Do I Remind You of Somewhere You Wanna Be by Chie

All the Uninvited Tragedies

Inspired by Amaryllis by Shinedown, lyrics from which have been appropriated for titling purposes.

For SessKag Week 2021.

Day 1 - Green: Nature & Eternity

* * *

Lately, he’d been dreaming of the miko.

Sesshoumaru found this odd, for two reasons. 

For one, most of his nights were restless, as they had been for decades and decades. The world around him had changed and even though he did his best to avoid the cities, living up a mountain in one of the more rural parts of the country, the nights these days were filled with light and noise in a way they hadn’t been many centuries ago. Back when forests still had stretched far and wide. Back when nature had ruled the humans and not the other way around. So because of that, and because he was a youkai, Sesshoumaru didn’t sleep much.

For two, when Sesshoumaru did sleep, he did not dream. Or maybe he did, who was to know? Not him, because by the time morning dawned he would have no recollection of any imagery that had visited him in the night.

But just this morning he had woken up, from what had been the fourth such dream in the short span of ten days. And though it was already well into the afternoon now, he could recall the dream perfectly, even the tiniest detail sharp and vivid in his mind’s eye.

Another oddity was that they weren’t dreams, exactly. They were memories.

A slip of a girl with dark hair, a white and green garment and stormy eyes standing before him, defiant. Those blue eyes narrowed in concentration as she aimed her bow right at him. The spark of pink light engulfing the arrow that struck true and broke his armour. The brightness of a smile the miko had once bestowed on little Rin. That moment again, when wholly by accident she had pulled his father’s fang free of its stone prison, replaying over and over. The memory of her scent, so light and fresh and young, teasing his nose. The time he’d arrived just in time to save her from the poison master, her pale body looking so vulnerable as she lay prone on the floor of the hut.

And of course, above all, Sesshoumaru had dreamed of those moments during that final battle against Naraku. When he had come across her lifeless form and stood guard, protecting her from the hoard of demons. The moment she woke up, that spark in her blue eyes. The bravery with which she’d fought beside him. The trust she’d shown by following his quick instructions; jumping to grasp his mokomoko, holding on tight as he leapt into the air.

Those had been the moments after all when everything had started to change.

He'd had grudging respect towards the miko for a long time – possibly even from the beginning. But during that last victorious stand against Naraku, that respect had morphed into admiration.

Sesshoumaru didn’t know what to make of the dreams. Or the long-buried memories they brought back to life. Or the almost forgotten emotions rekindled by the lovely smile and sparkling blue eyes that now tantalised his nights. 

What good was it to be suddenly reminded of something long lost?

Eternity was a series of years that passed in swift blinks of an eye. It was a string of losses that shadowed one’s step. It was standing still like a large oak tree while the world around you turned and changed. 

The trees around him rustled their leaves in the breeze, resplendent in their summer green. He wondered how heavy the decades rested on their branches. Easier, he’d imagine, than the centuries did on his shoulders; trees did not have memories that would resurface unbidden and spill out old aches. Trees did not dream of people long lost and yet still sorely missed. 

It was odd that, of all the loved ones Sesshoumaru had lost over the stretching centuries he’d endured, it was the miko’s loss that bothered him the most. Perhaps it was because of the sorry timing of her disappearance, coinciding with the shift in Sesshoumaru’s feelings. Irony at its finest that at the very cusp of change she had vanished from his life, leaving him haunted with could-have-beens. For a long time, he hadn’t even known why or how or where the miko had gone. He’d heard the truth from the kitsune years after the fact.

Sesshoumaru been able to push all of that aside, though. The miko, the could have been, the memories, the pain… He’d been able to bury them all down deep, to lock them away.

He hadn’t thought of the miko for a decade and even then, that last time he had, it was the kitsune who’d brought her up in a conversation.

But now these inconvenient and uninvited dreams were burrowing under his skin and due to them, he remembered again. Now, she lingered in his thoughts day and night. An echo, not only of the miko herself but of a time and place, so far away now, out of his reach. Those brief months he had known the miko stood out to him like the vivid green of an oasis in a barren desert. Those had been some of the happiest months of his life. Meeting Rin, coming to his own power, reaching a truce with his half-brother, defeating Naraku. So much had happened in that short span of time, so many meaningful moments that had left permanent marks on him, that had changed him for the better.

And in the centre of it all was the miko.

Sesshoumaru reached for a bottle of sake and took a long pull. The alcohol wouldn’t do much to dull his mind, but one could hope.

Perhaps tonight he would walk the mountainside. Walk among the towering trees, beneath the starry summer sky. Walk across the meadow of purple blooming flowers, along the creek bubbling down the mountain. Here in the wilderness he felt closer to the world that once had been, of those happier days standing out in his memories that he yearned to return to. 

Best of all, if he walked all night he could forgo sleep. And if he did not sleep, he could not dream. He would be safe from the memories, of the visions of the miko.

Maybe then he could expel her from his thoughts again. 

Maybe then, the dull constant ache would subside, the longing howling in his veins would settle down. 

Maybe then he could try and forget – if even for a moment – all those ways in which he wasn’t whole.