They where both so old, crippled and bent, yet he was still pristine. The very definition of eternal.
Sesshomaru watched the aged couple lean against each other for support, temples touching, as they climbed up the shrine steps. They were unrecognizable to the frantic family searching the grounds.
How many times should they have died by now?
By virtue the hanyou alone should never have made it to adulthood, but here he was a grandfather many times over. Through 500 years the two peculiarities had survived against all odds. Still together, and by the way the hanyou kissed the miko's hand when they reached the top of the steps, still very much in love.
Was that jealously he felt? Preposterous. What did he have to envy?
Sesshomaru still had his youth, his power, and centuries of life ahead of him. No matter that he had never had the same warm body to curl up with two nights in a row. No matter that his pups never played in his lap.
His ears twitched under their concealment as the miko's younger brother reiterated his story about a many armed monster dragging his fifteen year old sister into the well that morning. Unperturbed by the activity around them the two feudal lovers settled on a stone bench beneath the flowering Goshinboku, never removing their grasp from one another.
He could smell it even now, the scent of death hovering around the half-breed. Inuyasha would die before the winter. Undoubtedly the miko who had lived through time would follow before the next spring.
And yet the cycle of their destiny had already started anew. Somewhere 500 years in Sesshomaru's past, the miko was preparing to pull the sealing arrow from the hanyou's chest.
Topaz eyes caught the secretive knowing glances the two elderly lovers sent each other and he finally drew up enough will to turn away.
Walking from the shrine that afternoon Sesshomaru re-evaluated the definition of eternal.