Midwinter's Day Dream
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The many sow, but only the chosen reap;
Happy the wretched host if Day be brief,
That with the cool oblivion of sleep
A dawnless Night may soothe the smart of grief.
- "Lines to my Father", Countee Cullen
888
As the smell of blood and burning flesh curled around her nostrils, even before opening her eyes Kagome knew immediately that she was dreaming. No, more like reliving a nightmare that she wished she could forget.
Her eyes adjusted to the familiar memory, blinking back the brightness of the sun and seeing an endless ocean of figures thrashing against one another in what until that morning had been a once-green grassy plains; before blood had stained and soaked itself into the very foundations of its dirt. Past the dull thumping of her heart against her eardrums, Kagome could barely make out the heightened noises of death cries and swords slashing against armoured bodies, the metal blades greedily seeking skin and bone and organs. It wasn't often that Kagome had recurring nightmares, thankfully, but this one always managed to make it's way into the revolving door of terrible moments Kagome wished she could wipe from her mind.
Kagome had been merely thirteen years old when she experienced her first battlefield.
Her mother, the Late Queen, had vainly tried to keep the young princess out of warfare, insisting that her eldest enjoy a non-violent childhood, as any good mother would want for their child. But the threat of war had been ever-present in the court, baying at its doors like a pack of hellhounds.
With the Queen's sudden assassination by rogue Winterlings, there was now absolutely nobody that could keep Kagome outside of the throes of battle. At the time, the young princess told herself she sought justice for her mother's passing; her council and family knew she craved vengeance. It took only one argument that threatened to prematurely erupt the princess's developing powers into uncontrolled chaos, and her father the King reluctantly allowed her to join the archery battalion, against the council's ardent caution.
But the King knew his headstrong daughter best; if he didn't allow her to join him at his side, she would secretly sneak behind his back into his barracks and that would place her in even more peril. As an archer, the position would offer her greater distance from the battlefield, he hoped, and together, King and Princess would fight side by side. Princess Kikyo had been instructed to stay behind with Lady kaede to care for Prince Souta, but mostly as a safety precaution; if Kagome and the King were slain in battle, Princess Kikyo would need to step up as the next ruler.
"But I warn you, Kagome… war is not what you may expect it to be." Her father had cautioned her, smoothing the edges of her cloaked shoulders with a grim set to his mouth. She stood before him, a miniature version of his own noble armour shielding her small, thin body. Kagome had trained many years in the art of battle, but the tone of her muscles did little to disguise the fact that she was still just a child. The king brushed a hand across her determined round face, wondering how he could have failed his wife so. "You will want to hurt them as they have hurt us. But you must remember your compassion, my child. The Winterlings… they are not so different from you and I."
"How could you say that, father? They are honourless monsters who would do anything to take our land and your throne."
The King shook his head, as if wanting to say more, but the horns of battle blared loudly in the distance.
The Winterlings had arrived.
"My dearest Princess. Once you are out there… once you see who it is we fight…your enemy will not be so easy to hate." And with that, the King parted ways with his eldest, him off to the frontlines and her to the artillery towers.
But the best laid plans of mice and Kings didn't' always go accordingly. Kagome had been set up in one of the makeshift pillars for the archers, meant to grant her distance from the hell below on the ground. But with the sound of thunder, a barreling cannonball had her jumping out of the tower just in time before she was blown to bits with the other archers. She landed on the groundwith a painful thud, the wind knocked out of her chest and her eyesight spotty.
And her father had been right. No amount of training, no amount of imagination, could have prepared her for the horrors of war. The bodies face down in the dirt with limbs thrown askew in unnatural ways, the dust and ash stinging her vision until she could barely see, the rush of adrenaline as she realized her mortality was now a very tenuous thing.
Kagome took a deep breath to steady her nerves, instead filling her lungs with the tell-tale stench of putrefaction. Narrowly avoiding friendly-fire from her fellow archers, Kagome dove behind a large boulder, fighting back the impulse to retch. She fell to her knees, bracing herself as her body convulsed and hot tears made her vision swim. She was almost recovered, when from her immediate right, Kagome heard the gurgled noise of a person in pain that made the hair on her neck prickle with unease. The princess looked up with wild eyes, deciding if fight or flight should be her mode of action… until her eyes fell on a sight that made her arms buckle beneath her and her breathing freeze to a halt.
That was how Kagome found herself kneeling in front of the dying Winterling.
At thirteen years old, the Princess of Fär Elphame was experiencing her first up-close death.
It was hard to tell which wound exactly was causing the person before her the most pain; perhaps the broken leg, lying at an eerie angle, or the alarmingly large bloodstain on his stomach, leaking past his robes and steel-blue armour and into the ground beneath him. But still, could that possibly be the worst of his condition? For one blinding moment of rage, Kagome thought of knocking an arrow into her bow. This was why she was here after all; to defeat and kill as many Winterling demons as she could. To avenge her mother's death. The dying warrior before her was still alive, could potentially still survive his wounds, and continue to lead the very same soldiers that were annihilating her people beyond their little boulder.
It didn't feel fair that this man had the chance to live while her own mother lay dead underground.
And then the soldier cried out again, an awful keening sound, and the moment disappeared, leaving Kagome curiously empty, unable to summon the proper fury to kill a dying man.
Kagome could not help but think that her younger sister Kikyo, an expert healer by the tender age of twelve, would know exactly what was needed at that moment. Not needed to save the soldier's life – a closer look at the gaping hole in his stomach confirmed the futility of salvation - but rather what was needed to make the soldier's death a peaceful one. Though soldier felt like an abysmally cruel term for the dying child that lay before her, bleeding out amongst the tall grass and the gentle shade of the rock.
In truth, he could be no older than she was - perhaps two springs older at most - barely starting his journey through puberty.
He groaned again, and Kagome considered for a second turning tail and abandoning the horrible scene, but something kept her there. Despite all reason protesting loudly in her mind, Kagome inched closer to the boy, closer, until she was staring down at his pale face, close enough to end his misery if she so wanted… and still, she could not find it in her to kill him.
"Mom?" he crowed, his tone suddenly frightened, hand searching blindly, and Kagome's breath hitched painfully. As if watching from outside her own body, she captured his limp cooling hand in her own bloodied one, his fingers immediately squeezing with weakened strength. The child warrior turned to her, his eyes glazed over with pain and sorrow. He blinked slowly, almost owlishly at Kagome, the haze of hallucinations lifting as recognition seeped into his yellow eyes.
"You..." he whispered hoarsely, and Kagome was struck at how this boy, who bore an armour befitting of someone from an upper rank, perhaps even a Captain, was looking at Kagome with a hint of fear in his eyes. "Your eyes are blue... are you-"
"Shh, don't move." Kagome cooed softly, hoping to chase away the fear in his gaze. Kagome hated the Winterlings, hated them for what they'd done to her country, to her family… but she could not find it in her to murder her mother's killer. Not like this. There was no honor in stealing his life like this.
Was this the wretched compassion her father spoke of, she thought brokenly, looking down into the eyes of a boy terrified of death, terrified of her.
"I'll send for help, brave one, so please hang on for a bit longer." Kagome whispered around a tight throat. Kagome had not cried for her mother's death, had refused to do so until the late Queen had been avenged; but here in the battlefield, the hateful demon before her was just another boy, just like Souta, and the thought of killing someone's brother had her recoiling in pure disgust at herself. In killing monsters, would she become one as well? Would the love for this stupid war trump the dignity of a life, even one of a Winterling's? The body before her trembled, and it took Kagome a confused moment to realize the boy was laughing.
"Help for a killer? A dying one, at that? How droll, Princess Kagome." The young man chuckled darkly, making her wince at her title. He definitely knew who she was.
Kagome did not laugh along with him, especially as blood dribbled down his chin like a bountiful fountain. Her lower lip trembled, and she bit down on it furiously. How could he find humour in this?
"You will not die, Winterling." She swore, the oath hollow even to her own ears.
"Suikotsu."
"Pardon?"
The boy coughed, even more blood sputtering past his red-stained teeth. The colour had completely drained from his pale face, and he looked scared once more, tears cutting through the grime on his cheeks like brushstrokes.
"My name is Suikotsu, eldest son of the noble Shichinintai clan. Please, tell them so that my brothers... my family..." his voice trailed off feebly. It took a few seconds, but the name suddenly clicked. Even garbed in the elegant armor denoting nobility, with blood splattered on every inch of his body and pain twisting his face, Suikotsu could have been any soldier, anybody's son or brother, even a Summerling's. Only the trademark pale skin, coupled with golden yellow eyes, gave away his relation to the royal line. He wasn't one of the princes though, so perhaps a cousin…
Kagome nodded vigorously so he knew she understood him. "Of course, Suikotsu. Your family will know of your bravery." She assured him hurriedly.
Kagome's knees felt wet and warm, the fabric of her deer-skin pants greedily soaking up the young boy's blood as it pooled beneath them. The princess fought against the heated nausea racing up her esophagus, focusing intently instead on the other burning sensation of her thin arms keeping the sturdy weight of the boy upright and against her. They might have been almost mutuals in age, but not in stature. Kagome hoisted him up even firmer against her chest, rebelling against the weakness of her frail muscles, but soon he sagged down her childish frame, and so she settled him gently atop her legs.
Ignorant to the maiden's internal and external struggles, Suikotsu dropped his head heavily against her thighs, fading slowly.
"You have a nice voice, Princess."
Kagome laughed, caught off-guard by the ridiculousness of his statement, of the impossible sadness of their situation. Suikotsu's yellow eyes looked straight at her, and Kagome flinched, unused to the unnatural colour. "May I ask one final favour?" he begged, and his free hand touched the edge of her bow with quaking fingers.
Kagome shook her head furiously, trembling, her own tears threatening to overwhelm her.
"Anything but that." She whimpered through a quiet sob. Never mind that mere moments before Kagome had thought of using that very same weapon on him; not out of mercy, rather vengeance. But now, with his head on her lap like a little boy, she could not stomach the thought of her hand being the one that ended his life.
His eyes softened, his hand gripping her hand tightly in understanding, and she realized that he was being kinder than she had any right to expect from an enemy. It could take him hours to die in this manner, to bleed out, a terrible fate that she would not wish on anybody. And still, despite the horrors, he would not force her to take a life.
"Then sing me a song with that nice voice of yours." He murmured weakly with ragged breath.
And Kagome suddenly, desperately, wanted her mother there, to soothe away the unbearable sadness of watching another child die senselessly. She wondered if the boy had a mother back home, if he was missing her as desperately as Kagome missed her own mama. Engulfed in sorrow that made her eyes blink furiously against the wetness of her eyeballs, the princess sang the first thing that came to mind - the only thing, really, and such a pitiful thing to sing, he deserved better - a lullaby that her own mother had recited to her many a time.
Kagome strained in her awkward position until her forehead pressed against his gingerly, nearest his ear, and with trembling lips, began to sing over the roar of death around them.
The bird is in the cage.
When, oh, when will you get out?
In the eve of sunrise,
The crane and the turtle slipped.
Worry not, little bird,
All is behind you now.
And Kagome sang every childhood song her mother had ever taught her, well after the sun had begun to lower into the horizon, well after soldiers from either side of the conflict appeared in the clearing to witness the pitiful scene. She sang as the opposition's military doctors approached her cautiously, looking for an opening to grab the limp body from her tired arms, sore from holding the boy too tightly for hours on end. Kagome sang until the blood on her knees and the damp earth beneath their bodies cooled and left her shivering, unable to stop trembling from the chill of it, her voice hoarse and thready from held-back tears. She sang until, finally, Suikotsu's breath stuttered to a stop, his grip slackened, and his hand fell to the earth with a dull thud.
The sudden chill of steel on the back of Kagome's neck made her head snap upwards with a gasp. Her cerulean eyes met the dark hollow of a helmet, and she was slammed out of her mournful trance into the immediacy of her situation. That's right…this was still a war.
The soldier kneeling before her was not one of her own; the icy white armour, similar to Suikotsu's in design, was oddly angelic against the smoke and ashes surrounding them. A trim of pearlescent fur, now matted with dried blood and dirt, lined the hem of his long cloak's neckline, the cloth more midnight black than purple, and the richness of the materials assured her that this mysterious figure was an upper-rank as well. The soldier withdrew his armoured hand from her neck quickly, cautiously, so as not to alarm the girl. Kagome watched, rapt, as with methodical slowness, the soldier lowered his hand until it rested on the very-still chest of the boy in her arms.
The silent exchange was crystal clear to her. Kagome gingerly lifted the boy, one arm snaked across his abdomen for support, the other tenderly cradling his head, as she passed his limp body into the arms of the soldier before her. The imposing silhouette of his armour had made him seem like a man, but upon a second look at his slim frame, he too could not have been that much older than the now dead Suikotsu.
Was theirs a war fought by children? Would her children, if she ever decided to bring any into this cursed existence, be forced to fight her battles one day as well? Would this cycle of hate never end?
The young soldier lifted the dead-weight of the young man as if it were nothing more than air and turned silently on his heel towards the medics waiting nervously at the periphery of their bubble.
"Wait!" Kagome suddenly called out, voice nearly hiccupping with urgency.
The soldier's steps never faltered, as if deaf to her call. But this was important, so Kagome stood up – nearly toppled over, her legs numb, prickly after having been crushed in their uncomfortable pose for so long- and shouted at his retreating back. "Tell King Inutaisho and Prince Sesshoumaru that his name was Suikotsu, eldest son of the Shichinintai clan! And he died a soldier's death! Tell his family he died with honour!"
Kagome leaned on her knees, the sudden outburst leaving her winded, and she suspected she had inhaled too much smoke at this point. the ground spinning underneath her. Breath caught, she looked up to see if he had heard her and froze. The soldier was standing still in the tallgrass, staring deeply at her. The emotions hidden behind the white metal of his mask kept his thoughts secret to the young Princess, but she could still feel the heated energy of his eyes behind the shadows of his helmet. The silence lasted a second, perhaps two, but in her memory, it seemed to stretch forever as the two enemies seized each other up. After a beat, his silent gaze slowly trailed from her own face and down to the ashen boy in his arms. What he saw there made his shoulders slack, ever so slightly.
"Is death your idea of honour?" he murmured solemnly into the dusk.
Without waiting for her reply, he turned heel. And Kagome watched him leave, unable to answer.
It was not much later that King Inutaisho - who had been at the battle with his nephews and heir, Prince Sesshoumaru - called a ceasefire to collect their dead and wounded. Before the moon had even finished its journey across the sky, he called for a complete retreat from his army. The uncharacteristic move had surprised the Summer Sidhe; it was not like the Icelings to run away when they held the upper hand – the full Moon alone would have given them a gross advantage, their power and strength heightened by the celestial body. As she treated the wounded soldiers back at their camp, Kagome listened to the speculations from the fiery warriors wondering what could bring the usually-viscious King to such cowardice. Especially when the Ice Demon was so used to slaughtering Summerling soldiers with such precision and frequency. Perhaps the imminent threat of death to his only heir - after his eldest nephew had been slain in that very same battle - had been enough to quell the Ice King's bloodthirst for the time being.
So Prince Sesshoumaru had been in battle, like I was, Kagome mulled quietly. As the eldest and only eligible child set to inherit the Tôr Hivern throne, Sesshoumaru Taisho was a name that was often whispered in disdain around the castle walls, and outside of them too. Despite his young age, he was supposedly as ruthless as his father – or even more so, if his many triumphant and bloody battles were to be considered - and his death would spell the end of the Iceling royal family line, and as such, the Tôr Hivern empire. A cause for celebration, though Kagome could not muster the usual joy that the throught brought her. Not after today's events.
If it had been him who Kagome had stumbled upon behind that boulder, and not Suikotsu, would the Summer Princess had found the strength necessary to kill her mortal enemy? After all, if rumour were to be trusted, the wicked prince would not have thought twice of killing her if they had met in battle.
But Kagome was not a natural-born killer, and today had been proof enough of her weakness. Try as she might, and despite all her training, she could not see past the inherent humanity of her enemies, not even at the cost of her own people's safety.
"They are not so different from you and I." her father's voice echoed somberly.
"Is death your idea of honour?"
For the longest time, that had been the only truth Kagome had ever known; that the greatest pride of a warrior was to die in battle, circled by comrades and defending her country. But now she was not so sure. Lord Suikotsu could have just as easily been her. Or worse, her father, or brother, or sister. Kagome never wanted another person to die for her, ever again. That night, laying under the stars in a makeshift tent, surrounded by the wounded and the dead, by the orphans and widows and broken souls she had so carelessly joined in battle, risking their lives for her Kingdom's honour, Kagome wanted to scream and weep and curse at the sky until dawn came. But princesses did not cry on battlefields, in the midst of those with heavier losses, and Kagome did not have the energy or will to rage. Instead, she planned. She held on tightly to the numbness in her heart, cloaking her emotions in the closed furnace of her heart, and plotted of the different ways she could end this needless suffering. There, under the night sky, she wondered if Sesshoumaru Taisho did the same.
If the Winter Prince and Summer Princess ever met, would he be as difficult to hate as her father had warned?
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Kagome's eyelids fluttered open, the bright cast of the sun through her glass-stained window a stark contrast to the dreary memory of that day. Blearily rubbing any remnants of the nightmare from her tired eyes, she prepared herself mentally for what she had to do.
She needed to talk to Sesshoumaru, clear up all misunderstandings. Kagome could be a comrade only, if that was his desire. They need only pretend for the sake of duty, and bring harmony to the Realms as long as they made it very clear where the line was drawn. Plus, she wanted to air out any awkwardness before it became unbearable. The Princess's planned conversation might have worked too, except for one small hitch.
"That bastard is avoiding me." Kagome growled, borrowing one of Inuyasha's favorite pet-names for the Winter King as she stared daggers at him from across the table. She really needed to spend less time around the crude Winter Captain (and now, Brother-in-law) but as Inuyasha was assigned head of security to the royal couple, she couldn't escape his existence anymore than she could monopolize Sesshoumaru's, who since the honeymoon night had remained painfully cool the past few days.
"Who?"
Kagome jumped in her seat and turned to the voice by her right shoulder. Looking back was a pair of wide familiar blue eyes framed by a puckered brow and a grim line, where a sweet smile usually lay. The expression was much too adult on the childish face of the youngest member of her clan, Prince Souta. Though he had never had the pleasure of knowing Queen Asako due to her passing shortly after his birth, Kagome wondered if her ten-year-old brother knew how much he resembled their mother. Kagome and Kikyo had too much of the King in the length of their face, the slight slope of their cheekbones, the hardness in their eyes that came with leadership. Instead, Souta had inherited their mother's gentle roundness, the sweet downturn of her honeyed eyes, the easiness of her smile...
"Nobody, dear Brother." Kagome appeased dismissively.
The Coronation party honoring the new royal couple was in full swing. All the nobles in Fär Elphme had been invited, with a select few court members from the Winterlands delegation present. Unfortunately, the previous Winter Queen (her new Mother-in-law) could not attend, as she was currently commanding the Winter kingdom in Sesshoumaru's absence. All those present were seated around an oval table that was as long as it was full of foods from all across the Summerlands: exotic fruits, lush green vegetables, savory legumes and a plethora of complex plates that many of the Winterlings present had never seen, let alone tasted, before.
"Sister, may I speak to you privately for a moment?" Souta suddenly piped up, his expression curiously guarded.
Kagome glanced nervously at her betrothed across the table, then back at her sibling, feeling annoyed at herself. Surely she need not ask permission from her husband to speak to her own blood.
Sesshoumaru silently watched the Princess excuse herself from the table, and if he found the sudden exit suspiscious he did not comment on it. Regardless of the awkwardness enshrouding them, where he would disappear during the nights to avoid her - their - bedchambers, his bride had dutifully sat next to him for nearly every meal, animatedly greeting and thanking the never ending string of constituents who stopped by the end of the table to congratulate the happy couple. Now, with her gone from the room, their guests withered under the sepulchral silence of the Lord. Sesshoumaru saw as his new tiny brother-in-law led his bride to a separate room, wondering what the littlest prince had to say to his new wife.
Kagome followed the young boy, bowing her head at passing dukes and countesses, until at last Souta led her past the doors behind the throne and into a private chamber. Princess Kagome closed the heavy mahogany door behind her, shutting out all the music and party-noises into a dull hum, and turned to the child with a quizzical brow.
"Is everything alright, Souta?" the raven gravely asked, rushing to his side and placing her hands atop his frail shoulders. He was so small for his age, always had been, activating all of her protective instincts.
Souta brushed her hands off brusquely, much to Kagome's surprise.
"What are you doing?" the boy frowned at her.
Kagome blinked back owlishly, thrown for a loop at his unexpected temper. "Erm... you'll have to specify-"
"Do not act dim with me, sister, you know what I mean!" he half-shouted, suddenly growing agitated, the lines of his eyebrows growing deeper. Kagome's eyebrows shot upwards at his uncharacteristic outburst. "Souta-"
"This isn't right! I bit my tongue during the the preparations and the wedding because Kikyo bade me to do so, but I cannot quietly idle by anymore! Look at you! You have dark circles around your eyes, you've grown pale as the days progress, and thinner too if possible! You don't speak to anyone, not even our sister, and at night you refuse to leave your office for hours on end! What is that bastard doing to you?!"
"Hold your tongue!" Kagome hissed, looking nervously to the door and back to her brother with an alarmed look. It seems like Kagome wasn't the only one being influenced by Inuyasha's language. "That is your King now, and you will address him with the respect the title deserves."
"And you are my sister, so I will address the asshole who is hurting her however I see fit!"
"Souta!" Kagome gasped at the language.
"Apologies." the child quickly amended with a flush, but his eyebrows remained resolute. "I meant it, though."
Kagome sighed, walking towards a loveseat and dropping on it rather gracelessly. "He's not...that bad."
"Really? Then why do you look like a wandering wraith these days?"
Kagome bit her lip. She very well couldn't tell anybody the truth to her sour mood as of late, let alone her little brother.
That despite all of her attempts to convince him otherwise, Sesshoumaru didn't desire her as a bride at all, not really. He'd been a perfect gentleman, flirting with the appearance of manners by being just respectfully distant enough that it bordered on rude but never crossed the line. And Kagome could not bear the thought of sleeping in their shared bedroom anymore, for fear that he would not be there as it was most nights, and she would be forced to sleep alone in a bed meant for two; or even worse, that she would have to withstand the knowledge of sharing a bed with him, feeling his odd coolness radiate and call to her fevered flesh like an incubus. Sesshoumaru was so painfully beautiful that it drove her to distraction, and sleeping next to him was a maddening endeavor of self-control that left her even more exhausted than if she slept alone.
And so, resolute not to ruin the treaty, Kagome had given a wide berth to the man and avoided their bedroom altogether, choosing the sanctity of her office to sleep until she could figure out another, better, plan.
"I'm sorry, Souta. I didn't mean to alarm you, honest. I just haven't been feeling well lately; must be nerves about the Coronation."
"Is it because of what happened to mother with the Jewel?" Souta murmured so quietly she almost missed it; but Kagome still caught it and she winced.
After all the things that had happened lately, she hadn't give much thought to the Coronation ceremony, and what that would mean for her future; but now her stomach flipped queasily at the thought.
"Souta, I-"
"And pray tell, what exactly is going on here?"