Author's Notes: I began writing this once in my life when I was dealing with some depressional issues, and I am happy to say that is no longer the case. Still I really do have a soft spot for it, because it deals with real themes of depression even if I can't say that I experienced the exact same circumstances. At first I was going to make this one chapter, but I've decided not to. No telling how long it will be. For this story there is an actual plot, but I have no clue how far I will stretch it. So to wrap this author's ramble up I must say this is a bit angsty and if you are looking for a cheerful story this really isn't it.

Remnants of a Fairytale

By: xXxMirokuisMinexXx

A lone man stood on the side of a grassy hill, the sun just rising to kiss the sky, as his blank gaze fell on a polished rock, with weeds sprouting up around it. Almost completely taking it over, threatening to smother it.

It seemed like just yesterday, he bemused to himself while running a hand through his long silken hair, but it was so long ago.

It was so strange that out of everything in his life, she was the most vivid memory, no matter how old.

A radiant spark, in a world of dark, his lips twisted into a sad sort of smile, though that flame wavered and almost went out more than once.

He sighed, Once Upon a Time, he mused to himself, there was a lost priestess.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply the scent of the forest. It was probably some of the last of it not yet torn down and settled.

What will happen, he looked down at the centuries old stone, what will happen to you when this haven is settled? Will you be paved over, with out remorse? His brow creased in contemplation. What will happen to the memory of you, miko? Kagome the broken priestess.

He opened his eyes as he thought back to his first significant memory he had of the miko.

The ground was damp beneath his feet. He could hear the squish of his shoes pressing down into the sodden earth. The ground soaked with a shower of blood. Some of which was fairly familiar to him.

He scanned the area with his eyes. Hundreds upon hundreds of dead youkai corpses lay about it, their scent already rank from baking in a full days sun. He subconsciously wrinkled his nose up in disgust. Flies buzzed around noisily, landing on all the different corpses, worms probably already feasted on the quickly decaying flesh.

But none of these demons where his concern. They weren't what he was looking for.

He walked through the sea of dead bodies, stopping momentarily to gaze down at the dead body of a demoness, face first into the dirt. She was the first female he had come across while mulling through the corpses.

He felt as if he was becoming a necrophiliac. He subconsciously wrinkled his nose up at this idea.

He leaned closer to examine her, noting the arrow protruding from her back, reeling back suddenly, not only from the scent of death, but the rancor stench of Naraku. He glared down at the body, kicking it in the side to flip it over.

Empty crimson orbs stared blankly up at him, from a paler than appropriate face.

He contemplated over the smell of the woman, as he watched a roach crawl from her gaping mouth.

He couldn't help but wonder what her connection was to Naraku. He mentally shook himself. This is not why I am here.

He turned from her body and continued walking through the sea of death, stopping every now and then to kick over a body and examine it closer.

"I know I smell it." He said in frustration, "I know I smell Inu Yasha's blood." He felt there was no way his acute nose could be mistaken.

He continued to walk gracefully through the slaughter yard, stepping smoothly over dead bodies, he showed no remorse. He had business to see too. This was business. His eyes took another look over of the area, noticing something off to the side of it, he began pacing towards the before mentioned it, now discerning it as a crater in the earths surface.

He peered into it curiously, bending forward picking up some of the soil and holding it to his nose. The scent was so faint but he was sure…

Inu Yasha.

He dropped the dirt, stood, stepped back, and looked dumbly into the crater. The scent had been so faint and then it just disappeared.

This gets me no where. I still know nothing. He sighed and looked about the area from where he now stood, about to make his leave into the forest, when he saw an appendage poking out from behind a nearby boulder.

This is all such an aggravation. He thought dully to himself as he walked around the boulder to look at the body that lay there.

He surveyed his brother's wench. It took him a good few minutes to recognize her. It had been so long since he had last encountered his brother and his little bevy, and the girl, had changed considerably. He looked at her almost nude form, what he guessed used to be a furisube, hung from her body in shreds. He could not discern its original color. It was too stained with the dark red of her dried blood. Like the demoness of before, an arrow protruded from her chest, but what he found more peculiar, was that in her hands a bow lay, while an empty quiver was just a few feet off.

Surely she didn't shoot herself?

She smelled of salt along with the scent of her blood, and upon closer examination he could plainly see the tear streaks running down her face. He noted her scent wasn't as rank as every other creatures' in the immediate area. She is either alive, or lived longer than the rest.

He kicked her experimentally in the side, before focusing in on her form with his ears. He heard no heartbeat. So she is dead. Pity. She could've told me what happened to the half-breed. He felt no remorse, and there was not a string in his heart pulled, as he turned fully intent on leaving her body there to rot, however there was a pulse at his waste.

Abashed golden eyes looked down at the sword on his hip.

"Tenseaiga?" He questioned cryptically.

It pulsed again, stronger this time. It tugged at his hip towards the girl. He turned, slightly following the swords direction.

"What is the meaning of this? You can't really expect me to resurrect the wench." He looked at it accusingly.

In response the sword only pulsed stronger and faster.

The sound of metal grating metal was heard, as he drew the sword from its' sheath. He looked at the cool, glossy surface of the sword and then to the girl.

"I don't agree with this," His eyes lingered on her body, limbs sprawled out at impossible angles, the arrow protruding ugly from her chest.

But if I resurrect the filth, I can ask of the hanyou, and when I am done I can kill her again.

He nodded his head in his decision; he leaned forward to first pluck the arrow from her chest, before straightening himself, and swiping the long blade across the limp body.

He watched in awe as the gremlins of the underworld disintegrated in front of his eyes.

The only other time he had ever witnessed this, was with Rin. Rin, he sighed mentally. It had been a few months now since he had sent her off to live with a human family residing in a village in his territory. She had grown too old, and he had decided it was best for her to be around mortals, so she could live a normal life…

He found it annoyed him to no end, that he missed the girl.

But that wasn't pertent at the moment. The girl before him was stirring.

"Why?" Her coarse voice flew to his ears in a grating sound.

He stared stolid down at her, as eyes fluttered open to stare at him.

"Why?"

He continued to stare blankly at her.

"Why Sesshomaru?"

He growled, she was starting to aggravate him and she had been alive for only a matter of seconds.

"Why what, wench?" Sesshomaru ground out at her, his eyes slanted into slits at her.

"Why!"

Well that narrows it down a lot. He mentally rolled his eyes.

"It'd be wise wench for you to calm yourself," He stood straighter and looked down at her with indifference.

She openly guffawed at him, rolling her cerulean eyes as she stood herself up.

He could hear every bone in her body pop and protest.

"That is not wise wench," He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Indeed," She spoke evenly to him.

Well, this was unexpected… He though stupidly to himself.

He was amazed by the girls' reaction to everything thus far. She had not cried she had not broken down; she hadn't gone to covering herself upon realizing her clothes were just random stitches on her flesh, hadn't lain on the ground and wallowed in self-pity, though in her cerulean orbs he could see the loss.

He stared at her eyes studying them closer. They weren't as open as they had been a few years back. They weren't as innocent. He had the impression they had born witness to too many things to be innocent any longer.

Sesshomaru watched as Kagome limped to the crater.

"Wench what happened to my brother," He raised an eyebrow at her back.

"Gone,"

"You are vague. Elaborate, now." He growled out at her.

She looked at him over her shoulder.

"Or what Sesshomaru? You will send me back to my death?" He grimaced in his mind. That was not the reaction I expected.

He opened his mouth to further threaten her when she cut him off, "He descended into hell," She motioned with her hand to the crater, "with Kikyou." He watched her eyes fall to the ground again as they took on a far off look.

He cursed the idiot Halfling. At least the family blemish is gone.

Then he was struck by something.

No Tetsusaiga? No tears?

"Does this not bother you?" He truly was curious.

She gave him a sad smile, if you could call it that. "I knew it would happen. I just never expected it to be so soon." She sat down on the grass. "He told me about a month ago that he chose Kikyou," She sighed and looked up at the taiyoukai. "Did you know Sesshomaru that I come from the future?"

He quirked an eyebrow at her she had gone insane under all the stress of the death of his brother.

"Oh don't believe me if you don't want to," She leaned back on her palms looking up at the sky, "But it's true. Five hundred years roughly. Didn't you ever wonder about my odd clothes I used to wear? It's because they are from the future," She said it all so matter of factly that he only slighted believed it.

"Then why don't you wear that garb anymore wench?" He asked motioning to her 'clothes'. He was finding it quite disturbing that she wasn't trying to cover her current state of undress.

Her eyes flashed darkly. "I travel through a well. That very same well was destroyed."

He nodded satisfied with the answer about to ask her something else when she cut him off.

"Inu Yasha destroyed it when he told me he chose Kikyou over me. I suppose he was scared. Scared I would leave in rage and never come back. I have a family on the other side of that well," She stretched her body out a bit more across the grass looking up at Sesshomaru.

"You know I used to think that, too really live you had to give up your life," deep eyes turned up to gaze at him, "but I know now that, that's not true. People live for themselves. Too often with only themselves in mind."

What the Devil is a matter with the woman?

He looked down at her solemnly already slowing flexing his claws to take off her head, with that mouth that refused to stop flapping.

She sat up, timidly placing her palms into the dirt to prop herself up, "We are selfish." Her eyes turned toward the sky.

She was confusing the hell out of him. She had just returned from death and now was speaking to him in such a manner. Where was the depression? Anything! Even the naïve girl she had been would be better expected than this.

"We; me, Inu Yasha, Kikyou, Miroku, Sango, you," her somber eyes drifted up to his, "We. Everyone." Her eyes returned to gazing into the brilliant blue sky. Like she was searching it for some answer.

After a moment she breathed out and pushed herself up, with obvious strain, limping past him as she retrieved her bow, quiver, and then kept walking forward into the thicket of trees.

Sesshomaru raised a quizzical eyebrow at her back. She was so different now, yet still so painfully the same.

"Where are you going wench?" He asked almost amused, as she continued walking not even glancing back to acknowledge him.

"To kill Naraku," She kept her head held high as she continued limping.

There is no doubt now, he thought to himself, she has lost whatever there was of her sanity.

"Do you think this wise in your current state?"

"No," The reply was smooth, breviloquent, and held no fear, it was actually frightening. He watched as she continued limping into the forest, until his ears picked up a light groan before she came collapsing to the earth.

Sesshomaru stared at her heaped up form for a moment, before turning on his heel and began walking away, when a slow pulse started. Immediately accusing eyes were sent to his sword Tenseiga…

He stopped in his tracks, it wasn't his sword. His brows drew together in wrinkles, at his confusion.

If it is not the sword then what? He looked over his shoulder at the girl.

It is the least I could do, he sighed at his lack of luck, seeing as my brother is dead, and there is no care giver present for the girl. He took even steps up to her body before roughly picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder, and departing for the Western Lands.

Who knew I had a conscious he kneeled down to look evenly at the stone, his nose wrinkling in disgust at all the weeds.

"How is it your chosen weapon, are arrows, yet the was how you fell to death," Sesshomaru watched her as she tried her new crutch for the first time, gently placing her bandaged leg to the hard floor beside her bed she resided in, while inside his castle.

She seemed to be ignoring him, fretting her bottom lip in concentration, "Because Kikyou, my incarnation, shot me down, and as I died she pulled Inu Yasha into Hell with her," She was stoic. The pain she held, the pain that none of the healers could see or mend.

In her last moments of life, she had been forced to watch her first love be drug into Hell, by her clay pot incarnation.

"Oh well, though. What's done is done." She meekly smiled up at him as she gained her balance beside the bed. "Is it not?"

"Indeed, it would seem," Though he highly doubted she felt what she said.

He stood back up shaking his head. That is not acceptable. He began pulling at the aggravating weeds as he thought back at the girl.

"You know Sesshomaru," She stared out at the horizon, from her comfortable sitting position on the grassy hill, beneath a red Japanese maple, "I used to love fairytales when I was younger."

Sesshomaru looked at her from the corner of his eyes. Her body reclining back on her elbows, her broken leg sticking out from her furisube wrapped in many cloths, and two firm pieces of wood on either side. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why he let her stay; when she had collapsed back in the forest he had had every intention of leaving her for worm food. Her conversation, he decided after a moment's deliberation. She said some of the most remarkable things. Au courant, brilliant things that someone her age shouldn't have lived through yet. Or maybe you pity her existence. There is nothing left for her. He came to the conclusion that that was a very plausible reason.

"All those Once upon a time's, it was all so magical and romantic," She rotated her good ankle around as she watched the sunset, "but it's much different when you live it," she looked down at her hand at her side, "and when the ending is never really known."

Only a few weeks, he thought to himself, I've really known her, but a few weeks, and yet I know her so well you'd think it'd been years. He recalled how when he'd brought an unconscious human woman, barely dressed, into his palace gates, how the gossip had flown, and then thrice when discovered she was also a miko.

"All fairytales are supposed to have a happy ending," She smiled up at him. A smile put to shame by what it used to be. "That's the magic and beauty of them, right?"

"I suppose," He spoke quietly to her.

"Do you think this one will?" She sounded like she knew the answer as is.

"Quite possibly, I suppose." Sesshomaru turned his head too look down into her face.

"Hm," Was all she said as she looked yet again out at the horizon.

"Why is it, miko, that you still mourn your loses?" He questioned stolidly. "But you do not weep?"

Kagome smiled a small sad smile at him, "How can I cry when there are no tears left?" She sighed, "What is the point of crying, when you know no matter how many tears you shed that can't bring them back to you?"

"Them? You mean the rest of your bevy, too?" She had only told him little things about the whereabouts of the rest of the group never enough to really piece together into a story. "And why pretend to smile, when you have no joy left?"

In a moment even the fake smile fell.

"Because tears would be for me, and my smile is for those whom surround me. I don't want pity, the best way to avoid that is for people to believe I am happy." Her eyes were level with his, deep with what she had learned over years, deep with sorrows unknown to most, deep with passion felt, deep with hopes and dreams so harshly crushed. Deep with afflictions unspoken.

His amber orbs stared blankly down at her, as he realized all of this. All of what she was. All of what was unknown to him. Pain. Life. Love.

"Once upon a time there was a life loving monk," She started calmly taking a deep breathe, always a sign to him that she was about to recall something, as she turned her face to the sky, "He was cursed with a wind tunnel in his right hand. A curse passed on from his Grandfather, due to the malice of Naraku. Too the world he was known as the lecherous monk, with amazing spiritual power, and the amazing blessing of a life absorbing hole in his hand. Too his friends, he was known as the monk madly in love with a demon slayer, though he never really admitted it, whom would lie about some evil spirit to get us a good place to sleep, who loved to laugh even though he was constantly troubled, and who carried the burden of the life taking hole in his hand, one that would eventually take his own.

" And this is of course his tragic flaw, how we come to the ending of the story known as Miroku; One day while I was gone off to the future, the group had just returned to the village on a bogus shard rumor. It was an average evening for the rag-tag group, full of bickering, perverted antics, and punches. When suddenly Miroku stood," She recalled the events as Sango had told her through bursts of sobs the next night. "Kagome! I never said it back! I never said…" She refocused her mind to the story she was telling, "And left the camp in a hurry. The demon slayer jumped up to follow her secret love in worry, worry that he was off to propose to some other woman, when she happened upon him in a clearing kneeled, holding his accursed hand, and chanting.

'Houshi-sama?'

'Leave Sango, now!'

'But wh-' She made a move towards him.

'Damn it Sango I said leave!' He turned too look at her blurry eyed over his shoulder.

She gasped as realization hit her, 'No Miroku I can't!'

'You have to! Now damn it!' He screamed at her in aguish as the wind in the area started to pick up. 'Sango, now…' His tears began to fall harder as he begged his only love to leave and let him die.

'Miroku,' She took involuntary steps back in her shock of the raw emotion in his voice.

'Promise me,' He bit his lip in a sudden spout of pain as the rip became larger in his hand. 'Promise me as my last wish, that you will not allow yourself to be sucked in.'

She nodded at him tears pouring down her face as she began to turn away, she could not bare the sight of her love being drug into his palm.

'And Sango,' She turned back to him the shock apparent on her face at being called back. 'I love you,' He smiled at her brilliantly throughout all the pain. Those were the last words ever heard from the monk known as Miroku, as he was sucked into his cursed palm the very next moment."

Kagome let out a breath at the obvious effort she had put into declaiming her tale.

"No happy ending?" Sesshomaru spoke smoothly.

"In a way, yes there was," the answer shocked Sesshomaru as his head whirled for him to look at the girl who was now forcing herself up into a standing position. "For the first time in his life he let the world know how the real Miroku was, how he felt, and what better way for one to die then as their true selves, and in love?"

"What of the others?" He asked as he eyed her warily as she stood above him, balancing on her one good leg while stretching.

She took up her wooden staff, which served as a crutch. "Another day for those Fairytales, Sesshomaru." She began hobbling off smiling that sad smile back at him, "Well are you coming lazy?"

"You are a peculiar wench," He said to himself as he stood easily walking beside her.

He smiled proud of himself, down at the weed free polished rock. It's the least I can do, after everything that you gave.

He sighed sitting down in front of it, legs crossed, his head resting in his palm. I wish you were here to tell me one of your fairytales. One of your deep insights.

"Why is it woman, that even though you carry such a large burden, that you do not allow your shoulders to droop with the weight?"

"Because Sesshomaru," her face upturned to his, "if that burden wasn't there I wouldn't be who I am today," she hobbled up in front of him, just a day off of her crutch and already pushing the leg, "plus there is always someone who has it worse than I do," she was a few good feet in front of him, as she cast a solemn smile, "besides if not for all of that, you, Demon Lord of The Moonlit Lands, and I, Kagome Higurashi, of the Future, wouldn't be taking a walk through the forest."

He waited until her back was fully too him before he let the tiniest of grins grace his face.