Author's Notes:
For the anonymous prompt I received a long time ago: "I'm a sucker for pirates and I saw a post awhile ago that I ingrained into my memory. It was "what if pirates thought it was bad luck to have women on their ships so they tossed them off legs tied and the sea would turn them into mermaids (tied legs being turned into the iconic mermaid tail) due to the Injustice."
I am well aware that mermaids and sirens are not the same thing. But in this world they are. So hush and let me have this, please.
With thanks to my dear friend LiaSango, for listening to me whine about this and making suggestions. I adore you.
Nepenthe
There's a legend spoken in the crashing of the tide of a crying heart lost and an insatiable hunger gained.
She had never experienced pain like the clutch of the sea. Forced overboard, legs tied and hair covering her eyes, she was lost. Barely more than a terrified child.
For the longest moment, she simply fell. It was freedom in the wind, an angel falling, a kiss of the breeze.
And then the water, closing in around her, forcing its way into every crack. A second skin that would refuse to be shed.
And then—
And then the pain.
Weighted down and sinking to the bottom, there was no air. She flailed her arms, desperate to rise, but they were useless in the face of her struggle. She sank, down, down, down. Deeper into the blackness, into the inky cold that was clawing its way into her bones, sludging through her veins. With no air left in her lungs, she tried not to breathe. Water would only kill her, but what else was there?
Nothing.
Just darkness. Wetness. The cold.
But your body does things it can't control, because it doesn't understand. She opened her mouth to breathe and when nothing but water rushed in, the pain was intense, horrifying, forcing her body to spasm.
She screams: No—
She begs: Please, please—
She pleads: Not yet—
She didn't want to die.
And then the pain was nothing compared to the fear. Because as she drowned, she was the star witness to it all. Not yet unconscious. Not yet dead.
Drowning.
She lets out one last, desperate cry: Please, no. Not yet, not yet, there's still—
I don't want to die.
There's a legend whispered only at night, to sailors who refuse to sleep and will only devour bottles of rum. They're drunken slurs and half-hearted threats because no one believes. Not truly.
The first woman aboard a ship was the wife of a daring pirate, scourge of the seas. He was deadly and she was powerful; darkly seductive. The two of them brought down ships aplenty – good, bad, the flag didn't matter. Only the gold and jewels did. Everything else was left to the sea to rot.
Now, this part of the legend changes, depending on the man who speaks of it. Some say the captain's wife grew bored and fucked everyone on board. Another says she went mad with disease and attempted to kill her husband in his sleep. Others say she stole, or she made a deal with the Gods, or she hid treasure from her lover, or was burdened with another's child.
Regardless, the ending is always the same.
A woman only brought death, destruction and madness, and so this woman – the very first – was thrown overboard. Legs bound and weighted. She sank, deep into the sea. Deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
But her rage was fierce. Her desire to live immeasurable. Her longing for revengea palpable taste within the salty sea. She called upon the Gods, demanding her due. The Gods rarely listened, but that day they did.
They call the woman Midoriko, Witch of the Unnatural Sea.
A curse-bringer to any woman thrown overboard, tied at the ankles and left to drown. The watery depths would surround them, take them, transform them—
The women would not die, but they would wish for it.
Her name is Kagome. She says it to herself every single day for fear of forgetting it.
Most mermaids do. Maybe not within the first century. A lot of them weep for the lives they lost, the landwalkers they would never see again. There's a lot of hatred, a lot of confusion, a lot of screaming and shrieking and crying.
Kagome abhors it all. She chooses to be alone. It's easier this way.
She's been Reborn for decades. Time has blurred and of this, she has lost count. But if she closes her eyes, she thinks she remembers the way food tasted as she swallowed it down, the way a hug felt, the way the breeze danced along dry skin.
Memories, all of them.
She listens to the booming laughter aboard the ship she's been following and holds back the bile that rises in her throat. This is not the time for memories and not the time for softness. She waits in the darkness like the creature she is, hands digging into the belly of the ship. She's tired, weak from fasting. There are times when she wonders if she should just let go, let her body sink to the bottom and let the darkness eat her whole.
It would be better than this, she thinks.
But she holds on tight.
The sailors wander the ship, the captain having long since disappeared into his quarters. There are laughs and whispers and bitter remarks, movement in every part of the ship. She waits until the night has leaked its inky blackness upon every inch of the sky, until the stars are the only light. She waits until they tell their stories, drinking and wondering.
It's only then that she crawls out of the water and climbs. Her arms hold a strength that very few men would ever know of. Her claws are sharper than the sharpest of swords. She climbs and she listens, and when she's ready she pokes her head above the railing and looks.
It doesn't take them long to notice her.
"What do we have here?" one of them leers, drunk and slurring with it. Her face is too beautiful to make them afraid, too ethereal to make them question her morality. Some stay away but most step forward, brave and foolish for every inch of ground they cover.
"Hello," Kagome greets, in a language that now feels foreign on her tongue. She licks her lips and ignores the prick of her sharp teeth. They can't see them anyways. Glamour is but one of the many spells a mermaid has yet to learn to control, and it is always on for the humans she hunts. "Will you come to me?"
"What are you doing all alone?" another sailor asks. He's neither drunk nor stupid, but his dark eyes are wide and he's enraptured by her beauty. He's closer than the rest and at this distance, she can hear the rapid beat of his heart. It's racing, a staccato beat that hums with blood and life.
Kagome wants him desperately. "I need you," she whispers and reaches out a hand to him.
"I'm here," the sailor assures her. Then he takes her hand.
Her grip is a death sentence and a curse. She snarls and flings herself backwards, pulling him overboard, dragging him with her. Back to the sea. Back to the darkness. Back to the horror.
He screams but they don't last long. Underwater, bubbles leak from his mouth. Kagome pities him but she wasn't lying to him earlier. She does need him. Her body aches with it. Demands it.
She takes his face in her hands and kisses him, sucks the air from his lungs and destroys his desire for breath. She takes his soul in the first second and then plunges her clawed hands into his chest in the next.
She eats his heart and lives a little bit longer.
He's not her first kill.
He's certainly not her last.
She's weak. Desperate. Starving.
A ship heads east, sailing over the waves. For a long time she follows it, indecision clear in every line of her lithe body. Her movement to stay close is like a dance, an ebb and flow of precise flicks of her tail. Eventually she needs to make a choice.
Cling to the ship and wait for her chance, or let go and finally allow the sea to claim her.
She digs her fingers into the cracks of the ship and allows it to pull her along. It was never really a choice, after all.
The night time is far easier for the hunt, easier to hide until she wants to be seen. Men are on alert when in the presence of their captain, their duties taking precedent above all. Surely she'd be spotted and while her glamour and enchantment would stun them all anyways, it's not worth the effort.
More drunken songs and stories and challenges.
More sailors doing what they do. Or, in this case, pirates. Is there really a difference, in the end? Their hearts taste the same no matter what side they fight for, what cause they believe in.
She crawls up the ship and listens. It feels like an eternity before she shows herself to them.
It's deceptively easy to kill. All she needs to do is say a few words. Whether it's the look of her or the sound of her, something enchants them all. Kagome has never known this secret and she doesn't remember if she was ever told. All Kagome can recall is the pain and the fear as her watery graveyard claimed her. It's something she pushes away while hunting but something she brings to the forefront time and time again when she's eaten her fill of human heart.
Mermaids cannot retch. Kagome thinks she remembers a time Before when she could.
Before she pops her head over the bannister, she clings to the side and closes her eyes. There's a part of her that screams to stop the madness, that life isn't worth living if she has to kill again and again and again. A quieter voice cuts through it though, a voice that slithers and toys and sounds like a chant uttered under a blood moon. It demands survival. It reminds her of what she's lost and how she lost it.
Forced overboard, legs tied and weighted with her hair covering her eyes.
Kagome remembers screaming, remembers doing it even underwater.
She scales the remaining foot and calls out, smiling at her onlookers. It takes a moment for them all to see her. Like a moth to a flame, they all stutter to a stop and focus solely on her. Kagome braces herself better, arms taking her full weight as she propels her body further over the railing. She opens her mouth and sings.
She doesn't know the song. She doesn't even really know the words. It's something that feels like it's being pulled out of her, yet it draws the men in. Kagome can see it in all of theirs faces: the astonishment, the awe, the desperation to get closer. She beckons to them, asking without any words for an exchange. Their heart for a moment with her.
It isn't fair.
Life is hardly ever fair.
"No!"
The exclamation is so startling that it stops her completely. Her voice cuts out abruptly, like a rope being severed. She watches as the group of men blink dazedly at her, still charmed by her glamour, but they shuffle obligingly as a body pushes through them.
It's a man. His hair is long and dark, and his eyes darker still. He's dressed only slightly better than the rest but he isn't the captain, of that Kagome is sure. There's a litheness to him that Kagome think echoes the ocean deep, the way currents dance and twist with sinewy movement. In the shuttered moonlight, he looks fearsome, all edges along his jaw, his shoulders, his hands as they draw out a sword.
He's beautiful.
Kagome forgets to be hungry.
"Who are you?" he demands. His voice is rough like coral, enticing. Is this, Kagome wonders, what it's like for men to listen to her? She takes him in, drinking his image like the ocean in a desert heat; the sight of him is glistening water. Who is he? The question rises up in her, foreign and afraid. She's never thought this question before, though maybe she had previously in a different life. In her life that was Before.
"Tell me, wench!" the man all but snarls.
The voices deep within her mind start to sing, a vibrato that steals her attention away. It's a song that's old, that's a memory of something she never learned. It's trying to tell her something and that realization is distracting.
She opens her mouth to speak, not of her tongue but in the language of humans. "Me?" she whispers.
"Don't see any other creature hangin' over our fucking ship," the man snaps. He rests his sword on his shoulder, cocky and sure and beautiful.
"I don't—" She blinks again, swallows hard. She pushes back the song that is desperate to crawl from her throat. Kagome doesn't need to sing. She's not even hungry, not shaky at all. Why is she even hunting? Why is she even here? "I don't know." The admission makes her body twist within her.
"You don't know." The man looks at her like she's some kind of horror, something pulled from his nightmares. His eyebrows disappear behind his windswept, tangled bangs. "How do you not know?"
Her name. He wants her name. This, Kagome does know. She's whispered it in her mind, over and over again. She never wanted to forget. Was this why? Was this why she practiced such a futile, desperate thing? For him?
She licks her lips. The words won't come out.
The man has no patience. "Whoever the hell you are, you ain't killin' any of the crew tonight." His chest puffs up and his smirk, when it gleams in the moonlight, is vicious. "But I, on the other hand—"
Kagome doesn't hear the end of that sentence.
Kagome isn't hungry. Kagome thinks he's beautiful. Kagome can barely hear his voice over the wailing song within her head.
She feels her hands dig into the bannister, forcing grooves that didn't previously exist. She feels exhilarated and wretched in the same breath.
Did this ever happen to her, Before?
With a stuttered gasp – half-pain, half-confusion – Kagome dodges a brutal swing of the man's sword. She flings herself off of the ship, body arching like a rainbow in free fall. She has a moment of clean, nighttime air before the frozen water grabs at her with greedy, desperate fingers. Plunging, deeper and deeper still, Kagome sinks to the bottom.
The song in her head stops, leaving a blank emptiness there instead. It's a void and it terrifies her.
Kagome pants, confused, hands digging into the bed of the ocean floor.
What was that?
It takes almost a full day before realization sets in, an ice-cold finger dragging up her spine.
Kagome is starving. She had been hungry before, weak and shaky with it. She had been desperate, trembling, barely able to swim.
That was why she had stalked the ship. That was why she had climbed up its walls, had waited until the captain disappeared so she could better attract a man's heart.
She had been hungry all along and now, now—
Whatever Kagome is, she can't cry. She wants to, but she can't. What a bittersweet thing to remember, the act of crying. It had been from her time Before and has not occurred since.
She's going to die, and it is all because of him.
There's a legend spoken in the rush of an ocean current of a human soul found and a desire to exist lost.
It's a legend very few know, for humans have never gotten their hands on it and creatures of the sea have looked the other way.
Midoriko, Witch of the Unnatural Sea, was desperate for revenge. She took part in it without glee or satisfaction. She struck down ships, watched young men die. She sucked in souls like quicksand devoured a struggling body, pulling and dragging and claiming. She did not leave her watery grave, the self-appointed throne that thrummed beneath her new skin.
But one night, Midoriko desired the vastness of air, of sky and stars. She broke the surface, utterly alone, and took it all in.
She stayed for an eternity. Generations passed, yet the Witch of the Unnatural Sea did not move. She lived within a night that would not leave her.
A ship silently approached.
Midoriko did not deign to look its way. Even in the darkness, she could see the swell of men clinging to the edges, watching her. She did not care for it, so she did not look back.
A man yelled, cocky and proud, urgent but unhurried. The men of his ship disappeared in a flurry of movement, back to work on a night where the breeze did not blow. Midoriko still did not care.
"You, there!" the same man called. "Witch!"
Midoriko smiled. In only a moment, she would command the waters and drown them all. She would toy with them, make it slow. Make them grasp onto hope, like a firefly in the night that they believed they could catch. She would consume them, one by one, and this time she would enjoy it. With that thought in mind, the Witch of the Unnatural Sea deigned to look upon the face that changed her, if only to commit it to memory.
She would become a Destroyer of Worlds. She would decimate them all.
His face was hidden in shadow, the moon barely visible between the clouds, but it was enough. It was enough to make her pause, to think, and Midoriko felt compelled to do more than command the waters for death.
She started to sing.
No human had ever understood her before. No human had heard her language, had heard her song, and felt the pain that she felt. The loss and the anger and the fear. She sang her song and the man listened, and wept, and reached out.
She did not kill him. She did not command the waters to destroy his ship, or to drown any of the men.
Midoriko had found her heart: the one she had lost in her plea to the Gods, the one that was banished as she drowned, promising to exact revenge.
Her heart had been found, beating in the chest of this sailor, and Midoriko wanted revenge no more.
For the first time since her plunge into watery death, Midoriko felt almost human.
Somehow, Kagome lives.
She doesn't know how it happens. It's something primal, something that's buried inside of her that demands to live. It fights and it swims and it claws its way up the side of the ship. Kagome barely even remembers singing and certainly doesn't remember the human she drags underneath the water. All she can recall, if pressed, is the stutter-stop beating of the heart, freshly ripped out of the man's chest.
Another heart devoured. Another month to live.
She's so tired that she doesn't even have the energy to feel bad about it. She simply wallows, lying on the ocean floor in a daze. The world turns, regardless, but Kagome doesn't move.
She thinks. She thinks and she thinks and she thinks: about the human who refused her song, who asked her name and attacked her.
Kagome hadn't even known it was possible. She'd never heard of a human dissuaded by her glamour, immune to her voice.
Why? The question feels important.
Why?
Slowly, she presses upwards, her body rising from the seabed. Kagome plans to find out. She'll search as far as her fins will take her, will not stop until she finds him yet again.
The man with long dark hair and darker eyes.
She will find him. She'll figure out this mystery, long before she is desperate for food once again.
It's simpler and so much more difficult to find him.
Kagome is as strong as she could ever be after feeding. She swims in the direction of the ship's trajectory and tries to think about human lands that could be destinations. Kagome has never ventured anywhere near land, but she's not unaware. Ruthlessly, she searches. The moment she feels the claw of hunger start to pang, she finds a ship and calls out for her feast.
Hesitating is no longer an issue, not now. Not until she finds him.
Every ship sounds different, even those made to be the same. There's something about a ship's build that sings a tune that varies from its sisters. Sooner or later, Kagome hears it. It's distant but she locks in, desperate to find the ship and the man she's been looking for all along. The sky is already painted dark with night so she leaps from the water, throwing herself into air in twists and turns to see it.
When she approaches, Kagome is careful. She crawls up one side and listens, hears the voices of men and the tales they share between bottles of rum. None of the voices are his.
Burying the disappointment, she stays and waits.
It feels like forever that she spends pressed against the hull of ship. Her hands start to hurt, too tense from having dug in as much as she did. Just when she's about to dive back into the water, desperate for the frozen refreshment the ocean brings, Kagome hears heavy footsteps and a dark chuckle.
"You fucks are still up?" It's him. Kagome knows it's him like she knows her own scales. "Get some sleep, or the captain will hang you from the ballast without a kind word from me."
"Aw, come on," one of them chirps. "One drink! It won't kill ya."
"But it might kill you."
The group of them laugh but it's far more subdued than the almost riotous laughter of before. Slowly, she hears them grumble and rise, leaving in packs and heading below deck. A few remain, monitoring the sails, but it's a skeleton crew that disperses to the very edges. Some climb the ropes while others lean on bannisters to examine the waters.
Kagome keeps hidden, though she peers up enough to watch, to take in the movements of the man. His sword is sheathed, attached to a belt that loops around his narrow hips. He stands in the centre of the deck, completely relaxed. She doesn't dare breathe.
He takes a step, and then another. Kagome resists the urge to fling herself back into the ocean, even as he gets closer.
No, she argues with herself. I will not flee.
Kagome needs to know. She needs to understand.
"I know you're there," the man calls out lazily. He's not even looking at her, eyes firmly glued to the sky.
Keeping silent, she debates remaining hidden. There's no way he was talking to her. It isn't like… It isn't like she had sung to anyone. She's barely even visible, her own hair long and dark. In the inky blackness of the night sky, she should have been invisible.
But the man closes the distance between them, finally stepping right up to her by the ship's edge. His gaze is firmly on her, face expressionless.
She curls to the side, trying to remain as far from him as possible. He had tried to attack her, last time. Doing her best not to flinch, she sinks lower.
"Guess you're not mindless after all," the man utters, though she can't read the expression on his face. "But you can't be smart, coming back when I told you what was going to happen."
"I need to know who you are." She blurts out the words so fast, her entire body seizes against the wood of the ship. Her claws dig in, painfully so, and there's a moment where she recognizes this emotion: fear. Primal fear. The kind that haunts her like a memory, that clings to her when she's sunken down to her lowest on the seabed, remembering the Before and remembering the immediate After.
Remembering the way the water took her, and changed her, and made her something cruel.
The man, in turn, doesn't move. Kagome listens, poised to jump back into the water at the first sign of another attack. When it doesn't come, she doesn't dare move but – at least – takes a breath. There's a long moment of silence, punctuated only by the sounds of the nearby pirates dropping things or calling out. Why isn't he saying anything? Why isn't he moving?
Swallowing down the urge to look back up and over the bannister – because this could be a trap, couldn't it? – Kagome squeezes her eyes shut tight and waits.
His voice, when it comes, sounds strangled. "And why the hell would you want to know that?" Unlike every other time he's spoken to her, his tone is different. Sincere. Kagome has limited knowledge of humans but that's one thing she does know: genuine words and genuine emotion. She doesn't truly know of lies besides the one her own song tells. Humans are engrossed by her, captivated. They come willingly because her glamour charms them. Why would they ever lie to her?
For some reason, even though she can tell the man before her is sincere, she knows this isn't because of her glamour. There's still too much argument to his words.
"Hey, wench," the pirate snaps out. "You gonna answer my fucking question?"
Kagome bites her lip and slowly, tentatively, peeks upwards. The man with dark hair and darker eyes is staring, watching her with a wariness that's unfamiliar. His hand rests on his sword, still sheathed. It's better than the last time, anyways. What's not different is the way her chest tightens, lungs constricting in a way like she's let out all of her air, preparing for an inhale. Her throat hums and there's a song – that song – that immediately demands to be sung. Kagome pushes it aside because she doesn't know what will happen if she sings, truly.
"You're different," she eventually says, mouth making the proper sounds in the proper language. A foreign language, maybe, but Kagome has such a hard time remembering what is real and what is dreams. What was Before compared to the After?
The way food tasted, she reminds herself, strangely emboldened by this. She pulls herself higher up on the bannister, allows herself to get comfortable while the pirate simply glares. The way a hug felt and the way the breeze danced along dry skin. Those are all things she can differentiate between. Those are important.
She continues on when the man doesn't say a word. "You weren't commanded by my song. You see the real me. You—" And this part is harder, only because of the way it's so terribly true. "You make me want to sing."
The admission laid bare makes Kagome want to hide again. Her fingers dig back into the bannister and the splinters of wood that dig into her flesh ache.
"What the fuck does that even mean?" the man before her asks, face twisted up in a scowl. "Don't all you creatures sing anyways?"
"Not—" Kagome holds herself firm but every inch of her wants to flee, wants to dive off of her perch and go back into the cold depths of the ocean. "Not like this."
"You're a killer," the man tells her, harsh and pointed. "You lure men into your clutches so that you can drag them under and murder them."
She balks, mouth opening with no sound coming out. Strange, how that works. How the song inside of her head is still screaming, wailing like the current as it's dragged back into the tide, but nothing comes out.
"You're a wretch," he continues, venomous. "You destroy lives. You've killed good men, who deserved far better." With each word, he takes a step closer. The hand on his sword never moves but his voice raises, louder and louder. It catches the attention of the men onboard and Kagome can feel their gazes, can hear their gasps. Not shock, no. Awe. Amazement. Her glamour is as effective as ever, even while the man before her breaks her down bit-by-bit.
"I—" Kagome feels her throat clog up, terror rising in her chest. A hand reaches out because somehow despite everything she doesn't understand, she needs to be closer, she needs to understand why—
"Inuyasha!" one of the pirates yell, horrified. "How dare you speak to a maiden in that way!"
"A maiden?" he scoffs but all Kagome can think of is his name. His name. His name.
Inuyasha, she thinks, and says it over and over inside of her head. The singing gets louder. She wants to be overcome. Inuyasha, she hums, the sound echoing in her throat and it's only then that the man with dark hair and darker eyes whips back around, his sword swinging free. She twists but it's far too late. Pain lances through her arm and she cries out. The men run closer, wanting to help her but she doesn't want them. She doesn't want this.
And yet she can't stop the way her lips part, even as Inuyasha balances himself and swings up his arm. Sea foam bubbles from the wound, fizzling and burning. It's a pain she's never felt before, far worse than starvation. The sea is her only salvation and yet she cannot help but sing.
This is not the song she's always known.
This is not the song she sings to lure men to her side, to take their hands and drown them with. To kiss away their souls before clawing out their hearts.
This is a song that stops them all in their tracks and she weeps with it, body choking on dry sobs because no tears will fall. The kind of monster she is does not cry. Even now, with this feeling building within her chest, she cannot do it. The song does it for her, hums the pain in staccato bursts and fills it with yearning so deep and aching with each whine. Kagome is bowled over by it. She is consumed by it. Her head is tilted back as she sings, balanced precariously on the precipice of more than just the bannister of a ship.
Inuyasha staggers back.
His sword lowers.
He stares at her, fear and hatred and confusion mixing until nothing makes sense anymore.
When the song comes to an end – because all songs must – Kagome gasps out in agony. She grabs at her injured arm and nearly passes out from the pain of it. Sea foam slides through her fingers, bubbling and green.
"Who are you?" Inuyasha whispers. Beside him, the men are frozen, mouths agape and eyes wide. Like they see who she truly is. Like they know who she is.
It's the question she came to ask him. It's the very thing she came here to know and yet somehow, some way, the tables have turned. She's come onto this ship, not to kill a man but to die herself.
But she doesn't want to die. She's never wanted to die. It's why month after month after month after month she kills, frenzied by it. Ashamed. Exhausted.
Tonight will not be the night she dies.
"Kagome," she whimpers out, fingers clutching into the wound. She takes another gasping breath and hacks out another choked, dry sob.
When she pushes herself off the bannister, there's no arching grace. There's only the rush of air, like freedom. There's the cold clutch of the sea, its fingers digging into every bit of her. The water stings her wound and it reminds her of Before, or maybe that's immediately After. It reminds her of drowning, helpless and terrified.
That's what this is, she realizes. That's what the feeling is.
Drowning.
As she sinks to the bed below, she stares up at the darkness, where a ship and its sky and its stars are. Where Inuyasha is, frozen still on the deck with his hand clutching his sword far too tightly.
Kagome sinks and she burns and she reminds herself: I don't want to die.
Despite the wound, she cannot let him go. She follows the ship but stays hidden, unable to gather the courage to crawl up the sides of the ship and catch a glimpse of Inuyasha. She tells herself it's because of her arm, still tender and sore when she presses cool fingers against it. The wound no longer leaks and foams, but it stings. The flesh underneath is shiny and pearlescent.
Days pass.
Her wound closes and Kagome grows hungry. She can feel it weighing her down, making every movement lethargic and slow. She makes the decision to leave the ship behind, if only for two moons. She finds the nearest ship and crawls up its side. It's not even that late. The captain is still around.
When he's the one she tugs overboard, lips sealing against his mouth to steal his breath and soul in one, she ignores the new ache that claws away at her. It's a different kind of hurt, no less powerful but far less commanding. Her body craves and Kagome wants to live.
Without a second of hesitation, she plunges her hand through his chest and steals the man's heart.
Kagome feeds and Kagome despairs.
Maybe that's why she doesn't stop swimming, doesn't take a break for a single moment, until she's back at the ship that holds Inuyasha. The sound of it as it moves through the water is a familiar one, a tune she's long since adjusted to. There's beauty in the way it haunts the sea, parting creatures below it and dropping waste into its depths.
She climbs upwards, in the dead of night. It's thrilling as much as it is terrifying. Despite everything, Kagome cannot let herself leave. There's something about him, about Inuyasha, that compels her to be close. There's a song in her head that will not leave, haunting her every second of every day. If she hides, if she isn't found, then it'll be okay. It has to be okay.
The men grow rowdy before they grow quiet, with long hours in between. She can smell the alcohol, stronger than the pungent smell of the sea. They tell tales that she's both heard and never heard. They blend into each other, its own kind of lullaby.
And then his voice rises from the swell of theirs: "What are you doing still up?"
Kagome ducks, hides herself further down the curves of the ship. She doesn't dare go back into the water, doesn't dare scale upwards to see. It's enough to be near, she thinks. Maybe, if she's around Inuyasha long enough, she can figure out the mystery of this song, this compelling desire to be near.
Footsteps echo across the wooden floor. Men whine and cajole but eventually they move, dispersing from their crowd. Slowly, she edges away from the main body of the ship, going deeper into the shadows where the moon is hiding within the clouds. It's brought her to the stern, an illusion of safety.
That illusion disappears the moment she hears footsteps again, firm and steady. Kagome knows it's him, and she doesn't know why.
"I know you're there," Inuyasha says again, words reminiscent of the last time. It makes her shudder, eyes closing. She should jump, she thinks. She should dive into the water where it's safe.
She doesn't, though.
"You keep coming back," he continues, even though she hasn't made a sound. "And I don't know how I know you're here, but I do."
At least that makes two of them. Kagome presses her face to the ship, breathes in the rot and dank wetness.
"You can come up," Inuyasha tells her then, harshly. "If you don't sing, I won't attack you."
That's a lie. It has to be a lie. Kagome remains still and waits. Her mind and body are torn, confused by her wants. To stay or to go? Her body clings but her mind screams to dive away.
The man leans over the ship, braced on the bannister. Kagome hears it before she sees it, slowly travelling her gaze upwards until Inuyasha's stern face is all she can see. There's no sword in sight but that doesn't mean he isn't dangerous. She stays where she is.
His stern look shifts into a scowl. "I won't hurt you."
Kagome bites at her lip. Does she trust him? Her body, again, strains to move upwards. Her mind holds back though, remembering the slice of his sword against her flesh. It had taken so long to heal, the pain sharp and blinding. She speaks before either can decide. "How can I trust you?"
"You'd be stupid to," Inuyasha tells her seriously. The scowl smoothens out then, etching closer into what she believes to be concern. There's a strange curiosity, a look mirrored on her own face. "But I mean it. I won't hurt you unless you attack me."
She believes him. There is no reason to but the song is crawling up her throat, threatening to spill.
"Kagome," Inuyasha repeats. Her decision is made.
When she makes it to the top of the bannister, Inuyasha is standing a few feet away. His dark eyes are wary but no weapon is visible on or near him. She doesn't relax but she does settle, pulling herself up a little more than usual, tail resting on the edge. Unsure, she waits.
Inuyasha's mouth twists into a grimace, arms crossing over himself. "Who are you?"
She blinks, surprised. "I told you."
"I don't mean your name," Inuyasha retorts. He opens his mouth, closes it again just as fast. In frustration he walks, near pacing, and Kagome clutches at her own chest just to feel the echo in her empty chest. "Why do I know when you're near? Why did your song not work on me?"
Kagome shakes her head. "I don't know."
"You have to know. I feel like I should know, somehow," Inuyasha growls, gaze fierce. He rallies. "It's your kind who is cursed. How have you cursed me?"
"I don't. I don't even know—"
Inuyasha pauses mid-stride. "Don't know what?"
"Who—" Kagome grips at the bannister, feeling it creak beneath her fingers. "Who I was. I only remember my name. I don't know what I am now."
"Easy. A mermaid."
"But am I?" she asks, pleading. "Because I feel like something else. Something worse."
There's a long moment of silence. They stare at each other, waiting for one of them to do something. The tension sits there like a fog.
"How do you— I mean, in what way do you know I'm near?" Kagome asks finally, in a voice barely louder than a whisper.
For a moment, the man frowns. It's not angry but contemplative, expression flattening in the low, dim light of the moon. "There's… It's like there's a humming in my head."
"A song?"
He shrugs. "Does it matter?"
It could. It could be the song that refuses to leave her, the one that's itching right now to be set free. She turns her attention to the sea below. "I guess not."
They remain like that, close but far. Silent. Eventually, Inuyasha has to leave. A pirate calls for him down below and Inuyasha frowns, hands flexing into fists, before he nods at her and turns away. Kagome watches him go and presses her lips together, keeping them shut.
She will not sing.
When she returns the next night, Kagome heads towards the stern. Inuyasha is already there, leaning against the bannister and staring at the stars. Though he's aware of her, the man holds perfectly still. It's a far cloudier night and his expression is hard to read.
"Do you know the legend of The Witch of the Unnatural Sea?" Inuyasha murmurs.
Kagome nods her head, too confused to speak.
"I've never understood it. I mean, if the Gods truly answered Midoriko's call, why wouldn't they have sunk the ship of the men that drowned her?" Inuyasha shifts then, stares right at her. "They say it's because she demanded power. She desired it more than life itself. So they took a part of her and gave her what she craved. But to me that's not—" He cuts himself off.
Kagome thinks of what the stories say the Gods took.
Her soul. That's what most of the legends say. When Midoriko demanded her revenge, the Gods had taken her soul in exchange for the ability to ruin those who doomed her. Other stories, when the men are most brash with liquor dripping down their chins, they say she lost her femininity. It was why her kind could only attract men through song, through glamour. Without it, they would be repulsive.
Kagome presses her hand to her chest and wonders.
"You said you didn't think you were a mermaid," he continues, ignorant of her whirling thoughts. "What else would you call yourself?"
"I don't like to think about it," she replies. "I try not to."
"But you must," he presses, and there. There is the familiar steel in his tone, as sharp as the sword that remains absent. "Your kind craves power, right? Like Midoriko. You kill men for it. Do you not think about it then, while you claw the hearts of men out, exactly what you are?"
"What power?"
"Excuse me?"
Kagome shifts on the bannister, the slightest bit away from him, from his shadowed expression. It doesn't take away from the bitterness of her voice. "I don't know what power you're talking about."
"According to legend," Inuyasha hisses, "a human heart gives you your power. Your strength."
Oh, the tales that men tell. Kagome wraps her arms around herself. "Legend has it wrong, then, if that's what you hear. A heart doesn't give us power. It's the only thing that keeps us alive." She can feel his glare but she refuses to look at him. "If we don't feed, if we try to…stay away. To bury ourselves in a cave to die— Well, we can't. Not easily. We're…driven to survive."
Inuyasha says nothing for a long while. He seems shocked into silence although Kagome is unsure why this admission would bring that emotion about. The waves are stronger tonight, choppier. The sound of water crashing against the ship is a steady thrum beneath them. The sound covers the way he's breathing but Kagome can see the rise and fall of his chest, faster now. "Is it true then?"
Kagome frowns.
"How you became a mermaid."
She looks away. "I don't like to think about that either."
"What do you think about then?"
You. She doesn't say this out loud.
It becomes something of a habit. Kagome will greet the pirate on the stern of the boat and the two of them will talk. They trade stories, Inuyasha more than Kagome. Stories about land. Stories about battles and treasure hunts. Stories about drinking around a tiny table, the heat oppressive in the dingy taverns they frequent.
Kagome will talk about the only thing she can: about the sea, the particular muted silence of it, the schools of fish and the beauty below. She talks about the feeling of leaping into the air, cresting at a height in which the air blows cool and fierce, before she crashes back down, below, below, below.
He watches her as she tells her tales, with those dark eyes beseeching in the moonlight. She thinks he knows something. She thinks maybe there's something he's not telling, not yet.
Each time, the distance between them shrinks, the smallest amount.
Each time, their stories lengthen until the pirate's eyes grow heavy and he drifts off to sleep without his permission.
If Kagome could feel anything more than hunger and fear, she thinks maybe there's another emotion buried deep inside that would want to come out.
Kagome returns every night which means she does not feed.
She can feel her body weakening with every cycle of the sun and moon. She can feel the way her muscles ache, her fins sensitive. She can feel the way she craves to sing – not the song that clamours in her head at the sight of her pirate – but the one all of her kind knows. The song to lure, to trap.
She does not leave.
It doesn't matter anyways, she whispers to herself fiercely. She lives for the moments at night, when Inuyasha meets her and the two of them create their own little world. She lives for the quiet and the entertaining, the way that Inuyasha is either unnaturally still in his crossed-arm pose or irritatingly vibrant with jerky hand motions.
And in these moments, in these pockets of time, Kagome feels as close to changed as can be. She is no longer the creature that sings and kills. She is something different, something maybe a little closer to… Well, if Kagome could remember her Before, she'd like to think that these moment with Inuyasha are like that. Like she was—
Just—
Before.
She does not crave the heart of humans when she is by Inuyasha's side. Hunger dissipates, like the desire has twisted itself into something far more human: curiosity, possibly. Yearning. The tales that Inuyasha tells are interesting, enchanting. Sometimes, if she dares to close her eyes with him nearby, she can imagine herself there, taken by the narrative of the world he builds around them.
Standing on top of a hill on an island, the sun beating down.
Drinking inside of a bar, the floor tilting sideways.
Singing brashly on the ropes of the very ship they're on, egging on her fellow pirates to an end that begins and finishes with the sea.
One particular day is worse than the others. Kagome watches the ship in the distance, sailing away at a sedate pace. The winds are practically nonexistent and she is grateful, too tired to keep pace. Instead, she sinks to the bottom of the floor, curling in on herself.
The hunger rages back.
But she will not lose this battle, and she will not lose Inuyasha. As the waters get darker as the sun sets on the horizon, Kagome forces herself to move, to follow the hum of the ship that's as familiar to her as the particular silence of the sea. When she breaks the surface, she realizes that it is still early yet. Her body is too weak, too tired to continue swimming, so Kagome clings to the side of the ship, low and hidden from the keen eyes of the pirates above.
Eventually, like they always do when the sun has gone and the moon is high in the sky, they tell their stories.
Kagome should go towards the stern. She knows she should, that she may not have the power to do so later. She remains, however, clinging to the side. Her eyes close, resting against the slippery wetness of the ship's body.
And then she hears his voice.
Inuyasha does not bring the usual fanfare into the rowdy circle of pirates. He does not berate them, does not tell them to disperse. Instead, he asks for some rum.
"Inuyasha," one of his pirates gasp. "You're really standing here with us wretches?"
He snorts, inelegant. There's the sound of liquid sloshing and then he sighs, guttural and loud. "I thought I'd start tonight."
"Start what?"
"Your stories," Inuyasha sneers, making a few of them laugh. "You think I haven't heard the shit you spew a hundred times?"
"Well what do you want from us?" another pirate demands. "You gonna tell us a story we haven't yet heard?"
"Of course I am," he declares, brash. "The story of The Witch of the Unnatural Sea."
"Oy!" another pirate yells. "We've heard that fuckin' tale a time too many!"
"Not this version," Inuyasha promises, and his voice is low, steel beneath the growling timbre of his voice. "Not the end."
"What end?" a pirate slurs back. "The Witch is still around. Who else makes them mermaids, huh?"
There's a slight scuffle, but while Kagome wants to see she remains where she is. What is this story? Inuyasha has never told her a tale like this.
"The world almost ended long ago," Inuyasha states. His voice is low, intimate, like he's telling himself rather than a group of pirates and a lurking mermaid. For some reason, Kagome is sure that this is just for her. "Midoriko was angry. She devoured souls and decimated ships. She took control of the seas and its waters and everything we struggled to conquer. The Gods had bestowed upon her a great power and man was helpless to her wrath. She would destroy the world."
"We know this bit," a pirate interrupts, clearly drunk. "An' why you callin' her Midoriko, anyways? It's The Witch."
"It's her name," Inuyasha shoots back. "It's the name she had Before. Before she was The Witch. Before she nearly became the Destroyer of Worlds. And do you know why we still live and breathe on this earth?"
"A ship came, ain't it?" a pirate responds. "And she sang to kill 'em all but it didn't work."
"No. A ship did come, but Midoriko's song didn't fail." There's a smash of glass and the rowdy men become silent, waiting. "It was a different song. Midoriko was about to devour them all when she saw the face of the captain. He called out to her and in that moment, she knew."
Kagome can't breathe, utterly enthralled. She waits, clinging, wishing for more. The pirates above must feel the same, for not a word is spoken. It's just the sounds of the waves lapping at the ship, the faraway call of nighttime creatures.
"The Gods had given Midoriko her power but they took something from her," Inuyasha murmurs. "It's why the mermaids come for us. It's what they take in order to survive."
"Survive?" someone whispers. "But aren't they immortal?"
"Hardly," another pirate sneers. "Don't you remember when Inuyasha nearly killed that one, weeks ago?"
"Shut up and listen," Inuyasha demands, and there's an urgency in his voice. "Midoriko had been given a deal by the Gods. The power for revenge and in exchange, they would take the one thing she would need to save herself. To save her soul. They took her heart."
"Her heart?"
"Yes," Inuyasha whispers, "and when the captain called out to her that day from his ship, in the very moment before Midoriko destroyed the world, she had turned to look at him. And she saw it. She felt it. The Witch had finally found her heart again."
There's a legend spoken in the swell of rising water of redemption found and true love lost.
Very few know this story for it has been whispered down a line spanning generations, a secret given in birthright. It comes from the captain of that ill-fated ship, long dead but thriving in memory.
The Gods had all the power. When Midoriko was dying, drowning, pulled in by the sea, she asked for a strength as great as theirs. She had been angry, she had been desperate, and the Gods could not ignore her. So they gave her violence and revenge and they took her compassion and love, because a soul could not carry both. But they knew of the intricacies of fate, knew that her power would destroy the very earth that fed them. And so they took her heart, took the humanness of it, and gave it to someone else.
The captain was that someone. Midoriko had found him, had felt her heart, and her humanity along with it. The need for revenge did not dissipate but it did not consume her, either. She did not want the world to end, not when this man and her love lived within it.
For thirty days and thirty nights, The Witch of the Unnatural Sea followed the ship through the waters. She followed and she sang, and she sat upon the ship's wooden frame to speak the language of humans once more. The captain fell in love, her nearness a melody within his mind, and Midoriko felt something she had thought she'd long ago lost.
On the thirty-first day, the ship returned to land. Midoriko, enchanted by the tales of humans she thought were familiar, made to follow. On a sandy beach she crawled, closer to the man she loved and her heart, along with it.
Her body started to ache.
Come back, the sea beckoned.
Give us power, the waters churned.
But Midoriko had wanted her heart and humanity both. She had grown tired, had felt in that eternal night the darkness of her own making. She had gotten her revenge long ago and now, there should only be rest.
Your work is not done, the tide cried, just as the first jolt of electricity filled Midoriko's body. There are more souls to collect. To power us all. They will be lost.
"Let them be lost," she gritted out, blue eyes widening as she stared at her captain just beyond. "Let me be free."
Then we will destroy him, the sea promised, and maybe it wasn't the sea at all. Maybe it was the Gods. Maybe they were not helpful, were not merciful, were not kind at all. For they had given her back her heart to keep her from destroying the world, but they held her on a leash. For who would worship the Gods if all of humankind was gone?
The man you love will die, the sea screamed. And your heart will be lost forever.
We made you, they told her. You do not get to leave.
Midoriko gasped as her tail burned, her body trembling. She was changing, she realized, as the Gods above her laughed, toying with her. She either returned to the sea and let her heart beat on without her, or she joined those on the land and lost it all in the process.
There was no choice after all.
She did not cry in the arms of the man she loved, but had she been something human, her tears would have drowned lungs. She told him of her bargain. She told him of her choice.
When his arms let her go, Midoriko did not look back.
Return to us, the Gods whispered. You cannot be saved, but you will save them all.
For the Gods held the ultimate power, the power of the Heavens, and like they declared to Midoriko, you cannot carry both.
"How did you hear that story?" Kagome whispers, sitting on the bannister of the ship. Darkness covers them like a blanket, the moon hidden behind thick clouds.
"I was told it as a child," Inuyasha replies slowly. "My mother told it to me at night."
"I've never heard it before."
Inuyasha sighs. "I'd forgotten it," he tells her, "until you reminded me."
She tilts her head at him but he's not looking her way. "How?"
"Your survival rests with the hearts you consume," Inuyasha whispers. "Until you find the right heart, you cannot stop." He shifts then, leaving his position against the bannister to come closer. Kagome feels the heat of him, radiating like the sun. It soothes the thing in her that endlessly feels cold. Slowly, a hand rests on her shoulder. Kagome can't help but gasp quietly at the feel of it, at the warmth it brings.
"You're trapped like she was," Inuyasha says. "You never asked for this."
"I still don't want it," Kagome whispers back.
"But you've found…" She can hear him swallow, see the clench of his jaw in shifting shadows. "You've found me. You sang your song, like she did. I hear it in my head, just like the captain."
It's true, but it's also not the full truth. Kagome looks away, would pull away too if not for her weak will. She wants too much to stop. "I'm dying," she admits, wishing in that moment she could cry. "The hunger is still there."
"But that doesn't make sense." He sounds angry, but not at her. "Midoriko—"
"Was probably weak too," Kagome tells him, hushed. "A month is the longest we can go without feeding. She was like me. She was a monster the whole time."
"Until she tried to come on land." The knowledge sinks in then, a realization come far too late. "She had to leave the sea to reclaim herself."
"She had to make the choice."
"And we—" Inuyasha cuts himself off. Kagome knows what he's going to say anyways. We are nowhere near land.
Kagome can leave, can feed and return. The choice would be stolen from her – the sea always takes it from her – but it hurts more, now. Knowing.
"It's okay," Inuyasha tells her, even though it's not. She looks up at him, wanting to believe and see the truth of it in his face. He stares back at her, unrelenting, but the darkness hides the glimmer of his gaze and the twist of his mouth. She cannot know for sure.
"I have to go," she whispers brokenly, because if not now, then never. And she still does not want to die.
"Kagome." Inuyasha cups her face, holds her in place. She can feel his breath against her flesh, the strands of his long hair flying in the breeze.
She does not want to die but like this, Kagome will never leave.
With a strength she does not have, she twists away and does one last leap into the ocean. The freezing cold fingers claw at her, drag her down, weakening her.
She pushes outwards, away, towards another ship she has yet to find.
The shifting waters warn her when Kagome is already too far away.
A storm has come and it rains down like a strike from the Heavens above. They are angry, vicious, and the waters roil with it. The currents are powerful, too strong for her, and Kagome is swept away and flung around. She finds purchase before flinging herself upwards, towards the surface. She barely breaks through and even then, the waves take her. They are large, swelling. Ocean tides that are meant to swallow ships whole.
It's only getting worse, Kagome realizes.
She turns her head in the direction that she came from. She cannot see the ship but she knows it's there. It holds Inuyasha. It holds her heart.
And they are in trouble.
Kagome goes back and finds that she is far too late. The ship is wrecked, drowning itself. There are screams of terror, muted by the waves, and with the renewed strength of her heart so close, Kagome searches.
He's alive, she tells herself. She would not feel this power otherwise.
He's here, she thinks, but it's more of a prayer. With every body that she finds, with every drowned face she searches, Inuyasha is not there. Her strength is leaving her, she realizes, the longer she searches.
Inuyasha is dying.
"No," she whispers.
"No," she screams.
And she flings herself out of the water, back into it and down. She goes towards the depths, deeper, until she catches sight of searching black tendrils, dark like the night: his hair. Kagome swims towards him, tilts his face to hers. His eyes are shut and Kagome hugs him, grabs him, drags him towards the surface.
He needs air.
He needs land.
He needs to live.
Kagome swims, the melody in her mind shrieking its tune. She does not know if she can save them both.
There is nothing in her left.
Kagome cries out, holding Inuyasha's body above hers. She refuses to give up, even though each flick of her tail is agony. She is tired. She is spent. Inuyasha is unconscious and Kagome has never feared drowning like she has in this moment. It's worse than any claw of hunger that's stabbed at her, forced her to survive. Because this isn't for her survival, but for his. Inuyasha has only one hope and it's failing underneath him.
She swims. She swims and swims and swims.
She screams.
Everything hurts, aching and weary. Everything is fading, a vignette Kagome never asked for.
And then, like a mirage: land.
It's there but it's not, so close but so far. But there's a light now, a beacon she can go towards. Kagome swims with energy she didn't know she had, renewed and fierce. Every breath underwater burns, her muscles screaming.
The song inside of her head is pounding, relentless, desperate to get out. Kagome has no breath to continue swimming, never mind sing. She pushes it down, pushes it away.
Just a little more, she tells herself.
A little more, she repeats.
More, she begs.
And then she feels it, the press of shore. Kagome sobs, grateful, and drops Inuyasha into the water with her collapse. The tide is vicious, attempting to steal him away, and she cries out at the strain of hauling him back, of lifting him once more above the water to breathe. She pushes forward until she can swim no more and then twists them, dragging their bodies across the sand.
It hurts. It hurts so much that Kagome is sure that she would be crying if she could. Instead, she's gasping, chest jolting with hiccups that spur no sound. But she doesn't stop, doesn't let him go. She pushes them further up the shore, knowing that any second now she will give away. Any moment Kagome will fall into darkness and if Inuyasha isn't high enough, the tide could take him over, could drown him.
She keeps going, moans leaving her with every drag of her body on the rough sand. The sobs sound like muted notes of the song inside of her head, an enchanting melody that refuses to stop.
It still hurts. It won't stop hurting.
The world around her blurs.
Eventually, Kagome realizes that she's moving no more. She lays on the sand, beached and weak. Inuyasha is beside her, his head cradled on her arm. Kagome cannot move. She wouldn't, even if she could.
Her eyes flutter shut; her choice made. She will stay.
Unwillingly, her lips part and Kagome begins to sing.
The pain goes quiet, a muted hush that swells throughout her body. This is it, she thinks. She will rest and maybe she won't wake up. That's okay, though. Inuyasha is safe and Inuyasha is here.
It's only as the last note trembles into the air that Kagome feels a jolt, sharp and overwhelming. It's not the stabbing pain of hunger or the burning of muscles overused. This is something entirely different, a flare of heat that takes her breath and body both.
Her eyes open, widen, mouth parting on a silent scream.
Return, the sea screams at her. Return, it demands.
Return to where you belong.
Kagome shakes her head. Her entire body feels like it's been struck by lightning, unstoppably flaring. The pain travels down her head, through her chest and into her lower abdomen. It burns there, settles, makes every part of her tingle until it, too, flees lower.
It stays in her tail, in her fins. It does not leave.
Return, the sea wails. Return, it begs.
Return to where you belong.
But Inuyasha is beside her. Inuyasha needs her. And Kagome is nothing without him, not anymore. He reminds her of humanity, reminds her of Before.
She will stay.
She will stay.
She will—
Just before the darkness takes over, Kagome hears a whisper within the breeze: I cannot be saved, but I will save you all.
He wakes up with a shuddering cough, eyes nothing more than slits as the sun shines down its harsh punishment. Kagome watches this with a lazy sort of fascination, unable to do more than follow him with her eyes. She doesn't dare move. The thought of what could be is far too terrifying to consider.
It doesn't take long for Inuyasha to notice. He sits up, still hacking away, but his dark eyes widen in shock at the sight of her. He twists, face flushing as he reaches out and then pulls back again. Inuyasha keeps looking at her face, her fin, and then back again. Eventually, he looks at the sky. "Here," he murmurs gruffly, taking off his sopping coat and gently placing it on top of her.
Kagome is confused but she still doesn't want to see. "Inuyasha?"
His hands are warm on top of her, a brand even though the fabric of his coat. He looks at her, still in that stunned way of his, mouth agape. "What happened?" he asks and this time, it's a whisper.
"You almost died," she whispers back. Why are they whispering? It's a bright sunny day and there's no one around. "Your ship—"
"The storm." Inuyasha shifts back, hand going to his head as he winces. "The hull was breached."
"You were sinking," she tells him. "And I couldn't let you die."
After all of their nights talking underneath the stars, this admission doesn't cost her anything. He would have figured it out anyways. They are leagues and leagues away from where the ship went down. Kagome had barely survived swimming and keeping him above water, the waves choppy and spiteful even for a creature like her. With a frown, Kagome presses into the sand below her palms. It takes a moment to twist her body and it's only when Inuyasha makes a noise of protest that she finally looks.
She hadn't wanted to. It was an accident, really.
Her tail is long gone. What replaces it is skin, long and pale and flushing red. She has legs. Two of them. Feet. Kagome stares and then tries to kick again, like she had before when she first awoke and realized without looking. She is just as confused and uncoordinated as before, moving mostly one leg and barely the other. The coat slips off but it's easier to see, now, how they can separate.
Inuyasha shoves the coat back on top of her, a growl in his throat. "Can you wear this please?"
She wants to ask, but Kagome already knows. Humans wear clothes and while she's seen men shirtless, she has never seen them without bottoms. Humans are so strange.
Kagome blinks and stares again. She remembers the Before, like a slow and haunting dream. Was she not human in the beginning, Reborn within the sea? What is this, if not being Reborn again?
"Kagome," Inuyasha says. He seems to pause, eyes trailing down to where her bare flesh peeks out from the coat. His cheeks are stained red from the sun and maybe something else. "How is this possible?"
She doesn't know. The whisper feels like a dream. All Kagome knows is that it was a choice and it was one that she willingly made. She thinks about the story Inuyasha told her in the dark of night, the stars all but gone. "Are you disappointed?"
"What?" he asks, incredulous. "No! Why—"
"Because it's a choice," Kagome tells him. She bites at her lip and plunges on, using the strength that once let her soar through currents and flip over waves and cling to the side of ships that wouldn't want her. "A choice Midoriko didn't have. It was you or the sea, and I chose you."
Inuyasha stares at her, mouth agape. It takes him a long moment to speak, but when he does, his voice sounds as rough as sand. "Why?"
"I—" Kagome doesn't know how to say the words right, if she even knows the right words at all. "You know why." Hastily, she reaches out, lets the coat slip down her chest so that her ice-cold palm is pressed against his heart. Inuyasha immediately holds her hand there, presses closer, and Kagome feels its thrumming beat like it is her own. "You're my heart. I look at you and I feel things I haven't felt since…"
Inuyasha ducks his head, meets her gaze. "Since?"
"Since Before." Kagome looks down at her legs and thinks that with each glance she spares towards them, they look less and less foreign. Familiar, nearly comforting. The Before, indeed, and all the ways it haunts her.
Eventually, Inuyasha lets go. There's no time for disappointment because he's reaching towards her, lifting up the wet jacket to better cover her. His eyes are on her, intent and so dark, and Kagome cannot look away. "We should find better cover, find something to eat. Find out where we are."
Kagome hums, but her gaze drifts back to the sea and its rolling waves. The tide is still so far and there's a calling there, all its own. But she doesn't want to go back. It's another tally in the column that has been bereft for a long time, a choice versus a leash. "Can I… Can I stay here, just a little bit longer?"
Inuyasha's brow furrows but he nods. "Will you be okay? I won't be long."
"Yes," she tells him, and it's the truth.
Inuyasha disappears, footsteps muted in the sand. The sun overhead is partly covered, fluffy white clouds streaking the sky. If she stares hard enough, she can see its reflection in the waters. Kagome thinks about the now, considers the Before and then—
She thinks about Then. About being the monster she had been, the way she sang and pulled and murdered for her own survival. She thinks about what she's done because she had to in order to survive and tries to reconcile it with this new life, one with choices laid before her. The sea no longer demands its due, not from her, and Kagome wonders what the land will demand instead.
Eventually, the shifting of sand and soft pants can be heard. Kagome twists to see Inuyasha, face flushed in the sun with the sleeves of his tattered shirt rolled up. There's something in the way he looks at her that still compels her to sing, the melody a muted presence in her head.
With him here, she thinks even the worst demand will be worth it, in the end.
"Are you okay?" Inuyasha asks, sitting back down beside her. It's only then that she notices small blue things in his hands, cradled gently in his palms.
"What are those?"
"Berries," Inuyasha replies. He shakes his head. "Kagome, are you okay?"
"I'm—" Kagome stops, looks at him. There's more worry in his gaze than she's ever seen before and maybe, just maybe, it's because of how different things are. She's no longer this powerful creature of the waters. She's something different, softer. "Yes," she tells him honestly. Instead of reaching out, she tugs at the coat around her. "I am now and I will be, in future. I have you, don't I?"
Inuyasha huffs, relief and exasperation mingled together, and it's the only warning she gets before he presses close to her side. He isn't looking away and it's just like that night on the ship, before she left him with the last bit of strength she had. The song within her mind crescendos, beautiful and wild, and Kagome closes the distance between them, lips pressing against his. It's as quick and fleeting as a stray droplet of water, there and gone in the blink of an eye. When she pulls back, she realizes that her eyes were closed, that in front of her Inuyasha doesn't move.
Kagome looks at him, watches the flutter of his own eyelashes, and then it's him who comes crashing towards her, the crashing of the tide. Her hands find purchase on whatever she can hold and he groans, soft and low, only for her to hear.
One kiss bleeds into another, into another, and another. It's lulling, the soft slides of their mouths, and Kagome feels herself lose breath faster than she thought possible.
His forehead rests against hers, overly warm. "We'll figure it out," he declares. The growl within his declaration feels permanent. "Okay?"
"Okay," she whispers back, and when he pulls away, she lets him go.
Inuyasha doesn't stray far. In fact, he holds out the berries towards her, a tiny smirk on his face. "Here, have some. They're okay to eat."
She doesn't understand why they wouldn't be, but Kagome keeps her mouth shut. Instead, she picks one up and examines it, feels the squishy give under her fingertips and the faint stain of blue. Inuyasha watches her as she slowly eats it, the taste bursting across her tongue. Her eyes widen in surprise and then she smiles, laughs, and takes another before he can stop her.
"Have them all," he tells her, his free hand wrapping around her shoulders. She's pulled into him but the fall is entirely willing.
The two of them sit on the beach, watching the waves crash in front of them. There's a peace here, even with the sounds of their breaths, the wind, the tide and the gentle call of birdsong behind them. It's nothing like the muted silence of the ocean, deep and unforgiving, and Kagome closes her eyes.
She no longer has to try to remember. She tastes the berries as they're swallowed down, knows the way a hug feels with Inuyasha wrapped around her, and the breeze is a gentle, warm caress on her skin.
These things are known, just as solid and real as her own name.
Kagome smiles, happy in this wonderful new now, and she sings.
Additional Note: As of this month, I'm not longer posting M+ fics on this site. They will solely be on Archive of Our Own. Therefore, if you want the smut, you'll have to go there. So far, there are only two stories there you haven't seen here (Slipped and Oh, But You're Good to Me) but with the 12 Days of Witchyness going on, there will be a lot more within the next week. Thanks for understanding, friends.
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