Clay Messages

Disclaimer: I own no rights to either Inuyasha or Rurouni Kenshin, nor are the characters from my own imagination, but I thought I'd try them out for a bit.

The clay whirled and spun, small globs of murky water occasionally shot out and splattered on a dusty dirty blue haori. Kagome's deft hands held and guided the wayward clay, helping it form and take shape as her foot vigorously pedaled the spinning contraption. Her mind was blank; she refused to think as she focused on forcing her clay into reverence. Despite her resolve, her mind would still occasionally wander to her friends in one time, her family in another, and her in another still, before she shook her head to clear it of her wayward thoughts.

With a long-suffering sigh Kagome stopped pedaling, removing her muddy hands and absentmindedly ran them through her hair, caking her black hair with streaks of brown gray clay. The piece before her was small, ordinary, and slightly off balance. The small pot was nothing spectacular or memorable, and wasn't near as breathtaking as that of her master's average caliber. She let the pot remain attached to the spinning wooden disc, to give it time to dry and stood up from her small stool to stretch.

"You done for the day?" questioned a voice husky from sleep and sake over towards her right. His professional name was Ni'itsu Kakunoshin, but he preferred it when Kagome called him Master Hiko when not in the presence of others. Her master was gruff, intimidating, nursing a drinking problem, and was a smidge egotistical, but Kagome wouldn't have him any other way.

"Not yet," admitted Kagome as she sent the lounging man a smile, "I'm waiting for the rice to finish cooking so that I can make some rice balls before I leave." The man scowled at Kagome's cheer, but he knew better then to comment or else she would take her mouthwatering food home with her and refuse to cook for him for at least a week. Hiko liked when Kagome made his dinner, usually it was the only food that he got all day.

Hiko was still a little mystified on how he had obtained another student after swearing them off once one became the Battousai. Somehow this girl had broken down his resolve and manipulated him to teach her the finer details of his craft. Kagome was a good kid though, and Hiko had to admit that since she arrived in his small clearing blazing with determination and spirit he had something to look forward to each day. Well that and the free food.

"Whatcha gonna do with a little pot like that?" asked Hiko as he leaned over her work with a critical eye.

"Probably sell it ridiculously overpriced to the rich art collectors in the area," answered Kagome cheekily as she retreated to a small cooking fire off to the side of the pottery wheel and kiln. Hiko clucked his tongue in approval, she was his student and if she couldn't scam with the best of them she wouldn't be considered as such.

Kagome had been determined to leave her mark on the world through ceramics ever since he had taken her under his wing. Truthfully he didn't understand where her passion came from; although, he figured it came from the petite girl's family. He had asked about them once in passing after finding out she lived on her own in a small one room shack on the poor side of town. He had wondered aloud about the whereabouts of her family and the younger girl had clammed up and refused to mention anything about them. He figured that maybe her passion stemmed from her need to be recognized by either them or at the very least someone.

That night they sat in silence eating rice balls. Kagome had her eyes trained on the stars above, hope in her eyes, while Hiko gulped down sake straight from the jug, misery in his.

Dry and cracked but steady fingers held the sliver of sharpened wood steady as it carved delicate kanji on to the bottom of an upturned vase. Kagome lightly blew away the curled clay pieces that had been whittled away as she wrote. 'Lost Time' was scrawled in a neat row, a message for the future.

On each vase she made she wrote the same message, 'Lost Time, Souta Higurashi.' Her secret hope was that one day her family would read her message and it would alleviate their worries. She worked diligently on each piece, hoping that it would be good enough to be remembered and sturdy enough to survive for the next hundred and so many odd years.

Art was her one saving grace. Art survived thousands of years, art survived wars, and art changed lives. These clay creations would deliver her message, a message that gave Kagome hope and allowed her to get up each day to continue her work. She worked not to make money, or to gain esteem, she worked to dream, to dream of her small family in the future.

She turned the vase upright and placed it inside the kiln to be fired. She looked around and watched as Master Hiko sat on a fallen log by the cooking fire, sipping from his saucer of sake. She smiled fondly and watched him from afar. She knew very little of her master other then he was a well-recognized local potter. She had wondered on his mountain side home on pure impulse.

She had at first planned to travel around Japan after the Bone Eater's Well had spat her out in this time 5 years ago and refused to let her back through. She had only gotten as far as the suburbs of Kyoto after leaving Edo when she heard ghost stories of a young hermit living in the mountains. She heard he had many skills, and she had been curious enough to wander up the mountainside path to see if the rumors were true.

Kagome looked around the clearing, with unveiled curiosity. There was a hut on one side of clearing, shadowed by the giant boughs of the deciduous trees of the mountain forest. In the middle of the clearing was a ceramic kiln protected from the elements by a thatched roof. A fire roared inside the kiln, Kagome could feel the heat from where she stood on the mountain path, over 20 feet away. The trunk of a thick tree rested in front of the kiln served as a bench for the user of the kiln to relax as they waited for the moment they would need to stoke the fire. Leaning on the log was a man surrounded by empty jugs of sake.

"Oh," whispered Kagome in surprise before raising her voice, "hello?"

The man sprawled on the ground in front of the kiln, didn't budge. Kagome worriedly made her way towards the man, who wasn't stirring, even when Kagome did nothing to hide her presence. Kagome hoped the man didn't have alcohol poisoning, or worse had drunk himself to death.

"Sir, are you alright?" whispered Kagome, afraid to raise her voice any higher. She walked around the trunk, stepping around the empty jugs that were set up like a mine field before she kneeled down beside the downed man. Kagome took a moment to observe who could only be the hermit of the mountain. The man had only a few wrinkles along the edges of his eyes and the corners of his mouth. His long black hair was tied at the nape of his neck by a scrape of blue cloth. A tall red collared white cloak was thrown haphazardly over him, much like a blanket even though his long appendages stubbornly stuck out of their covering. Kagome couldn't fight the smile that fought its way onto her lips as she watched the man sleeping so sloppily, it reminded her of how Shippo would sleep with his limbs casted about while his mouth hung open, a little bit of drool seeping down the corner of his mouth. Kagome's observations were cut short, however, by the man snoring loudly, waking himself up with a start.

"Who are you?" growled the man, his voice raspy from drowsiness and alcohol. Kagome didn't move from the spot where she was kneeled, not at all intimidated by the bulky, muscular man. She watched as the man sat up with the speed of an old man suffering from aches, pains, and groaning joints.

"I'm Kagome," she answered with an optimistic smile, making sure to keep her voice low so it wouldn't grate his throbbing head, "I heard of a hermit living on this mountain, and thought I'd investigate."

"What?" moaned the drunk as he pressed a hand against his eyes to block out the sun lights cheery rays.

"Kagome came up mountain," began Kagome slowly using her hands to better illustrate the scene of her walking up the mountain, "found you here, you woke up."

"Alright whatever... what do ya want?" snarled the man not appreciating Kagome's story or her waving arms. Kagome didn't answer right away as she watched the man pull himself on top of the log, leaving the high, red collared cloak resting in the dirt.

"What's this kiln for?" Kagome asked instead as she stood up and moved to sit on the log next to him. While she waited for an answer, Kagome straightened out the wrinkles that had developed in her cream colored kimono, plucking out the occasional stick or leaf that had been lodged in the layers of silk.

"It's for pots," said the man at last with a sigh, moving his hands away from his eyes to rub his temples soothing away his headache, "occasionally vases and figurines."

"You're a potter?" questioned Kagome with a wide smile, "an artist?" The man didn't answer as he reached down to grab his cloak from the ground, and rested it across his knees.

"One more question," bargained Kagome, her mind buzzing as she looked towards the blazing kiln, seeing the pots and vases inside, "how long does pottery last?"

"What do I care?" grumbled the man, "I make this crap to sell, overpriced of course, to those rich snobs who call themselves art collectors." Kagome smiled and turned to the hermit, a plan already forming. "Aren't you going to leave? I answered your question, what more could you want with this lowly drunken hermit?"

Kagome didn't answer as she turned away from man, her thoughts whirling about looking at her slowly forming ambition from every angle, listing the pros and cons. When she reached a conclusion a grin spread over her lips having decided she had to become a potter, to leave her mark for all to see. For the first time in a long time, hope sparked inside her, making her eyes gleam like a raging inferno.

After that day, Kagome would often make sporadic visits to the mountain clearing, demanding to be taken in as his apprentice. By the 106th visit in the 13th month Hiko Seijuro broke, and finally took on the girl as his apprentice. He taught the girl everything he knew about pottery and watched as she grew and developed the skill. He observed her as she carved the same message in each piece she spun. 'Lost Time' its meaning had Hiko baffled he never knew Kagome was sending a message to her family who at one point had been lost to her forever. 'I'm here, don't lose hope, I'm trying to get home.' Was left unsaid each time she turned her piece around, sharpened wooden sliver in hand, dreaming of home.

"I'm here…" Kagome whispered as she set her latest piece in the kiln to be fired, hoping with each piece the message would be delivered. Just as a message in a bottle eventually finds its way to shore Kagome looked forward to the day her creations would weather the passage of time, and make its way home.

A/N: So I've had most of this done a few months ago, but I totally forgot about it until a little while ago. So I finished it, though I'm certain it didn't turn out anything like I had first planned. I hope you all liked it!