This story is a prompt based story. It is a Kiba/Linah story for my little sister. Linah is my sisters OC, and she is AWESOME. :D I do not own Naruto.

Prompt Provided By: Lexie

Prompt: Ashes

Ashes to Ashes

Form dust you were made, and to dust you will return. But it is to ashes that the ninja shall return, and it is ashes that I have walked upon my entire life. I have learned not to ask questions to the women in the village that are dressed in black, and I have learned not to fall victim to the grief of a lost comrade. I am desensitized.

That is the reason that I pulled away from the love that my teammate had begun to show towards me. He is the one person in the village that I had been in complete conflict with since I came here, but eventually it became a teasing friendship. He wanted to be closer than we were, but I had refused to allow myself to become one of the women dressed in black. I had been hurt before, and if I let him in I risked the chance of being hurt again.

It was too late for me to say no, we were married that spring, and I was to become a mother the following year. That baby became my reason to survive, and I continued to tread ashes as she grew. I still knew that the world was full of grief, but there was a brighter side to the pain. A hope that filled my heart. The ashes were replaced by a burning fire that would never be put out. My husband and I lived out our dangerous lives, and raised another. We were reluctant about letting our little girl into the life we lead, but her will to protect her village was stronger than ours to protect hers.

Watching her thrive was the light of my life; she was excellent in what she did, and learned faster than most her age. My husband still watched her with a protective gaze even as we grew old, and she grew into a women. Watching your child grow up is like watching the sun move across the sky; it goes by much to fast, but it burns brightly enough to warm your very soul. Burning brings ashes though, and I knew that my daughter was growing up in ashes just as I had, and I knew she'd also grow old in ashes. Never had I known though how close the ashes really were.

I stand here now holding ashes, but not the ashes that I'd become accustomed to. They are the ashes of my late husband. The man I loved, and raised a child with. They are the ashes of a man who would throw his life away in order to save another's. The ashes of a father that truly loved his daughter more than himself, and the ashes of a man who deserves the highest honor among men. The ashes that I am now to spread into the wind so he can fly above the village he protected his entire life to join the ashes of his fallen comrades, and the ashes that I will one day join myself.

"Goodbye, Kiba. You are already sorely missed." I choke slightly as the wind picked up, and I watched him drift away. I swear to this very day that the wind answered back in the voice I would recognize till the end of my days.

"I will never be far, Linah... I will never be far."