Author: Kat AKA K. Firefly
Disclaimers: I don't own these people, but I *DO* pretend they follow
me everywhere. :-) You can be insane, too!

Teasers: A meeting of old friends in a graveyard

IN A DISUSED GRAVEYARD

The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
"The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay."
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.
-Robert Frost

The rain dripped serenely onto the earth, forming little rivers. The
sky was a soft gray, the rain cold. A January wind bit harshly, but it was
not cold enough for snow yet. Underneath the endless rain, the colors of
the earth blurred. Rocks were chipped away at. In time, canyons were
formed. Great mountains because soft, rolling hills. And the world moved
forward. How different were the three worlds. Kurama had grown to like this
race over his own. Their lives were so short, but they fought against their
destiny with all their might. They had created some of the best works, the
best music, the best poetry and stories. Kurama imagined this was because
that so much passion had to be compressed into such a short time. It was
impressive.
He walked quietly along in the woods, noticing the subtle change from
rain to snow as the temperature dropped. The trees reached their skeletal
fingers into the sky, catching the snow fall on their branches. The dark trees
stretched on for what seemed forever, and Kurama was surprised when
the woods ended and a graveyard lay in front of him. The tombstones were
worn by time. They had lost edges and were now curved, sticking up at
misshapen angels from the cold earth. Dead weeds clung to the stone, covering
the carved names already filled in by moss. More surprising, though, was a
dark shadow that stood with hands in pockets in front of the graves. It
couldn't be.

"Hiei!" Kurama gasped in surprise. The figure turned sharply,
blinking several times. For all the world, he looked the same. Time had treated
him well.

"Kurama.." Hiei's face was sad and worn.

"I didn't know you came back here."

"Che," his friend turned away. Kurama walked to where his friend
stood, reading the name on the gravestone.

"It's been a long time," Kurama traced his fingers on the names
inscribed lightly.

"She died because of the stupid ningen," Hiei looked back at the
name on the stone, but his thoughts were far away.

"Perhaps you should have told her.."

"I did what I had to do!" Hiei turned angrily on Kurama.

"She lived so long without knowing, Hiei. When she outlived
Kuwabara and Keiko and Shiziru and her own children died, she had nothing left. Her
heart broke," Kurama spoke truthfully, his youko nature biting harshly.

"I could never have told her.." Hiei defended weakly. His shoulders were slumped.

"It's okay. We all make mistakes."

"I didn't even know until one of Mukuro's messengers told me." His
voice was quiet. Gods, how he'd changed in the last hundreds of years.
Kurama's eyes caught on the name next to Yukina's and Kuwabara's. In
fact, all the graves in the immediate area were those of ones they had
known.

"Those were the days, weren't they, Hiei?"

"Stupid Ningen. They die so soon."

"What is this, Hiei? Do you miss them?" Kurama's eyebrows rose in
slight surprise, but he found it wasn't real. He knew his friend had always
cared, because they had cared for him.

"No," Hiei denied.

"How did they all get buried together?" Kurama wondered aloud. Hiei
looked at him sharply. "Did you do this?"

"Maybe I had a little to do with it," Hiei admitted quietly.

"They were probably happy with that," Kurama smiled gently.

"It doesn't matter. These are only their bodies turned to dust. I'm sure Koenma has taken good care of them."

Kurama looked at Hiei curiously. He had never shown trust in that undersized demigod before.
"I miss them sometimes," Kurama admitted. "Thedays as rekai tentai were some of the best. Endless
adventure, I've never been so at peace."

"Peace? They were peaceful? Hn, stupid fox."

"Things fall apart so fast here. Change happens so quickly," Kurama sighed. "Living in the Nigenkai certainly
changes your perception on things."

"Getting philosophical in your old age?"

"Hey, who're you calling old?"

"Che." Hiei waved the subject away with a slight movement of his hand. The two were silent for a minute. The
snow was falling harder now, the wind stronger. Hiei's white scarf was blew in the wind, his cloak
pressing against his legs. Kurama looked at his friend quietly. While humans changed
quickly, demons seemed to never change. Maybe it wasn't his friend who had
changed at all, but Kurama.

"You haven't seemed to change," Hiei voiced Kurama's own thoughts. Kurama blinked quickly.
"And you're still in that human form. How did that happen?"

"I can change forms freely now. I've grown accustomed to this one. Because
of who I am, this body is not as affected." Kurama replied.

"Hn." Hiei responded distantly. Kurama smiled. It was true, some creatures
never changed.

"I think I like you better in this form," Hiei spoke again, breaking the silence. Kurama glanced at him
sharply, taking back his previous observation.

"What?"

"I said, I think I like this form better."

"You do? Why?" Still as enigmatic, Kurama saw. Then again, there was a
certain comfort in things that didn't change. A familiar hearth and home was
always nice to come back to. It was nice to know that while the rest of the
worlds would shift dramatically, some things would never be different.

Hiei didn't reply for a long time, and Kurama believed the
conversation had ended. "Good memories," The answer was quiet and Kurama almost
didn't here it before it got lost in the wind. Kurama looked over at his
friend from the past and saw a sad, almost wistful expression on his face.

"You miss them." Kurama stated this as a fact, not a question.

"No." Hiei denied again.

"I miss them, too." Kurama went on, reverting back to the subject they had
strayed from. "I learned a lot from these humans. We had a lot of fun. I
wonder what they're doing now. I wonder if they're still adventuring."

"Death will always be an adventure."

"Yes, it will be." The snow covered all of the ground now, a light
dusting. The trees still clawed restlessly at the sky, but the wind was not as
strong now. "Yuuske took Keiko's death hard."

"He knew it was coming. He knew what awaited her. Befriending the
demigod of death, he knew exactly what would happen. Somehow, knowing what
awaits us has made death loose it's mysticism."

"You're not afraid of hell?"

"Are you?"

"Not if you're going to be there."

"Hn."

"But do you honestly think Yuuske will let us stay in hell? He'll
kick Koenma's ass before he'll let that happen. And do you believe we'll
actually go to hell?"

There was no response.

"You know, Yukina probably knows you're her brother now."

Hiei nodded tightly. "I know."

"She may be angry when you confront her."

"I know."

"Do you think they watch on us?"

"Who?"

"Our friends."

"You changed the subject."

"I did. Do you think they do?"

"Maybe if they were bored. How the hell am I supposed to know?" Hiei bit
sharply.

"You haven't changed," Kurama spoke his convictions aloud, echoing
the observation Hiei had made of him earlier.

"That's comforting to know." They were enveloped in the silence again. Neither of the two
companions had ever been extreme talkers. Sometimes it was best to left things to go
unsaid and just be happy with the presence of the other. The best
relationships were like that, and both knew how rare true friends were.

To them, it almost seemed as a portion of them had died every time one of
their friends had. As their friends passed, the only thing left of the past
days was a whispering memory. Already, their actions had been
forgotten in this world. The people who had lived so vivaciously were just carved
names on a forgotten tombstone. Stories of their trials were lost in time,
only remembered in the other two worlds, and while this was quite a feat
and an honor, it wasn't the same as being remembered in your own home world.
The Nigenkai passed the seasons smoothly, the grass grew and the leaves
fell. The seasons continued as they had for the past thousands of years, and
as they would for ages to come. People died every second, and their own
kind soon forgot them unless they'd done something important. It must be
hard to be a human. Knowing your life was short, and in the end, it wouldn't
make a difference. To Hiei, it seemed no one cared. Death, his old companion
had now become a frightening ending. He had actually grown fond of living,
or at least familiar with it. He knew what awaited him, but it unsettled him
to think that everything he had done would be forgotten. Time erased
all, and it seemed pointless. Why had the gods created them? Simple interest? A
cruel joke, for sure. Lost souls closed off from another, searching for
comfort but only finding small consolances in their beliefs and other souls
like them. Kurama was wrong, Hiei thought in dismay, he had changed. He
glanced at his friend out of the corner of his eye. Kurama was looking off
into the distance. Row upon row of misshapen and broken stones carved with
those forgotten leaned at odd angles to the ground. It seemed, as the soul
broke from the pain and hard bearings of the earth, the stones had mirrored
them. Cracked and defeated, they were torn down by time and weeds and
slowly sank down. No one cared, no one ever cared. You had to take what
condolences you had during life. The world of the living and the dead were too
different and could never be shared. Kurama walked over to his brooding friend
quietly. He opened his trench coat, engulfing Hiei in it, pulling him close. Years
ago, Hiei would've lashed back viciously, but he had changed a lot since
then. The comfort of a familiar face and his familiar scent warmed his soul.

"Let's go home, Hiei. We still have a long way to go before we can
rest." Kurama gently guided his younger friend home. They were the only one's left
of a legacy, the only one's who carried the memory of the humans who had
done so much and fought so hard. They were alone in a sea of millions of lost
souls, but, they realized, in the whole world, sometimes all you needed was a
friend. And that friend would fight your demons with you and be there
forever, and in a world that changed so quickly, you took your
comforts where you could.

The End