the story yet."
"Humph", the two snorted at the same time.
The young woman now had to decide if she was going to live with humans or with the inu-youkai ... She had to choose her destiny.
If she decided to marry to an ordinary man, she would live a normal life and have children in a big castle in a village she didn't know, away from everyone she knew...
Then she went to talk to her friend inu-youkai to ask him what he thought about that.
"And what did he say?" the two asked at the same time.
"He said..."
The image of a partially visible face, the mouth silently moving, was still strong in her memories of years ago. The firm voice uttered the phrase that she repeated to her daughters:
"It's up to you to decide."
"Just that?" the oldest seemed to be very angry.
"They didn't kiss?", the youngest wanted to know.
"She went back to the house where she lived with the woman who raised her like a daughter and they talked about it. The problem was that the young woman realized that she also liked the inu-youkai a lot and that he gave her enough time to understand her own feelings, even knowing that he would live longer and that she would not.
The mother stopped to bring her face closer so she could touch the tip of the two girls' noses with her index finger.
... But she realized that if she decided to live with the inu-youkai, she would have children with a half human and half youkai heart ... And that human side would live forever with him after she was gone. That meant they would be forever together.
The girls were silent for a few seconds, and she resumed the tale:
She slept happily because she had made up her mind. Now, close your eyes and sleep.
"No, no, no", the eldest shook her head negatively.
"And the kiss?", the youngest wanted to know.
"Okay, now the last part."
When the young woman woke up the next day, she found another beautiful kimono, flowers and a hairpin. She knew who left them there, so she got ready quickly and ran to find him.
She ran and ran and ran until she found the inu-youkai among the cherry trees near the village. It was the place where they usually met when they wanted to talk alone.
They stood opposite each other, met their eyes and understood that everything was decided.
And then she happily threw herself into his arms.
This is the tale of the young girl and the strongest inu-youkai in the world living together for a moment and forever.
"And the kiss?" the eldest asked, raising an eyebrow.
The youngest blew a smacking kiss in the air.
The mother bowed again and placed a kiss on each girl's forehead.
"Good night, sweethearts."
"Good night, Mom", they spoke at the same time as they closed their eyes and changed positions. Now they were lying on their sides, facing each other, and in a matter of seconds they were asleep.
The mother covered them up to their shoulders and got up, gently blowing out the candlelight before sliding the door aside and closing it behind her.
She walked along the empty corridor until she reached the main entrance of the castle and found the sliding doors open and her husband sitting in the courtyard – calm, elegant and royal, with a snow-white mokomoko draped over his right shoulder, not changing a single feature of his face since she met him many years ago. He wasn't wearing the demoniac armor and his swords, Bakusaiga and Tenseiga, were standing beside the door.
He already sensed her presence when he turned his face to speak in a firm voice: "Rin."
"Sorry for the delay, Sesshōmaru-sama," she said as she approached and sat down in seiza, "Our daughters wanted to hear that story again."
"I noticed you cut some parts." he pointed out, not really annoyed with the time she spent with their girls. "I thought they would want to know about the wedding day."
"Oh, I love that part too." she closed her eyes and smiled. "It was really fun to see Inuyasha-sama make arrangements to have enough food for everyone at our wedding party."
She barely felt it when his hand brushed across her face and tucked something behind her ear, close to where the hair tie was. She touched his fingers and noticed she had now flowers there.
"Perfect."
Rin gave him another smile, nodding slightly, and leaned her face against his shoulder.