From Merriam-Webster Online: quag?ire Pronunciation: 'kwag-"mIr, 'kw?- Function: noun 1 : soft miry land that shakes or yields under the foot 2 : a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position
. . . c o u r a g e . . .
The days that followed crawled by with painstaking slowness. I found myself going through the motions of modern day life without realizing what I had done. Because of this, the weeks melted one into the other like a ruined oil painting. I could not begin to distinguish one shape from another.
I found myself thinking more and more often of a life that was centuries past. It irritated
me which made the fine control I had developed on my formidable temper shorter and
shorter each day. My new secretary became my old secretary and I was left to wonder
why the silly female had one day run screaming hysterically from my office as if I'd just
threatened to split her vulnurable torso open and litter my fine, expensive carpet with her
entrails. I had simply informed her that I did not drink coffee and that she would bring
me a cup of tea. She'd lost it. I had to check myself in the mirror to assure myself that,
yes, I did indeed still look perfectly human. Perhaps I should hire a male secretary.
I shook my head slowly, feeling the gentle sway of my long hair against my back and listening to it hiss as the strands moved over the silk of my shirt. My mind was wandering again. I was seated in my study, in my house, and was doing nothing more productive than staring out the window that was dotted with raindrops. I should have felt irritated, but I didn't.
Want was a very draining emotion.
I rose to my feet and strode silently out the door and into the long winding hallways of my home. It was a beautiful place with clean lines and gracefull curves. My feet took me to my bedchamber where I sat on the edge of my large bed and resumed staring out the window.
Why did I live?
The world around me had died and risen many times. I watched my lands crumble to the steady march of time, watched the ancient trees fall under the axe of human development and the wide open fields my daughter had so adored torched to ashes. When the age of the youkai had passed, I remained and donned the mask of humanity in order to keep on existing in a society that had dismissed me and my kind to legend and myth. I kept going. Plodding forward to build an empire of a different kind, gather power of a different nature. Decades passed me in a blink of an eye.
I lived.
Why?
Because once upon a time, a young human woman had taught me what life was all about.
I was old and there were days when even I, proud as I was, wished for the peace of an honorable death. I never sought it. I simply laid myself down to rest on the bed I was now sitting on and closed my eyes to sleep and dream. I would awake the next morning and wonder if the world I saw when my eyes were open was the dream and not the one that existed behind my closed eyelids.
I lived.
Why?
Because I loved.
I had spent many days pondering the human belief that to die for a beloved was the greatest expression of love one could make. I found it bitterly amusing. If only it were that simple, that easy. It was not hard to die. The brief lance of pain that would convulse through a body the moment before true death was nothing in comparison to living.
It took more courage, more strength, more love to keep on going when this life no longer held the person one loved most.
I knew this.
I met every new day with the knowledge that no matter how many mornings I saw, I would never wake up to the sight of moonlit hair mingling with midnight. I knew that the thousands of twilights I had watched meant nothing because there would be no one to share them with, no soft touch on my arm and bright eyes to point at a particularly beautiful patch of sky lit by a fading sun. Unlike others who might have laughed through the pain, pretended in their foolishness that their heart was not breaking behind the faltering flash of their smiles, I endured in silence.
I went on with this life with the hope that if the day ever came for me to lie down and never rise
again, I would be able to tell she who had gone before with my heart of the things that I had seen.
I would be able to look her in the eye with the knowledge that I had kept my promise.
I lived for her because I did not want the sacrifices she had made to be forgotten. I lived so there would be someone to remember, so she would not fade away into the darkness of the forgotten.
I did not know whether meeting her as a child was punishment or reward.
If I kept her with me, how much would change and how much would remain the same?
A knock on the door sliced through my thoughts.
"Enter," I commanded, knowing who it was.
"I'm going out," he said simply, turning to leave when I nodded.
He paused, twisting to look over his shoulder at my closed face. There was concern in his eyes.
"Go," I said, gently.
He did not move. I saw the doubt curling his lips and resisted the urge to sigh. I folded my arms at my chest and waited for him to speak. I knew him well.
"Do you want to come with me?" he asked.
I considered it but finally shook my head. "No, but I believe I too will go out." I did not expand further though I recognized the curiousity in his face.
He hesitated, shrugged when I gave him a pointed look, and left with a soft click of the door.
I waited until I heard the muted roar of a car leaving the driveway before leaving the house myself.
It was nothing too large. I had grown to like the medium-sized dwelling. It was nothing fancy. A
woman came in once a week to tidy up and do the laundry, but that was about all the help we had.
We liked our privacy. We liked being able to drop all pretenses of humanity once we'd walked
through the front door. I was still the Taiyoukai of the West with all the trappings that entailed,
but I had long ago learned that that was not all I had to be.
I decided to walk. The streets my footsteps fell upon were nothing like the soft, earth carpeted ground I remembered. The roads of this time were wide and paved with little to no personality. The trees that still grew on the sides were choked with cement. If they could speak, I wonder what they would say.
I stopped right outside of a small park. The grass shimmered in the gray light with captured droplets of
water and the air rang with the laughter of children enjoying the brief respite from a week of rain. They
ran circles around each other, some with their brightly colored school bags still strapped to their backs.
I watched them, my face completely blank while my mind whirled behind the amber gleam of my eyes.
Humans were such vibrant creatures. It was as if the brief span of their lives demanded they experience life in every form, taste every emotion in all its bitterness and sweetness. They were such reckless creatures.
Selfish. Greedy. Corrupted. Ignorant. Cruel.
I saw one of the children trip, legs tangling one with the other.
Clumsy.
The rest of the group stopped playing their game of tag and watched the boy sit up on the grass, his eyes wide as if shocked by his abrupt meeting with the ground.
Stupid.
I saw one of the girls break away from the rest of the group to approach him, stretching out one hand
as she dropped to her knees. She touched his shoulder, asked him in a concerned little voice if he was
allright. The others clustered around them, a couple of the other boys helping the fallen one to his feet.
I listened to them murmur their sympathy and watched them resume their game.
When, I wondered as I watched the boy who had fallen throw his head back and laugh with unabashed delight, did humans lose what made them burn so bright?
The little girl twisted around and stopped, her eyes widening when she caught sight of me. A smile lit her face and I felt my heart twist in its place in my chest. I knew that smile. She came running towards me. I didn't drop to a knee as some others might have done. My expression did not even change to indicate I recognized this girl child who seemed intent on hurling herself at my immaculately clad legs.
She didn't.
She came to a screeching halt an arm's lenth away from me and directed her unwavering smile at my detachly curious eyes by tilting her head so far back I was sure she would topple over.
We stood looking at each other for several seconds. Her warmth did not falter. My cool facade did.
Here, wrapped in a wrinkled and grass stained uniform, was the force that had made me see the beauty in humanity.
I bent and picked her up, not caring that her dirt caked shoes would leave smudges on my clothes.
I felt her small arms wrap eagerly around my kneck as she returned the embrace. She smelled
wonderful. She smelled like joy and peace bundled in sunlight. I wanted her to stay a little girl
forever. Stay a child so I wouldn't have to let her go again.
She was patting my hair. She had leaned back in my arms and was stroking my head in contented fascination.
I felt like her pet dog.
She blinked at me when she realized my eyes were focused on her and snatched her hand back, a slight blush spreading over her rounded cheeks.
"Kagome!" It was the little boy, calling her back to a curious group of children who were wondering where one of their numbers went.
I carefully set her back on her tiny feet and watched her fuss with her uniform. Perhaps if I encouraged this show of modesty, she wouldn't prance around in the Feudal Era with a pathetic excuse of a skirt when she was older.
"I have to go back now," she told me, tugging on one of my left hand's fingers.
"Be careful," I told her. "The ground is slippery."
She grinned, her eyes twinkling up at mine. "That's what makes it fun!" she declared.
I just looked at her.
"Mama's coming to pick me up soon," she informed me, using the age old female technique of "Change The Subject".
I raised an eyebrow.
"So. . ." she was twiddling her forefingers.
I said nothing.
"I'll be careful," she finally said with a sigh.
I did not quite know why I needed her reassurance that she would not slip and fall to skin her knee or elbow,
but I did.
"Good," I let my hand rest briefly on her head.
"You be careful too," she told me with all the gravity of an adult.
I nodded and dropped my hand to my side just as she pivoted away to go skipping back to her friends.
I did not linger. I should not have gone to see her, no matter how briefly.
However, I could not afford not to.
-end chapter three-
Author's Notes:
I apologize for the really short chapter after a really long time without updating. I've been really busy and, for some odd reason, it was really hard to get back into the groove of things.
Be kind.
blinks, coughs, leans in to whisper
I got married.
So yesh. . . I haven't had time to really sit and write much of anything.
What else? Hrmmm. . . My muse isn't much of a muse right now. Mebbe I should consider getting another one. le smirk
So, does anyone have an idea who that guy is? You know the one I'm talking about! The one who lives with Fluffy-sama.
Email is my friend.
-01 April 2005-