".. there is an old fox demon living somewhere out in the desert. If you can find him."
He is the light, he is the sun.
He is standing there when she awakens, so sure that Sango would have sworn in her own blood that she had seen the sun rising from the west.
He is tall and lanky, and besides that, she hasn't a clue, because he is filled and surrounded by a blinding white light, as if he has never had a shadow. Never dimmed.
The night retreats away from him, slithering away in wisps and snake-like tentacles. It cries out, and though she knows not the words, the language leaves an echoing sort of pain against her soul.
What is he ..? This sharp mockery of sun is actually fighting the night? How can he attack something inanimate?
Ah, but it is not.
Her skin itches where it rests against the ground, her own shadow burning faintly against her. She can smell the skin smoldering beneath her, beneath her clothing. It is important, and she knows. There is no reluctance as Sango strips quickly of all cloth and stands as bare as the sand.
His brillance etches out all lines of darkness, not even faint whispers remaining where sun had not shined on her skin. She has known foul enemy by instinct alone, and has no fear of her own nudity.
Are you..? Could he be anything but what she had searched for? In a land utterly devoid of life, there would be little question.
Shippou is young, even to demons.
This is obvious to even the most casual observer. Kagome ignores what she understands so well that Miroku wonders if she's even noticed at all.
But it is Shippou himself that suggests it, asks..
In all their travels, where have they found another like his father? Where have they found any like him? He must learn these things somehow, he must become what he was born to be, he must develop.
To develop instincts that one has little memory of, there are few harder traits. They begin to openly search, but still are without distinct results.
Few fox demons live to long enough a state to be of suitable use. Few of anything, in fact, live that long at all, but this only hinders their efforts the more.
The word is passed through sake and hangovers, and no amount of trying could ever amount the source of this. But be a rumor or a legend or even an outright lie, it is worth pursuing.
It is worth the try.
Sango hasn't a clue who she's following.
Though she's asked, cajoled and coaxed, and even resorted to straight goading with verbal threats, he does not respond. Through the bright flashes of solid white, she can't see anything slightly resembling a detail, but he - this figure, creature - does not reply in any kind of voice she can hear.
It is by mere personal whimsy and fancy that she follows him.
The night grows only the stronger around them, itching and edging around their lines but never crossing. And she thinks of how late the hour must be.
The smell of water hangs in the air, and just the sweat of it - the scent - coats the back of her throat and gives her pause.
She runs through the dunes, speed tripping her feet farther than unsteady grain and soil could. She slips and falls, but still reaches the oasis before this strangeness she has been following.
Beyond the illuminance of his shadows, she can not see far. But roots pilfer across the ground and through the musty blue of water .. water that is bubbling, boiling..
He is standing knee-deep in the blue, and the liquid rolls in rapidly decreasing bubbles away from him. He is heat, he is solid heat incarnate. He is the sun.
The light fades slowly, the water stilling with it. Seeping carefully back, whispering in echoes as it is dragged with amber leisure. It is reverse draining.
It is moving in waves, rolling inward, back into his flesh. He is collecting this intensity with a passive demeanor, and steps further into the water. The very air around them begins to cool itself and drops, laden with this ferocity, to the ground.
And Sango is resting with her back to scratchy bark, made all the more so for her burned skin. The air is filled with oxygen, with living breath and she inhales it deeply. The shadows are cool here, and soothe her soul.
Her eyes fight to pierce the night, only discerning a lingering form standing in the water. Standing motionless and staring at a point in the distance away from her.
She fights fruitlessly against the encompassing sleep. It possesses and claims her with a hungry urgency. She is tired straight down to her bones, and passes out with her head still leaning against the firmness of desert foilage. Trees in a land without water..