InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Ames Qui Dorment ❯ Ames Qui Dorment - Prologue ( Prologue )

Authors Notes: Shoot me. Please. Do it now, before I can begin yet another fanfic… oh wait, too late. AAARRRGGHH!! Okay, well, I’m sorry I keep lying about not doing anymore fanfiction… but I AM almost positive that whether I’m finished with these or not, come next Fall I’ll have to give it up for grad school. A person cannot slide by with C’s in grad school. Anyways, this is my first Inuyasha fanfic, and my first fanfic in a new anime that I haven’t begun with a crossover. Nope, no crossover. This is purely Inuyasha, folks. Well, not PURELY. There are a couple of OC’s. Bah, I’ll just let you figure it out for yourselves. For those who don’t know, "sayonara" is how you say goodbye to someone when you don’t expect to see them again, ever. That’s why bad guys who are planning to kill good guys tell them sayonara, and why (for anyone who has seen Sailormoon subbed) Sailorsaturn says sayonara to Sailormoon before she goes to fight Pharaoh 90. She expects to die.

Thankies: Fuuzaki-chan, for being ever-patient. Tensei, for doing spot translations! Whee! And for doing title help, however successful it may or may not have been. ;o) All the other people I’m too tired to name right now.

Disclaimers: Inuyasha does not belong to me… gods but I wish he did… if he belonged to me I’d… well, nevermind. He belongs to Takahashi Rumiko-sama. Lucky.

  Âmes Qui Dorment Prologue    

The woman kept her eyes forward as she ran; she could not afford to be frightened into stopping by anything she might see around her. Her own life depended on it, but more importantly, the life of the little bundle she carried depended on it. She would not, could not, let that little life be extinguished.

Somewhere in the dark expanse of forest behind her a howl split the night, but she did not look back. The shuddering sounds of her own heavy breathing kept her from hearing how close they might be. She did not try to silence herself. Nor did she think of her husband, broken and bleeding back in the village. She did not stop to wonder if he still lived. She knew he would want this as much as she did, to save the life they created and guarded with their very souls. Their child. Their son.

Something grabbed at her leg, brushed the fragile human flesh, but she ignored it. Her destination loomed so close, so very close, and she would not be stopped now, not when she had made it so far. Another claw-thing grabbed at her arm, taking a bit of skin with it, but the woman did not cry out. She did not even flinch. Her eyes remained on the darkened shape before her, the half-square that inhabited the nightly forest. She did not know if this would work; the well had not been used in years and had fallen a bit into disrepair. She’d never expected to use it again. But she had to save her son. She had to.

She tripped when another thing grabbed at her legs, this time taking flesh and muscle and blood. This time she screamed, but only for a moment. Her bundle fell from her arms and rolled, the little arms and legs inside flailing, trying to find some purchase in the ground hidden by the blankets. He did not make a sound, having been told by his mother not to, but she knew he was afraid because he could not see why he had been so suddenly dropped. But she did not dare call to him.

Instead, she lifted herself onto her wounded leg, winced, and went to her son. She picked him up, making a soft cooing sound to assure him that it was she and not one of the attackers, who held him. She heard a small whimper from inside the blanket, and hugged him tightly as she climbed over the side of the well. As she dropped inside, her mind nearly fell into welcome darkness with the knowledge that the attackers could not follow and she and her son were safe. She was jarred into consciousness only a moment later when she hit the ground and her leg sent a shock of pain up through her spine. She would have screamed, without having to think of alerting the attackers to her presence, save for her son. She did not want to frighten him any more than he already was.

She took him in one arm, using the other, much stronger now than when she first began her adventure, to climb the ladder. She smiled a little. Obviously her family had expected her to come back eventually, though she had told them she would not. The ladder made her climb much easier than it would otherwise have been, and much easier than the climb on the way back would be.

At the top, she saw the clean lines of the well building clearly in the light of the rising sun. The journey had taken up the remainder of the night. At home, the attackers would be forced to retreat until the following night. When her business here was done she could return to her husband and see if . . .

Shaking her head free of those thoughts, she stepped across the freshly mopped floor and through the doorway. Looking down, she felt bad to see she had left a blood trail across her mother’s clean floor, but it could not be helped. Her son remained stiff in her arms, frightened so badly by these things he did not understand. She had not told him exactly where they were going, and he did not know about the well. She and her husband had been waiting until he was older to tell him everything.

The woman jumped a bit when the car of some early-morning business person zoomed by. So many years since she had heard one, she laughed at herself for being just like a tourist from the past to the future. She did not even think of this world as home anymore. It was, as it was to her husband and friends, merely "the other world".

Sounds came to her ears from inside the main house that told her that her mother, at least, was awake and working. The woman had not planned to actually see her mother. She had planned to leave her son and go, trusting him to be safe in the few minutes before her mother opened the door to breathe in the morning air. At least, she hoped her mother still followed that ritual. It made no difference now, not when she had made the decision to see her mother. She took a deep breath, gently patted her son’s head through his coverings, and limped to the front door.

Walking in seemed improper, for she no longer lived there and had not for years. So she knocked on the door of the house that had once been her home. The sounds inside paused, then footsteps came towards the door. The woman held her breath. The door swung slowly open and a pair of familiar black eyes peered out through the crack.

"Yes?"

Her mother didn’t recognize her. She choked back some tears, then spoke.

"Okaa-san . . ."

The woman on the inside did not move or acknowledge the word for a moment, a long moment filled with fear for her daughter standing on the outside. Then the truth broke through the clouds of her mind and shone on her old and lonely heart. The bleeding woman heard a gasp from the other, then the door was wide open and her mother had her hands over her mouth.

"Kagome!" Those old and well-loved eyes widened when she saw the steadily dripping blood falling on the front step. "You’re hurt!" Higurashi-san took her daughter by the shoulders and led her inside, sobbing and smiling. She brought some wet towels to clean the larger wounds, then ripped some sheets to dress them. There was silence between them, but Kagome could feel that her mother thought she had returned forever.

"Okaa-san," Kagome said quietly, having set the shivering bundle on the table, "I can’t stay. I have to go back. Inuyasha, he . . ." She stopped herself, not wanting to frighten the boy. She knew her mother needed no further explanation. She knew because she knew her eyes reflected her pain and her voice broke with not knowing. Her mother nodded. "I just . . . I need you to take care of him."

"Him?"

Kagome finally took the blankets off her son, revealing to her mother the visage of her grandson. Small golden eyes blinked at the brightness of the room, and a chubby arm reached up to shield his vision. The other hand gripped his mother’s robes tightly as he snuggled close to her, unsure of his new surroundings. The light shone on his glossy black hair, so much like his mother’s. Through the strands poked the ends of two slightly pointed ears, placed on the sides of his head like human ears.

"His name is Inuken," Kagome told her mother, placing her hand on the boy’s head protectively. "We’ve been attacked every night for the past month. The creatures . . . they only come at night but they do so much damage and . . . kill so many people." Poor Inuken had learned, so early, the meaning of the word ‘kill’. "We have yet to find out how to stop them, and I can’t keep fighting them off with Inuken to watch over." She swallowed back the hard lump of pain and regret in her throat, swallowed it because she knew that despite her fears and misgivings, she was doing the only thing she could. "Especially now that Inuyasha’s been . . . hurt."

Her mother listened to the story with fearful eyes, brimming with sympathetic tears, trained on her grandson. When Kagome finished, the woman nodded.

"I understand. How old is he?"

"He’s four. He seems to be aging at the human rate for now, but we don’t know if that will change when he matures. He has a healthy appetite, and prefers meat, but I’ve made him eat vegetables as well." Kagome shuddered, cold from the loss of blood. She knew she had to return soon and could only settle for the quick dressings her mother had made. "Okaa-san . . . I . . ." She drew it her failing breath, failing not only because of her weak body but because of what she was to say. "When I return through the well . . . I can’t take the risk of the attackers finding a way through the well, now that they know its power."

"Oh, Kagome, no!"

"I have to. I have to seal it forever." Kagome hugged her mother tightly, Inuken staring up at her with his so-innocent eyes. Then she sat in a chair next to the table.

"Okaa-san?" His voice carried questions, the same questions in his eyes. What was going on? She wouldn’t really leave him, would she? His bottom lip trembled and Kagome wavered for the first time. But her sense overcame her emotion, for once in her life, and she smiled.

"Inuken, I have to go back to help Otou-san." Her hand smoothed his tangled black hair even as it shook. She placed a kiss on his forehead, lingering there as she wondered what life would be like without her son. Especially if she returned to find she had lost her husband as well. "This is your Obaa-san. You’re going to stay with her for a while, until we can make the bad people go away."

Inuken turned his gaze to his grandmother, who smiled down at him. He furrowed his brow and made an expression that brought fresh tears to Kagome’s eyes, because it made him look so much like his father. Inuken puffed out his chest and looked to his mother.

"I’ll help. I’ll make bad people run fast!"

"No, you have to stay here and let the grown ups take care of this."

"You’ll come back, ne?"

Kagome, not trusting her voice, nodded. Only pure will kept her face dry under this new pressure. Inuken sighed, as though telling her he would put up with this grievous mistake, if only for her sake. She managed a small bit of laughter. Her son truly was his father’s child. Inuyasha often gave the same sigh. Kagome hugged her son for the last time, and stood.

"He hasn’t shown any power yet. He may not have any, but be careful if he does. He won’t know how to control it when it begins to manifest."

"I will. Souta-ojisan will help." The woman added the suffix for the benefit of her new grandson, whom only ten minutes ago had not existed for her. Kagome marveled at how quickly her mother adapted. The woman sniffled and reached out to her daughter, who nearly fell into those arms so dearly missed. Kagome thought that nothing could be wrong with the world so long as her mother was around to hug her. But she had to leave her mother, and let her arms hug Inuken instead of herself. Kagome pushed her mother away and smiled.

"Arigatou, Okaa-san. Say . . . Sayonara."

Higurashi-san straightened, holding back an undignified and teary snuffle at the good-bye her daughter gave. She turned her back. Kagome knew it was not that her mother did not care, but that she cared too much, and would likely try to stop her daughter. So Kagome turned without another word and left the house that would never again be her home, and the little boy who might never again be her son.

End Prologue.