Lilly slept, her mind reeling through vivid images, and so many faces. The earth whispered names to her, telling her the stories of all these different people and creatures. The voices spoke of many great battles, the kinds that had begun to change the very world around them. Not wars of men, but battles of higher powers.
The trees whispered the names of spirit warriors, and demon creatures that battled for the lands of the living.
Kami… Koemna… Sesshomaru… Raizen… Mukuro… Inu Yasha…
These names repeated themselves over and over, faces flashing and disappearing again. She saw so many battles raging, so many lives lost. She watched them all fight, swarms of spirit warriors sweeping up demons, pushing them through a glowing portal.
Lilly shivered in her sleep. In her dream she wandered as a human, her hair black and her skin pale. A fox appeared in her dream, watching her with golden eyes. She followed the creature through centuries, through a mountain path, and to the top of a secluded mountain.
Deep within the forest there another battle was happening, this one of men. Lilly watched as they slaughtered each other, their souls left forgotten in the bog where their bodies were left.
The fox looked at her intently, and she heard it say her name. Then she woke, startled. Her mind swam with images, and her hand throbbed with pain as the tissue began growing back.
She didn't understand what was happening, and the feeling of dread and isolation returned to her. She felt volatile, her stomach screaming at her for food. She rose, from the grass, feeling her energy changing her features, the soft round ears, the lack of curling horns. Her skin crawled as the feeling settled over her.
It took her days to find her way through the thick forest, and to a town, filled with many stores and restaurants. Her mouth watered at the many smells of foods and incense that filled the area.
Lilly picked the pockets of the unwary and the upper crust of the human society, and used the money for delicious foods and human fabrics.
After she had rested herself at one of the inns, and had sewn new clothes for herself, she set off, picking a direction and following it onwards. She had no idea what she was going to do with herself now. She didn't know any body to go and visit, and she didn't know what was around. She only knew how to follow where her feet took her.
When she grew weary of walking, or running, she would lay down in the grass or dirt or roots of trees, and dream again of battles and the ghost faces of people she didn't know. This happened every night though, for months at first. She thought, perhaps, that the people and creatures where people she knew, but did not remember.
It was perhaps two months of traveling that she noticed a strange lack of demons, animal or humanoid alike. By the third month she began to seek them out. Lilly feared that her dreams were much more than just that, and began searching rivers for the spirits that slept there.
She found only koi and turtles there. No kappas, sea goblins, or kelpies. There were no distant dragons in the skies over head either. Only humans and the brainless animals they pulled along after them.
Lilly searched on and on for any sign of her own, or of any thing for that matter. It seemed a silent victory when she came across a half breed. A child, with white hair and violet eyes. She kept her distance though, not knowing if this child would understand what she wanted.
After a week of watching the child and her mother, she approached them, late in the evening.
"You've come back?" Lilly paused, having not known she had ever been here. The woman ran to her, the child as well, and held her closely, "Some thing has happened here! There has been a great change in power!"
Lilly put her hand on the child's head, 'Shiori'. She pulled her hand from the girls hair suddenly, surprised at the shock the word had carried with it. She placed her hand back down upon the girls head, and saw memories- flashes and bits of emotion flooded her.
She saw those strange spirit warriors sweep in, gathering groups of bat demons from the mountains. Lilly saw through the girls eyes as one such warrior looked down at her, huddled beneath some thing, and then turn away, leaving with the others.
The memory faded as Lilly's hand dropped to her side, "I see." With that, Lilly gave the two women a coin purse filled with money, and left. Some one was toying with her mind, and she would be damned if they would use her for their games.
It was time to find a psychic.