InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Short Tails ❯ A Simple Prayer ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: None of them are mine.

 

A/N: This ones a lot longer than 100 words, but I felt it was too short to be by itself. I know it's been done before, but… Oh, well.

 

 

A Simple Prayer

 

 

She walked with a steady measured stride into the clearing that held so many memories and gazed, as she had every year since that dreadful day, upon the face of the being she once believed had caused so much pain and heartbreak. She raised a withered hand and placed it lightly on one of the many roots that had grown up to support his weight.

 

“Another year has passed,” she croaked in a voice roughened by age. She reflected briefly on another time, when her voice, like her body, had been vibrant and strong and it had rung loudly in the silent clearing as she sobbed and raged at him for taking away her life, and then later, railed at him for being fooled and begged forgiveness for the one who had rendered him thus. “Yes, my young friend, another year, and the only one of us to change is me.”

 

She knew that he would not answer her, but fancied that she could almost hear him scoff. Chuckling at the foolishness of old women, she turned her gaze to the arrow that held him suspended and sighed. “It has been a long time since I blamed you for all of this, did you know that? It is true what they say, that age does impart wisdom and knowledge and as I have grown old, I have found the truth. I can only wish that she had been able to find it as well.”

 

She stood silently for most of the afternoon and watched as the light breeze played with his silver hair and rustled the leaves of the tree to which he was pinned. No other words passed from her lips, but then, none were truly needed. She had said it all before, and her only regret was that she would not ever be able to tell him in person all that she had learned of his murderer.

 

As the old priestess turned to make her way back to her duties, she reflected that her pilgrimage was short this year. Old bone made it a difficult journey to make at the best of times, and this year she could not shake the feelings of remorse that had overtaken her when she first glimpsed him.

 

At the edge of the clearing that held the old tree, she stopped and turned slightly. “My one prayer for you, dear friend, is that someday our spirit can forgive you as I have and you will be freed of this curse. Until then, I pledge you, I will guard you as my own, as those who shunned you should have so long ago.”

 

The old woman straightened and resumed her journey back to the village, just missing the light that bloomed in another clearing not far from where she recently stood, and so, unaware that the cycle was beginning again and her prayer would soon be answered.