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31_days2007-02-25 04:18 pm
lucindathemaid.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2007-02-25 04:18 pm
[February 25] [Inu-Yasha] Bloodless
Title: Bloodless
Day/Theme: February 25 / a measure of beauty
Series: Inu-Yasha
Character/Pairing: Suikotsu, Kikyo
Rating: PG
Author’s Note: Posted a section of this at a meme at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
planetgal471. Hope she doesn’t mind if I post the rest (which I’ve since finished writing and editing) here. ^^
Spoiler Warnings: Mild spoilers for the Shichinintai arc.
Suikotsu could not deny that Kikyo was beautiful. Hers was the sort of loveliness that ran rampant in the geishas he had often slain, a comeliness he would frequently overlook as he’d run his claws across exquisite fabrics and made-up skin.
Of course, Kikyo was never made-up, in regards to both rogue and intentions. In her first lifetime, Kikyo had sacrificed everything—including herself—to protect the Shikon Jewel, and thus she chose not to make that same mistake in her second existence. Rather than lying to herself by guarding an object she’d come to hate as much as Naraku, she’d made sure that her purports were honorable, allowed her goodness to course through her veins in blood’s stead.
Perhaps it was her lack of blood that made Kikyo so irresistible to Suikotsu.
Perhaps he’d come to care for her so much because she could be cut, but could not bleed.
He knew that for sure; he’d seen this phenomenon—or, possibly, the lack of one—happen. On an evening when she’d insisted on preparing dinner for Chiyo and the other orphans, she’d nicked her finger whilst chopping fish, unaware that, hidden in a doorframe twenty feet away, the young doctor had winced at the sight. She’d sucked the finger for a moment out of habit, and then loosed her lips from the wound, revealing pale, saliva-coated skin.
Suikotsu had looked at her then, holding her finger before her like a prize.
He’d seen no red there, no blood, no punctured vessels, not even a mark where the blade had met her skin.
Skepticism and relief had simultaneously shaken him, leaving him to stare in wonder at the woman before him.
She is not bleeding, he’d thought, blinking in shock. She is not bleeding.
He would never look at her in quite the same way again.
-
More than anything else, Suikotsu feared death and blood. The two went hand in hand, their winding paths intersecting more than once on the map that was human life.
Somehow, though, Kikyo had defied both of these terrors.
Being reborn in a body composed of dirt, clay, and bones, she was a reanimated being that would not die, not produce blood, not bleed. She went on living, seeming to absorb purity like a sponge would water, though, inside, she knew she was defiled.
Inside, Suikotsu was, too.
He laughed, watching her fondly as a child tugged on her hakama, impatiently waiting for her attentions so he could hand her the flower he clutched behind his back. We’re not so different, are we, Kikyo-sama?
He smiled, feeling his ruthless, blood-soaked personality disappear temporarily, fade from crimson to black in his mind. Her presence was more than enough, after all, to make him forget his tainted past, his tainted crimes, his tainted hands that had slaughtered and slain.
Looking at his calloused hands now, for the first time, he saw no red obscuring the skin beneath. And, feeling his grin widen, he stooped to pick a flower, turning the stem round and round as he waited for the little boy to run from the miko.
And, as he made his way toward the physical embodiment of purity, nodding at her as he pressed the bloom into her palm, Suikotsu couldn’t help but think, Kikyo-sama… we’re perfect for each other.
Day/Theme: February 25 / a measure of beauty
Series: Inu-Yasha
Character/Pairing: Suikotsu, Kikyo
Rating: PG
Author’s Note: Posted a section of this at a meme at
planetgal471. Hope she doesn’t mind if I post the rest (which I’ve since finished writing and editing) here. ^^Spoiler Warnings: Mild spoilers for the Shichinintai arc.
Suikotsu could not deny that Kikyo was beautiful. Hers was the sort of loveliness that ran rampant in the geishas he had often slain, a comeliness he would frequently overlook as he’d run his claws across exquisite fabrics and made-up skin.
Of course, Kikyo was never made-up, in regards to both rogue and intentions. In her first lifetime, Kikyo had sacrificed everything—including herself—to protect the Shikon Jewel, and thus she chose not to make that same mistake in her second existence. Rather than lying to herself by guarding an object she’d come to hate as much as Naraku, she’d made sure that her purports were honorable, allowed her goodness to course through her veins in blood’s stead.
Perhaps it was her lack of blood that made Kikyo so irresistible to Suikotsu.
Perhaps he’d come to care for her so much because she could be cut, but could not bleed.
He knew that for sure; he’d seen this phenomenon—or, possibly, the lack of one—happen. On an evening when she’d insisted on preparing dinner for Chiyo and the other orphans, she’d nicked her finger whilst chopping fish, unaware that, hidden in a doorframe twenty feet away, the young doctor had winced at the sight. She’d sucked the finger for a moment out of habit, and then loosed her lips from the wound, revealing pale, saliva-coated skin.
Suikotsu had looked at her then, holding her finger before her like a prize.
He’d seen no red there, no blood, no punctured vessels, not even a mark where the blade had met her skin.
Skepticism and relief had simultaneously shaken him, leaving him to stare in wonder at the woman before him.
She is not bleeding, he’d thought, blinking in shock. She is not bleeding.
He would never look at her in quite the same way again.
-
More than anything else, Suikotsu feared death and blood. The two went hand in hand, their winding paths intersecting more than once on the map that was human life.
Somehow, though, Kikyo had defied both of these terrors.
Being reborn in a body composed of dirt, clay, and bones, she was a reanimated being that would not die, not produce blood, not bleed. She went on living, seeming to absorb purity like a sponge would water, though, inside, she knew she was defiled.
Inside, Suikotsu was, too.
He laughed, watching her fondly as a child tugged on her hakama, impatiently waiting for her attentions so he could hand her the flower he clutched behind his back. We’re not so different, are we, Kikyo-sama?
He smiled, feeling his ruthless, blood-soaked personality disappear temporarily, fade from crimson to black in his mind. Her presence was more than enough, after all, to make him forget his tainted past, his tainted crimes, his tainted hands that had slaughtered and slain.
Looking at his calloused hands now, for the first time, he saw no red obscuring the skin beneath. And, feeling his grin widen, he stooped to pick a flower, turning the stem round and round as he waited for the little boy to run from the miko.
And, as he made his way toward the physical embodiment of purity, nodding at her as he pressed the bloom into her palm, Suikotsu couldn’t help but think, Kikyo-sama… we’re perfect for each other.