Inuyasha and Kagome. More romantic than romance.
Romance and Reason
"We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong."
- Sir Arthur Eddington
The night was warm and still, calm pervading the area that seemed, tonight, to be miraculously free of anyone trying to attack them or kidnap them or any other of those annoying things that so often seemed to interrupt them. They had set up their camp for the night in a clear, shallow valley, and Kagome and Inuyasha lay side by side in the long grass at the start of the slope, propped up a little by the natural incline. Sango and Miroku had wandered off a while back, looking for firewood (or so they claimed- she was sure that soon enough they would hear the ringing slap that would indicate that he had gone one step too far) and Shippo was curled up with Kirara, fast asleep. She felt her own eyelids begin to slide shut just as he spoke.
"Hey, Kagome?"
She glanced to the side. He was staring intently at the clear, dark sky. Tonight there were no clouds to obscure their view of the sky.
"Yeah?"
"You know how, in your time, they know what more things are?"
"I guess we do."
"Have they started finding things out about what's… up there?"
Kagome too looked up, at the blanket of stars and the bright, waning gibbous moon. It was so much clearer in the feudal era than it ever could be in her own time, where the sky was dimmed in its magnificence with irrevocable air and light pollution.
"You mean the sky?"
He nodded.
"Well, it's called space."
"What is it?"
"I don't really know. I probably would if I actually could do half of my work, rather than being dragged off here to help you guys out."
She sniffed at that, and he rolled his eyes. After a moment she broke her silence once more.
"It's just dark space, with planets- that's what we call places like where we live- like ours floating around in it, though we . And the sun, and moon, and stars. We've sent rockets and satellites up there; taken pictures... whole institutes are dedicated to finding out."
"What are rockets and satellites?"
She rubbed her nose for a moment, before deciding that the long answer really wasn't necessary at this moment in time.
"Sort of like… well, I guess they are things to travel on."
"Like your bike?"
"Ummm… kind of."
"So your bike can go up there?"
She rolled her eyes.
"No. You need to… oh, never mind."
"Have you been to space?"
"Several people from my time have been to space. Some have even walked on the moon."
He turned to look at her, wide-eyed, amazed, and she smiled at the sight. She forgot, sometimes, how unusual the normality of rational exploration and scientific discovery and advance was to those in this era. What she took for granted was given an almost magical significance here- she still remembered the first time she had given Sango conditioner for her hair. It was kind of ironic, actually, that the science books she was supposed to be studying from were stared at as if they were magic tomes, when to every school-child she knew only looked at them with dread.
"Really?"
"Uhuh."
"What did it look like?"
"The moon? Grey. Barren. It is sort of lifeless."
"Not… beautiful?"
"It is in it's own way, but not as you'd like to imagine."
He sighed heavily, and turned back to staring at the sky.
"Oh… What are stars?"
"I don't really know for sure, but the I think that the generally taken theory i-"
"Actually, don't tell me. I'd rather not know. It kind of… takes the magic away."
"Logic kills the romance?"
A smile ghosted across his face.
"Something like that."
"What do you think they are?"
He pulled a face, more to himself than to her.
"Honestly?"
"Of course."
"I think they're souls of the pure, suspended forever in peace."
"Peace? I wouldn't have thought that you would want that… isn't it a little dull?"
"Perhaps. But then again, I've never known it, so I'd like to try."
She noticed for the first time that his hands were folded across his chest, rather than close to his hilt. He looked relaxed, as if he were actually letting his guard down, taking some time out- only ever a good thing, considering his knuckles were normally white from holding it so tightly in trepidation.
"I think it is a wonderful theory."
"Do you have one?"
"No."
"Why?"
She smiled at him.
"Because I find myself suspended between two worlds. The logic of my time, and the wonder of yours, and I can't tear myself away from either."
"Then don't."
She stared up at the stars again, and the mysteries yet to be unfolded, then back at Inuyasha, at all the things she did not understand, and wondered if, perhaps, not doing anything about could indeed be the best method.
Perhaps it was better to make no choice, after all. Her world, and the reason, and his world, and the romance- both had their merits.
Either way she would lose out.