There Once Was a Girl

by Nelson Bannaba

Sango vowed to destroy the man who had brought the stories to life, the ones she had so loved as a child, and forced her to live out those tales of magic and monsters.

AN: This is a Sango/Naraku oneshot written for prplpen in the livejournal community iy flashfic. Not exactly romantic, but enjoy! Big thanks to ouatic7 and periwinkle for help with last-minute betaing.

There once was a girl who loved stories.

As a young girl, Sango loved stories. Lucky for Sango, her grandmother was an excellent storyteller. Sango spent many an evening huddled among the adults by the fire long after the other children had fallen asleep. All for the stories.

Sango wondered at how the flickering light distorted the faces of her fellow villagers. It transformed the familiar into the unfamiliar and the surrounding darkness was made to seem darker still. A perfect setting to allow one's imagination to run amuck.

Sango would watch, transfixed, as her grandmother's eyes seemed to glow in the light of the fire. She spun tales of fearsome demons fought by slayers of old and powerful miko brought down by vile trickery. Later, Sango would allow the warmth of the fire and the drone of voices to lull her to sleep. So content. What she did not realize until later, much later, was that not all of the stories were mere fiction. Even some of the most fantastic stories, those very stories that kept Sango up at night dreaming of brave miko facing off monsters, were not stories at all. Some of them were real.

xxxx

There once was a wicked spider, which lived within a boy.

One of Sango's favorite stories was The Boy and the Spider. It was a ghost story and what child does not love scary stories? But even among ghost stories, this story could be considered dark and strange. Sango was never quite sure why she liked the mysterious story, but she would beg her grandmother to tell it to her.

The story of the boy went something like this:

When the boy was young, he would whisper to himself. It was soon found out that the strange little boy believed he had an imaginary friend. While children were known to do such things, there was something particularly odd about this boy in that strange things happened wherever he went, speaking in a whisper to his imaginary friend. Urns toppled. Needles pierced fingers. Milk soured. Cats hissed and spat.

The other children took to avoiding the boy. The other villagers also began to whisper as he passed by, but to one another. Sometimes they gave Kyoshi fearful looks. It made him uneasy. Eventually, the feeling of unease gave way to a feeling of satisfaction that the older children who had teased him now feared him.

Kyoshi's invisible friend was at his side at all times, except when the old village miko was present. Kyoshi wondered at this.

Once, a group of older boys asked him if he wanted to go with them to the woods. Kyoshi feels excited and flattered. Hoping to impress them, he tells them about his imaginary playmate as they walk along together. It is a huge spider, he brags, that tells him secrets about all the adults in the village. Such as, the village elder often beats his wife, Hiro, and then stays up all night drinking sake and singing songs to himself.

"Liar," one yells.

"Crazy," another taunts as he shoves Kyoshi to the ground and begins to kick him in the side. Kyoshi cries out in pain, but just behind him, the boy can feel the comforting presence of his invisible friend.

"Help me," Kyoshi pleads.

Hurt them? A hollow-sounding voice echoes inside his head.

"Yes, anything," Kyoshi tells his friend.

Lie still. Let me inside. The words seem to beat at his head like a drum until it becomes more painful than the kicks and Kyoshi complies. A cold, numbing sensation creeps up his limbs and the small of his back until its icy fingers begin to work their way up his spine. He becomes terrified and pushes himself up off the ground with his hands. The cold fingers seem to pull and stretch the skin on his back, holding him down flat against the ground and continue to spread like wings across his shoulder blades. Desperate, Kyoshi breaks free and runs.

He stumbles away from the boys, who have now grown strangely silent. He must escape the spread of the numbing cold. When he glances back, he finally notices their battered bodies.

Kyoshi feels sullied, unclean, but he does not stop running until he reaches the hut of the old miko. He collapses to the ground, face first. He wakes to feel the old miko's fingertips digging into his back. He panics and tries to pull away. Her fingers feel as if they are searing his skin with heat. Now he cannot move. He lies there, terrified, and is sure that a part of himself is being stripped away by those burning fingertips. He imagines that he can feel his very spirit stretch like a long, thin string before it snaps back and everything goes dark. When Kyoshi awakens, he feels different, lighter. He notices right away that his invisible friend is absent. The numbing coldness is also gone but there is a blank spot far in the back of his mind.

Sango always got goose pimples at this last part.

xxxx

There once was a maiden, fair and true.

Sango also enjoyed the customary "fairy" tales filled with princesses and magic. She was not immune to the thrill of a prince sweeping a young woman off her feet and carrying her off to his castle. But, as before, her favorite of these was a rather odd story. There was no noble prince in this story; in his place was a bandit.

The tale went something like this:

There was once a young peasant girl who was good and kind. Her clean, bright spirit soothed those around her and she was surrounded by the love of her family. If she had one irredeemable flaw, it was that she was not satisfied with this. She secretly yearned for the chance to test herself, to pit her innate goodness against some great evil like the heroines in stories. Like Sango, the young woman loved to listen to the fantastic tales of miko and monsters, and secretly wished to do great deeds like those powerful men and women in the fantastic tales.

But, what could she do? She was not a miko or warrior, but only a poor farming girl. Simple and sweet. The only great evils that she knew of were the occasional beastly youkai which would attack the livestock.

So she waited. One day, maybe there'd be a chance to do something exceptional. The young woman did not wonder that, perhaps, it was a strange thing indeed to wish for evil to appear. For although it is true that a bright light draws the moth, everyone agrees that it is the moth that is to blame for this, not the light.

Like her mother before her, the young woman possessed some small skill in healing minor wounds and illnesses. One day, as she was gathering healing herbs in the forest, she heard a strange sound. She thought it might be a hurt animal and followed the sound until she came to a young man lying in a small glade. He was injured and bleeding, but well enough to speak. He had a strange spider-like scar across his back. He asked her to tend his wounds and bring him food and water, but not, under any circumstances, to tell anyone that he was there in the woods.

Without a word, the young woman rushed home and did as he asked. It was no easy task to sneak the supplies without arousing suspicion, but she completed the necessary tasks as if she were already practiced in deceit.

She trembled with excitement as she bandaged his wounds. She quickly realized two things: first, that this man was a bandit and second, that he was the most handsome man she'd ever met. The bandit was unlike any other man she'd known -- dangerous. He wore his thick hair very long. His intense eyes followed her every movement like a hungry wolf.

She never missed an opportunity to go to him over the following weeks. He never spoke of what had caused his injuries, though he did talk quite a lot about other things. His smooth voice was hypnotic. He told her fantastic tales of the things he had seen and done. Adventure, wealth, exotic places, his life had been full of such things.

When the bandit was well enough to do so, he pulled her to him and kissed her. The young woman did not stop him even when his kisses turned into caresses (Sango's grandmother did not elaborate on this). The bandit whispered promises in her ear. He would take her away with him, to be his princess, beautiful and kind.

When she returned the next day, her bandit was gone. She cried every night for a year after. She cried every night until he returned. When the bandit returned, he was mounted on a great, grey horse with his long, dark hair tied back with a leather thong and a wicked looking blade against his hip. He looked to be the very picture of a dangerous bandit. Despite this, or because of it, the young woman smiled up at him. She promised to meet him in the forest that very night.

More promises. More tears. Until finally, the tears stopped. The young woman accepted the fact that the bandit would always leave her, but would also return. She was content with this until one day she realized that she was growing older. She wanted children and a family of her own, so she married a beau from a neighboring village. He was an ordinary man. Not so dashing at her bandit.

A few months later, the bandit arrived but, for the first time, she turned her face away and did not smile. The bandit waited for her in the woods that night and the young woman did not come. He did not come again until the next spring. The bandit found her as she labored alone in the fields near sunset. He stared down at her from his horse and his narrowed eyes flashed dangerously.

"Come away with me," he commanded.

Finally, after all these years, she thought wistfully and without bitterness. Still, she refused.

"Don't you love me? Did you lie?" he asked her.

"Yes. I love you with all my heart," she told him. "Goodbye."

xxxx

Sango was never satisfied with this ending to the story. She thought the young woman should have gone with the bandit. How many women had the chance to live a life of freedom and adventure? She couldn't understand why the young woman hadn't left with the bandit if she had loved him. Sango often tried to picture the bandit, with his spider scar and his cruel, too-handsome face. She wondered if she'd ever meet such a man one day. Her heartbeat quickened at the thought.

Sango never told her grandmother of her girlhood fantasy of the dashing bandit from the story. One night, when she was a bit older, she was surprised when her grandmother told her an entirely different version of the tale of the bandit and young girl. She listened with rapt attention as her grandmother began the story.

There once was a jewel.

It was a great jewel of power and it was rumored to contain of the soul of the most powerful miko, Midoriko, within. The young woman, yes, the same young woman who fell in love with the bandit, was not-long married to her husband when he found the magical jewel where it was hidden in a cave. Though her husband was a demon slayer and they lived in a village of demon slayers, it was impossible to protect such a great jewel from evil men and youkai. It was a holy object and belonged under the protection of a miko. The woman's husband made plans to transport the jewel to the village of a powerful miko. It was at this time that the bandit came into her life one last time.

This time, the bandit arrived bearing gifts, silks, jewelry, money - and an offer. He would take her with him, as he had promised. She agreed to go and the two of them arranged to meet and leave in one week's time. The woman was not overly worried about her husband, though he doted over her. She was giddy with excitement and very much looking forward to her new life with the man she loved more than anything.

To her surprise, he came to her the very next night.

"Were we not planning to wait till the night of the new moon?" she asked him, secretly glad that he could not wait so long for her.

"Yes, but there has been a change," he told her. Fear knotted in her belly. Had he changed his mind? The bandit quickly kissed her and told her it was all right. He'd heard that her husband possessed a great jewel, he told her, and only wished to wait until he'd a chance to steal it. How could he pass up the chance to do so? She told him of her husband's plan to take the jewel to the miko in two days time.

The young woman's conscience niggled at her over the next two days. She had no great love for her husband, but he was a good man. What if he were hurt? She had no illusions that her bandit would stay his hand if threatened. The day that her husband was to leave with the jewel, the young woman wrung her hands in indecision. She would have to betray either her husband or her lover. It was then that she spotted the jewel for the first time. The pale pink stone was smaller than she would have expected, but it radiated purity and serenity. The young woman felt ashamed of her part in this plan to steal the jewel and confessed everything to her husband. As she cowered on her knees below him, she expected him to, at the very least, strike her down. He did not. Instead, he pulled her into his arms and soothed her.

When the bandit came to her that evening, angry that their plan had been foiled, she turned him away. He was shaking with the force of his wrath. Her betrayal had ripped his heart out, he told her. He had never loved anyone. No one but her, he said. The bandit ranted and raved and she became afraid. Her husband had hidden in the shadows, unbeknownst to her, and he appeared and drove the bandit away. Afterwards, the young woman looked at the reddening bruise across her husband's cheek from the skirmish and threw her arms around his neck. How could she not love such a man?

xxxx

There once was a girl who yearned.

Sango was never sure whether the new ending to the tale was better or not. Even though she was older now and had been taught that bandits were evil men, a part of her still wanted the young woman to run off with the handsome bandit. Staying at home and having babies was not very exciting at all.

By now, Sango was in the midst of training to become a demon slayer. That definitely sounded more exciting than it actually was. It was tedious work. Dust, sweat and monotony. Her adventurous spirit sagged beneath the weight of the tedium. Even as a young girl, there was little time or energy for play, though there were times when it all felt worth it. Such as when she spotted a look of pride in her father's eyes after she'd just made a particularly skillful toss of her hiraikotsu.

Despite the fact that her father marveled at her remarkable strength and growing skill with weapons, Sango was still a girl. A girlish part of her yearned for a handsome stranger to rescue her from the tedium of daily life as a demon slayer in training. Or, perhaps…a bandit. A bandit with long, flowing hair and intense eyes. Some might have called it foolishness, but Sango thought that her grandmother would not be so harsh. She would say that she was an ordinary girl with typical, girlish desires. Not that Sango told her grandmother any of these things, just in case she was wrong.

xxxx

There once was a handsome prince and a peasant girl.

That same year, her grandmother died and Sango grieved for her. A year later, when she met Lord Kagewaki, her grief bloomed fresh and new. He was the most handsome man Sango had ever seen. His hair was long and black and his eyes…his eyes were exactly as she'd imagined the bandit's eyes would have looked, dark and mysterious. Sango thought her grandmother was the only one in the world who would have understood the thrill of excitement she felt at meeting him. Almost as if the two of them were destined to know one another.

Of course, Lord Kagewaki was noble and lordly. He was no wild bandit from stories. Sango secretly hoped he would notice her. She was no great beauty, but she was strong and a skilled warrior. Sango suddenly felt all those thousands of hours of might be worth it, if it would only gain her one look of appreciation. She wondered what it would be like to kiss his full lips, this man who looked so much like the bandit of her imaginings. Her first kiss.

After her father finished speaking with Lord Kagewaki, the lord's eyes moved first to her younger brother. He gave Kohaku an appraising look before finally moving on to her. If she'd expected anything – dismissal, curiosity, even interest -- it was not the hot fire that burned in his eyes as he looked at her. Strangely, it didn't make Sango feel warm or happy. Her skin began to crawl and she couldn't wait for him to look away. When he did not, she turned her face from him. She wanted to cry. This didn't feel at all like the young woman in the story meeting her dashing bandit. She didn't know if there was something wrong with her or with Lord Kagewaki, but she wished she could leave that place and get as far away as possible.

Sango's father must have sensed her discomfort, for he turned a stern glance her way. Sango gathered herself together and forced herself to meet Lord Kagewaki's gaze again. His eyes were as hard as flint now and for a moment, she thought they might have flashed an evil-looking red. She quickly swallowed down her rising dread. Sango did not want to shame her father simply because her vivid imagination was playing tricks on her.

xxxx

There once was a story that was not a story at all.

Sango was crying. Crying for her brother, for her father, for all the ones she had known and loved and had watched die by her brother's hand. She felt as cold as stone as she stood in front of Lord Kagewaki. The tiny stone he had pressed into her skin had healed her wounds and taken away the crippling pain. She felt the hot tears rolling down her cheeks, though the rest of her felt cold and empty. Still, her tears kept flowing.

Lord Kagewaki was staring at her. He looked different somehow. His eyes. But then everything seemed different now. She couldn't find it in her to care.

His eyes. They were like molten heat. She still felt cold.

"Sango, you look so much like your grandmother," Lord Kagewaki said cryptically. "So very much like her. Like Kisa." Her grandmother's name was a soft whisper on his lips. He brushed his fingertips lightly across her cheek. It tickled a little but Sango didn't flinch away. He studied her body, face, but he avoided her eyes. For the briefest of moments, his eyes held an almost tender expression. But when his eyes finally locked with hers, they turned bitter and cold once again.

"But you have his eyes," he hissed. She didn't flinch away as he pulled her against him. It was as if she had lost both feeling and control of her own body.

Sango stared blankly ahead as his warm, wet mouth moved down her neck and across her shoulder. She didn't ask or even wonder how he knew her grandmother.

"Your brother," Lord Kagewaki's whispered breath was warm in her ear, "he has her eyes." His fingertips brushed lightly back and forth over the leather of her bodice. "So, I think I will keep him."

"But as for you-" She could feel the lips pressed against her neck curve into a grin. "Let me tell you the story of a killer, an evil hanyou named Inuyasha."

xxxx

There once was a girl whose life was anything but ordinary.

Sango sometimes stopped to wonder at the fact that her life had become the stuff of legends, like those tales she so loved to hear her grandmother tell. Sango had paid a high price for that. She'd lost her family, friends, brother. It's a price no one should ever have to pay. She understood now, in order to be remembered in tales, all of those warriors, miko and princesses must have paid dearly as well.

Sango wondered if any young girl would listen, wide eyed, as her grandmother told her the story of the girl who slew demons. Would she shed a tear at the part where she fought to save her little brother? Or, tremble in excitement when she faced down the evil demon Naraku? Or, even bury her head in her grandmother's skirt and smile secretly when the monk pledged his love to her?

She did not miss the irony that her fantastic dreams of meeting a handsome bandit who would spirit her away had come true. Her ordinary dreams, the dreams of seeing her brother full grown into a man, or of seeing her father's stern eyes soften as she placed her newborn son into his arms, had been destroyed.

But she couldn't think about that. She had to keep her mind on the moment, the battle. For she now had a new dream. She would destroy the man who had brought the stories to life, the ones she had so loved as a child, and forced her to live out those tales of magic and monsters. He, who had taken away her chance for an ordinary, happy life. She would do all that she could to put a stop to Naraku's cruelty once and for all. Sango found little solace in the fact that this would make a great tale of revenge and redemption. In fact, she preferred not to think about that at all.

xxxx

There once was another girl who loved stories.

"Grandmother, will you tell me the story again of Sango and the evil spider?"

"Again?" Her grandmother grumbled as she pulled the girl onto her knee. "How about the story of The Firefly instead?"

"But grandmother, that story is boring. And much too short."

The girl's grandmother snorted and began to tell the tale in her high, raspy voice.

The girl and her grandmother sat there silently for a moment before the girl stirred.

"But grandmother, that's not how the story goes! Sango is supposed to find the magic jewel and save her brother."

"And there's dinner to be cooked and washing to be done. Hush now, you shouldn't love stories so much or you'll end up like Sango. The old spider will come and take your brother then."

"But I don't even like my little brother," the little girl mumbled under her breath before she skipped off to see if he wanted to play onigokko with her.

And that is the end of the story.