almost;
something is crushing me.
this is her first thought; the second is it’s happening again.
she tastes dirt in the back of her throat, mud and soil and grime caked into the small spaces between teeth, coating her tongue, her lips an imperfect seal against a landslide; it rests on top of her closed lids, poised to slip past her lashes and into her dirt-colored eyes, should she open them. she tries to ball her fist but it is as moving a hand through quicksand, fingers cemented in place lest she burrow deeper, smothered and swallowed.
the third thought is i will die here.
she feels warmth on her neck and she dares to open her eyes. sango is above ground and she is not buried alive; rather, she is inside of a mountain, coursing with demons, and miroku is above her, on top of her, dead weight.
the fourth fifth and sixth thoughts run by too quickly to recount.
he awakes slowly, wet droplets upon his cheek a gentle alarm.
this is his first thought; the second is thank god, she is alive.
he musters up the effort to turn himself over onto his back, and he takes in the scene before him. serpents and beastly worms closing in to their prey, and sango the enchanted foreground of a deadly backdrop, glowing and sobbing but so alive, thank god.
the third thought is i will die here.
he tells her as much - that he has spent his spirits and is prepared to meet his end, but that she must go on without him. he will hand victory to naraku as the curse dies with this last voyageur monk, as he has no children to do what he has done in the memory of his own father - and sango will go on, she has to, and she will taste revenge without him.
but she has never followed anything but her own gut and heart and intuition, no matter how foolish it has been, just as she is foolish now when she throws her bruised body to shield him and declares that she would sooner die here together than go on alone.
the fourth fifth and sixth thoughts are sango. sango. sango.
