I'll say it loud here by your grave
those angels can't
ever take my place
somewhere where the orchids grow
I can't find those church bells....
Don't judge me so hard, little girl.
-Tori Amos, Playboy Mommy
Chapter 9- Like A Poisoned Apple
Sweeping up the last of the breakfast mess, Kagome wondered exactly where they should dispose of the garbage. She, Miroku and Shippou were now cleaning up, and it always felt a little wrong to her, just leaving the junk out in the open. At home, the nice, efficient trash can, garbage truck, and city dump took care of things, ushering the waste out of sight and out of mind. In the sengoku jidai, there were no such amenities, and just leaving it someplace left her feeling guilty, adding to an already existing feeling of discomfiture at the current situation.
The pervading feeling of wrongness was growing stronger, though she couldn't quite place what it was bothering her.
"Kagome?" Shippou piped up, head tilted to the side quizzically, watching the schoolgirl reach for the small lump beneath the fabric of her shirt, a worried expression crossing her features as she gingerly fingered the bottle containing the shards of the Shikon no Tama. "What's wrong?"
If he has asked five minutes ago, she would have dismissed it as her imagination. But as she drew out the little bottle, the slivers of crystal were glowing, shimmering in the early morning light dustily glancing through the open shoji door. At Shippou's question, the clinking of bottles stilled, as Miroku hesitated, lifting his head to hear her response.
"I don't know. The shards..." she shook her head to clear it, setting aside the bag of empty jars she had collected to concentrate. It felt strange, rather than dormant, sleeping, they radiated warmly through the glass container, glittering. "Something is going on. I don't like this." The frown already existing on her face deepened, and she looked out through the open door. "It feels like...I don't know, like the battle that's supposed to be going on inside the tama...like it just took a turn for the worse." She shivered, heading for the door, hearing Miroku's footfalls behind her, and then ringing as he picked up his staff.
"I take it you want to find the source of the problem?" Miroku asked as he followed Kagome down the steps, uncertainly heading towards the still hedge that obscured the garden.
A determined look settled on her features, and she nodded once. "Everything here has had something to do with that garden. Now Kigiku claims to have a sister, and the stillness of this place...it's not so silent anymore. Something's going on, and whatever it is has to be coming out of there."
Glancing at the unruly plants along the rim of the garden's entrance, he noticed the tunnel-like opening he had passed through earlier still open, leading downward towards the depths. With a clatter, he heard Kagome go back up the steps, disappear, then reappear, this time with her bow and arrows in hand, clearly not wanting to go anywhere unarmed, particularly without the whole group there.
Before rejoining Miroku, Kagome stopped and looked down at the now nervous looking little kitsune. "Shippou-chan, would you mind staying here? When Sango-chan and Inuyasha come back, tell them where we went, okay?"
Shippou gulped a bit- being left alone made him nervous, but he wasn't sure if going into that now pretty darn creepy looking garden was any easier. Kigiku had been nice to him, but if Kagome said something bad was coming out of there, then maybe he'd be safer here...though the decision was made for him, since his uncertain silence let Kagome turn and head out again, leaving him standing behind. Belatedly, he called back, "All right! I'll keep watch too!"
The two older members of the group paused,
turning, and Kagome waved that she had heard him, quickly giving him a
reassuring smile before they headed to the edge of the backyard, and then
disappeared into the undergrowth.
The foliage of the path wove intricate patterns overhead, the deep green leaves of the morning replaced with the unseasonal explosions of autumn color, the short span of time between Miroku's earlier visit and the second passing through now. No vines or thorns rose up to block their path, though the colorful pressing of leaves above allowed in few shafts of sunlight, acting rather like stained glass, dim but glowing with gloomy translucence. The sides and ceiling of the path pressed in heavily, the thinner branches of trees still in the quiet mist that was slipping around old, gnarled roots.
The pond that rested behind Kigiku's flowerbed was the source of the wispy mist, steam rising lightly and flowing over the ground, swishing aside as two sets of feet wandered through it, finally reaching the many colored clearing. Here, though, the entire area was shot through with paleness; the scattering of delicate cherry trees were in their autumn forms, blossoms trickling away on the wind and dancing to the ground, creating a blanket as white as snow. Though here and there, small, blood red blooms were disturbing the surface, the open blossoms of poppies.
Again visible from her yellow blossom amid the chrysanthemums, Kigiku was holding a droplet of dew in her hands, the water filling her palms, since they were so small. Approaching, Kagome watched as it dissolved, mingling into the mist with a light swirl.
"What are you doing?"
The words broke the silence, and emerald eyes flicked up the the speaker, standing before her with a bow in her hands and a frown on her face.
"Just exercising my charms," Kigiku replied with a wave of her hand, before folding it neatly upon the folds of her petals. After a moment, she peered around Kagome and smiled at Miroku. "My image appearing before you again, houshi-sama? Do you like the changes I made to my garden this morning? The white is a nice contrast to the leaves, ne?"
She referred to the pale, pinkish white sakura that cloaked the ground like snow.
Miroku's eyes narrowed more at her tone. There was a note of sarcasm in her voice, of anger. "What are you doing, Kigiku-sama?" he echoed, standing beside Kagome and glaring downward.
She folded her hands and kept her eyes lowered, speaking quietly.
"Once upon a time there was a daimyo, who was searching through all the land for a crest for his shield. He sent men to many corners of the land, seeking a perfect symbol to be painted onto his banners and his armor. One evening, a traveler arrived, bearing a chrysanthemum in his hand, offering it as trade for a night's sleep. But the daimyo would not accept the payment, since he was told the traveler was a youkai, and not to be trusted."
Her voice was smooth and even, soft as silk and entrancing, hypnotic. There was no sound to signal the slow yet steady closure of the path they walked to reach the garden. So as Kigiku told her tale, there was no reason for either human to look up and see that they were completely being enclosed by a thick weave of sharp thorns.
Kagome wavered once on her feet, blinking hard at the little flower below her. A creeping numbness was starting in her fingers, making them clumsy, and she clutched a bit more at her bow as she tried to clear her head, suddenly feeling very thick. She tried to move, but found her body was not complying, reacting as though she were underwater, slowly and with blurriness.
"The traveler again requested a room in the castle, and again was rejected..."
Kagome's bow slid from her fingers as Miroku leaned heavily against his shakujou, sinking down to the ground and kicking up drifts of petals, the faintly heart shaped blossoms scattering.
"...but the chrysanthemum was not ordinary, and became angry. At the cruelty of the daimyo, she cast her own spell upon the place, cursing them all to die."
The thickness in Kagome's mind grew heavy, weighting her down, her knees bending then collapsing as she tried to keep her eyes open. She could still see the colorful light that pressed through the webbing of the tree branches, though she realized she was now staring up at them, trying to force herself in the realm of consciousness. Soft sakura fluttered onto her cheeks, their gentle feeling contrasting with the strange buzzing noise that was filling her ears. Busy images darted across her vision, which grew more shadowy as she fought the encroaching tide of darkness.
"Sadly, though, the chrysanthemum's one
time friend betrayed her again, and changed the curse. The people were
cursed, not with death, but only sleep, as they would stay until the spell
was broken."
Kigiku ended her story, looking at the two collapsed figures before her. The houshi had fallen on his side, fist still clutching his shakujou. Slowly, his face relaxed as he sunk more deeply into dreams.
The Kagome one lay on her back, eyes closed lightly, lashes brushing her cheeks as she attempted to curl a hand around her neck, fingers just covering the pulsing slivers of the Shikon no Tama. Closing her eyes for a moment, Kigiku sighed and nodded, turning emerald eyes up to the sky. The brightness of the day had darkened as she spoke; what light had penetrated the canopy she created was gone, and now Naraku's saimyoushou flicked from one place to another in her garden, swarming above the misty vapors of her poison.
She drew back the curtain of the leaves, and air rushed into the garden, two new occupants joining the remainder of the sleeping castle. The insects began to descend, heading for her and for and the other female in the clearing, for the little glowing bottle and the contents within.
The pale yellow chrysanthemum looked at the veiled area beyond her, where another flower slept, exhausted from countering her spells. For a moment, she felt a twinge of what could have been guilt, but then again, she was the one who had been thrown away. She shrugged as the first saimyoushou surrounded her, lifting her upward. Soon, she would be cared for again, and not so alone.
She had her revenge on the humans. It was too
difficult to purify all the hatred of one who has been wronged, after all.
What could counter such hate?
Wedged between two thick branches, burs now sticking out of his hair and tail, Shippou tried not to beat himself in the head while trying to figure out what to do.
He had enough time to nervously sit down on
the verandah of the artists room they had used the night before, fidgeting
as he waited for Inuyasha and Sango to return. They'd know better than
he would what to do, and it'd be a lot safer to go into that jungle with
them, rather than try to follow Kagome and Miroku on his own. Either option-
being left alone, or going along for the ride- seemed equally bad. Now
that they had disappeared, he just wanted some company.
It was when he heard the arrival of the saimyoushou
in the sky that he started to panic. The cloud of buzzing insects was accompanied
by the all too familiar dark sky of Naraku's youkai, though the sinuous
bodies remained high in the clouds while the poison insects descended,
heading for the thick garden. At the same time, the arching passage into
the depths began to close.
Skittering on little feet back and forth, he ran two steps towards the closing floral gap, then another two back towards the route Inuyasha and Sango had headed through.
It was when the youkai above finally broke through the clouds when he decided. The youkai were headed outward towards the castle grounds and the surrounding town. Even if he got to Inuyasha right away, the hanyou would be too busy killing off Naraku's horde of minions to listen. He bolted for the closing path, darting through as the last thorns closed.
Small size worked to his advantage this time, and though he continuously snagged himself on the snatching brambles, he wormed his way through until he got stuck at his current vantage point, a nice clear view of Kagome falling over a length away from Miroku, apparently dead. But then, a lot of people looked dead around here, right? They were asleep, right? Right?
He scrambled and pulled himself free of the cage of wicker, tumbling down under a shrub, still out of sight. Saimyoushou were surrounding Kigiku, and the fact she seemed completely unbothered by this scared him even further.
Then he noticed that the saimyoushou were also hovering above Kagome, and the small glowing object that was half covered by her slim fingers.
Shippou tried not to scream in panic, frantically pulling at his hair while they settled on her, wings fluttering rapidly as they tried to pull it out of her fingers. He couldn't fight off an entire horde of saimyoushou! One or two maybe if he was lucky, but there were dozens of the things flying around!
With a faint crackling sound, Kigiku was pulled
free from the ground, and the flowers around her wilted and blackened as
her roots trailed, swinging in the air as she was lifted.
He couldn't do anything about Kagome or Miroku,
but he couldn't let those saimyoushou carry off the shards of the Shikon
no Tama!
"Ahhh, I wish I were bigger!" he wailed as he frantically grabbed a leaf out of his jacket and prayed to any nearby kami that this insane trick would work. He didn't even know how to get out of this place now that the path was closed up. "Split!"
Suddenly, a dozen little Shippou-s popped into the air, bouncing around among the saimyoushou.
Now from high above, there was a thin, reedy
shriek or surprise from Kigiku as she watched the little figures appear,
bounding between the insects and trying to attack them. It only took a
moment for the illusions to pop out of existence, but it was long enough
for her to see that whichever one of them was real had somehow snatched
the bottle of shikon shards out of Kagome's still hand.
Shivering, Shippou scooted himself backward, deeper into the thicket on the far side of Kigiku's clearing, his tail tucked up under him while he clutched the glass bottle, hoping that he wasn't making too much noise. Small, he'd been able to worm his way though the bugs, and with enough imitations of himself trying to bite or throw things at the saimyoushou, he'd bolted for the first hiding place that looked good. Of course, after about a moment of hiding, he froze, realizing that he had done something very stupid.
He'd gone straight into the plants.
Shippou grit his teeth and tried not to scream again. He was in the middle of Kigiku's flower garden, which she controlled with her powers. Keeping himself from screaming seemed like a waste of thought, since he cowered on the ground, expecting to get plucked up by the tail any moment by some snaky vines, or worse, stabbed to death by a bouquet of razor sharp roses. It would be the end of Shippou, trying valiantly to protect what he could, stabbed to death by a bunch of flowers. He was such a wimp! Inuyasha would laugh at him, and Kagome would be so disappointed! All he could do was just crouch there, face into the dirt, tail full of burs, shivering and waiting...and waiting....
After a moment, he blinked, and looked up a little bit. Through the heavy weave of shrub branches, he could see little, but his youkai hearing was still perfectly functional. A buzzing sound was still swarming in the air, the sound of Naraku's poison wasps flitting around. There were rustling noises in the foliage, but nothing near to him. A little bit of curiosity replaced the terror of being caught, and he edged backward just a bit more, cautiously making sure there was still a very thick arch of branches above him. Sliding backward, he tumbled out of the bush, and pressed himself flat to the ground again, feeling his own pounding heartbeat, since he still clutched the bottle against his chest.
No stabbing flowers. No vines. No death.
Yes, he was definitely still alive and unfound. That didn't make any sense. Kigiku was a lot stronger than he was, and even with his childish kitsune powers, there was no way she couldn't find him smack in the middle of her own territory. What was taking so long? The buzzing was fading out, as though the search was moving on. But with all the plants, shouldn't she know where he was in an instant?
Closing both hands around the bottle, he gripped it tightly and bit his lip, trying to figure out why he was still breathing. Had Inuyasha and Sango showed up? No, he heard buzzing but not the sound anyone fighting, swearing, shouting, or crying. The saimyoushou weren't even trying to come through the same bush he had. The horrible idea that there was something even worse in here gripped him; teeth chattering in fear, he turned around, expecting some frightening specter to reach out and grab him.
In the shadows of the darkness, a ghostly image did appear, but not a terrifying one. Half hidden amid dark green leaves, a small white flower stood dimly glowing against the darkness, short, chiaroscuro petals drawn up against her, the bloom of her body bowed, arms askew in slumber and shoulders hidden by locks of long white hair, draped by a dew laced spider's web. A tiny white creature, silent, still, breathless, a sharp contrast to the vibrancy that pulsed around Kigiku.
That morning- had it only been a few minutes ago? That morning, eating breakfast, Miroku had told them a story, that Kigiku had a sister, hidden behind some shrubbery in her garden. Hidden away, would the saimyoushou look for him with this chrysanthemum here, sleeping? No, Kigiku would be vigilant about this place, since Miroku said she kept this sister hidden. Why then would she not know he was here?
The buzzing faded into nothingness, and he realized that Kigiku had not returned. Being carried away by the saimyoushou, she was no longer planted in the earth, her roots removed from her home. Would that, then, cut her connection to the land? It seemed that way.
He remembered another story too, one that Kagome told him last night, a story from a far away place that was Kagome's home. The story of a girl who pricked her finger on something called a spinning wheel, since the wicked fairy had been jealous of those who had attended the baby girl's party. The story of a girl who had fallen asleep for a hundred years, only to be woken by the kiss of a prince.
Looking at the translucent skin of the sleeping
chrysanthemum, Shippou decided he had found the castle's princess.
~o~O~o~o~O~o~o~O~o~o~O~o~
Have I utterly confused you?
The 'story' Kigiku tells is, in part, her
side of the story in the tale of Lady Yellow and Lady White, with
the added backstory to this fic thrown in. And with a nice dose of the
introduction to Beauty and the Beast mixed into that. Now add cinnamon
and vanilla for flavor, stir well. ;P The offering of the flower would
be inspired from that particular fairy tale. I've tried using many references
throughout the fic, from the Japanese Lady Yellow and Lady White,
to describing Kigiku as 'thumb-sized'...Thumbelina, anyone? I hope
you're having fun picking out the references.
Though the tale Kigiku tells is somewhat incomplete,
(and one-sided!) it is more truthful than what she said before...which
was mostly half truths and lies. I had a lot of fun writing Kigiku as a
character- ie, I like her- but she is rather twisted around, for varied
reasons. I stuck to the perspective of the Inu-gumi in this fic- for the
most part, I think it works, though there is one scene I wish I could have
done, to explain the switch in Kigiku's manner. A scene where Kagura contacts
her...but then, the switch wouldn't have been a surprise, you would have
seen it coming a mile off, words words words. I hope this works okay.
Now, you may be going, "But Miroku is a guy.
He's not supposed to fall asleep!!!" To this I say: My darned unromantic
and delightfully ironic feminist side began screaming at me not to fall
into the 'Evil Pit of Male Tradition' and have the Boys recsue the Girls.
Since Kagome's pretty well stuck in the traditional 'princess' role, Sango
got to be more postmodernist. Which means Miroku gets to go sleepy-bye
instead. bwahahahaha!!!! ::cough::
Ahem. Hope you like the twist. (No, I am not a sociopathic
militant feminist. Swear. ^.^ ehe)
Til next chapter.
~Queen