[fic] mother's milk; lost, dogen; pg

[krickets]

title; rating: mother's milk; pg
fandom, character; wordcount: lost, dogen; 250
notes: for that_evening who requested the temple folk at this year's luau.

Dogen remembers feeling alienated -- angry.

Even as a child, it had always been there. It was a trait that his father, a soft-spoken, gentle man, could never understand. His mother, on the other hand, was acutely acquainted with the anger he felt, for it was the same as the bitterness that ran through her veins.

Now, he stands at the temple gates, a bag slung over his shoulder filled with useless frivolities that he knows he will soon discard [save for one]. And it is here, at this place he's traveled so far to see, that Dogen finally understands the images his mother used to brush upon her canvas and the words she often spoke.

Don't ever mistake this, son, she would tell him. Your place is somewhere else.

All his life he's carried with him the only useful thing he'd ever need -- an image of these arches, the tall trees surrounding this jungle fortress, the entrance to what lies beyond it. His mother had painted it, thick and dark, upon her canvas and upon the walls of their home. [Over and over again.] She'd sketched it on napkins, on blank pages of books, on every sheet of paper until there were none left. She'd even drawn it in the palm of his hand once, and she had never once explained what it meant.

Now, all of her sketches, her warnings, her premonitions, become perfectly clear.

Dogen draws a breath.

And then another.

He takes a step forward.

-fin