Oft in the Stilly Night by Callisto Callispi

Frozen

Author’s Note: I’ve been writing this story since 2004, and for some reason, it’s stayed with me until now. Revamped for a clearer story line!

This fic will initially be confusing and non-linear…in many different ways. :) Obviously slightly AU. I mean, I feel like all of Kagome’s time bending and whatnot is bound to have SOME consequences.

 Disclaimers: I do not own Inuyasha nor the occasional song lyrics or poems that I post. The original artists will be credited.

Oft in the Stilly Night

By: Callisto Callispi

Chapter 1: Frozen

Oft in the stilly night,

Ere slumber’s chain hath bound me,

Fond memory brings the light

Of other days around me,

The smiles, the tears, the boyhood years,

The words of love then spoken,

The eyes that shone, now dimmed and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere slumber’s chain hath bound me,

Sad memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

“Oft in the Stilly Night” – Thomas Moore

---

They were all dead here—humans, beasts, and youkai alike.

Once luscious forests oozing with life and noise had long ago fallen into pensive silence. The sharp edge of ice waltzed death and bite with the ever-swirling wind. The chilly shadow of twilight mastered the plains. Thick fumes of fog choked the mountaintops. It was a wasteland, a damned land.

But like a lord overlooking his domain, he walked on. His pale hair and skin blended seamlessly with the land, though his golden eyes glinted like a dark, molten star. His posture was straight, his gait easy, and his features composed in a mask of apathy. His eyes, however, were far too wild to fool an observant onlooker. His eyes constantly searched his deserted surroundings. Nothing in this frozen wasteland would escape his gaze, and yet, he could not see everything. He could not see her.

Black boots moved silently upon the gray, treacherous snow, taking one noiseless step after another. The lord carefully stepped over what looked like a block of ice but what was actually a human corpse. Hundreds upon hundreds of bodies littered the forest—some had died standing, some had died lying. It did not matter, for death and the cold overtook them all in the end, leaving no more than horror-stricken marionettes carved from ice.

The power of the Shikon no Tama was extraordinary.

They had tried to flee her blizzard, but she was quick with her work. One strike was all she needed to finish her business. She handed them death on the edges of biting snow and ice. They had screamed and pleaded for mercy, even as the frost tightened their skin and froze their eyes in their sockets.

How ironic that she had driven them to this forest, the very forest where she had imprisoned the worthless hanyou to a tree those many, many years ago.

Suddenly, he leapt high into the air, as silent as a phantom winter gale. A shrill shriek followed, shredding the veil-like silence of this grave. An overgrown bee the size of the lord’s chest dropped to into the silver snow, split down the middle. Thin streaks of black blood soiled the frost soon after.

“I would have though you more original, wench,” he bit out as he bent down and wiped the blood off of his claws.

She appeared, just as Sesshoumaru knew she would. He did not know how she managed to conceal herself from his eyes—strong witchery, perhaps—but he bristled at her corpse-like presence and smelled the putrid rot of her dead yet living body.

Sesshoumaru felt a cold burning in his heart as he gazed upon the corpse.

She stood quite a distance above him on the uprooting, vein-like branches of a tall tree. She stepped almost shyly out from the shadows, glowing like a goddess of death under the pale beams of the moon. No longer did she wear the modest robes of a priestess. Now, she was clothed like a princess. Black silk woven with flowers clothed her arms and chest, flattering her pale complexion, and a long blood-red skirt of fine silk flared from her waist, the hem delicately skirting the tips of her toes. She smiled softly, enticingly, and tilted her head slightly upwards. Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes. The Shikon no Tama, almost whole, glittered against her breast like a black diamond.

 “Originality?” Her voice sent shills up his spine. “Are you referring to those bees? Yes, they do resemble Naraku’s, don’t they? My, my, who knew that the great Lord of the Western Lands would concern himself with such details?”

He stared up at her, golden eyes boring into black. “Where is Rin?”

The woman smiled more deeply. “She is unharmed. For now. Do you comply with my demands?”

“I will not hand over my own brother’s corpse to you, wench.”

Kikyo’s eyes glimmered with amusement. “Your half brother.”

“Brother all the same, though I am ashamed to admit that the worthless hanyou is any blood relative of mine, especially considering his loathsome taste in women.”

Kikyo laughed. Her voice shuddered the forest. Sesshoumaru wanted nothing more than to rip her throat out.

“Why torture yourself like this, my lord?” she mused. “I strike a simple bargain: you tell me the location of Inuyasha’s resting place, and I will let the girl go.”

Sesshoumaru stared up at her, expressionless. “You truly believe that I do not know.”

Kikyo’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Know what?”

“The Shikon no Tama. What will you do after you take out his eye for the little shard embedded behind it?”

Kikyo’s eyes were but slits. Her voice lost all of her soft humor and scraped sharply against his ears. “You fool, do you truly believe that you can stand against me? Look around you, great Lord of the West! Your domain but a wasteland of ice! This forest, the snow-covered peaks, and the breath from your lips right now—I have created it all. I have collected the Shikon shards, and I have defeated Naraku. You, with your new arm, without your Toukijin or the Tenseiga, think that you can defeat me?” She laughed hollowly. “You are more a fool than I had thought. I offer you your life, great lord. You can rule once more your precious lands and keep your little youkai, if you give me Inuyasha’s resting place.”

“You humor me,” he replied. “The day that this Sesshoumaru becomes another’s is the day when all hell breaks loose upon the earth.”

Kikyo’s shoulders shook as she chuckled, her eyes glowing eerily red. “I have been to hell, my lord, and I find it a deliciously vicious place. Perhaps I will shatter the earth and allow my minions to enter!”

She whipped her arm towards him, and from the trees, the bees emerged. Their beady red eyes focused on Sesshoumaru, and all at once, they attacked, their sharp stingers pointed right at his chest. Sesshoumaru jumped backwards, slashing at the insects with his claws. He had lost his Toukijin, his only useful sword, a while back, and he direly wished for it now. Carcasses of bees fell to the ground, splattering the icy dirt with their black blood. However, as he slew one, two more appeared to take its place.

Suddenly, a stinger stabbed and shattered his armor. He grit his teeth and sliced the bee. Sesshoumaru knew he couldn’t win this battle. He backed through the forest, careful to avoid trees behind him while Kikyo followed, carried by her Soul Collectors, laughing at Sesshoumaru’s futile attempts to kill her bees.

“Give up, Sesshoumaru. My bees will engulf you and take you to my lair. I still need to get your filthy brother’s carcass, and I feel I shall enjoy torturing you. You do so look like Inuyasha…”

Sesshoumaru clenched his teeth. The miko was mad. The Shikon shards warped her mind completely. He dodged more bees and their stingers, but though his claws were dripping with blood, there were more. He finally fought himself to a clearing. He saw the black sky above, riddled with stars. Kikyo could not manipulate the heavens, at least not yet, and he found a strange comfort in that.

Sesshoumaru suddenly felt something hard hit his back. For a wild moment, he thought that a bee had finally gotten him. But he felt no pain, and upon stealing a quick peak behind, he saw that he bumped into the side of a well. Kikyo stopped abruptly.

“Get away from there,” she screeched.

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow.

“Remove yourself, or I will rip you apart, limb for limb!”

Sesshoumaru jumped up and stood at the edge of the well, decided on his great gamble when Kikyo’s face betrayed growing horror. With one more slash at the bee, he threw himself in the well, hearing Kikyo’s mad shrieks above. A sudden light engulfed him, and then he was gone.

X

Kagome whipped open the windows to her room and breathed in the cool summer air.

“Just a few more days, Kagome, and you’re home free. Then, off to college you go!”

She grinned happily at the thought. College was going to be awesome. Classes of her choosing, partying all night long, and the really cool boyfriend she just had to meet. Kagome leaned on her windowsill and sighed, watching the stars twinkle. Yeah, that was what she dreamed about: a really handsome, tall, charismatic guy with whom she would fall in love, then marry, and then start a family.

But first, she had to study for her exams.

Her smile quickly disappeared. After freshman year, she knew that those exams would haunt her for the rest of her high school career. She did well on everything else, like daily assignments and quizzes, but when stakes were high, exams somehow got her into a nervous wreck, and she’d mess everything up. It didn’t help that the fact that how well she did on this one exam would affect the college that she would be accepted into.

Kagome sighed. Well, time to get back to studying. Just as she was about to go back to her desk, a bright flash of light coming from the small shrine where her grandpa’s Bone Eater’s well was caught her eye. For a moment, she felt goose bumps trailing down her arms, even in this muggy summer heat. What in the world…?

 “Sota,” she suddenly realized. “I can’t believe you. You’re supposed to be over at Juro’s for the night, and you come here of all nights to play pranks on me?”

She quickly threw a light jacket over her pajama tank shorts, and she ran down the stairs towards the wooden building. Summer was in full swing, and even the night was warm. She could smell the trees and the flowers, and otherwise, she would have liked to enjoy the relatively cool night if she weren’t so pissed at her brother.

“You know that you’re not supposed to play in there,” Kagome said, approaching the door. “It’s almost midnight, Sota! You too, Juro! Get out of there with your firecrackers!”

No answer. She shoved the door, glaring in the darkness. Her hands groped for the flashlight that her grandpa placed around somewhere.

“You are in such big trouble. Just because Mom and Gramps are away doesn’t mean you can—”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Kagome felt a hand cover her mouth, muffling her screams. Another hand wrapped around her waist and quickly slammed her into a wall. Kagome kicked her legs, struggling to breathe and scream. She was going to be murdered!

“Miko?” the figure suddenly gasped.

“Mmmph?” Kagome kicked her legs once more. This only caused the man to push her harder against the wall. “Mmmmpth! Mmmph!” she protested against his hand, closing her eyes as she felt something sharp graze her neck. He had a knife! He was going to kill her!

A few moments passed, but nothing happened. Kagome inched open her eye, not that she could see anything, then shuddered as in relief as she felt the tip of the knife leave her throat. The attacker’s grip loosened.

“I will let you speak, human, but do not scream.”

Kagome nodded, or at least tried to nod, her mind racing on adrenalin and fear.

The man released his hand from her mouth but still kept his hand on her waist, pushing her against the wall. She flinched, feeling her muscles cramp and bruise.

“Who are you?” she demanded sharply, hysteria lacing her voice. “What are you doing in our shrine?”

“Shrine?” he snarled, voice grating in her ear.

Kagome took in a shuddering breath, forcing herself as calm as she could get. “L-look, we can talk about this. Just let me go. I swear I won’t call the cops on you, but let me go!”

“Cops?” the intruder growled once more, though a touch of confusion colored his voice.

Kagome tried peering into the dark, but all she could make out was a shadow of this man’s figure. He was very tall indeed, and broad shouldered. Of course. What else could she expect with a grip so strong! Her upper body couldn’t budge a centimeter against his hold. Then, she heard him take in breath, so subtly that she almost missed it.

“Inuyasha’s woman! You are alive?”

Kagome stopped struggling momentarily. “Inuyasha? What? His woman? I think you got the wrong person! I don’t know any Inuyasha!”

A momentary pause followed. Then, without warning, he threw Kagome over his shoulder and ran out of the shrine, jumping up into the air. Kagome screamed, watching the ground below her go farther and farther away. The wind rushed through her clothes. Oh my god, oh my god, who is this nut case? Where were his jet packs? How was he flying?

They soon landed on top of the highest branch of the highest tree in the small forest near their house. The man dumped her onto the branch, almost knocking the wind out of her as she landed on her stomach. She flailed as she wrapped her arms and legs around the branch, praying that she wouldn’t fall, and manage to hug the branch to her body. They were dizzyingly up high, maybe almost two hundred feet up, and Kagome couldn’t decide whether she wanted to faint or throw up. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Pathetic,” the man said disdainfully. “And to think that you are the miko incarnate.”

It took Kagome almost a minute to regain her voice, though despite herself, she felt her anger peak. “Look, buster, I don’t know who the heck you are, but you had better get me down from here.”

“Your voice quivers. Why?”

“We’re hundreds of feet up in the air! Why do you think?” she nearly shrieked, opening her eyes to glare up at the man. As she met his gaze, Kagome gasped and momentarily forgot her fear. A man stared down at her, indeed. A man with long silver hair, just like the pale beams of the moonlight. His golden eyes—golden eyes?—stared down at her, full of disdain. But by god, this man was...handsome? Was that the right word to describe him? After all, who, these days, grew their hair that long and dyed it silver? And who wore golden contacts? She then noticed that he wore a kimono, a style she recognized originating from the aristocracy of the Sengoku jidai. The rest of his armor and the sash had some mainland influence, but the style was most definitely from the Sengoku jidai.

“Who…are you?” she asked, managing the courage to unwrap her arms from the branch and struggling up to sit.

The man seemed surprised. His eyebrows rose slightly at her query, though his expression did not change one bit. “You have forgotten me already, miko?”

“Forgotten you? We’ve never even met!” she cried, exasperated. “I’m telling you, you’ve got the wrong person. I don’t know you, or this miko you claim me as, or this…this…who was it? Inuyasha?”

The man seemed to glare at her, and Kagome stared right back. Silent minutes passed until Kagome shifted uncomfortably on the tree branch, and said, struggling not to look down, “So since we’ve got that cleared up, can you get me down?”

He bent down with animalistic poise and stared at Kagome straight in the eye. Shocked, her breaths came in ragged, nervous gasps. Was he not afraid of heights?

“My brother would turn over in his grave to hear his lover say that she had forgotten him so easily.”

Kagome narrowed her eyes. “L-lover?”

“Why do you play this charade, miko?”

“I’m not anyone’s lover! I’m no miko! My name is Kagome. KA-GO-ME! I’m just a high school senior trying to graduate and go off to college.” Her voice trembled now, not from fear, but from a sudden frustration. She wanted to get down, and at this rate, they might stay up here all night. “Please, I’m begging you, let me down and leave me alone. I’m not the person that you want. Please.”

The man stood up to his full height. Kagome looked up, her chest thumping with uncertainty. Would he listen to her? Would he let her down? Kagome managed to get into a sitting on the branch, leaning her weight against the tree trunk. She peered through the foliage, trying to find some descending branches that might allow her to climb down, just in case this man decided to leave her stranded.

“You truthfully do not know, miko?” he asked finally.

Kagome shook her head. “I don’t know who you are, or this Inuyasha.”

“This poses a problem for me.”

Kagome blinked. “Why?”

He stared at her for a few moments before speaking again. “I can not get back to my…land.”

She glared. “Look, for the last time, I am not this miko you keep—”

“Silence, human!” the man snarled. His voice held so much rage that she did cease. “Do not dare to speak so brazenly in front of Lord Sesshoumaru of the Western Lands.”

The Killing Perfection? That is his name?

A long silence followed. Then, with the rustle of the leaves, Kagome said softly, “Take the metro. I’ll give you my metro card if you don’t have any money on you.”

The man called Sesshoumaru sniffed disdainfully. “You speak with a foreign tongue, miko.”

“The metro. The train. It takes about a few hours to Matsue…it’s one of the biggest cities west of here. Don’t worry about the card—I can always get another one.”

Sesshoumaru stared at the young woman curiously. “A card? Money? I have no use for those items. I am not of your world.”

Kagome narrowed her eyes. It was then that she really took note of his clawed hands and the stripes on his cheek. No way, an alien?

“Do you possess a shard of the Shikon jewel?” he asked.

“Shikon what?”

“I should have known.”

He swiftly picked Kagome up, this time, carrying her in his arms rather than unceremoniously over his shoulder, and jumped down from the tree branch. Kagome stifled a scream and grabbed a hold of his kimono, squeezing her eyes shut.

Instead of the splat on the asphalt that she had expected, he seemed to lightly float down onto the ground. Who was this man? He was not human!

“You are on the ground,” he said.

X

The girl trembled violently in his arms. He, at first, could not comprehend why. He saw her more than once hauled indecently on his half-brother’s back, soaring through great heights. She couldn’t possibly be afraid of falling, and it was not because she feared him. But then, he recalled that she didn’t recall any of those experiences. Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes. But how could that be?

This girl, who called herself Kagome, let go of his kimono and shakily slipped out of his arms and onto the ground. Sesshoumaru stared at her for a few seconds and then turned away. What she wore must have been scandalous, even during her time. The garbs that she donned failed to even properly cover her arms and thighs, much less her ankles. Even the lowest of whores in his lands would not have dared to expose so much flesh.

“Where are you from?” she asked him softly, her voice now even with only the bare traces of a quiver.

“The Western Lands,” he answered, staring at her expectantly, as if his answer should have meant something to her. Kagome flushed, and Sesshoumaru bit back a sigh of frustration.

 “I know that. But you said that you weren’t of this world. What world are you from?”

“Why does that matter?” he asked impatiently, facing her. “You do not possess the Shikon shards, nor do you your memory, nor the courage.”

Brown eyes pierced into his golden ones. “What the—where do you get the nerve saying that to me? I’m the one who tossed a girl over his shoulder from her home to leap up a tree! I almost fell! I could have died!”

Sesshoumaru turned and walked away from her, neglecting to respond. However, despite his belief that the girl would walk away from him also, she actually ran up and cut right in front of him. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly at the sight of her in front of him, angry and so exposed.

“You don’t walk away from someone when they are talking to you! Some lord you are! You haven’t a bit of courtesy for anyone else!”

Sesshoumaru walked around her. “When you live during a time of warring lords, you have no use for what you call ‘courtesy’. Consider yourself lucky that I have not decided to kill you.”

She did not answer for a few seconds. Sesshoumaru felt a smidgen of satisfaction; she was much too like Rin: talkative, romantic, and forever persistent.

“Warring lords or not, you just don’t leave a girl alone on a dark street with only her nightclothes on!” she insisted, grabbing hold of his kimono robe-sleeve. “Take me home!”

Sesshoumaru shrugged her away.

“Take me home!”

He whipped around to face her. How the little chit infuriated him! She glared back at him, and Sesshoumaru, despite all of his self-restraint, felt his eyes fall upon the unveiled flesh of her legs. He quickly looked back up at her, tightly restraining his wandering gaze.

Slowly, Kagome walked up to him. Sesshoumaru debated whether to leave her here and dash off or to stay, but strangely her eyes trapped him to his spot.

“Please take me home. I don’t recognize this street, and I don’t want to get lost in this part of the neighborhood,” her soft voice implored of him. Her brows furrowed, and Sesshoumaru was shocked that she would place so much trust in someone she purportedly did not know.

 “Well? Will you?”

He did not know what had taken over his senses from that minute, for he nodded and said, “Very well.”

END CHAPTER

End Notes: Please do review! They encourage me to write more, and I'd really appreciate it! :)