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Chapter Text

"She follows me by her own will."

"Oh but I wager, great Inu no Taishou, that given the fair choice she might want to reconsider."

"Speak plainly old woman."

"Of course the child hasn't really live amongst her own kind… at better times."

"And now is the better time?"

"It seems so."

"I will be seeing her."

"We will not stop you."

"And she'll have her choice."

"When she is ready, and not before."

"Tell me, what it is this Sesshomaru will gain out of this… wager, as you call it?"

"Oh my lord demon, if this old woman may be so bold to presume, she'd say you do not need to gain anything but victory, is she grossly mistaken?"

. . .

It was said that a fair bargain leaves both parties unhappy. The Lord Youkai of the West was not sure about the fairness of the exchange he just made with the old miko or if he was indeed unhappy. The old miko didn't look unhappy either. The little girl soon to be left in her care, however, had been the most unhappy.

Her hiccups brought his attention back to her. Cradled in his arms, she looked so small and harmless. Not a few minutes before she made quite a show of her tantrum.

She had been stunned when he told her about his decision to leave her behind in the village with the old miko that morning. He had answered all the questions she had managed to stammer out with brisk, dismissive, matter-of-fact replies and, shoulders slumped she had complied, or so it seemed.

As the dusk crept nearer and nearer and he was ready to resume his journey, she had grown agitated, clinging to his hakama tightly, babbling promises that she'd be good, she'd be better, she'd behave, and that she asked nothing but for the Lord Youkai to allow her to be one of his travelling companions.

He stopped answering her by then, preferring instead to disapprovingly stare at her, something he fully knew would discourage her from trying to bargain her way out of his decision. There had been a brief, sulky silence on her part. Then came the tears, flooding her small face. As she wiped them off with her sleeves, she tried to resume her plea, but it came out in hoarse, incoherent garble of noises. It frustrated her, and the harder she tried to get her point across, the more incoherent she sounded. Until finally she broke in unstoppable fit of sobs. Her tiny frame shook, her breathing ragged.

He took the human whelp on his arms then. She was so small, even for one with eight summers. He should have just left her without so many words. But he had known then that had he done that, she would run after him, with of without his leave. He had to have her word, her promise.

"Rin," he said to the sobbing bundle in his arms. "I will be back."

He feels her tightening her clenches on his haori. She looked up to meet his eyes, face flushed, eyes wet, puffy and questioning.

She smelled of salty tears and misery.

"I will be back when you are ready. You will have your choice. You have my word."

His hope to have her word in return was met with her burying her face on his chest. He felt her heart beat faster and sensed a sliver of fear in her. "I always make good on my words Rin. Do you doubt this Sesshomaru?"

Face buried his haori still, she shook. Her tiny hands moved away, finding purchase on his silver hair. He let out a small involuntary take of breath as she yanked it and looked up, staring his eyes straight, accusing.

This is most uncomfortable. He stared back the insolent tiny creature. Her violent sobs had stopped, replaced by small hiccups.

"You have my word." Of why the Lord Youkai of The West felt that he needed to repeat the words he himself was not sure. "Now I will have yours that you will stay. You will not wander off. I will visit on you to make sure that you do stay."

He could see something shifted in her eyes. "Would you have me came to this place again and not finding you here?"

She swallowed a few sobs, took a labored breath and mustered a weak, "No."

"You will stay in this place." Somehow it sounded more like a question.

"Yes…" she said weakly.

He held her closer at her answer. He had had a feeling something like this would have happened, what with the child so willful, but it had gone more smoothly on his mind, and considerably quicker. He was growing more unsettled by the minutes, something tightened on his chest. He closed his eyes, willing the sensation to go away, and found himself, without thinking, stroking her back.

She had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Her breathing gradually steadied, occasionally interrupted by residual hiccups. Her hands, however, were still clasped in a death grip on his silver hair.

He sighed. Drawing his claws, he cut the locks off. He wouldn't risk prying her hands and waking her. He inhaled deeply, storing her scent his mind. Even marred by tears, dirt or blood she had always smelled of summer meadows; fresh grass and wild flowers.

Carrying her to the miko's hut, and leaving her to sleep on the futon had been a blur. What he noticed the most when he hastened his departure was how the loss of her insignificant weight on his hands strangely weighed on his steps.

. . .

Chapter Text

Rin groaned, straightening her stiff shoulders. She had stayed in same hunched position for too long again. Massaging her upper arm, she fell on her back. The sky was the clearest blue, the breeze warm and the thick grass on her back a comfortable cushion. She watched dandelion seeds danced in the air for a while.

Her thought drifted off to the days of wandering the land with the Lord Youkai of the West.

Where was he now, she wondered? Was he under the same sky? He said he'd be visiting, but almost a year had passed since then. Her eyes wandered to the hills so often, hoping to find his silhouette standing proud, and found no one, every time. She would not give up though, the Lord Youkai has always made good on his words; she had that at least, and some of his silver locks. Her hand automatically dug her yukata folds, fingering the silk pouch where she kept them safe and braided inside.

Inuyasha didn't have anything, not even a proper farewell with Kagome, since the passage that linked his and her time had closed almost a year ago, yet he faithfully visited the Bone Eater's Well every three days, waiting for a miracle to happen. Like him, her spending most of her free time wandering from the busy village to the clearing on the edge of the forest was her own way of waiting.

She felt a fresh pang of sadness; she remembered the morning she woke up on Kaede-baachan's hut, confused, thirsty, still clutching the Lord Youkai's silvery locks on her hands. He had cut them off and left while she'd been sleeping. She covered her eyes with an arm, suppressing her tears, refusing to dwell on it. She refocused her senses into her peaceful surroundings and dozed off.

A sudden strong gust of wind woke her from her nap, but not quick enough for her to gather her work before it scattered them in all directions.

"Shimatta !" she grabbed her tools and dashed after them. She cursed herself for forgetting to weigh them with stones. She managed to catch few pages that landed nearby, but immediately saw that it wasn't the best strategy, as the wind blew the rest even farther away from her.

Still cursing, she ran after them while simultaneously scanning the ground near her feet in case she missed some.

And her face smacked into something solid.

She landed on her butt with a thud, scattering dandelion seeds into the air.

She hadn't fully registered what happened until she heard his voice.

. . .

"Mind where you are going Rin."

"Sesshoumaru-sama!"

Her delighted squeal came even before she looked up to see him. He stood tall in front of her while she beamed up at him. He had predicted she'd lunge to hug him, or his feet, but few seconds passed without any of them moving. Finally he crouched down, leveling his gaze with hers.

"Homework?" he handed her the rest of her previously scattered papers.

"Un," she nodded, wondering when did he manage to collect them all and how did she miss seeing him did it. "K-kanji lesson from houshi-sama," she added, stuttered.

"Hn." He raised his eyebrows. The perverted monk?

He had expected her to resume their interaction with her customary chattering about her human days and her human live at the little mundane human village with all other humans and whatever petty things humans do. But then there was that pause again, stretching the seconds into a rather awkward silence, their gazes locked the whole time. Must he also restart the conversation? What did they do to this loquacious infant in a year he left her there?

"Well?" was his best attempt.

"Rin missed you so much," her voice came out choked, tears welling up on her eyes.

"So you cried when I left and you cried when I came?"

She let out a chuckle. "I haven't cried," she protested. Oh how she terribly, miserably missed him. She raised one arm to wipe her nearly spilled tears with her yukata sleeve while the other one clutched her bundle of papers. She didn't notice that the sleeve was stained by some wet ink on the papers and as she dragged it across her face it left a dark smudge along her cheek.

The Lord Youkai sighed inaudibly, his eyes softening. Somehow, somewhere inside of him, he could not find a word for it, but he found it to be terribly endearing. As he was extending a hand, intending to wipe her small face from ink and tears – the little girl leaped forward, wrapping her arms on his neck in a crushing hug –catching him completely off guard she knocked him to the grass.

Well that was a first, knocked to the ground by a little ningen girl. Had there been witnesses, he must kill them for seeing this. But there was none, and partially stunned, and partially curious he let them be in the position for a while. Staring at the bits of cloud in the clear blue sky, he found himself doing what he'd always done before, absentmindedly stroking her back.

Her hair had grown, and so has the rest of her. But her smell, he found himself inhaling deeply; it was tinted with salty tears, but it was still the same, and there was something else he found in it, a certain warmth he didn't find to be entirely unpleasant, joy.

He rearranged their position, nestling the girl comfortably on his crossed legs.

"This Sesshoumaru does not come to see your tears all day Rin,"

Rin nodded to his chest. She drew her head back and gasped. "Sesshoumaru-sama! Your clothes –"

The white was stained with tears-diluted ink.

Silently he took the wide-eyed infant's chin and wiped her smudged face with his own sleeve.

"Nevermind that. Now show me what all this inky fuss is about," he said to her bewildered face.

Rin turned around on his lap to spread her work on the grass.

"These are the characters I have mastered. And these, houshi-sama tell me to practice on writing them," she said, not without a pride. "And on those, houshi-sama wants me to try to guess what the characters meant," she pointed a few pages with a more complicated characters on them. "And this –," she gasped and tried to hide the paper.

It was too late, Sesshoumaru's eyes had caught the character of his name written on it. She took the paper from her hand and scanned it.

She looked up at him with hopeful eyes. Part anxious part curious. Eager for his approval and fearing otherwise.

"You should strike this line before this one," he said, showing her, "everything else's correct."

She turned her eyes at the paper, beaming, and though she couldn't see her lord's face; with his chin resting on the crown of her head; she could sense that he's pleased.

"I'm supposed to figure out the meaning of these," she showed him another page, "Houshi-sama said I should choose the one I like the best."

When the Lord Youkai didn't say anything, she added, "I know this one's this for Camphor Tree and that one for Thistle." She points at the characters 棆and 菻. "Kaede-baachan showed me when we went to pick herbs. I haven't figured the others. And I don't like camphor trees, they have sticky sap, and thistle's pretty but they have too many thorns . And that one," she points to character 凜, "I thought with the tou–kettle lid, kuchi–mouth and nogi–branches, this is a warm stove, but Kaede-baachan tell me this strokes here is hyou–ice. So that means this is cold or dignified. I don't really understand how a–,"

"These are Rin." He interrupted her

"Eh?"

"All this characters, Rin, have at least one way to be read as Rin."

"Oh!" her eyes grew wider. "I never knew that, my father always wrote my name in hiragana. My mother, she couldn't read," she babbled on.

She didn't even know her true namesake. And she never would. If indeed she had been given one to begin with. The land had been so ravaged by wars that to ponder on a namesake was a luxury common pheasants simply did not have, not when their life was threatened every day, and their children might not last another night. A name given without much of a thought was more easily forgotten.

And all the characters the monk curated for her carried weight. There were, Sesshoumaru noticed and subsequently appreciated, some characters of Rin that was omitted from the list, like 厘 Rin denotes 1/1000, a value so small it's negligible. He wondered if one of these less savory characters was actually one that was given by Rin's parents, for a small child who could perish any given moment.

Unconsciously Sesshoumaru pulled the human girl closer.

"Sesshoumaru-sama?"

"Hn?"

"What are these?" she points to the rest of the characters.

"It is your homework Rin," he clipped.

She chuckled, "I am out of papers."

She heard a rustle, and then saw a wide white cloth spread on the ground; it was one of the many layers of Sesshoumaru's inner garment.

"Use it," he said.

"But it's your–,"

"It's stained. I will not wear it anymore."

Sheepishly Rin took out her brush, dipped it in her ink bottle and began to scribble on the pristine –albeit smudged on some part –white garment.

"This one she pointed to a character, 霖, this one's from ki–a tree, many trees. A forrest? And ame–rain. Rainy forrest?"

"The rain's more dominant. See? It covers all of the forrest."

"Like a rain spell?"

He nodded. Like you, crying.

"I don't like it," she quipped. A day with rain spell meant a stifling day inside the hut.

She moved on the next character 琳. "It's character for lonely, isn't it? Ki for tree and shiru for sap? Kaede-baachan said sap's like tears for tree."

"Look closely, it's not 'shiru'. It's ou," Sesshoumaru took the brush from her hand and the characters, "King, ruler, superior."

"So, king of the forest?" she rather liked that.

"No," he found himself searching for an explanation, "together they meant jewel or the tinkling sound jewels made."

"Like Shikon no Tama speaks?"

"No," he found teaching a human infant was not easy after all, "Like precious stones tinkle."

"I don't know what that's like."

Of course she does not know what a tinkling sound of king's treasure is like. "They made a sound like a summer chime. Like those you made with seashells. But clearer, prettier sound."

"It's pretty?," he looked up at him, smiling. He gave a slight nod. "Then I like it," she said, even though she doesn't really understand how a tree is a jewel to a king and what's their tinkling sound's like. "But it's too close to lonely. So next!" she chirped.

She copied the next character from the sheet Miroku gave her, 綸, "It's from satsu – volume, and ito–thread. So threads? Or woven cloth?" she looked at him again.

"There's ichi –one, here and ko–articles, here. But yes, it's thread, cloth. Silk, to be precise."

"Like this I'm writing on?"

"Hn."

"Oh it's lovely." But she hasn't made her choice yet. So they moved to the next character. An unbelievably complicated one麟 .

Sesshoumaru lifted his eyebrows; there are at least six component characters on that. "It's from Kirin," he said, cutting off the long guessing game ahead.

"Kirin?"

"A creature. A daiyoukai from mainland." She wouldn't want a youkai to be her namesake would she?

"What is it look like? A deer?" she guessed, pointing the shika–deer component on the character. She liked deers. "A dancing deer that comes out at night on the cliff." She went on, alternately scribbling more component, masu–dancing, gen –cliff, and yuu–evening.

Sesshoumaru snorted, there was no stopping this infant and her curiosity, "More like an overgrown deer, with stubby antlers who eats too much," he took the brush and scribbled the character component the little girl had missed, kome– rice, "and its breath stinks so bad it burns," he added hi–fire.

"Kakkoi! It's so cool, "she exclaimed.

Somehow it annoyed the Lord Youkai of the West, this image the little girl painted of other youkai on her head. So he did not mention that in mainland, that creature Kirin was also a symbol of shining mind, a genius. Maybe she could use the character had it not been other daiyoukai's name.

"Next." He announced.

"This," Rin pointed out the character 燐, "I know all of the components, yuu–evening, hi–fire, masu–dancing, kome–rice? I'm not sure what that means, Kirin without the deer and the cliff… so dancing flame?" she tried, not sure where the rice fit in the picture.

"Phosphorous," he offered.

"That smelly thing Kaede-baachan said good for your skin?"

"That is sulphur."

"So what's phosphor's like?"

"It glows. It emanates light."

"Like the moon?"

"Like fireflies."

"Is it pretty?"

Oh kami! he was exasperated. Somehow this child managed to coax probably more words that he'd ever cared to utter last year alone.

"Onto the next one if you don't like it," he dismissed, refusing to further the verbal spar.

Both frowned at the next, last character, 倫, the little girl trying to decipher the symbols and him, for pondering the meaning. What was that monk's trying to teach her?

"I know all of the components, ichi–one, ketsu– staff, ko – articles, satsu–volume, and ka–change, But I don't understand its meaning," she sighed. "One who holds staff, speaks volume?" she tried.

"It means one who accompanies. A companion," he said. Or one who changes, one who enchants, he added silently.

"Like Jaken-sama? He holds a staff," she giggled.

Sesshoumaru was silent. Pondering on the word. There was a deeper meaning to this one he didn't tell the girl. It was also a character for ethics, morality, a prevailing righteous side to something. He found the word grandiose and redundant, like so many side of politics in his homeland.

"You'll understand better when you're older," he dismissed, lamely, he thought, he shouldn't have said anything. "You made your choice?"

Rin turned on his lap and looked him. She was about to speak, but decided against it. Then she gave him a mischievous smile, "I haven't. I will let you know my choice later."

He arched his eyebrows, questioning.

"When I am older," she added, sticking her tongue out.

The Lord Youkai of the West was speechless, and not by choice.

"Rin in Hiragana for now," she turned away, rummaging for her next assignment.

"I think I'm supposed to find out what this verse is about," she handed him a paper, perfumed, he noticed.

"I can make out a word 'love' here. Beautiful, here, and here, and I think, wet and rain there and some variation of it I do not know yet, and I think this is milk?" she pointed at a character.

She saw the changes in his face. She's fascinated, it was rare for him to show such an apparent change of expression. He almost looked surprised. It must be an interesting word. "I know the character before it is 'one pair', and before it 'most lovely'," she tried to gauge a further reaction.

Sesshoumaru was scandalized.

Breasts. That what the characters is, Milky White Breasts, to be exact.

What, how, why that dirty monk? He scanned the page.

Red Lips. Tongue. Kisses. Caresses. Sighs. Moans.

Hel almost instantly obliterated the paper with poison from his claws.

"Ne, Sesshoumaru-sama? What's wrong?"

"Where is the monk, Rin?"

. . .

"Was that Rin?" Sango entered the hut, the twins fast asleep on her hands. She caught a glimpse of Rin's back wrapped in a white yukata with a strange black and grey design, her steps skipping, before disappearing on a corner.

"Yes," her husband replied, his back to her, absorbed in something.

"What was that?" Sango asked.

"A letter from the Daiyoukai of the West, written on silk. His silk sleeve, to be precise."

"Sesshoumaru? Was does he want?"

"To put it simply he wants to eat our children, make us make more children and then eat them too."

"What!"

"He put that rather eloquently too, look at this script; it's the ancient calligraphed form of kanji, only written on sutras now. I never knew he cares for literacy. And I think he let Rin decorate the borders," he says, utterly fascinated

"Never mind that! What's with the threat? How can you be so calm?" She cut him off, panicked.

Miroku sighed, "Remember that bawdy poem I wrote you?"

"What of it?" even panicked, she couldn't help to blush a little.

"There is a third page. The best part. I mixed it up with Rin's homework."

"YOU WHAT?"

He nodded, sheepishly. "Sesshoumaru came to see Rin this today. She showed him her work." He sighed. "Thank kami-sama that little girl hasn't got too many vocabularies yet."

"What will happen to us now?"

"Nothing. As long as I don't make the same mistake again."

"How do you know that?"

"Rin told me. He wanted to see me before but she said she wanted to spend all day just with him and no one else. And he relented."

"You are joking. This is Sesshoumaru."

"And this is Rin."

Sango went silent.

"Look, we'll keep vigil for a while if it makes you happy,"

She nodded. "I-I just. I can't believe he'd just send a letter."

"His kimono sleeve. Did you see Rin? She's wearing the rest of it. It's scribbled all over," he couldn't help smiling, "she looked so happy – well, more than usual. She insisted I give her this back to her when I'm done,"

His wife still looked unconvinced.

"Since you still think we're on danger. And the twins are asleep. How 'bout we make the most of the night, hm? A daiyoukai might launch a personal vendetta over his ward's honor against us tonight," he grinned.

"Oh you." was all she managed.

"You are so adorable when you blush you know?"

. . .