Disclaimer: I disclaim. InuYasha, its characters and all related indicia are sole property of creator Rumiko Takahashi and her affiliates. No monetary profit is sought or gained in the writing of this piece.

Cold Hands

By Reiycheru

He wasn't sure he hadn't just imagined it in the beginning.

The water was cold when it hit his face; the fingers that gingerly combed the hair out of his eyes hadn't been much different. Of course, at the time, he hadn't been in quite the frame of mind to make much of any observation . . . but the memory of their first encounter was one that would make a comfortable home for itself in his head, and one that he would revisit far more often than he'd care to admit.

Days later, he was pulling a whey-faced raggedy urchin from the cooling fingers of a water sprite when it occurred to him again. Her hands had closed tremulously about his forearm as he turned to eye the creature's compatriots, but they'd already beaten a hasty retreat and the child chose that very moment to open her mouth and speak, thusly driving the notion clean out of his head a second time.

It wasn't until their decidedly unconventional little unit had established a tenuous peace and a routine of sorts that the notion would arise again. It hadn't been anything in particular, really . . . She hadn't laid a finger on him, or made a telling remark of some sort. She'd simply wandered up to join him at his vantage point on the hillside overlooking their camp and lamented the dark of the moon, in her wistful little girl way. The child appeared to have no qualms whatsoever about striking up any one-sided conversations with any member of their motley cortège, whether it be imp, dragonet, or dog.

He supposed it was the ability to speak at all that motivated her as much as anything else. Either way, it was harmless . . . and amusing enough, more often than not. At the time, it had been clear that she was still coming out of her shell, a process he had found . . . curiously engaging to watch. True to form, the human runt had proven herself hapless and foolish in equal measures, yet he'd found he couldn't fault her for either. As lacking as she was set next to the lofty standards he measured those around him by, she was entirely without pretense or guile. Despite himself, he found the whelp every bit as interesting as she was baffling, and he'd quickly come to the conclusion that he would never understand her.

Not that it stopped him watching, puzzling, considering. For the most part, he did it without thought, even. She was unavoidably there, a veritable beacon for idle perusal. Her scent hung on the air like a flag at full mast. Her voice, her laughter, her silly, capering footfalls could carry for miles on a clear Summer's day. Trails of rumpled wildflowers and careworn butterflies marked her out like paths on maps; her presence simply could not go overlooked, and he'd learned to interpret - perhaps sooner than he might have liked - all the little telltale signs of fatigue, of excitement, of fear. She twisted her fingers behind her back when she was happy. She screwed up her mouth if she was feeling stubborn. If she was getting tired on her feet, she would warm her calloused little soles against the calf of the opposite leg, one at a time, looking like some little kimono-clad crane.

But it was the way she liked to fold her hands away inside her sleeves that caught his eye that night on the hilltop. The gesture seemed oddly out of place on one so young; he'd briefly entertained the notion that she might have picked it up from his vassal, perhaps. That oft-witnessed habit, along with all the others he'd unconsciously cataloged, was filed away for later perusal - but it wasn't until nigh on half a year later that the little mystery revealed itself. She'd gotten a thorn of some sort lodged in the heel of her palm, but anxiously refused to let his retainer anywhere near it. A single growling command on his part did what all the cajoling in the world couldn't and quickly had her presenting her palm for inspection, but a surprise awaited him when he reached for her hand.

Cold . . .

Her grubby little fingers were cool and dry to the touch, only a shallow pool of warmth in the very center of her palm yielding under the pressure of his thumb. The child seemed surprised when he casually inquired after her health, so he chose not to pursue the topic, seeing as the rest of her appeared warm enough. Between his molars, the thorn was cleanly extracted and the subsequent puncture-wound taken care of with a careful swipe of his tongue. She piped her thanks, bowed so low he thought she might bump her nose, and wandered away to show off her battle scar. He flicked the offending barb away with a fastidious claw, tried to disregard the lingering feel of her cool little fingers, and chalked it up to that phenomenon he'd come to term as Simple Human Oddity.

Not that it actually explained the matter.

Or quelled his interest.

Or kept him from holding on just a moment longer on those rare occasions that she reached for his hands, as though the act itself might inject a measure of his own warmth into those slender digits . . .

It was one thing that never seemed to change about her as time went by.

When his mother called her soul home from the void, her tiny fingers were cold and comforting.

The night before he left her in the village, she cupped his face in her cool little palms and tearfully extracted his promise to come for her if she called.

The Hanyou would jokingly pester her for backrubs after toiling for hours in the sweltering Summer heat.

The younger children were quick to obey if she threatened a tickling.

Then one brisk Winter's morning, he'd found her scaling the frost-trimmed boulders littered about the far end of the well meadow, and her palms were warm and clammy when he assisted her down into the grass. It was so utterly strange and unaccustomed to him that he bustled her directly back to the matriarch's residence, regardless of her bewildered assurances that she felt just fine.

His instincts had proved surer, as it turned out, and the elderly priestess was able to treat her just in time to prevent the chill taking a proper hold, although she was confined indoors with a mild fever for a few days. He lingered awkwardly at her bedside, chafing her slowly cooling hands between his own, having never seen her ill during her time with him.

'I'm okay, Sesshomaru-Sama, really . . .' Rin frowned blearily as Kaede eased her back down to the pallet, pillowing her head on the demon's thigh.

'Your hands are cold,' he retorted doggedly.

'I shouldn't worry too much about it,' the old woman sighed, and he duly ignored her. The half-demon snorted knowingly from his seat across the fire-pit.

'Y'know, my mother used to say "Cold hands; warm heart,"' the younger of the two priestesses offered, to which he gave her a look that suggested humans were perhaps better seen and not heard. She shuffled off grumbling about bull-headed Taiyoukai and the like under her breath while he chafed the drowsing girl's hands with renewed vigour. The old woman merely shook her head and chuckled quietly before taking herself off for her morning rounds of the hamlet, the smirking Hanyou not far behind her.

And only when the hut cleared out did he pause to regard her slumberous features with something not so far removed from wonder.

Cold hands; warm heart . . . hm?

He snorted, and then stroked her forehead apologetically when she stirred restlessly in her sleep.

Owari

A/N: ... Thus proving I should never be let write on the fly. *facepalm* Good Lord.

This piece was originally written for winterwing3000 mf_sanctuary's Secret Santa Exchange