Mother's love

Inuyasha loomed over her like an exaggerated picture of Dracula atop his newest victim. Not that she knew. She was sleeping. And that was, after all, the point. She was sleeping – and dreaming. Talking in her sleep.

As far as Inuyasha was concerned, there weren't too many words that began with "Sessh", and even fewer that began with "Sesshou", but maybe, just maybe, his hearing had gone wrong.

"Se..." she mumbled again. He leaned even closer, almost touching her, not even knowing he was reaching a very disturbing level of wrongness in his gesture. "Sesshouuuu...."

If his half-brother was bothering Kagome in her dreams, Inuyasha was going to find a way to kill him. However, a small part of him couldn't help but notice she didn't look distressed. That somehow worried him even more, especially since he had no idea what he was supposed to do in that case.

"Sessshhhouuukai. Sesshoukai."

...

Well.

That didn't make any sense.

Inuyasha thankfully ceased looming. He looked around for the only other person who wasn't sleeping, located him and made his way towards Miroku, confused, missing Kagome's muttered "Sesshoumaru" entirely. Not that that word had any importance either, since she was busy having a crazy dream of being a teacher and having nearly everybody she knew in her class. The frown on her face was due to the fact that Sesshoumaru was playing catch with her mother and not paying any attention to her pink board where she'd written F=m * a to prove that Shintoism started out as a religion from a lake on Mount Doom. It goes on to show that while some dreams can be prophetic, others are deeply revealing of a person's subconscious desires, and yet others are actually about things Freud had on his mind, there is a number of them that can reduce anybody's psychological/religious interpretation to dust. But even those can be used as poetry topics.  

As Miroku was explaining that Sesshoukai was the Buddhist precept against killing, not far away, one very stern, cold and beautiful female Inuyoukai was busy looking down upon the girl saying her son's name. The sleeping Kagome had, of course, no clue she was quite popular in the dog demon world that night. She would, however, in precisely 8 minutes, think she was quite popular with one single specimen of that breed.

6 minutes left to sleep. Not that it was obvious right then.

The beautiful lady walked towards the girl, not quite invisible, but unnoticed by Inuyasha and the supposedly attentive guard-for-the-night. She leaned down over her, studying her features, trying to discover something and, like many other mothers, discovering that the girl her son had chosen was quite unworthy of him. She was human. She was a person with purifying powers. She was unsuitable and weak, silly, superficial, she smelled badly, she had the approximate senses and reflexes of a nearly blind, deaf, dying old cat, too young, too rude, too disrespectful, hung around the wrong company, bad taste in clothes, eyes too wide, hair too wavy, face too innocent, hands too thin, eyelashes too curled, ears too round, bad cook, couldn't sew, not subtle enough, didn't know poetry, had no talent for politics and her children would be ugly.

It didn't occur once to Sesshoumaru's mother that she might have been making those things up, or that her thoughts might possibly be prejudiced or unfair. She was simply scrutinizing this little wench and finding her wanting. Her son was too good for this girl. And that was final. Mothers were always right.

She reached out a claw to turn the girl's head a bit to the side so she could better get a glimpse of those ghastly ears and see if there were any secrets regarding her fickle, cheating heart that would surely run after some weakling, making her son a laughingstock, in the shape of her mandible, when she heard a low growl.

"Sesshoumaru," she said very softly. She, unlike this girl, knew her son well enough to recognize him from the tonality of his non-articulated sounds. "She is unworthy of you."

"That is my decision," he answered. "Don't touch her." And then, bowing slightly, "Please." The last word was politeness, not plea – she knew the difference. She herself had taught it to him.

"I do not intend to harm her."

There was a pause in which the two considered each other. Of course Sesshoumaru knew she would not interfere in his life, no matter what her opinion of his choices was. Of course she knew he knew it. And of course he knew that she had said what she had said as a reproach.

"Perhaps we should wake her," he said. That too was a reproach - against her manner, even if it was also a recognition and an acceptance of her desire to see this girl and study her more closely.

The subtext would have gone on if Inuyasha hadn't finally realized that they weren't quite as alone as they'd suspected and cried out something against his brother. Well. The wind had changed, carrying their scents and alerting the half-demon as to their presence. Without any sort of hesitation, Sesshomaru bent down, scooped Kagome up, woke her in the process, apologized to her, told his brother he'd bring her back presently and lead the way, his mother in tow, in a random direction, for some privacy. All in about 5 seconds.

When they were finally what they deemed to be far enough away from the other campers, Sesshoumaru put the girl down and said, "This is my mother."

To her credit, the barely-awoken girl snapped to attention, bowed down as deeply as she could and introduced herself as politely as humanly possible. And the Japanese language is especially built to push that possibility to its limit.

Sesshoumaru watched as his mother nodded in reply, establishing their roles once and for all. However, he couldn't help but notice that she appeared very vaguely pleased to have the girl react correctly.

"She is not worthy of you."

This was repeated, but now with a new purpose: to see Kagome react, to study her response. She cringed, but bowed again, humbly, and apologized for being so unsuitable.

Perhaps that was when his mother started being amused instead of disgruntled with her, Sesshoumaru figured.

"She doesn't seem to have too many qualities, Sesshoumaru. I see none." A test to both of them, who should speak, who should say what. Kagome bowed even deeper, turning a profound scarlet.

"Hn," he replied.

His mother thought that even if the girl was much beneath him, the young demon lord before her certainly had his own foolish moments, such as this one.

"I do," he completed, looking at the human with his cool, dispassionate eyes. Or, the female dog demon figured, maybe he really was starting to catch on when it came to feelings.

"Well. I shall expect to see them. Goodbye."

She left nearly without a sound, all traces of her disappearing as if they had never been. Kagome looked around her fearfully, then at Sesshoumaru.

"Are you always going to run off with me?" she asked.

"Two times does not make a rule," he said.

"Well. There was the first, in my time, where you picked me up and made me lead you to a park. To meet yourself, the older you. The one who went through time the usual way. Remember that night?"

"Yes. That is all. No other times when I ran off with you."

"No. Your.... Older version. He... You.... He came again one night and took me out of bed and we went far away. Far away. In a forest. I trust him. You. Both of you. We talked. He didn't say anything about this, your mother, you taking me away again."

"I shall take you back."

"I'm not worried."

Sesshoumaru looked at her, trying to figure out what she wanted from him. His mother, whose face was impenetrable for so many others, felt like an open book compared to this girl whose emotions could be read on her expression so easily.

"Then?" he asked.

"He said I must demand a kiss the next time I see you."

"Do you want it?"

She blushed. "I am demanding it." And then she blushed harder. Sesshoumaru couldn't help but feel slightly cheated on by himself, because this was definitely a girl whom he will have kissed before, if that was the correct tense.

Uncertainly, but not showing it, he edged closer to her, wondering if this was how it was going to be. His first kiss with her, but not her first kiss with him. Awkward. Demanded. Right after seeing his mother. It wasn't how he wanted it to go, but he couldn't bring himself to refuse.

And then Inuyasha popped up, slashing towards him tooth and claw, snarling, not even bothering to verbally demand what was going on.

"You bastard," the half-demon growled.

Sesshoumaru mentally prepared himself for a fight against his brother, putting aside his desire to lower himself to the level of showing that he was, in fact, quite angry with this turn of events. He would be cool.

"SIT!"

Kagome's voice resounded through the forest, making even the full demon stop in his tracks with the power of her cry.

"He tried to kiss you!" Inuyasha protested, struggling to get up and getting sat again. "He tried to kiss you."

"And I wanted him to succeed!" she snapped back, then turned apologetically to Sesshoumaru. "I honestly didn't know this was going to happen." Then back to Inuyasha. "But I need you to understand that I want this."

"But...."

"I want this." Again, towards Sesshoumaru. "Maybe I should take care of this on my own. Erm."

"I shall go," Sesshoumaru nodded, feeling very, very cheated by the world. Sure, he hadn't really wanted the kiss to start with, but now that he had been denied it....

"Do come back soon," she invited. "Please?"

"Kagome!"

"Sit! I think the point was that – sit! Inuyasha! Sit! - I need to get some things out of the way as soon as possible."

"I understand," Sesshoumaru nodded. He vaguely considered telling her he'd be back in a certain amount of time, but couldn't decide on one and then felt it wasn't necessary after all, so he simply turned and left.

Not very far away, the demon lady, mother of one dog demon, chuckled ever so slightly as she watched the events unfolding. She really hoped that the girl didn't have the same power upon her son as she did upon the half-breed – although she doubted it. She especially liked the part when Kagome climbed on top of Inuyasha to drive her point better into him and stop him from trying to run after his brother. Well. She had spirit. She was still quite unworthy, but also amusing. And if her son found her interesting, as a mother, the demon lady might as well let him have his way. Mothers were kind. Oh, so very kind.

Especially when they were getting some fun out of it.