"What is your wish?" A silvery spirit, claiming the form of a hare, spoke with a faint voice to the woman crouched before it. The woman, with her lank hair and tattered clothes, shuddered before looking up. The yōkai winced inwardly upon the sight of her haggard expression, tears rolling freely down her face and staining her eyes with an unsightly red. She tightly clutched a doll to her chest as she stared at the yōkai with such despair in her eyes that even the spirit felt like crying out. She was in so much pain- pain which was dealt to her blow by blow from the war to even her own genetics.
"I'm so lonely," moaned the woman. "So, so very lonely. I w-want a child, a daughter."
The hare nods and slowly extends its head, resting the tip of its nose against the raven head of the doll. It closed its eyes and grew brighter. The woman, so numb from everything, hardly even blinked at the motions. She was already so tired. This was probably just another dream from which she'd wake disappointed as ever before continuing on with her sad existence. While the woman remained apathetic the yōkai slowly began to disappear. The silvery wisps and trails that belonged to it seeped into the protectively cradled doll.
"Thy will be done, m'lady," the hare whispered just before fading completely. The woman, thinking that she had once again been left alone, began to curse and wail. Oh how cruel of a creature! To ask what she wished for and then to vanish without a trace. She simply failed to see what the yōkai had become, and only when she did would she truly understand that her wish had indeed been granted.
The woman tilted the doll back in her arms, a silver aura pulsing around the inanimate object. The eyes, so special as they could open and close, were revealed to her. When she had first bought the doll those eyes had been a normal black with the gloss of glass and polisher. As she looks into those eyes now she becomes enraptured, hypnotized even- for now those eyes are pure glass, a window to the soul but a mirror as well, for nothing can be seen in an eye without something to reflect it back. The lights died down and the woman was left with a new doll from the one she had. This one now felt alive.
She hesitantly patted the doll's raven hair. "Such a pretty girl. Such pretty eyes. My little Kagami. Kagami Rei."
There was a flash, a brief sensation of pain, and then everything was still. Silent. The woman was distracted by something on her hand, a black line with a double cross was inked into her skin. She did not understand it's meaning, yet knew it was meant for her new daughter. Suddenly something shifted, revealing that there was a new weight resting on her lap. She looked down and openly gaped.
A small girl, hair soft and silky colored the raven's tail feather, clothed in such simplistic commoners clothing, curled on her lap. With shaking hands the woman reached under the child and lifted her head up by the chin. Snow white skin and bright pink lips, closed eyes, but breathing. The doll had come to life.
Slowly her eyes opened, long and dark lashes curling beautifully against her pale skin. The woman felt a frown tugging at the corner of her lips as the child's eyes became fully revealed. They still had not changed from glass to something more normal. But as the child looked up at her the woman stifled those bothersome worries and allowed for warm tenderness to flow from within her to reach the child, so she smiled.
"Hello Kagami," the woman said, finding that the words wished to become stuck in her throat filling thick with emotion. She had waited so long for a day like this…
The child, Kagami, blinked before opening her mouth to greet the woman properly.
"Hello, Okā-sama."