InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Patchwork Family ❯ A Tin Soldier, a Golden Magpie, and a Good Idea ( Chapter 33 )

A/N: All Inuyasha characters and references belong to the creator of Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashi and published by Shogakukan. Any other characters are more than likely my own creation. If I borrow directly from another story I will do my best to make sure I give credit where credit is due. I will be pulling some material (ideas and inspirations) from Burn Notice, Leverage, Scorpion, Supernatural, and Lockwood & Co.


Thanks to Tabbycatsmack for the review! I’m stoked that you’re enjoying the story Keeps my creative writing muscles warm. Thanks also to chika:alternita (again ), future writer, and gk_11your notes of encouragement.


Sorry this took so long to update. I’ve been trying to get the final edit done on this and the next few chapters done for weeks now, and I’ve done a decent bit of writing on this story in the last month or so. Seems like the world was conspiring against its getting posted though lol, not enough hours in the day I guess. I’ve about had it with pants and responsibility, as they say. :P


Don’t worry, the meeting is in the next chapter and I intend to try and get it posted in the next day or two as well, since it’s been so long.

*** A Tin Soldier, a Golden Magpie, and a Good Idea ***
03202015 (numbers are for my own purposes, don’t mind them)

Sesshomaru was tacking all the photos he’d labeled onto a stretch of wall in his office and mentally going over questions that needed answers. There were more of them than he cared for, and his lip twisted a little in a silent snarl as he saw the woman Tsubaki in one of the images, her arm around Sango’s shoulders. There were few things he had less tolerance for in this world than betrayal. She would be very sorry, as would Vin, if it turned out he’d been a leak as well. He didn’t think the old medic knew quite where this house was located, but he couldn’t be sure beyond all doubt, and that made him just as angry. The man had been with them for more than ten years.

Finally, he’d filled the space and could do no more. A glance at the clock told him it was nearing 9 p.m. and he made his way to the living room to retrieve Rin. When he got there however, he found Kohaku and Koga seated on the coffee table in front of the television, competing against one another on a virtual race track. Sango sat across Miroku’s lap at one end of the couch, while Ayame sat at the other, feet tucked beneath her. All three looked up as he walked into the room and Koga paused the game, sensing Sesshomaru behind him.

Sango noticed his searching eyes and told him, “I just put Shiori and Shippo down, and Rin’s in Rose’s room. About ready?”

Sesshomaru nodded curtly and turned back down the hall. Rosalind’s room was at the very end of the opposite hallway to his and Inuyasha’s quarters. He paused near her door and listened when he heard her reading aloud. Her voice drifted into the hall, soft and smooth, as if it knew it was at home where it belonged.

“Oh, how dark it was inside the fish! It was worse even than being in the tunnel. And then it was so narrow! But the tin soldier was as dauntless as ever, and lay full length, shouldering his gun. The fish rushed about and made the most frantic movements. At last it became quite quiet, and after a time, a flash like lightning pierced it. The soldier was once more in the broad daylight, and someone called out loudly, ‘A tin soldier!’”

Here Rosalind paused to turn a page while Rin giggled. He could hear the smile in her voice as she read on. “The fish had been caught, taken to market, sold, and brought into the kitchen, where the cook was preparing dinner.”

Sesshomaru sighed to himself. Given the choice, he found he wished to stand here and listen longer; but firstly, it was Rin’s bed time; secondly, they needed to get started with the meeting; and thirdly, while he wasn’t embarrassed he’d been caught eavesdropping on them before, twice in a row would take him as close to such a feeling as it was possible for him to get. He stepped around the door frame and leaned against it on one shoulder, hands in his pockets.

Rosalind stopped reading and both she and Rin looked up. They were sitting on Rosalind’s carefully made bed, curled up against the pillows, and Rin was grinning. “We’re reading the…” she paused and looked at Rosalind. “What was that word?”

Rosalind smiled and reminded her gently, “steadfast.”

The girl nodded and said, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier. She said this is where that cartoon on my Fantasia movie came from. Did you ever find anything weird in a fish?”

Sesshomaru blinked for a moment at the unexpected query. The question triggered a dusty memory and his lips twitched in amusement. He came over and looked to Rosalind. It took her a moment to realize he was waiting for her permission to sit on her bed and she flushed a little, giving him a nod. “Go ahead.” The demon sat down next to them on the mattress and said, “Rosalind, you’ve never met him, but Rin, do you remember Lord Chamberlain Myoga?”

The little girl thought for a moment before she wrinkled her nose. “The old man with the funny nose?”

Sesshomaru’s smile widened enough to show a glint of his fangs as he let out a low laugh. “Yes, that’s him. A very long time ago, when I still lived in he borrowed a valuable trinket from my private vault without asking.”

Rin’s eyes widened. “He stole it? Did he get in trouble? What did he take?”


Rosalind looked just as interested and he found himself caught for a second in deep green eyes. He averted his gaze after a moment and went on. “It was a magpie made of gold and black pearl, about the size of a 500 Yen coin. And yes, he did get into trouble, though I believe he had every intention of returning the item. It was thought to bring great luck and happiness to the one who held it in his palm under the light of sunrise every day for three days. At the time Myoga was infatuated with a particular Saihô-shi and I think he hoped the magpie would bring his efforts better success.”


Rosalind mouthed the unfamiliar word and he searched for the English translation. “A Saihô-shi is someone who does the work of a seamstress.”


Rin tried to pronounce the word a few times, flubbing it terribly, and he reminded himself to renew her lessons in Japanese. He’d relaxed this habit in last few years. When she was smaller he’d made more of a point of teaching her both the English and Japanese words for things as they came up. To his surprise, Rosalind mimicked his pronunciation almost perfectly, breaking the word down into syllables for the girl. Rin considered the sounds and after two more tries she had it. Then she asked promptly, “what’s a seamstress?”


Rosalind offered an explanation to the inquisitive child automatically. “A seamstress is someone who sews clothes for people to support herself, to pay for a place to live and food and everything.”

Rin’s expression cleared with understanding. “Ohhh… like Uncle Yasha works on cars and you copy people’s pictures?”

The young woman opened her mouth to respond but it took her a moment. For a split second Rosalind had a stricken look in her eyes and Sesshomaru realized the girl’s words might have been unintentionally cruel to the painter. He took a breath to say something but Rosalind was already nodding and saying, “to some extent, yes.”

Her smile lacked some of the conviction it had possessed before as she turned her eyes back to Sesshomaru and asked, “so what happened? Did this Lord Chamberlain impress the Saihô-shi?”

Sesshomaru hesitated a moment but chose to let her leading question stand. “No…,” he said. “She refused his advances rather…. forcefully.”

When Rosalind raised a brow in curiosity, his amusement returned in the trail of memory. “She threw sake in his face and told him to remove himself from her garden under threat of bodily harm.”

Rin started to giggle and Rosalind’s smile warmed again. She shook her head. “Ouch… poor guy.”

Sesshomaru’s shoulders shifted just slightly in what could loosely be considered a shrug. “From what I understand she had already been clear with him more than once. He’s fortunate she only threw the wine and not the bottle.”

“So what happened to the bird?” Rin asked, shifting a little under Rosalind’s arm.

“The magpie…” Sesshomaru continued. “It was lost when he fell as he ran from her garden and dropped it in a stream.”

Rin tapped the book lying mostly closed on Rosalind’s knee, her finger marking their page. “And a fish really ate it like in the story?”

Sesshomaru nodded. “That afternoon one of our fishermen brought in a catch of Ayu…” He paused and frowned a moment, searching for the English name. He couldn’t come up with one and instead told Rosalind, “it’s a kind of salmon. Somehow the fish had come upon the little bird and swallowed it for our cook to find.”

Rosalind frowned a little in confusion. “But how did the cook know the magpie was yours?”

He considered her question and explained, “as the Dai Lord, anything of value found on the castle grounds, and at that time- also in a large swath of land around it, was and is my property.”

“Is?” she asked, raising both brows. “The castle’s still there?”

Sesshomaru nodded again. “Certainly, my estate is one of the oldest maintained traditional manors in . I still have a private residence there and once every ten years I hold some important meetings at that location. However, a large section of the building and most of the gardens have been converted to a Hakubutsukan, open to the public for a fee. It made little sense to leave it empty and unused while I’m living elsewhere.”

Rosalind was thoughtful for a moment, then was distracted by Rin, who was again trying to wrap herself around a new word. Sesshomaru listened while Rosalind broke the word down for his daughter. “Four parts, remember how Dad said it, sounds like ‘ha-koo-boots-skan.’ You smoosh the middle two sounds together a bit. I assume it means an exhibit of some kind?”

When she looked up at him for confirmation he nodded once. “Indeed. Many of the schools in the area visit it in spring when the trees are in bloom.”

She smiled at the mental image. “I’ll bet that’s beautiful. I’ve heard about cherry blossom festivals there.”

Sesshomaru reached out and took Rin’s hand in his to give it a small squeeze. “Yes, Rin likes those. I’ve taken her a few times.”

The little girl nodded enthusiastically. “It’s really pretty. They smell good and the flowers are everywhere. They have bentos with pink onigiri. I like the ones with the red bean stuff.” Sesshomaru’s smile faded slightly, and he said, “your mother liked the festival too. She knew you would.” The little girl grasped his hand and squeezed it back, her other hand fingering her locket.

Rosalind felt a little like an outsider in the moment, but then Rin put her head back on the young woman’s shoulder. Somehow the small inclusion combined with Rin’s holding her father’s hand across Rosalind’s knee, made her feel like she was allowed to miss Rhiannon with them, instead of as a peripheral, adopted family member. Rhiannon had been something between a mother and a friend to her for the few years she’d known her. Sesshomaru’s mate had gifted her with a love of art and experiences. Rosalind had done some drawing before, when she still lived in but Rhiannon had taught her to paint and to stretch her own canvas, had taught her the satisfaction to be found in the smell of plaster gesso and the ache of stiff, paint grimed muscles.

There was a small knock on the door frame and Inuyasha strode into view. He paused and raised a brow, Kagome hovering just behind him. “Hey Little Bit, nobody told me you were having a party in here.”

Rin smiled and said, “Otosan told us about Myoga making a sai…a sai….” she looked at Rosalind to supply the new word. Rosalind smiled and said slowly, “Saihô-shi.”

“Right, a Saihô-shi tossed sake in Myoga’s face when he made her mad, even with a lucky gold bird. But then a fish ate it and the cook found it, just like in the tin soldier story.”

Inuyasha snorted with laughter. “That sounds like Myoga. I don’t remember that one. When did that happen?”

He looked at Sesshomaru, who said, “just over 500 years ago.” Kagome was leaning against the door frame and didn’t miss the agitation that crossed Inuyasha’s face as he said, “ahh... got it.” It was there and gone in a blink, and his features once again cleared to a careful blank slate, eerily similar to Sesshomaru’s. The two sets of gold eyes were locked for a second before Sesshomaru turned back to the girls. “Bed time, Rin.”

The little girl hadn’t missed the tension of the moment either and was somewhat subdued as she asked, “can we finish the story?”

Rosalind put a slip of paper between yellowed pages and held the book out for Rin. “How about you keep this safe for me. Don’t lose the spot and we’ll finish it tomorrow. Then we can start the next one.”

Rin took the book, old and tattered, clearly an antique. She held it gingerly and said, “I’ll take really good care of it.”

The child climbed off the bed and headed out the door, hugging Inuyasha around the waist and giving Kagome a small wave and smile before she left. Rosalind stood from her bed, pulling her arm across herself to stretch the shoulder Rin had been leaning into. “I better go make sure she actually makes it to bed. Unless…” she turned to look at Sesshomaru, but he nodded his approval.

As Rosalind disappeared down the hall, Sesshomaru stood, turned the lights off, and exited the room. When he stepped into the hallway, Kagome skittered away from him at an angle so Inuyasha was between them, her expression a little twitchy. He let it pass without comment, and met Inuyasha’s raised eyebrow. The half demon was wearing an amused, somewhat mocking grin, instantly irritating his brother.

“Yes?” Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes, tone somewhat clipped.

Inuyasha asked in a sarcastic tone, “did we interrupt something? You guys looked pretty cozy in there.”

Sesshomaru’s broad shoulders stiffened at the implication and he gave Inuyasha a hard look. His unspoken objection to the teasing almost seemed to carry physical weight. A second later both of them turned to look at Kagome and she shrank back against the wall. “What? I’m sorry, I can’t control how I smell.” She sounded nervous but there was a little defiance in her voice that both men privately thought was a good development, even if their noses were filled with her nervous discomfort. Inuyasha tucked her under his arm with a sigh and the scent faded substantially as they walked to the living room. Even Sesshomaru smirked as he heard her mutter to his younger brother, “can you not antagonize him?”

He met Rosalind in the hall as she was coming out of his sitting room. The young woman let out a weary sigh and he remembered she’d been up as early as he had this-morning, and on her feet most of the day. Long days weren’t an issue for him, but she looked tired. He slid his hands in the pockets of his slacks again as he offered, “I can fill you in tomorrow if you need to sleep.”

She looked at him and frowned slightly. “I thought this was a mandatory ‘everyone’ meeting?”

He nodded once. “That was my intent, yes.”

Her mouth twisted a little in a frustrated scowl and she crossed her arms. “I must look like crap then if you’re telling me to go to bed early instead. Whatever’s going on- I can handle it.”

Now it was his turn to frown. “I didn’t imply otherwise. Your appearance is…” he paused, searching for a word that wouldn’t get him into trouble. He wasn’t sure what was appropriate under the circumstances. She seemed to put him in this position a lot lately, where he had to put real effort into which words he used. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“Your looks are as admirable as ever, you simply seem tired,” he said smoothly.

She eyed him for a minute, still frustrated. She wasn’t sure why his offer had felt to her like a suggestion that she couldn’t pull her weight with everything that was happening. Her frown deepened for a second as she recognized her ruffled feathers as something internal, and more importantly, not his fault.

She sighed heavily. Now she felt bad, and her mind was stuttering a little over the idea that he found her looks ‘admirable’. What did that mean coming from him? She shook her head and said quietly, “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair of me.”

Gold eyes met green ones and she continued, tone more even. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be fine. I want to know what exactly is going on.”

He studied her, sensing her frustration, but unsure of the cause. He decided distraction was in order and observed, “the story book wasn’t from Rin’s collection. Is it yours?”

She nodded, lips twitching into a halfhearted smile. “Yes, it’s one my aunt gave me. It’s an 1846 first edition… Andersen’s Dutch Fairy Tales. The spine’s a little weak but it’s holding up.”

Sesshomaru remembered the delicate way Rin held the book and realized it must have been one of the few possessions Rosalind had packed into the single box she’d brought with her from years ago. “I believe Rin will treat it with great respect,” he said.

Rosalind nodded, her smile warming as she crossed her arms around herself tighter. “Yes, she likes it. We’ve gone through most of the stories in it now. The Snow Queen’s the last one we haven’t read. Her smile faded by a small measure. “She’s almost old enough now she might not be interested in bed time stories much longer anyway. She reads well on her own, at least one grade level above her age group.”

Sesshomaru tilted his head in confusion. “This makes you sad.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement. Her smile warmed again. He always knew how she felt; it was just the why that he always seemed to require. Something about that amused her. “A little,” she admitted.

“She’s growing up so fast. I miss the days when she fit in my lap on the couch for story time. She’ll be nearly as tall as my shoulder by next Christmas I bet.” After a second she asked, “how does that work exactly? With a demon blood line I mean. She’s aging at the same rate I am, but you don’t look a day over 32 at the absolute most.”

He didn’t answer right away and she winced, putting a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, was that rude? Forget I asked.”

Sesshomaru shook his head, smiling a little dryly. “Were I you, it’s not a question I would go asking others of our kind… but I’m not offended.”

Her cheeks reddened a little and he continued to explain. “As Rin is half human there will be some variation unique to her case, but in general we age physically on a scale similar to humans until we are nearly at our physical adolescent prime. While we are younger and weaker than that, we are more vulnerable. Once we get to a point at or near where we can defend ourselves better, our biochemistry changes, and we can live for many human generations… obviously.”

Rosalind smiled ruefully and nodded her understanding. Then her brow furrowed a little as a thought crossed her mind. ‘That means I’m going to be getting wrinkles while she still looks eighteen years old… so not fair.’ Rosalind wasn’t terribly vain, but the idea of getting older as the little girl she’d helped care for since birth stayed so young was strange to consider.

Sesshomaru raised a brow and she shook herself, retrieving her smile and changing the subject. “Before I forget- do you… still have any of Rhiannon’s paintings?”

His expression softened for a split second in surprise, before his flat look was back in place. “I do. Why do you ask?”

Rosalind was afraid maybe she was crossing a line, but she thought it would be good for Rin if she could make this happen, and that gave her courage. Slowly, she suggested, “when we were talking about the cherry blossom festival earlier, I remembered some of the paintings she did of those trees. They were watercolors, I think…”

He still looked at her blankly, waiting for her to get to the point, and she hurried on. “I just thought, as Rin likes them too… I thought maybe if you gave her one of those paintings for her room, it would be something tangible she could share with her mother.”

There was silence for long enough that she was sure she’d overstepped the bounds of what was acceptable to him where his late wife was concerned. Then Sesshomaru’s blank expression lifted, just slightly, and he released a barely audible sigh. Some of the tension left his shoulders and he replied, “thoughts like these are one of the most valuable things you offer us. Never doubt their worth.”

She blinked in surprise and his eyes dropped to the floor for a moment in consideration before he nodded once. “I have one of those pieces hanging in my bedroom. I think it is time it was passed to Rin.” Golden eyes rose to find hers and he affirmed, as if to himself as well as Rosalind, “it’s a good idea.”