Chapter Text
At first Sesshoumaru tumbled like a prayer-kite, the pockets in the paper jacket catching every fragment of breeze that was headed in a vaguely Westerly direction and amplifying it’s force. Gritting his teeth through the initial disorientation, the taiyoukai flung his limbs out, along with his dignity, and gradually reestablishing some modicum of balance until he had finally righted himself properly and could pay attention to his surroundings. Already he had passed away over the vast mountains of the Middle Kingdom and now, below him, a vast ocean of sand and barren rocky lands spread, blurred from the speed of his transit and reflecting the sun with an eye watering brightness. There was a slap of wind between his shoulder blades and he went yet faster, the desert seeming to fold beneath him in waves of sand that broke on a flatter shore. Giant triangular structures zipped beneath his feet between one blink and the next as he passed over a thin ribbon of cultivated land and then was back over desert again, then gradually and increasingly woodland.
The wind carrying him began to stutter and slow, shedding ragged fragments of the jacket pockets as the dense woods gave away to a vast golden grass land. Sesshoumaru had a brief view of herds of strange horses with black and white stripes and tall, blotch-coated, camel-like creatures loping across the plain before the wind, with a sudden twist, ripped away the majority of the paper-coat and dropped him from the sky.
~o0o~
Sesshoumaru managed to land with his feet under him on an small game trail, startling a herd of strangely antlered deer* that had been browsing on surrounding mimosa bushes. What had seemed a smooth plain from above proved to be tall and dried tussock grasses thickly peppered with spiky shrubs and stunted trees. Sesshoumaru’s shoulder blades prickled with a sense of being watched and he turned, scrutinising the long grass around him for potential ambush.
“What are you looking for?”
Sesshoumaru spun back to find a tall, loose limbed man with skin as black as lacquer and hair tightly curled like furled bracken leaves standing on the path ahead of him. The man arched an eyebrow and grinned showing bright white teeth. Small spiders skittered across the bright pattern of his clothing from shadow to shadow.
Sesshoumaru stiffened subtly and eyed the man who was not a man warily. The being held no weapon but his confidence was armor enough against a taiyoukai who had learned the hard way not to make assumptions about the weakness of strangers. Unconciously his thumb ran along Tensaiga’s grip. The sword stayed silent and the dark man’s grin widened without malice as he spoke again.
“You are not at all from around here. You smell of the spices the Silk Road carries down from the lands beyond Samarkan. What are you doing here?”
Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes, weighing his words. “I was sent here by one called Yue Lao but he did not give me a name for the one he said would help me.”
“Oh Names,” the dark man said dismissively, “Names are so variable. I have one for each season and two for celebratory days,” there was a beat as he evidently had a thought “I may know this Yue Lao, if he is who I think he is, and I will assist you if you can tell me: Who am I?” There was now a mocking lilt to his words - a challenge. Sesshoumaru looked at him assessingly. He knew nothing of this land nor of it’s people. The brightly woven fabric of the being’s garb gave no clue the taiyoukai could interpret. On his shoulders, under the paper jacket Kagome Higurashi’s pelt twitched and one of the paws pressed slightly against the front of his kosode where the deck of cards and the fruit was tucked. Again the old woman’s voice spoke in his memory May they never lose for you.
“Then I will tell you who you are and you will assist me,” Sesshoumaru reached into his kosode and freed one of the cards from the deck, drawing it out and turning it over to see it himself before showing it to the man. Despite Yue Lao reshuffling the deck before he had handed it back Sesshomary had drawn the same card - only the image had changed slightly. The man depicted was no longer in silhouette but was very distinctly the one who stood before him, but in this card he was also overlaid with a rabbit and a fox. In one hand he held a long pipe and in the other a fist full of spiderweb that branched out to the borders of the image. The hound at his feet remained an unfamiliar mottled dog with round ears and a small golden mane.
The man plucked the card from Sesshoumaru’s fingers and scrutinised it, his supercilious smile becoming a little more genuine and interested.
“Ah. Yes. That is me. Very well played. You may call me Anansi though, as I said, I have many names. And you have been told I will help you? Why should I do that”
There was a long silence as Sesshoumaru tried to think how to respond. Then he realised that the man was staring avidly at the mask of Kagome’s pelt. The Taiyoukai quirked an eyebrow discouragingly but this only made Anansi grin
“Will you give me that skin in return for my assistance?” he asked, reaching out in order to brush his fingers across the tips of the fur, “It is fair and ferocious. The lions here do not come in such a fine colour.”
“It is not mine to give,” Sesshoumaru replied curtly stepping back.
His imagination or the paws closed slightly possessively over his shoulders as if to further dissuade him from parting with it. At the stiffening of the other man’s face Sesshoumaru forced himself to relax his body language and be less abrupt “But I do have something I will gift you - if you can help me find what I am looking for.”
“Oh? ”
Sesshoumaru reached into his kosode replacing the card and selected the small pumpkin from his gifts.
“That is a fine enough looking thing I suppose but I would rather have a story… or a game. ”
Sesshoumaru reached once again into his Kosode, pushing aside the ribbon of his hair he freed the full deck of cards and proffered it to Anansi.
“A Game it is then?” The mans eyes brightened and his teeth flashed “How does one play it?”
“How would you play it?” Sesshoumaru responded, twitching the corners of his own mouth up in as close to a sembelance of a smile as he could manage, remembering Yue Lao’s words - if he’s in a good mood he may be of use to you…
“Better and better - a game and a riddle then - give me three cards then, for the past, the present and future and let us see.”
Sesshoumaru held out the deck and Anansi took three cards without glancing at them. On a whim, Sesshoumaru drew out one more card, willing it to be useful.
“This is what I seek,” he turned the card so they could both see it. It was a woman in white junihitoe sitting on a throne of ice, her long black hair flowed down her shoulders like ink and her gaze was empty. It both was and was not Higurashi Kagome. At the bottom of the card was the kanji ‘Priestess’.
“Hmm. Well the one you seek’s evidently somewhere cold… or crystal - which is much the same thing,” Anansi mused, scrutinising his own cards. “These are very interesting - Here is the past,” he turned over the first of the cards. It displayed a large silk spinner’s wheel being turned by the goddess Benten in a golden kimono embroidered with black hawks. A small depiction of Sesshoumaru himself tumbled from one side of the wheel while Kagome Higurashi, holding his father’s sheathed sword, scrambled determinedly up the other side following him.
“And the present…” Anansi revealed the next card. The image was of an figure in white gently holding closed the mouth of a large black lion with slender-fingered hands. The raggedly cut hair of the figure fell forward obscuring their face but Sesshoumaru knew it again depicted himself and Higurashi Kagome.
“And the future… This one I know. And this one I can help you with, though you may come to regret choosing to make Her acquaintance.” Anansi said, staring at the last card a beat longer before revealing to to Sesshoumaru. The final card showed a strange chariot with bird legs instead of wheels. No animal drew it but an old woman in unfamiliar clothing leant from is pointing her direction. Fingers and bones were strung on a necklace about her neck and she had a hungry look to her.
“Does she live West of here?”Sesshoumaru asked, “I have been told to travel “So far West that it turns East again”.”
“Oh she lives West of West, though not quite so far as the East lies. And she knows a thing or two powers of other countries have forgotten.”
“Then I would be grateful…” the word was odd on Sesshoumaru’s tongue but he barely faltered “to be shown how to find her realm.”
“Give me that pumpkin and I will help you on your way.”
Sesshoumaru offered the vegetable, it rolled from his palm and into the long fingered hand of Anansi readily. As it did so it became a real fruit, rapidly swelling in size until Anansi needed two hands to hold it and then he was forced to drop it to the ground where it expanded until it was as tall as his waist. The African god tipped back his head and laughed in delight. Though Sesshoumaru did not recognise them all there was the roar of lions, the howl of jackals and the barking of antelope in the sound.
“Well visitor, this is by far better a trade than I was expecting. And the seeds, if there are any, will carry feed many generations if planted well.” I was going to give you a some small token to take with you but this deserves far better! What have I? What have I?” The dark man patted down his robes and finally extricated a small whistle folded out of tin in the shape like a bird and painted like magpie. Anansi turned it in his hand for a moment before passing it to Sesshoumaru.
“Take this, for luck and if you need an answer to a problem give it a whistle - though I can’t promise anyone will answer where you end up. And that paper cloak won’t carry you any further - flimsy stuff isn’t made to travel.” Anansi shrugged the bunched red cloth from his shoulder and shook out what was a sizeable piece of fabric with a brisk snap. The pattern of small spiders knocking out of the cloth as though they had only been printed on in dust.
He helped Sesshoumaru wrap it around his waist, over and under his shoulders snugly and pinned it with a strange wooden brooch covered in hooks, so intricate it looked grown rather than carved*. His fingers lingering over the fur of the lion skin even as Sesshoumaru folded and rolled it tightly, tucking it under firmly his arm as the other being fastened the last folds at his shoulder.
“That will hold fast- an elephant could not shake it free.” Anansi said with some satisaction before he stepped back and drew a bundle of feathers out of his robes. With deft fingers he teased it open to reveal a dessicated bird wing, the quill of each feather tightly wrapped in brightly coloured thread. “You’d best keep a good grip on that furs and anything precious if you want to keep it - you have a long way to travel.” He flicked the wing like a fan once and a strong wind sprang up, warm and rattling with leaves and seedpods.
“Don’t tell the old Witch I sent you.” Anansi called merrily. “I don’t want to end up in her stewpot again. Thank you for the pumpkin.” Then he twisted the fan in a complicated gesture that involved his whole body and Sesshoumaru was bludgeoned upwards into the sky by a second wind. This one whipping dry fingers in through the gaps in the red cloak and tried to tug the lion skin from Sesshoumaru’s grip with some force.
“It is not mine to give” Sesshoumaru growled loudly in reply, his youki flaring in warning. There was a hyena laugh and then the grip let go and he tumbled free and West again, ever West.
~o0o~