InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Windows on the West ❯ Devotion ( Chapter 33 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer:  I do not own the characters of Inuyasha.  (But I should.)

~oOo~

Kagome handed Satori her tea, bowing her head respectfully, while keeping with the silence that seemed to have taken hold with the woman's presence.

She had shown up out of the blue, Sesshoumaru obviously surprised to see her.  Jaken had told her in an aside while she was walking with him to get water for their tea that they had not seen her since the last time she had shown up – the time when Kagome had met her.

While handing out the tea, Kagome couldn't help but wonder why she had decided now was a good time to grace her son with her presence, after so long away.

Sesshoumaru was quite pleased with the way Kagome was behaving, her devotion to him and his comfort and pleasure clear, even in front of his mother.  It was, perhaps, his way of feeling superior - despite her own lack of caring for him in all his years, there was another that now did so, and of her own accord, freely, not because she was forced to.

Not everyone was as cold as his mother.  He had never thought that was a fact that would please him, and he realized then that he, himself, was not as cold as his mother.  For some reason, that thought did not displease him as it might have a few years ago.

Finally, Kagome had had enough of the silence, wondering in a corner of her mind if this was always the way it was between the two, she smilingly asked if anyone wanted more tea, and when everyone demurred, she dismissed the children to go play, and then excused herself and Jaken to go rinse out the cups and put everything away.

On the way to the stream, she asked Jaken if mother and son always acted so to each other.

The gami shrugged.  “I would not know, Kagome-sama.  I had only met the honored mother once before the time you met her in all the years I have spent as Sesshoumaru-sama's servant.”

He looked up to meet Kagome's horrified gaze.  “How long have you been with Sesshoumaru-sama, Jaken?”  she asked slowly.

“This Jaken has served his Lord for two hundred and eighty-two years,”  he replied proudly, and Kagome's horrified expression deepened.

“You mean in all that time, she never bothered to visit her son?  What kind of mother does that?”  she asked, unable to fathom such a lack of simple caring.

Jaken shook out the cups he had rinsed, and set them inside the bag set aside for them carefully.  “It is apparently her way,”  he said without looking at her.  “It is not for this one to question, however... at one time, I had thought his parents both dead,”  he admitted quietly.

Kagome nodded thoughtfully.  “I would never be able to do the same,”  she said in a low tone.  

Jaken huffed, amused.  “That much is obvious, Kagome-sama.”

She chuckled as they stood and headed back to the others, her smile widening a little when she heard the cheerful voices of the children.

That's the way children should sound, she thought.  How terrible it would be to grow up in a palace that was as silent as a tomb.  However, that thought gave her a sudden, deep insight into the person that Sesshoumaru was.  How could he have turned out any differently with the parent that he had had?

She was determined that his life now would be completely different from what it had been when he was young.

Completely.

Meanwhile, the silence that had been so deep while the entire pack was surrounding the mother and son, lifted once Kagome left, a fact which Sesshoumaru did not fail to notice.

“So, the miko that left you, has now returned to you,”  Satori said, curious eyes pinned to her son.

Sesshoumaru sat back, lifting his knee, he draped his arm over it.  Eyeing his mother narrowly, he wondered what her angle was - why she was trying to anger him.  

“You know as well as I that it was not her choice to leave,”  he said, his whole manner conveying ultimate boredom with her presence.  

His mother wasn't fooled.  While she might not have spent much time around her son since his birth, she had watched over him almost constantly once he left her palace to roam the lands, and she knew his manner fairly well.

“But it was her choice to return,”  she murmured, still watching him carefully, even as she gave off an unconcerned air.

He dipped his head in agreement, his pleasure in that fact clear.  “It was.”

Satori looked around with a slight smile, taking note of how everything was so openly centric around her son.  While the heart of the pack was Kagome, it was a shared heart – Sesshoumaru was at the center of everything that happened within the group, while Kagome chose to stay in the background.  

It was most telling – but Satori was not sure it was a message her son had received.

“I see that you enjoy the care she takes of you,”  she said, a sly sort of amusement in her voice.  “Of course, what male wouldn't.”  She waved a languid hand at his suddenly narrowed eyes.  “One wonders what you will do when she is finally wed off and has a husband to spend all that devotion on,”  she said, her almost idle gaze resting on the newly returned miko.

After a moment, she turned her eyes back on her suddenly tense son, and smiled charmingly.

“Well, Sesshoumaru, I enjoyed our little visit.”  She nodded towards Kagome.  “And your tea, miko, but this one has duties to attend to at home, and so must take her leave.”  She glanced once more at her son, pleased with the new tension she could sense in him.  I believe I have achieved what I set out to do.  

He did not acknowledge her, his gaze deliberately turned away from the group as Kagome and the others said goodbye, bowing respectfully.  Once she was gone, he stood, and indicated that he wished to continue on.   Within moments of his mother's disappearance, the group was once more walking peaceably along.

But her words had found their mark, just as Satori had known they would, and Sesshoumaru was silent for the rest of the day as he pondered on what had been said.

And over the days and weeks that followed, he took note of every male they came in contact with, and their reactions to Kagome... and her own reactions to them.

While it was obvious that she paid no specific attention to anyone else, it was also clear that it wouldn't be long before some male, somewhere, would not be intimidated by his manner, and would press his suit on the beautiful, gentle, caring woman.

He was most displeased at that realization.

Without consciously thinking about it, his feet turned in a direction he seldom wandered – into portions of the land that were completely empty of other people – youkai and ningen.

Somewhere deep in his subconscious mind, was the thought that it would be difficult for some male to take her away, if they weren't around any other males at all.

He had conveniently forgotten her already stated desire to stay with him, but nonetheless, he would make sure that she did so, even if he had to keep her away from other males for the rest of her life.

And unnoticed by either male or female, the first step in the courtship dance had been taken – he had admitted to himself that he did not want any male to have her, save himself.

Now, it was just left for him to start noticing how it was that he wanted her.

~oOo~

A/N:  O_O  Stubborn dog.  But Inuyasha was right – he'll fall to her charms, sooner or later.

Amber



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