She haunted him.
It was with anger, bitterness, and an aching, biting sense of helplessness that Sesshoumaru first realized that fact. The girl filled his thoughts, lived in his dreams, and whispered along the edges of his sanity. Her smile, her sadness, the depths of her brown eyes; he dwelt on all of them.
Days passed, then weeks, and her image stayed with him, thoughts of her tormenting him at the most inopportune times. It was all he could do to maintain his outward poise, the calm, cold exterior he had worked so hard to build up and maintain over the years. She wasn't for him. But he couldn't separate himself from her.
The new moons were the worst. On those nights, he would literally be driven from his castle to roam the hills, searching for something he refused to identify, even to himself.
It was on those nights that he found himself visiting her. He waited until the hanyou's time was upon him, then he approached. He had no urge to enrage the other, only to fulfill this need inside of him. He would stand, in the shadows, out of the humans' petty sight and watch, all night long, just breathing in her scent, feeding on the sound of her voice, and later on, after she had retired to bed, of her breathing.
It soothed him.
And it was enough.
He didn't even really know what he wanted, only that on the day before the new moon, he became restless and disturbed, pacing his chambers like a madman, until the walls closed in around him and he was forced to fly from his very home. The empty sky seemed to mock him, its dark brilliance only drawing attention to the gaping hole where the moon normally was. Something was missing, something that lit up the barren sky and gave it life, made it whole again.
The first time, only a month after he had last spoken to her, he had wandered his own lands the entire afternoon, unable to find peace, his thoughts a jumbled, chaotic mess that terrified him.
He was the essence of control! He had mastered the art of concealing his emotions, clamping down on foolish things like needs and desires. He was the Taiyoukai of the West, the most formidable creature in all of Japan, and this day saw him lose all of his vaunted discipline until he became little more than a mindless instinctive animal.
It was galling. And frightening.
What had she done to him? Or was it even her at all? He stood there, behind a bank of trees, silent as death and still as a statue, watching as she laughed and talked with her friends and his brother, playing with the kit she fostered, readying the evening meal, and wondered at himself.
Why was he here? What did he want from her? His experiment had failed; he had made the final decision on that and would not, could not, try it again. He felt no urge to touch her, no anger when his half-brother did, and no jealousy toward the relationship the two were obviously developing. There was no possessive surge when the hanyou-turned-boy held her hand, no flare of hurt when she leaned her head on his shoulder, no flood of rage when they shared a long look. He simply stood ... and watched.
He knew the moment she realized he was there. Her hands, lifted to tie back her hair as she bent over the fire, paused. Her body, leaned forward in the action of picking something up, half turned toward him. There was a long moment, when he held his breath and she obviously debated, then she simply continued her motion, winding her long, black hair into a bun and securing it at the back of her head, then lifting a pot off the fire. Her head never turned in his direction again. Her eyes refused to seek him out. She made no sign that she knew the group was no longer alone.
He was astounded. True, he had given his word not to attack on the hanyou's night of weakness, when his demon blood ebbed and he became fully human, and he had told her he would never come for again, but for her to say nothing, to leave her friends completely defenseless against him ... it both shocked and humbled him.
She trusted him. It was the only explanation left. He had given his word, and she believed him.
So he watched.
And he returned.
Month after month, always on the new moon, he was there, at nightfall, in the treeline. The other humans remained oblivious. He was sure she had never mentioned him, not even to the hanyou, who was now her lover, or they would have made some sign, looked for him, put up more of a defense than they did. But nothing changed.
In the back of his mind, he knew that she was giving him a gift; that she somehow understood what was happening, even as he failed to understand it himself. For she was always there, no matter where they were or what business they were about, on the new moon. She never went back to the time she had told him about, never left him searching and frantic, as he knew she could have. The camp was always in the open, easily found, but close enough to the trees to give him cover. It was her doing, he was sure of it.
But he didn't think much on it, occupied as he was with his perusal of her and the emotions that careened through him at the first sight and smell of her. He could always tell when she first sensed he was there. There was never a repeat of the first night's glaring pause, but there was always a shift, a change in her demeanor, that signaled her knowledge of him.
It was gratifying, how she knew, usually within moments, just where he was. He felt pride as her ability to detect him only sharpened with time. They were connected, the two of them, but only for the one night, only for the time it took for the new moon to rise and fall.
For, when the sun rose, and hanyou's black hair had turned silver again, the demon lord was always gone. He left the humans sleeping, aware that his half-brother's nose and ears were working perfectly again and that to stay was to tempt disaster. He had seen what he needed to see, after all, and was sated for another month.
He was careful, however, to stay downwind all night, and in the opposite direction from that in which the group was heading, so as not to rouse the hanyou's suspicions once he had regained his demonic capabilities. He was not about to lose his time with her through carelessness.
The hanyou could have her 30 days and 29 nights a month; for that one night, she was his. His to watch, his to cherish, his to protect. This was his duty, his payment, his penance for what he had done, and what he had almost done. For, as the months passed, and Naraku was defeated, and she grew big with his brother's child, he realized why he was drawn to her, and why he kept to the shadows.
And he accepted it, and even managed to gain peace with it. Peace with himself, peace with her, and, for that one night a month, peace with his half-brother.
So Sesshoumaru watched, under an empty sky. And slowly, the stars came out.