[SessRin] Going, Going, Gone

"Don't leave me alone!" the little woman screams, her hands at her sides, balled into fists as she stares at the stoic man who stands unfazed. A fire flickers nearby, poked by a toad demon who does his best to tune out the fight his master and mistress are having.

"You know I hate it when you leave me alone," she murmurs now. She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She shouldn't be mad, she isn't that way. Most knew her for her happiness, her eternal smile that never fades to the rages of fury.

Still, his stony silence and emotionless gaze enrages her.

"Do you even listen to me?! I can't read you, you never say anything, you're as expressive as a wall!" She's yelling again. It hurts everyone's ears, though his the most since he is a dog demon with hearing sensitive like a wound.

"I hate you! Why did I marry? You don't care about me, you never listen to me. It's like be married to dirt."

"Quiet," he finally says. His voice is commanding, strong in its tone and its order. She shuts up instantly, years and years of following his every order having made following his command more natural to her than breathing. He brushes past her, satisfied that their fight is over.

One more evening, one more fight. They always fought though. There was never a time where she wasn't yelling and screaming at him, or looking away from him as tears flowed like wine down her cheeks. There marriage was not a happy one. Once the honeymoon phase had passed, she'd realized just how terrible it was being married to a hunk of ice.

Sitting down next to Jaken, Rin sighed, clenching her teeth as her eyes began to sting. Don't cry, don't cry, her mind repeated over and over, a mantra of strength she does not possess. Crying won't solve anything. She cries anyway, she always cries anyway.

They ate dinner in silence. Jaken had learned that if the master and mistress fought, he didn't say anything unless it was outright imperative until the next morning, or if it was early in the day, until nightfall.

Not a single one of them understood it; why she married him to begin with and why she stuck around. Rin's marriage to Sesshomaru in the beginning could be rationalized as emotion, love as humans preferred to name it. Sesshomaru's reason was quite unclear. A momentary lapse in his dispassionate inclination could explain it. One might say it was just for the sex, but that didn't really make sense as the only time sparks flew was on their wedding night. It had been colder than bottom most level of hell since then. Why she stayed with him, why he kept up the facade, none of that could be justified. Their unhappiness was as clear as a bucket of fresh rainwater, and their hatred burned like the sun in the midday sky. Still they stayed, perhaps masochists feeding off the pain the relationship stabbed into their hearts.

Their next fight happens at noon the following day. She screams at him some more because he won't listen to her when she asks that he allow them to stop because her feet are bleeding. In the same commanding voice he uses any time they fight, he tells her that it's not his fault. She is the one that doesn't wear shoes. She keeps fighting though, pushing away the feeling of nausea that comes from denying what her blood screams at her to do, up until the point in which he hits her across the cheek. She is so shocked that she lets the hit knock her to the ground where she stares wide eyed and aghast as she cradles her cheek.

They stop for the night however, and Sesshomaru removes himself from the group temporarily. Rejoining sometime during the night when his wife is slumbering. In the morning, small pleasantries are exchanged between Jaken and Rin, but the only thing exchanged between wife and husband are glares.

The fight again and again. They always fight. The next day it's about him giving her a new kimono and her not accepting it because the one she wears now is perfectly fine. The week after, following fight after fight, she blows up at him because he wants sexual intercourse. All they seem to do is fight, fight and fight until she's red in the face and blood drips from his palms. They stay though, writhing in the agony and praying empty to prayers to whatever god might be listening to let them gather the strength to walk away.

Finally, on a day much like the summer day in which Sesshomaru first met Rin, the prayers Rin mumbles aren't empty. Approaching thirty, she decides it's time, time to pull herself from the ashes and step into the light. That noon, she packs her bags, places a kiss on Jaken's head to thank him for his years of loyal companionship, and walks away, never sparing a glance or a word in the direction of her lord.

She was never happier than the day in which she was gone.

Einde