MOST IMPORTANT A/N & DISCLAIMER:  ALRIGHT, IS EVERYONE PAYING ATTENTION?  Good.  This story is based on Del-Kaidin's characters, brought so eloquently and beautifully to life in her story, Broadway Baby.  (story id: 1727481) Del-sama was just kind enough to let me borrow them for a brief ONE-SHOT DREAM SEQUENCE.  This doesn't affect her plot at all.  I just heard this song and thought her portrayal of Inu and Kag.  The song is by Chayanne and is in Spanish, although I do recommend for those of you who can to dl it and listen as it will make the experience all the more surreal!

Also, the translation to the song that you see into English was done by yours truly, and although I have spoken Spanish since…well, I have spoken…even before I spoke English, really, *Puck twaps her*  "Which would make it your, what now?  Native language, maybe?"  *shakes his head*  This song is particularly difficult to translate because there's so much poetic alliteration and symmetry, so many incredibly beautiful similes and symbology in the lyrics, Spanish is a romance language after all, that it just doesn't flow naturally in English. 

Anyway, here ya go…enjoy! 

Tiempo de Vals (The Time of the Waltz)

By Emania

She dreamt.

The music was everywhere, the old strains so present that she knew, without looking that there was a live band playing.  There had to be, music was never that clear, that real if it wasn't a live band…

No, she realized.  Not a band…a symphony. 

'A symphony?' she wondered. She turned and felt the full skirts turn with her.  She looked down at herself and smiled, finding the gold and ivory of the skirts most becoming.  'Shouldn't she be surprised to find herself in a 17th century ball gown?' she wondered vaguely. 

But then the music drew her attention again and she swayed a little.  'Oooh…' she cooed.  'A waltz…' she thought.  She would know the tempo of a waltz anywhere and the feeling behind the music was unmistakable. 

She looked around her and found herself in an old antebellum style ballroom, the high ceiling adored with murals dancing amongst the shadows cast by the large crystal chandelier.  She blinked and suddenly the ballroom was alight with couples, swirling around her, brimming with life as gentlemen walked passed her, nodding politely to her as they did, and ladies smiled at her behind their fans.  She realized she too had a fan, and as she noticed the fan, she noticed she held a glittering ivory and silver half mask as well.  'A mask?' 

Vaguely, she wondered where she was…but then she felt it…his presence behind her, seconds before the crowd seemed to part and he stood there but she hadn't thought of turning. 

He was dressed like most of the men around her were, in impeccable tuxedos, tails hanging by his legs.  The upper half of his face was covered by a black silk mask, the black strands disappearing under the heavy fall of his midnight hair, silk on silk, melding almost imperceptibly into one, contrasting blatantly but the dark color of the silk only served to highlight the brightness of his violet eyes, and although it served to hide most of his face from her, she did not falter…she would know him anywhere.

"Inuyasha…" she whispered. 

He was in front of her then.  "Shhh…" he whispered close to her, lifting the hand with the mask so that it was in front of her face.  "We are not to know each other until midnight," he told her. 

Her other hand was at his masked face, gently touching him as she smiled at him, the words coming to her as if she had practiced them when in reality, she didn't know where they came from: "I do not need to see all of your face to know you," she smiled into his eyes. 

Suddenly the waltz really began behind her and she heard the soft strains of the singer's voice. 

Tiempo de vals es el tiempo hacia atrás / donde hacer lo de siempre es volver a empezar / donde el mundo se para y te observa girar / es tiempo para amar

She was caught up in his arms, and he had led her into the throng of dancers, easily twirling her in time to the music in pace with the other dancers before her mind had somehow translated the singer's voice from the native Spanish into tones she could understand.

Time of the waltz is the time from before / Where to do the familiar is to begin again / Where the world stops and watches you turn / It is time to love

Inuyasha waltzed as well as he tangoed.  He was as graceful in his movements as he was in everything else and she felt lost in his eyes as she kept them steady on him.  That was the key to the waltz after all, never lose your partner's eyes, but she wasn't thinking of her waltz lessons…no, she was thinking how warm it was in his gaze and how, as the singer sung in his lyrics, she felt as if time didn't exist as she twirled in his arms.   

Tiempo de vals tiempo pare sentir / y decir sin hablar y escuchar sin oír / un silencio que rompe en el aire un violín / es tiempo de vivir.

Time of the waltz is time to feel / And to say without speaking and to listen without hearing / A silence whose air is broken by a violin / It is time to live

The music swelled in her heart as her feet moved flawlessly in his arms.  She felt the skirts of the ball gown swirl around her legs, she felt the press of Inuyasha's hand in hers, the movement of his muscles under her hand where she held it lightly on his shoulder, the skirts of her gown swirl around his legs as he led her around and around…the whisper of dancers on the floor with them… And all the while, his eyes never left hers and although he spoke not a word, they conversed more fluently than mere words could ever express; they spoke volumes in the tempo they kept, told secrets in the press of their hands…whispered secrets in the movement of the dance… 

Bésame en tiempo de vals / un dos tres un dos tres / sin parar de bailar / haz que este tiempo de vals / un dos tres un dos tres / no termine jamás
Kiss me in waltz tempo / One two three one two three / Without stopping from dancing / Make it so that this tempo of waltz / One two three one two three / Never ends

She blushed as the lyrics to the song spoke exactly to what she wished he would do, but then again, maybe it was just the exertion of the dance…but…other than the feeling of weightlessness…was she moving?  'One, two, three,' she echoed the song.  'One two three…'

Tiempo de vals tiempo para viajar / por encima del sol por debajo del mar / sin saber si te llevo o me dejo llevar / no es tiempo de verdad
Time of the waltz, time to travel / Beyond the sun and below the sea / Without knowing if I take you or I let myself be taken / It's not time, really

The ballroom swirled around her and she found herself smiling into his eyes.  The lyrics spoke exactly to the elation she felt when she danced, especially as she danced such an intimate dance locked firmly in his arms.  She could no longer tell if he was leading her or she was leading him.  She felt almost as if they were one…

Tiempo de vals tiempo para abrazar / la pasión que prefieres y hacerla girar / y elevarse violenta como un huracán / es tiempo en espiral / Bésame en tiempo de vals…
Time of the waltz is time to embrace / The passion which you prefer and make it twirl / And elevate it violently like a hurricane / It's time in spiral / Kiss me in time of the waltz…

She felt his arms tighten around her waist as he entered into a series of turns that had her laughing aloud at the feeling of lightness.  He neared her, pressing her against him tightly, so that there was no space between them and she felt the press of his heart against her corset, never loosing step.  The music swelled and she felt it in her heart. 

Tiempo de vals que empleamos los dos / dibujando en el suelo de un viejo salón / con tres pasos de baile una historia de amor / es tiempo y es en fin / mi tiempo para ti.

Time of the waltz which we both use / Drawing in the floor of an old ballroom / With three steps of dance a history of love / It's time and it's without end/ My time for you

Her hand gripped his shoulder as she felt dizzy suddenly, but wondrously so.  She trusted him, as you had to in a waltz, you had to trust your partner and she realized elatedly that she trusted him implicitly.   She would go where he took her, she would follow where he led and she needed no words from him, his hand in hers would suffice. 

The music reached its crescendo and as, with a final turn, it ended, they separated and she found herself curtsying as he bowed over her hand.  She wanted to speak, to tell him what the dance had meant, but the music was done and as he rose to meet her eyes, she awoke to the buzzing of her alarm clock. 

With a groan, she hit the snooze button and rolled over, finding the song from her dream thrumming through her mind. 

"Great," she grumbled.  "That song's going to be in my head all day…"


"Un, dos, tres, un, dos, tres…" Inuyasha sang under his breath.  He hummed, unable to remember the rest of the foreign words even though the music still rang clear in his mind.  He paused in his humming as he closed his locker.  'Now, what made me think of that song all of a sudden?' he thought.  His eyes automatically sought out the familiar face in the sea of faces.  'I haven't thought of a waltz in ages…'

Author's Note: (More like, translator's note, really)

- Okay, "tiempo" in spanish, can have two meanings, as is used here.  Here, they interchange the meanings between the traditional meaning which refers to time, and the other meaning which refers to tempo, like in a song. 

- As often as I thought would make sense, I tried to translate directly, which would be why the sentence structure might not have meaning, because poetically and typically sometimes, the spanish language and the english language have different sentence structures. 

- also, grammatically, the spanish language will sometimes repeat its verbs, or like repeat itself.  I don't know how to explain it except by example:  the second line of the song, says… es volver a empezar…literally translated this means "its to again begin" or something like that.  Sometimes when translated into english, it's a little redundant so I didn't always do it in the translation.