A Very Backward and Pointless Fairytale by naqaashi

A Very Backward and Pointless Fairytale

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

A/N: This is my entry for the Third Round of Tangerine Dream's Second Annual Fanfiction Tournament. My partner is Summerbirdy and our prompt was Heilig (German for sacred/holy). Though I haven't used the original word, I've used the English translations. Please read both our entries before you send your vote to Tangerine Dream! The rules regarding voting can be found here -

http://www.dokuga.com/forum/29-challenges/64798-second-annual-fanfiction-tournament?limit=25

I would like to thank Zandrellia, Velvet Sometimes and Dreamcatcher for their help and input. Especially Zandrellia, who acted as last-minute beta and test reader! ::hugs::

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Let us for a moment, observe the life and times of one Higurashi Kagome, Feudal Era war veteran (when she bothered to fight) – and heroine of this little narrative.

At the age of 19 years and several months, having battled her adolescence away in an epic search for sparkling pink jewel shards, suffering from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and effecting a belated surge of teenage rebellion, Higurashi Kagome decided that she was far too old and worn out to finish high-school.

A respectable and humdrum string of clerkships and salesgirlings and waitressings later, she had to regretfully accept the existence of a fairly large ball of ego and self-importance lurking behind a small, star-shaped scar on her hip. Add to it a rude customer or a demanding boss, and a tantrum, followed by immediate discharge from her duties were imminent.

Fed up with life as a low-wage worker, Kagome wrote to the Agony Aunt in the local newspaper, reflected carefully on the answer, searched every last corner of her soul, and finally did the sensible thing. She went to her mother for advice and a good cry. Mama Higurashi listened carefully, petted her, packed her off to bed and commenced a careful dialogue with Grandpa Higurashi while the subject of their discussion tried not to eavesdrop. Two days later, Kagome awoke to a drastic change in her wardrobe. Folded neatly beside the stacks of swishy skirts and lacy blouses was a brand new set of the red and white robes of a traditional priestess.

After the shock and horror had died down – “I’m never going back to those days again! Ever! You hear me, Mama?” – she settled into the placid, easy, revered life of a modern shrine maiden.

The best thing about this way of life, she decided, was the ample time it provided for leisure. Long, long hours gifted to her each day, to explore the neighbourhood, to climb every tree around her home, to bask in the sunshine on the roof of a distant supply shed, to cuddle her fat old cat and maybe find him a girlfriend, to hunt for curious books in out-of-the-way bookstores, to gossip the afternoons away, guilt-free.

Higurashi Kagome quite liked the freedom to be as lazy as she liked, and oh, she did like. And thus, she passed four long years in increasingly detached contentment, unaware of the dying man and his frantic search for her.

But the woes of Miss Higurashi will have to wait for a few paragraphs. The hero of this story needs some attention now, especially since it’s doubtful if he’ll live to see the end. Besides, one desperate stalker is all a young woman needs at any given time.

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The dying man was not precisely a stalker. The Humble Narrator begs your esteemed pardon (and his too, for fear of a lawsuit or worse, attempted murder) for the misunderstanding. He was merely...desperate. Dying tends to do that to the best of us. In truth, he was a well-travelled, well-read and widely experienced man, albeit a bit of an acquired taste. He had lived in many countries. He hadn’t yet managed to cover South Africa, Mauritius and a fair bit of Central Europe, but he considered that small compensation for the South Pole. Now that had been a beauty of a continent. Vast, cold and empty, save for some very tasty flocks of penguins and the odd polar bear. His only regret had been that he hadn’t been able to bring one back with him as a pet, but he doubted that even polar bears, mighty as they are, are built to withstand high altitude flights of the sort he frequently indulged in.

He never admitted to anyone how much he missed those days. How much more he missed the days before those days. And how very, very much he longed for the days that came even before. It seemed to him, that the longer his past grew, the more he longed for it.

His glory days…if only he had lived them more. Lived them better. There was so much he had yet to do, yet to see.

This was how he spent his days – reminiscing, daydreaming and quietly reliving his best and strongest moments in time – the innocent pleasures of a man at the end of a long, privileged, adventurous life.

It wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Lots more! For a man of his age and experience, it was perhaps a humbling admission, but the thirst for more had always been the core of his very personality. It was what he had loved best about himself, and what he hated most, now. A dying man had no business dreaming impossible dreams. Every night, he would tell himself to stop, to focus on whatever he had left – it couldn’t be too long now and he was out of options – but there were a few things he might be able to fit in. And every morning, he would wake up hungry and thirsty and hopeless, wanting just one more day than he probably had.

He sometimes felt that the mere desire to live would sustain him past his calculated time. His intellect knew better. Still, he never gave up. He had, after numerous trials and tribulations, learned the power of the heart, and now, when all seemed lost, he was willing to trust it more than he trusted himself. After all, this “power of the heart” had always come in handy for the good guys back in the old days. Why should it shun him, then?

And so he lived each day, dying a little more, an edge away from fading into nothingness. A year left…a few months left…a month…a fortnight…a few days, and it would be time to die. But let us not linger too long on this dreary calendar, nor mourn his soul prematurely.

Because finally, when all hope seemed lost and dying was the only intelligent thing to do, Sesshoumaru managed to find Kagome.  

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Observe, Dear Reader, the fateful meeting on which the direction of this story – and the timeline of Sesshoumaru’s life – hinges. If Kagome should…but let us not delve too deeply into nasty predictions. We are dealing with a heroine, not a vamp, and if our heroine should fail to live up to the prescribed standards of goodness and light, then this Humble Narrator will gladly allow you to stage a strike right in the middle of whatever sentence you choose.

Of course, for Kagome to act like a suitable leading lady, she must know of her hero’s existence. They stood at the top of the shrine steps – a blue-eyed holy maiden who had just finished giving some visitors a tour of the shrine grounds and a wrinkled old man, stooped and huffing with the exertion of climbing so many stairs on a hot summer day.

She waved the visitors off, then politely welcomed the new arrival. “Would you like some tea to refresh yourself with, Grandfather?” Privately, she wondered if she would also offer him a towel with which to wipe off the sweat gleaming on his bald pate, but she could already picture her grandfather chasing her round and round the Goshinboku for disrespecting an elder. While she was still debating the pros and cons of that thought, she failed to notice that her visitor had almost bitten her head off.

And this, Dear Reader, is why our lovely heroine spent the better part of her adventures in the past playing the damsel in distress – zero presence of mind when a mind is sorely needed.   

Still, something must have caught the edge of her consciousness, for she presently started out of her anti-sweat rant and focused once again on her ancient visitor. For some reason, she thought to herself, he was looking extremely ill-tempered just then. “Forgive me, Grandfather, my mind wandered. How may I help you?”

“Refer to this Sesshoumaru as Grandfather again, wench, and I will slice your tongue out.” Not a very auspicious beginning to a romance, but let us focus on saving his life first. A dying man is permitted a few tantrums, after all. Then he shall duly be inducted to charm school, where he may perhaps learn the art of polite conversation. In the meantime, our heroine has had enough time to practice her imitation of a bamboozled goldfish. Hark at her staring eyes! The fishy motion of her speechless mouth! The dread and disbelief in her trembling hands! The sudden whirring of the cogs in her brain as she reaches out with the sacred energy resting in her soul and confirms our hero’s identity – and remaining lifespan.

This is a bad dream. A very bad dream. This cannot be happening. I thought they were all dead! I thought everyone died! She finally voiced her thoughts aloud. “I thought you were all dead! That there were no demons in this godforsaken time…I really thought…and what in the name of all that’s holy happened to you?”

Sesshoumaru snorted. An old, bitter snort. “They are all dead, priestess. This Sesshoumaru too, thought…has in fact prepared for death.”

Kagome clutched at her throat, horrified and tentatively understanding. “You’ve come to say goodbye? To tell me their stories before you….?” She couldn’t finish the awful thought, even though this old, ugly demon looked nothing like he used to, and even when he was prettier than her, he hadn’t meant more than a passing thought and fearful shudder to her.

At this point the observant Reader may notice the strange transformation of our protagonists. As Kagome grew sorrowful and pitiful, Sesshoumaru’s aged eyes were blazing gold once again. The cynical Reader will perhaps scowl at the obvious inference – was the demon leeching the young woman’s energy to foster his own life? But it was merely the rise of hope in his eyes, you may be assured – it is only vampires that need another being’s essence to live.

Demons – ah, demons merely need the power of belief. Or so Sesshoumaru informed Kagome when she gasped at the vitality resurfacing in his eyes.

Let Kagome lend her voice to our collective realization. “So…J.M. Barrie was taking inspiration from demons when he wrote about Tinkerbell?”

Sesshoumaru snorted in offended agreement.

“Ergo,” Kagome continued, grief all but forgotten in the wake of this fascinating discovery, “you have fairy wings?”

Sesshoumaru did almost bite her head off again, but decided in the interest of a long, long life to be gained, that he had better leave her alive and fully conscious.

And now, Dear Reader, let us discreetly turn our eyes and ears the other way, as out unlikely pair begin the long journey to eternity together. The astute Reader will correctly infer from the pointed mention of “together” that at some point Sesshoumaru decided to simply mate Kagome for sheer convenience’s sake (and any more tender feelings will never be admitted to, no matter how much they may be demonstrated inside the bedroom). The excessively curious Reader may indulge in a few peeks between the curtains now and then, but the Humble Narrator preserves a reputation of respectability and has no desire for yet another lawsuit and/or assassination attempt, so she will gracefully take her leave with a last nod of approval for our heroine’s utter lack of intelligence.

Thank heaven for the arbitary law of happy endings, don’t you think so?

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