There are moments. by OnyxIvyStone

There are moments.

I do not own Inuyasha.

Dedicated to he who owns a piece of my heart. Sun to my moon. Peter to my Wendy.

And, also, to Langus who gave me a wonderful piece of advice.

There are moments.

There are moments that force us to our knees simply because there is nowhere else to go. On our knees. Weakness. Vulnerabilities to the stance no matter how you look at it. Can't wield a sword. Can't draw a bow. Not in any way that is effective. Why is it in the moments we are most whole that we are most vulnerable? An arm returned and with it a weapon. A soul completed and with it one pure wish. We were broken from the moment we met but we were too lost to see much more than our shadows in the darkness. We were driven to our knees, though, in the end. Driven there because we could no longer stand. Driven there in a moment of loss. What did we have to fight for? A lover who never really loved. A child that was not of the flesh. They were our worlds. They were the reasons we kept going. There is only one thing more dangerous than someone with something to protect... It's someone who has lost everything they ever loved and no longer has anything to lose. We were on our knees. We were vulnerable and we had lost everything. We should not have succeeded. Not alone. But we did. Lost. Broken. Alone. Forced to our knees. Lone candles fluttering in the night. We were enough to force the darkness back.

We pass as shadows in the forest. Shadows of who we once were. The fearsome inuyoukai warrior, who had claimed his father's lands with the blood of those who tried to oppose him. The gentle, loving human miko dragged from the future to a destiny that she could have run away from but chose to make her own. We pass each other among the trees and our shadows touch.

"Are they dead? Are they all dead?"

"Taken by the monk's curse, but Rin was taken by the darkness first."

"I was too late."

We turn and look at each other across the small expanse. Amber clashes with azure. Day clashes with night. "We were both too late."

"So you know he is dead."

"I know it in your gaze, Miko."

"Did you love her?"

"Did you love him?"

"Yes. In the only way he would let me. In the only way I could." A bird sings somewhere in the near distance of its joy in the still, silent beauty of the space between civilization still called nature. "He was my hero. He was my brother."

"And in that, we see him in a similar light."

"Are you still planning on taking his sword?"

There's a space of silence between us. "No. I have all the strength I need... What wish will you make to end the jewel?"

The glow of it's pure light warms the distance. "There's no wish I could make pure enough now that would end the war within it. It's pure and I'm pure so long as I remain as I am... I can protect it."

"Miko..."

"Yes, Sesshomaru?"

"If ever you need assistance in the protection of the jewel, walk to the West while the sun rises on the day of the crescent moon. Do not stop until the moon sets in the same skies. At daylight, you will find me."

"Why would you offer this to me?"

"Perhaps because I wish."

"Perhaps I need to stand alone for once, Sesshomaru, Lord of the West... But I thank you, all the same."

The world is too heavy, the future too grand. We begin to make our way and yet, both of us pause. "She made weeds flowers and starlight the departed staring down from a black sky. There is less now in the world for her lack."

"Yes. There is."

We turn from each other and walk away, neither knowing our direction nor caring to. Time will pass. We will circle each other in our eternal wanderings, but never meet. Such is the way of day and night. Yet, there are moments when the night is longest or the day outlasts the darkened cool, we meet across an expanse, casting our shadows together before we move onto our own paths again, grateful for the knowledge that we do not own the sky.