InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Well in the Forest ❯ Prologue: The Rose ( Prologue )

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or anything in relation to the Brother's Grimm and their amazing Fairy Tales.

 

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The Well in the Forest

Prologue: The Rose

By: HayleyM425

 

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There was once a woman who had two beautiful children, a little girl named Kagome and a little boy named Souta. Everyday, the woman would wake at dawn to help her father prepare the shrine for the day's visitors, as well as help carry out the duties required for a respectable Shinto Shrine.

 

However, one morning, while the woman was sweeping, she heard a racket emerge from the small building to the side of the main house of the shrine that housed an old wooden well. Setting her duties aside for the moment out of curiosity, she approached the small structure and stood in front of the shut doors to listen carefully. Hearing another soft sound emerge from behind the worn wooden doors, she reached forward and opened them to enter the dark room. With the rising sun lighting the inside of the shielded and stale aired room, the woman cautiously entered to only find that nothing was out of the ordinary.

 

Satisfied that everything was in order, the woman shut the doors only to hear a small scuffling sound once again emerge from behind the doors. The woman at this point was determined to discover the sound of the noise and turned around to once again open the doors, only this time, something was different.

 

A young woman, who appeared to be no older than 25 sat calmly on the rim of the wooden well, with a soft smile on her face and a single white rose-bud in her hand. The woman with the rose wore an armored kimono that was a rich purple color with a long sword attached to her waist.

 

The mother of two stared at the woman with the rose in curiosity and opened her mouth to question the younger woman about why she was there, but the young warrior was quick to silence her.

 

“I do not have time to explain to you the purpose of my visit. I have simply been sent to deliver to you a message that will affect your young daughter who has yet to even reach her 5th summer,” the young warrior stated, standing up from her seat on the wells edge to approach the mother standing in surprise in the doorway.

 

“Kagome? What does this have to do with my daughter?”

 

“At the moment, the importance of an explanation is not as heavy as my debt to time. Even as I speak, the pressure is beginning to crush my resolve, and I must ask you to simply be silent and hear my message that I have been sent to give you.”

 

Having finally reached the mother, the warrior woman dressed in purple presented her with the small white rosebud. When the mother reached out and took the small bud into her possession, the woman stepped back and nodded.

 

“The bud you hold in your hand is now to represent the burden of time that I have carried for many years and have now passed on to your daughter. For when the rose fully blooms, your daughter will be faced with a darkness that will fill her mind with light. Before her will then lay a journey of inexplicable joy and sorrow, that will show her a world deemed unreachable by the Gods, and will instill in her an enlightenment that will either haunt her or cause her to never want to return home.”

 

The mother stared in shock and horror at the young woman before her.

 

“Have you just cursed…why are you doing…”

 

“My time is up. Place the bud in water and wait for it to bloom. I fear that if you do not, time will punish you in its mysterious way. I am sorry to do this, but the only thing I can say to you is to not fear this as a curse, but as a blessing, and to make every moment with your beloved daughter one that warms both of your hearts.”

 

With those final words, the young woman wearing the armored kimono, with a sword strapped to her waist, a presented a calm and saddened image of purple, stepped away from the mother to approach the well. Placing her hands on the rim, she gave a deep breath before heaving herself over the edge and into the darkness that would one day consume the young girl known as Kagome.

 

The mother immediately followed the strange woman's orders and placed the rosebud in a vase of water on her highest shelf to protect it from her young children. While fearing the meaning behind the stranger's words, she decided to make the time with her daughter count and spent the following years bestowing her daughter with all the love that she was capable of giving.

 

As the years passed, her daughter Kagome grew into a beautiful and mysterious young woman who was compassionate, trusting, loving, fierce, and protective. She was an excellent student who was at the top of her class, who spent her free time helping her mother and aging grandfather take care of the family shrine, and absolutely adored her younger brother Souta. Her family was her world, her life. She was adored and respected by her peers. She was the image of serenity and love. She was also a young woman, who had never heard the story of the young warrior who had given her mother a rosebud that represented her future.

 

The woman who had once stood in the morning light sweeping the shrine steps and accepted the rosebud that represented her daughters' destiny could never erase the fear in her heart about when the small rosebud would finally bloom and essentially steal the time with her daughter away from her into a destiny unknown. It cut her deeply that even though she loved her family and her children with all her heart, and prayed to the Gods every day, that there was no way that she could protect her daughter from a fate that she feared would essentially destroy her daughter.

 

On the morning of Kagome's 18th birthday, the hope that had begun to slowly bloom inside the mother's heart that the warrior and the rose was all just a horrible dream was destroyed as she headed downstairs in the early morning light.

 

For on the shelf…

 

Settled above the couch and family photos…

 

Was a simple vase…

 

Filled with water…

 

Cradling the stem of a perfectly bloomed white rose.

 

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