Stunted

by Starrilight-Hotaru

She did not grow. On the eve of her seventeenth summer she stood before the great demon tree as she had done so many nights before. She spoke unto him words she would utter to no one else. Not even her lord. And when she was done and most tired, she cried deeply into his blossoms, while making him promise to keep her secrets. IR

1. Chapter 1

This is a mature drabble.

It is rated M for mature themes and content.

Disclaimer: I claim to own nothing. Do with that information what you will.

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A/N: This is an idea I was playing with. It won't be very long but I find that I enjoy writing drabble chapters. Enjoy.

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Stunted - Chapter 1

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He had lost her once again.

"I was mistaken, this is not what I wanted…" muttered the girl who overcame time to the boy who time overcame, before she slipped back into the well never to be seen or followed again.

Perhaps her leaving was selfish, for he could not be at fault for not being able to give her the family she so desired. Who could have told the couple 9 years prior, when the girl returned indefinitely, that her hanyou lover was sterile? And he could not beget an heir. It was not widely known that hanyou were barren, but after they struggled for over 3 years to conceive, they heard rumors from others as well and all was soon known.

But perhaps his infertility was not what drove a wedge between them. Perhaps it was his reaction to the knowledge that he could not sire a child. He was relieved. In his mind, he did not truly wish to be responsible for the ridicule and hardships that another would incur for straddling the line of humanity and what lies beyond.

Yet she saw it as a blatant want not to conceive with her. She felt as if the past was holding him from her. She became bitter as she watched her friends raise a family together and experience the joys of parenthood. She became filled with self loathing when she remembered that in the life she had left, she could have had that joy already. And yet a decade in the past had almost come to a close.

She blamed him unjustly because of the feeling of failure that comes with the knowledge that certain dreams shall not come true. And began to push him away until there was nothing left to keep her there. She wished to return to her time because maybe this place in the past was no longer her own. And so she did.

In her wake she left a disheartened lover with a soul filled with voids. And to fill them he turned to drinking because the lazy comfort of a lack of awareness was still and yet a comfort. While the tortures of sobriety where yet and still tortures.