( D i s c l a i m e r ) nope

( A u t h o r' s N o t e ) This is a one-shot Inuyasha x Rin that I wrote in attempt to kill my writer's block on some other story. Needless to say, it didn't work, as this is the only thing I have to post today. Oh well, I rather like this little drabble. So enjoy!

There was such a thing as not so happily ever after and somewhere along the line their little fairytale became a tragedy. Lovers were pulled apart by the stretch of time. The once valiant fell in battle. People suffered. People died. Life didn't care; it just went on, weary and unaffected by the anguish of the few and far between. Life had seen famine, life had seen epidemic, life had seen drought and destruction and death. Life had seen tragedy and was hard pressed for sympathy in a world full of hate.

And so the half demon lived on, more alone than he had been when the story had started. He had dared to love and lost everything. The monk was taken by his curse ten days before Naraku's defeat. The slayer disappeared shortly after that, the amount of grief from the loss of her brother and love too much to bear. He had no idea where she was or if she was even alive. He supposed she died somewhere alone from a broken heart.

With a vengeance, the half demon and the girl from the future fought the villain of this particular story. In the end, he fell and the Jewel was completed. A wish was made and the girl and her odd well disappeared, flowing back into the seam of time and all that remembered were dead or long forgotten besides the half demon who sat in the empty clearing, clutching the time worn pieces of his broken heart.

This was how he existed for countless years, barely alive except for the gentle rhythm of the rise and fall of his chest. He willed it to stop and end his pain. It didn't listen.

One day the resurrected girl found him. Her feet were dirty and her hair was mussed. She was older than the last time he'd seen her and the innocent sparkle in her eyes of one who hasn't yet seen the world had long died out.

And she went to him because in his golden eyes she could piece together the scattered remnants of memory she had of the only love she had ever known, the great demon lord who perished in combat.

And he let her come because she was a face from his past and when he looked at her, it was the first time since the end of the story that he wasn't painfully aware of every breath that he took.

And they stayed together until the end of time because in one another they had found the will to live another day, the desire not to die. The story was over but it was only the beginning of the rest of their lives. They had seen the death of love and hope and fate and ended up in the last place they had every wanted to be. But somehow, in that moment, all of their dreams and wishes and happily-ever-afters were the farthest things from their minds.

The story was over but the characters were left, abandoned and forgotten pawns on the chessboard of life. But with the help of each other they slowly and surely picked up all the pieces and somewhere along the way 'tragedy' and 'happily ever after' bled together and became one.

THE END