Epilogue
My Dearest Meg,
Look at how you've grown. I cannot say how long it will be until you find this letter. Perhaps you never will. Time, I fear, has been cruel to me. I can only hope to make amends for my conduct in life in the afterlife. I have decided to write this because although I am ashamed to admit it, I have given up. Despite all my efforts, despite all of my searching, you remain away from my side.
I cannot find you.
It has broken the heart of the strongest daiyoukai alive to admit this, mind you. I have done many a foolish thing in my life. But I regret losing you the most. And dearest Katsumi too, of course. My precious Kat and Meg. I am proud to have had such strong little dragons in my shiro. You two were like daughters to me. You two still are.
It has been many an achingly slow decade since I lost you both. I fear it may be decades still until I am reunited with you once more. How have the years treated you, I wonder? They have not been so kind to me. The bed I am to share with my mate grows colder by the hour that you have been lost to us. I ask that you do not fault her for it, though. She cannot help but take her anger out on me–it was in my charge that you were lost to us, after all. Kimi's perfect skin is in danger of blemishing for all the nocturnal hours she devotes in your name, conversing with her spies and scowling over maps. She told me once that she would have liked to have birthed a daughter just like you. She felt that your true parents chose your name well, and I agree. You are our little blessing. You are our love. You are a thousand irreplaceable things. Kimi cannot remember Katsumi . . . but she remembers you. I feel that there is no force save for the kami themselves that could ever rob her of your place in her heart. I do not yet understand why she is the only one aside from myself that can still recall the details of your face. I wonder and I fear that perhaps it is of Katsumi's doing. If only I could find her. If only I could find you.
But no more of that. If you are reading this, then I doubt you're in the mood to hear dear old Toga rant about his woes in life. I'll admit I have quite a few of them. That is to be expected when you have lived as long as I have, at least. It is my hope as your once-guardian that you may live to be as old as I am too. I want you to explore. The world is a beautiful, untouched treasure. Fly to each of its four corners and tell me which is your favorite. Do you like the salty ocean air more, or the sweet tang of the breeze above the forests? Tell me, where does your heart sing the loudest? Japan is not all that there is. Wherever you are, I hope you make it home.
I have had a lot of time to think about it, Megumi, and I feel that perhaps traveling beyond your birthlands may tell you more about who you are. Perhaps the monks and priestesses of foreign soil know more than we do. We of demonic blood are not exclusive to one isle, at least. I cannot see why the true dragons would be either.
More than that, I want you to love. Do it however you please. It need not be proven through taking a mate. Love as a family would. Love as a friend would. Love as heart pleases and do so frequently. You need not be alone in this life. For us creatures doomed to live ceaselessly, solitude is a miserable punishment. Let it not punish you too.
I must confess to you that I have been living a life of love in your absence. Is it too selfish to ask for your forgiveness in this matter? She is a human hime. Her homelands are your own, but her lineage has conquered yours in order to make it so. I pray to the kami that their siege did not disturb your dear parent's final resting place. If so, then I cannot as for your forgiveness for attempting to love the heir to such a shiro.
Her name is Izayoi.
Soon, her swollen belly will convulse, and she will give birth to my child. If it is a girl, I would name her in Katsumi's image. If it is a boy, I will name him Inuyasha. A bit on the nose, I think, but it will do him good to know what he is. It will make him strong. I thought that I would not stray from my mate in the taking of a mistress, but I suppose not everything remains resolute in the ever-changing mind of a thousand-year-old demon. I tell you this because as content as I am, I am almost guilty for it. Have you met the same fate as Katsumi? Have you left this world when I was not there to protect you? I cannot remember what has happened to us. I cannot remember, at what point during our journey, that I lost you. All I know is that you are gone, and it is I who am to blame.
I will be leaving my shiro shortly. Izayoi will need me in her hours of deliverance, for our match is not looked on with kindness. I am determined to defend her so that she may bring a strong pup into the world for us.
But before that, I will go to avenge Katsumi. I have learned that she did not actually meet her demise in our absence. Ryukotsusei has lain his claws on my shiro. He has used his hold in my home to rob me of my treasured dragon. I know not if she has survived to the present day, but I do know that she will have her revenge. Our beloved Kat shall not suffer anymore. Should she be living, may she know that she need not fear his control any longer. And if not, may she find peace. It has been quite some time since I fought a foe worthy of my full strength.
For Katsumi, I shall give it.
If you happen to stumble upon this letter as I am off to fight Ryukotsusei and guard over my dearest Izayoi, then may it help you understand all that has come to pass while you were away. I wish that I had uncovered the circumstances surrounding your disappearance as well. Perhaps I could have given you the same vengeance that I am preparing on Katsumi's behalf.
If I do not return to this place–be it my choice, or that I am no longer for this world–I would have a favor to ask of you. If I have wronged you irreparably, you need not accept it. I ask that you watch over this place. Tell Kimi to take a break from her ceaseless spying. Tell her that it is not such a shameful thing to have such a disloyal mate. Tell her, if she so chooses, to punish my memory according to whatever she feels is most just. Let her know she has my blessing to take another to our mating bed. I will not condemn her for the same sin that I committed, after all.
And do not let her close her heart to our progeny. See to it that Sesshomaru has his mother, if nothing else. Even if he must hate me and his half-brother to keep his maternal ties. Let him hate me, if he needs to. I will not punish him for it. I feel nearly sheepish to admit this, but I once wished to mate Sesshomaru and Katsumi together. I have learned that there is no value to a mate if you cannot choose it yourself. That is not to say that Kimi had no value to me, but I feel that for one as set in his ways as Sesshomaru, he must have a match that he approves of and no other. Do not let Kimi twist him into a marital alliance if his heart is not in it. Sesshomaru's heart has become an alien thing to me of late. I no longer know what my son and my mate are thinking. I am an outsider now, looking in. Sesshomaru disapproves of the shame that I have inadvertently placed on Kimi's shoulders.
I am ashamed for it too, Megumi.
He will not listen to me, so I hope he listens to you. Even if he never recovers his memories of you, please tell him that his sword can be enough to strengthen his lands if he so chooses. But make sure that he knows the Inu rule of the Western Lands will not end with him.
It will end with my next pup, if named Inuyasha.
Drill this accursed knowledge into his head until he understands that he need not make a decision for fear of destroying the lineage he is so proud of. Kimi may yet take another into her bed. Perhaps even I will sire another child with Izayoi, while she is still young and in her best maternal years.
I have already asked for so much, and yet I've one more thing to ask of you. If you must take anything from this letter, let it be this. Megumi Madarame, child of ningen and draconic birth, daughter of legend and flesh, I command you to remember your name. Forget not who you are. You are of pure blood. The humans have claimed you as a hime. Your birthright declares it to be so. But you are also of something primordial. The kami have kissed your lids and bestowed upon you, their blessing. It was they that gave you your name first, long before your ningen parents decreed it to be so. You have a destiny far greater than even my own.
Do not forget who you are.
My little dragon.
Meg.
You are all that I could have hoped to raise, and more. Listen to your heart. Listen to your very nature. You are old, older than all the ningens and yokai that have walked these lands. You are nature itself. Do not sacrifice your spirit for the dying light of another's. There are thousands of yokai; thousands of ningens. And of these creatures, there are hundreds of daiyoukai and hundreds of royal bloodlines.
There is only one Twin Dragon of Timidity.
There is only one you.
I ask that you treasure it. Just as I have always treasured you.
Toga
The hands that had been holding Toga's letter trembled, and relaxed. The letter slid free of her grasp and fell with a soft wush against the upturned dirt. Beneath her fingernails was the faintest layer of grime, a testament to the time she had devoted to digging the frail letter back up. It had been exactly where Toga had promised. In the early morning, the blades of grass sank against the weight of the dew and bobbed gently in time with the wind. Streaks of sunlight peppered the forest floor where they pierced through the thick canopy overhead. Why Toga had chosen the outskirts of his shiro as the place to bury his message, she could not quite understand. It wasn't like she would have known to look here had he not told her to do so.
Nevertheless, she found herself grateful for the privacy that this location provided. The shiro had been aflame with gossip ever since the not-so-blind healer had returned, guarded ever-so-carefully by the uncharacteristically devout daiyoukai. Never had the residents of the Western shiro seen Sesshomaru's demeanor thrown so drastically out of normalcy for anyone that was not Rin before . . . and yet, here he was, insisting on changing the bandages of his charge personally. The chatter had not even subdued when Rin herself was returned to the shiro.
Rin's deliverer did not stay long.
Now, almost a full year later, Sesshomaru's strange behavior had become the new normal. Just as the shiro eventually made room in their eyes for Rin, so too had they done for the newest member of Sesshomaru's entourage. The most common grievances the gossipers ranted wildly about used to be how distasteful it was that Sesshomaru had taken so kindly to the healer. The gossipers mostly griped about how hard it was to seek an audience with his mysterious healer these days–and they were certainly right. It had been a horrifying experience, to heal all of her injuries without the assistance of her draconic experience, but she had done it. Her spine itched as she thought back to the state that Katsumi's claws had rendered her in all those moons ago.
She had not seen Katsumi since . . . but she had the most peculiar feeling that Katsumi had had a hand in overseeing her recovery. In light of Chiharu's betrayal, the chief healer had been dismissed from her service in the Western Lands. In her place, Gina had accepted her former senpai's title, and was tasked straightaway with the duty of restoring the formerly blind healer. Gina had given her an array of herbal tinctures and remedies, some made with her own youki, and others imbibed with what unmistakably the spiritual essence of the Twin Dragon of Temperament.
Nearly two full lunar cycles ago, Gina declared her to be fully healed. Sesshomaru remained skeptical, but Kimi scolded him for his near-suffocating watch over her and reminded her son that personal space is key for a full recovery. Walking without aid had been a difficult step, but perhaps the one she had been proudest to achieve. Ambling around the shiro had become one of her favorite things to do. Sesshomaru had been hesitant to let her wander too far unaided, but Kimi had insisted. So, she wandered. It took her three painfully slow weeks, but she had made her way to her destination, but at long last she had returned to Inuyasha's village and bid him thanks for all of his help.
Inuyasha had insisted on escorting her on her return . . . and had received quite the nasty earful from his half-brother upon delivering the woman back into the hands of the man who had wished to mate her.
And he had . . . sort of. She had not given him an answer when he asked the first time. But she did not forget about it either. Each night, when she closed her eyes in meditation, she reflected on what he had told her in the privacy of that little room Shimizu had found for her. There were too many thoughts in her head, and so she had brushed it aside. There would be a time for thinking about Sesshomaru's offer later. Things like her draconic spirit, her brush with death, and the reality of the fate she had shared with Katsumi and Toga took precedent.
Do not forget who you are.
No, she would not forget.
She was Megumi Madarame: Twin Dragon of Timidity.
The faintest flutter of her draconic spirit fluttered at the mention of its name. The flame with small, and delicate, but Megumi had tended it with a love and tenderness that Kimi had laughed and called almost maternal. Sesshomaru had studied her very closely after Kimi made that comment. Her spirit was still far too weak to be summoned, but it was there, giving Megumi the strength she had needed to get through this past year. Sesshomaru had explained to her that his blade could not bring someone back from the dead; merely stop the underworld's agents from carting her soul off for a while. It could not save her twice.
As Megumi rose to her feet, the delicate folds and twists of her clothes shifted with her. Against the deep green backsplash of the forest, Megumi stood out as a gently ethereal figure. She was dressed, after all these centuries, in the fashions befitting of a hime: human or otherwise. Today, Hina had dressed her gently in an array of tea rose pinks and fine pearl accents. It was not traditional for the royal inus, but neither was Megumi. Her fine, black hair had been ceremoniously styled especially for today, courtesy of Hina. Above her brow she bore Kimi's still-stinging blessing, bestowed upon her last night: a pale white crescent moon, its color rivaled only by the pearlescent sheen of Megumi's unique irises.
Sesshomaru, her mate to be, had kissed the place where the mark would go and told her tenderly that her eyes reminded him of melted moonstones.
Author's Final Note:
To everyone that got this far, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm not sure if/when I'll try my hand at writing fanfiction again, seeing as I'm decently busy with attempting to publish a book of my own here shortly. This has been an amazing experience for me as a writer. I know it's cheesy, but I seriously couldn't have come this far without all of you. As I'm writing this, Eyes of Melted Moonstone has been read by over NINE THOUSAND people! I wish I could personally thank each and every one of you, but since I can't, I hope this epilogue was enough.
(p.s. sorry that it never got really steamy . . . )
