Endless Intermezzo by Minerva (Oneshot, Interlude)
Title: Endless Intermezzo
Author: minerva_one
Theme: Interlude, Oneshot
Genre: drama
Rating: G
Warnings: Ghosts and angst
Word Count: 1862
Summary: Five hundred years of wandering. Five hundred years of meaningless conversations. Five hundred years without flower chains and bright laughter. Five hundred years of a plaintive kokyu haunting his dreams.
Author's Note: A kokyu is a traditional Japanese stringed instrument, played with a bow. You can read more informationhere, and listen to a sample here (click on the white dots).
Endless Intermezzo
Sesshoumaru stood silent in the branches of the winter trees, their limbs were black and naked after a harsh winter. His white silk hakama rustled in the frigid breeze and a full moon hung low in the sky, dappled with spots of gray. Distant mountain peaks shone bright with heavy snow, yet the scent of the approaching spring thaw whispered on the wind.
A high wind sharp with the scent of nearby human habitation gusted around him, sending his long hair tangling into the thin branches that seemed to reach towards him, clinging and desperate. Owls called out softly in the dark distance, and he leaned back against the trunk with eyes closed and face turned towards the moon.
Three incense sticks burned steady on silent gravestone below, now freshly cleaned of winter detritus.
He had not intended to come back here again.
Rin was dead - gone and dead and nothing more than a pile of ash within the frozen earth. She had lived her time, brief as it was.
Once when he was very young, a dark and overgrown corner of his family grounds had grabbed his curiosity. One hazy summer afternoon he snuck away unnoticed, intent on exploring the shade and quiet. There in the tranquil, dappled sunlight stood several small stone monuments hidden beneath years of neglect, overgrown with weeds.
He had knelt down and began to pull away handfuls of greenery from the stones, brushing away dirt from the simple inscriptions. His mother found him then, hands filthy and claws caked with mud, grass stains upon a new kimono. Her eyes flashed, and she scolded him that the living would best spend their own time doing anything other than fawning of the graves of the dead - especially long dead humans. “The dead are dead,” she said, “Nothing more than food for worms - only the living matter.”
Tenseiga vibrated slightly, the steel ringing low in remembrance. Sesshoumaru breathed in the sweet smell of offerings. The night was quiet and still.
As foolish as it may be to fuss over the dead, he was certainly not his mother’s son. He was a daiyoukai, and he would visit Rin’s grave.
Only this once though, he told himself - only this once and then there would be no more time wasted on things that could not be changed.
Just this once.
He leaned against the trunk of the tree, eyes closed and adrift in the land between wakefulness and sleep. The breeze died down, the air settling into a calm stillness.
In the midst of the quiet, the sound of someone playing a kokyu drifted up from a distance…a hollow and lonely cry that drifted through the night like a wisp of burning incense. Sesshoumaru opened his golden eyes, scanning the silvered landscape for signs of intruders. His senses told him he was alone, but yet the music continued.
A song of full of lament and sadness emerged from simple strings, pulled into life with the tug of a horsehair bow.
Tenseiga hitched and hummed soft, while Bakusaiga trembled.
The melody whispered of the emptiness and longing of one waiting eternal, and without knowing why, he leaped down from his perch and followed the song on the wind. He could smell nothing unusual as he threaded alone through deep and shadowed forests.
The forest gave way to an open clearing, ringed with large monuments to the dead. Beside a simple and plain headstone sat a young human woman with the kokyu that called him here. She wore a simple dark kimono and long dark hair covered her face.
Rin, he thought at first.
But he blinked. And no, it was not Rin. Just a girl in a simple kimono, eyes hidden in shadow.
She never looked over at him, and instead began to sing. Her song was of a warrior lost in a distant battle while his lover waited eternal for him to return home again, unfailing in her loyalty even in the face of insurmountable odds. Each day the warrior’s lover waited for him at the clearing where they had shared their first kiss, playing her kokyu to guide him home.
Sesshoumaru stood transfixed. The melancholy ache of the strings anchored his feet to the earth as her song rang through the hollow silence, seeping into his heart.
Hours may have passed, or just minutes - he lost track. The morning birds began to rustle in their nest and begin their chirps as the eastern sky brightened, and the young woman finished her song.
He opened his eyes, although could not remember closing them, only to find himself alone in the clearing and the echo of her song still ringing in his ears. Walking over to the grave she had set upon, he could smell nothing but decay and wet earth.
With the rising of the sun, Sesshoumaru turned his back to the graveyard and headed into the west.
**********
Five hundred years passed.
Five hundred years of wandering.
Five hundred years of meaningless conversations.
Five hundred years without flower chains and bright laughter.
Five hundred years of a plaintive kokyu haunting his dreams.
**********
He hadn’t intended to go back again, but one year after his first encounter with the strange girl, he found his feet pulling him back to the shadowed forests. Just once more, he had said. Just once more to see if it was all a dream.
But it wasn’t a dream.
And now year after year they repeated their ritual. Each year for five hundred years the memory of her song drew him back to the land of his birth as the last full moon of winter hung low in the sky.
Sesshoumaru stood silent in the branches of the winter trees, their limbs were black and naked after a harsh winter. His Italian jacket rustled in the frigid breeze and the city surrounded him and the small graveyard, now hidden within the boundaries of a shrine.
Incense smoke drifted upwards to heaven in lazy spirals and the wind stilled. The sound of sadness began to echo through the forest. And for the five hundredth time he found her once again, sitting in the same spot as before, playing her song in the moonlight.
**********
Kagome sat alone at her bedroom desk; the curtains open as the moonlight streamed through the panes, spilling gray shadows across the floor. No homework lay piled on the desk’s surface, and no overstuffed yellow backpacks took up space on her floor. She sat with her knees curled up to her chest, and stared at the night sky, remembering silver hair and red fire rat fur.
Only this once she would let herself remember the past, she thought. Only this once she would allow herself to think of the friends left behind - the ones who knew her the best.
Only this once.
She closed her eyes, face turned towards the moon. The air stilled and a distant, haunting melody drifted in, muffled from the outside. Kagome slowly opened her eyes. A song full of loneliness and lament tugged at her heart, whispering of remembrances past.
Pulling on shoes and her coat, Kagome quietly slipped outside of her house. Down through dark and shadowed streets where the sidewalk gave way to a small grove of trees in the courtyard of a neighboring shrine. As she walked closed, she could see the remains of a very old graveyard, still carefully tended.
An elderly miko stood at the edge of the gravestones. She was thin and fragile, with her gray hair pulled up into a tight bun. On the ground before her sat multiple sticks of incense along with two lit lanterns.
The old miko paused in her supplications and turned towards Kagome. Her eyes were bright even in the dim light. She motioned Kagome over, patting the ground next to her.
“You’re just in time,” she said, motioning to the headstones.
“In time for what?” Kagome replied.
“You’re just in time to see the ghost.”
“Ghost?”
The miko smiled. “Oh yes. She appears on the same night each year. Legend says the she plays a song on her kokyu to guide her lover home. But he died before he could return to her embrace, and now she draws in the lost and lonely to her with only a song they can hear.”
The old woman paused, craning her neck towards the small grove. “She’s here,” she whispered.
Kagome looked to the darkness, and saw a young woman clad in a dark kimono sitting upon one of the headstones, drawing a sad song out of her kokyu.
A sudden, quick breeze stirred the calm air, sending the smoke of the incense scattering to the heavens - but there was also the familiar pressure of youki. Kagome turned and saw him, standing like a ghost himself in the darkness - long silver hair gently swaying with each movement, pale skin luminescent in the moonlight. He was dressed in simple khakis and a dark jacket. Sesshoumaru stared at her, golden eyes flashing in the light of the lanterns.
“You can hear her, can’t you,” Kagome asked. He nodded his head slightly. She smiled up at him. “It’s all right. I can hear her too.”
The girl’s song faded away, and Kagome and Sesshoumaru looked over, finding nothing but an empty headstone. “Where did she go?” Kagome asked.
The old miko picked up the lanterns and slowly rose to her feet. “Perhaps there are no longer any lost souls here for her to play for,” she said, turning towards the house with a quiet shuffling along the stonework.
A bird began to chirp in the distance, and the eastern sky grew light with the coming dawn. Kagome looked up at Sesshoumaru. “Would you like to get some breakfast?”
He glanced over at the empty headstone and then back to her, nodding once. “Yes,” he said as Tenseiga thrummed and Bakusaiga trembled in anticipation.