Title - Scarlet As Sin
Pairing - Kikyou/Kagome
Theme - Sunset
Genre - General
Rating - 13+
Length - 1813 words
Squicks - Rampant failure to make much reference to the pairing (!). Otherwise, no.
Summary - Because everything that Kikyou did was exalted, and everything she didn't do is Kagome's fault.
Scarlet As Sin
There's blood in the sky, and Kagome wonders if it's her fault.
Must be.
She's loosed one too many stray arrows in her time here, just one beyond the unspoken limit. Truth be told, she only loosed the one, but that was more than enough. Sleek as dragon's claw, it leaped from the string of her bow, and it broke jewels and hope and lives into thousands of a thousand pieces. Now – now it's stuck in the sky and blood is welling along the horizon, red as sin.
The funny part is, the bow isn't even hers; neither is the time. Both are – like everything she's been given by this place, these people – more of Kikyou's cast-offs.
Kagome never asked to be another Kikyou.
Kagome never wanted to hurt anyone.
But the villagers bend low when she passes, murmuring; Priestess – just loud enough for her to hear. Women come to her for healing herbs, for help and blessings during childbirth, their long sleeves trailing in the dirt as they bow, again and again, giving thanks for things she does not know how to offer. She has noted each time that they stutter on her name, wanting to call her Kikyou because that's all she is to them.
And Inuyasha has begun to flinch every time she draws near, filthy and unkempt but trying to be proud of what she has accomplished at the end of the day. She assumes that it means she looks like a priestess when she's exhausted.
"Kagome."
She doesn't respond, though the voice is soft and slow and maternal. That's not her name; that kind call is not meant for her.
Someone takes her arm, turns her around. "Kagome, girl." The hands closing on her are worn, chapped to softness like old leather, but she can feel the bones beneath the skin; good bones, strong and solid. All the hollow spaces have been filled with years, patience, wisdom. "The open night is no place for you. Come inside."
She allows herself to be pressed forward, into the darkness of Kaede's small, sturdy hut. Through the old priestess' tired hands, she can feel the weight of her steps, and the sudden, startling limp that plucks at her hips, threatening to shake the joints apart.
"I'm sorry," Kagome says, and means it. "I was just thinking."
Kaede nods and thrusts her toward the mat spread out before the cold, dark firepit, a gesture that Kagome has learned not to resent. It's a kindness, really, a firm push in the right direction; better to sit down and work than to dwell on scarlet skies.
Feeling her way through the dusty shadows, Kagome gathers up everything she needs, listening to Kaede shuffle back and forth across the reed floor. It's strange, but Kagome has always found that the old priestess seems more adept in the dark; with a cool hand, the night smoothes her wrinkles away and weaves nets of shadow all around her hut, through which only she can navigate without stumbling. Half-blind, and weak with the weight of her age, she moves without hesitation. Like a shadow on the sea. Kagome watches her from the corner of one eye – she has closed the other, in sympathy or curiosity, wanting to see what it's like to witness only half of the world around her.
It's dark.
The flame Kagome strikes is tall and golden, meant for light more than warmth or smoke. Undulating under her hands, it is the same colour as the sun outside; deep orange, nearly bronze, and all of the red light leaks out and out, an endless sea of the mistakes Kagome has made.
From the gloom, shadowed Kaede says at last; "I know what you think about, all these days and nights you spend staring out at everything faint and far away."
Kagome watches the flame grow. She shivers, bathed in its thin current of heat, and says nothing.
"Take this for what it is; I don't discourage you. Any good young girl should learn to think for herself, even if it costs her a husband. 'Better dead than dull,' Kikyou would tell me as a child. Certainly, I thought she must be mad, but I realize what she meant now. A husband, and a life, and sometimes even honour cannot compare to the power of what we know."
Wind ruffles the grass outside, and Kaede's uneven steps go silent for a moment. Kagome smells flowers and freshly turned earth, glimpses a star through the open doorway. Limned in firelight, an old woman's silhouette puts a hand against the wall and moves its lips in the shape of the words; better dead than dull.
"But," Kaede says, so hoarsely that she must clear her throat and start again. "But, girl, let me be the one to tell you that we all think. We all have things to fear and lament, even those of us who have promised to live a life without regret, in memory of our loved ones."
"I know," Kagome replies, leaning forward so far that she nearly burns her fingers, and then – finally – she speaks the words aloud for the first time: "I never meant to hurt anybody. To," she looks up at her star-through-the-door and the darkness creeping out from behind it like a shadow, or a fresh scar forming over the sky; and there is so much beauty in that one star that she chokes on it, unable to breathe; "make anyone regret anything."
"Kikyou used to watch the skies as you do."
Some nameless force prevents Kagome from running away, or reaching deep into the fire and throwing its wild, secret coals into the lovely illusion of Kaede's face. Always that name, always that remembered girl; in this one mad moment, Kagome wants nothing more than to rip her out of the air, out of time and memory, and let her name float along through the ages, devoid of meaning. Instead, she glances over at the old, bent priestess swaying against the wall and she feels the stirring of something terrible inside her. It's called compassion and she cannot begin to count the number of times it has curled up in her lap when all she really wanted was to be left alone.
Making her way to the door, Kaede stands in the last of the daylight and her voice has become slow and strange. "Sunrise and sunset, stars and birds and clouds; anything that touched the sky was close to her heart. I will always believe that she loved all of it more than she did any living thing, even I, her own sister – except, perhaps, for Inuyasha."
"She did love you," Kagome says, almost sullenly, not quite sure what she is arguing against.
"Of course. She loved me, and the village, and all of the people in it. Sometimes I think that it was the loving that killed her; there was too much of it in her heart, and she could not bear to see those she held beloved harmed by the sight of her pain. She might have died to spare us, only to come back with the intention of plucking out our souls. I don't know. I simply do not, and I am sorry, Kagome, girl. I am."
"Don't say that. Just – " And she had to think of something, some whisper or demand that would distract her from the desire to spit on the mountain of apologies following her like a tail. "Do you know why she always did that?"
Suspended between the warm womb of the inside and the wildness of the outside, Kaede casts long shadows that ache on the ground like a fan of bruises – Kaede glows amber, winking sunlight as she tilts her head minutely. Kagome can almost hear her think, What's that, Kagome, girl?
So she adds; "the stars. Why she looked at them, and the birds and the clouds. Do you know?"
Slowly, Kaede nods. "I do, though I never asked and she never told me. There was so much I meant to ask, and then forgot. But I could guess, dear girl; I've had fifty years now to make my guesses, and there are some that are truer to the mark than others, and there are some that I know to be nothing less than truth. She loved the sky because it was so far away. And there was nothing she could do, no error she could make to harm the heart of the sky."
The sun slips through Kaede's raised fingers, and all of the bright bloodstains go with it, draining downward and outward, away from the descending dark. Even if there is an arrow buried in heavenly flesh somewhere, no one will be able to see it, not anymore.
"She would be proud, I think," Kaede continues, murmuring to the sweet scent of the wind, lowering her hand reluctantly. "Of you, that is. The bond between you both runs deeper than sisterhood. If she was herself, she would realize that, and cherish it."
"And what about you?" Kagome asks, standing, straightening. The fire licks affectionately at her legs, urging her forward, so she goes. She stands at Kaede's elbow, and she waits.
"I?" The old priestess shifts. Though she keeps her face hidden, Kagome knows somehow that it bears a smile, and knows also that the smile she does not see is false. "I would only miss my sister as much as I already do."
"Your sister," Kagome says, ignoring the unpleasant twisting of her insides, "is right here."
"As much of her as is left in this world, I suppose."
"Yes. Just that much."
Without a word, Kaede turns. She puts a hand on one of Kagome's skinny shoulders, rests her head on the other. And the girl wonders what it is she should do, and can think of nothing, so she thinks a little harder. By the violet sheen of twilight, the sky has been wiped clean of refuse, coaxing the stars from their hidden membranes; they glitter overhead like the pieces of something precious that was shattered. Kagome gazes up at them and arrives at a solution. She puts an arm across Kaede's crooked back – she thinks of her family, of homesickness, and tries not to think about what it must be like to miss someone forever.
As a young and powerful priestess, as the reincarnation of a demon-hunter of unparalleled skill, it doesn't seem like enough. Then again, Kagome never did know much about being either one of those things. It's a sister she's been, and a sister she'll die someday – and at a nameless point between has been and someday lies all the power she has ever really needed.
For the first time, she doesn't mind being mistaken for someone she isn't; it must be weariness that makes her so complacent, so soft-hearted, so intent on defending a woman five times her own age. It must be that, and nothing else.
Over Kaede's shoulder, Kagome stares at the sky.
Must be.