Title Returning Home
Author landofthekwt
Rating K
Prompt I (ib4y)
Word Count 500
Warning none
Summary Kikyou returns home
t seemed like she had been away forever. Yet nothing had changed. The shops were still the same as she remembered. The families the same. Even the shrine the same save the graves which she had never visited
Kaede had insisted that their parents' graves would the first stop when they returned. Kikyou was not so sure. How would they feel now when she had not been there for them when they died? Had only returned when ordered to do so by the master of the temple
They had sent her away for training as a mko so long ago. She had become the best. Her master's favorite angering Tsubaki. The village had sent Kaede to join her when their parents died, but her master had refused to permit it.
Instead he had sent them out on the road. Kaede obtained her training not from the master, but from her sister. Every morsel of food came from the monies earned from work as a traveling miko. No wonder Tsubaki thought her so foolish. There were times when she had ignored the safety and welfare of her sister whom she treated more as an apprentice than a sister
It was only when the old miko died in her home village that her master had recalled her from the road to serve as village miko. She and Kaede had finally come home, but home was nothing liked Kikyou remembered. The village itself might be the same, but a village is its people and they were not the same.
The headman had been courteous, but they did not know each other. It had been more than ten years since Kikyou left home. The little girls she had played with as a girl were now wives and mothers. The little boys were farmers and craftsmen.
For the moment she was respected as a mko. Eventually, she would have to earn their respect by performing all the functions of a miko. The master had trained her in the dances and the rituals but she had made her living in youkai extermination.
Hardly a useful vocation in this backwater. Here she would be playing with the children as a glorified babysitter. Teaching her sister how to gather herbs. Most importantly she would be the healer for the entire community.
She drew back the curtain of the miko's hut. The former miko had left barely anything. They would have depend on the kindness of the village to survive.
Soon enough the hut would be hers. It would reflect her tastes and her needs. That was why she did not go to see her parents hut when they returned. Another family was living in it.. Nothing of her parents remained.
Her parents were dead and gone. All that remained of them were the graves in the shrine. She would have to be the parent now just as she had been for Kaede since her parents death. Hopefully, her parents would watch over her now and give her guidance she needed.