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The Tale of the Demon Lord	By : Arianawray Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 56279 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 16
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- 18
XVII: Communication
"Would you like to write to your friends?" Sesshomaru asked Inuyasha, after the lunch dishes had been cleared away from the prince's bedroom.
"You would let me do that?" Inuyasha asked suspiciously.
"Yes, I would. And I would have your letter delivered to them at once. I would be happy to have any letters you write, at any time, sent to them promptly."
The demon lord was pleased to see his brother's face light up, all the dark clouds of his earlier enumeration of Sesshomaru's shortcomings blown away in a second.
"I can really write to them any time I want?" Inuyasha asked, more eagerly, in such a childlike manner that Sesshomaru's nascent conscience was pricked to think of how he had only been the latest in a long line of tormentors who had forced the boy to grow up faster than he ought to have.
"Of course," he answered.
Inuyasha had seen the writing paper in his desk drawer before, but thought it was there just for show – he had not believed that Sesshomaru would permit him to contact anyone outside the castle. He went at once to the desk, took out the paper and an ink stick, and quickly ground some of the ink into the well of the inkstone on his desk – the same one he had flung at Sesshomaru's head a few days ago. It was not broken, fortunately, for it was a beautiful item whose main decorative element was a carved figure of a dog in full flight. He wet the compacted, powdery grains with some drinking water, and worked the solution with the grinding stone until it was a smooth liquid film.
As Sesshomaru drew up a chair beside him, Inuyasha looked through the writing paper available, each sheet hand-painted in a different shade of watery, discreet colour. He selected a fine piece with lavender hues and scrutinised the range of brushes of different sizes that reclined against the notched wooden stand beside the inkstone.
He chose one with a medium-sized head and dipped its pointed end into the ink, then wrote two names on the top right corner of the sheet of paper.
"Are those the priestess sisters?" the demon lord asked.
"Yes – Kikyo and Kaede," Inuyasha replied, slightly absently, for he was focusing on making his writing look nice. "Kikyo's the older sister… but of course they're both old now."
He fell silent as he began to concentrate on what he wanted to say in the letter. Sesshomaru was sitting rather close to him, but he did not attempt to make physical contact, and Inuyasha sensed that the demon lord was merely interested in seeing his writing style.
His brother's presence was surprisingly not much of a hindrance to his crafting of his letter, for Inuyasha most wished to tell his friends that he was alive and as well as he could be, and to ask them how they were. Even if he had not been sitting right there beside him, he would not have wished to say anything about his initial treatment at his hands, for that would only have made the sisters sad. He simply wrote that he was safe and in good health, had been given a big room of his own, had lessons with a tutor almost every morning and was learning all sorts of interesting things. He asked them how they had been these past days, and whether the village was safe from bandit raids and attacks by human-eating demons.
When he got to that point, he looked up and asked Sesshomaru: "Can they write back to me?"
"Certainly. The messenger will wait for their reply, even if he has to wait overnight."
So Inuyasha continued by asking them to reply, for he was looking forward to hearing from them. He finished his letter with more wishes and hopes that they were keeping well.
He had gone a little too heavy on the ink towards the end when he re-dipped his brush in the well, and had to blow on the sheet to make the writing dry more quickly. When the ink no longer gleamed wetly, he folded up the letter and secured it in an outer sheet of protective paper that he tucked in on itself so that it fully enclosed the thinner writing paper. To keep the whole piece intact, he bound it with some decorative string.
Sesshomaru called for one of his more trusted personal messengers, a red-haired dog demon named Yuno, and directed him to ensure that the letter was delivered into the hands of one of the two priestesses of the village with the great tree that the humans thought sacred to the gods, near the eastern coast. He was told to take one of the stronger dragons who could easily cover the distance in three hours, and to wait overnight near the village if the priestesses needed more time to write their reply.
"Yes, my lord," Yuno replied promptly. Before long, Inuyasha saw him and the dragon taking off from the castle grounds and disappearing into the distance. He longed to go with them, but it was miraculous enough that Sesshomaru was allowing him to write to his friends – the opportunity was so precious that he didn't dare push his luck by asking if he could visit them as well.
Natsumi knocked on the door then, and was admitted, carrying a few packages of herbs that the healer Satoshi had measured out and mixed for Inuyasha. Each dose was to be gently double-boiled with two soup bowls' worth of pure water till it was reduced to one bowl, she reported, and His Highness was to take one dose a day before going to bed at night, for three nights.
Sesshomaru examined the herbs, and determined from their scent that they could not possibly contain anything that might harm Inuyasha. He told Natsumi: "Leave the medication here where it will be safe. Come back each evening to collect a dose, and oversee the preparation of the medication yourself. Have someone reliable watch over it at all times. Do not allow the kitchen staff to mix it up with anything else by mistake."
The racoon demon received her orders with a bow and a reply that she would take the utmost care with the medication, before putting the herbs away in a cabinet and withdrawing.
Alone with Inuyasha again, Sesshomaru asked: "Do you think you will feel like having dinner in the dining hall this evening? Or would you prefer to eat in your room?"
His spirits raised by seeing his letter to his friends so speedily sent off, Inuyasha opted to eat in the dining hall.
Sesshomaru nodded and said he had some work to do, but that he would see Inuyasha at dinner time. After reminding him not to over-exert himself today even if he felt perfectly well, the demon lord left his brother's room.
He had not attempted to touch Inuyasha even once since the sun had risen on this new day.
~ - ~
Not at all heeding Sesshomaru's advice to take things easy, Inuyasha sprinted out of the castle into the gardens in a streak of silver hair and dark green-and-gold silk, and from there across the fields to the patch of forest where he greeted Bokusen'o with a cheerful: "Hey there, I'm back!"
He leaped into the branches and said to the tree: "You were telling me through the leaf you gave me that I would be all right! Thanks, Bokusen'o!"
As the half-demon prince sat high up amongst the leaves with his back against the trunk, one hand reaching back to pat the bark, he could hear the tree say in words that seemed to drift silently through unseen spaces and enter his head directly: If your brother does not learn to treasure you from now on, I shall lift my roots out of the ground and walk to the castle to give him a hiding like he has never had.
Inuyasha chuckled, trying not to laugh too loudly at the image of a great and angry demon-tree uprooting itself and spanking Sesshomaru with its unyielding branches.
He took a nap there through most of the afternoon before exploring the rest of the forest patch, discovering rabbits and pheasants and a decent-sized stream that wound its lengthy way through the grounds, fed by a spring that he remembered had its well-guarded source on the far end of the castle grounds. The stream was cool enough by the time it reached this part of the forest patch to be alive with hardy little fish that had swum upstream from some other pool or river out in the forest, and which sparkled like jewels as they flashed and darted back and forth in the tepid running water. Part of the stream was diverted by a dip in the terrain into a small pool in which tadpoles thrived, and over which a scattering of shimmering dragonflies hovered, giving Inuyasha a fascinating little slice of nature to observe in safety and peace.
Once the sun began to sink behind the distant treetops, he began to turn his thoughts to his letter and his friends, wondering if Yuno had reached the village yet. It would soon be dinner time, so he ran back to his room to find that the servants had thoroughly drained his bath of the old water which had sat in it unchanged for days while he had barricaded himself in, and had refilled it with fresh water which was just turning invitingly hot. Natsumi had everything ready and had set out his evening clothes too. She had even brought back his fire rat robe, all dry and clean now, folded neatly.
"I've already put your first dose of medication to boil in the kitchen where the meals for Lord Sesshomaru and Your Highness are prepared," she reported to him. "My most trusted friend Kazuki is keeping a very sharp eye on it to make sure that it doesn't over-boil, and that no one else touches it. Once we've got you dressed, I will go back down to the kitchen and take over from him."
"What about your own dinner? I can't have you going hungry just because Sesshomaru told you to supervise that medicine stuff."
"Fear not, Your Highness," she said with a bright smile. "Kazuki always feeds me very, very well whenever I'm anywhere near the kitchens!"
"Oh…" Inuyasha said, a playful note creeping into his voice. "A very special friend…?"
He could have sworn that Natsumi blushed a little, but before he could stare harder at her to see if her cheeks were really changing colour, she ushered him into the bathroom with her hands firmly on his back, and by the time he was done with his bath and was ready to be dressed, she looked as cool and calm again as she normally did.
She did, however, ask him in an echo of his own probing as she was doing his hair: "So, does Your Highness have anyone special in his life outside this castle?"
"Me? Huh – not likely. Most humans and demons don't want anything to do with half-demons. And the few that are friendly aren't really suitable for… you know… romantic liaisons."
"Perhaps Your Highness has been in towns and villages where many of the people are wary of half-demons, but I hear that things are changing across our kingdom and even in other lands. There are more and more half-demons these days, and because of that, more people are able to accept those who are a little different from themselves. I even hear that the only child of the present bat-demon leader is a very powerful half-demon girl, and if the succession passes to her, she will be the first ruler of their tribe who is not a full demon."
Inuyasha thought about what she had just said, then admitted: "When I was younger, I was just a little bit in love with one of the priestesses in the village I lived in before coming here. She was so pretty, and so powerful, and very kind-hearted. I think she was a little bit in love with me too. She didn't seem to care that I was a half-demon – she saw me for me, for the person I was inside. But we just stayed friends, because it was really better that way – she's a priestess – she wasn't supposed to ever marry or sleep with any males, otherwise she might have lost her powers. Besides, I guess she knew she would grow really old even before I fully matured. She is really old now. She and her sister are still my closest friends. But it's sad for me when I see how old they've grown. I don't know how much longer they will have to live. Whenever I look at them, I think of my mother growing older and older, hanging on to life as long as she could for my sake, until one day her body couldn't keep up with the strength of her spirit any more, and she was gone."
"Maybe part of the reason why there were so few half-demons in our world all this time was that it would be too sad for demons to see their human mates fading away before their eyes, and for the humans to grow older and weaker even as their children seemed to stay small forever," Natsumi said thoughtfully, moved by his affection for his mother and the priestesses, which she could hear clearly in his voice. "But over the centuries, demons seem to have come to terms with these facts of life, and are more willing to take human mates. Perhaps they have seen how strong and capable half-demons are, not weak or poorly formed as the people of old used to think those of mixed origin would be."
"That may be so," Inuyasha mused. "But for now, it looks like my only realistic 'romantic' option is my own brother. That's pathetic." He wrinkled up his nose.
"Your Highness, that is hardly pathetic," Natsumi replied sensibly. "It is not unusual among demons for siblings to be mated pairs, or lovers."
"I've lived among humans too long," he muttered.
By then, his hair was done, and he was properly attired for the evening in a deep-green robe, so Natsumi went back to the kitchen to make sure the herbal concoction was coming along fine, while Inuyasha headed for the dining hall.
Having just been talking about Sesshomaru with Natsumi, Inuyasha flushed a little as he entered the dining hall to see his demon brother looking as regal and cool as ever at the head of the table. Sesshomaru had already partaken of two meals on this one eventful day, and looked like he was about to start on his third – an uncommon occurrence, for the demon lord routinely went without meals for days. Inuyasha could only guess that he was doing this to keep him company, and a part of him was moved to understand that Sesshomaru was just trying to spend what he thought of as normal family time with him.
All the food on the table was particularly wholesome and nourishing tonight. Lean slivers of the finest marbled raw beef dipped in the kind of rice wine that was often used by humans as a tonic; herbal chicken soup; delicately stewed vegetables that retained all their fresh flavour and colour; and another kind of chicken soup reduced till it was so concentrated that it was a deep brown shade, meant to be drunk in very small quantities.
"I'm not dying, you know," Inuyasha remarked as he stared at all the good stuff laid out on the table. "It's not like I need my strength boosted any more."
"You've only just emerged from an ordeal," Sesshomaru said quietly but firmly. "Eat up and drink up."
Inuyasha grumbled to himself, but it was surprisingly pleasant to feel cared for, and Sesshomaru still wasn't pawing his hair or groping his thigh or anything like that, so this was turning out to be a pretty pleasant day after all. He supposed that he ought to take what he could get while things were still good.
He wolfed down a good deal of the beef, drank a small bowl of the brown soup, a bigger bowl of the herbal soup, and had to be prompted to eat more vegetables to balance his diet. When he felt like bursting, the evening got even better.
Yuno returned with a reply from the village.
Inuyasha's eyes grew enormous as the messenger bowed and held up a rolled sheet of writing paper in his hands. He took the scroll from him, thanked him, and hastily unrolled it. His lips curved into a smile and his eyes shone as he recognised Kikyo's handwriting at once, while a quick glance towards the bottom of the sheet also revealed a few lines penned in Kaede's marginally less refined hand.
"Can I go upstairs to read this now?" Inuyasha asked Sesshomaru.
"Go on," the demon lord said indulgently.
Inuyasha raced up the stairs, jumped onto his bed and sprawled belly-down on the mattress to read the letter.
Kikyo wrote in her usual gentle, restrained style to say that she and all his other friends were relieved to learn that he was in good health and that his brother was treating him so well. She assured him that she and her sister, as well as the other villagers he was close to, were doing very well, and the security of the village was as good as it could be. The farmer's wife who was always giving Inuyasha shiitake mushrooms had just delivered her fourth son, reported Kikyo, and the woman's spirits were lifted after a painful labour to hear that her half-demon friend was unharmed. The ancient tree seemed to be growing a fresh crop of green, young leaves, and had waved a branch at her although there was no breeze then when she hurried out of the hut to read out Inuyasha's letter to it.
Inuyasha laughed to hear that, and reminded himself to tell Bokusen'o about that part of Kikyo's letter.
The lines that Kaede added at the end had to do with how Kikyo had almost purified the messenger Yuno with one of her sacred arrows, thinking him a crony of Sesshomaru's who had come to harm the village, and had held back only when he yelled out that he came in peace! Kaede concluded with a remark that Yuno had fortunately been mollified with a good meal of fresh venison that one of the village hunters had just given them that afternoon.
Inuyasha was chuckling over that when Sesshomaru knocked and entered, and asked what amused him so.
"Can we give Yuno some reward for his troubles?" Inuyasha asked his brother. "Kikyo almost shot him with one of her deadly arrows!"
"Yuno is not unskilled in warfare," Sesshomaru replied. "I'm sure he was more than capable of dodging an old woman's arrows."
"You don't know Kikyo," Inuyasha commented.
"I have already sent him a decent amount of silver for doing his job so well," Sesshomaru assured him. "I said it was from both of us."
"Oh. But I don't have any money," Inuyasha looked worried.
"Yes, you do. I would have told you a few days ago, if we had not quarrelled, that you will receive an allowance every month from now on. You may use it as you see fit."
"But I don't do anything around here," he said awkwardly, wondering with a secret internal cringe if those first few nights of sleeping with Sesshomaru were considered doing something. "I can't take money for nothing."
"Under the laws that our grandfather and father established for this kingdom, every prince or princess of our bloodline is entitled to an allowance from the part of the coffers set aside for the castle's expenses. I am only sorry that you did not have it before, when you lived away from here, but all that is owed to you is there, intact, and you may draw on it through me or through the castle's treasurers, whenever you choose. So you have the money for your own use, regardless of whether you do anything. If you want to earn the money, and perhaps more in future, the best thing you can do now is to study hard, and learn all you can by observing how things are done, so that you will be able to act wisely and take more responsibility for various matters as you mature. I will invite you to some of the meetings I hold with my ministers regularly, and you can learn more from there."
"Meetings…?" Inuyasha said doubtfully. "That sounds boring."
"Perhaps you can liven them up?" Sesshomaru suggested archly.
"We'll see."
"I trust that your friends are well?"
"Yes, everything's fine. There's a new baby in the village, and the sisters are well, and the tree waved at my letter."
Sesshomaru was charmed by the affection he could hear in Inuyasha's voice for the ones he cared about, and desired to hear that liveliness always.
Inuyasha, however, did not know that. He suddenly held his breath after gushing at Sesshomaru, feeling very juvenile and silly for going on about things that the demon lord surely wouldn't care a whit about, and hoping with all his heart that his brother wouldn't ruin everything now by ordering him to his bedroom for more nocturnal amusements.
But all Sesshomaru did was to say softly: "That's good to know. Rest well tonight. I will show you Father's swords tomorrow. I have cleared my work and assigned more of it to my ministers, which I probably should have done long ago, anyway, so I'll have more time to spend with you – if you don't mind."
He turned to go, only to be stopped by the sound of his name: "Sesshomaru?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
The demon lord nodded in acknowledgement of those precious words of appreciation, which he perhaps felt that he did not quite deserve yet.
As Natsumi knocked and entered with Inuyasha's medicine, Sesshomaru quietly left his brother's bedroom and returned alone to his chamber.
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The Tale of the Demon Lord