"Do you believe in fate, Kagome?"
"Sure," she shrugged. "I might feel silly if I didn't, given the circumstances."
Together, Sesshomaru and Kagome stepped up into the brilliant blue pagoda. He turned to her suddenly, a fevered light in his eyes that enthralled her.
"Do you believe in soul bonds?"
His question, his eyes, his entire demeanor as he looked at her, awaiting her answer, was leaden.
Severe.
His eyes held hers captive, more so than his hands upon her.
More so than the levity of his inquiry.
More so, even, than her love for him.
They burned, an inferno locked behind gild – captive as surely as she herself was.
What are you trying to tell me?
Desperate, she yearned to ask him…but, how could she when even such a valid question would diminish all he'd said up to that point?
Whatever he wished to convey, whatever answers he sought from her, she knew, down to her marrow, they were significant.
"Soul bonds," she breathed.
Like, soul mates?
She took a moment to consider it.
Truly consider it.
She thought of Inuyasha, of Kikyo. Sesshomaru's father and Inuyasha's mother.
She thought of herself. Of her displacement from her Tokyo home and her implantation within the otherworldly fabrics of the world of youkai.
How had she come to be there?
She'd examined that question more times than she could fathom. And still, she came up short an answer.
How had she come to be there?
How had she come to be there?
It didn't matter how she posed it, the question remained as mysterious, as the answer was elusive.
However…could it be that a soul bond brought her there?
Could it be so simple?
Something as simple as a soul bond? Soul mates?
Although…were those things truly simple?
Unaware of her introspection, Sesshomaru's hands glided down her arms to entwine her fingers in his own.
Blinking down to where he'd joined them together, she considered the destruction those hands could bring, the danger those claws could deliver.
Once upon a time, he may have brought his wrath down upon her, but never would he again.
Never again.
Tightening her grip around his fingers, she lifted her eyes once more, promising herself that this moment would be one she'd always remember. Damn the tides and pulls of time, damn the fickle nature of memory. Damn, even, the noises of nature that sought to distract her from committing all he was – all they were – in this moment, to memory.
If a soul could, indeed, be contracted to another, bound for eternity or until otherwise released, did that mean they had made such an agreement in a time immemorial? In a place where time was not.
Surely, they must.
For, how could she feel so deeply for him, otherwise? How could she feel so connected to him?
More than infatuation, more than love…it was deeper, more potent, more all-consuming. It's very nature was one she couldn't begin to understand other than to know intuitively that it was right.
She met his eyes, and the answer he sought must have been held within them. His lips curled gently, softly. His eyes warmed further, and she could see the depths of his devotion so clearly she nearly choked as she drowned within it.
She feared she'd never surface again.