Disclaimer: This story is based on "Inuyasha," copyrighted by Rumiko Takahashi. No infringement of copyright intended or implied.
Masumi
A sleepy baby snapped alert, ears pricking, head turning. Warned, Izayoi turned.
The shoji slid open a crack. Eyes looked in. The shoji slid back fall the way.
Masumi stepped through and bowed, smiling. "Welcome back, Izayoi-sama."
"Masumi! You were ordered not to speak with the woman!"
"Nonsense, Sora," she snapped, straightening and turning to face the angry servant. "The lord acknowledged his daughter. Are we to do less?"
"What? How do you know?"
She laughed. "How many servants were loitering outside the hall, stretching their ears? Are you a fool? In the time it took the lady to walk to here, do you not think gossip spread the word to every person in the palace?" She sniffed audibly as Sora deflated, mouth agape. "Get in here, all of you," she ordered crisply. "Do not shame ourselves by leaving our lady in this unsuitable place one moment longer than necessary."
Bustle rose about her. Izayoi remained where she was, bouncing Inuyasha a little, tickling his ears, then, when he started to fuss, gathering the red material more closely about him.
A motion caught her eye. "No incense, please."
Everyone looked at her and froze. "The—" She hesitated, acutely aware of her father's decree, but unable to demean her son. "He—his nose is very keen."
"Of course, lady," said Masumi, shaking her head at the young girl next to the brazier. "Maybe a kettle, with herbs?"
Izayoi smiled and nodded. The transformation continued, under the brisk orders of the somewhat plump, gray-haired woman. Izayoi kept alert, keeping part of her attention on Sora who was shifting his weight back and forth, looking increasingly uncomfortable.
She had always found the shrunken, wizened man to be a toady and a sneak.
She wondered who held his leash these days. Not her father, she hoped
The room was warming from the braziers, and beginning to look familiar, with a chest and a wall divider that Izayoi remembered from her teenage years. The men who had carried in the chests, the dividers, and the futon were drifting out of the room when Masumi turned her attention back to the young mother.
"Should I hold the—um, ah, the little one while the girls undress you, my lady?" she asked, her fumbling effort to find a reference to Inuyasha evidence enough that the gossip had not only communicated her status, but Inuyasha's as well.
"His name is Inuyasha," Izayoi said calmly, pulling back the red cloth. Inuyasha whimpered, then gave a long whine, staring at her with flattened ears and distressed, tearful expression.
"Not even trying to hide what she's done, is she?" Sora muttered to one of the men loitering by the shoji. "Mate with a beast, carry his get, flaunt the little monster and bewitch the old man—"
Crack! Masumi's slap rocked the air, delivering shocked silence. Izayoi had not even seen the woman move. "You keep your lying, slavering tongue off our lady, and off the little one!" Masumi glared at Sora, towering over the shorter man, wrath in every fiber of her. "Don't think because the heir tolerates you, that you can make free to gossip and belittle his sister, let alone his honorable father! And don't think that gossip cannot be used to slime the low ones, as well as the high, or do you want me to talk about some things I've seen over the years! Now, everyone out! Except Hana, and Mia."
Hands clenched, narrow face flushed with rage, Sora slunk out of the room, followed by the rest of the servants, save Masumi and the two young women she'd called out. Looking unrepentant, Masumi turned back to Izayoi, black eyes now meeting hers squarely.
"Shall I take him, my lady?" she asked, holding out her hands. "It will be easier to undress, without holding him."
Izayoi hesitated, unwilling to let her defenses down. "I will put him down on the chest," she said. "He is—not used to others holding him."
"Nah, lady, you think I can't tell he'll start wailing the moment you let go?" asked Masumi, with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Puppy or baby, that's a wee little one who's tired and unhappy, and you think I can't tell, all the babies and puppies I've tended over the years? Here." With one hand, she reached out and tickled Inuyasha's belly.
The baby squeaked, and stared at the hand resting on top of him. A hand work-worn, chapped and gnarled, unlike his mother's hands. Inuyasha sniffed, grabbed a finger, and hauled it to his mouth. He gnawed on the knuckle for a few moments, then pushed it away with a face of disgust.
Masumi only laughed. "Too old and tough for gnawing on, is it?" Izayoi found the baby transferred from her arms without realizing it. Moments later, Inuyasha giggled as Masumi tickled him again. Struggling for composure, Izayoi watched as the older woman teased Inuyasha into another set of giggles, then allowed her hand to be captured by both tiny hands and thoroughly sniffed and examined.
The older woman smiled at her, then glanced at the others. "You two, let's get our lady out of these fancy robes, and into something comfortable, so she can feel like herself, and not some great princess on display."
As the two younger woman moved behind her, Izayoi returned the smile.
Author's Note: This piece was written for the prompt 'Gossip,' for the LiveJournal community InuYasha FanFiction. A shorter version was originally posted on January 22, 2012. It won the contest. (8/17/2012)