[Eternal] Binding
Title: Binding
Author: Griddlebone (eggplantlady)
Word Count: 466
Rating: T
Summary: To resurrect, one must bind one's soul to an obelisk.
Warnings: Crossover (InuYasha/Aion)
Notes: Part of Eternal.
"Are you bound yet?"
Sango almost did not hear the question over the sudden bustle of Eltnen Fortress. "What?" she managed, trying to shake off the last of the strange, tingling sensation that came from teleporting.
"I'll take that as a no," Inuyasha groused. "This way."
"What about Kagome and Miroku? They're not here yet."
"They'll catch up."
He dragged her into the fort, gripping her wrist so tightly it hurt, up a winding stone stair and onto the upper balcony that lined the fort's interior. She pulled away from him, shaking her hand to get the blood flowing again.
"There," he said, pointing. "Go bind yourself."
Bind...
He was pointing at a large statue, the Obelisk, that sat near the wall, its attendant Soul Healer watching with nearly disguised amusement. The Obelisk was enormous, sculpted whole from a huge block of some dark stone, its smooth and polished form abstract but recognizable as that of a Daeva in flight, wings fully spread. It looked ancient, and probably was.
She hesitated in front of it, her eyes scanning the shining blue lines that slid across its surface. Even without touching it, she could feel... something radiating from it. This was the power of resurrection, which Aion granted only to the Daevas. If she bound her soul to this Obelisk, she would never die. Not truly, anyway.
"Feh, if you don't want to, suit yourself," Inuyasha said from somewhere behind her. "Just don't expect me to pick your ass up off the ground when the furbacks kill you."
Sighing and trying to keep her temper in check, Sango pressed her hand to the Obelisk.
Power coursed through her. Fire and ice and aether, and something else, which might have been divine. Aion...
Alarmed, she pulled her hand away and stumbled a few steps backward.
The Soul Healer was there to catch her, and glared at Inuyasha. If he had said anything, Sango had not heard it.
"Are you okay?" the Healer asked. His voice was soft and soothing. "It can be rough the first time..."
Dazed, Sango nodded.
"Then come on, we've been standing around here for almost an hour now. We don't have all day," Inuyasha said. Miroku and Kagome were with him; they must have come through the teleporter while she was binding.
But... an hour? It had seemed like only an instant.
"If you're up to it, of course," Miroku added, ignoring the angry look Inuyasha shot in his direction.
"I'm fine." And yet, she felt... different. As if, somehow, the essence of who she was had been irrevocably changed, as if the twin burdens of fear and regret had been lightened, or at least made more bearable. She remembered, vividly, the burgeoning throb of divinity as it flowed through her body. There was no going back now. "Let's go."