Author's note:
Sooo...
I am in love with InuYasha again. Figures.
It was actually one of my first animes as a kid and like most of those animes it has a really, really special place in my heart...and head cause that's kinda where this story was taken from.
I know there are a lot (I've only seen a few though) of Sesshomaru x Oc stories out there, and some might be getting a bit tired of them, but I truly love my oc in this one and would like to present my work in this part of fanfiction. Ships be damned at the moment (sorry if I offended anyone ^^''). This one will be different however, I promise.
Warning:There will be bashings, violence, and later even maybe some...scenes...which will not be ideal for some youngsters out there (or people who treasure their innocence really much) so... do not read unless you know you can take it.
I do not, under any circumstances own InuYasha or any of it's characters or plot. That honour goes solely to dear Rumiko Takahashi who I will never be. Ever. So don't sue me. Please.
Bonfire
Prologue
"Sari...dear, I have to talk to you for a bit..." The young mother said with sorrow in her voice as she sat, almost unmoving on the pearly white futon* placed neatly at the centre of the small bed-room. The only light provided being the one that came from the tiny lamp standing but a few inches from the soft bedding.
It was a cold winter day, and the shadows stood tall in any corner and hallway, stalking anyone they could access to and caused any human to look more drained than they could possibly be. It was them playing, the shadows, playing like children on a summer day, and this particular woman, shaking in both fear and because of her trembling heart, was an especially fun play-mate and victim. Her structures just begging for any of them to be present – to be the shadows lingering upon her face like the gloom of a ghost.
She was visibly sick, her skin pale and greasy, and her facial appearance that of a skull. Thin, bony and horrible.
However, despite the woman's weakened state, as it seemed her sickness had taken the better hold of her in this season, she felt at least content in what she knew would be her final moments.
She could at least spend them with her beloved child, her little bonfire, Sari, at the moment sitting in her lap.
"What do you mean Mama?" The little girl asked, letting her keen eyes – yellow irises and white pupils – stare wondrously into her mother's own. Exact copies, had it not been for one of the pair being drained of all life they'd ever contained. "You sound like Papa did when he left...Mama are you leaving too?"
So innocent, yet so sorrowful. The tone that the child had used was naïve, unknowing of the cruelty the world so easily could bring upon you. And simply that had caused a tear to fall down the woman's ashen cheeks. Breaking whatever strong barrier she had managed to hold up until now.
"Oh, Sari, I am so, so, so sorry." She cried another tear, let a sob break through her vocal cords. "But Mama can't help it. There is nothing she can do, Mama has to go..."
"NO! Mama I wanna stay with you! Take me with you!"
"Sari..."
Little Sari started to wail loudly, protesting against what her mother had said and clutched the garment she wore as if it was a life-line. She had her eyes screwed shut and rivers of salty water flowed down her rosy cheeks, staining the woman's robes as they at the same time where being stretched by the daughter's tiny hands.
A couple of months ago, the mother might have smiled at the scene, feeling that it was quite ironic, or possibly just serendipitous. As it seemed, Sari had quite the gift with instincts. Even if she didn't know it she could read a situation accurately, and then adapt, and the woman was glad because of that, for neither of the girl's parents had ever been very smart. And it was not probable that the girl would be a genius later in life either.
Like mother, like daughter, or however that proverb went.
Sari looked a lot like her father, even with her face red and full of tears and snot as she cried. She had the same red hinted dark brown hair, pale skin and pointed chin as her father. The same kind look in her eyes – even if the eyes themselves where her mother's – and sculptured cheekbones. Though, as young as she was it was barely visible.
The child was beautiful in looks and act alike; though she might be a little spitfire now and then, but that was to be expected. She was a blessing no matter how much it sometimes pained the mother to look at her because of her resemblance to her late father. However, as well as it was a layer of sorrow upon the woman's heart it was a remainder of how much she had loved her husband, and still loved him. And seeing her child in tears like this, was almost like seeing her husband break down, and it tore her heart to pieces in a similar way of how it had felt losing him.
Oh, god it hurt.
"Please, don't cry, Sari my dear" She hugged her child tightly and wiped away, from reddened cheeks, a tear with her thumb. "I don't know what the future may hold for you, I'm not a seer...and I know you will be sad while Mama has gone to where Papa is..."
Sari wailed even more loudly. So the mother tried with another approach.
"Shh, Sari, please...just...listen. There is something I have to give you before I d-leave, and it is very important, okay...?"
This helped only a little. The girl was still crying in the woman's arms, but she was beginning to calm down, to some extent, and the woman felt that her child would pay attention from then on.
Leaving her daughter to her parents-in-law was a brutal fate to give a child, in the eyes of a mother, but necessary in a situation like this. Of course, had there been a cure for the sickness the woman would have taken it, there would be no doubt in that decision, but such a thing did not exist, and the only option left was to leave a heirloom. So that the child would at least never forget.
The mother grabbed after the object laying at the feet of the futon by the closet. It was an oblong item. Around the height of half the woman had she been standing up, and it was wrapped in a silken cloth. One that looked more expensive than anything else in the room – possibly the whole apartment. It was red, like blood, and the object gave of a luminous ambience, like the one fire did.
The girl had by then completely quieted down, only letting a sob escape occasionally. She was staring at the object, wonder sparkling in her red, watery eyes, and her brows were furrowed.
"Mama..?"
"Sari. This is what I want you to listen to. This is Takibi, a katana* that has been passed down my family for generations, and it will be the memory I give you for my departure. Which will be soon."
Another tear fell, and her heart gave a jolt.
"Never lose it, you hear? Bring it everywhere you go if you must. Think of it as Mama and Papa's medium so that we can watch over you."
Sari studied the object for a second still, eyes concentrating stubbornly before she looked into her mother's and spoke once again.
"But, Mama, it looks heavy...and what is a medum?"
The mother laughed faintly and let a few more tears fall before a sudden coughing fit seized her and she started to shake violently.
And then she felt it, at last. Her heart burning viciously, and her body numbing all over. She fell over, into the bedding, but she still held onto her child. Tightly embracing her to the point that it almost hurt.
"Mama! Mama are you alright!?" Sari crawled out of her mother's embrace, forcibly separating the woman's arms from her small body as the bigger body continued to seize. She was shaking, out of fear or pain, and when the child saw her mother's pain filled expression, heard her scream, she began to cry again.
"Sari...please...whatever you do...m-mama and p-papa w-will always love you...ok?...Just live as you like...don't...'gasp'...do anything t-that is forced upon you..." The woman's voice was more irregular than ever before.
"M-Mama...please..please don't go...I-I love you mama"
"…..d-don't loose sight of the bonfire, a-alright?"
And with that, no longer hearing anything the child so desperately cried, the frail, kind but sorrowful woman inhaled for the last time. Eyes closing with what could to some extent be called a smile.
Futon; traditional Japanese bed, like a madras of some sort
Katana; Japanese sword
A/N:
And that's that folks. The prologue, I hope it was satisfactory and I will be posting the first real chapter soon. I hope... Well, studies are a bitch and all that, but oh, so important.
So, R & R and I hope to see you in the next chapter