InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 188

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi

Chapter 187

Jaken, carrying the staff of two heads, as if he needed to be prepared for a threat or to intimidate someone, walked out of the grove where Sesshoumaru and Rin had left him. “My Lord?” he said. “How dare she refuse to answer Sesshoumaru-sama’s questions! Should I chase after the human for you?”

Sesshoumaru, not looking at his retainer, held out a hand towards the small green youkai in a signal for him to be quiet and then turned to the girl at his side. She looked up at him. There was some mild unhappiness in her eyes, and she sucked on her bottom lip as if irritated, but at the same time, her normal acceptance of whatever he chose.

“You are unpleased with your friend?” he asked, keeping his face smooth.

“My Lord?” Rin asked, looking up at the youkai. “Rin’s friends like to tease her sometimes. And this was Rin’s time with her Lord. She doesn’t think Tazu-chan should be teasing her at times like this. Rin sees her almost every day, but not Sesshoumaru-sama.”

A small light touched the youkai’s eyes as she spoke, a small mark of pleasure at his continued priority in her life that he did not let reach his face. Rin, still watching him, took note.

“All of Rin’s friends make jokes about boys liking them,” she said. She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Rin does not know if that is good or bad. She wonders if the boys talk about girls liking them, too.” She looked up at the silver haired youkai, who this time did not meet their eyes.

“Stupid human ways,” Jaken grumbled. “How are we supposed to know?”

“But my Lord knows...” Rin started, but stopped when Sesshoumaru turned, saying nothing in reply, but moved back to where he had been seated earlier.

Rin and Jaken exchanged looks, his frowning and irritated, hers mildly confused by accepting. The two of them headed back to rejoin the daiyoukai.

Nobody said anything for a time. Jaken began to fiddle with his eboshi hat, then smoothed the folds of his sleeves. “Humans,” he muttered under his breath, almost too low to be heard, but not too loud for Sesshoumaru who shot him a hard look. Jaken dropped his head and readjusted his hat once again.

“The miko, Kagome - you said she had returned. How long has she been here?” Sesshoumaru asked.

Rin frowned and counted the days, tapping her right finger against her left as she thought. “More than a ten day?  Fifteen, sixteen?” She looked up. “Everybody was very happy to see her return. No one more than InuYasha-sama.”

“Hnn.” He looked in the direction of the well and the Goshinboku. “This Sesshoumaru has gone by the Bone-eater’s Well, and did not notice the difference in the magic. But he did find the miko’s scent at the house where my brother stays sometimes.”

“Kagome-obasan and InuYasha-sama are living there,” Rin said nodding. Sesshoumaru slightly raised an eyebrow, but gave no other reaction. “Kagome-obasan says she doesn’t think the well will work again.” She rested her hands on her thighs as she knelt next to the youkai, then spreading her fingertips wide. “Rin is glad she has returned. Kagome-obasan makes her feel less clumsy at her sewing.”

Sesshoumaru, his curiosity not satisfied, took a long breath then let it go. Knowing he would not get the answers to this puzzle yet, he turned to his retainer. “Jaken, the gift.”

“Yes, Sesshoumaru-sama,” the small green youkai said, and getting up, he walked behind the tree they were sitting under and retrieved a bundle wrapped in a bright cloth of yellow and rose and green. It was tied with an elegant-looking knot.

Jaken, with proper ceremony, handed it to his master, who in turn, handed it to Rin.

As the girl unwrapped it, her eyes lit up as she saw the lovely robe under the wrapping cloth and delicately ran her hand over the soft fabric.

“It is suitable,” Sesshoumaru said. It was not a question.

“Yes, my Lord, more than suitable,” the girl replied. “Rin thanks you, my Lord. When she wears it, she will remember her Lord and think of how good it is when she is with him.”

He stood up. “You are happy here, still?”

The girl nodded. “Rin is. Kaede-obaasan treats Rin well, and Sango-obasan and Kagome-obasan are here, and Rin has friends. And she’s learning.” She dropped her head for a moment and spoke very softly. “But not as happy as when she was following her Lord across the countryside.”

The youkai lord heard the last bit, and briefly wetted his bottom lip. “Learn well.”

Rin looked up. “You are leaving, Sesshoumaru-sama?” There was a plaintive tone in her voice.

The youkai nodded. “This Sesshoumaru will return, Rin. He gives his word.”

Taking a deep breath, she nodded. “When, my Lord?”

“When it is time,” Sesshoumaru said. He looked to the north.

Rin stood up, clutching the fine kosode to her, and nodded. She, too, held her face in a mask, to stifle any look that might shame her in front of the youkai, but her eyes began to glisten. “Rin will be waiting for your return, my Lord.”

“Come, Jaken,” the youkai said, taking a step towards the north.  

Jaken hurried, clutching the white fur of Sesshoumaru’s mokomoko and the Staff of Two Heads to his chest as he prepared. Not looking back, Sesshoumaru took a leap into the air and was gone.

Rin watched until she could not see any more. With a deep sigh, she looked down at the beautiful cloth she was holding. “Return soon, my Lord,” she said, her voice thick with the emotion she felt at being left behind once again. “Do not forget your Rin, who waits for you.”

Holding the fabric close, she began the walk back to Kaede’s.

Few eyes watched the youkai as he flew overhead, being busy with their work on the ground. One such was Maeme, wife of Seiji, who was too busy to look up.

She wiped her forehead and paused in her work, kneeling down on the ground in front of a tall and spindly weed, then looked at the bean field, only partly planted. “One weed at a time,” she said, seeing how much was left to be done.

When she was away from the others in the village, and especially her husband, she would lose the cowering, and sometimes frightened look in her eyes, and a glimmer of the woman she was before her marriage would emerge. Sometimes, when working alone, she would even sing.  As she grabbed another weed, she began a slow, sad tune.

“When I was a girl,
a young girl in my mother’s house,
I dreamed of big houses
I dreamed of big houses and husbands.”

Her voice was pleasant, but soft, as if afraid to be overheard even in the bean patch. She stopped for a moment as she tugged at a particularly hard weed. Pulling it out, she tossed it to the side and  stood up, dusting her hands on her wrap skirt before picking the hoe she was using back up. As she began to hoe, she continued her song.

“When I was a girl,
a young girl in my mother’s house,
I would look into my mirror,
and fix my hair this way and that.”

Her hoe kept rhythm with her words. She was quite capable with the tool, a skill that had developed over long practice, a capability that did not match the shabbiness of her looks. Her face was thin and worn, the way a person who is too anxious gets sometimes. She was dressed in a faded blue kosode, washed many times and repaired, and a patched wrap-skirt, clothes that a bystander would have assumed belonged to a pauper. Her wrap skirt had once been a brightly printed garment, left over from happier days, but now, only the ghosts of the design of flowers, white and red against the blue background remained.  

This day, she had her sleeves tied back and she wore a shabby reed hat that had seen better days to keep the sun off of her head in a vain attempt to keep her complexion as pale as possible, but the darkness of the skin on her arms showed she had been spending much time under the sun. There were mud stains on her knees from where she had knelt in the dirt, and her fingers  gripping the hoe she wielded were also dirty.

She stopped her song for a moment, and hacked at a stubborn cluster of weeds. “Has he done any work on the field at all this spring?” she asked, before looking quickly around to make sure she wasn’t overheard, but for the moment, she was totally alone in the bean field. Off in the distance a crow cawed, and a songbird warbled somewhere, but she had no other company, not even her oldest son who was supposed to be helping her.

Sighing, she reached down and moved the weeds to the side.

“When I was a girl,
a young girl in my mother’s house,
I didn’t listen to my mother,
and dreamed on instead of working.”

Her rhythm grew more even as she went over the soil she had already hoed one more time, hammering at the dirt clots.

“Now I am a mother,
a mother in my own small house,
and watch my children dreaming
and I work for them and my husband.”

She made a row in the dirt with the hoe, and began to drop bean seeds into the channel.

“Now I am a mother,
a mother in my own small house,
and I wish I had listened,
listened to every word my mother told me.”

“I think we all wish we had listened to our parents better,” a voice from behind her said.

With panicked eyes, she turned around to see Eiji standing there, his face mildly amused at the song she had been singing. Maeme immediately bowed, a bow too low really for a woman of the village to make to a farmer.

“Ah, Eiji-sama, I didn’t hear you coming,” she said.  “Excuse me please.”

“Being busy will do that to you,” the village guard said. He looked around and saw she was alone. “No other excuse is necessary. I heard your oldest boy was with you.”

“Sukeo-kun? He went down to the river,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “He wanted to catch a fish for our lunch.” The uneasy woman turned around, picked up her hoe, and began to carefully pull the dirt over the seeds she had planted. “Did you need to talk to him?”

“So he hasn’t gone home yet?” Eiji asked. He crossed his arms.

“No, no,” Maeme said. “He should be coming back here first. I’m surprised he isn’t back already. It’s past time to eat.”

The village guard gave a sigh of relief. “Good. I’m glad to hear that.”

“Why?” the woman asked, pausing in her work. She looked up, chewing her bottom lip.

“Your husband...” the village guard said.

The color drained from Maeme’s face. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it? He was in such a bad mood this morning. I came out here...well, you know how he gets.” She took a long breath. “What did he do this time? Is this about what happened up at the temple? His brother came over last night, and they talked a long time. I heard my husband shouting about the monk and the temple.”

Eiji rubbed his forehead. “It was a bad afternoon. But don’t go home yet. Nakao’s at Kaede-sama’s.”

Maeme dropped her hoe and covered her face. “My poor baby. What did he do to him this time?”  

The village guard shook his head. “It’s not what your son did.”

“My husband...he...” her voice was a question, but she couldn’t form the words.

“Nakao-kun will be all right....Kaede’s taking care of him.” Eiji said. “But you might want to go there yourself.” He bent down and picked up her hoe and handed it to her. “But don’t go home yet. Kaede doesn’t need to treat both of you.”

She slumped to her knees. “I am truly cursed.”

Eiji, not knowing how to reply, sighed.