Undelivered
Prompt: Letters (SessKag monthly prompt)
Universe: Canon divergence
Genre: Drama
516 Words
Miko,
I do not know why I am addressing this to you. We were never friends, barely allies, and I strived my best to keep you and your entire group at a distance.
Perhaps it is simply easier to get my thoughts onto this paper believing they are for someone else.
And you are a safe choice for a recipient because I know these words will never reach you. Your hands will never hold this letter, your eyes will never scan these lines.
But truth be told that is not the only reason. I suppose it is also because you are the only one besides me who is left, who remembers. The only one who might understand.
Because like me, you have no one to reminiscence with.
I admit I was always curious about you. I could tell you were different but could never figure out how or why, until your friends explained to me about your origins and circumstances.
Or rather, they explained to Rin, who was quite worried on your behalf when you didn't return with Inuyasha from your final confrontation with Naraku and the Shikon no tama.
She is gone now.
Yesterday marked the first anniversary of her death. I went to visit her grave, though it did not ease the chasm within me, nor would it likely bring her any comfort in the afterlife.
I buried her ashes myself.
She lived long – for a human. She lived happy. Those two things should comfort me, I suppose. Instead, I am rueing myself for ever getting attached.
Loss is not an emotion this Sesshoumaru wishes to know so intimately. Yet it would seem too late for such protestations.
You would know about loss, I am sure. You would understand why I would rather keep my distance than expose myself to this torment again.
Inuyasha has gone. I have every reason to believe he is still alive, but he has left Edo and I know not where his travels have taken him. I suspect he had little reason to stay after the monk and the slayer had passed and the fox kit found a pack among his own kind.
I was not lonely before.
I think I am now.
There are times I almost miss Jaken and his company was barely tolerable at best.
Passage of time always meant little to me, but now the days seem slow.
Yet the ache in my chest has not eased. The chasm within me yawns wide and dark and it is a constant battle not to succumb to its gloom.
How did you do it, miko? How did Rin do it? How did your smiles always come so quick and ready, even after the hardships you had faced?
When you always felt so openly, so much, so keenly, how did those emotions not consume you?
I wish now I could have had more time with you, perhaps I could have learned from you.
But now we shall never know.
As I said, we were never friends. But wherever you are, whenever you are, I wish you well.
Sesshoumaru