Title Bittersweet Partings
Author landofthekwt
Rating PG-13
Word Count 286
POV Shiori
Prompt Bittersweet
Warning mentions of character deaths
Summary Shiori visits the taijiya graves after her marriage to Inuyasha
She laid the lilies where she knew the graves were. It was her secret place now. The rest place of the taijiya. The resting place of her family.
It was merely a meadow in the middle of the forest now. The taijiya village had ceased to exist hundreds of years ago. When their prey declined in number need for taijiya declined until only Musushito remained.
As the last of the taijiya he had clung tenaciously to the ways that his father taught him. At the end even he had seen that his time was done.
They had cried together alone one last time knowing that they would never meet again in this life. He sad to leave his mother. Her sad because a mother should never bury her son
He never married leaving no one to carry on when he died. When he died, the walls came down. Everything she and Kohaku built disappeared except the graves.
She came back every year to place lilies from Kohaku's secret place on the graves They might be unmarked, but as long as she remembered them they would still be there.
At last she knelt before the Jizo where Musushito was buried. It hurt being here even more than Kohaku's grave. She did not leave because it meant saying goodbye again.
Clapping she said a final prayer and got up to leave. She heard laughter and looked up into the ghostly face of her son He looked the same as he had the day he told her that he would be reborn.
" Mother, bring that no good husband of yours next year. He needs to get bury and give you a son. Third time is a charm"