Constancy
...OOO...
"Glad you could finally come and see me again, dear Kikyo." Naraku's voice dripped solicitously in the surrounding darkness, but she could not see him.
Everything around her was a shadow within a shadow- like walking through a black fog.
"Where are you?" She commanded her voice to remain calm but it was harder to do in her mind.
"Here."
Whirling around she saw him emerge, his appearance still in the guise of the young lord Hitomi.
"I see you still fancy yourself to look human," she smirked slightly.
"I see you still do the same," he returned.
She scowled at the remark.
"What is it you want of me, Naraku?" her voice returned to all seriousness. "Is it revenge you are after for me destroying you?"
At that he laughed slowly, "My dear Kikyo, that's the furthest thing from my mind."
"Don't toy with me, Naraku. I haven't the patience for it."
"Must you always suspect my sincerities?" he asked looking slightly hurt.
"Then what is it that you do want?" she demanded tersely, as always more than just a little annoyed with him- flesh or apparition.
"Simple," he answered, advancing towards her. "What I want is you."
Without warning he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, saying, "Do you know what it is that kept me from totally succumbing to the void you sentenced me to at my demise? The one thought that kept my consciousness alive? It was not hatred, my dear Kikyo, not the need for vengeance. It was my love for you. Even as the rest of my body disintegrated, that damn heart kept beating- beating for you."
At first she resisted, but his grip only tightened. Changing her mind she shifted instead into his embrace.
"Naraku..." she murmured, allowing his hand to guide her head to rest upon his shoulder.
"Yes?" he asked. Her voice had lost its edge, retaining nothing more than a hint of bittersweet sadness.
Inuyasha flashed through her mind.
"How does it feel- to love something you know you can never have?" And summoning up all her strength she pushed him away.
He staggered back but caught himself, snapping his head to meet her eyes, boring into them.
"Why?" he asked angrily, reading her mind. "Why must you always think of that damned dog? He never loved you!"
"You destroyed our love!" she shot back, matching his anger.
The darkness around them grew tense, grew palpable, as he glared at her rigidly.
"Your love?" he sneered, forming his words slowly, deliberately. "What love? You betrayed one another at the first test of that 'love'. Even now, he has abandoned you for the sake of another, allowed you to suffer for all that was beyond your control. Tell me- where is the love in that?"
She took a step back. The darkness around her intensified, encroaching upon her.
No!
She could not allow him to twist up her emotions...
But it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep them all in check in here- they were alive. They constituted her very surroundings.
Frantically she searched them for something- anything that might fortify her against his words... Something secure, something constant... something she could not question.
A vision of his golden eyes shot through her mind.
Sesshomaru?
The image confused her, but then she realized...
Cold, unmovable...
No matter the fluctuations of the world around him, no matter the circumstance, he never changed. He just was.
Constant, always constant.
She focused her thoughts on him as the black walls around them crumbled, caved, and absorbed the both of them.
She awoke to see those same golden orbs peering down at her. He was leaning over her, pinning one shoulder down with his hand as Tenseiga gleamed brightly beside her.
"Did he come to you?" he asked, moving back as she sat up.
"Yes," she answered a little absently.
"Well?"
"We need the flower," she replied. "It's too difficult for me to keep all my thoughts in check with him exploiting them."
"He told you nothing of his intentions?" he questioned.
But she looked away from his eyes filled with inquiry.
"No," she answered softly, knowing he would know it was a lie.
And he did, but he merely returned to his original repose against the ravine wall, understanding that she did not wish to talk and that it would be no use trying to force her.
Whatever it was, he decided, she would tell him at her own time.
"Sesshomaru..." Glancing at him uncertainly, she paused in hesitation, but then divulged, "thank you."
"For what?" he asked confused.
Smiling, she went to sit beside him as he extinguished Tenseiga's light.
"For always being cold."
...ooo...
As the night wore on, Kikyo's energy dwindled. It had been a while, she realized, since her last intake of fresh souls. Carefully she weighed the option of conserving her remaining energy by sleeping.
Would Naraku come again? She doubted it- not after that confrontation. Plus he was never one to rush. No, he would bide his time before attempting to claim her again.
Feeling assured by the absence of foreboding, she closed her eyes.
...ooo...
Naraku watched them from the darkness.
Of all the places, he had thought gleefully when he first saw them enter, that they could stumble into, they had stumbled into the one where his thoughts could wander freely, pulsating in its very atmosphere, though however benignly- this forest in which nothing thrived but the black trees and the bird-demons that sought protection from the sun.
Now, however, he glowered at their presence.
How dare she deny me.
The thought sent waves of anger through him.
And all for the memory of that worthless Inuyasha.
She had fallen asleep again, but he did not try to contact her. Instead, he watched in amazement as, in the course of her slumber, Kikyo slipped from her original sitting position, unwittingly lowering herself into her companion's lap.
And he does nothing to push her away...
Naraku smiled to himself, amused by the development. Never in all his planning had he foreseen this... But, he thought, that only meant that now a whole new set of possibilities had opened themselves up to him.
To think that our great demon lord has evolved feelings for dear Kikyo...
He laughed.
Another foolish moth drawn in by her enigmatic flame.
...ooo...
Sesshomaru frowned, shifting faintly. He wondered if he should awaken her and demand that she move...
But she was sleeping so peacefully, and he had sensed her need for it...
Drawing up his free knee to his elbow, he rested his chin in his hand irrately.
Any other human except Rin would have had their heads lopped off by now for such impudence...
Then another voice reasoned, what could it hurt? She had no knowledge of it anyway, and her weight against his wasn't totally discomforting...
Exasperated with the petty inner conflict, he sighed and gave up, leaning back against the wall of rock.
Damn woman...
...OOO...