by Sharibet
Author's note: Ba-chan's story challenge, to do a story about unrequited love with a non-canon pairing, coupled with recent discussions about Kaede and mikos on the Inuyasha and Hero21 mailing lists, sparked this humble effort.
Life was a cruel thing. She had known him almost all her life. Loved him from afar during all the years of her adolescence and womanhood.
Now, here he was, sulking on the floor of her hut, while Onee-sama's reincarnation talked to him in a determinedly kind voice.
Alive again. Still young.
Still beautiful.
And I am grown old, and ugly. So old, that he hadn't recognized her at first. And that had hurt--that even her scent had triggered no memories.
Kaede sighed, and bent to stir the pot of stew.
When she was seven years old, she saw Onee-sama seal him to the trunk of a tree with her dying strength. As the arrow pierced his heart, the bewildered rage had melted from his expression, leaving him looking peaceful, even sweet.
When she was twelve, and newly-returned from her training at the temple, the village's newest miko found herself visiting the tree--and the imprisoned hanyou. At first, she told herself it was only because he was a link to her sister--and to her own childhood, when she had spent many hours in his company, chaperoning Onee-sama.
At fifteen, realizing that she was destined to remain a virgin miko forever--after all, what other honorable living could her village offer an orphaned girl?--she approached the tree, simmering with disappointment and resentment and the hot blood of her new womanhood. She climbed the vines that had entwined themselves around his still form during the past eight years, until she was face-to-face with him.
They looked the same age now, the silver-haired hanyou youth and the miko.
Slowly, her heart pounding with her daring, she leaned in. She would not wither away and die unkissed. She would not.
A hair's-breadth from that soft-looking mouth, and an invisible force lashed out, knocking her backwards.
Oh, she thought, sprawled on the ground, bruised and breathless. So that's why the crows haven't yet picked the still-living flesh from his bones.
She never tried to touch him again, though she visited him frequently, sitting on the grass in front of the tree, watching him as he slept.
His appearance never changed during all the long years. The vines around him grew thicker, and the tree a little taller, until he hung several feet above the ground.
Unlike him, she did change, her rebellious spirit eventually fading in the quiet satisfaction of a life spent serving the people of her village, tending her sister's grave, and guarding the Sunset Shrine, though it no longer held anything worth stealing. She grew old, and stout, and wise.
But in her heart, she was still fifteen, still infatuated with the ageless, beautiful youth in his enchanted sleep. And, from time to time, she still went into the forest to look at him.
Now, here they were, three people who had known each other a lifetime ago: an old woman, a young woman, and a hanyou of indeterminate age. The girl--Kagome--was still chattering in her strange, almost incomprehensible dialect, directing her comments impartially to Kaede and a sullenly silent Inuyasha.
Kaede nodded with the solemnity born of years of listening to disputes, her expression a perfect mask while a sick feeling roiled her insides.
Jealousy. She almost chuckled as she realized what it was, but the pain was real, and deep.
Jealousy that Onee-sama's sealing spell had not repelled Kagome the way it had repelled Kaede all those years ago. Jealousy that Kagome had been the one to remove the arrow and unseal Inuyasha. Jealousy that his attention, when he deigned to bestow it on the humans in the hut, was entirely focused on Kagome.
Kaede picked up the first of the empty wooden bowls stacked near her hearth, filled it with rice and stew, and handed it to Kagome. The girl thanked her--she was very polite, despite her strange clothing and strange manner of speech. Then, Kaede offered the second bowl to Inuyasha.
She saw the fractional widening of his eyes, the brief hesitation before he accepted it as if it were a precious gift.
Later, he would tell her that this was his first cooked meal since his mother died. But in that moment, his clawed fingers brushing hers briefly as he accepted the bowl, she suddenly felt as if she had become real to him. Important.
The sick jealousy subsided. This is enough.
--The End--