And Somehow, They Understood by le_disko

Often, And Without Reason.

A/N- this is a really short chapter, it's mainly here because having a chapter five that isn't really a chapter is driving me crazy. So I have OCD tendencies. No biggie...anyway, some filler that isn't filler, but an important step to where I need to go! Hurray!

Oh by the way, they never had sex. In case you were wondering, it didn't happen.

She felt safe. No unease. She wasn't drowning in an ocean of acid, there wasn't resentment eating her alive. She was away, and felt like singing, she had escaped, and felt like dancing. Everything that was wrong, was gone and was so longer a problem: she didn't have to go back to the palace. She snuggled deeper into his warmth.

They were still sitting together on the branch. The tree knew this, and stretched out and was happy, for they were happy, and happiness loves company. The tree was normal, and would always be normal, but those who would look on it would call it superior. The leaves were greener, and the contrast between dark green and light green faded and blended and was not two greens, but one. Symbolism.

Oh she was a bird, a bird on the horizon, the sunrise surrounding her and she no longer needed to ache for things she didn't have.

She saw four figures in the clearing; distinctive silhouettes lit up by a stunning ancient sunrise. She knew, and was delighted; she knew them as her ethics, her morals, her legends, her friends. She whistled (that high, sharp whistle that makes people drop their things and look around, old ladies tut and speak of 'when I was young, we did such-and-such') and they turned, and were delighted also; they saw who they wanted to see, who they had been looking for.

They stopped short of the tree. They saw who they wanted to see, her distinguishing eyes-always her best feature- and shockingly wavy black hair stood out, but they also saw one they did not expect, and he was an unwelcome addition to the tableau before them. Disbelief flew shrilly around them. They had noticed the white surrounding her and did not mistake it. One of them- the loud one, who didn't think and often was immature, and was despaired over ever finding sensibleness - was about to say something that ought not be said, but then-

Silence.

She felt the silence in her bones, as they all did, but she felt the unnaturalness of it etch scars in her ribs and pitied those who had been silenced. She saw against her eyelids- her eyes had swiftly been secured shut when the first tremor came- deep black clouds, the color of a thousand brides tearing their hair over a thousand graves, the color of a thousand old women sewing shrouds, of children who were stifled forever. Shots of purple writhed within the gloom, obscured by clouds but the anonymity screamed across her soul. They all lodged fists in their ears but a sound like spikes and tentacles and something that shouldn't have been born grated upon them.

It was the shadow in the north, and it was coming. The first pussywillows of spring shriveled and dropped to their early deaths, with no girl-children to weep over them. She felt the splinters at her heart shake and rise to meet their sinister counterparts but she shot purity in them and they fell back down.

It was he, and he was coming.

"This could end badly." Said she.

"It might." Said he.

And together they watched the roiling clouds of blackness creep closer.

A/N- that sounds like Naraku enough without saying his name, right? You knew who he was?

sorry if i don't update for a while- big swim meets are coming up and so i have to train for them.