Chapter 5
On the fifth of what would of been December, Isano goes into labour in the early, snow lit hours of morning.
Tsuru wakes with a start.
Feels the vibration of panicked feet on the wooden floor outside, and thinks immediately of ducking beneath the table. An instinct drilled into her from her first childhood. Something, the frequent earthquakes this island had only seemed to worsen.
Instead, she forces herself to stand. Let the quilt draped over her shoulders fall, and pool on the floor. Hand digging all the while for a weapon, to fight the ogers of the day.
Voices growing louder, just down the hall.
Tsuru stumbles forward, and her father bursts in, like all the action heroes of old. Cutting an impressive figure in the half light.
Tsuru thrusts her arms out, as he moves to scoop her form up.
A trail of blood, beyond them.
0o0o0
Birth was an ugly thing up close, no matter what anyone told you. All blood, and shit, and broken flesh.
And then there was the pain.
Tsuru watches her sister struggle not to push, and to continue breathing as the birthing aid instructs. The medics still not here.
Damp, unbound Scarlett O'hara colored hair lies in tangles around Isano's pinched, oval face. Moon marked skin no indication of her current health, as the woman's eyesbrows only seem to knot further. The amount of sweat seeping from her pores, increasing. Her mouth setting in a harder line. One more angry, than anguished
The grip her sibling has on Tsuru's wrist, more than punishing andbound to leave reminders, even wrist bands cannot hide.
Tsuru almost cries out, with tears welling in her eyes as Isano's adjusts her grip. She is most grateful when the pale, spiky head of her other sibling pops in.
"She needs a cesarean?" he asks, joining them. Face marked by worry.
Tsuru's gladly relinquishes her sister's hold to him.
"You can't be- ah! in her-"
"Fifteen minutes ago," Tsuru interrupts. "Where the hell are your people?"
"There was an incident-"
"Stop ignor-"
"I don't care. Get them here now, or i will do it myself."
"You can't!" Isano cries, with flint sparked eyes. The rest of the woman in the room, staring are Tsuru. Frozen.
'I can."
"I've watched," she hedges, pretending to look uneasy. "Practiced on a few of the pigs, after they were butchered."
It had been years ago when Adelaide thought time travel might still be possible, and midwifery an indespensible skillset for a single woman, wanting to travel.
It was something she had been to embarrassed to tell her family, so she never had.
Yagura lies a hand loving on his wife. "What do you need?"
"Another hand. Get Sachihiro-nii. He can keep her stable, while I cut the baby out. It won't be pretty."
"You sure?"
"No, but the bleedings getting worse, and these woman are to nervous. They'll screw up worse."
"Go clean up then," Yagura orders, before turning to the men that had followed him.
0o0o0
Hours later and in the morning light, Tsuru can almost call the experience something kinder. Her sister broken by the birth. Tears forming in the corner of her eyes and then rolling as she takes the child, her body trembling.
His heart steady.
It was the people that made birth beautiful. The survivors.
Minutes past, and then drag on like hours spent chewing on cheap, wax candy. Tasteless after the juice had left them and not a very enjoyable way to pass the time, but something.
Tsuru, would give anything to be back there now, picking one out.
Her family watching her, when they are not staring at Isano, and the child.
Making her nervous.
Wonder if she did the right thing.
Eventually Tsuru leaves, before they can say anything.
000
For years it had been a running joke in the village, that their families inability to cook was the reason why so many restaurants, and stalls were still in business.
Perhaps that is why some of the owners, and their people take pity on her. Allowing Tsuru to watch them work, and praising her own attempts when she brings them in, or taking the time to advise her.
Of them, Fukami Sorata is her favorite.
His pub smoky, and always filled to the brim with loud, hungry people. Civilian, and Shinobi a like.
It's was an easy place to disappear into.
The slender man with short, graying brown hair, and cloudy blue eyes grins down at her as Tsuru pushes up the bar, enclosing his large wooden counter. The motion pulling at the scars on his face. "Have you come to listen to me gossip?" he teases.
Tsuru smiles back, and lifts up her bag. "I brought something for Kana-san, and us to share. Maybe a few of the customers if you are feeling generous."
"Oh?" one of Fukami's regulars says, perking up. "Are they more of those sweets you like to make?"
"No, I tried to make some green pepper jelly, and goat cheese. I brought some cornbread cups, to serve then in."
The mans face scrunches up. "I'll pass."
"Just in case?" she inquires, feeling the tension leave her shoulders.
This was normal. Safe.