InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Returning Home ❯ Sing A Little Song For Me ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha or any characters there in. Nor do I own "Under The Bridge" I forget the artist but I think it's U2, "With or Without You" by U2, "Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)" by Styx, "Red Door" by The Rolling Stones or "Weave Me the Sunshine" from Puff the Magic Dragon.

Chapter 5: Sing A Little Song For Me

It wasn't long before they reached the place that the strange white girl had spoken of. It wasn't much of a cave, more like a deep dent in the side of the mountain. But it was deep enough to cover them all comfortably, and had a dry, sandy floor. The narrow path that they were following passed directly in front of it, only a few feet out.

"There it is." The girl turned to walk backwards and made a graceful, twirly gesture at it with her hand and arm, a bright smile on her pristine face.

"Is it ok if I hate you?" Kagome asked in a matter of fact way.

"Sure," She chirped, "but it would be more profitable to learn from me. You guys set up camp and us girls can go take that bath."

"Why the hell would we listen to you?" InuYasha growled.

"I'm going to get a bath, InuYasha." Kagome said dangerously, "I'm tired, I'm bruised and I think I still have blood in my hair. So just keep Miroku and Shippo here."

"Keh!" InuYasha folded his arms and turned away, "But if that girl turns out to be a hungry youkai, you're on your own bitch."

Kagome didn't respond. She just took her bag and followed the girl into the woods.

*

"This is the stream I told you about." The white girl said, "It feeds into the larger river just past the village. So, when you leave you can follow this back to the river road." She paused and walked towards a wall of clumsily strewn rocks and small boulders, "And this is the pool I was telling you about. It's perfect for bathing."

She jumped up to the top of the tallest boulder, boots propped up on the next rock down, and looked across the river.

"Aren't you going to join us?" Sango asked looking up at the strange girl.

"Not really into the whole `group thing'." She said distractedly, "Shy I guess. Besides, someone should keep watch."

Kagome was already in the water, running her fingers through her wet hair. Sango joined her with a nervous look at the strange girl on the rock.

"Are you sure we should follow this… girl so trustingly Kagome?" Sango whispered to her, we don't even know her name."

Kagome looked at Sango for a minute then turned to the rock, "What's your name?" she asked loudly.

The white girl looked down at them, "Why?"

"We like to know the names of people we meet here, it's friendly." Kagome answered, she was reminded momentarily of conversations she had had with InuYasha near the beginning of their journeys. They happened far less often now.

A short pause, "Would the others like to know?"

"Probably."

"Then I'll wait." She was still looking at them, a slight smile returned to her face, "You are so beautiful, so many colors."

Kagome looked down at herself to make sure that she wasn't showing more then she intended but both her and Sango were sufficiently submerged.

"I'm the same all over." She continued, "You probably don't notice the difference between your cheek bone and your jaw, or neck. Or how many shades of black there actually are in your hair…" she turned back to gaze at the river. "Somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly" she sang briefly and became silent for a while.

"Why do you sing?" Sango braved.

The girl blinked, "Was I singing? That's… complicated. I hear songs in my mind. That's why all of us sing. It just shows up, sort of defining our lives. One of my friends once wondered how we would know how to feel if the music stopped. It disturbed my other friends so much they didn't talk to her for a week! I did though. I didn't want her to start listening to the voices again."

"Voices? Like songs?" Kagome said hopefully.

"Nope, voices that tell her to do things. She's feeling much better now though." She smirked at Kagome's shocked face, "There is a theory that everything that has ever been, or will be said or thought or sung or played is floating around just above our heads. Just out of reach. Unless you line up the proper thoughts together in your mind, building what you have into a sort of idea net to catch the next logical step in the line. That's why you look up when you think. Or so the theory goes.

"It is also thought that any original ideas also go there, where it becomes is-was-will be. In this slurry of ideas resides all the songs and tunes that ever was, is or will be conceived. That is where we get them."

"But why can you hear them and not us?" Kagome asked resting her head on her arms that were crossed on the edge of the pool.

"It's a long story. It starts with the three tribes of the canine winds, that disappeared thousands of years ago when a great interplanal war started. They… knew things. Great things. We know one tribe, they followed the dog wind and learned all about the spirit. When they did, they seem too have shed most of their physical bodies and became the warriors of the greater good. We call them glimmer men.

"The second learned to hear the whispering of the wolf wind, they… understood the answers and found the proper questions. They gained all knowledge of the earth. The uses of herbs and the body, things like that. They love all that is life. They became sustainers of the greater good. To us they are known as the Sisters of Light and Life.

"The third followed the fox wind. They loved fun, they sang and danced and played pranks. They learned of the stuff of life; love, hate, motivation, indifference. They learned of flesh and bone and humors. And … something else. They became the guardians of the gate to the battlefield. My people don't know what happened to them."

She grew silent and looked at her hands. "You know how when someone gets scared, I mean really freaked out, that their hair can turn white… It is said that that is what happened to our ancestors. They learned something, or were exposed to something, that scared them so bad they lost all their color. And we lost that part of our memory." She looked back to the girls finishing their bath below her. "I guess you're wondering why I told all this to you? We hear the songs because we know something, we just don't know what it is. The songs come to us because we are all insane, in different ways, in varying degrees."

"You're insane?" Kagome asked, shocked.

"What color are my eyes." She looked at her with her eyes wide.

"Blue." Sango said.

The girl smiled, "Then I'm alright. I dealt with my ghosts a long time ago. We all know something that is hidden behind that insanity. One man thinks that finding our humanity again, seeing past the barriers of our insanity, will restore us our proper knowledge and purpose."

"Guarding the gate?" Kagome asked softly.

The girl shrugged, "Get dressed, it's time we ate."

*

The girl led them back to the camp in silence. The afternoon was aging fast and they were all hungry. The men were preparing the rabbits that InuYasha and Shippo had caught when the girls reached the camp site.

"It will be a while, if you want it cooked." InuYasha grumped, without looking up at them.

Kagome sighed, "I think we can wait InuYasha."

The girl looked around at the exhausted group and felt the tension. The music in her mind was wild and unharmonious. This had to change, eating on this mood would only cause upset stomachs.

"How about some tea?" she suggested happily as she began rummaging through her pack, "I have some of my stuff in here. It's an herb from my home, known for its ability to relax the body and rejuvenate the spirit."

"Where do you come from? If you don't mind my asking." Miroku asked mildly from where he was sitting, back against the cave mouth.

"Near Paris, I think." She puttered around the fire, expertly avoiding cooking rabbit and Sango (who had taken over the cooking of the rabbit) while preparing the tea, "But the city doesn't really exist as you would think of it. It's nearly impossible to get there unless you know where you are going. Just like the others…"

"Paris?" Kagome said surprised.

"Others?" Miroku prodded.

"Lots of others, mysterious others. More long stories that aren't worth telling right now." She smiled as she poured the tea into porcelain cups that she had in her pack, "Paris is a city. I've never been there myself, but it's far away from here."

"Um, you told us that you would tell us your name once we returned." Sango spoke up bashfully; it was strange to address a person when you didn't know their name.

"Right," she handed Sango a cup of her tea, "you first."

"My name is Sango." Sango said as she accepted the cup.

The girl nodded and moved on to InuYasha, offering him a cup.

"InuYasha." He said shortly and scowled suspiciously at the offered tea.

"InuYasha! Don't be rude!" Kagome scolded from the other side of the circle.

"Keh." InuYasha took the cup, but didn't seem willing to drink it yet.

The girl moved on to Miroku.

"Thank you. I am called Miroku." He accepted the tea graciously.

She nodded and handed Shippo a cup.

"I'm Shippo!

The girl nodded again and moved on to Kagome.

"My name is Kagome Higurashi." She smiled brightly at the other girl and took the offered cup, "Thank you."

The girl took her cup and sat between Kagome and Sango. She sipped the tea and looked up at the group again, "Names are very important to my people and the people that are with us in that place that sort of doesn't exist. They hold power for us and over us. Where I come from names are given as our songs change. Usually they have meanings within the songs that speak to us alone. But the name that they know me by is far too… shallow, I guess. So I'll tell you the name I was born with, before I had any songs." She paused and watched the group sipping her tea, even InuYasha was trying it since she drank some, "Actually it's because I'm a flower weaver. I was named after the magical flower that the tea is made from. It grew in my footsteps when I was truly happy and only lived for an hour, so you had to be fast to get some. Then again, they were my footsteps…" she took another drink and shrugged, "My name is Mary Jane."

Kagome started and gave the tea a wary look.

Mary Jane saw this and laughed, she shook her head and said, "Not the same thing."

"What?" InuYasha asked, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Nothing," Mary Jane shook her head again, "As far as I know that name is only used for the magical herb that I grow. Well, for now anyway." she frowned thoughtfully.

The group sipped the tea and relaxed to the smell and sound of the cooking rabbits. When the rabbits where prepared, and Kagome fixed InuYasha some ramen to supplement his portion, they ate in comfortable relaxed silence.

As the sun set Shippo grew restless again, a child can only stand so much silence.

"Hey, Mary Jane!" He hopped over to her, causing her to look down at him as he put his tiny hands on one of her knees, "Sing another song."

"…I have a few running through my mind that I wouldn't mind getting out, but…" she looked around, "I'm not sure how personal they would be. I don't know who they belong to."

"I think it would be interesting to see what meaning we could get out of the songs." Miroku suggested giving an openly interested look to Mary Jane.

"You just think that because she's already done you." InuYasha growled.

"I'll sing." Mary Jane smiled mildly at InuYasha, "I'll start with me."

She closed her eyes and felt the tune rising in her body, and the words creep into her mind. She opened her mouth and sang deep and slow.

"Sometimes I feel

Like I don't have a partner

Sometimes I feel

Like my only friend

Is the city I live in

The city of cities

Lonely as I am

Together we cry

I drive on her streets 'Cause she's my companion

I walk through her fields 'Cause she knows who I am

It's hard to believe

That there's nobody out there

It's hard to believe

That I'm all alone

At least I have her love

The city she loves me

Lonely as I am

Together we cry"

Mary Jane opened her eyes and blinked a few times, "It's changed. Must be my failure to find my humanity."

"Don't you have anything… happy?" Shippo asked. During the song he had moved to Kagome's knee.

"With this group?" Mary Jane smiled sardonically.

"Who's next?" Kagome asked nervously. She, along with everyone else except InuYasha, was curious as to what song she would sing next.

Mary Jane glanced at Kagome and turned her gaze to the fire. She sang with a similar sad serene voice.

"See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you
Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails he makes me wait
And I wait....without you

With or without you
With or without you

Through the storm we reach the shore
I give it all but you want more
And I'm waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And I give
And I give myself away

My hands are tied
My body bruised, she's got me with
Nothing left to win
And nothing else to lose

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you"

Her voice faded away a slight complementing reverberation coming from the cave walls behind the group.

"… That's Kagome isn't it?" Shippo looked at the singer sadly.

"Shippo!" Kagome jumped, she had forgotten about him, "Maybe you should go to bed-"

"Why? I know what goes on around here Kagome!" He pouted angrily, "I know about everyone's hurts and happiness. So… I'm staying up. Besides she hasn't done me yet." He sat down on the ground and crossed his arms, the very picture of InuYasha when he pouted.

Kagome blinked at him, "A-alright Shippo, I'm sorry. You're right, you can stay. But no jokes."

"I wouldn't do that. Not now, anyway." Shippo glared into the fire.

Mary Jane sighed, "Should I continue?"

Everyone nodded reluctantly, except InuYasha. He was thinking about the song that Shippo thought was Kagome's. But he came back to the present when Mary Jane started to sing again. Her pitch was higher this time, her head tilted back as if she were singing to the tree top

"You see the world thru your cynical eyes
You're a troubled young man I can tell
You've got it all in the palm of your hand
But your hand's wet with a sweat
And you head needs a rest

And you're fooling yourself
If you don't believe it
You're kidding yourself
If you don't believe it

Why must you be such an angry young man
When your future looks quite bright to me
How can there be such a sinister plan
That could hide such a lamb
Such a caring young man

And you're fooling yourself
If you don't believe it
You're killing yourself
If you don't believe it

Get up, get up, get back on your feet
You're the one they can't beat
And you know it
Come on, come on let's see what you've got
Just take your best shot and don't blow it, Oh-"

The singer choked on the words and coughed for a few minutes.

"Any bets on who that was?" Shippo commented sarcastically.

"I don't know, Shippo." Miroku held back a smile, "I would never refer to … whoever that song refers to, as a caring lamb."

"Shut up!" InuYasha barked and started to stand.

"Stop it! All of you!" Kagome silenced the males with a withering stare, "and whoever it is can be very sweet, when he wants to be."

"That's all of him I'm singing right now, I don't want to get into that mess, I'm depressed enough already." Mary Jane patted her chest delicately. She was a little disturbed that she couldn't get past the third person with InuYasha, but he was well guarded and closed. And she didn't want to push him. "Let's try someone else."

Once again she closed her eyes and let the music take her. Her head tilted down a little and her voice came out somber with a quivering caused by repressed rage that faded into repressed inconsolable grief and back again in waves.

"I see a red door and I want it painted black.

No colors anymore I want them painted black.

I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes.

I have to turn my head until my darkness goes.

I see a temple's stairs and they're all painted black.

With flowers and my love both never to come back.

I see people turn their heads and quickly look away.

Like a newborn baby it just happens every day.

I look inside myself and see my heart is black.

I see my red door I must have it painted black.

Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts.

It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black.

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue.

I could not foresee this happening to you.

If I look hard enough into the setting sun.

My love will laugh with me before the morning comes.

I see a red door and I want it painted black

No colors anymore I want them to turn black.

I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes.

I have to turn my head until my darkness goes."

"…That's just disturbing." Shippo said after a few minutes of silence.

Sango stood quietly and moved quickly into the cave and lay down on her bedroll with her face to the wall.

"Well that was fun." InuYasha stood up as well, "after the next battle we should just pour salt in our wounds, it would take less time."

"Sorry, I can only sing what I hear." Mary Jane watched as the group prepared for sleep.

InuYasha jumped into the trees around the cave and disappeared. Kagome disappeared into the trees on the other side carrying a small bag and Shippo.

Miroku leaned back against the cave wall near the mouth and secured the staff. Mary Jane got up and prepared her own bedroll.

"You never did me." Shippo's small voice came up from behind her.

"You still want me to?"

He nodded slowly and sat down next to her. She sighed and closed her eyes. Her voice was forlorn and sweet with hope as she sang gently.

"Weave, weave, weave me the sunshine out of the falling rain.
Weave me the hope of a new tomorrow and fill my cup again.

Well, I've seen the steel and the concrete crumble, shine on me again.
The proud and the mighty, all have stumbled, shine on me again.

Weave, weave, weave me the sunshine out of the falling rain.
Weave me the hope of a new tomorrow and fill my cup again.

They say that the tree of loving, shine on me again,
grows on the bank of the river of suffering, shine on me again.

Weave, weave, weave me the sunshine out of the falling rain.
Weave me the hope of a new tomorrow and fill my cup again.

If only I could heal your sorrow, shine on me, again,
I'd help you to find your new tomorrow, shine on me again.

Weave, weave, weave me the sunshine out of the falling rain.
Weave me the hope of a new tomorrow and fill my cup again.

Well, I've seen the steel and the concrete crumble, shine on me again.
The proud and the mighty, all have stumbled, shine on me again.

Weave, weave, weave me the sunshine out of the falling rain.
Weave me the hope of a new tomorrow and fill my cup again.

Only you can climb that mountain, shine on me gain,
If you want to drink from the golden fountain, shine on me again

Weave, weave, weave me the sunshine out of the falling rain.
Weave me the hope of a new tomorrow and fill my cup again."

Everyone was looking at them from their beds, silently. Shippo stood up and hugged Mary Jane.

"Thank you Mary Jane." He released her and scuttled back to Kagome to sleep.

*

AN: I guess the mystery race remains a mystery… for now. Although you know more about them then you need to… for now (heh heh heh). The following thing? Kagome senses a kindred spirit. Mary Jane gets what she wants from men on her terms, and she doesn't know who, or what, she is right now. Sound familiar?

Come on people review!