Until We Meet Again by elevenharbor

Until We Meet Again

-- Until We Meet Again --

by: elevenharbor

‘I guess I’ll see you around, hopefully on the other side’, you once said to me in passing. Sadness in your eyes, weariness in your soul. You forced a half smile, the light never reaching your eyes, not like the way they used to.

That was the last time I saw you.

Had I known then, had I known that I would be waiting in vain for eternity, I would have changed everything.

Even if it meant facing the gods myself and forcing their hand to turn back time again.

I was a fool. I am still a fool. 500 years did not change me. Or has it been 600 years since. Or a thousand. I cannot keep track. I don’t want to keep track.

You will never know this, but I sought you out. I searched far and wide for answers; up in the skies where my mother resides, and down past the gates of the netherworld where my life-granting sword reigns supreme. Yet my hands come back empty, as empty as I have felt since the day you departed this world, this plane.

Your friends remembered you fondly. My ward spoke of you reverently. My half-brother, the idiot that he was, never knew how good he had it.

For he had you.

He had you to dote on him, to shower him with affection even as he turned a blind eye. He had you while he pined for someone who was part of his past, who should have stayed in his past. He had you at his worst days, he had you at his best.

And he did not deserve you.

But then again, neither do I.

You were an enigma from the very start. You accomplished a feat that even I, as powerful as I am, could not. You pulled my father’s sword out of its resting place without a scratch, awakening its hidden powers.

If only you knew, knew that you awakened a power far greater than the one slumbering inside a rusty old sword.

You awakened my desires.

Desires I could not even fathom having. Desires that terrified me, so much so that I turned a blind eye to it, resorting to what I knew best instead.

Fear and intimidation. It is the only language I have ever spoken. A weapon, an instinct. You either lived or you died. It is the only life I have ever known. Until now.

‘Why care for them? Why protect them? Why love them?’ These were my first words to you. Only, these words were just a smokescreen. . .

I’ve come to realize too late that those fateful words meant so much more, for I’ve found my answers to them in you.

I tried to instill fear upon you. Just like so many others before you, and so many more after you.

You defied me yet again.

And again...and again.

You’ve proven your worth. You defeated your foes with your arrow. You almost defeated me.

You broke through my armor. You threatened to shoot an arrow through my heart next. If only you knew, you already had.

And that heart continually bled. And it still bleeds.

You will never know, but I have watched over you. More times than you can even imagine. I have seen you at your worst, I have seen you at your best, and I have seen you at all the steps in-between. That poison master couldn’t touch you. The evil soul that tried to take over couldn’t tarnish you. Those lesser demons inside that abominable spider couldn’t ever lay a finger on you.

My father once asked me if I had someone to protect. I remember disregarding the thought. But as I reflect back on it all...

You became my someone to protect. Before Rin. Before Kagura. Before anyone.

I have traversed time like you, though I took the long road while you took the shortcut. Seen more wars than I care to remember. Participated in many more; some by choice, others by force.

I have lived through the stories you’ve told me in your history books. I have listened to all the great ‘classics’ you spoke fondly of with my own ears. I have experienced the pain of losing my kind to give rise to yours.

Yet the pain of losing you still feels greater.

I have made it to the present time, just as you said I would, without actually saying it. I am here, waiting for you, on the other side. Just as you told me to all those years ago.

There are so many things I want to tell you, so many things I wish I could’ve told you. So many wishes, so many regrets, so many what-if’s.

But despite it all, there is only one word that my lips want to form. Only three syllables that my voice wants to enunciate. Only one face my heart and mind want to see with my own eyes. Only one pair of hands my fingers long to touch. Only one body my arms want to engulf. Only one pair of eyes that I want to restore the fire, the passion, the happiness, and the love within.

But all that will have to wait.

Until we meet again.

Kagome

-- x --

A/N: A late-night product of having the soundtrack from Howl's Moving Castle on repeat. I don't know what compelled me to write this. I don't even know what this is, or what to call it. It just came out. But if I had to imagine Sesshomaru ever writing a love letter, it would go something like this. A mix of angst and longing. Because why not.