A/N: Written for Livejournal's week 8 challenge for IYCaptions.

Title: Who I am

Author: KodiaqKitten

Rating: G

Genre: General

Warnings: none

AU/Canon: Canon

Words: 210

Summary: Definition of oneself

Who I am

Who am I? The question that has laid waste to all self esteem I had developed under her care. Once I was nothing more than her son. Loved and cherished for what I was. That fated day I heard their prejudice murmurs on the breeze and bore witness to her tears. Her response to their term for me was a whisper of my life to come.

Blood of human and blood of youkai surged through my veins rendering me no more than an abomination to both races. Disgusting. Worthless. Hanyou. Deemed unfit to harbour the legacy of my father and nothing more than my mother's disgrace.

Outcast for eternity; or so I thought.

Loved. Respected. Cherished. That is what they taught me. She told me that she loved me for who I was. Hanyou. They stood by my side daring anyone to hold it against me. Who am I? Protector. Friend. Lover. Someone she is proud of and someone that is needed. I am one half of an equal whole. One part of a team. Leader of a pack. Father. Brother. I am not what the world sees in its defective eyes of hatred; a symbolic scapegoat for what it cannot understand. I am finally free.

I am Inuyasha.