The Wayfarer And The Way by Lyra

For A Woman Of A Distant Land

The Wayfarer and The Way

- I -

For A Woman Of A Distant Land

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The air was radiant. Heat reflected from the roof, the blacktop, the blue, blue sky. In a stillness broken only by the coarse caw of the occasional gull, a woman lay bathing in the shimmer of air and Spanish sun. She was a lithe, berry-brown figure in a sable bikini, with skeins and skeins of smooth dark hair and smoky umber eyes. She was the perfect Japanese woman, though she had never thought of herself that way; that was part of her charm.

Yawning, drowsy, she turned and stretched in a full and languid way she surely would not have if she had known she was under anyone else’s eyes.

Especially his.

For more than four hundred years, he had been chasing the rumor of her life...her death...and once again her life. When he had found her again, following the trail of a scent through Tokyo, it had led him, not to the woman he remembered, but to a girl. A child.

He had known all the same that it was her. In a thousand years he had never found two humans with exactly the same scent - and so he had waited for her to grow up. Waited, and learned the truth of her presence in his past, her future. He had learned how - a magic well - but still not why. He found that truly, he did not care.

He watched her, peering in now and again, protecting her from threats that she never once suspected. He had known when her travels had ended, had known the day, the exact hour, in which she had disappeared – then and now.

Since that last day, when she had dissolved in tears by the side of a well that would not open, it had been eighteen months; enough time, he thought. She had come to Europe to study, seeking to leave the past behind her...but it went nowhere, would not leave her behind. It was with her every moment, looking over her shoulder -

And so was he.

He had prepared himself for what he must tell her, for her inevitable questions, for her even more inevitable pain...but this was not the right moment. She would be embarrassed for him to see her this way, and embarrassment would make everything more uncomfortable than was necessary.

“I will be coming soon, Kagome. Soon.”

As quickly as he had come, he was gone.

Kagome leaned upward, feeling suddenly an impossible, familiar presence; she heard a whisper, but not the words within it.

“Sesshomaru...Sesshomaru?”

Her eyes darted around the rooftop, her senses prowling...and then she let out laughter that did its best to seem lighthearted.

“Come on, Kagome, get a grip. Sesshomaru, here? Now?”

And then she sat up and rolled over, exposing her back to the Spanish sun, laying her head on folded arms. She would never admit how much she wanted it to be true.

Even Sesshomaru would be a link to the past she had lost.

~~~

Cherry On Top Challenge Collection

Prompt: Tin Roof Sundae; 500 words.

A/N: Ooo a new one!  Expect this one to be very sporadic, unless it randomly possesses me.  I've never written Sesshomaru in the modern era before...

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