Fateful Encounters

Fateful Encounters

Chapter 2: Talking Things Out

A month had passed since Kagome had returned home and she was finally coping with what had happened. She had spent her time meditating, thinking, saying good bye, and when she needed to, crying out her sorrow. Her family supported her silently, making sure that she ate and took care of herself.

Now, after coming to terms with the turn her life had taken, she was ready to talk about it with her mother.

Kagome went down to breakfast that morning feeling better than she had in a long time now.

“Good morning, honey.” Kun-Loon greeted her daughter without really expecting a verbal answer in return.

“Good morning, mama.” Kagome surprised her with a smile, a sad one, but still the first smile since she arrived home an emotional wreck.

Kun-Loon smiled wider in reply and in silent acknowledgment of her improvement. “Do you want to eat anything in particular?”

“No thanks. I’ll be outside by the Goshinboku. I want to talk to you over tea if we can?”

“Sure honey, take a sweater with you though, it’s a little colder than usual for early September.”

Less than an hour later Kagome and her mother were sitting side by side at the kitchen table; a full teapot in the center, both of them sipping freshly brewed St. John’s Wort tea.

Kagome put her cup on the table and curled her hands around it to keep them warm. “It’s hard mother…Not just because I have lost my dearest friends but because of how things were between us my last days with them.”

Her mother grasped her hand in gentle encouragement.

“Do you remember about 8 months back when I told you I had helped Sesshoumaru, when I found him gravely injured?”

“Yes, you told me that you were becoming friends with him. He was even teaching you to handle a sword if I’m not mistaken?”

Kagome closed her eyes at the overwhelming memories and emotions her mother’s words called forth. She had a history of friendships with people that had at least tried to harm her at one point. When she found Sesshoumaru that day she never would have thought thing would turn out so bad.

“Kagome?”

Kagome took a trembling breath and tried to fortify herself. “Yes. Him. Inuyasha’s older brother. After I went back the last time Sango told me that we had to be more careful because demon mating season was coming up. Since I had the jewel shards it was remotely possible that demons might mistake the jewel’s power as my own while in their instinct driven states. However, the only demons that would make such a mistake were low-class demons that any of us could easily handle on our own. I even asked Sesshoumaru about it and he told me that powerful unmated demons locked themselves up behind powerful wards to keep themselves from mating someone their rational selves would find unsuitable.”

“Lock up? Wouldn’t it be hard to do this every year?”

“It’s not like that. For most demons, mating seasons only come every 50 years. For demons as powerful as Sesshoumaru, it only happens every 200 years….At any rate, as you know Inuyasha and I had been like brother and sister for over a year now and four nights before the final battle he left to be with Kikyo. We agreed to wait for him to come back the next night, so he could spent some time on their own…Inuyasha is half demon after all. That night, Sango had taken the first watch and the rest of us went to sleep….It all happened too fast for anyone to be able to react. I didn’t even realize what had happened until I was dropped on the ground.”

Kagome drank some more tea to calm herself down and reorganize her thoughts, searching for enough courage to relate what happened next.

“It was Sesshoumaru…But he wasn’t himself, his inner demon was in control. His eyes were red and his teeth were sharp fangs. Even the stripes on his cheeks had become jagged and darker in color. He was terrifying… I had only seen him like that twice before and I had never feared him as I did then. The first time was from when I first met him and he tried to kill me in his father’s tomb.”

She stopped, reminiscing for a minute.

“And the second time?” Her mother prompted. Kagome shook her head and continued.

“The second time was when I found him wounded. It was very disconcerting to heal someone that acts like a wounded animal. He glared at me with those red eyes and growled at me until he accepted my help. He even asked me what I wanted for helping him, his voice a rumbling growl, very different from Sesshoumaru’s usual temperate pitch. But he settled down after I told him that I wanted nothing from him, I just wanted to help him. He stayed in that form for the rest of the night. I didn’t see his humanoid persona until morning. I suppose the pain kept him in his more bestial form because he felt vulnerable.” She shrugged, she had never really figured out why Sesshoumaru’s youkai had allowed her near him and Sesshoumaru had always ignored her inquiry when she had asked.

In truth, she had helped him because even if he hated her, she knew that he no longer threatened Inuyasha or the rest of their group. He had given up on Tessaiga a long time ago and in the end, he was still Inuyasha’s last living relative. She had been truthful when she told him she wanted nothing from him.

“I don’t know what he thought of my answer or what made him change his mind about me, but after that he came to visit me often. Somehow he always caught me alone and later on after my friends got used to the idea, he and I would talk or train whenever we happened to meet after that…That night, when he took me from camp was obviously different. He was different, far more feral somehow. For the first time I truly feared for my life in his presence.”

Kagome took a deep breath, swallowing down tears.

“Demons….Demons don’t marry. They mate…for life. But it is a two way thing. The participants must each mark their mates, usually during or right after…coupling.” Kagome was almost whispering by now and had started rubbing at the purple crescent moon that marked her, right where her neck and shoulder met on her left side.

“He-He forced himself on me…” She brought her trembling teacup to her lips and sipped slowly, trying to calm herself once more.

“He marked me and tried to make me mark him as well…I refused.” A tear slowly trickled down her cheek.

“He was so angry. He wouldn’t let go of me. Shook me and growled at me…calling me ‘mate’ and telling me to finish the mating.” Kun-Loon hugged her daughter close, both of them crying silently; Kagome for what had been taken from her and Kun-Loon for the pain her daughter was suffering but could do nothing about.

“Oh sweetheart, how did you escape?”

“I knew he wasn’t himself…Not really. I didn’t want to hurt him. But in the end I had no choice. I sent a concentrated blast of purification energy toward his face. It was enough to knock him out and I fled. I found an old abandoned hut and some rags. I neutralized my scent and concealed the mating mark, using the rags to cover myself up while I waited for dawn. On my way back to camp I found a hot spring so I bathed there, trying to clean myself as much as I could, I don’t think I was thinking clearly just then, I just wanted to feel clean…Somehow Inuyasha and the others found me there. Sango joined me there and tried to get me to tell her what had happened but I couldn’t do it. She took care of the scratches and bruises I had and brought me some of my own clothes. I don’t remember much about the rest of that day; it’s all a big blur of faces and voices.”

“Why didn’t you tell her? She would have understood. She knew you had been kidnapped.”

“It wasn’t that. Things between Sesshoumaru and our group had been calm for a while by then. What Sesshoumaru had done, he hadn’t done in his right mind…I didn’t want to disrupt things between them.”

“I don’t understand.” Kun-Loon said astounded. “How could you expect things to remain the same after what he did to you?”

“Mama, Sesshoumaru probably regrets what he did more than I do, if for different reasons. Once he returned to his right mind and realized what he had done he would have been dismayed by the very thought of attempting to mate a human, he would have started to search for a way to undo it. Also, I sent him a message with Myoga, not to come near me if he could help it…I was not going to be in the Feudal Era much longer, though I had not expected to be returned so soon either. There was no point in telling them and making them hostile towards a very powerful demon that they will at least meet in passing for the rest of their lives. ”

Her mother looked at her with sadness in her eyes but didn’t say anything.

“Mama, it was an accident, a horrible accident. I truly believe this, I don’t know what happened or why he wasn’t under seal, but whatever the reason I know Sesshoumaru values his self-control too much to have done this on purpose. I understand this but I’m not saying I can forget what has been done to me. I could not be friends with him after such a thing and… I never want to see him again.”
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Lina =)