Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or its characters. Say hello to the very talented Rumiko Takahashi who owns him and the entire cast. Hello Rumiko Takahashi. Hehehe!
By: year of the snake (at fanfiction) (aka.) crescentmoon (at mediaminer) And now Opal-Dreams on DeviantArt and Dokuga.
Winter: Rag Doll
Kagome slipped down onto a nearby decaying tree. Her breath puffed up like a cloudy soul. She picked briefly at a moth hole at the hem of her newest clothes, a hand-me-down kimono from the closet of an old friend of Sango's. The girl was going to be married in it before the village was destroyed years ago.
Just three days ago they had returned to Sango's village to visit Midoriko's grave. The village was quiet, desolate, a ghost town if the shivers on Kagome's back were to be believed. So many people had lived their entire live here, and now the smallest noise disturbed the sanctity of the crumbly huts.
Even Shippo had become muted and haunted by the easy, deep rooted calm wafting from every corner.
Kagome had had to get out of the village wall for a while. It was disturbing her senses, clouding them. The kimono reminded her of the proof of it.
Earlier that very day a demon jumped over the wall and had snuck up behind her. Kagome didn't even know what happened after it touched her. All she could recall was waking up to Miroku patting her cheeks, trying to wake her, and Shippo doing his best to pull poisoned barbs out of her skin with a giant pair of chop-sticks. Vaguely she could hear Inuyasha somewhere nearby shouting at something he could only be fighting, that's what she gathered from the sound of it at least.
Apparently the demon had jumbled a barbed cocoon around her to absorb her spiritual life-force. It fed on spiritual life-force to keep itself young.
Her clothes unfortunately would only be suitable as scraps now. So Sango found this Kimono for her. She acted as grateful as she could, it wasn't really hard to lie about it. Still as she played with that moth-hole she went back in time... back into her own past that is.
When she was little folks would drop off their old clothes that they didn't want anymore at the shrine. Then the shrine keeper, aka. her grandfather would give them to those who needed them. Unfortunately that someone was often her and her brother. Her brother has always been okay with it, boys wear out clothes so fast that no one would really notice that he was wearing hand-me-downs, but the little girls at her first school did. They'd tease her, especially Airi. Airi was an exceptionally tall girl for the class, her African father's blood kicking in, and so many of the hand-me-downs that Kagome wore were things that Airi had worn before.
Now Kagome knew that Airi was just dealing with some pain or other, perhaps from her skin color, which Kagome thought was like a beautiful, chocolate covered pastry. She had always smelt like pastries too, living above a bakery does that.
Still that was a hard time for Kagome, her dad had died the year before, they'd had to move in with her grandfather, she had just started her school career and she was teased for wearing hand-me-downs to boot. Perhaps that's why she always wore her school uniform even when she was in Feudal Japan, school uniforms made the need to feel ashamed of her clothes vanish. They were also the first clothes that her mother had bought her since before her father died, mind you she attends a different school now so she has a different uniform. That and most of her closet is still full of hand-me-downs.
She poked at a patched moth-hole above her sternum. The fabric was from the skirt of her uniform. It clashed terribly with the dark pink and red checked kimono. But it made her smile. Sango had patched it for her so she could wear it. So she would smile and not let it's hand-me-down status get to her.
Sesshoumaru was being lethargic after a long time of stamina flying when he heard an unhappy huff and a soft thump below his resting tree. He was seated near the top so it was no wonder he wasn't seen.
He looked down from his great hight but all he could see was a rag doll that was slumped in a sad pose. He watched her as she fiddled with her kimono and let her mind wander. He didn't care to have a human's stench invade his solitude so he didn't breathe in though his nose, no one could see him, so it never happened. Still the sight was pretty in a melancholy way. It certainly fit the place.
So when she looked up at the sky between the branches and stretched he was surprised. 'Inuyasha's little human girl... how odd.'
Then the girl walked away, toward a dilapidated wall.
AN: Here is the first chapter, this story is one that will skip months, so you will have one entry for each season in a seasonal year. Remember much can happen between the little parts of the year that you are seeing. Also, you may be interested to know that along with the seasonal prompt I used songs from the popular singing group of the 60's, The Four Seasons (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons). This one uses Rag Doll. Look it up, if you so desire.