Chapter Text
They had never had an argument quite like this.
For all their struggles, the biggest rifts in their relationship had been external ones: great dragons and selfish samurai, mortal wounds and the hardships of childbirth. Internal strife was rare, and dealt with easily—usually with a few brisk words and apologies to follow, their conflict always resolved with eventual compromise. Izayoi picked her arguments with care, as most noblewomen did, and he, as her lord husband, tried to understand them.
But this was the first time she’d ever stood against him and refused to back down.
Had he been more level headed in that moment, he might’ve understood that this outburst had always been inevitable. Later - months later, in fact - she would explain to him what it meant to be cordoned away like she was. To be kept. To be hidden out of sight, quarantined from society, and isolated from all intelligent creatures, left alone with her growing son in this beautiful, hollow manor. The struggles of motherhood were poor company, and the contrast between this life and her last was haunting.
One day, she would explain that all to him. But in that moment, all she had said was, “And if you had died that day? Tell me, Toga—how are our lives any better, with you here?”
She didn’t mean it, of course. Not really. But that didn’t dull the cutting edge of her tone or the fire in her eyes, and Toga had responded in kind.
“Then I suppose there’s no point in me staying, is there?”
He had left.
Where he’d gone, what he’d done in that time; none of it mattered. What mattered was that he returned when the moon had turned to its slimmest crescent, two nights before the new moon’s rising, with full intent to put this matter to rest.
But when he stepped over the threshold of his home, there was no one inside.
Izayoi had considered, very briefly, that her current course of action might be a mistake.
Carding her fingers gently through her son’s unruly, blackened hair as he slept, only vaguely aware of the fact he was currently drooling on her thigh, she was forced to suffer Myoga’s concerns over that exact subject.
“M’lady, please!” he beseeched her, for perhaps the thousandth time. InuYasha gave a loud snore, rubbing the back of his fist against his nose afterwards. “We must return, at once!”
Stowed away within this wheeled passenger cart as they were, already two days into a three-day-long journey, Izayoi wondered why he hadn’t given up on his pleading yet. There would be no turning around. When she had left the manor and made her way to the nearest village with her son, she’d expected to have difficulty finding safe passage anywhere; but with a few choreographed tears and the help of a hastily-procured charm to disguise InuYasha’s more demonic features, the head clansman had fallen victim to her beauty and the stories she spun. All it took was a sordid tale of a murdered husband and a demonic captor to sway his good graces, and then he was offering her the wealth of his privilege, sorting out the fastest way to get home to her family in the western capitol.
So now they accompanied his young lord son on his journey to the city, riding in this ox-drawn carriage across the rocky roads of the countryside. There were even armed guards among their numbers. Izayoi could not have found a better, safer way to travel, especially with the company of a child.
“Please, m’lady, you don’t understand. The Inu no Taisho—you have never seen him angered! And this—” Standing on InuYasha’s shoulder, Myoga gulped and shuddered in fear. “This will certainly enrage him!”
Izayoi looked away, letting her gaze wander over the painted landscapes adorning the fine inner walls of her transport. There she saw elegant trees and sheer cliffs, waterfalls cascading from their peaks into deep pools below. Idly, she wondered what the artist had seen in reality to inspire such pleasant scenes. She wondered if she might see something similar herself, one day. Something other than four crushing walls.
“He left me, Myoja-jii,” she said simply, keeping her voice to a hush. “If he wishes to return, he can come find me.”
That no one had died thus far was nothing short of a miracle.
Tracking her had been simple enough. From their home to the forest trails to the village, and from there to the headman’s home—where he’d hauled that elderly, pompous man against a wall and demanded to know where his wife and child had gone.
At first, he’d thought the worst might have happened. Images of cruel fates had flooded his mind: imaginings of their kidnapping, their ransom, and perhaps even their murder. He'd torn through the manor like a man possessed, worrying and searching, slamming doors out of their tracks. But there wasn't a trace of them—nor anyone else, for that matter. No blood or signs of a struggle, and the barrier around the property remained blessedly intact. By the time he’d come upon the village, Toga had resigned himself to the bitter fact that she'd acted alone. The only faint scents he’d followed were theirs. They had left freely, and of their own accord.
Which only made him worry more.
Red bled into his eyes as the elderman started to blabber incoherently, telling him to begone, to disperse, and that his guard would soon have his head. All hollow threats. Toga bared his fangs and demanded the truth again. He would have what he needed to know, even if he had to wring out of him in blood.
Luckily, that was enough to get the blubbering started. Enough to calm the swell of his anger, if only for a moment.
But when he learned Izayoi was being escorted to the capitol - to where her family lived - the little gold remaining in his gaze gave way to a wash of lightning blue.
All was well until InuYasha woke. That was the only warning Izayoi had before the storm descended. One moment he was sleeping pleasantly in her lap and the next was wide awake, sitting straight up, and she could practically imagine the swivel of his invisible ears as he leaned forward and rubbed his eyes, sensing something she could not see.
“Papa?”
That was their last second of peace before the panic erupted.
The cart came to an abrupt halt in an instant, lurching them both against the front wall. InuYasha scrambled quick enough to catch himself on his hands, unseen claws digging into the painted scenes when he hit the wall, and Izayoi took the brunt of impact to her shoulder, the blow softened somewhat by the blankets and cushions that slid with them.
“Demon!” someone screamed, and of course, Myoga was nowhere to be found.
Cursing gently and dreading what might come next, Izayoi lifted her head, meaning to gather her son in her arms and prevent him from doing anything rash. Her fingers just slipped shy of his red robes as she called his name.
But before she could do anything more, InuYasha had thrown aside the curtained door and jumped out onto the dusty road.
Standing before the demon lord of the Western Lands, soldiers trembled.
Their swords gleamed weakly against the last bit of morning's light. But the sun, seeing what was about to transpire, had slipped behind the dark clouds of the approaching storm, casting the world in shadow in its retreat. There they were left alone to witness his grand fury—to watch the black storm roll forward, blocking out the blue sky above. With it came the familiar scent of rain, billowing through their ranks on the winds that swirled around this creature, accompanied by the grumblings of thunder. Like forge smoke and anvil sparks, a sharp metallic tang permeated the air, warning them of the power they were raising their blades to.
Their young lordling master, who sat upon on his high horse, held up his hand. Archers pulled their bowstrings. Soldiers gripped their blades.
Toga stared at the points of their weapons and sneered.
It would be simple to kill them all. All it would take was a wave of his hand or a crack of his claws. The song of Tessaiga's blade. With eyes the color of a bloody massacre, he considered such avenues, letting his thoughts linger towards cutting them down and dragging Izayoi out from that carriage he knew she was in, kicking and screaming if he had to, but—
A black haired boy jumped out of that very cart, and in doing that, saved the life of every living man around him.
InuYasha, black haired and human-eyed, bounded towards him immediately—only to stop dead in his tracks, stalled by the sight of all the weapons raised against his father. Like a stunned deer, his son hesitated, gazing wide-eyed at the swords and the arrows, hands hovering at his sides. In that hesitation the human lordling swung down from his horse, playing hero by standing between the boy and the demon that faced him.
Toga’s frightening gaze narrowed further.
“Begone, demon!” he began, and was promptly ignored.
“Izayoi.”
What he wanted to say was wife. He wanted to stake his claim loudly, here and now; he wanted to remind her just who she belonged to, and what promises they had given each other. These men would understand the gravity of what they’d done, offering her safe passage under their banner. But he couldn’t. Not with InuYasha surrounded by soldiers who’d turn on him the instant they realized his parentage.
Yet still she did not heed his call.
“Woman,” he growled again, and the air spun around him in a whip of threatening power. “Come out here now, or their blood will be on your hands.”
Izayoi hesitated.
Her fingers hovered at the screen and she held her breath, listening to the perilous situation that was unfolding outside. Ultimately, it wasn’t Toga’s call or his threats that would bring her forth. It was InuYasha’s voice, wary and confused.
“Mama?” her son called, sounding so timid. So confused. “Mama, what’s wrong with—”
Before he could incriminate them, she was sweeping the curtain aside and stepping out into the dreary daylight herself.
“My son,” she interrupted, and her gaze went only to him. Standing behind the lordling that had escorted her thus far on her journey, InuYasha blinked back at her—and then to his enraged father, and back again. With a gentle gesture from her, he was soon rushing to her side to hide behind her sleeves. “It’s all right.”
His blunt claws went around her fingers and she held his hand, smoothing her thumb over the back of his knuckles.
“Why—”
“Hush,” she told him, and he fell obediently silent. Standing between them and the daiyokai lord of the Western Lands, the young son of Lord Mori remained, still holding his men at arms against a warrior who far outclassed them all.
“Please, Izayoi-sama, get back in—”
“I’m grateful for your assistance getting us this far, Mori-dono,” she said simply, interrupting him with such grace that it was impossible to be offended. “But it seems we can go no further.”
The young man hesitated, bewildered. Izayoi kept her eyes only on him.
“My Lady, I swore on my honor to protect you, and that I shall.” With great bravado, he reached for his own blade to ready himself. “I fear no monster.”
Distantly, she was reminded of Takemaru. Her skin prickled at the ghostly memory of his face, hovering like a mask over this young man's naivety. At least that awful man had understood the situation as it had been, then. Her family had known that they only stood a chance against her husband if he were injured. But she cast those thoughts away as quickly as she could, resigning that hopeless samurai to the darkest reaches of her mind. Now was not the time to consider the past. Toga was not injured now; and even if he were, she knew there was no escaping his wrath.
"Fear him or no," she said smoothly, squeezing InuYasha's hand, "I'll not have you lose your life over me."
Even without looking at him, Izayoi could sense that Toga’s patience was growing thin. The tension between them was growing heavier and duller with every passing second, quickly approaching its breaking point. She could feel it in the thickness of the air, in the uncertain worrying of InuYasha’s hand in hers. Dismaying for a moment over what a coward Myoga was, she realized that perhaps there had been some wisdom in that old flea’s warnings.
She’d had no idea what she was getting herself into, pushing her husband to this point.
“I don’t," began the young lord, and that was the end of that.
“Enough.”
With the snap of Toga's voice came a wave of power that even she could feel, a warmth that thundered across her body and made the tiny hairs on her arms and nape stand on end. There was the loud clattering of armor as all the men around her tensed and startled, panicking as their enemy suddenly disappeared from sight. Without anywhere to turn, she simply steeled herself for whatever was coming.
And when his storm crashed over her, she tensed, feeling an iron grip close around her arm—
—InuYasha yelped, clinging to her waist—
—felt Toga’s hot breath curling on her neck—
—the lordling shouted, calling an attack—
—felt the fury in his power knocking arrows out of the air—
—soldiers hollered, swords clattering as they stumbled to the ground—
—and then knew her own dread as the ground disappeared out from underneath her feet, her enraged husband finally taking flight.
In mere minutes he had them safely away, and it was with a false calm that he ushered InuYasha inside the safety of the enchanted palanquin Myoga had summoned to bring them back home. The flea would keep watch over him, in the meantime; Toga had a rebellion to deal with.
“Toga—Toga, let me go!”
He didn’t hear her. Hell, he barely saw her. Against his iron grip, Izayoi's small fingers found no purchase, scrabbling against the seams of his claws as she tried to free herself. But his hold held true, fastened around her upper arm as he dragged her away from the transport that held their son and into the surrounding woods. It was all he could do to keep his force from being bruising, and it was that awareness in mind that he managed to haul her up against a tree without breaking her bones.
“What were you thinking?!” He let go of her arm only to put his hand on her throat, the heel of his palm digging in against her sternum. Izayoi’s hands immediately flew to his wrist, clamping down as if she could move him at all. Against hers, his strength was infallible. “You could’ve been killed.”
“Toga, stop it!” Trying to wrench herself free from him and failing, she settled for glaring up at him. Beneath disheveled bangs, her eyes blazed like fire—but there was a glassiness there, tears rising unbidden. “You’re scaring me.”
It did not persuade him to do anything more than loosen his grip a fraction. Leaning in over her, his breath curled hot against her cheek.
“Good.”
He had been terrified. Gone out of his mind with worry, haunted by the idea of what might become of them if the wrong person stumbled across their path. This world was cruel and she’d been sheltered from it her entire life, unaware of its ruthlessness until the night he’d almost died. But even now she didn’t really understand. She didn’t realize half the demon world would be happy to rip her head off her shoulders and present it to him on a pike. Even those who counted themselves as his friends.
“You’re a fool.”
With a shove, he finally released her, stalking away and crossing his arms. But there was hardly a moment of silence before she was yelling at his back.
“What is it you want from me?!” she demanded, hands fluttering up to her chest, fingertips brushing against the spot where he’d been holding her. It was slightly red, though nowhere near bruising. “You can’t just leave me any time you get upset—”
Silver hair whipping as he turned his head, his eyes were cold over the curve of his shoulder.
“What you said—”
“Was uncalled for, and I’m sorry,” she snapped, voice cracking. Still, there was little pause between her apology and her next accusation. “But you can’t just lock us away and abandon us! You left me alone with him for weeks, Toga—you left us alone. I didn’t even know if you were coming back.”
This tempered him, somewhat. Setting his jaw, he turned to face her again, pliable now—but no less angry than before.
“You know I wouldn't do that.”
“No, I don’t.”
Her words came so swiftly, so assuredly, that the implication knocked the air out of his lungs. Yet she barreled on, fisting her hands at her sides and striding towards him, reckless and fearless as she unleashed her frustrations.
“You don’t treat me like your wife, Toga. You treat me like your mistress. You hide me. You keep me from the world. And I can suffer all that, if I have to. I love you.” Somehow, she weaponized those words; turned her emotions on him and cut him through to the bone. “But I won’t let you do that to our son. I won't let you hide him from this world like you're ashamed of him!”
Steeling himself against her words, injured by them in an unfamiliar way, he swallowed down a growl and tried, for the thousandth time, to explain.
“I am only trying to protect him.”
“He’s six years old and his only friend is his mother,” she snapped. “He has no one around but us! This is the first time he’s been outside the gates, Toga—What sort of life is that?!”
“And your murderous family would be any better for him?” he challenged. When she recoiled, his face contorted into something cruel and rife with dark amusement. “The ones who commissioned my death? And yours? You think he’d be better off in their company?”
“At least he’d know the world.”
With an unnatural stillness about him, Toga leaned down to her again, eyes gleaming metallic against the dim, hazy light of the overcast sky.
“Yes,” he drawled, “And he’d know how earnestly you led him to his death, as well.”
A part of him saw it coming. The flash in her eyes was telling enough, the twist of her shoulder and the turn of her wrist. As true as an arrow, her hand lashed out to strike him, and he could’ve easily plucked it out of the air.
But he didn’t, because another part of him knew that he’d earned it.
Izayoi slapped him across the face with no hesitation, striking stars into the corners of his vision. It would have been easy for her to break every bone in her hand against his jaw, but instinct had him moving with it, suddenly hyperaware of everything as lightning shocked through his body. The sheer audacity of it was enough to send him staggering.
And he did stagger. Just once. A step to the left, a hand drifting up to brush his fingers against his assaulted cheek. Red eyes narrowed as he stared down at her sheer impudence. There was an uneasy beat of silence to follow.
Then clawed fingertips lashed out and caged around her jaw, dragged her up and in, and he crashed his mouth down on hers.
Within, there was turmoil. In his body, in his mouth, in his touch. A churning, iron sea of emotion. For a full day and night, he’d chased her scent through the woods and wild paths. He’d worried himself into a rage as the universe itself worked against him and unleashed rains, washing away their scents and the hope of a hastier retrieval. And now, here with her, there was only that storm.
What would he have done, had he lost her? Had something happened to their son?
Her teeth came down on his bottom lip and he wrenched away, cursing, only to have her strike him again before he could speak—which he allowed, in his way, because he didn’t move to stop her. But it did nothing to lessen the red around the gleaming, dilated ice of his irises, nor the way his claws flexed on her jaw, challenging her obstinance. He’d barely moved to accommodate her this time, leaving her with the impression of striking her hand across stone. Were she to try her luck again, she’d likely snap her fingers against the ridge of his jaw.
But, ultimately, such truths were irrelevant. Because in the few tense few seconds that passed between her offense and the next moment, something changed. Izayoi’s wide-eyed, intense fury shifted suddenly forward—and, in the same manner that he had tried to quell his own storms, her mouth surged up to his seeking that same expression of relief.
Toga’s blue eyes blew out wide. Two storms collided in that moment, the cyclone of his energy crashing against her impassioned fury. They were twisted up in each other in an instant: a boat rocked at sea; a tree ripped from the cliffside by swirling winds; a roof blown apart. Together, thunder and lighting crashed within, and Izayoi’s back found the grating bark of the tree he’d held her against only moments before.
The points of his fangs scraped carelessly against her lips. With a growl, his hands found her waist and he hauled her off her feet, pinning her hips against his chest and the trunk of this groaning tree.
“What do you want from me?”
That, too, was a growl, rising from his throat no differently than a beasts’ roar. Izayoi gasped against him as the points of his armor pressed against her belly, but he was mindful enough to keep them harmless.
“Do you want me to die?” he demanded, keeping her upright between them with the weight of his body alone, hands moving up to roughly part the layers of her many kimono. She’d worn fewer for the journey, which was a small consolation. “I will,” he insisted, between searing kisses that had her heart thundering. “I’ll die for you.”
“No—ah, Toga, no—I don’t—”
Her hands flew to his face, but he pushed them away, letting them slide cleanly off the back of his vambraces while he moved his lips down her throat, biting red marks across fawn skin with absolutely no regard for propriety. Perhaps it spoke to his more bestial instincts that he desired to taste her; however, were he to devour her whole, it wouldn’t be in this fashion.
Hitching her up higher against the tree, he pulled her kimono ruthlessly apart, baring her shoulders and chest. Her legs banded underneath his arms. “I have died for you, Izayoi,” he rumbled, leaving the same marks against the swell of her breast as she carded her fingers through his hair and pulled. He didn’t care. “And I’ll sooner do it again then let any harm come to you.”
“I don’t want you to die,” she gasped, squeezing his chest with her thighs. With one hand bundled in his ponytail, she yanked again, pulling his head back. The indigo stripes on his face were twice as jagged as normal, matching the inferno discoloration in his eyes. “I would never. I just want you to— mmh— ” Somewhere beneath her, there was a thud of swords clattering to the ground. “I want you to treat me like your wife, damn you.”
“Ah.”
As her fingers fell away and worked desperately at the ties of his large, spiked spalders, he suddenly dropped her, putting her back on her feet with a sweep of obsidian hair and silk. She yelped softly before he caged her there, hands on either side of her head as he leaned in close and breathed against her ear, warm air curling there and rushing all the way down her neck, igniting her senses.
“I already treat you like my wife, wife.”
“You treat me like a mistress,” she insisted again, stubbornly pressing the heel of her palm against his armored chest.
“Were you my mistress, you’d be in a harem, and I'd strip you bare and fuck you senseless for your insolence,” he murmured, and there was nothing but dark humor in his tone. Izayoi’s frustrations flared and she shoved him again, an angry blush spreading down her neck. “I don’t jeopardize entire empires over mistresses, my love. I keep you as I do to keep you safe.” One hand moved in to grab at her nape, arching her neck back. Shadowed beneath his bangs, his eyes flashed as his gaze traced down the ridges and lines of her throat, trailing further down to the swell of her bare shoulders and breasts before flicking back up, fixating on the soft part of her painted mouth. “When will you understand that?”
Before she could entertain him with whatever meager answer she had prepared, he kissed her again, releasing his hold on her hair to quickly undo the looped clasps and ties of his armor, soon pushing it all aside with a clatter.
Then she was lifted up off the ground again, legs hitched over his hips and skirts pushed to her thighs, shoulders flat against the rough bark of the tree. The force of this would scrape her raw, no doubt. But that was the furthest thought from either of their minds. Izayoi pressed herself against him harder, nails denting against his cheek when she fastened one hand at his jaw. Her other hand tangled in his hair, weaving tightly between bound silver locks.
“I’ll understand,” she spat, emphasizing the word with a grind of her hips against him, “when you stop turning your back on me.” Then, with a biting kiss, she groaned dangerous words into his mouth. “You coward.”
Striking the backs of his fingers against the side of the tree, Toga cracked three daggered claws blunt before his hand shot underneath his wife’s silks, holding her firm under her rear, thumb sliding slick between her legs. And Gods, was she slick. Already tense from the splintering of wood beside her head, Izayoi’s entire body lurched up and her legs coiled tight around his middle, her cry nearly torn free of his mouth—but he deepened his hungry kiss to silence her, darting his tongue between her teeth.
Coward, she called him. She would regret it.
With a growl in his chest and the full knowledge that she was ready enough, he freed himself from the trappings of his hakama, stroking long beneath her—though he hardly needed to, engorged as he already was. Supporting all her weight on the four fingers curved underneath her, his thumb ran a demanding circuit through her wetness, parting petals that made her bite down hard on her bottom lip. Pulling from their kiss, she gasped. She trembled. She tipped her head back and moaned when he dug his fingers into her supple skin. Pressing his thumb at her entrance, bobbing in and out, he watched her shamelessly, listing toward an edge with her. Still deeply red-eyed, as inhuman as he allowed himself to be, he felt want overwhelm his rage; white-hot desire blocking out all else. The last remnants of his control were waning, soon to give way to unbridled passions.
“Apologize, you wretch," he snarled, "or I'll have you screaming."
Angry though they were, their lust for one another was rarely overshadowed. She knew how her words struck him, and he meant to return her cruelty in kind—weaponizing that very lust to do it. If she sought any mercy from him, now was her time to plead for it. There was still time yet to put an end to this madness.
But as if to speak towards her own lust - towards the deep, dark, twisted bond that existed between them, eternal and cursed and endlessly tragic - Izayoi stared up at the Lord of the West and dared to refuse him.
“I won't."
Had he any desire to tear her apart just then, he would have. Such were his frustrations. But instead he steeled himself against her, ripped both his hands to her hips—
—and sank inside her, reveling in the silent scream she pressed against his neck.
It struck her to her core in a way few things could.
Izayoi’s fingers gripped his hair, his shoulders, his neck, the tree behind her—seeking purchase wherever she could reach, on whatever felt strong, rolling forward with her hips crashing against like a tide striking a craggy shore. He was incensed in a way she had never seen him, red-eyed and maddened by her escape. But she was returning that favor in kind. She had never been so angry with him. Even upon his dying and resurrection, she’d been more angry with the world than him, knowing that her husband was a victim of his own devotions. Knowing then that he had given his life for her and her child, purposeful to his dying breath, and that there had been no other way to fight the doom that had come over them.
But now?
Now she loathed him and loved him all the same, because she knew it was the same love that blinded him. But he hadn’t yet earned her forgiveness.
Toes curling, Izayoi whined against his insistent thrusts, grinding her hips underneath his bruising grip, tipping her head aside as he bit greedily at her pulse. This did well enough for both of them to express their frustrations. Love making was all well and good, but this? This was an outlet for anger. For despair. Wordless, now—endless.
And yet it ended quicker all the same.
She came with a devastating force in the end, with a scream and a moan—his fangs sank against the crook of her neck, tempting blood to break skin as he bore down within her, sputtering his release a scant few thrusts past her convulsions. Fluttering, panting, and shaking, she stared into his eyes and watched them change in the heavy moments following his release.
From red to white, from sapphire to gold.
From fury to exhaustion.
She felt the same fatigue settle deep in her bones.
Afterwards, they dressed in silence. He helped her set her obi and she fastened the clasps of his armor when he pulled the cuirass over his shoulders, tugging the stiff fabric of his kimono back in place. He picked twigs and bark from her hair with blunt fingers. She ruffled his bangs back into shape. Then he guided her to the enchanted palanquin that sheltered their son (who was blissfully ignorant within its barrier) and pulled the reed curtain aside for her, offering his hand to help her step up inside. InuYasha smiled at him and he smiled back, however stiffly, as Izayoi took her boy into her lap. Collapsing back against the front wall, she tried to settle her mind before their tiny chariot took off into the sky.
What a life she lived.
InuYasha, white-haired and dog-eared, picked more leaves out of the ends of her hair as the winds carried them up among the clouds. His concealment charm had long since been discarded among the pillows that filled this small cart, scarcely large enough for both of them to sit side by side. Myoga was nowhere to be seen.
“Where are we going now?” he asked her. She pet back his unruly bangs with a small smile, trying not to let her guilt surface.
“Home.”
Though InuYasha always tried to hide his disappointment from her, his ears betrayed him. They fell flat on his head in a heartbreaking display as he tried to pretend he wasn't bothered. She had told him before that they were going on an adventure. That he would meet his Aunt and little cousins. But now that promise was no more.
“Oh. Okay.”
Heart swelling in sympathy, she kissed the crown of his head. His ears twitched and he just shrugged, toying with a strand of her hair as he sat back against her chest.
“It’s all right,” she promised him. Glancing towards the reed door that flapped softly against the wind, an idea came to mind. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t look out and see what's on the way, does it?”
Fastening one arm securely around his middle as he perked up in interest, she pulled back the curtain with the other, allowing him to safely look out onto the wilderness below.
A whole world turned underneath them.
Golden eyes shining, InuYasha’s jaw dropped open as he stared at the wilds racing below. The height of it was dizzying, but he hardly seemed bothered by it, straining against her hold to get a better look. The clouds had parted above them; sunlight spilled resplendent across the countryside, rivers sparkling blue between swaths of green trees. The wind stirred leaves in flagging green waves across the woodlands, waterfalls pouring from the sides of the mountain they had just left behind.
Between them and the beautiful wilderness, Toga soared above it all, shining silver against the cerulean sky. With the clouds beneath his feet, he seemed truly inhuman—more inhuman, Izayoi thought, than he did with red eyes and daggered claws.
Here in the heavens, he was home.
As Izayoi gazed upon him - upon the world, more beautiful than any painted landscape could ever be - she realized why understanding one another was so impossible.
It was because he was impossible.
A spirit, a yokai, a child of a god, or a god itself; whatever Toga was, he could not be any further from what she was. They would be chasing each other for the rest of their marriage—chasing understanding, chasing lust, and chasing peace, unable to fully reconcile with each other.
He was eternal and she was not. It was the truth neither of them could deny. For the rest of her life he would be chasing the hope that he might find a way to conquer death, to do more than simply cheat it. And she would be trying to steer him off that path the entire time, to turn his attentions on the one person that mattered more than she.
InuYasha.
Their boy was the child of the heavens and the earth, of eternity and mortality. He deserved more than four safe walls to keep him company. Even if she had to sacrifice her own freedom for him, she would; there was a whole world waiting for him, ripe for the taking. She had seen her share of it. He hadn’t been born to be hidden away and kept like a rare jewel. He was here to live; to change the world with his very existence.
And as Toga watched InuYasha fawn and awe over the wild world that he had been deprived of, Izayoi wondered if he was finally seeing the adventurous soul they had both died to protect.
Halfway home, Toga had fallen victim to his son’s shining eyes.
“Papa, please?” InuYasha had begged, holding his hand out beyond the drawn curtain. Around his middle Izayoi’s grip was secure, but she did absolutely nothing to stop their son from pleading with his father. “I wanna fly, too! Pleeeease, please, please, pleeeeaase—”
So with a sigh and a gentle shake of his head, Toga had allowed it. Reaching out and hefting his child onto his shoulders with a practiced maneuver, the boy giggled with glee, fastening his claws tight into his fur and wrapping his legs as far as he could around his ribs, perched there with an unfailing grip. He stared in wonder at the world that flew by all around them—and through him, Toga found new interest in what had once seemed droll, answering every hungry question his child hurled at him.
For a time, Izayoi watched them, gaze soft and tired as they flew alongside the chariot that now belonged solely to her. But soon enough the reed curtain fell closed and Toga heard her shift and shuffle within, moving the cushions to her liking, and sleep claimed her as the sun began its slow descent from the sky. Listening to the gentle, even sound of her breathing between InuYasha’s demands, he could guess the deepness of her exhaustion. Somewhere inside himself, he imagined he felt much the same.
When they finally touched back down on the manor grounds, the palanquin drifted to the ground like a falling feather in the dusk, landing without so much as the slightest disturbance while Toga stepped down beside it. InuYasha unlatched his tiny claws and swung down from his shoulders almost immediately, but he caught the boy before he could climb up and disturb his mother. Putting a finger to his lips to bid his silence, he pulled the curtain aside himself, looking in on the sleeping visage of his wife.
Izayoi lay crumpled among the various pillows, curled up on herself in sleep, covered only by her soft silks and the thin veil of her long hair. Resting as peacefully as she was, Toga hesitated to disturb her. But this was no place for her to sleep, and besides—he had apologies to make, and wounds of hers to tend.
Reaching out and brushing her hair aside to see her face, his gaze flickered briefly over the bruises and welts upon her neck that he had left behind. She shivered lightly against the scrape of his claws, stirring somewhat.
“What is it, Papa?” At his side, InuYasha clung to his obi and balanced on his tip toes, trying to use Tenseiga as leverage so he could see her better. Toga hushed him and pulled his hand away, letting her hair fall back to hide those marks from sight.
“Your mother is exhausted,” he said softly, gathering Izayoi from the pillows and doing his best not to disturb her further. Stepping away from the cart and standing straight with her in his arms, he looked down on his son. “Can you mind yourself for a while?”
This, apparently, was not the thing InuYasha had wanted to hear. Bottom lip jutting out in an impressive pout, he scuffed the dirt with his clawed toes and huffed, looking aside in dejection.
“But I’m hungry,” he mumbled, latching on to the hems of his mother's hanging sleeves to keep them there. Izayoi shifted slightly at the tug, fitting herself more comfortably against the expanse of his already uncomfortable armor.
Toga nodded, tempering himself. Of course the boy was hungry. They’d been traveling for days before this, and he likely hadn’t eaten a proper meal since beginning the trek. It was expected. But even so...
Careful not to jostle his sleeping wife - who huffed and scrunched her nose regardless, sighing as she twined her arms around his neck - Toga crouched down low next to his son, glancing towards the trees that lined the walls that surrounded the manor. Ripe apples hung from the lowest branches, gleaming orange-red in the waning sunlight. “The apples are ripe for the picking, up there. Will that be enough to satisfy you until I’ve put your mother to bed?”
Flicking his gaze towards the tree his father nodded towards, InuYasha considered this a moment before finally shrugging. It was with a sort of attitude that only a child could manage: acceptance, dismissal, and resignation all wrapped up into one shrug, which ultimately gave way to a sort of begrudging excitement. Climbing trees was his favorite pastime, after all.
“Okay.” Nodding, the boy’s eyes followed him as he straightened back up. But before he could turn away and leave the boy to it, InuYasha reached out and snatched one of the flowing maroon drapes of his obi, stalling him. “But Papa?”
He glanced back down at the tiny claws clutched around his sash.
“Yes, InuYasha?”
“You’re not gonna go nowhere, are you?” he asked softly, glancing away in embarrassment. His fingers tightened around the thick fabric in his hand, not so differently than the way he always toyed with Izayoi’s sleeves. “You’re gonna stay?” With a mumble, he stubbed his toes against the dirt again. “I missed you...”
Feeling his own heart begin to thaw, heavy and waterlogged in his chest, Toga sighed. What a fool he had been. What a fool he was being.
“I missed you too,” he admitted, shifting all of Izayoi’s weight into one arm so he could put a hand on his boy’s head. InuYasha gazed up at him with all the admiration in the world, little ears twitching light between his fingers. For the first time, Toga felt as though he were seeing the boy as more than the tiny infant he used to cradle in his arm. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
There was a moment of silence between them. A moment of relief and happiness, an uneasy tension between them suddenly released. InuYasha smiled and nodded beneath his hand, satisfied.
“Okay, Papa.”
And then he was off to fetch his snack, apparently unbothered by all that had happened in these past few days. Toga watched him go, feeling a soft pang in his chest—a mourning, of sorts, for InuYasha’s infancy, now come and gone. He was faced with InuYasha’s childhood now, and that too would be fleeting.
And Izayoi was right; isolation didn't suit a growing boy like him.
Izayoi drifted in and out of consciousness all the while.
She was still angry. Enraged, really. But she was also exhausted, and while she wanted nothing to do with her idiot husband at the moment, she also wanted nothing more than to be held by him. There was comfort in his embrace that she could find nowhere else. An eternal sort of security, where nothing could reach her but his warmth and his love.
So she let him hold her, she drifted in his secure embrace, and listened to him talk about apples with their little boy. Expecting to find herself laid down to bed in the near future, she listed sideways into her dreams, oblivious to his path through their home.
Until Toga gently coaxed her back into the world of the waking, moving to put her on her feet in the bathhouse.
There was nothing either of them needed to say.
The storms that had consumed them in the forests had dissipated. Here in the bathhouse, caring for her, tipping her gently onto her feet and rousing her from her doze with warm hands, her husband reminded her more of a nighttime ocean than a rolling storm. The black tide of his anger had finally calmed, their swelling crests mellowed to lapping waves, and among them she felt as though she were floating, drifting between the glinting sea and the sparkling stars—no longer battered against the violent, rocky shores. She molded against him and leaned heavily against his armored chest, gripping the silver ridges of his cuirass to hold herself up as he slowly began to work and the knots and folds of her kimono.
Overwhelmed by the stress of their arguing and her traveling, further tormented by the physical bout she had sustained with him, Izayoi simply clung there and let him undress her. There was no use in fighting it. She ached. The springs would be a welcome relief to her tired bones, and the less she had to do before finding that warmth, the better.
When he crouched low to pull the tabi from her feet, she put her hands between the spiked plates of his shoulders, leaning heavily forward. She mused on their argument, however briefly, and came to the decision that it wasn’t an argument at all. No; it had been war. They had battled and he had fucked her raw for her insolence—just as she had fucked him, enraged by his ego and arrogance. But now, physically ravished and mentally exhausted, she leaned on him for support, ceding to the enemy as he paid his restitutions at her feet.
“Toga?”
He stood back up and her fingers drifted down from his shoulders in the action, slipping across the dented planes of his armor, falling gracelessly to the spikes on either side of the ruby embedded on his breast. Holding loosely there, she leaned in against the clawed fingertips brushing through her hair, watching the exhaustion weather his stony expression. From her hair to her shoulders his hands traveled, until he was pushing off the last silks from her shoulders, helping her shrug out of her sleeves—and when her hands returned to his chest this time, they did so with a purpose, finding the knots and claps that secured his armor. Not a single thought was given to her nudity as she helped undress him in turn, blinking sluggishly in the steamy room.
“Hm?”
His armor and swords discarded with a clatter and a beside them. Gingerly, she began to work at the knots about his middle, trying to ignore the slight tremor in her hands.
“I didn’t mean it,” she murmured, pulling open his kimono. “You know—” Choking on a swell of emotion that surged into her throat, Izayoi blinked away gathering tears. “You know I would never want you to…”
Struggling even now to say such a thing - something that had seemed so easy, when anger had ruled - Izayoi simply stared up at him instead, glassy-eyed, hoping with all her heart that she hadn’t ruined them.
Shrugging smoothly out of his kimono, he reached forward and cupped her face in his hand, stroking his thumb soothingly across her cheek. “I know,” he murmured, and it was a promise. “No tears. We’re too tired for tears.”
That was the wisest thing he’d said in weeks. Agreeing with a gentle nod, Izayoi tried to swallow down her despair, focusing instead on working her trembling fingers through the knots of his hakama. Soon enough he was nude with her, and then he held his hand out for her at the edge of the shallow hot spring. Taking it, she stepped in the bath—
—and melted, as though made of water herself, sinking down to her shoulders beneath the steaming surface. The tension of the last few days began to unwind from her body, bleeding out into the spring in a merciful ripple, chasing the veil of her hair that spread like oil across water. Izayoi hugged herself tight and closed her eyes, soaking for a moment in the sensation.
There was silence for a time after, a shuffling of movement within the bathhouse, but eventually the waters shifted to signal Toga’s entrance, and then strong hands were fastening around her waist and pulling her close. Buoyed up against him, braced in his steel embrace, the warm waters lapped against her ribs as he encircled her entirely, enveloping her in the safety of his arms. Izayoi rest back languidly while he leaned his chin gently on her shoulder, mindful of the biting welts and bruises he had left there.
Silver and black hair twined carelessly in the water around, floating together before they sank beneath the surface and drifted like silks around their middles.
“Forgive me,” he murmured softly, pressing his lips feather-light against the curve of her shoulder. “I spoke to you in anger.”
She shook her head, wrapping her arms over his. Drifting in his hold, feeling altogether muddled, Izayoi let her thoughts wander with her listless gaze. On the four walls of the bathhouse there was nothing worth musing over, but the large shutters on the farthest wall were flung wide open, giving her a clear view of the gardens and the rest of the babbling, outdoor springs that she so meticulously maintained. This side of the manor was the one built closest to the sheer cliff that neighbored them, and it was from there that this spring bubbled up beneath the earth, stretching in a scattered cluster of pools that were, in part, confined within the walls of her husband’s property and barrier. But the gardens—those were hers entirely.
This time of the year the trees were green and lush, scattered with cloisters of red maples that Toga had brought in specifically at her request. Their leaves swayed gently in the wind, still clinging strong to their thin, spindling branches, but soon that would change. The summer heat would wane and Autumn would come, setting the forests afire. All living things would be red then, and orange and yellow, spreading like wildfire through her home and the woods, until they all drifted down to gather in dry piles that her son would thrash about in and make a mess of.
But more than all that, the inferno of her imagined autumn and the shining red of the current summer reminded her of burning eyes. Of her husband’s ruby gaze, cut through with sapphire and fury.
“We were both angry,” she admitted, drifting her fingertips across his forearm. “I shouldn’t have left. You’re right. It was reckless of me. I’m sorry.”
Apparently in agreement, Toga said nothing in response. His hold merely tightened about her in the shadow of a hug, making her feel as though she were drowning in downy warmth until he slowly unwound himself, one arm drifting up to rest on hers as he twisted away. Unsettled by this - and, in a small way, fearing she’d somehow offended him further - Izayoi moved with him to pull him back, trying not to let her fear show. But he was merely pulling a circular tray and a cloth from the rocky rim of the springs, placing the bamboo float in the water alongside them. There were an assortment of tiny glass bottles and vials within, gleaming softly against the sunlight spilling in the window. They clinked gently as the tray bobbed in the subtle waves of their movements.
“Relax,” he soothed, hand still lingering on her arm. He squeezed there softly, coaxing her to face forward again when he turned back. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Mollified, Izayoi nodded, leaning forward slightly in the shallow pool. There was the familiar sound of something uncorking behind her, the tip of liquids inside a jar as he wet his cloth—and then a sharp discomfort as he pressed the rag against her raw back, scraped deeply from the tree bark she’d been pinned against. Tensing slightly, Izayoi took a deep breath; and then unfurled completely, relief flagging out of her lungs as warmth spread beneath her skin. A soothing scent enveloped her, bringing thoughts of humid, nighttime fields to mind: the memories of catching fireflies in her youth, their yellow warmth buzzing against her palms as she giggled; cupping her hands tightly together and running to show her mother her newest catch, excited all the while. Every present pain and discomfort was drowned out by these pleasant thoughts of the past. It was the effect of his oils and potions. They healed and mended and soothed in ways that human concoctions could not, crafted by demon craftsmen for the fine and rich ladies of court.
It was nothing short of magic, to Izayoi. Beneath its touch her scrapes healed themselves, soothed by the steaming waters.
From there Toga continued, washing her with painstaking care, wiping away her injuries with soft precision. Under an oil that smelled and felt like freshly fallen snow, the welts and bruises of her body fell flat, their redness soothed away and leaving only a dark shadow of its impression behind. More often than not, he pressed a soft kiss against the space where an injury had been or where one had been soothed, chasing the feeling of the rough cloth away with his lips, and the gentleness of it had her heart breaking. She tipped her head back on his shoulder and rested there when his hands moved to her front, disappearing the marks on her stomach and breasts and eventually sinking lower to soothe the pinprick claw marks on her thighs.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly into his ear, apologizing again, hoping he might understand that she needed him to respond in kind. That she alone was not at fault in this. “Dearest…”
A deep tone rumbled in his chest, soothing her in a strange way. When he finished with his care, he let the cloth float away from them in the water, bringing his hands up to wet them with another concoction. Smelling like plum blossoms, he began to card his claws carefully through her hair, reducing a day-long cleaning process into a matter of moments. She tipped her head forward only when she had to, coaxed forward by the press of his lips against her jaw and a purposeful nudge of his nose.
Feeling hollow, there was nothing else she could do but let him work in silence.
Soon her hair was adequately lathered and he was tipping her back, widening the space between them, cradling her head until she was floating on her back in the water. Spread out before him, staring upwards into his eyes as the waters lapped against her cheeks, she found nothing but adoration in his sunset irises. The sight offered some small comfort, but he remained silent, rinsing her long hair without another word.
Soon enough, the job was done. Toga eased her up out of the water and helped her push her sopping hair aside, pulling her into his lap when it was tamed. Holding her sideways in his lap, bracing her in the crook of one arm, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. His thumb brushed lovingly against her ribs.
“I’ll start taking him to court with me,” he said finally, lips ghosting across her forehead in a murmur. Izayoi held her breath. “Half his blood is mine, and you’re right; he deserves to know that part of himself.”
Afraid that any sudden movement might shatter this moment, it was with incredible care that Izayoi reached up to touch him, cradling her face in his palm and letting her fingers curl gently against his ear. He leaned into her touch immediately, drawing her as near as he could.
“I swear to you now I will never turn my back on you again,” he promised, placing his other hand over the back of her knuckles. “Death take me if I do. It was cruel and undeserved, and for that, I am sorry.”
Tears stung hot and unbidden in the corners of her eyes. There was such remorse in his gaze, such genuine sadness in his heart that Izayoi felt as though she were falling, relief and guilt swept up in a torrent of searing emotion. Her thumb smoothed over the indigo marking on his cheek as though that would wipe away the tears leaking out of her eyes.
“But I won’t apologize for trying to protect you, my love.”
In an effort to try and silence the sob that threatened to rip out of her throat, she surged forward, wrapping her arms tight around him. It was a crushing embrace—or as much of one as she could manage, anyway. He returned it swiftly, trapping her tight against his body.
“I love you,” she whispered into his hair, clinging to him, feeling desperately weak as her voice cracked. Against her back, his hands held her strong. “I love you with all my heart, Toga. But I won’t apologize for trying to do what’s best for our son, either.”
And, finally, all the anger of the day bled out of them both. Pressing a desperate kiss into her sodden hair, Toga clung to her as he had when he’d woken on the other side of death.
“Then we are at an understanding.”
