I do not own Inuyasha. Not mine. Never will be.

May be Heaven's Distant Lamps

(From "The Fire of Driftwood")

… … … … …

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said,

Of what had been, and might have been,

And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,

When first they feel, with secret pain,

Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,

And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,

That words are powerless to express,

And leave it still unsaid in part,

Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in which we spake

Had something strange, I could but mark;

The leaves of memory seemed to make

A mournful rustling in the dark.

… … … … …

Until they made themselves a part

Of fancies floating through the brain,

The long-lost ventures of the heart,

That send no answers back again.

O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!

They were indeed too much akin,

The drift-wood fire without that burned,

The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

Longfellow

Silence has a life of its own, often. It is borne when least expected and grows around those nearest with strangling vines made of the stilled chords of words waiting to be spoken still hanging ambient in the dark. Sesshomaru stood with his back to the spring where Kagome was readying for her bath. There was a point in their short walk to the spring when he had faltered in his speech and retreated into his own thoughts and the thoughts of his ever present beast.

There is no reason to reconsider. She is ours.

'She is ours because, for a few moments, I was so stunned by her admission that she had wanted to share my memories and experiences that I allowed you to take control while this Sesshomaru regrouped.'

This Sesshomaru seems to remember That Sesshomaru being "stunned" for much longer than a few moments, if indeed That Sesshomaru was really stunned at all.

'She stole our past and our pain. She is a miko. She knew what would happen, certainly. It is a rouse.'

It is not. This Sesshomaru knows better. She holds no deception in her scent nor the kind of cruelty in her soul necessary to do as you believe she did. This Sesshomaru even knows why you fight the truth we both know already.

'Silence beast. We know nothing because You are mistaken.'

Where is your proof? I know because this Sesshomaru sensed her heart when her aura touched ours. You cannot sense such things. You are incapable of such things while we are separate. And still, this Sesshomaru restates that he knows why that Sesshomaru wishes to turn tail and run like a scared pup.

For a moment he had to restrain himself. He wanted to rip mokomokosama from his shoulder and tear out some of the soft billowy fur to emphasize his own point, but then he stopped himself. 'You are lucky This Sesshomaru is NOT a pup, beast.'

You only realize that the pain you inflict upon me would only be upon yourself. Luck had nothing to do with it.

'Again, I say, she is a miko. She is human. Just like Midoriko. Midoriko who allied herself to my father, shackled him forever to the pitiful members of her race and then, in her weakness, created that blasted jewel. The only consolation this Sesshomaru has is that she will be locked within the jewel in perpetual war and torment until I am able to end the existence of the Shikon no Tama forever.'

Kagome is Not Midoriko.

'She might as well be.'

You say this for only one reason.

'Silence.'

Make me.

'You push too far.'

I only push myself. You are being unreasonable, as always. You, who ignore me until your temper overwhelms you and forces me to overtake you in order to keep you sane and to curtail your power. You, who could not control his anger time and time again concerning our brother, our father's sword and Kagome, placing us both in peril because your rage had festered so long. You, who almost killed the one person who now can understand and bring us solace after so very long. This Sesshomaru asks That Sesshomaru, with all honesty, which he thinks really is the beast between us.

'Silence! You have no place!'

I have every place within you. I am you. Once we were not so separate. Once, when your heart was not so cold and your mind not so jaded, there was no This Sesshomaru and That Sesshomaru. There was only I and Me and he who was the killing perfection.

'You are only emotion and mindless instinct! You have no place in This Sesshomaru!'

You lie to me. You lie to yourself. Mindless instinct? Only emotion? These are the things you cut away from yourself. This is the reason our father disowned us, not because you decided that you would not uphold his treaty with Midoriko. He saw it. He saw that you had lost your heart to ice and hatred and continually ignored your own instincts. You made yourself half of what you were and, ever since, half of what you could be. Listen now. Listen for once in all of these centuries that we have been two rather than the one. This cannot go on. I will not allow it. Not now when there is one who can bring us back together and heal what was broken.

'She does not have the power.'

Not everything in this world is about power and control. There is something in her that calls to me and to you. She draws us through her compassion, her beauty and through the one thing we both lack because we are so completely divided.

'Which is?'

Strength.

'This Sesshomaru IS strong.'

No, he is not. Neither is this Sesshomaru. Not by ourselves. We are powerful, cunning, dangerous and deadly. But we are not strong. We are alone together and we are so very cold. Rin will leave us someday. Someday we will kill Jaken, for he is so much more than annoying. Miyoko is gone. Without warmth, we are only ice. Kagome melts that. Even before now, we envied Inuyasha for what he found in her. We envied the mongrel wolf only for his friendship with her. We even envied the Kitsune for the love she shows to him as his mother. It is time that we learn what we want and stop fighting it.

'But she is human.'

Does it really matter so much? There is so much hate and ice dividing us, I wonder if you can even grasp why you hate them so much. Why you hate at all.

'I know why I hate.'

No, you know the reason you hate. You know what its catalyst was. You do not know why you hate so deeply and why, even after taking Rin as our ward and loving her as we did our sister, you cannot accept that if we can love her, forgive her, perhaps we could forgive others. You do not know why. You do not want to know.

'You have already said so much. Why not say this too?'

You are not ready for the truth this Sesshomaru has to share with you.

'Are you so certain?'

Yes. It would destroy you.

Sesshomaru's beast was playing a dirty and dangerous game. He was aware of it. He had been sequestered, denied and separated from himself for so long, though, without any hope of healing that he was willing to be reckless. And so, keeping in mind that forcing Sesshomaru to lose control could result in the loss of the girl who so obliviously was soaking in the warmth of the spring only a few yards away, he continued because it was his only chance to finally free them both from the prison their past had created for them.

'You insult This Sesshomaru! Tell me now. I am not weak. I have never been weak!'

You hate humanity, Midoriko, our parents, our brother and the Shikon no Tama so deeply because if you let go of your hatred, you are afraid that you will collapse. We have wanted, needed for so long to be understood and the chance is before us with outstretched arms and a welcoming heart and still you fight learning to forgive because if you forgive her, you will have to forgive all of the rest. And if you forgive all of the rest you fear that there will be nothing left of you because you have only known hatred for so long. This Sesshomaru knows. He remembers. He is your heart and he still feels… Everything.

'I am not afraid… I am strong. I am…'

Ashamed.

'Yes.'

The miko is not ashamed of you. The miko… She has shared, by accident, our past. She wants to help us heal. This Sesshomaru cannot let her in and make her ours, but That Sesshomaru can. He has to or else we might never have another chance to become who it was we were meant to be. She could help us forgive ourselves and free us from our shame if we only allow her to. Can we allow her to? Can we try?

For a moment, mokomokosama went rigid with anticipation. They needed her. Every hair adorning him screamed instinctually that she was the key to ending their isolation and separation. If only he, That Sesshomaru, would, for once, relent. A relevant truth of every ice age is that even glaciers will melt away in time with enough warmth from the sun.

'We can. We will… Because she understands and because… Her heart reminds us of our own before it became broken.'

There was never more truth in your deductions.

'Gloat if you must, but I will have a patch of fur for it.'

In his mind there was only the mirthful laughter of a very satisfied, very amused beast.

Let me review the scene,

And from the shadowy past

The forms that once have been.

Longfellow

She looked out onto the gardens surrounding her palace with a heavy heart and laden memory. Her fingers danced along Meidou-Seki in a fervent caress and sighed as it warmed to her touch. "I never thought I'd live so long without him. I never thought my heart could survive after he died, but I had an obligation to fulfill to our children. He had written a letter to me shortly before he died with a detailed plan if our son ever came seeking me. Even when it was only in ink and the graceful hand in which he wrote, I could not deny him. But love does that. It takes away your will when it's true. It makes you helpless to the whim of your beloved even when you know he has not been as true to you. I know you are wondering, or would be wondering, why it is that I never took another mate once we severed our bond even when he did. The simple, painful fact is no one else could fill the place he took up in my heart. We instinctually recognized each other from the first moment we met, and so the beast within was sated as soon as that first kiss was claimed. At least I was sated, I mean. Yes, there is bitterness. There will always be bitterness. But, then, when a dog swears his loyalty to his master, his bitch has very little chance of keeping her place in his heart. Or, in Inu no Taisho's case, to his mistress. And then there was the hanyou, Inuyasha, who he placed over our son. It twisted the already buried daggar in my heart. I still believe if he'd been more patient with Sesshomaru, if he'd only allowed himself to see how broken our son really was, perhaps he would have relented and I would never have had to leave, taking what they both held as sacred…"

Satori turned from the window and walked toward the shining pillar of light in the center of the room. "You." The word came falling off her lips in reverence as she focused her gaze on the beautiful girl trapped within the glowing prison. She let her fingers graze over the barrier and trembled when the energy seared her flesh. The lovely Inuyoukai girl, barely in her adolescence, floated within the energy unharmed and forever stilled. She was dressed in a flowing gown made of pale pink veils and her hair fell free. Her face was so calm and peaceful. She was very much her father's daughter. Satori ached to see her daughter's eyes open again and look at her with the depth of her emotions as their expressions traveled from her eyes and possessed her very being as Satori's emotions never did. They never escaped the prisons of her eyes.

She remembered the day that it all had began. They had been living on the continent for a century happily and without any strife. Satori had taken her daughter to her father's palace hidden deep in a forest on a hill. It was a simple dwelling surrounded and managed by simple people. Satori had grown up there and so she had decided it would be a suitable place for her Miyoko.

That was until the day came that Miyoko had trapped her mother in a conversation Satori had been able to escape for little less than a hundred years.

"I want to know why we left them, Mother. I need to know. Sesshomaru needed me. He needed us and we abandoned him and Father." Her daughter was as willful and stubborn as both her parents, but she'd inherited more than her features from her father. She'd inherited his charisma and ability to manipulate anyone she wished. Her voice was not angry or cold. Much to the contrary, it was confused, innocent and pleading. Three things Satori knew very well her daughter was not.

She sighed and shook her head. She closed her eyes and collected her thoughts before she had answered Miyoko's question. "Your father noticed a rift in Sesshomaru's soul the day that your brother confessed he would not uphold the alliance forged with Midoriko once he became Taiyoukai of the west. Rather than attempt to remedy your brother's plight, he decided that he would sire another son to take his place."

"Father… Wouldn't do that."

"You are your father's daughter. It is only natural you would believe him incapable of such actions, but he was."

"Then there must have been more to it for him to have denied Sesshomaru." Judging the chill in her mother's eyes, Miyoko was certain there must have been. "Tell me. Please."

Satori studied her daughter and wondered if she was ready for the truth. It was something she and Inu no Taisho had never spoken of since they had been made aware of it. She, in fact, had ensured that no one else ever knew what they had learned because of the implications it created. "If I tell you, it will go no further than this room. Do you understand? I killed some very powerful, very important youkai in order to keep this secret."

Miyoko's eyes widened, but she replied with a slight nod. "I will tell no one, Mother."

"It began with the creation of the Shikon no Tama. The jewel is the prison of an evil youkai's soul and the pure soul of Midoriko where the two battle, maintaining the balance of a world within a world. That is how the sage coined it. A world within a world." Her eyes flashed with bitterness at the memory. "The sage came to us, your father and I, and said that he had come to deliver a prophecy about the jewel. At that time the jewel was in your father's possession and no one but he and I knew of its existence. The sage told us of the nature of the jewel and how its power could enhance both evil and good. If the jewel was ever purified completely or tainted completely, the war within it would be won and either humanity or youkai would cease to exist."

"They would… Simply disappear?" Miyoko's voice was frightened and Satori knew very well that her fear was not a manipulation. She did not blame her. She had been afraid because of the revelation as well.

"Not exactly. Those souls who were either born youkai or human would be reborn instantaneously as their flesh was transmuted into the race of the victor within the jewel. If it became entirely tainted, the world would become youkai. So would be the case if it were entirely purified. The world would become human." She paused and looked down at her hands. If she focused long enough she could still feel the sage's throat in her hands as she crushed it while Miyoko had still be heavy in her womb. "But there was still more to his prophecy. He told us that he had a vision of a Inuyoukai whose soul had split in two in possession of the Shikon no Tama. He said that this Inuyoukai destroyed the jewel in a fit of rage over the death of his lover. Because the war within the jewel had never been decided and the soul who was its destroyer was not whole to begin with, it opened a rift that slowly devoured the world, causing all who lived to be devoured by the void. The rift also devoured heaven and hell until there was nothing left but a great black space without substance, purpose or life."

"You think… The Inuyoukai is Sesshomaru." Miyoko breathed in honest, shattering fear. She stood instantly and met her mother's gaze with fearful determination. "This is your fault and father's fault. We are going back."

Satori stood and grabbed the hair at the nape of her daughter's neck sharply in order to establish dominance. "Remember who you are speaking to, Miyoko. I am your mother and you are not yet grown enough to be questioning me or your father."

Miyoko sat once her hair was released and rubbed her neck gently and with care. "We can't leave him if that's his fate, Mother. He wouldn't want to be the reason to destroy the world."

"Honestly, if humanity was certain to be destroyed, I doubt he would care."

"That is unfair."

"Miyoko, know your place."

"I know my place, Mother. I have always known it, or have you forgotten the very words that came from your mouth when I was only barely able to understand them? Your place is with your family, defending them, supporting them, loving them always. Without them you are nothing but an empty shell following a lost cause."

There was nothing to say to counter her daughter. To counter her was to counter herself and Satori did not have the will nor the desire to make herself into a liar. It became blindingly clear that Miyoko was as ruthless as her father as well in the matters of the heart.

They had returned to Japan and Satori's palace that had been given to her by her mate as a wedding gift centuries before. They had been there only a few days when the unthinkable had happened. Miyoko had been out alone in the forests surrounding the palace. It was her most beloved pastime to walk in nature and listen to the music of the forest as it sang, unwaveringly, around her. When her daughter did not return for the evening meal, Satori went seeking her. She found her beautiful daughter near death on the forest floor bathed in the scent of dragon youkai. They had been on a rampage following the sealing of Ryukotsusei, killing any Inuyoukai they came upon. But Miyoko was not dead. Her mokomokosama was, however, meaning she would soon follow her beast into the afterlife. Satori had cradled her daughter in her arms and taken her home along with the shredded mokomokosama and summoned the nearest miko. Purifying energy was not enough to kill an Inuyoukai of Miyoko's lineage, but it was enough to place her into stasis until there was a way to save her life. Satori had bartered with the miko and made a pact that she would defend the woman's nearby village until the end of her days if the miko would expend her life energies to save Miyoko's life. Since then, Satori had kept her pact and found herself in the same tangle her beloved mate had been in that had caused their son to hate him so completely.

"I cannot bring myself to tell him the truth, Miyoko. I know seeing you, trapped between life and death, would cause the prophecy to come true more readily than any other thing could. If this barrier did not so completely hide your presence, he would have found you. We, again, have much to thank the miko who sacrificed her self to save you for. Maybe someday Kami will be kind and I will see your beautiful eyes open again and hear your voice raised in argument with me. I promise I would not be so cross with you, sweet child." She sighed and let her gaze fall to the floor. She'd made so many mistakes. She hoped that letting Sesshomaru leave without knowledge of his sister's fate would not be listed among them.