Forever Is A Shadow

If there was one thing Sesshomaru had learned growing up, it was that forever did not exist. All existence in life had a birth... and a death. Not just people, for that was the easiest way of seeing it. All ideas, thoughts, feelings, and strength had a life and death. He supposed that was the universe's way of being fair. It was just, he agreed, that everything should die eventually. The only problem he saw was that everything also had a different lifespan. The years passed by quickly as he grew, and demons under his father's command had seen centuries of battle, and the wisest of them had even seen a millennium. Yet the older Sesshomaru got, the older they got, as well, and they perished with old age like any mortal creature.

How long does Father plan to rule the Western Lands? He used to ask himself. His father was the strongest, and the only logical answer was forever. And yet... he ran off to Izayoi and her half-bred pup, and never came back. Not even the strongest could define 'forever.'

"Lord Sesshomaru, will we be together forever?" Her childish voice, innocent and pure, reached him as he rested beneath an oak tree alongside a river. Rin had been catching fish earlier, allowing him to lose himself in thought, but now her chocolate-hued eyes were trained happily upon his own golden ones. If he wanted to, he could watch her seven, short years of life play out within those eyes, read every emotion she had ever felt. But he didn't want to. Instead he looked toward the stream, where Jaken spluttered as he dove for a fish, his stubby arms not long enough to reach it from the bank. His voice was emotionless as he replied,

"Don't be foolish, Rin. Humans do not live forever." Neither did demons, he thought to himself, but compared to her human lifespan, they might as well. She scrunched her nose up in thought, but his answer did not deter her curiosity.

"Will you forget me when I die, Lord Sesshomaru?"

The soft and saddened words seemed to jolt him into a reality he did not know he was absent from. He stared at her for a moment as if just seeing her, and then turned his gaze to hide the cold frost that had just blossomed in his chest. The sinking feeling that he could only describe as dread was unfamiliar to his heart.

"Don't think of such things. You are too young to die." Too young to be thinking of death. Too innocent. Each day with her served as a reminder that she was far more mortal than he was, and he did not like it. She could do something as little as trip and fall, and the impact could snap her ankle, if she landed poorly. Humans were born with such fragile bodies. But that too was the natural order of things. And so he continued his path, listening to her happy, animated laughter, watching her dutifully as she picked her favorite wildflowers, protecting her like he would his own daughter.

When she reached her ninth year in the living realm, she asked him again, her sorrowful gaze looking up at him expectantly. She had grown a few inches, but other than that, nothing else proved that they had been traveling together for almost three years. He stared straight ahead, not wanting to see his cold reflection in her eyes. Her voice was slightly hoarse, but he figured that she was merely tired, as humans needed rest often.

"Lord Sesshomaru, will you forget me when I die?"

Again he answered, "You are too young to think of such things, Rin."

Perhaps, he thought, looking back, Rin might have known the circumstances before he did. Somehow her childish view of the world was wise. She could see beyond what was to be seen, a gift most of the human race did not have. Her perceptions of reality both stunned him and amused him on occasion. She was strong, and it made him (dare he say it) proud that he had raised her to be tougher than most human adults, let alone the children. Rin never cried. She had cried once, having gotten stung by a bee, but all it took was a calm, "Cease your crying, Rin," and she stopped. For good.

So when Rin approached him in the middle of the night a few days later, holding her stomach, he was apprehensive of the tears on her cheeks. He reached out and hesitantly felt her sweat-soaked forehead. She was hot. Not mild fever hot, but burning, flushed skin, severe fever hot.

"Lord Sesshomaru, it hurts..." Rin was sick, that much was certain. He inhaled deeply, hoping to weed out the scent of sickness. All he could smell was the bitter scent of slow death, and it made his blood run cold. He pulled her toward him, allowed her to curl up against his unarmored shoulder. She trembled, even with the heat of his pelt, but was soon asleep. This would be the first night that he would watch her sleep fitfully, with violent coughing fits and whimpers of pain.

She did not wake for two more days, and by then the human healer he had taken her to had given her a few more days at most. Sesshomaru pushed her diagnosis aside. Rin was strong. When she woke, she spotted him sitting not too far from her futon and gave him her usual bright smile. It was the most painful thing he could remember seeing in all of his years in this realm of the living. She reached out to take his hand, but slipped back into consciousness before he could touch her fingertips with his own, and her hand fell limply against the wooden floor.

It did not move again. She passed quietly in her sleep, despite her strength, her genuine spirit. He reached for Tenseiga instinctively, but it made no sound as he pulled it from its sheath, had no affect as he called to it for help to resurrect this girl from death once more. Tenseiga did not stir, and neither did Rin. He left immediately, no longer able to bear the stench of death and sickness and humanity. Just another reminder that nothing was forever, that everything had an end. Ah-Un and Jaken followed wordlessly, and the silence fell so heavily upon Sesshomaru's shoulders that he felt numb, cold. Jaken was riding Ah-Un as they took to the skies, and he asked quietly,

"Is she really gone Milord?"

"Yes."

Sesshomaru half-expected gloating, maybe even insults to the small human child who was once like their shadow, but there was nothing but his watery, audible sniffling. It seems the toad was more fond of the child than he had let on. None of that mattered now. She was gone. To her, their three years together had seemed like a long time.... like forever... an entire third of her life. To him, it was merely three years, and it had passed by like a flower petal on the wind. When they landed on the ground where they had passed before, Jaken shuffled over to a pile of flowers that Rin had left behind and wiped his bulging, watery eyes.

Without looking at the withering flowers, Sesshomaru turned on his heel and continued his trek down the mountain, almost as if in a daze. The silence echoed behind him, where there was once the gentle pattering of youthful footsteps behind him.

Will you forget me when I die, Lord Sesshomaru?

That was impossible. Rin's life had been short, but it had made a memorable difference. As Jaken shuffled behind him, Sesshomaru swore he heard a faint humming on the breeze, melodic and sweet. He closed his eyes, let the tune sink in and melt away the frost he felt in his veins. It was going to be a long life without her.

Will we be together forever, Lord Sesshomaru? He had said no, had always believed that nothing lasted forever. But as he traveled the country, fought thousands of battles that held no meaning, tens of years had passed and he still listened for the sound of bare feet enthusiastically following him. The silence of the decades deafened him, and one realization fogged his mind.

Rin was forever. And Rin was gone.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: I don't know why I wrote this. But it's sad, and I don't like it. =[ Anyway, review if you want, I'd love to hear from you!