InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Lost World ❯ Chapter Three ( Chapter 3 )

<b><i>Lost World</i></b> By: OtakuSailorV

 

<i>Chapter Three - Awakening</i>

 

It was not a groggy, sleep-filled mind that greeted her when she came back into awareness, instead, she felt as if she had been awake the whole time, vibrant and alive, only with her eyes closed. She did not immediately open her eyes, for fear of loosing the wonderful feeling of floating on water or air if she did. Savoring the moment, she let her other senses wander idly as she left herself to drift somewhere between dream and reality.

 

The smell of wet and foliage was rampant, and she was aware of a strong, but not unbearable humidity in the air. The rustle of branches in a slight wind calmed her further, soothing her and making her feel like she wanted to remain this way forever, yet something inside knew she could not.

 

What greeted her, she was aware, was different than anything around or even remotely <i>near</i> her home. So it was safe to say she was somewhere foreign to her. Maybe not another country, but definitely not somewhere she was familiar with, or she might be able to visualize it, but she found that she lacked any kind of memory of even a television show that could compare with what she was sure lied beyond her closed lids.

 

Deciding it was best to break the peaceful moment and find out where she was, Rin opened her eyes. They didn't blur with sleep, but they did haze as sharp, warm sunlight fell on them. Rubbing at them with balled up fists, she rolled to one side and lifted herself up on her arm.

 

She gasped in surprise. The ground beneath her was spongy and soft, like a bed, but was made of moss. Patches where the sun hit were extremely warm, though none of the places were curled. Where her body had snuggled up moments before there was an indent that quickly refilled itself when she vacated.

 

She was in a small, almost round-shaped clearing. The moss rolled and appeared bumpy, like waves of green all around her. Plants were nestled tightly all around, as if as a barricade, and above the sung was blocked out by the branches of tall trees. The patches of sunlight that did fall down on the moss came from space in-between the interwoven leaves and branches.

 

The trees were tall and mighty, their barks looked soft and at the same time hard and foreboding. Everything there was different. None of the plants were familiar, and hardly any of them contained color.

 

What got her the most though, was the utter still and silence. Bugs did not buzz by, leaves did not stir in breeze, and not even the chattering of animals was heard. The natural sounds of a forest were missing, dead silent as if in anticipation of something.

 

Suddenly, a noise broke in, making a cold feeling sweep through her, shock lit up and her mind and she swirled around as swiftly as she could to see who had cracked a stick under the heel of their foot.

 

Her eyes settled on the most beautiful creature she had ever seen on two legs before. His hair was long and went down to his knees; it looked silky and was silver though it appeared light blue in the half-shade he was standing in. On either of his cheeks were two purple stripes, and the part in his bangs showed a purple crescent moon mark on his forehead. He was regarding her with a blank face; his amber eyes half-lidded as if he cared naught for her.

 

His attire though, threw her. It baffled and amazed her at the same time. She knew it to Japanese, and was immediately relieved that she was not in some unknown land, but that she was indeed somewhere close to home. But still, the clothing was so old in origin, she was sure that it must have been at least from the Feudal Era.

 

But what was the most surprising for Rin as she peered at him, was that he looked almost exactly like a drawing she had done of a character that she had left unnamed so far. She had only just created him the night before she had been put into that weird situation with that masked man. Now if only he had the pointed ea-

 

There, his hair moved to one side as he came fully into the clearing and Rin spied that his ears were pointed. Her eyes widened a touch, and she felt suddenly as if she might faint from the shock. Her drawing was moving! He was three-dimensional and moving!

 

This survey of his features and attire took no more than a moment, and by the time her thought pattern had finished, the man had cleared the small brush that stood between him and the open clearing, and now stood mid-way into the circle. He looked down at her for a moment, one slender silver eyebrow arched in inquiry. “Ningen,” And here she blinked, realizing with a hint of annoyance that he was attempting to speak with her. “What do you do trespassing on these lands?”

 

<i>`Her scent is foreign.'</i> He noted to himself as he sniffed at the air delicately.

 

Rin was taken aback. Not only was he speaking Japanese, but also it was a very old form. Not even her grandfather had used all those words and formalities that he had indicated just by his tone and way of speaking. She had hardly recognized her own language!

 

“W-what? Uhm, well, I - well, that is to say, er. . .” She was flustered, not sure where to begin in her explanation of why she was here, for she was not even sure herself <i>how</i> she had gotten here.

 

Her head was reeling too, her vision blurring sometimes, or coming out as a sort of double-vision that left her feeling dizzy and incomplete. Her head felt heavy and she had to concentrate hard to make herself focus on the conversation and man before her.

 

Rin thought that maybe the results of this stemmed from the fact that the man before her bore such a likeness to the sketches she had made, to the stories and descriptions she had created out of her own imagination. Or so she had thought at the time. Maybe it wasn't her imagination that she had created him from in the first place, maybe none of her stories and characters had. . .could it be that she knew about this place the entire time, and yet was not aware of it? Her mind reeled again, making her check herself before she fell to one side. Steadying herself, she forced her mind to concentrate on talking and explaining rather than wondering about the pain and the strange likeness of her drawings and inner sanctuary tot his man and the forest around them.

 

Thinking that he had frightened the human senseless, Sesshoumaru sniffed at the air again, trying to trace what little he could from her. But still he found nothing familiar in her scent except the `female' and `human' parts. He frowned, furrowing his brow slightly in confused irritation.

 

The woman-child was still babbling on, but soon fell silent as she saw that he had become what she thought was disgruntled. In a last bid effort to straighten things out, her hand suddenly shot forward, extended toward him in a manner of greeting.

 

“I, uhm, I'm Rin Higurashi.”

 

It was a very Western way of introducing one's self - to shake hands - she was aware, but it was the first thing that had struck her, and so had moved without checking herself on whether this strange male would understand her or not. Blushing in embarrassment, she hid her eyes from him, mumbling her greeting. She had always been relatively shy around new people, thinking that she would come off as rude or annoying if she said something stupid and had so kept her mouth shut. She would eventually warm up, once she got to know them better, but this was always her initial reaction to anyone of either sex or any age that approached her.

 

Sesshoumaru stared at the proffered hand, taken aback by her sudden flourish of movement, and puzzled by what this meant. She sat incredibly still on her knees, face red, head bent, other hand clasped tightly in her lap, the knuckles showing white. His eyes moved to the line of her jaw and shoulders - just as he thought, rigid and tight, the muscles taught with anxiety.

 

The sudden change in her made him look her over for a bit, and when he found nothing suspicious in her nature, inquiringly glanced at the hand again, still extended ram-rod straight at him, waiting for something.

 

The thought suddenly struck him that she must want him to place his hand in hers, though he did not trust this notion at all. He had come into contact with very few humans, and none before had relinquished their hand toward him, waiting for his strong grasp. Never.

 

Though this did seem to be what she was waiting for. . .

 

Carefully, his own hand came up, revealing his dangerous claws, and the two purple stripes on his wrist. To his surprise, the human did not even start in shock, or make an uneasy move as she spotted them. Not even a hint of fear laced through her scent, she seemed completely at ease with the fact that he bore such powerful weapons. Maybe she had not seen. . . ?

 

Instead, her hand came up as his got close, and slowly, she grasped his. Still flushing in her apparent anxiety, she rapidly shook his arm, making him think that it might be jarred right off if she continued with this much fervor for very long.

 

As she shook his hand, she had babbled some more about how `nice it is to meet you.'

 

Sesshoumaru stared at her, finally pulling his hand away from her, cracking his shoulder thoughtfully as he watched her. When he pulled away though, Rin seemed to become more frantic than before, words spilling from her mouth as fast as thoughts entered her mind. “Oh, uhm, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- I hope I didn't hurt your arm!”

 

Sesshoumaru made a face, his mind blanking as the human female again was prattling on and on, worrying herself over her own actions again.

 

Finally, irked by her continued babbling and worrying, he silenced her with a single commanding word, his tone icy. “Enough.”

 

Rin fell into silence immediately.

 

“Now, can you calmly explain where it is that you have come from, human?” He asked, narrowing his eyes as he scrutinized her again.

 

She was a beauty for a human, auburn hair and matching, large brown eyes that glittered with her every emotion, though there was some darkness to them too, as if she were somehow lost within herself at all times. Her hair went just past her shoulder and hung loose, showing the natural curve in it. A small amount of it was gathered into a small pigtail-like fashion, held in place by a single yellow hair band. She looked carefree and innocent on the surface, but if one looked closer, they could see the world's troubles reflected in her wide, childish eyes. Sesshoumaru discovered that this girl was distinct among the other humans he had come across - which were few in number seeing as they had all but been banned from this land thousands of ages before. Distinct in simply the fact that she looked at everything in a much clearer and deeper view than they did. She took nothing at face value.

 

He could respect that, but he felt himself immediately curious about the human that bore such qualities at such a young age, and a female at that!

 

Her countenance was unusually bright and cheerful too, for a youth, and, even though she was not smiling at the moment, he could see the glimmer in her eyes that told him that she would laugh at anything. Yes, she was quite pretty, though he would not admit that openly or even privately to himself at the moment. At first, he did not even realize that the thought had crossed his mind, it being such a foreign notion to him, it had escaped him completely, even in his own mind.

 

At his question though, her expression had faltered and fallen, driving her into deep thought, her pupils seeming to lessen in size as she shrank away inside herself to think. Frowning, he wondered if she were trying to hide something from him, and promptly grabbed her attention again, not allowing her to slip away and make up some excuse. “I asked a question, I expect it to be answered.” Sesshoumaru said shortly, his tone still as icy as before.

 

Rin flinched, shaking her head as she tried to clear her mind, the feeling of slipping suddenly back into reality leaving her dizzy and groggy. And with the grogginess, the sharp pain in her head came again, this time stronger and more pronounced. She suppressed a hiss of pain; desperately wishing she had an aspirin on her at the moment. Momentarily forgetting whom she was holding company with, she blinked, furrowing her brow in both pain and confusion. “Eh, what?”

 

Sesshoumaru became disgruntled with her, though his expression had not yet changed.

 

“Where do you hail from, human?”

 

Rin looked up at him suddenly with wide eyes, her lips drawn into a thin line. She became frightfully anxious again and Sesshoumaru inwardly growled. “I. . .I come from far away. . .”

 

Rin had been told since she was very small to never reveal the whereabouts of her home to a stranger, even to someone who seemed like they were nice. She was sure that the rule no longer applied, seeing as the place she was now in was nowhere she had ever seen or heard of in either textbook or in conversations. Though some child-like part of her - the memory of her mother's warning words engraved into her entire body - wanted to listen and not repeat the truth. And her lips had worked upon that nurtured instinct before she could even think twice about it.

 

Still, he could tell.

 

“Tell all,” He ordered, agitated by her dodge-y and anxious behavior. “Vague descriptions will get you nowhere, human.”

 

“I can't tell.” The words slipped from her mouth the moment they popped into her head, she had not even checked herself on whether the sentence made any sense or not, it had been an impulse and she instantly regretted saying it.

 

For some reason, every time she spoke, she was sure she was babbling like an idiot. That was how she had felt at home too, when she felt that she was getting too hyper and open around people. At that point, she would close herself off, melt back into herself and let her words be more thought out and careful, though every sentence was painful and she was further and further aware of how silly she must look. She often had envied the other children for being able to say whatever they wanted without regretting it and saying anything that made them look stupid and weird; Rin felt like that's all she did when she opened her mouth, and thus closed herself off. <b><i>`I don't belong.'</b></i< b>> Something spoke in the back of her mind, a nagging voice that was always there, though at times she was able to suppress it with her times of joy and by busying herself so that she did not have to think about it.

 

Sesshoumaru's eyebrows raised at her, stunned at her for defying his order. Very few did that and lived; his half-blood brother, Inuyasha, was the only one who did it on a regular basis and still had his life.

 

There was a strange kind of desperation in her eyes, something that made him stop and stare for a moment. She was begging for him to ask no more of her home, hoping against hope that he would say no more on the subject.

 

He had very rarely witnessed the changing of human emotions, which occurred at such a rapid pace, and were so different than youkai emotions. They never truly could keep themselves in check, like his race could; their faces lit up with their every thought, and expressions and scents changed so fast that he found during their conversation that he was getting foggy-minded and dizzy. It was just so different, such a new thing to him that for a moment, he found himself entranced by the deep pools of her eyes, and the ever-changing movements of her features.

 

Inwardly shaking himself, he pulled away from the trance and felt his gaze hardening on her again. A threatening growl found it's way to his throat, though the human's ears could not hear the low vibrations. His teeth bared in a snarl behind his lips and he felt a small form of rage hit him as his frustrations grew. He stopped his youkai rage as it tried to leap forward from the recesses of his mind. This was no time to lose his head, especially over such a miniscule thing.

 

“Why can you not tell me of your homeland?” He ground out, trying not to bark outright at her.

 

Her slim fingers fiddled with each other in her lap in a nervous manner. Delving backward, she recalled how her grandfather had once told her about etiquette and such back in the days of medieval Japan. Thinking that if this nameless man was going to keep on talking as he was, she could at least make an effort to match him since he was making no effort to come down to a level she could understand easily. It took her so much time between each word to figure out what he was talking about that she was starting to get bored, as she had in History Class just the day before. . .Had it really been a day, or more than that? . . .Less. . . ?

 

The heavy-headed feeling suddenly hit Rin as she thought too deeply of her past once again, this time affecting her stomach as well. She felt as if she had been slammed over the head with something and was suffering some sort of concussion from it, though she was sure she had not hit her head at all, for no part of it throbbed in the way that a busted noggin would have. Her bones ached along with it, and her stomach lurched with the suddenly need to throw up.

 

She reeled, her vision blurring, black splotches appearing before her. A choked noise came from her throat before she collapsed to one side, eyes pressed closed.

 

Sesshoumaru stared for a moment, not sure what to make of this before the smell of pain hit him. How had he not noticed before? The human was somehow hurt, though he could not smell blood internally or externally. At any rate - she was passed out now and he had to do something!

 

Taking charge of the situation immediately, he scooped up the human into his arms, noticing that she was warm and soft, not even half as heavy as he had thought either. He sniffed thoughtfully, a new scent reaching him now that she was close. It smelled vaguely of cherry blossoms.

 

Waves of pain brought him from his thoughts, the child stirring uneasily in his grasp. Giving a withdrawn sigh, he hoped that no one saw him as he left the enclosed forest area, the human held tightly in his arms.

 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .