Title: the siren call
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.
Pairing: InuKag
Summary: The ghosts that haunt their hearths: Kagome, homesickness, and life in feudal Japan.
AN: The series ended with everyone living happily ever after, but I doubt that Kagome never once missed her life in modern Japan. That would, quite frankly, be unrealistic (the situation reminds one of Arwen and Elrond's separation beyond the end of the world in LOTR, doesn't it?) Feel free to disagree, but I feel that no matter how happy Kagome might have found life in ancient Japan, she would nonetheless be haunted by her memories of the family she left behind and could never meet again.
Thank you in advance for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy this.
Eight years of peace.
Five short years of marriage and two children and a smooth, round belly ripening with yet another babe. Five short years of life in feudal Japan, five short years of marital joy and practising the arts of the Miko. Five long years away from the home of her youth.
Kagome rocks a swaddled child against her bosom as she leans against the smooth wood of the doorframe. A storm rages outside, quick flashes of silver slicing through the gunmetal grey sky. Tonight, the fury of the gods is circling through the ancient world. Even the demon lords are sheltering beneath the wooden roofs of decrepit shrines tonight.
Tonight, Kagome hears the call of the Bone-Eater's well in the empty spaces between each hard ring of the thunder god's anvil. It is nothing more than a faint pulse, the ghost of homesickness quickening to a heady start. Tonight, her heart races on through the tunnel of time, seeking a way to return to her mother, her brother, her aged grandfather whose days are numbered.
Tonight, more than other nights, the pain of parting without end scalds her heart and tears her apart. The pain snakes through her blood, etches itself into the roof of her mouth, claws the tender rims of her eyes.
The wind howls. Go, go, it seems to say. Go back if you wish to. They need you too.
"Kagome?" Inuyasha says, lounging by the fire with their other, older, child. "Come back to the hearth. It's cold over there."
Kagome turns around; she meets Inuyasha's eyes, thinks of their shared joys and their tears, of their future and their fears. She thinks again of her grandfather, old and frail and hopeful; of her mother, kind and smiling and waiting; of Sota, probably all grown up by now.
Where are they, what have they done these five years, what will they do in the years to come? How will they fare?
But tonight, as always, Kagome shuts the door and turns her face, turns her heart, away from the storm, away from the call of the land she has forsaken. The well is closed now, a musty relic of a different age, the storied portal of a time when the Shikon jewel played havoc with the lives and times of mortal men and dreadful demons alike.
Kagome walks to Inuyasha, settling down by the hearth, hands him the babe at her chest and stirs the cookpot. They are snug and warm in their house, in this house that Inuyasha built. They are safe and happy together.
And yet, even as Kagome warms her hands by the crackling fire, she hears the siren call of the home she has lost amidst the howling wind, sees her grandfather's wrinkled face in the coils of smoke rolling upwards from the hearth, feels her mother's soft touch in the warmth from the fire, feels Sota's absence in the silence between the echoes of the thunderstorm.
There is a thud-thud in her heart, the ache of love, the misery of separation, and even the bright fire cannot chase away the shadows that dance along the walls, cannot dispel the darkness that creeps from the door to the hearth and tangles its spidery fingers into her hair.
"Stay with me," she says to Inuyasha.
He reaches for her nearest hand, rubs her palm with the rough edges of his fingers. "Of course," he says. "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing, nothing's wrong," she says, looking deep into Inuyasha's eyes. "I –"
"I'll stay with you," he says, and tightens his hold on her hand.
She leans into his embrace, and he stays with her as they watch the cookpot, and his love warms her. His love, his embrace, keep the shadows at bay. And yet the ghosts of her past lurk in the dark corners, flitting by the doorway as the lightning leaps in the sky, watching her and waiting for another chance to stake their sharp knives into her heart.