Under the God Tree by hikari hime

Peace of the Soul (Winter)

Ayup everybody.

Thank you so much for all the ones who took the time to review. I'm glad some of you at least enjoyed the story. Here's the last chapter, I hope it won't dissapoint!

'Nuff said ^_^

Enjoy!

----------------

4 – Peace of the Soul (Winter)

A thick blanket of snow hid the ageless roots of the God Tree, its boughs heavy under the pure, white stuff.

Everything was frozen, nature sleeping under the cover of winter.

Tiny drops of water shone in the crisp rays of the morning sun, falling to the ground to join its brethren in the small bubbling brook.

A creature of white and red and a little bit of gold, was gliding through the forest to pay his respect to the ancient Goshinboku, his footsteps as silent as the passing of time, leaving no trace whatsoever on the snow-covered ground.

Sesshomaru lifted his eyes to the slumbering giant, amber glittering in the sunlight, and remembered, as he had each year since that fateful day.

It had been in the dead of winter, January she had told him in that wizened voice of hers, that her body had finally failed her.

She had been a force of nature all her life, a strong woman even when she had been more than a century old, but she was still very much human, and there was a limit to what her body could sustain.

Yes, even her, in her infinite love and purity.

They had been lovers for the last years of her life, a few decades, a drop in the ocean of his millennia-old life.

Too short, but so intense had been their hunger for each other.

As if she had wanted to catch up on lost time,

As if he had wanted to keep her so deeply burrowed in him that even death couldn't touch her.

He had put all his dreams of conquest on hold, just so that he could stay with her for the little time she had left,

She had bathed him every day, showering him with kisses and hugs and oh so much more,

And that hadn't been enough, because even though he loved her more than his own life, he never told her any thing.

He suspected she knew, though, because she still gave him that secret smile, the one only for him, which made her eyes the same colour as the night sky.

One day, she had bathed him with the softness only she was capable of and had rubbed his chest and back with oils, like in the beginning when Sesshomaru had denied the both of them so much. Her hands didn't shake, her eyes never missed anything, and her mind was as sharp as ever, but her breath escaped her lungs like a family of rattlesnakes and her heart was pumping her lifeblood sloppily.

She covered him with a warm sleeping yukata, and accompanied him into their bed, the one they had been sharing for the last forty years or so, so many years for her, never enough for him, and lay down with him.

She kissed him softly, tenderly, and he returned the kiss with a wet sweep of his tongue on her lower lip, the gesture only mates of his species shared, and even though she was only human, she understood and smiled their secret smile, the one even Inuyasha never had, the one only for him, Sesshomaru.

She told him, with the little bit of voice she had left,

“Will you please do me a favour, my Lord?”

And in the deep rumble of his own voice he answered,

“Name it, Kagome, and it will be done.”

She smirked then, always amused by his formality,

“Live,” she said, “not for me, but for yourself. Enjoy life, nurture it, and when we meet again, don't wait so long to let me in.”

He smiled, the rare true smile he only gave to her, the one which made his eyes shine like the sun in the summer sky,

“It will be done as you wish,”

He told her he loved her that night, for the first and last time of their joined life, and in the morning she was no more, her face frozen in a peaceful smile; but not theirs, her closed eyes unable to shine the deep blue of the night sky any more.

Sesshomaru made a wish that day under the God Tree.

“I wish,” he prayed, “that in our next existence together, we can be joined, not only in life, but in time too, so that I can live and age by her side.”

Of course, as things are wont to happen, no one answered him, but somewhere up above the youkai's silver head, under the deep blue sky of winter, a little white flower bloomed.

----

Owari