Author's Notes: See chapter one for disclaimer and explanation.
Love, Life, and Death By Annie-chan Chapter Thirty: FoundlingHôjun sighed as he walked, turning his face slightly toward the blue sky. It was midsummer, but the weather felt like it was midspring, instead. It was cooler than was normal for summer, clouds dotting the sky here and there. Usually in summer, it was very hot, and the sky was virtually cloudless for weeks on end.
Not that I'm complaining, no da, Hôjun mused. It means I can walk in the daytime, instead of waiting for dusk when it's cooler, no da.
He was returning to Shôryû Village from an ambassadorial trip to a neighboring village. The neighboring village was very young, having been founded just a few months ago by people looking for a new place to live, their old village having grown too populous for it's land. Trading emissaries have been going to the new village to establish trading relations between the new village and their own. Hôjun had been picked as the emissary from Shôryû.
He had been gone nearly three weeks. It was about a two-week round trip, and Hôjun had stayed there several days to accomplish what he had set out to do. He could have just teleported, but he liked to walk instead, when he could. There was certainly nothing stopping him.
A slight smile tugged at his lips as his thoughts fell to his children. Twenty-one-year-old Tori was married, and had given birth to a son a little less than a year ago. Seventeen-year-old Seiryoku was engaged, and set to marry within the year to a girl he adored. Fourteen-year-old Hana was constantly occupied with learning how to be a good housewife and mother, taking instruction from her mother and some of the other women in the village. Nine-year-old Washi and Taka were growing into two strong, healthy boys, though Washi was noticeably slower mentally than other boys his age, due to the head injury he had suffered four years ago. Five-year-old Aichaku had turned out much like her aunt Hanabira, and was constantly talking, though her mother was attempting to teach her that it was unbecoming for a young lady to always be jabbering at people. Lastly, three-year-old Meiyo, Hôjun's youngest son, was already showing a lust for learning, and was likely to grow up to be quite intelligent. Kôran was as proud and devoted a mother as any group of siblings could wish for. All in all, Hôjun's family was healthy and happy, and that alone made him satisfied with life.
His thoughts darkened for a moment as he remembered something that still sent a thorn into his heart whenever he thought on it. Kojika would have been eleven years old this year.
Hôjun shook his head. It's in the past, no da, he thought. There's nothing I can do to change the fact that she died, no da. Since his fight with the demon Hikô fourteen years ago, Hôjun had been better at putting the past to rest, and not dwelling on it so much. Yes, there were many things he still grieved over, and he would never forget the deaths and tragedies he had experienced, but he was better at getting over them and getting on with his life now. For that, both he and Kôran were thankful.
At the moment, Hôjun was walking along the road that cut through a large farm. He had passed through here on the way to the village as well, and had stopped a while to talk with the farmer and his family. They had recently had an addition to the family, a baby girl, who was about three months old now. Hôjun wanted to stop and talk with them again, as they had been nice people.
He stopped as a faint smell hit his nose. It smelled like burnt wood, but something in his heart told him it wasn't coming from the wife's cooking fire. He snapped out of his thoughts and looked up toward the farmhouse, which he had come within view of about ten minutes ago. His heart stopped when he saw nothing standing where the house should have been.
"Oh, no…" he whispered, and almost reflexively cast a teleportation spell over there. It took more energy to not use a medium like his kasa or kesa, but he didn't have time to think at the moment. What he saw when he got there was something he wished would never happen. The house had been burned down. "Oh, no…" Hôjun said again, shaking his head sadly. "Those poor people." He searched the remains of the house and found the bodies of the farmer, his wife, and four of his children. He was just thinking that the baby was small enough that she had probably been burned up completely, when the sound of crying suddenly reached his ears.
He stood up from where he was crouching quickly, and looked frantically around for the source of the noise. The baby was alive! He found her in what used to be the corner of the house, coated in ash, and half covered in a burnt slab of wood.
"Suzaku," Hôjun breathed. "It's a miracle you're alive, no da!" He quickly but gently extracted her from the wreckage of the house, holding her close, trying to comfort her. The fact that the burning smell was fresh, and that the baby didn't look starved told him that the fire was quite recent, perhaps that same day. Still, the baby needed to be fed. He looked around and saw one of the farmer's cows not far off, grazing in the field, apparently oblivious to the fact that her owner was dead. He conjured up a container made for giving liquid to the sick, and walked over to the cow. A few minutes later, having drawn what he thought would be enough milk from the cow, he placed the end of the small spout in the baby's mouth. She immediately latched on and started drinking. She was hungry, indeed.
"What was your name again, no da?" Hôjun asked the nursing baby. "Oh, yeah, no da! How could I forget, no da? You have the same name as Hotohori-sama's wife, no da!" When the little baby Hôki had her fill of milk, he walked over to a small stream that flowed through the field, peeled her clothes off, and cleaned both them and the baby in the water. "Yes, I know, no da. The water's a bit cold, no da. But, I can't let you stay dirty like that, can I, no da?" Afterwards, he pulled a small towel he had stored out of his kasa-space, and wrapped her in it, as her clothes were still damp, and he didn't want to give her a chill. He put her damp clothes in his kasa, put it back on, and walked back over to the remains of the house.
He stood there for several moments, Hôki dozing in his arms. He said a prayer for the deceased, and then let his magic flow out over the ground, causing the soil to cover over the burnt house and the people inside, effectively burying them. He made sure the baby was snug against him, and then pulled his kasa down over his head, disappearing into it, sending himself and the tiny foundling to his home in Shôryû.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"The house just burned down?" Kôran asked. She was holding the sleeping baby Hôki in her lap. Her husband sat across from her. Meiyo and Aichaku were by their mother's side, watching the baby curiously. About an hour ago, Hôjun had popped unexpectedly into the room, scaring the daylights out of everyone. Their fright was quickly forgotten when they saw the towel-clad baby in his arms.
"Hai, no da," Hôjun nodded. "It couldn't have been more than a few hours ago that the fire stopped burning, no da. It could have been bandits, no da. The family could have been kept from getting out while the house burned down, no da. They could have even been unconscious, no da. I just don't see how the entire family would die like that, otherwise, no da. You would think that at least some would have broken out somehow, no da."
"Hm," Kôran replied, shifting the baby in her arms.
"So," Hôjun said, "should we find someone who can adopt her, no da? Or, should we raise her ourselves, no da?"
"Well…what do you think, Hôjun?" Kôran asked.
"I leave it up to you, no da," Hôjun replied. "It's you who takes care of the children most, no da. You should decide if you want to take this baby in, no da."
Kôran looked down at the baby. "Well…I'll decide in the morning. By then, I'll have thought it through enough to know."
"All right, no da," Hôjun said, standing up. "If you decide to have her adopted, I'm sure I could find a couple willing to take an orphan in, no da."
"I know you could," Kôran said. "You know everyone in this town, it seems. I'm sure you'd find a suitable home for her."
Hôjun nodded. "Anyway," he started, "I have work to do, no da." He walked over to her as she stood and wrapped his arms around her, mindful of the baby in her arms. "I missed you, no da."
Kôran smiled. "Oh, Hôjun, you say that even if you're gone for only a day."
Hôjun grinned back and kissed her cheek. He then exited the room to see to some furniture that needed finishing.
Kôran looked down at the baby, who was squirming as if she was waking up. "Oh, little one, what am I going to do with you?"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Three months later…
Six-month-old Hôki crawled over to her tôsan as he sat down on the floor after a long day of chopping wood and dragging it home.
Hôjun smiled down at her and picked her up, placing her in his lap. "Hello, Hôki-chan, no da. You're getting more energetic every day, no da." Hôki reached up at tugged at his loose hair. Hôjun looked over and saw Washi watching, an almost curious look on his face. "Would you like to hold the baby, no da?" he asked his son. He gently handed her over when Washi nodded and reached over to her. Hôjun felt a pang as the thought that Washi probably wouldn't get much more than a five-year-old mentality passed through his mind. That blow to his head when he was five severely damaged his learning capacity. He'd probably have to be taken care of all his life. So many people like that were shunned and rejected by others who saw them as too strange. Hôjun prayed Washi would never face that.
Meiyo toddled over and sat down next to Washi, peering at the baby, fascinated. Meiyo was amazed that someone smaller than himself existed.
"Augh!" Hôjun suddenly heard from the other room. "Okâsan, help!"
Kôran, who was kneeling on the floor across from Hôjun as she mended a ripped sleeve sighed and stood up, going into the other room. Hana was learning well about how to "be a lady", but she had a clumsy streak that never seemed to fade. Every day, there was some kind of mishap. In this, Hana reminded Hôjun strongly of Miaka.
Miaka…he hadn't seen her or Tamahome/Taka for fourteen years. He hoped they were doing well in their world. It had been almost eleven years since he had seen Tasuki in person. However, the letters the two Seishi sent to each other let him know that Tasuki, Kôji, and the rest of the Reikaku-zan bandits were doing fine.
"Oh, Hana!" he heard Kôran exclaim from the other room. "You're going to have to completely resew this hem on!" Apparently, Hana had made a rather big mistake with her sewing. Hôjun smiled. Hana had never liked sewing, and was taking to it like a bear to a spinning wheel…in other words, not very well at all.
Hôjun had a hard time laughing as his hard-headed daughter started grousing about the "mountains of rules" a girl had to remember to behave properly. He knew she really wanted to learn, but she didn't really have the patience yet.
She'll learn eventually, no da, he thought, just as Taka came bursting into the house, excited about the game of keep-away he had just won against a bunch of other boys. Hôjun smiled again as he listened to his son chatter about every detail of the game.
Life was good.
To be continued…Author's Notes: Sorry about taking so long to write this. I didn't make this chapter very dramatic or angsty, but I wanted to give Chichiri and his family a break. I can't be mean to them all the time, after all. That's just cruel. Sorry about the chapter being kinda short, too. -_- Anyway, I'm planning to write the last few chapters of this story—I believe it'll be about two—pretty close together. So, hopefully, I'll be able to post them soon after I post this one. Sorry for all of you who don't want the story to end so quickly after I finally update again, but I know it's about time I wrap it up (plus, I've run out of ideas for this story except for the one I've had since the beginning about how to end it). I've been working on this story for almost seventeen months now, can you believe it? Thirty chapters so far…wow. O_o I never thought it would be this long. Anyway, tell me what you think of this by leaving a review or emailing me at mangareader@hotmail.com, onegai shimasu!