by
Resmiranda
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Eternity is the problem and not the solution he imagined it to be, and the problem is not the mistake.
It is so strange. The habit of making mistakes is not his, and it is a peculiar sensation to search for the thing that went wrong, to look for the thread that traces back and back, to the moment where he could have chosen the other path. And even though so many paths lead away from this crooked trail it is difficult to know which one he should have taken, which one he could walk without his foolish actions stalking behind him, shadowing his footsteps.
Every moment is a chance to correct it, and yet he never does.
He is not even quite certain what has gone awry, only that it went awry with Rin and her girlish laugh and her gap-toothed smile, only that she peeled away something essential with her little fingers. She wound ribbons of him around her tiny hands, stowed them away inside herself, wrapped him around her heart and held him fast.
Sesshoumaru turns his eyes away from the sky and glances back over his shoulder to where Rin is doing the washing and joking - slightly saucily - with Jaken. She is smiling wide, her sleeves tied back, and one could almost believe that she is just another village woman doing her chores were it not for the demon sitting next to her. She looks beautiful. She looks happy.
He can see that she is dying.
Not immediately, not right now, but already she appears older than he, even though the reality is far different. She is fully grown, and when she picks up the little squirming toad to give him a hug, there is a flash of something matronly, something missed that cannot be regained.
Just a sweep of the blade and all has been dismantled; his soul is scattered, his mind is in pieces, his heart is --
The passing of time, the doors of heaven that may only be opened with a sword, the sweet soft fancies that whisper maybe or possibly - all conspire against him, all of them lie so prettily that he believes, for countless endless, horrifying moments, that there is nothing to fear, and nothing to regret.
When could he have escaped? He could have left her forever in the village she ran to when she was angry and rebellious. He could have left her in the snow to be food for youkai. He could have left her to drown in a stream. He could have left her to Naraku. He could have never drawn his sword and brought her back from the land of the dead.
He could kill her. It would take nothing to do so. It would take nothing to turn back the ten thousand mistakes of a moment. Nothing at all.
Rin splashes water on Jaken and laughs, tossing her head back, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and just below the ridge of her jaw pumps her lifeblood. It snakes down her throat, thrums and flows just beneath the surface, the most fragile of things. It will be effortless.
She didn't see him coming - he knows this because she gasps in some strange startlement, and then he has tangled his claws in her hair, turned her head, and then she is awkwardly cradled against him. His claws have missed, but his teeth will not.
Her hair is rich and brown, it glitters red and gold and silver in the sun, her scent is light and fresh, her smile bright, her eyes kind - she is and is not all the thousand beautiful things she calls into existence, and it is the hollow of her throat that distracts him in the crucial moment. A fragile, paper-thin valley nestled in the landscape of her body, and he thinks - so insanely, for just a breath - that he could live there forever. If he could do this, if he could do that, if he could if he could if he could --
-- he would let nothing of her go, ever.
But it is already too late, too late. Her youth is gone, and she is the best and worst thing that has ever happened. The whim of a second on a muddy path in a dark forest, and the universe has shattered. He should never have turned around, he should have never brought her back, he should have sent her away a thousand times by now.
He should have killed her the moment he realized the enormity of what he had done, but by then, of course, it was too late.
"Sesshoumaru-sama?"
Her voice is warm in his ear, and he thinks he detects a tremor, far beneath, but he has probably imagined it. She doesn't have - never had, really - the sense to be afraid.
He is to blame, but he has faltered so many times that one more misstep doesn't seem to matter.
Her hair slides through his claws as he releases her and draws back. Rin blinks up at him, questioning, and with the curious pang that only she can bring he turns away without her blood on his claws, without her life on his tongue. He still thinks maybe, or possibly. Another mistake, but one he has bought the luxury of making, and he knows he will pay for that privilege all his life.