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Title: Fire, Glass, And Passion

Prompt: Mask

Summary: Behind his temper, beyond her kindness, always on his sleeve. Inuyasha wears a mask, Kagome puts up a wall, and Kouga can only be himself.

Word Count: 290


Inuyasha has worn his mask for ten long years. It is made of fire and fury, and it hides his weakness from the world. You will not see him cry; you will only see him sneer. He brushes off concern with a scoff, covers his fear with snide remarks, masks his love with anger. Inuyasha wears his mask to be strong for others, and he has only ever let a handful of people to see beyond it. He only lets a few support him when he is weak.

Kagome is kind and dear and soft, except for when she is firm and heated and unrelenting. She is the definition of nurturing, a mother to all. Her mask is not fire nor fury, but cool and fragile and barely there; a wall of glass that rises only when one dug too deep into her past. She did not speak of her parents, of her brother, of the lover who put an arrow in her chest. Her childhood was not one worth revisiting, and those few years she had with her mother were too painful to bear. Only at her strongest, or perhaps her weakest, did she allow that mask to shatter.

Kouga did not wear a mask; he never had and he never would. Whether it was a strength or a weakness depended on who you asked, but to him it was pretty simple: he was who he was and he felt what he felt, and he didn't know how to be anyone else. He was passionate and honest to dizzying extremes; he could never do or feel anything half hearted. Kouga put all of his soul into every thing he did, and he made sure the whole world knew it.


A fun comparison to make, actually. This is my favorite so far.