by
Anaphalis
Summary: "You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing."- Andrew Jackson. Inuyasha X Abhorsen Trilogy crossover. Drama/Horror. One Shot.
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Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and Shonen Jump. Brushes on this page courtesy of Pure Anodyne.
A/N: For Prpl Pen
A/N2: I know virtually nothing about the Abhorsen Trilogy. You won't need to know anything about the Abhorsen Trilogy to read this, although the ending will make mildly more sense. And I really apologize to Prpl Pen- I had planned on doing something a little more obvious, but this bit hard. But you do get Mogget :) This is... weird. You've been warned. And bonus cookies for anyone who catches the title's reference.
At first, he thought that he'd just imagined it- a voice brought on by eating that kappa foot a few days earlier.
What do you want?
Animals in general avoided the shrine and it had been so long since he�d seen another cat that he�d almost forgotten how to communicate.
'Who are you?'
Up here.
He was disappointed that, instead of another cat, he was dealing with the broken pieces of one of the old man�s trinkets.
You�re a fool if you're disappointed. What do you want, Cat?
It was disturbing to have something reading his hidden thoughts, but he'd seen and met worse in those vague images in the back of his head.
Not always a cat, were we?
There was no point in denying it- he'd known since he was very small that he'd once been something else. Judging from his mental reaction to the girl on the bed, whatever it was had liked sailor fukus.
All these years... Unable to even tell her how you feel... Sleeping so you can imagine another possibility, but a cat's brain not enough to make it work... What do you want, Cat?
And before he could ponder it on a deeper level, the thought tumbled out.
'To see the things I want to see. Maybe even to know what came before. I can't do anything here as a cat, but I want to be able to see something else in my mind.'
So be it.
And he could have sworn he heard a cold chuckle.
###
He nearly drooled in excitement when he saw the first images- it was as if they had always been there, always existed in his head.
And he was not one, but two - a man who could have the woman and a cat who was, well... a cat.
And there was tweaking of the world, as the images took shape and the lives began to form.
Strangely, most of them were not his wants but hers.
For the brief times she returned she spoke of being powerless, of being less than her predecessors.
His mind-girl was more than those that came before.
She spoke of being second-best.
In his head, there was no one above her.
He himself was more than he seemed, but in his mind he could act on it and it gave him a strange satisfaction that his waking life never had.
He slept almost constantly.
On the night she returned in tears, he made his first specific tweak. He heard her, even through the muffling of her pillow. Why can't the dead stay dead?
And in his mind he saw the dead rising. And, though he could do nothing for the pale girl on the bed, the woman in his head was given the ability to defeat them.
He knew the Dog suspected something. When the mutt danced him on his hind legs, and kicked him away from her, the mutt gave off the universal male warning- Paws off! She�s mine!
So when he closed his eyes, the Dog was kind. And female.
He thought it was a fitting punishment.
Of course there were differences between the worlds. While he was smart and witty, he was definitely not as cruel as his Cat counterpart.
He had no idea where the bells came from.
And how the hell had he gotten a name like 'Touchstone'? Mogget?
But it was a good mirror and he slept the sleep of the content, waiting for the moments when the real girl returned to him.
###
In the manner of all cats, he loved and hated her.
She left him and she returned and he could never hate her enough for her absence or adore her enough for her presence.
And, in his mind-world, he hurt her and comforted her, swinging between his real world hate and love.
At first, he dismissed the cuts and injuries that paralleled her dream injuries as coincidence. It gave him the chance to lay on her lap, to feel her pet him and hold him in the way she held him in his mind.
Then the moments began to build, her stories matching the tales in his head, but he pushed it, pushed it away, as a year, then two passed.
He pushed because he could still hear that voice when she came home.
He pushed because both worlds were spinning out of his control.
When she returned, grey and bloody, he already knew.
He had seen them in his mind- his fault- their deaths.
This time she didn't cry. Sitting, frozen, stiff on the edge of her bed she stared at something already finished.
"He's gone... But they're gone too. All for this!"
She threw the glowing ball on the bed, and staggered from the room.
You have interesting things you want to see, Cat.
'This isn't what I wanted! Make it stop!�
What is done, has been done for long before you met her, Cat. All your wish did was let you join those lives. It is done now.
'No!'
If he could destroy it, he could undo this. If that ball was gone, this all would end.
It smashed beautifully on the floor.
And he heard bells.
-End-
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