Strength | By : djserani Category: InuYasha > Het - Male/Female > Sessh?maru/Rin > Sessh?maru/Rin Views: 5962 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha, nor make money from this story. |
Rin concentrated on what InuYasha was trying to tell her, but she was having a difficult time of it. The new style of fighting was giving her trouble. She swung the staff in a circle over her head and spun with it, before sweeping it toward InuYasha again. He easily dodged it and she was getting frustrated.
He was trying to teach her how to fight with her staff. They'd been over sword fighting, archery, hand to hand and just about anything else they could think of. But he had insisted that she actually work with her staff because fighting with one was very different than with her swords.
She was loathe, at first, to admit he was right. It was extremely difficult to change her idea of how to swing, how to aim, where to move when her weapon was easily three times the size of the one she was used to. And as she kept getting knocked down by InuYasha, she had to change her ideas.
So, she stood in front of him, learning how to hold the staff for fighting, how to block blows with it and how to use it as a weapon in its own right. The staff was one she'd made herself. She had dragged back to Kaede's hut what amounted to a large branch and over the course of a very long winter had whittled and waxed it into the one she was holding now.
She'd learned how to wax and care for it from Sango, the demon slayer and friend of Kagome. She'd grown quite fond of the other women over the four odd years she'd been in the human village. She smiled to herself as she remembered what had triggered her to be given over into the care of Kaede.
* * *
Rin ran screaming to her Lord, frightened out of her mind. "LORD SESSHOMARU!!!" She skidded to a halt just inches from his toe and started at him with wide, frightened eyes.
"Did someone attack you?" His icy veneer never wavering. His hand moved toward his sword.
Rin shook her head quickly. "No, but…I am hurt! I am…" she bit her lower lip. "I am bleeding."
Sesshomaru sniffed elegantly. "Did you hurt yourself? I've told you to be careful, especially when you…"
"No! I didn't do anything! It just…started happening." Rin fought desperately to keep the panic from her voice. Her Lord would not appreciate it.
"Where are you bleeding?" He stared hard at her and, to his amazement, she blushed.
Twelve summers, or so they guessed, she was. She had never before blushed in front of him, so why had she done so now? Even Rin wasn't quite sure of that answer. "In my…" she blushed brighter and almost whispered "girl parts."
Whatever she was going to say, that was obviously not what he expected to hear. He stared, openmouthed at her for a full ten seconds before remembering himself.
She stared in fear at her Lord, unsure of what she was supposed to do. He gave himself a few more seconds of thought before he stood up. "I can not help you with this. Come, Rin."
She followed him obediently to Ah-Uhn, where he lifted her up into the saddle. "Jaken." He called over his shoulder.
"Yes, my Lord!!" The toad imp jumped up and ran over to them, prostrating himself before Sesshomaru.
"Stay here. We will return shortly." And he took to the sky, Ah-Uhn close behind him.
Rin had no idea where he was going or what he was planning to do. It wasn't until he landed close to InuYasha's village a short time later that she really got worried. He never went there, unless he absolutely had to and even then, he tried not to. So…why was he now?
"Rin." His command was so quiet that if she wasn't used to listening for it, she would have missed it. She jumped off of Ah-Uhn and followed him to a hut at the edge of the village. "InuYasha!"
His call startled her a bit. When his brother stepped through the doorway, she stepped back involuntarily.
"Oh, it's you. What do you want?" He smirked at his brother.
"I need to see your miko. Rin is in need of help." He ground the words out, and his distaste at asking his brother anything was more obvious than the crescent moon on his forehead.
"Kagome!" He moved the mat covering the doorway aside and leaned in. A moment later, she emerged, dressed in loose robes, her belly large and round in her pregnancy.
"Hello, Sesshomaru, what can I do for you?" She smiled gently at him, then turned her attention to Rin.
Rin had always liked the young woman. She'd always talked to her like an adult and treated her with respect. She smiled back.
"Rin is in need of your help." He said simply.
"What's wrong?" Kagome asked, waddling over to stand in front of Rin. She bent down a bit, to get closer to eye level.
Rin blushed again, even brighter than before. She sneaked a glance up at her Lord, then over at InuYasha before she leaned up and whispered into Kagome's ear. "I'm bleeding…in my…" she gulped "girl parts."
Kagome smiled in understanding and took her into the hut. In a few minutes, she'd shown her what she needed to know and Rin was feeling a lot better. She came out with a small bundle of rags and looked up at her Lord, who had not moved an inch. "I am ready to go now."
He glanced at her and turned on his heel. She quickly jumped into the saddle on Ah-Uhn and followed him back to camp.
When they landed he sat in his usual place under the tree. "Rin." He commanded and she moved over to sit in front of him.
"Yes, Lord Sesshomaru?" She was still trying to come to grips with what all had happened. She looked up at him tentatively.
"Tell me what you spoke about with the miko."
She blushed to the roots of her hair and looked down. She struggled with her wording, surprised that it would be so hard to talk to him. "I…um…Kagome called it my 'period.' I don't know why that's what she called it, but she said it happened every month about the same time and that it was determined by moon cycles." The words spilled quickly from her mouth and the torrent stopped when her mouth closed with an audible snap.
He stared at her for a few minutes in silence before he spoke again. "You must stay very close to me until it stops." With that he'd turned back to his contemplation of the moon
"Yes, Lord Sesshomaru!" She said quickly and hurried over to her bedroll and laid down to try to sleep. It would take a long time for her get there, however.
* * *
Rin was brought back to the present violently, as she found herself on her butt once again. "I think that's enough for today." InuYasha reached a hand out and helped her to her feet. She couldn't resist and she tugged on his ears again. He growled low in his throat and gave her a mock glare.
She grinned cheekily and picked up her staff and headed to the spring to clean up before dinner. She knelt by the side of the pool and quickly washed her face and hands and turned back toward the main part of the village and Kaede's hut.
She had learned quickly how to cook things other than fish and roots while living with Kaede. Kagome had taught her some, Sango had filled in other places, because Kaede seemed only good at stew. If she wanted to eat anything other than that, she knew she would have to learn.
One of the first things she learned was what herbs to use and which ones not to use. She found creative ways to cook rice and how to locate the best foods in the forests and open fields. She soaked up the information like a sponge, learning everything she could. It helped to fill the days and evenings so that she had less time to miss her Lord when he wasn't visiting.
After dinner was the hardest time for her because it was the quiet time before bed, the time she most had to think. Often she would try to read or practice her writing or something else, but invariably, her mind wandered back to her Lord in these quiet times. She let her mind go back to when he'd brought her to the village to live.
* * *
Not long after her first moon cycle, Sesshomaru had taken her to the village and gave her over into Kaede's care. He hadn't said much to her, "I will return. You have things you need to learn here with the miko." She understood, to a degree, that it was things he would not be comfortable teaching her, though she'd never say so to his face.
She threw herself into her studies, thinking at the moment that the sooner she learned what she was supposed to learn, the sooner she would be back with Sesshomaru. So when he visited her for the first time, a few months later, she was almost beside herself with excitement. She ran, full-tilt out to greet him, and even forgot herself enough that she grabbed his waist and hugged him.
Almost immediately, she realized what she did and started to draw back and bow to the ground in front of him, but he surprised them both by patting her back a couple of times. She beamed up at him. "Lord Sesshomaru! You've returned!" She danced from one foot to the other, wondering if she should go get her things or just leave them behind to go with him.
"I said I would return. I am here to see how you are progressing." He turned to Kaede.
"Aye, she's a fast learner." Kaede looked him up and down and turned back into her hut with a sly smile on her weathered face.
Rin bounced again back and forth, unsure of what exactly was going on. She'd thought he was coming back to pick her up, but he hadn't said anything else yet. She got another shock when he stepped through the front door of Kaede's hut. Rin hurried after him, completely confused.
He sat regally on the opposite side of the fire pit from Kaede. "Are there other materials she should have?" He asked, quietly.
"Aye. She should have books, scrolls and ink to learn to read and write. It would also be good for her to have some basic material to learn to sew with." Kaede poked at the flames, then lifted the tea kettle up onto the rack and started it heating.
"She will have it. What has she learned so far?" Rin sat next to her Lord and turned to stare at him.
"She can cook quite well, and she's already learned the different uses for herbs and roots and the like." She looked up at him with disapproval clear on her face. "You'd need to talk to InuYasha about the other," she paused, "things."
Sesshomaru didn't indicate in any way that he noticed her disapproval. Rin guessed she was referring to her fighting lessons with the half-demon. She had no idea how those came about, and thought better of the giggle that threatened to surface at her imagination of the conversation.
She'd started learning how to defend herself against other humans who would try to attack her. He'd taught her basic ways to try to get away, but not much more than that, though he did say that he would be teaching her more. She wanted to know what that "more" was, but he told her she'd know when she was ready for it.
So lost in her thoughts was she, that she'd almost missed him standing up and heading to the door. She hurried after him. "Lord Sesshomaru!!" She almost bumped into his back before righting herself and looking up at him.
"Rin?" He stared at her.
"Have I learned enough? Am I coming with you now?" She couldn't help the hopeful look that stole across her face.
"Not yet. I will return to visit you again." She couldn't help the disappointment, but she did manage to keep the tears at bay until later that night when she settled down for bed. They'd poured out, then. Perhaps because she'd just started to realize that this stay wasn't a short one.
Throughout that night, she'd resolved to continue learning everything she could. She would practice until she was perfect at every task that she'd been given. She would make him proud of her and he would ask her to come back with him!
* * *
Rin put the wax and cloth away and settled her staff into the corner of the hut. She pulled her mat out and spread the blanket carefully before adding the small pillow to her bed. She slipped the kimono off that she was wearing and pulled her yukata on and stretched out on the mat.
That had been almost four years ago. She was coming up on what she thought would be her sixteenth birthday. She didn't know, exactly, when her birthday was, so one day, she'd just made one up. That had happened not long after she'd started following Lord Sesshomaru around Japan.
She loved the spring and loved watching all of the new flowers bloom and, as such, had decided that the first day each year when the flowers bloomed and the waters thawed would be her birthday. She smiled when she remembered that first birthday. She'd begun singing to herself that day, and her Lord had noticed. When he asked why she was singing, she'd informed him, in the way that only a girl of about nine could, that it was her birthday.
That day, he'd given her a beautiful gift. He'd talked to her. He'd asked her to explain these 'birthdays' to him and went on to tell her about how demons didn't celebrate them, as they were so long lived, they didn't bother to count. She was enraptured at the conversation and that night had fallen asleep with the biggest smile on her lips that she ever had in her young life.
The following year, Sesshomaru had given her a new kimono and a hair comb for her hair. As he walked away, she thought she'd heard him say "happy birthday," but she wasn't sure. She held that to her heart for the longest time and never left that comb out of her sight.
Now, as she snuggled in to sleep, she pulled the comb out of her hair and set it gently on the floor next to her, where she could reach it to put it back first thing the next morning.
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