Token Heart
Prompt: Ses/Kagura, "Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?"
There was a lot of fire, and Kagura wasn't keen on getting burned.
She'd never had much patience for the stuff. It dried out her winds and crackled like it held a secret, and she was certain that the secret was that she was flammable and the fire was hungry.
Still, she'd braved that hell to pull out the little brat, stubbornly waiting on Sesshomaru to return and save her. Even as strong willed as the child was, she couldn't hold out against Kagura's hand and the pull of her feather.
She should have just let the girl and that gremlin-creature burn, but they were all that proved Sesshomaru had a heart. She knew all about the downfalls of having a heart, and she desperately needed to be reminded Sesshomaru had his downfalls.
If only she could find him to gloat over his near loss.
And maybe reassure him, before he found his way to the ashes of the hut he'd left his followers in.
The night was eerily silent, the wind parting easily for her as she searched for the particular strain of power that Sesshomaru called on.
She found it, is own special current, and rode it like a river to the demon dog thrashing his head. A scaly green arm hung from his mouth. It fizzed poison onto his teeth, or maybe that was his own poison, ruining the arm he'd hoped to use for himself.
"You know, it would be easier to find an arm if you stopped shredding them all the time." Kagura floated to safe ground, waving the girl on. It did no good. The girl had already begun to run to Sesshomaru before Kagura had even finished stepping off her feather.
The child listened to none but him.
Sesshomaru shrunk. His wide eyes narrowed, thinned, turned. The natural snarl of his dog form curled into the passive line that smoothed out his cheeks and left him standing pretty in front of her. She'd envied him his beauty on more than one occasion.
She envied it most when it made the space where her heart should be flutter.
"Lord Sesshomaru! I waited like you told me, but the lady said we had to go!" Rin scowled at her, hands on her hips. "I told her you said!"
Sesshomaru's lips twitched up, just the slightest crease in the smooth linelessness of his face. She'd almost missed it, but she'd memorized every gentle curve and dip of those features.
"Am I imagining things, Sesshomaru, or did you just smile for me?" Kagura fluttered her fan over her face. She couldn't show him she was pleased. He'd take it as weakness.
Kagura knew the weaknesses of a heart, even if she no longer had one.
"Must have been the trick of the light, Kagura." Sesshomaru's hand smoothed the shawl at his side.
He had always been a man of few words, but she had saved his servant and his strange pet. He could at least acknowledge her. She'd opened her mouth, intending on a snarky remark, when there was a breeze, a gentle pressure at her hand.
Glittering, catching the light on all sides, was a stone. It wasn't a shikon shard, but something entirely useless. A hard won bauble, if the darkness in the center of it was to anything to judge it by. A pretty dark thing, a token.
A token of gratitude, that he'd acquired just for her.
And that had been before she'd saved his bratty duo.
She rolled the trinket in her fingers, tucked into her sleeve. It was a secret, a thing just for them, and Naraku could not have it. It was precious. It was evidence.
Kagura had evidence that Sesshomaru had a heart.
And hearts were weak, weak things.