EPILOGUE: DAWN FLAVORED

"There is something moon soaked
And dawn flavored about her.
Something kissed by the wild and loved by lightening.

She looked like Artemis
After a night of storm hunting,
She looked like the sun as it rises
After kissing the dawn."
(Artemis Girl, Nikita Gill)

There is a part of him who thinks that maybe he died years ago and he does not know it yet. That maybe this world around him is a hell of his own making, a Tartarus, a perfect world designed to choke him with how utterly flawless it is. Perhaps his father's power shifted to his brother and he turned to dust beneath the castle's stones and even now is languishing there under the hanyou's rule. Or he thinks even that the small and minor happiness he had felt that evening when he was showered with whispered "I love you's" was real and then instead of their energies mingling together like intertwining vines, her spiritual power purified him and even now he is resting, safe and unaware inside the Jewel of Four Souls, forever near to her heart, by far, far too far away to ever touch.

But if this is hell, if this is death, if this is a cage – he wants nothing else.

There are that are long. That are filled with nothing but nobles whining and complaining about taxes or impositions. Days when they have to take sides and play favorites. But before, when he would have left many things up to lesser nobles, he sees the way Kagome glows to help his subjects and so he, too grows to enjoy seeing other's happiness. A drought leads to a terrible harvest and Kagome opens their own grain stores to the poor. An illness and suddenly Kagome is elbow deep in the sick, explaining to him about inoculations and bacteria and he doesn't understand it but he helps her anyway because he suddenly sees Rin in those children. Suddenly those children could be theirs and he would want someone to help, so he does.

Sometimes there are skirmishes on the border with other lords. Sometimes there are upstart nobles like Akira and he husband who try to make names for themselves by attempting to usurp someone else of their power.

But then sometimes there is Naraku.

It takes precedent over everything else because if he wins who could say how much longer they would survive? She tells him that his future self came and met her family though obviously he would not know that. She says he looked no different, seemed pleased but unsurprised to see her. But futures change. The past can change. He will not give up on that future, on those hundreds of years together with her because of one small misstep.

So they collect shards. Defeat his children and his followers. Everyday drawing a little closer, closer, closer to the final battle, to defeating him. To a time when everything will be peace and light and splendor and he can dream about what Kagome will look like with her belly filled and swelled with their child. Where he can raise a son the way he was raised. Where he can watch Rin play with siblings, watch them learn and grow and thrive.

He had not thought that he would be fit to rule in such a manor. Too aloof. Too cold. Too removed from his subjects. Only good to protect the borders. At least they were all safe, that was the important thing, that was what mattered, right? But now he cared. He cared about the land, the people. And all of that was due to the woman beside him. His wife, his lady, his mate.

Days were spent traveling the countryside or playing judge to petty squabbles.

But nights were only for each other.

Nights were for sighs breathed into one another's mouths, for the traipse of fingers counting ribs, for teeth and tongue leaving marks on breasts and hips and thighs. It was for hands fisted in long hair and eyes rolled back as he's enveloped in heat. It was want and yearn and need. It was his chest so full of love that he cannot help but leave a trail of endearments covered with kisses. It was soft love you's whispered in the delicate shell of her ear. It was panting mine, mine, mine as she sinks down onto him, her head thrown back in wild abandon, his hands skimming up her sides.

Though he would not admit to anyone, not for all the power in the world, as perfect and numbing and explosive as their lovemaking is… it is what comes after that is his favorite part of any day.

When they are wrapped in each other's arms, hip to hip, heartbeat to heartbeat, head to head. When they can soothe the tremors and aftershocks with long, languid strokes. When they can speak of their futures. Their wants. T Their desires.

There is something more powerful in those quiet moments than he could have imagined existing between two people. For him, before her, bed play had been something to release tension, a biological imperative and nothing more. There was no pillow talk, no holding one another close, no nights spent in the other's bed.

Now he cannot bear a night apart from her.

Because one girl, one young, headstrong, powerful, human girl, had the audacity to march into his castle and ask a favor. She did not ask for power or wealth or titles. Just a small thing, really. But from so simple a request, he finds himself here. It makes him wonder how his father could have professed to love two woman, because Sesshomaru knows that this is only woman for him. No other has or will score themselves on his heart, on his very soul, as she has. They are connected, through time, through space, through centuries. Should his manor crumble into dust, should his lands be torn asunder, should the very isle of Japan sink beneath the sea, he should not care an ounce, so long as they were together.

"You are thinking very hard about something, my dear."

His heart thrums at the endearment, and a low rumbling purr bounces in his chest. He nuzzles forward, nosing the soft skin behind her ear, licking at the sweat he finds there. She hums appreciatively, her head tilting back. "Just thinking of you." Of how she looked at him and saw nothing but a demon and made him better. No scar, no arrogance, to poison. Just him.

"Should I be offended at the intense look on your face then?"

He pulls her closer, until there is nothing between them but skin. "Thinking about how lost this Sesshomaru was before I met you, and did not even know it." He is smiling against his shoulder, burrowing close, closer, closet. "I think I shall strive to never be parted from you."

"Never?" She giggles.

He pretends to contemplate. "I shall allow you leave should you promise to always return to my bed."

For a long moment there are no words from her, because she he laving at the muscle where his neck meets his shoulder, leaving nips of teeth there that make him begin to rock against her insistently. "I think I might be able to agree to that…"

His mind is starting to go hazy as she begins to nose her way up his throat. One of her hands is sliding off his shoulder, sliding down and down and – "Might?" He says, but his voice comes out in a strangled gasp and he arches into her with a moan.

"I mean, you'd have to promise me something, too."

He'd promise her that he'd bring her Naraku's head right now as long as she didn't stop the slow and steady and almost painful rhythm of her hand. "Anything."

"I will promise to always love you." He groaned, almost a sob, and buried his face in her hair. "If you promise to always love me."

A laugh startles out of him. "My silly miko," he says, rolling them over so he is balanced on his elbows above her. "This Sesshomaru shall love until the sun falls out of the sky above us."

She reaches up to wrap her arms around his neck, pulling him down against her, grinning against the curve of his own smile. "Then I suppose we have a deal." Their lips met and moved against each other. "Here's to forever."