Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha.
A man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers,
But awakes to a morning with no reason for waking
He's haunted by the memory of a lost paradise
In his youth or a dream, he can't be precise
He's chained forever to a world that's departed
It's not enough, it's not enough- Pink Floyd, Sorrow
***
She was standing in front of the tree again. The cool breeze of the courtyard swam around her as if she was not there at all. In the midst of the occasional fluttering leaf, Kagome stood as still as she could, with her eyes closed tight.
The sun overhead was at it's zenith, rays of its strong light shining scattered, through the dappled leaves of Goshinboku. As she waited for the slowly heating splotches of the sun on her skin to becoming unbearable, Kagome let herself escape, for a short while, into the realm of delusion.
Breathing shallowly the toxic air of Tokyo, Kagome imagined it changed to the mossy smells of an ancient forest. Where the empty swooshing sound of the wind brushing against the bark of the tree sounded, she imagined it curling and dragging through the many folds of a rat-skin kimono.
Lashes shaking with the effort to keep the real world out, Kagome saw, felt- remembered- a slumbering hanyou glowing in the afternoon light, before her. She saw his gentle sighs of breath, the shadow of his closed lashes stretched down in the light until they were brushing the tops of his high cheek bones; his white hair, looping, uncontrolled, in the breeze, and his high, pointy ears, limp and unsensing begging to be touched.
Holding still her withering body around an aching heart, Kagome's hands slowly curled open, palms out.
Basking in the memories of what had never been.