InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bits From The Big Yellow Bag ❯ Saying Goodbye ( Chapter 20 )

Saying Goodbye

The cloak draped around her shoulders still held some of his heat - or was that the biting warmth from the building aflame behind her?

It was something she'd never know, something she'd always wonder.

She’d loved him for years now; as the time passed and she grew older, he never seemed to change. Perhaps that's what drew her to him in the first place. Despite sickness, health, wealth and poverty, he remained the same - an island in the storm, battered but unyielding.

She could only wonder what had drawn him to her.

She'd never know.

Izayoi knew that she couldn't mourn in a traditional sense. Her family would never stand for her loving a youkai; they'd barely tolerate a hanyou, and only that because of her rank and his young age. Even if they would give in to her need to grieve, she'd hardly have the time... not with her Beloved’s son to raise.

The infant in her arms cried; she rocked her arms to soothe him. When that didn't help, she wrapped him in the fire-rat haori. Fingers tipped with tiny claws grasped at the fabric; he took a deep breath and then calmed.

For them to survive, she had to look to the future... to the child who lived when he would have died if not for his father - the man who sacrificed himself in his family's place.

Izayoi squared her shoulders. She took the first stumbling steps forward...

as her past burned behind her.

A/N:
Originally posted to LiveJournal on May 21, 2010
Word Count: 250
Prompt: "Ember"