Her Scent by Hairann
For Jgem
Rated T
“Care to explain to me what this is all about?” a young woman inquired softly as she glanced around at the scene before her, finding herself utterly confused. Her surveillance did little more than add further questions in her mind rather than answer those she already had. Receiving no response from her 'companion', she prompted again, “Mind telling me what is going on?”
“Is it not the custom?” he replied not sparing her a glance as he instead kept his eyes on the far off trees, their leaves still glistening from the morning dew. A long, silent moment passed between them before he noticed she was keeping quiet, something he had never known her to do, and he turned to find her staring at him with unasked questions shining in her eyes.
“Custom? What custom are you referring to?” she demanded as she rested back on her heels, already finding herself becoming uncomfortable in the 'proper' position. Though she had only been there for a few minutes, her legs had already fallen asleep; unaccustomed to being pulled beneath her body and rested upon.
“You have spoken of it many times to the slayer, surely you jest of not knowing what this is, Kagome,” he insisted as he gestured around them. Finally taking her eyes off of him, Kagome took in the sight before her. Beneath their legs, sitting atop of the grass, was a hand woven blanket; its pattern marking out some long forgotten victory.
Across from her he sat, kneeling in the same position as she, only he had managed to remain in good posture while she was already beginning to slump. But that was it, there was nothing else around them other than the usual signs of nature; a bird chirping here, a bush swaying in the wind there. “I assure you that I do not 'jest',” Kagome began, finding the word felt strange in her mouth, “I have no idea what this is all about or what you are trying to do.”
“Surely your mind is not so feeble that it has already forgotten your own words from last night,” he insisted and Kagome gave him a startled look, not having been aware that he had overheard her words from the night before. Especially when she remembered exactly where she had been when she said them.
“Do you always spy on your enemies when they are bathing?” she counted rather than answering his question. Hearing no response from him, and not really expecting one, she continued, “And what exactly about my words last night led you to this outcome?” Gesturing around them, she realized she still was unsure what the outcome actually was, but none the less she was certain nothing she had said the night before could have lead to it.
“You said you wanted a man to sweep you off your feet,” he mimicked, repeating what she had said word for word, though thankfully he had refrained from trying to sound like her as well.
“Yeah I said 'sweep me off my feet' not kidnap me. Sesshoumaru you took me out of my sleeping bag in the middle of the night, with no warning and no explanation. Sweeping one off their feet is a saying that means to make someone suddenly fall in love, usually at first sight. It does not in anyway mean kidnapping me out of my bed.”
Sesshoumaru did not seem inclined to answer her and instead gestured for someone to join them. Confused, Kagome glanced over to find Jaken making his way toward them carrying a tray containing one bottle and two small cups. Already sure she knew what it was, Kagome was not surprised when the strong scent of the rice wine wafted to her nose.
She watched as Jaken placed what he carried between them and walked away without a word and was about to inform her host that she did not care for the stuff when she noticed what he was doing; he was filling her cup. After doing so, he set the small pitcher aside and handled her the cup. Unable to move, Kagome simply stared at him for a long moment in silence wondering if he even knew the significance of what he had just done.
Finally after what seemed like forever to her, she decided that the pouring for someone else as a sign of your fondness for them, usually reserved for family and close friends, was probably just a human tradition and meant little if anything to him. Seeing it was not going to give up until she took the cup from him, Kagome finally did so; quickly gulping it down in one sip to be rid of it. As she set her cup down on the blanket, she noticed he was silently waiting; his hands neatly folded in his lap.
Weighing the pros and cons of doing so in her mind, Kagome eventually sighed out loud and decided to take the chance. Picking up the pitcher, she carefully filled his cup before repeating his earlier actions by handing him his cup. Sesshoumaru drank his much slower than she had done, opting instead to take tiny sips, before holding his cup out for her to refill. After doing so, she placed the pitcher off to the side on the blanket and turned her attention back to him.
He slowly sipped away at the slightly bitter liquid as he had done with the first cup, before setting it aside and turning his attention back to her. “You also said last night that you wished to find someone older and more mature than Inuyasha, who would that be if not me?” he inquired as he watched the emotions dance in her features.
“What I said was that if Inuyasha was older and therefore more mature, he would have been perfect for me. And what I mean by older, is in human standards, not demons. The mindset of a 15-year-old boy is too young for me now and it apparently takes him much longer to mature than I was expecting. But weren't you the one always complaining when someone compared you to him?”
“I am the elder, therefore he is compared to me, not the other way around. You also said that you wished to find somebody stable that you could count on,” Sesshoumaru continued, apparently deciding to ignore most of what she had said. Startled by the abrupt change of topic, Kagome could only sit there and stare at him in silence for a long moment before she finally shook her head and decided to follow along.
“How are you someone that can be counted on, Sesshoumaru? Even if we are to set aside the fact that you have tried to kill me before, the first day we met in fact, you are a nomad. You show up randomly every so often, how is that reliable? There would be no way to get a hold of you when I needed you, unless of course you thought I would follow after you, in which case you could not be more wrong.”
“You said you wanted someone who would see you and not the past. I never knew the undead in her lifetime, I could never confuse the two of you,” he assured her, again apparently deciding to completely ignore her words. For the first time, Kagome completely believed his words of assurance, he had never once confused her with Kikyou and doubted he would start now.
“I will give you that one, Sesshoumaru, but did you catch the rest of that sentence? I said that I did not want to be confused with her, but also wanted from more than my ability to sense the shards. Now I know you've never seemed to care about them, but the same can be said for me. So tell me, Sesshoumaru, if not for my past life or that I can sense the shards, what draws you to me?”
Remaining silent for a few moments, Sesshoumaru drew in a deep breath through his nose as a ghost of a smile appeared on his face before vanishing an instant later. “Your scent,” he finally replied as he closed his eyes and breathed it in again. Confused, Kagome took the opportunity to discreetly sniff herself to make sure she was not in the need of a bath, but was unable to smell anything besides her body wash and deodorant.
Confused, she thought about what she knew of the people in this time and while the humans tended to not take as many baths as they should, still believing that doing so was bad for them, she did not believe the same could be said for the demons. At least not those of Sesshoumaru's standing as even Jaken seemed to be bathed every time they met and while Kouga usually smelled of wet fur, his body and hair always seemed to have been washed recently.
“Much of what is known or important to a member of the white dog clan, is 'seen' through scent. Our clan mates, our enemies, our allies. Everything from the weather to our dinner is seen with our noses and our eyes are rarely used; only when scent is not an option.” Sesshoumaru paused for a moment to wave Jaken back over and after requesting something that was too quiet for Kagome to hear, he scurried away again.
As he made his way over to where he had been previously, he rounded the large boulder that blocked the view a moment too late to see Rin add something extra to one of the plates. Having not noticed it, Jaken paid the young girl little mind as he scooped them up and began making his way back toward his lord. Bowing as well as he could without spilling the plates, he set one before his lord and the other in front of his guest before bowing once more and disappearing.
Confused by the sudden change of pace, Kagome simply sat there silently staring down at her plate before being startled when he prompted, “Eat.” Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, she glanced up at him in question, watching as he did as he had instructed her to. “We will continue after we eat. It is what you do on a date, is it not?” he inquired and Kagome remembered other words she had spoken the night before.
She had explained to Sango that she wished just one guy would take her out to dinner and be more interested in the food than some topic she could not careless about; such as a local sports team or the new 'fad' band. Which was always the case whenever her friends back in modern day had set her up on one of many unwanted blind dates. They thought that just because she was 20-years-old and not dating that she was unable to find a man herself and needed their help.
Even if they were half right, they were still half wrong and she only had problems finding a guy because she was too busy helping out in the past and Kagome did not see the point in forming a relationship in this time. Eventually she would have to go home and abandoned them there. She had already suffered through one doomed relationship, she wasn't looking forward to another. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Kagome picked up the plate before her, expertly maneuvering the chopsticks.
It was not long before she was popping the first bite into her mouth only to wish she hadn't the moment she bit down on it. Though she could still taste the underlying flavor of the food, all her tongue could focus on was that there was way too much salt. Discreetly glancing up at Sesshoumaru, she found him to be silently eating as though nothing was wrong and began to wonder if he could even taste salt, or if he in fact liked his food that way.
Catching a slight movement from off to her right, Kagome glanced that way to find Jaken mostly hidden within a bush, his wide, hopeful eyes informing her that he was waiting to see if she liked the food he had apparently prepared. Unable to disappoint him for some reason, she grabbed a morsel of food from the other side of the plate, figuring correctly that it might be less salty. As she chewed on it and found that when not overly seasoned it was actually pretty good, Kagome smiled at the small demon, giving him a thumbs up.
Apparently understanding what the gesture meant, the small, green demon clasped his hands together with a smile, giving her a quick nod of appreciation before disappearing into the bush once more. As she munched away at the side that was less salty, Kagome began to realized something; either he had not mixed the food properly, and judging by the work he had to have put into making it-since its presentation was rather well done-that was not likely.
Or someone had dumped salt onto it afterward. Just as that thought crossed her mind and she was about to dismiss it, Kagome heard a soft giggling coming from nearby. Glancing toward the sound, she found Rin's head just visible around a large boulder, the mischievous look in her eyes quickly informing her that she had in fact been the one to do it. Deciding to not be beat by a little girl, Kagome pushed aside the parts that were uneatable, careful not to let her see what she was doing, and began chowing down on her food, making sure she could see how much she was 'enjoying' each bite.
After a moment, Rin huffed in annoyance and disappeared back around the boulder, causing Kagome to giggle softly. Seeing she had drawn Sesshoumaru's attention, she shook it off with a smile and turned back to her plate. Satisfied she had eaten all she could, basically everything that hadn't been drowned in salt, she set her plate aside and turned her attention back to Sesshoumaru; finding he too had finished.
“I believe you were about to explain to me what my 'scent' has to do with you kidnapping me,” Kagome reminded him, watching as Jaken appeared once more and cleared the plates; somehow knowing they had finished. After a moment, she figured he had probably been watching again and had seen that they were done. Instead of answering right away, Sesshoumaru poured her another cup of rice wine and instead of gulping it down instantly as she had done before, she set it aside to refill his.
After she had handed it to him, she picked back up her own and began to sip away at it as he was doing. “There are two things we white dogs look for in a scent to know if someone is to be our ally; those with ill intentions have a bitter scent underlying their natural one and one who is lying will have a sharp scent. One that burns our noses. Those that have neither of these scents, we know we can trust. But there is a third scent we sometimes look for.
“It is one that is able to wash out all other scents in our presence making it the only one we can smell in close proximity. It is for that reason, as not being able to smell incoming danger could pose a great risk, that this scent is only associated with one's future life mate. You have such a scent, though it has taken me many years to notice and accept it. Though perhaps, the scent simply did not show up until you were of age.
“Though it is rare, it has been known for this scent to be found in humans; my sire is one such example. But he had already chosen to become the life mate of my mother, instead of waiting until he found one with such a scent, and by our law he had given up the right to be with her by doing so. Though I am sure you know how things turned out and whether or not he obeyed our laws.
“When my sire abandoned us for Inuyasha's mother, I swore on my honor that I would not take a life mate until I had found a true one; one with the scent. That way, I could never make the same mistake as my sire. I have found the scent I have been searching for since I was young and I have found it in you. That is the reason why I have set up this 'date',” the word came off slightly strange, as though he was unaccustomed to it and Kagome figured that, that was the case.
“So basically you are asking me to be your wife, well the demon version of one anyways?” Kagome questioned, wanting to make sure she was understanding things correctly, and as he nodded his head she knew she had. “As sweet, and somewhat strange, as an offer as that might be, I won't be here much longer, Sesshoumaru. Our battle is long since over and I have merely remained here to help my friends settle in with their lives.
“I will be returning home soon and it is not a place you can follow me or that I can ever return from. You should forget any notion of me being the one that was meant to be your life mate as I will merely end up abandoning you as your father did. I will tell you something that very few people know about me, Sesshoumaru. I am not from this era, but from the future. Far too long in the future for you to even think about waiting.
“In our entire conversation, you have not once said that you can only find one person with the scent you are looking for, so I suggest you keep looking. You may not believe this, but I am honored that you would even consider me after everything we've been through and I am sorry that I have to disappoint you. There is simply no other choice. But it is getting late into the morning and they will already be wondering where I am. I will see myself back and tell Jaken thanks for the lovely meal. Goodbye, Sesshoumaru.”
Rising to her feet, Kagome bowed to him deeply before turning back and heading in the direction she was sure her friends were in, as it was where the sun was rising. Behind her, Sesshoumaru watched her leave in silence, torn between letting her go as she wished and remembering how long he had been searching for her scent. Sighing audibly to himself, Sesshoumaru decided to let her go, after all, what was another 500 years of searching.
...
Saying goodbye to her friends had been easier that Kagome had expected, though it was probably at least partially due to the fact that it was a long time coming. That and everyone had already settled down in their new, post-Naraku lives. Sango and Miroku had gotten married and were already beginning to start the large family that both of them wanted; having settled in with Mushin rather than going back to the slayer's village as everyone had assumed they would.
Shippo had been taken in by an uncle of his father's who had been on the mainland and had only just heard of his father's passing. Apparently their entire clan had moved there many years prior when the larger demons began to grow in numbers and it was in fact only Shippo's mother and father that had refused to leave their home. When his great-uncle came to pick him up, he brought with him countless grandparents, aunts and uncles and even some cousins.
In one brief moment Shippo went from an orphan to a member of the largest family Kagome had ever seen. Though she knew he would miss her, as she would him, it did not take him long to decide to go with them, especially since her day to leave was just around the corner. Inuyasha had been the last to settle down, strangely enough moving rather close to Kouga's tribe. Apparently sometime over the years, Kagome's little doggie eared friend had fallen in love with Ayame and eventually stole her away from the wolf prince.
Once Kouga realized she was no longer following him around like a love sick fool, he began to chase after her and last Kagome checked, they were still fighting over her. As Kagome paused at the edge of the well and glanced back over the land that had been her home for the last five years, she couldn't help but wonder if this was how everything was supposed to have turned out if she was never there. Smiling softly to herself, content that she was leaving the past better than how she had found it, Kagome turned and jumped back into the well for the last time.
The familiar magic surrounded her, wrapping Kagome in a blanket of warmth that she knew she would never get to feel again. The thought that this was the last time she would ever been in a time where her friends were alive, brought tears to Kagome's eyes. The only thing that allowed her to stand once she was on the other side of history was the fact that she knew they would live long, fulfilling lives as they were already beginning to do so before she had left.
Squaring her shoulders, Kagome wiped the tears from her eyes and made her way over to the old, warped ladder that had seen far more uses than it should have. As she began to climb, each step taking her further away from her past and closer to her future, Kagome could feel a large weight being lifted off of her shoulders. Though her presence in the past had caused a hiccup in history, she had managed to fix it and set things right once more.
“500 years I searched and it was only your scent that I detected, another 500 passed and again it is yours,” a deep voice called out startling her and as Kagome glanced up, she found a hand held out to her, its owner hidden by a large, sliver braid. For a long moment she was unable to move until the figure above her chuckled and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her the rest of the way out of the well. “I do not intend to wait another 500 years, Kagome,” Sesshoumaru informed her before leaning down and pressing his lips against hers.