Lady Eboshi looked in the mirror and flexed her arm. It was now almost as good as her old one.
She cast her mind back over the events of the past three years, since she had first met Ashitaka, duelled San, and had then lost her arm hunting the Spirit of the Forest.
After she had lost her arm, she had tried to rebuild Irontown (with Ashitakas help) in a manner closer to nature, without wanton destruction; leaving forests on hills to reduce mudslides and provide a sustainable harvest of timber, for example. But her furnace required a lot of wood and charcoal and her people liked to hunt animals for food. Her vision of a tamed and managed landscape was fundamentally at odds with Sans prefered vision of a virgin wilderness, and the two women soon fell out.
She had tried to manage with the loss of her arm, but her people did not like having a mutilated leader. However she learned from a travelling monk about a sacred monastry of healing, where the monks had mystical healing powers, and salves, herbs and potions of great repute and supposedly fantastical effects. So she travelled to the sacred monastry, where the monks rubbed a mysterious salve onto her wound and chanted round her bed, and her severed arm began to regrow. After a couple of days, it was as big as her old one, though still very weak and intermittently somewhat painful. She then returned home to great rejoycing. This treatment had cost her over 4 tons of iron.
Ashitaka had been her constant companion in the rebuilding of Irontown, and as her relationship worsend with San she grew closer to Ashitaka, and several months after she returned from the monastry, she began sleeeping with him. She knew he was also having a relationship with San, but this she did not mind, much, as Ashitaka was always the man for her.
As is thev way of things, she fell pregnant. Ashitaka was overjoyed to know he would be a father, but by this time something was preying on his mind. As her belly grew rounder, Ashitaka often travelled between her home and Sans. It was on one of these voyages that Ashitaka disappeared and was presumed killed, travelling between Irontown and Sans home in the forest. It was several weeks before they found his presumed body, probably killed by a mysterious monster.
The funeral, where Ashitaka was cremated, and buried in a glade in the forest, was the last time she had met San. To her horror she noticed San was also pregnant. Eboshis gaze rose to meet Sans eyes, she did not expect a friendly face, but she was shocked by the glare of pure hatered with which San was looking at her.
After the funeral their relationship deteriorated further. While Eboshis power and influence had grown, San had also gained a small following. The remaining intelligent animals had rallied around her, as had a small number of humans; shamans, barbarians, hunter-gatherers and others, who wished to live close to nature. While there had always been some conflict between the two groups, after Ashitakas funeral the situation deteriorated into open warfare, and San had again started raiding Eboshis pack oxen trains, in response to hunting and deforestation.
In the midst of all this Eboshi gave birth to a beautiful daughter. Several weeks later, San also given birth, to a son.