InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Twelve Years ❯ Twelve Years ( Chapter 1 )

Twelve Years

 

A/N: I have idea how this got here so fast - it just spilled out as soon as I read the last chapter.

 

He was nineteen, in human years, and Rin was seven when he found her facedown in a pool of her own blood. Twelve years' difference between them, a lifetime.

 

A year later, she went to live in the human village with the old miko, the monk and the slayer. Together with his half-brother, they watched over her while he traversed the Western lands.

 

He visited often at first, bringing small curiosities from far away - seeds that she could learn to cultivate, rocks veined with flashing quartz and glittering mica. When she was eleven, he brought a kimono of heavy silk from the mainland, exquisitely embroidered in purple and gold. He knew that she would treasure but never wear it; although he would never say so, it pleased him to remind her that she was more than just a village girl.

 

When she was fourteen, he brought her two hair combs made of gold filigree set with pearls. She was becoming beautiful by then, and fine warriors watched the swing of her hips approvingly as she brought water from the well or delivered Kaede's healing ointments to neighboring villages. As she exclaimed at the fine craftsmanship, Kaede and Sango spoke softly in the corner and slid their eyes at him. He was 26 in human years, and for the first time her gaze was troubled as it rested on him - searching for the distant, white-haired god who had been her guardian and finding, instead, a man.

 

Twelve years - too much time and not enough. He stayed away after that, content with the occasional news that she was well, and strong, and happy. Convinced that she had made her choice, and that one of the fine warriors now called her his own.

 

She was nineteen when she found him, traveling for nearly three months from the village into the northern wilderness, her kimono and combs tied in a bundle on her back. He caught wind of Inuyasha's scent first and then the smiling young miko who called him brother-in-law—his eyebrow quirked upward at the memory of her impertinence—and, with them, a fragrance both familiar and strange.

 

He stilled and waited, taking her in as though she were a song heard faintly on the wind or an orchard filled with ripe peaches, both bloom and fruit. Inuyasha and his mate fell back as she walked to the cliff's edge, stopping a few feet away. “I'm back,” she said, and her voice was melodious and calm, with nothing of the child left in it at all.

 

“Rin. Why are you here?” His voice was as cool as hers.

 

“You sent me to the village so that I could make a choice. I've made it,” she said simply.

 

“I see.” He met her steady gaze, then nodded and turned away, knowing she would follow. He was 31, in human years, and twelve years was no time at all.