'You ask me why I look so sad, on this bright summers day.
Or why the tears are in my eyes, that I seem so far away.'
'Well sit yourself beside me, love, and put your hand in mine.
And I'll tell you about someone I loved, long long before your time.'
InuYasha watched his eight year old daughter run through the grassy field, and he sighed. She looked a lot like her, with her black hair, her bright, smiling face, her shining eyes. InuYasha looked away and stared at the deep blus sky, pondering the way his life had turned out.
His daughter stopped to pick a flower, a bright yellow dandelion, and she sniffed it. She turned, and ran toward InuYasha on bare feet, holding the flower out in front of her. She stopped in front of InuYasha, and held it up to him.
"Here Daddy!" She said. "Look what I got for you!" She said, grinning widely. InuYasha looked down at her, and smiled sadly. He saw the dandelion in her hand, and he accepted it, his heart aching. He bent down, and picked her up, kissing her on the forehead.
"That was your mothers favourite flower..." InuYasha said softly, looking at the rather plain yellow dandelion in his hand. "She always said that she was attracted to them because not a whole lot of people liked such a plain flower, and she liked it, said that if she didn't like it, then nobody would." InuYasha said.
She also loved me when nobody would. He thought, looking at the flower with sorrow in his eyes, tears threatening to spill down his cheeks.
"Daddy, why are you sad?" His daughter asked, and InuYasha set her on the fence beside him. He held her hand as he thought back to those sweet years so long ago.
'I'm sitting here, and think of those days so long ago.
When I was just a child like you, and the girl I used to know.
Through fields of green we laughed and played, and sang our merry rhymes.
Those summer days were warmer then, long long before your time.'
InuYasha thought back through all the memories, trying to find a way to explain it to his daughter in a way she would understand. He thought back to the days when he was younger, and the first time he met Kagome.
"I met your mother when I was just a young boy..." InuYasha said, staring off into the distance. "We were a bit more carefree back then, often playing in fields just like this one. She loved to sing, your mother, and had a beautiful voice..." InuYasha trailed off, thinking of those summer days so long ago, they seemed much warmer then.
'Through childhood years, our love did bloom, till our hearts were just as one.
We promised each eternal love, in the church below the town.
We settled in this little house, I was proud to call our home.
Oh, we were young, and happy then, long long before your time.'
InuYasha was silent for a long moment, and his daughter waited, for InuYasha sometimes got like this.
InuYasha reminisced about the love he had felt for her, and how close a connection he felt with her. He remembered promising her that he would love her forever, and never forget her, in the courtyard in front of the church. He remembered how he was embarrassed to take her to the little house he lived in, but she had laughed it off, and called it a palace, making InuYasha proud of the house he had built by himself. As he remembered all this, a warm feeling spread through his body, and InuYasha closed his eyes, wishing he could be as happy now as he was then.
"I promised her I'd love her forever, and she said the same to me." InuYasha whispered softly.
'One lovely year was all we had, until the sickness came.
That stole the roses from her cheeks, and my tears they fell like rain.
For nine long months, she carried you, but in the end she died.
She chose to go, so you may live, long long before your time.'
InuYasha's face darkened as he remembered the last years of her beautiful life. She had come down with a sickness, something from the water that she drank, and he remembered her saying that she probably got sick because the water wasn't as clean as she was used to, back in her time. InuYasha recalled the image of Kagome lying on the floor on her sleeping bag, in InuYasha's house. InuYasha had held her hand throughout the whole thing, never leaving her side. Every day, the sparkle in her eyes dimmed more and more, and her cheeks weren't as red as before, her skin had turned pale, sickly. She had been pregnant at the time too, and both InuYasha and Kagome feared for the baby's life. She had, out of sheer will, survived with the virus eating away at her, for nine months, just long enough to have the baby, then she had passed away, her eyes finally closing forever. InuYasha had never felt such pain, and he cried for days after she had passed away.
'So you ask me why, I look so sad,
On this bright summers day.
Or why the tears are in my eyes, that I seem so far away.
It's just you seem a lot like her, when your eyes looked into mine.
And you smile so much, just like she did, long long before your time.'
InuYasha, tears in the corners of his eyes, looked away from the sky, and down at his daughter.
"You ask me why I'm sad...all I can tell you is that I once loved your mother very much, and when she died, she took a part of me, and I'll never get it back." InuYasha said.
"You look just like your mother, same face, same beautiful brown eyes, same lovely smile."
He hugged her tightly, and she wrapped her tiny arms around his neck. InuYasha knew that he had kept his promises. He never stopped loving her, and he would never forget her, for every glance at his daughter bought back a flood of memories, every one of them bitter-sweet. He picked his daughter up off the fence, and set her down, turning away. He wiped a tear off his cheek, and started walking, motioning for her to follow.
"Come on..." He said softly. "Let's go find you something to eat."