Chapter 3: Strawberries
Rin was suffering a bout of "hot flashes," according to Towa, and the warming air soon became unbearable to her, so the family set off for home once everyone was awake (and by everyone, that meant Setsuna, who had an amazing ability to sleep through just about any noise). Along the way, they stopped at a relative of the corpse dealer Jyuubei's to exchange the rest of the eel demon's body for a bounty.
Ichibei, as he was called, looked over the corpse and nodded. "I'll give you five ryo for the serpent. An extra two if you throw him in," he said, nodding to Jaken.
"Done," Sesshoumaru announced, turning to walk away.
Jaken gaped at him. "M-M-Milord?!" he screeched. Rin burst into a fit of giggles.
"Just the eel, thank you," Setsuna said. "You wouldn't want Jaken anyway. He's loud."
"MILORD, HOW COULD YOU SELL ME LIKE THAAAAAT?" Jaken wailed, running after Sesshoumaru.
"Wouldn't be after I got through with 'im," Ichibei laughed, digging into his ear.
As Towa and Setsuna walked with Rin back to where A-Un lay at the edge of town, Towa said, "I didn't realize Father had a playful side to him. First throwing rocks, and now jokes. I almost don't recognize him."
Sesshoumaru looked over his shoulder. "I was completely serious."
"Milord, you wound me!" Jaken sobbed.
Setsuna frowned. "I think he just likes to pick on Jaken."
Rin laughed again. Then she whispered, "We all like to pick on Master Jaken."
"What are you giggling about back there, Rin? I swear, the abuse I suffer in this family…" Jaken grumbled.
"Don't be like that, Master Jaken," Rin said as they reached A-Un. Sesshoumaru lifted her into the saddle. Now that she was with child again, he did not want her to strain herself climbing onto the beast's massive back. "You know I would do anything for you. So would Lord Sesshoumaru."
"Hmph! I'll believe it when I see it!" Jaken pouted, nevertheless clinging to Sesshoumaru's tail as they took off.
"Don't you remember that time you got saimyousho poisoning?" Rin asked. "I almost killed myself trying to retrieve those sennensou berries to heal you."
"What? When did this happen?" Towa asked.
Rin relayed the story to their girls. Sesshoumaru, of course, had played a part in the ending, saving Rin when she fell from the cliff where the berries grew, but he enjoyed listening to the parts where he had not been there.
When Rin finished, she gasped. "Wait! Towa, what were those berries you like called again? St—?"
"Strawberries?"
"Yes! I bet if anyone knew where to find some, it would be Jinenji. We should stop and say hello! It's been so long since I've seen him. Goodness, I wonder if his mother is still alive. She was getting on in years when I was a child. He might be all alone by now. Yes, we should definitely visit. It'd be the right thing to do."
Sesshoumaru knew he had no choice now that Rin's mind was made up. She was in the mood for a social visit—and these strawberries, apparently—and he was just going to have to suffer it.
Once they were in familiar territory again, Rin took the lead and directed A-Un down to a farm, leaving Sesshoumaru with no choice but to follow. The fields were barren at this time of year, but a lone figure hauled massive logs from the nearby forest. It was Sesshoumaru's first time seeing the massive half-demon, and friend though he might be, Sesshoumaru would not risk Rin or the baby's safety by leaving her alone with him.
"Hello, Jinenji!" Rin cried out, waving as they approached.
Jinenji—who appeared to be one of the unfortunate half-demons whose face had taken on more demonic characteristics than human ones—looked up, and he waved a large, scarred hand in greeting.
As soon as A-Un set down, Rin slid off and hurried toward him. "How are you, Jinenji? It's been too long!"
"I should ask the same of you, Rin. It is good to see you alive and well. I had heard many years ago that you disappeared without word. I feared the worst had happened."
"Yes, it's a bit of a long story," Rin said.
"Then perhaps you will join me for tea and relay it."
"Oh, that would be lovely!" Rin announced. "But where are my manners? I should introduce everyone. Master Jaken you remember."
"Hello," Jinenji said to the imp. Jaken coughed back a "hello" in reply.
"This is my husband, Lord Sesshoumaru, and our twin daughters, Towa and Setsuna!"
Jinenji smiled. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I should have known your kindness towards demons would turn into more, Rin."
Rin smiled, putting a hand of her belly. "But of course. Lord Sesshoumaru has had my heart ever since he saved my life when I was a child."
Jinenji nodded towards her stomach. "And I see you have another little one on the way. Are you experiencing any discomfort? I could provide you with some herbs, if you'd like."
"You are so sweet to think of me, Jinenji. But right now, the worst of it is…what did you call them, Towa? Hot flashes?" Rin asked, fanning herself.
"So perhaps hot tea is not the right offering," Jinenji chuckled.
"Oh, don't you worry about me. I've survived worse," Rin said. A gross understatement if Sesshoumaru had ever heard one. "Is your mother…?"
"She passed away a few years ago," Jinenji said.
"I'm so sorry to hear that. She was a lovely woman."
"Thank you. I know you mean that." Jinenji led them inside his hut, which was built larger than the typical human ones Sesshoumaru had seen—likely to accommodate his large size, even though he still dwarfed the single room. As they sat for tea, Rin then proceeded to summarize the last several years for Jinenji.
"So you come from the same land as Lady Kagome?" Jinenji asked Towa.
"I grew up there, yes," Towa answered.
"We're actually on a quest to recreate some of her favorite foods from that world," Rin added conspiratorially. "And one of them is a plant called a straw…a strawberry. I thought, if anyone knows where to find one, Jinenji would. Have you heard of them, Jinenji?"
Jinenji hummed. "If I recall, my father said he found some on Mount Nougouhaku many years ago." Rin gasped in excitement. "Of course, they would not be in season right now."
"Oh, of course," Rin replied, deflating.
"It's alright, Mother—really," Towa said, patting Rin's arm. "Now that we know where to look, we can always go back in the summer."
Rin rubbed her stomach. "That might be a little difficult with the baby…."
"It's fine! Setsuna and I will bring some back for you!"
Rin smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Of course. That's very sweet, Towa."
Jinenji watched this exchange, and Sesshoumaru detected a great deal of intelligence behind those large, blue doe eyes. After a moment, the gentle giant said, "It's possible you would not have to wait until then." He reached into a corner, pulling over a large staff. It curved at the top like a tree branch, mushrooms and sprigs of berries sprouting from its head. "This was my father's farm, and he left it to me when he passed. However, what you see outside is only a small portion of it. My father was interested in studying all the plants of our land in all their various climes."
"Are you saying you have a secret garden?" Towa asked, stars coming to her eyes. Sesshoumaru did not understand why this conjecture merited such a response, so he could only supposed she had inherited her mother's love of plants.
Jinenji nodded. "He only ever showed it to me and my mother, for he was very protective of his findings…but if there is anywhere we could find your strawberries out of season, it would be there."
"Are you certain?" Rin asked. "We wouldn't want to trespass on a demon's secret treasure."
The wife of the great lord Sesshoumaru knew well how possessive demons were of their knowledge and belongings. They were especially wary of other demons stealing them.
"I have no interest in taking over a garden," Sesshoumaru announced.
Jinenji smiled. "I did not imagine so, my lord, or I would not have offered to show you. Come."
Jinenji led them over the slopes of his farm and towards a forest. Sesshoumaru sensed a barrier here, though it was one that would have let unwitting humans pass through to the other side without alerting them. But when Jinenji held out his father's staff in front of two trees whose bare canopies entwined together into an arch, the area between them glowed, and Jinenji walked forward.
They followed the half-demon inside, arriving in a grassy clearing ringed by trees. Yet as Sesshoumaru looked around, he noticed that the trees were each in a different stage of bloom. Straight ahead, the trees spread out their barren boughs, just as barren as those outside. But the trees circling out to the right grew more and more laden with pink and white buds until they burst in soft pastel colors crowning two other interlocking trees. From there, the flowers fell away and full, green leaves took their place until another arch boasted a full canopy directly across from the bare boughs. Sesshoumaru continued in the circle as the leaves faded into yellow, orange, and red, the canopies transformed into a fiery counterpart to the soft blossomed ones across from them. To complete the circle, those leaves curled up and browned, falling away until none were left.
"It is one garden, but there are four entrances—one for each season," Jinenji said. "I believe your strawberries will be in summer."
He then led them beneath the greenest boughs. Heat draped over them like a cloak as they passed through the portal, and despite this being a demon's separate realm, the sun blazed overhead. But that was the way with demonic portals. Sometimes they were merely gateways to other lands; other times, they were the entrance to a demon's own created reality. Unless Jinenji possessed some of the same power his father did, Sesshoumaru suspected this was merely a gateway to a secret land, for if it were his father's crafted realm, it would have collapsed when he died. Either way, it didn't matter to him, as long as he knew the way out.
"Amazing!" Towa announced, running forward and fingering some hydrangeas. Sesshoumaru's lips threatened to smile. She was her mother's daughter alright. "There's so many plants here! How do you keep track of them all?"
"I'm still learning myself," Jinenji answered. "Every time I come, I always seem to stumble upon something new. But there was a method to my father's ways. Follow me."
He led the family through rows and rows of herbs, flowers, and shrubs. Rin hummed as she walked—an old tune he recalled her singing in her youth. The couple fell further and further behind, as every new flower seemed to catch her eye and distract her from her quest, and Sesshoumaru stayed by her side.
Eventually, Towa exclaimed, "Oh, here they are! Mother, Father—come here!" She waved at them. Rin hurried to catch up as Towa picked a few berries, handing them out to everyone except Sesshoumaru.
Towa bit down on the tip of the berry, shivering in delight. "Mmm, that hits the spot!" she moaned.
Setsuna eyed the seedy skin with suspicion but took a bite. "It's not bad."
Rin took a huge bite of the berry, and the juice ran down her fingers. Sesshoumaru watched it drip down her skin, fighting the urge to bend over and lick it up until he reached her mouth. Rin finished off the piece of fruit with a smile. "Yes, the baby approves of this one too."
But despite her apparent joy in picking berries with her daughters and settling that craving, Sesshoumaru's wife began wilting before his very eyes. Her hair simultaneously curled and drooped in the humidity, and she started fanning herself more and more. Finally, she plucked a berry, considered it, and then handed it to Towa.
Towa looked at her in concern. "Are you not feeling well, Mother? Was it the berries? You're not allergic, are you?"
"No honey, it's not that. If you don't mind…I'm going to step back outside, where it's cooler. This heat is killing me."
Rin appeared so tired that Sesshoumaru scooped her up without another word and walked her out of the summer garden. Though the blazing heat of the sun's rays disappeared, Rin still fanned herself, moaning in discomfort.
Just then, Towa ran out behind them, her hands full of berries and what appeared to be tropical leaves. "Mother, Father, I have an idea. Come with me." Towa led them across the way to the winter garden. They walked into a land half frozen, with camellias dusted in snow and pansies poking out of barren soil and snowdrifts by turns.
Towa took some of the waxy, wide leaves she had brought and started rolling them into cones. Then she bent down and took a handful of snow, plopping it inside the leaf. Finally, she took some strawberries in hand and squeezed them over the top of the snow, dyeing it pink.
Though her hands shook slightly, she handed the strange concoction to Rin with a smile. "Here you go, Mother: a strawberry snow cone! This is the perfect treat to cool you off. Just don't eat the banana leaf."
Rin took the proffered "snow cone" and bit into the blushing ice. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "It's so sweet and it melts on my tongue!" She proceeded to eat the entire thing, heedless of the fact that the air was cold enough to have their daughter shivering.
Towa smiled. "We usually eat these in the summer to cool down."
"Where do you find snow in the summer?" Rin asked.
"We don't. We make ice and shave it."
Rin tilted the banana leaf up, letting the last of the snow slide into her mouth. Sesshoumaru watched her throat bob in fascination. "How wonderful to be able to have ice on demand." She looked up at Sesshoumaru with a sheepish grin. "I love you, my lord, but at times like these, I do wish you were an ice demon."
"You mean Father's stare isn't enough to freeze you to the spot?" Towa asked with a wry grin. "People said that about me a lot back home. Now I know where I get it from."
"Oh, you silly," Rin giggled. Then she blushed and glanced up at him. "No, if anything…it rather heats me up."
Sesshoumaru's gaze bored into hers, telling her just how hot and bothered she was making him at the moment.
Towa flushed. "Oh look, Setsuna's here. I'll just…leave you two…alone," she muttered, slipping away.
Sesshoumaru and Rin continued to stare at each other, lost in each other's gazes even as the girls grew raucous and started throwing snowballs at each other and Jaken in the distance. Rin took a length of his fur in her hands, and he thought it was to wrap around herself. But instead she started stroking it.
Very. Deliberately.
"The girls can get home on their own from here—with Jaken," Sesshoumaru suggested as every caress shot straight to his groin.
"And where would we go?" Rin asked, her eyes both mischievous and teasing.
"Somewhere more private." As much as he enjoyed having their daughters back home, there would be no lovemaking in their hut with the girls there. Sesshoumaru knew it was the way of human couples to not mind their children being right there when engaging in coitus, but Sesshoumaru was a private person by nature, and there were parts of himself he would let only Rin see—inside and outside.
"Wouldn't that make us terrible parents?" Rin asked, running her hand over his chest. "Abandoning our daughters for some…fun?"
"They are old enough to understand," Sesshoumaru murmured, picking up that hand and finally giving into that desire to lick the dried berry juice from her succulent fingers. Rin's cheeks, already tinted pink from the cold, grew even redder as he nipped the pads of her fingers and ran his tongue up her digits in a slow and sinful manner.
It was a testament to his obsession with Rin that he didn't see it coming.
A snowball smacked him right in the chest, in part exploding against his cheek.
Sesshoumaru froze, his eyes widening in shock. Rin gasped, covering her mouth. Subtle spasms across her body alerted him to the fact that she was suppressing giggles.
Was his dishonor so humorous to her?
He looked up to find Towa, Jaken, and even Jinenji gaping at Setsuna, who stared her father dead in the eye and said, "Oops, sorry Father. I was aiming for Towa, and I missed." The way she had her hand propped up on her hip, and the cool way she gazed at him—that was his mother's gaze through and through—said otherwise.
Cheeky pup.
Rin wiggled in his arms. "Let me down, Sesshoumaru. I have to avenge your honor!"
Sesshoumaru let Rin down and brushed off his armor as Rin gathered up some snow and launched it at her daughter. The ball fell woefully short, dropping back into the snow, but it made Setsuna smile, and soon they were once again reengaged in their game. Sesshoumaru stood on the sidelines. Watching. Waiting.
And when Setsuna's back was turned and the others were focused elsewhere, Sesshoumaru pelted his daughter square in the back with a snowball.
She froze and jerked around like a puppet on strings, so great was her shock. Even Towa's mouth dropped open in surprise. But Setsuna's look of indignation mixed with competitive spirit was worth the prior offense to his pride.
Because after that, Sesshoumaru was ready for every snowball she and Towa threw, and he did not make it easy for his daughters to catch him. They might see this as play, but he could still teach them something about speed and how to target their prey here.
And somehow, Jaken ended up buried beneath such a massive ball of snow that Rin made a snowman out of him, just because she could.
