beautiful dreamers
by shannello
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a/n: updated and reworked on july 01, 2010. squicky and disturbing. you've been warned.
(d i s c l a i m e r ) nope.
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These dreams, troublesome and rousing, promise no reality.
They come to her every night, sweeping her soul from her shell with a strangled gasp. She winds through her cotton sheets, her mouth arched into a curious smile. Beside her in the bed sleeps her daughter and their dreams interweave, leaving them vulnerable.
Kagome sees a dark figure enter her dream, crumbling her walls. Her dream lurches, suddenly, in the direction of the figure. The dark outline comes into focus and shape-shifts into a girl, a beautiful, sad thing. She's staring at something at the back of Kagome's mind, and her face is distorted and Kagome can't make it out, and then she turns.
Kagome's lips lose color, and her mind—once dormant—stirs.
Kagome, please, don't hide from me.
Her mother laughs in her sleep, into one ear, and Kagome's heart hits the bottom of her chest. Her eyes, crusty and moist, open.
Her arms wobble as she rises herself up from the bed, trembling from the familiar voice in her head. She doesn't understand it, bites her lip, and thinks, why are you still inside of me?
"Mama," says Kagome. "Are you awake?"
Mama turns, stubbornly, and a happy moan reels from her chest. A man is in her dream; a man with hair full of spiders, and a cape of cobwebs.
A black shadow leaks into her dream, expelled from Kagome's head, and presses itself against the man.
The shadow transforms into a striking girl, far more beautiful than any woman Mama has ever seen. She's drawn to her. Infatuated. The girl looks cold, and afraid, and to Mama she is fascinating and frightening, simultaneously. They lock eyes.
Who are you?
Kagome's mother smiles—a smile Kagome can't recognize.
Mama sweats in the off-blue glow of the bedroom, her heart beating loud and obnoxiously, and Kagome brings her knees to her chest. Alone, Kagome shivers in the dead air of the room, the indistinct silence suddenly gone, replaced by the thunder of a spirit.
Morning invades her dream, and Mama flickers open her eyes, squinting. She sits upright in the bed, noticing the lack of company. Kagome had left hours ago, had eaten breakfast uninterestedly, forced herself through a shower, and left for a walk.
Mama runs an hand through her brown hair, something new filling her, like magma pooling at the bottom of her stomach, like spiders crawling underneath her skin.
Kagome touches the wood, fingers trembling. She can feel a rush of blood to her head, to the top of her brain. Her eyes close involuntarily and she leans forward, dizzy, breathing erratically.
"I let you go," says Kagome. "I left you in the past. It was what you wanted, Kikyou."
Her knees give out and she slides roughly against the well. Her hand drops to her stomach, where a hot, omnipotent Jewel sleeps. She'd taken with her as a last resort at saving the world, stupidly, binding her to the Warring States.
To them.
She forces out a heavy moan.
Hands pull at her soul and she falls closer to the well, chin roughly hitting the ground. One by one, her tears fall into the dirt.
You let me go, Kikyou. Why won't you let me stay?
Mama impulsively leaves home that morning.
"A walk should clear things up," she decides, taking her coat and house keys. She's lying to herself again, because she knows that a walk never clears her mind, never soothes her worry lines, only supplies time for her to think harder. By the time she realizes this she's already at the lake, and walks over to a bench. Birds are scattered across the green, and Mama wishes she had remembered bread.
She hears footsteps behind the trees, and a woman's soft voice, and through the leaves she can see two pale bodies. Long black hair on both.
The man guides the woman by her hand, and Mama watches them, feeling out-of-place, because its almost frightening how familiar they are.
Dark eyes meet hers for an instant, and the woman begins to slow, stopping the man. She whispers something in his ear, and he looks at Mama, analyzing her face, her clothes, her body. Although his gaze is deafening, he's almost as beautiful as the woman and, although it's rude to stare, Mama can't look away.
Mama doesn't know what to think, so her brain lies smoldering in the core of her skull. They look exactly the same as the dark figures in her—and Kagome's—dream, but their clothes aren't striking red and white, or dark blue and purple. They look like any other person in reality, in jeans and jackets.
"You're her mother," the woman says, walking in closer, her eyes bright and excited. She sounds calm and her body movement makes her seem impatient, but Mama sees something in the woman's eyes that makes her heart beat hard.
"Do you know who I am?" the woman asks, suddenly.
Mama stops breathing, her eyes darting between the woman and the man.
"Do you?"
She sounds angry, but Mama, having lived with a moody daughter for eighteen years, could tell she was about to cry.
"…No," says Mama, looking away, visibly sorry for not knowing. A hand touches her arm, and Mama looks back, the woman inches from her face.
"Are you sure?"
Mama swallows, and believes herself for the first time in her life. "You're my daughter, my Kagome, aren't you? Are you a spirit?"
The woman pauses, then smiles. "I'm a ghost in this world," she explains. "I can't stay long." She squeezes Mama's arm kindly, and Mama can feel the connection between their earthy bodies buzz.
Mama blinks, and smiles back. "You should be in the past, Kagome."
The woman looks through Mama. "Call me Kikyou."
The man behind her looks disdained, and sighs suddenly, having not said a word the entire time. His eyes look set to kill, blatantly. Kikyou guides Mama up from the bench, and says, quietly, "Can I walk you home?"
Mama grins, and takes Kikyou's hand. "Please."
"Inuyasha…" Kagome whispers into the well, her body hunched up against it. "Are you happy I'm gone?" She laughs sharply into the dark. It's like a recurring joke without a punch line at this point. She asks him the same thing every morning, every time she grieves at the well, behind her mother's back.
She'd told her she stopped trying to get through months ago. She'd told her she'd given up because it was a hopeless cause.
She'd told her she was going to try and move on with what was left of her life.
Kagome coughs dustily into the wood, pressing her lips to it. "Inuyasha—did you forget about me?"
She wipes her eyes with her sleeve. "Do you hate me? I swallowed your Jewel, took away your wish…" A laugh echoes to the back of the mini-shrine, and Kagome squeezes her eyes shut, her mind swarming with youkai that she doesn't even believe existed anymore.
I didn't want to leave you, Inuyasha. I wanted to keep you alive. But when I finally... when Kikyou took my place… when Naraku turned his back and I shattered his bind—
You had already fallen in love with someone else.
"I can't forget about you, Inuyasha," admits Kagome. "I can't forget you, or Shippou, or Kohaku, or Sango, or Miroku." She begins to cry, freely, like a child. "I love you, all of you."
Kagome waited before her words faded into air before propping herself up. She climbs up the stairs on stiff legs with scraped knees, guides a hand against the frame of the door, and slowly closes it behind her.
"Kagome," says Mama, happily, into the house. "Kagome, where are you?"
Kagome is on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, her head throbbing religiously behind her eyes. Her tea does little to ease the pain.
Mama totters to Kagome, her legs moving quickly like her heart, light and fast. "Kagome, someone was looking for you." Kagome does little to feign interest. Mama touches her daughter's shoulder, shaking her gently.
"Mama, please. I'm tired."
Her mother grins down at her. "But Kagome," she says, brushing her daughter's bangs out her eyes, "you could have been her twin."
Kagome's heart leaps in her chest.
"What did you say?"
"She looked just like you. I thought she was you from… you know, dear, the future. She looked so unhappy, so unlike you, but you… I don't know how to explain this at all, but you felt the same to me." Mama's eyes flicker.
"What was her name?" asks Kagome, tentatively.
Mama smiles. "Kikyou. Pretty name, isn't it?"
"Where is she?" cries Kagome, leaping from the cushion and running to the door. She looks winded.
"Kagome, she's gone back already. She said she couldn't meet with you today."
Kagome nods quietly, her fingers to the glass.
"Kikyou," he says to her from his place on his throne, sliding one leg over the other.
The priestess ignores him; him, her adversary. Who had mislead Kagome into offering her soul to protect Inuyasha, who had made them nothing more than pawns, instruments, extensions of his will. She lives in his castle, and had lived there for years with Kagome, sleeping in the same bed, waiting for the day when one of them would get out, and be free.
"I can feel the bond between you," says Naraku, walking to her side. He grabs her roughly, breaking the skin on her shoulder. "I can touch it."
She shakes him off, every red line in her body bright and angry. "If she was bound to me, she would have come back a year ago. She would have opened the well with sheer strength of mind, like any priestess would, and destroyed you."
Naraku moves away from her and back to his throne.
"Believe what you will, Kikyou," he says to her, wearing that beautiful and wicked smile, and she stiffens. "I can't be destroyed, dear Kikyou, because if I could, well, you wouldn't be here, would you? You're nothing but a soulless puppet."
Kikyou grits her teeth.
"A devoted follower. A slave. You're no longer the keeper of your own heart."
She could have destroyed you at any moment, Naraku, but she chose to stay for Inuyasha's sake. The Shikon no Tama could never grant wishes. He would have killed himself.
"You're mine," says Naraku. "Kagome promised you to me."
"Stop," she says, forcefully, eyes dark and carnal. "I remain here because of her. She is the keeper of my heart; not you, never you."
Kikyou picks up her bow and stops at the doorway. "I shall cut the binds you have on her. You haven't won, Naraku."
Naraku watches her leave, his invisible strings looping around her ankles.
Inuyasha lives in Edo, champion of his village.
He lives a medium-sized hut close to the river, eats well every night, and sleeps on a cot instead of on a branch. His days are short and his nights are long, busy, and he continues to patrol the outskirts of the village.
He shares his home with Miroku, openly, and doesn't deny their relationship. Thing's really have changed since Kagome left them. Betrayed them.
"Inuyasha," Kikyou says, gripping her bow tightly with white knuckles. He stands feet from the forest, still inside the village's walls, still the broken man Kikyou knew once. She can't seem to look him in the eyes. "Kagome is—"
Inuyasha growls. There's a jangle of metal and Miroku appears, disgruntled and tired. "Inuyasha, what's going on?"
"Kikyou's here about Kagome," replies the half-demon. Miroku's eyes flicker to Kikyou's.
"Is there any change?" asks Miroku, edgily.
Kikyou nods. "There's a possibility that she can come back… But, Inuyasha, I need your help."
"She doesn't need to come back," Inuyasha spits. "We don't need her here."
"Inuyasha, we need—"
"She doesn't need to come back!" he literally screams. "Look around, Kikyou—there's no one here that wants her back. Shippou's dead; Sango's gone; I haven't loved her since the day she stole the fucking Jewel and left on Kagura's feather." Inuyasha looks away. "She's not one of us, anymore. She's one of his."
Kikyou intensifies her gaze. "She did what she needed to keep you from killing yourself, don't you understand? The Jewel kills when it grants wishes, Inuyasha, it doesn't create." Kikyou drops her bow, walking to him slowly. "She's still Kagome."
Instinctively, against her goodwill, Kikyou slides her arms around his body and holds him.
Inuyasha holds her to him, memories flooding his nearly indestructible brain, altering everything he made himself believe. He needed someone to blame; Kagome, the one who'd single-handedly crushed his belief that maybe there was some good in this world—but Kagome wasn't malevolent. He just couldn't stand the fact that she betrayed him.
Overtaken by regret, Inuyasha smothers Kikyou in his kimono, swallowing her scent, replacing her cold with his heat.
"Kikyou…" whispers Inuyasha, open to her defenses.
She left me. She left me for Naraku… I can't forget that.
Inuyasha breathes out, his body reacting to the closeness; and his mind betrays him. He's flooded with memories of Kagome, her scent, her touch, and suddenly, he misses her more than ever.
"I'll help get her back."
The miko smiles into his chest. "Thank you."
"Do you still think about me?"
She's tired of asking the same questions, but it eats you alive when you don't get answers. Curiosity killed the priestess.
She sighs and walks around the well in the dark. "I'm sorry," she whispers down into the well. "I constantly think about what I've done to you."
Her steps halt and she slides her legs over the mouth, resting on the ledge. Softly, she murmurs, "Naraku... he... he made me feel as if I was powerful. As if I had a choice. But, he made me believe that keeping the Jewel from you was the only one."
I was only making the Jewel black. It was tainted, and all I could think about was Kikyou… and keeping the Jewel from you.
Kagome smiles, closing her eyes and leaning back, listening to the chirp of creatures around her. "I knew that was true. The Jewel would have killed you. But I was so stupid, Inuyasha, for believing that Naraku wouldn't try to keep me there."
I was afraid for your life. I couldn't have let you die.
"He's stupid, too; for believing I'd stay."
It's all a sick joke.
Life.
Kagome pushes off the mouth, falling down like rocks into the dark well, hitting the bottom with a sharp cry.
Inuyasha carries Kikyou across the forest, over rivers. The Jewel twinkles in his mind's eye, and he misses the little priestess that stole it.
Kikyou shifts on his back, as if she read his thoughts. Awkwardly, he realizes something. Inuyasha swallows; the thought of Kikyou and Kagome as being lovers while in Naraku's captivity was startling. He heard of their relationship—sometimes from the taunting Naraku gives him, sometimes from Kikyou's visits, sometimes from his dreams. It was cruel.
His claws hit grass and he bounds into the familiar clearing. The well sits dormant in the circle of trees, aching for life, for that bright, blue glow.
"Are you gonna try to get through?" Inuyasha asks, letting her down, and Kikyou breathes in air she doesn't need.
"Yes," says Kikyou, breathlessly.
Inuyasha presses his hand on hers. His eyes flicker to the well, straight to the bottom. "Let her know I forgive her."
Kikyou squeezes his hand. "I will."
Inuyasha looks back to her, Kikyou, and one moment passes over them that contains nothing but forgiveness, and everything they once shared. Inuyasha leans down and covers her lips with his, and Kikyou kisses back.
"Bye," Inuyasha says, his lips only inches from hers, his eyes still shut, and kisses her again.
Kikyou let her eyes open slowly. "We'll meet again, after this, won't we?"
Inuyasha watches her movements. "I think so," he answers. Kikyou looks concerned, and he adds, "Yeah, yeah, we can."
Reassured, Kikyou touches his hand one last time, before slipping her hands around his neck. His beads spark when her fingers make contact, and Kikyou slides it over his head. His hair falls around his face, silver-white and smooth, and Kikyou smiles as she glides it around her neck.
With one final breath, Kikyou is gone.
Kagome opens her eyes, her ankle throbbing. Jumping was a stupid thing to do.
Suddenly, her hair rises from her shoulders and back, and her clothes tousle quickly, pressing against her stomach and chest. She feels as if the ground is screaming at her, blowing her away. Blue burns around her, and waves crash like she's in the middle of the ocean, drowning, unable to breathe.
She closes her eyes tight, blinded by the blue light, and out of the blue come skinny arms that slip around her body.
The light dies down roughly, and Kagome slides her eyes open.
Kikyou…
Two years, its been, since she's touched her. Kagome goes into temporary shock, and forgets how to move. Kikyou takes control and kisses her cheeks, her eyelids, her forehead, worshiping her like a goddess.
Kagome chokes out a sob. "How did you—?"
"Inuyasha," replies Kikyou, lifting the beads from her throat. "He forgives you."
Kagome doesn't believe it at first, but Kikyou's tight look makes her collapse in the priestess's arms. Relieved at last.
"Please, stay with me, Kikyou," cries Kagome, wrapping her arms around her, wishing she could just press herself into Kikyou and disappear.
Kikyou smoothes down Kagome's hair, and says, motherly, "Promise you won't run away."
"Never."
Kikyou kisses her.
The first night Kikyou sleeps in Kagome's bed she screams with agony. Pain fills her eyes, her legs, her chest, like little black spiders scratch from beneath her clay-shackled flesh, burning her from the inside out. Naraku knows she tried to run from him.
Kagome kisses Kikyou's hands, knuckles, her tongue sliding along her cold flesh, making trails. Her saliva does little to soothe her.
"Take me back," cries Kikyou, twisting in the sheets, sweating and moaning.
Kagome gathers Kikyou in her arms, and one difficult walk she brings Kikyou to the well house. The well is black, streaked by silver strips of light through the cracks of the mini-shrine.
"Drop me in."
Kagome kisses Kikyou's forehead, and then, she jumps.
The blood rushes to his head the moment he sees them.
Kikyou is covered in sweat, her eyes limp and dull, and Kagome's pink-faced and angry. Naraku feels alive.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asks, taunting, and Kagome grips her stomach at the sudden burn that fills her. The Shikon is reacting to his presence, and it makes her sick.
"Break the bonds you have on Kikyou."
Naraku is amused, and for a moment, he feels radiation from her words like little pinpricks on his flesh. "She's mine."
Kagome shuts her eyes, and whispers rush-whispers, so quiet that only Kikyou can hear her.
Kikyou widens her eyes, in disbelief, in horror. "No, Kagome, you can't—"
The Shikon no Tama burns inside Kagome's stomach, and she doubles over in pain, the Jewel scuttling around inside her. Desperate for an exit, it bleeds through her skin, and Kagome screams out in anguish, her belly spewing blood.
Kikyou covers the Jewel's makeshift exit with her palm, suddenly alive, suddenly sorry and frightened.
The Jewel glows overhead, Naraku's eyes, hungry, devouring its image.
"What did you do?" he screams, and Kikyou cries out. Kagome coughs up blood.
The Shikon no Tama blazes pink in a rush of wind and energy.
Kikyou kisses Kagome as the last of the Naraku's castle is swallowed.
"What did she wish for?"
Mama parts Souta's hair down the middle and brushes her fingers against his cheeks. "No one really knows."
Souta leans back against his mother, and as her only child, he gets all of her attention.
"But what if the story was messed up? What if Priestess Kagome was actually evil, and killed Naraku so she could be the most powerful?"
Mama laughs. "I don't think Priestess Kagome wanted that. I think she just wanted to be free."
"Maaaaybe," says Souta, deliberating. "Or, maybe—"
"Hush, now. It's time for bed. Let's leave the poor girl's story the way it is, hm?"
Souta shrugs and slides into bed. "Guess so. Night, Mama."
Who are you?
Mama smiles.