CHAPTER 1 – Lonely Footprints
The sun was slowly fading away. It was giving out its last and fiercest colours. As if there was a competition, the waves and the winds were growing stronger as well. The wind was getting wilder and colder. The sea was slowly building up its strength and hurling its waves on the shore.
The combination of the beautiful rawness of Nature's display and the fact that she was not there with him made him ache all the more. It made him remember her more vividly. He knew that he couldn't find solace in this place nor closure; but he always came and visited anyway. If he were honest enough with himself, he knew that he came here because he still harboured a small hope that she just might come back here. Here on their beach where she left him almost 650 or so years ago.
He does not understand how Time works and he has no desire to understand. He deliberately stayed away when he knew that she was about to come into the world. He stayed further away when he knew that she was about to leave. He did not want to suffer a second time and he did not wish to alter any of his memories of her by seeing her with another man – even if it was himself.
Her family was no more in this time. He didn't keep track because he could see her in them. He could have approached them but he did not, chose not to.
After she left back in Sengoku Jidai, he just slipped into his role as Taiyoukai. Nobody needed Sesshoumaru anymore. What was needed was the iron-fisted demon lord to rule and be the master of the West, the Killing Perfection. Under his hand, the land prospered and grew. With Naraku obliterated, peace settled in the land. Youkai and human alike had a silent understanding of staying away from each other's path. He knew that Kagome's companions went their own way. The slayer and the monk married and had children. The fox kit matured after Kagome left. He shed his child-like exterior and trained. Inuyasha lived as a human with his miko, Kikyou. He also died as a human with his miko, Kikyou – happy and satisfied in their old age.
'But why couldn't I have had that with my miko?' he bitterly asked.
He shrugged and turned to re-trace his footsteps to go back to their cottage. It is futile to ask questions that can never be answered.
Looking at his lone set of footprints along the shore, he was surprised to see a small set printed alongside his. The prints stopped as if washed away by the waves. He thought back to a time where his prints always had a companion. She had small, child-like feet too which he liked to massage and stroke. She hated it though.
“My feet look like they belong to a hobbit, not a woman,” she said wiggling her toes at him.
He caught the offending appendage and brought it to his lap. “No, they look like they belong to a Kagome. They are perfect.”
Suddenly, he couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the empty cottage just yet. It was too empty and the echo of his heartbeat would be too loud and too apparent there. Too obvious that his heart beat alone.
Frustrated, he swiped his hair off his face and sat down where the small footprints stopped. He turned to watch the sun again, listening to the waves and feeling them crash against the shore. He felt as if he were the sea. He could imagine the sea being frustrated at the shore. It wanted to cover the land but the shore was there to hinder it. So it eternally bashes its waves like fists on the shore in hopes of getting its way with the land.
The Taiyoukai remembered a time when he was the same. He would just use his claws, poison whip or his sword and he can have anything and everything. But since Kagome, the truths he thought that were absolute became dust in the wind.
“Are you okay, Mister?” A small, sweet voice asked out of nowhere.
Startled, Sesshoumaru whipped around. A small, black-haired little girl was peering at him with concern painted on her face.
Sesshoumaru didn't hear or sense or even smell the little girl. She looked to be around 4 or 5 years old. Not since the great Inu no Taisho had anyone snuck up on him. He sniffed her discreetly. The salty air was making it a bit difficult and it was upwind. He could barely make out the girl's scent. But his senses told him that there was no aura or any spell on her. How did she sneak up on him? She looked like any plain, normal little girl so Sesshoumaru dismissed the incident. Maybe it was because of his remembrance and his exhaustion.
He pointedly ignored the little girl and continued in his contemplation. He thought that if he ignored her, she will go away. But he was wrong.
“You look like you want to become the sea,” she said sagely as she sat down beside him uninvited.
"You look like you want to become the sea," she said nodding sagely like an old woman as she sat down beside him uninvited.
He turned to the little girl, puzzled at what she said. "Sometimes, me too. I want to spread out big like the see and cover everything and bash the sand and become many many bubbles," she explained with her fingers wriggling in the air and pinching imaginary bubbles.
It looked like that the little girl is not so normal after all. Most 5 year olds are not as eloquent nor do they feel as deep.
"Hn."
"Are those footprints yours, Mister?" Yet like most 5 year olds, she has a talkative streak. "Your footprints looked so lonely so I decided to make my own beside them so they can have company. I hope you don't mind," she said quietly.
She then started doodling on the sand beside him and started humming a song. She had a nice hum.
"No, I don't mind." He absently responded.
It reminded him when Kagome hummed to him when he lost Rin.