A/N: Hello! Okay, today I'm home sick from school because of dizziness. Yes, I shouldn't be on the computer, and I'm probably screwed in some way or another for not going today, but since I am home I figured since I hadn't updated this thing in over four months it was past due. Chapter two was originally about 20 pages long but because of the long waiting period, here's the first quarter for your reading enjoyment. Please tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. I've tried bribery but the owner just gave me a weird look. "Hey, neopets battledome cards a rather rare." I said. But she just turned back around. She gave me a sum, but it was in Japanese. *blink* Okay then, but I own the 'black angel' and said 'child'.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
Cream colored skin glistened in cold sweat as the white angel was jarred awake from her slumber, the pallid canopy bed shook from the momentum of her expeditious motion. Ebony hair with wisps of blue moved with her body, shoulders parting silken strands that danced by themselves as they hung sadly around her frame and face. Blue-gray pools of purl opened wide in horror. Resonant lips of a vibrant pale blush set themselves in a dour line. Narrow shoulders shook with slight intense. Thin arms upheld her minor weight, each held fixed to her sides. Slim hands gripped taut the sheets beneath them. Her lungs gasped for air with ragged breaths, the thin white straps of her top moved with her heaving bosom. A half bare torso gave a slight rise and fall; tight black under things covered the arc of her hips. Long, shapely legs were curled together, her aura wailed trepidation.
"Again?"
Her shaking slowed to a mere tremble, wide eyes returned to their normal tender, pearl like color. She swallowed hard, then felt her lungs quake and the air like sand.
"Momma…"
The distant, trembling word reached her conscious for the first time. She shook her head ferociously, Her mind reached for the nearest logic amidst confusion and consternation, clinging to it like a small child.
"My baby…"
Her own words reached her ears in a hollow echo. The last syllable dropped from the heavy air as if weighted by lead. Her body bounded from its position on the bed, landing uncertainly on the carpeted floor only to nearly plummet.
Poise reclaimed, she fled out the open door. Her feet carried her down the short hall; sliding on a throw rug as she turned a corner, ramming her shoulder into the wall beside her. She pushed off from it with her arms, hair whipping around her face in the process. Regaining stasis she picked up pace down the hall, jogging her memory for a way in the dark. She slid to a stop in front of the open door, her feet burning from her skim on the tile.
Her child's calls were soothed to whimpers and sobs by a calming voice.
She stared into the night-encased room, her eyes adjusting to the silver dim light the crescent moon cast through the bay windows. The pearl walls mirrored its silver blood; furniture cast creature shadows, representing monsters. Below the cover and protection of the full, canopy bed sat a dark angel. Locks of black flowed about her in waves and curls. Pallid skin glowed and glistened the unearthly hue of night's sphere. Eyes of black stared at the small, light bundle she embraced; her thick strands hindering the view of the child and her body. A presence of protection and comfort emanated from the dark angel, encasing the child's room in it. Suffocating anything that didn't belong out of existence.
The white angel felt her throat run dry and the slow night pause; her body swayed and a nimble hand of her own reached to grasp the doorframe. She was accustomed to feeling such from the woman. But she could still never bring herself to enter.
Did that make her an intruder? On her own affairs?
She swallowed; another missed moment forcefully struck her soul. She couldn't believe this, or herself. How many time had this happened now? How many nights had she been within that lights warm essence? How many times had the tiny voice called, for how long? How many times had she missed her privilege of comforting her daughter in her time of need?
Her legs wobbled beneath her, threatening her collapse. She'd become a stranger, a lost connection to her one source of life. Her vision blurred with tears, the frustration and her own anger getting the best of her.
She hated this, and she hated the Fate that had brought her to this, the same Fate that had been kind and cruel all her life. The thing she'd come to despise. The thing giving her a wonderful chance, destroying it many a time. The thing that gave her what she knew she always wanted, only to take him from her too. And now, the thing that had given her a piece, something else she could hold on to. But yet the thing robbed her of it too.
Her pout opened to reveal pearly white teeth in a neat line that proceeded to bite its bottom lip. No reaction was elicited as the bantam sound of a puncture wound echoed in the confines of her skull; she felt the trickle of blood make a pathway down her chin.
In a perfunctory manner, her body pushed itself to the back wall across from the hallway. Her knees came to her chest, her arms coming to embrace herself. Images of that small, look alike face flashed through her mind's eye. Her body went slightly numb.
How had she missed it again? How had she missed her motherly duty to chase off the monsters and ghosts that threatened her baby's slumber? How many times had the dark angel gone to do what she couldn't?
She swallowed again, realization bringing itself upon her conscious.
Too many, too much, and too quick.
But what was there she could do? Every night she came nearer to it, its warmth pushing everything else out. When it left she was paralyzed, both in mind and body. But what scared her was she couldn't stop it. She could never fight the warmth, no matter how hard she tried. And whenever the voice called, she knew somewhere whose it was. But that warmth pulled her more. It never let go till it was too late. It was so routine now. Waking up to the sound of her daughter, only to get there and have her friend taking her place.
Her hands balled into fists, knuckles ghost white.
Her it went again. The shell of her former self sitting in the dark hallway across from her offspring's door, listening to the soothing voice of the friendly dark angel as it lulled her daughter to sleep.
~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~
The sound of the slight creak of the bed in the dark told her that the angel had once again finished covering for her. She let go a breath she didn't even know she was holding. The slow and placid footsteps reached her ears in a hollow form. The door shut gently, the hinges giving off a slight screak as they reached for the gold colored pins. Protesting the action with their own force.
Her high senses felt everything the dark angel was giving off; from the anger and confusion and curiosity, to the understanding and almost knowing. But the white angel could only identify these, she couldn't tell how much they came off, or what they meant. She only knew what she felt.
The calm demanding she felt next from the dark angel dispersed all previous emotions, giving almost a sense of fear and dominance in their enclosed area.
No, she didn't want to be affronted with the subject of her absence. She could not explain what happened that made her unable to heed to her young one.
She opened her lurid pout, her wit deeming up something other wise.
"What time is it?"
A change of subject was not what the woman wanted; she knew as well as l felt that. But she didn't want to answer, she couldn't.
The hall light was blinding as it came on. The white angel closed her eyes as a shield momentarily. She reopened them to a straightforward view of lean, tanned legs. Her eyes traveled up the curvy body to lock with the black eyes. Her shockingly thick curved hair seeming to blow in an invisible wind. The white angel's insides tightened as the familiar but still creepy feeling of being thoroughly analyzed assaulted her attuned senses. She sat stiff, still focused on the black angel's black eyes as each skin of her emotions was peeled individually, each one after the other in rapid succession; leaving bare her core, the very rawness of her being.
"Four.
The black angel's voice was smooth and toneless, her face stoic. Thick, black lashes blinding for a fleeting moment.
Her focus left the black eyes, her breathing increased, each piece of her glued back together. The white angel gulped, the dark angel's gaze didn't oscillate.
It happened again, the woman's ability to go more than skin deep would always take her off guard, it would always without effort push aside any of her barriers and go straight for her heart. The dark angel saw everything as it was for what it was.
She was unnerving for that specific reason.
The dark angel crossed her arms, blinking once more.
"Yu…"
She had to break this silence, or she'd fall apart.
"This is getting serious Kagome."
The tone felt as heavy as the air. A tired expression crossed the woman's smooth skin. Full lips were pierced in slight worry. But her eyes remained trained on her companion.
The white angel drew in a shaky breath before reaching behind her for the wall, her own blue-gray eyes not digressing but giving a mute solemn entreaty. She leant her full height on it, pulling herself up close to her full height, the small of her back against the wall. The Japanese woman cast her gaze slightly downward to the shorter American woman, her blue-gray eyes pleading something silent.
The black angel's expression softened, her shapely eyebrows unknotting slightly. Black eyes showed no emotion as an exasperated and tired half smile went to creasing her face lightly, an elliptical heart shaped pout widening.
The tension was broken, and the white angel no longer felt the sense of a threat that always came with this. But she wondered, for her friend, just how long the woman had been up before going to bed.
"I'm going to Starbucks."
The white angel nodded, grateful that the coal eyes were now off her and had something else to focus on. The relief to her nerves benumbed the core of her.
"I'll be on the back patio."
A nod of understanding from her friend, and the woman set her footsteps toward the direction of the stairs; intent on not looking back and avoiding the throw rugs on the wooden floor.