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The Tale of the Demon Lord	By : Arianawray Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 56388 -:- 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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IV: Dress Sense
Because he had cried himself to sleep the night before, the prince was worn out and still lost in troubling dreams at an hour of the morning when he would normally have been awake. That must have been why he did not at once sense that the guards outside his door had let someone into his room – he was usually alert to the proximity of others even while asleep, for long years living as an outcast had taught him that he was most vulnerable to danger while he slept.
Eventually, the sounds of movement about the room made him sit up with a start, wondering if an intruder had broken in, or worse, if Sesshomaru had entered. But the individual who faced him was a servant, judging by her dressing, one who had not been at the castle when he was a child, for he had never seen her before. She was a pretty racoon demon, with black and white-striped hair. Unlike the old servants and their children who had taunted him and hurt him, she had a gentle demeanour, and her posture was respectful.
"Who are you?" he asked, jumping out of bed and keeping a wary distance from her, wondering what she was here for. As he stood up, he realised that he had fallen asleep in the bathrobe Sesshomaru had wrapped him in, instead of changing into the comfortable sleeping garments that had been set out for him at the foot of his bed.
"I beg your pardon for startling you, Your Highness," she spoke, bowing. "My name is Natsumi. Lord Sesshomaru has assigned me to attend to your wardrobe and bath requirements. I came in to lay out the clothes that Lord Sesshomaru indicated you should wear for breakfast with him."
"I do not wish to wear what he has chosen for me," Inuyasha said curtly, still suspicious of her despite her distinctly non-threatening air. "Where is the robe I had?"
He had worn his father's gift of the fire rat robe all his life, for it was a magical garment that grew with him, and repaired and cleaned itself. He now realised that he had been so traumatised by Sesshomaru last night that he had left the room without stopping to pick up his clothes.
"Your red robe was sent for cleaning, Your Highness," Natsumi replied.
"It doesn't need cleaning! It cleans itself!" Inuyasha exclaimed. He was a naturally quick-tempered youth who tended to launch himself into fights, for aggressiveness at the right times and keeping out of sight at others was what had kept him alive after his mother's death. But as he flared up now, he remembered that he was supposed to behave so that his brother would not hurt his friends. In a calmer voice, he told Natsumi: "Please get it from the laundry room and return it to me. I want it back."
"Your Highness, I can retrieve your robe, but Lord Sesshomaru has asked that you wear these garments today." She gestured towards various items of clothing she had taken out of the wardrobe and draped over a finely carved side table and stand.
"Look – I don't want to make things difficult for you, so just get my fire rat robe and give it back to me, please!" Inuyasha insisted.
"Your Highness, Lord Sesshomaru will be angry with me if I do not dress you as he has instructed," Natsumi said worriedly.
"I'll be the one to face him. You won't have to bear the brunt of his anger."
"Nonetheless, he will be angry with me!" she said quietly, but earnestly. "Please, Your Highness –"
"I'm not wearing any of this stuff!" Inuyasha cried, losing his temper at last. "Give me my own robe!"
At that moment, the room door opened and Sesshomaru appeared in the entrance. Natsumi looked as if she would faint, while Inuyasha blanched, remembering all that the demon lord could do to him and to the village. But he was too upset by now to completely calm himself, and he glared at his brother furiously.
To the servant, Sesshomaru said: "Go the laundry room and ask if the prince's robe has been washed and dried. If it is ready, bring it back here."
"Yes, my lord," Natsumi replied, bowing low and hurrying out of the room.
Once she had left, Inuyasha snapped at his brother: "You said I had to stay here – you didn't say anything about wearing your stupid clothes!"
He sounded to Sesshomaru as if he was on the verge of breaking down. His unnatural, unquestioning compliance of the night before, and all he had been made to do, had taken its toll, and the small matter of what he was to wear had tipped his emotional balance badly.
Before he had slipped through the secret passage, Sesshomaru had believed that the evening had gone very well, and that with a little grooming and discipline, Inuyasha would come to enjoy being the favourite lover of the demon lord. But evidently, to Inuyasha, the evening had been nothing but a nightmare.
Having seen and heard him weep so bitterly, Sesshomaru had seriously considered letting him go before he waded in too deeply and forced matters past the point of no return. If he released him, it would appear to everyone that the demon lord had sampled the goods, found them not to his taste, and struck them off his menu. No one would have thought it unusual, for Lord Sesshomaru was known to have his whims and be hard to please. It would have been so easy to just tell him that he could take his gaudy red robe and leave.
But this was a new day, and looking now at the boy teetering on the knife-point of outright rebellion, all the more spectacular for the emotions that heightened his features, he knew that he could not let him go.
"Inuyasha," Sesshomaru said authoritatively to keep the situation under control. "You behave as if someone here would steal our father's fire rat robe. I assure you that it is perfectly safe in the hands of the servants whom I trust to clean my own garments. When Natsumi has retrieved it, it will be perfectly safe in any of the perfectly good cabinets and chests I chose for your room, to hold the wardrobe of clothes that I commissioned for you long before you returned. You are a prince, and my father's son, and I will not have you walking about looking as if you have nothing to wear but the clothes you had on your back when you arrived. If it means that I will have to hold you down, strip that bathrobe off you and force you into appropriate garments, I will not hesitate to do so."
He delivered his speech in a sufficiently fierce voice to make Inuyasha's dog ears fold down a shade, although those bright golden eyes still flashed angrily. Sesshomaru stared hard at him until Inuyasha came to his senses and lowered his eyes at last.
Natsumi soon returned with the fire rat robe and rough white inner garments neatly folded. Inuyasha all but snatched them from her.
"Give those robes back to Natsumi now so that she can put them away in one of the chests," Sesshomaru ordered. "I expect you dressed and in the dining hall for breakfast before the sun reaches the top of that tree."
He pointed out of the window to a tall pine whose branches the sun peeked through, before turning on his heel and striding out of the room. Natsumi hurried over to close the door, then turned back to Inuyasha. With hands outstretched to receive the fire rat robe, she wordlessly begged him to comply with his brother's orders.
Inuyasha glowered, but decided that this was a small battle not worth losing blood over; so he yielded the red robe to the servant and allowed her to put it away in a lacquered chest before she returned to his side to help him wash and dress.
She had earlier set out a fresh chamber pot for him to relieve himself, and washbasins and cloths so he could clean his face, mouth and hands. She ushered him to the connecting bathroom and asked if he wished her to assist him. He looked shocked at the suggestion and declined, so she withdrew.
Later, when he returned to the bedroom, she held out the white upper and lower innermost layers of clothing to him and turned away from him so that he could drop his bathrobe and don the new garments without having to expose himself to her, for she had gathered that he was shy about being seen in an undressed state. Then she helped him put on the next layer – also white, but finer, with barely-visible white embroidery along its hems and seams. The last pieces of clothing to go on were the dark-blue silk outer robe with gold embroidery that matched the colour of his eyes, and blue trousers, teamed with a gold sash. A pair of fine white socks and soft boots were slipped over his feet, which he had always preferred to leave bare.
Natsumi angled the standing mirror so that Inuyasha could approve of the overall effect. He stared at his reflection and concluded that he did not look as stupid as he had thought he would wearing fine robes. In fact, these clothes suited him very well. It made his stomach turn, because the idea that Sesshomaru might like him to look a certain way left him feeling unclean.
He voiced no objections, however, so Natsumi set down a stool of beautifully polished blackwood behind him and asked him to be seated for her to do his hair.
"My hair's fine as it is," he grumbled. "I don't want it tied up in bunches or anything like that."
"Certainly not, if you do not wish it, Your Highness," she replied. "If you prefer to leave your hair loose, I shall simply brush it and smooth it down with a touch of light plant oil."
He let her do so, although he itched to slap the brush away and use his own claws to tidy his hair, for that was how he had groomed his mane for the last one hundred and thirty years. However, he refrained from doing so because Natsumi was gentle, and the way she brushed his hair reminded him of how his mother had lavished attention on him while she lived. Besides, she had looked so afraid of Sesshomaru's wrath that Inuyasha did not wish to give her more trouble.
When she was done, and his beautiful silver hair looked better than it had in a century, she said: "You are ready to go to breakfast now, Your Highness. Please do not be late, or Lord Sesshomaru will be upset."
"Why?" he asked dully. "It's not like he really needs to eat, anyway. I remember what he was like before – he hardly ever ate."
"Yes, but Lord Sesshomaru always has the table set when he is at home. Even when he does not eat, he drinks water, tea or wine at the table, depending on the time of day, and reads his letters or papers."
So Inuyasha left his room and went to the dining hall, whose location he remembered quite clearly although he and his mother had almost never dined in it, preferring to have their meals in their own rooms so that they would not have so many pairs of hostile eyes upon them as they ate their food.
By the time he entered the hall, he had recovered his composure, and was able to bring himself to bow in greeting to his lord and brother before taking the seat that the hall servants saw him to. He saw that Sesshomaru eyed him as he walked towards the table, the look on his face telling him that the demon lord liked how he was turned out in his new clothes. It gave him an unclean feeling again, but he suppressed it and kept his temper in check as he took his seat and glanced at what was on the table.
The spread before him mostly featured fruit, milk, bread rolls stuffed with finely shredded air-dried meat, and piping-hot rice porridge with minced meat and a raw egg broken into it, all the things that he liked for breakfast. He wondered if Sesshomaru had really remembered his preferences – which he had rarely had the opportunity to enjoy – from almost two hundred years ago, or if he had asked someone who would know.
He sat along the side of the table, close to the head and to his brother's left, so that they were as good as seated beside each other. He noticed that most of the servants in the dining hall were new too, and none of them glared at him or addressed him disrespectfully as the older ones had when he had lived here before. One approached and asked him if he would like to have the bread rolls first, so that was just what he did.
He thought that he would consume a few bites only out of obligation, but as he sank his teeth into the bread, he realised how hungry he was, and continued eating with more enthusiasm than he had thought he would be able to muster, going on to the fruit, then the porridge, all of which tasted very good.
Sesshomaru, who was so powerful a demon that he rarely needed food for sustenance, was content to drink his tea and watch his brother tuck into the fare. It pleased him to see that Inuyasha was not completely miserable this morning as he had been last night, and he told himself that perhaps the boy had been crying only because he missed his village and friends. He would get over his homesickness, for this was supposed to be his true home.
But when he reached out to stroke one of the two locks of hair that hung alluringly beside Inuyasha's face, parted from the rest of his silvery mane by the furry ears atop his head, the boy started and shrank away before seeming to recollect the role he had been brought here to play. He then looked worried and set down his porridge spoon, and sat tensely gripping the edges of the chair beneath him with his hands.
Sesshomaru should have been angered by this uncooperative display – and no doubt he would have been angry if he had not heard Inuyasha crying the night before. However, the stifled sobs he had listened to in secret had pierced his heart in a strange and uncomfortable way, and the boy's apparent loathing of him now increased the discomfort.
But he was proud and domineering, and would not allow a little unease within himself to put him off anything he wished to do, so he took hold of the silky lock of hair after all and ran his hand down it while Inuyasha sat still and with his eyes fixed on a spot on the table top.
"Your hair is more like Father's," Sesshomaru said evenly, as if he had not noticed that Inuyasha had flinched from him. "It is glossy when properly groomed, just like his was. My hair is more like my mother's."
He knew such information would be of interest to the boy, who did not remember their father. As he had calculated, Inuyasha raised his eyes and looked at him, keen to hear more.
"Father almost always kept his hair tied up in a single bunch, sometimes braided, so that it would not get in his way while he trained with his sword or went forth to subdue his enemies – which he did rather often when I was much younger," Sesshomaru continued, moving his hand now to stroke the mane of hair that cascaded down Inuyasha's back. "Times were different then. I used to keep my hair bound too, but after we destroyed every one of our enemies that had any power to speak of, and father died, I left my hair down, for I no longer felt the need to look like him. It does not bother me when I train, and yours does not seem to trouble you either."
He removed his hand from his hair and looked into Inuyasha's face, then at the food on the table. "Don't you wish to finish your breakfast?" he asked.
"I'm not hungry any more," Inuyasha replied, although his bowl of porridge was only half-eaten.
"You can order anything you want from the kitchens whenever you like. If you feel hungry later, tell the servants. Come with me."
Sesshomaru rose and strode out of the dining hall. Inuyasha trailed behind him at first, uncertain about where they were going, but the demon lord indicated with a tiny movement of his head that he was to walk beside him. As they passed through the great halls and long passageways of the enormous castle, Inuyasha observed that while a good many of the old servants were still around, and still glaring resentfully at him, many more of the castle staff had not been employed here when he was a child, and these regarded him as one would expect good servants to regard a prince who was the brother of their lord.
Sesshomaru took him to a room that he remembered was the library and study. A little green kappa demon who had been poring over documents at a desk squeaked when they entered, and almost tripped over his webbed feet in his rush to prostrate himself before them.
"Oh! Lord Sesshomaru!" he cried in a high-pitched voice. "I did not hear you approaching! Forgive me for not having greeted you and Prince Inuyasha at the door."
Inuyasha decided at once that the kappa was irritating, but probably harmless.
"Jaken," Sesshomaru said. "Have you made the arrangements we discussed before?"
"Oh yes, Lord Sesshomaru! His Highness your brother may begin his lessons whenever he is ready!"
"What lessons?" Inuyasha asked suspiciously. "I thought you brought me back to this castle just to –"
"Just to fuck you?" Sesshomaru asked, as coolly as if he was talking about the weather.
Inuyasha blushed furiously, while Jaken studied his own feet as if they were the most fascinating objects in the world. But Sesshomaru carried on as calmly as he had begun, saying: "Well, as we haven't got quite that far yet, perhaps you would be interested in learning things of a more academic or artistic nature. Your education must have been interrupted by your mother's passing. It is my intention that you continue where you left off. Jaken will oversee your lessons, and supervise any others that may be taught by other teachers. After each morning's studies, you will be free to do as you please for the rest of the day."
"And then what?" Inuyasha growled.
"And then, my little one, I expect to see you on time for dinner, and after that, I expect you in my bedroom."
Inuyasha blushed harder, from embarrassment and resentment, as Sesshomaru kissed him on the forehead before striding out of the library, leaving him there with Jaken.
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The Tale of the Demon Lord