Don't You Forget
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha~
A/N: SupremeYoukaiChick, as I mentioned long ago in "Rock Bottom", introduced me to the concept of InuKae. Animax's evening telecast reignited my interest.
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The little girl walked along the river bank, wicker basket bouncing against her thigh. The gardenias that grew near here were her sister's favored perfume. Laced through the underside of her hairtie or hidden inside her collar, the pale blossoms smelled sweetly of both themselves and Kikyo's quiet glory. Kaede didn't notice the dog demon until she reached for a flower right next to its filthy foot.
Jerking her hand back, she squealed, "Euuurrrghhh, unclean!"
Inuyasha, lying on his back, opened an eye and scowled at her. "Who're you calling unclean, you snot-nosed little brat?"
"Don't call me a brat! I'll have you know I'm nearly nine years old, and a shrine maiden too!" she puffed herself up on pride fresh from the temple grounds and pointed a finger at him. "I could purify you with a touch of my fingers, demon!"
Inuyasha grinned hard and lunged, her surprised scream tickling his ears as he took her small hand and rubbed his face into it. "Yeah? Like this? I'm not purified at all. You've got some dog snot on your palm, though."
Kaede stared in disbelief and squealed again, dropping her basket and running to the river. As she washed her hands of his essence, muttering direly just under her breath but quite level with his ears, Inuyasha crushed his way through the grass and stuck his feet in the flowing water.
"Clean these while you're at it, 'kay?"
"Urgh, not a chance." Hot, accusatory eyes glared at him and he basked in their hostile warmth. "I'm not touching you, gross."
Canines bared in a fearsome snarl, the half demon said he'd eat her if she didn't cater to his every whim. The child stuck her cute button nose high in the air and retorted that if he laid a hand on her, the great shrine priestess Kikyo would melt his stupid head.
Inuyasha said, "Totally worth it," and shoved her into the river.
Kaede wailed, "You jerk, I'm telling onee-sama!" and cried all the way home.
000
"Kaede, Inuyasha. I have somewhere to go and want you both to get along until I return." Kikyo's eyes lingered equally on her little sister and lover boy before turning to the cave where Onigumo recuperated, starving for the next scrap of Kikyo's attention. Half demon and half pint watched her go with identical looks of adoration.
Turning to the dog, Kaede said, "I'm going to protect the village from mangy strays. What are you going to do?"
"Mangy strays...? You little punk! I'm going to protect the village from stupid girls playing shrine maiden."
"One doesn't play at being shrine maiden," she sniffed in an impressively snooty impersonation of her big sister, "One becomes." Kaede sighed for effect. "It's more than can be expected for a mutt to understand, I'm afraid."
"Listen, you hoity toity bite-sized bitch, if it wasn't for your older sister I'd be chewing on your leg right now so do yourself a favor and shut the hell up."
"What does onee-sama see in you anyway?" snapped back the anklebiter, "You're just a rude, stinky dog."
Inuyasha glowered at her and went, "It's probably 'cause I'm so darn cute."
"Hah!"
"Cuter than you, anyway."
A gasp slit her throat and he was attacked the very next second by a sharp tiny hand whizzing to connect with his cheek. Inuyasha blinked and laughed before tackling her to the ground, dirtying her clothes and wresting that fine attitude from her. Kaede tried to give as good as she got, but the match was brief and she was the loser. Helplessly stuck in petit-mal after giggles even though he'd taken his tickling hands away, she put her face into the dry earth and shyly watched Inuyasha observing her. The sun set about browning her arms, but Kikyo wasn't there to remind her and so she didn't draw her sleeves over her skin.
A quizzical lilt to his question glided over her ears in a tingly way. "How come you didn't pee yourself when you first saw me?"
"Shrine maidens don't pee themselves," she said loftily.
He waved away her jaunty tone. "Seriously. I could've killed you. Your parents never taught you to not talk to strangers with claws?"
She shrugged. "I talked to you the first time at the gardenia patch. I'd seen you before that, with onee-sama. If she kept you around, you were harmless. Obviously."
Inuyasha went red. "You saw me with Kikyo? Where?"
The girl thought about it and rattled off a list. Twice in the flower fields, one evening in the temple, once on the hill yonder, twice in the forest...
"Spy on your sister, do you?" Inuyasha's complexion eased when it became evident that Kaede only had had glimpses in the passing, and never had overheard any embarrassing declamations of love.
"Dally with my sister, do you?" The sharp tongue and sharper mind of this sweet pea growing wild and free caught Inuyasha quite unaware. He laughed delightedly and wrestled with her again.
Kaede still lost.
000
In Kikyo's line of vision, the dynamic between them changed drastically.
"Onii-san, please drink this! I brewed it by myself." Kaede bowed as she set the tea tray on the table with a cutesy smile. Kikyo nodded her approval as Inuyasha surmounted to something like the picture of graciousness.
"Thank you, Kaede-chan. I'm sure it's delicious! How are you?"
"Very well, sir, thank you for asking! Please stay for dinner!"
Being a brilliant priestess and all-around babe, Kikyo knew when she was being bullshitted. She also liked these two people enough to allow them the mistaken thrill of having decieved her. Besides, it was better this way. If she called them on it they'd carry on with their rough horseplay in her presence and Kikyo wasn't sure she could handle the affront to her dignity.
"Of course I'll stay, lady of the house permitting." Inuyasha's copper eyes were a lot less metallic than when he'd first met his love, and Kikyo wondered if two shrine maidens were responsible for the molten passion in them now.
It was a good, good night.
000
The sickle moon was slung in the sky like a rapier on an assassin's hip. Inuyasha was perched atop a dead tree, toes clenched against splintering wood and thoughts in turmoil. Kaede stood 'neath him, at the base of the trunk, pretending he didn't know she was there. Her big sister and the half demon had struck the chords of disharmony early in the evening. As far as the young un's eavesdropping revealed, Inuyasha who told Kikyo everything was refusing to share the details of his mother's demise. Except one thing: that she'd bequeathed him the robe stitched from fire-rat hair.
Kikyo never asked to be privy to any part of Inuyasha. From his hand to his heart, he gave every last bit of himself without her asking for it. And the one thing she'd grasped for, he shielded from her. Izayoi's death was something so intensely secret, so enormously precious that Inuyasha plain preferred to not speak of it at all.
Kaede sank to her tiring knees. Apparently Inuyasha had been very young when his mother passed away. It could be that he didn't remember, and was too ashamed to admit that to Kikyo, who faithfully lit incense and offered prayers and tears once a year on a morbid anniversary.
A yawn wracked the young girl's body; high above her Inuyasha's ears twitched. Kaede didn't think she was here for him. It was just that, after their raised voices sent her fleeing to her room, unwilling to hear more, she'd still heard Inuyasha angrily declare his departure. Kikyo had come to kiss her goodnight, her cheeks still damp with tears. Kaede snuck out meaning to solve everything with the arrogance of childhood that believes in the power of a tight slap and an apology. But when she found him Inuyasha was deep in that heavy sadness adults wore, and no more approachable than her holy sister. Too uneasy to come closer and too visible to leave, Kaede was stuck in limbo.
Too young to stay up this late, she fell alseep.
Inuyasha leapt lightly down and gathered her into his arms. Kaede awoke and clutched his haori, whispering:
"My mother died two years ago, when the floods came."
Inuyasha stood stock still, gripping her body. Kaede opened her eyes and immediately wanted to close them again, he looked so dangerously magnified by moonlight. His gaze scalded her even though it wasn't trained on her, but the path ahead of them. She thought she had probably assumed too much to their relationship. Who was she? Only the sister of the woman he loved. Kaede was nothing special to him; he only made an effort at affability because she might be part of his family one day. Thoughts like that depressed her right up to the village edge, where Inuyasha stopped again and said in his soft, low voice:
"My mother was killed. My father died trying to protect her."
She didn't respond, feigning sleep. In the coming years Kaede would revisit this moment countless times, trying to see what he saw in a drowsy nine year old that invited him to part with his jealously guarded secret. But she never found more than a girl staring foolishly into his timeless face, and a moment of magic, as fragile as an eggshell.
000
A spry scoundrel of a winter gust whistled through Kaede's kimono. She fell to her knees to avoid looking like a drum. The wicker basket, half-filled with gardenias, was snatched up by a clawed hand. A familiar shadow fell over her and she squinted against the morning sun to try and discern the loose grin of a smelly dog.
"Thought I sniffed you here. Long time no see, pumpkin. Heard you skipped town?"
"Pumpkin?" Her greased tones left no doubt her unappreciation of the nickname.
"You got pudgy around the edges," he explained, and she snatched that wicker basket straight back.
"I was at grandmother's house for only six weeks, Inu-mutt. You must've missed me like crazy to come after my trail the second I return." But she was pleased, insanely so, and he overlooked his nickname as she'd overlooked hers.
"Yeah right. Why don't you ask Kikyo how little I pined for you? I didn't even notice you were gone until it struck me what a quiet autumn we were having."
"Onee-sama still hasn't let you go, huh?"
"Nope." He looked bloated with good cheer. "You're stuck with me for a brother-in-law. Why don't you practice calling me onii-sama?"
Kaede raised a hand as if to throw a gardenia at him, thought better of it, and threw the whole basket instead. He ducked easily and she grabbed one of his ears as it swooped down to her range of reach, pinching with her cruel, well-groomed nails.
"Listen, meat-breath, don't get any fancy ideas. And if you're going to try and marry my sister you better take good care of her, okay?"
Inuyasha pulled her off him and bellowed in her unfearful face, "That hurt, you bitch!"
Holding Kaede aloft by the collar with just two of his fingers, it snaked sinisterly round his heart how vulnerable she was. Why, he could shake the dolly to pieces. Meeting her resilient glare, he muttered, "I'll take good care of her. You, too."
"And the village?"
"What am I, a watchdog?"
"We're a package deal."
For the first time in a long while, he second guessed his desire to use to the shikon jewel to jettison his demon blood. Protecting these flimsy humans would be easier with that extra strength.
"Hey, you! Are you listening to me? I said, 'put me down'!"
He said, "Yeah, sure," and she fell five feet. He said, "Oops," and knelt to brush the dirt off her sleeves, and she cast not a punch but her arms around his neck in a net of affection.
"Don't go away," she ordered, "Don't make us cry."
And that was family, that was duty.
000
Flames roared over the thatched roof as though whipped by the gods. Women keened, men shouted and Kaede stumbled around in a state of bewildered inaction. Kikyo wasn't home and Kaede would naturally look to Inuyasha but. Her eye throbbed and bled, pain searing her inexperienced body, grief tarnishing her unprepared heart. She would naturally look to Inuyasha.
But.
Ass had reneged on his promise!
Alright, he'd never made a true promise. But. He'd given his word. Kaede dropped to her knees. Did that count for nothing? Did none of them count for anything?
She refused to believe right until her sister's body went to heaven on a plume of smoke, her ashes scattered to the winds. Then she ran hard and fast to the tree in the forest, hauled herself to his eye level, and slapped him against his cheek like a wasp's vengeful sting. Milky skin flushed red.
Sleeping, not dead.
Kaede dropped to the roots of the tree and burnt her lungs with sobs, weeping her way to salvation.
Kikyo was dead. But Inuyasha still breathed.
000
Nine years trudged by before she could bring herself to look upon his face again. Nine years hung womanhood like a wreath of flowers in her hair, in the way her kimono fit her like a sock fits a foot, in her bearing so calculated and self-possessed. Death forces maturity like nothing else. She'd been ministering her people all this time in her sister's stead. But staring frankly at Inuyasha's unaged face, she felt like an infant in swaddling clothes, minus the trusting innocence.
A steady hand reached out to touch his dusty haori.
He was a murderer.
She was a victim.
So how come it was Kaede who seemed crude and cruel as dappled sunlight daubed green and gold on Inuyasha's cheeks? She was eighteen and at the peak of her beauty so why did he look so damn beautiful? She had been left behind as adults who had guarded her died, or fell prey to their own greed. But Kaede, walking back to the village, felt she was abandoning her childhood to the malignant ghosts that haunted Inuyasha's forest.
Capital F.
She turned over her shoulder for one last glimpse and got a nasty jolt. An aurora borealis (right, like she's know what that was) pierced the sky as adamantly as a boy's smile could pierce her heart. Kaede knew it had always been there. Her seeing it was new. One does not play at being shrine maiden. One becomes.
She returned to her shack, holding her peace. And also thinking that maybe childhood was not something she could just leave behind at a half demon's slumbering feet.
000
So she went to him, again and again.
She beat his clothes with a short stick to clear the dust and wiped his face with a wet rag. Dumping an entire pot of water over his head, she soaped his hair and scrubbed it. Swiped whatever parts of skin she could reach, too, including the feet she'd first condemned as unclean. The first few times she worked in silence, acutely aware of who he was and what he'd done, and also of the possibility of having been followed from some moron from the village. Eventually her reticence fell away like leaves on a wintering tree, and Kaede sung. Songs of hope and mischief, ruin and delight were woven around Inuyasha, who never stirred.
Just once, she kissed him.
Washing his face one bright afternoon, Kaede was caught in the spell of his gentle breath and living flesh, wasted here as surely as if it would be wasting away in a grave. The rag slipped from her; her bare fingers on his bare skin sent shivers of longing (for what she hardly knew, had the merest hint of a clue) down her back. Like fairy feathers her thumb brushed the hollow under his lower lip and settled on his chin. Kaede went lightheaded and clear-minded in one contradictory moment.
She fell lips first, pruposeful and assured, gasping when her mouth reached his.
A full heartbeat she stayed there, tip-toe straining to support her weight, her eyelids flapping like a flustered bird's wings. Then with another gasp (of horror) she fell back. Thrusting her head between her knees and grabbing a fistful of fabric above her heart, Kaede fought to not throw up and offered an prayer of apology to her deceased sister, whose serene face had bloomed in her mind as she kissed Inuyasha's lips.
Even in death, Kikyo held sway over his heart.
Kaede was by no means as powerful as her onee-sama, but hardly a slouch in the department either. She cast a spell to keep him spotless for as long as Kikyo's magic would hold him there, denying cobwebs and creepers the chance to have their way with his unresisting form. Kaede didn't look back. She left that place, and good riddance.
Good riddance.
(Get out of her life! And she'll get out of yours.)
000
Forty years and a world of pain later, he buried her under dirt and leaves and called her a hag.
Fucking greaseball.
"Promise me you will not forget."
"Yeah, yeah."
Why was he such a twisty bastard, so averse to being pinned by a promise? Kaede still didn't trust him. It was weird to be older than him. But she found an old woman's heart dealt better with his reprisal than a maiden's (shrine or otherwise) could. Glad of her age, she grabbed his collar.
"Do not forget, Inuyasha!"
Eyes the color of bronze copper amber gold piss daffodil pollen honey mango-puke (hey, take your pick. Babe, we got plenty of choices) took her breath away. Easy, like she was still eighteen.
"I won't forget. Lemme go."
But it seemed like he had forgotten. She thought of the shikon jewel and used Vulcan mind control to get him to work together with Kagome, but Kaede's heart brooded over some pretty personal shit. If he remembered jack squat he would still call her a brat. Outward appearances be damned. No, Kaede had to own up. All Inuyasha remembered was onee-sama and his own life, of which Kaede had never been an integral cog.
At least he remembered to dig her up.
"Never thought I'd see you mature enough to not call me mutt. You didn't just grow up, you grew old."
She stared at the back he offered to carry her on. This was not a privilege she'd had as a child. And suddenly she was ashamed of her age.
"I will walk."
"You ain't in a condition to walk, Kaede."
The jerk remembered a damn sight more than he let on. But she would have to remind him of the fiery stubbornness she had wielded in her younger days.
"I will walk."
"Your funeral."
"Beyond a doubt." Bitterness stung her tone before Kaede could filter it out, and Inuyasha looked down at her for one soft moment. She took a step and wobbled; he picked her up in his arms.
"Don't say a word," he griped, and she didn't even want to. She clung to him like a girl and wondered what he saw still in her ruined face that got her such special treatment. She thought life had sucked her dry. But in Inuyasha's arms, Kaede sensed she had a helluva lot more left to give.
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:D LOVE. Damn I'm good.