I don't own Kouga, Kagome, or any other part of Inu Yasha.
This was supposed to be my submission for my yahoo group's contest. It ended up being something so far removed from what the contest was about, that I didn't submit is at all. I have no idea where it came from. Sarah McLachlin said at a concert I was at that some songs she wasn't sure where they came from. It was like someone else wrote them inside of her and they came tumbling out. Or something to that effect. That's how I feel about this fic. I hope you enjoy it.
Kouga tossed and turned restlessly on his fur pallet. He sighed; knowing slumber's sweet embrace would not be his anytime soon. The Wolf Prince moved silent as a shadow out of his cave and through the labyrinth of caves that made up his people's home. He heard soft snores echoing around him and felt a stab of jealousy at his pack mates' easy slumber. Nights like this a restlessness burned like quicksilver in his veins and the comfort and familiarity of his home and family burned his soul instead of soothed it. Nights like this he felt a stranger in his own skin. Nights like this he thought of her.
Kouga stepped out of the cave and nodded to the sentry on duty. The grizzled warrior looked at his Prince and for a moment it seemed like he would speak. He instead sighed as his Prince moved past him and into the forest. To walk, to brood, as he was fond of doing. A myriad of feelings passed over the guard's face, prominent was pity.
Kouga's eyes were on the forest and he never saw the look sent by his pack brother. He walked steadily into the woods, his feet sliding over cool grass, his mind sailing over clouds.
'Kagome' the name was a brief three syllables yet it held so much more. It held smiles like the warmth of the sun, it held a soft cascade of laughter, it held the purity of a virgin mountain spring, and a thousand other things. Drunk with thoughts of the one his heart called for, the Wolf Prince moved through the forest in no particular direction, with no particular purpose.
One slip of a human woman-child had done what so many had tried and failed; she killed the Prince of the Wolf Demons. Killed him as surely as any opponents claws would have. The Prince of Wolves died in the afternoon he met the miko and in his place was born some creature so far removed from who and what he was that he struggled to make sense of it even now.
Kouga walked further into the woods, three syllables reverberating through what was left of his soul, reshaping it with each breath he took. Those syllables filled him up with her and he felt the last of his resolve, the last of his Self let go and drift away and apart.
His soul had been drowning in the sea of apathy and was battered around like so much flotsam when his tired conscious found reprieve on the shore of those three syllables. He wanted to crawl over her like the emotionally shipwrecked man he was and worship her, reverently kissing the sand that saved him.
'Kagome' the syllables moved like honey across his mind and over his tongue. It was amazing how she changed him so thoroughly and remained so unaware. Shades and shadows had stretched and twisted, he had stretched and twisted in the face of her light. Like a blossom on the water, beautiful, pure, and light; she skated on the surface of him unaware of the depth on which she glided.
The impact of her presence in his life was still being felt, like a stone thrown in water, the ripples expanding outward continuously. He tried to tell her of the change, the ripples and shifts in his being. The feelings were so new, alien and overwhelming. He was still trying to name them. How could he describe it to her? Show her the passion and intensity of what she had formed him into? All he had were the old words, the old ways. He had no vocabulary for the changes welling up inside of him. How to tell her that color intensified in her presence? How to convey the ache of her absence and the rapture, the intoxication of her sight and smell?
The Wolf Prince was no fool. He knew that to lay bare the emotions she invoked in him would frighten her. She was a being of spring and light. A woman-child on the verge of blossoming into a flower so mysterious, fragrant and heavy with promise. What color petals would unfold from her soul's budding?
He waited. He waited and it nearly killed him again. He waited for her to grow, to look and to see. He waited, soul stretched tight, for a word, a look, a thought to come from her. Snap the thread barely holding him together and curl around her in a great curving rush.
As though conjured by his thoughts, he caught a pale ribbon of her scent through the woods. He followed it, winding himself in the richness of her, inhaling deeply the balm to soothe the restlessness in his being. Kouga came to a stop at the edge of a clearing. A small fire crackled cheerfully and sprawled around it were the group she traveled with. The small fire neko mewed in greeting. Blue eyes swept the clearing, noting the absence of the hanyou that he was entrusting the whole of his world to. The other humans were asleep, the kitsune child was curled at the side of the slayer, nose twitching in slumber.
Kouga knelt down next to the strange bedding that encased his death and his rebirth. Clawed hands lightly grazed a satin cheek, pushing back silken locks. A sigh, the barest of breaths escaped her mouth and she lightly nuzzled the hand. Storms swept through blue eyes, frightening and real in their intensity. Another soft caress of the cheek and the Wolf Prince rose to go. Go because to stay any longer, to stand on the edges of her shore was so sharp a pleasure it was pain.
The Wolf Prince moved past the clearing and back into the forest. To walk, to brood, as he was fond of doing.
Kouga's eyes were on the forest and he never saw the moment her eyes opened or the look, indecipherable and unsure, that she sent him. He walked steadily into the woods, his feet sliding over cool grass, his mind sailing over clouds.