Last Words

"Your hair. . . ."  She touched it with fingertips, bewildered. 

"I made a wish," I said smugly. Let Sesshomaru have the damn sword.

"Inuyasha, why?" she pursued, kneeling beside me.

"I heard a barbarian tell a story in the marketplace."

"That's no kind of answer, Inuyasha."

I reached for her face.  I couldn't smell her as I used to, but I could feel her. I wanted to feel her.  "It was a story about a girl."

Her mouth was sweet.  The kiss would've been better if she hadn't insisted we keep talking.  "What about her?"

"Her best friend was leaving. She wanted to go, too."

"What happened?"

"She said, 'Don't tell me to leave you, or not to follow you, for where you go, I will go.'"  I sought her lips again.  "'Where you stay, I'll stay.'"  And again.  "'Your people will be my people.'" My thumbs brushed the wet from her cheeks. "'Where you die, I will die. And there will I be buried.'"

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AN: I couldn't resist this rip-off of the Biblical story of Ruth and Naomi, turned around for Inuyasha.  The Inuyasha series takes place some time after the Portuguese have made contact with Japan; one of the first kinds of Westerners to start making their way around the islands were the Jesuit missionaries who accompanied the sailors.