Steps
Our first meeting was in battle.
Our second meeting was at a river.
Our third a funeral.
Our fourth in death.
Our fifth as mewling, puking, newly born babes.
Our sixth had dancing, and the cautious strings of "do they, don't they" began to wind their way around us.
Our seventh meeting was under a moon, with hot breath and cold noses, a too-tight clinch and awkward phrases. Meaningless words and bruised flesh melted.
Our eleventh meeting was composed of sweat, heat, fusion and surrender.
Our twelfth meeting was once again death.
Our thirteenth, an unlucky number, was by a hanyou's side, and she had forgotten. Half-remembered lives and promises rose to my lips, but she was gone, twirling through the world with another soul to hold. The number had somehow been skewered, it was my after my twelfth, but before her first. Something had gone wrong.
Eons passed.
Our fourty second meeting was in battle and death.
Fifty times we met, with fifty different bodies, and fifty times we took one step closer.
Our final meeting was in life, and then, at the edge of the world, we knew.