InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Pieces ❯ Pieces - Part V ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: Not mine. Wall calendar excluded.

 

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Pieces

-Jasmine Fields-

 

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Pieces - Part V

 

 

Kaede collected once-upon-a-times for safekeeping in her memories.

 

Once upon a time, she was full of youth and beauty. Many village boys came calling for her - seeking her approval and seeking her hand in marriage. And she denied them, of course; yet secretly reveled in the power of her femininity, in the power of that popularity, and in the power that came with the envy of the other village girls.

 

Once upon a time, she enjoyed the advantage of that youth and beauty. The village boys that came calling for her had grown to able-bodied men and while some had finally sought other wives and chosen other lives to lead, more others hadn't. And it hadn't mattered, still, that she was training in the priestess ways because time and youth and beauty belonged to her while she flirted with them, while she teased them, and while she pretended they were hers for the taking.

 

Once upon a time, while her priestess powers were starting to mature, she learned whom it was that Kikyo would have truly married if her eldest sister had not died protecting the Shikon. The village girls had blistered into jealously raging village women and learned the power of gossip, the power of slander, and all the more: the power to hurt with truth. She had cried for two weeks when she discovered Kikyo wouldn't have been able to marry Inuyasha, in the end, anyway, since there was an arranged marriage that the entire village kept secret; though how that happened, she never knew. And after Kikyo proved her self capable of loving the hanyou in her life, the chieftain of the village would have taken her as his own and done his will and Kikyo would have had the ordinary life that she sadly wanted. Her entire people would have celebrated when the chieftain made Kikyo his bride.

 

Once upon a time, after she gained control over all her priestess powers, she selected the strongest and most handsome among the men to give her self to near a lake shore far away from gossiping ears. Earlier that week she had discovered another village secret - one that changed her perception considerably of the world and fed her soul with eager bitterness and contorted anger. She hadn't meant to be bitter or angry, but when news traveled that it would have been she who would have married a human Inuyasha, she nearly regurgitated her breakfast. That ugly disgusting chieftain would have forced it upon her. And for a decade, she hated the chieftain, hated her sister, hated the hanyou, hated the nature of that jewel, but mostly, she hated the village women.

 

Once upon a time, after a particularly strong wave of influenza had swept through her village and killed over half of the women and men - the chieftain thankfully included among the dead - she cleared and burned their bodies in the forest somewhere, on her own. From that moment on, the remaining female gossipers hushed their whispers and silenced their tongues when she walked passed, and the men that had been eager to share her bed stopped calling on her. The only one that remained by her side was her lover. He had been the one to quietly lead the village inhabitants to trust in her care, in her powers, and in her guidance.

 

Once upon a time, her lover died and then she was truly alone. She guessed she might have been around the age of thirty and five years of age, when she still had some beauty and youth and was probably at the greatest pique of her priestess powers. The village men that might have called on her even a few years prior, quit coming as she fulfilled the role of leadership she was destined for.

 

Once upon a time, instead of visiting her sister's grave, on the anniversary of her death, she wandered into the forest on a crisp cool morning and came across the hanyou that her sister pinned to the tree, that she would have ended up marrying, if Kikyou was still living, and that would have died just like her lover did all the same. Briefly, she imagined her sister and Inuyasha rendezvous-ing in the moments of evening dusk. Certain that no amount of love she would have given to the turned human hanyou would have bound him to her self - of all people - and notched back an arrow aiming it at his heart; but stopped when thinking that she might have hallucinated his ears twitching at the sound of her bow being drawn. Her mind was hazy, but then recalled that it might have been from the sake the night before - or the fact that her village was starving… She had fainted and woken up two nights later in the small cabin that was still hers.

 

Once upon a time, her youth failed her. Gone were the days of beauty, she knew already, but it was this first instance that she had to call on others for their strength. It was the first day she had begun to seriously wonder why Kikyou died and why she was left alone to carry on the responsibilities of maintaining the village, and curing livestock and sick people, and reducing the impact of the diseases and harsh weather that swept through the village from time to time. It was the first time she gave thought to her true destiny… not as a priestess. She knew her occupation better than anyone else did. Her question had been if there was a fateful purpose behind it.

 

Once upon a time, her questions and doubts and everything else in between were finally answered when Kagome fell into their world. And at last, she was able to chuckle at all her foolhardy misplaced thoughts and imaginations and put her own soul at ease. Her purpose? To teach the reincarnated Kikyou everything she had known about the world; to guide her purpose; to witness destiny and fate cross the impossible barrier of time… to witness everything that would give them hope… to witness all manner of things that would grant a future to her village - and many others.

 

Once upon a time, there was time for once-upon-a-times. But now? She had a vision: stay alive for that one girl.

 

 

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