A/N: The title comes from Disney's motion picture, Dumbo. Minor references to Sesame Street and Austin Powers. Initially removed due to the lyric policy. Reposted without lyrics. Written January 20, 2003. I just wanted to write something about Izayoi.
BABY MINE
She knew he was different, that much was obvious. His hair, his eyes, his face, all the way down to his tiny toes, she knew he was different.
But that didn't stop her from loving him.
"Mama! Mama!" he called for her and the woman walked gracefully to where he was, "Look at what I found." He pointed to a small ball of feathers lying in the grass, "It's a bird."
His mother nodded accordingly and shared his excitement when he found this new treasure. "How did it get all the way down here, Mama?"
She looked down at the bird and back up at the tree from whence it came. She spotted a nest high up in one of its branches and sighed.
"The baby bird fell from its home, Inu-Yasha." The toddler looked puzzled for a moment and hesitated, ponder his mother's saddened expression. Then he bent down to pick up the fledgling.
"No, Inu-Yasha, don't!" she warned, anxious that the bird might have contracted some disease or illness that could pass onto her child.
"It's okay, Mama. Look, it's breathing." And sure enough, it was. The little hanyou stroked its tiny beak with one of his own miniature claws and smiled in sheer delight when he was answered with a chirp. He showed the object proudly to his mother, urging her to touch it as well.
She looked at the ruffled one's beady fowl eyes before she extended her index finger and touched its head.
"It likes you."
She was relieved.
Inu-Yasha continued to stroke the infant bird's head and started to coo to it while the smaller one sang back, as if they shared a secret language that only children knew.
"He wants to go back home, Mama. He misses his Dad."
The woman sighed yet again, but out of affection.
"Pray tell, how are we going to get him up that big tree? He's too small to fly up there by himself." She reasoned with a gentle voice. The silver-haired boy brought his two small brows together in intense concentration before speaking.
"I'll climb the tree and bring him home!"
Inu-Yasha tucked the baby bird into one of the many folds of his haori, but the downy feathered-one chirped loudly to say it didn't like it there. Next, he tried perching it onto his shoulder but that didn't work either. Then an ingenious idea popped into his little head and he decided to put the hatchling on top of his head. Mini-me settled down in-between his soft, velvety ears and made a nest out of his silvery hair.
"Son, just what are you doing?" she inquired, seeing the yellow fluff strut atop her child's head.
"Are you ready, big bird? "Okay, let's go!" Quick as a flash, the little hanyou turned around, took several strides and launched into the air.
"Aagh!"
"Inu-Yasha!" A woman screamed.
Her heart stopped.
"I'm alright, Mama. See, I made it to the branch." He called down to her happily, his voice slightly breathless but his puppy-ears twitched in unsuppressed pride.
"Oh, my son." She exhaled tiredly as her knees gave way and she sat down on the grass. Her baby had just jumped thirty feet into the air, like a hot wire, and barely caught onto a branch. Either that or he would have fallen. Oh, the things he did.
Watching in worried anticipation, her eyes followed him as he slowly climbed, branch by branch, up the tree. Baby Bird's chirping became considerably louder knowing that he would soon return home.
"One…last…branch…" The voice echoed among the trees, carrying it all the day down to his mother.
He didn't want to look down.
It was a long fall.
R-e-a-l-l-y long.
"Here you go, little buddy." Inu-Yasha used his left hand to scoop the bird off his tangled head and into the nest. He nodded a goodbye to the feathered-pompom before he swung his legs back over the branch, getting ready for his descent down the aged trunk.
Snap.
The piece of bark that he had been holding on to broke away from the branch. It fell apart in his small, clawed hands and the next thing he knew was that he was falling backwards...
Eyes wide in horror, his mother stood up from the ground and shrieked as she saw her baby fall from more than fifty feet up.
"INU-YASHA!"
Did he dare to open his eyes?
They were screwed up tight, really tight.
Where was he?
He was unhurt.
Soft clothing surrounded him.
"Mama!" he cried, turning around to come face-to-face with his mother's saddened eyes. Looking around, he saw that he had hurt her.
"Mama! I'm so sorry!" little crystalline tears welled up in his liquid golden eyes.
She had caught him in time.
"Shh, it's alright my son. It'll be alright."
He buried his face into her dress and cried. She wrapped her arms around him protectively; a mother's instinct was never wrong.
Then Izayoi did something that she knew would calm her child. She sang to him.
And in her words, she told him just how much she loved her son.
"Come, my little Inu-Yasha," she spoke softly, noticing her son's quiet breathing as she cradled him in her arms, "it's time for lunch." He reached for her hand and she caught it, so tiny and delicate, as they walked away from the tree.