"Do you ever...just feel like...whatever you did, it didn't matter? You'd throw away your life for them. In a heartbeat. But they choose to associate with someone you hate? And you just don't know why?"
"Yes, I quite know this feeling," Kikyo said in a dry voice. She'd been roaming this forest, pondering the cursed nature of her existence, when a yellow-clad boy showed up, wearing the same sort of garments someone else wore, quite out of time and place, ranting about the cursed nature of his existence.
She didn't know whether she appreciated his company or not. At the very least, he was harmless, not allied with Naraku, nor an evil demon, from the Band of Seven, or anyone else she knew.
Cicadas buzzed incessantly in the deep green of the woods. Summer. She had not experienced summer...since, well, happier times. Fifty years, had it been? Kikyo dipped her hand in the cool spring in front of her, shattering her peaceful reflection. Her face grew distorted and ripples formed in the watery sky.
This lost boy flinched at this motion, as though the water would become mutant, chase him around, and turn him into a small, helpless animal at the mercy of predators.
"Is your existence cursed by this water as well, boy?" she asked.
He grasped at his deceptively small bamboo umbrella.
"H-how? How did you know?"
"I didn't. Until now. You really shouldn't telegraph your weaknesses like that. There are cruel and twisted people in this world, those who would take advantage of you."
While this conversation was...interesting, he should have known better than to trust her. Or anyone, really. Not that she had any interest in harming him, but he seemed to be a very...dense boy. Did he think that every beautiful woman was an agony aunt? Why did he think she was an agony aunt?
In her opinion, she was giving him not-at-all-subtle hints.
He evidently had a problem with picking up hints.
"I KNOW!" he howled. In his anguish he poked at the grass beside his feet, opening a massive crater in the forest. Ludicrous boy.
"I...I've been hurt, battered, taken for a ride. The one I love chose someone else and my heart! It burns. It's scorched. It's been razed to the veins."
"You've told me this already." For the past half hour. Some people just ranted. And ranted. And ranted. She wasn't sunshine incarnate herself, but even she didn't take long baths in pools of misery like he did. It was rather unhealthy.
In her short life, she had never heard of anyone using despair as a martial arts technique to shatter boulders. Until this boy had treated her to his whole life story, involving trips to China and falling into springs and never defeating his rival. And not getting the girl he loved. He never did let up complaining about that.
"What do you intend to do about it?"
"I...what?"
"Will you continue to seethe in misery? Get revenge? Destroy your enemies?"
Kikyo's mindset had gotten marginally better the past few days and she knew that most sane people would answer 'no' to her question.
The lost boy's eyes teared up, and she somehow understood that he wouldn't be one of those people.
"Of course! What do you think I've been trying to do this whole time?"
Kikyo was a serious woman, not prone to making exaggerated gestures and motions. Even she facepalmed.
A/N: Having no danger sense whatsoever and blithely engaging in conversation with a bitter, hateful, ice-cold miko rebirthed by an ogre lady. Ah, Ryoga.
Reviews are love! :)