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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
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XXV: Reaching Out
Sesshomaru had found a note waiting for him upon his return from the village, delivered that morning by a messenger sent from his mother's kingdom. She had taken her time to reply to his letter of several days ago regarding what to do with her clothes in storage.
Her note read:
Fifty years of not writing to your mother followed by a curt missive regarding the frivolous matter of my wardrobe? What have I done to deserve such a son? You may do whatever you like with the dresses I left with you – shred them, burn them, give them to the servants, or wear them yourself if you please. I have no need of them. I shall visit when I think I may have a friendlier reception than I did the last time I made the trip.
Sesshomaru knew that his mother was still annoyed by his refusal to so much as glance with interest at any of the potential mates she had gathered for him on her last visit. She had always known how to bear a grudge, although if he was to be fair, he would have to admit that she had toned down immensely from the years when he had been a child, and she had been a chilly ice queen who never forgave and never forgot.
Her separation from his father seemed to have mellowed her – perhaps because she no longer had to tolerate a mate whose sunny personality riled her so. She had even come to forgive the former demon lord, and had offered to stand with him against his enemies. His death had sobered her greatly, and she had learnt to let go of things that would only bring her pain and grief.
Now, she was a slightly bored dowager ruling a tiny but very secure kingdom of dog demons in the far west, with time to be petty about smaller matters.
Sesshomaru put her note away in a drawer and decided not to look at it again. He did, however, wonder about her silence with regard to his brother. He did not doubt that his mother, who had her own highly informed sources, would have been among the first to hear that he had brought Inuyasha back to the castle. Her saying nothing of the matter in her note – not making the slightest allusion to it – told the demon lord that she was sufficiently interested in this development not to refer to it until she had found out more. It implied that she would wish to see the boy with her own eyes before making one of her vague, unreadable comments about him, or about Sesshomaru's motives for tracking down his little brother.
Wondering if he ought to prepare Inuyasha for a visit from his… what was Sesshomaru's mother to Inuyasha, anyway? If the queen had remained with her mate, Inuyasha would have had to refer to her as his Royal First Mother, in the formal manner of noble households whose ruling lords had a first mate and other recognised mates of lower rank, as well as concubines.
But the queen had severed her mating ties with the former demon lord, leaving him free to declare Inuyasha's mother his new mate. Inuyasha therefore had no official, immediate-family links to Sesshomaru's mother. She was, however, a cousin of their father's, so Inuyasha could technically address her as his aunt, although that sounded strange to Sesshomaru. The most appropriate way the half-demon prince could address the queen would seem to be by her title and name, Lady Shirakumo.
These thoughts occupied him so that when he sat at the dinner table with Inuyasha that evening, he was fairly quiet. He was not hungry, so he did not eat, but only drank a bit of beef soup and sipped from a small glass of wine.
"Something on your mind?" Inuyasha asked between mouthfuls of beef, breaking in on his musings.
"I've had a letter from my mother."
"Oh. Is she coming for a visit?"
"That is a distinct possibility."
"I've never met her. What's she like? Will she try to kill me at first sight?"
"She has a flair for the dramatic, but if she had ever wanted to kill you, she would have done so when you were a child."
"Did she hate my mother?" Inuyasha asked, putting his cutlery down.
"I don't believe she did. Father fell in love with your mother long after my mother was done with him."
"How should I address her?"
"That is exactly what I was thinking about a few moments ago. I believe it would be best if you called her Lady Shirakumo."
Inuyasha grinned. "I'll bet her name reflects her appearance – she probably looks exactly like you, hair, crescent moon marking and all."
"I do have a strong resemblance to her," Sesshomaru admitted.
"What's with all the white hair in this family, anyway?"
"Our ancestors tended to mate within the family. It is hardly surprising that certain distinctive physical traits were reinforced over the generations, like pure white hair. My mother is a cousin of our father's, did you know?"
"No, I never knew that."
"Now you do. Our great-grandparents inherited two territories from their ancestors – the small kingdom now ruled over by my mother in the far west, populated almost entirely by dog demons; and this land, which Father started expanding in the earliest years of his rule to stretch from the west to the east. It made sense for Father to choose my mother as his first mate, and reinforce the ties between the kingdoms."
"So you would be the heir to your mother's kingdom too?" Inuyasha queried.
"Yes. Although her kingdom is tiny, it is important to us, because it was the first territory known to have been ruled over by the dog demons, from as far back as anyone can remember. Our tribe has its roots in that land, and our people were all originally native to that kingdom. This kingdom, in contrast, is very much a land of immigrants. A small population of our ancestors travelled to this place many millennia ago, marked out the territory our castle stands on, and held their little plot of land against all invaders, enlarging it as the years passed. In our grandfather's time, the first stones of this fortress were laid, and then Father came along some three thousand years ago. What I gathered is that from the moment he was considered a mature demon, he went forth and started to eliminate all opposition to his rule by the might of his sword, seizing large stretches of territory to the west, east, north and south, until he was lord over all that you see today. It took him many hundreds of years to do that, and our grandfather was dead of old age before he was through. But when Father was satisfied with what he had achieved, he was a powerful king indeed. To consolidate his ties to the original dog-demon kingdom, he courted his cousin, and won her as a mate."
"Did he love her?"
"I think he did, to begin with. She was – she still is – a remarkably beautiful demon, and she has her charms of character, when she chooses to show them. But what love there was evaporated quickly when they turned out to be mismatched in personality. I used to resent my mother for being detached and cold, because I was naturally that way too. As I grew older I began to resent Father for not trying harder with her, or with me. But at this stage in my life, I think I can say that I have arrived at a point where my perspective is that they were both at fault for not working harder to adapt to each other, and we were the ones who paid the price for their obstinacy."
"You must have hated me so much. My very existence represented all that went wrong between Father and your mother."
"It wasn't your fault, and I was too immature to accept that."
"I remind you of Father, don't I?"
"Yes."
"Is that who you see when you look at me?" Inuyasha asked softly.
"At first, yes. But I am coming to see you for who you are. It would hardly be fair to expect you to make up for all that I childishly believed I lacked from Father, merely because you resemble him in some ways."
An administrative attendant entered the dining hall and stood at a respectful distance from the table until Sesshomaru acknowledged his presence. He bowed to the two brothers, then addressed Sesshomaru: "My lord, the Minister for Development has sent his assistant to us with an urgent message – a river has burst its banks in the south, causing a large area encompassing several human communities to be flooded."
"Did he say how many casualties there were?"
"No, my lord. The minister's assistant is waiting outside your office."
"Inuyasha, please come with me," Sesshomaru said, getting to his feet.
Inuyasha rose and walked quickly beside Sesshomaru to the administrative wing, where a dog demon officer wearing the green uniform of the development ministry bowed and quickly updated Sesshomaru as he handed over the message scroll. When unfurled, the letter looked to have been written in a hurry.
The information in the scroll and the updates provided by the minister's assistant briefly but clearly outlined the situation: heavy rains in the south over the past weeks had swelled the rivers and loosened the earth of the banks. This evening, one great, bulging bank had crumbled, and an enormous rush of mud and water had swept in a flash across more than twenty hectares of low-lying farmland and village land, all covered now by a viscous sea which was spreading by the hour. Some fifty human bodies had been pulled out of the mud at the time the southern governors had written and sent off their reports to the minister, and more were expected to be found. Hundreds of villagers had been left homeless. The minister requested permission to temporarily divert the troops that were on their way from the north to help secure the southern border, to lend their numbers and strength to the area affected by the flood.
The south was far from Inuyasha's village in the east, but he had seen the devastation that nature could wreak, and his heart went out to the people who had lost loved ones, and possibly everything they owned.
Sesshomaru asked the officer: "What is the minister's plan?"
"My lord, Minister Mitsuharu has already sent his own security and logistical staff to the area, as well as many workers from his own estate to assist the southern governors in their effort. Their immediate priority is to rescue as many of the farming folk and their livestock as they can, and this they are doing even as we speak. Once no more survivors are to be found, they will concentrate more resources on repairing and reinforcing the damaged riverbank. If the rains continue, it may be necessary to divert some of the water from the river further upstream into areas not known to be populated, although the danger in doing that is possible flooding of the wilderness and forests, which may affect wildlife and demons living in isolation. Once the flooding is under control, we must begin to drain the water from the area and help the villagers repair their homes, which have all been destroyed."
"Diverting the water is not an ideal alternative," Sesshomaru said. "We must not actively destroy the forests and wilderness in addition to what nature has done to the farmland. Tell the minister that I approve of his plan to first rescue the people and livestock, and then reinforce the bank. However, I will not redirect the two hundred soldiers that are on their way to the south – they have only just set out from the north, and will not get there quickly enough. Besides, they are needed at the southern border. In any case, twenty hectares of devastation can fairly easily be tackled by half as many demon soldiers as the battalion moving south contains. I will therefore dispatch a hundred of my own soldiers and guards from the castle to fly south immediately on our dragons. They will also carry wood for shoring up the banks. You will leave with them."
"Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord," the minister's assistant said, and withdrew as Sesshomaru called in his military officers and gave them their instructions.
"My lord," the dog demon captain in charge of overall security in the castle spoke. "This will leave the castle understaffed, and may affect security."
"It will reduce our security strength," Sesshomaru agreed. "However, we can halve staff strength in less sensitive areas – we do not need so many sentries watching the corridors and gardens when no threat is suspected. I trust that those remaining will double their alertness until their colleagues return. Send fifty soldiers from the company in charge of the castle grounds, and another fifty from the company watching the walls and gates. These are more skilled with rough outdoor work, and will handle the job better. Redeploy and redistribute staff from less sensitive sections to take over their duties. Take twenty-one dragons from the stable, but do not use any of those that have just returned from the eastern village – they need to rest. Ten should be fire-breathing beasts to evaporate the excess water directly from the overflowing river if necessary, and ten should be water dragons which can help to scoop up and drain the water and mud from the farmland. The last should be a strong pack animal that can transport wood from our storehouse to reinforce the riverbank, and also food like preserved meat and whole fruit to be distributed to the people. Bear in mind that humans cannot survive as long as demons can without clean drinking water and food, so check that the survivors are properly fed and given uncontaminated water from further upstream. Take blankets with you. If the development ministry staff have not already done so, you must find the people what shelter you can in unaffected villages near the area. "
"Yes, my lord," all the officers present replied, and marched out at once to scatter in different directions and carry out their orders immediately, the captain accompanying the officer from the development ministry.
Once they were alone in the office, Sesshomaru sat down and began to write a quick note to the Minister for Development, thanking him for his swift response to what must have been frantic reports from the southern governors to his ministry, which oversaw all matters of infrastructure, agriculture and business. He briefly reiterated the instructions he had given the officers, and concisely explained his reasons for doing so.
Sesshomaru sealed the letter, summoned a messenger, and instructed him to give the scroll at once to the captain who would be leading the troops to the south.
"Minister Mitsuharu was not always tolerant of humans before," Sesshomaru said to Inuyasha when the messenger had left, to explain why he wished to write and deliver that letter immediately. "But in the last seventy years or so, I have perceived a gradual change in his attitude, and in the way he treats the humans his ministry interacts with. He has seen how industrious and cooperative the humans in our kingdom can be, and he wanted some of that spirit in his staff, who were not always as efficient as they are now. For him to send his own staff to the disaster zone, and to respond so quickly, is something I want him to know that I appreciate."
"If this is the sort of thing you want me to learn, I'm not sure I would even begin to know how to respond," Inuyasha said, slightly stunned by the speed and decisiveness with which everything had unfolded. "If it were me in your shoes, I probably wouldn't have the sense to do anything other than leap over to the south myself and start hauling people out of the mud with my bare hands."
"Responding in person is useful and quick in situations of limited scope close at hand, but not the most efficient or effective way of dealing with a larger-scale problem at a distance," Sesshomaru replied. "The best way may not always be the way you know best."
"Damn, I don't know how I'll ever learn that. I'm still in a bit of a daze at how quickly you assessed the situation without even seeing it with your own eyes."
Sesshomaru put a hand on Inuyasha's shoulder. "That is because such things are new to you, and you have spent a hundred and ninety years of your life handling everything by yourself, not to mention the last fifty single-handedly taking on heavy village chores for the people instead of marshalling them to do your bidding. In a single village, you might cope; but when ruling a kingdom, you cannot be everywhere."
It was getting late, so Sesshomaru told Inuyasha to go back to his room first, for he still had paperwork to look over, and letters to send to other tribes and states to ask them to be generous about contributing the food and building materials they could spare to the villages affected by the flash flood.
But Inuyasha wanted to stay and see what else needed to be done in such situations. So Sesshomaru moved his paperwork to the low table and sat on a large cushion on the floor, with Inuyasha beside him.
He wrote the letters to the tribes in his kingdom and instructed messengers to have them delivered in the morning. He also began on a precisely worded letter to the southern governors ordering them to investigate the collapse of the river bank – was it the result of too much forest land being carelessly cleared to make way for various developments? How did they intend to prevent such a thing from happening during the next rainy spell? He put the letter aside to be sent later, only after the rescue and repairs had been seen to, for he did not wish to distract the governors from their emergency operations.
Two hours after he had begun his work at the low table, Sesshomaru felt Inuyasha leaning against his left shoulder, and found that he had fallen asleep beside him. He carefully manoeuvred the boy's head into his lap without waking him, and kept working.
When Inuyasha stirred and unconsciously rubbed his face against Sesshomaru's thigh in a rather distracting way, the elder of the two decided that it was time to call it a night. He put away his papers and gently shook Inuyasha awake.
"Mmmf… did I fall asleep?" the boy asked, sitting upright in a second, embarrassed to discover that he had slumped all the way down into his brother's lap. "Sorry…"
"I did advise you to go upstairs earlier," Sesshomaru reminded him.
"I know, but I wasn't tired. I'm still not. It's just that all those letters were kind of repetitive. Don't you have scribes to do that sort of thing for you?"
"Not everything we do here is exciting. I use my scribes mainly for routine administrative missives. I prefer to have the recipients of my letters in this kind of situation know that they came from my own hand. Come, it's time for bed."
He walked Inuyasha upstairs to his bedroom door and returned to his own room, resigned by now to the routine that they had established from before Inuyasha paid his visit to the village. He changed out of his robes into his sleepwear and climbed into his bed, thinking all the while of the pleasing weight of the boy's head in his lap.
Just as he thought how much he would like to run his hand over that length of thick white hair, a tingle ran through his body as the muted, almost inaudible sound of stone moving smoothly against stone caught his ear. He sat up and looked towards the other end of the room to see the hidden door of the secret passage opening, and Inuyasha stepping out, clad in his white sleepwear.
"You said I could use it any time," the half-demon said, a little uncertainly. "So I thought I'd come down the passageway… if you don't mind…"
"Any time," Sesshomaru confirmed, keeping his voice hushed to not allow his feelings to flood his entire being.
"I just…" Inuyasha began, but did not finish his sentence.
"You wanted my company?" Sesshomaru finished the thought for him.
Inuyasha nodded.
The demon lord shifted over to one side of his bed, and Inuyasha crossed the room to slip under the covers with him.
"I just want to be here with you," Inuyasha said, as he found his tongue again. "I'm not here for anything else…"
"I understand," Sesshomaru replied, turning onto his side to face him.
"I really liked hearing about our family's history and about your mother at dinner. I'd like to hear a bit more if you don't mind."
"What would you like to hear about?" Sesshomaru asked.
"Tell me about a time when your mother and our father were happy together," Inuyasha requested.
"I don't think they were terribly happy together by the time I came along, so I can't recall that many good moments. But things were fine sometimes, when Father wasn't planning one assault or another on tribes giving him trouble, and Mother was in one of her calmer moods. When I was a small pup, I liked the evenings after dinner when Mother would sit with me in the nursery and Father would join us later if he did not have too much work to do. Mother occasionally indulged him by letting him rest his head in her lap while she sat on the carpet playing with me. If I was still awake, I would crawl onto Father's chest and fall asleep there. Sometimes he took me to his room with him if he did not want to leave me in my own bed. At those times my mother would come with us, so I would wake to find myself safe between my parents, and if I was very lucky, I would even find that they were holding hands, their interlinked fingers resting lightly on me."
"That sounds nice," Inuyasha murmured, thinking of how his own mother would often rest a protective, reassuring hand on him as he slept.
"It happened less and less often, until it ceased altogether, things grew unpleasant between them, and Mother left. But I understand now the mistake I have made all the years of my life, by reacting with coldness and anger at the loss of anything I treasured, and to resent what I imagined took it from me, instead of appreciating the time for what it was while it lasted, and to accept that all things can and must change. My godfathers tried to teach me that philosophy, but I could never comprehend it in my heart, until now. Until you turned my life upside down and reminded of me of who I was when I was younger."
"Everything in your life changed because I was born, didn't it?" Inuyasha asked, rather sadly.
Sesshomaru stretched a hand out and stroked his brother's cheek. "I'm glad you're here. Father wanted you. Your mother wanted you. And I am glad that you came into the world."
"I'm glad that you're glad. Really."
With that, Inuyasha snuggled deeper into the bed and let his eyes close. Heeding his cue, Sesshomaru turned onto his side to face away from him, so that the boy could sleep without being stared at.
But an hour or so later, when Sesshomaru himself was sleeping lightly, he felt Inuyasha burrow up against his back like a child seeking security and warmth. When Sesshomaru reached an arm round and touched him to communicate that he was pleased to have him close, he felt his hand covered and clasped by his brother's, and Inuyasha's fingers slipping between his own, in a meeting and forging of links that had very nearly been lost forever.
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The Tale of the Demon Lord