*****When the dust in the fields has flown, And the youngest of hearts has grown, And you doubt you will ever be free, Honey, don't bail on me.*****
It is still hard for me sometimes to acknowledge that fifty years has passed since I died and you were sealed away. To me it seems like only yesterday that I was standing in front of you, cursing you in my heart for what you did to me, while watching your eyes slowly close as the sleeping spell washed over you.
I try constantly to forget that the last thought that ran through my mind before I died was centered on you, and only on you. How strange that I didn't think of Kaede, or the village that depended on my powers, or even the blinding pain of my own dying body. But you. I thought of you. Even worse than merely thinking of you, I wondered to myself if my arrow had caused you pain before you were put under the spell. I actually worried that I had caused you pain. In my dying moment, I felt guilty.
And now, when my guilt has been replaced with a burning lust for vengeance, I still wonder why you don't hate me for putting you to sleep for fifty years. You seem so calm now, so unlike how you were the days that I knew you. Back then you were unpredictable and dangerously wild, but now you seem so peaceful, almost as if everything that has ever caused you pain is being slowly dissipated. And I know why. You have abandoned me for that girl-child with my face and my stolen soul.
Such irony. Such torture. To see that she has changed you. To see that you were changed by her kindness, her gentleness, her softness. Her. Not me. I told Kaede this once before. What I had once wanted to do so badly--melt your frozen and untrustworthy heart--that girl is doing in my stead. If I had lived would I be the one changing you, melting you? Or is it fate that I move aside and allow that girl to take my place? For that is all she is, is she not? My replacement.
That is the one thing I am unsure of. She has my appearance and soul, but she is so different. She, unlike I was I was in my days of living, is not obligated. She is free to be who she is. Her position is not forcing her to succumb to a life of constant emotional solitude. She is free to love you as I once wanted to do. And you are free as well.
I had wanted to be free of myself once. To give you the jewel, Inuyasha, and allow you to become a man. And when the jewel was no longer in this realm, I would no longer be a priestess, only a woman. We would become a man and a woman. How simple it all seemed. And now that girl, as well as my own sister Kaede, say that it was not you but a demon called Naraku who attacked me that day and tore my hope for us apart.
Ah, I remember him now. Kaede told me who he was once known as. The wounded thief, Onigumo, that I tended to in that secluded cave. He became Naraku. But why? For what reason? Why hate me after I cared for him so, even when he deserved nothing? Why hate you, InuYasha? What ties did you have with him?
I feel abandonment like a stone upon my back, pushing me into the earth. I feel separated from all things living, for I am not truly alive. Not truly. Only a false being wandering the earth, stealing the souls of others to sustain myself long enough to find you and take my vengeance. But now I am being to doubt myself. Why do I wish for your death so much? Why do I wish to put myself to rest?
*****River is wide and oh so deep, and it winds and winds around. I dream we're happy in my sleep, floating down and down and down.*****
After I was brought back from the Afterlife and forced into this false body, I dreamed of you many times. Always, there was something between us, separating us, keeping me from touching you or sometimes even seeing you. I remember there was a river between us. I could barely see you on the opposite bank, but I knew that you were there. I could sense you and sometimes hear you speaking softly to me. It always reached me as a whisper even though I know that you must have been shouting. But I could never understand what you were saying. I strained myself trying to listen to you, but I could never even pick up a single word.
Once I even thought to try to swim the width of the river. But something was keeping me back. Nothing restrained me physically; it was all inside my head. Something told me that the water was too deep, the current too strong, the river too wide--that you were only an illusion. That you weren't really there at all. That you were somewhere else...across the barrier of time--with her.
And I always woke up weeping pitifully. Ashamed, I would slap myself as if I were a lunatic, trying to rip your blazing image from my head. Your eyes, like looking into the sun itself, would still burn in my brain. Gods how you taunted me! Gods how you still continue to taunt me! Even though the dreams are less frequent and less pungent, I still catch a glimpse of you every now and then when I close my eyes. And I want to hate you.
But then I would dream of you pressed against me, enveloping me, inhaling me, so close to me that the beat of your heart echoed inside my own chest. And I wouldn't know what to do. I held still, unsure of myself, unsure of you. Should I attack you before you got the mind to attack me? Should I let my body be free to enjoy your closeness? Should I be ashamed? Should I feel betrayed by my own lusts? Should I feel like a hypocrite--wanting your death only moments before, but then suddenly wanting nothing but you?
And you seemed so happy, so calm. Not at all like the obstinate fool you once were. But then I think of her. Are you the way you are because you are with me--or because she has wormed her way inside of you and changed everything that you once were?
Then I remember that these are only dreams--the dreams of a half-dead woman who was dragged from the world beyond that of the living and thrust into a shell made of dirt and bone. And then I don't know what to think of these dreams, for I am more afraid of them than I am of this damned world that holds me captive.
*sniff* Poor Kikyo. I'm really loving writing this (I love to get into people's heads and try to express what I think is going on in there). Hopefully, I'm doing a good job with it. ^_^