I Am

"Life is the desert. Life is the solitude. Death joins us in the great majority." Edward Young

Beautiful. Powerful. Wise. Reserved. Hateful. Spiteful. Bitch. Heartless. Cold.

I have been called all of these things by man people. By people that I know and people that I do not; by people that I hate and people that I love...or did at one time. When you are forced to walk the world as a shell of your former self while someone else has embodied your soul and the only thing keeping you alive - if you can call this existence a life - is your hatred for those who caused your death, love is a difficult emotion to possess.

It is not that I have never loved or that I am not capable of such an emotion. I have in my past, loved and loved deeply. I loved my haha-ue and my chichi-ue. I loved my little sister - I still love her, in my way, the only way I can while I cling to this false existence. At one time I think I might even have loved Inuyasha. I think. Love, in a romantic sense, is a difficult ting for me to define. My love for my family was - is - an understood feeling, bred into my heart from the day of my birth. But I had never witnessed romantic love, up close, and I became old enough to entertain such a notion there was no one for me to ask. I held a fondness for Inuyasha. I did not want to hurt him and I enjoyed being with him. Had our circumstances been different I could have lived my life out with him and been happy. Did I love him? I believe I did.

I have not experienced true happiness since I was a child. My chichi-ue died when I was eight, not long after my sister was born. I believe my last brush with complete joy was the day Kaede was born. That same year I also experienced pure hatred. Hate for the bandits that killed chichi-ue.

I think that the hatred had never really disappeared, although for the sake of my sister and haha-ue I managed to suppress it somewhere so deep within myself that I fronted a convincing face of pure innocence. Even when my haha-ue died five years later. Not even when that same year did I become responsible for my little sister, but I was elected the guardian of the Shikon no Tama, a coveted jewel with the power to destroy and the power to heal.

No one asked if this was a responsibility that I wanted to take on. The taijiya simply arrived at our hut one day, explained their purpose and left the jewel in my hands. But this was my fate and I accepted it and I performed to the best of my ability. I have never been one to run from my duty.

I realize now that I have always harbored animosity towards the jewel. Since my death I have also begun to realize that many of the choices that I made during my life were not the right ones and held dire consequences. Where I prepared to let go of this life and return to my eternal rest, I would allow myself to admit the truth: that no one is to blame for my death but myself.

But I am not ready. Not yet.

Beautiful. Powerful. Wise. Reserved. Hateful. Spiteful. Bitch. Heartless. Cold. Yes, those words do describe me. I am and have been all of those things. The truth cannot be evaded for long.

But I am more than that. Much more.

I am the priestess, Kikyo. I am daughter; mother to my orphaned sister; powerful miko; guardian of the Shikon no Tama; lover; protector and destroyer; healer and killer.

I am the priestess, Kikyo. I died believing the man I loved betrayed me. I died with my heart blackened with hate. I have lived in Hell for fifty years. I have been reincarnated. I have been resurrected. I am a soulless shell of my former self.

I am the priestess, Kikyo. I have been there. I have done that. I own the tee-shirt. (A/N: I couldn't resist)

I am...

Kikyo