Drowning in the Sun, Part 2
Aki (Autumn)
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"With thee conversing I forget all time."
John Milton
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I saw the ears first, twitching agitatedly as I crested the hill, and repressed a thrill of delight. He'd come! I hadn't thought he would, though I did not stay away just in case.
Our eyes met, and he grunted acknowledgement at me, though his bearing seemed to declare loudly that he was here merely of his own volition, our meeting only coincidence. Ah, well, I didn't care.
"Wha'dja bring?" he asked warily, sniffing suspiciously at the basket in my hands. "Not trying to poison me, are you?" he asked rudely, and I thought he was joking until after I laid out the simple fare and served him. I realized that he wasn't going to start eating until after I did.
It made things awkward, as propriety indicated he should begin eating first. I shrugged mentally; etiquette be damned. I lifted a rice ball to my mouth with a small smile. Even such small rebellions I relished.
It saddened me though, to think that he'd had to be wary of poison. I wondered if someone had tried before.
Thus began a pattern of countless evenings. At first he always stayed only long enough to finish eating, before leaping away into the trees. One night, he called out a gruff "Thanks," at me as he left, softly enough that I almost thought it my imagination. Finally he seemed to realize that I wanted nothing from him other than companionship, and began to linger well after the food was gone.
I found myself silently noting what foods he enjoyed, trying to remember his preferences that I might please him better. It was difficult, because he ate everything, but some of it did disappear faster than the rest. I mocked myself silently when I realized what I was doing, but it was a joy to see his pleasure in something so simple. I wondered what he'd been surviving on until this point. Whatever he could find in the forest, I supposed.
Slowly, we began to talk of things, though always small and of little consequence, and mostly done on my part. When I ran out of neutral conversational topics, I would tell him the tales I told the village children, and some that were too old for their ears. He would listen with seeming disinterest, occasionally interjecting to correct some misconception of mine about youkai, in a condescending tone. He was surprisingly wise in some things, though I guess considering how much older than I he must have been, it was to be expected.
One night I told him the legend of the red rose. It was not well received.
Many years ago, roses wore only petals of purest white or palest yellow, colors decreed by the gods to reflect the light of heaven. Yet pale shadows, they, as the gods desired no bright beauty to compete with their glory.
One season, when the rains were especially plentiful and the weather mild, the blooming roses flourished as they had not done in half an age. One lord's garden in particular drew many visitors, for in the very center lay the most elegant white rose of all, pure and utterly colorless. At the hour of gloaming she donned the lambent blue-white of lightning, glowing softly against the dusk and making all other of her white brethren seem darkened into cream. So also did her heady scent outmatch that of any other flower: sweet but not cloying, delicate and intoxicating, with a note of something so divine and otherworldly that human speech fell far short of its description. It was such that her human master suffered to post a guard around her when the garden was opened by day, that no visitor might grow overzealous in his attempt to taste the scent, and accidentally mar the pristine petals.
One unnoticed visitor drawn by the faultless beauty and enchanting scent was a small brown nightingale of unmatched voice, whom no other could rival in song. He flew for miles to see the splendor which was spoken of so widely, and was not disappointed. Indeed, he dropped nearly out of the sky upon seeing her fully, robed in aquamarine-touched petals of alabaster that gleamed and sparkled under approaching nightfall, kissed by tiny glittering beads of evening dew. Her matchless scent called out to him, luring him closer, filling his tiny lungs until he felt nearly drunk with it.
He fell instantly in love with her, paying no heed at all to the fact that she had neither feathers nor wings. He earnestly sang his heart out to her, pouring his love into liquid song, and she was not unaffected. But though she swayed and shivered delightedly under the onslaught of such unadulterated sweet sound, her heart was frightened, and her petals remained closed to him.
Night after night, he came to pay court to her, serenading her under an audience of silent stars until he grew weak and faint of breath. Her heart was greatly touched both by the beautiful song and the love it carried to her ears, but the disapproving rustle of her unmoved elder sisters always checked her yearning impulse to open herself for him. His winged brethren came often to mock him as he retired to the trees above, for foolishly wasting his song on a mere rose, land-bound and silent.
Eventually, as is the way for all true lovers, their love grew strong enough to overpower all else, the haughtily denouncing voices of flower and feather alike. One quiet night the rose closed her ears to every caustic murmur around her and softly opened hesitant snow-white arms to her winged lover, reaching shyly out to touch his trembling feathered breast.
Flower and bird, two creations never meant to mate. The gods were furious, for from that single, forbidden union was born the crimson rose. To this day, his raiment of blood-red petals gleams with startlingly vibrant color, and an unearthly radiance that rivals even the gods themselves.
Caught up in the telling, I had not noticed his reaction until it was too late. He sat ramrod-straight, every muscle tight, so angry I wondered if he might actually strike me.
"And just where is that stupid red rose going to live now?" he asked bitingly. "The white roses ain't gonna want it 'cause it's different, and the nightingales sure as hell won't -- what would they want with a damned flower that can't sing, or fly?"
That is where you are wrong, my Inuyasha. Not all of the white roses are so indifferent...
"Well, where do you suppose pink roses came from?" I countered sweetly.
He shifted as though startled, then crossed his arms and looked away. "Bah. It's only a fucking story."
That was the last story I would tell him; at that moment I dared to ask something personal, and our conversations radically changed their course forever. "Which of your parents was human, Inuyasha?"
His face darkened further into startling animosity. Those fascinating eyes narrowed into glittering slits, and his fists clenched. "Human girl," he growled, low in his throat, "you ask too many questions."
I bowed my head, chastised, but continued to regard him out of the corner of my eye...because everything in his body language screamed that he did really want to talk about this.
"I'm sorry," I said simply, ashamed. "I don't mean to pry. I just want--"
To know you. I couldn't say it.
"You aren't going to leave this alone, are you?" he asked bitterly. He took a breath and blew it out violently before speaking. "My father was the youkai Lord of the Western Lands. My mother was a human who caught his fancy after the death of his youkai mate. Both are dead now, and I have only a half-brother who'd like to kill me for being a stain on the family honor. Happy?"
Yes. You opened up to me, even a little...
"If it pains you to talk about them, you don't have to," I said. I dutifully turned the conversation toward myself in return. "Both of my parents are dead as well. My mother passed away shortly after my sister Kaede's birth, and my father the year after that." Pining after her.
"Kaede doesn't remember them; only I do. I'm the only one who still sees her smile behind closed eyelids, or yearns for my father's nod of approval. They were good people...they just weren't survivors." I was surprised to find my voice dark.
We were both silent a while, thinking.
"My mother..." he said haltingly, "...was very beautiful." His face seemed to tighten, drawing in upon itself, before going completely blank. "But she was always sad. My fault, you know...my birth made her a pariah, an outcast among humans with no welcome by the youkai. My father, you see, already had a full-youkai heir who could not forgive his sire's indiscretions."
"You didn't ask to be born, Inuyasha." I looked at him steadily, keeping my heart from my eyes lest he mistake it for pity. "None of it was your fault." I leaned back and locked my fingers together around one drawn-up knee. "She must have loved your father very much, and was glad to have his child. Her sadness was probably for you, that the human world would be so cruel even to a child."
Inuyasha was done talking. He left abruptly, without a backward glance, and did not meet me again for nearly a week after. I nearly made myself sick worrying that he would never come again, though of course I could confide in no one.
I didn't ask him any more questions after that, though he began occasionally to talk on his own. Mostly, I confessed to him all of my wicked, secret thoughts. I found that he was a good listener; he sat quietly as I spoke of loneliness and the restless desire to cast off a responsibility that I must bear unto the grave. It was shameful even to mention, but whom would he tell?
I was barely a maid when they bound me to the jewel's safekeeping, and in my fervent devotion I could have imagined no higher honor than that my sensei bestowed upon me. But as I crossed into womanhood, and began to see girls younger than myself falling in love, marrying, and starting families, I began to feel very much alone, with only Kaede to share my hut. Young as she was, I began to dread the day she would marry and leave me. I began to realize just how much I had given up with the choice to assume that awesome responsibility, and part of me fell into regret.
Duty was a wearying chain around my neck: a fine filament escaping outward notice, but adamantine and breakable by naught but death. Time with him, though, seemed to lessen the burden, and I found my life suddenly joyful with him in it.
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Kikyou was the first to teach me that a human could also have a life fraught with frustrated hopes, and the inescapable feeling of being an outsider. Of not belonging. As I grew to know her better, I began to see them as more than just the pale, weaker imitations of the glorious youkai among which I longed to take my rightful place. Kikyou was courage and determination, selflessness and strength.
I still didn't trust her enough to show her my face on the new moon. It was too revealing, a secret every hanyou guarded with their life. Because it was a matter of life or death, to the ever-persecuted hanyou. If Sesshoumaru should find out, I'd be dead.
She never said so, but I'm still convinced that the reason my mother hid us so far from my father's people was to keep that secret from my half-brother.
Kikyou often wore the jewel when we met. It eased her mind, she said. She could sit and talk with me without having to train her eyes always on the village for signs of attack.
It was also a sign of trust in me, and I valued that.
I no longer sought openly to attain it, but its mystery still drew the eye. The jewel was opulent, opalescent as a pearl plucked from the mouth of an oyster, but pellucid enough to reveal the swirling colors of power within. It shone from the hollow of her throat with a life of its own, but strangely it did not beckon me. No longer was the power it could lend me the reason I lay awake at night with the sleeplessness born of painful longing unfulfilled.
I wanted the bearer much more than the jewel.
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Kikyou-Oneesama was my life. She was the only mother I had ever known. I was ecstatic when at last she finished her miko training and returned home full-time. I could not wait to move out of our neighbor's hut back into the one we'd shared. But she was not entirely the sister I remembered; the strangely lifelike jewel she wore upon her return was a beautiful millstone around her neck, I soon realized. Gone was the playful elder sister I knew, though she was still unfailingly kind. All the earlier merriment in her eyes had been weighed down by the heaviness of her responsibilities.
Years passed, and I watched her fade more and more into the role of miko guardian, until my sister was only visible in short snatches of conversation in the dead of night, a quiet joke, a stolen laugh. I mourned for the loss even as my admiration grew; she was indeed mighty in power and conviction.
One summer, everything changed. I couldn't figure out why...until she took me to meet him.
I really didn't like him at first. He was gruff, almost rude, and did nothing at all that might endear him to little girls. But I saw the way the she smiled around him, when he was near. Oneesama often looked happy as she played with the village children, but rarely did she smile with her eyes. He made her whole face smile.
I remember clearly that first day. Lounging by a shaded pool enclosed by a canopy of flowering vines, the smile he wore for her in greeting died instantly as he caught sight of my small form peeking out from around her tall and graceful one. I swallowed hard and tried not to look intimidated. Everyone in the village knew of Inuyasha, the hanyou set on attaining the Shikon no Tama, though only my sister had seen him up close. He frightened me, but I trusted my older sister completely and knew that she would not have brought me had she thought him dangerous.
That made him only slightly less fearsome. His relaxed posture had quickly melted into a guarded crouch, that mesmerizing golden stare trained warily on me. I twitched like a rabbit caught out of its hole by a wolf.
"Don't scowl so, Inuyasha," Oneesama said, letting the curtain of vines fall back down behind her as she stepped onto the mossy green bank alongside the pool. The tiny blossoms' scent filled the small space, surrounding us in honeyed perfume. "Kaede," she said expectantly.
I took the hint and bowed slightly, proud that I was not shaking. "Hajimemashite," I said formally. He sniffed, though the set of his shoulders uncoiled a bit.
(AN: "Hajimemashite" is a formal greeting meaning literally "It is the first time we meet.")
Kikyou spread a cloth out upon the ground and began to unpack the food she had brought: palm-sized balls of rice stuffed with fish, pickled radish, clear soup, and tea. She served him first, and I wondered at the significance of that. He ate rather uncomfortably, as if remembering manners learned long ago and later discarded. I tried to keep my eyes downcast, focusing on the repast before us, lest I continue to stare at his ears. They begged to be touched, twitching and flicking at the slightest change in expression.
He certainly never gave me much reason to like him, always scowling at me or just ignoring me completely. But he was never cruel, and once, in a rare moment of benevolent indulgence, he let me touch his ears. But even more than that...I had seen Oneesama smile more in the months since she had met him than in the years since her return. Because he made her happy, I loved him.
The other man Oneesama took me to meet in the woods, I did not like at all. He did smile at me, but the grin was oily and repulsive. Turned upon my sister it grew quite lecherous and appalling to look at, an expression of greed and insatiable lust. The things he said were awful, at least the ones I understood. Some of the worst turns of phrase were totally incomprehensible to my young and sheltered ears. But Oneesama never grew cross with him. Indeed, she seemed not even to notice how disagreeable this wretched man was, or the horrible leering in his eyes.
I didn't like the way his eyes followed her, as though they tried to make up for what his hands could not touch. I knew that were he hale he would have attacked her long since, or tried to, anyway.
Finally, I could stand no more. As we walked back to the village after a particularly trying visit, I exploded. "How can you stand that awful, awful man?? Can't you see the way he looks at you? I hate him!" I sulked angrily, expecting a lecture on charity and the duty of a miko.
The look she turned on me held no recrimination, just a slight sadness. "Kaede-chan, that man will likely never leave the floor of that lonely cave." She turned again to walk. "Looking is all that is left to him."
I never understood how she could be so altruistic, so pure. Had it been me, I would have left him there to rot; the depraved wild-thief had more than likely deserved his wretched fate. But that was why she had been chosen to guard the jewel; no other had the untouched purity of her blemishless soul.
Fate rewarded her compassion cruelly.
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We sat in an easy silence, leaning against the same tree. Close enough almost to touch, but I was yet a coward and could not bring myself to close the gap. What if that were not her desire at all? I couldn't bear to see rejection and revulsion on her face the way I had on every human not related to me, not after finding such an unexpected friend in her.
Leaves fell softly from above, one by one adding themselves to the patchwork blankets of color that already piled thickly on the ground. Some caught now and then in her hair, and she laughed, shaking her head gently, unbinding the white ribbon that held it back.
I reached unconsciously to pluck the nearest one out, bright gold against the raven's wing black--
"Don't," she said, and I jerked back as though burnt. She doesn't want me to touch her--
"Ba-ka," she said, drawing out the insult playfully. "Don't be like that." She grabbed my hand unexpectedly and pulled it back to her, clasping it between her own. "I just meant, leave it there...how often am I allowed to be untidy?"
I hadn't meant to hurt him. Grabbing his hand as it shrank away was pure reflex. I was stunned at my own forwardness, but I did not let go.
Her smile outshone the rioting colors around us. I could not breathe for this first contact of her skin against mine, cool and soft. Her hands were so small and weak-looking against my calloused ones, with their dangerous claws. A protective urge rose in my breast, which was silly, I told myself, as she'd beaten me down enough times in the beginning.
She was right. The leaves did belong there, a veil of gold, carnelian and garnet over her darkly shining hair. I was dying to touch it but could not, afraid half that she would flinch away, and half that I would snag it with my claws.
His face was unreadable, so close to mine. Was he thinking the same things as I?
The sun disappeared behind a cloud, and would not appear again before it passed the horizon. She shivered a bit, and shifted in a way I knew indicated that she would soon get up and leave. I cursed the shortening days, because she always left at dusk, which came earlier and earlier, but her duties rarely allowed her to come any sooner.
"Here," I said curtly, shrugging out of the fire-rat over-jacket and offering it to her, the desire for her to stay outweighing the fear that she would refuse it.
She smiled gratefully at me and took it, relaxing into the warmth. Belatedly, I only hoped it didn't smell too bad. I couldn't remember the last time it had been washed...probably the last time I'd been out in the rain.
His coat, aside from being deliciously warm, smelled like him and I already regretted the moment I would have to give it back. It was a clean, male scent: of forest, loam and fire.
She sighed. "I wish the days weren't growing so short. It feels like I only just came," she said, echoing my earlier though. After another moment, she asked, "If I stay a bit longer, Inuyahsa...will you walk me home? Even a miko doesn't like making herself easy prey in the dark."
So that was why she always left at first nightfall. Didn't she know I always watched for her safe return? "Yeah."
Her hand found mine again, and didn't let go until well after dark, when I left her at the village gate.
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End Part 2
I love writing this piece. Inuyahsa is such a wonderfully complex character, as is Kikyou. Hope you are enjoying it. Two more parts coming! :)
The legend of the red rose is not my original idea. I borrowed and substantially embellished the myth from Susan Kay's Phantom, one of my favorite books: "Then, tonight, an old minstrel song that made me close my eyes on tears … the story of the white rose who loved a nightingale against the will of Allah. 'Night after night the nightingale came to beg for divine love, but those the rose trembled at the sound of his voice, her petals remained closed to him. …' Flower and bird, two species never meant to mate. Yet at length the rose overcame her fear and from that single, forbidden union was born the red rose that Allah never intended the world to know." Susan Kay, Phantom (pg 433)
Sango )