InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Seven Feudal Fairy Tales ❯ Our Story ( Chapter 53 )

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi and other associated companies.

 

 

Chapter Fifty-Three: Our Story

 

 

Flickering amber speckling her vision, the multitude of fiery stars illuminating the black glass ceiling reflected warmly in Kagome's sepia eyes. Lingering in a hypnotic trance, her absently given sight flowed over the brilliant display of mirroring torch lights while she felt feebly for the invisible knot that tightened in her chest. With its tangled web of roots delving deep to shorten her breaths and ache her heart, these strangling threads of worry had woken her from her soothing sleep. Luxuriously soft and clean against her bare skin, the plush pile of ivory fur she was nestled in and the smooth caress of silk layered over her only proved to further swell her crippling anxiety. What had she done?

 

The tickle of claws trailed by the firm grace of fingers slipped over her flat belly to pause at the curve of her waist, drawing her away from the dazzling, faux sky and to the unavoidable reality that slept at her side. The tired gray beneath his eyes faded and the burgundy of his eyelids richly dark, the sleeping youkai lord met her worried sight as he rested peacefully, breathing evenly in a gentle slumber. Fitful dreams of suffocating, purple fog having evaporated with the bonds of his shame, the demon's calm countenance held no line of ill-ease while several furrowed her brow.

 

“You are troubled, miko?” he asked in a smooth baritone, flushing a startled gasp from her lips with his sudden question. Golden eyes opening slowly to reveal the black slits of his pupils, his impassive gaze caught hers and left her with no escape.

 

“No, I'm fine,” the school girl murmured back, sincerely wishing she could look away to the obsidian sky high above and avoid his inquiring stare that easily saw through her thinly veiled lie.

 

“Hn,” he snorted after a moment with a lean eyebrow rising slightly with his curiosity before he pressed on as if she had said nothing. “Why are you troubled?”

 

“It's nothing. Don't worry about it.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I don't know. Somehow, this wasn't how it was supposed to happen.”

 

“How what was supposed to happen?”

 

“This. Us,” she clarified hesitantly, her voice quaking faintly as she attempted to name the cold fear that twisted deep down to her gut. “I thought what we did would be different. I can't lie. It was wonderful and amazing beyond my imagination, but even so there was something that was missing. Something I expected to be there and it wasn't. As close as I feel to you and as deeply as I care for you, I don't think I love you.”

 

A dark chuckle rumbled softly in his throat at her nervously given admission, its warm ease contrasting sharply with her near stutter. Eyes growing glossy with deeper lines to crease her already worried expression, Kagome met his mild laugh with sheer astonishment, stirring her uncomfortable guilt into a swift boil of unexpected rage with his irreverent attitude to heat it.

 

“Is that all,” Sesshoumaru remarked coolly, inciting her fury further.

 

“Is that all?! The first time is supposed to be with the one you love. I don't love you and now I think I might regret it. And I don't want to regret it.”

 

“The unavoidable mortality of your race breeds such foreign customs. Allow me to understand, you believe that in order to share intimacy without regret then you must love that person?”

 

“I thought I did. But now I'm not so sure.”

 

“We are not without bonds, miko,” he persuaded, lifting his hand from her slight waist to gently cradle her chin with his fingers. Pale skin luminescent in the flickering of the distant fires, the school girl stared back at the calm, unfettered look of the tai youkai and felt her nervousness ease a bit with his cool assurance. “One could conceivably count our bonds as stronger than anything as simple as love.”

 

“What we have is stronger than love? How can that be? When we first came here, you tried to kill me and now after a few adventures we have something stronger than what I might share with…”

 

“With?”

 

“With someone else,” she evaded with a deep rouge dyeing her cheeks, her sight averting everywhere but to the knowing gaze of the youkai lord beside her. “At any rate, it doesn't make sense.”

 

“To a casual observer, perhaps that argument would have merit. Before our time here, we merely knew of each other and what we knew did not place us on the best of terms. However, can you say that you are the same person that you were when you first read the scroll? That you are unchanged by the experiences that you have endured here?”

 

“I guess you're right. So much has happened,” Kagome tentatively agreed in near whisper, her thoughts sifting through the different tales and how they had shaped her. With a fresh blush of embarrassment, she considered her earlier ignorance in placing the plight of homeless farmers before the safety of a princess. Lesson learned, she then campaigned with the bold foolishness that she understood what it meant to be compassionate. Misguided altruism leading her march, she sought to challenge the peace of a dragon king and paid well with a still healing cut across her cheek. While these inescapable weights of complicated morality befell her, the hapless school girl could do little but shoulder their consequences. Yet as she was burdened beneath them, she had found strength and wisdom that she could not now imagine being without. The realization of her fruiting maturity ripened in her dark eyes and she returned the gaze of the demon lord, finally understanding what he had already discovered. “I'm not the same, am I? I really have changed.”

 

“That is for you to decide, not I. Nevertheless, if you have indeed changed so greatly in this meager breadth of time that we have shared within this realm, could it have been possible to do it without establishing bonds? Without relying on another for support and appropriately in turn giving the very same support you have received?”

 

“I don't think I could have. You've helped me so much and in ways no one else has even tried. You didn't hold my hand, but you were at my side. Maybe that's what I always needed and never had. Someone who didn't keep me from falling, but who was there to catch me if I did. And I think even though you'd never admit to it, it's what you needed too.”

 

“Hn,” he snorted with a supercilious air.

 

“Still, with everything that has happened,” she continued, concealing her smirking amusement at his dismissive attitude behind the inevitable gravity of her next question. “What will happen to us when everything is over? What's going to happen to our bond when we're no longer traveling through the scroll?”

 

“Every story has its beginning, middle and end, miko. We are no different for when we finish our journey here another awaits us and one we are not meant to share.”

 

“I thought so.”

 

“Are you disappointed?”

 

“No, to tell you the truth. Instead, I'm actually a little relieved,” she admitted with a nervous laugh before dwelling on the earlier words of his reasoning that reminded her of a wise, old, fruit merchant who spoke of something similar. “The monk asked me before I got on the boat what my story was and the more that I think about it now; I believe he really meant our story.”

 

“Our story?”

 

“Yeah, our story. This is it, isn't it? Locked in the scroll, we play the roles of heroes in each of the seven fairytales, but beyond that, there's another story. The story of our journey here and what we learn and how we grow as we travel.”

 

“Hn.”

 

“We have to enjoy the journey while it lasts, because one day it will be finished and all we'll have are the memories,” she continued sagely, sliding over to rest her head of tousled ebony tresses against the dip between his broad shoulder and chest. Lying on her side and against the warm skin of his torso, Kagome ran her fingers playfully through the groomed, silver hairs of his muscular chest. “That's why I don't want to regret it and why I won't be sad when it's over. I want those memories to cherish. To hold inside and to remember fondly on rainy days, you know?”

 

“To treasure for the brief time you have it?” he added, recalling a quote of wisdom his great-grandsire had imparted to him. “And then treasure the memory for the years that follow?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Then I believe not enough has been accomplished to warrant a proper memory to be so well honored.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I have received one moment of intimacy in exchange for thirty-five of my years. This Sesshoumaru does not care to be swindled and I should demand at least one for each year given.”

 

“Wait… What?!” she stuttered as she sorted through his remark, his chest reverberating with his subtle laughter against her blushing, pressed cheek. “How many times for how many years?!”

 

“Thirty-five, miko.”

 

“I hope you don't want it right now. Maybe in a little while when I'm less sore and--”

 

“I am being facetious,” he interrupted with another chuckle, his comforting hand leaving her chin to slip over her narrow shoulder and down her stretched arm before resting affectionately on her hand that still lay contentedly on his chest.

 

“That wasn't funny,” she scolded seriously; however with her attempted sternness fading swiftly to a light giggle, the school girl only invited another quiet laugh from the demon. Diminishing to satisfied sighs, their amusement receded into silent thoughtfulness while the whispers of ever-burning torches inundated the air. Behind his unexpected attempt at humor, the tai youkai had revealed a fact that Kagome had scarcely wondered if she would ever discover. “Thirty-five years. So, that's how long I was on the island waiting for you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“That seems like such an impossible amount of time. I can't even imagine how I spent twice my lifetime alone and waiting.”

 

“Hn.”

 

“Will you tell me what I was like?” she then asked shyly, biting her lip nervously as she pressed her fortune a bit further. “Who was I when you found me on the beach after all that time?” Haunting as they glimmered in the flickering light, Sesshoumaru's gaze rose to the black ceiling overhead with her lingering questions reflecting in his thoughts like the delicate flames reflected across the carved arches of glass. A long, burgeoning silence brewed to stifle the massive hall, leaving her to wait with unabated hope for his reply and only the sound of his rhythmic heartbeat to console her yearning ears.

 

“You were the island,” he replied at last with a nearly imperceptible and wistful sigh to follow it.

 

“That's it?”

 

“Yes. You were the strength of its peaks and the wildness of its untamed jungles. You were as timeless as its sands with only silvered hair to betray your age and your power was as endless as the ocean that broke upon it. You were beautiful.”

 

“Thank you,” she murmured shakily at the unanticipated compliment, the salty taste of her relief building in her throat while she attempted to quell the impending sobs that she knew she couldn't stop. Streams trickling down her cheeks, she rubbed her face soothingly against the side of his chest as she shuddered lightly. “Thank you. Thank you.”

 

Soon, the comforting prickle of claws stroking her hand quieted her voiceless weeping. Lifting her head as she sniffled the last of her grateful tears away, she spied up at him with her reddened eyes and smiled gently.

 

“Hn,” he snorted. “Are you ready, miko?”

 

“Yes,” she answered with a nod, but remained nestled in her comfy spot until he decided to sit up to deprive her of it. Brushing away his crimson and white coat that had proven a welcome blanket as they had slept, the tai youkai found his footing and stood up in the golden-hued light.

 

“Hm, you seem to be decidedly unready,” he observed aloud with a raised brow, his sight traveling appreciatively over her blushing nudity still cradled in his piled fur.

 

“I am,” she mildly lied, before enjoying the softness of the deep pelt with one last writhing stretch. A strange look gracing his features as she delighted in the downy fluff quickly spurred her to her feet with renewed embarrassment over her indulgence. “All right. All right. Let's go.”

 

“Let us hope.”

 

Together they gathered their strewn clothing, taking turns as they slowly adorned each other. The cool caress of fabric and the tickle of busy fingers ghosting over skin, they wound fundoushis and pulled on pants. They tucked in haori coats and slipped into tunics. They weighted his shoulders with black, oiled leather and wove his elaborate gold and navy obi belt around his waist. Summoning his aura, the youkai connected once more with his pelt as the school girl waited patiently with his heavy swords scooped carefully in her arms. Then with the loud clack of geta sandals and the soft tap of boots, they were dressed.

 

“Where is the plaque?” Sesshoumaru asked, sliding his weapons securely into the sash at his hip.

 

“Right here,” Kagome answered after a moment, bending down to pick up the thin, obsidian plate once lost in the sea of like stone that made the smooth floor. Turning it over in her hand, she found the etched kanji that told the next lines of the poem. “Lonely bamboo cutter cuts. A brilliant light reveals.”

 

“Tiny princess wakes,” he continued, reading the poetry over her shoulder as he came to stand behind her. “To his home she is welcomed. Her beauty unmatched.”

 

“Knights assemble for her hand. Impossible gifts are sought.”

 

“An emperor's lust. Messenger of moon rescues. Fly home in the night.”

 

With the final words spoken, the plaque shattered into glittering, blue dust and the soft radiance of moonlight filtered through the crack between the broad, iron doors of the fortress' entrance. Walking toward the waiting fairytale and their last adventure, they paused in their steps as they approached the blocked way.

 

“This is it, isn't it? The final one?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“We're doing it together like always.”

 

“Without doubt, miko.”

 

Then after exchanging a nod, they each pressed their palms against a heavy door and pushed.

 

 

A/N: This is it. One more fairytale and we'll be at the end. There might be some confusion on FF.Net and on Paperdemon. I had to edit out the lemon I wrote, so there might be a little bit of a jump for you guys between the last two chapters. It was hinted that they were undressing at the end of the previous chapter, but I wasn't being terribly subtle, but some of the reviews lead me to believe that I was.

 

As for the Q&A, I don't know if anyone really wants another one this close to the end, but if there are questions, then we'll have one. Last time everyone got a little carried away, so try to keep it down to one question each. The Dragon King can only be in the water for so long before he gets really surly.