Author's Note: I claimed Kikyou at the the LiveJournal community "Inuyasha no Kakera." In this community, authors claim a certain character, pairing, or relationship and write fics about it based on 100 themes. I'll be posting my Kikyou ficlets here.
Title: Throwbacks
Theme: Made to be familiar
Genre: General/Introspection
Pairing: None
Rating: K
Summary: Even after fifty years, more things are the same than are different.
Throwbacks
Such a vivid mimicry of life this was proving to be. Kikyou could feel the warmth of the ground beneath her hands, the dampness of the dew-covered grass. For a second, she could pretend that those hands were still flesh rather than something more akin to the ground upon which she knelt.
Pretending was something that came easily to Kikyou. Throughout her life she had been forced to project a stoic and businesslike composure, to maintain the dignity of a priestess regardless of her inner feelings. She had become so skilled at this that she even fooled herself occasionally. It was not so strange that she would fall back into the habit upon her revival.
Everything still felt the same as it had when she was alive. The motion of her fingers as she plucked medicinal plants from the earth continued smoothly, without conscious thought. They acted upon memory alone, another familiarity among many.
Even the sight of the village struck her sometimes. Fifty years had passed in this world, and yet this village so easily reminded her of her past. It was almost as though her home had been uprooted and transferred forward in time, to land in this very spot – with one very important difference. No ugly stain of betrayal tainted this land. The similarities were in the building structure, in the quiet respect she received from the villagers, in the cheerful eyes of the children . . .
"Kikyou-sama!"
She looked up at the sound of the voice to see a small girl jogging forward to meet her. The softest of smiles touched Kikyou's lips. Yet another throwback to her life, a very pleasant one.
"Sayo," she greeted quietly, a true note of pleasure in her voice.
The girl halted in front of her, cheeks slightly flushed. Whether this was in response to the jog from the village or happiness from the greeting, Kikyou could not tell. But that was rather beside the point.
"Are you gathering medicines for the villagers again?" Sayo asked brightly.
Kikyou responded with a brief nod. "Yes, I am." She noted the expression on Sayo's face and knew exactly what it signified. "You may help me if you wish."
Sayo's grin widened at the approval and she immediately knelt down in the grass. She looked around for a moment, uncertainty sparking in her eyes. "I'm not sure what I should pick."
Kindly, Kikyou pointed out various small plants that would be helpful against illness, much like she had done so long ago with Kaede. This time and place had also seen fit to send Kikyou such a reminder of her younger sister. The aura of enthusiasm about the healing arts – and indeed just being in her presence – was virtually the same. There was a warmth in it that she had not felt for quite some time . . .
With the plants gathered, Kikyou guided Sayo back to the village, deliberately at a slow pace, just to prolong the moment. That beautiful sense of familiarity was something that she wanted to hold on to as long as possible. All the more so because she knew that it must end at some point.
She could not spend as much time here as she would have liked. Well aware that she no more truly belonged in this world, she had to resolve her business as soon as she could. It was a bitter sacrifice, to be sure, but she had experience with those.
Not all familiarity was a good thing.
