Written for Inuyasha Issekiwa, a Live Journal community for the writing and posting of Inuyasha drabbles. Third place in the “Truth” theme competition. 200 words, General/drama, Rating: G.

Behind Every Successful Dog is a Successful Feline

In the heady moments after Naraku’s downfall, they thanked her.

“We could never have done it without you, Kirara!”

It wasn’t true, of course, just the kind of thing one said to one’s companions after an arduous quest and battle. The truth was they could never have done it without the half-demon, or the strange young miko who’d dropped into their lives from another world.

But Kirara chirped happily all the same, rubbing her face against her beloved taijiya’s lap, and licked the tears from her cheeks. In days that followed she threaded closely around the ankles of the resurrected boy.

Years passed, smaller joys and smaller sorrows, one life ended and another began. Time became more ordinary, filled with fish, long naps in the sun, the bearing and care of thousands of kittens. Sometimes a child would give her a name, sometimes she had none.

One life, when she was plump and comfortable, she paused while washing and saw that there was something familiar about the shrine keeper’s grand-daughter.

So she strained to remember, and on a night when the girl had grown to what she guessed was the correct age, Buyo led her to the abandoned well.