Thwack.
Another perfect shot. Kaede, straining onto her toes, pried the arrow and adjoining slip of cloth from the tree trunk and scuttled back to Kikyou. The metal tip had made a gentle, slightly non-circular hole dead center in the last strip. Target practice was over, for now.
They walked back to the village quietly, brows furrowed; Kikyou led the way, choosing the densest packed snow and treading along the thickest patches of ice. Kaede followed, clutching a sack of heavy, frost-covered roots. The village and its surroundings were quiet in the dead of winter; youkai preferred to sleep, and except for the occasional wandering ghouls, Kikyou never needed to expend much energy to keep the village safe.
"I don't want to go back to school," said Kaede finally, before they had returned to the village. "You won't be there."
Kikyou had left for good after she was awarded custody of the Shikon Jewel. Kaede, unfinished with her Priestess training, was due back in the spring, after the snowmelt began to glide down the mountainside.
"You must. What would Mother think?"
"Mother's dead."
The elder sister paused and turned around, fixing her sibling with a steady gaze. Kaede shivered. Or perhaps that was the wind stirring from the north, bearing the winter down into their ravine. Then the gaze softened and Kikyou bent forward and said softly: "Do you know why I practice archery everyday?"
Kaede glanced at her sister's bandaged fingers. Underneath the triple-wound hemp were blisters and open wounds from stringing and plucking her long bow. Once, Kikyou had sliced open part of her third finger when sharpening an arrowhead; she had yelped and put her finger to her lips, then stopped and let it bleed, almost in puzzlement. In moments of gentleness, Kaede always remembered the puzzlement. "To keep us safe."
"Mother was proud when I was chosen to become a Priestess. The honor it brought... and the comfort of knowing that we will protect our people from wars, pillaging, and the savagery around us, and make it possible for more mothers and daughters to live to a long old age. I wish to keep that promise."
Then she turned, as if embarrassed by her explanation, and began to wind her way up to where the village fires were being lighted. Kaede dawdled behind her, remembering the last full moon; they had gone to their mother's grave and left offerings for her dead soul. Kikyou had given her sister a taste of the ceremonial rice wine, sharp and sweet, which Kaede immediately hated. It was done quietly, respectfully.
Still, the wind screamed in their ears: a spirit abroad was not at rest. Kikyou located the source of suffering after a little while: they went down by the river, where the corpse of a young heifer curled on its side laid half-eaten--its belly distended from pregnancy, and its ghost still lingering about in mourning. Kikyou touched the corpse with two fingers and murmured a brief prayer; it seemed that the ghost ran a wet snout down Kaede's back, and then the bestial, mad groaning was gone.
"The sacred arrow is not the only instrument by which you can purify suffering and corruption: a touch, a word, sometimes even a look is strong enough... if you are strong enough. It all depends on the priestess."
Kaede watched her sister's dwindling back, her throat dry. The desire under her sister's words was too slight to be read by any but the most familiar, but she had heard her sister murmur in her sleep, murmur words that could only fall under chaste longing. If one is strong enough. Her sister, awarded the Jewel for her purity and her overwhelming spiritual powers, walking dutifully toward the village, one foot in front of the other.
Had there been wavering, had there been tears in the night, Kaede would rest easy. Had Kikyou struggled with her fate, Kaede would know the shape and shadow of her sister's mind. The pure mask, the filial daughter, sheltered too much from view. But to ask would be a transgression for which not even her sister would forgive her. Kaede sighed and hefted the bag in her hands; shrugging, she followed. It seemed all she ever did, despite dallying and digressing. One couldn't help but trail in Kikyou's wake, like in the tail of some icy golden comet.