Wandering to White by Jackthekipper

As we wander to our ways

AUTHORS NOTE:

Greetings, all! This is my very first fanfiction piece ever, and I'm rather proud of it as a first try. Yes, it's one shot. Yes, it's angst and drama riddled. Yes, I'm high off caffeine and damn proud of it as well. XD

This will be a little confusing, and a very psychological read, but I will post an explanation in the next chapter and you are all MORE than welcome (and encouraged, may I add) to ask me any questions if you are confused. Hey, even I was confused when I read it over!

IMPORTANT NOTE: I will mention white chrysanthemums quite often in this fic--they DO have a symbolic meaning; in Japan and some European countries the Chrysanthemum is a death flower, used only for funerals and decorating graves. In China the white Chrysanthemums are symbolic of lamentation. I used both meanings in this fictional piece.

Wandering to White

She was wandering again; and for now he'd let her be.

She needed to walk alone, lost in her land of dreams and terrors, where she could visit with all those who she lost and found, surrounded by her loves, she would drift alone in her world until she became lost in her memories, caught between the now and then. And before she was to far gone, he would catch her by the hand and pull her back home where she never could belong.

But he was content for she did not care.

0o0o0o0o0

Her gardens were always wild, tangled with dark roses and spider lilies, ivy and pale chrysanthemums--the funeral flowers were everywhere. Every day she would retreat to her bower of the deathly flora, hiding from the suns abrasive gaze and the curious eyes of visiting lords and ladies. She was more than a legend: she was an immortal. Who would not wish to look upon the Miko of the Shikon no Tama, who died for her duty and was reborn for the Western Daiyoukai?

She would not.

So she hid, and he let her stay until the sun went down, and then he would fetch her from her concealment to take her to bed.

0o0o0o0o0

When she first came out of the well, she smelled of death; the rank scent of her mortality hung about her like a cloud of smoke stays near a wood fire. After bathing, sweating, playing, living--even dying--she still smelled of death. Even as an immortal, for as she lay among the white chrysanthemums they bled their life's blood onto her skin until it tainted her very being.

He never did care for flowers.

0o0o0o0o0

Houshi, foolish houshi--with your cursed hand indeed, you wandered once too far: and lost all that you held dear to you.

How, how now did it feel, to see your beloved in the arms of another? Did she laugh any less, any more or the same for him? Did her child look like him? Or did the child laugh like her? Had you merely spoken, touched or looked she could have been yours. But you never wandered from your path; now you have what is yours, while you wallow in that misery.

If he wanted to, the lord would have laughed in derision.

0o0o0o0o0

At night she could be whole; when the dark closed over them both and fevered kisses rained down her neck as white silk slipped off her shoulders she came alive, more alive than she had ever been and ever could be--as alive as the flowers in the garden. But if she was alive, how had she died?

Did she die a thousand deaths, only to live a thousand lives?

She wondered.

His gentle whispers over her cut glass skin, hands skittering over soft planes of milky flesh like feral colts on tender new pastures.

He wandered.

Gripping, gasping, twisting and dying. Sweat slicked skin could only stretch so far until they were fading for want, need and lust of each other. And they didn't know anything else beyond the velvet curtain between day and night. She coiled, he stretched. Drawing, thrusting, both strained and gasped in confusion, fear and delight while she grasped at him, begging for her sanity and him at her for his salvation.

And they didn't care what the world thought.

Pushing ever deeper into the warm depths of the night, towards the promise of redemption and release he loved her, begging and pleading for him and him alone, lest she die before completion, before she slips away again she whispers that she returns it with all her soul, and she is his.

So they died their little death, the petite mort, catching their bits of heaven--except she was the one who died, and he was the one that caught.

But they were content.

0o0o0o0o0

When she wandered into the spiders' parlor like the blind little fly she was, she lost before he won, dying a little every day, watching as others found what they sought. Desperate, she took what she could in the arms of another, and she was not content, never knowing that he watched in silence, willing to let her go. Not knowing he let her wander, let her be free.

While the lord walked on, amused by her weakness and readiness to take what was not wanted.

0o0o0o0o0

When the children were born she wept. She wept with neither joy nor sorrow, but pain. They should have been ours, she whispered. And he nodded. But then she saw him, and she was his again before the girl.

But then she was empty once again. And so the children grew with a nothing child for a mother, and the nothing mother had no children. When they cried for her she would simply gaze back, blank and unconcerned. Instead it would be their father who would pick them up to comfort them, and praise or lecture them when needed. When young they hated her. When adolescent they pitied her. When grown they admired her.

But she didn't care.

And all were content with that.

0o0o0o0o0

Only the children could coax her back to her chambers. He wouldn't coax her--he carried her. Other days she would follow him as silent as a shadow, one hand clinging to his haori like a child would to a parent. When he thought no one was looking, he would gently take her pale hand in his own and lead her around that way--he did not like the look of her pale flesh against the red of the cloth. It reminded him of the bloody day she died.

The servants saw, and smiled. But the old ones wept, because they knew. And the children saw, and smiled, but it was a resigned smile because they to knew, from the moment they were conceived, the moment they were held and the cord that was cut.

She was not theirs: she was his and his alone.

Whose else should she be?

0o0o0o0o0

The kitsune's parents were dead--all because of him. He had wandered--wandered too far from home, in child's foolish fantasy, a utopia of euphoric bliss. The ersatz mirror was blinding, and he took it all in with faith, his trickster ways blinding all, even him.

So he never knew, and never will.

The lord just walked away.

0o0o0o0o0

She had been strong, unbending and unyielding, so different from the bow that she wielded with its ability to draw its power from bending and releasing. She refused to bend: she refused to bow--she was forever the knife hidden in the silken sheets, the mirrors inside the illusion, the fire that fueled the smoke.

And that was how she broke.

But now she didn't care.

That he was not content with.

0o0o0o0o0

He began to hate the sun.

When she saw the sun she could only see him.

But when night fell and darkness embraced them with its feathery embrace of bones and death, love and despair she came alive from the groaning garden of her childish meanderings and lived in the land of the mortals again.

But only for a sweet short time, and he could not bear to share it with another--she was his and his alone.

Did he not give her life?

0o0o0o0o0

One night she turned her face away.

He waited. She always had a reason when she was truly with him. And he was never wrong.

"Do you not ever wonder where I was when I died?"

He reached his hand over to rescue the tear that threatened to mar her marble cheek. Once she was roses and sand, alive and well. Now she was marble and milk, a creature of the night to behold at the risk of your life.

"I could not imagine."

And he waited. He had always waited. He would wait until he was stone itself if that was what she wanted.

"I wandered to the white."

He smiled at that. A small, sad smile that none would ever see.

"Perhaps...I already knew that."

A gentle touch on his lips startled him out of his reverie and he glanced down to see her peering up at him sleepily, her fingers on his lips, tracing their thin, firm shape as they curved slightly.

"Thank you."

0o0o0o0o0

It was ironic, that her dreams at night were so peaceful, wrapped in her lords arms while his were so tumultuous, plagued by his demons of fear and terror. Her empty eyes during the day showed her agony, but at night she had peace, a peace that he could never have.

Once he saw her die.

Her chest cavity burst open before him, the spiders' filthy minions swarming to taint her.

And then he made her live.

There was no choice; no thought--she was his and now would be for eternity. With a single swing he banished deaths imps, but as she drew breath and opened her eyes his heart stopped.

She was still dead.

And then he would wake, sweating and horrified. The nothing girl would be something, but fading away to start again.

0o0o0o0o0

The first signs were subtle--but they were there. The autumn leaves were red, bright as blood and heavy in the trees but the sky was black as the snow began to fall.

The children, now grown would come to visit, bringing their own children. The nothing mother would respond to these little ones on occasion, yet her own felt no jealousy, only joy at her improvement.

But he stood in the shadows beside her and sorrowed, for he sensed her immortality was at an end. And as if sensing his distress she reached out one hand and gripped one of his fingers tightly, childishly, and tugged him a bit closer to her seat. The court, now used to their mistresses' odd mannerisms smiled indulgently.

Her family wondered.

0o0o0o0o0

After silken sheets and whispered words they shared a symbiotic silence. They both knew, and wondered what to do. Finally he spoke.

"Do you know why?"

He tangled his fingers in her silken hair. Her face, as smooth and girlish as it was the day she arrived, bore no sign of age yet her hair was snow white and surrounded her like a cloud.

"I forgave him for dying. I forgave you for saving me. And I forgave myself for loving you," she said simply.

He was silent, his fear beginning to rise again, before she pulled him from his thoughts.

"Will you follow me?"

He was silent. Would he? Could he?

An immortal for so long. To be immortal alone was madness.

"Yes."

0o0o0o0o0

He faded day by day.

One by one his children left, and their children and their children's children. But he waited, and faded.

And she wasn't there to care for.

0o0o0o0o0

One night in the spring, the storms did not stop before the dawn broke and the river rose.

The waters lapped at his doorstep by evening, as he stared back at the brown depths, the brown sorrows, the brown tears impassively.

Absently, his slender fingers played with the edges of his white haori. He had taken to wearing all white after her, or black with the white chrysanthemum pattern. It was distressing to his family, but they understood.

His mind began to wander.

The water crept over the door step and into the room, dragging as it went.

So old, so tired...

Dusty and faded, thin and dying like the shriveled flowers that still adorned the room at his orders.

He didn't really mind them anymore. It smelled like...home.

Almost shyly now, the water slid over the floor like a delicate dancer, rejuvenated by the lack of resistance on his part.

Did her garden have the white roses still? He had not moved for so many days from this room, and he had not been to her garden since she died. Rin had most likely cared for it in her absence, he mused to himself.

Carefully, the waves spread slender fingers throughout the room, exploring, unsure, timid and not unlike a girl with her first love.

He frowned at the thought of the child. Where had she gone? Oh, yes--some centuries back a neko youkai lord had wed her, and she had borne him seven sons and a daughter. She would be dead now, he thought somewhat sadly.

Braver, the water edged closer and tugged at the edge of his futon.

He turned his face to the wall, listening to the nonexistent patter of bleeding feet and the sorrowed whisper of fraying silk while the brazier in the room was extinguished, yet the red eyes still danced on the water.

Confused, he leaned against the wall, absently trailing his fingers in the bloody water. Where was she? She said she was his, and she loved him. Did she lie, and leave him?

And now the water was silent and still, waiting with anguished breath, a perfect mirror of the Daiyoukai, up to his waist in the white death flowers that floated on the water, drowning in death, the sweetness of the flora disguising the danger.

Bemused, he closed his eyes as a single tear escaped and traveled down his face to drop into the water, causing the ripples to explode outwards.

And the floodgates burst.

River silt surrounded him, black and silver with the richness of the earth and rebirth, burying him while the waters bled black, swirling into his hair, ripping at his white skin until white was red and red was black and black was gone to nothing.

But he didn't care.

And he was content, because he had already left.

Eyes, his golden eyes, no longer a murky bronze with age and sorrow opened one last time to smile.

"And now I wander to the white..."

Fin

A/N Someone asked me why rin was still alive after Kagome, if Kagome lived for hundreds of years--I figured, that since Rin was resurrected from death twice, she probably had some kinda gig going with death that cheated him for a while too....heh. Artistic license.