A/N: In time for Thanksgiving! Sorry for my long delay. Life enjoys getting in the way. Between working, classes, and being a wife...no time!

Disclaimer: I do not own them.

Last Chapter: Izayoi joined the humans, Myoga was nearly killed, and Izayoi seduced Takemaru into sleeping with her on her second or third night with the humans. Also, Takemaru professed to being in love with her, bewitched almost. We met Koushou, Takemaru's friend, and Kobiru, an old lecherous man who teased Takemaru. Also, Takemaru's older brother, leader of the Setsuna clan was mentioned—Ijimeru who has a pregnant wife named Rini. Takemaru interrogated Izayoi and was told that the Dog took her against her will but that she wasn't pregnant. Oh, and we met Yoko, a maid, and Sumi, Takemaru's aunt and female spy.


Pain has but one Acquaintance by Emily Dickinson

Pain has but one Acquaintance
And that is Death -
Each one unto the other
Society enough.


Izayoi

(Letters to Inuyasha)

Your father often doubted your older brother's heart. He saw nothing but a cruel outward mask and it shamed him. But I think—I know—he is very much his father's son, just as you are. Like your father, he is not human, so it is indeed foolish for me to believe I can read him, but I do not believe he wanted to kill your father. That was to be his destiny and he was fierce enough, cold enough to do it. Your father considered him a threat as much as an ally.

These were delicate, sticky odds and ends between your older brother and your honorable father. I know that your brother was pushed to succeed your father and take his title long before a natural death would have come to him. I do not know entirely to what length your brother was in truth involved with your honorable father's death, but Sesshomaru spared him long enough that your honorable father could save me and you—and set us free.

It was also your older brother who allowed your father to reach us in the first place. I sometimes believe it was Heaven answering my prayers after years of abandonment. Perhaps he took leave of his senses with pity that softened his hard, stony heart like rain softens dried earth. You must be thankful to him for this mercy, but never mention it. My advice to you, Inuyasha, is never to antagonize your brother. He will be like a hive of wasps. Steer clear of him but be mindful of him and you will be of as little concern to him as a stone.


Confinement

When Izayoi returned to the women's room late at night when Sumi and all the others were sleeping—with the exception of Yuki who was dozing off near the door—it was no secret what had happened to her. Her robes were askew, her hair mussed, her skin moist with perspiration. Yuki snapped awake at the sound of the sliding door on its track and in the last, orange light of the dying brazier she gawped at Izayoi's state of dress.

"Lady Izayoi!" she hissed. "Are you all right?"

Izayoi was already undressing into her under robe which had a simpler sash. Her legs were unsteady, weakened by the stress of her encounter with Takemaru. "I'm fine," she murmured.

Yuki came forward and helped her undress, taking Izayoi's outer robe and using it as a blanket over her rolled out sleeping mat. "He did not hurt you, did he?"

"No," Izayoi answered quietly, considering every word carefully before she let it slip out of her. What were the norms for these humans? What did they expect of her and Takemaru? Was it inappropriate that he had taken her to bed before they were married? Would she be punished for it, or would everyone quietly turn their heads? Was it possible they would laugh and twitter with jealousy and ask for nitty-gritty details?

In the end she only added, "Lord Takemaru had a great deal of sake this evening."

Yuki pressed forward, hissing with conspirator's urgency and intensity. "Did he just touch you? Did you see him naked? He didn't—he wouldn't actually…"

"We're to be married," Izayoi whispered.

The implication was powerful enough that Yuki flinched back with a girlish gasp, though what Izayoi had said was not old news. Everyone in the group had known that Takemaru intended to marry Izayoi as soon as he recovered her from the demons—if she was appropriate that was.

"You made love?"

Izayoi had turned her back on Yuki as she slid into position on her sleeping mattress. Her mind was preoccupied with sleep. Her body's needs outweighed the social ones that were pressing in around her, yet the terminology made her feel ill. "Please—I am very tired."

"It was bad," Yuki said, observing more than Izayoi had thought the girl was capable of. "He was rough? It hurt? Please—tell me!"

Izayoi laid flat and sighed though a slow, faint thought trickled through her. Yuki is a virgin. "Please," she repeated, whispering in the gloom—all too aware of the other sleeping women, breathing steadily ostensibly in deep sleep. "I only want to sleep."

"All right," Yuki muttered, sour at the rejection.

As the young maid withdrew, fixing her own sleeping mat and lying down on it, Izayoi closed her eyes and willed the present to vanish. The secret, intimate space between her legs burned with lingering irritation—violation. Takemaru was a poor lover, but Izayoi could not reveal that because it inherently suggested that she had something to compare him to…

She felt tears threatening but pushed them back, swallowing thickly and forcibly steadying her breathing. This is your life now, she told herself. There is no going back. You will survive.

In her under robe was the small, iridescent black stone that Shiroihana had ordered Izayoi to carry on penalty of death. While Izayoi laid on her side, curled into a fetal position, she pulled out the stone and rubbed it between her fingers. Takemaru had not noticed it when he undressed her earlier, and in her internal distress, Izayoi had almost left it behind. It would not be hard to convince others it was a trinket or a good luck charm—but Izayoi could not afford to lose it by accident as long as she planned to continue living.

But if I wish to die…

She tucked the stone back into her under robe and tried to sleep in such a way as to avoid having the little stone dig into her. A futile struggle. By morning she would wake with one spot or another aching where the stone, as if had a malicious will of its own to cause her harm, had become pinned between her body and the mat beneath her.


In the next three days the group traveled with languid slowness. They had seemingly forgotten that they had fled from the Kosetsu province with the Dog General's prize. They were overconfident, certain of their success—or simply of the distance between themselves and the dens of the demons.

On two of the nights the group stayed in inns, on the other under the stars. On both nights that the caravan stayed in an inn, Takemaru called Izayoi to him. It was covertly, a secretive tryst that took Izayoi by surprise. Most knew or suspected what was happening, but they looked the other way. The few who didn't—such as Yuki—proved very useful to Izayoi.

"Lord Takemaru is very chaste. I cannot believe he takes you into his bed!"

Izayoi had nothing to say, though she tried to smile. Her bones felt heavy, her chest tight. The baby was thick, making Izayoi's abdomen feel as if it actively swelled, bulging and bloated. She had slept fitfully, in spite of her exhaustion—physical, mental, and emotional. Her dreams tormented her though by morning she could not recall a single one.

It was a constant struggle throughout the day to hide signs of illness or discomfort. She had the sense that the other women watched her, curious and suspicious at all times. There was nothing else for them to do after all.

Aside from Takemaru's aunt Sumi, there were a few cousins about Izayoi's age as well as their servants. The cousins, Shingi and Musei, had little to do with Izayoi. Musei often stared with curiosity, frank and open. She had even smiled at Izayoi a few times during shared meals. Shingi on the other hand had a cold, hard stare that seemed to pierce through Izayoi unconcernedly. She was the more classically beautiful of the two young women, sisters, as well as the older.

Izayoi began asking about the family connections of the women from Yuki to sway the maid's attention away from Takemaru's newfound sexuality. "Are Shingi and Musei Lady Sumi's daughters?"

Yuki spun the sunshade playfully and then waggled it back and forth, trying to balance it on her palm. "Lady Sumi married into the Setsuna clan."

Izayoi sighed, smiling with amusement at Yuki's continued antics with the sunshade. It was a cloudy day; the sun was barely shining through the gloom though there had not yet been any rain. "You didn't answer my question," she said, coaxing.

Yuki lowered the sunshade and sighed. The corners of her mouth curled downward. "It's a very sad story; I didn't want to share it with you, Lady Izayoi."

Izayoi smiled and was surprised that she felt little bitterness as she said, "My life has been very sad already, Yuki. I don't think anything you can tell me will affect me much."

Yuki scowled but agreed. "All right. Well." She leaned closer to Izayoi and dropped her voice conspiratorially, whispering the tale as she would some bit of juicy gossip. The motion and the change of tone made Izayoi think with a mixture of happiness and sadness of Myoga, the flea, who had adored gossip and knowledge, in spite of being very much a male.

"Lady Sumi married Lord Takemaru's father's older brother. You see, back before Lord Takemaru's father took over the Setsuna clan, the position was supposed to go to his older brother, Lord Eiki. Lord Eiki married Lady Sumi, who was from the Miyabita clan, the same as you, my lady."

Izayoi blinked at the information, startled. She looked up and down at the caravan, instinctively longing to see Sumi's face again, as if she would find reflections of her own features in the older woman's face.

"But the marriage wasn't favorable within the clan," Yuki went on. "And the marriage itself was fraught with difficulty. Lady Sumi could not keep a child. There were miscarriages continuously. Meanwhile Lord Takemaru's father saw his older brother's childlessness and staged a coup. He took Lord Eiki's place with his wife, Lord Takemaru's mother, was pregnant with Lord Ijimeru. In shame, Lord Eiki took his own life. Lady Sumi was miserable and everyone expected she would do the same, joining her husband in death, but she refused. Instead Lady Sumi became a nanny and caretaker for all of Lord Eiki's brother's children."

The story was long and confusing, already Izayoi was unsure whether the news would help or harm her. Now that Izayoi knew Sumi was actually a daughter of the Miyabita, she might be inclined to slip around the woman, to grow to comfortable over time, to trust. She could not afford to make such a mistake. Just because Sumi had been Miyabita did not mean she could be trusted, and it didn't mean she would sympathize with Izayoi, another daughter of the Miyabita—the very last of the Miyabita. But perhaps it explained why the old woman had come along and been so attentive to Izayoi while Musei and Shingi, the female cousins, hardly cared.

"What about Musei and Shingi?" Izayoi asked.

Yuki scoffed and picked flecks of dirt from under her fingernails. "They think they're very important, but they're nothing. They're Lord Takemaru's cousins from his mother's side. Shingi was Lord Ijimeru's choice for Takemaru's bride—before you were returned to us. But Lord Takemaru—" as Yuki spoke his name her voice changed with a silky, sensual sound that Izayoi knew was longing. "—wouldn't go through with the betrothal ceremony. He wouldn't have anyone but you, Lady Izayoi. It's so romantic!"

Izayoi fought for something to say and stammered with nervousness. "Y—yes…Lord Takemaru has been very…very generous."

Yuki's brown eyes roved over Izayoi, searchingly, trying to understand her. Izayoi purposefully looked away and pretended to be lost in thought or pleasant daydreams when in reality she thought she would faint or puke—she wasn't sure which.

The homecoming was more grandiose and impressive than Izayoi had imagined it would be, but it could never compare to the simple beauty and elegance of her life at Nejiro with Inutaisho as her lover. The humans, men, women, and children, cheered and clamored at the horses and the palanquins, bowing but simultaneously peeping up at the caravan as it passed. The road was muddy and flat with the passage of uncountable feet, hooves, and wheels, but low, rounded mountains reared on every side.

The first villages and towns in the Takeyabu province, the lands of Izayoi's birth and her now virtually extinct Miyabita clan, were small and fairly impoverished. Yuki asked Izayoi over and over again if anything was familiar to her, and eventually Izayoi realized that this was Miyabita clan land. The villages and towns were small and impoverished because they had been destroyed only a few years ago. The people living in them now, farming and raising their livestock, were either common survivors with no real family name at all, or they were people of the Setsuna clan, reclaiming the extinct Miyabita's homes and land.

The thought of it stirred the old bitterness between clans within Izayoi, the old memory of pain and loss. Unlike the survivors and the Setsuna clan itself, Izayoi knew that disaster had not befallen her clan by mere chance. It had come as punishment from Shiroihana. It was because of Izayoi that the Miyabita were dead and gone. It was ironic, harsh and cruel beyond reason, that Izayoi found herself their only survivor and soon she too would be absorbed into the Setsuna clan's holdings as Takemaru's beloved wife.

The weight of this grief made Izayoi weak and then ill. It grew within her slowly until it was unbearable. By the time the caravan had come to a proper outpost where Yuki told Izayoi that Takemaru's older brother Lord Ijimeru—now the head of the clan—was waiting for them, Izayoi was so exhausted emotionally sick that Sumi ordered Yuki to summon a physician and escorted Izayoi to a bedroom where she could rest.

Izayoi barely took in the small palace with its pale, undecorated screens and dark woodwork. Her room was barren and simple, with a mattress already laid out, which Izayoi was very grateful for. Sumi waited on her with the practical tenderness of a mother, though Izayoi could still feel the older woman's watchful eyes, taking everything in.

"This is hardly acceptable," Sumi murmured with a gentle, almost playful chiding. "You are supposed to be the lady of the hour," she explained. "My nephew will be in a tizzy when he learns that you're not well."

Even through her exhaustion, Izayoi found it odd and amusing that Sumi used such childish and familiar language to describe Takemaru. Tizzy? She didn't expect her illness would generate much of any emotional reaction from Takemaru.

The physician that Yuki brought for Izayoi was an elderly woman with a deep, soothing voice. She was dressed simply and Sumi at first openly doubted the woman's skill. "Yuki—I said to bring a healer, not a maid."

The old woman tolerated Sumi's skepticism with a dry smile. "I am Mikata, Lady Rini's healer."

This silenced Sumi, who scooted away from Izayoi's bedside and allowed Mikata to take over. The elderly healer knelt and laid her hand palm up to Izayoi's forehead and neck. She sighed and withdrew a moment later, announcing, "Well, there is no fever." She narrowed her eyes at Izayoi and asked, "Have you been eating and drinking properly on the road? Have you slept well? Have you been sick to your stomach or afflicted with bowel trouble?"

Izayoi had to fight to stay awake and answer the old woman. "I'm just tired."

"The journey has been hard on her," Yuki supplied with genuine sympathy.

Sumi was less compassionate, offering factual observations to the healer. "She has been sick to her stomach several times during the journey and she keeps late hours. When she does sleep it is fitful."

Mikata grunted, a startlingly masculine sound, filled with authority. She rooted around in a small wooden case that she had brought with her, producing two leather pouches that she handed off to Yuki. "Mix two pinches of each herb into some tea and bring it here."

Yuki left at once to do as she was told. Izayoi was awake enough to understand that some medicine had been sent for, but she knew she would not—could not—take it until she knew what was in it, or what Mikata thought she was treating her for.

"What is—what are the herbs?" she asked, scowling to fight off persistent tears.

"A sedative to help you sleep and a pain reliever to numb any pain you might be experiencing." Mikate cleared her throat and then, seemingly unaware of Sumi's presence, asked, "Is your fatigue driven by your emotions or your body?"

Izayoi hesitated before deciding that she would let some truth slip. As she spoke tears massed in her eyes and each time she blinked more spilled out of her. "I have not been here since my clan was killed. It is no longer my home. My family is dead and gone."

Mikata nodded and Sumi, just barely in Izayoi's sight, shifted, changing position. Izayoi longed to peer at Sumi's face, to see if the other woman, once part of the Miyabita herself, shared any of this emotion.

"It is going to be very difficult for you to bear," Mikata conceded, nodding. "I don't envy you. They're calling you the last of the Miyabita." Mikata scoffed with disgust. "Those men are as callous as turtles' shells. They don't know they'll bring you pain by reminding you of your loss constantly."

Though Izayoi had just met Mikata and barely knew her, she felt an immense gratitude for the elderly healer and dropped her head to the mattress, letting more tears flow. When the tea came Izayoi turned it down, claiming she would drink it later and insisting that she did not need it to help her sleep. There was no reason for Izayoi to fear the tea, or see danger in it for her child, but she could not shake the image and scent-memory of Shiroihana's abortive herbal tea. The tea that Yuki brought with Mikata's herbs smelled enough like it to make Izayoi fearful.

She slept for the rest of the day and through the night, waking rejuvenated. Yuki had slept in the room with her and had everything ready for Izayoi when she was ready to get up. She dressed Izayoi in layer upon layer of robes, rich and luxurious to the point of ludicrousness. The outer robes were more like jackets, but impractical as they trailed on the ground or just brushed it. At Nejiro, Izayoi had been active, walking between gardens and courtyard, classes and libraries, her bedroom and Inutaisho's. Now she saw a life of boredom and restlessness. Endless periods of sitting and waiting while servants bustled about, scurrying. Izayoi had been waited on before, of course, but her life had been independent and strong, practical. Now she would be an object to be seen, viewed by men.

"You're going to be presented to Lord Ijimeru today," Yuki told her giddily. "It will be a betrothal ceremony. A marriage date will be set for you and Lord Takemaru."

"Betrothal ceremony?" Izayoi asked, staring at her reflection in the bronzed mirrors. She had no idea what went on during such an event.

It too Yuki some time to understand that Izayoi did not know what a betrothal ceremony entailed. Yuki explained it patiently for the other woman. "The future husband and wife exchange gifts in sight of their two families, a date is selected, and everyone shares a meal. It will be fun! We get to feast!"

Izayoi prayed it was soon because she was already queasy, in need of food to sustain the ravenous little life that was expanding inside of her. She did not answer Yuki or speak much after this, merely stared unseeingly at her reflection, aiming her thoughts at her child, praying he—Inutaisho had been certain it would be a boy even before it was conceived—heard them. Be slow, little one. Stay small for a little while longer. Hide yourself…please don't look like your father!

When Yuki was finished with Izayoi's robes she sat in front of her and began applying some makeup with a childish grin. Yuki's teeth, misaligned and unpleasant to look at, distracted Izayoi for a time though she felt nothing but pleasant about the simpleminded and cheerful maid.

"You are magnificent!" Yuki announced. "You only grow more beautiful with each new day!"

Izayoi saw with surprise the redness to her lips, rouge. Otherwise Izayoi saw her own face as puffy, heavier than it usually was. The sight reminded Izayoi vaguely of her own mother just before she had died in childbirth. The recollection was frightening on more than one level. I look pregnant, she thought. She had always looked innocent and girlish, but now her face had changed, becoming womanly. The other terrible thought was of childbirth. It had killed Izayoi's mother and Izayoi understood it to be a dangerous and painful test. Many never passed it and died trying. Izayoi had been far from lucky her entire life. Why should she think herself lucky in this way?

"Hurry now," Yuki admonished. "You don't want to keep them waiting!"

Izayoi endured the betrothal ceremony mildly, withdrawing into a formal, silent shell. She bowed in an audience room where men sat on a dais, elevated in places of honor. She listened as they welcomed her to the Kyoushi Palace, which had once belonged to the Miyabita. The Setsuna clan had renamed and claimed it. The new name they gave it meant lovely figure and they felt, smugly, that the name suited it because it was where the ladies of the Setsuna clan were kept, along with the young, immature heirs of the clan.

"It is better for your kind here," Ijimeru explained imperiously with a smug smile. He was referring, Izayoi realized, to women in general. "Women do best away from the gales and winds of the sea. Also you don't pollute the fishermen's luck or his catch living inland like this."

As far as Izayoi could tell, Takemaru and Ijimeru were outwardly very similar—attractive men with even features and appearances. No one with good eyesight would be able to pass them both by without thinking he had seen brothers, even twins. Ijimeru had apparently inherited the leadership of the clan because of the unlucky order of birth. He was lankier and paler than Takemaru. He was the weaker of the two and later Yuki would whisper that if Takemaru had not been taken by the dog demons as a hostage, then it was entirely likely that their father would have appointed Takemaru the heir instead of Ijimeru. As it was Takemaru was a general, commanding the might and strength of the Takeyabu's armies. Ijimeru only ruled in name.

But unlike Takemaru, Ijimeru was already married with an heir on the way. A healthy son from Lady Rini would assure Ijimeru of control for generations to come.

During the ceremony, Takemaru sat behind his brother, watching Izayoi with a bright, intelligent gaze. Gifts were exchanged by the "families" when Sumi moved forward carrying a chest of brilliantly carved wood. Izayoi stared at the chest and then at Takemaru's elderly aunt and tried to keep her lower lip from trembling or her chin from wrinkling. Sumi was the closest that this ceremony and the Setsuna could come to reproducing one of the Miyabita to genuinely represent Izayoi's family.

Ijimeru spoke through most of the proceedings and had a servant girl present Izayoi and Sumi with Takemaru's present. It was a richly embroidered and thick pink winter kimono overcoat. Izayoi found it beautiful and for the first time smiled with true joy at the gift. She did not at once raise her eyes to take in Takemaru's face, but instead recalled Inutaisho's lavish gifts of kimono. She restrained herself from crying with an effort, finally banishing her tears when she did look up at Takemaru. His lips were pinched thin, smiling only a little. The expression he wore was simultaneously pleasant and unpleasant. It could be interpreted however one would like, but Izayoi saw it as a dangerous duality.

If Takemaru had been smiling with unfeigned joy, delighting in her happiness at such a wonderful gift, Izayoi might have melted slowly for him. She might have gradually given her heart over to him as a true wife should. Instead she saw that he had given this lovely gift because he knew it was what Inutaisho had liked to give her.

Had he given it to incite pain? To torture her? Or to test her story? Did he suspect the truth? The tightness of his smile and the keenness of his eyes made her core icy cold with fear.

She bowed and thanked him in a quivering voice that she knew most of the room would think was an overwhelmed joy. But in her heart she cried and mourned.

The marriage date was set for the first week of the tenth month of the year as autumn was the nearest auspicious time for weddings. It was well into the eighth month of the year. Izayoi was already a full month along in her secret pregnancy. It was too soon to tell Takemaru that she was pregnant, but by the tenth month she might not be able to keep her secret. Everyone would know the child was conceived before the wedding night.

Fresh fear rippled Izayoi's gut and her womb seemed to clench, holding onto the scrap of life planted within.


Sesshomaru

(Response to Inutaisho's pleading scrawled at the bottom)

My son,

I am ashamed of my treatment of you. I wish so much between us was different than it is. I have tried to force you to behave as you cannot. I have tried to make you into someone that you are not, while not seeing what you are. You are my son, my heir. You will replace me. I would be a fool not to see that. You are immense, you are powerful. One day you will take my life. I would not choose any other death, for dying on your claws would fill me with pride. When that day comes I will not resist it—if you would do but one thing for me, Sesshomaru.

Let me out of my imprisonment. I must kill Ryukotsusei and I must save the girl. I will do anything you ask, Sesshomaru.

This Sesshomaru will not reply. Chichiue has no choice.


From almost the first day that Sesshomaru arrived to patrol the grounds around Nejiro, guarding his father and monitoring the kitsune messengers, Inutaisho had tried to convince Sesshomaru to let him go free. Sometimes the messages were harried and scrawled, sent by way of one of Inutaisho's foxes or human servants. Other times they were full length letters, formal and informal alike. Inutaisho tried poetry and gifts of armor forged inside his castle walls.

Sesshomaru ignored everything, though on occasion he scrawled messages back using mud and a claw. This Sesshomaru will not reply. Or Chichiue has no choice. When he was feeling extra chatty Sesshomaru used both phrases. It did not please him to have his father pleading, begging pathetically for release. In fact, Sesshomaru felt nothing but disgust and pity. He loathed this plan by his mother but did not trust Inutaisho to honor a single word of his letters. Inutaisho would say anything to escape his confinement, to persuade Sesshomaru to at last sympathize with him and let him out.

It was not that these letters did not reach Sesshomaru. They did, and it was only with the greatest effort that Sesshomaru restrained himself from showing emotion as he read many of them. He would have liked to have opened lines of communication with his father, face to face, but Shiroihana had forbidden it.

The rules, as Shiroihana had laid them down, were straightforward and simple. Sesshomaru was not to meet with this father in person. He would stay outdoors while Inutaisho stayed inside Nejiro. Sesshomaru could not communicate with Inutaisho. Shiroihana had expected that the clever and desperate Inutaisho would try to send letters, or to see his son in person, and she knew Sesshomaru was likely to give in.

"He will flatter you, beg you, worship you. He will say anything; promise anything, just to win you over, Sesshomaru. But don't believe him for a moment. One instant of weakness and Inutaisho will emerge out to kill you so that he will not have to satisfy those promises. He sees us as enemies. There is no going back."

Sesshomaru could still see her face, somber and hard, firm with determination, but her lips were soft, her mouth open. There was a rawness in her golden eyes, buried in the lines of facial muscle in her brow. Though Sesshomaru knew she was manipulating him, he could not deny the wisdom of her words. Shiroihana was as much protecting both of them as she was ensuring that Sesshomaru did not switch sides while he played jailer for this father.

"I know you will not much like it," she said, "but I am going to send Daken, my loyalist servant with you."

Sesshomaru had known immediately that this was a calculated decision for her to prevent Sesshomaru from seeing his father. Daken would only report to Shiroihana, and if Sesshomaru betrayed her, or simply ignored her rules and wishes, he would pass along the message. Daken's presence was both a blessing and an insult for Sesshomaru. It suggested that Shiroihana could not trust her own son, and though Sesshomaru would have claimed otherwise, they both knew he would find the task of blindly binding his father a difficult one.

Sesshomaru had tried to convince Shiroihana not to send Daken—as a sort of watchdog—but Shiroihana insisted. The company of the lowbred inuyoukai warrior was familiar and comforting, and Sesshomaru was more grateful in the end for him than anything else, but it was still a bitter reminder that neither parent was truly friend. Neither could be trusted and neither would trust him.

But Shiroihana revealed how well she understood him, and how completely she could manipulate her son's heart, when she reminded him, "Whatever he says, he is a desperate creature now. You will want to believe him. It will break you, deep, inside."

They had been sitting very close, almost knee to knee in Kagetsu palace during this discussion. Shiroihana leaned toward him slightly and extended her hand, touching the palm to his chest. Sesshomaru had felt the living heat from it and repressed a shiver.

Shiroihana stared into his eyes with a frank, disarming maternal tenderness. "This is not the situation you want to hear him express his devotion to you, or his love. Everything he says will be under duress and you cannot believe it. Even if he means it—he should have made it known to you much earlier, as you deserve."

Sesshomaru had stared back at her, blank and dead, but inside his heart burned, as if damaged by her touch. How true her words were in that moment, and like a fine miso soup, they had only improved with the passage of time.

Inutaisho's letters enraged and simultaneously gouged at his heart and mind. He could feel himself slipping into a lack of clarity, brought on by sorrow. He checked in with his mother as the months began to pass, with summer waning into fall, and did not try to keep anything from her. He revealed the frequency that Inutaisho sent letters out to him, and that every one had been ignored or rebuffed. Shiroihana was pleased and did nothing but smile when he was with her, rejoicing that her son was loyal and that her ex-husband suffered. Sesshomaru did not want to despise her and pity his father, but he found that he could not convince himself to completely share in her happiness.

But if she was right about Inutaisho—and Sesshomaru was certain that she was, to some extent—than he would be an idiot to betray his mother, who would assure his rise to power, for a father that might seek his death in vengeance.

This combination of uncertainty, resentment, and conflicted emotion held Sesshomaru in check as the warmth of summer faded and the chilly nights of the first days of autumn set in.

It was only occasionally that he recalled, with distant disgust, that somewhere the human girl was with the imbecile Takemaru, and secretly carrying Inutaisho's abominable half-breed spawn.

And that spawn was Sesshomaru's brother.

Whenever Sesshomaru remembered this he saw his father's letters in a hard, bitter light that left him no doubt. Inutaisho only wanted to escape confinement and rescue the girl and his bastard child. He did not mean a single word he sent to his firstborn son, the undervalued one that just happened to be his heir.

Each time this happened, Sesshomaru's resolve hardened, as cold and unyielding as steel.

Inutaisho's jailers remained united against him, immovable as mountains. And time marched ever onward.


After weeks of tension and nervousness, Izayoi gradually found herself acclimatizing to the Kyoushi palace. Takemaru and most of the other men had left swiftly after arriving, so Izayoi did not have to worry about her fiancé's presence. The marriage would take place in the Kyoushi Palace, and Izayoi did not know if the men would return before the wedding date or not. She did not even know why they left, or for what purpose. She soon found that she did not much miss them.

The rituals of everyday living eventually offered comfort, or at least an ease of her otherwise pervasive fear. Every morning Izayoi woke early in the morning and dressed or bathed with Yuki or another maid's help. Then she joined the other women in a small tearoom where they took their breakfast.

The food was at first the only part of this ritual that offered Izayoi any pleasure. It was simplistic, fruits or vegetables, seaweed or fish, or rice of some kind. Izayoi had to restrain herself on some mornings, while on others she had to force the food past her lips. She was perpetually fighting hunger or nausea, but luck was on her side and she never lost control and had to vomit during the breakfasts. If she did get sick it was quietly in her room or while dressing, or after breakfast was finished.

The rest of her day was spent in quiet activities. She read or studied and wrote poetry—a skill she found that the other women had studied for years. While the afternoons and evenings were bright and warm, Izayoi might walk through the small gardens with their stones and decorative moss. She often peered out into the dark forest of bamboo that bordered and surrounded the palace on almost every side. She daydreamed of escaping through it, or leaving the small stone that Shiroihana had ordered her to wear deep within it. Then the foxes and other demons that Shiroihana had assured her were watching this place would spill out of the bamboo and end her existence—and with it her fear and uncertain future.

The women of the palace eventually ended these lonely activities. Sumi asked Izayoi to join the other women while they sewed or studied poetry. Izayoi was perceptive enough to know that this offer was not one she could refuse. So she began to integrate with the other women and learn more about them and their skills and purposes about the palace.

They did not study war or combat, languages, or even cooking. Instead they were excellent embroiderers, capable of producing beautiful leaves and flowers on any bit of cloth. When Sumi first sat beside Izayoi inside a large room that opened to a wondrous view of mountain peaks and pale green bamboo, and began to sew, Izayoi could hardly take her eyes from the scene outside. She was shy and intimidated by the other women, many of whom she had never met or never spoken with even if she knew their names.

And they were far more skillful than she was.

Sumi could embroider the Setsuna's clan crest and name in a day and a half, even when she complained of arthritis. The other women were not far behind her in their skill with the needles. Izayoi was embarrassed by her own inexperience, cumbersomeness, and slowness. She made countless errors and pricked herself until soon it became apparent to all of the women that she would stain cloth. Sumi took away the fine silks and offered Izayoi a scrap that none of the women cared about.

"You'll practice for a time until you can sew the fabric instead of stain it." She'd spoken teasingly, smiling, but Izayoi had felt the reproach and disgust flowing from the other women and bowed her head. It was her failure with the sewing that brought attention from the others—hardly the introduction that Izayoi had wanted or needed.

"What did you do all these years?" Rini asked, gawking. She was Ijimeru's wife and heavily pregnant. She could no longer sew herself because her wrists and fingers were swollen with water-weight from the baby and the surging hormones within her. She had always smiled at Izayoi but never spoken directly to her. Izayoi had the sense that Rini was good-natured and simple, pliable and patient. Izayoi had often wanted Rini to chatter with her the same way she did with the other women.

Izayoi, vulnerable and emotional, could not stop tears from threatening. She blinked them back but knew from the flash of interest on most of the other women's faces that her reaction had not gone unnoticed. If only I could spend my days with men, Izayoi found herself thinking. They would be too dense to care or notice what I am feeling. These women were bored and unoccupied. They looked for distractions and personal drama.

"Yes," Shingi insisted, "tell us about your captivity!" Shingi flicked her eyes up and down from her own needlework and her lips twisted in a hard line that Izayoi interpreted as cruelty. Shingi was young and beautiful—as well as unfriendly. She considered herself Izayoi's competition. It must have been a hard blow for Shingi to find Takemaru unwilling to marry her when there was nothing wrong with her. She blamed Izayoi for this—Yuki assured Izayoi of this—and had been incensed on their journey the first time she'd seen Izayoi, raging to Yuki and others, lamenting that the last of the Miyabita clan was more beautiful than her.

Izayoi hardly considered herself more beautiful than Shingi, but she knew she was much smarter than Shingi thought she was and knew how to use it to survive.

Izayoi let out a pathetic, purposeful cry and covered her face with her hands. "Please do not make me recount it! I beg you!"

This had the desired effect. The women murmured with sympathy, both feigned and real. They tended to follow whatever Rini thought of something, and Ijimeru's wife was kindhearted. She defended Izayoi loudly. "Leave her be, Shingi! You're just jealous of her and everyone here knows it."

Izayoi's nights were tormented and lonely. She dreaded and longed for them, for dreams of mourning and happiness. Sometimes she was in Inutaisho's arms, or she felt his lips on her skin, his hand caressing her neck or her hair. But most often she dreamt of violence and shadow, of smoke and flames. She saw Takemaru in red armor, prepared for war. The moon was dark and seemed to bleed. Then she would feel despair and loss, the same that had struck her when she'd learned that her clan had been murdered. But this time the emotion came from knowing that Inutaisho was dead. But how could that ever happen? How could that be nothing but her own blind fear fueling an unreal dream?

In her waking hours she sometimes worried about these dreams. Why wasn't her child in them? Where was the joy of new life? She had chosen the child, chosen this miserable, exiled life without the benefit of her immortal lover. So where was her baby, her son? But he was always just out of her grasp, out of sight. Sometimes she thought she heard his wailing inside her dreams, and felt her body become heavy and cold, immovable while she longed to comfort him, to cease his tears.

Your mother loves you, little one. Your mother is here. Hold on.


Yuki told Izayoi that it was general knowledge among most of Takemaru's close male friends that he had taken Izayoi to bed already. The women, of course, already suspected or knew as much, so as a full month churned by and Izayoi's robes and bedding remained unstained by menstrual blood, they began to look at her with suspicion and curiosity.

At first Izayoi could not fathom their knowledge, but she realized she had been too long away from human kind. She had lost touch with their ways—that the women knew each other like sisters, both loving and hating them, and they knew the patterns of one another's bodies as well as they knew their own. It was an obsession they shared, a similarity that separated them completely from the men. This monthly bleeding, the impurity, the seclusion and mystery of life, sex, birth, and death. They discussed the woes and joys of womanhood with each other while sewing or discussing literature, or constructing poetry. It was foreign to Izayoi, who had spent so much time away from the company of other women. She remained silent while they chattered about stains, cramping, aches, and the unpredictability and fragility of life.

Izayoi learned by listening that Rini had struggled for years already to conceive and carry a child to term. She was close now, so close that her body had begun practicing with false pangs of labor that made her cry out and cringe. She had tried every position, every day of the month except for the week of menstruation, and then every herb and prayer to at last get pregnant and stay that way. Now, when the other women of childbearing age began to bleed, Rini stayed clear of them, afraid that some miasma in the air would trigger early labor.

Izayoi sat with the women regardless of whether any of them or all of them were menstruating. She did not doubt the life growing inside her. Its stubborn heaviness, its dogged strength. Miasma or not, her child would endure. A new awe began to open within her as she considered how many failed attempts Rini had had to conceive and carry the newest potential heir to the Setsuna clan. Rini had tried for years with Ijimeru, another of her own kind, while Izayoi had suffered only two miscarriages in less than one year before life took root within her womb—and this child was not pureblooded. It should have been weak and faint. Instead it was like an ox, unbreakable, infallible. She would have thought this was Inutaisho's influence, his immortality, but she began to think it marked her own strength as well.

Her courage and confidence increased.

So it was that one afternoon, a month and a half after her arrival there, Sumi was absent from the usual sewing room. There was no mention of the difference and so Izayoi settled down with the women and began to sew while listening to them as usual. Less than an hour later, however, Sumi arrived and called Izayoi to follow her. Perplexed but obedient, Izayoi did as she was told and followed Sumi to a small room that had been lit and warmed with multiple braziers. Inside she saw Takemaru and the physician Mikata waiting.

Uncertain, Izayoi bowed after coming in and settled on the matted floor across from her future husband. Takemaru greeted her formally and then introduced the physician, though Izayoi already knew the old woman. Sumi sat behind Izayoi, near the door, out of sight and supposedly out of mind.

"It is good to see you again, Lady Izayoi," Takemaru said, smiling lightly. "Have you been well?"

Izayoi saw at once that this was her time to announce the pregnancy, but in the same second she saw that she had to be careful of how it was done. She had to play the proper role. She lowered her eyes and let a blush crawl over her cheeks. "Lord Takemaru, I am most pleased to see you returned safely. I did not know when I would see you again."

"I was required to show my brother to the capital city of the Setsuna, on the coast. It pained me to be away from you for so long. My aunt tells me that you have adjusted to life here. I am glad." He sighed, apparently relieved. He paused, visibly weighing his words, while Izayoi waited. "My aunt also tells me that you…that your courses are overdue."

It took Izayoi a long time to realize he meant her bleeding. He was trying to say, without doing it directly, that he suspected—as did Sumi—that Izayoi was pregnant. She did not want to proclaim this herself and struggled to pretend she hadn't grasped his meaning.

Takemaru blushed and lowered his voice, as if the other two women in the room did not already know what was happening or being discussed. "Are you with child, Izayoi?"

Immediately Izayoi put on an act of restrained exuberance. She covered her mouth with both hands and shook her head. Through her fingers she whispered, "I will not say anything aloud. Lady Rini suffered so much—words have the power to undo everything."

Takemaru pulled back, surprised by her reaction, but a look of warmth and affection began to cross his face. "If you will not say it, Izayoi, than I will." He grinned, filled with pride, and turned his head to look at his aunt and at the physician. "We have made a child! A son, I'm sure of it!"

He motioned eagerly for Mikata and the physician moved forward on her knees, lowering her gaze deferentially. "My aunt tells me that this healer did an excellent job returning you to health when you were ill," Takemaru said. "I have asked for her to be hired as your doctor."

Izayoi, liking the old woman, smiled genuinely. "Thank you, my lord." Then, after a moment of caution and hesitation, she said, "I am also sure it is a son. I feel blessed by Heaven."

Takemaru laughed, a light and joyful sound. Izayoi smiled and her shoulders and back relaxed, releasing tension she hadn't known she was carrying. He believes the baby is his. She closed her eyes and thought at her child: You are safe now, little one.


Endnote: Poor Takemaru. I kinda pity him. But I especially pity Sesshomaru. Caught between parents...never getting the recognition by his father that he deserves. You can see in the anime, over and over again, that Sess was turned away by his father. The sword business and all...