He loved her, no one could tell him he didn't. Years of fights and love, devotion and strength had given him a happiness he had yet known. She has given him sons, three sons with silver hair, two with their father's golden eyes. Only their daughter looked as her mother did. Ebony hair, long and graceful, and brown eyes that glittered with amusement and deviousness.
The summers had came and passed. And he grew wearily of another foe that came brandishing magnificent weaponry he couldn't defeat.
Time.
There was no sword that could stop her from aging. No youkai trick he could use to force her body into defiance of that ruthless enemy.
And yet he couldn't leave her. Just couldn't go.
Even when she forgot him, and asked absently for the babies that were now grown and mated themselves.
Even as her brilliant hair grew as white as his own, and her face grew twisted with age.
He never left her.
Never loved her any less.
Their children came often, hugging their mother who only gazed through them. And sometimes she broke his heart by whispering endearments to the wall baring a name that wasn't his own.
Sometimes he angered when she pushed him away, snapped those dulling chocolate eyes, and demanded what she wanted under the threat of lonely nights. He hadn't the heart to tell her his nights were never lonely. Even if the pretty faces couldn't fill the void she was leaving.
He ached at times for her old fire. And though it shamed him, he was never as joyful at hearing her raspy, harsh voice, than he was when she was once younger. When her laughter rang like bells along the walls and trees and her smile rivaled the flowers in beauty. He longed for the days when she passionately clung to him during long nights, crying his name and clenching her teeth at the intensity of their love.
It hadn't been so for years.
And their children had grown, and missed her just as much as he. Their daughter spending endless hours petting her mother's hand, talking about the world when her eyes fogged all over again and she wondered aloud who her own daughter was.
The pain had been unbearable.
But he knew, knew the first moment he laid her down in his arms it would be this way. He knew that she would grow old before youth had even left him.
He knew.
Time was something different for them both. Weighted and measured for her, whose days grew short and moments more treasured, while he still had yet left the glory of his prime.
And as he stared at her grave, the pain welled up in his chest all over again.
The price for daring love a human.
ADR: For anybody who has ever loved a human/demon pairing. I didn't put any names in it, so they can be who you choose.