Golden Child

[luxken27]

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Pairing: Sesshoumaru + Rin (platonic)
Rating: K+
Inspiration: iyfic_contest Week 172 | Baggage
Based upon: "Father of Mine" (C) 1997 Everclear


This piece was inspired by a single song lyric, which seemed to fit Sesshoumaru so succinctly:

Now I am a grown man / with a child of my own / and I swear I'm not going to let her know / all the pain I have known
I actually had completely different plans for this prompt, attempting another Mir/San piece, but alas...it seems my Mir/San muse is incredibly hard to satisfy. It still has no good read on either character, so *sigh* I feared I would have to give up for another week...

And then, on sheer luck, I was surfing for nostalgic music and wham! The ideas, they were a-flowing once again :)

I've been bouncing around ideas for the requests from my drabble meme as well, so I've been thinking about Sesshoumaru, his mother, and his relationship with Rin. This song, inspired by lead singer Art Alexakis's own relationship with his father, was pretty good at describing the hurt and pain I imagine Sesshoumaru must've felt when he learned of his father's betrayal.

I've played around a bit with Sess's history, teasing out different explanations for his behavior, his attitude towards Inuyasha in the earlier and later chapters of the manga, his interaction with all of the other characters. I think no matter how you slice it, his relationship with his parents has greatly influenced him as a character, especially treatment from his father. I generally tend towards the notion that his father was either a complete hardass who rode little Sesshoumaru relentlessly into the ground, or was loving but distant and didn't care how much his infidelity hurt his 'real' family.

Lots of potential interesting emotional dynamics :)

So, this piece is set shortly after the manga ends (or between 557 and 558), during one of Sesshoumaru's visits with Rin. He's given her a gift, and he reflects on how his traveling visits with her, now that she's in the human village and he's off doing whatever (I gave him a purpose, whereas RT, not so much LOL) are similar and yet different from his childhood, when his father had the same pattern.

So he's following in his father's footsteps, but not really: he is determined to shield Rin from the pain of betrayal that he knew as a child, to go one better than his father in that respect, because she is his golden child and always will be.

I liked the theme of 'golden child' passing from Sesshoumaru to baby Inuyasha to young Rin, and hopefully it's clear to follow in the story :) One of the lines from the inspiration song is actually:

Father of mine / take me back to the day / when I was still your golden boy / back before you went away
Other than that, I tried to follow a few themes from the manga - Sesshoumaru always returning for Rin, no matter where he leaves her, Jaken's general nervousness around/dislike of humans, and of course the gift-giving theme we see in Chapter 558.

Comments

[landofthekwt.livejournal.com]

We have different POV about Lord Fluffy's childhood, don't we. I tend to follow Movie 3 since RT was a consultant on that picture. For me his Fluffyiness was raised as a lord's son. He was an adult in the prime of life when Daddy died and he expected that he would receive all of Daddy's toys. Inupapa and SessMom were still together. Inupapa left her a lot to tell Sessy which does not imply a breakup from his relationship with Izayoi. I do not think that Izayoi was ever allowed in his palace. I view SessMom as the chief wife and Izayoi as more of concubine. Having a wife and concubines was not surprising in 16th century Japan. Tokugawa had 19 wifes and concubines. I see nothing to indicate that Inupapa was a hardass only that Sesshy did not get the inheritance he was expecting to make him more powerful. I was looking at the manga Chapter 15 where he is about to pull Tessaiga. He feels that it will make him a much more powerful being. Totsai tells Sesshy that it was Tessaiga not Inuyasha that took it upon itself to punish Sesshy for trying to steal something that did not belong to it. RT only tells us that the dragon dealt the fateful wound. The movie says he went to save mother and son.

I do not think that RT ever thought of Sesshy as evil. He had some lessons to learn before he could become a dai-youaki just as Inuyasha had find a way to ignite the sword, smell the windscar and the Backlash Wave. If anything Inupapa is trying to show them that nothing comes easy in this life. If Sesshoumaru had never been blasted by the Windscar, he would never have found Rin which was one of the most important lessons in his life.

[luxken27]

LOL, well, as I said, because there is nothing in the manga about his past (the movies...I tend to follow less than the manga or even the anime), I feel there's a lot open for suggestion. This is, of course, just one of the many scenarios I've spun about his childhood and why he might be the way he is. I'm not saying it's the *real* one or *right* one, just a possibility.

This piece was very much heavily influenced by the song it was written around, hence the scenario of finding his father with his 'new' family, the idea that his father abandoned his youkai family for his human one, etc etc. I didn't want to get into the whole swords saga (because that would've been a tangent), just give a taste of how/why Sesshoumaru didn't understand or appreciate his father's way of thinking, why he would desire to protect a son he had with a human.

[landofthekwt.livejournal.com]

There is mythos that runs through a lot of SK that talks about how put upon Lord Fluffy was. It had been revised after SessMom was introduced. In the old mythos his father had run off from his mom and then his mom had died. In the new one he just ran off leaving SessMom to raise Fluffy. Fluffy was supposed to have our sympathy because his father had deserted him.

The only thing we know about Inuyasha is that he never knew his father and has no feeling one way or another about him. All we know about his mother is that she died when he was young, that he was ashamed of her because she was human and that he did love her. She does appear to be wearing some very fancy kimonos suggesting that she was of high rank.

Sess is always overconfident convinced that nothing can hurt him. His anger against his father rises after Shishinki when he destroys Totosai's house and accuses his father of trying to kill him with the Meidou. Totosai then is forced to say that the Meidou was supposed to given to Inuyasha to prevent him from having a poor lot in life.

Sesshoumaru does not seem to hate Inuyasha though he does look down upon him because he is a hanyou. He did tell Jaken to kill Inuyasha. Obviously, Jaken not up to it. Inuyasha mentions that he hates Sesshoumaru and that he is tired of his treatment by Sesshoumaru.

They both recognize each other when they meet in the manga. Inuyasha does not know why Sesshoumaru wants to see him. Inu does not know about the swords nor does he care or even want anything from his father. It is Kagome that convinces him to go after the sword. He could care less. He is just angry at Sesshoumaru's mistreatment of his mother's image.

[luxken27]

...and all of that is why we can spin so many different stories about his childhood, because what is known is sketchy, at best. It takes a skilled writer with a deft hand to make it believable, but considering what we have to go on...there's room for almost anything :)

There is mythos that runs through a lot of SK that talks about how put upon Lord Fluffy was. It had been revised after SessMom was introduced. In the old mythos his father had run off from his mom and then his mom had died. In the new one he just ran off leaving SessMom to raise Fluffy. Fluffy was supposed to have our sympathy because his father had deserted him.

LOL, well Sesshoumaru has to be put upon so he can be redeemed, no? :P

SessMom's existence certainly throws a wrench into the works; from her appearance in the manga it's obvious she holds little to no resentment for her partner/mate/husband. It seems that if she knows of Inuyasha's existence, she doesn't care. Her feelings on how he came into being are also unknown, as that was not the point of her appearance in the manga.

It's easy to make her into a bitch or some put upon spineless housefrau, but I at least attempt to give her some sort of personality when I write her. I think Sess gets a lot of his personality from her, actually, the cold, snarky, possibly vindictive side.

The only thing we know about Inuyasha is that he never knew his father and has no feeling one way or another about him. All we know about his mother is that she died when he was young, that he was ashamed of her because she was human and that he did love her. She does appear to be wearing some very fancy kimonos suggesting that she was of high rank.

Indeed, I tend to go with the fanon notion that she was a high-ranking hime. I almost wrote the scene where Sesshoumaru discovers his father's secret with Inuyasha as a toddler, but figured that *might* be pushing things just a bit :P

Sesshoumaru does not seem to hate Inuyasha though he does look down upon him because he is a hanyou.

I think he resents Inuyasha, because he sees him as being unworthy of the gifts their father has bestowed upon him - and Inuyasha seems ungrateful/uncaring about things that Sesshoumaru would value as lucky or impressive. Depending on how deep you think he can feel, that resentment might have fueled the original hatred seen as they fight over the sword.

They both recognize each other when they meet in the manga.

And there's a fanon convention that Sesshoumaru raised Inuyasha for a small portion of his life, straight after the death of both of his parents. *shrug*

All these different notions are out there, take it or leave it. I like to spin the story from a certain angle for whatever reason (prompt, inspiration, whim), even if the end goal is just to have a fresh perspective on one or more of the characters :)

[landofthekwt.livejournal.com]

I am being somewhat hypocritical. I have not always been so nice to Inupapa
Actually, I did a songfic called "The Inuyoukai Way" about Inupapa being a child abuser. It seemed to fit the Metallica song " The Day that Never Comes" which is about child abuse. In my songfic Inupapa disciplines Sesshoumaru brutally because that is the inuyoukai way. When Inupapa dies, Sesshoumaru uses this method in raising Inuyasha which is the source of their hatred.In my songfic his experience with Rin has caused Sesshoumaru to rethink the inuyoukai way of discipline. He vows that he will never use such discipline on Rin or any future children according the inuyoukai way.

There are some statistics which suggest most child and spouse abusers were abused as children. That is why I wanted to Sesshoumaru to break the cycle of abuse in my songfic.