Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As Kagome scrubbed the floors, she hummed to herself, a chirpy little tune that always helped keep her spirits high.

A purr, a soft brush of fur, and then the tickle of whiskers demanded her attention.

“Buyo! You better not be coming in here with dirt on those paws!”

Big and round, Buyo flopped over, showing his soft, pudgy tummy in apology- and his mud dipped paws.

“Oh Buyo. I’ll have to backtrack now, and I was almost done!”

He blinked his big eyes up at her, his purring increasing in volume, and finally Kagome sighed.

“Alright. Apology accepted. Let’s go wash your paws and get you some breakfast.

Buyo attempted to roll back over and dash off, willing to be hungry if it meant avoiding a bath, but his tummy was too round to make his actions more than clumsy and sluggish.

With a giggle, Kagome scooped him up and made her way toward the kitchen.

After breakfast was cooked and served and cleaned, Kagome always made her way into the garden.

There was a small patch in the corner she’d commandeered to grow flowers, the only place on the whole property that belonged only to her outside of her small bedroom, and she took meticulous care of it.

It was tucked away behind large, bushy tomato plants and pea vines wrapped around old, wooden trellises, and she carefully harvested and saved flower seeds from wherever she could find them throughout the year until the weather permitted they be planted.

The few minutes of time she got here everyday kept her going no matter how hopeless everything felt, watching the flowers grow and change giving her a constant reminder that life goes on and evolves, even when her own life felt so static and unchanging.

A warm, tinkling breeze blew past her ear, swirling gently through the whispy hairs that curled around her hairline.

She grinned and closed her eyes, breathing in the warm, earthy scent that particular sound always carried with it.

“There you are! My guardian angel.”

Whipping around her like a hug, the breezy magic seemed to dance before settling next to her, and if she concentrated just enough, she could see the otherworldly sparkle it carried.

“I was wondering when you would show up! I didn’t see you yesterday.”

Like fairy dust, the disembodied glitter drifted slowly over her flower bed, tiny bits of diamond sparkle resting on petals and leaves, and she watched in awe as each one stood a little straighter, opened a little bigger, glowed a little brighter.

“Oh!” She gasped in awe, apology ringing loud and clear in her ears even with no voice speaking. “Thank you,” she whispered, settling in the grass and grinning as that same, gentle dust sprinkled over her next.

“Now you’re just trying to flatter me.”

Whisper-like tinkles echoed in her ears like teeny bells, the closest thing to a voice she’d ever heard from her mysterious, magical friend.

She sighed, and stared up at the clear, blue sky, watching sparse bits of cloud float slowly by, too thin and patchy to cover the sun

“I’ll have to go back in soon, Tsubaki will be wanting her late morning tea.”

A spark flashed on the tip of her nose, making her face scrunch up and tickling laughter from her soul.

“I’ll be back again tonight to look at the moon. Promise!”

The warm little wind blew at her back as she got up and left her tiny patch of paradise, and she pushed aside her longing to stay so she could see her duties through.

“Hm.”

Kagome braced herself as Tsubaki sipped her evening tea, the tick in her brow and displeased purse of her lips foretelling a dreary evening of extra chores.

“I must say, this is quite disappointing.”

“I’m sorry Aunt.”

“I thought after the last explanation on how to properly make tea, we’d not still be having these little issues.”

“I thought so as well. I certainly tried to follow all of your instructions.”

“But not hard enough, it would seem.”

“Yes Aunt.”

“I’m just not sure what else to do at this point.”

Tsubaki set her tea aside with a disappointed sigh, and Kagome braced herself for the worst.

“Perhaps we could switch brands? I’ve been suspecting this one’s had a dip in quality.”

Tsubaki’s lips thinned further in displeasure, and Kagome knew she’d likely said the exact wrong thing.

Suggesting she wasn’t to blame? Preposterous.

“No. I’m certain it is not the brand. Take this trash back to the kitchen. I’ll have coffee instead. You can’t possibly screw up coffee, can you girl?”

“No, Aunt Tsubaki.”

With a flick of her hand, Tsubaki dismissed Kagome, and she picked up the tray and walked quickly but carefully from the tea room.

For the last year, she’d been the lone target of her Aunt’s particularly intense brand of attention. Before they’d gotten married, her cousins Kikyo and Kagura were there to field most of Aunt Tsubaki’s need to be picky and snobbish.

The difference was that she liked her daughters.

Kagome had been born to the younger sister, who’d married below their station for love, and Tsubaki had never forgiven her for it.

Now that her mother and father were dead, Tsubaki’s grudge had transferred to Kagome instead.

Instead of being raised alongside her own daughters in honor of her late sister, Tsubaki had made her a servant.

Even being a grief stricken little girl had not spared her from her new fate as her Aunt’s scapegoat, and so she’d learned quickly to suck up her tears and get to work.

Though sometimes Aunt Tsubaki had phases where nothing could please her, no matter how well and immaculately done. These times came and went without warning, and usually resulted in more work heaped onto Kagome’s already overtired shoulders in punishment.

“Seems she’s entering one of those phases,” Kagome thought to herself as she brewed and poured a cup of coffee, mixing it just as she knew her aunt preferred.

She was not surprised when Tsubaki took a sip and wrinkled her nose.

“Ugh. Take it away. Tastes like sludge. I don’t know what’s gotten into you girl, but you’d better shake it off before my daughters come later this week. I won’t have you screwing up our meals and tea times with your sloppy kitchen work!”

“Yes Aunt Tsubaki.”

“And go scrub the kitchen… and the dining room!”

Tsubaki waved her off, frustrated and angry, and Kagome bit her tongue against her rising temper and made herself scarce.

“Little Bell… pssst!”

Kagome sat her candle down on a small stone, one in a curved row she’d laid down around a clump of flowers with big, layered petals in shades of pale pink and cream.

She pulled her shawl around her shoulders against the slightly chilly night air, and glanced around beyond her garden, into the bushes that lined the brick wall that bordered the estate.

Sometimes her little wispy friend would come from those bushes, a small, bouncing light that shook the leaves as it tinkled like a string of silver bells.

Sometimes, it came from the trees beyond.

She’d never forget the first time she met the fey little sprite she considered her truest friend.

She’s been just a child, still reeling from losing her parents and being shipped off to a cruel family member, hopelessly lost and confused and desperate for a kind voice.

Instead, she’d heard bells.

“Little Bell, where are you? I know I’m late. My aunt gave me extra chores I’m afraid. She’s in one of her moods again.”

She wasn’t even sure if Bell was around, she couldn’t sense the peculiar feeling energy they put off, but speaking out loud helped relieve some of her tension, anyway.

“Could be stress at hosting my cousins this week. Their husbands aren’t even coming, but I think she needs things to be frustrated about.”

Another cool breeze blew by, shivering up her arms and leaving goose flesh in its wake, but this time it carried a small puff of warmth, and the faint sound of wind chimes.

“There you are,” she whispered, closing her eyes against the tiny little nudges that sparked against her cheeks, forehead and chin. “Hello old friend.”

The ends of her hair lifted and then twisted down her back, a big, fragrant bloom floating from a nearby bush on a cloud of sparkling dust to rest behind her ear.

“You’re a shameless flatterer, Little Bell, you know that?”

The chiming rang like laughter, and her smile grew wider.

Something about the night made Bell’s attempts at communication stronger, as if the moon itself was their source of magic.

And maybe it was.

She knew very little about fairies, only the warning tales she’d always been told about how dangerous and cunning they were.

But she’d grown up with her mysterious little puff of wind, and she’d never feared them once.

A wide, shuddering yawn wracked her frame.

“I guess I should go. I’d love to stay longer, but if I fall asleep and she catches me out here, I’m done for.”

She felt the wind of Bell’s magic swirl around her, and she was surprised by the strength of it, holding her fast so that she couldn’t leave.

“I know, I don’t want to go, but if I don’t stay on her good side, I won’t be able to come at all.”

She felt the weight of Bell’s magic rest on the top of her hand, like a dragonfly touching down to rest its wings, and she smiled sadly.

“I know. We barely got to visit at all today. Hopefully I can avoid her wrath enough tomorrow and this won’t happen again, but with my cousins coming…. I’ll be glad when all this is over.”

She made to stand, and then Bell shocked her again by lifting her with their magic and setting her on her feet.

“Goodness, are you getting stronger again? You’ve never done that before!”

A warm puff of air brushed against her cheek, and despite herself, she blushed.

“I… I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Bells tinkled sadly, but she turned her back on her small flower bed and marched home.

Invisible to human eyes, standing atop the brick wall that kept out the unknown night, a tall being with hair like moonlight watched as the object of his fixation walked away.

His heart ached in ways he couldn’t explain, and it would not abate until she returned to him again.

Sesshomaru, Prince of the Fae Wilds had been coming here since he’d been little more than a child himself, drawn by the tears of a young girl who lived right on the edge of his realm, where the Fae Wilds bled into the human world.

As the Prince, it was hard to make friends, so he spent most of his time alone.

Until he’d met Kagome.

He’d quickly discovered she couldn’t see him, not completely, and she could only hear the melodious chime of his magic, but it was enough for them to develop a sort of friendship.

One that, for him, had turned into a soul deep longing.

He looked up at the sky.

The clouds covering the moon were sparse, glowing, traveling easily in the night breeze.

And soon they were blown away to reveal a moon almost identical to the one upon his brow.

This year, he was finally old enough to phase between the realms, at least when his moon hung in the sky.

But it would be enough, at least at first, to truly make himself known to the young woman who plagued his mind and distracted his every waking thought.

He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, her sweet, gentle scent still dancing around their secret oasis.

Finally, he hopped down and retreated back into his forest.

Chapter Text

Mornings were never nice.

Always up before the sun to get the day started, Kagome had not yet found an early enough time to go to sleep by to make her waking hour more pleasant.

Or maybe it was what she was waking up to that made things so bad.

Buyo, fat, heavy and lazy as he was, was near impossible to move from his customary place curled up on her chest, but with a promise of an egg all his own for breakfast he did his best scramble up and away so she could roll out of bed.

She rubbed her eyes, she stretched her muscles, and then she went to the corner where she kept her pitcher and bowl and washed her face.

The cold shock of the water helped wake her the rest of the way up, so she donned her dress and tied back her hair much less sluggishly, slipped on her shoes, and made her way down to the kitchen.

A soft boiled egg, plain toast, and unsweetened tea was Aunt Tsubaki’s daily breakfast order.

She never strayed from those exact foods for any reason, which made mornings easier in the regard that Kagome didn’t have to try and figure something new out everyday.

But it also meant that she had to make it exactly the same, or Tsubaki wouldn’t eat it.

And if she didn’t eat it, she would be extra grumpy come lunchtime.

She went through her usual motions: toasting the dark bread her aunt preferred for exactly 35 seconds each side while the egg boiled.

Once it had boiled for the exact right amount of time, she scooped it out and laid it on the delicate breakfast china, and then turned to start the tea.

She grit her teeth as she set the kettle onto boil, remembering how displeased Tsubaki had been with her tea lately, but then she simply sighed in resignation.

If Tsubaki was fit to be tied, then there was simply nothing to be done about it.

She arranged the tray just so, and then cracked an egg on another plate and set it on the floor.

“Come and get it Buyo!” She called, smiling as the fat, happy cat lapped up the golden yolk, and then she straightened her shoulders, shored up her determination, and walked upstairs.

The land where the Fair Folk resided was not like the mortal realm.

Appearances were deceiving, of course.

On first glance upon passing the threshold, one would find trees, shrubs, and plants. Some would flower, some would fruit, all would rustle with small, fuzzy creatures who populated any forest.

But closer inspection would prove quickly that you had stumbled upon something magical.

Everything glowed with an inner power that flowed through everything that lived.

Colors were more saturated, the air was sweeter, and rivers, lakes, and oceans sparkled like liquid diamond.

And yet, to Sesshomaru, it all paled in comparison to Kagome.

She would love the Fae Wilds, he knew, if only he could get her here. He knew she would marvel at the magic that breathed in and out of everything, and often in his dreams she took his hand and dragged him around from one thing to the next, demanding explanations for everything as she stared in awe, and he stared at her.

These dreams began as childish notions to share the things he knew with his only friend in the world, and as he grew they grew too, into desires to bring her into his home, into his den, and make it hers as well.

He’d asked his father once, and been told it was impossible.

But humans were brought to their world all the time.

Each fairy had to complete a “Fairy’s Mission” in the mortal realm when they came of age. What that mission was was entirely up to the fairy completing it, but it often involved causing some sort of mayhem on the human population.

Fairies liked to cause mayhem, or, they were supposed to. They made their mark and cemented their power by causing some kind of stress on at least one human, an embarrassing tradition that Sesshomaru had dreaded from the minute he was old enough to understand.

And then he’d met Kagome, and he’d spent the rest of his youth figuring out how to make her his Fairy Mission.

He hadn’t had long; fairies aged like humans until they reached adulthood, at which point their bodies froze and time ceased to flow for them.

He was not much older than Kagome, but he’d stopped aging, which meant his time to complete his Fairy Mission was beginning.

When the moon in the sky echoed the moon of his birth, the moon on his brow, he would have three moon cycles to complete his mission. Afterward, successful or not, his ability to move between realms would disappear. And even if he did figure out how to do it again, time moved so differently in his world once you reached adulthood.

Even just an hour locked away could mean 4 generations of humanity had passed.

His mother had asked what he’d chosen.

Would he kidnap a human so that when they escaped their family would be gone? Would he swap out human babies for gnomes and create a bunch of changelings? Would he possess a den of wolves and have them ravage a village? Would he grant wishes in ways that only served him at the expense of the ones making wishes?

“Something like that.” Was all he would say, and his mother had chuckled darkly behind a glass of blood red wine.

“Very well son. Keep your secrets.”

He would.

For now.

Until then, he made his way back to the library in the top tower of his palace home. He’d found something in there, something promising, something that seemed to hint that his desires were not so foolish after all, and he wanted nothing more than to huddle in a corner with it and be left undisturbed until he’d read every last letter he could find on his chosen subject.

The scroll he’d stashed away was right where he’d left it, tucked away behind a silk cushion on an old and forgotten reading chair half obscured by a dusty tapestry of some long dead grandfather who ruled generations ago.

He pulled it out and carefully unrolled it, mindful of how old and brittle it would be.

It was a fairytale, something a child would enjoy more than him, but he wasn’t reading it to be entertained.

The story it told was an about an ancient Fairy King who fell in love with a mortal princess, and brought her to the Fae Wilds. She grew ill, and they’d had to search for secret magics to help connect her to the magics of her new world so she would live and thrive.

But tragically, the necessary components for the spell were only available in the mortal plain, and the young king’s ability to phase between realms had been severed, so his lover wasted away.

It was no kind of definitive proof, but there were often kernels of truth in legends and tales.

He tucked it under his arm to take it back to his room and the lunch gong reverberated through the air.

He stopped mid stride down the long stone staircase, and then gathered up his energy to zip faster toward his room and then to the dining hall.

Kagome always made a stop to her flower patch after lunch.

He would not miss her.

“Oh Little Bell!”

Her voice rang sweet, familiar, filling him with an unexplainable warmth.

He longed to go to her, to touch her with his hands instead of just his magic, but the garden wall was as far into the mortal realm as he was allowed to go until his Birth Moon sat in the sky.

He sent a gentle eddy of wind to dance through her hair, glittering off her nose, tinkling by her ears, a common hello that made her giggle.

“There you are!” She said, sitting by the large, velvet blooms that echoed the colors of the stripes on his cheeks, if she only knew. “Tsubaki didn’t turn her nose up to breakfast this morning. My cousins will be here in just a few days now. Maybe there’s nothing left to stress over.”

He swiped his hand, and the tops of all her flowers swayed in answer.

Her eyes lit up, sparkling brighter than his magic, and he smiled indulgently.

She was angelic, sitting in her little garden surrounded by beauty she’d grown and nurtured with her own hand, remaining so kind and pure of heart despite the circumstances that had been dealt to her by fate.

Kindness was not something his people were very inclined to.

They could be, to each other at least. And occasionally you heard of a fairy developing a soft spot for a mortal.

But more often than not humans were a means to an end, and outlet for mischief so a fair folk could officially come of age and leave the mortal realm behind for good.

And then you could never be sure who you could trust.

He’d heard of places though, far away from his own home kingdom that favored a softer approach to life, whose culture didn’t rely so much on tricks and selfish escapades.

It would be foolish of him to pursue such a place, his destiny was to rule when his father no longer would.

But the lovely human who’d offered him friendship when no one else would made him wonder if things could be CHANGED, if not avoided.

“Goodbye little Bell, I’ll see you tonight!” She said, and he sent out more magic to wrap around her and help her stand. “So I didn’t imagine it. You are getting stronger again.”

He was, and he would grow stronger still until he was finished with his Mission.

He swirled his magic around her again, leaving one last spark on the end of her nose, the kiss he longed to give her.

She walked away with the barest hint of a blush, and he returned to his library to hunt for more information.