Title: Taijitu
Fandom: Inuyasha
Rating: R
Characters: Naraku and Kanna; Sesshoumaru and Rin
Words: 450
Summary: Hell knows, and Heaven learns.
Author's Notes: A taijitu is the half-black, half-white symbol of yin and yang. This is for the faaaaahbulous Merimask, as a companion piece for her fanart of the same name which can be seen at her journal, and as a birthday present. Much love! I'm... not a good poet, but this wouldn't be written as prose. Hope you like it anyway.

A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.
- Stephen Crane, "The Black Riders, LVI"

1. Hell

I.

Mistakes make the man
and she was a good one.

Filled with the emptiness of crowded years,
of long days traveling, of nights spent in dark bodies, of
long dead battlefields,
he stabbed spider fingers through his heart, clawed it out
and set it free.

And she is empty.

II.

She walks and breathes
and saps the soul
and traps the soul
and inside she is wide open and full of nothing.
A night sky stripped of stars.

She is his first, the perfect whole of creation.
Without her own, she takes his hungry, slavering will into her hands
and carries it out into the world
across the waters, across the earth,

and it feasts. When she returns, it is satiated -

III.

- but he remains bloated
and full of dearth.

IV.

Scoop out the emptiness and fill the rest, or so he thought,
but of course he has always hated mirrors
and this was not what he meant.
Just another accident.

Now she stalks him on white feet,
white hair, white hands,
and dark eyes. And she is nothing to him,

so when she dies he will be kind
and it will be fine.

V.

and she is empty
empty
empty
as a bell

at New Year's,
ringing
in
the
sins -

..o..

2. Heaven

VI.

Mistakes make the man
and she was a good one.

Empty with the fullness of aimless years,
of long days traveling, of nights cradled in small sleepless hours, of
blood and high noon when he was the only one
left standing,
the hunting hunger finally drew his sword
and caged her in.

And she is full.

VII.

She walks and breathes,
and fills his soul,
and spills his soul
and inside she is wide open and full of him.
A bucket at the bottom of the ocean.

She is his first, a little flawed, a little broken.
Setting her own aside, she follows his will on eager feet.
Bare and torn, they walk the world for him, always behind,
always on the edge of spilling over, of finding the end
one day,

and she grows. Each time he turns, she is fuller than before -

VIII.

- but he is happy
anyway.

IX.

Without thought he fashioned something so full to fill him,
but of course he fills her too,
and this is not what he meant.
Just another accident.

Now she follows him on white feet,
white smile, white hands,
and dark eyes. And she is everything to him,

so when she
dies
he
will -

X.

and she is full
as a new moon
a moon
as a new
new and full as a moon

the
pure
new
moon

without a face.