One Life Ch.10 Things That...

Chapter 10: Things That Go Bump In The Night

Sesshoumaru materialized in Rin’s room in the next instant and took in every detail in the blink of an eye.  Rin stood in her nightgown with her back against the far wall across from the window.  She gripped her short staff in a white-knuckled grasp and her eyes were wide with terror as she stared at the window.  He sensed her heart beat racing and smelled the fear rolling off of her in waves.

“There’s…there’s…s..s..something trying to get into my w..window!”  She whispered hoarsely, her eyes glued to the window.

Lightning flashed outside and a bulky black silhouette outlined her window.  In a flash, Sesshoumaru was at the window, his arm shot out to grab the intruder, vaguely aware that he had gashed his arm on the splintered wood of the windowsill.  He grabbed only emptiness a he tried to catch sight of the fleeing figure, but could see nothing but the blackness of night.  Just then, Lord Kazuo burst through the door, his snow white hair unbound and flowing around him, his eyes glowing a demonic ice blue, his knives brandished and ready for battle.  Jaken came toddling right behind him with two sharp, needle like knives held firmly in his grasp.

“Kazuo, stay with her.  Jaken, stay outside the door and make sure nothing enters though it.”  Lord Sesshoumaru commanded in an emotionless tone that brooked no argument and vanished into the night in pursuit of the elusive intruder.  

Into and beyond the forest, throughout the night, soaked in the rain, Lord Sesshoumaru found no trace of the intruder.  As dawn approached he made his way back to the palace. At first he had thought that perhaps it had been Kane, but the tiger demon had a distinct scent.  What ever this had been left no scent at all. What had it been?  What was this creature that carried no scent, made no sound, left no tracks and disappeared without a trace?  

As Sesshoumaru approached the edge of the tree line near the palace walls he began to notice how grey and brittle the trees looked.  The sounds of forest life were absent as well, no crickets chirped, no fireflies blinked.  

Strange.  He thought to himself as he made his way towards the back of the structure.  

His arm was throbbing a little now and he was slightly annoyed to find it dripping blood.  He still only wore the casual, loose pants he slept in and wore no shirt.  Blood trickled easily down his bare arm from the wound.  A brief cloud of dizziness floated through him, but he shook it off angrily.  The wound was too insignificant to warrant any kind of physical reaction.  

I must be more fatigued than I thought.  

He approached Rin’s window and could see where the intruder had been clawing its way through the sill.  It must have been too big to get through because it looked as though it was trying to widen the window.  The sill was jaggedly ripped and splintered, and bits of wood from the sill had been torn away and were scattered on the ground, but suddenly something else grabbed his attention as he reached the window.  Directly under it was a mound of upturned earth.  And then a smell caught his nose.  He noticed a light grey substance dripping off a particularly sharp piece of splintered windowsill.  It reeked of a foul, nauseating odor that he had never smelled …no…he had smelled this scent…once before.

He shook is head as another slightly stronger wave of dizziness washed over him.  This one was accompanied by a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, a door unlocked and a wave of memories came flooding into his mind.

It had been the night of the first marking ritual.  He had completed the Kiss and he and Kasumi were discussing how they chose to complete the next mark.  Traditionally, the next mark, Branding, was given during a sexual act, and then shown off during the official ceremony, but Sesshoumaru did not feel comfortable, or particularly aroused by the thought of marking his long time friend who had only hours ago been in love with another.  He had decided to talk Kasumi into allowing him to complete the next mark ceremonially, and on the collarbone instead of the breast.  But just as she was giving in to his argument he had heard it.  His father’s howl was the most anguished sound he had ever heard before in his life.

Several hours later, Master Kenta, the healer, and Lord Masahiro would not allow him to see his father.  Lord Inutashio had been rampaging through the palace and they had been forced to lock him in his chambers.  He howled for hours yelling the same thing over and over again.

“She’s dead!  She’s dead!  She’s dead!”

Sesshoumaru had been forbidden from entering his mother’s chambers as well.  The smell of blood was thick in the air and he feared the worst.  Perhaps she had gone into premature labor.  The pup she carried had not been due for several months still.  A ward had been placed around the room preventing him from just materializing into the room, so he decided to take a less dignified route.  He had stormed around the outside of the palace fully intending to crawl through the window, but just as he rounded the corner he had tripped over a large mound of dirt.  Growling, he shot to his feet and approached his mother’s window vowing to kill the gardeners for leaving not just one, but five of such dirt mounds cluttering his mother’s gardens.  The insolent fools had already allowed his mother’s favorite cherry tree over by the bathhouse to wilt and turn grey with sickness.  The ruin of her gardens was unforgivable.     

Sesshoumaru clutched his now very painful wound and gritted his teeth.  Another wave of nausea went through him and he sank to his knees as another memory crashed over him.

He had reached his mother’s window when the smell hit his nose.  It was coming from a thick grey substance on the edges of the splintered windowsill and smelled sour and acrid like rotting flesh, but different.  The scent of his mother’s blood was also thick in the air wafting from the window.  Determination firm in his mind, he gracefully hopped up into the window and began to pull himself inside but was suddenly frozen in place by the horror before his eyes.  

Blood was splattered everywhere.  Thick chunks of flesh clung to places on the walls and on the ceiling.  A bloody mass was covered by a sheet lying in the middle of the floor.  His mind wouldn’t register what it was that he was looking at as he continued to scan the room for any signs of his mother when he saw the hair protruding from the mass that was covered by the sheet.  The room began to spin as realization hit him.  He had flung himself away from the window into the dirt outside the window and had retched.  He had dry heaved for several minutes, the image of his mother dead, his unborn sibling dead, burned in his memory.  He closed his mind from the thoughts, taking deep cleansing breaths and slowly regained his composure.  The pain subsided after a while and he was once again in control of his emotions.  His mother was dead.  His father would surely follow his mate shortly.  He would track down the attackers and kill every last one of them.

Sesshoumaru came out of his memory with a jolt.  

Rin.

The similarity of the grey dying trees, the sour smelling undefined grey substance on the windowsill, and the mounds of upturned earth connected in his mind.

Rin!

Pain shot through him as he began to gather his power into himself.  His chest began to ache as he drew breath.  Vaguely he heard a voice in the back of his mind telling him something wasn’t right, but he had no time to concern himself with personal ailments.  He had to make sure Rin was all right.

He materialized in Rin’s room and quickly located the young woman.  She was crouched in the corner of the room opposite the window, her staff still in her hands.  

“M’lord!”  She exclaimed, getting to her feet, but she froze as she took in the sight of him.

He’s hurt.  Her heart leapt into her throat as she watched his blood flow down his arm and drip off his fingertips onto the floor in disbelief and worry.  She had only ever seen him hurt once before in her life.  

What is this force that can hurt my great lord!?

He did not take his eyes from Rin, but he sensed it when Lord Kazuo got up from his post by the window and left the room without saying a word.

She’s safe. He slowly began to make his way to her, scanning her for any signs of injury.

She’s alive. He could feel his body beginning to tremble with the force of his relief combined with the strange haziness that seemed to be weighing him down.

She has not been torn to pieces.   Images of his mother began to cloud his thoughts.  He suddenly felt so heavy.

Those creatures did not get to her like Mother.   

His heart ached and his vision was oddly blurred as he stopped in front of Rin.  More memories of that horrible night flashed through his mind and he found himself on his knees before her.  He reached out suddenly and grabbed her, pulling her to him, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face in her stomach, aching for the comfort that her closeness always seemed to bring him.  He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut trying to block out the memories, but they would not stop.  

A sharp mournful sound echoed in the room and he was startled to realize that it had come from him.  Rin’s scent was sweet and delicate and she was so soft and warm.  Her hands stroked his head and tangled in his long hair and he heard her voice coming to him from a sea of long forgotten grief.

“Master, I am alright.”  She whispered.  Her soft familiar voice seemed to wash all of the sadness from him as he held onto her.

One lone thought dashed across his mind as blackness overcame him and he lost his battle for consciousness.

Rin.  My Rin is all right.

*****
Rin had been scared out of her mind!  She remembered restlessly tossing in her bed when she heard the loud crunching of her windowpane as it was being ripped apart.  A huge shadow appeared to be trying to crawl into her room and it made no sound.  It didn’t growl, it didn’t snarl or speak.  It just tore at her window trying to squeeze its huge proportions through the opening.  She had screamed in shock and fear, stumbling out of bed to grab her short staff.  The name of her master was what had tumbled out of her mouth as she screamed again, and just like that he had appeared.  Lord Sesshoumaru had materialized in the blink of an eye, and had immediately lunged for the creature at the window.  

The moment he had appeared she had known she would be all right, but she couldn’t help the trembling in her body.  Lord Kazuo and Master Jaken had both come bounding into her room shortly after Lord Sesshoumaru had appeared, but by then the creature had gone.  Lord Sesshoumaru had barked short commands to Kazuo and Jaken before abruptly vanishing.  She had settled into the corner of her room to await her master’s return, her betrothed respectfully sitting across the room by the window, and Master Jaken standing guard just outside the door.

Hours had passed and Rin could almost feel dawn approaching when Lord Sesshoumaru had finally reappeared, but his appearance did nothing to calm her nerves.  He was pale and he swayed slightly as though he was having difficulty standing.  His eyes were red rimmed and his breathing appeared labored.  But what had scared her the most was the blood running down his arm to drip onto the floor.  He had taken a few labored steps to her and had sunk to his knees before her.  Her heart ached as she watched him struggle with some inner torment.  He had reached out suddenly pulling her close, wrapping his arms around her waist, his strong hands on her back, and had pressed his face to her stomach.  Tears threatened to fall and her throat tightened painfully when he let out an utterly mournful sob.  Worry sickened her as she stroked his head and hair trying to calm him.  She was unaccustomed to his distress and found herself almost desperate to ease his discomfort somehow.

Was he that worried about me? What has happened to him?

But just as she began to voice her reassurances, he had lost consciousness for only the second time in the ten years she had known him.

Rin’s heart had jerked into her throat when he sank to the floor.  His hair sprawled out around him as he lay there motionless.  She dropped to her knees immediately.

“Master.”  She shrieked as she pulled his head into her lap.  She couldn’t make out his breathing at all.

“Sesshoumaru-sama!”  She yelled at him, shaking him slightly, tears beginning to roll down her face.

“SOMEONE HELP!”  She cried out desperately as she cradled his still form in her trembling arms.

Oh Gods!  Please don’t let him die!

*****