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“There are some things that you simply cannot change or escape from, Sesshoumaru,” Hahaue had said.
Time.
Death.
Fate.
Her.
“Sesshoumaru-sama.”
He had heard her say his name countless times, in every which way.
When she greets him, bright as a bell as she has always been throughout her childhood
when she calls for him, soft and tender, in that way that fills him with a blissful warmth
when she begs for him, longing and breathless, milky flesh blooming patches of red and pink from his greedy plunder.
The final time he hears it
it is in a shallow breath
the very last one she takes
as the last of her warmth slips away in his arms.
“She will be back.”
He had figured it was his mother’s way of expressing her condolences
or perhaps an attempt to quell his anger-filled grief
that has left an aimless path of destruction in the wake of her passing.
“The heavens have woven your fates together – so long as you live, she is destined to return.”
He does not believe in higher powers or in celestial beings that can influence him.
Never has.
But the tormenting ache in his chest that threatens to swallow him whole makes him want to grasp at any promise.
“...when?”
It is the first time he has spoken since she left his side, many moons ago.
His mother’s gaze reveals nothing as she regards him, standing still amidst the evidence of his latest rampage – a village no more, everything reduced to rubble and rivers of blood, seeping into the earth and trickling down his hands.
“You will know when it’s time.”
As cryptic as they are, her words become his only glimmer of salvation.
So he waits
and waits
and waits
until one day,
the unforgiving weight in his chest eases
and instantly, almost instinctually – he knows.
Rin.
*~*~*~*
The first time they reunite, she is a child again.
A couple years older than when he had first found her, and unfortunately that much wiser and afraid of youkai.
She looks eerily the same, save for the frightened look on her face as she stares at him, frozen in place and clutching onto a basket of wild mushrooms.
“Rin.”
He has spent many nights imagining her response to his call, but he never once – and naively so – thought it would be one of confusion.
“I – I’m not –” She takes in a sharp breath and tries again in a steadier voice, “My name is not Rin.”
His chest constricts in that familiar painful ache
with every backward step she warily takes away
and he curses the cruel humor of fate that has brought her back to him
but not whole.
And then
as if punishment for his insolent greed
a soft hiss and a flash of greenish-yellow scales
and he will never forget
how the color had immediately drained from her face
or how she had toppled without a single sound
or how a gut-wrenching snarl had escaped him when he caught her tiny body from crumbling onto the earth.
He tries to save her
sucking and swallowing mouthfuls of tainted blood from the wound on her calf
but a bite from a venomous viper youkai is instantly fatal to humans
and no matter how much more he digs his heel into its lacerated carcass splayed at his feet,
it will not stop the life draining from her.
Hours later
long after the last of the warmth have left her lifeless body still nestled in his arms
he must painfully let go of his foolish hope that Tenseiga can save her once more
and his feet reluctantly move towards the village he had tracked her to
where he had spent days watching, waiting – yearning.
The sorrowful wailing of her parents
when they discover her in the bed of flowers she so lovingly grew in front of her home
echo through the mountains and into the night
and for once in his life
he shares in the crushing grief.
*~*~*~*
He feels her presence a century or two later, and it takes him nearly two decades to locate her.
He finally finds her on the bustling streets of Shimabara, running errands with another maiko.
She is older than when he found her last, just budding into womanhood
around the age when she had last professed her love to him
which finally prompted him to admit his to her
after many seasons of silent longing.
Hair held high with colorful kanzashi and face painted white but lips an alluring red
she is a sight to behold after all these years
and his fingers itch to remove all those trinkets to let her thick hair tumble
and he wonders if the makeup would make her taste any different when he devours her whole.
He is much more cautious this time,
as he has learned the price of haste at their last reunion
so he waits in the shadows and gathers what he can about her
until the time is right.
With no loving parents in this lifetime either
she was sold by an alcoholic uncle to her Oka-san
the grave-faced female proprietor of the most successful okiya in Kyoto.
But his Rin has always been tenacious in her will to survive
to make the best of what she has
and now she is the most sought after in the district
with her clever poems and beguiling songs
and at the cusp of undergoing her mizuage.
Three bids so far
one from a wealthy merchant from Edo
another from a rice broker from across the seas
and the last from an influential samurai rumored to become the next retainer of the daimyō.
All deserving a slow, agonizing death for desiring what is rightfully his.
When their bloodied bodies turn up
one by one
each in the morning following the night they paid to spend with her but never did
she is branded as a witch by the frightened women she deemed as her only family
and cast onto the street with nothing to her name.
For days he watches her wander the city mindlessly
her broken and hollow spirit casting shadows on her face
and he decides that it is finally time for him to move,
now that she will have no one else but him to lean on.
But alas
fate continues to be a heartless master
and when he appears in her life
it is again right at the end
when the bath water has long gone cold and stained dark crimson with the blood that flows from her wrists.
*~*~*~*
It is not exactly how he wants it to be
but after five centuries of waiting
and so much anguish
he feels oddly content with what he has.
She stirs in her sleep
a delicate pinch starting to form between her brow
but the sounds of the television are not enough to wake her from her deep slumber.
Underneath the blanket
he drapes his tail over her waist
in lieu of the arm he does not have in his current form
the only appearance of him she knows – so far.
After eons of searching
with only distant memories of her touch
he cannot find it within himself to refuse the scratches behind his ears
or the kisses between his eyes
or the gentle rubbing of his back that has become her nighttime ritual as she falls asleep.
And though there are moments
when he desires to be much more than her canine companion
and wants to hold her
to kiss her
to take her
all in the form she used to know
he tells himself in due time.
Because if he has learned anything
through the endless cycles of euphoria and sorrow
it is that fate is a ruthless, fickle master that views impatience and greed unkindly.
So he vows to bide his time and reminds himself –
that he may not be hers in every lifetime,
but she is his.
His love, his mate.
His eternity.