Dear Mom
Summary: Kagome writes letters to her mother about her life in the Feudal Era. Sometimes she wishes she had never left the future.
Notes: I took some liberties with whatever happens in Yashahime. Wrote this for Fansplosion 2024!
Dear Mom,
It has been six months since I last saw you. Today is officially the longest I've ever been in the feudal era without coming home. I guess this is home now though huh? How is Sota? Grandpa? The Shrine? I've been learning a lot from Kaede-sama about my Miko duties. We're getting into the parts that Grandpa used to try to get me to pay attention to when I was little. Still boring, but it's not that different from what Grandpa was teaching me. Tradition really is a mainstay!
That little girl who travelled with Inuyasha's brother, Rin, is starting training. Kaede wants me to take her on as–
Sorry, I'm back. You can't tell that Inuyasha interrupted me though can you? Well he did. Wanted to know when I'd have lunch ready, as if I had planned that far in advance and then he got a bit grumpy. Can't blame the guy I guess. He's been out beating up demons for a while.
Anyway, the fight kinda derailed… he doesn't get why I'm writing to you because it probably won't make it to your era. I got really mad and I'm not talking to him.
Dear Mom,
It's winter now, you would not believe how cold it gets. I miss having a heater! And roads that don't turn to mud and get plowed and holiday decorations all over. I know that's a thing from overseas, but it was still fun. I also miss paper and pens and refrigerators and technology. There was nothing quite like watching shows on television…
But Inuyasha brought a HUGE boar for the village and it's been really nice. Sango's oldest daughter is sick, I'm pretty worried. I've never seen a child get this sick before… but it seems to be pretty normal. Since this is the past, it's more common. That doesn't make me feel much better.
Dear Mom,
Sango's daughter died yesterday. I've been crying for hours. She was so young! And poor Sango and Miroku. There was nothing I could do. It wasn't something demonic so I couldn't purify her or anything! She just got sick and didn't make it. It makes me think of when Papa died but this hurts more. Losing Dad was awful but I don't remember it super well. I wish I could ask you how you made it hurt less.
Dear Mom,
The village isn't doing that great, there was a lot of flooding in the fields so there hasn't been as much food. It's great for my figure haha? Inuyasha has been hunting farther and farther from the village so he's gone for longer and longer periods of time. I don't think I've seen him in three weeks. They don't use western weeks, and I keep getting my time messed up. Miroku thinks my way of tracking time is funny. He's been asking me a lot about the future lately. Shippo says he's selling the information on the side to make more money. I don't know how to feel about that…
Dear Mom,
It's summer now! It's been a year. I miss you, hope you're good with Sota and Grandpa.
Dear Mom,
It's fall, I'm supposed to be taking over for Kaede soon, which is crazy because I don't feel ready to be the head priestess. We've been having a lot of visitors too, and they all want to see me to receive blessings or to ask me to purify something.
Dear Mom,
It's winter again–
Dear Mom,
I haven't written in a long time. Two years or three? I've been so busy, but really… I stopped writing because Inuyasha was right, you're not going to see these. Most scrolls aren't going to last another 500 years… and it made me sad.
Because I miss you mom. I really miss you. And Sota. And Grandpa. I love Inuyasha, and I love Sango and Miroku but… I don't love watching so many people get sick and die. I don't like that I get in trouble for not acting the way I am expected. Being a Priestess gives me more leeway but some days I get so angry… since Sango had children, she doesn't go demon hunting anymore and instead makes poisons and stuff but even that isn't often. Miroku is the one who earns their money, even though Sango would be better at it. Miroku and I aren't speaking since I stopped telling him about future events. Some pretty powerful men showed up asking him about the future and they seemed like they wanted to…I don't know, change things? I don't know how any of this works because we don't have demons really in the future and it's so different.
That's another thing. Demons. They keep getting too close to the village. They hurt people. We found the remains of a little girl dropped in the fields from when a bird demon flew by. I am so sick of demons.
Dear Mom,
I keep trying to remember the future, but it's starting to feel like it was all a dream. Cars, trains, you. What were my final words to you? What did I say? I'm trying to remember a lot of what you taught me, because guess what? I'm going to be a mother.
I'm so scared mom. I assisted a girl, Yuki, in childbirth a month ago and she didn't make it. It was horrible, there was so much blood and I was so helpless. Inuyasha isn't worried, but he's not the one who has to birth a baby. I feel like it's only here that I can truly say how I feel. Like this is a diary. I am scared to have a baby here without a hospital. I'm scared mom!
Dear Mom,
Rin is pregnant. She's only 18, maybe 19? She's not sure. But she's younger than me! I know this was common back then, my now, but I'm still shocked. And Sango is mad at me for being shocked instead of happy for her. It's been difficult between Sango and I. We're very different from when we were teens. She's different, I don't think I'm that different. I don't know. I feel… angry a lot. I get frustrated with her over Miroku, and Sango just brushes off my concerns about him because "it's just my future upraising talking". Well he's cheating on her. I've seen him. Inuyasha says that's just how he is, that it's common. Men sometimes take more than one wife and I know that from history books but I'm still so angry. I don't think I could handle it if Inuyasha found someone else… Kikyo hurt enough.
It's strange, the person I find myself best able to connect to these days is Sesshomaru. I think it's because he's a full blooded demon, and comes from a sort of different world too. Inuyasha still doesn't get along with him that well, but it's nothing like before. They are just very different people.
Dear Mom,
I'm a mother now. I have a little girl. Her name is Moroha. She's so beautiful. I never want to go through childbirth again. That was the hardest and scariest thing I have ever done. Somehow it was so much worse than fighting Naraku. I was so helpless during her birth Mom. I was so scared. I still am. I can't stop peeing when I laugh, my back hurts all the time, and Inuyasha doesn't get it. He seems to like Moroha but I'm worried he wanted a boy. Boys are really important and it's stupid.
Rin died a week ago, and we cremated her. She had twins and it was too much for her, the birth was too strenuous. One of the twins was born stillborn. Sesshomaru cannot take the other little girl, as she is a hanyou and is actually in more danger with him, and as the woman of the "family" I now have two babies to take care of. I don't know how Sango did it, and I can't ask because she isn't talking to me. Right, months ago, I confronted Miroku about him cheating on her. He slapped me. Sango got angry with me and said it was none of my business. She'd be better off without him but Inuyasha says I'm being naive and that I need to get it through my head that I'm not in the future and that things are the way they are.
Dear Mom,
Moroha is barely five and I'm terrified for her every day. Demons, sickness, men. I wish I could show her our home, send her to school with a bento. I wish I could take her shopping or to the park, or on the train. I want her to meet Grandpa, and Sota. I want her to be safe. This world is not safe. Not for me, not for her. I was so young, so naive, so stupid! I thought love could give me everything I needed but though I love Inuyasha, it isn't enough. He isn't enough. Though he is far older than I, I am the one who has matured more throughout our relationship. It could be because I am fully human, and my lifespan shorter. I fear growing old now, the world is even less kind to the elderly. It's a miracle Kaede-sama has lived this long! I am scared Inuyasha will grow tired of me when I am old and decrepit and he is still in the prime of his life. I am scared for Moroha and her cousin, Towa. Towa reminds me of Sota when he was little, sometimes she reminds me of myself. Moroha is more like her father than anything. I wonder how you would handle her. I wonder how she would be in the future.
I want to come home Mom. I want to leave this place, this time, with its demons and its cruelty. Sometimes I wonder why so few demons exist in your time. Where did they go? Did they leave for another realm, like Sesshomaru often does? When do they disappear? There always seems to be demons, like they never just die. They haunt the village from the shadows. Kohaku is always busy. Inuyasha spends so much time away from home. I fear that it is only a matter of time before the girls are targeted. Before I have to kill again.
Dear Mom,
Sango was attacked by a demon while collecting water from the river, her wounds were too extreme to save her. We never did make up. Add it to my list of regrets. A long list. How did you ever let me go? How could you have ever let me go through the well again after the first time? How could you say goodbye to me when I left for good? What were my last words to you? And you to me? I try to remember. I try to recall those last moments. I try to hold on to them, but it is hard because now I wonder.
Did you know I was meant to be in the past? I think about Grandpa's legends and traditions and stories. The items he kept locked away… Did you know, Mom? Did you let me go because you could not stop me? Time would have its way, seal the loop nice and neat? I know now why I am here, why I was allowed to return. The Shikon Jewel… even my wish, the correct wish, had a price.
The demons… their existence. Why they don't exist in the future. If I didn't know that they die out, then perhaps they wouldn't. But I do know. I do. Because I am the one who destroys them.
Dear Mom,
I am older than you now. I have graying hair. I walk slower, and find I tire more easily. But I live in peace. I will not tell you how I managed to send the demons away. It is dark and terrible and dangerous. If you knew, you would have never let me go. The world revolves around the sun, time moves slowly then all at once. Moroha… she would be around the age I was when she was born… I see her walking my dreams, her chubby cheeks smiling. She started to look more like you. I hope her soul reincarnates in a kinder time. Perhaps it did. Perhaps she was you. Wisdom comes with age, but wisdom is just an acceptance that life is nothing but coincidences and long never ending circles. Towa will inherit my duties in her place. She will be powerful. Her father would be proud, I imagine he watches from the higher realms. Tch, who am I kidding? He battles endlessly, locked in an eternal embrace with others of his kind. As was his choice.
But what of Inuyasha? What of my husband? What of the man I sacrificed all for?
His final words to me I imagine were the same as yours. That you loved me, that I should go. Be happy. Foolish. Happiness is fleeting, unattainable forever. A flower in the spring.
Dear Mom,
I am sealing these scrolls away with careful instructions. Death comes for me soon, the natural passage of time. I don't fear it. I have lived a long, full life. When I look back at these… I sound so angry. So scared, so hurt. And yes, I was all of that. But I was also fulfilled. I wish I had written more about the good times. Kohaku's marriage, Shippo's ascension, Towa's wedding. The way the fields looked at sunset in the summer, the slow way history turns. The way Moroha smiled when it rained, how Inuyasha looked when attempting to grow a beard. How blessed I am. Rarely does one have love and purpose in life. Rarely does one experience so many wonderful and terrible things. I give to the future a world that harbors only the horrors mankind can create. I give to myself, the me that is young and foolish, naive and stupid, but kind and full of heart, the strength to do what must be done.
And I give to you, my mother, all my love and the courage to let me go.
Notes:
When I was 19, the Final Act came out and I was so happy for Kagome being able to go back to the feudal era. But I'm in my 30s now and the more I think about it, the more horrified I am. The Feudal Era was no joke. Sexism in Japan while it has not left, was far worse back then (as it was everywhere), demons are scary, no modern medicine like vaccines, antibiotics or anesthesia. I combined that with some of my thoughts on feelings that I often have about my mom, who passed 2 years ago.
Anyway, sparked the idea that Kagome is the one who causes most of the demons to die off. Might do a long fic about that.
Let me know your thoughts!
As always, thank you for reading and you can find me on twitter buggyisbest, hamstercheese7 everywhere else.