He is the last of his kin, in a world that knows not day from night.
The hives of Men rise dark and jagged, scorching away wood and water. Perhaps beyond the sea there are places still undefiled, but he has his duty to the Lands of his birth, the last nightfolk kingdom to fall to the fires of industry.
They are all he has left, even though Men now cover them like flies swarming to a festering wound. The heavens above are clad in sorrow-shrouds, a roiling darkness that light pierces ever more seldom. And he lingers, the sentinel of a long-lost realm.
The old enchantments withered as his kin diminished into the ramblings of madmen. He razed the halls of his forebears himself: better that than that they tumble into the hands of mortals.
His brother died beneath the stars, in death joining the girl from an age yet to come. He pitied his sibling then, pitied him for his diluted blood that stole his life away so soon.
Now he envies Inuyasha.
The era of the girl must be long past; now Men know nothing beyond steel and glass and monstrous machines that rip into the sky.
He grew lean and hungry long ago; now he stalks the fringes of the Lands of which he once was Lord.
There will be no torch-wake for him, no star-warded pyre upon a mountaintop untrod by mortal feet, no hallowed tomb deep in the womb of the red earth.
When smoke forever coats the Moon that once was the emblem of the Great House of the Dogs, their last heir will leave the Islands to the mercies of mankind. He cannot regret his choice.
Sesshoumaru watches the rare glimmer of silver in the firmament, and waits for its death.