Fuiasu stared down at her hands, following the elegant purple stripes that wrapped around her wrists and just touched her palms. Her hands were still beautiful, still young and unlined—but they were not as clean as they had once been. She'd lied and schemed and killed where necessary, and there had always been a part of her that relished in such things. It had never bothered her before.
But it did now.
The vision had come upon her so suddenly, so jarringly abrupt, the vase she'd been holding lay now shattered at her feet in thousands of pieces. She'd seen a boy, his brown eyes full of contempt and hatred and deceit and obsession.
At first, she'd thought it was for herself or even for Kagome, but it was neither. It was Izayoi she saw reflected in the eyes of the human man. It was Izayoi she saw surrounded by fire with a white haired, hanyou inu pup in her arms as the man stood over her with a sword. And it was her mate, her Tōga, bathed in blood and breathing heavily, she saw cut down in the flames.
Fuiasu left the shattered vase where it was and fled.
Panic and fury and agony rippled through her soul as she flew through the skies. She howled, sorrow mingling with rage in that song of inu pain.
When she crashed into the forest and landed in Bokusenou's clearing. "Show yourself," she ordered, red bleeding into her eyes. "This one seeks your counsel."
The clearing was silent and more red bled into her eyes, but Fuiasu was nothing if not a being of pure control. Breathing heavily, she took a moment to calm herself. And then she spoke, even though the tree demon dared to hide himself from her.
"I have come to you before, ancient one. I have shared with you the varied futures we have been faced with and you have always cautioned patience and trust in the fates, in the gods damned gods that rule us. And when the child came to us so many years ago, when Tōga fished her out of that decrepit well, I came to you. I saw everything that she had been before she came to us, all the wars she had fought and the ones she still had yet to face and I knewthat I would lose my mate—"
She broke off on a snarl and whirled away from the silent, bare faced tree, and threw her poison out on the trees and foliage opposite him. Fury ravaged her, pulled their mating bond taut and the beast within threatened to overwhelm her. When she spun back around to face the tree again, her eyes were entirely red, the line under each eye jagged.
"I knewI would lose my mate," she said again, chest heaving as poison dripped uselessly to the ground at her feet and ruined the lovely folds of her kimono. "I knew, and I still took that child in. And when I made that decision, when I accepted her as part of my pack, the future changed. There were two paths now, and the other did not lead to the death, to the loss, of my mate. But now the path has changed againand all I can see is his blood and death and fire and once again it comes at the hands of a human."
Fuiasu had to stop, take a breath but every inch of control taken back was wrought by shredded grief. "Izayoi will lay with my mate and they will bear a child and I will love him still, uselessly, and loose him still because a male I know naught of whose very obsession will set fire to the world of my heart."
The words were agony ripped free of a throat gone hoarse and she was forced to her knees as that loss punctured every chain holding her beast in place. "The first time I thought I would l lose him, I averted his fate by agreeing to be his mate. And then with the first child, and gods forgive me I can't say her name, I could only hopeloving her would be enough change—and it was. And now this girl, this human whelp who does not age will be the death of my mate and I can see nothing that will change it. I have no hope left to hinge his fate on."
And the Lady of the West sobbed as she had not sobbed once in her long, unending life. The force of each cry shattered the remaining restraints of her control and the beast emerged—but even its fury was left with nowhere to go at the sheer force of the sorrow and hopelessness pouring off her.
Her cries echoed in the clearing, but went no further as the tree finally graced the Lady with his presence. It took only a flicker of thought to have his branches and leaves, and those around him, shifting tighter and tighter together until no sound could enter or escape, until the roaring of her agony could be heard only by the two of them.
After a time, when she lay still between his roots and her eyes burned red, not from loss of control but from the tears, she spoke. "From the moment I realized I could not live without him, my entire life has been devoted to cheating the fates of his life again and again and again. I have never loved the gift fate gave me, this prophecy in my hands, but I used it gleefully to my advantage and I stole and murdered and lied to save Tōga over and over."
"And now you must make a choice," said Bokusenou as he shifted in his ancient roots. "I surmise to save Tōga there must be some other great sacrifice?"
"Kagome," she breathed, and rolled onto her back to stare up into the fathomless depths of his branches. "If I sacrifice the future she was sent here to procure, Tōga might escape his fate again."
o.O.o
Word Count - 1019