She sat in her cell, head down, blood caked into her scalp as her raven hair flowed over her ashen face. Her arms were chained, and her wrists rubbed raw.

But she wouldn't cry out.

She wouldn't give him that.

"Bastard." she spat quietly, her eyes full of loathing. "Worthless half-breed with no soul. What I would give to kill you right here and now..."

"Ah, I thought you did not discriminate about blood." came the amused, scathing voice.

A large figure with a baboon suit sat cross-legged outside her cell, observing almost regretfully the antics of his favorite prisoner.

"You give half-breed a whole new meaning." she replied, tossing her black hair. It was dull now, and dirty... She didn't bathe anymore, water was too precious in this cold, bleak, stony underground.

"Can I never break you?" he asked, his voice instantly changing from silky honey to abrasive annoyance.

"I won't be broken, I'll die first." she replied, her clouded brown eyes meeting his deep, soulless red ones.

"I suppose you will." returned the other voice quietly. "Will you not simply join me? You shall have all the comforts I can provide..." His tone was wheedling, and the man almost seemed to be begging.

She was reminded of a greasy car sales-man with slicked back black hair.

He had black hair, but it hung loose and long, entrancing.

How she wanted to run her fingers through that hair...

At least he had the smirk right. White teeth. Phony. Unless he was watching someone die...

She wondered vaguely if he ever smiled...

She thought not.

"No. I cannot join you, for my soul would break if I did. Death is easier." she said firmly, watching him through a lidded gaze, challenging him as best she could.

Life meant nothing anymore.

"Even after what he did to you, you still shall not abandon him... Pathetic, yet touching." said the Spider, his hand on one of the bars of her cell door.

She thought of him as the Spider because she vaguely understood that if she allowed herself to be caught in his invisible web, she could never leave.

But perhaps she was already caught.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

"He loved her, and chose the way he wished to. Neither he nor the others deserve abandonment..."

"Though they abandoned you, allowed me to capture you, to lock you in, and did not find you?"

"THEY DO NOT KNOW WHERE I AM! THEY CARED, DON'T YOU DARE SAY OTHERWISE!" she spat, her eyes raising in defiance.

He smirked. At least she was looking at him now, and he could see her piercing brown eyes and gaze into them, wondering why he never killed her.

He tortured her, yes... But when it came to that last point, he would always turn away.

He told himself that was because she would suffer more this way.

But he'd begun to think he enjoyed her company.

"I suppose I should respect the dead." he said quietly, noting her response, a quiet glare.

It was a dull gaze, and she turned her head down, staring dully at the floor.

A tear slipped onto the cold stone.

Poor Shippo... She missed him. She hoped he was happy with his parents. They were better off there.

She spoke to them, sometimes. She would tell Shippo about her adventures, give him pocky. And he'd squeal with joy.

Sango would hit Miroku for the millionth time that day.

Inuyasha would take his ramen and give her a mumbled thank you.

She wondered if she was going insane.

It wasn't a farfetched hypothesis.

"Do you think I'm going insane?" she inquired abruptly.

He looked at her, almost surprised. "Perhaps." he said quietly, thinking. Moth, that's what he thought of her as... A beautiful brown thing with big eyes, that flew too close to the light and got burned.

He'd caught her in his web so that she would not be burned by the lamp...

But she might be burned by the flame.

"Will you ever let me go to them?" she asked dully, staring up at the one small window at the top of her cell.

A robin sometimes perched there.

It was a pretty thing, speckled and bright. It sung cheery tunes, twittering about the outside world.

She wanted to kill it, sometimes. For telling her of things that couldn't be.

But it was a nice dream, her euphoria... When she was all alone, dreams were all that was left in her broken existence... As she gathered herself together, only to fall apart again...

Ring around the rosies, A pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

Falling into oblivion...

She wondered if they had roses in heaven.

"I would let you come up to the castle, if you would only join me." he said quietly, yet again.

"Nay." she replied without a thought. It was her automatic response.

How many things had become automatic, in this recurring story?

They sat in silence, letting the quiet breeze filter through.

Finally, she looked at him. "Are you ever tired?" she inquired softly, her fluid voice filled with something akin to pity.

"Often." he replied. It was ironic, really-The only one he ever opened up to was a prisoner he tormented quite frequently. "But what do you mean?"

"Tired of all this," she replied. "Hate, jealousy, suffering, sorrow..-The mortal condition."

"Once I have the jewel, I will no longer be mortal." he replied.

"Oh, really? Somehow I don't believe it..." she said.

He rose, turning, tired of her constant psychoanalysis. He paused, though, at the last minute. "Why?"

"Because even if you banish him, Onigumo still lives. And Naraku? He lives too. We are all mortal, Naraku. But some are more mortal than others."

Nodding, he left silently. There was much to think on.

She lay down on the stone floor and sobbed.