InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Cross My Heart ❯ Keeper of a Scarred Heart ( Chapter 2 )

 

Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha or any of the characters of the series. But if I did…mwahaha.

Rated PG13 for mention of rape and blood.

Rin: 1st person

 

Keeper of a Scarred Heart

 

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I looked down upon the happy village, watching a mother play with her infant daughter.

Petal soft curls of the darkest twilight, skin still red from her birth, hands so delicate, yet complete down to the last little fingernail. Unbidden, a soft smile lighted on my lips as I watched the infant grasp her mother's pinkie.

In the field a sister chases her brother with a hoe, screaming at him for ruining her favorite ribbon. An unwatched toddler is discovering the secret taste of mud pies in the ditch. Along the road, a man with a laden horse has stopped to talk to a farmer. The farmer's hearty laugher carries through the valley and to my ears at my hiding place upon the hill. It reminds me of my father's laugh, but as the memory surfaces, it is already fleeing my grasping mind.

Further on, beyond the daily chaos of human living, a young man and a young woman are meeting behind a shed. I can tell she loves him by the look in her eyes, by the way she sighs out his name. He touches her tenderly, protectively, urging her to accept his suit. For some reason she hesitates, she looks away, she replies with doubt and fears. He gives her a gentle shake, his voice rising in anger, his face flushing with his ardor. She whimpers and dissolves into tears, and instantly he is cradling her to him, offering the strong wall of his body for her to lean on.

For a moment, I wondered, what would it be like to be loved? To be held and comforted? To reach out and touch, and be touched in return? What would it be like, to not be despised for what I am? To be accepted, because I am the same kind?

I shook my head ruefully. I wasn't the same kind. I had been raised by youkai, and that stamp would forever define me.

I watched as the young man rubbed the girl's back soothingly, watched as he whispered gentle words in her ear, and found tears running down my face. Oh how I missed the affectionate touch of a friend, a family member, a kind stranger! There had been desperate times indeed, when Aun's desire to be petted, was the only thing that kept me sane. My lord Sesshoumaru loathed any display of weakness of any kind, which included drying tears, hugging, patting, smiling, kissing, and all the other gesture that a desolate child might take comfort in. He fed me, he clothed me, he looked after me apathetically. Had it not been for my tendency to attract trouble, I would know not at all that I had breached the walls of his heart.

My life mattered to him. My presence was something that he did not want to do without. He could never admit to caring for me, but it was there just the same. Why else would a taiyoukai wear a flower tucked into his armor? Why else would his amber eyes return to my face, time after time, to take in the smile that waited for him there?

My gaze strayed to the couple as I watched them kiss passionately. Still, just to be touched like that, just once… To be regarded as something worthy, something beautiful and feminine. Not smell, dirty, weak, or human.

I sat up abruptly, realizing where my thoughts were taking me. Why was I in such a melancholy mood today?

In a fit of pique I plucked one of the daisies beside me. I looked at the lovers entangled with each other, to far gone with each other to realize they were being watched. The old litany, a child's game really, trickled through my head.

He loves me (pull a petal)

He loves me not (pluck a petal)

He loves me (another petal)

He loves me not (another petal)

He loves me (another petal)

He loves me not (another petal)

He loves me...

I let the last petal fall from my hands. And what if he did, indeed, love me? He would never build me a little house. He would never come home to my cooking. He would never call me wife. Never say tender words of needing and longing. Never celebrate the birth of our first child and help me pick out names. He would never see fit to mingle his royal bloodline with my human one. Especially if hanyous like Inuyasha were the result.

A shutter shot up my spine and I turned my eyes from lovers, repulsed by their displays of overt passion. My mother had been raped by one of the bandits in front of my brother and I. It was the one clear memory of her I had left. That and the rich red texture of her blood under my fingers.

I threw away the naked stem, silencing my old fears with long practiced ease. Sesshoumaru-sama was nearby. He would never let anything happen to me. Ever.

I stood up and dusted myself off. I gave the village one last look, my gaze lingering on the mother and her child. How soft were the baby's cheeks really? Did she smell sweet? Like milk? Or maybe she really cried all day and always stank? I didn't deny the fact that I wanted to know.

Beside me, as silent as a ghost, Sesshoumaru-sama appeared. Cool and reliable, constant as the sunrise, that was my lord.

"Will you go down to the village?" he asked quietly.

I wavered for a second, for only that tiny moment in time I sought to grasp the human life I had forsaken.

"Sesshoumaru-sama?" I asked hesitantly.

"What?" he answered.

"Why did you take me in?" I asked.

His amber eyes grew distant and cloudy. His stance didn't change, except for the every so slight shifting of his weight. At last his words fell into the silence like a stone dropped into a still pond.

"Because you needed me," he said with no inflection. He turned and melted back into the forest, leaving me to make my own decision.

Because you needed me.

His words. Because I had needed him.

I looked down on the ardent lovers, the happy siblings, the young mother and her babe and smiled, no longer wavering in my choice. Like a forest sprite I chased after my solemn master.

I could go down to the village, meet a nice boy, raise a family, and die surrounded by the life I had built. Or I could turn my back on all that and nurture the so fragile, visibly scarred heart in my hands. It would be a long life spent for no gratitude. Yet, that life had its own rewards, ones that I knew well. I picked up my pace, trotting behind the stoic figure of my lord.

My choice was made. In the end, there had never been any choice but this for me. Why would I follow Sesshoumaru-sama for the rest of my days?

Because he needed me.

 

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~fin