Epilogue: Crazy Little Thing Called Love

This (This Thing) called love
(Called Love)
It cries (Like a baby)
In a cradle all night
It swings (Woo Woo)
It jives (Woo Woo)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish,
I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called love

Hiei watched her awaken, groggily but content, to the feeling of the sun on her face and his finger stroking her hipbone, his favorite place to touch her these days, after he'd found how his mark affected her. He allowed his gaze to drift up as he sensed her eyes opening, looking down on him through hooded eyes framed by an inky pool of dark hair and a single arm flung haphazardly above her on the pillow. Her other hand reached for the marking she'd left him just three months ago.

Hiei had never had cause to wonder how hiyoukai marked their mates. Some youkai mating habits were well known. Dogs bit their mate's neck. Cats carved their names wherever they pleased. And hiyoukai, apparently, tattooed their mates with their youki, like a brand. Kagome's nails brushed along her mark—a bow and arrow, the tip glowing pink like her tenki—where they had drawn blood during their first mating. Not that he'd been aware of it happening at the time. Nor had he been aware of himself placing his own mark on her: a dragon, its tail beginning at her collarbone and wrapping behind her neck, just skirting around her right breast and crossing her stomach, to rest its head on her left hipbone, eyes glaring and teeth bared at any who dared touch his miko. He stroked the dragon's head and felt the heat it radiated.

"Mine."

"Mm, yours," she said, and pulled him down.

Kagome felt pride, and no small amount of relief, as she shot her glowing arrow into the dark, star-lit sky, and watched it explode into a hundred streaming lights, like shooting stars. It was a showy bit of fanfare, to mark the end of the ceremony, but it was far more than she was able to do months ago, when her body failed her and she was too close to death to risk allowing her powers loose. It was a showy bit of fanfare to mark the end of the ceremony—three days' worth of ceremonies, really—of her ascent to Anchor.

It was a ridiculous burden to bear—she knew from years of watching Kikyou manage it—but as she felt Hiei's arms wrapped around her, his body warmer than any other she'd ever felt, she couldn't bring herself to think of her duties. They would be there in the morning, and the next day forever after. But not tonight. Tonight was a night for celebration.

She turned around in his arms to face him, to see the pride that she had felt coming from him. It was strange what she felt for him. Her innermost self, her soul, knew his, but the rest of her—the rest of them—were still catching up, though she knew in just a few short months they had come a long way from their first, painful meeting, followed by the horrifying experience of being discovered the next morning, naked in a pool of ash, by Inuyasha.

He alternatingly infuriated her and intrigued her. He was at least as stubborn as she was, and ran hot and cold in his anger. Their first argument—over the bond, what else, and heated enough to make the entire household tread carefully around them both—was resolved only because the bond would allow them to be apart for only so long, and eventually they ended up in a room together, staring each other down and riling each other back up for hours longer before they called a truce. And then he would surprise her, coming out of nowhere, to correct her stance during training, spar with her without treating her like a doll, or offer his opinion on the documents Kikyou was slowly transferring to her to handle. There were times when he made her want to just sit in a dark room and curl into herself, and there were times, like those soft mornings, when he stroked her hip, and he had on this goofy smile—well, what she interpreted would be a goofy smile on him—

"Onna?"

They had known each other only a short time, and given a certain amount of reluctance on both sides, she wondered how it could be that she felt so comfortable with him. Her soul knew his, and that was part of it, but that bone-deep trust was slowly making its way through her entire being. He confused her, often, with how contradictory he could be: at one moment cold and biting and another moment so affectionate, so kind. She knew his past, could guess at what he had left out, but despite that, he was honorable, and strong, and fair, and capable of deep love, if what she had seen of his interactions with his friends—allies, she corrected herself with a smile—were anything to go by. For all that she could feel the constancy of his soul thrumming through her, he was made up of contradictions, and for all that, she could still feel the beginnings of what some people would call love.

And she wondered sometimes if she confused him as much as he did her. No doubt. She smirked. "You know, Hiei, I kind of like it."

He stayed silent, just raised an eyebrow. "This crazy little thing we call love."