Penance

[luxken27]

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Pairing: Sesshoumaru/Kagome
Rating: T
Inspiration: "King of Nowhere" (C) 2005 skipaway
Based upon: inuyashaquotes July 2009, Week 1


I knew, once I saw the quote set for this month, that my angst muses would be getting a workout, LOL ~ and they certainly didn't disappoint.

When I read over this quote, I suddenly had a vision of Sesshoumaru, standing on the shore, dressed very simply in a white kimono and yellow obi. This actually came from two places - an old HotM fanart I'd seen during my first trevails around fandom, and the latest chapter of kmoaton's Memories of You. The fanart is linked in the header here, and it's absolutely beautiful, making me wistful for HotM all over again...

Anyway, the challenge I set myself was to write out the entire scene, conveying the emotions and images I wanted to convey, without the use of dialogue. I relish the challenge of writing Sesshoumaru as someone who has emotions running quite deep below the surface. Here, I wanted the reader to be able to picture him in their mind's eye, standing on the edge of the world, allowing himself to grieve as he never does during the canon story. I wanted them to see it through a bystander's eyes, and who better to choose than Kagome, ever the empathetic comforter?

It was fun to find the twists of canon that make these two so similar. I'd never really thought of the parallel between the Hell arc and the final moments in the mediou before, but there it is - if, somehow, the ending had been different, and Kagome had never been able to get back to her friends and Inuyasha on the other side of the well...well, they would indeed be standing in quite similar situations. I purposefully made this ambiguous in the piece itself - the line "He had done what was best for her at the time…" could refer to either situation.

I can completely picture Sesshoumaru having this sort of ritual after Rin dies, giving himself one day a year to remember her and really allow himself to mourn for her. It seems the sort of pragmatic, analytical thing he'd do...as for his violent reaction "that first year," I think that would also be a natural sort of response, if suddenly he found another human worth living for. Confused, hurt, wallowing in the depths of long-buried despair, I can see him going a little crazy and thinking of ending it all, not forcing himself through the grief of allowing another too close, only to lose her all over again.

This is my first true try at hurt/comfort, but I'm a firm believer that simplicity is best in these sorts of situations. Hopefully it didn't get too metaphorical there at the end; the lyrics of my sudden inspiration song came a bit more into play there:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Comments

[landofthekwt.livejournal.com]

I think you are handling the grieve comfort aspects of SK in Allegience where they both have to handle the deaths of Inuyasha and Rin. I recently reread TotHotM after you talked about its influence on you. I had forgotten what roles IY and Rin played in their relationship. It is even poignant there because IY and Kagome still loved each other when Kagome made the decision that made IY and Kikyou human and made them love each other again.(which later led to his death.) Similarly Sess was responsible for Rin's death since his keeping her close to him caused his fathers allies to kill him as his weakness.

Jaken's line in the hell arc is so great. " You mean Rin had to die to teach Lord Sesshoumaru compassion." If she had stayed dead I think it would have been hard to go on. If Kagome had been stuck in her own time w/o IY I think she would have wandered listlessly through life. Minerva One has a great story about a Kagome wandering through the isles of ramen and at the end we see that her cupboards are full of ramen. She cannot forget him and she cannot move on.

In HoTM, she thinks her purpose is save Sesshoumaru by giving him a reason to live after Rin died, but really she is saving herself.