For iyfic challenge's "Loyalty" theme.
Title: Stay
Words: 300
Pairing: Kikyou/Inuyasha
Rating: PG-13/T (Ratings have shippy love too.)
Genre: Romance, Angst, Drama
Notes: I'm aware that the tense is all over the place. It's present tense, speaking of the past, if that makes any sense.
Summary: The world has been cruel to her. Cruelty in, cruelty out. It wasn't that she didn't try.
＊.X.＊
First words out of her mouth: "Why did you betray me, Inuyasha?" His face mirrored hers then, the shock, the resentment. He can claim that it wasn't his claws sending shards of her ribs into her lungs, but she remembers firing that arrow.
Even so, was she disloyal? Never, she tells herself.
It wasn't like her only loyalty was to him. Her people, weak and frightened, her sister, who might never grow up, they were her duty. She may have given Inuyasha a promise, but her life was not hers to give; she was bound to serve them to the bitter end. She had struggled to reconcile her two loves with that arrow, tried to give them both a chance. How could she choose sides if she was loyal to them both? She hated him for putting her in that position. But her decision to fire had nothing to do with hatred.
She chose because neither side was hers.
Death, though. That was hers, if nothing else was.
Urasue engendered no loyalty. The reincarnation? She felt no connection to her. And Inuyasha…
Why?
Of course she's still loyal to him, but this time it's her own heart she must aim at. She's already frozen in time anyway.
Dogs are loyal. But a dog that does nothing but follow its master around can be considered to be purely self-interested, loyal only for the sake of food and pettings. It's when you tell a dog to stay, and walk away that you test its loyalty. A truly loyal creature will resist serving its own purposes by wandering off or following its master.
Naraku thought they had already betrayed each other. As always, he was the fool who understood nothing of love.
Kikyou waits.
And if Inuyasha is loyal, he is waiting too.