InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bloodlust: Purity ❯ The Asylum of Dreams ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter 5

Asylum of Dreams

 

Eldest's home in the dreaming woods nestled against mountains in the north, the furthest barrier between the Great Ice and the green lands to the south. She spent her time now in quiet, getting to know the mate of her lost daughter. Kinawai had become more silent, more serious than he had been. Still, Kagome knew that when she said `home', she did not mean Kinawai's fortress but the house that she had for her own, deep in those thick trees full of sleep and visions. The Glynynn was there. She had to be there. Somehow that darkling pool of water was charged with Time and the power to give Time an image to the eye with power.

She reclaimed her thoughts, staring sideways at her son who ran beside her. It was the way she had come, though not with water - a tempest of Time, a well that still waited, empty, lonely - she shut off her thoughts.

Some thousands of miles, then, from the Castle in the west to the dreaming woods, and once in a panic she had made the journey in three days, breaking then the final barrier of her power, taking her rhuk-spirit form. Her son could not run so fast beside her, and she would not force the change in him before he needed it in himself. He knew it - there was a tiny resentment - but she was his mother and there was a chorale of confusion around the aura of his thoughts. She knew he had visions; she did not know how they poisoned him.

Really, she had spent more time with him in their journey of the past four days than she had in months. Sesshomaru monopolized time with their son, as she had stolen Kystra. The requirements of learning, the growing pangs of youkai children so different than human, all the things Kouga could only learn from his father, who knew them even when she herself was at a loss. She could not blame Sesshomaru, nor be jealous of the bond that lived between them, but still she missed her son.

The run left no time for idle conversation. Kagome noticed then that Kouga had pulled in front of her, legs humming easily over the distance, and her eyes filled with pride before she sped her feet to keep up with him.

In the night he looked bedraggled, heavy, and she paused beside a brook for food and sleep. Quietly, she was almost laughing as she curled into her blanket, sure he was so tired because he had run too fast. So stubborn, her son.

Kouga cast himself into his blankets with a hopeless prayer, wanting no more dreams. Sleeping, he found himself lost again, at least repeating, and he watched in his vision more carefully for those that he knew in his waking life. His mother, falling, his father, retreating, and a hanyou, laughing with the sword that was now Kouga's. He cold only think for so long, only control for so long, and then the dreaming void surrounded his consciousness and pulled him without sound into the caress of false nightmares. He could only wait, inside screaming for the less wicked day.

He startled awake, sweating and panting, feeling the night sticky against his skin. In the darkness, he surrendered to his pain, and the limp whining moan of a lost pup wailed into the night. With it he ran, sobbing, screaming finally a howl of pain into muddy ground.

It should have been raining, a thunderstorm, a tempest and a tsunami to meet and match such an exclamation of despair. Final stillness brought his feet to the edge of a wood, high branches and leaves silver in the moonlight, a thousand bright candles to his eyes. The aura of the trees was distinct, a halo in the air but outside it, around everything, filling his limbs with sleep that moved into his center. Two steps farther forward he dropped to the ground, curled up and dead to the world. Eldest stepped out from among the trees, and lay two fingers against his forehead.

“Sleep without dreams, pup. Sleep without nightmares.”

In her moments glance she had seen the haunting in his eyes, drawn as she was to the edge of her woods by the pain and passion of the youkai-pup at her feet. She had never before seen a pain so deep in eyes so young, and his twenty years were to her as a raindrop in the sea. She glided down out of the trees, following Kouga's scent-passage until she found Kagome, uneasily asleep, obviously affected by her son's distress. The moment Eldest stepped within the boundary of Kagome's sleeping awareness, the Inu-priestess shot up awake, eyes glittering, wanting danger.

“Your son seems to have a penchant for night wanderings, sister - daughter.”

“Eldest!”

Quieter breathing came then, and a calming in Kagome's eyes from the suddenness of her awakening.

“What do you mean, night wanderings? Where is - “

“I mean that I found him in my woods a very short while ago. He is sleeping now. Why was he not here with you?”

“He was! If he left he did not wake me, which is something strange, but I was - having the oddest dreams. Is he safe?”

“You know that for yourself, Kagome. Come, we should talk before he wakes, and I can tell he could do with some rest; he is in desperate need of a sleep without dreams that belong to someone else.”

Kagome followed behind her to where Kouga lay asleep against the shallow edge of the trees, a smudged figure in the night fog. She swayed a little, full of strangeness, and away in the East there seemed to rise a black hand, great tendrils of smoke writhing from beyond the trees to touch her son. Eldest waited until she was steady, and gestured towards the house that lay hidden in the trees.

“I saw what you saw, felt what you felt, Kagome. This problem comes from your past.”

“My past is…far away. What could come from so far to trouble me now, crossing a distance in time?”

Eldest glanced sideways, surprised.

“You have farther to trouble me. How many years have you really been away from home? Great deeds do not remain silence forever, and even the most distant ears eventually hear all rumors.”

From these words Kagome staggered to an old place inside herself, walking dumbly into Eldest's house by stumbles.

“Twenty…twenty six years, it has been. My mother…could be dead! Twenty six years since I left home, and I sent no message, no word that I was alive, that I had done everything I was supposed to do…except go back.”

Eldest knew there could be no real consolation. Every day, Kagome could look into a mirror if she chose, and pretend that she had been gone from home six months, perhaps a year. No longer did her flesh record the passage of time, that human enemy. There was little left to remind her of mortality.

“You must have known, sister-daughter. Human flesh is not enduring.”

“I knew. I just….didn't think of it. Until these very moments, I had not thought of my home since the night we named Kouga. I thought of my grandfather then - he would have been glad I had a son - but time does not impress on me any longer.”

“You will get used to it, you must. Time changes even youkai after long enough. Long enough just seems to be eternity sometimes.”

Kagome shook off pointless regrets with a bottomless sigh, remembering in vain all the reasons she had decided to stay, remembering that five hundred years was not forever, and that someday she would see them again.

“Tell me what is troubling my pups, Eldest. Kystra still sleeps, though I know now she dreams. Her dreams are secret from me, in a place I cannot see; I can feel her, oh-so-still. Kouga shifts between confusion and fear, and there are layers upon layers of guilt in him.”

“Guilt? When is he guilty?”

“Every time he looks at me, I can see it, deep in him. He is trying to hide it, but from me? He cannot.”

Eldest closed her eyes, thinking, letting the soft light of dawn laze heavily at her through the thin flesh of her eyelids.

“Tell me about this…Kouga.”

Kagome stared.

“He is…my son, the - “

“No, I know enough of your son for now. The other one, who is dead.”

A sparkle of memory lapped at Kagome's eyes.

“He was…arrogant, selfish, hated humans except me - thought children were weak on purpose and that he should have ruled the world. For all that I think he was a good soul, deeper than he looked, rooted farther than I have ever seen., drawn by his magic to be of the earth. He was…wild. That is what bothered Sesshomaru, I think. He did not live by the laws of the world, but by the laws of his own blood - and he felt no guilt for it. He wanted me to be his mate, claimed me as his woman and declared it, gave a combat challenge he couldn't possible have thought he could win. Sesshomaru killed him in the challenge, you know, and then gave back his life with Tensaiga….when it still had the power. Kouga was never the same after that.”

“Of course not! He had to confront his own soul in the darkness of death, whether he returned from it or no. The agony is still the same - the chill is still the same. Why is your son named for him if your mate did not respect him? The name of a son belongs to the father.”

Kagome's eyes shut slowly, remembering, feeling.

“It was because Kouga guarded us, my son and I, just after he was born. Kasuka killed him, to get to me…but he gave Sesshomaru enough time that I got away. He named our son Kouga because Kouga gave his life to save me….and he has honor, Sesshomaru does. Do you know that after Kouga died, my son had gold in his eyes? I do not think I noticed it before then. Did the naming of my son awaken his old soul? Is he dreaming memories, Eldest? I am afraid to know whether or not I can save him.”

Eldest had shrunk back into her corner chair, avoiding the light. Only the deepest green scales at the top of her wings caught the light, and her eyes, glacial blue.

“Why now do you worry more for your waking son than your sleeping daughter? Only in the passing of your tale is this so - I know it.”

Abrupt reminders of panic spread like a devouring vapor across Kagome's face.

“While Kystra sleeps she comes to no harm that I am sure of - I feel her soul against myself and nothing changes. While she is so still, strangeness gathers around Kouga and somehow I feel that she is only in danger because of her brother. She said it was her idea, but where did it come from? And now you ask me all these questions about Kouga who is dead, and not about my daughter who lives.”

A slow breath was her first answer, speaking volumes in the silence.

“You are right to be more worried for you son…but you really do not know why. I wondered…my heart is slanting in me. I do not know if I should awaken your thoughts to this knowledge I am finding in myself.”

Her eyes were burning with whatever knowledge she held.

“Your son is being fed magic. That ceremony which awakened the power of his blood awakened spells responsive to it - to the blood that is in his veins that shares a bond with you. So he has memories, memories of a life that belongs to his soul, but not his flesh, memories that confuse the two, and this wolf in his mind dreamed of his mother, and now he must dream those dreams.”

Kagome had no words for these accusations, not really asking for any admission of guilt in Kouga, but accepting guilt and offering no punishment for a bloodless travesty.

“If you are disgusted, I will wound you for the shame at your son - it is no fault of his. I cannot find the source of the magic that forces revelations of his past, but you can . It is why I brought you here. The Glynynn responds to your power like the power of no other I have seen. I see visions - you become them. For the sake of the soul of your son, this power must be put out.”

“I am not ashamed. His is my son - I understand his guilt now. If there was no guilt, only then would I condemn the unnatural. Still…you insist that this comes from my past?”

“Aye. Are you afraid?”

“I decided a long time ago not to be afraid any more. So I learned. To protect myself and my pups, my mate and my friends, I would not let fear touch me. Now you say the past is calling for me, and I think, `Of course, she is the one to find the one thing that still frightens me'.”

“Good. Now you know what it is. Face it. The water is waiting, and I will go for your son - he and I need words. These visions belong only to you.”

Kagome stood alone in the house of the Eldest, and her heart was afraid, staring into the betraying oculus of that stygian pool.

 

Oh weep, beautiful girl, and for the sound of the wind do not despair! The ocean is brighter with the moon than the diamonds that are stars, and every mother everywhere is pure tonight! Beautiful girl, beautiful mirror. This foreign language is speaking to me as thought I had the gift of tongues! I want to make my words poetry for you, find some way to lessen this spell, stay my life to fill your heart. I defy them! I will tell you my sin, beautiful girl, that I stole into the Council chambers and looked into the mirror to see your face. Beautiful girl! They lied, and called you a youkai monster, but I am your willing sacrifice! I feel you crying though your lips do not move - but I will free your heart to me, give you everything I can. Oh, weep, beautiful girl!

In the silence of her parent's bedroom, Rin was suddenly and completely awake, as though her dream had been so much like the waking world that there was no shock at all to the end of her drowse. She did not really remember going to sleep, but her quick look at Kystra showed no change at all, and Rin sat back a little, confused. There had been no knock on the door, nothing to wake her but maybe a deepened breath, the rustle of silk, the shifting of a few strands of hair. The `something' was enough to throw her off balance, make her afraid of the dark, and so she snuck to the door and out into the hall, down the staircase to the kitchens. Somehow ever present, even at the latest, earliest hours, Oki was there, tea in hand.

“My mother says I have a premonition of problems, Lady. I just knew someone would be needing me. What wakens you? It has been days since we've seen you away from Lady Kystra's side.”

Rin sighed, breathing deeply of the fragrant steam that rose misty from the cup Oki handed her.

“I woke just now with every readiness - I could have awakened into a battle and been completely prepared for it - but instead I awakened into nothing. It was very odd. Now, I sit here with this cup of tea hot in my hands, and it all seems very silly, unreal even, but the feeling is still restless at the bottom of my spine. It makes me not want to sit still.”

“Then perhaps you did not awaken to nothing, Lady, but to something you did not see.”

“There really is not much to see. Kystra lay the same, no change in position, only her breathing a little deeper than it had been before. The door could not have been opened from the outside except by papa, and he has been wandering near the borders and the mountains.”

Oki almost laughed.

“Your mother will not like it when she learns he is out looking for trouble. Forgive me, Lady, but he does so quite often.”

“Oh, I know. I traveled with him for a long while, when I was a child. As I recall, he was trying to kill his brother. That was a great deal more trouble than whatever he is doing now.”

Real laughter sounded this time.

“Well, I suppose. If you like, I will come with you and see if I can feel this feeling that so concerns you.”

“I…would appreciate it. Thank you, Oki.”

A smile stretched her dragonish features, scales shining in the candlelight around them.

“Tea, first?”

“Tea first.”

 

 

Silence riveted Kagome to the water, a dome of color-light that rippled like a dim web of silk around her reluctant eyes. The tenderness of the feelings suddenly birthed in her were alarming in their intensity. Some things exploded before her with a hypnotic fascination that she had not felt since her human days. The one previous occasion she had looked into the liquid mirror had given her images in pieces - the mirror after it was shattered, still making one whole, broken. Now it was melted together to give her a story, a history of disbelief.

The room was silver, purple, misty-walled rotating around her. Only one person stood there, shaded in silence by a sharp-edged piece of black stone, a shattered remnant of the broken altar that had come from Aranna. It stood half the height of a man, jagged at all its corners but flat-topped. The top held a mirror, center of the vision focus - she had seen it before. Where she had expected fear came black rage, a wash of feelings that warped the image. She knew all of a moment that this was a vision of the present, not a dodging around through chains and veils of time. The figure in her vision stared around him with furtive eyes, fear in every motion, outlining his body as if with a pen of light. He looked out from under a silver hood, color showing in the mirror-glow, and then she knew who he must be.

Priests! Miko! He wore some silver insignia, the robe of a fifth stage acolyte, and on the edge of his sleeve was embroidery with deep meaning - here was one who trained under a master, so gifted that he had gathered high interest. It looked like nothing in the vision of the water affected her, or her children. There was just this man, and a mirror.

Only the mirror spoke to her at all, in the vanished premonition of her memory - she knew such mirrors could be used to evil purpose, but the remotest fibers of her soul gave her to know they were not evil by nature. Even she used the magic of the mirrors - the surface of the water that surrounded her thoughts was god-blessed glass.

From nowhere, or maybe the mist of the walls in the unreal room, a shaft of light shot out and struck the surface of the mirror, lying on the black stone. The glass rippled, became like liquid, shimmering quicksilver, and the man turned to it, entranced. She knew that he had come for this, then, whatever was happening to the mirror, and wondered if it was his magic that forced the shivers and the shine. Illuminated in that one shaft of daylight frailty was Kystra's face, dreaming in blue. The man was enchanted then. His eyes were fixed on her daughter's face with an aching ardor that could not be explained; somehow she knew that the man in the mirror stood at in impossible distance.

Kagome felt a pulling away, and the image around her dissolved into blackness, but the dome of vision clear water around her did not dissipate or retreat, suspended by magic. From around her came the feeling of a hand, washed in energy, but the sharp edge to its aura was blacker than madness, and it reached into her mind. She screamed.

The vision collapsed around her, and she recognized then that it had only been a vision, but the picture of the hand that had groped at her thoughts did not feel like a memory of the unreal. Alone still, she sat on the floor and let a waterfall of tears come from somewhere deep with no reason, behind the incandescent tug of her night-splinter thoughts. She let them fall, wonder of snow and sunshine sparkling on her face, away from the cold. She was so deeply full of feeling that her blood wept, shaking in her skin. Slowly, the cataclysm felt the appeals of reason, and she slipped from tears to the shallow white of sleep.

Dreams worked in her brain like an elixir, polishing the memories and emotions of her day. It had been an outside fear that worked her tears, some secret empathy breaking through the magic of the imitation. There was that man in her dreams, dressed still in robes; unhooded, he was smiling. There was warmth present towards that man, though she didn't know him - something in his manner reminded her of Shippou, of Shippou when he knew he would get away with his mischief because it had made her laugh. It was only a dream because the sky shimmered with bliss that sunrise did not usually know. Clouds diluted the scene - suddenly, the light was full and drowning, noon sunlight over a meadow instead of the criminal charm of slotted windows. Something that had been buried deep underground was coming to life - she felt it. The memory of unfulfilled oaths played a havoc song on the dancing of her nerves, awakening.

“I did not go back!”

-House of the Moon: Legacy-

 

 

 

 

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