Week 215 Favorite pairing.
Title: Giving Thanks
Author: Katie
Genre: Romance
Universe: Post Manga
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1823
Pairing: Kouga/Rin. I am a sick sick girl.
Summary: Rin is having a hard time with village life... Probobly going to become a series of connected stories.
I wrote 2 versions of this AND another completely different story. I finally landed on this one because I want to make it into a series of connected storys.
The smell of wolves made Rin ill. Like rancid meat, filth, and the decaying leaves on the forest floor. The skittering scritch-scratch of their claws against rock or the packed dirt of a trail made her skin crawl. Their howls did an injustice to the night; like the sound of silk tearing.
It wasn’t like her hate was completely unfounded.
Living in a village had it’s advantages in that respect. Their horrible howls came from a distance and the hut gave her the illusion of safety. There was nowhere in the world safer than by Lord Sesshoumaru’s side, but the village was a decent replacement. And this village wasn’t like the one of her youth. Lady Sango and Master Inuyasha were here to protect them. But more importantly Lady Sango had taught Rin to protect herself.
Somewhere in her teen years Rin took to having horrible nightmares where she would wake up screaming and crying and covered in fat hot drops of sweat. The dreams were always the same. Wolves, snarling and mad, ripping into her flesh. Tearing skin away from muscle and muscle away from bone. Blood dripping into her eyes and thankfully blinding her so that she couldn’t see their mad red eyes or their lolling tongues as they laughed at her and lapped at her blood.
These dreams came most often and most vivid after he came. Rin couldn’t remember his name despite having been introduced to him multiple times. He would come to see Kagome and her baby. Kagome actually let that beast touch her child. He would fight with Master Inuyasha then he would leave the village as suddenly as he came.
Kagome tried to assure Rin on many occasion that he wasn’t a bad demon. When Rin had met him he was in a bad place and that now he is much nicer. ‘Met him’, what a benign way of putting it. In Rin’s memory he didn’t seem to be in a ‘bad place’. The twinkle in his cobalt eyes and the cruel superior smile on his face as he gave the order to eat everyone seemed pretty content.
Kagome said that people could change. Lord Sesshoumaru had always told Rin that demons who live for centuries don’t change their ways easily.
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It was the short season between winter and spring when the air was clean and crisp and the world felt like it was on the verge of taking it’s first real breath in months. Because that beast who’s name she couldn’t remember was in the village Rin found herself by the river doing the wash and couldn’t resist taking a walk farther down stream and deeper into the woods. She enjoyed her moments of solitude away from the village and its constant noise and pulse.
Lord Sesshoumaru had sent her another kimono made of the finest silk and crafted by the finest artisans. He no longer came to deliver them himself, instead they came via Ah-un. At first they had come with notes hand written in his elegant curving scrawl, now there were none. Just a package of silk. Rin felt like an ungrateful spoiled brat for she no longer treasured them the way that she once did. Here she was, doing the wash in a kimono that was worth more than half the village’s possessions combined.
She feared that this new found indifference was a result of her refusal to join him once more. A year ago had asked her to rejoin him in his travels, but despite desperate desire to be with him she had refused. Lady Kagome was pregnant, as was Lady Sango, and Lady Kaede was old and fragile and became confused easily. They needed Rin. Since then he had breached a whole new realm of distant. Now both women had bore their children and Rin wished desperately that he would just ask her again. This time she would say yes for sure.
As a child she had never doubted that her demon benefactor loved her. In his own way. But as of late she felt that it just wasn’t enough. Again she felt a pang of guilt over her selfishness. That was what brought her out into the woods, perched on a rock overlooking the swift moving rapids of the river to sulk and pity herself. There was no way she could return to the village in this mindset.
Rin spotted a beautiful flower, the first of spring, breaking through the craggy rocks where she was perched. She remembered that the flower was good for easing the pain of teething when dried and ground into a fine powder. Kagome and Sango would like that. As she stretched and reached for the flower the fine fine silk of her kimono made her lose her footing and fall headlong into the rushing water.
The first thing she felt was biting cold of the river. A thousand pin pricks of pain bit into her. The rapids flipped her over and over. Her back and her head hit rocks, thankfully she was so numb she hardly felt them. Kicking her legs she swam for air, but as soon as she would break the surface the river would pull her under and tumble her again, over and under round and round. There was no direction, no up and down nor left and right, no matter where she kicked she was met with more water swallowing her whole.
The beautiful kimono became a deadly trap as it soaked up water and became a weight that pulled her away from the surface and the air that she so desperately needed. She struggled with the obi and was finally able to wiggle free of it and let it and the kimono drift away. In her head she screamed over and over “Sesshoumaru-sama! Sesshoumaru-sama!” But he couldn’t hear her and wouldn’t come. He hadn’t come in a long, long time. She made one last struggle for the surface as her limbs went numb and became dead weights. There was no surface. Her lungs burned. The rapids turned her again and once more her head hit the rocks. This time she hit so hard that the impact forced the rest of the air out of her lungs. She inhaled because she had too. But it felt oddly nice. The world slowed down as water filled her lungs and the world narrowed the a pin point of light. She realized belatedly that what she was seeing was the sun. She was finally able to open her eyes and find the surface only now it was too late. Then the beautiful inverted world was broken. The water tore and rippled as hands grabbed for her. Nails scraping her skin as they tried to find purchase. ‘Sesshoumaru-sama’ she thought as the world finally, blessedly, went black.
She was wrapped in complete darkness. Unlike the darkness when you close your eyes or are deep in a cave this darkness was alive. It pulsed and writhed around her. She felt things too. Things touching her sometimes they were soft like fur and others they were sticky or scaly or sharp. She curled herself into a tight ball and sang softly. The only other option was to scream and cry, but she knew that wouldn’t do any good. She had been here before.
Something out of the darkness got brave and hit her, hard, on the back. Again and again it hit. She tried to move, tried to get away, but the darkness was too thick and too oppressing. There was nowhere to go.
“Rin-chan!”
Someone was calling her. Rin; that was her name.
“Rin-chan!” The voice was rough and male and desperate.
“Come on stupid brat! Spit it out!” One final hit to her back and the darkness shattered and fell away.
Rin’s eyes flew open and she caught a glimpse of blue eyes and fangs before she began coughing and retching. She tried to roll away from him, and while he allowed her to her hands and knees, he still held her tight, occasionally rubbing her throat or back in soothing motions.
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There was a fire burning on the shore where they sat. The wolf held her firmly despite her protests and earlier struggle. She was freezing, he told her, and he was warm. Hot really. He had used his fur to cover her, protecting her modesty. He stared into the distance, not looking at her. Rin wondered if it was to protect her modesty or because he just couldn’t stand looking at her.
She had finally stopped struggling. Now she lay there in his arms, heart beating so hard and fast she thought she might choke on it. She was scared, helpless, and trapped. She resolved not to cry. She was strong, Lord Sesshoumaru made her that way. The tears welled up anyway.
The wolf looked down at her sharply. Horror and possibly, Rin thought, sorrow in his horrible blue eyes. “Shit,” he swore, “ kid, Rin-chan, I’m not going to hurt you. I’d never… I’m sorry about…shit.” He let his half apology hang there between them.
“You scare me.” Rin muttered. The demon loosened his hold on her. She quickly scooted away from him.
“Yah, I know. I can smell it and it stinks.” He stood and dusted himself off.
Rin watched as he fastened his armor over his bare dark chest. The fur that he normally wore over his lower half was still wrapped around her so the only thing covering him was s smaller piece of fur leaving the defined muscle of his thighs visible.
Rin looked to the village, it wasn’t far, she could see the smoke rising from the homes of families cooking their evening meals. All around her she could feel the forest pressing and reaching. The wilderness calling to her, a wild rough song that seemed to align perfectly with her own cadence. She loved the village. She had many friends there. It wasn’t her home.
She was old enough to be married and start a family. She had even been proposed to once. But when she looked at the young men in the village she saw only chains. When they whispered in her ear that they loved her she felt like walls were closing in.
“The village is right over that hill. You can make it there fine, you know your way around. Sorry for not walking you in, but I can’t go back right now.” He didn’t elaborate, but Rin saw his tail droop and lay limp. “Rin, no wolf in in the world will ever touch you again. I promise.” With that parting he turned to the forest.
He took a few steps before Rin called out to him. “Wait!”
Rin followed him into the woods, because words would never be a good enough apology from him and because it was the only way she knew how to say ‘thank you’.