InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Good for a Laugh ❯ Stir Crazy ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: As usual, I own none of these characters and I get no profit out of this other than my own satisfaction.

 

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“If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane.” Jimmy Buffet

 

Finesse. True prowess in battle was about economy: resistance and the weight of the blade, flex and release, balance and momentum, applying just the right amount of force - no more, no less. Nothing more beautiful than dispatching the maximum number of opponents with a minimum effort; there was pleasure in strength, yes, but infinitely more gratification in using it skillfully. Finesse.

 

Sesshoumaru focused on the tip of his index finger, perfectly parallel, his other fingers falling gracefully away, striped wrist locked straight. He concentrated on that fingertip, willing his poison to the claw - there and nowhere else. Just the pad of his finger began to glow and he felt more than saw the reservoir of poison, sickly green and glowing, build beneath his skin and then pull forth through the whorls of his fingerprint. Gravity shaped the accumulating slick into a teardrop.

 

He watched the droplet as it fell inevitably towards its target, where it sizzled and spread, burning through exactly one layer of parchment - no more, no less. Like watery ink on rice paper. Just more destructive.

 

Seeing this, the petitioner kneeling in front of the low desk prostrated himself, seemingly intent on melting into the tatami, and continued to grovel. Meanwhile, Sesshoumaru picked up the parchment between thumb and middle finger - a petition for protection in exchange for a yearly tithe of lunar-moth silks and two tons of rice if he remembered correctly - and gazed thoughtfully through the hole he'd made. He didn't particularly care about rice. But the silk made from lunar moth cocoons was rumored to be incredibly durable and Rin was both tough on her clothing and growing out of her current kimonos.

 

Seated next to Sesshoumaru his wife stirred and glared subtly out the corner of her eye, hardly turning her head, but managing to convey her disapproval of his behavior all the same. Could she read his thoughts? The past few weeks with both Sayuri and Rin under the same roof had been… awkward. Sesshoumaru did not like unnecessary tension. Jaken had born the brunt of his discontent.

 

He found himself tapping a finger on the desk and thus poking holes in the contracts. The repetitive action was soothing, though. Sayuri cleared her throat elegantly. He glanced up and she shook her head almost imperceptibly. The tiny silver flowers at the end of her hair ornaments swayed with the motion; Sesshoumaru speculated that he would never grasp the significance of female grooming habits. The ornaments looked like chopsticks. Why would one wear chopsticks in their hair? Admittedly, Sayuri's hair dressing was more subdued than that of other demonesses (and human women for that matter) - typically the height and ridiculousness of such confections was inversely proportionate to the female's social standing. But for all her relative simplicity she was still incomprehensible.

 

Speaking of Sayuri, she was still glaring at him. She shifted her pale grey eyes toward the cowering figure on the floor, then back to Sesshoumaru, and raised her eyebrows. Are you going to do something with him?

 

Oh, right. The petitioner. Rice. Silk. Rin. Sesshoumaru had decided little more than five minutes in to grant the petition, but somewhere along the way had lost interest and then lost his train of thought. This was happening far too often of late. Occasionally politics could demand great strength of will and cunning, could be almost as interesting as bloodshed, but this was just banal. Sayuri had been entirely correct in her assessment of his affairs of state. The trivial had piled up and was now one boring but critical mass.

 

Although he knew it was irrational, Sesshoumaru's skin itched inside the perfection of his kimono.

 

He waved dismissively at the groveler, stood up, and was out of the room all in one motion, leaving him and a clearly irritated wife in his wake. He hoped the man didn't piss himself and ruin the tatatmi.

 

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Predictably, whatever he was seeking was not in the hallway, but his restlessness drove him forward, no particular destination in mind. There were a distressing number of people in the corridors, servants and lackeys, doing their best to appear busy and hard at work. He could smell their sweat and anxiety with irritating acuity. And he could hear running. Small feet running. Rin? No, she knew better, so this had to be -

 

Two children came barreling around the corner ahead, one after the other, with complete abandon. The boy in the lead had no time to stop and, with deplorable lack of control, slammed head-first into Sesshoumaru's knee. The girl skidded to a halt, eyes wide, mouth forming a silent `oh' before, in a remarkable display of reflexes, she was gone back around the corner, her luminous white hair the last he saw of her.

 

Sniffling drew his attention back to the child at his feet. Ostensibly to remove the obstacle, Sesshoumary picked up the pup - still a babe really - by the back of his happi and held him up to eye level. Black hair, golden eyes, pointed ears, one maroon stripe on each cheek. Definitely his. The hair must be a mark of his mother who was - well, any one of the number of concubines, he supposed.

 

As is sometimes the case with children, for absolutely no reason the sniffling became a goofy, nearly-toothless smile. And then the child reached out to tug painfully on his father's bangs. Sesshoumaru rumbled a warning and the child giggled and repeated the action.

 

What did I do to deserve this?

 

One possibility did spring to mind.

 

Besides that.

 

Sesshoumaru failed to notice Sayuri's stealthy approach over the din of the servants doing their best to be `quiet' in the hallway and the cacophony of scents. He was honestly surprised at the sound of his name. Forgetting the child in his hand he whirled around and snarled at his wife.

 

“Dammit woman, do not slink up behind me like that. It is… undignified.”

 

Recognizing Sesshoumaru's reaction for what it was - embarrassment - Sayuri inclined her head in silent assent.

 

“I see you have met Koji.”

 

Sesshoumaru stared blankly. “Who?”

 

“Your son. The one you are holding.”

 

“Hn.” A `blessing' indeed.

 

He set down the child, who scampered off in the direction his sister had fled. Or half-sister. Sesshoumaru decided that there were too many people by far in his castle. If he was to be lost in thought or restless, he should be gliding noiselessly through silent, tapestry ensconced hallways. Or stepping on Jaken. That was it. Just the castle, himself, and Jaken. And perhaps a to-be-determined female to entertain him. But that was it.

 

His wife cleared her throat.

 

“What?”

 

She cocked an eyebrow, questioning. He still said nothing.

 

“There is one other pressing matter, my lord.”

 

“Hn.”

 

“Perhaps it is time you thought about securing an heir for yourself. This being an objective you would have to take up with me while you are at home.”

 

Perhaps I should kill her.

 

“There are a number of children around, but none of them are fit to inherit your kingdom. You are young, yes, but you will be 1,000 before you know it. And I do not grow younger by the day either. And last time I checked you could not spontaneously reproduce.”

 

The truly aggravating thing was that she was not nagging, whining, whimpering, or yelling. Her voice was pitched softly and as smoothly modulated as ever. So cool, so reasonable. He could find no reason not to consider her entirely reasonable suggestion. So much reason - he flexed his claws.

 

Sesshoumaru had to wonder if the sudden importance of this topic had anything to do with her suppositions about the miko. Sayuri had never seemed concerned about consummating their union on a regular basis before, and now she proposed bearing a child? He had to fight the sudden urge either to flee the premises or methodically dismantle his own residence.

 

I could leave forever.

 

He mulled the thought over for a moment. His “extended constitutional,” conveniently concurrent with the mission to recover his father's fang, had been one way to ease the tedium and escape his maddeningly calm wife. At least for a while. But now the escape itself had become routine.

 

Torment Inuyasha, wander, kill something, wander, trod on Jaken, rescue Rin, wander, and so on ad nauseum. Aside from one disastrous week - when he'd lost his arm and found Rin - life had reassumed its tedium.

 

Since he did not care to answer Sayuri, he turned and left her in silence, heading for the gardens. One part of the routine, the part involving Jaken's head and his boot, was still sounding pretty good.

 

Sayuri merely sighed and bowed as was appropriate and reasonable.

 

Of course Jaken was not in the gardens. But Rin was there, braiding flowers into one of his sons' long silver hair and humming happily. Again, just like his journey, she had taken something of his and made it her own. In all their wanderings she managed to make herself a home, and now she had done so here as well. His son, about the same age as Rin, looked up sheepishly and then hunched his shoulders and lowered his eyes humbly.

 

“Rin.”

 

“Yes Lord Sesshoumaru?”

 

“Stay here.”

 

“Yes my lord.”

 

Of course Sesshoumaru did not stand there and gaze at Rin a little longer. No he did not.

 

Eventually he searched out Jaken, and with stern instructions to see to Rin's care and safety, lobbed him in the direction of the gardens.

 

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An hour later and a few hundred miles away from his ancestral home, Sesshoumaru still had no particular destination in mind. Glancing down at the treetops flashing beneath his feet, he realized that the release he had felt - from running, flying, the wind parting before him and closing behind him, and the youki singing in his body - was beginning to fade and the boredom had set in again. Casually, he let himself drop over a cliff, and between the precipice and the ground below, in the midst of the fall, the miko came to mind unbidden.

 

Sesshoumaru almost botched his landing. Almost.

 

Why the flash of his half-brother's human woman as he leapt? Strange, for she had been present at his only uncontrolled fall, from the great body of his father, as his life's blood seeped from the stump of his arm.

 

Damn Inuyasha.

 

Sesshoumaru shuddered mentally at the feeling of helplessness. He was always in control. Always.

 

Except for the last time he saw the miko, when he could not stop the inevitable convergence of his wife, his ward, and the woman. A growl of frustration rumbled in his chest. She had been the cause of months of tedium and frustration. Of being trapped in his own household.

 

It occurred to him that if Sayuri was going to assume that he had rutted with the human female, he might was well get some enjoyment out of her. Even if it was just a little bloodshed.

 

Opening his senses, Sesshoumaru turned towards his half-brother's usual terrain. The rag-tag ensemble should not be difficult to find - they had a way of going in circles.

 

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“Koji” is the given name of the voice actor for Miroku. Apparently it means “blessing of God” but I learned that from the back of a sake bottle, so take it with a grain of rice, I guess.