And a Parting Whisper Promised
Suou-chan
Disclaimer: Inuyasha isn't mine. I suppose that can be considered a good thing.
Prologue: My Tiny Oasis
"We will meet again. It matters neither time nor place, I will find you. That is a promise."
The streets shone with the soft glow of hanging lights that dangled from street lamps and intertwined with shop gables, weaving over and across bustling lanes of faceless bodies. The blushing bulbs shone sometimes red, sometimes green, and sometimes yellow – dancing overhead and casting cheerful shadows onto the gray pavement. Shop windows shone a warm yellow, a warm and inviting color that drew shoppers into a dazzling world of crystal baubles and mistletoe. It was a warm evening for December, and snowflakes fell in gentle flurries, landing softly upon the hats and scarves and eyelashes of unknowing bystanders before softly fading away. Swirling white accompanied a symphony of tinkling giggles as flashing lights swayed in gentle gusts, likening the avenue to gates that lead to Aurora Borealis on the Polar Express.
But the magic of the evening was lost to her – she felt none of this as she hurried through the street, weaving through bodies that leisurely ambled down the boulevard. It was Christmas Eve, and Kagome was sulking. She was doing some necessary last-minute shopping for friends, who had suddenly decided upon an impromptu gathering for the holiday.
Alone and unhappy, she trudged along the darkening street, balefully eyeing the happy couples around her with resentful eyes, grudging them of their happiness on the beautiful holiday night. The merry holiday cheer was suffocating her, and she just wanted to take care of things and go home. Kagome looked dead, as usual. Stormy blue eyes that once so powerfully expressed her loneliness and grief had foregone their usual vivacity for a look of deadened fury. Of course, after a couple of months of relentless tossing and turning in her sleep, was that such a surprise? And it was true – she hadn't had a good night's sleep since her return from the Sengoku Jidai.
Feeling incredibly bitter and hostile at the world, Kagome glanced with listless eyes and venomous heart at the particularly sparkly, cheery window display to her right, hoping with all her might that her remarkable willpower could smash every twinkling red-green light bulb in that disgusting display of Christmas spirit.
blink blink
Then gasped in fright and felt her brain slowly melting into a pile of soggy pink eggnog.
'So bright! So blindingly, blindingly bright!' Her mind silently cried out in the agony of suddenly being bombarded with pure, unadulterated holiday cheer.
The clerk behind the ϋber happy window display was frantically beckoning to her. Kagome tried madly to resist against the invisible hands that seemed to drag her in through the ominously tinkling door and into the shop. 'No! My sweet darkness! My soothing depression! My beautiful bottomless pit of despair! Let me loll in my loneliness and leave me be! Just me and my misery and…fluffy pink bunnies in Santa Clause suits. How…delightful.' Kagome thought dryly, and steeled herself to deliver a polite but curt "no, thank you," and return to her unwillingly undertaken – but one that offered her so much more "let me drown in my very own cesspool of self-pity because my life is crap" time – task of Christmas shopping.
The clerk was enthusiastic and persistent…very much so. But in such an innocent and obliging, and strangely familiar, kind of way that Kagome just couldn't start mouthing him off for disturbing her let-me-hate-the-world-in-peace time. So when he gently took her by the arm and led her to the back to look at a row of what seemed to be porcelain figurines, she didn't jerk it back and throw him a dirty look that promised death in the other life. And when he held out a figurine for her to examine, she at least deigned to look at it seriously. She gasped.
Fierce features and proud stance marked the intricate statuette, a demonic dog with fiery ruby eyes, painstakingly done and perfect to the most miniscule of details. The figure…it reminded her of Sesshoumaru – it seemed that its maker possessed a rare talent capable of capturing the unbridled beauty that was solely his, with his wild, passionate, and indomitable force compacted tightly into the delicate glass. Eyes suddenly misty from unbidden tears, Kagome cursed herself for being weak. It had already been nearly a year, yet she was still as dejected as ever. With shaking fingers, she gently palmed the delicate porcelain dog. It smelled of incense, a strong musty smell that reminded her of times too long past.
She slowly inhaled and then looked around the store. The peculiar little store that inexplicably drew her in. Into the smiling clerk, the glimmering baubles and bells, the musky incense that made her thoughts spin…into the past.