A Little Fate by Elizabizzle

A Little Fate

A castle high on the mountaintops was dark with the exception of one room. From that room, a window glittered with firelight. There were two people in it, one lying on the bed, the other by the window.

He stared out of the icy glass as the freezing rain poured down in sheets. The flowers wouldn't make it through the night. His gaze flickered from the window to the woman in the bed. He wasn't sure he would make it through the night.

He turned his back on the unending darkness and walked to the side of the bed. He looked down at the face, so pale and fragile in the soft glow from the candles. Even asleep she stirred something in him. A kind of basic and primitive need, although it ran much deeper than just basic. He had long since stopped wondering how someone such as she could tap the depths of so many different emotions in him. He could argue it was the scent of his mate, the scent of his mark beneath her shoulder blade, but he would be lying. He knew it was she, and only she.

His lips dusted across her forehead and he left his cheek to linger pressed against hers. He heard her breath, steady and soft, in his ear. Steady and soft, just like her. She was his constant; the one thing he knew would always be there. She was the only thing he ever allowed himself to depend on. She was his.

The footsteps had him straightening and walking to the door. He opened it and slid out, seconds before his guest turned the corner.

"Hey." The red-haired demon bowed slightly, his emerald colored eyes dancing to the door that was just closed. He sighed heavily, his unasked question already garnering an answer with just one look at the face of the man in front of him.

"Would you mind if I went in?"

After an almost imperceptible nod of the head from his friend, the red-haired demon walked into the room. He shut the door behind him and leaned his forehead against the cool wood. Drawing in a deep breath, he tried to imprint the smells in his mind and his heart. The pine from the door, the wax from the candles, the underlying scent of rain and water from outside the windows. But the one scent he worked hardest on, lingered on, was the scent of the woman in the bed. Flowers just beginning to bloom, a spring just beginning to melt, fire at it's highest degree.

Turning, he walked out from the comfort of his senses and over to the bed. He ran his clawed hand through her hair, whispered it across her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered once, twice, then opened. The strong, almost violently stormy gray eyes he was used to seeing were blurred to the opaqueness of a snowstorm due to age. He told himself he should have expected nothing less.

"Shippo." Her voice was the same. Even brushed with sleep, he could tell it was. And because of it, he smiled, forced back the emotion that threatened to overcome him.

"Hi, mom. How are you?"

While her eyes had blurred, her vision had not. She saw the fight for control and felt her own heart clench in response. "Don't go getting all emotional on me, now. I'm perfectly fine. It's hard enough with him," she pushed her chin in the direction of the door, "I don't need it from you too."

He smiled and his eyes crinkled at the corners. Taking her hand in his, he admired the difference. His was dark, strong and big, the fingers long and lean with claws at the end. Her hand was white and small, with nails rounded at the tips, and skin soft with age. Such a drastic difference, yet their hearts were the same. Love and acceptance, strength and valor. Those amongst many were just a few to be mentioned.

So they talked. They spoke of many things: of their travels and triumphs, of beauty and peace. They talked about the first years, of their journeys and hardships, but how they had made it fun and turned them into great stories. They talked until the moon was full and high in the sky, until she started to drift into her dreams. He smiled at her, whispered to her to go to sleep when she tried to fight it. She murmured to him, a whispered declaration of love and he leaned forward to brush his lips across her cheek.

It came as no surprise when he stepped out into the hall and saw him standing there, waiting patiently outside her door.

"Thank you," Shippo said quietly. "I'm going to stay close by, if you don't mind."

"You'll know," Said the older man.

Shippo nodded. "Yes." He put a hand on the mans shoulder as he stepped up next to him. "She loves you. More than I've ever seen her love anyone or anything. She'd stay, if it was up to her." He looked the older man straight in the eyes. "She'd stay if love was all it took."

Without replying, the other man walked past Shippo and into the room.

It was so much like her, this room was. The walls were a warm color, a dusky sunrise that promised a wonderful day. The room was lavishly adorned not with money, but with love. The king sized bed she lay on was made by his hand, as well as the dresser that held her clothes, along with his. Drawings and paintings were along the walls, ones that Shippo had drawn when he was younger, and ones that the village children had drawn for her years ago. Dignified paintings were sparse. One was above the bed, a perfect painting of the ocean, with Gaelic words stroked across the bottom of the sand. She had loved the ocean, and had constantly spoken of how romantic Gaelic was.

He heard her breath catch, then sigh as she awakened from sleep. He stepped over to her, slid in and under the sheets, next to her. He buried his face in her hair as his arms wound around her waist, pulled her to him so there hearts met. Her body, her soul, shimmered with love for him and stripped him bare, left him vulnerable. Her weathered hand touched his cheek; words formed on her lips, but were left unspoken.

"A ghra. A amhain." My love. My only. The words tumbled out of him, into her. She repeated them as her lips brushed his, as she curled into him.

Moonlight snuck through the sheets of rain, the pillars of clouds and flooded the room in a soft, ethereal glow. It's feathery fingers toyed across the bed and lit up the two mates.

He sighed, allowed himself the small human gesture of weakness. She was his constant, his strength, and she was his weakness.

"I am sorry." His voice was soft, quiet. A whisper from one love to the other. He felt her lips turn up against his chest.

"There was nothing you could have done," She said, trying to soothe his wounded heart.

"You wanted children, you deserved them." He closed his eyes against the pain. "I would have gladly given them to you if I could."

Because she knew he would, and because she felt his pain as sharply as her own, she ran a hand over his cheek. "I know. I know."

As a silence fell upon them, he let his mind wander. How different she was now, but only in body. Her mind and soul were still the same, still as sharp as when he first came across her. The years had changed her though. They had turned her from a young, vibrant woman, to an old, wizened one. They had more than 60 years together, and those 60 years weren't nearly enough. He didn't know why her body wouldn't adapt to his blood, why it wouldn't share his life span. All he knew was while he stayed the same, she slowly changed.

He loved her, though. If it was possible, he loved her more than he ever had, and he loved her more than he ever loved anything in his life. She was his soul mate, his one and his only. She was a part of him; in every way someone else could be a part of a person, and more. He knew that without her, he would cease to exist. Oh his body would remain, for he had many centuries left ahead of him. But his soul, his heart, the very things that made him, him, would no longer be. For once she left this earth, once she left him, he would follow. He had no choice. She was his, as he was hers.

Their souls were connected so deeply that nothing could change their course of fate. They were destined never to be apart, and he wasn't about to argue. To think he had ever lived without her astounded him. She brought out the good in him and helped drive away the bad. She helped him embrace what he was, who he was, and what he could be.

She stirred in his arms. "I'm glad I'm here."

He brushed a hand over her hair, silver with time. She smiled up at him. "I always envied you your silver hair. I never thought I'd have my own."

She saw the pain in his eyes and though her body was worn with the years, her heart and soul could still recognize him, his thoughts, his fear, and his pain. To ease it, to ease him, she pressed her lips against his.

"A ghra. A amhain."

He lay there long after she had fallen into the darkness, with her small body pulled against his. He stroked her back, her hair, as her breathing slowed, and her heartbeat skipped. He ignored the twist in his own heart as he saw the little green demons slither toward her, to try and catch her soul. He felt it the moment her heart stopped beating in her chest, because his heart matched hers. He felt the separation of spirit and body, embraced the knowledge of what was coming. For he knew, now that she was gone, so was he.

In a world full of demons and humans alike, there were bound to be differences. In a world where good and evil was at a constant battle, pure goodness was a hard thing to come by, yet it had fallen into his lap as willingly as a baby would latch onto his mother's breast. It was a miracle like that purity, which ultimately called for a sacrifice. For good cannot come without evil and life cannot come without death. Though they each held hands with their counter-part, and they fulfilled different destinies, they were intertwined like lovers were. Linked to mind, body, and soul. For one could not exist without the other, like the shadow could not exist without the light. He was the shadow, and she was his light.